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Reviews
Cold Brook (2018)
Engaging story, great acting, wonderful movie
The relationships are nuanced and believable; the acting is spot-on; the story is intriguing; and I liked every single character. It's a "buddy movie," but their relationship isn't a silly one, they're genuinely friends. The dialogue is believable, the pacing is perfect, and the music is lovely. There were a couple of small plot issues that were a bit far-fetched, but they didn't detract from how much we liked this movie. The reviewer here who said it was a similar theme to Night at the Museum must have been watching a different movie. This is an adult film with an intelligent story, and a wonderful break from the ridiculous claptrap coming out of Hollywood these days. Bill Fitchner, you need to write more movies!
Scariest Places on Earth (2000)
Silliest places on earth! (Very slight spoiler)
After reading other reviews of this, I thought it would be a terrific spine-tingling compilation of scary stories...but rather than producing chills, it produced gales of laughter from me and my husband. The back-stories of all these "haunted" places are very intriguing, and some of the footage is interesting, but the people who do the investigating are obviously hamming it up for the cameras, the special effects are obviously staged, and they try to use lighting to make things look spooky, but with hilarious results--such as having people point flashlights up from their chins, a la Blair Witch. It's so obviously staged that one scene (VERY SLIGHT SPOILER) shows a girl entering a spooky tunnel from the back, and her cap is black. When it shows her from the front, pointing the light up from her chin, her hat is suddenly white. Back and forth it goes, with her hat changing colors. Many scenes of the "investigators" have the camera bobbling around as people scream, and you have absolutely no idea what they're screaming at. Often the narrator says that a person goes into a room all alone, yet there is a camera following them around, so clearly they're not alone. And why is it that all of the "investigators" are students? Because their screaming is louder and shriller than adults? The funniest thing, though, is the voice-overs by Zelda Rubinstein, the delightful little woman from Poltergeist and Picket Fences. Her voice is decidedly spooky alright, but because this video is so funny already, her "narration of impending doom" makes things even more amusing. I'd say that if you're in the market for a good frightening video, you'd be better off renting Thirteen Ghosts--or if you have access to older movies, check out Helter Skelter, In Cold Blood (with Robert Blake), or even Aliens. While "Scariest Places on Earth" is mildly interesting, the main entertainment is in how funny it is--unfortunately it's not the least bit scary.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Script flaw (*SPOILER ALERT*)
Before offering a tiny criticism, my husband and I loved this movie. I'm not usually a fan of Kaufman--his movies are just a bit too quirky (esp. Being John Malkovich)--but this one was wonderful. Particularly Jim Carrey's unexpectedly moving performance. Never seen him act as well as in this, probably because he wasn't "Being Jim Carrey." Anyway, I saw only one flaw with the script, but it didn't detract from the movie being wonderful. At the very end, when Clem gets the tape in the mail from Mary, it's been only ONE day since Joel woke up the morning after having his memories erased--so there wouldn't have been time for Mary to take the files home, go through them, put together packets, and send them out to clients. Remember the beginning? The movie opens with Joel waking up the morning after his erasure procedure--and that's the day he meets Clem. They spend the afternoon and night together, then he drives her home the next morning, whereupon she gets the tape in the mail and pops it into his cassette player in the car. Kinda ruins the serendipity of the ending--but it's still a terrific movie, and we really enjoyed it.
Women vs. Men (2002)
Is this REALLY how couples today interact??
The first few scenes of this movie had some pretty funny moments, and then everything deteriorated to head games, psychobabble, and emotional drivel. By the end of the movie I had a nagging fear that this movie might be an indication of how couples in today's society actually do communicate with each other--in which case, the world's in serious trouble! It's a very talky movie, with just a handful of scenes involving physical interaction--most of the action is just background for the dialogue, rather like a play--but that isn't always a bad thing. The creators of "thirtysomething" were at the helm of this movie, so I was looking forward to the stimulating, thought-provoking dialogue that was one of the hallmarks of that show. I was sorely disappointed, though. The women in this movie are shrill, game-playing, emotional cripples, and the men are all clueless mental midgets. Just when you feel like you're starting to understand a character, he/she will do something completely unbelievable or irrational, and it so undermines the validity of the movie that by the time it was over I was sooooo ready for it to end and I had no sympathy or affection whatsoever for any of the characters. Most of the verbal interactions are ill-conceived and outrageously stupid. Joe Mantegna has one terrific, articulate, intensely profound soliloquy near the end of the movie that intensely reminded me of "thirtysomething"--but immediately after that wonderful speech he lapses into nonsense again. What a tremendous disappointment this movie was, particularly in light of the great credentials of its creators and the high caliber of the acting talent involved. No wonder it never made it to theaters.