Posted by barb on Nov 28, 2004 in
Movies 4/5 stars
Finding Neverland follow J. M. Barrie (played by Johnny Depp) as he develops the script for Peter Pan. This is not the story of Peter Pan, but the story of J. M. Barrie as he befriends four boys and their widowed mother, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet).
< spoilers >
The film does fall into a sentimental pit when it changes the real life story to have Davies dying just after the play opens to include it in the film. It frankly would have been just as good to show Davies falling ill, but not dying. Hollywood does enjoy a dramic death, I suppose.
</ spoilers >
Posted by barb on Nov 19, 2004 in
Movies 4/5 stars
This is a film based on the life of Alfred Kinsey, the man behind The Kinsey Institute for sex research. This is the Kinsey who published the book Sexual Behavior of the Human Male in the 1940s among much controversy.
The film was surprisingly entertaining — quite funny at times, especially during the first half. Liam Neeson did an excellent job playing Kinsey and portraying the excitement involved in scientific research. I also liked that, unlike De-Lovely did with Cole Porter, this film did not go into the potentially overly sentimental territory of Kinsey’s death.
Posted by barb on Nov 17, 2004 in
Movies 2.5/5 stars
This is one of those movies that you watch because you know exactly what it’s going to be: fluffy, sentimental, and feel-good. It’s a little reminiscent of Dead Poets Society in the story — a teacher comes to a very conservative school and challenges students to break out of conformity — but without the edge. Not bad, though.
Posted by barb on Nov 14, 2004 in
Movies 5/5 stars
I don’t give many movies 5/5 stars (The Return of the King and Pirates of the Caribbean since starting my movie blog in April 2003), but this one absolutely deserves it. The story was strong, the characters fun and engaging, and the animation, as always for Pixar, incredible. And it made me laugh, dammit.
Posted by barb on Nov 11, 2004 in
Movies 2/5 stars
I rented this movie because Heath Ledger was in it. He’s very cute, and I’ve quite enjoyed him in A Knight’s Tale and The Patriot. Sadly, while The Order had very nice artistic direction, someone needed to go over the script again and help the dialog and action acutally tell a coherent story.
Ledger plays Alex Bernier, one of three priests left in the order of the Carolingians, known for their devotion to finding the truth. His mentor dies at the beginning of the film, prompting Bernier to go to Rome to investigate what happened. There are lots of scenes with people saying cryptic things and lots of odd characters roaming around, but very little is conveyed clearly about the actual plot of the film.
Posted by barb on Oct 23, 2004 in
Movies 3.5/5 stars
Without too much reflection, this was a good, suspenseful movie, well-suited to the big screen (I suspect that it would lose a lot on a TV screen). The build-up worked well, and if the promos hadn’t given away one of the best moments, it would have made the entire audience jump. The conclusion, however, was unsatisfying. Neither my husband nor myself could exactly say what happened or why. And, upon further review of the plot over dinner later, we discovered that much of it just didn’t make sense. Of course, that’s okay, as long as we weren’t thinking it during the movie…
Posted by barb on Oct 22, 2004 in
Movies 3.5/5 stars
This is one of those classics where everyone knows the story, whether or not they’ve seen the movie — a man and his wife and child move into a secluded hotel as caretakers for the winter. The isolation starts to get to the man (that, and the “ghosts” in the hotel), and he starts to go insane.
It was hard to forget The Simpsons take on this while watching, so I had some ideas what was coming. Having said that, this was one of those great suspense-building movies that would have been sooo much better on a big screen (and without my husband asking if I wanted some pudding just as we got to one of the most suspenseful scenes…)
Posted by barb on Oct 17, 2004 in
Movies ??/5 stars
I’m not sure what to say about this one. Overall I didn’t really like it — much of what happened was incomprehensible, the story jumped from point to point, completely losing it’s focus throughout much of the film, and it was quite dark. On the other hand, it was great to see Meg Ryan in something other than a romantic comedy (yes, I know she’s done a few others, but I haven’t seen them). This was a gritty, lusty, and dark film that we don’t usually see the likes of Meg Ryan in.
Posted by barb on Oct 15, 2004 in
Movies 4/5 stars
This is certainly better than the crap we saw last weekend. At it’s most basic, this is a Cinderella story. However, it’s wrapped in a fun cloak where Cinderella..er.. Ella is given the “gift” of obedience at birth by a fairy. This means that Ella will honor any direct request made of her.
It was entertaining to watch Cary Elwes playing the evil regent running the kingdom until his nephew, Char, could be coronated — he obviously had a lot of fun with the role.
Posted by barb on Oct 11, 2004 in
Movies 3.5/5 stars
Kevin Spacey plays an out-of-luck single parent, Quoyle, who returns to Newfoundland with his daughter, Bunny, and aunt, Agnis, to start a new life. I was worried that this was going to be another of the myriad look-at-how-bad-life-is-for-these-ordinary-people movies that I seem to have been watching endlessly over the past several months. However, this one at least picks up after the first half hour or so, and becomes a movie I actually wanted to finish (rather than one I looked forward to merely surviving).
Quoyle, his daughter and aunt move into the home where his aunt grew up with Quoyle’s father, and try to turn it into a home again. Quoyle finds a job writing the shipping news in a small, local paper, and turns his eye toward a local widow. While it felt like it plodded at times, this was a fairly good movie that I’d recommend for a video rental one night.