Comment Archives: stories: Movies
Re: “2013 Rochester International Film Festival”
Hey! I'm the director of "Do Cybernauts dream of digital Love?" I wish I could have been in Rochester for the screening... Thanks for the nice presentation!
Re: “MOVIE REVIEW: "Hyde Park on Hudson"”
Not only is this movie exceptionally dull, but all the characters are like paper doll people. No one is likeable. The director seems to assume that we 'know' all the people, and not a single one has a defined personality, or has their role in the movie defined. It is also odd that the home looks in need of a coat of paint and a few more lighting fixtures. It displays yellowing age as it naturally would if photographed 70 years later, but not in its own day. 90 minutes wasted.
Re: “"Room 237"”
"There's a lot OF interesting material..."
Re: “The 2013 High Falls Film Festival”
this is the kind of cover that makes me want to pick up CITY paper! keep up the fresh, great work!
Re: “"Oz the Great and Powerful"”
Does anyone from The City enjoy any form of entertainment from the mainstream? You guys may start turning people off with you über negative, highly critical (I obviously realize this is a film critique) and often times snide pieces of writing. I enjoy The City for the most part but sometimes some optimism and general happiness is necessary in the media.
Re: “MOVIE REVIEW: "The Impossible"”
Amazing review! I loved the movie and also saw the way bayona pulls attention to other extras showing that there are hundreds of other story out there! Grate review of a grate movie!
Re: “MOVIE REVIEW: "Les Miserables"”
I agree completely with the review too... the film is a mess which misses the theatrical aspect... the soaring athems were all diluted and Javert the most complex character in the story just wasn't there. I was hugely disappointed
Re: “MOVIE REVIEW: "Les Miserables"”
I agree completely with this review, and I suspect I was robbed by the theater I went to. In the version I saw, heads were chopped off or shown almost completely off camera and it was hugely distracting. I want to believe that it was not filmed this way, and that no diector in the world would shoot a soloists singing and only show their chin throughout most of the song! So I'm guessing that the guy in the projector room screwed up the ratio somehow? It was terrible and a great disapointment to me. Much prefer the Broadway version, here!
Re: “MOVIE REVIEW: "Cosmopolis"”
Very good review and I pretty much agree with your take on the movie. However, I actually thought that the final conversation with Paul Giamatti’s character was the only part of the movie worth watching. Giamatti’s performance was the only thing in the movie that actually intrigued me. I had never heard of this movie until a coworker at DISH recommended it to me. I saw that I could get it through my Blockbuster @Home account from DISH, and so I decided to rent it. I figured that even if I didn’t like it I could just exchange it in the store for another movie, so I had nothing to lose. I actually lost over an hour of my time and quite a bit of respect for Cronenberg, so I can’t recommend it.
Re: “MOVIE REVIEW: "Django Unchained"”
Tarantino's gross disinterest in actual history turns me off.
The smugness I can take. The pretentious self-congratulatory film-making I can tolerate. But the utter indifference to the nuance of an era, let alone a reasonable sense of accuracy, just gives me a sad. After the Jews-machine-gunning-Hitler sequence that jumped Inglorious Basterds well over the shark...I'm not sure I'll even bother with Django.
Auf Wiedersehen pardner.
Re: “The better (not necessarily best) movies of 2012”
LIFE OF PI -- overrated.
Re: “MOVIE REVIEW: "The Guilt Trip"”
I prefer nice young Jewish actors like Natalie Portman, Logan Lerman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mila Kunis, Andrew Garfield, etc.
Re: “The better (not necessarily best) movies of 2012”
I have to agree with the above comment. Where is Life of Pi? This was the best film of the year.
Re: “The better (not necessarily best) movies of 2012”
Why is there no mention of the remarkable "Life of Pi"? Talk about ambitious--this was a book that everyone said could never be adapted for film. "Life of Pi" is a rare breed: a technologically groundbreaking, visually breathtaking film with heart. It was not so much a film as an experience. But Mr. Grella would rather cite overstuffed costume-dramas like "Anna Karenina" , which, except for Jude Law's performance, are hollow at the core. Everyone I know who saw "Life of Pi" was moved to tears and said that, like the book, it was a life-changing experience that stayed with them for days. I have read Mr. Grella's reviews for years, and I get the feeling that he operates from the head and not the heart, and that actually being touched by a film is low on his list of criteria. But to be moved, to live vicariously, to cry, to feel something--isn't that exactly why we go to the movies?
Re: “MOVIE REVIEW: "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"”
Might be the worst, most pointless film review I have ever read. You do know that criticism should move beyond "I like" "this is good/bad" and babbling about whether fans of the source material (who cares what they think btw- these are films, not books) will legitimize the series, don't you? "Cinema's timeless trilogies"? What does that mean? Why talk of the LoTRings movies at all? Get a point of view ON THE FILM ITSELF and what it is trying to say and speak from there.
Re: “MOVIE REVIEW: "Red Dawn"”
As one firmly in the original movie's demographic, I completely agree with the tone of the commenters. It was blatantly obvious that the first movie was pro-America/anti-Commie propaganda, even to one who was in their early teens at the time. Thinking that the current movie would be any less flag-waving is laughable at best. Of course the movie's going to be pro-America and anti-somebody. There's only 2 ways to go - terrorists or North Korea. Given the lack of effectiveness of any terrorist attack outside of the Middle East since the London and Madrid attacks, North Korea was it. (Did Mr. G review Team America? What was his opinion there?)
So, Mr. G... was the movie any good? There are plenty of movies out there with political leanings I don't agree with. Doesn't mean they're terrible. Your role as a reviewer is to tell us if the movie's good. If you have a political opinion about a movie, I'm sure your employer would be more than happy to give you some column inches to address the issue. You can even insert your opinion into the review without totally letting it take over the review.
Re: “MOVIE REVIEW: "Red Dawn"”
Have to agree with both of the above posts. If Grella wants to write op-eds, put him there.
Re: “MOVIE REVIEW: "Red Dawn"”
Maybe you should do a political column, so there's a shot for a movie critic here.
Re: “"The Place Beyond the Pines"”
Well put. The movie grabs your attention in the very beginning and doesn't let go until the very end. I wasn't sure if the movie had a point, Perhaps how things can go wrong or not how you wanted it to go when you try and do the "right " thing in life.