Reviews by SJMJ91

This was really thrilling. It is the first official superhero film and that is why it is called the classic superhero film. I did really like this film but I dont really like Superman/Clark Kents character because he isnt only a hero but he doesnt really have a personal slide in his personality like heroes like Batman and Spider-Man have. I dont think the name nor costume are catchy at all but I did like this film though.


Christopher Reeve delivers a descent performance as Clark Kent/Superman. After seeing this and Superman Returns, I do think that Christopher Reeve is better than Brandon Routh as Superman. He was a really big man with a heroic style which was almost perfect for Superman. Gene Hackman certainly makes a better portrayal of Lex Luthor than Kevin Spacey does because Hackman is really good at playing that sort of character. Spacey is good as a villain aswell. I think that both of their villainous characters in the past have been really evil. It was a battle of two different characters in two different films played by those two actors but as villains: Gene Hackman in his Oscar winning performance in Unforgiven and Kevin Spacey in his Oscar winning performance in The Usual Suspects. Marlon Brando made me laugh in this film because I have never seen him before with white hair and also I have seen him looking really old (The Godfather), really young (A Streetcar Named Desire, On The Waterfront) and bald (Apocalypse Now). It is quite strange to see Marlon Brando in a superhero film but he will be remembered really well for being in this first ever superhero film along with his other previous films. Margot Kidder was a better Lois Lane than Kate Bosworth was.


Richard Donner wasn't really a well known director before he directed this film. He was well known after doing the first two Superman films and the four Lethal Weapon films and The Goonies too. I personally thought that Bryan Singers direction in Superman Returns. The script was good. It is like the Batman (1989) of Superman films. This disappointed me a bit because I thought it was quite a slow story and went on for a bit too long just like Superman Returns did.


I think it is the late Christopher Reeves best film of the ones I have seen from him so far. An awesome Gene Hackman film but liked his acting more in Unforgiven. I really liked the late Marlon Brando in this one but my least favourite performance of the ones I have seen of him so far. I dont really like Superman but this is the best of the franchise of the ones I have seen so far and will probably be the best of them all. November 5

I knew I was going to like Stand By Me because of it being a Stephen King novel but I had absolutely no idea that I would love it as much as I did. Stand By Me is a really grand experiencing adventure for the four kids within the film. What I loved most about this film was that it showed how fun experiencing new things can really be and how also I love going camping and walking through forests and experiencing things in the outside world. The title comes from a song with the same title by Ben E. King (which plays during the closing credits) and is based on the novella The Body by Stephen King. The film was just too amazing to describe. Personally, Stand By Me is a film/book of true friendship and what friends really are. This is probably the most different book from Stephen King because King has always done books of science fiction, horror and thrillers whereas this one is like a real drama. It does have a similar taste to The Treasure OF Sierra Madre to it apart from that they aren't there to find any gold but to try and find a possibly dead child. This film was pretty funny at times mostly with the "lardass" story. It was also rather tense especially with the gang. I have to say that this is a very predictable story and you can sort of tell what is going to happen but it is a story on great friendship and powerful bonds between characters. I don't know any other actor in this apart from obviously the late River Phoenix.


River was an actor with such great talent at such a young age. He's a bit like Heath Ledger. His death hit everybody just like Heath Ledger's death did. River was only 15 or 16 years old in Stand By Me as Chris Chambers with such a realistic helping hand towards his friends and is a very understanding person as well. He is like a real tough guy at least at the start of the film anyway and as their adventure carries on he becomes a bit softer. I liked the other three young boys who portrayed Chris's other companions. Will Wheaton as the sensitive lad Gordie, Corey Feldman as flamboyant Teddy and Jerry O'Connell as scaredy-cat Vern. They are all very brave kids especially because they are only in their mid teens and are going through the woods to try and find a dead child.


The directing was absolutely fantastic from Rob Reiner. He made it a real film for adults but regarding the teens relationships and how they behave around each other that is rather good for teenagers because it helps build relationships to a slightly higher and more personal level. I was reconsidering in calling this film a road film but I am unsure if Reiner didn't direct this film it wouldn't be. It is a film that only he could have directed.His directing was really awesome with that really clever, brand new standard of adventure drama films. The script was very good with a very original theme of murder mystery and of friendship.


I do love Stephen King's novels because he is my favourite novelist. My favourite King novel is The Green Mile but I do have The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, Misery and now Stand By Me as five-star Stephen King novels. This one is the least best of those ones but a bloody masterpiece! I think it's River Phoenix's best performance. R.I.P. River Phoenix. Stand By Me stands its rightful place on my favourite films list, on my top adventure films, one of my favourite road films and even one of my favourite films of the 1980s. Love it!!

Spider-Man 2 is in my opinion one of the greatest sequels of all time. To me, Spider-Man 2 is The Dark Knight out of the Spider-Man franchise. Spider-Man 2 is the most action packed and most interesting story of the trilogy. We didn't see so much of how dark Spider-Man can be but how being Spider-Man can affect Peter's personal life. This one didn't become as much of a blockbuster as the first one and didn't earn as much money but it still was one obviously. This film had the best of everything than the other two films. It is quite strange because three of the superhero franchises there has been the second/sequel one turning out the best i.e. Spider-Man 2 is the best Spider-Man trilogy, The Dark Knight is the best of the Batman films and X2 is the best of the X-Men trilogy.


Once again Tobey Maguire delivers the literally perfect performance as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Maguire is the perfect actor because Peter is a nerd, a bit of a heartthrob and a quite hard-hitting sort of actor as well which is what Maguire has and is really good at doing. Peter begins to deeply suffer because of his breaking down relationships with both love interest Mary Jane Watson and best friend Harry Osborn. Kirsten Dunst isn't really a very good Mary Jane Watson. I couldn't really feel her suffering mind tricks regarding Peter very much. Dunst is quite a popular actress nowadays but in my opinion, she doesn't really deserve to be completely. If she wasn't in Jumanji nor the Spider-Man trilogy she wouldn't have earned as much credit. James Franco is good as Harry. Harry doesn't become very good friends with Peter like he used to because Spider-Man "killed" his father Norman Osborn who was the Green Goblin and also Harry despises Peter being a friend and photographer to Spider-Man for the Daily Bugle. Rosemary Harris' acting as May Parker really gets on my nerves for some unknown reason. Alfred Molina was good as Otto Octavious/Doc Ock but he didn't quite give the full fearful effect to the viewers inside the villainous character of when he becomes Doc Ock.


Spider-Man is the best MARVEL comic book character ever. Spider-Man 2 is the best MARVEL film and I don't think anything else will beat it to that spot. It is my second favourite film of 2004 after Closer, it is my third favourite comic book adapted film ever after The Dark Knight and Sin City. Spider-Man 2 is definitely one of my favourite science fiction films. This one is better than the first one which was awesome but not better than sequel and far better than the extremely disappointing Spider-Man 3.

This became an ultimate phenomenon when it was released because Spider-Man is probably the most common and probably the best MARVEL comic book hero ever. Spider-Man didn't disappoint once and I am proud to say that. Spider-Man is the best blockbuster of the summer 2002 and that was a great year for blockbusters. Spider-Man is the start of a great trilogy filled with drama, imaginitive science fiction and intense action thrill rides too. I didn't see this or the second one at the cinema but on DVD and I wish I had done now because they would have been a really brilliant experience. I did see Spider-Man 3 at cinema so I did have a bit of taste at it.


Tobey Maguire's start as Peter Parker/Spider-Man was a fantastic one because he plays the character so well almost perfectly. I underestimated him at first because I didn't know he was the one playing Spider-Man. I thought it was Willem Dafoe (who is really Norman Osborn/Green Goblin) but Maguire was fantastic and the best choice for Peter and that is a simple fact. Kirsten Dunst didn't earn very much credit for her role as Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man franchise but I don't think she is that bad as her because she showed her friendship and her love for Peter. James Franco was good as Harry Osborn who is Peter's best friend. Harry is like a back-up to Peter because Peter is a victim of constant bullying and Harry sort of protects him with his problems. Willem Dafoe blew me away as Norman because he was a very villainous and sinister character to watch. He was a very believable character and one that you shouldn't ever cross and have any ad thoughts about him.


Sam Raimi has directed the first Spider-Man film absolutely brilliantly with a sense of drama, slight comedy and also very hard-hitting thrilling action too. Raimi is a great director of science fiction films. I really hope he doesn't direct another franchise especially a fantasy one. Spider-Man is his franchise.


Spider-Man is one of the biggest blockbusters of the decade and nothing or nobody can take that away from it. Spider-Man is a dramatic, intense and often romantic film that is very enjoyable and is like an epic science fiction film. This is better than Spider-Man 3 but not as good as Spider-Man 2 but the first Spider-Man film does deserve to be one of the best comic book adaptations of all time. September 6,

This film went beyond my expectations. Sophie's Choice is an inspiring, beautiful yet tragic story that has become a memorable film. It is quite gut retching because this film brought back the horror of the Holocaust. Regarding the Holocaust, it wasn't so much about death but about slavery in the Holocaust and about self-emotional torture. It is a story that can make people stand tall and stand against those people who tell them different. It is a film about making decision because as you watch it, you will find that you have to make your own decisions in life sooner or later in which Sophie does in this film. I was really impressed with the flashbacks and how well they were filmed. The cinematography on those scenes were absolutely incredible.


Meryl Streep delivers in my opinion one of the best leading female performances of all time. Meryl's Polish accent was absolutely fantastic for an American. I must say that when she was younger in the 70s and 80s she was gorgeous! She has always been an actress who always brings tears to her own eyes when playing a character as well as the audiences. Her performance in Kramer Vs. Kramer is still really hard to beat in my opinion but her performance in Sophie's Choice comes close. Meryl Streep is probably the only actress who can portray any kind of character and she once again proved that. This was the acting debut of Kevin Kline. Kline portrayed a character that in my opinion has a slight split personality because one minute he's sweet and the next he is abusive and a bit of a bully. Peter MacNicol sort of drove me a bit crazy as Stingo because he made him seem like a complete idiot and the way Peter was portraying Stingo in the scenes with Sophie made him look like a lost puppy who needs an owner so to speak. His performance was in my opinion rather disappointing. Kline and Streep were amazing obviously but wasn't keen on MacNicol at all.


The directing was very powerful and very gut retching just like the whole film is in general. To be honest, I think that Sophie's Choice would have been a good film by Roman Polanski or Clint Eastwood because they have both done very dark stories and true story ones too apart from that Sophie's Choice was a novel. Pakula did a pretty job which actually did surprise me. It is a very original direction based on that theme of film. I am always so fascinated by how scripts from adapted sources such as novels, plays, other films etc are made into a film because most of the time they end up great successful ones. For example, Lord Of The Rings surprised me and so did The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. Sophie's Choice is in my opinion one of the most life experiencing films of all time.


It is also one of the most underrated Meryl Streep performances even though it did win her a second Oscar out of 15 nominations she's ever had. Her best film is still Kramer Vs. Kramer but Sophie's Choice is her best performance in a leading role though. Kevin Kline's performance was really good obviously but his performances will never ever beat his hilarious performance in A Fish Called Wanda. Sophie's Choice is a film that is beautiful as well as heartbreaking and has a brief meaning upon life. It is an absolutely incredible story that lives the horror of the 1900s that was the Holocaust.

I wanted to watch this film mostly because it stars my favourite actress Helena Bonham Carter and the story sounded rather interesting. For the first hour I felt rather bored but I wanted to try and stick with the rest of it and see if it makes a difference in which I did. I am actually glad because it had a good heartfelt ending that sends a very important message: always notice your children and notice what their biggest dreams and ambitions are. This emotional story relives what England fans must have felt when we won the World Cup in 1966. There was quite a few disappointments in this film but the ending made a difference by drifting up an extra star from it being 2-stars up to 3 stars.


I found Eddie Marsan to be a rather stupid actor to be in a film like this especially with a ridiculous and weak character to portray. I did really like him a lot in Happy-Go-Lucky which could lead him to an Oscar nomination this year. Manny Reubens is a really weak character that I didn't get to grips with at all. As much as I love Helena Bonham Carter, her acting in Sixty Six was good but wasn't brilliant but there was some quite emotional moments that occurred in this film which is both common and rare (if you get what I mean) from an actress like Helena Bonham Carter. This is one of her most civil characters she has ever portrayed but it is one of her weakest performances as well. Gregg Sulkin was ok as Bernie Reubens but he sort of irritated me a lot because of the way he speaks when he plays the character and the facial expressions he pulls as well.


The directing was good involving the World Cup final with England and West Germany. There was quite a lot of well conceived directing used from Paul Weiland involving the message this film tries to send to people all around the world. It doesn't seem to do that very well because it is a very underrated film that wasn't released properly. The script was good involving the World Cup final 1966 but the rest of the script involving the young boy with his passion was rather lame I thought. This isn't a good film and it isn't a bad film either.


I have said this many times about films with a similar sort of rating and thoughts about it, it is just a piece of entertainment. It is nothing serious that could effect new ways of cinema and it isn't a stupid waste of your times. I wouldn't really recommend the film but if people want to watch it, I wouldn't be able to complete persuade them not to.

I watched it on live British TV when it first came out on Christmas Day 2007 and I simply loved it. It was on TV again on Christmas Eve 2008 and I loved it even more. I love it just as much as the full length first two films. It had that original taste and brought back the charadcters we love to see. To me and maybe most people this film recycled so to speak Shrek The Third. Thank goodness Shrek The Halls was released the same year as Shrek The Third was because to me Shrek The Halls is the 2007 Shrek film. Yes, Shrek The Halls is a short but it had that taste of the chemistry between the characters that rose back again particularly from Shrek 2. Christmas is the perfect theme for a Shrek film because some Christmases end in disaster where this film starts to be for Shrek.


This film feels a bit like a sequel to Shrek The Third because they said it was the ogre babies first Christmas and also both were released in the same year. This film sends a very important message: you don't celebrate Christmas in a particular way, you just go ahead and do it. Shrek brings that really lovable personality that we love to see every time he comes to the screen. His grumpy and mean yet rather sweet personality is perfect for the Christmas occasion. He doesn't know how to celebrate Christmas let alone what it actually is so he just buys a book for "Christmas Idiots" which was recommended by the local librarian. Donkey returns to his original, stubborn and annoying self. Much to Shrek's despise, Donkey wants Christmas to be like some sort of party about Christmas. Fiona's character was good but she seemed like a whole new person now because she was a princess and now she is married to an ogre with 3 babies where they live near a swamp in a forest. The director did an excellent job into making this fantastic for the traditional Christmas season. It brought levels of really high Christmas spirit which I absolutely love. I think the main reason why I loved this one as much as Shrek 1 and 2 was because there were tons of great and clever jokes within it especially the jokes about Christmas. Most of the jokes came from Donkey about Shrek, Santa or anything/anybody else.


This isn't as good as Shrek 1 and 2 but it is still a bloody hilarious film that is far better than completely flawed Shrek The Third. This is a fantastic short to the greatest animated franchise of all time. This is one of my top Christmas films ever but I love It's A Wonderful Life, The Grinch, Nightmare Before Christmas, Home Alone and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation more. Lets hope that Shrek 4 and 5 will be good and hope they don't turn into disaster like Shrek The Third did.

Shine is an extremely underrated Australian film that is lovable, quite depressing and a bit funny as well. This film teaches no matter how hard or how bad things become in life for someone it is never too late to rise above it and to fix it again. It some ways, Shine is quite a hard film to watch but it can be a feel-good film too. This film made me feel all of those things in all different ways. It is a film that I think everybody should appreciate for how effective it can be for all sorts of different people whether they have suffered from a nervous breakdown before or not. I haven't seen very many Australian films but this is the best one I have seen so far. It takes a really good Aussie film to beat Shine to that spot at the current time.


Geoffrey Rush's performance is indeed very memorable and is a very hard performance to forget because he portrayed David with such power, emotion and even slight comedy involved. One thing that did surprise me was that Geoffrey Rush was only in the film for about 40 minutes out of the 106 minutes duration. Rush proved that he is the only actor who could have portrayed David almost perfectly especially after winning an Oscar for his performance. I was rather fascinated by how fast Rush was speaking when playing David and how precise he got his lines and made us feel the emotion inside David while talking at such a fast speed. David goes through a lot in his life. As a child and a teenager he was emotionally bullied by his father who pressurised him into succeeding in every single thing he does. Whenever he doesnt his father beats him up. When in London, he hits the big time where he ends up suffering the breakdown during the playing of the piano during a show. His life was what we thought dashed when he entered the institution but David discovered and so did we that his life became better when he was there because he wasn't under the pressure of his father. I liked Noah Taylor's performance as David as a teenager and young adult. He sort of made David look like he was mentally retarded but more severely than I was expecting before I saw this film.


The directing of this film is quite hard to describe in my mind. Well, what I can fully explain about it is that it's beautifully directed in different ways that shows different feelings that some films have. I can say what the directing was a bit like when I saw it. It reminded me a lot of the ways films like A Beautiful Mind and The Piano were directed.


Shine is the third best of the 5 Best Picture 1996 nominees after Fargo and the actual winner The English Patient. Shine is now my fourth favourite film of 1996 after Trainspotting, Fargo and The English Patient. As far as I'm concerned Shine is Geoffrey Rush's most memorable and best performance. He will be remembered for Pirates Of The Caribbean as well but Shine is his ultimate performance. Shine is a beautiful, inspiring and depressing story that is just too brilliant to hate. Shine is one of the best bio-pics of all time as well.

This is another surprise from Danny Boyle. I had the same feelings for Shallow Grave as I did for The Beach before I watched them and I was surprised both ways. Shallow Grave is a masterpiece that is filled with suspense, black-comedy and gruesome violence. It is a film with twists and turns in it. What I loved about this film was that it was all of those things and it is one of those stories that sort of tells a tale or a true story. To be honest, I had low expectations for Shallow Grave because it didn't seem that good but I was dead wrong. The title slightly put me off it to start with because it sounded like a story that would freak me out and that it would be a typical horror film but it isn't at all.


Ewan McGregor's acting debut in Shallow Grave was absolutely fantastic. Two of his film collaborations with Danny Boyle have been absolutely awesome! I obviously prefer Trainspotting over Shallow Grave. His performance as Alex Law was real bad-ass at times but rather serious at the same time. After seeing Trainspotting and Shallow Grave I have absolutely no idea what lead to McGregor starring in the prequel Star Wars trilogy. Alex is a journalist who lives with his two friends David and Juliet. Alex is the most dependable one of the three and he cooks all of their food for them but he is the one who leads the three to bury their new flatmate in a forest. Christopher Eccleston's performance as David was a very mysterious and a rather dangerous one because after doing the deed that was to bury their flatmate even though they didn't kill him and he mysteriously builds his own little den in the loft of their flat. That leads to very severe consequences. Kerry Fox and the character she portrayed Juliet reminded me a lot of the way Jamie Lee Curtis portrayed Wanda Gershwitz in A Fish Called Wanda because she was a real charmer and almost irrisistable to the men around her and both have little plots up their sleeves. It is really good and really silly at the same time because one event affects the friendship between the three of them and the consequences that occur.


After seeing this now, Danny Boyle has become a favourite director of mine and is the best British director after Alfred Hitchcock. He still hasn't done one bad film yet. His work on Shallow Grave led to his work on Trainspotting and 28 Days Later because of the black-comedy, suspense, serious story and also the realistic violence involved. I think Shallow Grave is Boyle's most underrated film which makes his outstanding debut of this film one of the best film director debuts of all time. The script is very original because it is totally typical from Boyle. All of the scripts in his films are original apart from Slumdog Millionaire. Most scripts are original because they have a lot of swearing and violence involved. For example, Coen films like Fargo and O Brother Where Art Thou? If not Danny Boyle, Shallow Grave would have been a great film from the Coen brothers. The Coen film Shallow Grave is slightly similar to is Blood Simple.


Ewan McGregor's debut in Shallow Grave is extremely underrated and is in my opinion one of the best debuts of all time. Shallow Grave is my third favourite Danny Boyle film after Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire and especially Trainspotting which is of course his best film. I underestimated this film too much to start with and now after watching it, I can't believe that I did and don't understand why. Shallow Grave is another fantastic masterpiece that was released in 1994 and that is one of the best years in film of all time. Boyle has created a masterpiece that I would definitely call one of the best British thrillers of all time as well as one of the best British films of all time too.

Seven is without a single doubt in my mind one of the darkest thrillers of all time. It is absolutely amazing with a really amazing cast. It is a dark mystery-thriller that turned out a masterpiece. It is like Zodiac when it comes to that. Seven is a film that made me feel really thrilled by which is very rare of a film to do so. It is a rather horrifying film to watch because of the gruesome murders and the solving of the murders on the seven deadly sins Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy and Wrath. This film involves the seven deadly sins but it would be a really big sin for anybody to miss this film. It is probably the best mystery film of the 1990s. It is a thriller than I wouldn't say scared me but it is one that sent a few chills down my back when I watched it but was quite a good feeling because it showed how much I enjoyed this film. Like most thrillers, Seven is a really gripping film but in more of a psychological way rather than a violent way. The way Seven is filmed and how dark the story is reminds me a lot of The Silence Of The Lambs which is another reason why I love Seven. It has a great twist at the end of the film that I was horrified at. This really tense psychological thriller stars 4 absolutely fantastic actors. 3 of them are Oscar winners and 1 is a two-time Oscar nominee.


Brad Pitt has delivered a performance that in my mind is one of his best roles. Most people might think that Legends Of The Fall is his breakthrough performance but I think that Seven is. Pitt has been an actor of portraying hard-hitting, aggressive and rather serious characters. When you see him in films like Seven and Fight Club, he sort of acts himself when regarding looks not personality obviously. Morgan Freeman is another extremely talented actor that I always expect awesome performances from. Freeman worked really hard with Brad Pitt and the rest of the cast on this film. I don't think this film would have been good if Fincher wasn't directing and if it didn't star Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey. Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt have brought together two characters that are close friends as well as partners in solving the mystery. I really loved Gwyneth Paltrow's performance as Tracy Mills who is the pregnant girlfriend of Detective David Mills She isn't really that sort of actress to star in a psychological thriller but personally it is a performance from her that shows she can be in a film like Seven in the future. Kevin Spacey is really good as villain John Doe. His performance was a bit like his performance in The Usual Suspects.


After the critically disappointing Alien3, Fincher has created his big breakthrough film. Fincher has always been a talented director of psychological thrillers. His directing in Seven was a big introduction to his other amazing thrillers such as Fight Club, Panic Room and Zodiac. Personally I would have thought that he would have been a good director for The Silence Of The Lambs but that probably wouldn't have been half as good if Fincher did that one. Jonathan Demme who was the director of The Silence Of The Lambs would have been a good director of Seven if not David Fincher. As far as I'm concerned, Fincher is the present Hitchcock apart from Curious Case Of Benjamin Button which is an epic, fantasy, romantic drama. Fincher's collaboration with Brad Pitt is one of my favourite collaborations ever because the three films that they have been in together have turned out to be masterpieces!


Seven is one of my all time favourite thrillers and I am proud to say that. It is David Fincher's third best film after The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and Fight Club. Those two and Seven are the Fincher films that I think everybody would call their favourite. Perhaps Zodiac too. Seven features one of the cleverest psychological thrillers of our time. It has one of the best film twists as well and most powerful endings as well as one of the best starts. Seven is the best film of 1995. It is Brad Pitt's third best film after The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and Fight Club. It is Morgan Freeman's third best performance after The Shawshank Redemption and Million Dollar Baby. It isn't Gwyneth Paltrow's best performance but it is one of the best from her though. Kevin Spacey has delivered another gripping performance and Seven is one of his best too. Seven is one of my favourite films of all time and you will see why when you see it.