nbpatel Reviews

City of God (2002)

a mixture of brilliance and utter disturbance

[10/10 · 22 April 2004]

this movie is pseudo-documentary meets Little Rascals meets Peter Parker meets Scarface meets Godfather meets Lord of the Flies meets so many other classics. it's not derivative at all, but it certainly makes you compare elements to the all-time greats of entertainment.

you hope for closure for our young photographer narrator but never quite get it, coming to the realization that this City of God is truly the Land of the Damned, even today subject to profound political corruption and gang violence. this isn't your Rio from the travel brochures...

it's quite sad that more people haven't seen this film while it's been out in arthouses and other cinemas around the country. i hope someone who hadn't seen the movie will read this and be spurred to at least rent it.

verdict: 10/10.

The Girl Next Door (2004)

best coming-of-age flick since 'Risky Business'

[10/10 · 11 April 2004]

[three caveats before i begin: (1) i'm a guy whose background is eerily similar to Emile Hirsch's, before Elisha Cuthbert enters the scene. (2) beyond the romance and ultimate message of the film, women may be offended by the sexuality and preponderance of porn culture. (3) some suspension of disbelief, as with virtually any Hollywood movie, is required to thoroughly appreciate this film.]

this film is superb. i haven't seen a male coming-of-age flick of this quality since Tom Cruise's 'Risky Business'. that's saying a lot.

the box office figures and reviews so far probably don't match this opinion, but for those of you, particular young heterosexual male viewers, who can relate to the overachieving, A+, unpopular, prestigious college-bound kid, who secretly hopes to experience wild and crazy things, but never actually doing so...this flick will strike a chord.

verdict: 10/10.

North by Northwest (1959)

not Hitchcock's best

[6/10 · 7 April 2004]

i've decided to see all the films i haven't already seen that are listed on imdb's top 250 list. so it was inevitable that i would end up watching 'North by Northwest'.

either i'm wrong, or the thousands who voted this movie a '9' or '10' are...but i think this is not Hitchcock's best, and i don't even consider this a worthwhile movie to spend $5 renting. and i clearly don't see this film as one of the 250 best ever. [the most recently released spy movies i have seen, 'Spy Games' and 'The Recruit', were abundantly better than this disappointing film, and they are not ranked nearly as high up.]

why? (1) in today's age, this movie's special effects (and plot) are sorely dated; (2) the plot is implausible, whether you look at it from a 2004 antiterror or 1950s Cold War perspective; (3) what some would argue are the film's strongpoints (i.e., the romantic interactions between hero and heroine, Cary Grant's numerous wisecracks, etc.) really contribute to its flaws (see (2)). saying anymore would spoil the surprise for those who are still planning to see it.

want to see the quintessential Hitchcock film? see 'Rear Window'...i rented it only the day before seeing 'North by Northwest', and its superiority is immediately evident. even the romantic chemistry between Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly is better; in fact, i dare you to come up with a better pairing. but it's obvious that 'North by Northwest' isn't even comparable in quality, beyond the fact that it, too, is a Hitchcock production.

from my interpretation of this website, anything rated above a '7' is worth seeing, and anything above '8' is a "definitely see, now!"...for that reason, i have to give this movie a '6'. this flick is a poor man's James Bond movie.