firststreetone Reviews

Find Me Guilty (2006)

A Terrible Movie

[11 July 2006]

Sidney Lumet must be broke and entering the early stages of dementia. Why he would accept such a terrible, terrible script is beyond belief. The writing is the death of this plodding, uneven, unintelligent, sentimental and boring film. There is no dynamic here, no suspense, no movement. The editing is jagged and many scenes are totally unnecessary.

Give Mr. Diesel credit. His acting is acceptable. His daughter is good. Ron Silver is good. Alex Rocco is good and so is the actor playing Diesel's lawyer. On the other hand, the prosecutor is god-awful, as is most of the rest of the cast, especially this attempt at this gumba-feel-good-dialogue the rest of the "defendants" have been given.

If you want to see something really good in this genre, rent Paul Newman in "The Verdict", Al Pacino in "Donnie Brasco", or Henry Fonda in "12 Angry Men".

Winter Passing (2005)

Bravo Zooey!

[9/10 · 7 July 2006]

I'm only giving the movie a nine because of the brilliant performance of Zooey Deschanel. Without her (a big budget would probably cast Winona Ryder) the movie's a four.

Bravo for the attempt the script makes at authenticity (think sixties realism -Five Easy Pieces, Two Lane Blacktop, Joe) but its comes off as just another formula movie.

Will Farrell is totally miscast, Ed Harris is believable (he can do this kind of thing in his sleep) tho the script isn't. Soundtrack fits perfectly.

See it for Ms. Deschanel.

Intimacy (2001)

mixed bag

[27 March 2004]

You will very, very rarely see a film with such explicit sex made is L.A. Thats because, since long ago American filmmakers worry tons more about their rating and therefore the box office attendance.

"We better not go too far, we'll loose money" is the bottom line in Hollywood. The raw and and utterly believable sex scenes are the symbol in this independent film for the sincerity and genuine attempt by the filmmakers to tell a story about how people might really behave under certain conditions.

That being said, the story line becomes harder to accept as the plot unfolds. Even tho the acting is superb by every player, the more that happened, the more distanced I became. Conflict between characters and their motivation became just more and more unbelievable, even irritating. You see the writer pushing and pushing the storyline until you don't care about the story anymore, instead of being taken in and moved, as one should be. (In spite of the writing, the film is definitely worth seeing and nevertheless refreshing in the face of Star Vehicle Movies, Action Junk, as well as guarded and censored sex scenes that are the standard fare of Hollywood standards today).

This film was made with the sentiment of "Let's make a good movie, no holds barred, no matter what" instead of "Make a movie about whatever you want, but make sure its a hit at the box office".