Posts tagged ‘review’
Magnolia – Movie Review
Magnolia (1999) – Movie Review
Tagline
Things fall down. People look up. And when it rains, it pours.
To summarise, this movie is a deep portrayal of the lives of multiple characters. Somehow they get intertwined, but not made to appear so for the entertainment of a movie.
There are no big twists to make you turn but instead a development of understanding of the lives of these characters being focused on. As the tagline suggests, things happen, and sometimes not for any particular reason but sometimes they do.
Lots of other movies that i’ve seen where there appears to be a build up towards a grand climax, is done to give an ending twist- which then renders the movie viewable only once with the same eyes, if that makes sense. I don’t think the sixth sense can be watched with the same eyes the second time.
In Magnolia we see the development of stories which build toward a grand climax. Magnolia differs from others however as whilst some of the points of interest are predicatable, the suspense is in how we see characters in the movie react to these moments not a revelation in storyline.
The acting and direction is in a perfect blend with the setting and content. We feel the pain, the happiness and the relief of those on screen. Movies where you want to see the reaction of characters to revelation in storyline appear with great emotion and understanding, we never feel left out.
I originally hired this film after hearing about Tom Cruise’s roll as Frank Mackey who is a basically the a “woman tamer” and god amongst men who don’t know how to play the game of getting to bed with women.
Cruise plays a character in only one story of several that this movie tells. His acting and emotion in this film is well deserved of his golden globe award.
Whilst this movie is quite deep in the way things intertwine, try not to think too hard about the background as you will miss the importance of the foreground. One hint, this movie isn’t cut up in different time sections, it is a story of one particular period of time displayed from start to finish.
I’ll try not to spoil this for you, but I do want to say, this 3 hour feature film is definately worth watching, keep a night free to watch it at your own lesuire. Don’t ruin being moved by a brillant film by watching it during conversation or before u go out on a night in the town.
The climax of this movie will display and event that is very out of place and i beleive was put in to make us just realise that some things happen, for no apparent reason- some need to be recognised throughly and some should just be left as a past event.
There is something there for all of us to take away, and for me personally, it has made me realise that saying that you regret something is not a bad thing to say. I’ve always thought regret is a waste as you don’t take decisions made and make something good out of them. But for some things, there is no good that comes out of it and i suppose we need to all acknowledge that these things happen. We can’t do anything more about them now and it’s ok to recognise what we have done wrong in the past regardless of our current situation.
Nobody is perfect and to say we regret decisions made is ok, as long as we recognise bad decisions as bad things and not always as “it was for the best”. It’s not about dwelling about the past, but more about recognition of something that was wrong and giving it the true recognition it deserves- especially if it has affected others you love.
The big quote from this movie is “We may be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us”
This review has also been submitted to imdb.com
Movie Review: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Here’s what should have happened…
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This review is intended for those who have seen this movie already.
In summary the movie was well considered, and the convergence of the characters was done without any noticeable problem. As the story revealed itself, it produced some powerful scenes and thrilling moments.
The movie touched on just enough uncomfortable activities such as rape, violence, racism and corporate malpractice to make the movie engaging.
However, I believe as the viewer of this film, it would have been MUCH more powerful if we saw a change in Lisbeth’s character. At the end of the movie, its uncomfortable for me to see her being entertained by the same things the entertained the people she investigated.
Lisbeth’s character should have evolved. What lessons have we learned from the film? Did she not learn anything from Mikael? What should have happened in my eyes is that after she let the murderer burn and have Mikael give his thoughts on the matter, there should have been another opportunity for Lisbeth to make a mends as a person.
This would have substantiated her theory of “everyone has the same chance and make their choices in life”. It would have been nice to see her face the same situation between saving someone bad or letting them burn, and to see her make that decision to not be the “punisher” in life.
To have a final scene of her walking away with money as a result of a corporation profiting from third-world drug cartels was a big disappointment and didn’t do her powerful role justice. She did not learn anything, and it leaves us sitting there in discomfort as we being dealt the ridiculous lesson of “If someone does you bad, then you should do the same or worse back”.
I actually think it would have been nice also to have been given more detail as to why she burnt her own father. We know why, but there was so much detail in her subsequent actions in life that we can’t compare it to much about how bad she was treated.
The scene with the mother could have been more powerful, and would have been a great opportunity to flash back to the horrors of abusive husband. The balance wasn’t there, we know more about HER horrific behavior than that of her father. It was too imbalanced.
If this movie ends up having sequels, then a better ending would have been Lisbeth handing over her medical file instead of the corporate file and have Mikael learn about her OR still have her give her investigation of the corporate file but end with the start of Mikael typing on his laptop. We don’t need to be dragged into another story and then they rush through scenes of another investigation.
It so unfortunate that everything else was so good, but the movie failed so horribly in it’s ability to teach us anything good. But, it was definitely an entertaining 2 1/2 hours but its sad I can walk away with hope for myself and others.
8/10