The Resident Bitch's Movie Log

Charlie's Angels is better than most of Hitchcock's works? I can no longer believe a thing you say.

When did I say that the characters in Heathers had depth? I said Heathers has dark humor and sex appeal, two things that Mean Girls lacks. It also doesn't lay on the sentimentality in the end like Mean Girls does.

The Breakfast Club lays on the sentimentality, which I fully admit, but it does so with much more human characters that allow me to buy into it. Each character embodies a different stereotype, but we get a glimpse into what drives each of these people so that they aren't just caricatures of jocks, nerds, popular girls, etc. And as each character reveals more about his or herself, they are all able to empathize and identify with each other and form the bond that makes the movie.

And I'll agree that the part of Allison's makeover is the weak point of The Breakfast Club, but not weak enough to drag the movie down. It does however give Claire a chance to show her kinder side even if her actions would ultimately be misguided IRL.

I also fail to see why Cady even likes The Plastics, if she really is this "genuinely kind" person we're meant to believe. Regina in particular never shows any qualities that would make any reasonable person want to spend time with her, which to me cheapens Cady's journey.

But, as usual, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

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Wow, this is a very popular review thread! I totally agree with MV on Heathers, I love that film, I didn't think I would like it, but Heathers was freshly different with it's dark humor that went places I didn't expect. I probably won't be watching Mean Girls, anytime soon.

That part of the movie is very brief, and however brief it is still significant, so I can definitely agree it's not explored very well, but there are two rationalizations:

1.) The Plastics' "girl world" is a new and interesting experience for her. They also live luxuriously and reflect a sense of importance that flexes their egos.

2.) Cady becomes so entrenched in her facade that it becomes habit (this bit is made pretty explicit in the movie).

As soon as Cady begins acting like this "for reals" I immediately start disliking her, but karma also whips out like a rattlesnake and cracks her across the knuckles mere minutes after that happens. Immediately she puts off Aaron and Janis calls her out with the "P" word.

She doesn't do it again and her then revealed conspiracy against Regina sets them firmly at odds.

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"Well, at least your intentions behind the UTTERLY DEVASTATING FAULTS IN YOUR LOGIC are good." - Captain Steel

Well that's not very PG-13, is it?

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

serious reps for Gladiator. Yes, there are flaws, BUT, like you, they do not matter in the least. A great, engaging flick.

No but then neither am I.

Yeah Yoda should have censored you by now.

Btw great review of Gladiator. Unlike others, I think the film aged well.

I haven't seen Gladiator since I seen it at the theater. But it must be a great film because I do think about some of the scenes from time to time. And I hardly ever do that with other films. One of these days I'll watch it again.

I really need to see Gladiator again to give it a fair shot. I saw it at the movies around the time I started hating going to the movies. While I didn't dislike it, I couldn't wait to get out of there.

I really don't get the backlash this film seems to get these days. I think it has aged very well. It still gets my blood pumping.

I saw it at the theater the first time and couldn't wait to see it again. Which I did, four more times before the end of its theatrical run. No idea how many times I've seen it between the VHS copy, the two DVD copies and the Blu Ray I've bought since then.

You were the one saying that the characters needed more dimension for you to care about them, and if your main concerns are dark humour and sex appeal, then you shouldn't have made such a big deal about the characters' dimensions (or lack thereof) in the first place.

I'd argue that the scene in Mean Girls where the principal calls an emergency assembly with every female student and staff member is comparable to the scene where the Breakfast Club sit around in a circle and open up about why they got detention in the first place. Both scenes are about vastly different high-school stereotypes being forced to realise that they are fundamentally similar underneath their superficial differences and both scenes ultimately concludes with a mutual outpouring of empathy for one another. This also feeds into my comparison between Brian's letter and Cady's prom speech - unearned bouts of sentiment on their own, sure, but they build off these previous scenes of group activity and make for more fundamentally organic conclusions.

Yeah, the impact is alleviated somewhat by the knowledge that things are liable to return to normal on Monday morning (and one of the characters points that out if I recall correctly), but the film definitely seems to leaning a bit too hard on this being a superficially satisfactory conclusion.

Omnizoa already covered this pretty well, but yeah, Cady's initial reason for joining the Plastics was to get revenge for Janis and nothing else but, being a sheltered home-schooled kid with few social skills, she gradually ends up being seduced by the temptations of the Plastic lifestyle even as she works to sabotage Regina (especially considering how her motives shift from helping Janis get back at Regina to taking over Regina's spot at the top of the high-school food chain).

Yuuup.

First off, it's a Best Picture winner. Backlash is inevitable regardless of the film's actual quality or lack thereof. Second of all, I get why Gladiator in particular gets a backlash - because, for all its Ridley Scott professionalism and star turns from Crowe and Phoenix, it's a fundamentally hollow film that never truly earns its status as an epic. The simple revenge plot that drives the film is obscured by convoluted political sub-plots and, as I've stated already, the film loses some serious momentum following its dramatic reveal. The action scenes are generally decent and you've got some decent performers in the mix, but it doesn't feel like it needs to be two-and-a-half hours. There's a similar sort of backlash that's surrounding The Revenant at the moment, which is unsurprising considering how both films are historical epics where the main character is an experienced soldier who is left for dead and wants to get revenge on the man responsible for murdering his family.

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I prefer The Breakfast Club in this regard.


Unless I'm remembering it incorrectly, I don't think her motivations really shift then, the focus then seems to be on Regina's minions and how they basically can't function without a "Queen Bee". Becoming a plastic is certainly a plot point, but taking over the plastics, I don't think so.

She didn't seek to take over the plastics, but she did become plastic queen.


"Mean Girls" doesn't dwell on any aspects of the story for more than a minute. It's all about fast pace. If it was slower, the movie would loose it's effectiveness.

How is it any more hollow than any other epic?

Um, okay. I'm not sure how they obscure anything. Maximus needed a way to get to Commodus. The political subplots gave Maximus a much more likely way to get to him, even if the result was not what he'd hoped for. Once Maximus's identity was known to Commodus, he wasn't going to get another chance to get close to him without help.

To me, that's when it really starts to pick up.

Did it need to be two and a half hours? Maybe not, but this isn't a film where I ever find myself checking the time. It doesn't feel bloated to me like some other lengthy films do.

The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
Imdb

Date Watched: 2/25/16
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: It was the only film in Camo's top ten that I'd not yet watched
Rewatch: No

The Third Man has a reputation for being among the best in film history - and were I to judge it solely on cinematography and overall technical strength, I would agree. Its strange angles, odd vantage points and creative use of objects and light make for stunning imagery. It's among the most interesting films to look at that I've ever seen.

It also has an interesting use of music. At first the score seemed out of place to me. However, as I settled into the film more, I found that the strangely upbeat tunes lent a sense of playfulness and a lingering thought that things weren't what they seemed. So on a technical level, I have no complaints.

As to the story, at its core it's a pretty basic tale of a man finding his illusions shattered when confronted with the truth about someone he had admired. The script is pretty solid, but didn't strike me as anything particularly special - whether that's a result of imitation from films that have followed it I don't know, but I was not overly impressed.

The characters and performances too left a bit to be desired. I won't deny that Harry Lime himself had a certain charisma and charm, but the others were rather forgettable. Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins in particular fell flat. He had little personality and in the rare moment when I felt anything for him, it was annoyance.

Still, the film's technical strengths outweigh its weaknesses and the result was a very watchable film. It's also one that I may revisit and perhaps my opinions will shift more favorably then. But at this point I find it to be a good but not great film.

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Thanks a lot for watching it Victoria i have a few things i want to say but will have to get back to you

Hey cool, MV liked The Third Man. Hope your rating for the film goes up in the future.

To copy a line from another Best Picture-winning Hollywood epic, the trick is not minding that it's hollow.

They might be relevant to the plot, perhaps, but they do serve to over-extend the film and throw off the momentum it's built up over its first two acts. Maximus' reveal is played for significant drama, sure, but then...what? A bunch of stuff happens to fill out the last hour, punctuated with scenes of action and violence to keep things interesting. I find it hard to engage with anything else.

I guess this is another one of those agree-to-disagree deals. I find it pretty watchable for the most part, but it struggles to keep my interest as it heads towards the end.