Tag: sandra bullock
Oceans 8 (2018)
Director Gary Ross achieved a great balancing act giving these 8 talents good characters and effective stories.
Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Rihana, Helena Bonham Carter, Awkwafina, Sarah Paulson and Mindy Kaling make a stunning set of criminals!
You never come in between a girl and her diamonds. And when it’s 8 women and a heist of precious and regalia jewellery, you just watch the action and strategy unfold!
3/5
Minions (2015)
A film I was looking forward to from the time it was announced, it disappointed me in no uncertain terms.
The minions are their adorable self, keeping a 91 minute feature film alive with everything they have got. It’s the supporting characters and the plot which didn’t hold our attention.
Cliché presentation of the British way of life and a weak motive made the proceedings dull. The villian lacked dimension, was a caricature. The lack of a distinct personality, Scarlet Overkill didn’t need Sandra Bullock’s voice.
Overall the film wasn’t memorable, though the franchise and merchandise surely is.
2/5
Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
Director John Lee Hancock, who made the Blind Side (Sandra Bullock got her Oscar for playing super mom), amongst many other films, has dared to tell this tale which speaks of an author’s journey and a dream maker’s challenge.
Serving us a slice of history which many may not know about, Walt Disney has been pursuing writer of the famous Mary Poppins, Mrs. P.L. Travers, for two decades. Once she signs over the rights of her beloved nanny story, he can fulfil his promise to his daughters of making her come alive on screen.
We have an author who won’t give up her story, and a dream maker who wants to make people of all ages happy. Their battle, whilst the author fights her own memories, moves this film on a leisurely pace, to match the era it is set in.
For an aspiring author like me, this film is a magical insight into the psychology of such a celebrated writer, enacted brilliantly by Emma Thompson. Tom Hanks has been given his trade mark monologue in the film at the end, where his voice and expressions tell us everything he was trying to hold back.
Collin Farrell does full justice to the role of young Traver’s father, the source of her inspiration as a writer, as he indulges her imagination and is pretty theatrical himself. A very unlikely role for an actor of his repertoire.
The film has its humour and drama, ending with a sense of accomplishment and evolution, for both the characters and the audience, summed up eloquently in a line by Walt Disney:
“Life is a harsh sentence to lay down for yourself.”
3.5/5
Gravity (2013)
(This review contains spoilers!)
The reputation of this film preceded itself, and director Alfonso Cuaron has done complete justice to giving us an understanding of gravity.
This film can be discussed on two very separate levels. The first is technical. Within the first few minutes, following Sandra’s character ‘Ryan’, I actually felt uneasy. The movement and angles captured how it would feel to float, and to replicate that with the use of camera is pure GENIUS.
We kept alternating between Ryan’s vision to a more holistic one, which also helps in experiencing the entire environment, its magnitude, its silence and its vulnerability.
George Clooney’s character ‘Matt’ not only keeps us entertained, but grounded as well. He very well acts like an ‘anti-gravity’ agent, because we have gotten so involved in Ryan’s psyche that we need him to balance us.
The second level which really came across in the film is how the universe is an expansion of our inner self. As human beings we need a physical ‘anchor’. Gravity here was perhaps a metaphor for Ryan who was floating aimlessly through her life. Though she was physically weightless, what came across more was her mind which wasn’t ‘tethered’ to anything. What she found out there, was her own purpose and finally ‘letting go’ to ‘come back’.
Speaking about special effects, sound quality and their precision may seem redundant for an excellent film like this, but nonetheless, I will say that the perspectives and tension that they created were just brilliant.
This is advanced film making folks, not to be taken ‘lightly’!
4/5
The Heat (2013)
bleep **** blank %$£@ beep. Nothing could prepare me for the profane riot that this film was! Either catch that thread and keep rolling in your seat, sometimes out of it, clapping away at the scandalous nature of the sense of humour, or sit quietly and wonder why the moron behind you is going crazy.
After her few scenes in Hangover 3 as Cassie (yes that was her), Melissa McCarthy shocks, entertains and keeps surprising us as Mullins in this ‘Chalk has to work with Cheese’ Crime Comedy. In this instance the chalk was Sandra Bullock, and these two ‘poles apart’ personalities had to work together to solve a drug scam.
Their chemistry and compromise make the film so unique, while the writing and choice of profanity was genius. Yes, it takes brains to string a limited vocabulary to make you laugh, again and again and again!
It is an R-rated film, and rightly so! Please watch it where the content is not ‘bleeped’ out, otherwise its no fun.
3.5/5
Movies&Musings 