chicagoconsultant Reviews

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Superb Acting and a Gem of a Film

[10/10 · 4 January 2012]

Ed Harris, Russel Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, and Paul Bettany were terrific.

The film had great balance and is worth a viewing.

The story boldly addresses mental illness as a handicap.

Because of the quality of the acting and directing, this movie is a beacon of hope for people of all disabilities. The film illustrates to the viewer how deeply a handicap can infiltrate the domestic, professional, and personal lives of those unfortunate to have these types of issues. I hope Ron Howard and the acting crew can get together again for something similar. This was a great film, that also serves an important role for awareness to people that might not understand how deeply debilitating these issues can be, and also gets the message across that not all should be marginalized.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Opening Music was the best part

[2/10 · 3 January 2012]

Excessively long. Could have been 60 minutes shorter and not lost much of the story. I liked the lighting, and the costumes/clothing were right on target. The acting performance of the girl with the dragon tattoo was good. However, the development of her character and many other supporting roles were excessively OVER-developed. The carving was too much and added nothing, as were the 4 or 5 interactions with 'the pig'. The film was more focused setting an agenda then telling a a better story. The technology and budget were there, as was a desire to include an excessive amount of purposefully pandering details that added nothing to the storyline, but trying to appease small audience groups made the film too long and caused the final product to fall far short of the what it could have been. Given his work on Seven, I expected more, but will not be paying for this director's films anymore.