Change Your Image
jda28
***My Great Films List***12 Angry Men (1957) Dir. Sidney Lumet
Alien (1979) Dir. Ridley Scott
Aliens (1986) Dir. James Cameron
American Beauty (1999) Dir. Sam Mendes
Badlands (1973) Dir. Terrence Malick
Beauty and the Beast (1991) Dirs. Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
Dances with Wolves (1990) Dir. Kevin Costner
Dead Man Walking (1995) Dir. Tim Robbins
The English Patient (1996) Dir. Anthony Minghella
E.T the Extra Terrestrial (1982) Dir. Steven Spielberg
Forrest Gump (1994) Dir. Robert Zemeckis
The Godfather (1972) Dir. Francis Ford Coppola
If... (1968) Dir. Lindsay Anderson
Kes (1960) Dir. Ken Loach
Lord of the Rings (2001-3) Dir. Peter Jackson
M (1931) Dir. Fritz Lang
No Country For Old Men (2007) Dirs. Joel & Ethan Coen
Nosferatu (1922) Dir. F.W. Murnau
Ordinary People (1980) Dir. Robert Redford
Pan's Labyrinth (2006) Dir. Guillermo Del Toro
Raging Bull (1980) Dir. Martin Scorsese
Rosemary's Baby (1968) Dir. Roman Polanski
Saving Private Ryan (1998) Dir. Steven Spielberg
Schindler's List (1993) Dir. Steven Spielberg
Secrets & Lies (1996) Dir. Mike Leigh
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) Dir. Frank Darabont
Some Like It Hot (1959) Dir. Billy Wilder
Stand By Me (1986) Dir. Rob Reiner
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) Dir. Robert Zemeckis
The Wizard of Oz (1939) Dir. Victor Fleming
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
Florence Nightingale (2008)
Not really worth the effort
Based on her true-life letters and memoirs (as the excessive opening declaratives inform us), 'Florence Nightingale' is a different kind of period-drama chronicling the feminist icon's early days and aspirations to become a nurse, and continuing to her subsequent breakdown following the aid she gave in the Crimean War.
A major fault of this drama is the patchy, inconsistent writing; colloquialisms and informal conversation leave it seeming out of touch with the era, and grating fantasy sequences seem to have been freshly picked out of a badly performed pantomime. The director's unwise decision to inter-cut between time eras so frequently also only results in unnecessary confusion, and breaking the fourth wall in Nightingale's letters delivery fractures the illusion that what we are watching took place long before the present.
Laura Fraser is bold and refreshing in the eponymous role, but she lacks the strength to fully-fledge her character she could quite simply be any well-spoken women from the period, and I imagined someone such as Helena Bonham Carter or Olivia Williams would have been more suited to the role, fitting comfortably into the character of Florence Nightingale with more power and resonance. On a positive note, considering this is pre-watershed television, the director does manage to convey the horrific nature of battle rather well, and it is an interesting, often atmospheric take on a well-known figurehead. The Victorian aesthetics are also very well established, and there are some fine supporting performances among the rest of the cast.
It's not a bad effort, but at a mere sixty minutes the drama felt far longer than necessary thanks to turgid pacing and a lack of fluency, cohesion and dramatic tension. There's nothing innovative or inspiring here, and with far better, more authentic period-drama available it seems an unexciting, bland waste of an hour.
Independence Day (1996)
Not a good alien film, but not an awful one
I can't believe some people give this a 10/10. It is not that sort of film. If you are looking for some intense action sequences, decent special effects, a below average story with average / below average acting, and a whole film that quite simply promotes the idea that Americans are Gods and should be worshipped by every other nation, this is your film. Bill Pullman's speech as president was awful. Will Smith's character unbelievable. Subplots all overworked. The idea of Jeff Goldblum's character is quite ridiculous. And basically the film is overlong. It's OK to watch once, not the worst film I have ever seen, but not what people say. 5 / 10
Btw if you are into alien films i recommend these GOOD ones: -The Forgotten -War of the Worlds -Alien -Aliens and one of the best -Signs