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Reviews
Gone Baby Gone (2007)
Emotional pornography
Ben Affleck has created a movie in which his scrawny little brother Casey can act out his wet dreams of playing a tough guy. It's pathetic from the syrupy opening sequence where we discover the "heart" of the local people of Boston, all the way to the end, where Casey avenges then deaths of all the little innocent children and slain heroes. Watching this movie was wallowing in bad, emotional pornography.
The movie is a series of vignettes in which the littlest Affleck gets to show what a bad ass he wants to be. The plot winds on and on as Casey saves the day scene after scene. There is no trajectory to the story, no sense of rhythm, just back-fired catharsis after back-fired catharsis. It's mind-numbing. You will hear "for the sake of the children" until you want to stuff cotton in your ears. I can't imagine any self-respecting writer actually putting this schlock on paper.
So what does the movie do? Affleck's redundantly long film massages the prostate gland of gun-toting, vigilante-wannabes who think the best way to extract justice is by "taking care of things themselves" and "taking justice into their own hands" and watching movies about bad asses. The LAST thing America moviegoers need is another film to stroke the egos of puffed-up, self-righteous violence mongers. The movie is basically Team America with a dramatic score.
Please do not support this kind of movie-making. It's pathetic. We can do better.
Martian Child (2007)
This "clean" version of the story is pathetic
I was thrilled to see David Gerrold's heart-wrenching novel "The Martian Child" was being made into a movie, with John and Joan Cusack (both hugely talented actors) and Amanda Peet (who was no less than dazzling in Studio 60). Who wouldn't be?
But leave it to Hollywood to take a good thing and ruin it entirely. The core of the book was the idea that a gay man adopts a young boy who thinks he's a martian. The identity of the father and the son are inextricably linked to their backgrounds (one as a gay man and the other as a neglected child).
Hollywood's decision to "clean the novel up" by making the protagonist a straight man who has lost his wife has mutilated this story. What you see know is a steaming pile of mediocre Hollywood schlock. Too bad America has to have its literature "cleaned" before it can be viewed by movie goers. Why don't we just burn the books instead?
This movie is disgusting and pathetic.
88 Minutes (2007)
Words fail to capture how bad this film is
I registered myself on IMDb just so i could tell you how bad this movie is, but that might be difficult because words fail to express how very terrible this failed attempt at movie-making is. I have a modicum of respect for b-movies, but just the fact that this film attempts to take itself seriously is a mistake.
to say that this movie follows a tired, clichéd formula is an understatement, as the filmmaker clearly has no idea what the formula should be in the first place.
you'd think from the cast that there might be some merit to it, right? wrong. the character portrayed by Al pacino, whom i normally really like, is so dreadfully overacted. and they can't even find a suit that fits him. his droopy pants legs drag on the floor and his blazer hangs down like a kid wearing his fathers clothes. BUT, we are meant to take him seriously.
then there is the writing. its like the lines from a bunch USA network late-night suspense movies were fed into a computer, which then generated the dialog for this film. just stupid cliché after stupid cliché.
so pacino's character--a badass, streetwise AND brilliant professor of forensic psychology-- runs around Seattle (with his pants treading on the ground, nota bene) chasing a "crazed" serial killer whom pacino though he had already locked up. all the while he is surrounded by a gaggle of model-like psychology students including Leela sobieowski, Alicia Witt, and others.
don't expect any plot twists. just a lot of heated cell phone conversations, horrendous one- liners, and a completely far-fetched and unforeseeable ending. i would rather cook and eat my own hand than have to watch his movie again. i cannot believe that these actors agreed to do this movie or that it ever got made. this is a film-making fiasco and nothing else.