Slowly Learning...

The Eye is a Chinese film (yes, it requires reading for those of you
that complain about subtitles) about a young woman who has been blind
since age 2. She goes in for a transplant operation in order to regain
her vision, but also inherits the ability to see dead people. This of
course freaks her out, as it would most of us. Eventually this leads
her and her therapists to track down the dead woman doner. The doner,
it seems, also had this ability, but no one believed her. After she
tried (and failed) to convince people of a coming disaster she hung
herself, and the eyes were passed onto the main actress. Of course, the
main actress helps this dead girl, who is forced to relive her suicide
over and over till she gets closure (Sixth Sense anyone?). Then,
predictablly, the main character forsees a great tragedy on her way home
and is unable to save the people, who don't believe her. Of course we
all need happy endings so she just ends up going blind again and getting
together with her therapist insted of dying like the other girl.

I don't really think I'm giving away too much of the movie with the
entire plot, because it is rather predictable. And the way in which the
main character (can't remember her name) predicts death is that she sees
a shadowy figure come to take away the soul of the soon to be deceased
(City of Angels?). In the end the movie just turns out to be a
conglomeration of Sixth Sense and City of Angels, with a Mothman
Prophecies ending to it. Don't get me wrong though. It is an enjoyable
movie, but it could've done with some more originallity.

It's hard to say how good the acting was because I don't speak Chinese
(yet), and subtitles can only be taken as a guideline, not the final
word on what the characters fully mean. However, the subtitles did
reviel some rather bad dialogue at a couple of points (most of it coming
from the therapist). Emotionally the main girl did a fantastic job
however. You could truly sense her fear, her aprehension, her joy, etc.
Appart from her though there wasn't a whole lot of character
development.

The biggest problem with the movie (apart from lack of original ideas)
was the horror movie aspect. Much like in the Sixth Sense there are
interactions with some ghosts that are there to spook you and freak you
out (and they did a good job of that) but they have no real purpose
other than that. And once the plot moves along to the point where the
main girl discovers what needs to be done (about 1/2 the way through)
these scary ghosts just stop, never to be seen again. At least in Sixth
Sense the little boy was still frightened at the end when he needed to
confront the ghosts. In The Eye, the doner girls ghost is not scary in
the least. Insted I felt pity for her, and her rough life.

All in all the movie was resepectable, but ultimatly has the same
problem as a movie like Snatch. It would be great, if not for the
movies before it that it just ripped off (a.k.a Lock, Stock, and Two
Smoking Barrels), expanding them some, but not enough to make it stand
above it's predicessors.

RATING: Worth a Student/Mantinee Ticket Price, Worth a Possible Rental

Posted by Thom at 3:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So I had this done, then lost it, so here goes again...

Matchstick Men is a movie about a con-artist named Roy (Nicolas Cage)
and his partner Frank (Sam Rockwell). Roy has some issues with dirt and
the outdoors, which eventually leads him to see a therapist and
eventually leads him to meet his long lost 14 year old daughter Angela
(Alison Lohman). The movie mainly centers on the budding relationship
between Roy and Angela. At the same time Roy and Frank are planning a
big con on a local target. Angela eventually learns of Roy's real
occupation and gets in on the action, which doesn't all go as planned...

Now going into the movie I expected to see the story of a disturbed
individual (Roy) and his relationship with his long lost daughter
(Angela). This is exactly what the movie delivers for the first 3/4 of
the film. It is all beautifully acted by Cage and Lohman. Cage gives
an over the top performance of his character's tics and need for
cleanliness. Normally this might be a little over the top, but I
thought it worked great considering we find out that Roy's problems were
all in his head. When given a placebo by his therapist all symptoms and
effects seem to go away (unless of course we are supposed to believe
that an over-the-counter menopausual medication cured him). The perfect
example of the mental aspect of Roy's problems is when he looses his
medication and goes into a cleaning fit. He scrubs down every surface,
vaccums all the floors, clenas all the windows, all while smoking pack
after pack of cigarettes. All these mental problems are also played
fantastically in his interacts with Angela. His lack of parenting
skills and the intrusion of a new person into his environment knock him
for a loop, which Cage plays fantastically. And keep in mind this
praise does not come easily, for I am not a big fan of Nicolas Cage
(other than his work in Adaptation).

The biggest disappointment from the cast is probably Sam Rockwell's job
as Frank. The character is flat and one dimensional. He lacks any
really depth of personality. But I blame this mostly on the role of
Frank in the movie. He is meant to be a background character, secondary
to both Cage and Lohman. I thought that Rockwell did a fine job with
what he was given, but he just wasnt given much of anything to work with
to begin with.

The last 1/4 of the movie in my mind is unnecessary to some extent. I
think the movie would stand fine on its own with just the main plot of
Roy and Angela, with the con staying in the background all the way
through. However, that being said, the ending is not the standard lame
Hollywood ending (until the very end at least). Without giving too much
away the end gives you some interesting twists. These twists wouldn't
be much in any other crime/thriller/suspense type movie, but with the
set-up of the movie being about the realtionship between Roy and Angela,
and the marketing of the movie this way, the generic twists come as more
of a surprise.

I will say however that the very end of the film (last 10 min or so) was
totally unneeded. It was a typical attempt to wrap everything up nicely
and let us all know that everything works out happily in the end. This
I thought the movie could do without. However, even with this blemish
at the end I thought that the film was solid and deffinatly worth the
price of admission.

RATING: Worth a Full Price Ticket

Posted by Thom at 2:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, just to keep all of you happy I've decided to let you know what will
be coming up soon on my site. Last night I had a complete review of
Matchstick Men completed, when I lost it. So I will be rewriting that
as well as writing my review for The Eye, which I just saw tonight. So
both of those should hopefully be up some time tomorrow night, or at the
latest on Monday night. Also, due to request, I have decided to post my
review of Minority Report (or as I like to call it "Why Minority Report
Sucks"). And maybe the most important thing coming up that I must
remind you all of...Tuesday marks the beginning of the new season of
Gilmore Girls (8pm on WB). For those faithful watchers out there we can
now all jump for joy, and for those of you who haven't seen it yet I ask
"Why the hell not!?!" So be sure to watch that on Tuesday (and also the
new season of Smallville starts on it's new night or Wedensday, which I
also recommend you all check out).

P.S. - I have decided to limit the number of spoilers in the reviews,
unless where they are necessary to make my point (which will mostly
happen in reviews of shitty movies, such as Minority Report).

Posted by Thom at 2:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So as many of you may know I see a great number of movies. So I've
decided that I should put my years of experience to good use and educate
all of you about what is good and bad in the world of movies. So now
that I have this forum to voice my opinions I will take full advantage
of it and publish my own movie reviews about new movies as well as old
classics (or some not so classics). So within a day or so of seeing a
movie in the theatre, or out of my own personal collecion, I will try to
post a review. This should also help to give you all the fill of
activity on my blog because I see movies on quite a regular basis (I'd
say at least one a week).

So now into the details of it all... I don't really believe in a
numbering system for a movie's goodness. Instead I will be using my own
rating system or the following ratings: Should Not Have Been Made,
Should Not Be Seen, Worth a Movie's 10 Ticket, Worth a Matenee/Student
Discount, Worth Full Admission, Worth a Second Viewing, Worth a Rental,
Worth a Purchase, and Worth Buying the Original Print. Now these
rankings are not necessarily in any order, and are there mearly to judge
what I think you should do in respects to the movie. I also would like
to note that just cause a movie is worth full price, or worth buying,
that does not mean it is a "good" movie, but merely an entertaining
movie. Not all well done movies are worth paying full price for, and
not all terriblly done movies need to be avoided. Cause we all do enjoy
that really shitty movie from time to time, even if it is just to laugh
at. Also I would like to caution anyone who does plan to read the
review that it may contain spoilers which may, or may not, ruin the
movie going experience. You can always skip straight to the end to
check my overall rating or just email/im me about a spoiler free review
(tjh23@cornell.edu and thom0419 for those of you that don't know). In
any case I will try to keep the reviews whitty, thoughtful, and
entertaining, and also hopefully helpful.

Posted by Thom at 12:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So working every other day sounds so great in principle, and man was I
excited when I saw that's exactly what I was gonna be doing this week.
I thought to myself, "I'll get to look forward to a day off after every
day of work!" In the end though it sucks ass. While it is true I have
a day off to look forward to I also only have one day off before I have
to go back to work. Also, I'm a slacker. Anyone who knows me can
attest to the fact that it takes a while before I can really get into
doing what I've set out to do. Once I do I'm usually all set for a
while, but the startup is always hard. Well, when I have only one day
in which to begin my startup...problems ensue. I've managed to sleep in
quite a bit on my days off, which leads to even later starting times in
the day for me. Then I manage to just dick around all morning (or more
all afternoon to be more acurate). All in all, by the time I begin
doing whatever I've set out to do for that day, the day is over. Case
in point is this entry. I've been meaning to get soemthing of interest
writen up here, but after all these days all I've managed is this little
pointless rant about my being too lazy to get going. And when did I
post this? Well way at the end of my day off from work. So as I finish
up this entry and haed off to bed for more of my crazy ass dreams
(always one of the highlights of my days), and as I prepare myself for
another long day of work tomorrow (followed of course by another day
off, and then a weekend of working) I have finally gotten around to the
task I've been meaning to do for days now. In fact, even my gracious
webhost, who is in the process of shuttling back and forth to NYC in
search of housing (which he and his wife have finally secured), has
managed to post more often than me. So I can conclude only one possible
solution to all this: I need a swift kick in the ass. So as the small
community of readers out there (I estimate your numbers at about 2 or 3)
I urge you to give me a good boot in the behind whenever you find me
online in order to get me down to business and working on whatever I
need to be doing. We can only hope that that'll solve my problem.

Posted by Thom at 2:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The time has come! Now that I am about 3 years removed from my short
stint as a CS major I guess it's time to stake my own claim on pointless
web-rantings. Thanks mainly to a grant from the Dan Dickinson
Foundation I now have my own blog where I can post random happens from
my daily life as well as obscure rants. So please, tune in frequently
for my opions on movies, music, TV, and the random ideas that tend to
run through my warped mind.

More to come later...

Posted by Thom at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)