Bianca's Reviews

This series is beautifully shot and beautifully written, but I found myself frustrated with its presentation of disability and race. The series mentions the stolen generation, but the only black character in the story is an unnamed Aboriginal man who magically watches over the house and the family. The presentation of the disabled character is frustratingly stereotyped, and at the end he 'escapes' his disability through death. Basically, his intellectual disability functions only as a metaphor, instead of just being part of who he is. I've never read the original book, but I saw the theatre production of Cloudstreet some years ago and its depiction of race and disability were more nuanced.

This is a dramedy, and not a romcom as the advertising suggests. I watch a lot of indie films and I like character-driven movies, but for people looking for a big budget Hollywood flick this is probably not your style. I really enjoy the naturalistic dialogue and low-key realism of the mumblecore genre. I love the way the Duplass brothers frame their movies - the shots, the music, the writing. Cyrus isn't the best Duplass film I've seen (Jeff Who Lives at Home dug a lot deeper into the characters, and had a much more effortless storytelling style), but it's got some lovely moments. It's a very gentle film, full of warmth. And it's kind to its characters and doesn't judge them, which is something far too rare these days.

A real star vehicle for Meryl Streep. She's brilliant, but the movie is just so-so.

A really well-made documentary about scientific hubris and the way we treat animals in experiments. Funny, sad and truly moving.

One of the most romantic films of all time. The script, the music, the great acting and the beautiful black and white cinematography make this classic utterly captivating from beginning to end.

Really disappointing. I think this movie has been over-hyped. It looks beautiful and it has some interesting symbolism and I get the message it is trying to convey, but it's all just heavy-handed and way way too long. The real grace of this film is the cinematography, but that was totally ruined by this dodgy DVD version which reduces the picture right down and leaves a huge black bar for the subtitles. The audio was out of sync most of the time and the translation from the Italian was terrible.

The plot is even more nonsensical than the 3rd, the acting and writing is terrible, the action scenes are remarkably dull and derivative (and really, why watch a Pirates movie if the action scenes are no good?), and Johnny Depp seems to seriously lack something without Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom as his straight men. One star, because there were a few good jokes. I hope they give up after this, but I hear Depp has already signed on for a fifth...

5 Centimetres Per Second looks exquisite. It is possibly the finest art and cinematography I've ever seen in an anime. It's also incredibly slow-moving, emotionally overwrought and almost plotless. It isn't actually a movie, but three interconnected short films (or poems or meditations) about the distance between the two main characters. The first one is basically 20 minutes of the main character crying because the train to see his girlfriend is late. The films don't really have much to say, and they end without any resolution. The intensity and seriousness with which they treat their subject matter is at times hilarious, at times boring, at times somewhat moving. They are trying so hard to be arthouse, and it's frustrating. They sure are pretty to look at though.

This is an extremely well-made romantic comedy with great acting, a good script and fine directing. It gets only three stars from me though because of its incredibly creepy message, which seems to condone stalking and sexual harassment. It's pretty normal for romantic films to convey the message that you should keep trying no matter what, even if the object of your affection repeatedly tells you no (she just hasn't realised how awesome you are yet dude! But she will if you follow her around and watch her through her windows when she doesn't know you're there!) but even by the stalkery standards of romcoms this movie was a step too far. It's strange that this happens too, since the movie handles other kinds of sexual predation in a fairly forthright way. But putting this aside (and that's a pretty big 'but'), there's some great emotional complexity and ambiguity in the film, more than you find in your standard romcom these days. The script drags in parts, but it's a pretty good effort and Steve Carell is always delightful, even when he's encouraging his son to be a stalker.

The premise of this film is incredibly silly. I looked past that - many American romantic comedies are even more ridiculous after all - however there's something deeply creepy about this guy who goes around stalking women in order to break up their relationships. Romain Duris just can't pull off this vapid and somewhat misogynistic script.

A Wonder Years rip-off about the girl next door. Set in the 50s and 60s but everyone talks and acts like they're living in the 90s.

Well, this was certainly a film. It had dialogue and actors and props and everything. Two stars.

Dire.

I knew I was going to love this film the minute they introduced a hero who knits. Beautiful from start to finish. Great imagination, visually spectacular, with a wicked sense of humour. Dragon Hunters might be a bit light on plot and characters, but it never stops being entertaining. I was absolutely blown away by the visuals and the gorgeous music - this is not your run-of-the mill animated flick. Bunnies!

A tepid little film. Watching it, I wasn't sure if it was hilariously bad or just bad, but its sheer banality and painful attempts at humour push it into the latter category. Really a shame, because Alexis Bledel (from Gilmore Girls) is a lovely actress; but she's stuck in an uninspiring role with an insipid leading man, and surrounded by other B-list actors all trying desperately to do something with the script. Still, it was inoffensive. I like laughing at bad movies, and wasn't expecting too much, so I enjoyed it.

This is one of the most beautiful animes I have ever seen. It is gracefully, brilliantly drawn and the story and characters are engaging. What starts out as a light-hearted film becomes deeper and more thought-provoking. It leaves you with unanswered questions, but still - this is one of those films that stays with you long after you have seen it.

Another tedious cliche of a romcom. There are too many storylines to follow, too little time to get particularly attached to any of the characters, and you can bet it all ends in the most banal way possible. I don't know which part of this movie is the most tedious - the contrived plotlines, the predictable characters, or the seriously bizarre morality -- like the teens who decide to wait because planning for sex would be somehow wrong, it should just magically happen. Or the guy who is totally offended when he finds out the girl he's dating is a phone sex 'entertainer', but decides to put up with it because "you take the bad with the good" (her job apparently being something awful about her he needs to tolerate). Or perhaps it was the way said phone sex 'entertainer' takes calls at work, in the middle of dinner, in fact pretty much anywhere. Then again, we also have the fact that all except for two characters are white, and the token black characters are all sassy and cool, and willing to teach the white people how to be cool, because hey, that's what black people in movies do. I'm giving this movie one star because despite all its obvious failings I was able to watch it right to the end. It is somewhat rescued by a few of the actors who pull off tolerable performances despite the bland dialogue and one dimensional characters they were given to work with. The best part of the movie is definitely the bloopers during the credits, where Julia Roberts gives a sly reference to Pretty Woman. And hey, if you enjoy romcoms and go into it without high expectations, it's certainly a decent way to pass an hour and a half.

A lesbian cult classic, Claire of the Moon has unfortunately not aged well since 1992 and is almost hilariously dated now, with its huge shoulder pads, puffy hairstyles and 90s essentialist feminism. Sadly too, the movie is sloppily edited, poorly acted and the writing is overblown. However, there is still something captivating about this film, and I watched it all the way through - with enjoyment - despite its incredibly slow pace and lack of consistent plot development. Worth watching if you are interested in queer history, or like B-grade romantic erotica.

Don't know what the other reviewers are talking about. This is a fantastic film, in the same quirky vein as Being John Malkovich or Stranger than Fiction. A deep examination of human personality and existence, and our understanding of 'the soul', but at the same time very very funny. Paul Giamatti gives a complex and subtle performance as 'himself'. Beautiful.