Thursday, January 31, 2008

Upcoming Review -- Toy Story

Toy Story (1995)
Running Time: 81 Min.

Directed By: John Lasseter
Written By: John Lasseter, Pete Doctor, Andrew Stanton, Joe Ranft, Joss Whedon, Joel Cohen, and Alec Sokolow.
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney and John Ratzenberger.

Synopsis:
When Woody's (Hanks), a pull-string cowboy, owner gets a brand new spaceman named Buzz Lightyear (Allen), Woody fears that he will soon become replaced in the eyes of his owner.

Upcoming Reviews

02/10/08 -- The Adventures of Bob and Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew (1983)
02/17/08 -- Science of Sleep (2006)
02/24/08 -- American Graffiti (1973)

Posted by Ampersand on Thursday, January 31, 2008 at 10:49 PM | | Comments

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Upcoming Review - Ed Wood

Ed Wood (1994)
Running Time: 127 Min.

Directed By: Tim Burton
Written By: Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker and Bill Murray.

Synopsis:
This is the semi-true autobiographical story of Ed Wood (Depp), one of Hollywood's worst movie directors of all time, his family and friends, and how he yearned to achieve greatness though he never knew what that truly meant.

Upcoming Movies

01/27/08 -- Toy Story (1995)
02/03/08 -- The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew (1983)
02/10/08 -- Science of Sleep (2006)

Posted by Ampersand on Thursday, January 24, 2008 at 11:33 PM | | Comments

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Upcoming Review -- Linda Linda Linda

Linda Linda Linda (2005)
Running Time: 114 Min.

Directed By: Yamashita Nobuhiro
Written By: Mukai Kosuke, Miyashita Wakako and Yamashita Nobuhiro
Starring: Bae Du-na, Maeda Aki, Kashii Ai and Sekine Shiori.

Synopsis:
Four teenage girls form a band to play at their high school festival. But when the lead singer drops out two days before the festival, the remaining members recruit a Korean foreign exchange student to help them out -- though she's never sung before and can hardly speak Japanese.

Upcoming Movies

02/06/08 -- Ed Wood (1994)
02/13/08 -- Toy Story (1995)
02/20/08 -- The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew (1983)

Posted by Ampersand on Thursday, January 17, 2008 at 6:46 PM | | Comments

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Unforgiven (1992): Get back on that saddle.

There is nothing I can't say about Westerns. For some reason, I just love shoot-'em-up cowboy flicks. Cough, Tombstone (and most Spaghetti Westerns). Thusly, I was expecting a lot from Unforgiven, mainly because of Clint Eastwood and the fact that it won quite a handful of Oscars.

You could say that I was disappointed.

Clint Eastwood, no matter what role he plays, is always The Man With No Name first and Dirty Harry second. I was totally up for a new Western from him, and since he was directing, I was really looking forward to it -- I wanted to see what Eastwood had in him as a director. I'll get to him in a second, but first, to the story.

David Webb Peoples, has written only two movies I've enjoyed so far: Twelve Monkeys and Blade Runner. He should, in all honesty, just stick with Science Fiction films. The story to Unforgiven is mediocre at best. It's quite lackluster. William Munny (Eastwood) is a retired and reformed killer, who decides to pick up his old, dusty guns to cash in on a bounty placed on two rough cowboys who cut up a prostitute's face. The whores of Big Whiskey (the town where this all happens) are furious and gather all of their money and put the bounty out. That's essentially the story. Maybe there's more to it, like a deep psychosis of things, where Munny changes from good to bad throughout the film, but I can't say that I saw it.

Munny is the average anti-hero; the hero of the story with that the dark past, which in essence makes their characters always cooler. But every hero needs a sidekick, and that's where Morgan Freeman's character comes in: Ned. Ned is really, really flat. He is the ubiquitous cardboard cutout, that it is incredibly sad. Maybe the main focus of the film is Munny's return to his dark past, but I felt that so much more could have been played out for Ned. The Schofield Kid (played by Jaimz Woolvett) had more life to him. Unfortunately Woolvett has yet to do anything big since the film, mainly dabbing in television for the past decade.

The acting done by the leads was great: Eastwood, Freeman, Gene Hackman and Richard Harris. Seriously? They're all great -- Harris was, rest his soul.

Hackman's character in the film was kind of odd to see in a Western. He's the antagonist, but he's also the Sheriff, the law. Which I give People's respect for that -- I have a thing with role-reversals in stories. Hackman was great, though wasn't he essentially the same character in The Quick and the Dead?

Richard Harris was short lived in the film. His character, English Bob, was really less as prominent in the film as I was lead to believe. His name is on the cover for crying out loud!

And now I'm finally to Eastwood's directing. It's was alright. Had it been his first time directing, I would have been impressed, but since he's had an extensive record of directing, it's okay. Nothing spectacular, though I still need to see his other films as well.

All-in-all, I was sorely disappointed in the film; there just seemed to be much missing throughout. If you're either an Eastwood or Western fan, I say watch the film at least once, just to have an opinion. But other than that, you probably don't need to see it.

The Final Call:

7/10

Posted by Austen on Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 3:30 AM | | Comments

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Upcoming Review -- Unforgiven

Unforgiven (1992)
Running Time: 131 Min.

Directed By: Clint Eastwood
Written By: David Webb Peoples
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris.

Synopsis:
When some rough cowboys brutally assault a prostitute in the town of Big Whiskey, there’s a bounty put on their heads. Retired gunslinger Bill Munny (Eastwood), his old partner Ned (Freeman) and a young gunman called the Schofield Kid pick up their guns to cash in on the bounty.

Upcoming Movies

01/20/08 -- Linda Linda Linda (2005)
01/27/08 -- Ed Wood (1994)
02/03/08 -- Toy Story (1995)

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Posted by Ampersand on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 5:00 PM | | Comments

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Back to the Future (1985): It's about time -- literally.

Back to the Future was, as Jason pointed out to me, our second Science Fiction film in a row. And all I can say is that Back to the Future does a much better job than Tron did.

There’s so many things I like about this movie. It’s extremely well written, the acting is great, and all around is just a good movie.

As I watched Back to the Future I noticed that it was perfectly timed, in beats and action.

Being a screenwriter, I’ve heard of the “three acts” (as I like to call them) many a times. For those who don’t know, the average length to a script is about 120 pages -- which is about a minute per page equivalent to a two-hour film. The script is then broken down in to three acts from that. The first act is roughly the first thirty pages of the script. The second is the next sixty. And the third act is the last thirty pages.

I feel that Back to the Future is a film that clearly shows the transitions from the different acts. It’s a good film to watch carefully at, and not for that sole reason.

It’s also a great story. Steve Zemeckis and Bob Gale wrote a fantastic screenplay, and it works on screen. Compared to Tron, the characters are much more vivid, and have some life to them.

It’s easy to see that Zemeckis and Gale took their time to write this script, making sure they did all of their research, plotting out little things that become big things. Foreshadow is huge in this film. Small snippets of dialogue makes sense later on in the film. I think this is a very good reason why this film rocks.

There’s not much more to say about the script besides that. It’s one of my favorite stories.

But I think that because of the actors bringing the characters to life definitely helped propel this movie. Michael J. Fox does a great job as Marty McFly. He plays the average teen do a punctuation mark. But enter Christopher Lloyd as Dr. Emmett Brown, and you’ve got yourself a duo that’s just too good...not like Pegg and Frost, but close enough. Honestly, I see Lloyd only as an eccentric scientist bent on finding a working invention in most of his films. It’s odd.

Which now brings me to the three other main characters of the film. Don’t ask me why, but Lea Thompson (who plays Lorraine, Marty’s mom) was hot when she was younger. I mean, have you seen Howard the Duck? What really got to me was how well she played a love interest to Marty -- yeah, she’s supposed to be his mom.

Then the lonely and pathetic George McFly comes in to play. He’s just so helpless, like a lost animal, that you want to help him shack up with Marty’s mom. But I don’t think anyone but Crispin Glover could have done a better job. He just seems to fit the part so well, especially since he’s always playing those smaller parts, and hardly never the lead in any film. But George does prevail over his bully, Biff, played by Thomas F. Wilson.

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel that Wilson just looks like a natural bully, and maybe that’s one reason he was cast for the part (or not). I felt that Biff, in all his glory, had a much smaller part in the film than the other actors (but we see more of him in Part Two and Three) and I was hoping for more.

And now finally, the directing. There’s nothing I can’t say about Zemeckis’ directing for this film. He did a wonderful job. Maybe it was because of the grand set designs for Hill Valley, maybe it was because of Zemeckis’ directing, but I really felt like Back to the Future had been made from a time before the ‘80s.

The last thing I can say about this movie would be to recommend it to you if you haven’t seen it. It’s good to study for if you’re looking for a simple story. The script works. It has no flaws that I can see. It even leaves the ending open for the two sequels, which both work as well, making the trilogy flow together like a singular film.

So, here ya’ go; if you haven’t seen Back to the Future, don’t just rent it, BUY it.

The Final Call:

10/10

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Posted by Austen on Thursday, August 16, 2007 at 3:39 PM | | Comments

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Upcoming Review -- Back to the Future

Back to the Future (1985)
Running Time: 116 Min.

Directed By: Robert Zemeckis
Written By: Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale
Starring: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson.

Synopsis:
Marty McFly (Fox) lives in the year 1985; but when Dr. Brown (Lloyd) unleashes his new invention, a time traveling DeLorean, Marty accidentally travels back to the year 1955.

Upcoming Movies

08/19/07 -- Unforgiven (1992)
08/23/07 -- Linda Linda Linda (2005)
08/26/07 -- Ed Wood (1994)

Labels: ,

Posted by Ampersand on Tuesday, August 14, 2007 at 12:17 AM | | Comments

About A.M.R.

  • Two best friends, Jason & Austen, have formed Ampersand Movie Reviews. They pick the movies, (possibly with your help) and they rate them. There's two different and utterly reasonable aspects on some of the best and worst films the world has to offer. New reviews every Sunday and Thursday.
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