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Reviews
Somewhere in Time (1980)
The music steals the show
This is my favorite love story movie. The story of willed time travel is a bit hokey but if you overlook that, it is compelling and involving story of endless love.
Jane Seymour is, as she always is, a vision, with a beauty that fits any time period. She is funny, sweet, sexy beautiful and totally believable as a turn of the century woman. Christopher Plummer, who plays the villain very well, is cast in a more sympathetic role as the mentor of the Seymour character. He is excellant. If there is a weakness to the casting, it is with Reeve. He trys hard but just doesn't work as well as the rest of the cast.
But it is the music that truly steals the show. John Barry's music themes are mixed with variations of the "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini', composed by Sergi Rachmaninov. The songs and the plending of the thematic score are spectacular. It is still the only soundtrack I own. See this movie. It is a delight for all your senses. 9/10
Ali (2001)
PURE TRASH
As with most, no all will smith movies, this was not a film about Ali but a film about will smith. At least he didn't look so sickly and scrawny as he did in "Wild, Wild West" Because negative numbers are not allowed, 1/10. It is too bad that a film about a powerful if misguided figure in American sports history, would be so incredibly lame.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
3 hours was too short
I am a fan of the fantasy epic. The first one I ever read was LOTR back in the early 70s. I felt then, as I still do, that it was the template that all following fantasy epics would be structured on and measured against. It is a simple story with limitless subtleties and plenty of room for the reader's imagination to play in. Peter Jackson has duplicated this feel in the first installment of the LOTR Trilogy, "The Fellowship of the Ring".
To start, his selection of locations and the casting for the movie were perfect. Gandalf, Frodo, Strider, et al were so close to how I had imagined them to be when I read the books, that it was scary. The appropriate use of CGI to size the group and create the world of middle earth was so flawless that it was "natural" and the thought of them being effects disappeared almost as soon as the first scene in Hobbiton had barely started.
There were characters and events left out from the book and some characters were altered in the film adaptation but certainly not to the determent of the film. Quite the opposite, the creation of dread and fear concerning Saruman, the development of the humanity of Strider, and the expansion of the relationship between Strider and Arwen helped flesh out the film. The only flaw in the character development was with the 3 late additions to the fellowship, Gimli, Legolas, and Boromir. Time spent on these characters, why they were there, how the ring affected them and the history of their cultures interaction and why there was a built in animosity within the fellowship would have taken time to explore but it would have been time well spent. I say 3 hours is too short because I can't think of what could cut out of the 3 hour running time to add this character exploration. I would have gladly sat through another hour to see this accomplished but hopefully, Jackson will address the in the next film. This is the best adaptations of a novel I have ever seen (OK, Gone with the wind was pretty close). I gave it a 10/10.
Black Knight (2001)
Just not funny
Martin Lawrence is not funny. He wasn't funny on TV and has not been funny in any movie yet (except for the occasional laugh when he was playing Mama, not as a male character). This movie is a pure piece of trash. I was taken to see this movie (no way would I fork out a penny of my money to see any piece of work as ridiculous as this). It was a weak, at best, rip-off of the Bing crosby movie "Connecticut Yankee in King arthur's court", but with out the charm of a leading actor with any screen presence. If I could I would rate this with a negaitve number but I guess a "ZERO out of 10" is the least acceptable number. This film just plain stinks.
Fainaru fantajî IX (2000)
Excellent game, weak ending
Graphicly, this is one of the most advanced and satisfying games I have yet played. Truly state of the art. The story is interesting and the characters well developed. It is an attempt to recapture the glory of the early FF games: story, character, freedom of movement and "Fantasy". The game generally succeeds but has some large but not fatal flaws.The game has a tendency to be too linear. It directs the action instead of allowing the player a chance to discover the way from various options. It isn't until the final disc, of this 4 disc game, that the player is allow to chose his path and his cast of adventurers. The cut away animated scenes are also sometimes laborous and there is no way of circumventing them that I was able to discover. It is a penalty the player must endure to play this game, and it is worth playing. The other problem was the ending, it just ended. There are several side quests that are generally fun and worthwhile but it is the main game that make this FF one of the best.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
a step backward
Good race scene, bad acting (especially by Samuel Jackson), a very uneven movie. I can only hope they don't bring back Jar Jar Binks for any more of these fims or I might just do the unthinkable, skip a star wars movie.
Allegro non troppo (1976)
fantasia with a bite
Fantasia is a classic animated fairy tale, Allegro non tropo is much more. It doesn't have the gloss of Disney but packs a muck bigger punch. The music is well chosen and beautifully performed and the animation is acceptable but it is the stories that are truly impressive in this film. The evolution of a planet much like earth, the picnic of a lone bumble bee were excellent but most striking was the story of an abondoned cat in a bombed out house that used to be it's home. It is hard to watch and impossible to ignore. This is a film very few have seen and all should watch.