jbrady0684

this movie is about a small family living in rural America and the drama surrounding their home life when the eldest son returns with a new wife. reading these reviews and plot summaries or even watching the trailer to this movie can not relate how good this movie is. at first look it smacks of your typical indie movie; slow without a lot of diologue and dripping with pretension and narrow mindedness, but do not judge this movie by its cover. this certainly is an independent and lacks a lot of diologue and plot, but a movie that can make you understand and sympathise with all its characters like this one will is so rare to come by. the opening 20 minutes had me giddy with a laughter that subsided but never went away through the whole movie. at the same time i was on the verge of tears in a few different scenes. this kind of emotional roller-coaster isn't often found for me in a movie. either i fell in love or related deeply with each main character in this.

let me start out by saying i'm not an anime fan. that is to say, i have an interest in the genre, but for me it boils down to the big three; "ghost in the shell", "princess mononoke", and the movie this review is for. i'll have to explain that i'm reviewing this movie after seeing it an estimated 8 times at least, therefor i'm trying to think as if i'm seeing it for the first time. this presents the problem of wanting to rave for this movie, but knowing that it is one that truly gets better the more times you watch it. when the opening scene is over you'll give a sigh at the predictably bad diologue and spoon-fed character development coupled with the cartoon fantasy world. however, you're a fool if you don't stick with this movie. these flaws become faint as your engaged in the simple yet brilliant plot and you begin taking note of a few "wow, that was cool" moments that this movie is littered with. before you're 20 minutes into it your skepticism takes a back seat and you have no choice except to enjoy the ride.

i feel like this is a horrible place to stop the review, but in writing it i've reminded myself of how fun this movie is and i need to go watch it. so in conclusion; if you are looking for a movie that oozes entertainment: violence, sex, love, and intrigue. do not pass this up... really, don't.

if the average American read 5 books in their lifetime "in cold blood" will most certainly and deservingly be one them. that said, if you didn't read the book or by some strange chance you didn't like it, i wouldn't recommend this movie. i could give a lot of criticisms, but they'd all follow roughly the same model of pointing out how well the movie is made then tearing it down for not being entertaining. this is the big problem, its just not entertaining enough and doesn't have a fast enough pace or clever enough plot and diologue to keep me entertained. now before I'm chastised by people telling me "you don't know good film making when you see it" or "you need to up the Ritalin dosage before you watch a movie that requires an attention span" let me just say that when i critic a movie the biggest point on which it pivots is entertainment and whether or not its worth watching a second time. this movie is just not that exiting and doesn't have much depth to it in the ideas its presenting. i give it a 7, really well done movie with a lot of my favorite actors in it and a topic i have a lot of interest in, but "meh, lets see what else is on." is what my inner movie watcher kept saying.