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donalexei
Reviews
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Decent comedy/film-noir/thriller
Well I have to say I was hoping for something a little better. I had heard about the snappy, fun and well-written dialogue and was hoping to get some. What I got were mixed feelings about the film.
In 2005, it's difficult to bring about a mix of comedy and action/film-noir, with plots that twist and turn to make your spin and keep it original, what with the high quality of films such as Snatch or Pulp Fiction. Here, the scriptwriters have thought of transposing all the clichés of the film-noir genre (bodies, twisted stories, mean gunmen) to an actual Hollywood setting and poking fun at them all the way.
Robert Downey Jr. plays Harry Lockhart, a nice guy who made the wrong decisions, fell in love with the wrong girl, and suddenly got the wrong job. He is our narrator, and the director seams to have had fun playing around with that idea. A couple of times the film stops because the narrator forgot to tell us something or needs to change the decor a bit (I liked the part where he moves those two blokes out of the way). This sort of works, but there again the problem is we've already had our share of mythical film narrators (Alex de Large and Fight Club's "The Narrator" spring to mind) and here there seems to be a bit too much importance given to the "cool" narrative ideas which punctuate the movie, giving it a sort of cocky feel. A film that thinks it's better and more original than it actually is. Also, Downey's acting got sort of annoying sometimes, with his unsteady, jerky way of talking which felt a little overdone. The acting in general looks as if the actors themselves were having a good time, but were they thinking a lot about their audience? At some points, it looked as if the film was taking itself a little too seriously. I know this is a spoof and it's not meant to be, but still it's the impression I got.
All in all Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a film which has its good moments, but isn't very satisfying when you're looking for something a bit more original, better written, and less cocky and self-assured. Persoally I would watch Lock Stock anytime again than watching this one again.
Cars (2006)
By far the worst Pixar film
I'm sorry, I just didn't like it at all. First of all there's the opening race : boring, it's way too long, it's just to show off clean special effects. Then there's the story, one of the most simplistic ans sentimentalist ever. Okay ! it's a film for children, great, but when it just has some crappy predictable and moralistic end (they're teaching our children that friendship is a good thing). I mean, compare that with Toy Story, or even Snow White, and you see that films for children can be superb without having to give a pompous lesson, some of the scenes really made me feel sick (the hero and his gal riding in the forest with silly music, pathetic). AND it's not even that funny, the scripwriterS (yes, more than one) only managed to crack about five jokes in two long hours of SFX and cheesy romance. The only good thing about it was the thing about small towns being cut off from the world because of a big motorway that had been recently built.
Casino (1995)
A realistic and brutal painting of the Mafia in Las Vegas
I liked this film a lot, it made me want to see all the rest of Scorsese's work. I had already seen Taxi Driver and Raging Bull when I saw Casino. Casino is only slightly inferior to Raging Bull, Taxi Driver being altogether the best, but Casino takes Scorsese back to his roots : the Mafia, although instead of having his native city New York as a setting, this time he chooses Las Vegas, with the casinos and (obviously) the cash. The story is roughly based on true authentic anecdotes from the 70s. It's about a master of gambling, Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert de Niro), hired by the Mafia to control a casino, the Tangiers. He meets and marries a respected prostitute, Ginger (Sharon Stone), and one of his old friends, Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), comes into town. The actors are excellent, Robert de Niro is just perfect as usual, Joe Pesci plays his usual small, but completely out of control, violent gangster and Sharon Stone is as beautiful as ever, getting less and less when she starts to drink and take drugs...things start well for the couple, but "no one stays at the top forever"...
A great film, with superb travelings and shoulder-held camera-work by the director. The film is violent. I saw it when I was 14 but that's just me, so if you've never seen an R-rated movie or an 18 (UK), don't start with this one.
Arsène Lupin (2004)
the plot is told very badly, in a complicated way.
I really didn't like this film, the actors aren't so bad, but the story is so twisted and boring and the director has managed to complicate it so much so uselessly that I really wanted to get out of the cinema (although I had been invited by a friend of mine).
The only actual good bit of the film was the exterior sets of Paris, well done on screen (I live in Paris).
The music is barely there and when it is, you want to block you're ears.
So really, if you ever want to see this film because you want to improve your french or something, go and see a Clouzot or a Truffaut, otherwise you'll be just wasting your time.
I'm giving this film 3/10 because I'm on holiday and in a good mood.
The Patriot (2000)
The Patriot = pretentious-americanized-Hollywoodish-crap = waste of time
The Patriot wasn't bad at the start but we really have to get the usual handful of slow motion scenes where brave, daring, kind hero Mel Gibson beats up a guy who killed his son, to then get up with a stupid determined exaggerated expression on his face and runs into a the middle of a battle with an American flag (cough). OK, so the action scenes are alright but that can't make up for the whole film.
Of course there's a really mean English baddie (oh it's an American film remember). The whole thing is nearly a joke, the French are ridiculous sterootypes and there isn't one good Enlgishman in the whole overlong boring film the Patriot (crap title) is.