marinbosley Reviews

Twilight (I) (2008)

Major letdown

[5/10 · 21 November 2008]

I am a fan of the book series, but this movie left me cold and hollow; kind of like Harry Potter 1 when the first movie opened. Like Harry Potter 1, the movie tries to do justice to the book by remaining very faithful to the actions and dialogue, but when all is said and done, there's none of that eerie, magical feeling behind it. Hopefully if this film leads to a sequel, the sequel will be a better overall experience. Kirsten Stewart is perfect but the rest of the cast, even Robert Pattinson, is overly melodramatic. I must say that the effects and make-up are kind of weak, also, ESPECIALLY for 2008! Sometimes the fight sequences seemed straight out of the last decade. Well, I suppose I'm going to get hate-mail from all of the die-hards now, but here it is anyway: My opinion- Meh.

The Perfect Holiday (2007)

Bland, harmless Christmas time-waster...

[3/10 · 17 December 2007]

One thing you can say about The Perfect Holiday is that it's slightly less idiotic than most of the recent crop of holiday movies. It doesn't suffer from the same juvenile slapstick bits as Deck The Halls, Surviving Christmas, or Christmas With The Kranks. Furthermore, it's nice to see people of color getting a story they can call their own, while all of those other titles (forgettable as they may be) depict Christmas as something that exists entirely in a white-bread suburban world. It's a shame that this movie isn't more original. It's filled with talented actors, but the script is at the level of a TV sitcom holiday special. Morris Chestnut and Gabrielle Union do they best they can with their cookie-cutter parts, but the audience knows from Minute One exactly where the jokes are going.

Man on the Bottom (2007)

Twisty tale of love and deception, set in Africa.

[9/10 · 28 November 2007]

This film begins as simple tale of forbidden love, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the writer had a lot of twists up his sleeve. There's even a bit of social commentary, about the drastic differences between rich and poor in Africa. But the filmmakers don't spend much time on these weighty themes, they focus instead on a murder plot hatched by the spoiled, cheating wife Marie, who is intent on murdering the rich powerful Amado. It's never exactly clear why she so depsises him so, we're told that "money" is her sole motivation. The film is worth seeing for the twists alone, which are pretty clever and foreshadowed well. My biggest reservation is that the dialogue is sometimes hard to make out, the thick accents of the cast can be a little distracting. That being said, the parts are well cast, especially "Luke," the lead actor, extraordinarily likable for an unknown.

Passage du milieu (2000)

Haunting look at the African slave trade

[7/10 · 28 November 2007]

Told through the perspective of a deceased slave, Passage du Milieu is a haunting look at the horrors of the human slavery industry. This film is even more jarring considering these events are still happening in many parts of the world. The filmmakers do a fine job of brining light to a subject that's unfortunately been neglected by the mainstream media. It's an ambitious mix of documentary and narrative fiction, bu might have been even more effective had the filmmakers chosen one or the other and stuck to that format. The story tends to meander at times, focusing on the sad truths of the business, instead of giving the characters momentum or plot twists.

Matchstick Men (2003)

Great little caper movie... Nicolas Cage is at his quirky best.

[8/10 · 27 November 2007]

Here's a great caper flick from Ridley Scott, a near-perfect little caper movie starring Nicolas Cage at his quirky best. It's a con artist movie that holds up with the best of the genre, just as tricky and entertaining as some of the best of the genre. I would say it's almost on par with The Sting or Ocean's Eleven, but loses a few points in the last thirty minutes or so. Still very watchable, right up to the twist climax, but it does become little bit sentimental as it nears the finish line. Sam Rockwell is good as always, and Allison Lohman is perfect- a big surprise that we haven't seen more of her since this movie.

La Vie En Rose (2007)

Edith Piaf fans only

[7/10 · 27 November 2007]

This a fairly straightforward biopic that should be considered required viewing for anybody who remembers and respects Edith Paif, but be warned: it's not for everybody. The tagline "The Extraordinary life of..." is just a little bit misleading, because the film doesn't actually make her story seem that amazing. She certainly did lead a tragic, topsy turvy life- professionally and personally, but we don't get to see much of her as a true "artist". It's a biopic that seems to blend in with most of the other recent biopics we've seen, and like some of those other films (Walk the Line, Ray, etc) your enjoyment really depends on how well you already appreciate the subject. Only once in a great while does a truly incredible biopic (say, Amadeus or Schindler's List) come along that transcends any knowledge of the subject, and manages to tell an amazing story that would be just as captivating if it were fictional.