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Ferdinand2000
Reviews
The Holiday (2006)
poorly done
Everyone says "its a chick flick" as if that excuses everything. But this is a poorly done "chick flick" with none of the charm of its obvious inspiration, "Love Actually." I can live with a predictable plot, but do me the courtesy of dropping the utter schlock. Jude Law does a good job, but his character is just TOO perfect. He's good looking, sensitive, a good father, a "book editor", charming, funny, kind, and "has had a hard life" (he's a widower don't you know), and lives in a charming country mansion, with two well behaved charming children. The "director" is also "too perfect", sure he's a curmudgeon, but he's got moxy! Overall just very boring and trite.
Welkkeom tu Dongmakgol (2005)
Charming
Charming feel good story set during the Korean War. Hard to believe but true! The characters are easy to identify with, and draw you into the story. They are fairly believable, with the slight exception of the North Korean commander who seems perhaps too heroic. It verges on being trite or cheesy at times, idolizing the "quaint" village, but for the most part stays away from that. The film is even handed in its treatment of all sides in this war, other than perhaps the military command, as it is quite anti-war. There is a bit of violence and gore, so it isn't for young children. I would recommend this to anyone; go in expecting a fairly romanticized comedy and you shouldn't be disappointed.
Mongjunggi (2002)
Ridiculous but funny
I found this to be an unusually irreverent film by Korean standards, which was quite a relief. As a non-Korean I found some of it hard to understand and seriously off the wall, but this added to the charm. For all of the misses (like the girls who chew up razors and spit them at the boys....) there were many truly hilarious scenes (like the boy's parents horrified reaction to his white-out shaking). Keep in mind, that obviously if you don't like sexual humour you will not find if funny. The sexual humour does have a level of innocence in it that will probably win over people turned off by "gross" humour. The production values are not excellent, and the editing is a bit choppy. Fortunately not much time is wasted on plot intricacies or melodrama, so this movie isn't weighed down, keeps moving along and is fun if you're in the mood for light fluff.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
One of the worst movies ever made
Temple of Doom was truly one of the worst things I've ever had to sit through. Somehow it seems to have hit every cliché, stereotype, and bad movie technique without meaning to, or being aware of it. The lack of any sense of shame makes it completely intolerable. The characters are all, except Indiana Jones, annoying. (Especially that kid who alway yells "Dr. Jones!")
Sometimes a stupid movie can redeem itself by refusing to take itself too seriously. Sadly this does not happen here. The presentation of the "native tribe" is really pathetic. Cliché and horribly dated, even for the 1980s.
The action scenes are overly long, done before, and boring. The "roller coaster" scene is completely implausible, and feels like it was designed specifically so that a video game could be produced easily.
Terrible. Just terrible.
Camp (2003)
Super Corny
Its been a long time since I saw such a pile of corn. If they were trying to be "campy" they didn't do a very good job, so overall it just winds up being really predictable and boring unless you really like song and dance numbers.
Any conflict that ever appears is quickly wrapped up and dealt with in a very superficial manner, and most of the situations are wildly unbelievable and clichéd.
Some of the jokes are kind of funny, once, but they are few and far between so as not to get in the way of the "drama" or the music. Overall maybe 4/10.
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Acceptable for a night out
I might have had high expectations since all of the newspapers are gushing about this one, but I was fairly disappointed. I was led to believe that it was a really good movie, not just a good blockbuster, which is what it actually is. Its not nearly as stupid as most summer blockbusters, so for that we can be somewhat grateful.
However, the dialogue is truly terrible and corny. The love story is also all too predictable and stilted. There's absolutely nothing unexpected, and the plot involving Octavius is plain stupid.
On the plus side, the action was well done, and left at a manageable level, not overwhelming the movie. It made some attempt at portraying real human beings even if they weren't that interesting. In the end though, probably a good compromise between 12 year olds and the rest of us.
EuroTrip (2004)
Better than you might think...
This movie looks as stupid as they come in the trailers. In many ways it is, but it beat my low expectations for its quality. On the downside the cliches are sometimes a bit much (the hooligans, eastern european slums, amsterdam's cafes) but they are generally light hearted and amusing enough that they are forgiven.
On the plus side the 4 American heroes have more humanity and are less stereotyped than you would expect. One of them actually has a vague knowledge of German, and they don't have too many preconceived notions about Europe, except to think that Europeans are all sex crazed, and since this is a teen sex romp, what can you expect.
The jokes are less gross and more original than I had expected, though this is obviously no family flick. There is much more nudity in this movie than in most popular American films.
Basically it is fun, and not as dumb as similar teen films. Quite similar to American Pie, though not as gross, and not quite as funny.