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Reviews
Macbeth (2001)
Best rendition of Macbeth I've ever seen
Wow. Just wow. I cried at a couple of points. The director and actors created very well-rounded characters by gestures, looks, the turn of a head or the flicker of an eye. It felt natural and real and was all the more heart-breaking for that. Definitely my favorite rendition of Macbeth. Kudos.
Sista kontraktet (1998)
Disappointing
I watched this movie because I love seeing Michael Kitchen bring characters to life. Unfortunately, in this instance it felt like the director had paid good money for a Maserati, which he then lurched along at 30 MPH, stripping the gears and overheating the engine, instead of letting it go flat out. Rather than letting the actors do their jobs (act), it seemed to me like they were frog-marched and stage-managed through the film. "Ok, turn to the camera, and... blue steel. Yeah. Cut." What a waste of talent.
And maybe it was the fact that I don't speak Swedish, but it also seemed like there were too many facile connectors. Someone just happens to call who has the information the hero needs. Quoi? And then at the end, a poor woman for whom $50k is an almost unimaginable sum manages to track the uber-killer down in his lair in Malta and gun him down, even though the rich and highly-connected have never been able to find him. Eh?
Oh, well. Kitchen looked nice in his suits. Gotta love French cuffs under any circumstances.
The Lucky One (2012)
A fun romance
I thought this was a very well-done romance. I actually preferred it to the book, which was more sappy than the movie, and there were some jarring continuity issues in the book that should have gotten cleaned up in editing.
The movie writers really tightened up the plot line and kept it moving. The romance was just wonderful. Though, like the book, the two main characters were pretty saintly. But, what the heck. It's nice to have a story about nice people sometimes. We have enough entitlement and angst out there already.
Logan Thibault needed a bit more development. He was almost a tabula rasa. There was very little sense of his internal life - he was mostly just stoic. Not a bad thing when it comes to falling in love with a leading man. No annoying character issues to get in the way. But it didn't leave Zac Efron with a lot to work with. He did a lot with a little, though.
I have to give a big shout out to the actor who played the ex-husband, though. Jay Ferguson. He was *amazing*. I had to actually look him up to see if his face was permanently stuck in that expression of bitter discontent. It isn't. He has quite a human face in photos of other movies and tv shows. He had the most to work with as an actor, and was a delight to watch. (Though all that anger wasn't terribly comfortable.)