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The Bucket List - funny, sad, sweet. The best part of the movie is the developing friendship between Carter and Edward. They bond in the hospital, and take off for a 'round the world jaunt when they are both given a limited time to live. Do all the things they want to do before they kick the bucket.
Really fine fine movie - if a little cliche. It's pace is a slow build, which suits it very well. And I love the Sean Hayes character ("is it Thomas or Tommy?" "It's Matthew, actually. He thought that was too biblical.") who goes with them and stays on the fringes facilitating everything. And you get the feeling that whatever they may say to each other's faces, Edward likes his assistant, and his assistant is rather fond of him. And Edward only changed the names of the people he thought enough to think highly of.
The ending is inevitable. We are told at the beginning of the movie they are terminal, and their life expectancy is limited. However, getting there is a hell of a wild ride. Well worth seeing. B+. On the list of movies to own someday.
I Am Legend is based on an old pulp horror novel from the fifties. It has spawned a number of films and adaptations. Spare of dialogue for the first hour of the movie, we get most of what we know through flashbacks and narrated vlog entries. We find out that Neville is the last remaining human in the entire city of New York unchanged by the pandemic that decimated the world. He has a dog that keeps him slightly sane. The only time the madness seems to slip away from him is in his laboratory working on a cure for the disease. And it really comes home when it has become apparent he's set up store mannequins all over the streets of New York just to have "people" to talk to (the flirtation with the female mannequin in the video store is creepy, but in a few sentences illustrates the desperation he has just to *talk* to someone).
We are presented with several assumptions - because Neville can only surmise from observation any of the changed. They lose all pigmentation - their skins have turned pasty white. They've lost the ability to reason. All higher functions but instinct have fled. They lose all their hair. They cannot stand to be touched by sunlight. They are little more than ravening hordes with no humanity left. They are creatures of instinct, and while they might huddle together in groups he calls a "hive" - likening it to insects. And while it is touted a "zombie" movie, I'm not so sure it doesn't stretch that a little too far.
One by one, subtly, these assumptions are either proved or disproved through the course of the movie. Will Smith does an amazing job walking the sanity tightrope here - there are times he is crazed and has to visibly pull himself back from the brink. It seems the hardest scene in the movie for an actor - as well as the hardest one to watch for the audience, is the scene with the dog. If you've seen the movie you know what I am talking about. If you have not, I'm not spoiling it for you.
I knew what to expect here because my mom and dad saw this movie several months ago and this was the scene that hit my mom the hardest so she talked about it to me. But it was the hardest scene to watch, and it was all down to Will Smith's superb acting and the subtleties of his facial expression. Absolutely mesmerizing.
A- but hard to watch. I'm glad I saw it, but am not likely to want to own it.
Really fine fine movie - if a little cliche. It's pace is a slow build, which suits it very well. And I love the Sean Hayes character ("is it Thomas or Tommy?" "It's Matthew, actually. He thought that was too biblical.") who goes with them and stays on the fringes facilitating everything. And you get the feeling that whatever they may say to each other's faces, Edward likes his assistant, and his assistant is rather fond of him. And Edward only changed the names of the people he thought enough to think highly of.
The ending is inevitable. We are told at the beginning of the movie they are terminal, and their life expectancy is limited. However, getting there is a hell of a wild ride. Well worth seeing. B+. On the list of movies to own someday.
I Am Legend is based on an old pulp horror novel from the fifties. It has spawned a number of films and adaptations. Spare of dialogue for the first hour of the movie, we get most of what we know through flashbacks and narrated vlog entries. We find out that Neville is the last remaining human in the entire city of New York unchanged by the pandemic that decimated the world. He has a dog that keeps him slightly sane. The only time the madness seems to slip away from him is in his laboratory working on a cure for the disease. And it really comes home when it has become apparent he's set up store mannequins all over the streets of New York just to have "people" to talk to (the flirtation with the female mannequin in the video store is creepy, but in a few sentences illustrates the desperation he has just to *talk* to someone).
We are presented with several assumptions - because Neville can only surmise from observation any of the changed. They lose all pigmentation - their skins have turned pasty white. They've lost the ability to reason. All higher functions but instinct have fled. They lose all their hair. They cannot stand to be touched by sunlight. They are little more than ravening hordes with no humanity left. They are creatures of instinct, and while they might huddle together in groups he calls a "hive" - likening it to insects. And while it is touted a "zombie" movie, I'm not so sure it doesn't stretch that a little too far.
One by one, subtly, these assumptions are either proved or disproved through the course of the movie. Will Smith does an amazing job walking the sanity tightrope here - there are times he is crazed and has to visibly pull himself back from the brink. It seems the hardest scene in the movie for an actor - as well as the hardest one to watch for the audience, is the scene with the dog. If you've seen the movie you know what I am talking about. If you have not, I'm not spoiling it for you.
I knew what to expect here because my mom and dad saw this movie several months ago and this was the scene that hit my mom the hardest so she talked about it to me. But it was the hardest scene to watch, and it was all down to Will Smith's superb acting and the subtleties of his facial expression. Absolutely mesmerizing.
A- but hard to watch. I'm glad I saw it, but am not likely to want to own it.
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