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Showing posts with label ramin bahrani. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ramin bahrani. Show all posts

Friday, April 3, 2020

99 Homes (2014)

An American crime drama directed by Ramin Bahrani, starring Michael Shannon and Laura Dern.
A young man who lives with his son and mother is evicted by a real estate tycoon. He ends up working for this man and making lots of money, but is unsure whether this is the right thing to do.
I liked the middle. At the beginning, there was like 17 minutes of tachycardia sound over everything that was happening. The ending was inconclusive. In the middle, the main character is questioning the morality of the manipulative things that his new boss is having him do. He has a team of people stealing air conditioners, pool pumps and appliances from houses in order to charge people for not having them there. He also does exactly what was done to him: evicting people. Michael Shannon was cast perfectly as the evil real estate boss and the main character, Andrew Garfield looks all honest and innocent, with puppy dog eyes. The plot held my attention until the end and the characters worked. Video all looked great, but the audio was a little on the trashy side. I rate this adequate because it was interesting, but not super-great. You might want to watch it.

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Fahrenheit 451 (1966 & 2018)

A fireman meets a woman and they become friends. The fireman is in the business of finding and burning books and the woman is in league with book hoarders. Eventually, the fireman starts questioning why things are the way they are and begins to read the forbidden books.
1966 A British science fiction directed by Francois Truffaut, starring Julie Christie and Cyril Cusack.
The 1966 British film was great. I liked it because the plot fit in with Brave New World, 1984 and THX 1138. It also seemed to accurately reflect what Wikipedia says about the book synopsis. The characters seemed to act like they were on a 1960s British sitcom, but they did fit their roles. Although the special effects looked fake, but were convincing as far as plot was concerned, everything else looked and sounded plausibly realistic. I thought it was a really cool movie and rate it awesome. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the books/movies mentioned above.
2018 An American science fiction directed by Ramin Bahrani, starring Michael Shannon and Martin Donovan.
The 2018 American version was bad. I almost immediately wanted to turn it off for many reasons. The top of these reasons was the plot not accurately reflecting Ray Bradbury's novel. Even the characters and their relationships were rewritten. Montag doesn't even have a wife in 2018! As I said with The Hobbit (2012 - 2014), apparently Ray Bradbury's writing was not good enough for Ramin Bahrani. Who cares if it's classic literature which has stood the test of time? The acting was way over the top: overacting. Compared with the 1966 version, these people should be committed to a mental hospital for the way they played their roles. The special effects looked realistic, but were not convincing in the least bit, except the library fire. Obviously, modern technology allows a reasonably realistic representation of a person being burned. The only thing that I really liked was the "+100" bit. Anything above and beyond expectations was +100, implying that the population had lost conception of numbers and degrees of magnitude. I rate this shit because I ended up turning it off at around the hour and ten minutes mark.