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Reviews
Into the Wild (2007)
Mediocre movie with one large question nobody addresses
Are we supposed to believe the protagonist in this story has no sexual needs? This one issue makes the entire thing laughable. No masturbation alluded to? Total nonsense. His refusal to have sex with Kristen Stewart's character is ludicrous. Getting to the young man's motivation for taking off on his adventure, the story he learned about his parents is barely enough to trigger anything more than underachieving in school. The fact that he's a high achiever with knowledge of his parents' hypocrisy is not credible. Yes, the acting is excellent and so is the cinematography. But the script is a shambles. In his adult period, I believe, he kills a moose, and because he doesn't dress it fast enough maggots appear, ruining it. And so he gives up on shooting game. This is the same person who shot the rapids in a kayak without permission and a deathly fear of water? And where did he become a psychiatrist to solve the marital problems of the hippie couple in two minutes?
The Painted Veil (2006)
Quite amazingly overrated
You've seen this story told over and over a hundred times in different settings. The loveless marriage, the affair, the wife forced by the husband to follow him as punishment to a remote and dangerous place, a reconciliation, and then he dies as though he did something wrong when in fact she cheated on him and destroyed the hope of a happy marriage.
Naomi Watts as always is brilliant and beautiful and Ed Norton, as usual despite his odd voice, turns in an excellent performance. Liev Schreiber is ridiculous in his role -- he can't play an Englishman and looks as much a WASP as does a Hindu prince.
The Chinese characters are total stereotypes to the point of being offensive.
I do recommend the film to anyone who loves looking at Naomi Watts.
Premium Rush (2012)
One of those horrible things you buy for kids and they watch over and over while you go nuts
As Mr. T used to say in the old days of The A Team, "I pity the fool" who is over 12 and thinks this is a movie. Written and directed by David Koepp, who wrote Jurassic Park and other blockbusters, this piece of garbage made about 6 million dollars on a budget of 35 million.
I have to assume Koepp was making a film for children and it was marketed for a normal audience -- good work, marketing department. It's like a 1940s Warner Bros. cartoon with real actors (That's all folks!). The story is so simplistic and moronic, the characters get seriously injured and bounce right back up unhurt, it's like Tom and Jerry. You get tipped off right away that it's like a Wiley Coyote cartoon, but really it's more Three Stooges on bikes with nothing funny.
The bad guy is an idiot with a high pitched voice and the star is a pathetic no-charisma zero.
Insulted almost as much as the audience is Manhattan. In one shot Wilee, the hero, is seen riding downtown on Park Avenue, in the next, which is a continuation, he's going uptown. This sort of stupidity can be chalked up to "it's just a movie" but no, it's just a movie made by a dude who is so arrogant about his audience he doesn't care that nothing actually makes sense. You could write better dialog.
The piece de resistance is that the bicycle messengers are shown having to check mobile phone maps to see how to get where they're going. LOL! Manhattan bike messengers know every block. It's no mystery. They ride them every day.
Really, this is a minus 10.
The Take (2009)
Stunning performances in a brilliant crime thriller
Director David Drury pairs with English actor Tom Hardy to create as brilliant a hard case criminal as you will ever see on film. You've seen Hardy in major pictures probably going back to Band of Brothers, but you would never have imagined his overwhelming power as a major star, an actor so exceptional and so explosive he's more menacing than Al Pacino has ever been let alone any movie villain of the sort we see all the time being defeated by superheros. Hardy, as an ex-con drug kingpin, brutal, terrifying, a rapist, walking around projecting so much menace people practically poop in their pants.
The supporting cast is a collection of English character actors as always superb, and the great Brian Cox guest stars as the incarcerated criminal mastermind.
Drury's camera-work is integral to the constant tension; you'll even be blown away by the opening credits. He's clearly an actor's director first, but this miniseries is a masterpiece overall. Don't miss it.