Jesse Ortega (underwearsoup)

Righteous Ties Unrated

You know that a movie isn't exactly thrilling when you're dreading doing the review...I mean Jeong Jae-Yeong is damn fine actor. I think he's great, but even he can't save this. The thing is, it doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a comedy? Is it a prison escape film? Is it a film about revenge? Is it a film about brotherhood? Or is it a melodrama? Granted the melodrama only came in at the end but it WAS there and didn't really add anything to the movie. I think the movie wants to juggle so many things that none of it ever stands out. There's a good idea here of this dedicated guy being sent to prison thinking that his boss will take care of his family and completely doing the OPPOSITE of that. But they really touch on that briefly...of course it IS the motivation for the character to escape from prison but nothing that interesting is done after they escape. I just don't get what the point of the movie was quite frankly. Therefore I really didn't have any reason to keep watching. I hardly ever stop watching films that I've already started, if they're REALLY fucking terrible or boring, and this would've classified as one of those movies, but I kept watching it. I have no IDEA why.. And it's not bad, I mean it's got a fine performance from Jeong, but that's about it. It should've been much better, but it wasn't so it's definitely a CHORE to watch which is the worst kind of film, at least to me. I mean shitty movies aren't good, but at least I can complain about how shitty they are, a movie that feels like a chore to sit through doesn't inspire me to write anything at all. So yea I'd definitely skip this, unless you were really into South Korean films.

Tsotsi (Thug) R

So this movie really won the Academy Award for best foreign film of 2005? What, were there no better foreign movies that year? Not to say that the movie isn't good because it is, but it's in no way great nor even really good. It almost turns into one by the end but I just didn't get into the movie as I would've liked. The movie is definitely very simple, which isn't the problem, in fact I commend the movie for its simplicity and the story of this man trying to redeem himself from his criminal ways through his 'care' for the baby. This is a good idea for a story...in theory. Here's the thing, the redemption simply consists of Tsotsi going to sleep a bad guy and waking up a good guy. That's all it is really, there's no real sense that he'd really changed other than because the movie just chose to present it as such. And his connection to the "baby" wasn't really much either, I mean he's with the baby at least 15-20% of the movie, that's not enough time to get a sense of how he truly changed for how much he had to take care of the child. Especially considering he had ANOTHER person, a woman with a child, take care of him for a chunk, not a big one, of that time. So take that and the fact that his turn into a good guy just consists of a magic wand being waved and him being good, it just seems that a sizable, and very important, part of the movie is completely missing from the finished product. I thought Presley Chweneyagae's performance was good, but people were raving about it and I just don't see it. Other than the last scene, he never really stood out as anything special as an actor. A good, if unimpressive performance. The more I talk about it, the less I actually liked this movie, which may be due to the fact that I just watched Requiem for a Dream just a few hours before I saw this one. And it's hard not to compare the quality of both films even if it's unrealistic and unfair. It didn't engage me in any way whatsoever. Of course the movie's never BAD. I just think it's an average movie that's missing a LOT of information that you're expected to sort of fill out on your own and that's just lazy to me. If it was at least ambiguous, in allowing you to make your interpretation of what happened, but the movie is pretty straight forward so you'd expect it to feel more complete than it is. Disappointing stuff here.

Oldboy R

Absolutely amazing movie, don't know whether I'd still want to be a filmmaker were it not for this movie. It features some great acting by everybody involved, but Mink Sik just shines as Oh Dae Su. Quite frankly the best foreign movie I've seen and that's saying a lot

The Dark Knight PG-13

Last month I said that Wall-E was probably the best movie of the summer so far (I also said that it was among one of the best movies of the year). This is by FAR the best movie of the summer (sorry Wall-E) and one of the best movies of the year. I'll even go as far to say it's one of the best movies to come out in a couple of years. To put it into perspective...the imdb.com site has the top 250 movies of all time as voted by the users. The number one movie of all time (according to the users) is The Dark Knight with an average score of 9.5 and it's an even more amazing feat considering that the #2 movie on that list is The Godfather 2 (who had a stranglehold on that #1 spot for years before The Dark Knight). This film improves on almost every flaw that plagued Batman Begins, the main flaw being that you didn't really know who the 'real' villain was until 2 hours in the film so Batman Begins didn't have the traditional structure of a hero vs. a villain. This movie fixes all of that with the inclusion of the Joker, and to an extent, Harvey Dent. The writing, the cinematography, the action, the acting, etc...again everything that was flawed about Batman Begins was fixed here and Batman Begins was an EXCELLENT film so there really wasn't a lot to fix. Christian Bale does a great job as usual, I liked how he felt more comfortable as Bruce Wayne and he added a depth to the character that was not seen in previous Batman films. I love how Bruce struggles with the fact that Harvey Dent is the hero that Gotham deserves and that Batman is not up to Harvey's standard of heroism. That internal conflict within Bruce was one of the best things about the film. Maggie Gyllenhaal, while she did a much better job than Katie Holmes, wasn't used that much and I felt that a lot more could have been done with her character. Aaron Eckhart was excellent as Harvey Dent/Two-Face. I, originally, was worried about the Two Face character because you already had the Joker who was going to be the main villain of the film, but by hook or by crook this character was excellent and his turn into Two Face was written with such expertise it's not even funny. The end of the movie was left open as there's the possibility of the return of Two Face in a future Batman film (if there are any planned). Now onto the performance that everyone is talking about. Heath Ledger as the Joker, my god he was amazing as the joker. His character was so twisted, disturbing and sick that everytime the Joker is on screen you're instantly drawn to him and his charisma. My aunt made the comment that Heath Ledger's accent as the joker was trying to be TOO much like Jack Nicholson's joker and while I can see the comparison I say that if Heath had used his normal voice for the role, the darkly comedic style of the Joker would have been lost so. While there's room for comparison betwen the two Jokers they're still two very different versions of the same character...Jack's was cartoony, Heath's was more realistically gritty and disturbing. I, personally, enjoyed Heath's joker more cause his delivery and the sheer insanity he added to the joker is amazing and he's definitely the main reason a lot of people are gonna see this movie, and I really can't blame them as Heath was seriously one of the best villains of the decade. Again the end of the film left a lot of questions unanswered for the joker character as he never really died nor did he have a final battle with Batman. I personally think that the joker character should be left off of the sequel, and give people time to get used to the idea of someone else other than Heath playing the joker (due to unfortunate circumstances). The Dark Knight is proof that you don't need to sacrifice the story in order for it to be entertaining (Transformers I'm looking at you), which is why I hate the Transformers even more so now than I did last year, well technically I don't hate it as it had some entertaining parts what I hate about it is that it represents everything that's wrong about summer movies. Stories are sacrificed for entertainment and films like Wall-E and The Dark Knight do a perfect job of combing both great stories and great entertainment. I'm sure that's the reason why there'll be some people who hate this movie, because it's not mindless Michael Bay entertainment. This film is the measuring stick for future superhero movies to follow. I seriously recommend this movie to everyone, I really cannot say good things about it. I'm getting the 2 disc special edition dvd DAY ONE godamnit!!!!