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DreamHunter
Reviews
The Village (2004)
Poor guy . . .
Pity M. Night Shyamalan. That twist ending from The Sixth Sense is going to haunt him forever. My advice: don't go into The Village with the wrong expectations. Look at this as a story, not a mind-trick.
Personally, I really liked it. Good performances bring interesting characters to life. The suspense is present at all times, even when you have figured out what's going on (or think you have). And yes, there are a couple of neat surprises throughout the movie. Will the ending make you re-think the whole experience? Um, no, but not every movie has to pull the rug from under you. I'm more concerned with having a connection with what's going on in the screen, with being involved in the story. Something that's difficult to achieve when you focus on trying to second-guess the plot.
Now, granted, I'm not saying this is the case with every person that goes to see the movie and doesn't like it. I can completely understand people being turned off by Shyamalan's slow pacing, the odd speech patterns he gives to his characters, his old-style approach to suspense (not showing the threat unless it's absolutely necessary and even then, only barely, most of the time), etc. Personally, I like it. I like his style, and it's been pretty consistent throughout his movies (all of which I've enjoyed a lot, with the exception of The Sixth Sense, which was ok but definitely was an instance where the gimmick made the movie). So here I am, jumping in to defend a movie whose biggest sin seems to be that it didn't set out to do what its audience expected it to.
Oh, well. In case you're wondering, my favorite Shyamalan movie is "Unbreakable", so I wasn't in the majority already.
Sweet Home Alabama (2002)
The big bad city, once again.
At least Family Man was entertaining and kind of funny.
I'm just sick of movies where success and "making it in the city" are portrayed as something wrong.
But fine, I'll deal with that as long as the movie is amusing. Unfortunately, I had to walk out of Sweet Home Alabama a few minutes before it ended because I was hungry and I had wasted enough time already giving the movie chance after chance.
I'm not a Reese Witherspoon fan. I don't find her "charming". I guess that didn't help while watching the movie. I thought she did fine in Pleasantville, but here she lacks the comic timing that could have made her character less annoying. Like the whole movie.
So . . . Contrived plot twists, weak performances (except for Ethan Embry, who does a good job), and incredibly lame and obvious "southern" jokes. After enjoying Everafter (caught it on video a while back), I was expecting quite a bit more from Tennant's new movie.
(yeah, yeah, I know he made Anna and the King between those two . . . Not my kind of movie, but at least it was decent)
Annie Hall (1977)
Perfect ending
Yes, it's clever, it's funny, it's touching . . . But isn't the ending just plain great? I'll avoid spoiling it for whoever hasn't seen it yet, but I've always felt that Annie Hall's ending was a big reason why it stands out as one of Woody Allen's masterpieces and my favorite of his films.
By the way, to those wondering about the original murder mystery that gave birth to Annie Hall, I guess the closest thing to it you can get is Manhattan Murder Mystery. The original was never shot, as far as I know, according to Allen himself in the book "Woody Allen on Woody Allen".
Anyway, great filmmaking. A very human love story.
Dungeons & Dragons (2000)
Wanna know how bad it was?
I left the theater like half an hour before the movie ended. And before that, I'd spent half an hour debating whether I should leave or not. You see, I don't think I've ever done that before. Sure, I wanted to during "House on Haunted Hill", but didn't out of respect for my friends. This time I was alone and after half an hour, I accepted that I had a million better things to do than waste my time with this film.
It is *that* bad. The "total waste of time" kind of bad. Nope, not even the FX are worth it.
Poor acting (I probably would have skipped this all together if I'd known Marlon Wayans was in it, anyway), an awful script (or were those the actors improvisating "kewl" lines?), and a story that couldn't be less interesting if they tried...
Avoid this like the plague. Poor D&D fans...
Lima: Breaking the Silence (1999)
Who makes these movies?????
Ok, so it's more of a rhetorical question, but still, the mind boggles. Was there any kind of thought put behind this project other than "let's get a few quick bucks out of this controversial event in a third-world country"?
Forget about how insulting this thing is for Peruvians and everyone involved in the real Hostage Situation the movie's "based" on (well, everyone except the terrorists themselves... They come up rather triumphantly when all is said and done). Forget about how irresponsibly the facts and the story are treated (if you're going to be so careless about the facts, why not use an imaginary country and imaginary characters?). Let's forget about all those aspects. Let's pretend this is just an original story. A piece of fiction. You know what? It still blows! Big time.
And it's not only because of the terrible acting, or the poor dialogue. It's also because this movie doesn't just ask you to suspend your disbelief. It asks you to take you disbelief and flush it down the toilet. The plot points lack any kind of logic. And when you think things can't get more ridiculous, the film-makers prove you wrong: Here, between the President dressed up as a soldier and the gratuitous sex scene, let's place a dance number!
Now, I'm not saying it's not fun. It's hilarious, if you're Peruvian. And I guess it's kind of amusing if you're the type that likes to watch train-wrecks and such. It's the kind of film that is so bad, it's almost acceptable. But, on the other hand, it's perplexing. There were actual human beings who thought they were telling a good story here? And telling it effectively?
Man... It gets really scary after a while.