Showing posts with label Kathy Bates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kathy Bates. Show all posts

Monday, 4 June 2012

Unlisted: Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen continues his obsession with Europe (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the upcoming To Rome With Love) and adds a little time travel into the mix with this delightful slice of whimsy. Owen Wilson picks up the Allen role as Gil, a writer tagging along with his fiance Inez (Rachel McAdams) visiting her parents as they embark on a business merger in Paris. Gil has made a name for himself writing not terribly good films for Hollywood, but has aspirations for writing novels, and dreams of moving back to Paris, whereas Inez and her disapproving parents seem far more level headed. On a late night drunken stroll Gil finds himself in the 1920s world he so wishes to live in, and gets to meet his idols from a time long passed.

Monday, 31 January 2011

Second Chance: P.S. I Love You

For every good film, there must be an equally bad film (Newton's Third Law of Motion Pictures). Like most people, I tend to not watch a film if I hear that it's bad, even more so if this opinion comes from a review. But a review is merely one person's opinion, and I'm not going to agree with them all the time, surely? So in this column I'll be providing badly reviewed films with a second chance, seeing if they are as bad as everyone seems to think.


Total Film: 3/5
Empire: 2/5
IMDb rating: 6.8/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 23%


Before even watching P.S. I Love You, I got the feeling I'm not going to like it, as it's a modern rom-com featuring Gerard Butler, which trailer-wise are generally terrible (The Ugly Truth, The Bounty Hunter), but the whole point of this is to give film's the benefit of the doubt. So, even though my girlfriend likes it (generally a sign that I won't) I sat down and gave it a try.


It started off well enough, and my spirits were lifted by the depiction of a fairly realistic couple (Butler and Hilary Swank, dabbling in light material for a change), living in a cramped apartment, not knowing where they're going in life or what they want out of it. Even the realisation that relationships don't always work out is relatively original in cinema, with Butler's Gerry passing away from a brain tumour early in the film. After this though, the film follows standard romantic comedy guidelines: the holiday to the idyllic country, the various eligible bachelors in Swank's life, even the bossy sister and sassy friend (Lisa Kudrow having fun with this).


All in all, it wasn't a terrible film, better than expected, and there were times when I actually laughed, but there's not a lot new here, and  the only thing I took away from the film was that, comparatively to Butler's note-leaving, holiday-planning, life-improving Irishman, I am a terrible boyfriend.


4/10 Choose Life