Ratings
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Reviews
Look Again (2011)
Interesting movie, beautiful people
Engaging and entertaining, the question of her necklace never gets answered.
No Surrender (2011)
Preposterous esp. at the end
The actors are nice to look at, Mena played the titular American Beauty in American Beauty. But there's a lot in the film that makes little to no sense. Plays at cultural misogyny, not for thinkers but if you like watching pretty people get it on, you'll love it.
Then Came You (2020)
Scotland or the little we see of it is gorgeous
Heartwarming
A Feel Good Rom Com starring Craig Ferguson the former host of his eponymous late night show & the late Regis's original cohost the spunky Kathie Lee Gifford.
If you are familiar with either lead you know their brand of comedy is often directed at making themselves the proverbial self effacing butt of most of their jokes. There are accents too, Craig mumbles sometimes.
Dreaming Grand Avenue (2019)
If you like Walt Whitman & Emily Dickinson's poems
Both poets' work is more than 95yrs old & no longer copyrighted. This movie has a feminist plot line, if you are turned off by harbingers of social justice & women driving a story along this isn't for you. You might even find it boring.
But it's a very good film and. J. R reminds me of a young, civil, sound Johnny Depp.
Woman on the Edge (2020)
Sarah is gorgeous, smart; the whole package
Sarah the actress playing the female protagonist wife of the titular husband in the movie is mesmerising, a younger brown eyed, brunette Nicole Kidman meets Meg Ryan. At age 35, she was hard to fathom as a teenager's biological mother in the movie. My core values are in sync with how the movie plot progresses.
And the film as a whole is very pretty too; nice houses, swimming pools, everyone looks dapper and well groomed. Worth the watch if you are a feminist.
Stalked by My Doctor (2015)
Unrealistic
Yes, there are have been a Pandora's box plethora of American doctors reported, charged, convicted and stripped of their medical license to practice, after being found guilty of sexually abusing, stalking, harassing, molesting their patients, since the dawn of the hashtag me too movement. But none of them are as traditionally classically high testosterone, jutting chin, tall, broad, handsome as Eric Roberts. The majority are paediatricians, psychiatrists, breast surgeons/sonologists and OB-GYN specialists. Surgeons usually don't face legal repercussions because they often only handle unconscious patients.
A cardiologist is not a cardiac surgeon, cardiologists are often overweight too.
Beautiful actors, but um, hard to digest not credible; sometimes comes off more as a comedy than a horror movie or thriller; preposterous.
A Bride's Revenge (2019)
Misogynistic ad feminam Bertha Mason Gaslighting
The cast is attractive but from the 1st scene brunette & gaslighted Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre springs to mind. Bertha's entrapment posited as security/care, purported insanity & how women are erroneously depicted as violent bullies, the anti-feminist flaws in feminist Jane Eyre are also present here.
The movie was a disappointment because of the misogynistic portrayal of the beautiful female protagonist, despite being visually magnificent. If u liked Jane Eyre and rooted for Rochester & 18yr Jane his daughter's tutor to get together, get married, And despised Bertha then this is for you. If you like beautiful buildings, homes, architecture, greenery, Californian suburbs, well manicured hedges, shrubs like I do, you will be very very pleased with the look of the film, like I am.
It is worth watching for the picturesque POVs, the stunning women, general pulchritude of the film. I didn't like Tom Cruise starring The Mummy for similar reasons. And Dr. Beck's character in the 2 "Stalked by my doctor" movies. Mental illness is treated as anomalous & villainous; 'bad guys' are 1dimensional.
This isn't Jane Eyre, so not a spoiler.
Tian jiang xiong shi (2015)
The armies of 36 nations fight a Roman traitor
But it's mostly the Huns and the good side of the Roman legion. This is good if you are a fan of Taekwando/Karate formations and dance movies in general... As a Jackie Chan fan I was expecting more goofy "White man can't jump" humor Shanghai Noon/Nights , Around the World in Eighty Days. . . . But there's a lot of blood and gore, with John Cusack playing a rather serious Roman.
I think fans of Adrian Brody's other work will like the lack of goofiness, I don't really like his other work. Those who appreciate realism would probably be hyped by ISILevant referencing ruthless decapitation, personally I liked the lack of sexual content, Gladiator without the incest. A little bit Lawrence of Arabia, Jane Fonda's fitness videos and IP-man too. Love the pagoda building, the back story and songs in Latin and Chinese... very clean movie, with a solemn reminder of the barbarism of war, proxy war, drone wars and crucifixion. As well as the elegant discipline of self defense, military training, pagoda building and choreographing dance, A little Asterix there too.
I would have preferred more humor or women(Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) but a nice family friendly movie that made me want to practice martial arts formations, work out and lift old skate weights.
Warrior (2011)
All those Rocky movies without Italian Ghetto specificity
If you read Hardy Boys' books when you were ten, you will love the family dynamic in this one. And if like 'Supernatural' the current TV series ... I personally played a lot of street fighter, had pre-puberty Taekwando lessons with my younger brother for a year, so back when I thought I was his big brother and I really crossed the fourth wall with this one, love the Rocky movies, rise of the underdog, boxing... So if you like Rocky or Mohammed Ali Cassius Clay... this movie will not disappoint. I've never read Moby Dick but all those Captain Ahabs hve made me want to read it, no I don't think there were any whales in the movie, interesting intelligent coming-of-age movie about Adults choosing to love the imperfect, live with it and push yourself to the max without hurting anybody.
Really real film, no race specificity or gender specificity, which makes me prefer this over Bruce Lee or Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan movies that involve dueling.
The screenplay strikes me as original, the pace is good and it's no frills, no cheap shots, no cheap thrills, just a very 'real' film.
Limitless (2011)
rock stars in rehab
This movie was incredible. I didn't want to watch the movie because of the lead, I didn't like his work in 'All about Steve'. But he was believable/like-able/weird-dorky in this, in the same way that he's likable in The Hangover movies and Yes Man.
The concept of a super-drug that makes people smarter than they originally are, is not unreal. Where smarter is defined as alert, attentive and calm. What most people would define as the state of being high. There have been many drugs that have helped users gain confidence, achieve mental clarity and so forth. There are always side effects though. The most publicized of these are Visual Hallucinations. Which are rare even with Schizophrenics(There's a lot of debate of whether there is such a thing as Schizophrenia among the psych community). John Nash never had anything other than auditory hallucinations. The drug has withdrawal effects which can be averted if the drug is tapered properly, this is the case with most psych drugs legal or illegal.
There are assumptions that a hunch is a carefully calculated mathematical derivation based on all the information you have. In the day of Google all kinds of information is accessible but to put it all together and make it useful at all times though possible is not in the best interests of the corrupt gurus of the business world who (according to the movie) bribed their way to the top. The movie ignores misinformation, misunderstandings, deflection, lying, fraud and everything else that can't be seen through just by remembering things. Even if your memory is perfectly/accurate. The reason why the stock market isn't predictable is because companies don't disclose everything. If there was complete information/transparency everybody would know what stock will go up or down, and become rich.
This movie perpetuates the myth that accurately predicting markets is a matter of intelligence and not luck/Corporate-Espionage. Anybody who believes this should read Nasim Taleb's Black Swan, a first year statistics/finance/mathematics text or watch the movie 21.
Plot potholes that aren't potholes: Phantom Agony wrote a review highlighting plot defects. I deduce from the review that (A) Phantom never opened a law book in his/her life. Phantom would be surprised at how lax the police is when it comes to investigating serious crimes, especially when they involve family members (including the ex-brother-in-law) plus since NZT wasn't officially 'out' it wasn't officially illegal. All white powder is investigated in the scene of a crime but oil capsules are easily missed. There's no known illicit drug that's distributed or packaged in that form. There was absolutely no reason to assume he stole anything. Theft is investigated when theft is reported. Crime scene tampering is a problem only once the yellow tape is up or tampering can be proved. He didn't have a gun. He reported the crime. He stayed at the scene of the crime until the police arrived. That's all the police would be interested in at the time. Criticism (2) is also rife with contradictions, um he 'did' remember it was 'constantly' on his mind as Phantom admits. He was smart and he was occupied with other things. Smart people avail opportunities, super smart NZT people avail 'every' opportunity. (3) The people in this movie are using NZT a fictional super drug that looks like a Seven Seas capsule and makes people pay attention to mundane details and make use of them efficiently, nothing is far-fetched. Why couldn't the henchman figure it out and make connections that most people (the rest of us, who don't take the imaginary drug) can't make? That's the whole premise of the story. Of course he could make those connections, he was on NZT?