Posts

Short Film Review: The Sweetening

‘The Sweetening’ Adds a Little Spice to a Mundane Life By Monica Sztybel Imagine finding the one, the person who gets you, who knows and loves everything about you.  What if you could meet that person, only they aren’t a person at all?  Instead it is a virtual encounter.  A computer-generated companion that only you can see and hear, and in some ways even touch. The Sweetening explores what can happen when the unreal feels real. Like most of us, Sadie (Grace Rowe) has regrets.  She wishes her life was different.  She is lonely, but refuses to admit it to anyone.  Perhaps she doesn’t realize it until she meets Jack (Matt Houston)?  He’s everything she wants, handsome, charming and attentive.  He also seems to know everything and love everything about her.  How can she not fall for someone like him?  The film starts with Sadie sitting on a park bench, holding an ice cream cone. She is alone with her thoughts, her narration touching upon her feelings, dealing with her regret and her wish
Post a Comment
Read more

Film Review: Two Bit Waltz

If this had been billed as a student film, I might have tolerated it a bit better.  Sadly, this first-foray by Clara Mamet (daughter of David Mamet) is just not smooth enough to be considered off-beat or quirky comedy.  The problem is that it tries too hard. It's supposed to be autobiographical, which is even crazier.  Does David Mamet hide under his bed all day? I'm all for absurdest humor.  I love Monty Python and have enjoyed some classic off-the-wall comedies from the UK as well as the US.  But maybe that's my problem.  Nothing seemed original.  Sure, dancing fish and ballerinas out of the blue does make one pause and wonder, but I was a teenager when MTV was born.  Oddball videos were a part of my childhood, so I have seen this all before. Sometimes a film is funnier to those involved in making it than it is to the audience.  I have a feeling the cast and crew laughed themselves silly, but maybe because it was a lot of fun to do something silly, quirky and just a
Post a Comment
Read more

Film Review: Whiplash

It's been a while, and I think that's because I only seem to write in this blog when a film or TV show touches me emotionally or causes me to think.  Whiplash is one of those films. I have heard the Oscar buzz about it and while I do think it has a chance with its powerful performances, I'm wondering how people feel about J.K. Simmons' character of Fletcher. I hated him. I totally get the tough-love approach to getting people to do their best.  When I was a kid in school that was the way to do it.  A teacher or a coach could be mean, be nasty and push buttons to get the kids to do their best, much like a drill sergeant in the army.  It's not like today's "good job" coaching where everyone wins.  I realize why it's not done as much, because in some cases it's akin to bullying. My view is that while I am on the fence with tough coaching (when it works and it's done right, go for it, but think about the psyche of the people you're
Post a Comment
Read more

Belated review: The Ides of March

Call me a cynic, but this film didn't grab me at all.  I guess it's really designed for people who are a bit more involved in politics or have strong ideals about their candidates.  For me it was just a fictionalized account of events that have happened in politics within the past few years.  The only shocking thing was the ending which felt like it was saying, "Hey look, this is what it's like.  Life goes on." I had expected more from this film.  I thought it would be more of a thriller with twists and turns, but it didn't thrill me at all.  The acting was great, but the plot fizzled for me. Personally, I think I'm more of a realist than a cynic, since I do lean toward positivity.
Post a Comment
Read more

Belated Review: Moneyball

Good film, though I had expected more from it.  The trailer made it seem like Brad Pitt's character, Billy Beane, was the one with the ideas, although he's the one who brings in Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), who helps make a considerable difference to the team. It was a nice film, and a true story worth telling.
Post a Comment
Read more

Belated Review: The A-Team and SWAT

Showing my age here...  I used to watch SWAT when I was a kid and I loved it.  I also watched The A-Team, and while I watched it every week and was a big Stephen J. Cannell fan, I didn't love the show as much as his others (Hardcastle & McCormick and Riptide). The A-Team: I have to admit, I was ambivalent about seeing this film.  I'm not crazy about all the remakes of TV shows out there.  I think Hollywood needs to come up with some original ideas and stop reviving old films and TV shows (or copying from each other). When a friend told me she liked it, I decided to give it a chance.  Unfortunately, I don't share her enthusiasm.  It just didn't gel for me.  What made the show work was the banter and the charm.  This film was all cockiness with a couple of inside jokes here and there.  There was no cohesion for me.  It was just a big mess. SWAT Conversely, I liked SWAT.  I loved the old show, so I was expecting this one to disappoint. It didn't.  The cha
Post a Comment
Read more

Belated Positive Reviews

Here's a list of films I recommend seeing: Girl Rising - documentary about the importance of education for girls in poorer countries and how girls give back to their communities The Iceman - based on the life of mob hitman Richard Kuklinski.  It was a compelling film with some minor plot holes, but still captured my interest. Attack - a film by a Lebanese director about a Palestinian man who is a successful doctor in Israel.  Everything is going great until he finds out that his wife was a suicide bomber. Reluctant Fundamentalist - another terrorist film, only this one is about a man who is accused of being the mastermind of a terror cell, but he insists he's an innocent victim.  Is he telling the truth? Kon Tiki - the true story of a group of men who (in 1947) set out to prove whether a balsa wood raft made it across the pacific in ancient times.  It well done, and I loved how they filmed it in English as well as in Dutch. Disconnect - Some people didn't like
Post a Comment
Read more