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Reviews by the truckload! SAW, KINSEY, ALFIE, FINDING NEVERLAND and THE MACHINIST!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with an overflowing net of reviews for your enjoyment. Lots of good catches below, including more opinions on THE MACHINIST, ALFIE, FINDING NEVERLAND, SAW and KINSEY. Of these films, the only one I've seen is SAW, but I have lines on seeing ALFIE, KINSEY and quite a few others... so keep an eye on the site for my blathering ramblings on those and more! First up is a gaggle of mini-reviews from Pappy, followed up with another opinion on ALFIE! Enjoy!
So, it’s been an eventful week here in Beantown.
The Sox are going to the World Series, and I’ve seen four unreleased movies in as many days.
A few weeks ago I saw The Machinist with director Brad Anderson in attendance. Christian Bale’s performance is cryptic and powerful, what you would expect from him. What I didn’t expect was the literal starvation he put himself through to make himself weigh 120 lbs. I won’t review the film since it’s being released today, but Mr. Anderson told us about the lengths Bale put himself through for the part, how they filmed the entire movie in Spain (Barcelona), and how he was influenced by such stories as Dostoevsky’s (one of whose volumes appears in the film).
But moving on
Alfie starring Jude Law. The story of a womanizer (womanizing, of course), and how he tries to break his habits but ultimately can’t. Law’s performance is charismatic and touching, as he talks to the audience irreverently while characters around him don’t notice. It’s an upbeat romantic comedy, but without the romance (since there are so many women, Marisa Tomei and Susan Sarandon among them).
Kinsey concerns itself with a researcher in the 1950s (? The movie was never clear on the exact dates) who publishes the first national study on sexual behavior. Shot on an independent budget, the film stars Liam Neeson in a great performance as the quirky scientist and Laura Linney as his wife. The movie covers a lot of ground, and is structured after Kinsey’s own sexual interview, the process by which they take data from their subjects. The film, unlike A Beautiful Mind, doesn’t shy away from some of the more controversial aspects of his life, but not being a biographer of Kinsey, I can’t vouch for how accurate it was.
Director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) was in attendance and talked about making the movie, and how he didn’t want to curtail important details that wouldn’t be so popular. The film is hysterical in its moments of sexual naïveté, especially in terms of the students Kinsey teaches in his Marriage course, but takes on serious tones when Kinsey’s home life is threatened, his funds are withdrawn, and the interview process takes him into the realms of genuinely evil people.
Finding Neverland has been hailed as Johnny Depp’s Oscar nod. He’ll probably get nominated, although I doubt the performance is strong enough to warrant a win. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great sentimental movie about a struggling author trying to come up with a play to save his reputation, and finds as a muse Kate Winslet as a widow of three boys, who inspire him to write Peter Pan. It’s a cute movie that will get your date’s balling by the end, and some of whose sequences are so surreal they’re beautiful (watch for the pirate ship).
Producer Richard Gladstein was there to field questions, and brought up some interesting trivia I hadn’t known. Initially completed in 2003, the film was delayed because of the release of Peter Pan. And since that film had the rights to the play, the reenactments of the theater scenes in Finding Neverland had to get Sony’s permission to be admitted into the film. In short, Sony gave them permission if they would release the film after Peter Pan, hence the later release of Neverland.
Finally, last night I attended a screening of Saw, the new horror film starring Cary Elwes and Danny Glover. Don’t believe the trailers when the film leads you to believe the film is about the cops chasing the Jigsaw killer. The film is more of a montage, starting off as Dr. Lawrence Gordon and Adam, two strangers, are both trapped in a room with a third dead body, and they reminisce about how they got there and how it looks like one of the acts of the Jigsaw Killer. The film jumps between the Doctor’s experiences, the cops investigation, and his home life, all the while adding a puzzle-game dynamic into the room, as the prisoners find new tools to play a sadistic game their tormenter has in store for them. Seeing it with a college crowd, I’m convinced that some of the heavy drama was compromised by an overly giggly audience, but looking back, some of the acting is horrible. But if you like scary movies, puzzle movies (think McGuyver stuck in a game of Russian Roulette and you get the idea) , and thrillers, this movie will throw enough twists at you to keep you entertained, and the last ten minutes are definitely worth the price of admission (in my case, free; would I pay to see this? Hmmmm)
Anyways, use as much or as little as you want of the above snippets.
PappyNow with another, albeit similar, look at ALFIE! This one looks to be a winner!
Hi Harry,
Sure you've been swamped with reviews on this from the UK, thought I'd add one more to the quagmire.
Alfie is a film that lives or dies by the Law of Jude. As it turns out, justice is fair, for Jude puts in a solid, charismatic, often charming performance, although not consistently enough to be the wetting of all ladies' undies and the knowing grin to all mens' faces as hoped. He is certainly better than I expected, but not great, and an Alfie needs to be great.
The female supporting cast is wonderful, from Susan Sarandon through to Law's current squeeze Sienna Miller, who between this and Layer Cake has definitely marked herself out as someone to watch, at the very least for being unfeasibly yummy.
The script is very lucid, illuminating nicely the journey of a man from carefree playboy, through messy situations and half-honest self-assessment, to trying to be a real man. it doesn't wrap everything up in a nice bow at the end, forcing the viewer to ask questions of Alfie, which in the male percentage of the audience at least will be reflected as questions on their own behaviour with reagrds to the oppostie sex.
I don't have the first clue how women will react to this film, as I didn't go with a girl. That said, I have become so out of touch with the fairer sex that, frankly, I'm not sure I'd understand their reaction anyway. But I'm sure that there will be afair amount of secretive lusting after Law, in both roguish and reformed incarnations of Alfie, as well as a certain amount of fresh air breathed, thanks especially to Sarandon's character.
It's worth a look, definitely, and it has made a worthy update.
Don Pablo.
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First! And where are the reviews? Looks like plot synopsis to me.
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I saw Alfie this past week at a free screening in boston. I went with a guy who was really interested in going and neither of us had seen the original. Overall, I was disappointed with the progression of the story. I didn't understand why things happened in the order they did... it made the film very anticlimactic. Jude Law did a fair job. Picture a Bridget Jones for men... except he's not heavier, unsexed, and he's definitely not in search for love.
This is also not a date movie. You'd be making a big mistake. -
Willie! Ha!
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Um...I wonder what happened to the review I wrote and sent, that didn't praise Alfie THAT much....
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Oct 24, 2004 10:31:59 PM CDT
JENNIFER JASON LEIGH'S SWEET ASS IN PROSTITUTE COSTUME!
by osmosis jones
Ohhhhhhh yeah.
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Yup, nothing like a cute movie to get your date balling by the end.
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And it
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I saw Alfie at a free screening here in London last week. I am a fan of the original - think it's one of Michael Caine's best performances and films.
Jude Law does his best and does better than I expected, but he is a boy doing a man's work. He's too metrosexual, too nice, too wimpish. This is cutting social commentary reborn as romantic comedy squishy quiche.
The turning point of the original Alfie is when he sees the aborted foetus his promiscuity helped to create - the realisation on his face is priceless. Apparently a modern day US audience can't take a lead character who encourages abortion - too sensitive an issue, too much to think about............... I hate this remake. It takes something which means something, which criticises Alfie's mentality - and makes it banal and twee and completely unsubstantial.
Watch the original.
Watch the original.
For the price of two cinema tickets, you could buy the DVD.
Do that. -
I saw the Machinist. People said shit. There you go. That's a review????? Come on. Saw, by the way, sucked. I caught a VHS screener someone dubbed. It was way lame. Just because you put something upsetting and shocking onscreen does not make you a great filmmaker. I will admit some of the twists were unexpected but otherwise it was tedious serial killer flick. Oh that's right, the serial killer constructs ELABORATE ways to TEACH you to appreciate LIFE. Wow. Fucking sweet. And by the way I thought Elwes was fine. Just the movie was silly and overstylized. Those who think GORE = must see HORROR will like it. But gore is not scary or interesting in and of itself. Anyone who thought last years dull TCM remake RULED will like Saw.
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there was hardly any gore at all IN Saw. The fact that it left you feeling grossed out, when there was really VERY little blood and guts in it, shows it to be more effective than you're giving it credit for.
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I didn't feel grossed out. I felt bored. And guys slicing themselves through razor wire, digging into stomachs, and dragging their mutilated legs behind them were shot pretty dead on.
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