Change Your Image
faith_hope_love_88
Reviews
Loving (2016)
I just didn't feel it.
This movie is about such an important topic, and just that in itself makes it well worth watching. The fact that it is based on a real couple who went through what we're seeing here makes it even more genuine. It's heartbreaking, beautiful and at the same time it's about a normal couple just wanting to live their lives in peace.
All this considered, I still feel that this movie could have been so much more than it was. For large parts of it the characters felt bland to me. The emotions and character development was lacking.
Considering that this is a couple whose love is so strong and whose will to be together seem to survive just about anything I just didn't feel it. I didn't care about the characters the way that you do when they reach beyond the screen and truly touches your heart. It was like I couldn't quite understand why this couple fought like they did to be together, why they took the risks they did, why they didn't give up somewhere along the way etc. This did get a little better towards the end, but by then I didn't even care that much anymore which is sad since, like I said in the beginning of this review, this movie touches upon an important topic. I wanted to like this movie more than I did, if nothing else, then because of that.
Goodbye Bafana (2007)
A touching movie that inspires!
Wow. This movie really touches your heart in a profound way. It makes you think about how we as human beings treat each other, and about what really matters in life.
We've all heard about the apartheid that took place in South Africa a few decades ago and how Nelson Mandela fought for freedom for the black people. This movie gives a somewhat different perspective being from a prison guards point of view during the almost three decades that he worked around Mandela. He goes into it with the opinion that Mandela is a dangerous terrorist, but during the years to come we get to follow the incredible journey of this man while he seeks the truth and challenges his preconceptions. This is truly inspiring to see.
Also, the actors are amazing in their roles, which contributes a lot to making this movie as good and believable as it is. I especially like Dennis Haysbert as Nelson Mandela. He feels perfect for this part as he manages to really bring out the charisma and strength of his character. When I see him even in the beginning of the movie I could feel from the performance made by Haysbert that this man could change the world. I like Joseph Fiennes from before, and he too makes an outstanding performance as the prison guard.
Annihilation (2018)
Beautiful, intriguing, terrifying and weird!
This is a movie that I thought I would really like, or maybe even love, after seeing the trailer. Having watched it I do like it a lot, but I also found it to be so much more weird than I could have imagined it to be. It was beautiful, intriguing, exciting and with great acting. But it was, especially towards the end, so very weird. I wanted to understand what was going on and get all the answers, but as it just got weirder I lost some of the interest for a while, just to at the very end get some of it back again. You might say it was almost like being on a rollercoaster of weirdness, with a lot of that weirdness being of the good and beautiful kind. It's like being thrown into this mysterious and beautiful, yet dangerous and terrifying, world wanting to know and understand all about it but not really getting there. I would say that the end made up for some of that, at the same time as it blew your mind to pieces. A part of me still isn't exactly sure of what to think, but still can't help but to like it.
The movie being based on a novel I looked it up, wondering if perhaps I wanted to read it, and found that it is the first novel of a trilogy. So now I'm thinking about maybe giving the novels a go at some point. Because even if this whole experience was on the verge of being just a little too weird, I still want more of it. Hopefully the second and the third novel in this trilogy will get movie adaptions as well.
Garden State (2004)
A beautiful movie!
This is a beautiful movie in so many ways. The beginning made me feel for the main character, Andrew, and how utterly numb he truly was. The situation didn't seem to matter at all; he just didn't feel anything due to the medication he was on. We then get to follow him through a couple of days when he goes back home for his mother's funeral, and this turns out to be a major game changer for him. He decides to stop taking his medicine, he meet up with old friends... and he meet a girl. It's an emotional (no pun intended) journey with a lot of character growth involved. It's very well done by Zach Braff who not only played Andrew but also wrote and directed the movie.
The girl, Sam, was kind of weird, though. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I didn't really get as attached to her as I would have liked to. But I have to say that Natalie Portman did an amazing job playing her. It was just the character who wasn't really "my kind of character". But she did add humor to the equation. I'll give her that.
As a person suffering from mental health issues and taking medication for it, and also being a nurse, I did feel that the movie might give the wrong idea concerning some things. Like, yeah, for this guy to suddenly stop taking his pills turned out just fine, even though this in no way means that he's all of a sudden completely okay again. But I do think that it can give the idea that if you stop taking your pills the world will become clearer and you'll be that much closer to feeling okay, cause there's so much more to it than that.
But as a whole this is a movie that I really liked. It makes me feel good and in a way it also gives me hope.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
I wanted to like this movie more than I actually did.
I'll begin by saying that I haven't watched the original movie from 1951. Therefore no comparisons will be made one way or the other.
This is a movie that I wanted to like more than I actually did. I feel that the story has potential. The idea of an alien coming to earth, as far as I can figure, being the first alien encounter for mankind is intriguing. The acting and the special effects are good, and I like Keanu Reeves from before so it was fun to see another movie with him.
But there were some things that just didn't agree with me very well. I think the major problem, for me, was that there were too many questions left unanswered. Or perhaps it was just me missing the point? But either way I had a hard time fully understanding the alien protagonist and his intentions. Not to mention the motives behind those intentions. That he somehow had the authority to do as he saw fit didn't make much sense to me. Who was he and his race to decide over a planet that isn't theirs? I would have wanted a deeper meaning here. I would have wanted more of a backstory to the alien and what he was up to. And as to the people's reaction, or most of the people anyway... well, that made me almost ashamed to be human. The only character that I can say I liked was Helen Benson played by Jennifer Conelly.
Star Trek: Voyager: Bride Of Chaotica! (1999)
Captain Proton: Not my cup of tee...
I've never considered myself a fan of the Captain Proton-holoprogram. In fact, it's way too silly for me to enjoy. So when I realized this was going to be an episode pretty much all about that I confess I didn't cheer out of joy. Although I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. Some parts of it where actually interesting. I liked the part about the fifth dimension and the photonic beings that appeared in the holodeck, although I would have liked to known more about them and seen the crew explore more about how they live and such. As it was here we pretty much just got to know they existed and that they can't read "real" people as lifeforms. It was also kind of fun to see Captain Janeway agree to participate in the Captain Proton-craziness. But other than that I mostly just endured the episode and smiled awkwardly a few times.
If you're not like me and want to see all the Star Trek: Voyager-episodes and also don't really like Captain Proton you might want to skip this one.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Far Beyond the Stars (1998)
A good episode, but I don't get the context...
Captain Sisko lost a friend when his ship was lost near the Cardassian border. As a result he's starting to think about whether or not he should leave Starfleet sick of the whole situation with the Dominion. Then, all of a sudden, he starts to see things that aren't really there and ends up at the infirmary where doctor Bashir states that his neural patterns are back to the way they were when he was having visions from the prophets. So far so good, but the rest of the episode is pretty much all about Sisko and the other major characters on DS9 being different people in 1950's America working as science fiction-writers...
It's a good story and it takes up important issues such as racism. It's also kind of fun to see the actors that play Odo, Worf, Quark and so on to look like they normally do without any makeup and such on. I honestly didn't even recognize some of them right away. But I feel like I'm waiting for something in this episode that never comes. We never get an answer to why Sisko was having these visions, dreams or whatever they were. My guess is that it was the prophets way of getting him to stay in Starfleet, but I still feel that the whole episode is out of context from the rest of the show. And I don't like the suggestion that maybe all of DS9 is just a dream of a science fiction-writer.