Very very good film. Really surprised it 'only' got a 7.3/10 on IMDB it's more like 8.0+ for sure to me. Very entertaining and intense all the way through, De Niro beasts as usual.
I went Friday night to see Blue Valentine. I gotta say, that's pretty dark even by my miserable standards. It sort of reminded me of 500 Days of Summer in it's gimmick. It basically shows the complete dissolvement of this couples relationship over the course of the last week of their marriage. But it uses a ton of flashbacks to tell the full story of their relationship, not unlike 500 Days. But it's far far gritier and realistic, and not nearly as cute.
Both Gosling and Williams were great, particularly Gosling, and they deserve all the recognition they're getting for their performances. But that said, it wasn't terribly entertaining. I'm all for moody character studies, and in this case they're relationship pretty much is the character. But they hint at too much, dance around stuff. It gives you sort of that uncomfortable feeling of that 500 lb. elephant in the room people don't want to talk about, which in this case seems to be in part his drinking, but also his general childishness, and failure to thrive. It's a little disheartening because through the flashbacks you can almost see her falling for those same attributes about him, the childlike charm. He is quite charming even in the latter stages of the relationship. But as it moves forward and you see her holding those same things against him. And at the same time he's enough of a tool that you can't really blame her either. It has a very realistic feel. These aren't archetypes, they're pretty full, complete characters. But again, I'm not sure why thats something I should want to see.
It does sort of just end. Again, really dark. It was pretty sudden though. You expect some kind of resolution, even if they do split up, but it doesn't come. There were no shortage of people walking out shaking their head. There were girlfriends apologizing to their boyfriends comeing out, presumably because this was their choice, and even they didn't like it. I'd actually think a guy would be more inclined to like it. It was interesting in parts. There's some great dialogue, bordering on philosophical. And some of the more charming parts of Gosling can be funny and intrigueing. But overall it's just too bleak even for me. It's like the awkward silences were simply done too well, and made it hard to stomach.
I'll give it a low 80s. I'm a little torn on it. I could see people absolutely hating it, and understand it. And I could see people being so enthralled with the quality of the performances to think much more highly than that, so I'm sort of middling it here. But I still seem to be holding it in much lower esteem than most critics.
And there are a couple of all too realistic sex scenes in it too.
I went Friday night to see Blue Valentine. I gotta say, that's pretty dark even by my miserable standards. It sort of reminded me of 500 Days of Summer in it's gimmick. It basically shows the complete dissolvement of this couples relationship over the course of the last week of their marriage. But it uses a ton of flashbacks to tell the full story of their relationship, not unlike 500 Days. But it's far far gritier and realistic, and not nearly as cute.
Both Gosling and Williams were great, particularly Gosling, and they deserve all the recognition they're getting for their performances. But that said, it wasn't terribly entertaining. I'm all for moody character studies, and in this case they're relationship pretty much is the character. But they hint at too much, dance around stuff. It gives you sort of that uncomfortable feeling of that 500 lb. elephant in the room people don't want to talk about, which in this case seems to be in part his drinking, but also his general childishness, and failure to thrive. It's a little disheartening because through the flashbacks you can almost see her falling for those same attributes about him, the childlike charm. He is quite charming even in the latter stages of the relationship. But as it moves forward and you see her holding those same things against him. And at the same time he's enough of a tool that you can't really blame her either. It has a very realistic feel. These aren't archetypes, they're pretty full, complete characters. But again, I'm not sure why thats something I should want to see.
It does sort of just end. Again, really dark. It was pretty sudden though. You expect some kind of resolution, even if they do split up, but it doesn't come. There were no shortage of people walking out shaking their head. There were girlfriends apologizing to their boyfriends comeing out, presumably because this was their choice, and even they didn't like it. I'd actually think a guy would be more inclined to like it. It was interesting in parts. There's some great dialogue, bordering on philosophical. And some of the more charming parts of Gosling can be funny and intrigueing. But overall it's just too bleak even for me. It's like the awkward silences were simply done too well, and made it hard to stomach.
I'll give it a low 80s. I'm a little torn on it. I could see people absolutely hating it, and understand it. And I could see people being so enthralled with the quality of the performances to think much more highly than that, so I'm sort of middling it here. But I still seem to be holding it in much lower esteem than most critics.
And there are a couple of all too realistic sex scenes in it too.
Another very very good film, De Niro and Pesci are just an unbelievable duo and probably two of my top 3 favorite actors of all time (Al Pacino?). I think I'd give this one slightly higher than Cape Fear 8.3/10 very good film, intense and drama filled all the way was very entertained.
Very very good film. Really surprised it 'only' got a 7.3/10 on IMDB it's more like 8.0+ for sure to me. Very entertaining and intense all the way through, De Niro beasts as usual.
the low 7 is probably b/c the movie is a remake and many who rated it were grading it against the original classic.
Foreign film. 8 people have applied for this very powerful job and are all sat down in a single room to take a quiz. They are given 80 minutes to answer 1 question....only the paper is blank. There are other factors going on that really rev up the tension but I don't want to give them away.
Re: Rate the last movie you watched.
