Reviews

This film's premise is soul-crushingly powerful. Hearing about the similar real-life cases in Austria like Natascha Kampusch and Josef Fritzl was incredibly devastating, and honestly even quite hard to believe. If events like this didn't indeed happen in reality, the film would arguably be labelled as "absurdly unbelievable". But shockingly this does have a very real backing. The writer's decision to keep this fictional was respectable; truly basing this on a real story or person would not be very tactful and may come off as trivializing the trauma of the victims.

There is much gained from the premise alone, especially one as relatively unexplored as this one is. However, executionally there were so many problems that the premise shines as all this film really has. As powerful as it may be, it cannot save poor acting, narrative, direction, and even story. In fact, these elements even mitigated the brutal power that stems from the premise.

The mom played by Brie Larson is the key actress we see the most in the entire movie, and unfortunately her acting was awful enough that it was tough to actually bear any semblance of sympathy for her character. Her crying was not believable, and that's an important one to get right for this kind of role. Otherwise she mostly came off as just annoying. The kid was mostly annoying and very spoiled too. Perhaps this was somewhat intentional: after being trapped for 7 years, one is not exactly going to be a testament to human behavior, especially not a child. But it did make it tough to garner any true sympathy for the characters. The actors who did a great job in this film were the female police officer and all 3 grandparents (including the creepy stepdad), but they weren't major enough to make much of an impact.

Without sympathy as a forefront, it begs the question: What is the narrative of this film? Emma Donoghue seemed to just hang back and portray some snippets out of Jack's life, all without cohesion, relying purely on the premise alone to carry the narrative. The beginning setup and up until breaking out of the room was clear enough, but everything that happens after is very muddy. Why are we seeing the aftermath, the grandparents, the TV interview, the newfound daily life of the child? It's clear that Donoghue wished to show all the complicated facets of this situation, both during and after. But this conflicts with the character's perspective whose eyes we're seeing the film through, namely the child. We should be seeing an interesting perspective on the outside world, and how everything is brand new to him now. We get only a small sliver of that, when he's looking at the sky while in the truck. After that, all that the latter half of the film really boils down to, without proper narrative, is just pointless melodrama and immature conflict shown for zero reason. What is actually compelling or interesting about any of this from the child's eyes?

The first half of the story was decent enough except for one very unbelievable part: why would the guy not check if the child was really dead? It would have been very simple for him to do. It is really tough to believe that he successfully didn't fall for any of her tricks for 7 long years and now proved stupid enough to fall for this. It is possible that she played a masterfully long game and simply never tried any tricks up until that, so he wouldn't have any reason to suspect her of trickery. But this was not shown or built up, as we enter the film 7 years in already. Hence, regardless of the hypothetical believability of the situation, what is displayed or presented to us as a cinema viewer comes off as strange and not believable.

Overall this was a disappointment. A premise as strong as this one has sadly been ruined by just plain bad filmmaking.

This film is one of the few truly avant-garde comedies out there, not caring whatsoever to follow any standard conventions of filmmaking, in the same exact way that avant-garde jazz does not follow musical structure to a T. Instead, this film ebbs and flows as it feels like, taking us on a boisterously funny ride through a bizarro world where rules are broken at will. Not just rules of filmmaking but even basic laws of physics, such as teleportation of characters in and out of the frame for no other functional purpose than to be goofy.

As we are taken through this amusement park ride of a movie, Mr. Rajkumar Santoshi never fails to capture and spoof almost every single Bollywood stereotype one could name. We see the hyper-masculine competition, gaming, wooing, and ultimately winning over of hyper-feminine hearts. We see extra-cheesy fighting with a side of guns and stupidly complex crime plots, garnished with amazingly stock punch and kick sound effects. We hear overly long musical songs thrown in with seemingly no added value. We have the typical "common nothing man" attempt to rise up well above his caste and "be something". We see a slightly exaggerated version of a culture entirely based on BSing one another to get ahead: indeed, nearly every character in the entire film is quite practiced in the art of BS, and not only is it expected but also glorified and even rewarded.

One evident con of the film is its hefty runtime, most of which is due to repetition and dragging out of many elements. However, I posit that all of this is for the greater good, and that it serves two functions: one is to keep the parody angle pure since many Bollywood films are this long for this exact reason. The other is that Santoshi employed repetition artistically as a motif throughout. Firstly, the title itself repeats the same word "Apna" twice. In line with this theme of twos, every major character has a mirror version of themselves. Amar and Prem have the exact same situations with their respective fathers and goals. Raveena and Karisma share similar romantic situations, but opposite in polarity: one is rich, one is poor, but the message of "love me for who I am, not for the money" exists in both -- not to mention this is yet another theme to add to the pile of spoofed cheesy Bollywood messages. Ram Bajaj and Teja literally are twins played by the same actor, and they are morally opposite ("good" vs. "bad") but just as powerful as each other. Even Teja's idiot goons come in two, by no coincidence. The backing purpose behind this is likely just as bonkers as the entire premise for the film, something along the lines of, "Hey this is good! Why not double it? Double the characters equals double the fun!"

The soundtrack is incredible and fits perfectly with the '80s low-budget absurd throwback retro vibes. For these reasons, it's good enough to listen to on its own but also was applied well in the film. In the same vein as everything else in the movie, the music just kinda felt like showing up whenever, and sharply ended whenever it felt like it, no big deal we all just hangin' out, ayyy.

Andaz Apna Apna is a very unique, unconventional comedy which values fun over form and doesn't take itself seriously whatsoever.

Darsheel Safary has gifted to us one of the best child acting performances ever captured on film. Not once did he falter nor reveal that the gripping illusory world of Ishaan was just an act. Part of this credit goes to the directors for getting such a young actor to evoke that poignant childlike wisdom and an extraordinary range of emotions. The melodrama therein is very powerful on account of it too. However, mostly everything and everyone else outside of Ishaan himself felt worthless at best, and downright stupid at worst.

Let's begin with the most major character: the teacher. I begin to tire of these Bollywood premises with a super humble central male figure who is somehow magically the Chosen One who can save the world and wake everyone else up - usually the protagonist, but in this film Ishaan is moreso the protagonist. However, that doesn't make the teacher any less the stereotypical Bollywood male lead. In the beginning my hopes were high when we kept focus on the glorious world of Ishaan, a very different take for Bollywood. But then I was disappointed to find that we still had that heroic savior figure, albeit thankfully a little more in the background than usual. His acting was fine, but his whole character is very over the top: the all-too-perfect person with a moral sense of superiority over everyone else and, of course, why not also throw in that all-too-coincidentally he had the exact same problem as Ishaan. Even the dialogue he speaks to his girlfriend more or less alludes to the boy needing a savior, and of course nobody can but him!

Along the same vein as the teacher being absurdly unrealistically "positive", we have an almost comedically "negative" everybody else. Somehow not a single soul around him, parents, teachers, new boarding school teachers, classmates, etc. even give him the slightest patience to figure out what his problem might be and work around it? It's not even the realism of the overall situation I attack. I'm sure this has happened several times in reality: a boy's problems just go under the radar like this and none are the wiser. But this negative stage was set in an artificial and contrived manner by the writers intentionally with the express purpose of making the teacher look that much more "positive". It just makes his whole character, and by extension everyone else's, feel that much more extreme in their respective polarities.

These critiques aside, the film is still absolutely worth seeing just to get swept away into the rich colorful world of Ishaan's mind. Maybe consider fast forwarding past all the scenes that don't include him.

Simply by reading the title, one can figure out everything that will happen in this film. To be specific, it reveals that the narrative will center around the speech impediment, and also gives away the fact that there will be one epic well-delivered speech at the end. Sure enough, that was the case. My expectations from the title never faltered even a tiny bit.

I do not even attack the title, as it is perfectly fitting, even clever. It's the narrative that feels lacking. A speech impediment alone is not a strong enough narrative for a full feature-length film. One may argue that there was more: the "doctor", the throne, the father, the brother, the wife, perhaps garnished with a little of the "doctor's" family life as well. But these are certainly far in the background. If one were to remove the central narrative of the speech impediment, the rest would crumble.

Clearly, the director and writer chose not to make this a standard biopic or history film, given that I personally didn't learn much information about this man - and I'll shamefully admit I didn't know all that much about him going in either. This in itself is no terrible thing; not every single film about a historical era needs to be a three and a half hour David Lean biopic with the utmost accuracy and historical merit. It was a conscious choice, and not a bad one, to keep the narrative simplistic and not to tackle the entire era.

Indeed there is potentially still room for a strong film even with biographical and dramatic angles not taking on a strong focus. Perhaps the psychological angle could have been expanded upon more; all we really got out of that was showing that he spoke perfectly with loud music in his ears, and flirting with the linkage of his family troubles to making his speech even worse. These angles could have been developed more, but once again they stayed too obsessed and narrow-minded on their one single theme, making the film feel a bit hollow to trudge through.

Still, it wasn't all bad. Colin Firth's rendition of a stammerer was admirable, Helena Bonham Carter gave a convincing portrayal of the Queen Mother, and the whole irreverent yet warm character of Lionel Logue conveyed plenty of intrigue. The cinematography was stunning during the shot of Lionel and Bertie walking along the foggy street just before they parted ways briefly. Plus, the music of Alexandre Desplat is always a treat.

All in all, it's technically strong but had too weak of a motif and needed more themes to round it out.

This film covers a plethora of themes and tackles many of them brilliantly, but the most pertinent one centers around that of entering manhood by overcoming one's fears. Certainly not an uncommon theme in literature & film, but the unique way it's told here is subtle and resonated with many.

One of the most memorable shots in cinematic history is the punch which triggers the flashback to Sean's boxing match. Splendidly shot and edited, John Ford reveals to us the source of Sean's present fears, all without breaking character perspective. Finally at that point everything clicks: he never wants to enter another fight again, for fear of accidentally killing yet another man. Indeed he is afraid of his own strength.

His fear makes complete sense and is something a general audience could understand and sympathize with, even if not empathize (most people have never killed). We don't look down on Sean for this and how it haunts his soul, and yet still ANY fear, even if completely rational and sane-minded, must be overcome to truly transition into becoming a man.

The killing is what drove him to return to Ireland in the first place, akin to a boy retreating into his mother's arms (in this case the mother being his motherland/birthplace). Both Miss Danaher and her brother pick up on this, and don't respect him until he proves his mettle by finally fighting again. One might think on the surface that the big fight scene is just two dudes duking it out for the purpose of action, but it is actually the culmination of Sean overcoming his fears and entering manhood. A happy ending to a fairly dark but wonderful tale.

This is not going to be a scientific analysis/nitpick-fest of the film. Many things didn't make any astronomical sense, but I can usually forgive these errors (so long as they're not terrifically dense) if a film has good content, emotional impact, or any of the various qualities that make great films great films. This film, unfortunately, did not deliver very many qualities of good film making.

As a veteran viewer of Christopher Nolan's films, I wish to open up with his weakest writing ability: characters. The only character that stands out among all of his films is the Joker in The Dark Knight, and that was mostly due to the brilliance of Heath Ledger's acting. Every single one of his characters (besides the Joker) is bland, stale, unexciting, unlikable, unrelatable, and simply banal. There is no lack of character change in his films, as there are certainly events/epiphanies/catharses that cause change in the characters, but the characters themselves, both before and after change, are just not interesting and lack depth. Change alone does not make a character more interesting or notable; there's also what they were before and what they become after to take into consideration. Interstellar is no exception; the characters are fairly one-dimensional. To be specific, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is the typical headstrong, confident, amiable guy, a protagonist type. His daughter Murphy is the average "lovable cute" daughter with that special "connection" with her father that ends up more or less being what saves the world by the end of the film. Anne Hathaway's character Dr. Brand had a lost love on another planet but other than that didn't offer much to the film.

Perhaps a big part of why the characters are not so great is that there is almost always an oversaturation of characters in Nolan's films, so each one doesn't have a lot of time to be developed. Nolan loves to sprinkle in tons of big/medium name actors for near-useless roles, or very small ones. This film is once again no exception; what was the justification or purpose of Casey Affleck's character as Murphy's brother? That was a completely useless throwaway character. Even John Lithgow's character as the grandfather was pretty much unnecessary. And how about Topher Grace's character? Wes Bentley's? Even David Oyelowo's character, beyond helping out with gravitational research, offered very little to the film. There are simply too many small characters, it's hard to even remember them at all, let alone justify their presence in the film whatsoever. Inception suffered from this as well; I personally haven't seen that film since it first came out, and by now I can't even tell you any characters, or what their purpose might have been, beyond Leonardo DiCaprio's and Ellen Page's. I know many of the actors in the film but forgot their characters.

It is not necessarily impossible to make a great film without a presence of good characters, but other areas must shine to make up for this lacking. There was plenty of dialog between the characters in this film, but most of it was a vehicle for explaining what was happening in terms of the scientific/relative time aspects. I feel that Inception was the same exact way in this regard; most of the film was spent tiresomely explaining itself, instead of just letting it play out and allowing the viewer to piece it together. Most films that explore sci-fi concepts that are a bit more difficult to follow than the average film, such as The Matrix, Vanilla Sky, and Minority Report, do so without sacrificing over half the film explaining what's happening. These films leave that explanation to a few key scenes, and let the viewer figure out the rest, even if it requires multiple viewings to fully absorb. This time spent explaining the scientific phenomena is precious film time wasted that would have been better spent on advancing the story, developing characters, build-up, or anything valuable as far as film substance. I can appreciate and understand that the film's concepts may be a bit much to swallow for the average viewer, but when a film's runtime ends up being 2 hours and 49 minutes because it needed to explain itself so vastly, this often indicates that there is something severely wrong with either the underlying story or the script, or perhaps both. Is it really worth all that extra time and sacrifice of film substance just to get across what is happening onscreen? Even if it makes the film slightly less accessible, I argue no. Not only that but it's a pretty darn boring way of going about it; the characters are just back-and-forth discussing their plans for most of the entire film. Surely there could have been more interesting ways using the language of cinema to communicate even these complex ideas. To the film's credit, Cooper did once use a whiteboard to diagram part of their plans; little touches like this were much needed in the other areas of the film.

Even the dialog that was not self-explaining was rather dull. One of the lines was something like: "I thought I could watch you suffer and die but I just can't do it". Why was that even in the film? Why not use cinematography to show his head look away, silently portraying that he can't watch it? The writing in general was just not good, there are plenty more exemplifications than just this.

Were the story and overall ideas conveyed enough to outshine the rest of the film's lacking? Unfortunately not. The film begins in a typical modernist viewpoint of a near-future apocalyptic scenario; humans destroyed the planet and need to be offloaded onto another. Most of the film is about exploration and the journeying to find a suitable planet, while possible chaos and total destruction of all humans on earth was at hand. Time travel, fifth-dimensional, and black hole theory were sprinkled in a bit too. The premise and concepts are certainly interesting enough in themselves, but they just weren't used well at all and meshed together rather awkwardly. The scene inside the black hole was trying to be super thought-provoking and "out there" and 2001: A Space Odyssey-like but it fell pretty flat. The visuals were fairly interesting but it felt more like a thrown-in aside than an attempt to say anything useful. The only thing I personally gathered from it was that human technology could perhaps one day advance to the fifth dimension. This, sadly, offered nothing for the film itself, and only provided a brief marveling about future technology. To contrast, 2001 was all about these ideas, and the genius of Arthur C. Clarke spoke volumes about galactic travel and technology.

The overall message of the film was fairly cheesy; the human idea of "love" somehow transcends all physical laws and stands as the One True Concept of our universe, or at least the one that outshines the rest. I could see this idea working but it wasn't portrayed well at all. In fact this message was even outright told to the viewer by the protagonist; once again where is the subtlety here? Certainly the average viewer can gather at least that much.

Interstellar was, however, not completely terrible in every way. Hans Zimmer's work on the score was fairly fitting, epic and had a slow, drawn out feel as the film did. The acting was pretty good all around. Of course, I wish the characters were better to make room for better acting, but good performances were delivered for what the characters were. Many of the effects, especially the incessant spinning of the various spacecraft, were fairly well-done and immersive.

Finally, to end on the film's best element, the human impact of time relativity on a real person is something that is not explored much even in most sci-fi films. When Cooper sees his children all grown up and learns that his father has died after spending only a few hours on an extragalactic planet, he weeps uncontrollably. This is something that audiences can relate to; this is good film content. This aspect I'd like to see explored more in future films, and perhaps Interstellar shall be popular enough to make an impact within film studios toward this direction, hopefully with better writing and direction in future endeavors.

Boss is the best television series ever created.

The first episode was directed by Gus Van Sant, and I believe that the pilot director "sets the tone" so to speak for the rest of the show. It is some of his finest work to date, so he set a great precedent that rest of the show carries on. Every shot feels artistic and careful, and with the use of the background music some particular shots are very gripping and memorable.

But it is not merely the direction that delivers. The concept and overall content is very unique. To briefly summarize, the show is about a fictitious mayor of Chicago, Tom Kane, played by Kelsey Grammer. But, to say it is merely about politics is vastly understating. It is in fact true that most of the content involves the political games and corruption therein, but the fact that the show is also so personal, to a very biting, uncomfortable degree, IN ITSELF speaks volumes about these politicians' real lives and the reality behind the curtains of our world today. It's an absolutely fresh mix of perspectives, the personal and the political, which in itself suggests that the two are fused together. In other words Tom Kane has no personal life; it almost entirely consists of his games of power. It is slightly reminiscent of Milk, one of Van Sant's works, which had a similar extremely personal perspective on political figure Harvey Milk, but differing in that he was trying to spread one specific message about only one specific cultural item, homosexuality.

This show truly goes deep into the world of these people. They are so far into their own worlds of political power they often forget they are even human. However, from the very opening scene you learn that Tom Kane has Dementia with Lewy Bodies, a disease very similar to Alzheimer's. From the very start our main character is hit in the face with a reality check that he is in fact just human, no matter how immense his political power. From the very beginning, Kane, and subsequently we the viewer, are reminded that he is mortal and in fact only has 3-5 years left of sanity/normal functioning, which sharply contrasts his position of power over his city. This extra layer, Kane's disease, is what really sets this show above everything else I've ever seen. This quite frankly makes it go from fresh and unique to exceptional. Oftentimes, just as the viewer gets caught up in Kane's political world and is once again forgetting his mortality, it is disturbingly shown to us as he experiences small episodes of losing his mind and freezing up or shaking during speeches or in meetings. This disease provides a very abstract feel to the show on top of the personal experience, since most of it is from Kane's perspective. The way these parts are directed and composed, as mentioned before, is very well-done.

The show is in fact so uncomfortably personal and behind-the-curtains that the public image becomes the background, only comprising a very small percentage of the whole content. Public speeches and television appearances, while they do happen, are not at all the focus. Even while they're happening on the show, you can feel the show telling you they're complete bull and just Kane (or whoever) doing his job while something entirely else is on his mind. He just wants to get it over with and the show tells you this by showing you the before and after of the public event. It in fact becomes something almost abstract in itself because of how foreign and unnatural it feels compared to the rest of the show. The show succeeds in turning familiar things like public speeches and political events into something very relatively unfamiliar, giving it a new perspective.

The pacing of the show is very chaotic which fits perfectly with the chaotic lives of these political figures. It jumps from scene to scene rampantly, constantly adding on new goings-on without much transition or time to catch up. Not once is there even any room or time for breath or questioning of morals. The show does not necessarily try to expose the evils of politics; of course it does so but this is not the focus. The focus is, again, mostly personal. But in doing so it exudes a very realistic perspective on the lack of morals associated with politics. It doesn't try to pit "good vs. evil" but just shows that all these people are playing a game against each other, and they sacrifice basically everything for it: family, children, morals, personal life, it all goes out the window. A game of power. This is the focus of mostly every politician on this show, big or small.

The acting is very good; Kelsey Grammer is now one of my favorite actors because of this show. But everyone else is very believable too in their roles. Kane's wife, played by Connie Nielsen, had a very good sense of the scathing, "controlled" form of speech often associated with women in this position of power. Also the writing is well-done; a lot of lines bite to the core and others are just plain hilarious. For example, after a man tells Kane basically his whole life story and how it relates to him being state treasurer and how his decisions impact everyone, all with a very positive strong tone of voice, Kane simply responds with a small laugh, which basically discarded everything he just said.

There's really nothing I can complain about; the show just delivers in every way. Which is why I have no problem or hesitation calling it the best show ever created.

This film's runtime was only 76 minutes but felt like the longest film ever made. Watch on 2x speed if you can, might make it more bearable to sit through.

I do really enjoy the subject matter however. While watching this you assuredly get a sense that Morris really respects the art of photography and of the vintage Polaroid, as he portrayed Mrs. Dorfman under the most awestruck, humble, and reverent lens he could have mustered. For this I give him credit, as the works of art do speak volumes of beauty in their own way, and evoke that nostalgic feeling that's impossible to put into words.

My major critique here is with the pacing and content. In Morris's earlier (and better) films, there is just more to them in every way. More people sharing their perspectives, more to the story, more content, more to absorb. In this, it's ONLY Mrs. Dorfman, for 76 minutes. While she is certainly not unbearable to watch or listen to, I would've greatly preferred either a break from her, or just a smaller dose of her altogether -- a shorter film. Heck, at least a different location! Over half the film is just her in that same room.

Finally at almost an hour into this never-ending film, we get to the good stuff: the "B-sides". She takes 2 photos of each client, and they pick the one they like better. So she has built up an enormous collection of the "rejects" and keeps them in her home. Cool concept, but I think the film should have just started there, and been only 20 minutes long. The first hour feels almost extraneous, other than perhaps the Bob Dylan part and the parents' death -- that was pretty emotional.

The music was absolutely beautiful, huge credit to Paul Leonard-Morgan. It definitely fit the theme with its minimalist feel.

Overall, the story of this woman is fascinating and the editing and music were good, but the content needed more variety, or just less runtime. It was difficult to even make it through the whole thing, surprised I did.

Oh, excellent, a foray into superheroes once again, but this time let's give it a comedic spin. Also let's keep it "realistic" and ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that superheroes are a ridiculous idea. That will make it original.

Except it just makes it another frickin' superhero movie at the end of the day.

The movie is about a teenage boy so obsessed with comic books and superheroes that he simply tries to become one by donning a costume, dubbing himself "Kick-Ass", and trying to fight bad guys on the street. The angle it tried to go for from this initial setup was to show how a "real" superhero attempt would go down. It mildly succeeds in the beginning, showing our protagonist getting his ass kicked when trying to be a hero. I was hoping it would continue with this angle, but I just knew it wouldn't. Eventually it degrades into your average superhero flick when "real" superheroes (Nic Cage and his character's daughter) come in to save Kick-Ass. There's nothing actually supernatural about these "real" superheroes, just an unrealistic amount of fighting skill.

It is precisely at this point, about 40 minutes in, that the film flushes away all potential. It was literally set up, and marketed, as a real attempt at being a superhero and to show how bad of an idea the whole thing is, all with a comedic spin. This may have actually worked, but instead there ARE actual superheroes who waste insane amounts of baddies and do things superheroes generally do. I believe there was plenty of comedic potential in the initial premise, but the inclusion of these "actual superheroes" literally defeats the entire purpose of the film. It made me ask myself: What the hell am I now watching? Perhaps this was done intentionally, comedically, like "we are a comic book movie so we ultimately have to be a comic book movie", but then that just begs the question: Why not just be a comic book movie? Why even include this whole beginning with the "reality behind superheroes and why there are none in real life" angle? The only thing I can come up with is fresh marketability. But it certainly did not lead to fresh filmmaking or content. Also for this kind of movie it was way too long, clocking in at a full 2 hours.

Despite the film's lack of any good substance, it still gives a few laughs, mostly on the behalf of Nicolas Cage's intentional overacting. Also the intro was quite funny in a tasteless fashion: it showed a kid with a superhero costume and cape jumping off a tall building, expecting to fly, but instead just landing to his death on a taxi cab.

But overall, other than a few cheap laughs and some decent fighting, this was not a very good film and doesn't really stand out as anything original despite the potential it may have had in the beginning. I merely pray they don't make a sequel, but I have a strong feeling they will due to the way it ended.

What is the "genre"? Basically a bunch of random conversations about various subjects relating to life, the universe, philosophy, dreams, etc., but not a documentary. This film and its characters are assuredly fiction, but the subjects brought up relate to reality either directly or indirectly through metarealistic discussion.

Despite the completely random feel and appearance, there is a direct consistency to it all in that it's always the same main character (played by Wiley Wiggins) taking part in the discussions, either just listening or occasionally replying, and there is also an indirect undercurrent of actual character progression. When we first begin both the viewer and the main character are completely lost, going through the journey with no known purpose or ending. But by the end of the film we see him almost grow, learn and accept. He begins to question his reality and form theories about what is happening to him. In turn we the viewer also begin the same. This is likely due to the various characters he is talking with. You could say they open his mind to questioning his surroundings and give their small clues to the viewer as to what is going on in the film.

The film leaves it intentionally open as to what "really" is going on. Is it all a dream? Is he on drugs? Is he dead? It is almost as if the film suggests that there's no real difference among all these possibilities. This concept is indeed brought up in some of the conversations, notably one that begins, "The worst mistake you can make is to think you're alive when really, you're asleep in life's waiting room," and another where a guy says, "It's bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free." These passages, and plenty of others, support the position that the film is suggesting that there is barely any difference between being alive, dead, and dreaming, at least to his own perspective.

The visual style is very interesting but can admittedly become disorienting and dizzying at times. However that was likely the intent, as the entire film discusses concepts relating to disorientation, dreaming, being a "zombie", etc. It is a technique that was brand new in 2001 when it came out, to my knowledge, or at least for a full feature film. Everything was actually filmed, but then artists went over every single frame and drew their own version of the scene over it. This gives it a very jittery, cloudy feel, because it was not carefully lined up perfectly, and mixing drawing with reality in general gives a hazy look. The amount of effort that went into this is greatly respectable, and I personally like the result, but could understand if some people couldn't really sit through it. I don't think the film would have had the same effect just keeping it regularly filmed though, so I admire the choice. The same kind of technique and style was applied to Linklater's 2006 film A Scanner Darkly, but it was a little bit more cleaned up and not as jarring in that film. However I don't necessarily think any one is better, just slightly different and each one fits their respective film's content.

Some of the most dreamlike scenes in the history of cinema are in this film. By dreamlike I don't specifically mean the visuals, although they certainly don't hurt, but instead I mean the actual content happening and the resultant tone. Specifically, dreams often carry a much more casual tone than what reality does, at least in the actual events. Maybe you feel very scared, nervous, or anxious sometimes but the events happening around you are very casual compared to reality. For example, I've been naked in public in dreams often and did feel embarrassed in the dream, but the actual reactions are much less stirring than in reality. In reality people would react much more; they might be forward and tell you to put some clothes on, they might laugh at you, or they might be frightened and call the police. In the dream it's almost accepted behavior, or no one cares as much as they normally do. This kind of dreamlike quality is all over this film, specifically in the scene where a man in a bar casually pulls out a gun and, at the behest of the bartender himself, fires it at the bartender. The violence is very brutal, but when contrasted with the surrounding eerie silence, is actually quite frightening to observe. No one else in the bar is screaming or running. They just keep sitting there going on with their day. This is what I mean by the tone being much more casual, but the feeling not following suit.

The actual content of the conversations varies much too widely. If I were to write about each one this would be a very very long review, so I shall refrain. I will just say that they are engaging and get you thinking, even if you disagree with what's being said. Many of them teach you perspectives, again whether you agree with them or not, opinions, and even facts you may not have known or just didn't think about in detail.

Richard Linklater has created a very unique gem, and it may not be absolutely "perfect" in every respect, but I have never seen anything else like it to this day. Indeed, I feel that being a genre of its own deserves recognition, not to mention the vast variety of ideals brought up in the 99-minute runtime.

The only way this film can be enjoyed is to toss away all expectations of what makes up good cinema and instead go in expecting some cool action, hot chicks and a few wisecracks.

In this endeavor it succeeds fairly well; it is in fact almost nonstop action, and it flows well for this purpose. There's hardly a moment of relative boredom or dullness, and it keeps your attention throughout. Pacing is something many films have trouble with and this does it well.

The special effects and sound editing were very well-done too. Not once did I think they were overdone or cheesy-looking/-sounding, and they packed a punch. The way the aliens looked was neat, and most of the fighting was cool to watch. What sticks out in my memory is Thor hitting his hammer against Captain America's shield, an awesomely done scene for effects.

The humorous one-liners, mostly stemming from Tony Stark but also from the camaraderie among the Avengers group, also work well enough and keep you at least smiling throughout.

However, I sensed a strong amount of cold, calculated filmmaking here. I felt almost no style in this entire film, and instead I felt as if Joss Whedon had a quota to fill as he was filming it. It's almost as if he was thinking, "I need to show what happens during the following encounters: Thor vs. Captain America, Thor vs. Iron Man, Iron Man vs. Loki", etc., and then later on, many combinations of two or three of the Avengers fighting bad guys together, to contrast their earlier conflicts. I appreciate the contrast that went into that aspect, but it just felt plain robotic the way it was executed. The thought pattern I detected was, "You damn well can't have an Avengers movie without this happening, and this, and..." The result of this is that this "quota" took the focus and actually enticing filmmaking was put on the backburner. He was simply showing things happening with entirely no flair or style of direction whatsoever. Oh look, here's Iron Man coming in to save the day! He's going to say something funny, don't we know it! Nothing stylish, unexpected or cinematic happens in this entire film. It left a dry taste in my mouth, despite all the cool effects and fighting.

The story, along with the direction, was very milquetoast and forgettable. To briefly summarize: Loki, an alien, comes down to Earth to wreak havoc; the Avengers team up and stop him and all the aliens he summons through a giant portal as well. You'd think Nick Fury, being the leader of the Avengers, would take on a more interesting storyline role, but he really doesn't. I was maniacally uninterested in every single scene with him talking to the heads of S.H.I.E.L.D., and beyond that his storyline doesn't really go many places in this film. In fact all the other individual character storylines didn't really go anywhere either, which is okay since this film was a group effort, but the overall group storyline was not very interesting either, basically another rendition of saving the planet. Therefore neither the overarching group storyline nor the individual storylines were very fulfilling, leaving the story as a whole lacking.

The script was also extremely dry and poorly written. I feel this was another item that went on the backburner to give the aforementioned "quota" more focus. Most of the lines were very uninteresting and without character. One example that stuck out in my mind is Nick Fury saying, "I'll bet you $10 you're wrong". People may say this phrase in reality; it's not the realism about it I attack but the character and flair of it. This is a movie; when characters speak they should be saying things that are somewhat relevant, interesting, mysterious, gripping, funny, or any combination thereof. Something that delivers, something with edge or character. Most of the lines in the entire film I have completely forgotten already except ones like the above that I remembered just to point out how uninteresting they are. Just like with the direction, I felt as if the script, too, just had people saying things to move the story along. Very sparsely was any extra style or flair or character added in.

Last but entirely not least is the acting, and overall I was disappointed. I'll start with the good: Robert Downey Jr. was his usual funny smartass self, and I have no complaints, nor was he exceptional. I also actually quite enjoyed Chris Evans as Captain America; I find him a talented actor who works well in various kinds of films. Also Scarlett Johansson did a great job as usual. I love Stellan Skarsgård; he's a great actor, but I have to admit his placement in the film felt awkward and every time he came on screen I chose to express it through hysterical laughter. Samuel L. Jackson did a decent job as Nick Fury but I wasn't very impressed, but I blame that on the script. Now for the bad: The main villain of the film, Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, was a terrible choice for the main villain of any film. I mostly laughed at his scenes, because of how bad his acting was, when laughter was unintended. The guy who plays Thor, Chris Hemsworth, was not very good either in this film. Also Mark Ruffalo was a disappointment to see. I don't mind his acting normally but it was just so noticeably inferior to Edward Norton's Hulk that it has to count as a negative.

To sum up, good pacing, special effects and some interesting encounters between certain characters do not save a film when it has weak direction, a weak script, a weak storyline, mostly weak acting, and most glaring of all it seemed very cold, calculated, and without style. However, I was at least mildly entertained.

In this latest piece of his he shows his maturity as a director as well as his sense of compassion and truly emotional understanding of humanity.

Crowe keeps it real throughout, although moreso in style than in fact. The film is based on a real-life memoir by Benjamin Mee, portrayed by Matt Damon in the film. The facts are not accurate, as the real story happened in Britain whereas the film was Americanized. However the style is real, and by that I mean it is portraying a realistic situation.

To briefly summarize the plot, Benjamin Mee's wife has just passed away, and he is looking to restart his life. Right from the beginning we are sympathetic with his situation. He looks at houses and decides to buy one that has a zoo with it that he must agree to maintain, a very large change for him and his two children to make.

The film is saturated with varying degrees of emotion in every corner. It ultimately centers on grief and coming to terms with the dead wife/mother. Crowe is not afraid to really dig into the raw feeling of the situation from every character's perspective. Many times we see Benjamin's grief come out, as well as the teenage son dealing with it in his own quiet way, and the very small daughter's naive way of just plainly saying what happened, even to strangers. But there are the good moments too. The zoo comes with a fun, eccentric staff, with the zookeeper being played very convincingly by Scarlett Johansson. This undeniably keeps them all closer together, working together as one big family for a respectable goal: to reopen the zoo to the public after many years of dormancy, and this helps out their situation emotionally by uniting as a family.

At the same time it is never absolutely brutal; he masterfully keeps it somehow light and entertaining throughout. This combined with the way it's all shot and portrayed simply makes for a beautiful watch. The cinematography complements the characters' feelings at all times. There are also some gorgeous shots of nature and the zoo by the end of the film. There is a sense of true power, beauty and just plain life to the entire film that makes you want to sit and relax in it, like a warm bath, and never come out, even during the less comfortable parts. This man knows how to make a film.

Much of the power can be attributed to Jónsi Þór Birgisson (of Sigur Rós fame) for composing the film's soundtrack. I immediately recognized his distinct voice and knew I'd be in for a treat. His music perfectly meshes with the film's themes: the varying stages of grief, the ups and downs, all with an undertone of the beauty and essence of life and nature that the zoo brings.

As a fun bonus the film has a lot of head nods to Crowe's previous works, including a self-reflective scene with the main character looking in the mirror (Vanilla Sky), a long shot of a woman smiling ear to ear (Almost Famous), and the real estate agent was quite reminiscent of Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s character in Jerry Maguire. As a fan of Crowe I was excited to see these minutiae and recognize them as his style.

All in all, this is a truly excellent piece of cinema. The only thing that slightly drags it down is that the pacing of the story was perhaps a touch slow at some points. This is only minor and doesn't harm it very much. After a long 6 years since he has made a film at all, Cameron Crowe once again picks up his cinematic paintbrush and delivers to us another fine work that will be viewed and enjoyed worldwide for years to come.

I went into this film with fairly low expectations because the ratings on most websites range from mediocre to low. After seeing the film I understand why, but wholeheartedly disagree; van Sant delivers us yet another fantastic piece of cinema to add to his impressive career. The primary reason that the critic and even user scores are so skewed is because this phenomenon generally happens with any film dealing with a politically or environmentally "hot" topic. In this case the film's plot revolves around natural gas extraction, and the hot button issue is "fracking".

It seems a bit unfortunate that any time a film's plot happens to revolve around something that causes great emotional or political response, the general consensus as far as critique is to flippantly disregard any and all cinematic or dramatic aspects of the film and almost single-mindedly rate the film on how well it "handled the issue" (whichever side you may be on). I personally tend to take the complete opposite approach and disregard the moral or social impacts, instead focusing primarily on the cinema and drama presented to me. Frankly, if you're looking for a factually sound, eye-opening, moralist type of experience, watch a documentary on fracking. There are plenty. This film is a drama, and it does not pretend to be anything but. In fact that's what I like so much about it. The film takes a very relatable and real pretext, the modern small American struggling farm, and uses this as a catalyst for character building, emotion, and some stunningly beautiful shots, all while maturely painting several different angles and perspectives on the issue. There are certainly issues raised about farmland, corporations, natural gas, fracking, and several others, and these may seem like the forefront here, but characters are always the forefront of any true drama.

The main character was played by Matt Damon, and despite him being the same charming, funny, intelligent, confident guy we've seen in just about all of his films, beneath that front he does a great job of portraying self-doubt and morality throughout. The contrast of his supreme sense of morality and making good decisions with the highly morally questionable task he was sent to do is used very very effectively. He is constantly questioning whether or not he is making the right decision. This self-questioning is not done in a tacky verbal manner, but instead via the language of cinema; his facial expressions and van Sant's capturing of his internal struggle say enough. The acting and directing of this were both superb. You also really feel that Damon's character falls in love with the whole town, and perhaps a woman from there too. The relation he had with this woman, played well by Rosemarie DeWitt, had a subtle affection to it despite us never really seeing it come into fruition. I respect that the cheap route was not taken wherein they fall fervently in love or even make love, but instead the undertones of affection were plain enough to see. This is, once again, great cinematic technique. I also enjoyed that as soon as Damon's character was presented with a tricky situation, he was very quick to choose the right call. The film did not putz around for several scenes where he's flirting with the notion of being the "bad guy"; I feel that many films take this route whether or not it even fits and it simply feels trite by now. His character did not fit that role, and redemption was unnecessary in this film, thus I'm glad it was not present.

John Krasinski's acting really surprised me, as I had never really seen him in a worthy, serious role. But now I have, and this man can act. His role was a downright ruthless antagonist, completely shutting down Damon's character at every corner, even going so far as to take away his love interest. I must also give him, and of course Damon, writing credit, as most of the dialog throughout the film was terrific.

Frances McDormand played a supporting role, in a literal sense; she was there to support Damon's character, as both a mother-like figure and coworker. The comedic relief from her worked well, e.g. when Damon's character picks up the phone and answers it with "Alice?" (Alice was the quirky attractive girl he met at the town bar), McDormand's character answers, "No, but I'm in room 23 if you're desperate". Excellent, funny writing.

Naturally, Gus van Sant took advantage of the beauty of country land to deliver us some breathtakingly gorgeous shots. But it was not purely the scenery that delivered. Even in the beginning of the film before arrival into the town, when Damon's character is sitting down at a restaurant talking with a corporate head about the trip, van Sant makes great use of a mirror behind them both. There is true artistry in much of this cinematography, and many of the angles and camera motions bespeak events happening in the story and to the characters. Danny Elfman's soundtrack composition was perfect and fitting once again, and I was very glad to see his name on the opening credits, as it indicated the same director / writer / composer trio that Good Will Hunting had (not to mention star too), so I knew I was in for a treat.

Another great aspect about the film was that it portrayed many different sides of the natural gas issue well. The film took more of a third-person, observational viewpoint, rather than diving in with very much bias (until the end anyway). I respected that it did not feel so much like we took anyone's side, but instead we understood where each and every person was coming from. A great job was done at keeping all levels of understanding and empathy fairly even across the spectrum of belief. Damon's character is just trying to do his job, but so is everyone else, their jobs in this case being to find out what's best for their town. You can understand the emotional weight behind each and every conversation, and many of the monologues were brilliantly written, even convincing. The interesting thing about many of the side characters who weren't the main focus was that these people seem to parallel quite a bit with real-life viewers and critics of the film. Many people in the film did not agree with Damon's character coming into the town, so they didn't give him a chance. In the same fashion, many real people who may not agree with the film's "message" or political aspects (whichever side) will not give it a chance either.

The primary aspect that was lacking about the film was the twist ending; the film left off on an overly cynical note, almost leaving you feeling too empty and dry afterward, and to be honest, almost completely counteracting and invalidating all of the praise regarding its third-person nature. That's not to say the ending was horribly written, as it was admittedly a pretty big surprise and left you a bit awestruck, but it did change the story in a far too jarringly cynical manner for what one would expect at that point, and at great cost. The film's aforementioned good sense of portraying all sides of the issue in a surprisingly level-headed manner is lost here, as the ending pretty clearly chooses a moral side. However, a film is not just an ending, therefore all praise still holds water and this is a great film.