ViewGuide - Movie Reviews

Wick on The Bicycle Thief

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:51:00 -0800

Overall Really Great - Really Great Acting - Great Film - Tame - Glib
Reverential movie, thy name is *The Bicycle Thief*. Long considered one of the greatest movies of all time, it still qualifies. Real people play the parts, none more affecting than seven year-old Enzo Staiola's Bruno. The kid's now my favorite boy in all of movie history. Bruno's Dad hocks the family inheritance to buy a bike so he can accept a badly needed job. The bike gets stolen, l...

Wick on The Grifters

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:58:11 -0800

Overall Great - Great Acting - Great Film - Sordid - Glib
Anjelica Huston and Annette Bening use their considerable feminine wiles to control a man-in-the-middle. Talk about a double shot of mature sexiness, even if John Cusack proves barely worthy of their attentions. Of course Huston's mobbed-up mom takes an immediate dislike to Bening's sexed-up girlfriend. Cat fight! Grifters? A trade name for con artists from back in the day, throwback lin...

Wick on Safe House

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 22:15:17 -0800

Overall Good - Good Acting - OK Film - Sordid - Surreal
Denzel Washington as a bad-ass CIA agent gone rogue is reason enough to watch *Safe House*. Good thing, since the rest of the movie is just OK: weakly acted aside from the superstar, ridiculously plotted, unconvincingly over-the-top in its action. Plus it's consumed with a WikiLeak-like passion for sliming America. Denzel is worth the price of the ticket however. Even better, wait for...

BrianSez on Midnight in Paris

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:09:37 -0800

Overall OK - Good Acting - OK Film - Risqué - Fantasy
I totally got the Woody Allen vibe in this movie. And Owen Wilson was a great choice for its center of attention with his sort of whiny, meandering, and sometimes neurotic focus on the romantic ideal of Paris in the 20’s. However, I’ve never thought that Woody did sci-fi comedy very well (sorry Sleeper fans), and Midnight proves - albeit in a dramatically different way - that Woody should stay...

Wick on Hugo

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:34:07 -0800

Overall Great - Great Acting - Great Film - Tame - Surreal
Martin Scorsese does a kid's movie, delivering a film history lesson wrapped in a Parisian postcard. Glorious visuals, affecting performances and deft filmmaking flourishes make it a treat for kids of all ages. The fable of *Hugo Cabret* imagines an orphan boy who lives in the walls of a storybook railway station, where he maintains the many fantastic clocks. A mechanical prodigy, he cleve...

BrianSez on Margin Call

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 21:12:33 -0800

Overall Great - Great Acting - Great Film - Tame - Glib
A fantastic fictional accounting of the demise of wall street investment banks. Starting with an insider discovery that the house of cards was about to tumble, the mostly steely executives craft a plan to save themselves despite the mayhem that is about to unfold around them. A terrific cast add the drama and suspense necessary to turn what could have been an overly abstract topic in to a grea...

Wick on A Separation

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:48:32 -0800

Overall Really Great - Perfect Acting - Really Great Film - Tame - Glib
*A Separation* fascinates both as an absorbing domestic drama and a lens into contemporary Iran. That compelling combination has made it a worldwide sensation, the odds-on favorite to win Best Foreign Language Film at the upcoming Oscars. It presents two families drawn together by domestic needs who are then drawn into dire circumstances due to pique and familial love. A middle-class fami...

Wick's 2011 Great Movies (32)

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 19:16:11 -0800

Now at 32. "2010":http://www.viewguide.com/vulists/667 finished with 20.

26 more...
more...

markm on TRON: Legacy

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:40:39 -0800

Overall Very Good - Barely OK Acting - Very Good Film - Risqué - Fantasy
Fun movie, awesome effects, even better soundtrack

Randy on 50/50

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:42:36 -0800

Overall Very Good - Really Great Acting - Good Film - Risqué - Natural
This movie had the potential to fail horribly. You know, that movie that was advertised as a comedy, but in reality, wasn't funny at all, and instead, was simply an emotional train-wreck that generally just rubbed you the wrong way? (i.e. Click, The Bucket List, etc.) Pleasingly, this movie did not follow in the footsteps of Click or The Bucket List. Instead, what we got was a delightful sto...

BrianSez on 13 Assassins

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 09:01:53 -0800

Overall Really Great - Great Acting - Really Great Film - Horrid - Glib
This visually stunning movie follows 13 samurai warriors who plot to kill a tyrannical brother of the Shogun leader. Incredible attention to detail, shocking brutality, poetic swordsmanship, and loyalty that transcends the importance of your own life are threads through this film. If you are like me, and must prepare yourself to focus on a subtitled movie, you will be richly rewarded with a bl...

BrianSez on The Mechanic

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:12:03 -0800

Overall Great - Great Acting - Great Film - Sordid - Glib
Ultra Cool Jason Statham in an ultra cool role as the mechanic. An elite and strictly professional assassin. His tag line? “Services rendered. No strings attached.” To survive this life, he is a loner, with no strings in his personal life either. Except suddenly he gets lots of strings when he’s guilted in to mentoring his own departed mentor Harry’s (Donald Sutherland) son Steve (Ben Foster)...

Wick on The Last Mogul: The Life and Times of Lew Wasserman

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:09:08 -0800

Overall OK - Very Good Acting - OK Film - Tame - Natural
Entertainment power-broker Lew Wasserman gets profiled in *The Last Mogul* as Hollywood's man behind the curtain during the second half of the 20th Century. Almost 50 big names take turns telling tales of Lew, something that would apparently have mortified the secretive Wasserman were he still alive. The documentary moves along at a decent clip and reveals plenty of interesting Tinseltown t...

BrianSez on Red State

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:30:31 -0800

Overall OK - Good Acting - OK Film - Sordid - Surreal
A group of teens hoping for good times via an on-line ad instead end up with a isolated family group of fundamentalist Christians who set the trap for them and anyone else they deem as sinners. Michael Parks plays the gay-bashing fanatic Abin Cooper who preaches a bit too long in the beginning of the movie, but it serves to highlight the perverted fanaticism that drives the eventual shocking vi...

BrianSez on Real Steel

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:24:50 -0800

Overall OK - OK Acting - OK Film - Risqué - Supernatural
I’d describe Reel Steel as a Disney-esque take on Rocky meets Rock-em Sock-em Robots. This family-friendly romp in the world of robot-boxers follows Hugh Jackman (Charlie), a struggling robot owner ends up doing whatever he can to keep going. Stooping to lows such as blowing off debts and selling off the custody rights to his 11 year old son (Dakota Goyo). Of course, being a sports movie, the...