Change Your Image
AlgisKuliukas
Reviews
Human Nature (2001)
Delightfully refreshing comedy
I didn't take this film very seriously and thought it was a delight. Some of the scenes and lines were just hillarious (like the one which ended with Puff's "Woopee!" at the promise of more desert after having his natural sexual urges zapped out of him for the past half hour. If you let go of any notion of plausibility and just go with its crazy story line I think anyone with a wacky sense of humour will like it too.
I have to add just one point of fact to correct a line which just irritated me when Nathan's father told his son that pygmy chimps are the closest relatives to humans and sort of implied that it was because we only had one chromosome less than they do. Actually all four types of great apes: common chimps (Pan troglodytes), bonobos or pygmy chimps - the species Puff thought he was growing up as - (Pan paniscus), gorilla (Gorilla sp.) and orang-utan have the same (48) number of chromosomes whereas humans have 46. The reason Pan (both chimps and bonobos actually) are said to be closer to humans than the other apes is because they have fewer genic (that is informational, or base-pair) differences in the genes inside those chromsomes... ...but, hey, it's no biggie.
Algis Kuliukas
Vanilla Sky (2001)
Interesting futuristic view of cryogenics and longevity
Apart from a few minutes of pure jealousy induced hatred when Tom Cruise was trying to blow away Cameron Diaz in favour of Penelope Cruz (what a choice!) I thought the film was really rather good.
I like scenes in films which make you question one version of reality against another and this film had them in abundance. The plot gets better on a second or third viewing - if you're as thick as I am and get confused easily. I just love the whole concept of cryogenics and the issues it raises and I thought this film brought many of those issues out in a fascinating way.
I don't normally find much interesting in Tom Cruise's usual action-packed hero/rich business kid roles but somehow I warmed to him this time. Perhaps it was seeing him get his face smashed in and having to cope with being plain ugly for a change that made him seem a bit more appealing. Then again, in the story his millions left him immortal and living in a dream world with Penelope Cruz for eternity. Not a bad future for anyone, except that for Cruise even that wasn't good enough! In films, as I suspect in real life, he always seems to get an obscene amount of 'the sweet' without ever having to take very much of 'the sour'. No, damn it, I hate him! ... But it was still a good film.
Algis Kuliukas
Adaptation. (2002)
A refreshingly clever film
I watched this film on DVD last night, twice back-to-back. Having done so I was rather surprised to read some of the negative comments posted here and I feel that I should add my bit to redress the balance in the film's favour.
I thought it was a refreshingly clever film, full of pleasant surprises and some classic moments and phrases that were simply awe-insipring. A sketch of some of examples of this... I loved the paranoia of Cage's main character, an honest portrayal of a sophisticated middle-aged worried man and his complexities and sensitivities. The conversation with his agent - that he didn't want to make the usual trashy hollywood type film was lovely, I thought. And yet somehow that's what happened: - car chases, love affairs, guns and violence... It was as if it really wanted to be a film for the purist audience but in the end the film, like Kaufman, had to compromise its principles to get it finished and make a sale. I thought the evolutionary aspects were rather beautifully done - like the history of the world in twenty seconds and the fantastic portrayal by LaRoche of how the shape of individual orchid species are linked to an individual insect species. There was a couple of minutes of really profound stuff there that left me cold - and I loved the way the music came in and Meryl Streep was left stunned too - to further underline that point. It was great the way that moments like that were slipped in deliberately to catch you off guard - up until that moment Laroche's excentric charcater had seemed a bit of a Bozo. Another example of this was the way Kaufman's shallow half (I forget his name) surprised his more intellectual brother and, actually saved him from depression with another lovely line - 'It's what you love that makes you, not what loves you' and the very last bit in the film - the quote from The Three - ending ... 'How silly is that? A heart cell hating a lung cell' again, I thought, quite profound. Almost unnoticed in all this was the way that Nicholas Cage played two different guys excellently and the special effects to have them in so many scenes simultaneously but absolutley seemless was impressive. I suppose the only frustration I had was the inplausible way that Meryl Streep's character turned from intelligent sad, druggie to would-be murderer without so much as a word of conversation with Kaufman.
Anyway - enough. I thought it was great and would recommend it to anyone looking for a film that gives you something to think about.
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
One of the best films of all time
If you have any doubts about this film, my advice is to put them to one side. In particular if you think the subject matter of a mathematician winning a Nobel prize for his work on gaming theory is a bit too, shall we say, techy or academic don't worry.
The film is a masterpiece. I won't give anything away here but I'd just like to say that it is truly uplifting leaves you with a million thoughts about life, the way human beings behave, madness, love and a whole lot more. Russel Crowe gives one of the best acting performances I've ever seen.
I gave it 10 out of 10. I think it is one of the best films I've ever seen.
The Mexican (2001)
Delightful storyline, wonderful acting, beautifully made.
I don't know why this film has scored so badly here. It makes me wonder. Well my wife and I watched it with my son (14) and eldest daughter (11) and we all thought it was great. In fact I'd go as far as to say it was one of the best ever. I love films like this, that take you off on wierd and implausible adventures into foreign lands. Pure escapism. I thought Brad Pitt and Julia Roverts - two actors who I don't normally warm to - were brilliant. One of the best portrayals of an argumentative couple in love I've seen. The guy who played the gay assisin was great too. This film contains a great deal of wonderful dialog and magical scenery.
'Nuff said. I gave it 9 out of 10.
Traffic (2000)
Just Depressing
At the end of this film I was left feeling "well we might as well all just surrender and get hooked on Heroine, then" - such was the overwhelming gloom. Its documentary style gave it a serious rather than an entertaining feel, which added to the depression. Perhaps that is why I didn't 'enjoy' it as much as either Trainspotting or 'Requiem to a dream.' They too were depressing but I though they were far better films than this.
When will someone make a film where a non-smoker is the hero and cigarettes and drink are exposed as the corrupt, money making machines they are? TRAFFIC seemed to be pretty clearly saying that about the drug industry - but what about booze and fags?
Dunno. I thought it was just a bit overrated. 6/10.
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Depressingly vicious story about violent criminals
Ok, Tarrantino's films are exceptionally well made. This one too. But I have to say I didn't like it very much.
Like Pulp Fiction this film has some wonderful dialog. It was the promise of that, that attracted me to it in the first place. (So, clearly I saw this second.) However, unlike Pulp Fiction, you are not left with warm and uplifting memories of delightful, witty conversations at the end, instead the movie leaves you depressed and feeling sick at having just witnessed humanity pretty close to its worst. The unnecessarily vicious scenes of violence and endless ranting of angry men screaming at each other are what you take away from this film.
If that's your idea of a good night out, you'll watch this and enjoy it. For me it was too bleak, too depressing. There was just not enough positive stuff to outweigh the negative.
I loved Pulp Fiction but this was just too bloody horrible to be enjoyable for me
Algis Kuliukas
Final Destination (2000)
Silly, but with a great crash scene
I thought the film started brilliantly. I love that kind of hallucination/dream switch with reality. I thought the opening crash scene was marvellously horrific.
So you find yourself in a really fascinating scenario: The guy had just had a premonition about a terrible disaster and then watched it actually happen. How would everyone cope? - Him with the guilt, the others with their suspicions of how he knew.
If you missed the opening fifteen minutes either re-wind the tape or don't bother watching any more.
Because.. instead of exploring those things the film took us down a stupidly childish story about hocus pocus and the dreaded grim reaper choosing who would die and who wouldn't and how, no matter how you try, you can't dodge your fate.
The clever young hero had worked out what 'Death' had "intended" - including the order that the escapees were 'supposed' to die. I hate this kind of nonsense.
The film just gets worse the longer it goes on and the ending sums it all up. I gave it 4 just for the crash scene and the first fifteen minutes.
The Invisible Circus (2001)
Sweet and sad
As a father of four in his forties I thought this film made compelling viewing - if not edge-of-the-seat stuff. I deserves a far higher rating than the 4.3 that it had when I wrote this. (I gave it 7.)
I agree with some of the comments about the characters but Cameron Diaz was, again, sparkling in yet another very different role. The plot was a little silly but the point of the film for me was beautifully summed up in the final, quite surreal, sequence. A moving ending for any parent.
I could imagine that a young, single bloke might find the film quite boring but for other people not fixed on high doses of testosterone would find something sweet in this.
Memento (2000)
Over-complicated and overrated
I was recommended this film by someone whose opinion I value. Perhaps consequently my expectations were too high and I was left just feeling disappointed.
The positive thing about the film is that it did give an insight into how confusing life must be with this kind of short-term memory disorder - but so what?, is that supposed to be entertainment?
It's a novel approach to show the ending of a film first and then work backwards but it made the (otherwise very simple) plot overly complicated and more like a memory-test puzzle than a film.
The acting was good enough but I think that overall this film is greatly overrated - how on earth did it get in the ImDB top 10?
Algis Kuliukas
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Ugly but compelling.
Not a pleasant film but one not to miss. It leaves you depressed but grateful. Fantastic acting, fast moving. Totally compelling. You cannot take your eyes off the screen for a second. A trully brilliant film.