The story of Olympic Wrestling Champion Mark Schultz and how paranoid schizophrenic John duPont killed his brother, Olympic Champion Dave Schultz. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Bennett Miller
Starring: Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller and others
A romantic comedy that follows the lives of three friends who meet while attending 12-step meetings to help treat their addiction to sex. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Stuart Blumberg
Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Ruffalo, Pink and others
Perhaps I'm just weird about certain things but I don't like movies about illusionists. Thing that annoys me about them is that they can make things as crazy as they want, without having to explain anything. And yes, this movie also features all sort of implausible magic tricks in it. It feels like cheating! It should be a law, that when you decide to do a movie about illusionists, you are only allowed to use actual magic tricks and no 'movie magic'.
But besides all of that, this movie has plenty of other problems in it as well. The premise actually still sounded kind of nice and promising to me but I was absolutely annoyed and disappointed by the way certain things played out.
It believes that keep pulling rabbits out of the hat and stack surprise upon surprise, equals being a clever and surprising movie. But more often than not, things just don't add up too well. It's a typical example of a movie that thinks it's being more clever than it in fact truly is. As a matter of fact, the movie is a very lazily written one in some regards. It mostly relies on coincidences and other conveniences for its story. When looking back at this movie, you have to agree on it that certain things just don't make any sense or add up too well, no matter whether you liked the overall movie or not.
And it still is a very easy movie to like. I mean, sure, it's an entertaining one to watch. It has a constant fast pace and some fine actors, that help to keep you interested in the movie, all throughout. It's not the fun heist movie I expected it to be but it certainly is not without its entertainment.
Thing that still at the same time annoys me about its pace is that it's trying to go to fast at times. Sometimes the camera literally can't stand still and it keeps swirling all over the place, even when not an awful lot is happening. No, I'm not talking about shaky cam but swirly cam...shaky cam's lesser known but far more annoying cousin!
Guess you could say that the foremost thing this movie has going for it, is its cast. Not all characters are equally likable but the actors playing them still give a fine performance. I particularly liked Mark Ruffalo and Woody Harrelson in this movie.
Really, calling this movie a terrible one would be crazy in my opinion. It actually, despite everything, still succeeds to bring some entertainment, some good snappy type of dialog and fine performances by its cast. I just wasn't too fond of its story however and the way certain things played out.
(Review originally written at 16 February 2009) Even though unfortunately this movie was not as brilliant as the other and earlier written Charlie Kaufman movie "Being John Malkovich" it's still a great and unique watch. Still not entirely fair that this movie always have been given more credit than "Being John Malkovich", fore this movie is surely not without it flaws. It above all things is a Charlie Kaufman. It's not necessarily a Michel Gondry movie, not necessarily a Jim Carrey movie, or not necessarily a Kate Winslet movie. It's a movie that really has a typical trademark Charlie Kaufman style all over it. A real accomplishment and what other movie writer can say a thing like that as well. This movie also earned Kaufman his first ever Oscar, while he already got nominated two times before in the past. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" takes you along for a ride and takes you to a strange world, in which you know more than halve of it isn't for real. It's a dream like movie but not as far off as I probably make it sound right not. It's a perfectly accessible movie for all type of audiences. Don't be alarmed or scared off by it's art-house kind of reputation. The story is at all times perfectly understandable, even though quite some strange things are happening in it. It's an unique movie for sure, that also has a unique love theme in it. It's refreshing that it doesn't handle it romantic aspects in a formulaic way, though it also needs to be said that it's also thanks to Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet's performances that its main story and two main characters work out so well for the movie and therefore also its romantic theme. It's again one of those roles in which Jim Carrey shows that he can really act, without trying to be or look funny all of the time. Too bad a lot of people still don't see this. The movie also features some other great and well known actors beside Carrey and Winslet, such as Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst and Tom Wilkinson. It's a great movie with some great movie-making tricks. It's a true visual movie, with an almost constant dream like atmosphere. A lot of old fashioned techniques are being used, which are all still better looking than modern special effects and are therefore more effective, especially for this type of movie, as well. My complaint with this movie is though that its story and the way it's progressing is quite predictable all. It's not really the story that offers the movie with its most unique or greatest moments, though the writing in general still remains great, as weird as that might sound. Hopefully you will understand what I mean by this when you watch the movie yourself. Certainly a great and also definitely unique movie to watch. Especially for the Kaufman fans. 8/10 Watch trailer
A war movie done John Woo-style sounded like such a good idea on paper. The slow-motion action sequences and other typical Woo-ism elements are often even more laughable than beautiful or realistic. Same goes for the deeper and sentimental meanings of the movie.
It's obvious John Woo wanted to make a "Saving Private Ryan" realistic like war movie but the movie gets stuck somewhere between Hollywood action/war entertainment and a serious war movie.
The battle sequences look too fabricated and planned out, which is of course a killer for the movie its realism. Sure the battle sequences all look fine and it obvious cost some serious money to make this movie.
Between all of the battles and action within the movie, there are lots of slow moments. Guess it tries to be deep or something, also about the Navajo-culture, in those moments but it instead feels pointless and often like a drag. Same goes for most of the sentiments within the movie. It's also the reason why the movie is quite long.
The movie is an underwritten one that for a genre movie is too formulaic. It's mostly a predictable movie that offers very few surprises or original moments. A shame, since the concept of the movie is definitely an original one. The movie also doesn't bother to tell where and why they are fighting. What are all these battles? Why are they being fought? And yes, of course the movie also finds room to put in a love-story. All of the character also remain pretty shallow one's, no matter how far they dig into their past.
Nicolas Cage just wasn't made for these sort of movies. The movie is filled with some other well known names in it and most of them do a good job. It's not like the acting is one of the weakest elements of the movie but that still doesn't mean that everyone was correctly cast.
It's definitely a watchable movie but its shortcomings just prevent this movie from being a great or really memorable one.
