An American drama directed by Barry Levinson, starring Adrien Brody and Joe Mantegna.
A Jewish boy has a father who is a gangster. The boy's friend becomes obsessed with a girl he meets at a Halloween party and the father runs afoul of a black drug dealer. The boy himself falls in love with a back girl in his class at school.
That story took two hours to tell? The plot was a shambles. Totally jumping around between people and going off on side-tracks every few minutes. There was no real focus. The characters were likeable and made themselves known to the viewer very quickly. I attribute this to good writing and acting. I didn't notice any visually powerful scenes. The audio stayed in the background, except at appropriate times. Multi-racial record listening, the James Brown concert and the burlesque theater scenes accentuated the music in a good way. Overall, It left me wondering what was going on, but was pleasant to watch. I rate it o.k.
An American drama directed and produced by Spike Lee, starring John Leguizamo, Adrien Brody and Anthony LaPaglia.
During the summer that the "son of Sam" killer was at large in New York City, a fictional drama plays out between friends and family members of Italian mob drug dealers.
This really needed a different name. It was NOT about the murderer. It was about a punk rock male stripper and his mobster friend who cheats on his wife. I don't see how they couldn't have gotten along better. They both have secrets. The video style was very Spike Lee. We had the gliding/floating character, close-ups, fast edits and even a camera spin. The audio was terrible. The dynamic range of the characters' voices included inaudible whispers and loud shouting. I had been thinking recently "what if Spike Lee did a film with an all-white cast?" and then here it is. I thought the casting was really bad though. Adrien Brody as a punk rocker? That would be like Samuel L. Jackson as a kindergarten teacher. Overall, not really what I like and it had some technical issues. I rate this poor.
An American adventure drama directed by Wes Anderson, starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman.
A trio of brothers reunite aboard a train in India. One of them has their trip planned out, with an itinerary and an assistant. As they travel, their lies are exposed and the truth comes to light that each of them is hiding things from the others.
I was looking forward to this because I liked Wes Anderson's other films. It was not disappointing, but also not as great as I had hoped it would be. The actual substance of the plot was quite sparse, but it was communicated well. I didn't like the characters and thought that Adrien Brody did not look like he was related to the other brothers (who don't look like they're related). They all had long noses and that is where the similarities end. They all seemed like lying jerks the entire time. The camera-work and some of the musical choices were the only things to identify this as a Wes Anderson film. It's possible that my idea of Anderson's filmmaking has been skewed by watching Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel, but not his other work. Regardless, the sideways-trucking camera shots and almost Tim Burtonish music were the elements that linked this to the other films by this director. Though nowhere as good as the aformentioned films, this wasn't bad. I might watch it again at some point. I rate it adequate. You might want to consider seeing it.
A science fiction directed by John McTiernan, Stephen Hopkins and Nimrod Antal, starring Adrien Brody, Danny Trejo, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger.A hostile alien comes to earth to make trophies of human skulls. A lone warrior must do battle with this hostile life form.The first film with Schwarzenegger is the best, but the others aren't too bad. There is a lot of action, violence and special effects. The differing styles of the films reflect the style of the time period in which they were made very well. I'm rating this series adequate. It's rating suffered the most from the 1990 film.
A science fiction directed by Vincenzo Natali, starring Adrien Brody (who starred in The Pianist).Gene research scientists add human DNA to an experiment. The resulting creation is strange and they try to hide it from their lab partners.New science fiction with good special effects doesn't usually float my boat, but this was cool. The genetic creation is the best and most dynamic character as it continually changes. I watched it for entertainment value and I wasn't let down. I'm rating it good.
