DVD Collectors Online

Knowing, a review by Dragonfire

I went to see Knowing last month.  It was entertaining overall, but not exactly what I was expecting.

in 1959, a time capsule is buried to mark the opening of a new elementary school.  Inside the capsule are drawings from the students.  After the ceremony to bury the capsule, one of the students disappears.

Fifty years later, the capsule is going to be dug up.  Caleb is a student at the elementary school.  He is being raised by his father John, a professor at MIT who is still grieving the death of his wife. When the capsule is dug up, the students at the school each get an envelope that is to have one of the drawings in it.  The one Caleb gets is just a paper full of numbers.  John ends up noticing something by chance and develops a theory about what the numbers mean.  That sets him off on a mission, which leads him to meeting Diana, a woman connected to what is going on, and her young daughter Abby.

Some time is taken to set up the time capsule situation in the past before focusing on things going on in the present with Caleb and John.  Knowing works as a decent thriller for the most part, though it could have been better.  There are some suspenseful moments that work well.  The page full of numbers provides a little bit of mystery since it isn't clear what they mean at first. That ends up being figured out fairly early, though there are still things to figure out by the end of the movie.  The mystery surrounding the numbers is eliminated for people who have seen the trailers though since they clearly give the explanation.  I hate when that happens.  Ultimately, there aren't that many surprises in the movie and certain things are rather predictable, which was a bit disappointing.  I didn't like the ending that much, though I suppose it was logical with what was going on.  Something just seemed wrong about it to me.  There are unusual things going on throughout the movie which add some interesting moments.  The unusual elements of the movie aren't going to appeal to a lot of people though.  One or two subplots were introduced and then they didn't really go anywhere.  None of the characters were overly interesting.  The actors were fine, though nothing that special.  Nicolas Cage is fine.  His fans may find something to like about the movie.

I was entertained by Knowing, but it could have been better. 

 

I did get a review posted on Epinions.

Knowing



(From Knowing on May 5th, 2009)

Young Man with a Horn, a review by GSyren

Title	Young Man with a Horn (7-321900-043250)
Director	Michael Curtiz
Actors	Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Doris Day, Hoagy Carmichael, Juano Hernandez
Produced	1949 in United States
Runtime	108 minutes
Audio	English Dolby Digital Mono, Italian Dolby Digital Mono
Subtitles	Arabic, English, French, Italian, Dutch
Overview	With a second-hand trumpet and the loving guidance of a brilliant bluesman, a lonely boy grows into manhood as a superb musician whose talent carries him forward from honky-tonks to posh supper clubs. But his desperate search for the elusive high note trapped in his mind but impossible to play starts him on a boozy downward slide. Charged with dynamic performances by Kirk Douglas (the title role), Doris Day, Lauren Bacall and Hoagy Carmichael and pitch perfect direction from Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) this film is a feast of hot, cool, moody jazz. Legendary Harry James dubbed Douglas' hornwork. Day brings another fine instrument - her voice - to four standards. Movie and Music lovers will be glad to meet this Man.
My thoughts	This movie has been in my unwatched pile for a while. I bought it to complete my Doris Day collection, but I didn't watch it right away because it wasn't really a "Doris Day movie". She only has third billing. Well, I eventually got around to it, and I realize I should have watched it sooner. Or maybe not. Seeing it now was a pleasant surprise. I actually liked it quite a lot, and Doris was very good in it. I don't care too much for jazz, but even so a couple of movies about jazz musicians are among my favorite movies, for example The Five Pennies with Danny Kaye as Loring "Red" Nichols. And now this one. And they're both about horn players. Cornet and trumpet, respectively. None of them are really biographical. Five Pennies is loosely based on Nichols life, while Young Man is inspired by a book that's inspired by the music of Bix Beiderbecke. One thing that initially got me a little confused was the title. The Elvis movie Loving You had the Swedish title Ung man med gitarr (Young Man with a Guitar), and of course that movie is nowadays a lot more well known than this one. So my first thought when I saw the title was "Horn? Wasn't it Guitar?". Then of course I realized that they were two different movies. And the blame falls squarely on the Swedish distributor of the Elvis movie for pinching the title idea. Anyway, even though I bought this title because of Doris Day, I was very much impressed with Kirk Douglas in the title role. Lauren Bacall is also good as a rather unlikeable character. I couldn't understand, though, how Rick (Douglas) could fall for her rather than for Doris' character. But then I guess I'm not entirely objective since I've has a long time crush on Doris.
My rating	4 out of 5

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on November 2nd, 2013)

Fear Itself Marathon, a review by addicted2dvd

12. Echoes (Director's Cut)
Director: Rob Schmidt ("Masters of Horror," Wrong Turn)

Stars:
Aaron Stanford
Eric Balfour
Camille Guaty
Gerard Plunkett
Michael Ryan

My Thoughts:
This one didn't impress me much at all. I found it slow and uninteresting. I didn't care for any of the characters. And once again found myself staring at the clock... wondering when it would be over.

My Rating:

(From Fear Itself Marathon on April 15th, 2010)