A friend of mine fretted about watching Crash because he heard that it had an oversimplified take on racism. Some of the stories were a little too square, but I thought some of them had some nice nuance. I don’t know that real people talk about race as much as these movie characters do, but I was willing to let them be explicit for efficiencies sake. The thing that makes the movie work for me is that I found many of the stories to be compelling narratives.
I liked this movie a lot. While I am not ready to crown Leonardo and Damon as the Pacino and DeNiro of our time, they do good stuff. While the acting and story are good, I found the most enjoyable characters to be Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg. Their fast cussing ways were very entertaining. Though in hindsight, they feel almost too exagerrated; like they became Irish cop clowns.
Eastwood has been criticized for overhumanizing the Japanese soldiers. While a couple of the guys were extremely good-natured, I like to believe that people can be patriotic and fair-minded. A lot of the important drama was how these guys interacted with the more dogmatic, suicide-culture Japanese soldiers. Eastwood chose a really rich topic and did a good job at relating the story.
Don’t watch this movie if you have issues with violence. This is no Apocolypto, but when he does go gory, it is intense. I know one person who reportedly watched half the movie with her hand over her eyes.
This was a tense film about a real life FBI traitor. I have yet to research how accurate the story is, but my curiosity has been piqued. I feel like all of the actors do a good job and the story feels very real overall. I think Phillipe and Cooper did good jobs. While it is a well done film, I would not be thrilled to watch it again. I think I don’t get too pumped about this stuff, even though I like the historical context.
I am really interested in Ali’s story and I think that Will Smith did a pretty good job here. In fact, the acting pretty good all around. Jaime Foxx and Jon Voight add a lot in there roles. I found the storytelling to be a little annoying. They really made us work to see the historical context surrounding everything. We see a man shot who I assume is MLK and get no explanation? In some ways, this is nice because it forces the viewer to pay close attention - but it also seems wierd to just show that they know about the caziness of the 60’s and not depict reactions. Mostly, I like that Mann lets us come to our own conclusions about what is going on in Ali’s head, but maybe he didn’t have to hold the shots of his contemplating expression quite so long.
The fight scenes were for the most part enjoyable, but mostly they make me want to find some old film. I was a little surprised at the depiction of Ali’s corner during the Foreman fight. It seems like they should have known what Ali’s strategy was. I doubt he came up with it spontaneously. After watching I did some wikipediaing and read some interesting stuff about the in fight strategies which wasn’t included for obvious reasons.
The story of how a plucky New Zealander breaks the landspeed record with a shoestring budget, guts and plucky Kiwi charm. Anthony Hopkins is enjoyable to watch and its nice to not have to wonder if things are going to work out. The only tension is whether his heart condition is going to kill him as he breaks the record. Other than that, we just kind or ride along on the nice guy finishes first story. The entertaining parts were watching the old man do crazy stuff.
This movie is known for its big car chase scene. Steve McQueen chases down a couple of hoods in his Gone in 60 Secondsesque Shelby Mustang. The chase doesn’t stack up that well to modern standards, but I enjoyed watching the cars fly around corners and the sounds of the engines. And how cool is Steve McQueen?! Who knew that black turtlenecks could look tough on a guy? In addition to the above mentioned qualities, this movie also features a somewhat clever cops and robbers plot. The overall honest cop and sleezy politicians angle is a bit tired, but they didn’t spend a lot of time on it. There is also a somewhat goofy scene where Bullit’s girlfriend gets mad at him for being desensitized by his violent lifestyle.
I liked the first one better. I did not particularly enjoy all the back story and explanation. Volume one was more about being a visual feast, which for the most part I enjoyed. While I liked watching the woman scorned killing her way through her shit list, it turns out that I don’t particularly care why she is so angry. I like David Carradine, even if he did keep Bruce Lee out of Kung Fu. And I did enjoy the Good Bill/Bad Bill tension. The part that I may have liked the most was when she ripped out the other girls eye. What does that say about me?
Before they were Starsky and Hutch, they were Derrik Zoolander and Hansel. I feel like this movie is not as widely acclaimed as others of the same ‘frat pack’ genre. But it might be the best of them. The number of jokes/gags/expressions showing how dumb these guys are is off the charts. And unlike a lot of screwball comedies, this one is paced really well. Just as we might start getting bogged down with intrigue and the Zoolander-Matilda dynamic they add Hansel and the plot gains steam instead. And I didn’t even get into Will Ferrell.
I usually enjoy the meticulous mind of Tarantino. Though the guy seemed a little in love with himself in this movie. I enjoy seeing cartooney effects applied to real people as much as the next guy. But after what seemed like the 5th beheading it started feeling a little absurd, which may be his point. I thought it was kind of cool to throw a little anime clip in there, even if it was even more unrealistically violent. This is also an overall reprehensible story line.
And yet, I found myself wishing I had also rented volume 2 after I watched this. So I obviously found the absurdity of it all to be enjoyable. I guess that while one part of my mind says, “this is wrong” another part says “cool.” And I think that is what the director wants me to think.
