Pulp Fiction, Apocalypse Now and Taxi Driver

I thought there was no point doing three separate posts as I pretty much watched these movies back to back to save time. I have one more film to watch tonight and it will probably be Fight Club which I will review separately.

True Romance

I loved this movie, I thought it was clever how it manages to waver between romance and thriller and back again. I also loved the little cameos of famous actors who would normally be leading men but instead had no more that 10min airtime. Now, my brain has suddenly shut down so my review will probably A. not give it justice to how good it is and B. not make sense. Apologies in advance.

Funky opening music.

Our two main characters fall in love which started over their love of movies. That’s how I want to find love, in the cinema! The pair are so sweet and adorable together, they’re just totally made for each other. She’s the sweetest girl who has bad luck with jobs [she was a call girl when she met him] and he’s an adorable film nerd who works at a comic store. And normally I roll my eyes when people in movies fall in love after knowing each other one night but for some reason, I totally believed them in this and believed that they had fallen for each other in one evening. It made a nice change from freaking Disney ‘what’s your name? We’ll be married in the morning’ s**t.

It’s CRAZY!Gary Oldman! However, he is on the fine line of being awesome crazy and incredibly annoying crazy. He plays a white pimp who talks and acts like a stereotypical black guy. I hate it when white people do that [my brother does it, ergh, hopefully he’ll grow out of it… “I’m a gangster” no you’re not, you’re a tall white boy who cuddles his mummy when he’s got poorly tummy]. Anyways, CRAZY!Gary Oldman manages not to completely p**s me off so he still remains cool. Also he has dreads which is also weirdly cool on him. Then he kills Samuel L.Jackson who has about 3 lines and I guess that shocked me because I’d of thought he’d been in it till the end but then I realized that these big stars only have small roles in the movie.

Elvis lives! Well, in Christian Slater’s head. And I loved that you never see ‘Elvis’ completely; he’s always either not in focus or you only see him from the neck down but you just know its him.

Slater’s character’s sunglasses are Elvis sunglasses. They’re pretty damn cool in a Halloween costume kind of way.

He kills for her and its ‘so romantic’. I can see why a guy getting into a fight with another guy over a girl is romantic but killing is a bit… extreme… no?

OMG! His dad is the bomber from Speed!! Then the dude from The War At Home and My Name Is Earl is in it too! I think that’s one the things about the little cameos by people, you can go “OMG its him!” and then he’s gone! I don’t know why but I love tiny parts for big stars, it just shows how awesome they are!

I loved that he could just say ‘hello baby’ like Elvis to his friend [dude from The War At Hom] on the phone and his friend knows exactly who he is! I love that, when friends know each other so well that they know who it is just with two words!

I thought there was some good music where the dad knows he’s about to die and you can see it in his eyes but he tries not to show it but the music tells it all, that he knows its his last couple of minutes. Amazing what music can do, isn’t it!

OMG ITS BRAD PITT! Now, let me just say this, I’ve known a few stoners but Brad Pitt is the best stoner I’ve ever seen. He’s totally out of it and has about 7 lines, two of which I find to be quite legendary, he‘s all buddy to this guy and totally relaxed and stoned then the guy leaves and he‘s like “Don’t condescend me, man. I’ll f****n’ kill ya, man.” when he looks like he couldn’t kill a fly even if it landed in his eye. And then another time when the others are leaving, “Hey! Get some beer and some cleaning products!”

There’s a scene where she gets really beaten up and its horrible to watch, especially as the blond and injuries look so real! Then after a while, she finally gets him with fire then stabs him then shoots him then whacks him. The whole scene is so emotional, probably the most emotional scene I’ve ever seen in movies. I could totally feel what she was feeling, it was so powerful. She was killing him, crying hysterically and getting the hitman [dude from The Sopranos] back for beating her up. Its just so damn powerful. I went from ‘you go girl’ to feeling complete and total pity for her.

I thought it was very symbolic that there is a scene where everyone is shot dead except our main couple and the dude from War At Home and the whole room is covered with white, pure feathers. I don’t know why I think its symbolic but it just felt it to me.

I don’t know how the couple got away with it but after everything they went through, I don’t even care that in real life they’d get caught. They have a son and he’s the cutest, happiest little boy ever! And they name him Elvis, how cool!

67/212

Kate
xoxo

Speed

I like this movie and I hate this movie. There are elements which I think were awesome, moments I thought were OK then moments where I just rolled my eyes and played on Facebook.

The opening titles give the impression that it’s a sci-fi film so that’s a bit misleading.

I feel two things for the beginning sequence where there are people in the elevator and are now hostages. As I was watching it, I felt it went of for too long because I thought it was just supposed to be an introduction to Keanu Reeve’s character and his job. Then, as the movie went on and stuff happened on a bus, I realize that the opening part is very important. I guess I need to break away from the typical setting up of movies.

Since watching The Dark Knight and hearing Michael Caine talk about bad people and stuff. I now don’t think people would go through all this bomb work just for money. People normally do the bombing for revenge or to prove a point. That’s why I hated the fact that the bad guy in this movie is supposedly doing all this bomb stuff for millions of dollars. How the hell does he expect to get away with it. They mention in the movie that he is a mad man but if he was, he wouldn’t care about the money, he’d just want to see people suffer. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of a bomb being on a bus and if it goes lower than 50mph then it blows up, I think that’s a fantastic idea, I just hate the reason behind it.

I didn’t like that when they were rescuing the people from the elevator that a woman’s bum was shown. I know its probably kind of realistic as the last thing you’d worry about was your underwear but I felt it was unnecessary and made the whole thing cheap.

Who knew that bus rides could be so exciting! I bet there’s been a few times when you’ve been on a boring bus journey and you’ve wished for Keanu Reeves to jump on the bus shouting that there’s a bomb on it.

The film nerd in me loved the 360° camera moves, where they’d [fot instance] circle Reeves as he’s putting his bulletproof jacket on which would have been a boring shot if it was just done with a still camera.

“Well, I should probably tell you that I’m taking the bus because I had my driver’s license revoked.” “What for?” “Speeding.” It’s a cheesy line but it still made me laugh. I also laughed when the tourist is on the phone to the other police guy and is saying what Reeves is saying Reeves: “F*** me!” … Tourist: “Oh darn…” I also thought it was interesting that Bullock’s character asks this about the bomber “What did we do? Bomb the guy’s country or something?” See! That’s why people bomb other people, not to get money!

I know I’ve bashed Sandra Bullock once or twice in my reviews, she’s a good actress and very funny, she just chooses bad movies. Anyways, I loved her character in this because I found I could relate to her. I felt that if I were ever in that situation that I would react in the same way she did.

Then, about halfway through, my internet stopped and I couldn’t continue to watch the movie, hence the review the next day because once the internet was back up the Academy Awards were on. But anyways, yeah, bloody internet left and the whole house went into panic-mode, trying to remember what we did before the internet.

LOL at the gap in the road being a gap in the road that’s a bridge. There is no way in hell that a bus could jump that gap but alas, that’s what action movies are all about!

I know that quite a few action movies are about saving strangers but I actually love that about action movies, that in horrible, dyer circumstances, we will come together and help everyone out.

There’s a surprise that’s not really a surprise if you think about it.

I thought it was very typical action movie for the director to go ‘no! A bus exploding is not good enough! We shall have the bus explode so that it makes an airplane explode too!’ And I just had the image of the dude from Tropic Thunder going “Mother Nature just pissed her pants!”

I thought that it was a nice dig at the police to have the snipers in full view as they’re trying to be sneaky. To be honest, I always love it when movies take digs at the police or government or something.

HIS HEAD FLEW OFF! IT FLEW OFF AND YOU SEE IT FLY OFF!!! YOU SEE IT!!

‘The train track isn’t finished!!’ Typical. I did love Reeve’s reaction of ‘you are NOT going to believe this…’

Hmmm… didn’t quite like the kiss at the end… there was no need, it would have been better if Reeves had asked her for a coffee or something first… just seemed crap to me… Reeves and Bullock have great chemistry but it was a bit ‘oh, yeah,, the female audience want a kiss’.

It’s a good action movie that has its flaws but they’re flaws that you can laugh at rather than just cringe at.

65/212

Kate
xoxo