MaestroReviews

Deb and I are artists, painters actually. We go see films as often as once a week. That's right, we go to the theater and sit in a dark room with strangers to see movies. We rarely rent. We like "little" movies, foreign and documentary films. We try to stay away from mainstream and blockbusters whenever possible, but a couple sneak in each year. We seek out the obscure. We try to avoid violent movies, and that really limits our choices, most film makers seem to think violence makes a story interesting.
I try not to give anything away in the reviews, but offer an honest reaction.
We rate them 1~10, 10 being highest.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Welcome to the Riley's

Deb 7 Me 7


Here’s another one that’ll go under the radar. It’s pretty slow but character development is good. I liked that all the people, and there’s really only three you need to follow, are doing the best they can given the cards they’re dealt. They’re all pretty sincere. For all its language and the central theme involving the ragged edge of New Orleans life, it’s a very tender little movie. I didn’t recognize any of the players from anything, which always helps me believe them. It seems most big actors have a formula or a pigeonhole they’re either in or trying to wiggle out of… these folks were fresh and very good.
My only gripe is there were a few instances where there were some big changes that happened in record time that pushed credibility, but the things in the plus column far outweigh the time compression. A great relief was that, like “the Visitor”, it didn’t have the Hollywood feel to the story, which was filled out well. I liked seeing it more than talking about it later. While watching the movie I could ride with any uneven waves of the story, and talking about them later just made them seem bigger than they were.

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