FINALLY!!! i got the chance to catch up on my movie viewing! and i mean movie viewing as in in the actual cinema movie viewing, not the "thank you pirates of metrowalk" type of movie viewing.
300 -- everyone knows this movie kicks ass. nuff said. that oracle scene = one of the most stunningly beautiful scenes i've ever seen on the big screen. EVER.
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NOTES ON A SCANDAL --
HEY YOU! YES YOU, JENNIFER HUDSON! Cate Blanchett called, she wants her Oscar! go give it to her before she grabs it out of your fat undeserving hands!
i don't care if Cate just won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar 2 years ago (for "The Aviator"). if she's the best, then she's the best. and she should get her 2nd Oscar, regardless of whether or not she just won. and this year, she was head and shoulders above the rest. (yes, i'll admit, she was even better than Abigail Breslin. and had i seen this movie before i released my year-end awards, Blanchett would've been my pick.)
but alas, people were swept up in J-Hud's whole 'cinderella story'. and the media hyped her up to no end. and so, despite a very inferior one-note ACTING performance, that big ape robbed Cate The Great of her 2nd Oscar.
moving on...
the movie itself was well made. very british. and very short actually. just 92 minutes. which is probably why some parts of the movie felt a bit rushed. the script managed to be witty (with that biting brit humor) and also very intense and disturbing.
and shit, just when you thought you've already seen Judi Dench do everything, here she comes with a role you NEVER would've expected her to do. she was great. Oscar nomination very well-deserved. one stare was all it took for the audience to be captivated by her. and in the hands of a lesser actress, the role of Barbara Covett probably would've ended up as a simple caricature of a creepy elderly lesbian stalker. but Dench infused Barbara with tired desperation, and a certain shade of loneliness that she tries to hide underneath her steely exterior.
and of course, there's the phenomenal Cate Blanchett as adulteress Sheba Hart who, after years of suppressing her innermost feelings, finally gives in to her true longings. the audience's initial reaction would probably be to loathe a woman like this -- a flirty woman who puts her family's future in jeopardy. but she wins you over. you don't sympathize with her, not completely. but at the very least, Blanchett makes you understand her. you get to see why Sheba acts that way. she loves her family, and wants nothing more than to take care of them. but after years of being good and behaving and never letting out her angst, she too becomes lonely. she too becomes desperate. and you feel for her. watch out for her impending "here i am!" breakdown towards the end of the movie. it was CHILLING. seriously.
i don't really know where i'm going with this. i'm too lazy to write a longer review coz i'm very sleepy.
BUT CATE BLANCHETT REALLY DESERVED THAT OSCAR. damn that American Idol girl.
watch the film for Blanchett's and Dench's masterful performances. these 2 actresses say a lot more in a glance than most actresses (like Jennifer Hudson) can say in a paragraph.
by my count, Cate should have 3 Oscars already. where's the justice??
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THE GOOD SHEPHERD --
wow. this is not your typical spy movie. where do i start?
okay, one of the most notable things about the movie -- THE LENGTH! good lord!! 2 HOURS AND 40 MINUTES!!! and that would've been fine with me if the pacing was as snappy as "The Departed" (which was 2 hours and 30 minutes, but didn't feel like it)... but nooooo!!! if this movie was in a race with a turtle, i'm pretty sure the turtle would still end up winning! slow slow slow paced movie!
THAT SAID...
the movie was still pretty entertaining. like i said, it's not your typical spy/espionage movie. no explosions, no fight scenes. not like what you'd normally see in the Bond movies or on "Alias" or "24".
the film isn't really about the missions anyway. the central story of the film is the birth of the CIA. how it began and how it developed into the world's most powerful covert ops agency. that plus the loss of identity and privacy of the Matt Damon's character, Edward Wilson, and his struggle to maintain his loyalties to both his country and his family.
the production value was probably the best part of the film. the production design, the costumes, the music, the cinematography. it was true to the period of the movie (1940s-1960s) and very realistic and beautiful.
acting was pretty much top-notch. but that's to be expected given a cast ranging from Oscar winners (Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Robert De Niro, William Hurt, Timothy Hutton, and a cameo by Joe Pesci) to Oscar nominees (Alec Baldwin) to serious character actors (Billy Crudup, John Turturro) to british legends (Michael Gambon aka the new Dumbledore) to Emmy winning starlets (Tammy Blanchard). you can't go wrong with a cast like that.
there have been complaints about the lack of chemistry between Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie. but that's to be expected since their characters were supposed to be distant from each other from the time of their wedding onwards. especially given the circumstances of their marriage. their conflict wouldn't have been believable had there been constant fireworks between them.
as far as Robert De Niro's directing is concerned... let's just say he should probably just stick to acting. at 2 hours and 40 minutes, it's pretty strange that there are several details and events in the movie that STILL ended up being vague and unexplained. and all that jumping back and forth from the past to the present made my head hurt. with everything that was happening in the movie -- the missions, the betrayals, all these new characters and informations constantly popping up -- the non-linear storytelling was very confusing. AND THE PACING!! lord almighty! very very dragging film! of course, we can't just blame De Niro's directing for that. it's a combination of the directing, the screenplay, and the editing.
but that's not to say that the movie didn't have its moments of excellence. there were several scenes that were actually tightly edited and very thrilling. most notably, the revelations about the mysterious photograph and the tape that came with it. but overall, De Niro's directing was inconsistent.
it's a pretty complicated movie to wrap your brain around. it really is. you close your eyes for a few seconds and you might end up missing some crucial details. i'm actually still trying to piece the puzzle and understand some events as i type this. i'm afraid that i might have missed something. maybe i need a repeat viewing... ... ...another 2 hours and 40 minutes? hmm, okay, nevermind.
to sum it all up, i'll quote Randy Jackson -- "y'know, dawg, i wasn't like 'whoa'. i wasn't blown away. it was just ayt for me."