Slumdog Millionaire Review

-Won for the 2009 Academy Award for Best Picture
-Won the Academy Award for Best Director (Danny Boyle), Best Editing (Chris Dickens), Best Cinematography (Anthony Dod Mantle), Best Original Score (A.R. Rahman), Best Original Song (A.R. Rahman for "Jai Ho"), Best Sound (Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Resul Pookutty).
 -Other nominations include: Best Original Song (A.R. Rahman for "O Saya"), Best Sound Editing (Tom Sayers and Glenn Freemantle).

Brooke Review:

Geoff Review:
My initial reaction to this movie complicated: I was entertained, I was underwhelmed, I felt for the characters, but I also didn't feel enough. I just don't have that strong of a reaction. There are things that stick out to you when you really enjoyed a movie: A particular scene, how it was acted or written, or how the story was constructed. I enjoyed the premise of going through the game show, question by question, and seeing how Dev Patel's character had some sort of personal experienced centered around his brother and his long lost love that led him to the answer. However, I was aware of this premise going into the movie, from accounts of people talking about it or other TV shows referencing it. Because of this, I can't really say that I was impressed by it.

There are several things I liked about this movie: I liked the twist of the Dev Patel not taking the Millionaire host's advice and saying the opposite answer to what he fed him. Also, I was particularly impressed by the quality of the acting by kids during the flashbacks. Usually I find myself rolling my eyes when watching children try to act, but in this film that managed to pull it off.

The acting by the grown actors, such as Dev, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal is nothing to write home about. As for the love story, I guess you can feel for the two longing to be with each other. But such a long time had passed between visits for those two, I just didn't find it plausible, especially since they didn't exactly grow all the way up together. They only spent a little time together, and then grew up in separate places. I'm not that sold that they only loved each other for that whole time. Maybe that's just my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I liked this movie. However, maybe it was the high expectations, or maybe it was I've seen a handful of scenes before sitting down to watch the whole thing; but I didn't walk away from it raving about it. It was a very solid flick, with a quality, not-too-sappy love story, which was told in an unique and captivating way. All the requirements seem to be there, and I figure that's why I felt so conflicted when the film concluded. Honestly, I thought I would like it more. I just didn't. 

Acting:  Very well done, especially impressed with the kids
Story:  Was able to tell the story of characters through clever use of jumping back and forth from a well known TV game show.
Directing: Excellent job.
Music/Soundtrack: I need to start paying more attention to the music during these movies, yet another movie where nothing really jumped out to me, only for me to find that it won the academy award for best original score and best original song.
Editing: Crucial aspect of this film due to the constant jumping back and forth. Well done
Costumes:  Seemed about right. I did like how they made Freida Pinto's character wear yellow, but other than that, , no real critiques.
Screenplay: No real line sticks out to me. I am not walking away from this film saying to myself wow that was a great line or that was well written.

Geoff Overall Grade: B+ (89/100)

The Kids are All Right Review

-Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2011
-Other Academy Award Nominations include: Best Actress (Annette Bening), Best Supporting Actor (Mark Ruffalo), Best Screenplay (Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg)

Brooke's Review:

The Kids Are All Right was one of "the other" nominees for best picture -- one that I had never heard of until the night of the Oscars. I was more focused on some of its peers including the winner who will remain nameless in this post (don't worry it is coming up shortly). However, as soon as I discovered who was among its cast I was immediately interested. I mean Annette Bening AND Julianne Moore AND my new love, Mia Wasikowska?! Definitely got me hooked. As with many new movies I soon found the film on Netflix and put it on my queue on the spot.

But I still did not know what the movie was really about. I heard it had a family with a lesbian couple for parents which arguably makes it "contemporary" and unique. Little did I know it was full of family drama and lessons learned that resemble many families today.

I love Mia Wasikowska. Her natural ability to transform herself into any character never ceases to amaze me - from her stint as Alice to this role as a teenager transitioning to young adulthood to her recent depiction of JANE in Jane Eyre. Each part is completely different from the last so much so that I didn't even recognize her in Jane Eyre as being the same actress as in Alice & Wonderland until someone pointed it out to me. In the Kids Are Alright she had a way of letting the audience know what she was thinking without saying a word. Like the way she looked at Laser after telling him she would not make the call to find their sperm donor which later led to her doing that exact same thing because she recognized how important it was to her brother. I like her character's ability to be the independent older sibling why still "around" enough to protect her younger brother and assist him in personal growth. Or the look of disgust she gave Mark Ruffalo when she finds out his character, Paul, cheated with one of her mothers. Later on in the film she made it clear that she was done getting to know him and did not want him a part of her life after what he had to done to her family. I like the way she stuck up for her moms and did not fall prey to Paul's spontaneous nonchalant parenting. She was able to distinguish between her desire to get to know her "cool biological father" & the early bond they shared with what he let happen with Jules was wrong and that his presence led her family into poor relationship.

One of the concepts highlighted for me was parents make mistakes. Growing up it's easy to see parents as these people that know everything and can do no wrong. I know I held mine to a higher standard expecting that they would do everything perfectly. Now out in the adult world I see how unrealistic this expectation was as life often throws curve balls which challenge us on the spot - we all just do the best we can in the moment. That being said, I like how they dealt with mistakes in this film. They healed as a family and forgave each other; they did not encourage bad behavior or tolerate it but they supported the family member who was struggling in order to repair their family bond. At the end of the day all that mattered was that they loved one another.


Acting: Highlight of the movie. I loved Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. I found myself relating to parts of both characters Nic and Jules which interacted as spouses in a very realistic manner. Some of the fights they had in their relationship or the way they managed their family were very typical in an average family today - easily relateable. Mark Ruffalo did a superb job as well even though I did not personally care for his character Paul (that probably means he did a good job). Mia -- loved her (see above).
Story: The lesbian couple/sperm-donor family angle was definitely unique but beyond that the plot line was a little predictable. The happy family with foreshadowing issues which ultimately leads to resolution and people learning from their mistakes is a little cliche. Especially the fact that it involved one of the spouses having an external affair which she later claims to regret. This has been in numerous plot lines although I will say that the fact that I could see Paul's potential leverage to replace Nic and "steal" her family from her is a compliment to the storyline.
Directing: I'd like to compliment the flow of the film. I was neither bored no confused - just contently entertained.
Music/Soundtrack: Indifferent. I remember thinking that the songs were well placed with the moment for some of the scenes but nothing really stands out to me that would make me download any of the songs.
Editing: The editing was fair - nothing to complain about - but no memorable shots that made me say "ooh"
Costumes/Make-Up: I thought both Nic and Jules were dressed appropriately for their characters. I thought Mark Ruffalo's biker attire was a little exaggerated but no loss of points for that.
Screenplay: I thought the film had realistic dialogue including the one where Laser tells his moms "I don't think you guys should break up" -- 'No? why's that?' --- "I think you're too old" -- 'thanks Laser' --

Brooke's Overall Grade: B+ (89/100)

Geoff's Review:

The movie was put together nicely. I liked it, but it didn’t exactly wow me. The performances were really good, especially by the adults. I felt some of their reactions were very real and natural to what was going on. To me, it showed a real take on life, with some very common things almost everyone goes through. Kids trying to find out who they are. A couple struggling through a marriage. A rebel who plays it cool who all of a sudden realizes he has some growing up to do. Going in, I was wondering exactly what the plot line would be. I knew something about a lesbian couple raising children and Mark Ruffalo being the biological father. I didn’t expect that one of the moms then to sleep with the father, creating a whole world of twistedness.

I like watching movies or shows where the characters are flawed. Where they say the wrong things, or when they make mistakes. There were several instances in this movie where that is the case. The one that sticks out to me is when Bening’s character flips out inappropriately at dinner. At this point, I believe that Moore had already cheated, so obviously she has no real ground to stand on getting mad. But it just showed the problems they had in the relationship because a lot of things can contribute to why a couple isn’t happy or struggling. And it doesn’t necessarily can boil down to one thing. This particular example of Bening creating a scene and having Moore try to navigate through it is one that I have both experienced and witnessed countless times. Watching a couple where one person is embarrassing the other is a sad sight to see, and very hard to deal with.

Another flawed character was the biological father, with Ruffalo’s character all of a sudden wanting that family, wanting to be the father he never thought he’d be. I thought it was fascinating after all the shit hit the fan to have him stand there and want to run away and take the family, saying “let’s do this, grab the kids and let’s go”. It showed how he had gotten caught up with the idea of being the father and husband in the family. And I loved the reaction to each one of the other characters to this request: Hell no. It was showing how incredibly wrong and crazy it was to have him feel and think that way. Another example is when he drives the daughter home, and then opens his mouth in response to how Bening scolded her daughter. He obviously has no business saying anything to her about how to parent

At the end of the day, I thought it was a very good movie, but not a great movie. The 3 adults gave powerful and fantastic performances, but the ceiling for those is only so high. As good as they were, it just can’t add up to a performance like Colin Firth in The King’s Speech. I can see why this movie nominated, but I can also see why it didn’t win Best Picture, especially considering the competition it was up against that year. And the rewatch-ability just isn’t there: I feel like with just one time through the movie you’ve seen everything you really need to see. Even though it was well done, the ceiling of this movie just wasn’t that high. I feel like it’s a movie people should see, but don’t NEED to see.

Acting: The acting is the driving force in this movie. Ruffalo, Moore and Bening are the stars that make the movie what it is
Story: An Interesting story indeed. Not what I expected going in
Directing: The scenes are very real, with characters reacting to different situations just how human beings would
Music/Soundtrack: To be honest, I did not walk away from the movie with any thoughts about the soundtrack.
Editing: The movie ran smoothly, with scenes lasting the right amount of time and transitions well
Costumes: Ruffalo's attire captured his character on point. Same with Bening's.
Screenplay: It is a captivating story, with flawed characters making mistakes. The fights and arguments are very real and I feel can resonate with a lot of people.

Geoff Overall Grade: B (84/100)

The Social Network Review

-Nominated for the 2011 Academy Award for Best Picture
-Won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin), Best Film Editing (Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall), and Best Original Score (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)
-Other nominations include: Best Actor (Jesse Eisenberg), Best Director (David Fincher), Best Cinematography (Jeff Cronenweth), Best Sound Mixing (Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick, and Mark Weingarten)

Brooke Review:


Geoff Review:
Its been roughly a week since I saw this movie, and I keep going back and forth on it. Initially, I walked away from it not being overly impressed. I thought it was a great film, with great acting performances from Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield who played Zuckerberg and Eduardo respectively, but it had been talked up to me so much I almost had too high of expectations. I am a big fan of Aaron Sorkin, who adapted the Oscar-winning screenplay for The Social Network for the big screen. He has written Emmy award winning TV shows like ABC's Sports Night (video), and arguably my favorite show ever NBC's The West Wing (video, video,  video, and video).  Multiple times have I watched the 2 seasons of Sports Night and the 4 seasons of The West Wing to which Sorkin contributed, and I can say with confidence that I am very used to his style of dialogue and story telling.  After viewing The Social Network, it is clear it has his fingers prints all over it. Much like The West Wing, his characters are impossibly smart, with a level of ego and arrogance to match (which makes Mark Zuckerberg a perfect character for a Sorkin film). The dialogue is quick and clever, and even though it is a relatively simple story arc, he told it in such a beautiful way it made the story seem better that what it actually is. Maybe I felt a little underwhelmed with this movie at first because I have seen this before from Sorkin over 100 times. So initially I was planning on giving it a somewhat lower grade: One that says it is a great movie, but I just wasn't as impressed as I wanted to be (or as impressed as someone who isn't a huge West Wing fan). After a week away, I started thinking about the acting, directing, screenplay, everything about the move, and I can't really pinpoint anything that warrants me giving it a lower score. I ask myself, "What am I taking away from this movie?" Well first off, the screenplay by my boy Sorkin was fantastic. Second, like I said before I thought Eisenberg (Zuckerberg) and Garfield (Eduardo) were also excellent. Thirdly, the story of Facebook sticks out to me personally since I was in college when this all went down, and it was cool to have them go through the ideas of "Oh lets put up something about relationship status" and "hey check out this Wall idea!" And Finally the writing, with  two scenes sticking out to me in particular; one where Justin Timberlake (who luckily didn't ruin the movie for me) tells Eduardo and Zuckerberg, "You know what's cooler than a million dollars? A billion dollars", and the other one is Timberlake telling the story about guy who invented Victoria's Secret selling too soon.

At the end of the day, I can't really say anything bad about this movie, as one of my favorite writers did his thing for a movie instead of a TV show. I will need to rewatch this film (and I want to), to make sure if my gut reaction was in fact justified and there are some things lacking in this movie, or it is really as good as everyone said it was. All I can say for now it is a great movie from top to bottom.


Acting: Overall, it is superb. Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield (Eduardo) each do fantastic jobs in particular. Justin Timberlake was good himself.
Story:The story itself isn't ground breaking, but the way it was told made it feel even better than what it was
Directing: Excellent as well
Music/Soundtrack: Honestly, the music didn't stick out to me, and it kind of surprised me to see that they got nominated for best score. I am not saying it was bad, but I think I was just focused and immersed in all the other things this movie has to offer that it didn't register for me.
Editing: Scenes moved smoothly and soundly.
Costumes: Dressing like college aged kids and Harvard rich kids isn't overly difficult. Actually, the real Mark Zuckerberg admitted that despite some of the movie's inaccuracies, they got his clothing down perfectly.
Screenplay: Sorkin took a relatively simple story arc and told it in a beautiful way


Geoff Overall Grade: A-  (92/100)

Gosford Park Review

-Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2002
-Won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (Julian Fellowes)
-Other Academy Award Nominations includes: Best Director (Robert Altman), Best Supporting Actress (Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith), Best Costume Design (Jenny Beavan), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Stephen Altman and Anna Pinnock)

Brooke Review:
When Geoff and I saw that there was a murder mystery film as one of the Academy Awards nominees we gladly chose it over the others seeing as it is a compromise between our two extreme preferences: epic romances (chick flicks) and action films. I had high hopes from the beginning - the imagery and piano music gave me all the indications that the film would resemble one of my Jane Austin classics (despite Gosford Park's official genre). The heavy rain and almost all British cast certainly convinced me it would portray a stereotypical English society. Also, the costumes and old country mansion reeled me in such that I think Geoff even doubted out loud whether it would actually turn from English romance to murder mystery. Gradually the hopes began to fade after the first 5 mins though and it was clear to me this would be no epic romance. No problem - I geared up for the suspenseful murder mystery I thought it would turn into. However, no such plot ever emerged. Yes there was a murder - a dead body and everything but definitely no suspense. Instead of creating a climax into a "mystery" which had to be solved I felt like I was in a bad game of CLUE where the whole plot focused on which character piece everyone wanted to be rather than getting to the bottom of whether it was Mrs. McCordle or Butler Jennings (or both). Oh yeah Mr. McCordle, the victim, was killed twice in one night. And it was made perfectly clear that no one cared of his death including is rigid wife (luckily later in his career Michael Gambon's "death" would be mourned by millions). So the main plot angle failed to captivate me.

The other attempt at a story was centered around the former mistress of murder victim who gave up their love child for adoption based on the recommendation of the father and never forgave herself or William McCordle. Sounds plausible but the film failed to make me feel bad for her or the scorned kid - more to do with the character development than the acting of Helen Mirren. Second fail of plot.

Robert Altman, apparently this was your plan. Some people even praised his attempt to describe each character's happenings as separate little plots including the unlikely connections and twists rather than having a central story they could all contribute to. I for one would have to see the movie again if not a third or fourth time to keep all the humans' faces straight let alone learn their names or character descriptions. Critics argue that the point of the movie was to glimpse inside the caste system of English society with the actual murder planned as just an after thought. I personally don't accept this excuse for the lack of plot or cohesive order I would demand from anything ending up on the "big screen." It just didn't do it for me. Even Clive Owen's almost romance with one of the ladies maids (Kelly MacDonald) and the appearance of Tom Hollander and Claudie Blakley who have since sparked my interest from my beloved Pride and Prejudice couldn't salvage the film enough to give it a passing grade.
F+ at best (59/100).
Acting: Good. I was convinced it was an English society & it did not change my opinion of the aforementioned actors/actresses which I admire from other films.
Story: utter fail - no intention of re-watching this film
Director: Some of the images & shots were cool but overall vision was flawed
Music/Soundtrack: Can't complain, I'm a sucker for piano music tho
Editing: honestly I liked all the shots
Costumes/Make-Up: two thumbs up
Screenplay: overall dialogue and story = fail but I liked how they set the scene


Geoff Review:
This is officially the first movie review that I have written for our blog, but I have a confession to make: I did not actually finish this movie. I stopped watching an hour and a half into the film. Why? Because I thought it was terribly slow, and it wasn't doing anything for me so I had to stop. The description of the movie says its a murder mystery. The thing is, I wanted to like this movie. I like the idea of sitting through a movie, trying to pick up on little clues, and having to guess who is the murderer. I believe that if a murder mystery is done right (i.e. if written, directed, and acted out correctly), it could be one hell of a film. Gosford Park is not said film. I get it how they needed to set up all the characters for the first half of the movie, so you could get the idea for motives of why who wants to kill who, etc. However, it just ended up taking too long with nothing of real substance happening. Also, maybe it was just me, but it was hard to know who's who, making it even more difficult to follow. And what was with the Inspector character? The whole first half of the film was portrayed as a relatively serious movie, but then they introduce the goofy Inspector for comic relief. His character just didn't fit in my mind. It just seemed like a total shift in what kind and type of story they wanted to tell. So I am baffled to why this movie was even nominated for Best Picture, and I can't really see why it Won the Oscar for Best Screenplay.

Lastly, despite not finishing the film, I was able to guess correctly the TWO murderers (thanks to Brooke, who did finish). Not that they made it that hard to figure out, as there are some painfully obvious signs. Maybe I missed the point of this movie, as in it is not supposed to be any sort of murder mystery, but nevertheless it is 90 minutes of my life I want back. This is not a movie I would recommend seeing.

Acting: Fine

Directing: I liked some of the shots that used multiple mirrors to add effect and depth

Story/Screenplay: Had the potential, but ultimately a let-down

Creativity/Originality: Again, could have been a lot better

Costumes: Probably the only solid thing about this film

Music:/Soundtrack: Not noticeable

Rewatch-ability: No

Geoff's Overall Grade: F (50/100)

First Blog Post

The birth date of this blog is March 20th, 2011. Brooke and Geoff are putting the finishing touches on the design, and will start reviewing movies shortly. However, this site won't go public for quite some time.