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Connor3820
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Touch (2011)
Touching indie
I understand the negative views, but only to an extent. This is one of those scripts that in the right hands (Jacques Audiard or Lynne Ramsay come to mind) and with a larger budget and name actors, would earn critical acclaim. The acting is serviceable and it looks like it was shot 30fps on a camcorder or early digital, but the story/writing/characterization is all there. Love an unconventional friendship narrative that brings two very different people together, without feeling unnatural and contrived. This is a solid movie with a unique, original, and touching story.
Anyways I saw this on Netflix and was reminded how much I liked it years ago. Appreciate it for its very unique strengths. I hope it gets it's day in the sun now that it's steaming.
Uncut Gems (2019)
Uncut Gems doesn't quite cut it.
The parts are greater than the sum. Limited spoilers, but as with the previous Safdie film, there really is no through line. I felt it could have kept up its pacing with about 30 minutes cut from it. Would have been much more "relentless" and "enthralling" as I'm sure others have put it if so. Sandler is good, since he is truly a great actor. He makes scenes which could have felt forced run seamlessly. A huge part of his character has to do with downplaying the intensity of the situation to calm the people around him, and he does a great job. A big part of great acting is forgetting you're watching an actor, and in several moments I did completely. The movie is fun and at times kinetic, but it feels self and wanders. Overall, I had a decent time, but it lacks the structure and depth it painfully attempts to convey, which at times is painfully obvious.
Crawl (2019)
Alligators eat people and Barry Pepper has a goatee
Is the writing good? No. Do alligators eat people? Yes. It's a well shot reasonably tense alligators putting people in peril movie and I was thoroughly entertained.
Detachment (2011)
Pretentious, Contrived.
I had high expectations for this film. Tony Kaye had not come out with one since the excellent "American History X" almost 15 years ago, In which he took on some very controversial issues and made a very ambitious and thought provoking look at how racism effects individuals. With "Detachment" it's as if he tried to one-up his last film, which resulted in a pretentious, contrived roller coaster of emotions and extreme characters. This film is a fine example of simply too much going on. The film is well cast, but that doesn't save a bad storyline. Stylistically the film must have been shot on a DSLR, and it looks as if the operator walked around with it freely in his hands for most of the movie, due to shaky camera work.We have numerous characters that are all dealing with what would seem to be their rock bottom. Instead of taking a few characters and delving into what brought them to this point, we have a movie that goes 0-60 in the opening scenes and stays that way throughout the whole film. There is no down time, it's just a constant bombardment of extreme conditions and emotions, which just doesn't feel real and is definitely not wholly believable. The reason I didn't give it a lower rating than I did is because It kept my attention the whole way through, but it wasn't for the right reasons.
Apocalypto (2006)
Did anyone else get the impression gets off on violence?
people being beheaded, hearts cut out, some guy eating pig balls, bodies and heads holling down stars, arrows in the face, spurting arteries, some guys face being gruesomely munched away by a jaguar. I don't mind violence at all but i sometimes wonder gibsons' motive in his movies since all of them are quite gruesome. I know he is trying to portray the times but his films aren't even historically accurate. Cortez landed about 600 years after the mayans fell and in a different part of the world. So do you think Gibson gets off on violence or what?
"if i had a nickel for every time i heard that, then boy id have a shitload of nickels"
American History X (1998)
great movie
One of my top 3 movies if not my favorite. Edward Norton and Edward Furlong give flawless performances and are very believable. I like how they portrayed Norton as a white supremacist. Not as a redneck but as a normal guy whose life is changed by a dramatic event, which leads him to join a skinhead group and later challenges his beliefs. Although the movie is brutal and very graphic, It goes along with the plot unlike some slasher movie just about gore. There is a reason to the violence and it shows during the course of the movie. This movie is not for the easily offended but I would recommend it to anyone that appreciates good cinema and enjoys films that make you think.