The toughest
movies to review are those that leave you enamoured. I saw Imitation Game last Saturday and over
the past 6 days I have been thinking about whether I was blown away by the
person called Alan Turing or the actor called Benedict Cumberbatch or was it
the story and the narrative that eventually turned into an end product called
The Imitation Game.
Showing posts with label Matthew Goode. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matthew Goode. Show all posts
Friday, 16 January 2015
Monday, 1 August 2011
Leap Year
Heard about Leap Year quite a while back and missed it when it hit the screens last year sometime I guess. But the fact that it had Amy Adams in it was sufficient for me to feel really bad about missing it the first time. And therefore the HBO premiere wasn’t to be missed for certain. I knew it was just a standard Romantic Comedy and was not expecting anything better. But then Amy Adams is Amy Adams and was a sufficient driving force to be glued to the TV for the 9 pm prime time telecast. Unfortunately it was an insipid 90 odd minutes in front of the screen and turned out to be quite disappointing eventually.
There was nothing terribly wrong with Leap Year actually. It was reasonably well made but nothing that you have never seen before. The usual questions about “what would you take with you if your house was burning down and you had only 60 seconds to take whatever you wanted”. It is an old way to get across the message of true love – but in a new movie. It is a question that has dogged a whole lot of us over the ages and which most of us are familiar with the answer to as well.
Girl and guy are apparently well and truly in love. Girl i.e. Anna Brady (Amy Adams) who is in a very unique profession of getting houses ready for sale / lease and guy Jeremy (Adam Scott) who is a cardiologist. They have been seeing each other for 4 years now but the dimwit hasn’t popped the question yet. So Madam Brady is being tested for her patience for certain. She is hoping that Jeremy will pop the question tonight but instead he gives her super expensive “Ear” rings instead. Ha ha. And then after all of it, he runs off to Ireland to attend some cardiologist meet. A frustrated Anna is surfing the net and surprise surprise – there is a weird custom in Ireland that allows a girl to propose marriage to a man on the 29th February in a Leap Year. And so madam decides to pack her Louis Vuitton suitcase and takes off to Ireland but standing in her way are a huge storm that has stopped all flights and Declan O’Callaghan (Matthew Goode) a gorgeous Irish man who runs a pub and is nursing a broken heart. The rest of the story is obviously very predictable frame by frame and therefore quite boring.
Director Anand Tucker (fancy name at that) does a reasonable job with Leap Year but the story is too darn predictable for him to really make much of a difference. Having said that, he is not the hottest property in Hollywood for certain even if he builds a niche for himself in “predictable” RomComs. Amy Adams rocks as always and this time around it is the guys who provide the eye candy. This one is a chick flick in the true sense of the word and should be watched either on DVD or on HBO when u really have nothing else to do with your lives 5 on 10 from my side.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2052654361/
There was nothing terribly wrong with Leap Year actually. It was reasonably well made but nothing that you have never seen before. The usual questions about “what would you take with you if your house was burning down and you had only 60 seconds to take whatever you wanted”. It is an old way to get across the message of true love – but in a new movie. It is a question that has dogged a whole lot of us over the ages and which most of us are familiar with the answer to as well.
Girl and guy are apparently well and truly in love. Girl i.e. Anna Brady (Amy Adams) who is in a very unique profession of getting houses ready for sale / lease and guy Jeremy (Adam Scott) who is a cardiologist. They have been seeing each other for 4 years now but the dimwit hasn’t popped the question yet. So Madam Brady is being tested for her patience for certain. She is hoping that Jeremy will pop the question tonight but instead he gives her super expensive “Ear” rings instead. Ha ha. And then after all of it, he runs off to Ireland to attend some cardiologist meet. A frustrated Anna is surfing the net and surprise surprise – there is a weird custom in Ireland that allows a girl to propose marriage to a man on the 29th February in a Leap Year. And so madam decides to pack her Louis Vuitton suitcase and takes off to Ireland but standing in her way are a huge storm that has stopped all flights and Declan O’Callaghan (Matthew Goode) a gorgeous Irish man who runs a pub and is nursing a broken heart. The rest of the story is obviously very predictable frame by frame and therefore quite boring.
Director Anand Tucker (fancy name at that) does a reasonable job with Leap Year but the story is too darn predictable for him to really make much of a difference. Having said that, he is not the hottest property in Hollywood for certain even if he builds a niche for himself in “predictable” RomComs. Amy Adams rocks as always and this time around it is the guys who provide the eye candy. This one is a chick flick in the true sense of the word and should be watched either on DVD or on HBO when u really have nothing else to do with your lives 5 on 10 from my side.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2052654361/
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Chasing Liberty
Being the president’s daughter can never be easy. And definitely not the most enviable position to be in on the planet. Especially if the President goes by the acronymn of POTUS – President of the United States, Mr. James Foster (Mark Harmon) – The most powerful man in the world. Lets make this worse. The president’s daughter is an 18 year old!!!! Just about the time when you are hormones are on overdrive even naturally. How can one make any effort to constrict them with rules and regulations and Uniformed Secret Service Agents???? Its only going to lead to a situation where the pressure cooker explodes in your face and that will not be a pretty sight for sure.
Ana Foster (Mandy Moore) is going through just this kind of teenage crisis. She cannot go more than 5 feet away from any surveillance whatsoever. And the guys who are responsible with the surveillance are quite fearsome who you would want to run away from at the first available opportunity. But they are good at their job. That is till the president has to visit Europe – specifically France. Ana meets up with a friend Michelle (Beatrice Rosen) – coloured hair, pierced tongue, tattoos et al. Frustrated with her 24 x 7 coverage, she seeks Michelle’s help to escape from the clutches of the secret service and explore Paris and Europe on her own. Funnily enough, she succeeds. Not the best campaign for the United States Secret Service. But…. Not to worry, we have our plain clothed agents – Cynthia Morales (Anabella Sciorra) and Alan Weiss (Jeremy Piven) who have always been on the job. US SS gets back its reputation thanks to our under cover agents who are on their toes.
And they also manage to locate special agent Ben Calder (Matthew Goode) who is in the same area and has just finished his current assignment. So the President in all his wisdom assigns Ben the task of befriending his daughter and not giving her even a whiff of him being a special agent. What the president does not factor in and is not expecting is the impact of raging teenage hormones. Like Salman Khan proclaimed in Maine Pyaar Kiya – “Ek jawaan ladka aur ek jawaan ladki kabhi dost nahin ho sakte” (A young boy and a young girl can never be “Just Friends”). But President Foster obviously hadn’t seen our Indian block buster from the early 90s and hence would have to eventually pay the price for his oversight I guess.
Director Andy Cadiff is a consistent guy. He has consistently directed TV Series. Why did he think that he would be good at directing a full fledged 70 mm is beyond me. But then, everyone is pardoned one moment of insanity I guess. Thankfully, it was his last moment to date. But can’t say the same about Mandy Moore. She has been, is and will continue to be one of the most awful actors to have ever hit the screen. There is just no emotion that comes up on screen. Just sheer frustration of the viewer onto the screen. Thank God that she is at least reasonable looking. The only saving grace would be the good looking Matthew Goode – purely because he is good looking. Nothing worth writing home about from this RomCom. 4 on 10 is the verdict.
Ana Foster (Mandy Moore) is going through just this kind of teenage crisis. She cannot go more than 5 feet away from any surveillance whatsoever. And the guys who are responsible with the surveillance are quite fearsome who you would want to run away from at the first available opportunity. But they are good at their job. That is till the president has to visit Europe – specifically France. Ana meets up with a friend Michelle (Beatrice Rosen) – coloured hair, pierced tongue, tattoos et al. Frustrated with her 24 x 7 coverage, she seeks Michelle’s help to escape from the clutches of the secret service and explore Paris and Europe on her own. Funnily enough, she succeeds. Not the best campaign for the United States Secret Service. But…. Not to worry, we have our plain clothed agents – Cynthia Morales (Anabella Sciorra) and Alan Weiss (Jeremy Piven) who have always been on the job. US SS gets back its reputation thanks to our under cover agents who are on their toes.
And they also manage to locate special agent Ben Calder (Matthew Goode) who is in the same area and has just finished his current assignment. So the President in all his wisdom assigns Ben the task of befriending his daughter and not giving her even a whiff of him being a special agent. What the president does not factor in and is not expecting is the impact of raging teenage hormones. Like Salman Khan proclaimed in Maine Pyaar Kiya – “Ek jawaan ladka aur ek jawaan ladki kabhi dost nahin ho sakte” (A young boy and a young girl can never be “Just Friends”). But President Foster obviously hadn’t seen our Indian block buster from the early 90s and hence would have to eventually pay the price for his oversight I guess.
Director Andy Cadiff is a consistent guy. He has consistently directed TV Series. Why did he think that he would be good at directing a full fledged 70 mm is beyond me. But then, everyone is pardoned one moment of insanity I guess. Thankfully, it was his last moment to date. But can’t say the same about Mandy Moore. She has been, is and will continue to be one of the most awful actors to have ever hit the screen. There is just no emotion that comes up on screen. Just sheer frustration of the viewer onto the screen. Thank God that she is at least reasonable looking. The only saving grace would be the good looking Matthew Goode – purely because he is good looking. Nothing worth writing home about from this RomCom. 4 on 10 is the verdict.
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