tháng 11 2009 ~ The Larsen Film Review

Gomorrah (2008)

There are some bold claims made by the marketing team for this film. "The Greatest Mafia Movie Ever Made" at the top of the movie poster. Other posters claim it to be a "Modern Classic" and the "Best Since City of God." It wasn't that I saw these claims before watching this...

If I would have watched this film first than I would have rated The Public Enemy even lower. Both of these came out in 1931 and this is by far the better film. If you want to see an old fashioned gangster film with matching lingo, this is a easy watch and pretty short an only...

Starring Warren Beatty (Bonnie and Clyde) and Julie Christie (Don't Look Now), this film was voted by the American Film Institute as the #8 American Western of all-time. The story is about the growth of a small mining town which centers around the dichotomy of the brothel and...

Wow! I loved this movie. I watched it for the first time this summer and watched it again after a trip to Blockbuster with the family.The plot is simple, his daughter has been kidnapped and he has to get her back before it is too late. Pierre Morel does a great job directing...

I expect this will be on next years Golden Globe nomination list. Meryl Streep plays Julia Child, and Amy Adams plays Julie Powell in a story intertwining the life of Julia Child and the project of Julie Powell.Julia Child and her husband Paul Child, played by Stanley Tucci...

As a kid christmas was easy, the entire family came to our house, all I had to do was to the church and be patient for the present openings. There was very little travel, usually just a 20 minute drive across town every other year. Now that I live 5 hours from my family and...

The #10 American Western as listed by the American Film Institute on last years 10Top10 list. This is the type of western movie that as a kid made me ask, "why does anybody like westerns?" There is a barn dance, over-the-top bad acting, silly fights and some awful country singing...

One of the first James Cagney gangster films and voted the #8 American Gangster film by the American Film Institute in 2008, and based on the novel Beer and Blood by John Bright, this gangster film in prohibition era Chicago features the famous grapefruit scene in the pre-Hays...

The foreign film Oscar winner from 2003, this is a film about the final days of a dying father. The father is in an over populated hospital in Canada with four people to a room and people lining the walls in the hall, meanwhile the floor below is empty. The son is a millionaire...

This film takes place in Sweden in the early 1900's and follows the life of Maria Larsson, a working class woman with a large family and abusive husband. With advice from her parents to not get divorced after being beaten the first time she toughens up, finds a hobby [photography],...

Some may question why I struggle through the entire Golden Globe and Oscar lists when there are some films I postpone or regret having to sit through. The film I expect to be the worst annually has become the winner of the Costume Design category. These films are nominated not...

The sleeper movie of the summer in 2009. This film starring Zooey Deschanel (Elf, Failure to Launch, and Yes Man) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Tommy from "3rd Rock from the Sun") is what some consider a modern Woody Allen love story.Summer is the main character, the typical free...

With a title taken from the song "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime," this film title misleads you to think it is a sappy love story. In fact the "Loved You So Long" refers to the love one sister has when the other is jailed for 15 years.Nominated for a Golden Globe as France's...

I do expect to get some criticism for the rating I gave this film. It is very difficult to keep all genres of film on the same rating system. A good horror movie, by right, should be able to get a 10/10 and a good comedy should be able to do the same. When Escape from L.A. gets...

There is a certain segment of movies that came out when I was a young teenager that were a little old for me at the time. Ones that would have commercials during my favorite shows, or interviews on late night when I stayed up late on weekends. They all of course looked awesome,...

The dreaded Oscar foreign film winner... almost always a World War II film or just very long and slow. Departures completely suprised me, it is unlike any Oscar foreign film I've seen in the last four years, why? Because it balances comedy so well with drama, the story was eventful,...

Starring Emma Thompson (Sense and Sensibility, Love Actually, Stranger Than Fiction) and Dustin Hoffman (also Stranger Than Fiction, e.g. where these two met), this is a film about second chances.Harvey's (Dustin Hoffman) job is on the line and so is his relationship with his...

Easily the most overrated film on the Oscar and Golden Globe ballot this year. This is one of those British films that you need English subtitles for. If you can make it through the first 15 minutes you will find a few funny moments scattered throughout the film as the eccentric...

This film won the Oscar for Documentary Feature in 2005. It is a story about the lives of a dozen kids from Calcutta's Red Light District. Considered one of the worst slums in India; filmmaker Zana Briski spent several years documenting the lives of the women in the red light...

It was very difficult to make a final vote on this film. There were aspects that were really very good and ones that I could have done without.Revanche is an Austrian film, one that must somehow translate into irony in English. The film is about a stripper and her boyfriend...

This film is the perfect example of why I sit through the long list of Oscar Nominees. More than a few are quite difficult to sit through, but there are a few gems that you never would have thought to watch if not for their nomination.There are some actors out there than you...

It is slightly ironic that I wanted to know if it was possible to have a film capable of entering the foreign, animated, and documentary categories at the Oscars. This film is the first that I have encountered that has all of these attributes. Winner of the Golden Globe for...

The fifth and final documentary from the 81st Oscar list. Every year there is an outstanding episode of PBS's "Point of View" documentary series that gets, as I consider, a token nomination.The background of the story is that the United States trained a secret army in Laos to...

This was definitely a breakthrough performance for both Bradley Cooper (He's Just Not That Into You) as Phil and Zach Galifianakis (Out Cold) as Alan. It also features Ed Helms ("The Office"), Heather Graham (Boogie Nights), and Mike Tyson in solid performances.This was my second...

The latest romantic comedy with a mindless plot starring Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up) and Gerard Butler (300). This film is just as predictable as you would expect, bad guy is really a good guy deep down. Super successful girl has no luck with men. They butt heads and fall in...

This film follows the formation of the terrorist group known as the Red Army Faction (RAF) in Germany in the last 60's. The film stars Martina Gedeck (The Good Shepherd), Moritz Bleibtreu (Munich ), and Bruno Ganz (Der Untergang: Downfall).The film focuses on the violence and...

This film proves that the first film in the series was a fluke for Director Michael Bay. With freedom to use explosions at will Bay put together a film devoid of genuine acting. Thank goodness Shia LaBeouf (Eagle Eye, Disturbia, and I, Robot) knows how to act his way through...

This early 80's film brings together a young group of actors on the rise, Patrick Swayze pre-Dirty Dancing, Lea Thompson pre-Back to the Future (as Lorainne McFly), and Charlie Sheen in his feature film debut.It also reunites some of the cast of the previous years hit The Outsiders,...

I'm suprised that this is the first Katrina related documentary to be nominated for an Oscar, coming almost three years after the fact. Seeing that I have no experience in directing or producing this might be right on time for all I know. This film was very interesting to me,...

I had negative feelings about this film going into it, and for the first 30 minutes of the film I didn't know if I could finish it. With slapstick comedic moments, mixed with drama, romance, and adventure, this film lacked direction completely. Then after a waste of an hour...

Man on Wire is a colorful documentary about Philippe Petit a tightrope walker with a dream to perform a high-wire routine between the World Trade Centers.The documentary follows Petit from the moment he decides he will attempt this feat, which was actually before the towers...

A documentary about a trip to Antarctica, the use of the word "Encounters" both applies to the encounters with the various people in the city and the encounters with the sealife and wildlife. There is a lot about this film which makes it seem like a long television show on the...

I watched this Golden Globe Nominee with very low expectations. Most of the time when a film is only nominated for a single song and not even for an Oscar for that song the movie is pretty weak. Like usual I couldn't identify the nominated song either.The main character in the...

The latest Pixar film has really "flown" under the radar this year. This to me is usually a sign that it was not very good, because when WALL·E and Ratatouille came out these past two years there was a lot of buzz around them. This one has been about as popular as Cars, the...

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