Frightened Inmate No. 2's Reviews

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I'm gonna make this thread now. I haven't watched a movie recently, but when I do, I'm gonna post some sort of review here. They probably won't be very long reviews, or very good, but I'll write something here anyway. I'm probably gonna watch Say Anything next.


Reviews so far:

Page 1:
Say Anything...
Donnie Brasco
LA Confidential
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
Rain Man
Changing Lanes
An Officer and a Gentleman
Terms of Endearment


Page 2
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Margin Call
Holy Motors
Dances with Wolves
Duck Soup
A Fish Called Wanda
Inglorious Basterds



Page 3
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
12 Angry Men
Serpico
The Game
Pink Floyd: The Wall
Bernie
Die Hard
Man of Steel
Silver Linings Playbook

Page 4
Magnolia
The Road
Broken Flowers
Killer Joe
The Royal Tenenbaums
Eyes Wide Shut
Adaptation.
Before Sunrise

Page 5
Before Sunset
Before Midnight
Gosford Park





Okay, so I watched Say Anything last night, and it was pretty enjoyable, for the most part. My biggest complaint was that it was kind of dull and uninteresting at times, and that it almost became a little soap opera-y at times. I clearly am not the target audience for this, because I generally feel indifferent to romantic movies, and I didn't grow up at this time, and I'm not a teenager, so I can't relate a whole lot to the movie. The ending kind of came out of nowhere, but it at least added something unique to the love story, so it wasn't unwelcome.

It feels like all of the good things to come out of this movie were from Jim Brooks, who executive produced it. The relationship between Diane and John Cusack felt real, in the same way that the relationship felt real in As Good As It Gets, which Jim Brooks directed, or in the same way that the relationships in seasons 1 & 2 of The Simpsons feel real. At the same time as he's making you feel for the characters, he inserts a few laughs, that feel really natural. He is one of the most talented people in Hollywood when it comes to that stuff.

John Cusack gave a great performance, and he brought some depth to his character. John Mahoney did good, and the actress who played Diane was pretty good, too. I don't really have any complaints in the acting department.

Overall, a pretty good film, even though it was a bit dull at times, and it is kind of overrated. I don't know if I know what I'm talking about, though.

or more specifically, 3.3/5.



I love that movie. Kind of gets me thinking...memories..bla bla..the good old days..

P.S. "Frightened Inmate no.2" is from Arrested Development right?
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This movie was great. Johnny Depp gave a great performance, and his character was great. It was fascinating just to see his character change throughout the course of the film, and his relationship with Al Pacino was so believable and great. Pacino gave a great performance as well. It was amazing how some scenes felt so intense, and when they ended I just felt amazed at how much Donnie changed. It's kind of hard to describe, but I could almost feel my heart pounding after certain scenes, even though they weren't that suspenseful, or exceptionally action-packed. It was just a great story of friendship, and guilt, and about how you can completely change when put in a different environment, and it's hard to change back.

or more specifically: 4.6/5



I just fixed the Donnie Brasco picture. It should work now. Now to my next movie:

LA CONFIDENTIAL

The beginning of this movie was kind of odd. I was initially worried that I was missing something. It didn't attempt to introduce a real plot. Instead it set up the town of LA, the characters, and the LAPD in general, and it took over an hour. As Roger Ebert said, "For much of its running time, 'L.A. Confidential' seems episodic." Those "episodes" were quite entertaining by themselves, but they felt kind of empty, and weren't very compelling. There wasn't really a strong plot connecting a lot of the events, or so it seemed. Towards the end, a shocking twist reveals that just about everything preceding it was essentially connected. Besides this, there are some pretty suspenseful scenes, including a great shootout at the end.

For further information on what I thought of the movie, just read Roger Ebert's review.


EDIT: forgot the rating



I really like L.A. Condifential and I've never watched it thinking it's slow or boring. I know that's not what you said here, but I've heard that recently from a few people watching it for the first time. I'm there from the very start.



One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest


I watched this movie on Saturday, and it was pretty great. Jack Nicholson gave a great performance as always, as did everyone else in the cast. At times it was laugh-out-loud funny, and most of the time it made you think, or just cry. It was so fascinating how Nicholson's character was helping the patients more than anything else, and it was interesting seeing how he impacted them and the way he interacted with them. The ending was pretty damn sad, and it was a perfect conclusion. That last scene with Chief was just perfect.




Young Skywalker. Missed you, I have...
I'm gonna make this thread now. I haven't watched a movie recently, but when I do, I'm gonna post some sort of review here. They probably won't be very long reviews, or very good, but I'll write something here anyway. I'm probably gonna watch Say Anything next.
I like your style.
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You are no Vader. You are just a child in a mask.



What's Eating Gilbert Grape


I really don't have much to say about this movie. It was certainly good, but it wasn't that good. It was generally just kind of bland, but it was just entertaining and interesting enough to keep my interest. Donnie Brasco made me a Johnny Depp fan, and he gave another great performance here. Leonardo DiCaprio played his mentally challenged brother, and he did a great job making it realistic and believable, but I wish they would have done a bit more to make his character endearing to the audience, so you would have more reason to care about the character, besides just the fact that he's handicapped. I would have liked one more scene with Depp and DiCaprio bonding. Besides that, I really liked Depp's character, and I thought their family was interesting in general, and I liked his relationship with Juliette Lewis, but none of it was particularly great or intriguing. I don't mind having a movie without any gimmicks, but then the movie would need exceptional characters and character relationships, and this movie was just about average in those departments.


3.3/5



I can't say enough about Cuckoo's Nest, one of my faves. I remember really liking Grape but been a long time.
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Rain Man

So, I watched Rain Man the other night. It was pretty good. The main reason it was good was because Dustin Hoffman's character was so interesting and entertaining to watch. It was just fascinating to watch "Rain Man" go about his daily life, and I really wanted to learn more about him. He was certainly annoying, but he was more endearing and a more likable character than DiCaprio in Gilbert Grape. It was also interesting seeing Tom Cruise's character change as he grew to love his brother. Hoffman gave a really great performance, and Cruise was more tolerable than he usually is. It was just a very sweet and interesting film.


4.1/5



Rain Man is great, but I think it's Cruise's performance that makes the film what it is. However, it took me about 4 or 5 viewings before I started to think that way, so I can't blame you for thinking as I did the first time out.

I've not seen What's Eating Gilbert Grape? in forever, so I don't know how it feels these days, however, back in '93, OK, it was probably '1994/95 by the time I saw it, you didn't see too many small, independent smalltown America films. Especially ones about 'everyday/real people'. Now, of course, these films seem to be two a penny, but I remember this being among the first of the, post Reservoir Dogs, American Independent cinema that found its way over here and everything was just so small and intimate. So unlike what we were used to seeing from the US. It really had quite the effect.



Changing Lanes



Last night I watched Changing Lanes. As many people have noted before, it is not at all what you expect it to be. It is much more of a character-study than a revenge film. Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson both give strong performances, and make you feel for their characters, especially Jackson. They both try various ways to ruin each others lives, and you can see the character starting to change. There are some very nice character-analyzing scenes, such as the scene where Samuel L. Jackson talks with his sponsor, William Hurt, and is told that he is addicted to chaos, rather than alcohol. Jackson gives a fairly reserved performance, except for the times when the character really cracks, and destroys his bankers computer. Even then it doesn't go over-the-top, and you can't help but feel bad for his character. Some scenes might seem silly to some people, but they are handled well. You also see Ben Affleck growing fed up with the corruption in his law firm, after initially being a heavy part the corruption. The character change happens very gradually, yet very effectively and noticeably. The more I think about this movie, the more I like it.



EDIT: I'm gonna change the rating to 3.4/5, because the more I think about it, the more I like it less than when I was liking it more because I was thinking about it more.



An Officer and a Gentleman


I just finished watching An Officer and a Gentleman, and the best I can say about it is that it was amusing. The reason I say that is because of the main character. Richard Gere gave a perfectly fine performance, but there was just generally poor character writing. I never felt any emotional attachment to the character, and I never felt like we got to know him. I could tell the movie was desperately trying to add something interesting to him, but in the end he just felt bland and basic. The supporting characters were better, but they weren't outstanding. His friend was fine, and you do start to care for him a bit, but it was fairly unremarkable. The romance between Richard Gere and his girlfriend was fairly well-done, but it was generally unremarkable. The reason this movie was still worth watching was just seeing his Navy training, which was greatly helped by a great performance by Louis Gossett Jr., who played the only genuinely interesting character in the movie. It was fun to watch him yell at the candidates and watch them go through their training. Otherwise it just had fairly thin characters and a decent romance.


3.1/5



Terms of Endearment



I haven't updated this in a while, but I saw Terms of Endearment a few nights ago, and I was disappointed. It was mostly just very bland, and it didn't have the typical James L. Brooks charm. As Good As It Gets is one of my favorite character-based dramas of all time (probably just behind Good Will Hunting), because it was effortlessly entertaining. This movie just felt like it wasn't putting any effort into being entertaining, and it wasn't. I might be missing something, but it was just boring. I felt that Debra Winger's performance really brought the movie down in the first half, but she was definitely better by the end. I never even felt particularly sad at the end, because I didn't really care about it anymore. I did like the scene where she was talking to her sons at the end, but that's the only scene that got any sort of emotional reaction from me. Jack Nicholson was definitely the best part of this movie. He gave a great performance as always, and was really fun to watch. John Lithgow and Shirley MacLaine both did good jobs as well.

It was moderately funny at times, but they didn't feel as hard-earned as they did in some movies like As Good As It Gets. I must say that the characters were pretty good, and it was certainly very realistic, but I wish it would've made me care.


2.9/5