I never myself a fan of romantic comedies (even after laughing until I cried at Hitch), but when my mom and older brother stole the TV and started to down hour after hour of Being Human, my father decided to treat me to one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time through way of Netflix, partly because he wanted me to see it, partly because he wanted an excuse to see it again, and partly because the remake just came out/
Arthur is the story of a lonely, drunk, Millionaire played by Dudley Moore, who is being forced to marry this up-tight woman in order to keep his riches. Around this time, as he's dealing with the issue of not really loving her by way of alcohol and one liners, he soon falls hard for this nobody, working class woman, played by Liza Minnelli, and has to face this deleama: Either walk head first into a marriage he doesn't want, just to keep his money, or lose his money for true love, and no prize for guessing what hppens at the end.
This movie is not original by any stretch of the imagination, and the plot is lose, creating a feeling of "That was funny, but what happened?" at the end. It's only an hour and a half (or something) but it felt much shorter, considering it's lack of consistent pacing.
One of the things that makes it hard for me to review movies is that I have a really hard time separating good acting from so-so acting. Sure, I can tell that the Joker in The Dark Knight was fantastic, and that that one scene from The Happening ("What? No!" You all know the part) was Bull, but everything else is kind of a mishmash of "Meh" I'm am glad to say though, with out a doubt in my mind, that the cast of Arthur did a fabulous job, bring life to the tragic and hopelessly funny life of the man-child that is Arthur Bach.
And yet, it almost brings me pain to watch it, no matter how funny some lines can be, because I realize that all I;m doing is laughing at a poor pathetic drunk, with no life, no real family, and no real love (Save for the end).
Sigh...
All in all, Arthur is a fabulous movie with superb acting, brilliant jokes, if not a sense of long after its over.
Arthur: 8.3 out of 10.0
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Gyasi's summer classic movie marathon!
First, I want to apologize: I haven't been posting as frequently as I'd like (or at all) but I've come with news of shame and redemption: I'm going to have a summer classic movie marathon! See, my summer has 83 days in it, and my plan is to see 80 films in that time, all ranging in genre and verve.
You all will be shocked at the amount of classics I haven't seen.
Hope that you guys will stick with me, even if I fail, and especially after the train wreck that was my review of Saw.
Also, watch out for more reviews to come before the summer!
Summer Movie List:
You all will be shocked at the amount of classics I haven't seen.
Hope that you guys will stick with me, even if I fail, and especially after the train wreck that was my review of Saw.
Also, watch out for more reviews to come before the summer!
Summer Movie List:
1. Casablanca
2. 2001 a space odyssey
3. Nosferatu
4. Godzilla (Original)
5. King Kong (Original)
6. Alien
7. Robocop
8. Citizen Cane
9. Silence of the lambs
10. The fly
11. Terminator
12. Godfather 1
13. Bamboozled
14. Gone with the wind
15. Forest Gump
16. Titanic
17. Airplane
18. Ben hur
19. Jaws
20. Invisible man (original)
21. Psycho
22. Animal house
23. Doctor No (James bond)
24. On her majesty’s secret service (James bond)
25. Moonraker (James bond)
26. The world is not enough (James bond)
27. Matrix
28. Dead poet society
29. Lord of the rings
30. Stand by me
31. Saving private Ryan
32. Blade runner
33. Solent green
34. Breakfast club
35. Escape from New York
36. Do the right thing
37. Platoon
38. Who framed roger rabbit?
39. The blues brothers
40. Vacation
41. Ferris buler’s day off
42. Die hard
43. Risky business
44. Bambi
45. Exorcist
46. Dawn of the dead
47. Scarface
48. Dirty harry (original)
49. Dr. Strangelove
50. Day the earth stood still (original)
51. Lawrence of Arabia
52. Sound of music
53. Night of the living dead
54. Army of darkness
55. Mary Poppins
56. Imitation of life
57. Ocean’s eleven (Original)
58. Rashumon
59. The Maltese Falcon
60. M.A.S.H.
61. One flew over the coco’s nest
62. Friday the 13th (original)
63. Nightmare on elm street (original)
64. All quiet on the western front
65. The birds
66. Fantasia
67. The good, the bad, and the ugly
68. Close encounters of the third kind
69. Everything is illuminated
70. Schindeler’s list
71. Malcolm X
72. Caddy shack
73. Enter the dragon
74. Crouching tiger hidden dragon
75. Memento
76. Oh brother where art thou?
77. Planet of the apes
78. Life of Brian
79. 12 angry men
80. Good night and good luck
Friday, April 8, 2011
The Spin Movie Review #1: Saw
This film has been out for a long while, and has started a whole Francaise of movies, some video games, and has even been considered one of the best horror films of the last decade. Due to protective parents (and rightfully so), I only had the opportunity to see this film last night, in the best type of experience, windows closed, lights off, only the glow of the TV lighting up the room. And what an experience.
Saw follows the story of Jigsaw, a serial killer who kidnaps his victims and gives them a choice: Either sacrifice a part of yourself (Your foot, Your humanity, etc) and live, or keep all of that and die. His latest victims are Adam and Larry Gordan, two men who find themselves chained up in a wash room, a dead body between them. Through a series of clues and puzzles, they find two rusty saws (hence the title), and figure out that they have to cut off there own feet to escape, and that Larry has to kill Adam to see his wife and daughter.
I think one of my favorite parts about Saw is the simplicity of the premise: Two guys stuck in a room. That's what it boils down to, and that helps to add to the atmosphere. Theres no sex, and while there are a few jokes here and there, It never gets in the way of the intensity of the movie. The fear and scary bits come in when you finally see them panic, break down, and do something extremely drastic, just get out of what they see as the all time low of the situation. The acting is pretty bad, with some of the lines (especially the profane ones) delivered with some force. This may be due to the actor playing Adam having an accent, and trying to keep it down, but that doesn't really subtract from the overall brilliance of the film. Some of the quotes are funny, including:
Adam: My name? My name is very-f***ing-confused, whats yours?
Larry: Don't worry. Don't worry. I will get help. I will come back. If I don't, I will bleed to death.
The last thing I have to say about Saw that DOESN'T have to do with just gawking over the overall awesome ness of it all, is the ending. I won't give it away, for the 3 of you that haven't seen it, but lets just say that this is the first time in my very short life that a film has left me on the edge of my seat with my mouth hanging open, and that the screaming is the scariest part of the film.
All in all, Saw leaves me with both feelings of both happiness and depression. Happiness because I just watched one of my favorite movies for the first time, and spent 100 minutes of my life on something descent, but depression because I realize that with 7 of these films, none of them will be this good.
And because I don't own it on blu-ray. :(
Saw: 9.7 out of 10.0
P.S. I realize that I'm editing this to the point of bastardizing, but cut me some slack, okay? This is my first review. They will get better. :)
Saw follows the story of Jigsaw, a serial killer who kidnaps his victims and gives them a choice: Either sacrifice a part of yourself (Your foot, Your humanity, etc) and live, or keep all of that and die. His latest victims are Adam and Larry Gordan, two men who find themselves chained up in a wash room, a dead body between them. Through a series of clues and puzzles, they find two rusty saws (hence the title), and figure out that they have to cut off there own feet to escape, and that Larry has to kill Adam to see his wife and daughter.
I think one of my favorite parts about Saw is the simplicity of the premise: Two guys stuck in a room. That's what it boils down to, and that helps to add to the atmosphere. Theres no sex, and while there are a few jokes here and there, It never gets in the way of the intensity of the movie. The fear and scary bits come in when you finally see them panic, break down, and do something extremely drastic, just get out of what they see as the all time low of the situation. The acting is pretty bad, with some of the lines (especially the profane ones) delivered with some force. This may be due to the actor playing Adam having an accent, and trying to keep it down, but that doesn't really subtract from the overall brilliance of the film. Some of the quotes are funny, including:
Adam: My name? My name is very-f***ing-confused, whats yours?
Larry: Don't worry. Don't worry. I will get help. I will come back. If I don't, I will bleed to death.
The last thing I have to say about Saw that DOESN'T have to do with just gawking over the overall awesome ness of it all, is the ending. I won't give it away, for the 3 of you that haven't seen it, but lets just say that this is the first time in my very short life that a film has left me on the edge of my seat with my mouth hanging open, and that the screaming is the scariest part of the film.
All in all, Saw leaves me with both feelings of both happiness and depression. Happiness because I just watched one of my favorite movies for the first time, and spent 100 minutes of my life on something descent, but depression because I realize that with 7 of these films, none of them will be this good.
And because I don't own it on blu-ray. :(
Saw: 9.7 out of 10.0
P.S. I realize that I'm editing this to the point of bastardizing, but cut me some slack, okay? This is my first review. They will get better. :)
The Spin
Welcome! Although I suspect that none of you care about my opinion, I thought it would be a nice project to create a blog full of reviews of books, movies, video games, etc. Expect a lot of random things to be posted, and be sure to give feed back and/or requests on what you would like to see more/less of!
Have fun exploring The Spin!
Have fun exploring The Spin!
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