Posts Tagged ‘Review’

A movie review, as required for my portfolio for one of my Journalism units -

Movie Review site, Rotten Tomatoes, may have labelled this a film that “plays more like a soap opera than a historical drama”, but I couldn’t help but like it.

Yes, some of the details surrounding the characters and actual historical events may have been modified and or embellished to make the already elaborate story of King Henry VIII seem more dramatic, however this screen adaptation of the book by Phillippa Gregory doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

The movie, which stars Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana, observes King Henry’s (Bana’s) frustration at his wife’s inability to produce a suitable (read: male) heir, his affection for Mary (Johansson), and his insatiable hunger for her sister, Anne Boleyn (Portman).

Bana’s on-screen chemistry with Johansson and Portman was undeniable, which made particular distressing scenes all the more confronting.

The costumes are stunning, the script moves perhaps a little too quickly, and the cinematography typical. The Other Boleyn Girl has been dubbed by many the critic as a little “too ambitious”, and I can’t help but think that with a little more refining, this slightly-above-average film could have been brilliant.

This movie could have taken some of Mary Boleyn’s advice, when she suggested that Anne had “reached too high… as always.”

Directed by Rob Reiner (A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally), The Bucket List stars Jack Nicholson (Something’s Gotta Give, As Good as It Gets) & Morgan Freeman (Evan Almighty, Million Dollar Baby), with the side-splittingly serious Sean Hayes (Will & Grace, The Cat in the Hat).

Freeman and Nicholson meet in a chance encounter when they’re thrown together in a twist of fate, on a cancer ward, and after revelling in each other’s company they bust out of the hospital and embark on a journey before they “kick the bucket”.

Their voyage begins as a means to forget their impending deaths, whilst accomplishing all the things that they want to do before their passing (the “bucket list”), however it becomes that of self-discovery and finding the “joy” in their lives.

Nicholson’s character is the ‘Jack’ that we’ve come to recognise over the years, and doesn’t disappoint. Similarly, Freeman plays a role that has us both laughing and crying from one minute to the next. Their collaboration is greater than the sum of its parts, and together they have produced one of the most heart warming and entertaining films of the year.

The dialogue is both mocking and moving, in this heart-rending anecdote of mortality, which is sure to be an Academy Award nominee.

If only it could be said for all that we “died with our eyes closed, but our heart open”…

Starring Hilary Swank & Gerard Butler, with Lisa Kudrow, Harry Connick Jr, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and the delightful Kathy Bates.

Dubbed the “most romantic film of the year”, P.S. I Love You was original, witty and warm.

In a story of love, loss and laughter, it takes a look at how one is to continue forward in life.

Butler’s presence in the movie is brief, but far from unforgettable. His character is comical, lovable, and well.. Comical. Butler’s onscreen relationship with Swank epitomises a typical bond between men and women everywhere, see-sawing between passionately arguing over what a man has actually said, compared to what we think he has said, and an unrelenting, fire-igniting passion.

Swank is absolutely stunning in this movie, and while her character is far acry from that in Million Dollar Baby, she is just as brilliant, amplifying her role of a grieving widow to a considerable proportion, while embodying incredible strength and the courage to keep going, to find herself.

Sometimes you have to live life one letter at a time…