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Reviews
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
A million dollar effort
I saw two Clint Eastwood movies. Gran Torino at the theater and MILLION DOLLAR BABY on DVD. I already talked about how much I liked Gran Torino.
In MILLION DOLLAR BABY, writers F.X. Toole and Paul Haggis have delivered a hard hitting and powerful screenplay. It is a very touching subject matter that constantly pulls at your heart strings.
And it can only do so if it were directed with great sensitivity. Eastwood again approaches his material meticulously and methodically, like a true artist.
His actors Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman and Eastwood himself, are exceptional in this movie. Swank deserves all of the accolades that she has gotten and more. I found her totally believable. Freeman has proved that he never hits a false note whenever he is acting on the screen. The supporting cast is pretty good also.
Gran Torino (2008)
Another good Eastwood film
Director-Actor, Clint Eastwood has now become legendary in the film world. Probably because he just keeps going, methodically putting out good product after another. It is apparent that he takes his time in preparing and making these movies.
His effort on Gran Torino about an older bigoted man, who can't seem to get along with anybody, but embarks on a mission to help out a young teenager who is being pressured from a gang, is excellent.
Eastwood acts with ease and believability in this role, and makes it his own as the character puts his bigotry aside as he helps out the young teenager, who happens to be Hmong .
Eastwood also seems to always get great performances out his actors. All are good in this movie.
TIghtly written by Dave Johannson and Nick Schenk, the story entertains and gives us some great character insights.
I always look forward to the next Eastwood project.
Channels (2008)
Would like to see ore movies like this.
I just started writing comments on movies. I watched three recently. Two I loved. One I didn't. I'll get around to writing about the movie I didn't like. But the two I loved were "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Channels."
"Channels" is a very special piece of work. it is funny, romantic and beautifully quite profound. Questions were posed that I suppose I've had passing thoughts about, but "Channels" brought them to the surface for me by pulling me in to the story.
It was directed and written by Nat Christian, who did quite an artistic job of putting all of these moments together. His vision imbued the movie with a poetry, or maybe a lyrical quality that was quite appealing.
The cinematography by Michael Hardwick very much helped capture this vision as did the nice production design by Dolores Piazza. Duane Condor gave the movie some haunting Visual Effects. The musical score by Rossano Galante is quite marvelous. And there is a cool song written by Daryl Orenge, with Christian providing the lyrics.
The actors all were wonderful. Ed Asner is fantastic in a cameo appearance and is funny at times. John Kassir, famous for his character roles and "voices", gives his very fine talents as a manager. Taylor Negron, who normally plays goofy characters, does a really nice job and comes off quite sincere in this. Joan Van Ark is also sincere and appealing while keeping her character tough.
The lead character is played by wonderfully talented Kim Oja. She's really fun to watch and, in the moments when she loosens up, she sort of reminds of an old movie actress, Carole Lombard.
Christian plays the lead character with a powerfully nuanced performance. In his subtle looks and gestures, we know what is going on with him. I would like to see more of this compelling actor.
And I would like to see more movies like "Channels", and that's what the energy out there feels like.
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Very clever and entertaining
I'm just starting to review what I see. I generally like independent movies, primarily because I got tired of paying high prices at the movie theaters and then getting burned (because of the heavy amount the studios apparently spend on promoting a movie)
I did however, see three movies just recently. One of them was Slumdog Millionaire.
I really liked this movie. I thought the concept was clever and the direction was superb. I'm a little confused on who directed what, because IMDb has two directors listed. If that is so, then both Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan have done a marvelous job.
All of the actors were believable and did a great job.
The music and editing kept it going at a fast pace. And all of the visuals were an eye opener for me
I do recommend.