Protecting The Private Life

Rush is the most beautiful and terrifying display of raw power I have witnessed in recent memory. It simply wasn't possible to see and hear such speed and not be overwhelmed. There's really not much I can say about it – I can't think of a single fault. The cinematography was breath-taking; the acting was excellent; the soundtrack was classic Hans Zimmer; the pacing was perfect. This isn't a movie about cars or racing – it's a movie about a rivalry more powerful than even the constant risk of death. It is a movie of such pure intensity and everyone should try and see it. 10/10 I feel like I should make it clear that this is not blind praise – it's objective praise. Criticism is all well and good, but unfounded cynicism is merely tiresome. I genuinely cannot find fault in this movie.

Definitely a mixed bag. So mixed, in fact, that it didn't really feel cohesive, and the high highs and low lows are easily examined separately. I'll start with the lows: From start to finish, there was a vibe of an amateur editing job. The first 20 minutes were muddled, boring, and frustratingly lacking in anything for the audience to invest in. The plot soon recovered, but putting me in a bad mood straight out of the gate isn't what I was hoping for. And as painfully long as the beginning was, the end was shockingly abrupt. Even on a shot-by-shot level some of the editing choices seemed odd, and the whole affair left me disappointed far too often. As if to hammer the point home, somehow someone thought it was a good idea to assault the audience with fucking GoPro footage. It was hideous. It was jarring. It was just plain embarrassing. How such grainy and unnecessary footage made it into the final cut is beyond me. Not only was it far, far below the quality of the...

How you view Ender's Game depends largely on whether you've read the book or not. As someone who's read it, it's difficult to imagine how the movie would come across to someone who hasn't, so this review might be a little biased. I can sum up my thoughts in 2 points: The movie was as faithful to the book as a movie can be. The book is about the slow mental evolution of Ender, coupled with the methodical destruction of his emotional psyche at the hands of his teachers. The keyword here is "slow". This left the movie with 2 options: either have 50% of the movie be montages, or accelerate everything by extreme proportions. Both options suck, but the former sucks more, so they went with the latter. This completely removed the impact of Ender's transformation over time, and left no room for even a single character to be fleshed out. When none of your characters carry any weight, all you're left with is the spectacle of the zero-gravity...

Captain Phillips is an experiment in what happens if the main character doesn't panic, is smart, does everything right, and stays calm for 95% of the ordeal. The movie is exceptionally well-made and I can't pinpoint anything that it did wrong. However even when immersed in a traumatic situation, if the main character isn't stressed or scared, then why should the viewer be? This is the question I found myself asking when about halfway through the movie, I found my immersion (and interest) waning. By not getting emotional, it also made it difficult for Tom Hanks to show off his acting chops, and instead the main character remains impenetrably calm for almost the entire movie. It's simply not the kind of thing an audience can be expected to empathise with. Fortunately, we're given a really strong ending with Tom Hanks' acting finally given a chance to hit the audience hard. It's a movie that does nothing wrong, but lacks any real drive or tension simply be...

The Good: Gravity is the most visually breathtaking movie I've ever seen. It is exactly the kind of movie that the 3D effect was meant for, and is absolutely worth seeing on a big screen and in 3D. It wouldn't nearly have the same effect at home in 2D. The technical brilliance of the film lends itself perfectly to its main aim: immersion. My experience involved a racing heart, white knuckles gripping my chair for dozens of minutes on end, and praying for the tension to be over. And of course as soon as it calmed down, I couldn't wait for it to ramp up again. The music fit perfectly with this, punctuated at just the right times with the utter silence of space. The silence had a surprisingly huge effect on the action as well – after being desensitized to most of the explosions in movies these days, to see it happen in 100% silence was extremely eerie and intense. The complete lack of gravity added to this as well – nothing moved like I expected it to, and suddenly every ...

Having seen other works from Sophia Coppola (Lost in Translation, Somewhere) I knew what to expect, but I still wasn’t prepared for the surrealism that permeates through “The Virgin Suicides”. Within the first 30 seconds I was enthralled; unable to guess what would happen or how things would play out. The basic plot of the movie is utterly depressing, and yet the somewhat alien interactions between the sisters (and their interactions with the world) negate this depression to the point of being a pleasant curiosity. And yes, it’s as unusual as it sounds. It’s the kind of movie that makes you sit there at the end, staring dumbfounded at the credits, soaking in exactly what it was you just saw. Absolutely nothing is resolved or explained by the end, and yet it remains extremely satisfying with no real questions remaining. It should by no means be described as “entertaining”, at least not in the traditional sense, but instead as “compelling”. It’s definitely not for everyone. Ki...

Despite the bland name, “The Lookout” is a surprisingly insightful look into the lives of damaged, flawed people. Nearly every character with even a handful of speaking lines had an interesting, nuanced background, while remaining very much rooted in reality and the lives of ordinary people. It’s a pity that by the end of the movie, there really wasn't time to resolve all the different relationships and character struggles, and it left me feeling unsatisfied despite the objectively excellent climax.  By far the most glaring example was his ex-girlfriend, who only gets a quick conversation in a dream when there was a hell of a lot more potential for exploration. In many ways, the bank heist actually gets in the way of the main character’s opportunities for growth, rather than enabling it. After putting all that attention into introducing and growing a swathe of characters, it was a pity to see it all ultimately boil down to a movie about money. The movie certainly doesn't ...