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shenanton
Reviews
The Pledge (2001)
Gripping if you are 50 years plus
One other reviewer said this was gripping, oh my, I was bored to tears, for most of the movie nothing really happens. The acting is wooden. Please do not waste your time. I can not believe that this movie got a rating of 7 on IMDb, that is ridiculous. This is why I gave the movie a 3 just to bring down that stupid rating. Actually I think the movie is worth about a 4 or 5. I wish I could get back the last hour and a half of my life. I keep reading that Nicholson is excellent in it, but I don't see it. It was basically Jack mumbling, fishing, and smoking. Jesus, this guy was better in his previous worst "as good as it gets". As for the other actors, they each got about 90 seconds of air time.I guarantee that if you showed this movie on an airplane, people would throw up and try and jump out of the airplane. Sean Penn takes what could have been one of Jack Nicholson's best performances and screws it up with a movie that just drags on and on and on. It is beyond bad. It is bad AND stupid AND has a terrible script. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Metal Skin (1994)
Blue the colour of sadness, depression and doom follows Joe like a shadow from which he can not escape.
The story concerns a group of disenfranchised youth in Melbourne. Joe, who lives with his insane father, gets a job at a wholesale warehouse where he meets Dazey, the local playboy, and Savina, a Satan-worshipping shoplifter. Joe, Savina, Dazey and Rosalyn, Dazey's girlfriend, are inextricably bound in a love, lust, obsession, insanity, death, guns and street drag racers.
Director Geoffrey Wright is one of the very few directors are willing to go to the lengths that he does, refusing to tell a story that involves conventional moralities and cardboard characters, nor does he balk at portraying the violence perpetrated by these unhappy youths in their quest for identity and meaning. This is a disturbing film and not for the morally squeamish. The fact that the director dared to cast actors who are NOT the Matt Dillon or Brad Pitts of this world makes the characters of this film so believable. Even though Dazey is cast as "Matt Dillon" of this film it is quiet clear that he is a big fish in a very small pond. Remember this is not a story of the super cool and tough guys at the top, this is a story of the guys at the bottom. So relative to the situation and surroundings I would say that the characters are perfectly cast. Dazey might have been tougher but that would have made him too stereotyped and I feel that he is more of a playboy then a fighter.
This film was totally unexpected, on the surface it is another simple story of youth gone wrong, but behind all these gritty characters and realistic dialogue is a deep complex story line dealing with many themes. The filming and editing techniques help to explore these themes resulting in an Cult Australian hit. Granted this film is not for everyone. Many people will miss the complexity of this file and end up simply judging the story superficially or they will not enjoy the setting of impoverished youth in Melbourne.
The sounds and images of Metal Skin remained with me for many days after first viewing, and would return unbidden like dream fragments in the weeks that followed. The bleakness of the environment inhabited by Metal Skin's characters is emphasised by the almost complete lack of sunlight in the film; daytime scenes are shot against unforgiving grey skies, or at twilight, or in the rain. Industrial, dockside or suburban scenes are de-saturated of colour, with occasional flashes of maroon or lime green in the characters' clothing the only break in this monotony. Much of the film is shot at night to emphasise the characters' separation from the mainstream and lack of interaction with "normal" city life; as their night work at the supermarket indicates, they are not even full members of the economy, but are marginal even here. Incessant and intrusive sound and visual editing and confounding time shifts, work to disorient the viewer and constantly put you on edge and into their world.
Another prominent theme is of this Melbourne underworld, a world that is off balance, a place where the darker parts of the human mind are never far off. We are made to see, hear and feel this world. The director desire to document the marginalised, the outcast, the fringe-dwellers of society does not extend to offer hope, solutions, where there are none.
Blue the colour of sadness, depression, gloom and doom follows Joe like a shadow from which he can not escape. It may be debated but for me the primary theme of this film was psychological. How the characters are affected by the presence of lack love in their lives. What happens when they reach breaking point. Relationships between fathers and sons, friends, and lovers are all examined. The psychological theme is also examined from the point of view of control. We see how the characters try to affect control on the world around and fail miserably while unintentionally setting chains of events in motion with ramifications for all those around them. The characters are trapped by there very nature, they can not change, and it is there failure to change and there failure to see and understand the world as it is, that inevitably leads to there fate.
Pandorum (2009)
I can't believe this movie got 6.9 out of 10
This movie is absolute rubbish. I read another review saying that is movie was better then Event Horizon BUT this is absolutely NOT true... this movie is weak in ALL respects. Weak script, weak special effects, weak everything... Rather Watch Aliens again you are going to have a better time FAR FAR Better. This is derivative rubbish plain and simple.. boring, stupid and derivative. Please don't waste 1 and a half hours of your life on this like I did. Save yourself NOW and run in the other direction.... SAD but TRUE. There is nothing I can recommend about this movie, it is a waste of time EVEN for me who loves horror and loves sci-fi genre. Please don't watch this.
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Bad Editing, Bad Script & Bad Directing!!! Even Guy Richie Fans Are Disappointed!!
Disjointed and badly directed. By disjointed I mean the way the editing from shot to shot was done, there is no feeling of flow. Many of the sequences have been edited down so much that they don't have enough time to make an impact on you or affect you in any way. It feels more like an action computer games at time rather then a film. So many action sequences and story sequences are stupid and inconsequential and leave you feeling dizzy and disappointed. Although overall I thought the film looked great the CG effects are NOT top notch and some so obviously are CG. This is a forgettable boring story. I paid good money to see this in the cinema, don't make the same mistake, watch on TV or not at all. This movie will only appeal to undemanding patron or teen audiences.
Sherlock Holmes is developed as an interesting flawed character with world class attention to detail. This starts off great but you soon get tired of the same message thrust into your face again and again. It seems like the director / screenplay writers simply ran out of material and Holmes solved every problem either with his fists or his amazing deductive powers, which don't related well with or connect to the audience. It feels like you are watching a B grade episode of a Detective TV Series and at the end of the episode the solution is thrust on you and explained away. Seemly very clever however it demands nothing of the audience, there no sense of participated, there is no mystery. This is a big problem of this film, it is very hard to have any emotional investment in any of the characters.
On the positive side... Sherlock Holmes character is wonderfully accurately depicted as the Holmes who is a miserable, irresponsible drug addict and times dirty, other times insulting, irresponsible and even cruel. Fighting, drinking and slumming his way around. Robert Downey, Jr. played Sherlock Holmes to perfection.
Doctor Watson played excellently by Jude Law represents a refinement that enters Holmes life that influences him to become a "respectable" member of society.
Unfortunately great character casting and good acting can't save this film from bad directing, bad editing and a bad script. Boring and Deeply disappointing.
** Spoilers ** 1) I will give you just two examples out of the hundreds : When a man is murdered with fire and falls the window the scene is just edited to be too quick and you have no interest in the event. It might has well have been a scene of someone lighting a cigarette, it would have made no difference. 2) Even the CG effects are not top notch for example the scene on the bridge near the end of the movie is so obviously CG it looks more like a computer game then a film. ** End of spoilers **