Movie reviews

Hi, everyone! hope you guys are enjoying your week! So, for today's post I want to review two movies, one new and one old. I will be doing this often. I know you're probably wondering what happened to My List of Shallowness II, the female version of my male list. Next post, I promise:)

But today I'm going to give short personal reviews on two movies: New :Fame (2009) Old: Michael Clayton (2008)

I went to see the new installment of Fame on Monday. The movie is based on the original movie that came out over a decade ago and the critically acclaimed television series that followed and is about a group of teens who attend a top performing arts high school in New York City. 

I give the movie a grade of C-. While the music and talent was awesome there was no real plot to the story. Things happened to the kids here and there, there were great musical performances and it ended. There was no real ultimate story that brought all the events together and the characters were not fully developed at all. You found out bits and pieces about them but you never really get to understand why those bits and pieces effected them the way they did.  Too short and too mainstream. But the music and talent of the actors were excellent!

Now, as you may know I love George Clooney! He's a darne good actor! And I fell in love with his movie Michael Clayton when I first seen it on Cable television. So, when I saw that it was on sale for $5.00 at Target I had to buy it! Lucky me! Since then (last Saturday) I've watched it like 5 times already. Superb movie! It follows the life of Michael Clayton, a "janitor" for a top NY law firm. It's his job to make the conspiracies of the firm and its individual members go away. He's great at it, but years of cleaning others' dirty and sometimes horrific laundry has taken its toll on Mr. Clayton. It's a gritty drama and a must see. I was very upset when the There Will Be Blood lead actor (sorry can't think of his name right now even though I respect that he's a well known actor) won the Oscar over George. I don't know about anyone else, but to me There Will Be Blood was a terrible movie. I watched it and I still don't know what it was about. It didn't seem to follow a basic story line except the character drilled oil and became rich from it, of course, and went crazy in the process. Only I can't pinpoint exactly when he went crazy and the point of the movie. And it won best leading actor. Hmmmm. But then Notes On a Scandal was thought to be Oscar worthy so I rented it to find out it's about a woman who sleeps with a 15 year old boy. How moving. Yeah. I don't care for the Oscars and don't know why that show or its award is so respected when horrible movies are often praised and actors are insulted when they win awards for horrible performances when they had performed masterfully in other movies that weren't even recognized. (i.e Denzel; Training Day wasn't that good at all) 

But, I digress.  I give Fame a C- and Michael Clayton an A+. I recommend that you see Fame if you like to watch musical performances but not for the actual story. Rent Michael Clayton if you like gritty dramas and poignant storylines.

Til next time,

Lew