A one girl show

Juno (2007)

I've got lots of recommendations to watch this one and seeing it cleared tons of awards from various festivals and award shows I was interested to see what the fuss was all about. Well it indeed turned out to be a nice little movie with a bit more into it than it's feelgood surface. First of all the most notable, Ellen Page deserved all the hype she got from this one as she was just brilliant. Too bad the same can't be said about the other young actors and actresses as they are just about average at their best. But that doesn't matter much as it's a one girl show. The character was easy to relate to, even thou I'm not young nor a girl, and that was the strong point of this movie. So when you put that character through this kind of polished realism it works quite well. The story was a bit of a mix with some really brilliant stuff and some quite cheesy bits too. If nothing else at least the The Wizard of Gore and Dario Argento discussion scene melted the heart of this old gorehound. The movie had a good mood and I was certainly entertained. Even thou it raises some good issues, some of them were handled a bit too superficially for my taste. I wouldn't exactly agree with all the hype this movie got, but it's still a good movie and worth watching.
76%

Smoke 'em if you have 'em

Thank You for Smoking (2005)

Being a graphics designer I have to say right from the start this movie has brilliant opening credits. I wish more movies would put some effort into them as they put you in the mood faster than any background scene. But there was much more to the movie than the opening credits. At first I was scared it would be a one sided propaganda stuffed in your face with no room for questions. Luckily it wasn't, it took quite a wide view on things and kept all the sides quite equally covered with a nice touch of dark humor. The movie was smart, funny and really well made. Where it fails is that the ending is relying heavily on the viewer having sympathy towards the main character. The problem comes when there's no chance for sympathy given to the character before the end. The character was left quite superficial and thus the ending felt overly cheesy. With a better ending and a better character development this would have been a brilliant movie. Now it's still good, but worth only one watch if you have some time to kill.
62%