A whole lotta crap..

Dreamgirls: The only other movie that has exhausted me so much was Peter Jackson's King Kong and the Who's Tommy, both for different reasons. King Kong was exhausting because it was so stupid and had excessively long action scenes that weren't that interesting. Tommy was exhausting because it was just music the whole time and crazy images, I was dying for someone to just talk. Dreamgirls is a combination of both of these except that instead of action scenes it just had really boring singing scenes. The story is not all that original, in fact every year at Oscar time we see the same story, whether it is called Ray, Walk the Line, or Dreamgirls. The music is decent at first but quickly becomes over bearing especially when Jennifer Hudson is singing at the top of her lungs for 20 straight minutes. I thought I was going to pass out. Beyonce looked swell but not enough to compensate for the length of the movie. It seemed to go on forever. Had the movie not been a musical but rather a movie with music numbers in it, it would have been okay, but then again it probably would not have been nominated for 8 academy awards. Why is it that musicals are always nominated? Does it make people feel like they are classy because they sat through a musical?

Devil Wears Prada: The first 20 minutes of this movie were fun and interesting. Then it becomes a movie about a girl with no money walking around in designer clothing. All of sudden, she becomes super worker and is really good at her job and as a result all of her friends hate her. Cliche!!! This movie is very predictable and quite infuriating. At the end it has the chance to become a good movie but they blow it and they take happy? way out. All I got from this movie is that if you are in the fashion industry you must be an egotistical bitch. And if you follow your dreams and work really hard your friends will probably hate you. So don't try to get ahead in life because people don't like people that are better than them. It is best to just take the dead end job. I was pretty upset about it. Streep was good, but Oscar quality? Well... I guess Oscar quality is not as big a deal as I imagine it once was.

Curse of the golden something or other: Ostentatious. Did I spell that right? Either way, I'm not really concern and apparently the filmmakers weren't either. I was impressed with the sets and stuff for about 5 minutes at which point I began having sensory overload. The story is not very interesting, and really doesn't seem to have any direction. Anytime something started to happen these people would start singing out the time of day and ruin the mood. I didn't like any of the characters and wasn't able to engage myself with anything in the movie. There was one girl that was really hot but she was kind of weird. The only reason I can think of that this movie was made is that it must be a true story. Why else would someone go to the trouble of doing it. As a result, I feel that if you are chinese or deeply into chinese history you may find this movie interesting. Otherwise, just watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon again.

Well, I am sorry to be so negative. I have really been picking bad movies lately. I hope my next review will be a good one.

The Good Shepard

This is a long movie in which it doesn't seem like much happens. I didn't dislike this movie but I feel it could of been a lot better. I am very interested in the CIA having played a number of video games in which I have either been part of the CIA or fought against them and it has always resulted in a good time. This movie was not such a good time. I have no problem with taking the action side out of espionage but in return I want some other pay off. This movie only had a couple of those moments and they were not very satisfying. I could not figure out why Matt Damon's character stayed with the job and what he did in the first place to earn it. He never seemed to enjoy what he was doing or get any satisfaction out of it. And after the initial sting he didn't seem to do that much that was out of the ordinary to show what a genius he was. My last complaint is that Billy Crudup's english accent was a bit annoying. I realize it sounds as if I hated it, but I didn't. I just wanted to be better.

Children of Men

This was one of my most anticipated films of the year. I have been a fan of Alfonzo Couron since his version of Great Expectations. This is the kind of sci fi that is less fun and more scary than anything else because it feels so real and so near in the future. Couron jam packs each frame with so much detail that your first viewing will keep you busy just absorbing the world and getting through the plot. The DP, Lubetzky uses very long shots to show you that this world is real and not a set piece or a series of fx shots. He does an outstanding job of generating a tense, scary, future. Thinking about it afterwards I think it ultimately hurt the film to keep the shots so long (with the exception of one scene). The director and the DP get to show you the movie but the editor does not get enough of a chance to make you feel the movie. As much as I admired this film, and loved some of it's techniques, I can't help but think that it could have been better, or deeper with more audience participation. There is no chance for the audience to read between the lines because there are no lines, (or cuts). I was surprised at two things: One, at how uneasy I was during this film, and Two, at how much humor was worked into the film, although it is kind of generating a nervous laughter. I recommend this film to anyone who loves films, but I can say, that I wouldn't want to watch this film again anytime soon.