Reviews by OsamaExKing

Premonition is a prime example on the fact that you shouldn't always listen to critics when deciding to watch a movie, this one was bashed by critics so hard, that it got 8% on Rotten Tomato and 5.7 on IMDb, and the score on Metacritic is terrifying.

This is my second viewing and it was as suspenseful as the first time, it's a well acted drama, with exceptional directing, beautiful looking movie, and fantastic thriller, now, the the concept of premonition is pretty known, it's the feeling that something terrible is going to happen, and the movie might not have an original idea, because most mystery movies relay on a non-linear timeline, but that doesn't make it boring, because if it was well executed (like this one), it's a good movie.

In the leading role is Sandra Bullock, a mother of two girls, and she wakes up one day to find a cop at her door step telling her that her husband just died in a car accident on the highway, near the sign (220 miles), a day passes, she sleeps and wake up to find her husband just sitting in the living room, another day, she wakes up and he's dead, so she decide to draw a pattern to see what's going on, she labels each day of the week with mementos, to find that there's a day missing, which is a day before the accident, when she attempt to save her husband.

The movie doesn't give you an answer as why is this happened, instead, it's give you similar unexplained stories that happened to people, and then the movie, give you the word "Faith", which is one of the main reasons why the movie was blasted, people think it's a "religious movie", or "have a religious tone" but it's not, the priest was just trying to say "that faith is just believing that somebody is looking after you, and that life is worth living no matter what", it's what do you expect to hear from a priest.

Overall, the movie is very suspenseful, very dramatic, Sandra Bullock is great, the cinematography is great, great mystery and it's defiantly deserve a look, and it's confuses me that critics bashed this movie for the concept, but praised 'source code' - 2011, which uses the same exact concept, just multiplied it by 10 times, to the point that it became boring to see the same scenes again and again, well, this movie doesn't use the same scenes, it's just a different look at the same events, and with much better execution.

It's a dutch movie so i wasn't expecting anything (no offense), but i end up having somewhat an enjoyable time.

I knew that it's a weird movie, in fact, that was the reason why i watched it, but it didn't look weird at the beginning, the first hour was somewhat normal, and you can see a plot building, but the 2nd hour was so weird, that i lost the ability to connect things, i realized that the movie is not trying to be logical at all, so i stopped thinking about it, and just enjoyed it for what it was.

It's a story about three guys, each one live in a separate room in the ground surrounded by tunnels, so in the beginning, there's three people getting armed and ready to attack one of the guys, so he escapes before they reach him, and he starts warning his two friends, so they can also escape, then the movie starts following one of the ground guys (Camiel) as he knock a door of a random house asking them if he can get a shower their, and because he insists on going in the house, a guy beat him and kick him out, but Camiel didn't escape after been beating up, instead, he hides in the same house, and the wife of the guy who beat him up starts helping him out of guilt, and a weird relationship starts between them.

The movie looks very psychological, it seemed as Camiel have this ability to make women, (in this case Marina) into him, she starts lying to her husband, and having weird dreams, that when she wakes up, starts hitting her husband because he attacked her in the dream, and Camiel also have the ability to snoop around in the house without anyone seeing him, he starts to go the children room and telling them bed time stories, and until that, the movie looked ok, but in the 2nd half of the movie, everything became weird, Camiel told Marina that i'm leaving the house because "i want to play", and she tell him to stay and she will offer him another larger place, so he poison the framer and take him to his house and kill him along with his wife and takes his job as a farmer and so many other things happen that were very hard to explain.

So, let me explain what i meant by not making any sense, first we don't know if Camiel told Marina that he's going to kill the farmer and take his job, we don't know how his power works, or what was the point of these two dogs, we don't know if his two friends also have these powers, most importantly, we don't know if the wife, the husband, their nanny and their kids, were acting natural or were possessed, it's very hard to see the pattern, so you can guess what's gonna happen next, in the 2nd hour, i was completely lost and had no idea what's happening or what should be happening, why the wife was acting strange and became normal, was the husband normal or he was also acting strange, what happened to the kids, what that guy did to the nanny, why a farmer building a theater in the garden, why the wife was so horny about Camiel, why there wasn't a sex scene at all, and why she asked him to kill her husband.

One thing, i should mention that although it didn't make any sense, i was kinda enjoying it, i don't usually enjoy movies that are manipulative, in fact, a plot mistake in a movie sometimes makes me angry, but somehow i kinda enjoyed this movie, the movie atmosphere was enjoyable, sometimes even funny, so i didn't feel bored at all, but still it's movie with no story, with no plot, with no logic.

Overall, Non-logical, weird movie but somehow entertaining for unknown reasons.

Something you should know about me, that i'm no hipster, i don't enjoy trashing old movies just to piss off people, but i'm also not stupid, i don't praise a movie, just for the fact that it's already praised, meaning, that i don't review this movie as "the best movie ever made", i review it, just like any other movie, if it's good, ok then, if it's bad, it's bad, even though i'm fully aware of the timing of these movies, but i'm against the saying that "old movies are better than new movies", or "all classics are good movies", i think that a good movie is a good movie no matter if it's produced in 2014 or 1914.

Citizen Kane is one of the most boring movies i have ever seen, i literally lost the ability to live while watching it, i couldn't get through it with one sitting, i had to pause, take a rest and then go back, and i don't usually force myself into a boring movie, but i had to this time, because it's citizen Kane, it's "one of the best movies of all time", so i wanted to see what's that about.

The introduction of the movie was absolutely horrible, that march news segment was unwatchable, and hard to recover from, it had a narrator with an awful voice, everything was so fast pasted and shallow, that made me loss my interest in the movie from the very beginning.

The story wasn't bad, but people are impressed on how the story was delivered, but i think that it was awful and pointless, in fact, i think the story could have been a lot better if it was delivered in a normal matter.
After citizen kane dies, a director tries to put a news segment about him (march news), but he wanted to know what the last word that kane said means (rosebud) so he send Mr. Thompson to interview his wife and people who know him, so each one of those people starts telling stories about him, and these stories are recreated with these actors, so you get to see kane, gets old and young again so many times and so much that you start to feel dizzy and bored.

The worst thing about this movie was the timing of the dialog, there wasn't spacing between the lines, which means when an actor say his line, there wasn't enough time for the other actor to absorb what the first actor said so he can react to it, in fact, in most cases, the lines were just overlapping and all over the place, it felt like watching a community theater, were everybody deliver their lines so fast and so emotionless not waiting the other guy to say his line, and with that being said, it had one of the worst performances i have ever seen, when the credit roll, there was a screen saying that most actors here are new to the motion picture, well DUH! that was so obvious, all of them were terrible, specially Orson Welles with that fake emotions and fake smile, and that scene when he goes inside his news paper building for the first time and meets the editor Herbert Carter, he said Mr. Carter so many times, i wanted to smash my screen.

Not to mention, how the movie was shot, which didn't present a good atmosphere for the actors to show their performances, there wasn't a long scene with an interesting dialog, most scenes were very short and didn't focus on the actors faces, so you can't see them acting, or at least feel them, the lines were delivered so fast and you only get to see that from a far camera angle.

And before i conclude, i just want to point out, that people are saying that the cinematography and the camera work was so impressive "and did you see that shot, from the roof of the building to the room?" but cinematography and camera work should never make a movie one of the best movies ever made, if that's the case, then 50 years from now, Avatar will be the best movie ever made, and i'm 100% sure that most people who watched that movie didn't enjoy it a bit, but they praised it so they look like they get it, in fact, if 100 person on this website, made a list of 100 favorite movie, you will never see citizen kane on any of the lists, because no-one like this movie because they liked it, most people liked it because it's a big deal.

Overall, extremely overrated, boring and unwatchable, and no it doesn't make any difference that it was produced in 1941, because a bad movie is a bad movie, timing should not be involved, and no, i don't hate it to look "cool", i hate it because it was bad on every level.

It was one of those days where i felt like i should watch an actual drama, drama that makes me feel something, and i'm glad i chose this movie.

Although the story is really sad, but i felt so good watching this movie, in fact i didn't want it to end, i don't remember watching a movie before that i didn't want to end, maybe because it was so heartwarming and beautiful, the movie was very well executed, that it made me feel awkward when i should feel awkward, it made me feel sad when i should be sad, everything was right on the spot.

It's a story about an old professor (played by Richard Jenkins), living the normal, boring academic life, feeling frustrated all the time, so he want to learn the piano so he can feel like he achieved something, or know something outside his academic life, so he gets invited to an event in New York, and since he already have an apartment there for 25 years that used to go to every-time he's in New York, he walks into his apartment to find a couple has been living there for two weeks, and because he's very nice and they don't have anywhere to go, he tell them to stay until they find another place, and he gets to know them, Tarek (played by Haaz Sleiman) is a guy who flee Syria and now living in New York playing the African drum and his girlfriend Zainab (played by Danai Gurira) is a Muslim women from Senegal, so Tarek starts to teach Walter the African drum, so he goes out with him few times and due to a misunderstanding at the train station, Tarek get's arrested, then we find out that Tarek along with his girlfriend and mother are illegal immigrants who never got the green card and they escaped the system.

Things starts evolving and walter tries to help tarek by hiring a lawyer for him, and tarek mother (played by Hiam Abbass) move in with walter, and a spark happen between them, it's kinda a romance, sometimes very awkward (because it should) and 100% pure reality, which made this movie so enjoyable, aside from the fantastic performances by everybody, the movie is very powerful, showing you how the system is very hard for immigrants as they try everything they can do not to screw up and yet somehow they end up either in prisons or deported, and the movie says so much without actually saying anything, that was what beautiful about it, showing you the struggles that Arab and/ or Muslims have been dealing with after 9/11 and how are they treated in the United States, and it's all very real, and very heartbreaking.

The movie have a very sad ending, kinda expected, but fully satisfying, and the whole atmosphere of the movie was very beautiful, Richard Jenkins is such an adorable guy, i always knew that he's a great actor, but he never took a leading role before, or at least a memorable role, but his performance here is something i never seen before, it's very touching and powerful, along with an equally fantastic performance by Hiam Abbass.

Overall, it's a very touching story that made me feel, sad, happy and so many other things, and i'm kinda surprised that such a movie isn't underrated or bashed by critics, because i don't think Americans would actually appreciate such a story about Immigrants and their struggles, a movie that shines a light on a broken system that had arrested, imprisoned and deported so many people since 9/11.

Since i'm crazy about Christopher Nolan, watching this movie was only a matter of time for me, and indie movies interests me the most, so this is a double pleasure for me.

Shot with a budget of 6000$ in a duration of a year, with non actors, and it was written, directed, and co-produced by Nolan, this is as creative as it can be, it's like a lower budget memento, which made it a blast for me, because creative director is creative, he doesn't need gimmicks or a blockbuster to show up his skills, he just needs talent and devotion, although Christopher Nolan have a very successful career now and have created masterpieces (The Prestige, Inception, The Dark Knight), but i also thinks that this movie should be to him as Clerks to Kevin smith, because taking in consideration how the movie was made, it's a masterpiece.

And the movie is very Christopher Nolany, with a confusing atmosphere, multi-layered timeline and a twist at the end, it's just can't get better than this, a non linear story with very interesting characters, that are so well written, it looked so real, even though they weren't really conventional people, a story about a thief who breaks into houses just to mess with people, steal personal items and play with their emotions, and he meets this "writer" who follow people to study them from a far just to have something to write about, it's was noir gold, and had so many twist, that i as a Christopher Nolan fan, didn't think that this movie could surprise me, but i was wrong.

Like i said before, the people in this movie aren't actors, they were normal people with actual jobs, but you can't get that until you read about it, although their performances weren't something special, but still very believable and much better than what mainstream actors can do, the only problem that i had with this movie were the violent scenes because it looked very fake, and i can understand that because these things cost money which the director didn't had.

Overall, a fantastic thriller movie that defiantly deserve more recognition, and even though Nolan late movies are way better, this movie still deserve a look.

To say that Kill Bill 2 is as enjoyable as Kill Bill 1 is an understatement, even though i'm not a fan of Quentin Tarantino movies, i had a blast watching the first kill bill, the whole revenge theme was very appealing, the stylist violence, the score, everything about that movie was extremely well executed, so i was really excited to watch the 2nd volume, given the fact that it had the same critical acclaim as the first one, and i was hugely disappointed by this movie.

It's an action movie, with 5 maybe 6 action scenes, a 137 minutes movie with 5 to 6 actual action scenes, a 2 hours and 16 minutes movie that was labeled "action" but with only 5 to 6 action scenes, yeah...let's that sink in, although the movie did have it's style, same as the first one, and did have the characters, but it's still actionless, instead, there was more dialog than the first one, and given that Quentin Tarantino was the writer, the dialog should be interesting, same as pulp fiction or other Tarantino movies, but we couldn't be more wrong, the scenes were extremely boring.

Tarantino stretched some scenes way too long, making the movie unbearable, and not only that, but the whole movie is slow, they even talked slow, you sit there looking at their mouths just waiting the words to pop up so the scene can ends, and that's killed it for me, because i did enjoy the action in this movie, like i said before, the movie still have Tarantino touch of stylist violence, but with each boring 30 minute you get to see a 5 minute action scene.

The story here is better, because you get to see what actually happened in the first Kill Bill and why did Bill killed her, so any unexplained events that happened in the first kill bill, is explained here, but that's along with great performance by Uma Thurman and few good action scenes are the only good qualities of this movie, because there wasn't any bad-ass characters here, most fights are one on one, no good weapons and too much Uma Thurman feet (Tarantino foot fetish kicks in) and too much Uma Thurman suffering scenes and many cliche and boring characters, for example, 'The Master' (Bald Guy) character was the most generic cliche Kong fu master ever, even David Carradine (bill) was terrible, and the scene were he starts narrating about super heroes, Batman, Spiderman and Superman, was shockingly slow, stupid and out of place.

Overall, it was a boring, very long, actionless, overrated, slow movie, with too many boring, unnecessary dialog scenes, and much less bad-ass characters, and shared one thing only with the first kill bill which is the style, but that's not enough to make it a decent movie.

Hugo is the result of too many things, one of them is Martin Scorsese trying to take a break from the gangs and the violence to present a family movie, another thing is that, he was trying to get into visuals and 3D to "cope" with the modern cinema.

The movie is highly enjoyable, with very interesting story, a story that develops slow but end up being mind-blowing, the movie is highly underrated, in fact, it bombed at the box office, and never received the recognition it deserves, mainly, the idea of a family movie directed by Martin Scorsese doesn't sound appealing, but people are forgetting that Martin Scorsese is a masterful film maker, a guy who would get into any type of movie and make it good.

BUT, Martin Scorsese took the idea of a family movie too far, he tried to get a wide range of demographic to watch his movie, but end up repelling the adults, the movie seemed like a Disney movie for kids, the jokes and the slapstick's and some weird under-developed characters, were too childish to watch, and i don't understand why would he go to that place, a movie can be considered a family movie without being too childish.

I enjoyed every frame of that movie, the production design, the 3D, Asa Butterfield and Chloë Grace Moretz were awesome, even Ben Kingsley delivered a good performance, it's a movie about making movies, so at the end you get to see some visually stunning scenes about movies previously done by Georges Méliès and now are being re-created, i didn't like Sacha Baron Cohen character, i don't think he's funny at all, Emily Mortimer character was weird and pointless, and Michael Stuhlbarg performance made me feel like i'm sitting in a prop show, which took the movie to a downer level.

Overall, it's a wonderful movie, a bit childish, BUT defiantly deserve more recognition because it's highly enjoyable, but i still think that Martin Scorsese should stick to what he do best, not this.

Many years after Sam Mendes knocks us all out with the amazing American beauty, he tried again to bring us another story about a simple suburban family, only this time, he failed to bring anything interesting.

A story about a husband (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and his wife (played by Kate Winslet) as they live in a suburban neighborhood, with a boring life and few friends, Frank have a boring job, and the wife suggest a change in life, which is traveling to Paris and leaving this life behind them, but Frank suggest postponing that change because his boss just offered him a new chance and his job might get better now, so you get to see them going back to their boring life as their dreams are destroyed and their ambitions lowered by their friends.

The story was so void and boring, the whole atmosphere didn't work, a couples living in the 50's and having some problems failed to make me feel anything, which is very sad because Leo brings one of his best performances ever, along side with an equally incredible performance by Kate, but because the story was so boring, i kept asking myself "should i feel something here", which is a question i should never have to ask myself if the story was engaging or somewhat interesting.

It's even sadder for me because Leonardo DiCaprio is my favorite actor, he makes every movie watchable, and he puts so much into any character he play, so i think it takes special talent from Sam Mendes to make a movie with both Leo and Kate not interesting, specially when those two are bringing over the top performances.

And not just the story wasn't working, everything other than the performances was wrong, the costumes, the screen play, the house, the neighborhood, the 50's theme, the production design, the entire look of the movie was void, they even managed to make all the actors look charmless and that's the greatest insult of all.

United 93 is extremely unnecessary movie which shouldn't exist at all, unfortunately, it do exists, more unfortunately, people are so biased reviewing this and giving it a critical acclaim.

I dare to say it, the movie was terrible from start to finish, why would you cash-in on a tragedy if you have nothing to present? what was the purpose? because whatever it was, it failed on every level, people are watching this, remembering the tragedy which put them on the spot they wanted (let's watch a movie about 9/11) and that's that, while in reality the movie have no quality of being a movie at all.

If you are familiar with Paul Greengrass work (The Bourne trilogy) you'd know that he's a brilliant editor, he's very fascinating in showing you how people work around their desks and how things are connected, before with the Bourne movies, there were many scenes of the CIA working on their computers trying to trace bourne and how things look at the office and he made it look very entertaining, so he employed the same technique here, he tried to show you that the FAA was working really hard trying to trace these missing airlines, he even employed real people, real FAA officers and told them to react to CNN live feed of the 2nd plane hitting the world trade center, and he basically tried to show you what was really going on there, but that was completely unnecessary, he was just buying time to make it a full length movie, frankly, i hoped to see something i haven't seen before, like how the FAA closed their Air space for the first time in history without any accidents, i hoped so much and got so little, and there was nothing here that i didn't know before.

The most annoying thing was the camera work, Paul Greengrass tried to show you a realistic look inside the plane, but i felt so dizzy with that shaky camera and heavy editing, and the movie isn't informative at all, it wasn't anything really, all i learned was that the president was the only person who have the authority to issue an Air strike against possible hijacked airplanes and i already knew that, which is the reason i asked about the purpose of this creation.

The movie tried not to humanize the terrorists and tried to show you the heroes (the passengers) as they try to regain the airplane back from the terrorists, but no one will ever know for sure what happened there, and the movie didn't focus on the passengers, instead, it focused on the terrorists, because the movie starts with them getting prepared to do the job, and shows you how they were nervous and not ready, and that was wrong on so many levels, because now we don't know who the passengers were, and we didn't feel their fear, it was just shallow and not memorable.

So overall, a movie without a script, without characters, without performances, without anything to present is not a movie, it was just mainstream Hollywood trying to fill their wallets cashing on people's memory of a horrible day.

Children of men is a movie that would surprise anyone who appreciate perfection when seeing it, i don't know why nobody recommend it to me, after Gravity blown up, i decided to follow Alfonso Cuarón previous work and i end up here, and i'm glad i did, it was brilliant movie from start to finish.

Set in the far future, it's a tale of a chaotic world where human no longer have the ability to procreate, and the youngest man ever to live is 18 years old, and it's gotta be the most realistic expectation of the future ever to put on a film, because you know what, fuck technology that most movies focus about, the earth is dying and people are changing to the worse everyday, and this movie baldly shows a possibility of what could actually happen, a world with repels and conflicts, a world were government collapsed and no longer have the ability to control anything, major cities have fallen down and destroyed due to armed conflicts and the only one standing is London when this movie happens.

The movie have one of the best opening scenes i have ever seen, an explosion that looked so real, it's disturbing, with Clive Owen in a leading role, the movie follow this man as he travel to his friends house Jasper (played by Michael Caine) where he likes to stay out of the city, and his ex-wife Julian is the leader of a rebel group, who just found a pregnant women, and they're trying whatever necessary to keep her alive until the baby is delivered, so theo takes the role of protecting her escaping the armed conflicts.

Children of men shows you what people would do to gain control after the government falls, it shows you what people are willing to do just to survive, and it was filled with so many hidden messages, that it's still blow my mind every-time.

The movie employs the cinematography in a mind-blowing way, that everything seemed so realistic, it's like they created an entire city just to make a movie, and the conflicts were fascinating, i mean, i haven't watched conflicts this realistic since Black Hawk Down and that movie was beautiful.

Although, the movie had a dark tale, it's still shows you a hope within a deep desperation and many, many messages that need a second watch to fully appreciate.

Overall, it was mind-blowing movie from start to finish, and i'm also gonna go out on a limb here and say that this movie is better than Gravity by miles, fuck the mainstream standards.