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9/10
Cruise and Abrams should give Bender a Mission to accept.
18 December 2011
I've watched first three for another viewing before I went to see fourth entry of the franchise. I went to see fourth entry because I liked what J.J. Abrams did with third entry especially the action and pacing was very insane and hectic that got me invested and interested that John Woo lacked in the second. John Woo did his action scenes pretty well in second but I didn't like the storyline.

It's difficult to judge which one is better than the others because:

Brian DePalma did the first. John Woo did the second. J.J. Abrams did the third...and

now Brad Bird did the fourth.

Brian DePalma did what he was well-known for making it a good suspenseful film with his signatures of camera work. (86/100)

John Woo showed his chops for action but failed on the story.(71/100)

J.J. Abrams revived the franchise in his own way because of his touch with Alias even most of people would claim that this one is too much like a TV Movie of Alias but he did his THING by making impeccable pacing with non-stop action and frantic camera work. (93/100)

Brad Bird came in for his first live-action debut and he did the film so well but in part of me feels that there is something missing here. So, I feel in a way Brad Bird did so well with his execution but the overall film couldn't match the insane pacing that J.J. Abrams did with the third entry, even the third had good character relationships invested into the storyline. I actually fell asleep at some parts during the third act of the film, it's because the pacing felt like it's falling apart that Brad Bird couldn't match to what he did with first two act with well-staged action. (89/100)

Overall, for the execution, J.J. Abrams and Brad Bird made John Woo's entry look like a whimper on action sequences and pacing.

For Mission: Impossible 5, I have a pretty good idea of who will be a good choice to take on the director's chair to take all good parts from previous four to whole new level with more ferocious pacing and well-use of camera work.

The director for Mission 5 should be Jack Bender even he has a long history on directing television but he has the expertise to do it due to his work on Alias and Lost. He has a Jack Ryan film with Chris Pine in the can after Chris Pine completes Star Trek 2. Tom Cruise and J.J. Abrams should give Jack Bender a mission to accept.
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Lost: The End: Part 1 (2010)
Season 6, Episode 17
10/10
Very poetic, visceral series finale of Lost.
25 May 2010
Warning: Spoilers
"The End" written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by Jack Bender.

This series finale of Lost actually left me speechless, amazed, thrilled, and very emotional because of so many things that occurred in the finale especially with a great reunion at the church sequence with amazing camera work along with slow motion and music. That sequence was extremely well done! I kept chuckling at those reviews that people were writing about because they were either disappointed or felt not satisfied only because they EXPECT or WANT to see the answers to be revealed. The clues were already revealed most of the time and I'm quite surprised that people wouldn't even get it and I thought it's pretty funny to see how this fits to everyday life of people where they couldn't even "move on" or "letting go" which reveals a huge theme of Lost.

This finale had impeccable, beautiful and extremely flawless direction by Jack Bender. I loved the way the opening sequence began with several of fluid, visceral camera work which continued to pan out the rest of the finale. It was beautifully done especially with the music score which left me speechless.

After seeing this finale, I actually liked the final season as my favorite season of Lost topping the first season. The series director Jack Bender must get an Emmy award and DGA award nomination for outstanding achievement in directing for a drama series on this episode. It's his personal best work in his whole career, better than his work on 3rd season finale- "Through the Looking Glass".
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Lost: Confirmed Dead (2008)
Season 4, Episode 2
1/10
Uninteresting...
8 February 2008
Warning: Spoilers
I felt last night's episode was slow and kinda of boring at times. I honestly don't think it has to do anything with the writing. Because I know the story was well staged and tried to keep things in place. I thought it wasn't that bad but overall, I didn't enjoy it. The most blame has to do with the director of that episode- Stephen Williams. I always hated Stephen Williams's directing. If Jack Bender continues with this episode from the season premiere, he would have kept it in a good pace and keep things float to keep things interesting. I'm glad Jack Bender is directing next week's episode and it'll be much better and I'm glad he got first Syaid episode to direct and I'm curious what he will pull off this time since Stephen Williams had directed too many Syaid episodes before.

I always keep thinking that Stephen Williams needs to be thrown off from the show. He doesn't even do anything interesting with the show.

Why does the opening have to be done with a target thing while being in the helicopter? IT was so BORING! Bad perspective of camera work too!
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Urban Justice (2007 Video)
5/10
Are you kidding me?
21 November 2007
6.1 out of 10 as average? I think this is a joke! Higher rating than Above the Law, Hard to Kill, Marked for Death, Out for Justice and Under Siege? You must be kidding me! This film was just so-so at Seagal's best. It was nice to see him returning to his old-school style in this one but overall the entertainment by itself was not that good. Of course, it is a lot better...I mean MUCH better than any of his DTV films but not Into The Sun. I liked Into the Sun over Urban Justice because of better production values and Seagal seems more on rampage in that film than in this one. I know Into the Sun didn't have that much action and fighting scenes like this one but I still liked it better mostly due to better camera work/techniques.

The directing was just average but not worth enough to prove anything good for a theatrical release.

With the profanity in this one...I HATED IT and I didn't think any of those were that funny. They tried to blow some funny one-liners but it doesn't work in this one. F bombs in almost every line which got on my nerves because it doesn't add any gritty feel to the film.

As what I exactly expected that I was having low expectations for this one, for any Seagal DTV films at the most.
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Lost: Through the Looking Glass: Part 1 (2007)
Season 3, Episode 22
10/10
Wow..so wow..
28 May 2007
Warning: Spoilers
This episode is the reason why I got into Lost in first place because of Jack Bender. Jack Bender's work deserved more recognization and that's what a director should do, to keep things moving well and to keep people entertained.

When this episode opens, I was in such an awe and I knew exactly what to expect from the director but the more he did with this episode, the more I was smiling and cheering because of amazing camera work.

The music is what made the whole episode work so well. In most of Jack Bender's episodes on Lost or Alias...the music always sounds so emotional and deeply-moving especially fits with a moving picture so well. That's what made things so well in an episode. I kept saying "Wow...so wow." every time when commericals came on after the show takes a break.

In this emotional and powerful season finale, it had full of action, great timing of humors despite to a dark episode of the show, the directing was such a perfection! especially with camera work.

I actually loved every moment of this finale. After seeing this one, I wasn't sure if I actually liked this episode more than "Live Together, Die Alone" but I think I actually do because this finale was much faster paced and full of action that doesn't slow things down like in "Live Together, Die Alone." Even I felt the direction was much better in this one.

I almost felt like so heartbreaking while seeing the camera work because of how great it was. I will list down the scenes that I loved from the camera work that Jack Bender did in this finale.

  • the camera was moving slowly surround Jack in the opening while he was in the car then follows him to the edge of the bridge. It captured so WELL!!!


  • the camera swifts at Syaid when he was aiming the gun at one of the Others during the credits when it said "directed by Jack Bender", that fits perfectly because that's exactly when the action actually began and never stops from there.


  • the camera was at the floor, moving up and rotates around on Charlie and Desmond when they were questioning the lady in the hatch underwater right after the commericals ended.


  • the survivors walked toward the record tower and the camera pulls away from them to show the tower, it was shot beautifully. It always apparent that when Jack Bender is directing an episode...he always have a shot showing the location, like at the ending of Exodus part 1 when Jin, Michael, Walt and Saywer were leaving on the raft and again in "Live Together, Die Alone", Syaid, Jin and Sun were on the boat surfing around and we saw a shot of 4 toed feet statue and plus after electronic magnetic went off, when things were settled down, the camera was tracking through the people on the beach. Lots of good trademarks in this episode from Jack Bender which I loved.


Now with the performances...some of actors deserved to win an emmy for their excellent work on this episode. Now with the directing...Jack Bender MUST win an emmy for his directing because it is absolutely PERFECT!!! It will not going to be ironic if he gets nominated again especially getting nominated two times in row.

With Charlie's death, I was never really upset about any characters' death but I always thought this death was well done and shot beautifully.

I'm actually glad that Bender directed all season finales so far and they all were GREAT!! especially this one. After seeing his direction on this finale made me think why don't he ever do another major picture someday since he only has done one in his career which was way back in 1991 titled Child's Play 3. As well...I hope Bender stays with the show until it ends in 2010 because I wouldn't want Stephen Williams to take over his place if he leaves the show but I'm not going to argue about Williams's direction though.

So a 15/10 for this episode.

And...my mind is still shaking right now after I saw this episode and it has been shaking every single day since the day it aired because of how great the direction was.
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Killing Mr. Griffin (1997 TV Movie)
6/10
Quite an enjoyable ride but didn't expect much...
6 August 2006
Jack Bender (the director of this TV movie) is the reason why I watched this movie. I knew this movie was going to be a cheesy teen thriller without gore and violence that we see in any Hollywood films. I wasn't really expecting any of it because I never really cared much for who's performing in this or how the story would flow along because I knew most of stuff sucked in this movie. I'd rather to say that I did enjoy the film, I owed it big to Jack Bender who directed the film. I liked it because I loved how the film's pacing went with those some weird and crazy camera techniques which is done by Jack Bender. It was not director of photography who come up with those kind of techniques, it was the director because director of photography is only responsible taking shots of camera use that the director is intending for so all of that really owe big to Jack Bender. Plus I love relentless camera tracking movements, it's what kept me going, I like to get my head spinning from it. I watched the film because I love Jack Bender's direction and he did great job in Alias and Lost. For Alias...Phase One is the best episode, hands down. And for Lost...Live Together, Die Alone is his best directed episode.
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Sin City (2005)
6/10
Just "good" but nothing is special.
12 April 2005
Last week, I went to see Sin City and I really can't say that I either hated or liked the movie. I just thought the movie was just "good". But nothing is special going on around here though. The color visual effects were great for a difference in a black and white film. And the reason that I was not very impressed with the film was because the camera techniques were not that good. It was done so much same as other films out there today. I felt Robert Rodriguez didn't do anything special with camera techniques such as how Paul T. Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese (in some way), Alfonso Cuaron and whoever is a truly master in film-making. So this is why I said there was nothing really special about Sin City except for that color visual effects. Sometimes I just got myself thinking about this film...boy... it got similar style as From Dusk Til Dawn and Kill Bill. I respect that it's their own style but sometimes I felt that there is nothing else is new.
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Torque (2004)
10/10
Dumb fun but mindless entertainment
29 April 2004
I saw this film way back in January and I didn't comment on this film yet because I wanted to see how people think about this film. I began to understand why they hated this film so much like how much they hated Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. Why is there so much hate to some specific movies? Why can't you never learn how to have a fun time and enjoy the entertainment that they gave us? I actually don't hate that many movies. I just liked them all. I learned myself how to like any kind of movies. Torque is a film that gives you pure and mindless entertainment that will leave you on a wild roller coaster ride. I know this film has no plot but is entertainment more fun than no plot? YES IT IS! When I watch a movie, I always look for entertainment first thing before I can find the plot. Especially if there is no plot then just stick to the entertainment just like how I felt about Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever. I personally think Torque is better entertainment than Ballistic. I find it funny when people voted Torque a 2.6 rating and a 3.7 rating for Ballistic. I gave Torque a 10 because of bad rating but actually I wanted to give it a 7. Three points off because of plot and because of final chase sequence at the end of movie which is plain stupid as it was used like a computer game. But overall I liked most of other parts. I really loved the opening sequence with opening credits. It was witty clever, that's what I'm looking for a pure entertainment like this as from opening sequence as where they can catch your attention. In addition to this, this film is way better than Biker Boyz because of more adrenaline rush entertainment and it's good enough for 81 minute running time compared to 111 minute for Biker Boyz.
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9/10
A good conclusion to Matrix Trilogy
4 December 2003
I have seen this film three times. At first when I saw it, I was kinda of little disappointed but little shocked at the same time. The most bizzare thing that happened to me is... that this film ended up the same way as I expected it to happen. So I went to see it again on the same day when it opened... I came out and had a big thought about how well The Wachowski Brothers did to Matrix Trilogy. Matrix Revolutions was a good conclusion because I don't like to expect most films to have a "happy ending", just for a difference. I believed that ending can happen. So I really can't judge on all 3 to decide which one is better. I liked them all. But I'm more entertained to The Matrix Reloaded than this one. That 17 minute battle sequence was well done, it seemed like they're trying to make it bigger than a 15 minute freeway chase sequence in Reloaded. But I still go for Reloaded. Also... Reloaded and Revolutions may lack it's plot but both still were good. A NICE JOB TO END THIS TRILOGY. I want to give this message to critics... you seemed like you don't understand movies that well. You all killed this movie, that's why it's not doing well. Why would you expect to kill this movie, because of lacking in story and stupid dialogue along with disappointed ending??? You're wrong. I didn't care much for dialogue because I want Wachowski Brothers to end the trilogy in a new way than other trilogy films. That's why I'm saying it's a good conclusion to trilogy and ignore those critics, they are not always believable, they just put down words as what they wanted to say about this film. I'm watching out for Lord of the Rings 3 and see how it ends. Lord of the Rings 1 was boring, and 2nd one is pretty entertaining so my hands are crossed for 3rd one.
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