Change Your Image
travbick
Reviews
Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2002)
Not as bad as rating might indicate
To be able to enjoy this movie, you first need to be open minded about digital video. You have to realize that DV will never look as pretty as film, so just get over it. That aside, the story itself is centered around three main characters, all women, who each seek freedom from the men in their lives. The strength in the film is not in the screenplay, but rather the emotion that is drawn out of the characters by the actresses themselves. Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey and Fairuza Balk each give excellent dramatic performances. However, one fault I had with the film was the fact too much background information on each character was released through narration instead of being shown through action. It seemed as if the director/writer, (Rebecca Miller daughter of famed American playwright Arthur Miller), got lazy and decided to just take up screen time quoting directly from her book. Nevertheless, I found the film enjoyable and definitely worth seeing. I rated this film 7/10.
State Property (2002)
Possibly the worst film of the hip-hop gangster cliche movie genre
First of all I find fault with the opening credits where it states that this movie is inspired by actual events. Whatever, this movie is inspired by the unimaginative imaginations of a few guys who watched Scarface one two many times and decided they wanted to live out their fantasies through film. The writing is horrible. The acting is horrible. Beanie Sigel and the other characters in his little mob are underdeveloped to the point where they all seam to be the same person. Beanie Sigel, as the main character, has absolutely no motivation for going on a murderous rampage in order to build his drug empire other than the fact that he was bored one day at a strip club. Nothing happens in this movie that makes it stand out from the others in this genre. It's exactly the same story only the names of the characters have changed. Young thug sells drugs, young thug wants more money, young thug kills many to get money, young thug expands territory gets power. You know the rest. Don't waste your time with this one. And if you're one of the idiots who actually thought this was a good movie you need to think about exposing yourself to better films so you'll know the difference between good and bad. I gave this movie a "1" only because "0" wasn't one of the choices.