Posts Tagged ‘Movie Ratings and Reviews’
Best Classical Romance, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Monday, November 28th, 2011
Movie: Guess who is coming to dinner
Year: 1967
Director: Stanley Kramer
Stars: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn
Snapshot of Story:
The movie is about a young white woman coming from a well-to-do family that brings back a black man to get approval from her parents for marriage. The setting of this movie is in the 1960s where race relations were low and nothing like what we see today.
Movie Ratings and Reviews of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Storyline:
Joey Drayton played by Katharine Houghton and John Prentice played by Sidney Poitier come back from Hawaii to tell Joey’s parents of the good news about their imminent marriage to each other. However, John Prentice has some conditions regarding the marriage and needs complete and unequivocal support from both parents in order for the marriage to proceed but does not tell Joey. Joey simply needed some reassurance from both her parents to proceed and as her mother Christina Drayton pointed out later in the movie, she would go along with it even if she did not have approval from the parents.
The movie is interesting in that the viewer needs to detach himself/herself from the element of surprise that the news brings to the Drayton family and the hidden racial element. We go through some interesting exchange of words as well as expressions from each member of the family as they are told of this news. It is this initial reaction that can sometimes define who we really are and underlines our own philosophy of race and whether any of us truly have double standards or not. What follows afterwards are words of justification, reassurance and often disbelief and possibly anger. I felt that movie did well to portray the subtle nuances of race and even addressed the gender separation. The reaction of the black maid was typical and almost amusing in her expression of suspicion towards John as playing some sort of game.
When viewing this movie, one can find some amazingly accurate references to the future of race relations as in one case where Matt Drayton played by Spencer Tracy who blurts ‘we need to be reasonable and we are not going to see any big changes in our lifetime’. A nice touch was when Christiana said to Matt that they had brought their daughter up in exactly the manner they had always wanted which was not to discriminate between whites and negroes. It was funny to see how over the years we have become more accustomed to saying ‘black’ rather than ‘negro’ which would sound a little ridiculous today. This maybe due to the reflection of blacks at that time when there was much turmoil around the country to bring about new reforms for the black community. Perhaps ‘blacks’ was a derogatory word used by people at that time who stood for the racial segregation that was so commonplace.
The movie however does not aim to make a topic of racial discussion but rather the intertwining deep seated philosophy of race itself held within individuals as it pertains to their life and blood ie. their sons and daughters. Apart from the standoffish and disbelief behavior of John Prentice’s father the majority of the family members could overcome their racial prejudices and see the real meaning of their relationship which Matt Drayton eloquently delivered in his final speech to everyone.
The director Stanley Kramer took a big risk with this movie but managed to pull it off very well. It is easy to see why Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn were towering figures of cinema at their time. Sidney Poitier in his usual artistic ability gave a convincing performance as John Prentice with subtle hints of arrogance and air of superiority expected from a person of his standing. Katharine Houghton was charming as the young 23 year old very much in love, head strong and resolute in her decisions.
Rating:
8/10
Tags: Best Classical Romance, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Katharine Hepburn, Movie Ratings and Reviews, Sidney Poitier
Movie Ratings and Reviews, Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Monday, November 28th, 2011
Movie: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Year: 2011
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action/Thriller
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Stars: James Franco, Andy Serkis and Freida Pinto
Snapshot of Story:
The Planet of the Apes franchise movies have been with us close to 50 years owing much to it’s unique story and the play of Apes being the closest animal to humans. The version of this new movie goes back to the early times when a few apes come to have the same level of intelligence as humans and lead to the ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’.
Movie Review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Storyline:
There have been no references made about the accuracy of the movie in terms of the previous original movie and the version of the story in the original book. Since movies are made to entertain the audience, the issues of accuracy in content does not become significant as say a documentary. However, what is important are the true depictions of events that make up the whole story and stands well on it’s own merits. In this movie of ‘The Planet of the Apes’, the director has done well to capture the meaning and essence of the story in the two hours permissible but the story itself lends to some lack of credibility by the audience.
One of the primary conflicting points in the telling of the story is how ‘Ceaser’ the super intelligent ape is able to communicate effectively with the other normal apes in a humanistic way whereas humans to date have failed miserably to have any effective communication with apes. The director does well to picture Ceaser observing the behavior of his counterparts and have the apes take on his side and follow him to a revolt against the humans. This to me is the most difficult part of the story since Ceaser needed to deploy reasoning at the human level to convey to the other apes of his superior intellect, power and leadership. I particularly liked the ‘gesture’ of the ape in showing their hand face up with their heads bowed to the leader as a means of submission. The leader would swipe the hand with his fingers as a token of acceptance. One could argue that this gesture alone is a very high form of intelligent communication.
Another turning point in the movie is when Ceaser utters his first word ‘No’ that is made more credible by the director by deliberately leaving it late in the movie.
The special effects in this movie are superb and again we are mezmorized at how real the CGI graphics are becoming from year to year. It would only be a matter of time when entire movies are made from CGI graphics and we would not require real actors although this could be an overstatement.
There was another part of the story where I felt that the personality shift was too swift when the researcher Will Rodman played by James Franco who worked on the drug Alzheimer’s drug was quick to administer it to his father but was also adamant later in conducting more trials. However, in most cases the research establishments depicted in movies are often over dramatized to keep the momentum of the story going and hence lacks any substance but always includes more of the emotional content.
The Final Thought
The movie is a fair rendition of ‘what it could be like’ if there ever happened to be a super intelligent ape and the possibility of the ‘rise of the apes’. Although, in reality that would never be the case even if one were to create one intelligent ape since apes would never be able to work as an organized group. However, the movie scores well in portraying a fictitious movie that is both stimulating to watch and highly entertaining.
Score:
7.5/10
Tags: Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, James Franco, Movie Ratings and Reviews, Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Movie Ratings and Reviews: The Thing - It’s Not Human Yet
Saturday, November 19th, 2011
Movie: The Thing
Year: 2011
Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi
Director: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
Stars: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton and Ulrich Thomsen
Snapshot of Story:
The movie is a recreation of the 1982 horror sci-fi by John Carpenter where an alien being terrorizes a group of explorers in the Antarctica.
Movie Ratings and Reviews: The Thing - It's Not Human Yet
Storyline:
It is a tall order to recreate the monumental movie of its time ‘The Thing’ in 1982 directed by John Carpenter. However, the movie does have it’s moments but unfortunately does not quite live up to the previous showing where Kurt Russel’s brilliant performance coupled with John Carpenter’s directing adds great depth and realism to the whole story.
The new main star played by a woman Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Kate Lloyd) may not have been a good choice as the person to take the lead role when comparing like for like roles (ie. Kurt Russel) in the last movie.
Although the story has good twists and turns, it does not quite gel together to make it a worthy movie to remember. The lack of coherency in the storyline despite some very good special effects brings it down.
There were some sensational scenes where the bodies mutate into disturbingly contorted figures that were very life-like. At parts also there is great tension amongst the team which was well portrayed and the clever part of the ‘teeth fillings’ which could not be replicated by the alien. Often directors miss essential points in the movie that adds realism to the whole story telling and this is what separates some great movie directors of our time. The parts can be so minuscule but adds to the overall credibility and realism to the movie and many a times directors with vision surpass the limitations of current technology and philosophy of cinema making and is able to come up with something great.
Final Thoughts:
The movie is a satisfactory rendition of the original but the towering performance of Kurt Russell and the brilliant directing of John Carpenter cannot be beat in the original version. Although today the modern aspects of movie making are far superior to that of 20-30 years ago, ultimately the storyline has to be on par to have an effective overall movie that can be appreciated by everyone. Take the examples of the movie series ‘Paranormal Activity’ where a good story telling with some special effects brings the movies together into something very watchable and almost addictive.
Rating:
6.5/10
Tags: Joel Edgerton, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Movie Ratings and Reviews, Movie Ratings and Reviews: The Thing - It's Not Human Yet, movie review of The Thing, sci-fi by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., Ulrich Thomsen
Ratings and Reviews of Singham
Thursday, November 17th, 2011
Movie: Singham
Director: Rohit Shetty
Time: 2009
Stars: Ajay Devgan, Kajal Agrawal and Prakash Raj
Snapshot of the story
Rohit Shetty has made good action movies as a small town cop Singham (Ajay Devgan) who is honest, likes to help all and can not tolerate injustice (in short a perfect cop) gets entangled with a gangster who uses his political power to make his life a mysery. It is a face paced story showing how he overcomes these challenges.
Ratings and Reviews of Singham
Storyline
Ajay Devgan is an honest cop living in a small town who believes in helping people. Because of the small locality every one knows each other. Every thing goes smoothly until the day when Singham wants a local high profile goon Jaykant Shikre (Prakash Raj) to see him in police custody. He tries to avoid this by using his influence which did not work and he needs to visit the police station. With revenge in his mind of this humiliation Jaykant Shikre uses his political power and Singham gets transferred to this locality and then starts the cat and mouse game between them.
This is the most interesting part of the movie as the goon Jaykant Shikre and Singham try to have an upper hand with each other and this is the part of movie where action, drama and love follows. The role of Singham suits very well with Ajay Devgan. The movie has some strong dialogues and larger than life image of an Indian hero. There are some action scenes where we defy the laws of gravity and is entertaining to watch.
In this high action drama director Rohit Shetty has introduced a moving story. Debutant Kajal Agrawal looked beautiful and very impressive in her first movie. Singham finds plenty of convolution in the story and it was good to see how entire police department stands against the goon and overpowers them.
On Screen Chemistry
The charismatic appearance of Ajay Devgan’s steals the show, romance is not the theme of the movie and could be the reason it has not been showcased as well. This is typical of the movie where there is fight over good and bad and one may think if one never gets tired of such stories? Singham does not have a strong storyline but fast paced movie which this is, keeps the audience interested.
Rating
Singham score 6.5 out of 10 for good performance of every actor especially Ajay Devgan and Prakash Raj. Action scenes were good but did not have freshness which we expected.
Tags: Ajay Devgan, Movie Ratings and Reviews, Review and Rating of Singham, review of indian movies, Rohit Shetty
