Members
Stats
Users Online Users: 0Guests: 8Total: 8 |
|
May 18, 2024, 04:44:57 PM  | Les Filles du Botaniste (2006/France) IMDb | Wikipedia
|
Stars:Plot:
At the house of a famous Chinese botanist teacher his daughter and a female intern fall in love with each other - a forbidden love that must be kept secret.
Extras:
- Scene Access
- Trailers
- Bonus Trailers
My Thoughts:
A nice romance which is fun to watch. It's a French movie shot in Mandarin. Originally I thought this would be set in the past (19th century or so). I was pleasantly surprised that it is set in the relative present (I read that it is supposed to be set in the 80s or 90s). I enjoyed it, but the ending is stupid, though not unexpected. (click to show/hide)
Rating:
(From Lesbian Movie Marathon on October 23rd, 2010)
Member's Reviews
Zodiac, a review by Jon
Zodiac
4 out of 5
San Francisco in the late 60s is terrorized by an enigmatic serial killer, calling himself The Zodiac and taunting detectives by sending codes to the newspapers. He was never caught, but a cartoonist, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) at the Chronicle never gives up, obsessively picking up where the police have seemingly left off and eventually believing he has proved the killers identity. But at what cost?
This is an epic tour de force by director David Fincher, seemingly as obsessed with detail and authenticity as Graysmith himself. It's a long film at almost 3 hours but engrossing. That one killer could hold a city essentially to ransom for so long is fascinating. Nerdy, socially inept cartoonist Graysmith is very well played by Gyllenhaal who convinces as the character develops and never gets overshadowed by the as usual superb RDJ, and becoming more confident but obsessed in equal measure as he builds and destroys his own family over the years. Early in the film he is doing little more than trying to crack The Zodiac code because he likes puzzles. The real drive of the investigation is by two detectives (Mark Rufallo and Anthony Edwards) and a journalist (Robert Downey Jr.). As the years take their toll on those three in various ways, Graysmith comes to the fore.
That's really the point of the film, as one of its taglines suggested. That not all a serial killers victims lose their lives. Just their friends, family, health and sanity!
As it's more drama, bordering on documentary, than it is thriller, this is an incredible achievment by Fincher. It's very detailed and studious, but he still finds room for tension and flair. The murder scenes are few, but very graphic as you'd expect, and the dialogue is lively. He concentrates on evoking a sense of time which comes across vividly. And there are lighter moments, especially when Rufallo's Toschi (who McQueen based Bullitt on apparently) walks out of a Dirty Harry screening, muttering about "due process"! Later there's a brilliant scene where Graysmith goes to one potential suspects house against his better judgement. Then of course, seeing the net tighten so very close around the most likely suspect, just to let him go again is a screaming at the TV moment! The final scene is fantastic, delivering on a promise made earlier by Graysmith that he just wanted to look the killer in the eyes. Aparently happened too, if not quite the same way.
It's a straightforward plot and like any true story that you hadn't really followed before, hard to review. It sags a bit in the middle, but it is an exhausting pace. If I have one complaint, I was disappointed by how little the San Francisco seems to come across. As I said before, he really evoked a sense of time, but not place. Unlike classic San Francisco set films, like the before-mentioned Bullitt and Dirty Harry, or Vertigo, I was left feeling like this could have happened anywhere. That was odd considering Zodiac was synonomous with the city. In fact I heard later that one key location was unavailable and had to be recreated with a CGI backdrop; I think you can tell. The next evening I watched Gone Baby Gone and that brought home just how important environment can be.
But that said, this is obviously a passion project for Fincher and has been for some time. The more visceral Se7en now seems like it was inspired by the Zodiac legend. It's a story that could easily have been done by Scorcese, Eastwood or even Spielberg, but I feel that only Fincher could do it this well. It's quite a unique film really, despite police procedurals being very common.
(From Zodiac **** on January 22nd, 2009)
Member's TV Reviews
Tom's TV Finales marathon, a review by Tom
 | The Adventures of Mini-Goddess: Volume 4: The Skuld Files (1999/Japan) IMDb | Wikipedia
|
Plot:
SUPER SMALL = SUPER CUTE!
Whenever Keiichi leaves the house, Belldandy, Urd and Skuld shrink themselves to play with the other residents of the area - including their clueless rat sidekick, Gan. Whether it's life trapped in a jar of miso paste or the revolt of Urd's clones, the goddess adventures are dangerously funny!
SKULD: The sweet little sister of the goddess trio, Skuld's innocence counters the fact that her mechanical inventions frequently cause Gan bodily harm!
The Adventures of Mini-Goddess
Season 1.48 Korekara dounaru no? 29.03.1999
Writer: Kosuke Fujishima (Original Material By), Shouji Yonemura (Screenwriter), Chinatu Houjou (Screenwriter), Atsuhiro Tomioka (Screenwriter), Shinzo Fujita (Screenwriter)
Director: Yasuhiro Matsumura
Cast: Kikuko Inoue (Belldandy), Yumi Toma (Urd), Aya Hisakawa (Skuld), Mitsuo Iwata (Gan-chan), Tadashi Nakamura (Narrator), , Anthony Mozdy (Gan-chan), Wendee Lee (Urd), Sherry Lynn (Skuld), Ruby Marlowe (Belldandy), William Frederick (Narrator)
This episode acknowledges that it is the last episode. As this series is just taking the characters of the series "Ah! My Goddess" and having fun with them, it is often very meta. Here the goddesses and Gan-chan think what they should do as this is the last episode. They decide to celebrate. Funniest moment in this episode is, when Gan-chan dreams (multiple times) that the goddesses had made a lot of clones of him, saying how else he thinks he would have survived the series
Rating:
(From Tom's TV Finales marathon on November 25th, 2012)