I really enjoyed this movie! I felt I was really in that world with with its tremendous stakes, bureaucratic inanities and restrained emotion. How one person could throw everything off at any moment. The letter "Hester" wrote was beautifully poetic.
Reviews
6 Reviews
Stuck in Love.
(2012)
Simple (in the good way) and profound
12 February 2020
Absolutely loved this slice of hope! It's the first time I've seen parents on screen that talk like me and seem almost as equally flawed as their kids. But more importantly it's an ode to the poetry of love. Thank you Josh Boone and the amazing cast!
Men, Women & Children
(2014)
Ambitious script that delivered and an amazing cast! Loved it!
11 February 2017
I was riveted by this movie that was able make the "everyday" profoundly dramatic. No small feat when a movie continually employs texts, online messages and characters staring at their devices. Normally this "dead time" would challenge the pacing and action but the subtext is so subtly built upon with tremendous acting that this movie achieves my expectations of a great drama. Not just tears... er, the roller-coaster of the character's journey but a mirror of the challenges many of us can relate to. In this case, it's life and love in this new digital age. The topic was explored with an unscathing hand so we felt the deep affects of everyday digital minutiae without even needing to explore the more extreme consequences of online interaction like cyber bullying, etc. It felt implied to me. Our worlds and our hearts are built on communication and the platform of that communication, shapes it.
Medici
(2016–2019)
Brilliant acting, solid script, looked beautiful!
1 January 2017
Loved it! Cosimo (and Lorenzo) De Medici are fascinating historical characters and the story line weaves with the intrigue and political tightropes of the day. Of course there are historical liberties but the script and sets recreated the era well. The story drew me in and the acting is brilliant! Loved Contessina's character and Annabel Scholey pulled it off! Hats off to Richard Madden, Giudo Caprino and the entire cast. The real Cosimo was a key player in the formation of the Renaissance, no small thing. Love that a series would tackle the era and the real pressures that such a significant person faced. "Medici" was inspiring, educational and looked beautiful. Another review said the dialogue was boring which surprises me but it wasn't really an age of "zingers", maybe that's what they were looking for.
Forrest Gump
(1994)
Everything a movie should be!
19 May 2008
If Eric Roth looks at this -- would be honored to say thank you for "Forest Gump". I know several more remote and esoteric films, but every time I see Forest Gump I come apart at the seams, more Kleenex each time... and it's so worth it! Love is woven alongside tragedy it in a way that makes me feel I'm riding one big crane shot of life. Gump strips down what it means to be human in such a pure and heartbreaking way. I know film is a collaborative medium (and though I'm pretty sure Tom Hanks is our best bargaining chip for sparing the planet if we ever have negotiate with hostile aliens, but his brilliance aside...) as a screenwriter, I want to thank writers like Eric Roth and Winston Groom for being the creating inception of a film so beautiful, it inspires the rest of us -- especially me -- to keep aspiring to make something good and to believe it's worth it to try.
Thank you.
Jilena Cori PS: Maybe I'll go blubber all over Tom Hanks' message board now... damn, outta Kleenex...
Thank you.
Jilena Cori PS: Maybe I'll go blubber all over Tom Hanks' message board now... damn, outta Kleenex...
Stranger Than Fiction
(2006)
Almost Great
10 January 2007
Warning: Spoilers
I loved the premise of this movie and the beautiful acting by Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal (could she get any sexier? I'm straight, but she makes me question) and Emma Thompson.
Aside a couple of forgivable skips in logic (ex: the academic "gobbledy-gook" that so easily convinces the Professor...'cause of course, he's a professor), I was really entranced by this movie which is perhaps why I was left unsatisfied by it's resolution. I liked the choice of ending in it's dilemma between "tragedy or comedy", (plot-wise), but I felt it forgot it's theme, or changed it at the end, which is weird. It seemed Promethean at first (destiny vs. free will) then to one of acceptance and finding the joy in life -- they're different.
You have a character who has spent his entire life sacrificing his individuality to society's expectations and therefore subjugating his will for a higher "order". Through this movie, we see Harold Crick take baby steps towards his own authentic individuality. I wanted a scene where this path to his own identity was fought for and ultimately achieved -- even for a moment. I wanted to see a character with no back-bone actually get one and say "no" (not just start to). And definitely a Promethean "Fuck you" to the Professor's pompous authority (putting Harold's matter-of-life-and-death script under his seat which Harold accepts); the same authority which later tells him he must unequivocally accept the written ending and die for the cause of poetry.
More importantly, I wanted to see a Promethean "NO" to the writer that is choosing the "best", "most meaningful" ending FOR HIM. I can swallow Harold's final acceptance of the writer's destiny for him if there was a fight for his identity first: a fight against being merely a cog in someone else's structure (whether it be the IRS, dentist rules or a writer's book). Harold doesn't like "ending" at first, but never fights it and so falls short of fulfilling his character growth throughout the movie. In the end, Kay Eiffel "the Gods" grants him amnesty from his fate -- our human never truly rose up and claimed a choice.
Aside a couple of forgivable skips in logic (ex: the academic "gobbledy-gook" that so easily convinces the Professor...'cause of course, he's a professor), I was really entranced by this movie which is perhaps why I was left unsatisfied by it's resolution. I liked the choice of ending in it's dilemma between "tragedy or comedy", (plot-wise), but I felt it forgot it's theme, or changed it at the end, which is weird. It seemed Promethean at first (destiny vs. free will) then to one of acceptance and finding the joy in life -- they're different.
You have a character who has spent his entire life sacrificing his individuality to society's expectations and therefore subjugating his will for a higher "order". Through this movie, we see Harold Crick take baby steps towards his own authentic individuality. I wanted a scene where this path to his own identity was fought for and ultimately achieved -- even for a moment. I wanted to see a character with no back-bone actually get one and say "no" (not just start to). And definitely a Promethean "Fuck you" to the Professor's pompous authority (putting Harold's matter-of-life-and-death script under his seat which Harold accepts); the same authority which later tells him he must unequivocally accept the written ending and die for the cause of poetry.
More importantly, I wanted to see a Promethean "NO" to the writer that is choosing the "best", "most meaningful" ending FOR HIM. I can swallow Harold's final acceptance of the writer's destiny for him if there was a fight for his identity first: a fight against being merely a cog in someone else's structure (whether it be the IRS, dentist rules or a writer's book). Harold doesn't like "ending" at first, but never fights it and so falls short of fulfilling his character growth throughout the movie. In the end, Kay Eiffel "the Gods" grants him amnesty from his fate -- our human never truly rose up and claimed a choice.
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