The Dilated Pupil's Reviews

I have to admit I knew nothing about the world of Japanese Hosts until watching The Great Happiness Space. Allow me to summarize: Men have gone to prostitutes for thousands of years for visual and physical stimuli being as they are a more visually responsive gender. Being geniuses in the field of product development, the Japanese have created a similar function for men but instead of plain ol' sex, they appeal to a woman's desire for mental stimulus *.

While occasionally the hosts will have sex with guests, their primary function is to flirt and play drinking/dancing/singing games with their clients so they spend more money on drinks. If you are having a hard time wrapping your brain around the fact that young men get paid around 40K USD every month to FLIRT with women and drink on their dime, think about the last movie your girlfriend/wife really loved and what was different about it to the shady business you're hiding in your sock drawer. In fact, the women spend so much on the hosts that the only way they can afford such luxury is by getting jobs as prostitutes! YES, THAT IS AWESOME! Somewhere in the back of my head little Simba is lip-syncing the circle of life. A very cultural four stars.

Hitchcock's "pre-hollywood" espionage thriller. Robert Donat plays a man wrongly accused of murder that continues to get himself into more and more trouble as the movie runs it's course. Honestly, all of the Hitchcock movies share the theme of miscommunication and if that annoys you then you probably don't like his movies. That said, I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. The characters worked for me and there are a few humorous moments where Donat's charisma really comes through.

I'm not the biggest Jet Li fan in the world but I do love Bob Hoskins and Morgan Freeman but merely like Luc Besson. Summary: Danny (Jet Li) is raised as an attack dog by a gangster (Hoskins) and eventually "saved" by a blind piano tuner (Freeman). That stuff's all OK and fairly interesting though completely ridiculous. The movie however, gets ruined by major plot wholes and the worst female actor EVER - Kerry Condon. Her dialog is absolutely miserable and it ended up ruining what would have been a perfectly fine Jet Li movie.

This is absolutely the worst movie ever made. It's effectively a moody rock video combining the moodiness of the worst Bergman with a 90's public access TV music video.

This is not a great movie but it is very well acted and though the plot has some twists it failed to surprise me. That said, Marisa Tomei is naked. Three Stars!

I couldn't get over the number of movie stars in this cast. Hopkins, Caan, Connery, Redford & others convey a sense of helplessness as they fight the Nazi's and British bureaucracy in a study of chance and it's affects on planning. Often I found the movie humorous as was intended but there is so much going on you lose track of the underlying motives of the pro/antagonists. Overall, it's a decent take on the more ridiculous side of WWII.

The first 15 minutes of this movie are completely perfect. The rest of the movie is what you'd expect from a Pixar picture-fantastic animation, memorable characters and a constant back and forth between reality and the fantastic. I really enjoyed this movie. ****

A really long, very serious version of Forest Gump.  As a way of handling the reverse-aging process, the DoP decided to darken the sets which I found to distract more than it was worth. While I usually enjoy Fincher's work, I'm afraid his latest entry falls flat.

** - Generic, predictable, over-hyped, cheestastic love story. A movie where even Irrfan Khan's performance falls flat. Put the characters in any other country and it wouldn't get noticed. For example, replace Freida Pinto with Jessica Alba/Biel and Dev Patel with Hugh Grant and you wouldn't get near an Oscar. That said the portion about childhood would have been fantastic if it didn't keep getting interrupted with some ridiculous editing. City of God is a much better rags to riches story and Y tu mamá también is a much better coming of age tale. Slumdog falls flat trying to merge the two.

Holy crap, this movie is freaking fantastic! Rami (Evil Dead, Dark & Spider-Man) is back at it making "Hell beasts thscaarrier!". This is classic horror. Let it be said that I do not like horror movies typically because they're awful gorefests and not at all scary. Drag Me to Hell, like Frighteners before it, is an excellent study in how to make an audience jump while getting them laugh at the same time.

The attention to every detail (PC Guy attached to the mac) shows clearly that the movie was a labor of love for all involved. No, the acting isn't always great but the writing is very clever. Particularly, a scene where the main character tries to get out of talking about her cat. If you've enjoyed any of Rami's movies you owe it to yourself to check out Drag Me to Hell. *****

Firstly, I watched this on an airplane. Not just any airplane mind you but the harbinger of doom that is United Airlines.

I expected more from Kevin James but instead I got a few fat jokes, some actually gathering laughs from the cramped travelers beside me but most falling flat just like the ultra predictable story. If you loved Duece Bigalow:European Gigolo then you'll love Paul Blart. *

Hostel is a super basic gore fest with a very basic plot and stale characters. That said, there are a group of kids which remind me of The Little, Unholy Bastards from Goon who add much needed humor to the gore fest. Movies like this typically don't serve the DVD audience that well because most of the fun comes from watching it in a crowded theater with lots of screaming fans. However, Hostel does feature some of the best behind the scenes documentaries which makes it worth the rental. **