Reviews and Ramblings

Nick of Time, directed by John Badman and produced by D.J. Caruso, was one of those films that, even though it was an hour and a half long, it did not seem to be that long. It took almost half an hour for the story to get going, though. The title sequence, a montage of close-ups of a gun being loaded and a clock working that turns into actual film sequences, was interesting, but reminded me of the title sequences of "Charlie & The Chocolate Factory" and "Sweeny Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street", both of which Johnny Depp also stared in (although after Nick of Time). Now, I am a huge fan of Johnny Depp, but this was not the only similarity I saw to some of his other films. He did do a wonderful job portraying a father who is forced to become a killer, which is not a recurrent roll. However, we have seen him wear glasses before, and be a killer before. The father roll was a nice change, as he is a father himself. I am confused however, as to when the film was su...

An action packed movie, 'WANTED', directed by Timur Bekmambetov, definitely includes some scenes and ideas never before seen. By me, anyways. And I have seen a fair share of action films. Unbeknown to me, this film was based on a comic. However, this film was far from simple drawings. Although I was able to call out who the main characters' father really was before you actually found out, the story line was so detailed and so well mapped out, that I almost didn't catch it. There were a few other surprise elements in the plot as well. However, the dialogue of another main character, Sloan, played by Morgan Freedman, could have been cleaned up, and was reminiscent of Samuel L. Jackson's dialogue in 'Snakes on a Plane'. Wesley, played by James McAvoy, is the protagonist in this plot, who gets drawn into "The Fraternity" by Sloan. At one point, it seems that Fox, played by Angelina Jolie, and Wesley will end up together. However, fate (as the film woul...

The music at the beginning of the film already reminds me of an older movie from the 60s or 70s. As soon as you see visuals, you can automatically see that it is an older film. However, you may know that I love grainy films because of when or how they were made. It make me happy. The acting so far is wonderful. In fact, I am watching to it right now. I'm in the middle of watching it. It is clear that in this film, made in 1974, the events take place in the early 70s. This is evident through the costumes and the way people talk. It is also self-evident that it takes place in New York, by the accents. Now, even though this movie is classified as a drama/thriller, there are elements of comedy (for example, when the directors of the Japanese subway system start to speak clear English and one of the transportation lieutenants' has been speaking to them like they are stupid. Another amusing element of this film is that a bunch of the major characters are named after colors. To me thi...

As many of you may know, I absolutely love any movie that Mr. Johnny Depp does. Well, the same goes for this movie. Even though he plays a hardened criminal who robs banks, I could not help but feel empathy for his character (it must be that I just love him so much!). But otherwise, as I was watching the movie, despite the bad sound system and people coughing during the quiet parts, I enjoyed it very much. The make-up people did a wonderful job covering Mr. Depp's many tattoos, and I am sure they even had to change around some details like where he got shot in order to keep his character up. There was one mistakes on make-up's part, however, and that was the fake mustache they used for Depp, did not cover his own mustache (you could see hte stubble growing, and it was very distracting). Obviously the costuming was done superbly (the movie is based in the 1930's) snd matches the time period perfectly. They even found old pocket watches that worked. One thing noticed however,...

I just read up on "America's Worst Mom" in my favourite news source - The Week Magazine. In case you haven't read or heard about this, a mom, Lenore Skenazy, let her 9 year-old son, Izzy, ride the subway home alone from Bloomingdale's in New York City. I think that that whole situation has been completely blown out of proportion. I mean, honestly, why can't parents raise their children the way that they want to? Why does the entire nation have to make their opinion known? Clearly, Izzy was safe, and was very proud of himself for making his own way home. His mother did not abondon him. Her and her husband had agreed that Izzy would be allowed to do this. Izzy himself asked to be left anywhere, any time, to find her own way home. I think this idea is wonderful, actually. I know that I am not parent, but I did help raise my 6 year-old nephew, and will probably help raise my not-yet-born niece or nephew. I was also around when my 6 younger cousins were growing up ...

Alright so, I totally got an awesome opportunity tonight - I got to see a private screening of a movie. This has not happened for me before. The movie? I Love You, Man. Not only was this movie hilarious, but the actors were great, as was the story-line. Now, it is a little twist off of a combination of other movies but it is pretty original. The only problem I had with it, was that it took a bit too long to get to the climax of the story. Sure, it was great to see the friendship develop, but at the same time, I even caught myself looking at my watch. This rarely happens, as I am such an avidly fanatically-minded person, but when it does happen, it's for a reason. This time, it's because the development of Peter & Sydney's relationship took a bit too long. However, as sexual as some of the jokes were, the costumes were fine, the lighting was great, transitions and shots were put together beautifully, and most of the wide frames were good. However, some of the moving wide...

A complete and total waste of an hour and a half. Seriously. The only good part of the movie were SOME of the costumes. The movie took parts of Narnia, Harry Potter, Snakes on a Plane, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The DaVinci Code, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harold & Kumar go to White Castle, X-Men, Nacho Libre, MTV's Cribs, Click, some Jackie Chan moves, Flavor of Love, Borat, Star Wars, James Bond, and of course American Pie. I am sure there are more that I missed, but as I said, it was a waste of time, and I barely paid attention to it. However, I decided to stick it out. The filming was pretty bad, although a lot of the accents were good. The costumes for the Narnia part were fairly accurate, and Chewbacca and the Storm Troopers were correct (minus Chewbacca's blue hair, of course). However, the outfits for the Charlie/Chocolate Factory were totally off (Willy Wonka looked REALLY creepy), the Oompa-Loompas were just WRONG, the shots of the entire movie were okay, c...

Okay so, I was watching this program about all the "sex crimes" of teacher/student relationships. Now, I can understand how some of the cases are sexual exploitation. However, does that mean all of them are? Sure, many teenage boys have a fantasy of having sex with their 'hot, young teacher', which I think is completely normal. As well as some teenage girls have similar fantasies. But, if these fantasies are played out, as in, the student and teacher have a sexual relationship, how different can their relationship be, than one of a teenager, and an adult the same age as one of those teachers, but of another occupancy? Is it really much different, if say, while I was in high school, I had a sexual relationship with a teacher the age of 25, when I was 16; versus, having a sexual relationship with a 25 year old college student, or office worker (not at the school) while I was 16? I'm not saying that ever happened to me - no, I never had teachers whose age was anywher...