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David & Layla (2005)
Boring, full of ethnic and gender stereotypes
This film's idea has promise -- romance between Muslim & Jew in New York, families dead-set-against the star-crossed lovers, refugee facing deportation, etc. But the execution is horrible, and seems to have milked every ethnic and gender stereotype there is.
David comes across as a shallow an unsympathetic character... with an every worse girlfriend (pre-Layla). She treats him as a sex object (the classic 1950s-stereotype, just with genders reversed), he lacks any sense of responsibility, and 5 minutes after bad sex she throws him out. Yawn.
David's family are shown as fitting the 1950s stereotypes of Jewish Americans all too well. Parents overeager for wedding, bad jokes about plastic surgery, etc. Yawn.
Then we meet Layla... who is shown as a sensuous middle-Eastern dancer, dark and mysterious... but facing deportation from the US. She stars in the one good scene we saw, where David (doing sidewalk interviews for his TV show) accosts her on the sidewalk and asks her about her sex life. She responds by slapping him and walking away.
I watched this with my husband on netflix instant-play, and after 10 or 15 minutes we were so bored we stopped the movie. For once we're in complete agreement on our rating: 1/10
Now that we've seen at least the start of this film, the IMDb user review by "b s" ("don't fall for it ... incompetent script meets cardboard characters", 19 Feb 2008) seems all too true.
River Queen (2005)
good plot, FANTASTIC cinematography, strong characters
Wow. The cinematography in this movie is truly FANTASTIC. There are lots of truly incredible scenes of the natural beauty of New Zealand's north island. We were very impressed with the camera-work in the scenes where the flags ripple underwater, looking like blood. According to the credits (and the Wikipedia article) it was all filmed on location. And the music is haunting and is still running through my head 24 hours after seeing the movie.
Even after traveling to Mauri (native) territory and saving the Mauri chief's life, our heroine is presented as very Pakea (white) in culture and outlook, telling her son she wants to take him to "our home" with the settlers. We found it less than plausible that she wouldn't have expected her 13-year-old son's identification with the Mauri life after 6 years of living with his Mauri grandfather, and by his wanting to go to war (had she never met any teenage boys before?).
But that said, one thing we appreciated about this movie is that it didn't glorify the warfare. It didn't show the full blood-and-gore, but there were plenty of dead bodies about. The ending, where the heroine looks back on the futility of the wars, is moving and poignant.
We found some of the Irish accents hard to follow, but the DVD offers subtitles.
My wife and I have no problems giving this a 10/10.
Losing Control (2011)
horrible, lame, full of every stereotype there is
This is supposed to be a romantic comedy about a female scientist who wants proof that her boyfriend is "the one".
Alas, this movie is full of every stereotype there is... and the portraits of scientific culture are implausible too.
To start with the heroine: she's shown as having a complete "life plan" written out on an oversized piece of paper, from age 6 up to her 30s. Her boyfriend seems quite nice, her purported reasons for dumping him to "play the field" make little sense.
As to her academic life, it's about as plausible as a Wiley E. Coyote cartoon: the description of her research project is very silly, she treats an important academic presentation like a school bake sale, her presentation to (supposedly) other scientific colleagues is at the elementary-school level, and her adviser seems to think that if a biotech experiment doesn't work, "scaling it up" is the magic ingredient for improvement.
Oh, and the dialog is really boring, too.
My husband and I gave up on this after about 15 minutes. For once, we agree completely on the rating: 1/10.
Marti, dupa Craciun (2010)
worst film yet (pathetic, lame, boring, tedious)
Nice opening scene, and that's it!
We meet the characters, but are never given any reason to care about what happens to them... there's no reason for one woman to love this jerk (the male lead), let alone two. No motivation is given for any of the characters' actions. All of the dialog is trite, predictable, and banal. The only bright note is a small, ordinary child, with one cute line about Barbie toys. I hope she gets to act in a better movie!
I watched this with my husband, and usually we both like foreign films (we lived in Germany for many years). But this film proves that Europeans can produce clunkers just like Hollywood.
You end up hoping they'll all be drowned in the Danube (except the kid).