Movie and Music Reviews

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Do not waste your money to get a ticket for uninteresting movie. Watching movie in a theatre can be a different experience. However, we need to pay the ticket. So, we must make sure that the movie is worth the price. Before we buy any ticket, we should check the theatre schedule and check on the playing movies.

Flickboom.com is a good reference to get film reviews. Once we know the entire playing movies, we can check them one by one through the reviews. Of course, reading the review informs us not only the director, producer, and stars playing on the movie, but also the plot and red line of the story. Sherlock Holmes reviews are also available. We can update the plot, and find the interesting part of the movie. Then, we can decide if we are interested enough to watch it or not. It helps a lot in making a smart choice.

In alternative, we can also anticipate new movies coming in theatre soon. Several movie descriptions also talk about incoming movies. We find out the director, stars, plot, and date of release. Maybe, we can also book for premiere if we like it. This site makes a nice reference for movie fun.

The Red Violin (Movie Review)

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Score (John Corigliano), The Red Violin should've at the very least received a Best Picture nomination. Overlooked by the arbiters of most of the major awards ceremonies, The Red Violin nonetheless enjoyed widespread critical acclaim. And every bit of its praise is well-deserved. Because The Red Violin belongs on a list of the best films of its decade...

Charles Morritz (Samuel Jackson) is called on by a Montreal auction house to assess the value of a recently procured violin. His initial reaction is that the violin is the long-lost, world famous Nicolo Bussotti "Red Violin". In verifying its authenticity, the film flashes back to the birth of the violin...

When famous Italian violin maker Nicolo Bussotti (Carlo Cecchi) witnesses the tragic death of his pregnant wife and true love, he designs the perfect violin as a testament to her memory. Originally intended for his son, the violin makes it way across the continent of Europe, first appearing in an orphanage where child prodigy Kaspar Weiss (Christoph Koncz) comes in possession of it. Ushered off to Vienna and poised on the precipice of worldwide fame, Weiss suffers a heart attack, and the violin is buried with him. However, when his grave is looted, gypsies give a home to the violin for some time before it is purchased by the mad genius Frederick Pope (Jason Flemyng). When Pope injures the heart of his longtime lover Victoria (Greta Scacchi), the violin is damaged by a bullet...

A servant of Pope's eventually takes the violin to the Asian Continent where it is used first as a teacher's aide, then hidden during the Communist revolution which fears the evils of 'Western music'. When the Shanghai violin collector in possession of the red violin passes away, the Chinese government places his multi-million dollar collection on the auction block. Finding the red violin in its midst, two experts work to verify its authenticity, and when they do a fierce bidding war takes place to see who will get the prized possession. But an article of such great value can only be held by someone who truly appreciates its beauty...

With outstanding performances from an unprecedented number of actors and actresses, The Red Violin is a production of genius on par with the perfection of its lead character - the hand-crafted red violin. Samuel L. Jackson is the only star of the film who's of Hollywood blockbuster caliber, and he shines brightly in his role - using his penetrating eyes to convey a sort of mystic power upon the object of his desire. Coupled with an original storyline, having all the more of an impact due its suspenseful chronology, The Red Violin is an unforgettable film of passion and adventure...

Boasting a well-written screenplay, and direction that displays all the symbolism and emotion expected from a classic novel, The Red Violin is a film that strives to touch the polarities of the human soul. With an emotional passion that emanates from the screen, the film forces us to contemplate the wonder of human existence and what exactly will be our individual place in its history. A modern day epic regarding the travels of a beautiful blood-red violin through various centuries of the human experience, The Red Violin is a definite must-see film...

The Pianist (Movie Review)

Winner of three Academy Awards, and nominated for four others including Best Picture, The Pianist is one of the best films of its decade. Directed by Roman Polanski, The Pianist is a cinematic and artistic masterpiece similar to The Red Violin in that it was mostly overlooked until the Academy offered the necessary publicity to make it a commercial success on video and DVD. Set against the backdrop of an amazingly beautiful soundtrack featuring such classical composers as Chopin and Beethoven, The Pianist ingeniously illustrates the struggle of one man to maintain his dignity and his connection with civilization in the face of a personal hell on earth and some of greatest crimes in human history...

Actor Adrien Brody turns in a brilliant performance as Wladyslaw Szpilman, a piano player of immense genius in 1930s Poland. Szpilman and his family enjoy a life of relative wealth and comfort as part of the cultured and educated European social elite. But that life is turned upside down on September 1, 1939, when the imperial forces of Adolph Hitler's Nazi Germany invade Poland. As a Jew, Szpilman and his family are considered sub-human in the eyes of the German government, and a campaign of terror is quickly instituted against the Jewish population of Warsaw.

Szpilman must live his life the best he can while Warsaw is fenced in with brick walls, and its Jewish citizens are singled out and driven through checkpoints like cattle. At first, the residents of the Warsaw ghetto believe they can wait out the tragedy unfolding before them, but before long, men are assaulting old ladies for meager allotments of food, and citizens are risking death to escape the horrors of the ghetto. Szpilman survives for a while as a restaurant piano player, but he's soon forced into hiding as the ghetto is cleared and the Jews are sent off to concentration camps.

When Szpilman's family is shipped off by train to a death camp, he manages to escape and survive for a time in the abandoned ghetto. But it doesn't take long for the Nazis to find him and force him to work in a German labor camp. Escaping captivity, Szpilman survives in the attic of an abandoned bombed-out building in the Warsaw ghetto. While there, he befriends a German officer who shares his love of music and brings him food rations on a regular basis. As the war comes to a conclusion, the fate of both men remains in the air as the evils of the Nazi regime are displaced by the iron fist of Soviet expansion...

Based on the true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, one the most accomplished piano players in all of Europe prior to the advance of the Nazi regime, The Pianist is a masterpiece on the big screen. The wondrous music and its compelling beauty stand in stark contrast to the horrors of war. Brody is more than deserving of his Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Ronald Harwood's screenplay is simply masterful. The precision with which this film tells its story, coupled with its intimate portrayal of the human condition, makes The Pianist one of the greatest films of all time and a definite must-see for anyone who harbors a love of artistry and cinema...

Patton (Movie Review)

Nominated for ten Academy Awards, and winner of seven including Best Picture, Patton is one of the most inspirational and interesting biographies ever produced for the big screen. Cast in the title role, George C. Scott won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role, but refused to accept the award because he didn't consider himself in competition with other actors. With brilliant direction, cinematography, visual effects, and an original musical score (by Jerry Goldsmith) - themselves all nominated for Academy Awards - Patton stacks up as one of the best films of all time from any genre...

Patton follows the life of George S. Patton (George C. Scott), famous Allied tank commander from World War II. Beginning with his exploits in North Africa, Patton follows the career of this bombastic general through the D-Day invasion (in which he would act as a decoy), the Battle of the Bulge, and the liberation of Germany. Throughout the process, viewers are privy to the ongoing behind-the-scenes actions of a man famous for his temper and infamous among his peers for his insubordination.

Along the way, Patton must learn to deal with his contemporaries, men such as General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Omar Bradley (Karl Malden), and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (Michael Bates). Despite his display of military genius in the field of battle (garnering the fear of his German enemies), Patton is relieved from his post as Occupation Commander of Germany because of the many faults he exhibits. A military historian who believed he was destined for greatness throughout the ages, Patton loved war. In fact, once the war ended, he died within a few months when he was killed in a car accident...

George C. Scott turns in a memorable performance as the large-than-life Patton. With an overpowering personality and a domineering will, George Patton led his men to victory in one of the most pivotal wars for freedom the world has ever witnessed. Politically-incorrect by every standard of today's measure, the real Patton wouldn't last a minute in today's military. Ironic, because that same military would acknowledge him as one of the greatest generals of its hallowed past! Nevertheless, Patton's legacy endures through our memories and through this film, and the lessons of his life continue to inspire people to this day (people who hopefully use a bit more tact and subtlety in asserting their desires)...

Overall, Patton is a blockbuster film even by today's standards. Despite vast improvements in the realm of filmmaking, Patton (released in 1970) remains unrivaled in its portrayal of one of America's greatest heroes. The battle scenes are especially realistic, and decades before Saving Private Ryan, they vividly illustrated the serious horrors of war. One of the greatest films of the 20th Century, written about one of the greatest figures of the 20th Century, Patton is a definite must-see film for any serious aficionado of movies...