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Reviews
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
What you don't see scares you the most
Horror movies tend to polarize opinions all the time... Far more than the majority of movie genres. What one person might find scary may be humorous to another person... So when I left the theater after a packed screening of this movie , the audience seemed pretty polarized in their opinions. It really is an example of a 'you either love it or hate it movie' (Although some people may not take either extreme which is absolutely fine) .I am one of the people who came out of the theater loving it.
Paranormal Activity 3 is a prequel that goes back to the year 1988. It follows the sisters Kristi and katie (from the last 2 movie's) 18 years before the events of Paranormal activity 1. Its an origin story that gives us a little more information but still leaves us feeling confused and uneasy.
The new cameraman (Dennis) acts as a foster father to Kristi and Katie (The whereabouts of the real father remains open to debate) works as a wedding moviemaker. This gives a decent enough explanation as to why he seems to have top of the range filming equipment (for the era) . His character comes across as more caring and less irritating than Micah from PA1. The Mother of Kristi and Katie (Julie)came across as caring towards her children. The children who play Kristi and Katie actually come across and fairly decent actors.
The basic plot is like the last two movies. Strange occurrences are happening at the house they are staying in. Dennis out of curiosity decides to set up cameras around the house to hopefully find something unusual.
The greatest improvement of this movie over the other movies is probably the pacing. I wont ruin anything (that hasn't been in the trailer at least) but the younger daughter kristi has a seemingly imaginary friend, called toby ,that she talks to at night. As the movie progresses things get out of head fairly quickly and this imaginary friends becomes something real and horrific.
The movie does a good job of taking us out of our comfort zones. We feel confused and that confusion adds a sense of helplessness. While we may know the formula of the last movies we know little about the monster. What we don't see ,but know is there, usually scares us the most. The camera footage itself comes across as grainy and lower in quality than before (Again the trailer is rather misleading) . It makes it feel more authentic. While you know its not real you cant help getting sucked in by the movies world. There are also some clever shots and effects (Scenes with the oscillating camera are ingenious at times) .
The main complaints that I have with the movie are that sometimes the actions of Daniel can be questionable and the ending left me feeling a little unsatisfied.
That being said it doesn't detract from my own experience of the movie. I was terrified! It may not terrify some (the ratings on IMDb show some that already) but I think the best thing to do is go watch it and make up your own mind
Fade Street (2010)
Very poor
I don't understand why RTE (Irelands main television broadcasting station) felt the need to create a spin off of the MTV reality TV show hills. Everything about this show screams the hills...The good looking women , the terrible dialogue ,the chaotic 'unstaged'(I use that term loosely) sequences that lead to breakups and arguments (That are 'really not scripted' ...despite several takes) .The obvious difference is the setting ..Instead of California its Ireland . The producers of this show have a tendency for focusing on the parties (almost every night) and on/off relationships of the cast, which feels rather shallow and meaningless...It doesn't make an attempt to try and make the characters three dimensional characters (Which is shocking as the people are in reality playing themselves) ..I guess what Im really annoyed with is that the characters are not interesting.In Jersey shore you had horrible ,shallow people partying , being loud , pompous ,stupid and shallow . This made it somewhat entertaining though because its so bad its humorous...Like a satire! With fade street ,you just have shallow ,dull people being shallow and dull ...not very exciting.
Ireland has gone to bits in many ways...Cinema and TV are one of the few affordable sources of entertainment that can be called escapism from the reality of day to day life..Fade street doesn't offer any entertainment just envy at how much better off a spoilt rich kids life may be!
The Inbetweeners Movie (2011)
For the fans!
I have to admit I never got into the inbetweeners but it wasn't the sort of humour I preferred. That been said the audience I saw it with seemed to love it. Fans should probably enjoy it. The target audience,the fans, seemed satisfied. From the episodes of the inbetweeners I did think it pretty much stuck to the formula and old comedy routine of rude humour. Its like a special extended episode where they go to Greece. If fans want that then the movie accomplished its mission. The one thing thing I really could not stand was the blonde character in the group. He was just such an overly sexist pig who I had little respect for although that was the reason so many people found him funny I thought he was too much (I never laughed at that ones jokes). That being said the rest was fun , silly and ..well yeah you don't go in expecting an extremely clever plot!
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
two thirds of this movie is an unforgivable waste and thats all there is to it.
Im not one of those people who wants to hate this movie. I wanted this movie to be a fun action packed movie that played to Michael Bay's strengths (Lets face the facts , Michael Bay's main strength is that he's good at directing over the top action scenes) , to be fair the movie offers what I and the majority of the audience wanted ...in the last third of the movie.
The first two thirds of this movie is like they didn't learn from the mistakes of the atrocious second movie 'revenge of the fallen' . The one saving grace is that racially insensitive robots allow it would have been great comic relief if the movie had them been crushed alive instead.
The story is not my main quarrel with this movie. That been said its not a clever story. In all honesty it doesn't have to be though. Transformers movies have never been praised for innovative , new ideas like inception , or ideas that seem possible and encourage the mind to push the known boundaries of science and engineering (like star trek or space odyssey) . The transformers creators and audience know that the stories come second to the action in their movies. Thats fine in a movie like this. It doesn't have to be clever. It can be an entertaining thrill ride can knows what audience it wants to please.
This movie though is a mess... Its not the story that I have a problem with.. Its the filler. The movie seems to be filled with an never ending stream of annoying characters. The least annoying character for me was the female lead (played by Rosie-huntington whitley) and the lead soldiers. There characters did not necessarily have a lot of dialogue . Believe it or not thats why I preferred them to the rest of the human characters. The first half of this movie plays like a horrible comedy that only gives you glimpses of the autobots and decepticons (which is honestly what everyone came to see....that and rosie huntington)...No one wanted to see lame jokes and characters belch out fast paced , incomprehensible dialogue. I find the dialogue annoying, very annoying , and thats my major quarrel with this movie. It spends around half the film with these annoying characters spewing words very quickly but rather unintelligibly .For example what was with the Asian who cornered sam in a bathroom... I could not understand a word of what he said...It was like he overdosed on speed (like a lot of these characters mind you).
Everything in the third part was what I wanted from the movie , overpriced but great action scenes and I fairly badass fight for Chicago... that will never be enough however to make up for the first half or two thirds... You cant say this movie is good solely because of the end... Two-thirds of this movie felt like a wasted opportunity.
I came into this movie saying what every person who liked the second movie said to me ''It's just a movie , Its supposed to be a stupid but fun action packed ride'' ... and now going to simply say to those people ... I wanted for the real action to come and it took ages , a movie can be dumb but It doesn't have to waste my time with pointless things that no one wants to see...So yeah if those people want to waste their own time with mind numbling stupid dialogue then step right in folks.
Senna (2010)
The best movie I have seen this year....
... hard to believe but true.
I love this movie (or documentary on senna) , It is done solely with old real footage which is so well put together that it makes it all the more effective.
I became interested in Formula 1 in 1998 after 4 after Aryton Senna had died in Imola so I did not know a much amount about him other than his aggressive yet superb style of driving and his rivalry with Alain Prost.
This movie added not only more information to what I knew about the man but also a deep sense of admiration and respect for him. Senna was human and like us all he had flaws , its a testomony to the skills of the director and crew of this documentary that they do create an honest portrayal of a man.
My true admiration comes from just how far Senna pushed himself to pursue his passion in life.The onboard footage of him racing actually solidifies my respect for him , the pace and tension of these races is brought to life through on board footage of sennas mclaren . These scenes are actually very intense. Its as closs as I want to get to the real thing. Any error could result in a horrible accident. This gave me a bit more respect for formula one drivers in general, Senna showed his masterful command of a formula 1 car above the other drivers however. He was without doubt one of the best drivers in Formula 1 , if not the best, I will freely admit that.
The rivalry between Alain Prost and Aryton Senna is fantastic.. I never had a chance to see these great drivers battle each other with raw determination that you can cut with a knife. They both want to be the best and they aren't going give one another a chance to take the title... You can argue that the way they acted in Japan was not sporting but this was a different time period to today and it shouldn't take away from how brave both these men where. Alain Prost was not as big a risk taker as Senna however and this is why so many people see Senna as the greatest. He was almost fearless Despite his aggressiveness Senna clearly was a good man. He cared for the drivers and was visably devasted when Roland ratzenberger dies in Imola , Roland only has a brief scene in this movie but it actually does add a lot personally to a relatively unknown driver that like all the drivers had a dream but was tragically killed).
Frustration of the corruption in formula 1 is shown well and it continues to embody a part of the sport to this day.
Sennas death was one of the few occasions where I was about to cry...even though I saw the crash that caused his death before I cant comprehend how much tension I felt.
Everything in this is a testimony to Senna and all the other drivers who are doing a potentially very dangerous race. Above all its a testimony to Senna as it feels like we personally know the man , his frustrations at the corruption of F1 and his passion for 'pure driving' after the movie. Its more a humane story than a story about Formula 1 and its done so well that I felt I changed after feeling the theatre.
Brüno (2009)
ich bein uber disappointmenz
Okay its not bad.Still I found the whole experience disappointing.I always had really ridiculously high expectations for Bruno.I ended up been very disappointed.I think the main two problems are that the plot was very weak.For a movie like this that should not be a problem but thats where I come to the second problem.The movie has a very good start but then around the middle of the thing I was just not laughing.Thats when I noticed the plot was weak.The movie does not have a beginning ,middle or end.The end felt rushed.
The final music video at the end was a great laugh including performances from bono,elton john and chris martin.
The movie has scenes at the start that make you choke on food laughing. I was satisfied with the start but the middle felt pretty disappointing. You get a few kicks from the middle but not enough to satisfy.
A lot of people will be offended by this I guarantee.I believe the most offended group would be the one you least expect.I believe homosexuals themselves will be the most offended.(Thats just my opinion though)
I was really disappointed with one scene involving a confrontation between bruno and an anti gay church protest.I was so looking forward to that scene but it failed.
All in all its good but for what I hoped for it was underwhelming
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
Transformers: the search plot
I'll sum this movie up in sentences ,all beginning with the word it IT has no understandable plot.
IT has annoying stereotypes in the form of gangster robots with gold teeth IT has terrible clichéd dialogue.
IT has awesome CGI!!! IT has really attractive women playing as supporting actresses eg Megan Fox and Isabel Lucas.
IT has very annoying music that feels like something we would hear when waving an American flag.
IT contains not just old characters but a number of new ones which lack personality or fall into a category of geek,annoying stereotype politician or over the top gangster.
IT will anger historians because it claims that robots built the pyramids.
IT will greatly anger Jordanians because of one certain border guard.
IT will anger the mature audience because many people are tired of these stupid high budget movies.
IT will anger some aspiring talented unsung Hollywood directors.
IT will make your child happy because they don't know any better
IT will make you laugh(At how stupid the movie can be) and it has some cool scenes
IT can simply be summed up as a Michael Bay movie
I Love You, Man (2009)
It did not have enough laughs for me
The strongest point of the movie is also its weakest point(wait I said that in another review!!!!) .Its really original.I mean a lot of movies are about guy trying to get girl or vice versa.This is different because its about a guy whos got the girl,has that charm that all men want but he has not got any real male friends.This is the story of him trying to make a male friend.He hits it off with this guy and this is how it goes for the rest of the movie.
The acting is good,the humour is actually pretty damn good and the originality of the idea is admirable.However the idea itself just doesn't really appeal to me and the friendship just seems rather awkward.
I probably should not be reviewing this in the first place because from the start I didn't want to see this.I am been a bit unfair but Im giving movies high ratings for popularity.Im giving my personal view.
Before Sunset (2004)
Like big brother if it had interesting,nice people on the show
I have never really been a fan of romance movies.In fact most the romance I have seen in movies feels forced or very cliché.This movie was ''the'' best romance I have ever seen in my live.Better than the romantic comedy love actually which I really enjoyed.This movie is brilliant.
Not everyone will agree with me and I can understand why.The main problem with the movie is also perhaps its biggest advantage. The whole movie is based on these people just talking for a full 2 hours(I think) with no breaks.It doesn't go forward in time or backwards,apart from the very beginning.Its like watching something live.Thats the best way I can put it.
The main advantages of this feature is that its very original.
There are 3 other advantages that make the movie what it is 1.) It feels like true love:The chemistry between the two characters is just wonderful.Instead of having silence or just boring quotes about how much they're in love,you get two interesting people talking easily and freely to each other about anything.You think to yourself..god these people really where meant for each other. 2.)Acting is fantastic Ethan hawke and Julie delpy are brilliant. 3.)Its set in Paris.May I say anymore ;)