Reviews by SJMJ91

What an legendary phenomenon!! Citizen Kane truly is one of the cleverest and most remembered films of all time. It is also one of the greatest films of all time. I thought that this film was absolutely brilliant. It is a masterpiece. I thought that this film was really well brought together and adapted but I have to say that it was a very hard story to follow with all the flashbacks and the different things Kane decides and things like that. This is a drama on how a lot of business men can go through life particularly men who are very rich and are one of the most famous people in all of the USA. Despite the fact that this film is very complex and is like a real mysterious film, it is a very deep and personal story aswell.


Orson Welles delivers an absolutely outstanding performance as Charles Foster Kane. Orson brings the power of Kane onto the screen like no other actor had done before. His acting was probably one of the best from an actor at such a young age. Orson Welles performance is probably the best film acting debut of all time. I am sure that it is probably the greatest directing debut of all time aswell for Orson Welles.


The direction from Orson Welles was absolutely amazing. It is without a doubt the best directing debut of all time. I have always been fascinated by a director directing a film that he/she is the leading role in. For example, Mel Gibson in Braveheart, Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves, Roberto Benigni in Life Is Beautiful and Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby. The screenplay was absolutely amazing. I find that this film would have been either a really good novel or a real life true story. But I think one of the main reasons why people love this film is because of how clever it is written and how well it is adapted together to fit into a story that isnt just a great drama but can be an inspiration to many people around the world.


There are some awesome supporting characters too that make Kane a powerful character. Characters like Susan Alexander Kane, Jerry Thompson, Bertha Anderson, Signor Matiste and Jim W. Gettys. I have only seen Orson Welles in this and The Third Man and he has does great films of the ones I have seen so far. But I think Citizen Kane is his most famous as both director and actor.


The only thing that disappointed it for me was that I thought it was a very confusing and complex story but it was awesome enough to understand. When I first saw it, I got totally lost because it was complex but once I saw it again and remembered the scenes, I loved it second time. Orson Welles has created a film for the ages, a film that is still a masterpiece and one of the best films ever made after over 60 years and a film that some people would closely refer as perfect. It has some of the best characters and it has one of the biggest twists. Not on my favourites list but Citizen Kane does deserve its rightful place as one of the best films of the 1940s and of all time.

I absolutely loved Cinderella Man! It is a masterpiece of sports films and it is that simple. This is the most emotional sport film of all time because it tells the story of a boxer and his wife and three children who are poor and live in a weak and small house. It is emotional because Braddock and his wife struggle to pay the money for their house. I find that this film is the best boxing film since Raging Bull if not the best sports film since then. It was really tense aswell with the boxing matches andwhat the fate of James Braddock was going to be whether he was going to succeed or not. I found it a really beautiful story too because it teaches people of the world what a lot of people who do for their families whether they are rich or poor. It also tells us about what family really is about.


Russell Crowe delivers an absolutely outstanding performance as James J. Braddock. This is one of those sorts of characters that makes Russell Crowe almost perfect for the characters he plays because he is really good at portraying quite aggressive characters and yet emotional aswell which connects his character as Braddock to Maximus Decimus Meridius in Gladiator. His emotional character in this film sort of reminds me of Crowes performance as John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. He should have had an Oscar nomination in this film. I couldn't believe he wasn't. Renée Zellweger delivers in my opinion a rather weak performance as Mae Braddock because the only things that Renée did in that film was weep and weep and weep and weep and weep throughout the whole film. I know that she is meant to act all emotional and everything but I just dont think that she really showed it that much really. Paul Giamatti delivers an absolutely outstanding performance as Joe Gould. His performance was the best from the whole film. He was a typical boxing trainer who really supported Braddock to earn what he needed. These sorts of characters are absolutely brilliant for a supporting character because they support the leading male/female to make the film really good. His character reminds me of Mickey Goldmill in Rocky apart from that I think that Gould is a more powerful and serious character to watch. Giamatti deserved his Oscar nomination. The winner should have been Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain.


The direction was awesome from Ron Howard. He has done a lot of awesome films that are all very hearfelt and emotion like obviously this, A Beautiful Mind (which also starred Crowe), How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Apollo 13 and Splash. He directed this really well but not as good direction as Martin Scorsese in Raging Bull. But Howard adapted a boxing film that re-lives the past boxing spirit so to speak and makes it so realistic when it was in the 1930s too. The scripts was really good too but have listened to better sport scripts. This film is very similar to Rocky because Braddocks character is like Rockys character because they are both poor men who want a shot at the World Heavyweight Championship. The only differences are that Braddock was a family man and Rocky wasnt. Also, Braddock was the only real person between the two. This film was different compared to Ron Howards previous films because this is the first sports film he has ever done and has been his most emotional and touching film since A Beautiful Mind.


This is Russell Crowe's third best performance of all time after A Beautiful Mind and Gladiator. Paul Giamattis best performance and a very disappointing Renée Zellweger performance. This film achieved for me as the best boxing film since Raging Bull and is one of the best and most loved films of 2005.

I was unsure what I was going to expect from Chocolat. When I saw it on DVD, I actually really liked it. It was a very cute, intelligent, charming and beautiful story. It was cute and charming because of the chocolates and other things involving chocolate. Besides chocolate, it was a beautiful film on love, friendship, loyalty and commitment. This was a very personal film to watch because Vianne wants her chocolate shop to suceed. You only have to look at the title to work out the subject of the film actually is. Despite how beautiful the film sounds and is, it is a rather depressing story. What I liked most about this film was because it was set in France and the actors all did fine jobs at portraying French characters apart from Juliette Binoche because she is French herself. It is very clear too because the director made it an emotional story not one about chocolate for kids like Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. Chocolat has an absolutely fantastic cast.


Juliette Binoche delivers a performance that truly is incredible. Juliette is really cute anyway but Vianne is a cute character to play and watch. Vianne is a single mother who looks after her young daughter. She opens a shop and when more customers come into the shop, she inadvertently ends up in one of their problems. Juliette seems that heartwarming caring type especially after seeing her Oscar winning performance in The English Patient which makes her in my opinion the perfect choice for Vianne. Now, Judi Dench, what I really love about her is that she always portrays hard, bitter and effective characters and she never disappoints. This one was a slightly softer character compared to Dench's other roles. Her performance as Armanda was very supportive, very persuasive to the character's attention and very powerful. I think Dench always takes acting and the characters she plays rather seriously just like the late Alec Guinness did. Johnny Depp, what can I say? This is the only film that he has been in that has been nominated for Best Picture. Johnny has always had that irresistable "awwww" within him his whole life but he shows it on a very high level here. The costumes he wears are really cool and made him seem like the charmer of France. When you see Johnny as Roux he brings together that life-force so to speak that all women have wanted to see him become. When I saw Roux playing the guitar, Johnny seemed almost like his normal self because he plays the guitar as well as acting.


Lasse Hallström directs this film to be half kids-half adults because of the emotional story and with the chocolate and comedy involved within. Well, we all know what kids are like with chocolat. The script was written from a novel so it made it a bit easier to get the hang on when writing the script and trying to get the audience's attention.


This was in a way quite lucky that it earned a Best Picture nomination. One thing that disappointed me was that it was very slow moving and I didn't get the ending. Juliette Binoche was fantastic but was better in The English Patient. Judi Dench did an awesome job too but liked her more in Notes On A Scandal, Casino Royale and Shakespeare In Love. Not one of Depp's best films but certainly one of his most charming characters. Chocolat is a really good film of 2000 that does deserve to be watched and seen for the viewing pleasure of the story and characters within it.

Chaplin is a film that is a lot like biography films because they are emotional films. It is a film about a man who became a legend in his days. This film was absolutely fantastic. It was really inspiring this film was because there were a lot of emotional years for Chaplin especially during WWII and also because of his personal life with women too. This film made me feel good because Charlie Chaplin is one of my favourite actors and I am really inspired by his work because he makes me laugh. This was a biography film I was so looking forward to because Chaplin and his films are eternal and will always live on. This film was really inspiring as well because when Chaplin (Downey Jr.) is watching the films that he is directing, the film that he directed is the actual real life film with the real Charlie Chaplin in it. That is just amazing! That inspired me a lot! I find this film an extremely underrated biography film that should be watched by everyone. Not only because it is about the life of the late and great Charlie Chaplin but also the highly acclaimed performance from Robert Downey Jr. as Chaplin.


Robert Downey Jr. delivers one of the best performances that I have ever seen. Downey Jr was almost like a clone of Chaplin because of every single way he was performing especially as the Tramp. Downey Jr. walked a lot like Chaplin did as the Tramp and he especially did the humorous stupid slapstick that Charlie used to do in this film. Downey Jr. almost did that perfectly. I think that was the reason why he earned his Oscar nomination not only the acting performance as far as words are concerned. I don't think that Downey Jr. looks like Chaplin at all really but I think the reason why he was cast as Chaplin was because he has that loopy hyper style to his characters, he is quite a small man as Chaplin was and also Downey Jr. is an emotional actor aswell. I was deeply fascinated by Geraldine Chaplin's performance as Hannah Chaplin because Geraldine Chaplins is Charlie Chaplin's real life daughter. It must have been a great honour for Geraldine to portray her own grandmother with the story about her father. Her performance as Hannah Chaplin was absolutely superb and she should have earned Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Kevin Kline made me laugh a lot in this film as he does anyway particularly in his Oscar winning performance A Fish Called Wanda. Anthony Hopkins was good as well. His character in this film was the only character in the film that is fictional.


The direction from Richard Attenborough was awesome. I personally think that Attenborough is an expert of making biography movies especially after the success of the true life story of Mahatma Gandhi. That film is just called Gandhi. Attenborough won an Academy Award for Best Director for that film but I feel he should have been close for Chaplin. The script was good but I do personally think that it could have been better in some of the scenes. This film was very similar compared to biography films but the one biography film that I have seen and really like that I have seen is Gandhi because they are true stories about heroes and their slight downfalls and upraises within their lives. That is where I do find Mahatma Gandhi and Charlie Chaplin quite similar. The only difference is that Chaplin was an comedian, actor and director and Gandhi was a leader of followers of Asia to lead his people into freedom. That is another reason why I find Chaplin similar to Gandhi because it is directed by same person. The only thing that I did find quite disappointing for me was that I don't think it went into great detail with Chaplin's personal life. I did love this film despite that.


This film is probably Robert Downey Jr's most famous performance and is probably favourite performance from him. I do love Downey Jr. in Iron Man. This is my second favourite Richard Attenborough film after Gandhi. Chaplin is an amazing film that deserves to be remembered. I find Chaplin very underrated though.

Cast Away is a film that I thought was just an absolutely outstanding adventure with a real taste for cinema experience and experiences in life as well. Some people might not like Cast Away because they would find it boring or just really slow because Tom Hanks is the only person who actually talks in this film. In my opinion, Cast Away is a film that deserves to be watched not only because of the story but because of the cinematic experience it gives to the viewers. Cast Away is a film that is pretty unpredictable because you don't know what's going to happen to Chuck Noland on that island of whether he survives and escapes the island or whether he dies and starves to death. Cast Away doesn't totally focus on Chuck's business and why he was on the trip it just focuses on what the odds are for him to survive and what the odds are for him to die. This film is pretty intense because you really feel for Chuck and want him to return back normally but you will have to wait and see yourself.


Tom Hanks delivers one of his greatest performances ever! I could deeply feel sorry for Chuck after being the only person stranded on the island and with hardly anything to survive with. Chuck is a time-obsessed FedEx systems analyst who is called away for work while a holiday gathering with relatives. I loved Chuck's character a lot because he was desperate and needed to find every way he could to survive. Some people might find this quite ridiculous but Chuck had a 'friend' with him. It was a volleyball that he called Wilson to keep him company and someone that he could talk to. Tom Hanks creates another character with such a big heart filled with hope, courage and determination. Cast Away is definitely one of Tom Hanks' best performances to date. I liked Helen Hunt as well as Kelly Frears who is Chuck's girlfriend. She shows her deep heartfelt love for Chuck in this film and there are a lot of tears that come out of her eyes which can quite hard for an actor to do.


Robert Zemeckis has always been an amazing director about adventure and experiencing different things in life with different stories. Zemeckis' collaboration with Tom Hanks is another masterful one after Forrest Gump. Zemeckis' work on this film was so powerful it's untrue. I loved every single thing about this film and how it was filmed. Zemeckis' work with Tom Hanks in Cast Away made us really want to understand the character like he wanted us to understand Forrest Gump and what his personal problems are. The script is one I find to be more of an original screenplay than an adapted screenplay because it is a very simple story not a story that you have to dig yourself into to try and understand. The work on this film is phenomenal.


Cast Away is Robert Zemeckis' third best work after Forrest Gump and Back To The Future, it is Tom Hanks' fourth best film after Forrest Gump, The Green Mile and Saving Private Ryan. It is my second favourite film of 2000 after Gladiator. Cast Away is an absolutely amazing cinematic experience that I just loved from start to finish that is based on adventure, hope, bravery and courage. It's a bloody masterpiece!!

Candy is a hearbreaking film that can be quite hard to watch because of the drug addiction and the suffering that Dan and Candy went through. It is a very powerful film from the word "go" when the film started. It was very emotional as well with a very important message. Candy is a film that does have a rather bright title but when you look into it and watch it, it is a very dark story. It is like a couple version of Trainspotting. It is a gut-wretching film with all the pain, suffering and upsets that are featured within this film. I was gripped with this film all the way through without getting bored of it. It shows the beauty of love. They do have arguments and fights quite regularly because I know they love each other.


The acting from both Abbie Cornish and the late Heath Ledger were absolutely amazing. Their top notch performances didn't earn any credit as far as awards are concerned. I could feel the love as well as the confliction between Candy and Dan. Also, because Cornish and Ledger are Australian they are awesome fits for the characters. Also, Geoffrey Rush is Australian. Abbie Cornish portrayed Candy like how Ewan McGregor portrayed Renton in Trainspotting. Cornish was really heartfelt where you could call Candy a "selfish, bitchy whore" and can feel sorry for her because they were both desperate. Because her and her boyfriend Dan are "junkies" she earns their money by sleeping "with men she hates". Her performance made the character so realistic. Heath's performance as Dam was absolutely fantastic as well. Dan is a young man who is a would-be poet who is also addicted to heroin. Heath portrayed Dan like no other actor could. This is another film that showed the talent that Heath really had. To me, both Cornish and Ledger's performance should have been worth or at least been close to an Oscar, Golden Globe or BAFTA nominations. In my book, they are both contenders. The chemistry between the two characters was so powerful it would make you feel really tight in your seat.


Neil Armfield directed this film remarkably with such force that makes it feel like the two characters were real and a new type of film had been born. If a director like Danny Boyle or Spike Jonze directed it, it might've been a lot like any of their films and how they make them. The only thing that was a bit flawed was that there were different events going on at the same time which was a bit too much. Also I didn't fully understand the ending and I think it left quite a few unanswered questions.


Overall, Candy is a disturbing, romantic and beautiful film that deserves more than one viewing from everybody. This is a very underrated Heath Ledger performance. This is a third masterpiece from him. I loved his acting once again in Candy but his acting is better in Brokeback Mountain and especially The Dark Knight. I think Candy is the first Abbie Cornish film I have seen and I am going to watch some more films from her after her really impressive performance. I will definitely watch Candy again in the future and it will be worth 1 hour 40 minutes just as it will be worth yours too.

Bruce Almighty is one of those films that is very clever, very silly and very entertaining. It was a silly story, yes, but I just loved the characters and the story in general. Bruce Almighty is a film that some people would watch in religious studies either at high school, college or university. I watched it about 3 times when I was at high school and I still really like it. This film had a lot of slapstick and very funny jokes especially what Bruce does when he earns God's powers. My favourite scene and funniest scene in the whole film has to be where Evan Baxter is on live TV and Bruce sort of possesses him to do humiliating things like a squeaky voice, speaking gibberish and farting. To me, this is a really good example for studying religions and about God.


Jim Carrey was bloody hilarious as Bruce Nolan. Bruce is just an ordinary guy who works for TV and lives with his girlfriend Grace and pet dog Sam. Things in life go uneasy for Bruce because he gets very stressed out with his job and is "unfairly treated" and "ignored" by God and yells at the sky. Things change for Bruce when he meets God himself. When you see Bruce you will discover that he is a typical Jim Carrey character. Bruce is a rather serious character as well as a hilarious idiot. He is hilarious when he is God and when he isn't God because it's Jim Carrey and he is always funny. Morgan Freeman was good as God. Some people have said to me "Why is a black actor playing a black God?" Basically racism against Morgan. This is the question: "Who knows who or what God is?" We don't know so some people can't really comment about that. Jennifer Aniston was good but didn't quite bring and comedy into the relationship she has with Bruce. Jennifer has always made me laugh in the films she has been in the past such as Along Came Polly but I couldn't feel and comedy or very much emotion coming out of her very much. Steve Carell was really hilarious in that one scene involving the TV.


Tom Shadyac directs this film really well. He made it a lot like a story with some drama but mostly with hilarious moments and rather crude jokes. It was directed like it was very typical of Jim Carrey as I have already said. The script was good for just family fun and entertainment. It was written like it was made for young kids except when Bruce says "f***ers" on live TV.


Bruce Almighty is one of Jim Carrey's top films. I love The Grinch, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events just as much. It isn't one of the top Morgan Freeman or Jennifer Aniston films though. It is one of my favourite films that are just for entertainment but not one of my favourite films of all time.

This is an absolutely fantastic classic romantic comedy. It was a story that is really funny, very romantic and rather dramatic. This is a very beautiful film with a big heart and with a story that does appear like a chick flick but it is a film like Pretty Woman, Notting Hill, My Fair Lady and Roman Holiday. It is one of those classic romantic comedies that will certainly be remembered and a film that young kids could watch. It is one of my top romantic comedies of all time.


Audrey Hepburn's performance was absolutely fantastic as Holly Golightly. She really does looks absolutely gorgeous in the dresses she wears which are probably the main purpose of the character. I believe that Holly Golightly's type of character leads to Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. Holly behaves like a real lady with the dresses, hats etc. Her performance was pure entertainment which was really good and funny about it. George Peppard was really good as Paul 'Fred' Varjak because he was that typical charming type of actor who could portray that kind of character. He was a man that Holly couldn't take her eyes off and she needed to sort of dig her claws into him and take him but not in a villainous way.


Blake Edwards directs it like a classic romantic comedy that was made before the 1960s like It Happened One Night and Romany Holiday. Edwards brings after 30 years a film that delivers the classics previous but Breakfast At Tiffany's is a classic nowadays and films like Pretty Woman relive those sorts of films.


This is one of the best films of the 1960s, it is one of the best romantic comedies of all time. Audrey Hepburn's performance was fantastic in this as well as My Fair Lady but her best film is Breakfast At Tiffany's. It is a classic that is like a family film because of the really good characters. It is a classic that will always be remembered.

This film really touched me because of the upsetting twist that occurs with William Wallace and his wife when his wife is murdered by a group of English soldiers. This affects Wallace's life forever and he sort of becomes like obsessed with war and wanting to get like revenge on the English for what happened to his wife and also to the Scots people too. This film taught me a lot that some wars are for a ridiculous and a heartless reason which is what WWII was like. It's like Adolf Hitler was killing innocent people who had done nothing wrong at all. Well, I am English but in 14th century, I admit the English were cold hearted bastards. This film sort of made me feel ashamed in slight ways that I am British but there are some other reasons why I am proud to be British. This film really inspired me because it teaches us about freedom and not to treat people with such disrespect.


Mel Gibson delivers a satisfactory performance as William Wallace. I personally believe that Mel Gibson is better as a director rather than an actor. Mel Gibson really looked great as William Wallace but I wish his acting was better. He did act a very fierce and deadly man but I personally dont think he acted very emotional to his character. William Wallace's character is very similar to Gladiator's Maximus Decimus Meridius. I liked Sophie Marceau too as Princess Isabelle.


Mel Gibson has become a really good filmmaker after he has made two amazing epic films. I loved Braveheart and Apocalypto. I find the make-up in this film very similar to the make-up in Apocalypto. I find that the action was quite similar apart from that this is a war film and that Apocalypto isnt.


This film has become one of the greatest epic and war films of all time as well as one of the greatest history/biography films of all time. It is certainly on my list of that. This film shows us how some people may react to losing someone/something that you love so dearly that you could die for. This film achieved a lot of things for me that every epic film must need but the only disappointing thing for me was the acting. Braveheart will always have its rightful place as one of the greatest epic and war films of all time just like other similar epics like Gladiator, Troy and 300.

Blue Velvet is a story that is very bizarre indeed but a story that I think everybody would really like because of how dark the story is. It is a very disturbing film because an ear is found in a field. The ear is a very deep effect on not just the murder investigation but also the characters. It deeply affects their lives as well. The classic scene is definitely the scene where Jeffrey was going to a woman called Dorothy's flat and he found her there. She makes him strip naked and performs an act of fellatio on him while sticking a knife at him. That is a very crude scene but a very realistic scene. The way this film was made was very well done because it is a really dark, mind-blowing thriller that is probably one of Lynch's darkest films so far. It was a very hard film to understand at first but once I got into the film after about 30 minutes I started to really enjoy it. The way the opening credits rolled was the same way the ending credits rolled with blue velvet curtains. That was an introduction to what the two words mean put together. It shows actual blue velvets to start with but when curtains opened the Blue Velvet film began and it did the same with the end. The curtains closed and it finished. Isabella Rossellini was really good as Dorothy Vallens because she was obviously a very mixed up woman with a few problems. Isabella made her quite weird looking even though that is part of the character anyway. Her performance as Dorothy was really weird as well as powerful.


Kyle MacLaughan's performance as Jeffery Beaumont was awesome as well because he was like an innocent victim until he spotted the ear in the field and he is suddenly part of the case. He takes the ear to the police which leads to his scenes with Dorothy. He is like a rookie and a trainee in the case of the murdered person. Dennis Hopper's performance as Frank Booth was the best out of all of them because he was really good at playing that cold, foul-mouthed, violent and sociopath to his personality. He is a very fearful villain. He is also sexually screwed up because he had different types of sex with Dorothy whenever he wanted to. The acts are all very crude which is very dark of course. He even has orgasms with rage and pleasure at the same time which is very weird. I haven't seen Dennis Hopper in any film at all yet but he was really good as Frank though.


David Lynch directed this film like it was very important for the audience as well as himself because his previous film Dune which turned out to be a critical failure. He wanted it to be a more personal story which a somewhat type of characters to his 1977 film Eraserhead which was his first film. This is a very typical Lynch film for quite a few different reasons and they are because it is dark, rather bizarre and a story with a powerful development of characters. Those three facts are the main reasons why I turned out to love this one and can I be blamed? No! The script was really awesome. Lynch had two different drafts of the script before filming but he finally concluded to write an absolutely amazing script that didn't have one single flaw. This is probably the most creative script he has ever written.


David Lynch has created another modern piece of art. Unfortunately Blue Velvet isn't my favourite Lynch film but it is one of his best and is certainly one of the best crime thrillers ever. I prefer The Elephant Man and Mulholland Drive of the ones I have seen from Lynch thus far. Blue Velvet is definitely one of the best films of the 1980s. Also, Blue Velvet has one of the greatest scripts I have ever listened to as well.