Q: The story by Norman Maclean is a masterwork; Redford's film is a mediocrity. He adds banal scenes of the Maclean brothers going over a falls and of them double-dating in a seedy bar that were not even hinted at in the story. The cipher, Brad Pitt, trying to play the charismatic Paul Maclean, a genius outdoors, proves either risible or depressing, depending on what the original story meant to you. Some of the fly casting scenes are beautiful. Also, Tom Skerritt as the father and Craig Sheffer as Norman are strong and masculine, as men were once expected to be. None of the women make an impression in the film, which is regrettable, because Maclean loved the women in his story and made this clear, even poetic. OPTIONS:
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A: negative
Q: Visually disjointed and full of itself, the director apparently chose to seek faux-depth to expand a 5 minute plot into an 81 minute snore-fest.

The moments that work in this film are VERY limited, and the characters don't even feel real. How could you feel invested in a main protagonist who was made so surreal?

Substantively AND stylistically, it all feels like a quirky dream sequence. Jarring irregular camera work, awkward silences and gaps in action, and what's with the little spider image crawling across the screen? Whoever thought of that needs to go back to film school. It added no meaning, just cheese, and didn't even stylistically work with the rest of the film (assuming the film even had a style, which is a close call). What a flop. OPTIONS:
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A: negative
Q: "Cut" is a film about some film students making a film. It's very much in the "Scream" mold, an ironic, self-referential horror flick which, for me at least, falls down because for all its irony, it's still just a bad horror film, same as the films its referring to.

But it was not without its charms. Well, one charm anyway. Molly Ringwald was fantastic as the spoilt, bitchy American actress hating every minute of working with the amateur Australian film crew. She was so convincing that its tempting to believe it wasn't an act, although everyone involved with "Cut" says she was lovely to work with. :-)

Seriously, every scene of her pouting, sulking or snapping was great. Everyone else, however, wavered between being OK and being terribly wooden.

Anyway, "Cut" has some laughs, a few buckets of gore (some of it surprisingly gruesome), and ultimately is.. just another bad horror film. OPTIONS:
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A: negative
Q: To those who say that this movie deserves anything below the unflaunting grace that it showed, I disagree. This is an amazing documentary about a shocking day.

IMDB asks us to rate this movie. I beg you to consider the fact that the documentary was made. The courage that it took to shoot this film is most notable. We find that the two brothers are split up when that moment happened. They continue to document the bravest of the brave without knowing about their own and eachother's safety. To judge whether it's nobler to shoot a video of that tragedy or to save the lives as those amazing, amazing firefighters did is not mine to answer. I just know that in 30 years, a class full of children will not know one without the other.

I submit a wholehearted 10. This is why the art of filming was created! To capture the natural emotion that real life offers. You can keep your kung-fu junk. Romance is cute. Action will never reach this level. This movie, 9/11, will be timeless in that it did not glorify itself. It didn't have a sneak-peek. It didn't have all of the blatant vanities that a lion's share of the many movies on the many screens blare. It had class, composure, substance, and it had a record of the day that changed the modern face of America and even the world. It spoke of things inescapable to the eye of the camera. Please consider this movie, as it itself proclaims, a stirring tribute to all of those who fell because of the free, beautiful name of America.

How can you give anything less to a movie that shows, not embellishes, the natural bravery of real people acting in unreal times. I love "The Godfather" but "9/11" is forever a different kind of movie as this is now a different kind of world. It is art without question or questions.

jf OPTIONS:
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A: positive