vikingvampireparrot
Joined Aug 2006
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Reviews33
vikingvampireparrot's rating
I am told I have a slightly odd obsession with penguins and so had been looking forward to seeing this for some time. It is good when a documentary manages to break into the mainstream and gets seen by large numbers of people.
Which is where March has its appeal. It is not a heavy handed documentary with lots of detail. Which may please some but I found slightly disappointing.
Morgan Freeman's narration is easy to listen to but I have to say is not the most captivating I've ever heard. And I felt that some parts were overly emotive and strayed too far from the boundaries of objectivity.
I was also dismayed at the 'dumbing down' of information, which I presume is to attract a younger audience. There is a great lack of any technical information, or much information at all that the relatively well informed adult would not already know or be able to find out in 5 minutes on the internet.
The epitome of this for me was the line that went something like 'the egg appeared' - come on, an egg does not 'appear'! However, visually the film is stunning and is worth watching for that alone.
I would say that this is worth a watch but not one to be added to the DVD collection as I can't imagine returning for a second viewing.
Which is where March has its appeal. It is not a heavy handed documentary with lots of detail. Which may please some but I found slightly disappointing.
Morgan Freeman's narration is easy to listen to but I have to say is not the most captivating I've ever heard. And I felt that some parts were overly emotive and strayed too far from the boundaries of objectivity.
I was also dismayed at the 'dumbing down' of information, which I presume is to attract a younger audience. There is a great lack of any technical information, or much information at all that the relatively well informed adult would not already know or be able to find out in 5 minutes on the internet.
The epitome of this for me was the line that went something like 'the egg appeared' - come on, an egg does not 'appear'! However, visually the film is stunning and is worth watching for that alone.
I would say that this is worth a watch but not one to be added to the DVD collection as I can't imagine returning for a second viewing.
I had been looking forward to seeing Crash since before its Oscar win but my DVD rental people only decided to send it recently! It was worth the wait (although continued the trend of depressing films they keep sending...).
Crash tells the story of a group of people living in LA who are all either racist or the victims of racism and whose lives become intertwined in various way. My main quibble with how it dealt with the story was the incredibly bluntness of it all - to me it all seemed a bit over the top and impossible that so many people could be so racist - but I am in England not LA so things may well be very different there! This all made for some scenes which were incredibly uncomfortable to watch.
The plot is well structured with all the various story lines tying up together without being overly convoluted or spoon fed.
The acting on the whole was superb. Sandra Bullock and Matt Dillon deserve special mentions in my opinion for their portrayal of distinctly distasteful characters. One sore point for me was Brendan Fraser who irritated me slightly (although he does seem to do this in every film since I endured the horror that is Bedazzled).
Visually the film is quite impressive, depicting the nature of the subject matter well. The score is also supportive of the action on screen without being distracting.
This is a very good film that should be seen, but be prepared for some uncomfortable viewing.
Crash tells the story of a group of people living in LA who are all either racist or the victims of racism and whose lives become intertwined in various way. My main quibble with how it dealt with the story was the incredibly bluntness of it all - to me it all seemed a bit over the top and impossible that so many people could be so racist - but I am in England not LA so things may well be very different there! This all made for some scenes which were incredibly uncomfortable to watch.
The plot is well structured with all the various story lines tying up together without being overly convoluted or spoon fed.
The acting on the whole was superb. Sandra Bullock and Matt Dillon deserve special mentions in my opinion for their portrayal of distinctly distasteful characters. One sore point for me was Brendan Fraser who irritated me slightly (although he does seem to do this in every film since I endured the horror that is Bedazzled).
Visually the film is quite impressive, depicting the nature of the subject matter well. The score is also supportive of the action on screen without being distracting.
This is a very good film that should be seen, but be prepared for some uncomfortable viewing.
Although I had been told by numerous people that this film was not worth bothering with the potential of the idea made me watch it anyway. Such a shame that I bothered, the idea of what it would be in my head was so much better.
Essentialy this is (meant to be) a satire about shows like Pop Idol and X-Factor. It shows the experience of 2 contenders on one of these reality TV shows and their journey to get as far in the competition as possible. Intertwined in this is an incredibly dumb president (wonder where they got that idea) and a terrorist attack.
Unfortunately it just doesn't work. American Dreamz cannot seem to make up its mind whether it is a satire or a straight comedy. It combines some clever satirical observations with obvious jokes and gags that look like they belong in the American Pie humour camp. Ultimately this means it succeeds as neither.
The performances can't really be blamed (Hugh Grant for one has his character nailed completely) it is the poor script that has to take responsibility.
It gets 5/10 purely because it did make me laugh in the odd place and there were some solid performances from the cast.
Essentialy this is (meant to be) a satire about shows like Pop Idol and X-Factor. It shows the experience of 2 contenders on one of these reality TV shows and their journey to get as far in the competition as possible. Intertwined in this is an incredibly dumb president (wonder where they got that idea) and a terrorist attack.
Unfortunately it just doesn't work. American Dreamz cannot seem to make up its mind whether it is a satire or a straight comedy. It combines some clever satirical observations with obvious jokes and gags that look like they belong in the American Pie humour camp. Ultimately this means it succeeds as neither.
The performances can't really be blamed (Hugh Grant for one has his character nailed completely) it is the poor script that has to take responsibility.
It gets 5/10 purely because it did make me laugh in the odd place and there were some solid performances from the cast.