An American crime drama directed by Robert Luketic, starring Lawrence Fishburne, Kevin Spacey and Jacob Pitts.
A math professor at MIT recruits a student who is trying to get into Harvard for his secret club. The club learns to count cards and goes to Las Vegas in hopes of winning money. Seduced by money, glamor and popularity, the students begin making mistakes.
Not bad, but not good. The stale plot branched off in predictable ways and the characters were not developed well. The main character (Ben), the professor (Micky) and the head of security (Cole) were developed some and had back-story, but nobody else did. I'm not saying that every character needs to be developed, but if they are important enough to be in like 5 scenes, they need some back-story. Video looked good, but very predictable for the time. There was some underexposure, but it looked chosen because all films show Las Vegas casinos being unevenly lit. Audio was actually a little bit loud, but generally seemed even. I rate it o.k. because it's a mediocre movie. Watch it or skip it, whatever.
A British science fiction directed by Duncan Jones, starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey.
A man working on a lunar base finds out that he is a clone. The previous version crashed a vehicle and the new one finds the old one and takes him back to the base. Together, they form a plan to get one of them back to Earth and restore communications that had been blocked.
Pretty cool. The plot was interesting and held my attention. I've always wanted another me or even a few more. The world would not be the same if that happened. The characters were the copies of Sam and his robot, GERTY. I initially thought we were going into a HAL9000 scenario, but the robot turned out to be good. The video was done very well. I think that the lunar base set was very convincing because it was a complete set. The outside sequences with rovers were done with models, not CG. The audio was mostly good. There were a few bits of dialogue that were mixed low, especially on video playbacks that Sam watched. Overall, I think that the filmmakers got the '70s and '80s feel that they were going for. I rate this awesome. Even though I spoiled so much of it, watch it anyway! Tom Cullen would agree.
An American disaster thriller directed by Wolfgang Petersen, starring Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr., Donald Sutherland and Kevin Spacey.
A military medical research team goes to Africa to investigate a new disease. It turns out that a monkey carrying the disease has been illegally shipped to America and has infected people. The disease mutates to spread more rapidly and tensions rise.
This is pretty standard of the disaster thriller genre. I would say even exemplary! The plot follows the rising action, showing people getting sick and military leaders freaking out about the disaster. Dustin Hoffman plays his psychotherapist role. Amidst the chaos, he is the rock of reason with Cuba Gooding Jr. as his sidekick. Even though Hoffman's character's own life is in the middle of a messy divorce, he remains steady. The video was very active. There was lots of camera movement and lots of quick editing cuts between simultaneous scenes and even angles within a scene. The audio was basically good. I could hear all of the dialogue and the music didn't get in the way. Overall, not bad. I rate it adequate. It would get a better rating if I liked disaster thriller flicks.
An American romance directed by Philip Kaufman, starring Fred Ward, Uma Thurman, Richard E. Grant and Kevin Spacey.
A strumpet in France sleeps around her circle of friends. Around and around and around.
This was terribly boring. I don't like romance and the duration of just over two hours made it seem like it would never end. It was not painful to watch. The technical aspects were good, but the plot failed to hold my attention. Gratuitous sex scenes helped a little bit, but were no substitute for adventure, travel and action. The characters watch Un Chien Andalou, which I thought was cool. There was also a marionette puppet that added brief moments of interest. Even Uma Thurman was unable to spice up this snooze-fest. I'm beginning to dislike Philip Kaufman. Overall, not what I like to watch. I rate this poor.
A music biography by Kevin Spacey, co-starring John Goodman.The life and career of Bobby Darin is shown.The film starts with a failed rendition of Mack the Knife that segues into Bobby Darin making a film about himself. The boy who is supposed to play him as a child says he knows more about Bobby than Bobby does. This leads to Mr. Darin discussing his life with the boy in the form of one long flashback. I like Bobby Darin's music (especially Mack the Knife), so this was a little fun to watch. I was disappointed by the lack of drug problems, but all stars aren't junkies. I'm rating this adequate.
