Grade Scale
- A+: Never say never
- A: A masterpiece
- A-: A near-masterpiece
- B+: Very good movie
- B: Good movie but some minor flaws
- B-: Pretty good but some flaws
- C+: Slightly above average
- C: Average
- C-: Mediocre
- D: Bad movie!!!
- F: Atrocious, avoid at all cost!
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|  By Castor | 
 Directed by Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of my favorite romantic movie of all-time. Starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as the two main characters, the highly acclaimed script was written by Charlie Kaufman, Gondry and Pierre Bismuth.
The movie has a non-linear plot line which may initially appear as confusing but to summarize it, Joel Barish (Carrey) is emotionally withdrawn and depressed after the failure of a recent relationship with the free-spirited Clementine Kruczynski (Winslet). One day, he visits her at her workplace and is stunned to see that she has no idea who he is. After some investigation, he realize that she underwent a medical procedure to erase all her memories of their painfully failed relationship. Deeply hurt by her action, Joel decides to undergo the same procedure. Most of the film takes place in Joel’s mind as he laying unconscious during the operation. Upon seeing happier memories of the relationship, he remembers why he loved Clementine, he changes his mind and fights to retain at least some of the memories, trying to find places in his memory where he can hide Clementine until the procedure is over.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of those movies that has to be experienced rather than explained. Gondry uses some really creative visual devices that are nothing short of brilliant to make us believe we really are in Joel’s mind. You will see the picture and sound quality degrade or be distorted as some of Joel’s memories are erased. You will see object in the background disappear or fade away, faces going blank (literally) etc… That may be cool to look at but it also immerses the viewer into this dream-like atmosphere.
Jim Carrey gives the most restrained and powerful performance of his lifetime and it is disappointing that he got little respect for it. This is not the gag-happy physical comedy you are used to, this is real dramatic acting. Joel is withdrawn and depressed and the only thing that keeps him hanging on are those memories of this relationship, no matter how painful. Kate Winslet also gives a superb Oscar-nominated performance as the free-spirited and short-tempered Clementine. She doesn’t have an easy role, playing an unhinged character who has to look psychologically troubled, and yet remain desirable for the main character. Winslet succeeds on all counts, infusing Clementine with a chaotic liveliness which is the complete opposite of Carrey’s shell shocked character. Life with her would drive Joel to self-destruction but he simply can’t fathom of life without her. The supporting cast is nothing short of sensational and is highlighted by Tom Wilkinson, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood and Kirsten Dunst. They provide a subplot in reality that I felt was unneeded but it was fairly well accomplished so no harm done.
In all, I absolutely loved this movie. Most romance-type films depict the perfect couple who lives happily thereafter but in real life, just about every relationship has issues that have to be worked around and it’s nice to see a movie about a flawed relationship, about two people who might have loved each other but still may end up going their separate way. The ending is open-ended and it’s up to the viewer to decide what ultimately would have happened.
A twisted, winding and yet extremely well-told film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an unforgettable movie that is a profound meditation on the meaning and consequences of love.
A
Notes: Rated R for language, some drug and sexual content. 108 minutes.
VN:F [1.8.4_1055] Rating: 9.0/10 (14 votes cast)
| By Castor |
Having a fervent fascination for time travel stories, my quest to find a decent time-traveling movie has been met mostly with … nothing. Where are the time-traveling movies Hollywood? Yes, there was the moving The Time Traveler’s Wife back in August but it was more of a romance movie with less emphasis on the sci-fi and then after that, we basically have to go back to The Butterfly Effect (2004) and Donnie Darko (2001) for some decent time-travel brainstorming. It is thus needless to say that I was giddy to discover Timecrimes (Los Cronocrimenes), a Spanish sci-fi thriller directed by Nacho Vigalondo.
 Look honey! A topless babe over there! The movie has a simple plot and it starts innocuously as Héctor (Karra Elejalde), a paunchy middle-aged man, is sitting on a lawn chair outside his mansion and scanning the countryside with his binocular. He glimpses a beautiful woman taking her top off in the woods behind his house and he feels the urge to go investigate as any faithful middle-aged husband would. When he gets to that location, he is stunned to see the woman (Bárbara Goenaga) laying unconscious on the ground and completely naked. As he approaches her, he is suddenly stabbed in the arm and he runs away in terror. Thinking that he is pursued by some psycho in the middle of the woods, he ends up stumbling into a time-traveling machine which brings him back a couple hours in the past. To his despair, there is now two versions of himself. Will he be able to fix this screw-up or will he only make it worse?
The movie touches on many themes common to time-travel stories such as fate/free will and the universal desire to go back in the past and fix some things up. Unlike most time-travel movies, there is no obvious fallacy to Héctor’s temporal adventures. There is only four characters in the movie. Karra Elejalde gives a solid performance as Héctor and his character changes subtly throughout the movie as the plot unfolds. We also get good performances out of Candela Fernández who plays Héctor’s wife, Bárbara Goenaga who is… gorgeous, and Nacho Vigalondo himself who plays the scientist responsible for getting Héctor in his predicament (or so you think).
An entertaining low-budget time travel movie
B+
Note: R-Rated for some nudity and violence
VN:F [1.8.4_1055] Rating: 8.0/10 (3 votes cast)
| By Castor |
 I heard some great things about Battle Royale among which Quentin Tarantino named it his favorite movie since 1992 and it has become a full-blown cult movie so I decided to give this a try. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku, Battle Royale is set in a near-futuristic dystopian Japan where the economy is doing poorly and teenage delinquency is out of control. To remedy this situation, the Japanese government authorized a special game through the BR Act. A randomly chosed class of junior high school students is sent to a deserted island and forced to play a lethal survival game. The rules of this game are fairly simple: The students have a detonating necklace around their neck. They have three days to kill everyone else and be the only one left or all the necklaces will be detonated. The necklaces will also be detonated if the children wander into “danger zones” or try to get off the island. Each of the students receive a bag with some survival supplies and a random weapon which can range from a machine gun to a pair of binocular.
Needless to say the body count incrementally goes up to insanely high numbers. It’s interesting to see how the director explored the dilemma at work here. Some students immediately turn against each other while others team up for survival. Performance-wise, the teen actors did a great job. Battle Royale is truly unique in a way because you will never see a movie like this being made in the US. The violence is way over the top and you would never see a movie about children pitted against each other in life or death situation in our politically-correct world and given the number of school shooting we have seen the last few years… There is some truly sick but hilarious moments in this movie like the video presentation where a lady gayly presents the rules of the game to the stunned and terrified group of kids who just saw one of their classmate get his head blown off for a necklace demonstration.
Kill or be killed! Battle Royale is a kick ass movie!
A
Note: Extreme violence
VN:F [1.8.4_1055] Rating: 9.2/10 (6 votes cast)
| By Castor |
 Directed by Neill Blomkamp, District 9 starts with a highly intriguing premise as a mockumentary with plenty of TV-like news report about the current situation which sets up this alternate world creatively.
More than twenty years ago, an extraterrestrial mothership descended upon Johannesburg, South Africa. Humans, as puny and fearful beings that we are, expected an attack but nothing happened. Instead, they found a colony of malnourished and unarmed aliens (“Prawns” as they call it) inside who were unable to operate their ship anymore. A squalid area of Johannesburg, called “District 9″, was opened to house the stranded visitors. Over the years, the Prawns multiplied and became tougher to control while humans started to resent their presence. The Multi-National United (MNU, couldn’t they come up with something cooler???) was hired to keep order in the increasingly restless district and they decide to evict all non-humans and transfer them to District … 10 before things get out of control. Wilkus Van De Menwee (Sharlto Copley) is one of the MNU employee giving the bad news to the residents of District 9 and many of the Prawns are killed or tortured trying to resist the evictions. On one of his visits, Wilkus gets infected by a Prawn virus and starts to become a Prawn himself at which point the MNU decides to hunt him down for experimentations purposes.
District 9 is a treat, especially early on. The first half of the movie is smart, engaging, and could easily pass for some deeper social comments. Let’s see, a population that tries to settle in, doesn’t speak English, and is outcast and mistreated? This could easily happen, we have done it amongst ourselves and sadly, we could realistically do the same thing in the same situation. The movie is original in many ways such as trying to make an unlikable character the hero of the movie. The movie also moves at a frenetic pace, keeping the viewer engaged and on the edge-of-his-seat without insulting his intelligence (COUGH* Transformer 2… COUGH). Cinematographer Trent Opaloch shoots the film very much like a documentary, with hand-held cameras, which increases the intensity of each scenes. Some parts very much look like shots taken from Cloverfield. The CGI effects are top-notch and one of the highlight of the movie. Simply said, the Prawns are seamlessly integrated and the actions scenes are shot expertly and easy to follow. When it’s all said and done, District 9 is a nice sci-fi action movie with some brains and creativity, which is hugely lacking these days.
On a less-positive side, the movie has some serious plot holes which is quite bothersome for a sci-fi movie. It seems that the matter is a purely South-African matter even though it should concern the entire world. Realistically, the US amongst others, would have been all over this event. Why are humans not scientifically interested with the mother ship and its technology? Where exactly are the Prawns coming from and why do humans assume they are stupid? How exactly did their ship break down, and yet it has been hovering above Earth for almost 30 years. District 9 has uneven pace and tone. After an intriguing first half, the movie soon fades away from its creative start to your common blow-everything-up action mantra. Once Wilkus realizes he can control Prawns’ weapons, the violence goes up a couple notch… or fifty. The basic question of what happens to the Prawns is left unresolved. The ending of the movie is highly climactic but leaves you a bit unsatisfied.
The performance from the cast was solid although not much was required. The biggest issue is that there is only one real character in the movie: Wilkus, who was finely played by unknown South African actor Sharlto Copley. Wilkus is quite unlikeable at the beginning of the movie, he is not the brightest bulb out there and is quite annoyingly bubbly up until the point where he starts to morph into a Prawn himself. We become somewhat sympathetic to his cause by the end of the movie but not enough to really be emotionally involved. It would have helped to have a more likable character or at least have a side character that the audience would care about (and no the Prawns don’t really count). This was something that was lacking in District 9.
I’m not sure why? Maybe it was all the hype and overwhelmingly positive review that caused my expectations to go too high. I didn’t like District 9 as much as I thought I would. Don’t get me wrong, it is still one of the best movie of the summer and a nice change of pace especially compared to the brainless Transformers 2!
B+: District 9 starts out with a bang but soon fades back to superficiality. Despite its flaws, it is a highly entertaining and unconventional movie that will satisfy any movie goers craving for some sci-fi action movie. VN:F [1.8.4_1055] Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)
| By Castor |
The Time Traveler’s Wife is a romantic drama directed by Robert Schwentke, adapted from Audrey Niffenegger’s bestseller of the same name. Adapting a novel with complex elements and undertones to the silver screen is a daunting task and director Robert Schwentke struggled to compromise between satisfying readers of the novel and making the movie accessible to people unfamiliar with the book. Overall, the movie has some significant directing and screenwriting flaws but does make for an unpretentious and above-average romantic tragedy thanks to its two compelling leads.
Synopsis: The Time Traveler’s Wife is the time-defying love story of Henry DeTamble (Eric Bana) and Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams). Henry is a librarian afflicted with a genetic disease that causes him to travel through time more or less randomly. Henry’s random and unpredictable escapades are often dangerous, terrifying and sometimes life-threatening ordeals because he ends up buck-naked and starving in unknown places and times. For those reasons, Henry keeps himself in top physical shape and taught “himself” all type of survival skills such as pick-pocketing, street fighting, or picking locks. After a random while, he always goes back to his “present” but is largely unable to affect his future. At age 28, he meets 20-yr old Clare Abshire. He doesn’t know her but she has known him since she was 6 and has been waiting for him all her life and will do so the rest of her life…
The main weaknesses of the movie can be traced back to trying to fit the book into 107 minutes. Director Robert Schwentke and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin appeared over-matched and took the path of least resistance, oversimplifying the plot and characters. Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin made some compromises to keep the movie from becoming excessively long or inaccessible to its PG-13 audience, which resulted in significant structural flaws. Even though the movie is nearly two hours long, it feels jumpy and too short as if we are skimming through the plotline. Although the main events and characters of the book were translated to the big screen, non-essential characters such as Kimi or Ingrid were completely omitted and the ending was slightly altered (and I liked it better!). The supporting characters are a mere passing thoughts, the key relationship between Clare and Gomez is one-dimensional. Even the two main characters, Henry and Clare, are under-developed. Ideally, the direction of the movie should have been given to a director with better credentials, and the movie extended up to 140 minutes to develop the characters fully and take advantage of the terrific cast.
Despite those shortcomings, The Time Traveler’s Wife is one of those movies you can’t help but like. It is at heart a simple star-crossed love story with a refreshing sci-fi twist that touches on universal themes such as fate/free will, true love, and loss. A story that focused on the depth of the characters’ love, not its showiness. Their will to move forward and enjoy every minute they have with each other before Henry’s impending fate. This meant more close-up shots and a more realistic exploration of what it means to be Henry and Clare. The movie succeeds in moving the audience thanks in big part to moving performances from the two leads, who surrendered themselves fully to the premise of the novel.
The Time Traveler’s Wife stars the fetching Rachel McAdams as the title character. Most will have missed her terrific performance in the 2008 indie The Lucky Ones and this puts her back on the radar for mainstream audiences. Beside matching the physical description of her character in the book, McAdams has an unusual ability to make underwritten characters feel real and genuinely vulnerable. In less talented hands, Clare could easily have turned into a self-pitying weeper but McAdams infuses her with a quiet strength of spirit. Overcoming a surprisingly thinly written character, she carries the emotional weight of the movie and was luminous portraying Clare’s spirit and unyielding love for Henry’s despite being riddled with some terrible lines once again. Will someone give Rachel McAdams a meatier role for God’s sake??? Eric Bana was a pleasant surprise, exceeding my expectations and making for a solid Henry. Although he does not fit the physical description of the book (Henry is more runner than football player) Bana’s Henry was tormented, introverted, poignant, and more importantly, had solid chemistry with his co-star. The only issue I had was that Henry was mostly a one-note character and it would have helped to have him be a little more lively and eccentric. The supporting cast was solid albeit given very little opportunity to be memorable. Gomez (Ron Livingstone) was a pivotal character in the book but merely a passing thought in the movie. Jane McLean as Charisse, Arliss Howard as Henry’s father, Stephen Tobolowsky as Dr. Kendrick all did a fine job with the small parts they had.
The cinematography has a beautiful stark and cold quality to it which reinforce the tragic nature of the movie. The movie was beautifully shot by Florian Ballhaus and is the strongest attribute of the movie behind its leads. The crafty camera-work (already apparent in the trailer) using motion and placement selection gave a particular tone to his scenes and Schwentke used that to his advantage in the film, giving the movie a light touch of eerie fantasy. The ending of the movie, a fitting play on the beginning of the love story, is sublimely shot and Rachel McAdams absolutely nails it. The CGI effects of Henry’s time traveling are unspectacular but first rate while the overused musical score was melancholic, adding to the tragic tone of the movie.
Enjoy the Time Traveler’s Wife for what it is: an old-fashioned love story with an unusual sci-fi twist. It may not be exactly like the book, it may have been darker and heavier on the sci-fi, and it may have been so much more with better direction. Even so, the premise of the story, and the perfectly-cast leads make this movie well-worth the ride and will keep your imagination lingering long afterward.
Boasting solid performances from Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, The Time Traveler’s Wife is a structurally flawed but charming, endearing and bittersweet romantic drama nonetheless. I admit it, it got me pretty good 
B
Notes: PG-13 for thematic elements, brief disturbing images, brief nudity and sexuality, 107 minutes.
Disclaimer: Comment area may contain spoilers
VN:F [1.8.4_1055] Rating: 7.8/10 (5 votes cast)
| By Castor |
 The Time Traveler’s Wife has been shoved around the post-production pipeline for a year now and it finally looks like it will come out this summer. I’m making a small space for it because I read the hugely popular book by Audrey Niffenegger a while back and was really fascinated by all the possibilities of the whole time-traveling aspect of Henry DeTamble, who time-travels randomly against his will due to some genetic anomaly and the consequence of such things on the love of his life, Clare Abshire. Although it would be amazing to travel a few months into the future and see where the stock market is, Henry’s time traveling is more often than not a terrifying and dangerous ordeal. Actually, in the book, it’s shortly mentioned that making a killing on the stock market is how they afford their lifestyle. In short, Henry time-travels unpredictably and always end up buck-naked, in more-or-less random places which makes for often-dangerous situations. For that reason, Henry keeps himself in top physical shape and he taught “himself” all kind of survival skills such as street fighting, pickpocketing, picking locks etc… Despite that, he sometimes comes back beaten up, bloodied, or worse. The key about Henry is that he always goes back to his “present” after a few minutes, hours, or days. At age 28, he finally meets Clare Abshire, 20, he has never met her but she has known him since she was 6. She has been waiting for him all her life and will continue to do so the rest of her life. The book touches on many interesting themes such as fate/free-will/chaos, the timelessness of love, waiting for your loved one, life and death… Themes that really drew me in because of my choice to pursue a military career.
I’ve been a fan of Eric Bana especially since his incredibly tormented performance in Munich, so he should make for a solid Henry. I really hope they also show his darker side because he was an interestingly flawed character: selfish and brooding even though he loved his wife very deeply. Casting Rachel McAdams as Clare is a dream come true because she IS Clare Abshire: the voice, pale skin, green eyes, persona, just like in the book.
From the trailer, it looks like they focused more on the romance and more particularly on Clare’s character which is fine because it’s a love story after all. What’s already ticking me off from the trailer is that Henri tells Clare about Alba. In the book, Henri tries his hardest not to tell Clare about Alba, despite tremendous harship from trying to conceive a child. Nevertheless, as long as they kept the same dark ending as the book and stayed mostly true to the story, it should be a decent movie. There is no way they could have fitted all that happened in the book in the movie and it could end up being a sappy mainstream tearjerker like the Notebook which would not give justice to the book because TTTW really is equal part sci-fi and romance and is oriented to both male and female readers and although, the end can get you uh… choked up, the book is not sappy at all. Oh well, we will see…
| By Castor |
I just saw the latest Star Trek, directed by JJ Abrams. Needless to say it brings new life to the old franchise of the same name. First of all, aside from basic common knowledge, I’ve never been a Star Trek fan, never seen any of the previous movies (apparently, there was 10!!!) or even a single full episode of the TV series so forgive me if I don’t see the whole picture.
The movie uses the recently popular fad of going back to the roots of the franchise and telling the story of how it begun (cough* Star Wars cough) but unlike that movie that shall not be named, it actually was superbly done. Mixing well-timed humor with a solid plotline and stunning action scenes, the movie was indeed very entertaining. The entire cast is solid overall but kudos to Simon Pegg (Scotty) and Anton Yeltsin (Ensign Chekov) because they stole the limelights in every scene they were in. Chris Pine was not overwhelming but decent as a young James Kirk which was all that was needed to not let down. Also freaking Eric Bana plays the bad guy, I did not recognize him at all in two hours until I came home to check who it was.
 The movie had plenty of good things going for it. From magnificent action scenes to a at least decent acting from everyone on the cast to include a well-structured plot and an epic story. Maybe I had too high expectations but some weaknesses here and there as well as a giant WTF moment: - James Tiberius Kirk childhood, being the usual cocky Hollywood rebel genius, come on… - A freaking black hole forming weapon called “Red matter” (wow don’t strain yourself there writers) - Iowa still being a wasteland a couple hundreds of years from now… (wait actually it makes sense but I had to say it) - Fight scenes with little pee-wee guns, swords and (gasp) fist. If I know I’m going for a fight, I would take a rifle, a bazooka, something… - Plenty of other incongruities related to science but anyways it’s a movie… - In the parachute scene where that third guy dies in an epic fail moment, this had to be the ultimate WTF sequence in movie history, I don’t even know if it was supposed to be funny or tragic or sad? If anything, it should have been that massive ego Kirk doing that, and dying like a retard freak.
I debated whether to give this a B+ or a A-, I liked the movie a great deal but I wasn’t blown away. Weird feeling that something is missing. I will say one last thing, I was entertained and I enjoyed the movie … but I probably won’t be thinking much more about the movie tomorrow morning (except for that dude dying the stupidest death in movie history). I have seen some fairly average movie that stimulated my mind a whole lot more than this movie, that’s why I will give it a B+.
B+: Entertaining, mythical, solid plot, solid casting, brilliant action scenes and eye candy, and a solid foundation for future movies. VN:F [1.8.4_1055] Rating: 9.0/10 (5 votes cast)
| By Castor |
 Cloverfield has been clouded by secrecy since its trailer appeared with the opening of box office smash Transformers last summer. Directed by Matt Reeves, the movie puts its audience in the shoes of nearly helpless bystanders who witness the attack of New York City by a gargantuan monster. Through the lens of an hand-held and seemingly indestructible camera carried by one of the main characters, we follow a group of seemingly ordinary citizen trying to rescue their dear friend. We do not know why the monster is so pissed off, we do not know where it comes from, we don’t even know whether such an outstanding nuclear-powered video camera can be bought. All we know is that this is only the very limited point of view from that small camera perspective, and this is what separates this movie from the pack of epic monster movies. The movie will leave more questions than answers: What happens to the main protagonists, is the monster still alive, will the Giants play in SuperBowl XLI?… Multiple viewings are definitely required if you want to catch everything that was intentionally put on film. Time will tell but a sequel to the movie is a lock given the record-breaking box office revenue on opening weekend.
B+: At a brisk 80 mn, the movie provides quick and effective entertainment
VN:F [1.8.4_1055] Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
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Directed by Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of my favorite romantic movie of all-time. Starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as the two main characters, the highly acclaimed script was written by Charlie Kaufman, Gondry and Pierre Bismuth.
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