Gideon58's Reviews

#1. Stop shouting movie titles at us. Using all capital letters on the internet is the same as shouting and putting them in bold only makes it worse. The standard formatting for movie titles is italics.

#2 Use pictures. You can add images using the code that Masterman posted (simply paste the url from the desired image into the space where he typed "insert picture link here" or you can click on the little picture icon in the reply window (looks like mountains with a sun over them). You can also upload images directly to the forums using the paperclip icon in the reply box.

#3 Use a standard rating system. You can use the popcorn ratings built into the forum using the same basic code format that Masterman posted, only replace "img" with "rating" and put a number in between (0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, and 5 all work). Or you can just use a ratio like 3/5 or 7/10 or whatever system you want to use that is easy to read and understand.

__________________

#4 Title your reviews. At the very least, list the movie title before you begin your review. Some of these posts don't even tell people what movie you're talking about until halfway through the review.

Good stuff guys. I want to remind everyone that we've got people of all sorts of ages and varying levels of technical savvy, though, so patience is always a good policy. That said, these are really great suggestions that will definitely make the reviews--which are good!--even more appealing.

OK, where do I start? Where do I get the "desired image" of which you speak? Where do you locate images you want to upload? Is the URL from Wikipedia? I don't understand these instructions at all, you can hurl all the bitchy comments you want, but these instructions are as clear as mud to me. Like Denzel Washington kept saying in Philadelphia, talk to me like I'm a five year old and really break down these instructions for me, one step at a time.

Go to google images and search for the pic you want. Click view image, and copy the URL.

__________________

Gideon, what's a movie you would like for your Avatar.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Go to http://www.google.com/imghp

Then type in the name of the movie (and preferably also the year it was made) you want to use pictures from.

You'll see a lot of images then. Select one you like, click on "view image" and copy the url (select it and ctrl+c) from that image. Then go to this forum and copy the url in your post. Like this:

[img]"put url link from the image between this"[/img]

(add the img-tags yourself)

Then your post will contain the image you've selected.

For an avatar (a picture under your profile name when you post), you click on "User PC", which you can find somewhere on top of the home page of this forum. Then you click on "edit avatar" (which you can see on your left) and then you find an image on google again (like I've explained above) that isn't too big and copy it under "Option 1 - Enter the URL to the Image on Another Website". Then you click on "save changes" and you'll have an image appearing under your name whenever you post on this forum!

I hope this helps a little.

__________________
Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019

Copy this:

http://www.unsungfilms.com/wp-conten...a-woolf_01.jpg

Then go to user cp at the top of page. Click edit avatar and them paste it in box.

That's the wrong shape--it'll zoom in and just become a picture of the top half. Look for something significantly wider than it is tall. Maybe like this:

http://prod.entertainment.telly.sky....inia-Woolf.jpg

EDIT: I thought you mean for a Profile Banner. Might work okay for an avatar.

1994's Ed Wood is director Tim Burton's affectionate valentine to 1950's Hollywood and more specifically to Edward D. Wood Jr., a third rate movie director who carved a niche for himself in cinema history as the creator of such schlock classics as Plan 9 from Outer Space and Glen or Glenda..

For my money, this film is Burton's masterpiece and the best of his collaborations with Johnny Depp, primarily because it breaks some of the rules that have come to be associated with this genre. Number one, the subject of the film is not someone who was considered a groundbreaker or innovator in his field and outside of serious film buffs, is someone most people have never even heard of and secondly, the film doesn't paint its subject in a completely flattering light. Wood is presented here as a three-dimensional human being, warts and all, but more importantly, he is presented as a man who had an all-consuming passion for what he did and often took shortcuts, told lies, and hurt people who cared about him to make his dream a reality.

Johnny Depp gives an exuberant and charismatic performance as the title character, a man who really wasn't very good at what he did, but had a mad passion for it. Martin Landau won a richly deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as actor Bela Lugosi, the actor whose comatose career was briefly revived by Wood, which blossomed into a genuine friendship between the two. It is this friendship that forms the crux of what happens in this film. Depp beautifully conveys Wood's love and respect for Lugosi and watching Wood's denial about Lugosi's drug addiction is touching. Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Bill Murray, and George the Animal Steele are also featured as people positively and negatively affected by their presence in Ed Wood's orbit.

Beautiful black and white cinematography and exquisite attention to period detail are icing on the cake in Burton and Depp's respectful salute to a forgotten period in cinema and one of its most forgotten denizens. 8.5/10

Attachments

     

Dave is a winning political comedy that offered Kevin Kline one of the best roles of his career as Bill Mitchell, the President of the United States, who happens to get terribly ill and eventually slips into a coma.

Mitchell's staff determines that this health crisis could not have happened at a less convenient time, so instead of going public with the President's condition, the staff manages to convince the owner of a temporary employment agency (also played by Kline) to step in as the President, a ruse that works until Dave's agendas upon assuming the office differ from the President's and when the First Lady (Sigorney Weaver) figures out who Dave really is.

There's a lot you have to swallow here...such as the fact that there is a John Doe out there who looks exactly like the President of the United States and that it takes the First Lady as long as it does for her to figure out what's going on. If you can accept these elements of the premise, the film does work.

Kline delivers a rich performance as Dave pretending to be the President and that's the key to the effectiveness of the performance...the fact that Kline's Dave never forgets that he's Dave and not President Mitchell. Weaver brings a warmth and intelligence to the role of the First Lady that the script doesn't provide and makes it very easy to accept the fact that Mrs. Mitchell begins to experience genuine feelings for Dave.

Ben Kingley, Kevin, Dunn, Charles Grodin, Faith Prince, Ving Rhames, and especially Frank Langella offer solid support to the stars and Ivan Reitman's direction is crisp and inventive. A winning comedy. 7.5/10

Attachments

     

Glad to see you sorted your Avatar.

The undeniable comic chemistry between Tina Fey and Amy Poehler was displayed to positive advantage in Baby Mama, a somewhat predictable but very entertaining 2008 comedy which stars Fey as a workaholic executive, who longs to have a baby and is unable to, who hires a nutsy but fertile woman (Poehler) to be her surrogate. The ladies agreement is disrupted by Poehler's common-law husband (Dax Shepherd) who plans to bilk Fey out of her money even though the pregnancy doesn't take and Fey's new relationship with a small business owner (Greg Kinnear).

The story is about as predictable as they come but the film is immensely watchable due to the well-oiled comedic machine that is Fey and Poehler. Poehler is especially funny here, displaying a gift for physical comedy that brings Lucille Ball to mind and though I never buy the budding romance between Fey and Kinnear, it doesn't detract from the film's entertainment value.

Shepherd has some funny moments as Poehler's slimey guy, as do Steve Martin as a client of Fey's and SIgnorney Weaver as the fertile operator of the surrogacy clinic that brings Fey and Poehler together. No classic, but Fey and Poehler deinifely make it worth checking out. 7/10

Attachments

   

Friends with Benefits is a 2011 romantic comedy that works SO hard at not being a cliche romantic comedy that it is exactly what it turns out to be.

The film stars Mila Kunis as Jamie, a Manhattan-based head hunter, who convinces an art director from Los Angeles named Dylan (Justin Timberlake) to accept a job as the art director at the New York offices of GQ magazine and though there is an instant attraction between the two, both are gun-shy having recently gone through bad breakups and having seen way too many romantic comedies. Eventually they do agree to see each other after agreeing to a sex-only, no-strings arrangement.

We can see where this is going about 20 minutes in and that's exactly the problem...the film makes a big deal about how predictable romantic comedies are and how real relationships are not the gay-hearted romps we see at the movies. Our main characters even discuss what kind of music that plays during certain scenes in certain movies, but the message is shoved down our throats ad nauseum, to the point that the film becomes exactly the kind of film it is trying to make fun of.

It's a very predictable journey and a very LONG one...the screenplay definitely could have used some tightening. A film this predictable has no business being this long.

The film does have its good points...there is a certain amount of chemistry between the stars and they both look good naked. The opening scene where the leads break up with their exes (Emma Stone, Andy Samberg) is very cleverly written and edited as is Dylan and Jamie's first sexual encounter, where they recite their one night stand rules to each other.

There are some funny moments provided by Woody Harrelson as Dylan's gay co-worker and Patricia Clarkson as Jamie's oversexed mother and there is a heartbreaking turn by the wonderful Richard Jenkins as Dylan's dad, who is battling Alzheimers and not happy about it at all. There is also beautiful use of New York and Los Angeles locations, including a rather cliched scene on the Hollywood sign. Though the film works very hard at being the "anti-romantic comedy" for people who hate romantic comedies, it doesn't succeed and the failure takes way too long. 5.5/10

Attachments

     

The Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow rep company scored a near bullseye with 2008's Pineapple Express, an overly-complex, but raunchy stoner movie that provides major laughs and presents funny yet believable characters just barely within the realm of reality.

Seth Rogen stars as the perpetually stoned Dale Denton, a process server who ends up going on the run with his pot dealer (James Franco) after witnessing a murder while smoking a joint.

Rogen and co-screenwriter Evan David Goldberg had a solid comic nucleus with this simple story and actors, but Rogen and Goldberg throw in some underdeveloped subplots involving Dale's sexual relationship with a high school student and the history behind an alleged drug empire, which included experiments on a new strain of marijuana, evidenced here in a hilarious cameo by former SNL cast member Bill Hader as the guinea pig.

Despite a story that is a little hard to follow at times and the accustomed overlength for this rep company, the actors deliver the goods for the most part. Rogen actually seems a little reined in so that James Franco could garner the majority of the laughs in an over-the-top characterization that practically steals the movie. Gary Cole and Rosie Perez score as the villains of the piece and there' a big score from Ed Begley Jr. and Nora Dunn as Dale's girlfriend's parents,

Rogen and Goldberg got it right for the most part here, I just wish they hadn't thought about it so much. 7.5/10

Attachments

     

Neil Simon and director Robert Moore followed up their 1976 triumph Murder by Death with an on-target jab at the film noir genre and of the work of Humphrey Bogart in particular with The Cheap Detective, a lavishly produced comedy that takes place in 1940's San Francisco and involves treasure, Nazis and other varied mysteries encountered by private eye Lou Peckinpaugh (Peter Falk), who is basically just a retread of Falk's character in Murder by Death but no one channels Bogart better than Falk and film audiences ate it up, making it one of 1978's biggest hits.

Needless to say, Falk has the Bogart thing down to a science and, like Murder by Death, he is backed up by an impressive supporting cast including Eileen Brennan, Ann-Margret, Sid Ceasar, Dom DeLuise, Stockard Channing, Madeline Kahn, James Coco, Phil Silvers, John Houseman, and, of course, Mrs. Neil Simon at the time, Marsha Mason.

Simon's screenplay for The Cheap Detective is a little more complex than Murder by Death, but Moore mounts it on a lavish canvas and draws performances from the all-star cast that don't just entertain, they serve the story. But be assured that SImon cements his position as king of the cinematic one-liner and this very talented cast and director deliver the goods. 7.5/10

Attachments

   

A romantic comedy that got by quite a few moviegoers during its original release, The Truth About Cats and Dogs is a 1996 comedy which could be considered a distaff re-thinking of Cyrano de Bergerac, not up to the quality of Steve Martin's Roxanne, but a fun and smart film that should have made a genuine movie star out of its leading lady.

The film stars stand-up comedienne Janeane Garafalo as Abby, the host of the radio call-in show of the title, who almost simultaneously connects with a handsome dog owner named Brian (Ben Chaplin) who calls her show and a beautiful neighbor named Noelle (Uma Thurman) who has just escaped an abusive relationship. When Brian shows up at the radio station to thank Abby for the advice he gave her on the air, a frightfully insecure Abby asks Noelle to pretend to be Abby, but immediately regrets it when she realizes that Brian is sincerely smitten with Noelle's personality, which is really Abby's but Abby is scared that she will scare Brian off when he finds out she doesn't look like Noelle.

This comedy sucks us in right from the beginning because the character of Abby is immensely likable and, as an observer to the goings-on, we don't understand Abby's insecurity about herself and we're certain she and Brian would be instant soulmates. However, the story aggravates as we realize that as much as he loves Abby's personality, he is also smitten by the package wrapped around it in Noelle. Even Noelle, not the brightest bulb in the row, realizes it is Abby that Brian wants but can't convince Abby to come clean.

Audrey Well's screenplay is clever and serves its cast well. Garafalo is an absolute revelation in the role of Abby, her first leading screen role...sort of a Streisand for the 90's, the gal who may not be a raving beauty, but has enough brains and wit to make her looks seems not so important. Garafalo's performance here should have made her an instant movie star, but mysteriously, it didn't. Uma Thurman brings a substance to the role of the empty-headed Noelle that really isn't in the screenplay and Ben Chaplin is a very sexy leading man, a guy who thinks he's torn between two women, but really isn't. The scene where Garafalo and Chaplin have an all-night phone conversation is wonderful but further aggravates us as we wonder why Brian seems oblivious to the fact that the voice of radio Abby is different than the voice of Noelle/Abby and the fact that he accepts Abby's explanation that she uses a "radio voice" is kind of hard to swallow, but I digress.

The film is funny and smart and kept me interested until the final reel because, refreshing for a contemporary film comedy, the ending isn't really foreshadowed. A romantic comedy with a one-of-a-kind lead character that will charm and endear her to you. 7.5/10

Attachments

     

Writer/director David O. Russell, who first caught my attention with Three Kings hit a bullseye and created his masterpiece with Silver Linings Playbook, a quietly intense, strikingly original, and blistering drama that simultaneously tells a fascinating story and affords the viewer the opportunity to imagine the backstory without ever taking our focus away from what is happening on the screen. I haven't seen anything this original on the screen since Being John Malkovich.

The 2012 film stars Bradley Cooper as Pat Solatano Jr., a former teacher who apparently had a mental/emotional meltdown of such intensity that he lost his job, his ex-wife divorced him and put out a restraining order against him, got banned from the school where he worked, and was committed to a mental institution. As the story unfolds, Pat is being released from the institution, thanks to his mother, after eight months and against medical advice and moves in with his parents, with one mission on his mind and one only: to reconcile with his ex-wife Nikki. Enter Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a friend of a friend of Nikki's, with issues of her own, who is aware of Pat's obsession with Nikki and uses it to her advantage to get what she wants from Pat, which turns out to be more than she thought and is in deep denial about.

Russell's Oscar nominated screenplay based on a novel by Matthew Quick, fascinates because despite the fact that the two lead characters speak without filters and are searingly honest about their feelings, while at the same time, we are never told exactly what happened eight months earlier that actually landed Pat in the institution and I found my imagination running wild trying to imagine exactly what Pat had done. As a matter of fact, as I watching the film at one point, I actually said to myself regarding the character of Pat that this guy speaks without filters and about five minutes later, the character actually said the exact same thing onscreen. I loved the fact that even though Pat does speak without filters, he never revealed exactly what he did to land him in his current position and is in complete denial about the fact that Nikki no longer wants anything to do with him.

Russell's direction, which also got him an Oscar nomination, is on the money, particularly in his depiction of the the other characters in Pat's orbit. It was so fascinating to watch the reaction of people in Pat's Philadelphia neighborhood to his return...every time the slightest noise comes from the house, all of the neighbors pop out of their windows to see what's going on. There's a great moment where Pat briefly returns to the school where he taught in an effort to get his job back and we see a teacher literally run into the building in terror when she sees him coming. Again, it forces the viewer to wonder what the hell this guy did that prompted this kind of reaction from a former co-worker. We notice throughout that people are either frightened of Pat or walk on eggshells around him and this is done without dialogue for the most part, and that can only be credited to evocative direction.

Bradley Cooper turned in the performance of his career, that should have won him an Oscar, as Pat, a tragic figure trying to start his life over without really facing the demons of his past and his inability to accept the fact that his ex-wife wants nothing to do with him. Jennifer Lawrence won the Oscar for Outstanding Lead Actress for her explosive Tiffany, a character whose vulnerability is only overshadowed by her unpredictability...you NEVER know what this girl is going to do from one moment to the next and that's what makes the character so fascinating to watch.

Robert De Niro and Jackie Weaver also received supporting actor nominations for their performances as Pat's parents, people who are so consumed with love for their son that they too seem to be in denial about the fact that they might have checked Pat out of the institution prematurely. De Niro has rarely been so quietly moving onscreen and Weaver is just superb and should have won Best Supporting Actress. Mention should also be made of the performances of John Ortiz and Chris Tucker as friends of Pat from the inside and the outside who support him no matter what. This is the closest thing to an actual human being that Tucker has ever played.

A one-of-a-kind motion picture that will haunt long after the credits roll and demand multiple viewings. 9/10

Attachments

       

The Blind Side is the 2009 biographical drama that examines the relationship between a wealthy socialite named Leigh Ann Tuohy and a homeless teenager named Michael Oher, who would eventually go on to a successful career in college football and would be the 2009 round one draft pick by the Baltimore Ravens.

The film is supposed to be about the relationship between these two central characters; however, their relationship is not the primary focus of the film, as it should be, which is the main reason the film doesn't really work as it should.

Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for Outstanding Lead Actress for her performance as Leigh Ann, a strong-willed matriarch with a heart as big as all outdoors who sees Michael walking on a deserted road in the rain one night and, upon learning he has no place to stay, decides to take him in and it is the slow burn of the relationship between Leigh Ann and Michael that is supposed to be the heart of this story; unfortunately, I found the relationship that develops between Michael and Leigh Ann's son, SJ, a lot more compelling than his relationship with Leigh Ann.

I also think the film loses points for trying to encompass a little too much. The film begins to veer off track as we watch Leigh Ann being mocked by her high society girlfriends and watch Michael being tracked down by the NAACP when Leigh Ann's motives for helping Michael come into question. Writer director John Lee Hancock should have kept the focus of his screenplay where it seems to belong...on Leigh Ann's dedication to helping Michael carve out a new life for himself via a career in college football. Despite the fact that the basis of her inspiration for him lies in some kind of test he took where he allegedly made high scores in the category of "protective instincts." I went to high school and college and don't remember ever having taken any kind of test regarding "protective instincts", though it does provide the impetus for one of Bullock's best moments in the film, where she interrupts Michael's troublesome football practice by offering familial analogies to help Michael do what he has to do on that field.

The fact that this story is based on real people and events also had me questioning certain parts of the story and their credibility, which easily could have been glossed over or altered for the sake of a more entertaining story. I find it a little hard to believe that Leigh Ann's husband and family were so immediately accepting of Leigh Ann's decision to bring this stranger into their home. I also found it troubling that before beginning proceedings to become Michael's legal guardian that Leigh Ann actually went to Michael's crack-addicted mother to let the woman know what her plans were and the fact that Leigh Ann wasn't troubled by the fact that the woman wasn't terribly upset by the news was also troubling.

Sandra Bullock gives a solid performance as Leigh Ann and I understand to a point why she won the Oscar...it was her turn I guess, but personally, I think Bullock has done better work. For the record though, I LOVE Bullock as a blonde.

Country singer Tim McGraw charms as Leigh Ann's wealthy husband, who just seems to go along with everything Leigh Ann wants a little too easily and I find it hard to believe that the real Sean Tuohy was as easy going about this whole thing as the character in the movie is. Quinton Aaron is refreshingly natural as Michael as is Jae Head as young SJ. Mention should also be made of a very entertaining performance by Ray McKinnon as Michael's high school football coach, who is initially baffled by Michael but loved taking credit for everything he did.

John Lee Hancock had a very Oscar-baity story here that he is only partially successful in presenting. Despite problems in story construction and improper focus on character relationships, the film is worth checking out, but it is not everything that it has been made out to be.

Attachments