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Untitled Document
| PREVIEWS |
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Rocky
Balboa
ISylvester
Stallone completes his Rocky Epic with a stirring conclusion.
I saw a special sneak preview in Detroit at a Kronk Boxing Gym
benefit. Although the first 45 minutes kind of dragged, and at
times the dialog made me cringe, its at least as worthy of Rocky
II or the original Rocky. A lot of flashbacks, but it definitely
wraps up the series a lot better than Rocky V did. It won't win
best picture, or any great acting awards, but the cinematography
was better than I've seen in a lot of the previous 5. As far as
the big question in the blogs, does Rocky die in this one, you'll
have to wait till Christmas and see for yourself. The music was
great, the final scenes were great, and Paulie was great! It was
also interesting to reintroduce the characters of Little Marie
and Spider Rico from the first movie.
[
Trailer ] [
Showtime ]
[ Box
Office Report ]
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Dream
Girls
Saw
the preview last night of Dreamgirls in Charlotte, NC. First off
I have to say that it is a great interpretation of the stage play.
I thought that the script had really fleshed out the show and
brought to life ideas that were only briefly touched upon. All
of the characters were much more believable on screen, and the
added songs really fit in with the rest of the score. The greatest
triumph of this movie has to be Jennifer Hudson as Effie. She
is truly a star. After she sang, And Im Telling You, the whole
audience burst into applause. It was truly magical. I turned to
the friend who went with me and said...she definitely will be
nominated if not win the Oscar!!!
[
Trailer
] [
Showtime ]
[ Box
Office Report ]
|
|
Untitled Document
| REVIEWS |
| |
Rocky
Balboa
ISylvester
Stallone completes his Rocky Epic with a stirring conclusion.
I saw a special sneak preview in Detroit at a Kronk Boxing Gym
benefit. Although the first 45 minutes kind of dragged, and at
times the dialog made me cringe, its at least as worthy of Rocky
II or the original Rocky. A lot of flashbacks, but it definitely
wraps up the series a lot better than Rocky V did. It won't win
best picture, or any great acting awards, but the cinematography
was better than I've seen in a lot of the previous 5. As far as
the big question in the blogs, does Rocky die in this one, you'll
have to wait till Christmas and see for yourself. The music was
great, the final scenes were great, and Paulie was great! It was
also interesting to reintroduce the characters of Little Marie
and Spider Rico from the first movie.
[
Trailer ] [
Showtime ]
[ Box
Office Report ]
|
| |
Dream
Girls
Saw
the preview last night of Dreamgirls in Charlotte, NC. First off
I have to say that it is a great interpretation of the stage play.
I thought that the script had really fleshed out the show and
brought to life ideas that were only briefly touched upon. All
of the characters were much more believable on screen, and the
added songs really fit in with the rest of the score. The greatest
triumph of this movie has to be Jennifer Hudson as Effie. She
is truly a star. After she sang, And Im Telling You, the whole
audience burst into applause. It was truly magical. I turned to
the friend who went with me and said...she definitely will be
nominated if not win the Oscar!!!
[
Trailer
] [
Showtime ]
[ Box
Office Report ]
|
 |
The
Good German
entered the screening of this film with high expectations.
How could this cast, this director and this writer not deliver?
For the first 45 minutes I tried to understand where the complex
plot was going, and continued to believe that this could be a
terrific film. Then I started to look at my watch. By the hour
mark it was sadly clear that the entire enterprise was going to
add up to disaster. The characters are thin and stereotyped. The
underlying story is small and has no current day resonance. But
finally, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. One character
appears to be living in a subterranean hideout, then in the next
scene suddenly can be found lurking in the balcony of an opera,
for no apparent reason. Clooney's character is a journalist, but
never does a bit of work. His overpowering love for the hooker
with a heart of stone, Blanchette, is inexplicable. And the great
reveal on which the plot turns is a bore. The film is reverential
and deferential to old World War 2 movies and film noir, while
never working as either. Why would stars sign on to this sorry
script? I presume they wanted to work with Soderberg. But a good
portion of the time, this director absorbs himself with arty-farty
nonsense. This film attempts to be high brow, but that just makes
it all the worse. It's intellectual pretensions make the bad writing
and paucity of emotion or ideas all the more pathetic. Someone
needs to shake Soderberg and tell him that as paintings are flat,
and sculpture three dimensional, film has an inherent nature:
it is a mass medium. The great works like The Godfather or Rules
of the Game, are complex and deep, but most of all, they are entertaining.
No one drags out any more to a lousy multi-plex and puts down
ten bucks or more to be bored, talked down to and left puzzled.
The audience I saw it with sat in stunned silence as the lights
came up, astonished the film should have so little to offer. This
is not even worth a DVD rental.
[
Trailer ]
[
Showtime ]
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Office Report ]
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