Tag: roberts

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Muni reviews: It’s Kind of A Funny Story (2011)

Directors: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck Synopsis: A clinically depressed teenager gets a new start after he checks himself into an adult psychiatric ward. I like to think of myself as a fan of indie films, and this is a typical indie film. Awkwardly shy teenager, check! Cool indie music, check! Un-clichéd moments, check! The above however doesn’t mean the film itself is a standard formula for a hit. The story is interesting and insightful of the young generation, and the way its shown on screen is different to mainstream movies. It has a mixture of animation, which is a delightful distraction, because the film does tend to drag through the middle. There are rambling storytelling, which is all over the place, but it all comes together in the last third. The lead actor Keir Gilchrist is fascinating in the role even though he tends to lack some charisma to keep you engrossed in the story. Zach Galifianakis and Emma Roberts however do add a entertaining dimension, as well as the small parts played in the psyche ward, which are fun to watch. I haven’t seen anything from the director’s before so it’s difficult to judge their style and approach to making films. So it is hard to judge them on this film alone. Overall the film plays with some captivating themes, and shows the problems the 21st century generation are going through. The story lacks some direction and goes off focus a little bit, but on a whole it comes together. Watch if you want to see something different, with decent music and a decent story. Decent film 6.5/10 Muni

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Eat, Pray, Love(2010) review

Eat Pray Love - Review Director: Ryan Murphy Synopsis A married woman realizes how unhappy her marriage really is, and that her life needs to go in a different direction. After a painful divorce, she takes off on a round-the-world journey to "find herself". I didn’t really hear much about this film before I went to watch it. I had seen a couple of billboards in the streets and thought I’d give it a watch. The film it self is a 2 hour 15 min of seeing Julia Roberts going through every conceivable emotion imaginable, trust me that’s a lot! I had not read the book which it (and most film now) was based on, so found it hard to watch the character of James Franco, which I personally found cringe worthy. Billy Crudup and Javier Bardem, were decent and nothing more then eye candy for the women. Ryan Murphy’s direction through out the film is very student like, you can tell he was experimenting a lot with different angles and some unconventional shots, to his credit some of it did work. A plus of the film was the cinematography; there are some beautiful visual images of Italy, India and Bali, as well as America itself. As well as that the character of Richard Jenkins was powerful and moving and was interesting to see him in a unique role which did steal the scene between him and Julia Roberts. Overall I would say that this was a distinctive trial by the director, in which he will learn a lot of what not to do next time. The mismatch of actors and story crammed into 2 and bit hours, clearly indicates that turning books into films is still a long way away from becoming a successful transition. 6/10 – being generous Muni

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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