Movie #24 – Ed Wood (Ryan’s Review)

A fittingly weird movie covering the life of a very weird man.  This was the only Tim Burton helmed movie I haven’t seen and being a big fan of his, definitely wanted to see it.  It is very different from his other movies in that it doesn’t have the gothic/menacing feel to it that so many of his other works possess.  Ed Wood was the man behind some of Hollywood’s worst films including Glen or Glenda and what is considered the worst movie ever made:  Plan 9 from Outer Space.  Johnny Depp plays Ed as a naive dreamer who lives in his own little world and it would be interesting to know if that’s really what the real Ed Wood was like.  I wasn’t a big fan of the choice to shoot the entire film in  black and white (too many dark scenes) and I’d say it was an OK film in story.  Once again Candice fell asleep.  She made it through maybe 1/2 the film before she conked out this time. 

Ed Wood: 5/10

Movie #25 – Oldboy (Candice’s Review)

A great movie with a great twist despite the fact it’s a foreign film.  We watched the first scene dubbed in English and it was terrible!  I recommend turning the settings to Korean and just having English subtitles.  Once we did that it was much better, and I’m not even a fan of subtitles.  A couple times the cheesy 70’s porno-like music distracted me from what was going on but overall I was able to stay focused and keep up with it.  In fact, I was paying attention so well, I had to explain a couple things to Ryan!  This is unusual as he is typically the one who catches all the subtleties.  Oh-Dae-Su is kidnapped one drunken night, and imprisoned for 15 years with no clue as to why.  During his imprisonment he is gassed, hypnotized, and given sodium barbiturate at regular intervals.  One day, he wakes up to find he’s free, wearing a suit, given money and a cell phone.  He meets a young woman, Mi-do, who takes pity on him and his situation, and joins him in the journey to find out who his captor was and why he was imprisoned.  As the story went on, I became more and more interested at how this was going to play out.  The twist at the end threw me completely by surprise, and in fact, made me enjoy the movie even more because of it’s unexpectedness.  This is a good example of how my boyfriend and this movie project have expanded my tastes.

Movie #25 – Oldboy (Ryan’s Review)

Well we’re now a quarter of the way through our list and boy does it feel like this is going to take forever to get through 100 movies.  At our current pace we’ll finish in 2012.  Ugh.  Oh well.  On to our 25th movie:  Oldboy.  It started out weird and weirder.  A drunk Korean man suddenly gets kidnapped off the streets and we see glimpses into his life in captivity for 15 years.  All of a sudden and without explanation he is released.  What is going on?  During the first 20 or so minutes Candice kept giving me those “This is stupid” looks but as the movie progressed we both got into the plot.  This is a classic Korean action movie and there are some well choreographed scenes.  Sometimes I thought the director got a bit too “artsy” which distracted from the tone of the movie.  What really did it for me was the acting by the lead actor.  He certainly roped me into caring for his plight.  I won’t give up the twist ending but for once I had NO idea it was coming.  And it wasn’t because it didn’t fit with the rest of the movie, but because it was so ridiculously out there.  Wow.  I was STUNNED.    It’s been awhile since a movie did that to me (Memento I think) and I liked it, as disturbing a revelation as it may have been.    This ended up being far better than I expected. 

Oldboy: 8/10

Movie #24 – Ed Wood (Candice’s Review)

I was excited to see this movie, I love Johnny Depp and I have never seen Sarah Jessica Parker in any other movies aside from Sex and the City.  Sigh…another disappointment…  This makes 3 movies in a row that have failed to keep me interested or even keep me awake!!  Yes, I did fall asleep about an hour into it.  However, since I did watch the first hour, I feel I can adequately review this movie and therefore say it sucks.  It was in black and white, it was weird and the plot jumped around a lot.  I looked it up and this movie has gotten a lot of good reviews, but I guess I’ll always be a sucker for cheap laughs and over-the-top action shots.  Only 2 bolts for this one.