Change Your Image
vinophilia-1
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
Trouble with the Curve (2012)
"Curve" Falters Down the Stretch
I love baseball, and the thought of Clint Eastwood playing a crusty old baseball scout with Amy Adams as his daughter sounded great to me. "Trouble with the Curve" gets off to a great start -- unshaven Clint eating breakfast out of yesterday's SPAM can, Amy rattling off baseball trivia like it ran in her blood. Unfortunately, after developing these characters with great potential the script gives them nothing to hit with.
Clint plays a character named Gus, an old legendary baseball scout in the Atlanta Braves organization who is having trouble with his eyesight. His wife died when Mickey, his daughter played by Amy Adams, was six, leaving lots of father-daughter issues to resolve on film, as you can imagine. Johnny (Justin Timberlake), a former ballplayer, was scouted by Gus but eventually traded to the Red Sox, who's mismanagement resulted in a torn rotator cuff and a short career. He feels he owes Gus for the chance he got and ends up falling for Mickey (naturally).
Right from the start, fluffy dialogue falls flat over and over again, leaving awkward silences and empty arguments. Amy Adams in particular seems to chafe under the poorly written dialogue. At times Mickey uses casual language with her peers that would never pass in a big city law firm. A romantic scene at a lake between her and Johnny breaks down, making it difficult to believe the romantic energy between them. Even during the critical scenes between Gus and his daughter, the dialogue goes exactly as every viewer expects it to, leaving us slightly self satisfied but not exactly entertained.
There are some lovely scenes, to be sure, and great footage of clogging in a local bar. Clint, Amy and Justin are always fun to watch, and they were entertaining in "Trouble with the Curve", but their warm performances could not compensate for a predictable script with awkward dialogue.
An airplane movie but nothing more.
Bottle Shock (2008)
Light comedy not for wine purists
Bill Pullman and Alan Rickman carry this film along despite mediocre writing and directing, and in the end deliver light summer fun without much substance. However, if you are looking for authenticity when it comes to wine or the wine industry, look elsewhere. The movie gets most of its wine details wrong, over glamorizing the industry and underestimating its audience in the process. I still can't figure out why a production crew couldn't hire someone who knows something about wine before making a movie about the wine industry. The funny thing is, the parts of the industry that were misrepresented could have been accurately depicted without any loss of romanticism or visual effect; I suspect the crew just didn't take the time to get them right. Sideways got more right than any movie before it, and even that movie had its wine related mistakes. My rant aside, go see this movie. It is fun, light comedic fluff, and leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy with a hankering for a bottle of California wine.
Dreamgirls (2006)
Overproduced and Under-Exciting
Dreamgirls disappoints, especially when you consider its source and the talent involved. Bill Condon has directed some very direct, honest pictures that surprise with their humanity and creativity. This movie, though direct in the sense that it does not surprise, delivers very little in terms of authentic human emotion or unexpected character dynamics. Though both Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson deserve the attention they are getting for their supporting roles, neither of the leads show much energy on screen. Their lack of buoyancy, along with the generally overproduced and under-exciting music, left me feeling bored and a little trapped, invested as I was in both the supporting characters. Worth a watch, but not worth the hype.
Brick (2005)
new noir
it's about time someone did something truly new with noir. not to worry, noir fans, all the elements are there to full effect: heartbroken, calloused male lead, the woman who left him, shady and intimidating crime boss, not too bright strongman, the yelling match with the police chief (in this case a vice-principal). the takeaway message remains, however, for those of you hoping for political correctness: never trust a dame. in short, cinematography: creative. acting: effective. writing: brilliant and dense. sounds like a chandler screenplay, but updated, not so updated to sound like elmore leonard, but somewhere in between. the dialog is rapid fire and very smart, reminiscent of mamet. is any of this making sense? regardless, one of the most inventive and intelligent movies to come out of America in the last few years. definitely worth a viewing, and, truth be told, a reviewing. art and entertainment and dark dastardly deeds, just as a great noir should be.
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
worst cohen movie ever
where is the timing in this movie? where is the quick, smart dialog? sure, flashes of cohen brilliance surface at unexpected moments in this vacuous, flat-footed waste of time, but they are few and far between. the dinner between the miles and marilyn, the self-promoting exclamations of cedrick's private dick, the tag line for N.O.M.A.N.'s annual conference -- these are hilarious, ingenious, beyond the pale of most mortals. but genius is what we expect of these two brothers, and what we got without fail through their first seven features. then came the man who wasn't there, which was there, but just. after that i barely survived the ladykillers, but perhaps my familiarity with the original biased me unfairly. two movies, i thought, a bit of a slump, forgivable and surmountable, to be sure. but three? have we lost our boys forever? i said that once about woody allen and bob Dylan. let it be that i am wrong about the cohen brothers, too.