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Reviews
Amelia (2009)
Did they really blow the communications so badly?
Seems this was a pretty straightforward telling of her flying endeavors which made her famous & her love affairs with two different men.
I'm sure others have done a thorough review of the movie. I just want to touch on something regarding the ending which seems strange to me & I wonder if it is true or not.
During Amelia's quest to circumnavigate the globe it seems the most dangerous leg is the one to Howland Island where the Coast Guard ship "Itasca" is moored so she can have radio contact when she gets close to this island because it is so small that they wouldn't see it from the air.
Now this is a gigantic story about this great feat being attempted by Amelia & her navigator Noonan. Yet the night before she is supposed to come within radio contact...they have what seems to be a rookie manning the radio equipment that will be used to guide Earhart. And he falls asleep & lets a crucial battery rundown to where it is no longer usable.
And I guess they don't have another battery on the ship to replace it with!!! Also...they can't signal in Morse code because Amelia left that equipment behind!! Most people would want all the back up they could get when trying something for the first time in history that is very dangerous. And it seems the Coast Guard & the Itaska & Amelia & Fred would be ready for any contingencies for something this important.
Yet they leave the radio equipment that is going to be crucial the next day in the hands of one young inexperienced person who lets the battery run down to the point where it is useless & they have no back up. I know this paragraph is pretty much a repetition...but it just seems the job that was to be done at Howland Island was blown badly at both ends & this is what leads to the tragedy.
Does anybody know if the battery being dead (with no back up) & Amelia leaving the Morse code equipment behind was true? If it isn't....it seemed that they would have made contact and avoided having to ditch in the ocean & never be heard from again.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
Another Part Two That Doesn't Live Up to The Original
I was looking forward to seeing what Oliver Stone & the ensemble he got together could do with an updated version of an even greedier Wall Street that was gambling with obscene amounts of money & making their own rules that the S.E.C. didn't do anything about or even try to understand it seems.
I was very disappointed. This follow up didn't fare well against the original...which is almost always the case. But with Stone directing again & Douglas in again...I thought this may have a chance. Some part 2's are just laughable...I guess they make money or they would stop doing them. The big exception of course was "The Godfather part 2".
Anyway - this movie just didn't have the snap, crackle & pop of the original. And I think the movie spent way too much time on the Jake & Winnie relationship played by Shia LaBeouf (wasn't that Glenn Campbell's name in the original "True Grit", well....maybe it was LaBeef) & Carey Mulligan. By the way...very sad about Campbell's Alzheimers admission.
When I saw this movie I knew that LaBeouf had been in a lot of Hollywood movies & must have been well thought of....but it was the 1st movie I had seen him in. I thought he did OK with the part he was given. But Mulligan was such an annoying character as Winnie....or was it Whiney? Every time she was in a scene it was like fingernails on a blackboard. Did anybody else feel that way about Mulligan's performance?
And as others have said...the ending was just not very good.
Inception (2010)
Nolan is obviously a very talented movie maker.
I still don't think this guy has melded his talent into a great movie...although I'm sure most will disagree. The closest he came in my opinion was "The Prestige". If he ever gets the emotional part of the movie to be the driving force....& gets his very bright ideas to seam together just right.....I think he could make a movie thats as unbelievably good as most folks think this one is.
Lets see....who is the dreamer in this scene cut..are we at level 1,2, or limbo, or somewhere else? Which players are on sedatives & what kind of Kicks do they need to go to the level somebody thinks they should be at & should they be synchronized kicks with music and/or free falling, and/or feeling gravity, etc. ad infinitum.
Cut to the mountain fortress snowmobile scene....I thought for sure a scene from a James Bond movie got cut in by mistake here...all the bad guys wearing the same uniforms & chasing the good guy(s)& setting the explosives & shooting bullets galore....I guess this was an action movie as well with the car chases and crashes & well, you know.
This movie could very easily be summed up as a dream somebody had....somebody that you never see in the movie...just somebody's dream. And some people think it was that.
You have to give Nolan credit for a lot of his ideas, really good production values, and other movie making strengths. I thought it went way overboard with the complexity of who is the dreamer & who is sharing dreams with who & what level are they on & what are all the rules on that level, did they get into limbo & what is limbo exactly & do you really feel pain if you get shot in the leg...but if you get shot in the head you just wake up...or maybe go to double limbo if the architects totem is spinning, but maybe it's the dreamers totem, but if it's Cobbs totem & he got it from Mal it really doesn't work for him anyway. You could go on & on about this...but I guess you get my drift.
I think Nolan has has the talent to make a great movie...but I think it will have to get people in their emotional core & I don't think he has done that yet. I liked "The Dark Knight" when "The Joker" character was in the scenes...too bad about Ledger...he was really showing some acting chops big time.
I probably would have thought this movie was a lot better when I was much younger.