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Reviews
The Mountain Thief (2010)
Hope Among the Ruins
This dramatic story will keep your heart pounding not so much for the storyline itself, but the environment in which these people lived. The movie is so authentic that the actors and actresses really do live in this kind of environment, and they really had to be picked out and trained. There is even a blind actor in the movie, and it was hard to find a blind actor. Apparently, there were about 5 or 6, and the one picked could remember lines the best. The environment grabs you so because if you are not in one of these countries which has mounds of trash (previously) not contained or not very well contained, you might be in enough of a state of shock to realize what is going on.
The writer and director also had to film in this smelly environment, and since he grew up close enough to the dump site that his family could smell the garbage, it was a sight that he could relate to. This movie was an idea he wanted to put out, and the rights and permission were so hard to get. Luckily, he was able to film this and as a result, he has a growing philanthropic effort for the actors and actresses.
As a result of this movie, the 20 or so actors and actresses have improved their lives tremendously. This movie is still quite unknown, but it will gain a decent following with still a lot more to be appreciated for.
Crash (2004)
best movie collage out there
Not many collage movies make it big, but this one is a well deserved effort. I cannot even think of any other collage movies besides What's Cooking, which may be a cool movie for a cultural related class or organization only, but very plain other than that.
Based in LA, this movie displays a controversial array of racial slurs and phrases. Using LA locations was more expensive for the production studio than many other locations they could've opted for, but instead they wanted to give a feel of a possibly icky side of LA itself. They don't overharp on how the movie is based in LA as the sequence of events could happen anywhere in an infinite number of possibilities. But there is something about how they chose the location that makes it seem all so real. Maybe you have to have lived near LA to appreciate the choices of the locations and how hard it was to shoot and keep the locations on hold.
I think the actors and actresses were well chosen. There's not one bad actor or actresses. Even the child in the movie with the cloak line is great! There are too many examples to point out, but I will try to mention a few that come to mind. Danza is very subtle with his character's Fred's subtlety to the racism in his intonation. Cameron's understanding that he has no choice but to fake his pleasure and accept Fred's superficial niceness to complete the show is so perfect. Dillon is an f'in scary, racist cop who gets away with his attitude as people don't want to end up having the LA cops pinned down on them in particular. Phillippe, who plays "good" cop officer Hanson, ends up in a situation where it becomes twisted and very questionable. As viewers, we wonder if Officer Hanson should report what he did to others and why he did it, or if he should just destroy the evidence. Since the cops in the plot line will not try to give Hanson a "fair and equal trial," you can guess what decision he makes and how much talking from the viewers there will be from just that. There are some twisted coincidences that were obviously placed in there to make the collage juicier and interesting.
The scene where a kid is "shot" is interesting because at first I thought she was wearing an "impenetrable vest" but then I noticed later on that the bullets used are blanks. They show the box really quickly, so if you miss those few seconds, you might not notice that small detail.
When the Persian father has trouble with Daniel, the locksmith, it brings an interesting question of what would a person might do if they need a door fixed and it's the middle of the night. Does he stay there all night and then finally try to get in touch with someone during the day? Probably. The situation is also questionable because the locksmith already put the lock on, but still wanted to charge the guy even though the lock could not be put on.
It's arguments like these you can continue having. That is what makes this movie so great!
Undercover Brother (2002)
It's no Austin Powers
This movie was an attempt to copy the Austin Powers formula, but combine it with addressing other real issues in a fun and humorous manner. If you mind stupid humor, this does not match up to the more fluent Austin Powers (I haven't seen the 2nd or 3rd one, so I can't compare them to this movie.) In Austin Powers, even though some things were stupid, the humor was fresh, catchier, and the movie's plot just flowed more. Austin Powers kept it simple with good vs. evil. Undercover Brother addresses race, but the humor is misleading enough that one may easily think there is some racism involved. Little things like how they used the N word between two people- considering the issue this movie was tackling, it would've been good to have it shown between two different races as well. It is true that taking jokes too far could make the movie seem too cruel for its own good, but from a critic's eye, not as substantial or effective as a movie to stand on its own.
Some of the humor in this movie is too random. It doesn't seem to relate the movie's plot itself. This is synonymous with totally random and unrelated clips placed in some Indian movies. It's more of an Indian trademark, and Undercover Brother does not make fun of this issue, but rather they are trying to embrace this characteristic if anything. Such as the business when there is a shower which just pops out of nowhere conveniently to make a funny scene. It is funny, but very random.
A few humor comments to note: The chicken provides the most funny parts of the movie. Take that Colonel Sanders!! Also, they should've had Neil Patrick Harris say "White Castle" instead of "Taco Bell," that would've been a bit funnier, except that Undercover Brother was made before Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.
S1m0ne (2002)
A movie may be more than meets the eye.
The portrayal of how people exaggerate and lie in the movie business and the real world is depicted satisfactorily, and Pacino takes on a role that we may not expect. Even though this movie actually has slight mobster like characteristics, it has nothing to do with that.
This movie is very comparable to Macross Plus. Simone is definitely one Sharon Apple. In fact, it pretty much takes the idea, but makes it into real life with a few added details for a better presentation of how ugly real life can be.
There was a reporter who acted like a detective in the movie with his "hoodlums" and it was funny how they had all these different tracking methods of spying on Viktor and Simone, but that they could never figure anything out about Simone.
I felt it was too easy for me to tell as a viewer that in reality, Pachino's voice was not really being mimiced- not sure what they could have done about that though. If they had her voice mimic say 3 seconds after he spoke, it might be difficult for the viewer to hear what was actually being said in the movie since some conversations might be interupting others. They could have some transitions between the computer screen and wherever she is being interviewed, but they can't do that constantly for a good movie. So even for this so-called "defect" it turns out to be the only choice. To have the mimicing actually done would cost a fortune and not be worth it for the movie though either.
The ending should have been something more along the lines of revealing Simone's secret and exposing the faultiness of everyone's claims to who Simone is. Or, maybe the movie would've been good if Pacino's character ended up becoming insane for falling in love with Simone as his only toy, with the people realizing people what Simone really is. Instead, they have the ex-wife and daughter get involved in the secret to leave room for possibly another sequel. Any sequel to this movie would be too corny for a true movie critic though.
Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)
Definitely meets the standard for a chess playing movie, but doesn't appeal to a wider audience.
This is definitely a movie made just for chess players. Even though they tried to make the movie more for all viewers, I feel that was not accomplished. There was not enough interesting drama, and many other categories like comedy for example would probably not fit well as an addendum for the movie.
It's also hard to make a movie based on a game. If you were to watch a Scrabble movie, you'd see similar game freaks, but with probably fewer comedic bits than this movie managed to squeeze in and without the lesson that a game doesn't have to be your whole life.
Since the movie was targeted for chess players, I think they could have at least focused on one or two actual chess positions in the movie, and then could've sold T-shirts with "Searching for Bobby Fischer" and that position on a t-shirt.
King Solomon's Mines (2004)
The plot was too standard for me. Nothing special here.
I felt like I was watching an old movie, but with color. It's not so much the "oldness" that bugged me about the movie. What you think might happen in the movie pretty much does. For a flick where a person is going into tombs, nothing surprising at all if you've seen other movies like this one. The only thing good about the movie was that the story as a whole was a bit different because there was a little more to the story than you might expect. Again though, nothing special even about the other parts.
There is a ring which comes up in the movie, but then they expect you to imply things about it. They don't make good connections with that to the story. This 4 hour movie easily could have been one hour.
There was a funny clip after the movie that was shown involving three guys and a group of elephants. That was better than the whole movie, but you can see why they took the funny clip out when you see the movie.