One Sentence Movie Reviews: Go Fuck Yourself Edition

The Departed
While it is an excellent film in its own right, I feel it loses much of its moral ambiguity as compared to Infernal Affairs.

Many of the detail changes between the two films seem designed to make the good guys better and the bad guys worse, almost as if the movie has been dumbed down for American audiences. Other alterations contribute to the movie, but seem highly unlikely (Costigan's affair with Sullivan's girlfriend comes to mind). To be fair, both versions have their share of implausibilities, so I'm not sure I can take points away for that. The final product is a movie that is much grittier and feels more real, but which is lacking some of the stylistic flair and philosophical questioning of the original.

Jack Nicholson is insane.


I'm bored, so I made these. I can't decide which I like more. Your thoughts?



The original.

One Sentence Movie Reviews: Samurai Western Edition

The Magnificent Seven
Questionable acting by the secondary cast fails to ruin an otherwise excellent movie.

Man, Yul Brynner is awesome. Steve McQueen is awesome. Charles Bronson is awesome. James Coburn is awesome. Everyone in this movie is awesome - as long as they have top billing. Otherwise, it's a mixed bag.

There's one thing I noticed during Casablanca and again during this movie. People getting shot looks hilariously unrealistic. I'm not sure if it's the lack of blood caps or the acting, but something about it seems really off.

Well, now I have to watch The Departed and The Seven Samurai and A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo. Better get to it.

Blasphemies, etc.

Well, it happened. After eight days of movie watching, I skipped a day. I suppose it was inevitable, really. In any case, I'll try to watch one tonight, before my first day of work at Dick's.

That's right, I'm interning for the ghost of Richard M. Nixon.

I leave you now with proof that my nephew is The Best Baby

One Sentence Movie Reviews, Part what, IIX? Damn.

Casablanca
Hot damn that's a well-constructed movie.

With all the classics, you find yourself wondering sometimes whether they were great at the time, but now seem quaint or outdated. Well, that wasn't the case with Citizen Kane, and that's not the case with Casablanca.

One Sentence Movie Reviews: Nicholas Cage is People! Edition

Adaptation
A good movie about a guy writing a screenplay about a book about a guy with a woman and there's another guy in there somewhere.

Pulp Fiction
Quentin Tarantino likes it when people talk.

I liked Adaptation, but I think if I saw it again I'd like it more. There seems to be a lot going on that you'd miss if you weren't looking for it. Brian Cox is awesome; I noticed this the first time around.

One thing I missed the first several times I saw Pulp Fiction: Kathy Griffin is in it. Seriously, I never noticed. And yes, it is a 13 year old movie, but I saw it last night at Red Rock Amphitheater, and it was sweet. They even had a surf band playing before it, and they were sweet as well.

Sweetness all around.

One Sentence Movie Review: Only One? Edition

Chinatown
Either I'm missing something or that is one hell of an overrated film.

Seriously, if Brick was the movie that pleasantly surprised me, Chinatown is the one which left me scratching my head and asking "that's it?"

I like to think I'm not just a movie escapist who needs everything to end with sunshine and rainbows; I find Requiem for a Dream amazing, and it makes me want to never get out of bed ever again. But I wouldn't say Chinatown has a depressing ending; for it to be an ending at all the players have to learn something, or at least change in some small way. I would be hard pressed to name any character changes from the beginning to the end (going from alive to dead doesn't count).

It's not all black marks from me. The acting is all top-notch. The feel of LA in the 30s seemed real, and the heat of the drought bled off the screen. I just didn't feel what the movie was trying to tell me, and found myself not caring about what it was, anyway.