Film review(s): Darjeeling Limited & Cloverfield
Starting with Darjeeling Limtied, I like this movie. It’s humor is more subtle than usual and often a little cynical or bitter but very amusing. It’s extremely abrupt which plays a major role in making the film fun. Other than that… I dunno what to say about this one. It had a way of making you feel smart that you “got it” and, while Juno did the same thing, Darjeeling Limited did it in an entirely different way. That’s what I can say about this movie; it’s unique. Not only in story and setting and manner, but it’s entire tone and even genre were undefined! With so many films out each year and with such hard-set rules most film makers abide by, it’s an almost impossible feat to make an entirely unique one. For that alone this film can be called nothing short of brilliant.
Hrm, turns out this is my first real film review… there’s way too many aspects of film to judge, so I’ll try to categorize the best I can. Also, in parenthesis, I’ll include examples of what that category includes.
Writing(IE: story, dialogue etc): 9
Performance(includes the actors and directors): 9
Technical(Editing, cinematography, producing etc): 9
Overall: 9
Cloverfield… Hmm. This movie was obviously an experiment. The most obvious aspect of the “experiment” is the camera view; that being the view of a homemade video tape from start to finish. I dunno, I liked this movie. Some parts were annoying (camera view and the character holding it) but it was so intentionally built to focus on this tiny side-story of the 4-5 main characters while this epic battle for New York City vs some gigantic mutant mystery monster was largely ignored beyond being the catalyst. Nothing concerning the larger story was ever explained and I believe that’s how the director (J.J. Abrams btw) wanted it. He wanted us to feel like the characters. Lost and confused. No audience insider secrets here; we only know what the cameraman knows. As far as that goes; very well done. I can’t honestly say that I’d look forward to seeing that type of camera work done again any time soon though.
This one is hard to grade… because even though some things about the movie might have sucked, I can’t help but believe that every single feeling and aspect about that movie was 100% intended by J.J. Abrams. Even the shitty parts like bad dialogue or an overly prolonged intro. So how do you judge flaws that were completely intended? Ugh. Whatever, I’ll do this by pure opinion.
Writing: 7
Performance: 9 (sometimes annoying but always very believable)
Technical: 6, I guess. Experimentation does not mean it was good.
Overall: 7
