Reviews

I saw the movie as a companion to my wife in a theater mostly filled up by women. Since the movie is based on a classic novel, there's only so much freedom for the plot to offer something new. Having not read the book, I had the initial impression that the script stuck to the original story which seems to spring from a Harlequin novel. In reference to Pride and Prejudice, I could tell this was a New England version of a Jane Austin's novel, whose theme was apparently in fashion in the 19th century. Later, I found out that the book has much more depth and nothing to do with the silly matchmaker theme which permeates the entire movie.

On the positive side the acting was good especially with an above the average performance from Saoirse Ronan who leads the story. The shots were mostly indoors, with the exception of a few street views of the time. So, there was hardly an effort and spending for the re-enactment of 1860s New England. The nonlinear narrative for the storytelling was acceptable only if it could go beyond a mishmash of flimsy subplots which lack drama and tension to keep the audience awake during the character development phase. Indeed, the flow was quite boring in the first hour. The story only became interesting in the last half hour or so, after a love triangle started to appear.

In a nutshell, the story is about a family with four coming of age daughters in American civil war years. The dad goes to the front and the mom takes on volunteer tasks leaving the girls at home most of the days. While the family supposedly goes through wartime difficulties (which we hardly notice in the movie) their next door neighbors (a middle age man and his grandson, Laurie) live a posh life in a big manor. Although the girls and Laurie are good friends, Laurie's affection for Jo is obvious. As a rich boy, he's a perfect candidate as a husband but Jo has other aspirations in life.

The film has some subplots to show the reward of kind spirits but indeed they are naive and stir resentment instead of admiration. In one scene, we see the girls at the breakfast table in a Christmas morning. The mom joins them and mentions a less fortunate family who are hungry in a cold house. She proposes giving breakfast food as a Christmas gift to the poor family. The girls happily agree and take food in baskets to the family's home. On their return to home, they see their breakfast table is abundant with all kind of decadent desserts and food beyond their means, apparently as a gift from their rich neighbor for their kind-heartedness. Now, this is supposed to be a heart-warming story but only annoys me with the thought of the rich neighbor not helping those poor people in the first place.

One doesn't need to read the book to tell that the feminist overtone in the dialogues between the publisher and Jo, Amy's speech to Laurie couldn't exist in the original story owing to its time. Even the inkling of feminism in 1860s is utterly absurd and oxymoron considering the whole subject matter of the film is about some middle-class country girls chasing a wealthy heir dearly for a prospective husband. This is nothing but a conspicuous bastardization of a classic novel out of director's zeal to play to the gallery.

Besides that, I found the characters too good to be real. Laura Dern is very boring in her single-dimensional angelic role. Everybody is kind to others at all times and nobody loses her temper. All four girls live in peace and harmony with no dispute. The only notable incident is Jo's natural reaction to Amy after she burns Jo's novel in a rage of jealousy and it is short lived. I didn't go to the theater with the expectation of seeing cracking bones, car chases or blood and gore, but still found the male characters too girly, soft and indeed somewhat wimpy as in the case of Laurie.

In an interview, I saw Greta Gerwig expressing her bitterness for not being nominated as the best director award despite other nominations of the movie, including the best picture. Her innuendo and some blatant criticism from other circles for the sexism in the movie industry were all over the place. In my opinion, the movie's nomination for the best picture award is a gross exaggeration. Considering the directorial flaws, leaving her outside best director nomination shows the existence of some sane people who can still judge an award for the merit rather than being subjugated to the rising tide of the day.

Mystery crime has long been a neglected genre in the movie industry with cheap and boring TV flicks like Murder She Baked, etc. With its star-studded cast and intelligent plot, Knives Out is certainly a refreshing and hopefully a revitalizing comeback. Although it feels like a modern day Agatha Christie adaptation with little new to offer, all its cinematographic qualities like acting, directing, scripting, editing are top notch. Despite the abundance of leading figures, the characters are surprisingly well developed and they are far from simplistic and single-dimensional. Take Joni, for example. When it comes to her personal interests and benefits, she sees nothing wrong with scheming a large sum of money from her father-in-law. Her political views on a polarizing subject like immigration, however, are progressive and humanitarian. Indeed, the subject of immigration is the permeating subtle theme of the movie although the main plot revolves around a crime puzzle. The protagonist is a daughter of an illegal immigrant family from Latin america. She works as a caregiver to a bunch of wealthy white people none of whom has no real accomplishments but lives a posh life by simply leeching off of the rich patriarch. Most of their qualities are pretentious and skin-deep. Even the impressive "ancestral manor" turns out to be an estate bought from a Pakistani tycoon some 40 years ago. I don't want to give away too much from the plot but the final scene metaphorically and hilariously clinches the underlying subject-matter. All in all, Knives Out is an entertaining movie which certainly deserves seeing.

Heleno is an outstanding biopic which excels in acting, directing, scripting and cinematography. With its nonlinear narrative and black & white cinematography, its artistic production values soar without making the movie artsy. R. Santoro's rendition is mesmerizing which doesn't do justice to the supporting cast who also display a great acting performance. Despite its challenges to an average movie goer, with B&W picture, subtitles (for foreign viewers) and a narrative laden with flashbacks, the story is very engaging and fun to watch. Perhaps the most important thing about Heleno is the director shows a movie can have highly artistic features without sacrificing on its entertainment value and without boring the audience to death. Hats off to this great cinema work.

Balloon is a solid and unpretentious movie built around a cat-and-mouse game between infamous Stasi and two families trying to escape East Germany in a home-made hot air balloon. If it weren't based on a true story it would be difficult to believe how much risk some people would be willing to take with the life of their families while their day to day lives weren't really threatened by the system as long as they played along. However, once their initial attempt for escape fails, they realized they were being chased by Stasi and became desperate to flee the country no matter how.

Balloon has an engaging story, good direction, decent acting performance and above-the-average entertainment value. The recreation of 70's East Germany is well-done and convincing. After the first failing attempt, the pace of the movie indeed sags a bit, especially with the Berlin scenes, but it quickly picks up with the tension and drama kept tight till the end. It's worth watching and highly recommended.

The movie is interesting in its own peculiar way in the first 45 min or so. In the absence of a strong plot, it gets by with the help of its strong cast and decent acting which somehow keep you engaged without a gripping story. Then, it goes into a repetitive mode with a crawling pace and ends with a pathetic finale. I agree with other reviewers that Leonardo is very good in acting a retarded kid but his is only a one dimensional role where he twitches and fidgets the same way during the two longest hours you could experience. Juliette Lewis is supposed to be a wise and intriguing girl who attracts Gilbert at first sight. Her character, however, is utterly weird and vapid with her bizarre boyish look. The relation between Gilbert and Becky is sterile and contrived. A banal story, strong cast, good acting, feeble plot and a directorial disaster are the keywords for this snoozefest.

Red Joan is a movie with exceptional production values: it's beautifully written with a nonlinear but easy to follow and riveting narrative. It's also skillfully directed, shot and edited. In the closing credits, it reads the movie is based on Melita Norwood's life as a Russian spy but its subject matter has hardly anything to do with Norwood's actual story, which makes it pretty much all fiction, albeit an intriguing one. Despite some minor plot holes, the story is strong and engaging. The pace is gripping from the beginning to the end without a lull moment. Cinematography is gorgeous with nice scenes from 40's England. The acting is a first-rate performance, featuring lovely Sophie Cookson as young Joan. Although J. Dench is billed as the top actor in the cast, it's S. Cookson who carries the story from the beginning to the end. In fact, J. Dench acts as the elderly Joan in a mildly interesting subplot with a cursory impact on the main story, except to defend her moral grounds at the end by claiming she did the right thing when everything is considered retrospectively.

The only negative side was the climax of the story spanned the war years but all we saw was the posh life of Londoners in fancy coats, cafes and movie theaters. There was not a hint of difficulties of war time in the absence of air raids, destroyed neighborhoods, bomb shelters, food rations, etc.

Finally, the script is not rehashed from a cheesy J. Le Carre airport paperback with an overly complicated plot and neck breaking twists. There's no blood and gore, neither action or fight scenes all of which are common to spy thrillers (in fact there's only one scene as the reminiscent of those spy flicks but I'll not spoil it here). It's a drama full of tense relations, mystery, intricacies, backstabbing, lies as well as romance with an interesting and engaging narrative. With those features, it's more for brainy audience than those action junkies. Highly recommended.

I was appalled to see so many negative comments against this movie. The sad thing is almost all of them zero in on how good the original one(s) was and what a great actor Peter Seller was without any substance and real grounds for their lambasting criticism. For one thing, the movie is not a remake to an obsolete namesake which has aged to oblivion but has an entirely original script which is quite funny and entertaining. Except for the character names and partially the title, the similarity ends there. Secondly, I never liked P. Sellers' stagy acting style not only in in his PP series but all of his other movies that I can remember. S. Martin on the other hand is really funny and -God forbid, if he tried to imitate P. Sellers instead of putting his own mark the movie would be awful. Not only Martin but also the support cast is very good, including J. Reno and E. Mortimer. This movie is not going to be a life changing experience for its audience but it has no claims for that purpose either. It's a partially slap-stick, lighthearted comedy which doesn't take itself seriously and if you accept it for what it is you'll not be disappointed.

The movie starts like your average TV mystery kind with B. Affleck's nonchalant attitude about his missing wife, which makes him a prime suspect for a possible murder. As it moves on the movie transitions into a dark comedy which is fully engaging and entertaining. To be honest, I wasn't impressed by B. Affleck's one-dimensional and uninspired acting style in his previous movies. In this one, however, I observed him breaking out from that boring style and truly earning my full respect with his outstanding performance. As for R. Pike, I have been following her since her role in Sense and Sensibility and she has never disappointed me once. In this movie, she goes one step forward and delivers a top notch performance as a sociopathic wife. I also liked the supporting cast out of which C. Coon shines. This is a well-directed, skillfully shot cinema work with probably one flaw: its length. Although you don't feel bored in its current form, the story could have been told in shorter than 2.5 hrs without losing its integrity.

This is indeed a cold war movie about a story that happens in the post-cold war era. The acting from D. Washington and G. Hackman is arguably top notch. With no disrespect to the rest of the cast who also did a great job, even if you let this duo play alone in the same setting the drama would hardly lose any entertainment value. The story is perhaps overly dramatized with subplots that would have never happened in real life but the narrative is so good that it hardly disturbs your intelligence. The pace is perfect and the tension is kept up very skillfully without a single wasteful moment. Although it was shot some 25 years ago the movie doesn't show any sign of aging and I don't think it will after 50 years from now, either. This is a true movie classic for war and suspense genre.

The movie tells the story of a young married working class woman, Maud (played by Carrey Mulligan) in early 1900s when women were fighting for their voting rights in England through the Suffragette riots. It is a decent movie with good acting and notable cinematography which reflects its time in realistically and beautifully recreated London scenes. The brooding and dark look of the setting matches well to the somber theme of the movie. The story telling is good but not great. Indeed, the pace of the movie is a tad slow and sort of disengaging. After a few days of seeing the movie, I stumbled upon a documentary about the Suffragette movement and realized how closely the script stuck to the facts. While this certainly helps the producers to avoid any criticism for twisting the facts, it also renders the story a bit dull and devoid of passion.

Perhaps, the biggest shortcoming of the movie was its inability of telling Maud's motives for getting involved in a movement that would drastically and tragically change her whole life. As a young mother, she had to endure a backbreaking labor under an abusive supervisor but so was her husband (and men of that time). Apart from the difficulties of a working class family of the time, she had a decent marriage with a little baby and a non-abusive husband who was sharing household chores, baby care etc. while going through the same difficulties of life -well except voting rights, although however much an important issue that would be for a person of his class (be a man or woman) is wide open to debate... Even as most of her peers and some other women were frowning upon the acts and tactics of the Suffragette movement, what made Maude so resolute to join a campaign which is hardly a concern to a woman of her class, while upsetting all of her life seems a bit contrived and incredulous. Indeed, this was never made clear in the movie. Moreover, pivoting the narrative on the focal point of a person who'd not normally be attracted to the Suffragette cause fails you to engage the story. The movie has some tension due to her broken marriage and the cat and mouse play with the police detective but the slow flow of the events struggles to sustain it at times.

All in all, this is a movie that earns your respect and appreciation owing to its theme more than its entertainment value.

Anybody's life in the war years would be full of drama and twists of fate. This one is about a passionate lesbian love story between a jewish spy and a Berliner housewife. Don't be fooled by the lavish praises about how handy-dandy this movie is. Despite its promising setting and main theme defying norms of its time, the story telling is dull and plain boring. Indeed, the hedonistic life style of the two main characters with some hints of infamous Gestapo cruelty in the background rather becomes annoying considering the great tragedies of the time. Although acting and cinematography are good, the directing is pedestrian and outright lazy. There's hardly any character development for the lead figures. This is substituted by a patchy, fragmental and incoherent narrative of their day to day lives from which you're supposed to glean information about their personalities. Despite the massive opportunity of its background setting, i.e. Berlin in 1940's, there's hardly any tension and suspense in the plot which would save this borefest. Not recommended.

Ronin has all the right elements stacked up for a successful project: top notch actors, a big budget, a splendid setting in pictoresque France, an intriguing spy story involving IRA, Russians... Indeed, the acting from De Niro and Jean Reno is very good. The suspense is well maintained throughout the movie and the twists are adequately used. The action scenes are OK considering it's a pre CGI flick. Indeed, most action scenes are about car chases on the narrow alleys of Paris and Nice spiced up with gun shot exchange. There's almost no martial art scenes. In this regard, its genre borders a fuzzy area between a thriller and an action movie. This is where the trouble begins. There's no character development for the main figures. We don't really know who De Niro character is or his purpose in joining a special team put together for stealing a suitcase. Even at the end of the movie we have no idea what the whole fuss was about because we don't know what's inside the suitcase. The suggested relation between Sam and Deirdre is contrived with a lack of chemistry. Indeed, N. McElhone looks single-dimensional and aloof in her Deirdre character. The dialogue among the team members is exceptionally tense and unconvincing. With that much negative attitude, egocentrism and lack of trust, those guys can't even walk on a street together let alone pulling off a dangerous mission. The pace of the movie is in general good but starts to sag and eventually becomes repetitive and boring towards the end. All in all, Ronin is an entertaining but forgettable movie.

Cold War is about an incredulous love story between a Polish peasant girl and a talented musician in 1950's communist Europe. The uninspiring and dull story spreads over 15 years with Poland in the background stage. This is a theme which has been told countless times in the movie history. While J. Kulig displays some decent acting, T. Kot looks bored, aloof and nowhere near the passionate lover he's cast for. The black and white cinematography only makes the movie too artsy putting the style over substance. The story telling is choppy, jumpy and documentary style which fails to engage the audience. A lot of interesting details are glossed over and happen off the screen. Although the story involves stages in Paris, Berlin and Yugoslavia, the pace is slow and sleepy. The nomination for the best foreign movie Oscar is a big exaggeration for this snoozefest.

The is a very elegant biopic of the two icons of the cinema history. The acting from J.C. O'Reilly, S. Coogan, S. Henderson and N. Arianda is impeccable. So are the directing and cinematography. J. C. O'Reilly's makeup is amazing. As a person who grew up with Laurel & Hardy reruns in his childhood, it's very easy for me to connect with the characters and enjoy the movie from the beginning to the end but for the new generation of moviegoers the pace of the first half an hour or so could be a little slow.

The major problem with sci-fi movies, especially with space and alien themed ones is that they're laden with so many logic defying crapshoot that it's difficult to sit through them with an adult brain. This is one of the reasons why I disliked and rated Interstellar poorly. Where Interstellar fails, however, Inception excels as a stark contrast to Nolan's latter project. The only nonsense you need to swallow is that people can communicate and collaborate in their dreams. Indeed, there are so many crackpots who claim more outrageous things than dream collaboration that this plot may even sound plausible to some. Once you can see beyond it you discover a very well-crafted story which runs multiple layers deep and keeps you wondering what comes next. Despite its seeming complexity, sophistication and interwoven structure, the plot is not that difficult to follow. The directing, acting and editing are all top-notch quality. The cast is a collection of stars all of whom live up to their fame. There are certainly some plotholes but the quality of the story-telling makes you see past them. The only weakness is the cheesy action scenes where the good guys always come out unscathed from bullet sprays. However, this is a psychological thriller not an action flick, hence it could be easily forgiven.

Kingsman is a mishmash of 007 (of the cheesy type with P. Brosnan or R. Moore starring), inspector gadget and any of Tarantino's mindless gore-fests. Its target audience is pre-teen white boys. It's not a movie that a normal adult -including those action lovers- can sit through its entire length. Indeed, I was doing something else while watching it with the corner of my eye. Once, my job was finished after 2 hours of TV time -including commercials, I tuned the channel somewhere else, so I don't know how the story ended nor do I care.

A lot of reviewers complain about the violence. It's true that the movie is loaded with senseless blood and gore however, its presentation is so puerile that you can't really take it seriously. Take the 10 min long carnage in the church scene, for example. Everything looks so comically surreal and artificial, that it makes you shake your head instead of cringing and looking away. I don't know why Colin Firth, S. Jackson and M. Cain star in this travesty. One would think actors of their stature would be more selective with the quality of the movies they act in, no matter how much they are compensated for. On the other hand, the two lead characters are so lame and fluffy that no amount of heavy weight actor can put the story on its feet.

This is a flat story that begins with a promising start then quickly turns into a snoozefest and finishes with a whimper. The acting and cinematography are indeed above the average. The female police character is laughable cliche with 70's Peter Falk impersonation. Although it's classified as a thriller there's hardly any tension in the unfolding drama that fails to create a shred of suspense.

This is a movie whose script looks good on paper but fails on the action. Mediocre direction, bad editing, stagy acting mar the project. The focus is dispersed on multiple events and diluted. In the absence of a main plot that drives the story in a central core, many stories run in parallel diffusing the flow of the movie and audience's attention making it uninteresting. Tense relations and human drama between teammates, family, friends seem all artificial because there's no depth to any of them and we don't really know where they come from. Instead, we see the plot drifting aimlessly from one episode of brothers' antics to another until an hour passes and we see the first glimpse of the most promising aspect of the story: the arsonist hits and we finally think the movie cuts to the chase. But no... back to the brothers' antics and their messed personal lives. Support characters like De Niro and Sutherland hang like an unmatching tie on a tux. They try their best but are allowed too little to have a positive effect on the teetering story. The arson and murder plot truly has a potential to pull the scattered storyline together and move it in a firm direction. However, that opportunity is wasted with a half cooked investigation story which inexplicably doesn't involve the police but a semi-nuts investigator and a rookie firefighter hanging on clues from a psychopathic arsonist doing his jail time. The movie shamelessly hits on all the cliche buttons like corrupt politicians, heroic servicemen, a reckless antihero with a broken family, etc. Perhaps the most pathetic part is the moral of the story: punishing corrupt politicians and their cronies -no matter how you pull it off redeems your crimes and entitles you a ceremonial burial. As for the positive sides, the fire scenes are really impressive especially when considered they are shot in pre-CGI era. However, there are too many of them which eventually desensitize the audience. Besides, most fearsome action scenes are too chaotic to sustain suspense for the well-being of the firemen who fought the fire.

This is an inspirational story told with a very good directing style and superb acting. The key elements of the era including civil right movements, space race between two nuclear powers and struggle of women disadvantaged twice; first by the color of their skin then their gender in a male dominated profession are told in a balanced way.

From other reviewers' comments, I understand there are some twists to the historical facts. It is not difficult to see some scenes are overly dramatized and exaggerated. But that's what separates a drama from documentary and those deviations from the facts hardly change the above mentioned key elements. No matter how big or trivial the contribution of these women to the space program, science or engineering actually were, this is definitely a success story which needs to be remembered as a part of the black history as well as women's ascendance in social and professional ranks. Well done...

This is a mildly entertaining story that turns into a gem with a Midas touch from Cate Blanchett. With her solid performance, she deserves every praise and prize awarded for this work. The direction and the nonlinear narrative also help to keep the audience's attention sharp for an otherwise ordinary family story. While acting is in general good, the focus remains almost exclusively on C. Blanchette, who once again proves she is one of the few who never disappoints with the quality of the movies she stars in.

The movie tells the story of a professor who lost his inspirations in writing and his almost autistic student as a promising writer. The acting from M. Douglas and T. Maguire is passable. At the beginning, the plot seems promising but the subplots are shallow and uninteresting. Although it's classified as a comedy-drama, the comedy side is rather light and sort of left to antics of R. Downey Jr. The characters outside M. Douglas and T. Maguire come and go with no discernible effect on the main story. To sum up, when you don't have a solid story to tell, it doesn't matter how many stars are stuffed into the cast. The movie fails to engage the audience and falls flat.

For me, this is one of the rare cases that doesn't call I-read-the-book-movie-sucks evaluation. Indeed, the screenplay cherry picks the reasonable parts of Brown's story omitting the nonsense in the book. With most action pulled by Tom Hanks, Ayelet Zurer's character seems like a filler for a female cast. To make things worse, Zurer acts more like a lab technician than a top notch physicist. The plot is simplistic and predictable. If you read Dan Brown's other books or saw Da Vinci code, it won't take you long to figure out the twists and the villain. Some nice scenes from Rome are the redeeming qualities of an otherwise average popcorn flick. This is not a thriller that will blow you away but will probably entertain you on a lazy Friday night.

JT can't act for his life. He looks totally out of his depth in every unfolding event around himself. Ben Affleck arguably shines in comparison to the dismal performance of his costar but he indeed looks bored, too. The story initially looks promising but due to terrible editing, the scenes simply flash one after another with a chocking rhythm. The writing and direction are instrumental without a shred of originality in either. The movie is a complete waste of time if you can really sit through it.

Although this movie is classified as an horror flick it doesn't quite fit that category. Yes, it aims to inspire awe in the audience but totally for different reasons. In the medieval times, the clergy tried to maintain and strengthen the faith of followers by the fear of death and the promise of eternal punishment. Rite is a Hollywood version of the same intention and from that perspective it looks like it is partially or fully funded by the catholic church. There's no blood and gore and hardly any resemblance to the silly exorcist movies of 70's and 80's which will certainly frustrate the horror flick fans.

The plot is woven around a young skeptic priest and an old faithful father who masters in exorcism. The young skeptic asks all the right questions and receives all the wrong answers from the old guy. The screenplay is surprisingly honest about the discussion by displaying sound arguments from a rational mind but apparently the (screenplay) writers are ludicrously confident about the validity of their own versions which sound preposterous and logic-defying.

The good acting and some nice Rome scenes stand out as the redeeming qualities of the movie.