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Reviews
Roma (2018)
To everyone who gave this a 5/10 (or 4-6 range)...
Thank you for showing everyone else that you are not a self-serving biased dolt who can't separate their own preferences from at least recognizing that absolutely flawless cinematography and art direction is a VERY large component of what constitutes great filmmaking, and should be respected as such.
I happened to also love the story and acting and slice-of-life writing/dialogue, which is why I gave this a 9/10. What kept me from giving it a full on 10 were a couple over-the-top scenes... the fire scene on New Years Eve was kind of ridiculous and started getting into the "genuinely pretentious" realm, as opposed to what all the "1/10" morons deem as pretentious with this film simply because oooh it's in black-and-white and has a lot of long takes so it's instantly written off as "artsy-fartsy."
I can totally understand how there are plenty of people who will say they wanted to get into this movie, but just couldn't get past the long pacing and cinema verité style of the writing.. and I won't get on anyone's case for feeling that way. And the many people on here who basically said as much and gave it a 5 are very probably worth looking into other reviews because they have displayed that they understand that it wasn't their cup of tea, BUT they also know full well that the other aspects of the movie - really significant aspects - were undeniably FLAWLESS and AMAZING. And that isn't at all something that is nearly as subjective when critiquing film. There are plenty of components to filmmaking that are much more largely NOT a matter of opinion. There is excellent sound engineering and then there isn't. There is amazing cinematography and then there isn't. There is flawless editing and then there isn't.
This film has all the technical genius of any film out there. Lighting a black-and-white film is much harder than color. Any undergrad film school student can even tell you that. And this movie had all the flawless lighting, cinematography and camerawork direction you could possibly find. THAT is undeniable and worth a hell of a lot more than a "1/10." I mean come on, just... come on. What the hell is a movie like "From Justin to Kelly" or "Gigli" supposed to get if this gets a 1/10 in your oh-so-nuanced opinions, if that's the case??! Get over yourselves, and at least recognize the parts of the film that are undeniably worth at least SOMETHING.
So yeah... if you enjoy slice-of-life, slow-paced and subtlety downplayed drama.. 9/10. If you can't sit still through stuff that doesn't have chase scenes and explosions and superheroes, 5/10 .:.because I don't care who you are, you should at least watch something once in a while that has flawless cinematography just to know what it is.
Southpaw (2015)
Redemption doesn't need to be so over the top and rushed to attain
I pretty much decided to watch this because I figured it would be a formulaic yet entertaining little respite which wouldn't require much in the way of deep thinking on my part... something I could just sort of zone out and put the old noggin on auto- pilot and maybe shop for stuff on amazon or update my Instagram or check my email on the side too, you know? Basically I'm just saying that I wasn't at all expecting something groundbreaking and transformative here, okay? And Jake Gyllenhall is a solid actor no doubt. The actress who plays his wife is good, too. Rachel McAdams right? I get her confused with Elizabeth Banks all the time. They're both good... whatever, that's not the point here obviously.
Anyway, the movie starts out more or less how I would think. We have a boxer dude, Billy Hope, who is a hard-nosed, street wise family man with all the heart you would expect, but of course with the cliché below-average intelligence to go with it. He's a veteran, undefeated 43-0 light heavyweight champ who has a gorgeous wife who loves him deeply and genuinely, and a daughter around 10 or 11 who waits patiently in her bed at home for her mommy and daddy to come back after the fight which he wins, and is still able to tuck her in and give her a goodnight kiss as she counts the bruises on his face so lovingly. He then caps the night off with some well- deserved nookie from his beautiful lady... a seemingly perfect life. Obviously we know things are gonna go downhill.
But how his perfect life just falls apart after our expositional introduction is so dismissive of any realistic premise whatsoever, it is miles and miles beyond the standard suspension of disbelief that should be expected from any type of moderately intelligent audience whatsoever.
The writing of this movie at this point, and for the rest of it is essentially just throwing any and all credibility it may have established out the window just so that it can hit you over the head with the notion of redemption at the end. Billy loses his gorgeous best friend wife to a stray bullet after an altercation at charity event with a fighter-in-waiting who's been whining on the sideline for his shot at the champ. One of this antagonist's crew pulls out a gun in the middle of a fight between the two boxers in a room full of witnesses as if this was a teen gang violence movie or something. Basically it's a ludicrous way for Gyllenhall to lose his wife and begin his necessary breakdown in order to come back at the end. But this murder pretty much gets brushed aside, and NOBODY seems to do a damn thing in finding out who actually pulled the gun...including Gyllenhall. Then everyone seems to expect the dude to keep on business as usual with apparently no time allotted to grieve or be given a break. Oh and also even though he's the champ and undefeated, he's also of course somehow on the verge of bankruptcy right after losing his wife as well. And his manager.. played so laughably bad by 50 Cent.. is seen right after he loses his wife sitting ringside at the next fight with the same fighter who's crew murdered his wife. I mean... really? I'm not even going to bother going through the rest of all the ridiculous plot points.. how he loses custody of his daughter becomes the crux of what he needs to fight for... and that's when the story actually starts to become engaging and emotive. But the way we arrive there is so sensationalist, almost Kafka-esque in an unintended fashion due to the authority the state plays in removing his custody. If his fall had been more his own fault, perhaps he would have lost some standing in the viewer rooting for him but it would have been something that real people could identify with even more. It would have benefited with more real mistakes made on his end and simply not just being reckless in his grieving with seemingly no help from any friends even though he clearly has a crew of good guys he was surrounding himself with in the beginning. It just makes the journey he goes through ring hallow, and all it would have taken was more earnest care in actually developing a believable arch instead of just rushing to the redemption.
In fact, if the writer was so eager to get to the comeback, the rising from ashes of tragedy.. if he really just wanted to rush the audience to seeing Billy Hope restore his own hope and all that stuff etc etc... I think we shouldn't have ever actually seen any of his perfect life exposition at all. It should have just been gradually discovered through reference in the dialogue. That would have been more effective and sold the premise a lot better in the end. Gyllenhall makes the movie work enough because he's a great actor, but there were a lot of missed opportunities in the script because the writer was too eager to make the story about the breakdown and building back of a champ who loses his compass in the form of wife.
This movie would have been a lot more interesting if the first scene was Gyllenhall showing up at Wills gym, the first scene that Forest Whitaker is introduced in. If that's the opening scene, then we as the audience wouldn't know who Billy Hope is yet, we would just know he's a big deal to the other kids training at the gym in how they talk about him. That would have delivered a lot more intrigue to the story. The whole exposition sells this movie short and makes it almost laughable at points. Opportunities missed.
Cries from Syria (2017)
How do you even "rate" this? "Spoiler Alert!" Syrian children are being tortured and dying!
But God forbid we accept the refugees in our country because yeah, I'm sure they really hate our government a lot more than the Assad regime. Sure, Bashar al-Assad's army will torture and kill children, and then send their corpses back to their families to taunt them. They'll bomb schools, SCHOOLS! On purpose! Not "collateral damage." They target schools and children ON PURPOSE! ...oh but yeah, I'm sure the refugees really want to destroy our government/country more. Yep, makes total sense to me. Especially after months and months of vetting and screening.
I am ashamed to say that I did not truly know just how sadistic this evil regime and its army was. I didn't know how disgusting and horrifying their crimes against the innocent people were. I don't care if they weren't even innocent at all! NO ONE deserves what happened, certainly not CHILDREN! CHILDREN???!!!!!
After seeing this film, you can never un-see it, never un-know it. It is certainly the most GRUESOME, GRAPHIC, and HEART-CRUSHING footage I've ever witnessed by far. Do NOT allow your children to see this... even if you want them to understand something really important. It's too devastating. I would never allow my son to see this until maybe... maybe he was a high school junior. Even as a freshman, I would be afraid of how it might kill his hope or feelings of the world being inherently decent.
I don't know what other kinds of horrible governments there are in the world, but I honestly feel like even North Korea doesn't kill its people with the seemingly evil, purely sadistic, sick zeal that this regime does. Even Nazi Germany didn't send Jewish children's corpses back to their parents with taunting notes attached to my knowledge. Oh my god.
We need to stop whining about threats that aren't even there and help the innocents! And may the animals who belong to this regime's so-called "Army" be wiped from the face of the earth! It depresses me to no end that we are becoming friendlier than ever with Russia, who has been helping Assad in this disgusting effort. How can he sleep? How? Pure evil.
If you are the least bit cynical about anything in this film after watching it, shame on you! You are inhuman.
Moonlight (2016)
Once again all the people who hate his movie are overlooking everything besides what they interpret and oversimplify as the message
Sigh... it's pathetically funny how everyone on here who have this movie a "1/10" or something close to it pretty much did so because they thought the story was boring, and didn't personally identify with anyone in it. Of course then many of those who did so then jumped to the conclusion that surely the critical acclaim the movie did receive was because of the "white guilt" of Hollywood following last year's minority-absent Oscars, and the election of Trump. Forget everything else that a film utilizes: cinematography (which was excellent, with rack focus and fluid movement shots that would bring a tear to your eye if you cared to understand its craft in the slightest); editing (near flawless, seamlessly keeping eye line and multiple take continuity to almost surgical precision that most people who don't bother to appreciate take for granted); acting (great for the most part, though I wasn't a big fan of the kid who played the youngest Kevin); etc etc No, disregard all of that and simply trash a movie because you didn't like the story.
My only gripe is that the main female characters were too damn hot. Especially the crackhead mom. That's probably the hottest crackhead I've ever seen I must say. Beyond that, maybe treat this film with a little more respect before you sh!t all over it simply because it's character driven and dialogue heavy, with a mood that requires you empathize and submerge yourself into rather than being spoon fed a bunch of flashy action and plot twists. Grow up people! "1/10" is for a movie like Jaws 4 or Gigli or whatever. When you honestly think that everyone is an idiot but you and that the only reason a movie like this gets awards and acclaim is because of your ignorant understanding of society's reflection of politics, you are at the very least an unreliable critic.
Captain Fantastic (2016)
You'll like it if you aren't a die hard patriot
I loved this movie far more than I anticipated. I won't go into depth about it really, but I did want to comment in particular about the other user reviews I read about it. I found that this movie is seemingly very polarizing in that people who didn't love it seemed to hate it for the most part. However, the overarching reasons that haters of this film have in common are that they all get extremely angered by what they deem as glorifying the father's political and social ideals. They furthermore seem to all think that the costly extremes of the father's lifestyle that he imparts on his children don't ever get denounced enough. I find the fact that everyone who gave this movie a 1/10 did so because they take offense to their interpretation of its message both laughable and misguided. When someone gives a movie a 1/10 on here simply because they didn't agree with the movie's message (more accurately, THEIR INTERPRETATION of the message), then he/she essentially proves him/herself to be a completely unreliable source of objective opinion regarding a film's quality in direction, cinematography, acting, storytelling, etc. And it's potentially a shame because I'm not sure how a movie's overall IMDb score is tallied, but if user reviews are a part of the equation at all, then this movie was dragged down by the haters who can't put their own politics aside and judge a movie on its merit beyond that. Yes, the protagonists are a family of off-the-grid "hippies" for lack of a better term, whose father seems to carry a socio-political ideology which he influences upon his kids which is ultimately anti-corporate America and against big business, commercialism, overzealous capitalism, and organized religion. So what? So the movie drags on and on because you don't agree with that line of thinking? That's ridiculous. There are all sorts of movies that I don't like because I don't like the subject matter or the main character, but I would never say that they're awful because of it. Grow up! So I will say that for me in particular, while I am a Democrat and definitely left-leaning in my politics, I'm certainly not a "Maoist" or "Trotskyist" as the eldest son proclaims early in the film. Yet, surprisingly enough, I found this film to be excellent all around. The acting was very good, which is always more precarious of a situation when the movie is so children-heavy. Though most of the kids are older kids, it's always still a potential drag if a movie's main character(s) is a minor. These kids are all very good actors. The shots of the land that the family lives on are beautiful, and made me wish I could go back to the Pacific Northwest for another visit. The casting beyond the family is great too. I'm a big fan of Ann Dowd any time she snags a supporting role, and Kathryn Hahn and Steve Zahn are indie champions. Overall, it's a film well worth a viewing. And if you're a Republican who's a Sam's Club member, perhaps watch it and then come on here and give it an objective review, and represent your kind better by proving you can watch this film without being so over sensitive about whatever message you think it's pushing, and maybe even enjoy yourself;)