Michael Lown
BartoBite Size Film: part 2
December 11th 2008 03:25
The Duchess
The most pleasant surprise of the year. It’s not like I’m a Knightley hater (I liked Atonement, but I think Romola Garai pulled a lot more out of the material). In this Keira finally proves to everyone she can act – I mean severely act, with range and complexity. Her flawed heroine anchors a beautifully crafted period piece. Its ending may be gut-wrenching, but somehow it all makes sense. Hayley Atwell gives a fabulous showing as an even less sympathetic character. That’s the true achievement of this film – everyone is supremely flawed, but you can not help but ultimately wish them well.
My Best Friend’s Girl
A sloppy, openly offensive film that so embraces the unlikeability of its characters that you can’t help but be entertained (as long as you, can overcome the continuing, phenomenal offensiveness). I always struggle to decide whether Dane Cook deserves a career or not – it varies from movie to movie. In this case I am going to say yes, because I can’t imagine anyone else committing so utterly to being such an asshole. Kate Hudson is game, and if she’s sticking with the romcom, at least she’s changing it up a little. Jason Biggs is just not funny anymore. Unless he’s having an eyebrow removed. Meanwhile Alec Baldwin continues to pimp out his brand of wacky – at least he does it well.
The Women
Ouch. Front runner with Jumper for worst movie of the year (my measurement of worst, means the ‘bad-ness’ of a film is amplified if it somehow implies in some part of its pedigree that it could be good – thus completely misleading us all). It’s really bad. Badly written, inexpressively acted (I’ll get to that), people aren’t likeable and they also aren’t funny (in this type of movie you really need to be at least one of those things). I’m all for the women-power, but this movie undermines it in a huge way. I think it is possible to make an interesting movie without men in it (as it seems easily proven that the reverse is possible virtually all the time) – but this isn’t an example of that theory. I was bored. I was cringing. I spent the entire time wondering what was wrong with Meg Ryan’s face, and trying to figure out when she lost the spark of charisma that allowed her to get by on frazzled zany. Clearly a good script is a good start – I believe the original may have had one. This was just lame and irritating.
The most pleasant surprise of the year. It’s not like I’m a Knightley hater (I liked Atonement, but I think Romola Garai pulled a lot more out of the material). In this Keira finally proves to everyone she can act – I mean severely act, with range and complexity. Her flawed heroine anchors a beautifully crafted period piece. Its ending may be gut-wrenching, but somehow it all makes sense. Hayley Atwell gives a fabulous showing as an even less sympathetic character. That’s the true achievement of this film – everyone is supremely flawed, but you can not help but ultimately wish them well.
My Best Friend’s Girl
A sloppy, openly offensive film that so embraces the unlikeability of its characters that you can’t help but be entertained (as long as you, can overcome the continuing, phenomenal offensiveness). I always struggle to decide whether Dane Cook deserves a career or not – it varies from movie to movie. In this case I am going to say yes, because I can’t imagine anyone else committing so utterly to being such an asshole. Kate Hudson is game, and if she’s sticking with the romcom, at least she’s changing it up a little. Jason Biggs is just not funny anymore. Unless he’s having an eyebrow removed. Meanwhile Alec Baldwin continues to pimp out his brand of wacky – at least he does it well.
The Women
Ouch. Front runner with Jumper for worst movie of the year (my measurement of worst, means the ‘bad-ness’ of a film is amplified if it somehow implies in some part of its pedigree that it could be good – thus completely misleading us all). It’s really bad. Badly written, inexpressively acted (I’ll get to that), people aren’t likeable and they also aren’t funny (in this type of movie you really need to be at least one of those things). I’m all for the women-power, but this movie undermines it in a huge way. I think it is possible to make an interesting movie without men in it (as it seems easily proven that the reverse is possible virtually all the time) – but this isn’t an example of that theory. I was bored. I was cringing. I spent the entire time wondering what was wrong with Meg Ryan’s face, and trying to figure out when she lost the spark of charisma that allowed her to get by on frazzled zany. Clearly a good script is a good start – I believe the original may have had one. This was just lame and irritating.
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