Doctor Zhivago (1965)

2/5

What a meandering mess of a movie. This is a three hour attempt at being both a revolutionary epic and a personal romance that fails at both. Adapting the 700-page novel required trimming, and trimming they did. Important plot points (such as births and deaths) are glossed over, mentioned in passing once, and built off of extensively afterwards. The beginning is extremely confusing, as it flashes back to a different person from the one who gives the voice-over. The pacing was a travesty; I consistently found myself asking what the point of a scene was and no answer came. Pointless scenes in a long movie make an extremely boring movie. I have to say Omar Sharif's acting reminded me of Keanu Reeves' acting; however, it may just be the character that is flat, emotionless, and confused. Imagine watching Keanu Reeves wandering around for three and a half hours; yeah, it's like that.

There were three brilliant things in this movie, which elevate it from a 1 to a 2. The first is the incredible long take following Komarovsky in the beginning when Lara attempts to kill herself. The second is a scene where the two Zhivago brothers meet. One is describing the meeting in voice-over from many years later, and even though the two are talking in the flashback, his past voice is silent while his voice-over explains what he's saying. An example: In response to a question, the voice-over says, "I lied," while the past voice simultaneously mouths, "Yes." The third is the astounding ending. I also liked how it showed how the two main characters' lives intertwined before they even met without either one's realizing it. Unfortunately, these elements do not make the movie worth watching.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0059113/

Gandhi (1982)

4/5

This three-hour epic is everything an epic should be: monumental, expansive, and stirring. The pacing is excellent for the most part (even though I thought the last third dragged on quite a bit). This is helped by the stellar script, which expounded on an incredible philosophy extremely well. I found it eye-opening and informative and recommend it to anyone interested in the man or the country. The acting by Ben Kingsley was consistently brilliant.

There were some things I didn't like in this otherwise great film. I always feel a little bit cheated when a biopic only shows one side of its subject: in this case, Gandhi's sacrifice for his country. It makes him less three-dimensional and takes away from the overall film. (I hated Cinderella Man for that same reason--Russell Crowe's character was pure good with no flaws.) I also hated the use of news reels to tell the story for them; I consider it sloppy filmmaking. Also, although infrequent, some scenes seemed unnecessarily or excessively violent.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0083987/

Love Actually (2003)

3/5

The flaw in this feel-good romantic comedy is that it focuses too much on its moral. It's about love's ubiquity, so all the subtleties and nuances and quirks in the relationships are brought to the forefront and shoved in your face. It is no longer subtle, nuanced, and quirky. Moments that would have been powerful had they been left understated were made blunt and therefore ineffectual. To speak of specifics, the movie starts in voice-over talking about how we can see that "love actually is all around" (where the movie gets its title from) if we look at all the people in an airport. There is one scene at the end of the movie that takes place in an airport, and could have been a stunning finale. Instead of opting to end on that note, however, the director decided to bring practically every character we've met in this interlocking tale (5 or 6 couples) into an airport one month later for no reason other than to beat into our brains his message. Not to mention the overpowering and ever-present music, which made a lot of the scenes candy-coated and Hallmark.

Luckily, there were some genuinely funny moments. There were some unexpected twists and turns that I liked (on the emotive and plot fronts). There was one scene that was actually incredible, where a woman goes upstairs after she discovers her husband's infidelity and starts crying, then comes back down and pretends everything is alright. (It felt a lot like the montage in Magnolia where all the characters sing along to Aimee Mann's Wise Up.) Another positive: Keira Knightley somehow surpassed what I thought were the boundaries of hotness. By a lot.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314331/

Glory (1989)

3/5

I saw this yesterday on my quest to see the IMDb top 250, which is perhaps my most foolish undertaking (not because of the length, but because of the abundance of terrible movies). It scored very high on IMDb and I was excited because I liked Edward Zwick's most recent directorial effort (The Last Samurai). Unfortunately, I did not find this film particularly commendable. Maybe I just hate Civil War movies (I don't like the parts of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly where it uses the Civil War as a backdrop). Something about the acting just didn't feel right to me. I never thought the characters were real; they were just actors playing those roles. And what were we supposed to feel about Matthew Broderick's character? The first half of the movie he treats his men like dirt and the second half they suddenly have an incredible rapport. What changed about him that I missed? Cary Elwes' character was overall pretty worthless (though I liked his acting--I thought it was the best in the movie). I just never felt the emotional impact in this film that I was supposed to feel.

Now don't get me wrong; it's not a bad movie. It's just not anything to talk about. I don't see how it could be anyone's favorite movie. There's nothing atrocious about the directing and cinematography; the action scenes weren't bad. But it's not really an action movie, is it? I was disappointed when I found out that none of the characters were real except Broderick's. I wouldn't recommend seeing this movie unless you are a fan of the Civil War and not a fan of history (although how those two could coexist is perplexing).

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0097441/

Scoop (2006)

4/5

I saw this new Woody Allen comedy yesterday with Sameer and I must say, I was impressed. I laughed a lot. It was extremely funny in that New York/Woody Allen style that he's perfected over the years (fantastic one-liners), even though he saves most of the humor for himself. Scarlett Johansson plays a dumb but dedicated student journalist as best she can, but Allen's writing for that part just wasn't very convincing. Fortuitously, the failure of the role's realism gave the movie a more airy, light-hearted feel that helped overall. I liked the small reference to Match Point where Johansson pretends to be an actress. One thing I was especially fond of was how the movie comes full circle and ends up back where it started (on the River Styx); something about that just feels sublime to me.

The special effects distracted from the movie, besides just looking campy and 80's. Hugh Jackman's character was simply a poor rehashing of the upper class family from Match Point, and Allen didn't really do much to make him unique in any way, shape, or form. Also, some elements of the plot just don't add up, but who cares? It's a movie.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0457513/

Road to Perdition (2002)

5/5

From start to finish, every frame of this film is jaw-dropping in its beauty. You will be stunned by the cinematography, which relegates the powerful script and precise acting to the back of your mind. Even so, it contains scenes of heart-stopping suspense to rival even Hitchcock's greatest works. It also manages to achieve a certain poignancy through Tom Hanks's quiet and restrained interactions with his son and equally quiet and restrained interactions with his father-figure (Paul Newman in a stellar performance, one of the best of his entire career).

The emotional impact of the film becomes somewhat muted due to its obligatory sense of fatalism, in the same vein as the film noirs of the 1940's. To me, the movie's cold, distant mood fits the piece exceptionally well. The terse manner in which the characters speak is also similar to noir, although the dialogue itself is vastly different (where those movies were flashy, Road to Perdition is earthy). Quite simply, it says all that needs to be said and nothing more.

Sam Mendes directs Road to Perdition with the same subtlety and artistic insight found in American Beauty, but the flourishes are more spectacular: A silent, slow-motion massacre in the rain that resembles a dance more closely than a murder, followed by the words "I'm glad it's you." A long take tracking Hanks as he shoots a man in his bathtub, the bright red blood on the white tile sharply contrasting with the pervading dark grey tones. You will remember these scenes; this movie is unforgettable.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0257044/