Film Gorilla - Movie and Film Reviews

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The Secret in Their Eyes

January 24th 2012 22:11

I am not one to avoid a movie that has subtitles. Some of my favourite movies are foreign ones but when you get home from work and your tired the work involved in having to concentrate enough to read subtitles can be a little too much. As a result it took me some time to get around to watching The Secret in Their Eyes. I could say I regret leaving it so long but in fact I don't. This was not a movie to be watched when you are half asleep. It deserved my full attention. The full attention of a person willing to put in the effort with the subtitles.

The film is about a retired legal counsellor Benjamín Esposito(Ricardo Darín) who has begun to write a novel about an event in his career. He wishes to use it to find close in his mind the case of an murder he solved but could not let go and at the same time the love he has held for superior which he has dwelled upon also.

It is an intriguing premise and as the movie opens on a clearly frustrated man beginning and scrapping scenes in a notebook you are instantly interested in what he is trying to get out.

There are about five points in the movie when you think you have figured things out or that the cast have gotten it all wrong but it manages to surprise you at every turn. I watched the movie with someone who has spoiled many a plot for me by working out the ending but this movie was one step ahead even of him.

Not that, that is what the movie is trying to do. The mystery keeps you enthralled but you find yourself caring deeply about the characters and as much and you are trying to guess what will happen next you are wishing for something else.

Nothing is happens in a dramatic way or is forced at your under a heightened reality. It is more like a story told to you by a friend. It is told like a case file, a blow by blow of events all emotion is left to you to read in and it is hard not to emotionally react.

This is definitely a movie worth giving your time to.

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Posted By: Rachael Murphy - Category: No Category

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Water For Elephants

May 9th 2011 17:10

If I am completely honest(and I rarely am) I did not expect much from this movie. I am somewhat cynical of movies with sparkly trailers and actors from the latest teen hit and Water For Elephants has both of those things.

In a way that was a good thing because high expectations are often disappointed but low ones can often result in pleasent surprise. This was one such occasion.

There is nothing complex about this movie. It is about a young man, Jacob(Robert Pattinson) who is sure of how his life will go until everything he imagined is upended. This leads him onto a train, into a life in the circus and into the affection of Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) whom he cannot have . I think that it what I liked about it. The boy meets unattainable girl element to the whole thing is nothing new but the setting most definitely is. The characters could fit into a million movie sinarios but the world that is built around them really is something to look at.

The narrative is striaght forward as I have said, there is no difficulty telling who is good and who is bad and who may be a little of both. This is not so harmful as it might seem as the whole thing is kinda lovely and dazzles you, not with glitz but with a homely glow. You feel comfortable in this movie.

The characters, however, are sadly lacking. You get who they are and what they stand for but you know so little about them that there is not a lot of time to care. The evil of one character, August (Christoph Waltz, who is as awesome in this as in Inglourious Basterds) is based on the harm he does to the others but you never see it expect for breif unspectacular glismps. You don't care about the people he is hurting, enough to really condemn him for it. I mean, you know he is the bad guy and that you are supposed to hate him but for most of the movie you don't really.

I think this might be one for the girls. I did enjoy it but it is a three star movie and nothing to write home about. If you bring you boyfriend he will just moan and you won't even get to enjoy the good bits.

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Thor

May 4th 2011 20:33

There were only two ways that Thor waswas going to go. It was either going to be aweful or ok. I know that sounds kinda synical but those movies that introduce you to the hero are never that exciting. They can build up your childish hopes and dreams but so long will be spent establishing who everyone is that the big action piece and the character arc will have to happen within half an hour. Lets face it, kids these days have no attention span to speak of and if you want them to buy the movie once it comes out on DVD you have to keep them egaged. So the formula is a quick introduction, a few explosions and a dramatic heart stopping milisecond just before the happy ending.

Luckily for me and my €12.00 spend the movie met the higher end of my expectations. Ok, so I am not fan boy but I did want a little more than big muscles and cheesy speaches and I got it. The movie begins with the son of Oden legand and builds the characters of Thor and his very suspicious brother. It then goes on to investigate Thors great anger and how it will come to his ruin. So basically there is a story to keep you going.

Everything happens fairly quickly and the conclusion is a little rushed but the characters are well developed and interesting enough to keep you engaged. It is a good start. A definite three star movie but one that will bounce you on to the inevidable sequal and the avengers.

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The Social Network

February 17th 2011 21:36

It is probably a little bit of a waste of my time now writing about The Social Network there is probably nodody who hasn't seen it at this stage. It is a movie that has made me think though. It provided me with an opinion about things that I never thought to have an opinion about before

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Shutter Island

March 23rd 2010 21:51

The first time I heard of the movie Shutter Island was when a friend of mine handed me the book. Once I had read through it I was on the edge of my seat, little did I know, it was the worst thing I had ever done. Th movie isso about the story that knowing aything about it takes away from the magesty that is the thing.

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Brothers

January 26th 2010 16:13

I am not a very emotional person. I am a girl but I don't want people thinking that it will influence how I feel about this movie. Granted I went all weak at the knee when the second installment in the Twlight saga came out but that is it I am usually imune to gilish burst of tears

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A Christmas Carol 3D

December 14th 2009 11:27

It is offical, I love 3D movies. I am completely 100% sold on the item of fantom images of christmas past being throw at me across the cinema. I love that I am no longer safe in my cinema seat and that a movie can be so compelling when you are so much a part of it that you can ignore the really stupid people talking in the row behind me. They know who they are and all I have to say is pick up a book it might do you good

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Paranormal Activity

November 27th 2009 07:25

I am a fan of horror movie but there hasn't beena good one for a realy long time. Sure the decent was fine but it was more of a jumpy movie than something really scary. I liked the orignal Saw movie too but it was just your standard blood and gore not truely frightening. There really has been nothing that has made me sleep with the light on since the Blair Witch Project( and I didn't even get to see all of that because of motion sickness). There has been nothing until Paranormal Activity.
Paranormal Activity is not a million miles from the style of the Blair Witch Projoect. It is all filmed using a hand held camera capturing the strange goings on affecting the lives of Katie and Micah. Only this time instead of being out in a distant wood somewhere, now it is right inside your house and even worse than that, in your bedroom, under the very covers you use to hide. Remember being scared to go down to the wood, now prepare to be scared to go to bed

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New Moon

November 24th 2009 07:39

Wow, that is all I can say about New Moon from the Twlight saga. Wow if you are a girl or are into guys in general and not so much for the rest of the population. For once though I don't really care.
Ok let me clarify that a bit. If someone was to accuse me of such a thing as being into 'girl movies' I would be upset and possibly even storm out of the room but New Moon is totally a girl movie and I absolutely loved it. New Moon is the second installment in what is bound to be a very exciting saga. It is the story of the girl who fell in love with a vampire and thought that life couldn't possible get better until he leaves her for her own sake and she finds comfort in the massively musclely arms of a friend who was always there but that she has barely noticed before

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UP 3D

November 19th 2009 07:25

I had many opertunities to go and see the 2d version of up and even one which was free but I turned it down. You see before UP had even come out I had already had my first RealD experience(toy Story) and had seen the future of cinema and from there, there was now going back. 3D is the perfect medium for kids movies because it gives you so much more of an experience and makes kids have to concentrate to know what is going on. Having said that, UP is not a kids movie.
Sure is it suitable for children but so are alot of things that you wouldn't necessarily bring them to see. UP had layers and saddness that I don't think children can understand. The characters ahve motivation and hidden emotions that are not splashed all over the screen in techicolour. It is a movie for grown-ups with an adult sensibility. Mostly though it is just a really baeutiful movie

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January 2012

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