Monday, July 14, 2008

When in doubt, keep your mouth shut…

This is an excellent advice; however, one I usually do not follow.

OK, here come the reviews

Juno:
Ellen Page rocks! Figuratively and literally. I do not know if they would have found a better actress to play the part; I believe that the main reason for her making it work is that she is not that known (I know she appears in “X-Men 3” and I want to see “Smart People” but not because of her). The story rocks! I also think Jennifer Gardner made a hell of an impression on the “expecting mom” character; I started to hate her for being so annoying. Which is exactly why I think she nail the role down. I enjoyed the movie; and the dad/stepmom interactions with Juno were really good. Not that I want any of my daughters to go through what Juno went, but I would like to think of me as a cool dad (like Mac McGuff). Overall score: 8.

Jumper:
As will mentions in his comment; there is a sense of unfulfillment. Too many questions without answers, I know this is based on a book by Steven Gould; and you can see for yourself what happen to good books when they are “converted” into movies. ‘Nuff said. Overall score: 6 (it is entertaining; and I got to know there is an interesting book around!)

Grace is Gone:
The parallels with my family are really interesting; both daughters’ characters mirror what I perceive Mediana and Pinka to behave at home. My wife loved it, but got asleep ¾ into it; I had to wake her up to finish the movie. In my case, I almost cried, but got over it and kept watching the film. Strong emotional story. I do not know if I would do the same in that case, but I had had to wonder, since my wife sometimes has an infatuation with the idea of dying. Overall score 8.5 (it is slow at the end; the scene between the dad and his brother really got to me).

Bonus review:
My Own Private Idaho!!!!
Finally I finished watching it; it was anticlimactic. After all the expectation and excitement I had going into it, I had to watch it at work (on my lunch time). The first hour (or so) was what I had seen before; the second part of it (what I missed the first time I set to watch it) was difficult to digest. I still will have a second look at it; this time I will watch it uninterrupted. Let’s see what happens; so far score: 8.

And this is all folks (for the moment!)

See you around.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hard Candy. Hard Candy! HARD CANDY!!

If you want to see Ellen Page at her finest watch Hard Candy. Yes, I realise that the idea of watching any film with the tag "paedophile" sounds abhorrent to a parent, and I will admit that I avoided this film for ages. But it is excellent and Ellen Page is fantastic!

Don't start me on X-Men 3! Tee-hee.

J.A. said...

will look for it (tomorrow is Tuesday and in Bl0ckbuster rent is at $15 pesos / movie!!)

Anonymous said...

Let's see...I will perhaps have to watch Juno one day, but that day ain't to-day. Seems like the more good things I hear about it, the more turned off I am. The subject matter is certainly not anything I'm interested in, as I probably have seen more than my share of films and documentaries on that. And the screenwriter, Brook Busey aka Diablo Cody not only is a mediocre writer (IMHO) of blogs and books, but is trying way too hard to become the female Hunter S. Thompson of this generation. She's a huge turn off and knowing that they gave her the Oscar for writing this film only pushes me away further. But, I suppose in the end, I will have to see this. Sigh... OR maybe not. Maybe I'll just absorb your reviews and be done with it. This way I don't waste 2 hrs. of my life.

Anonymous said...

Meant to say: Gus Van Sant is so over-rated. I practically loathe anything he's done, except Good Will Hunting. I watched Elephant and wanted to strangle Mr. Van Sant for robbing me of an hour and a half of my life which I'll never have back. And My Own Private Idaho was a huge bore, compounded by the fact that ANYTHING with Keanu Reeves makes me want to slowly poke out my eyes with sharp, hot irons.