Ashlevine Reviews

Amélie (2001)

Charming

[10/10 · 25 June 2006]

Visually stunning, this film is crafted by masters. Acting, directing, cinematography, production design to every other little detail has been brilliantly accomplished. A sweet story, simply and effectively told. You won't find car chases here and big explosions. What you will find is simply the beauty of seeing around you as you find your own values and your soul. The star of the film is magical. She has a remarkable energy that will keep you glued to screen. She is so beautiful on so many levels. She certainly accomplished her tasks in this film like those days of great classic stars might have. I can't wait to see what comes next from this very talented group of filmmakers.

The Family Stone (2005)

Well done!

[8/10 · 27 May 2006]

There are many stand out performances in the film including the brief appearance from Claire Danes. Two performances in particular, Sarah Jessica Parker who plays a very believable role as the tightly wound women clinging on to meaningless style of life and Diane Keaton's dying mother role that she delivered with the grace of a great actress. Through the film you can't help but wonder why are you so able to look at the insanity of other people's lives but fail to see your own. The film is touching with solid moment of really quality story telling. This is the type of film that is so rare from Hollywood. No car chases. No guns! No special effects. Only thing present in the film is great acting and wonderful story telling. Bravo!

Camp (2003)

sweet

[5/10 · 7 January 2005]

"Camp" is a sweet little thing about a summer of growth for kids with the usual impossibly professional-seeming productions emerging in nano-seconds the instant they mobilize to put on a show. At Camp Ovation, loosely based on Stagedoor Manor at Loch Shelddrake, New York, no one kills anyone, no one is seriously put upon, though the snotty, most gorgeous girl gets her come-uppance and the shy, less pretty girl (Joanna Chilcoat) ends her summer with achievements to be proud of and life back home with the possibility of a new beau. But the central tale of "Camp" is as old as the hills: The flawlessly handsome straight boy, Vlad (Daniel Letterle), whose woe turns out to be a kind of savant condition in which he translates everything in his head into numbers except when he's strumming his guitar or doing something else that makes the girls swoon, is stuck with a roommate with (ohmygod!) acne. Here's a flash: Even in the age of Accutane, some kids still have zits that go untended. This dermatologically challenged boy, Michael (Robin de Jesus), is disdained by his parents, or at least he's pretty sure that he is, and he may need a straight eye for the gay guy, since he's a drag queen, and (this is such a surprise) suffers an instant crush the minute he lays eyes on Vlad.

Cellular (2004)

huh!

[3/10 · 7 January 2005]

The film races across Los Angeles, to LAX, to Century City, back to the Pier, and the bodies pile up. A cynical take on this would be that just too many nifty coincidences and too much product placement sully the venture, but despite those debits, the film's merits are confident, un-showy acting by the leads, a gradual unraveling of the reason for the kidnappings, snappy dialogue, and Macy's laid-back but increasingly earnest performance. Noah Emmerich is on hand as a police honcho, and the city's freeways, traffic jams, many construction sites and range of Angelinos of varying degrees of civility, especially a pompous youngish lawyer whose gorgeous new blue Porsche convertible, play big parts in propelling the film forward, as does a video cam (as if a modern movie can be truly "with it" without one). The obverse of "Collateral," with its L.A. in full blues mood after dark, "Cellular" is L.A. as exemplar of what California used to be called, "golden." A sleek marriage of sleazy and snazzy.

Bad Boys II (2003)

Not too bad!

[6/10 · 7 January 2005]

The humor comprises two elements. One, the police captain (Joe Pantoliano, wearing a flattering flat-top wig that cuts a decade off his age) whose office is a repository of Buddhist imagery and who tries valiantly to contend calmly with the chaos his messiest cops inflict upon the world. At this he fails, and the attempt is funny. Pantoliano always leaves an impression - who can forget his recurring role in "The Sopranos?" - and the movie profits from his presence. The other humor is reiterative patter between the stars, comic Martin Lawrence, playing wary Marcus, who is in therapy and chants a pat mantra to ease him into a zone of acceptance when he is about ready to explode, or implode; and his life-long buddy, boys together, live or die together, something like that in their school year-book, Mike (Will Smith), who gets his charge out of risk-taking. Mike is taking a big risk dating Marcus' sister, Syd (Gabrielle Union), a Drug Enforcement Agency operative and at much risk throughout the movie

Being Julia (2004)

Intriguing!

[7/10 · 7 January 2005]

Julia is married to her manager and theater director, Michael Gosselyn (Jeremy Irons), with whom she has an arrangement. They love each other, they need each other, they thrive because of each other, but they do not lust for each other, and while we're not told so at first we glom to the likelihood that Michael goes his way for boudoir frolics and is at ease with Julia doing the same. They have a lovely son (Thomas Sturridge), whom we meet mid-way through and who, like his mother, isn't quite sure when she is acting and when not. And she has a dear friend, charming Lord Charles (Bruce Greenwood), who loves her as companion but not more, for reasons easily deduced before he explains them to Julia. Into each diva's life something dramatic must fall, regularly, and now it is an eager, albeit fairly vapid and obviously on-the-make American stud, Tom Fennell (Shaun Evans), who loves the theater, has been directed to Michael by an acquaintance, and who quickly makes clear to Julia that he not only holds her in the highest artistic esteem but wants more than anything to seal the deal with a kiss and then some.

Flight of the Phoenix (2004)

directors from hell

[2/10 · 21 December 2004]

The characters and relationships in this film are dumbed down to fit today's standards of superficiality in adventure films, blunting the tension of the original and leaving little of its nuance. Quaid plays Frank Towns, a jaded pilot ferrying oil workers in his ratty cargo craft. Frank and co-pilot AJ (Tyrese Gibson) encounter a sandstorm so ridiculously monstrous.The plane's radio antenna is sheared off and the craft goes down hundreds of miles off course, leaving the survivors no way to call for help. Passenger Elliott (Giovanni Ribisi), an aircraft designer, initially draws Frank's scorn when he suggests they can build a new plane from the wreckage of the old and fly to safety. There are occasional moments of real kinship among members of the disparate group, but the overall dynamic shallowly flits from antagonism to camaraderie and back with jarring abruptness. One minute, they all hate each other, the next, they're devoted chums. As if surviving a crash, struggling to stay alive and constructing a new plane were not drama enough, the group is needlessly menaced by smugglers on horseback. These desert rats winds up a big distraction to the movie's climactic action.

Catwoman (2004)

poor cats

[1/10 · 11 December 2004]

What we can choose, of course, is whether to waste time and money with a film written (or rather, typed) as if any old words will do, directed, by something named Pitof, as if he is more accustomed to making pizzas than movies, and acted as if each character is a mere stereotype and the actors inhabiting these creatures needn't have actual personalities. Berry saves the day by manifesting a luxuriously sexy amble and, thanks to special effects, doing the snazziest things in her feline S&M outfit. Granted, the fracas between Berry and Stone is inevitably a standard cat fight ho-hum, but what do makers of movies care? They rag on big business - will you believe that a company of awesome influence will inflict a hideously disfiguring beauty cream upon America's women and not expect within days that everyone will know and the game will be over? - because that's how the teeny weeny family businesses that are the Hollywood studios are: so furious at those mean big businesses destroying our nation - and they know if a sexy booty can be shaken, an otherwise ridiculous film may triumph.

13 Going on 30 (2004)

a cinderalla girl?

[4/10 · 11 December 2004]

She has been catapulted from 13 to 30, with magic dust involved, courtesy the 13-year-old Matt, but nothing is made of that except as an unexplained device. New York City, especially Central Park, but also every other slice of the place incorporated into the movie, seems hope-filled and easily livable, and save for Lucy there's no villain in Jenna's adult life, and even Lucy is not cast as monstrous, only as a nasty 13-year-old grown 17 years more devious. Chris, the one-time boy object of Jenna's yearning, is now a porky cab driver, and you have seen enough films to know that Matt will play a major role in Jenna's future. You don't know quite what might impede this before it is finally achieved, though I'm here to whisper in your ear, so to speak, that the device is not unique. In fact, not only is this a variation on the theme of Tom Hanks' "Big," though nowhere near as fine, it is also a strictly by-the-book version of this subset of the Cinderella story.

A Mighty Wind (2003)

mighty silly

[5/10 · 11 December 2004]

Mitch and Mickey (Eugene Levy, arguably the most adroitly drawn and unarguably the most emotionally shattered of the singers, and Catherine O'Hara) had a falling out years ago and are only with exquisite subtlety from Bob brought back together to perform. Mitch is a shell of a person, grotesquely gray-haired and untidy, inward-centered, painfully shy, miserable. The Folksmen (Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer) are in better shape but inhabit a fantasy world in which they still put out sounds worth listening to. The New Main Street Singers (John Michael Higgins, Jane Lynch and the inescapable Parker Posey) are a contemporaneously cast shadow of the original Main Street Singers. They are perky, clean, shallow, mediocre.

Closer (I) (2004)

smart

[8/10 · 8 December 2004]

"Closer," directed by Mike Nichols, is based on the hit London play of the same name. It had English critics insanely enthusiastic, was transported to Broadway and cities around the country. Now, this gem of theatre has turned from play into a movie script, directed with classy , smart, sophistication, but almost cold detachment by Nichols.

Just as the Nichols-directed "Angels in America" was a decidedly adult affair, so is "Closer," with its graphic sexual language, a raunchy, X-rated Internet flirtation (with the sort of words that would be automatically extinguished by your office computer firewalls) and detour into the world of exotic dancers. Much applause to a brilliant director.

After the Sunset (2004)

See it way after it is out on video...

[1/10 · 4 December 2004]

"After the Sunset" - Pierce Bros- nan, Salma Hayek, Woody Harrelson, Naomi Harris, Don Cheadle. Master thief Max (Brosnan) and his lovely accomplice Lola (Hayek) are retired on a paradise island. Or so they say. FBI agent Stan (Harrelson), whose tracked them there and isn't buying that for a minute, reckons that MaxÕs sights are on a fabulous diamond about to arrive on a touring cruise ship exhibition. But a local gangster (Cheadle), who also has plans for the diamond, befriends Max and now the twists and double-crosses begin. Compared to Brosnan's Õ99 "The Thomas Crown Affair," this is heist film-lite, having less-than-satisfying details and various lapses in logic. Brosnan, however, is just so cool, and Hayek breathes sexuality nonstop

Christmas with the Kranks (2004)

Flat

[4/10 · 4 December 2004]

"Christmas with the Kranks" - Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd, Cheech Marin, M. Emmet Walsh, Julie Gonzalo, Jake Busey. Luther (Allen) and Nora (Curtis) Krank, whose daughter is away in Peru, decide to forego their annual Christmas celebration and head for the Caribbean. The neighbors, however, won't hear of it. With no rooftop decorations on just one house, the usually glistening neighborhood will be in disgrace. When daughter shows up unexpectedly, the Kranks have to change plans and throw things together fast. While the film allows Christmas as a joyous holiday of basically good cheer, its tone is often cynical, artlessly showing the holiday as a tedious job dumped upon people without genuine sentiment. Allen's got a few laughs, but otherwise you'll have to go lookin'. I would save my hard earned money for a better choice.

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

The day after is just like it sounds for bread

[2/10 · 4 December 2004]

The Day After Tomorrow takes the most extreme timetables for global tragedy and ratchets them forward by a factor of 100. That's permissible for a big-budget Hollywood spectacle. The problem is that in the course of the compound cataclysms amassed by this movie, there's never a sense of how profoundly and permanently lives are impacted. And though hundreds of millions of people surely perish, there is--astonishingly--no sense of that incalculable loss. Instead, we're stuck with turgid melodrama interrupted by far too little of the dazzling f/x promised in the trailers. An Antarctic ice shelf cracks; Los Angeles is destroyed by a horde of supersized tornadoes on steroids; Tokyo is pelted with hail that is bigger than a breadbox. The worst horrors are reserved for New York City, soaked in torrential rains, then subjected to a storm surge which washes away anyone at street level. Soon the cold descends, a nasty chill which lowers temperatures at 10 degrees per second and dips down below minus 150. Hey, is that Fahrenheit or Centigrade? Guess it doesn't much matter.

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)

The kids might find it funny

[5/10 · 4 December 2004]

Animated feature with voices of Alec Baldwin, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Tambor and David Hasselhoff based on the Nickelodeon TV series, the most-watched childrenÕs TV show ever. The movie depicts the idyllic deep sea Bikini Bottom where SpongeBob flips patties at the Krusty Krab eatery. His adventure is to thwart the villainous Plankton, owner of the rival Chum Bucket, from his frame-up of SpongeBobÕs boss in stealing King NeptuneÕs crown. Neptune's daughter Missy may help, but a biker thug of terrifying Shell City does not. Like so many Saturday cartoons thrown up onto the big screen, the film is too small of purpose, theme, animation technique and characters to please any but kids and ardent followers. For others, it's a crowd of noisy shapes and unsubstantial characters occasionally saying funny things. You have to be in love with that annoying character to be able to sit through the film.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

Imagination abound

[9/10 · 17 November 2004]

From writing, acting, directing, production elements are all wonderfully melted together to create a brilliant continuation on the previous Potter series. Just the thought that this whole thing started from the point of view of a mother trying to enrich her child's life with more beauty and wonder is an astounding thought. She certainly deserves to be honored as the mother of a decade. My children and I were absolutely carried onto a journey of the mind and soul. Like all the Harry Potter series, you always felt safe knowing that no matter how tens it gets, the hero will once again emerge. But the greatness of the direction is to keep you at that edge, not to let you see the result but to enjoy the process and that was well done.

The Incredibles (2004)

Pixar is an impressive company

[10/10 · 12 November 2004]

Film after film, Pixar continues its wonderful productions. They certainly understand the importance of making films that the adults in the audience would enjoy while children laughter rings loud in the hall. This film is no exception. Pixar created characters that will clearly be very memorable and may continue to survive long after the film finishes its run. Holly Hunter was great along with all her co stars. The concept seems to be a mix of the Bond movies and a touch of True Lies. The characters have been clearly immersed in reality, even named after the stereotype mother that is in reality expected to be made of stretch material to maintain the obligations and demands of her family. The relationships of the all the characters are in so many ways very familiar with a brilliant creative edge to sustain the freshness. Well executed from every angle. Again, my hat is off to a great studio

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Fly Fly my passionate friend...

[10/10 · 10 November 2004]

This film is, in a word, amazing. The acting is superior. The direction outstanding. Michael Douglas should be very proud of this early accomplishment. The characters we meet throughout the film are very memorable, some likable, some psychotic. The film has a such a realistic style, you could be fooled into thinking you are watching a documentary. This is one of the most unforgettable films of the past years- don't miss it! For anyone who has not had the opportunity to view this film please do not hesitate. I have given this film a perfect "10" rating and I will not do that often. Very few movies deserve that rating but this one is definitely one of them.

Shark Tale (2004)

Fun with the kids

[7/10 · 28 October 2004]

It is a lot of fun to hear the voices of great actors come out from animated characters. You can always see full in your mind's eyes how each actor looked when they delivered their lines. This film is no exception. The actors must have had great time doing the voices. My children and I enjoyed the film very much. Shark tales also brings into light the good positive message that children must learn. It is a story about accepting oneself and living up to your potentials. It is about pride and true love. Those lessons are well integrated in the tapestry of the story. The animation was very good as well as the sound track.

True Lies (1994)

Very enjoyable

[8/10 · 3 October 2004]

True Lies is by far the most fun film that James Cameron and Arnie did together. You feel good about watching the film and discovering the more playful side of big Arnie. Even Tom Arnold was able to deliver a very fun and realistic performance. Jamie Curtis was right on in her execution. Playing the timid wife and rising to the sexy mistress. Well done miss curtis. The concept of the film is as enjoyable as the performances themselves. No doubt that Mr. Cameron had a lot of fun directing this one. He seemed to be a natural on the process of allowing a story to grow from a much more powerful place than science fiction.

Léon: The Professional (1994)

Wonderful

[10/10 · 10 September 2004]

I watched this film three or four times. Every time I enjoyed the film more and more. The dynamics of the relationships is so great. I have rarely seen such chemistry between actors. The sexual intensity is brilliant. It gave the simplicity of the film an utter brilliance. I once heard a producer say: Keep it simple stupid. Well this could not be any simpler but fully clothed with power and brilliance. The actors managed to embody their characters so completely. The direction is seamless and the production values were just right. I highly recommend this film to everyone who is interested in learning great film-making. My hat off to all.

Open Water (2003)

Lacks everything that makes a movie watchable.

[1/10 · 24 August 2004]

What is the big deal here? Has the concept of man eating shark not perfected more than twenty years ago? Did we not get enough of the incoming sharks when all the followers of the original Jaws(B Movies at best) came down with even better.Open Water! Is it that Sundance said this was a good film? Sundance does not know a good film if they got slapped by one in the face. Yes I have so many more questions about his so called movie. At best it is a C movie that falls short on imagination, freshness, and all.Maybe because the film-makers threw the actors with real sharks! Next time an indie film-maker with a video camera wants to make a movie about people burning, I hope the throw them in real fire...because it will make it sell! Save your money and if you really want to see sharks eating then you should watch the Discovery channel.

Romeo and Juliet (1968)

I fell in love with the actress

[10/10 · 24 August 2004]

Film-making brilliance and perfection can clearly be seen via experiencing the magic of this Romeo and Juliet. The actors seem to set right out of the screen and into your heart. You feel for them...you cry...you laugh...it a movie that you never want it to end. There are unmatched moments in this production that make you truly appreciate the filmmaker. The playful love interactions, the lips, the eyes,..everything mattered in this film and everything delivered to its max. This is one of the great films of all time and will be for ever. Magic and beauty combine to create most provocative film in the century.

Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

something wonderful about life

[10/10 · 19 August 2004]

There is something very warm, wonderful and cozy about life when you cuddle in bed some winter's night and watch this great film. It tastes better than a good nite kiss. It will leave feeling high and in great desire to fall in love. The style of the film seemed like a soft, easy listening to music while reading a wonderful book. The cast were ideal. Meg Ryan looks best in this film. Wholesome looks fits her perfectly. Tom Hanks created a fantastic reality through his downplay. Simplicity was the key that made this film very appealing. See it for the fun, stay for love.

Gladiator (2000)

very enjoyable adventure

[9/10 · 15 August 2004]

Even though Russell Crow has gained an awful reputation as a spoiled actor, his delivery in Gladiator erases it all in my mind. His consistent and admirable work pull you completely into the screen and take you on a really fun, sad, and rewarding adventure.

The art direction in this film is superior. The camera, the script, and the direction are all examples of first class work. Yet, sadly I see that some people chose to rate it as an awful film...why? Nothing about this film is done badly. Could it be jealousy? Hatred? Why can't we just be happy about great work and celebrate with those who were responsible for making it? Russell, keep up the great work.