Coraline, With An Unusual Theme For An Animation Movie, But Just Brilliant!

I often rely on my blogger friend Nebular's movie review blog, CineMarvellous, to decide on what movies to watch. That's how I got to know of Coraline.

Coraline was greatly different from all other animation films I've seen. The plot and the sequencing were mostly different. Coraline Jones, a little girl, moves in to a new house with her parents. She is very inquisitive, and finds her parents rather strict, boring, restricting. One day, a kid in the neighborhood brings her a rag doll, which, much to her surprise, looks remarkably like her. Coraline later on discovers a tiny, locked door in side the house. When her mother opens the door for her, Coraline is disappointed to see only brick wall behind it. But some time after, she learns that a the door indeed leads some where, under special circumstances, some where she gets to do or have anything that might be impossible with her parents. Little does she know that this newly discovered, too-good-to-be-true place is nothing she ever bargained for...........

The movie is brilliant in the way it slowly builds up tension, with the anticipation that something sinister is about to happen. The sequencing and some absolutely brilliant music enhances that effect. I have never seen any other movie using music for that purpose as effectively as Caroline. The dialogs,voices,graphics are all of great quality. I highly recommend this film to you all movie lovers.
See the review on  CineMarvellous

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• 3 reviews of Coraline (rateitall.com)

I'm Not Scared, A great Movie Experiance!

I'm grateful to Nebular for posting a very good review of this film here on Cninemarvelous because that's how I came to know this movie. I went straight for a trailer in you tube  after reading his review. All looked very promising. When I finally watched the movie I was so glad that I did. Io Non Ho Paura, a.k.a. I'm not scared was a masterpiece. 



In this gripping Italian movie is a plot that takes your fullest attention through out. It cats a group of kids living quite happily in a breath taking countryside of Italy, playing about carefree like birds. One day they ride on to an abandoned building. One of  the kids, a boy, Fillipo, accidentally discovers a big hole dug on the ground and covered from above.   He takes a peek in to it gets a nasty shock when he sees  a child imprisoned inside.  


Fillipo slowly builds a rapport with this locked-up stranger, and tries to figure out who he is, why he is kept there, and by whom, not quite realizing how what reveals it self to him would affect him and what it would demand of him.

This plot is so strong and full of suspense, keeps you wondering what would happen next, and the end is as appealing as the beginning. And you get see one of the best acting performance of a child ever. The selection of the locations couldn't have been better. And the director has used some symbolic,   subtle things to express ideas that  a hundred words wouldn't. Io Non Ho Paura is a very good example as to how have thriller effects suspense in a  movie  with out using blood curdling action sequences. 

Face Off

I thought to review this movie solely because of the acting performance of Nicolas Cage and John Travolta. Otherwise it's pretty much an ordinary action-thriller movie.

Sean Archer(John Travolta) is an FBI agent who's primary objective is to capture Castor Troy(Nicolas Cage),a notorious criminal who also killed Archer's son accidentally in an attempt to eliminate Archer. Archer is obsessive with the case,and his family life is greatly compromised by that.

Eventually Archer and his team succeeds in closing upon Troy and his brother. After some violent hassle, Troy gets knocked in to a coma,just after boasting about a bomb that will destroy Los Angeles,and his brother is captured.

Out of the sheer need to locate and deactivate the bomb,a black bag operation is executed. A medical scientist disguises Archer to look remarkably like Troy by some highly sophisticated and new surgical procedure.

Then archer is sent to the jail where Troy's brother is kept,pretending to be Troy.

But things change when Troy suddenly regains consciousness. He holds the medical scientist and Archer's boss hostage and demands that he be disguised as Archer. This done,he kills the scientist and the boss and destroys all the deviance of the surgery.

Then Troy starts playing around being Archer,fooling every one in the FBI as well as Archer's wife and daughter.

Archer is desperate,unable to convince any body about what's going on.He takes the only step available. He escapes the jail,acts like Troy,looking for a way to solve the mess.

The plot goes on an obvious direction from there. What's significant is how well Cage and Travolta both play two personalities. It's as if it has happened for real. It's worth seeing the movie even just to experience that unbelievable performance.



Directed by John Woo
David Permut

Produced by Barrie M. Osborne
Terence Chang


Written by Mike Werb
Michael Colleary
Starring John Travolta
Nicolas Cage
Music by John Powell
Michael A. Reagan (source music)
Cinematography Oliver Wood
Editing by Steven Kemper
Christian Wagner
Distributed by North America:
Paramount Pictures
International:
Touchstone Pictures
Release date(s)June 27, 1997
Running time 141 min.
Country U.S.A.
Language English

Moon

Moon is a great science fiction-psychological thriller movie,one of the greatest I've ever seen. It presents the tragic destiny of person,fallen victim to a world driven by advanced technology and,let's say,greed.

Sam Bell(Sam Rockwell)is all alone on the moon,working for a company called "Lunar Industries",gathering Helium and sending to earth,to fulfill earth's energy demand.He is stationed on a base automated by a very sophisticated technology,with an equally advanced robot named Gerty.

There's only two more weeks to finish his three year contract on the moon and he is very excited about going back to his wife and daughter. Some how there has been no live communication between the earth and the moon he has only been able to communicate with recorded messages.Sam has also been having hallucinations since recently. He sees teenage girl around,now and then.

One day he gets on a rover and goes to the Helium harvesting machine to get the next load ready to be sent to earth in a capsule. As he gets close,his hallucinatory girl appears on the path,and Sam crashes the rover on the harvester in his confusion. He just manages to put his helmet on before loosing consciousness.

When he later wakes up in the infirmary of the base,Gerty tells him of the accident,but Sam Doesn't remember it. Sam is also told that a rescue team from Earth to repair the damaged harvester he is not allowed out side the base.

But Sam gets ever so suspicious when he accidentally overhears a live communication between Earth and Gerty. He sabotages one of the gas pipe of the base and persuades Gerty to let him out to fix it.

Once out side,Sam heads for the harvester instead. There he finds some one unconscious in a rover,his own double!

He brings the unconscious man to the base and gets Gerty to put him in the infirmary and give necessary care.

When he recovers, the two identical men start accusing each other for being a clone.But they eventually get over the grudge and start working together to unearth the mystery behind their existence. What they find out is........

Well,watch the movie! It's a masterpiece! One distinctive feature of this film is that there is only one human character in almost the whole film. One another thing is that the whole plot takes place on the Moon. Sam Rockwell does do justice to the character of a man working alone on a lifeless planet,shut away,only to face a totally unacceptable reality in the end.





Directed by Duncan Jones
Produced by Stuart Fenegan
Trudie Styler
Written by Nathan Parker
Duncan Jones
Cast Sam Rockwell
Kevin Spacey
Dominique McElligott
Music by Clint Mansell
Cinematography Gary Shaw
Editing by Nicolas Gaster
Studio Liberty Films
Stage 6 Films
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics
Release date(s) 23 January 2009 Sundance)
17 July 2009 (UK)
Running time 97 minutes
Country United Kingdom
Language English

Matchstick Men, Nicolas Cage is outstanding in this movie

Nicolas Cage plays the role of a complicated character in this film. He,  Roy Walter, is a con man who earns a fortune by tricking people in some ways, together with his side kick Frank( Sam Rockwell). Roy is severely neurotic, can't tolerate dirt, obsessive compulsive and there for is a loner, divorced, and suppresses a crush on a woman who also seems to like him. Following an intense neurotic attack one day, he visits a new physician who councils him and suggests that he makes contact with his ex wife. Eventually he sees his daughter who apparently likes and understands him. She steps in to his life penetrating all his phobias and ends up settling down in his apartment, claiming to have quarreled with her mother. Living with her is like an exposure therapy that his phobias begin to subside. Just as the life starts to look bright, things go horribly wrong when one of Roy's con victims encounter him, his daughter and partner. In a violent struggle, the daughter shoots the challenging customer. Just as Roy manages to let his daughter get away with Frank, the enraged client knocks him out cold. After this incident the plot reveals a tremendous twist in itself. Watch the movie and see for yourself. It's a beautiful film. which revolves around Nicolas Cage's unbelievably fantastic acting.

 

Directed by          Ridley Scott
Produced by        Ridley Scott
                           Steve Starkey
                           Sean Bailey
                           Jack Rapke
                           Ted Griffin
Screenplay by     Ted Griffin
                           Nicholas Griffin
Script based on   Matchstick Men: A Novel about Grifters with Issues (2002)

Cast                     Nicolas Cage
                           Alison Lohman
                           Sam Rockwell
                           Bruce Altman
                           Bruce McGill