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douglasransom
Reviews
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)
Extremely Grating and Incredibly Boring
How this trainwreck was nominated for Best Picture, we may never know. First of all, the two lead actors promoted on the cover, Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, only appear for 10 and 20 minutes out of this 2 hour and 10 minute story respectively. So who do we follow for most of this movie? For this, we move onto the second, and for me, the biggest flaw.
Instead of following Tom Hanks or Sandra Bullock, we instead end up with one of the most unlikeable protagonists in any film (and I've watched A Clockwork Orange). Nine-year-old Oscar is narcissistic, arrogant, treats his mother and those around him terribly, and seems to have zero empathy for anyone. He's basically the exact same as Sheldon Cooper, except that we're meant to be rooting for him. Every time he opens his mouth, I just want to punch him. I do not buy that he is "autistic". Autistic people don't always think about maths or science, and we are incredibly empathetic, no matter what the idiots who research autism for entertainment purposes think.
I watched this movie once, and turned it off after half an hour, and even I'm surprised I lasted that long. Worst movie I've ever watched.
Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (1981)
Blunt, Harrowing, Devastating.
I watched this film last night with my dad. He had seen it once or twice before, but I was a newbie. Originally, I read about the titular Christiane F. several years before, but my dad didn't think I was ready to see the film. Eventually though, we sat and watched it, and my God, it did an amazing job.
This isn't your typical clichéd drug movie with grown adults playing teenagers, and overuse of special effects. This is a gritty, cynical, honest look on what heroin does to people. Scenes include: teenagers shooting up in public toilets; prostituting themselves to get money for drugs; tattooing themselves with pins and being surrounded by copious amounts of blood, urine, and vomit. The gloomy atmosphere and setting of 1970s Berlin only adds to the realism. The fact it's all in German and not redubbed makes it even better. A brilliant film, but not for the faint hearted.
Habitación en Roma (2010)
Intriguing
When I first saw this in my local movie store, my first thought was "this is just going to be softcore." When I watched it, I was intrigued by it. I mean, yes, it is heavily sexual, but it feels like less of a adult film, and more of just an exploration of the human mind when going through sexual encounters. Overall, very, very good.