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Silver Linings Playbook, a review by Antares

Silver Linings Playbook (2012) 65/100 - Manic film making that drove me crazy for the first hour or so. Yeah, I know, we're supposed to feel the mania that his life is surrounded by, but after 30 minutes of this kind of film making I was close to reaching for the remote and throwing it at the TV. Too many edits and cuts, that it looks like the camera man has ADD and too much caffeine at the same time. Why is it that film makers today have to make every film in the post-MTV video style? I don't think there was one camera shot that lasted more than 5 seconds before the next edit appeared. Have we evolved as human beings to the point where we have such a short attention span that directors feel we need to shift gears every few seconds? As for the story, I didn't care for Cooper's character or family situation, but I did think that Jennifer Lawrence stole every scene she was in. And I will admit that this was probably the best work I've seen from De Niro in a couple of decades, but this film definitely was way over-hyped by the Weinstein marketing militia and rump swab critics.

What the color coding means...

Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is

(From Antares' Short Summations on December 20th, 2013)

District 9, a review by Silence_of_Lambs

Summary:
An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly finds a kindred spirit in a government agent who is exposed to their biotechnology.

My Thoughts:
Wow,
a film about racism from South Africa that doesn't use the word Apartheid and in fact is entertaining.
I'm loving it, even though I liked the approach of a fake documentary (beginning and ending) much more than the "Enemy Mine"-clone the flick is in the middle part.

This is a movie with a message, which is well wrapped into a nice story with a Happy Ending, probably to make the bitter pill go down better.
But the great thing about it are the two integrated viewing modes:
You can watch it with your brain on StandBy and you'll see a great SciFi-Thriller with enough explosions to keep you entertained.
or
You can watch it with your brain on and you will see a parable on the human tendency to segregate other beings for real or imaginary differences.

Nice one. And if it wouldn't have copied "Enemy Mine" that obviously, I would have awarded 5 stars.

My Rating: (out of possible 5)

(From Michael's random reviews on February 14th, 2011)

Tom's TV Pilots marathon, a review by Tom

Tru Calling: The Complete Series (2003/United States) IMDb | Wikipedia Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (United Kingdom) Length: 1093 min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround, Commentary: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Subtitles: English, Commentary, Swedish

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Plot:
What if you had the power to change the future by reliving the past? For Tru Davies, that's the question she faces after her internship to medical school falls through and she takes a job working the graveyard shift at the city morgue. Left alone her first night on the job, she's shocked when a dead woman opens her eyes and asks for help. Tru then awakens to find herself reliving the same day all over again, except now she possesses the power to change the fate of the people wheeled into the morgue the night before-if she can find them before tragedy strikes.

Tru Calling
Season 1.01 Pilot
Writer: Jon Harmon Feldman (Original Characters By), Jon Harmon Feldman (Writer)
Director: Phillip Noyce
Cast: Eliza Dushku (Tru Davies), Shawn Reaves (Harrison Davies), Zach Galifianakis (Davis), A. J. Cook (Lindsay Walker), Jessica Collins (Meredith Davies), Kristoffer Polaha (Mark Evans), Hudson Leick (Rebecca Morgan), Heath Freeman (Cameron), John Haymes Newton (Aaron McCann), Vincent Laresca (Marco), Callum Keith Rennie (Elliott Winter), Brenda Campbell (Allison Evans), Ingrid Tesch (Carol Winter), Sherry Thorson (Mother), Victoria Anderson (Meredith (Age 15)), Victoria Tennant (Tru (Age 12)), Rick Tae (Card Player #1), Phoenix Ly (Mr. Chiang), Jacqueline Ann Steuart (Nurse), Kurt Evans (Priest), Chaka White (Lotto Woman), Woody Jeffreys (Gary), Robert Wisden (Dr. Green)

I still would have preferred if Eliza Dushku had done a Faith spin-off series of Buffy. But she chose to do this series instead. My guess is that she wanted to avoid being type-cast as a "bad girl".
The pilot is okay but not really exciting. Like the rest of the series. Though I haven't seen it completely yet. I stopped watching during the first season when it originally aired. I recently bought the complete series cheap and couldn't resist buying it anyway.

Rating:


(From Tom's TV Pilots marathon on November 12th, 2012)