December 2004 Wrap Up

Facing Windows: Rating 7/10

I missed seeing this at the Film festival but a good Italian friend told me this was not such a great movie (despite winning numerous domestic Italian movie awards). And I agree with him, this movie was not great at all, but quite bland. Sure the acting was good and the story had potential but in the end the movie was boring. There are two parallel stories in the movie and despite the director trying to tie them together, they never really feel seem connected.

The House of Flying Daggers:

Rating, Story: 3/10
Rating, Technical aspects (Visuals, Fights, Set Design): 10/10

A huge disappointment!! Sure there are great fight scenes – people will talk about the Bamboo & snow field fights and the colorful sets at the start of the movie but overall, the movie is incomplete. The movie starts off with an elaborate story line but once the love triangle kicks in, the assassin/conspiracy story is forgotten. In fact, if the love triangle was given so much importance, then what was the point of having the assassin story line?
The love story is much much weaker than either Crouching Tiger or Hero!

The Day After Tomorrow: Entertaining but full of plot holes, as expected.

Rating, Plot: 4/10
Rating, Visuals: 8/10

This movie was much more easy to watch than I had expected J The CGI graphics are really good and the ice storms, tornado’s, etc are very chilling and had my attention. Ofcourse, the negative point is the weak screenplay, choppy acting in some parts and well huge plot holes. None the less, it is a fun movie to watch.

The Girl Next Door: Rating 6/10

Unlike other high school movies, this flick does have a decent story line in mind -- a hooker moves next door to a high school outcast and changes his life. Now as clichéd as it seems the story line would have worked. However, the movie tries to do too much and is muddled up by the end – the movie moves from a high school comedy to a romantic flick to a dark comedy and then finally ends up by showing that the porn industry has a sweet and tender side.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Rating 8/10

The Riddick character was amazing in Pitch Black and in this movie once again, he steals the show. With a bigger budget, the Chronicles is a visual pleasure. The CGI graphics are quite something and the entire Story world is great. This is a role made only for Vin Diesel and he completely dives into his character.

Before Sunset: Rating 10/10

This movie will not seem as good if one has not seen Before Sunrise. That being sad, the movie starts off 9 years after the first movie left off. The movie is a delight to watch. And the camera work plus editing is flawless, it is perfect. The only negative comment about the movie is that I still think that Ethan Hawke’s expressions are weak in some scenes just like in the first movie. But Julie Delpy is perfect as usual.