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Reviews
The Last Casino (2004)
Exceptional Film on all levels
I don't have the words or the talent to write a brilliant review. I am not even capable. I can be dead pan honest and simply say this is an excellent movie in which each character is a real as real gets. Every single one of them feels and looks totally real and the story is completely brilliant in what it draws you into. These kids, these hard working smart kids get dragged into the casino slums along with all the lies that comes along with it.
Get it .. watch it. Make popcorn.
This is a perfect little movie and I wish I could find the drawbacks. There are none.
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
A Definitive Western that supersedes Unforgiven
Josey Wales is a simple farmer in Missouri and he has a name. Unlike so many of the Sergio Leone westerns here we see Clint Eastwood as a character with depth of character. This film was shot long before the days of political correctness but certainly during times of strife and government problems in the USA. People needed and wanted an escape from the horrors of real war brought home to their televisions every night and The Outlaw Josey Wales contained all the right elements to release tension. It had the real man who had served as a soldier but was now considered a vagrant and an outlaw within his own country. This is not history as it tends to be a revisionist view but it is a good story, the essence of a good movie is the backbone story. Movies made without a backbone are so many glitzy big-budget films that fall over under their own bloated weight. In Josey Wales we have a man that had seen both friend and family slaughtered in front of him and he wanted for nothing more than peace and a place to live it in. OK, he wanted a bit of vengeance too. While the film has its bright moments of classic Clint Eastwood one-liners to release tension it also had plenty of serious comment to make about society. This was not a bright polished western with clean hotels and glossey shoot-outs with quick-cut scenes and a multi-million dollar budget for the soundtrack alone. It was a western with vagabond Indians ( Chief Dan George ) and rag-tag soldiers just trying to survive in a post war world. If anyone is serious about looking at the classic western long before hollywood became glossy about the genre then I highly recommend "The Outlaw Josey Wales" as a template to measure others in the class. Get a copy of "Little Big Man" ( 1970, Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Chief Dan George) at the same time and you have a solid Sunday afternoon of top notch westerns made with all the passion, the grit and the government hatred that one can swallow.
Get Carter (2000)
disjointed and very poorly done.
I always thought that I'd refrain from commenting on a bad movie but this one is especially bad. If the people that made this had any intention of actually telling a story, I see no evidence of their efforts. Perhaps a comic book story board would have helped. Perhaps some honest people should have stood up in the screening room and said something, anything. Stop this. Don't release this. Go back to the cutting room floor, maybe you dropped something there. Maybe someone spilled a cup of coffee and shuffled some papers and kaboom, a chunk of the movie was lost. Honest mistakes happen. Don't tell me that this was deliberate. This can not happen. This makes the "New Coke" and "Ishtar" look reasonable. I watched scenes of Stallone's next movie "DRIVEN" being shot when it was called CHAMPS here in Toronto. The movie making machine was spinning during the MOLSEN INDY here in Toronto and right across the street from where I live. Bright lights on into the night here in Toronto as Stallone gets his next movie together. If its anything like "Get Carter" then the curiosity of the neighbour will not be enough to get me into the theatre. I got into "Get Carter" with free passes and it was worth every cent.
Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000)
Good clean fun with all the right lies ...
This movie neither indulges nor ignores violence and sex while getting the fun across. The cars are beautiful if not bizarre in their selection. The plotline could have been a followup to the original in the manner of "The Color of Money" for Fast Eddy but then again Cage does a fine job of having fun in his silly role as a car booster. OK, so what if modern cars are a lot more difficult to steal than the movie portrays, you can't jump a GT-350H off a tow truck ramp and drive it any more than the Dukes of Hazzard could. Suspend reality for a bit and watch this movie for the fun of it. Forget the Ferrari's and the exotic cars being stolen, because they can't be stolen, forget the locking steering columns and GPS trackers. This movie is just great fun.
Joan of Arc (1999)
Who has the words to contain the power of this film?
If Milla Jovovich does not receive an Academy Award as well as the film garnering the Palm D'or at Cannes, then I will be absolutely shocked. This is a movie with such terrible impact that half the audience was in tears. I can not speak to the authenticity of the history but anyone will see that the theme and message were crystal clear. A must see. Without reservation, I can give this film a rating of 10 and I thought that I'd never do anything so extreme, but this film deserves a 10.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
A captivating return to childhood fantasy, a must see !
This is a difficult movie to comment on because there has been a great deal of waiting and anticipation. I was one of those youngsters that saw the original Star Wars in the theatre and have waited a long time for this. While I expect to see lavish usage of computer generated special effects, I also am expecting two hours of absolutely wonderful entertainment. George Lucas has hand rolled yet another captivating volume from the "Star Wars" tale with "The Phantom Menace". I would hazard to guess that no one except Scrooge would be unhappy with this film. Do not, under any circumstances expect to see anything approaching "Dances With Wolves" or "Citizen Kane". Expect fun and a lot of eye candy and you will be more than satisfied. There are some glaring plot problems and general inconsistencies that kept my vote from attaining a lofty value of 9. I would barely give this movie an 8 because I must round it up from a 7.5. Why? I don't want to spoil the movie but it is obvious to anyone over the age of ten that there are some real glaring plot conflicts between this episode and the original "Star Wars : A New Hope". The character "Jar Jar Binks" should, in my humble opinion, be omitted entirely or replaced with a real human. The computer generated Binks was still in the experimental stage and should have been left in the computer labs digital cutting room floor. That aside, "The Phantom Menace" is simply the best family movie in the cinema for a very long time. I would recommend that everyone gather up the children and go see a story from long ago and far far away ....
October Sky (1999)
So complete and real, almost like life but with popcorn...
This is a movie that will be so much like real life that you won't believe that it was made by Hollywood. In a world that seems to believe that the audience must be bombarded by special effects to get a point across we find October Sky subtle and fascinating as we look into the real life of Homer Hickam. Homer struggles to overcome the suffocating future that has been laid out for him in a 1950's coal mining town by reaching for the sky with his toy rockets. A drama of intense realism will bring a tear to the eye as Homer descends into the darkness of the coal mines while keeping his eyes ever upward at a disappearing sky. A must see movie.