Month: February 2011

This isn't about the afterlife.  It's about being open to the unknown and the unseen during your lifetime. It's about the randomness that rules are lives. And it's about the element of predestination that each of us recognizes when certain people come into our lives– even if for a passing moment– or when certain events occur, that upon hindsight cause us to believe in the oft-quoted line, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will".

There isn't a role that Matt Damon doesn't embody completely– be it a soccer captain or a psychic.

And what about that Clint Eastwood– going on 80, but making movies that make you think– and dare I say it, feel!

It's never too late to turn things around– to make a clean break– to start over. It seems like that is a theme that runs through many a Ben Affleck movie.

You know he's up to no good with the company he keeps and the things he does when he's done with his day job; you know he loathes his father, and adores his dead mother; and you know that he's deceiving the one he claims to love.  And yet you can't help but harbor the thought that this will all be behind him sooner or later, and that he'll turn over a new leaf. And that is exactly what he does.

The road to redemption might be a long one, but he gets on it, and you know that he means it when he says, "I'll see you again– either on this side or the other". Not an entirely believable script altogether, but the suspense, drama, and acting are a strong compensation for it.

And the Bostonian accents are impeccable all the way through. It's a lark, a shark, a walk in the park!

Finding yourself isn't the prettiest thing always, but the fact that you are desirous of this venture and brave enough to embark on it is in and of itself worth the endeavor. One of the more insightful and unsettling aspects of the human condition as portrayed by Maugham in this film is that of showing how willfully allowing a thing to occur is as good as not preventing it from occurring, i.e., causing good or evil in the most passive-aggressive way.

BTW, I didn't know this was Bill Murray's debut movie; he doesn't seem to have changed too much in the last quarter century!

Gorgeous cinematography with beautiful people. And if those were the only two ingredients to make a movie remarkable, then you could call this a remarkable movie. But all flash and not enough hook or punch in the story makes me want to sing 'I can't get no satisfaction.'

Clooney bears the title of sexiest-man-alive very well, and the breathtaking scenery of rural Italy makes you gasp with wonder… but where is the redemption? There is none.

There's suspense which doesn't bear much fruit.  And there's a lot of silent brooding and the music to match it.  There's also a nice looking dark-blue fiat car and a vespa scooter that reminded me of the kind my father owned once upon a time.  But is Jack anything more than a skilled gun-maker? Last I checked, shooting in self-defense does not an assasin make.

I'm sorry to say that the movie was a reward to the eye, but not the mind.

If the idea was to celebrate the mediocre and mundane, and the sometimes downright boring aspects of post-adolescence, then I suppose this movie has it all.

And if the point was to fight for your supposed true-love to the very end with the help of nifty gaming superpowers, then, well, whatshisname certainly fought the good fight well.

And if spending almost-two hours listening to lame one-liners and watching a group of maladjusted and semi-dysfunctional young adults muddle through the hours of their day and their relationships was another point of the movie, well, then, I suppose it hit the nail on its head.

I laughed only to be polite, and was thankful for the ending when it finally came.

Everyone's looking very buff and macho, but yet another forgettable action-movie of the summer.

One of the most forgettable movies of this summer.