Tag: foxx

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The Soloist review

Now let me get one thing clear. I am a HUGE Robert Downey Jr fan and always have been, so I knew this film was going to be a winner from the start. For some reason I kind of expected it to be along the same lines as Will Smiths ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’. You know the kind, really sad but ultimately pretty heartwarming; and I was kind of right. But there’s more... Our Robbie is a journalist in this film called Steve Lopez. Now, Lopez is living in a pleasant house all by his lonesome and is a bit down on his luck. He falls off his bike, writes a piece about it and is surprised by the amount of positive feedback he receives and decides that writing sympathetic pieces is the way forward. And so he sets out to find a sad situation worthy of jotting down... Here he meets Jamie Fox. An amazing gifted musician named Nathaniel Ayers, who is also homeless and mentally challenged. He starts writing the column about Ayers every week, which means he has to spend more and more time with him, gradually building a friendship. The film highlights the intense difficulties in helping someone come to terms with mental illness, and the troubles that come with being friends with someone with these conditions. It also touched on the homeless community of downtown Los Angeles, which I for one, was completely unaware of the severity of the situation. The performances were exceptional, especially Jamie Fox’s character. Portraying a man with severe mental disturbances in such a believable way could not have been easy; yet he manages it so incredibly well. Robert Downy Jr’s character changes so much throughout the film as he befriends Ayers, and as the film is based on a true story (the real life Lopez played a big part in the making of it) you can really see how much the friendship made Lopez grow, from the harsh business man in the beginning of the film to the compassionate friend at the end, it really is just such a lovely film. It is one of those rare films which is heartwarming, without being a tearjerker; and I loved that. I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone EVERYWHERE! 8/10 from me. An almost perfect film. Lola xxx

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Valentine's Day 'joint review'

We're gonna try something new, a discussion review between myself and Dan, seeing as it contained an all star cast, this review will contain a(relatively) all star cast also...But from Movieville. Dan: Now this isn't the sort of film I would go to the cinemas to watch or even watch at all really. But for the sake of Movieville I was taking one for the team. What made it even more strange was watching it with a dude. We will move on from that swiftly. Although this film isn't exactly my cup of tea, I was pleasantly surprised. I was impressed by the amount of Hollywood talent in the film and dare I say it, I was slightly excited. Kazed: Definitely, although it wasn't a film of epic proportions, it was still a film which deserves some sort of recognition because of the talent involved, and most definitely live up to the name each cast member have made for themselves. With the exception of Taylor Swift, who surprisingly did a decent job, and wasn't completely one dimensional. Dan: Agreed. With the exception of Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Biel, I was pleasantly surprised by how the characters developed. Oh, almost forgot to mention this but Jessica Alba is just as awful as she is in every other film. I don't know what it was I didn't like about the other two previously mentioned characters. I thought Ashton just wasn't very interesting and didn't really bring much to the film for a character who is fairly integral to the plot. Maybe this is because although there are a lot of big star names in the film, not many of them get huge amounts of screen time and for me it was the minor characters who provided me with the occasional LOL moments. Kazed: Really? I actually thought Kutcher did a decent job here, I felt that it it was his character that had an integral part within the film, granted, the film had a few central characters, but Ashton seemed to stand out quite a bit more than any of the other cast members. I definitely agree with Alba though, I see what you mean, I was a small fan of hers, but this film really showed me what she was capable of. Or not. Dan: Well it wasn't that he was bad, but I think when put against all the other big guns he just doesn't really shine. I'm not Kutchers biggest fan anyway though if i'm honest. And on the Jessica Alba thing, you have a very small fan of her's in your pants. I made a funny. Back to the film. One of the things that annoyed me about the film was its length, for the plot it had it just can't justify being 2 and a half hours long. After around an hour and 45 minutes and after you had been for a piss I was just waiting for it to end. It felt like it was just giving the stars the screen time that their contracts probably demanded. I was pretty satisfied with how it ended overall, for such a shallow film I was quite surprised that it managed to surprise me. Kazed: Haha, again though, I must disagree with you, about the length this time. I can see why you're saying that, but it didn't bother me. In my eyes, the length of the film was required in order to tell the stories of each of the characters. When I did come back from my urination, I was eager to know what was going to happen, I wanted to know the ending, I wanted to see how each story ended. Yeah, it may have been unusually long for a romantic comedy, but it worked. Dan: This film pretty much followed a similar convention to Crash in that the character stories intertwine that unravel to create the ending. Now Crash did this in 107 minutes and was a much more engaging and portrayed the characters in much more depth. I realise that Valentines Day never was going to be or even tried to be a rival to Crash but you see what I am saying. The fact that during your prolonged urination period you literally missed absolutely nothing kind of proves my point. There was a lot of unnecessary scenes in the film that didn't really reveal much and just weren't integral to the plot. Maybe it was because I went to the cinema with a dude that I didn't get into the spirit of the film. Remind me never to go watch a chick flick with you EVER again. I have a ladyfriend for that, even though your rugged looks are ever so hard to resist. Kazed: Fair enough, I suppose I didn't miss that much, but I still wanted to know what would happen at the end of each sub-plot. The reference to Crash I totally get, if you've seen 'He's just not that into you' (I reviewed it not long ago)it follows a very similar structure to that of Crash and Valentine's Day. I suppose we can both agree that it was a good film with several scenes which were interesting, with certain filler scenes which could have been removed purely because of wasted time. Otherwise an interesting, romantic comedy with an interesting look at several individual's love lives. Dan: I think I do agree with you for once. Although I have pretty much only spoken about the bad points of the film, it did have it's good points too. The all-star cast didn't disappoint and it was good to see a big budget hollywood film in the form of a comedy, they seem to be quite rare these days. The stories that came together were satisfying enough to make the ending a good one and and it did have it's laugh out loud moments. I think where I went wrong was laughing and giggling at the film with you (no offence). It is a chick flick and should be watched with a chick, it just adds to the movie somehow. Kazed: Fair enough. Rating out of 10? Dan: Overall I think I would give it a healthy 6/10. Kazed: 7/10 from me. Kazed & Dan

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Law Abiding Citizen review

Synopsis Gerard Butler plays a man who has been a victim of a considerably brutal crime, and doesn't get the result that was hoped for and learns that the justice system is more corrupt than he thought, and he sets out to get revenge. Or Justice. This film seemed extremely promising from the trailer, and quite honestly, a majority of the film, about a good 75% of the film was really quite interesting. The plot was something to be cherished, it actually had the capacity to be something special, and up until the moment where he was discovered, things went downhill. That's not to say that the downhill was bad. Although incredibly lacking in the originality department, it was entertaining nonetheless. The discovery of Butler could've been done so much more better, it just seemed as though the entire momentum of the film was reliant on the end, which crumbled.  Crumbled because it was just a predictable ending. I'm dwelling far too much on the ending here. Like I said, the first three quarters of the film were well written, entertaining, the action was reasonably spaced, meaning it wasn't just a quick succession of explosions and violence, but instead it was intermittent and left me deliberating about what would be next. Jaime Foxx was a good choice to put in this role, his character had a sense of craftiness about him, and I really thought he played the part of a crooked lawyer really well. The idea of coming back to the incident 10 years later was clever, considering all the planning that went into the retribution, it all comes down to how the ending completely rubbed faecal matter all over the majority of the film. Overall, good film, bad ending. 7/10 Kazed