Waiting Film Critique

Matthew Nichenko

Waiting Film Critique

Easily, this is the truest depiction of the life of a server. Since I myself am a server I can relate to this movie without a problem. Waiting is possibly the easiest and cheapest movie to make while still making a hit with the public. The writers do a great job of having a character that is literally in every restaurant in the world. You have your fake female, man whore, black wise man, sex predator manger, and druggy bus boys. I could never stop laughing from the very beginning of this movie. As I think over the movie I can’t think of a scenario that they did not at least partly cover that takes place every day between the co-workers in a restaurant.

I thought it was a brilliant idea for the movie to be about a new guy’s first day on the job with allows every secret and inside joke in the restaurant to be talked about so that he (the audience) is involved. The funniest part is the customers portrayed in the movie. Sad to say but this is really how some people act when they go out to eat and its hilarious to me that the people who are really like this will watch the movie and think those kind of people are annoying when they themselves are annoying. For every person who has ever waited tables or is waiting tables that has wanted to make a movie about their job, this movie is perfect.

Happy Gilmore Film Critique

Matthew Nichenko

Happy Gilmore Film Critique

In the 1996 master comedy known as Happy Gilmore, director Denis Dugan ties together an ex-hockey scrub into a legendary golf star. Happy, played by Adam Sandler, uses the motivation of his grandmother’s house being sold to fuel him to become the greatest golf player of all time with the most unique golf swings that will never be forgotten. I thought this was one the greatest parts of the movie when you see Happy swing the golf club with the running hockey slap shot to send the ball flying hundreds of yards into the distance.

Like all movies there is always that someone in the way to try and stop Happy from being the best in golf and in this movie that person is Shooter McGavin played Christopher McDonald. This movie is a non-stop comedy that never lets the audience down providing laugh after laugh. This is without a doubt one of Adam Sandler’s greatest movies of all time. Celebrities like Bob Barker make an appearance in the movie only to kick the crap out of Happy after getting into an argument while adding his famous line “the price is right.” This is easily one of the top 50 comedies of all time.

The Soloist Film Critique

Matthew Nichenko

The Soloist Film Critique

Soloist, released in early 2009, is one of the most heartfelt movies of the year. Based on the true life of Nathaniel Ayers, a once upon a time musician prodigy who is now homeless playing on broken instruments. I thought that Robert Downing Jr. and Jamie Fox were the perfect actors the play the roles in this movie, although Jamie Fox’s performance blew my mind away. I have never seen Fox act with such meaning, intensity, and emotion that I become lost in his character and felt such emotion for his character on the screen.

The movie went as far as to show the real life of people on the streets in Los Angeles as it took you into the homeless shelters and streets in the poorest of poor parts of the city. This helped to bring even more intensity to the movie. Some might say the speed of this movie was too slow or mellow but that is just what it takes in order for the movie to get its full effect out. If the movie was an action movie or a poorly directed movie then it would have failed miserably in my eyes. Jamie Fox should win numerous awards for his role as Nathaniel in this movie and if he doesn’t then there is something seriously wrong in society today.

Bruno Film Critique

Matthew Nichenko

Bruno Film Critique

m The movie Bruno and similarly Borat have a certain style of humor that can easily be offensive. Actually I think the only direction for Sacha Baron Cohen’s comedy is offensive. I’m not exactly sure how to classify the genre of Bruno. The concept of Bruno is basically Sacha Baron Cohen transforming his entire life as a pathetic star-craved homosexual. He approaches celebrities and other public figures and tries to embarrass them on camera using extremely offensive homosexual humors. M

Personality, I thought the movie was quite clever throughout the first 50 minutes. After that, it was very easy to tell that Cohen ran out of material. After the 50-minute mark, Cohen became straight offensive and the movie fell off extremely fast. I thought Borat was hysterical. And after watching other random Cohen bits, he has a unique place in comedy. However, Bruno was a disappointment and epic failure. There are just some topics that people don’t agree are funny. And if you’re going to attack these points, you should have enough material to complete a 90-minute film. But that’s just my opinion.

The Hangover Film Critique

Matthew Nichenko

The Hangover Film Critique

This movie, much like Paranormal Activity, was ruined for me in the basketball locker room before I had a chance to watch it myself. Again this movie was way over hyped before I got a chance to watch it, and therefore a slight let down. However, the more I watch the movie, the more I begin to fall in love with it.

Quite interestedly I’ve noticed all the money this movie’s made with marketers recently. I’ve seen a shampoo brand (I forget which one) and Axe Body Spray, both market themselves using scenes from the Hangover. Giving a message along the lines, “want to live a wild and crazy life, use our shit”. Like I said, something along those lines.

But the movie itself was good. I remember seeing the preview a solid 9-months before it was released, being the first one of my friends to get excited about it. But now I feel as though I jumped the band-wagon with all the other band-wagoners in America.

The idea of three guys working backwards to figure out what they did the night before was an interesting concept in a comedy. I’ve seen it done many times in drama’s but never in a comedy; very nicely done.

The Mask Film Critique

Matthew Nichenko

The Mask Film Critique

I went back and watched The Mask for the first time since I was about ten. Man, were there so many jokes I did not understand the first time around. If my parents would have sat me down and explained all the lingo to me when I was ten, I would have become an entirely different person.

Realizing before hand, that this was Cameron Diaz’s first big movie, I paid more attention to her acting in the movie. And I must lie, it wasn’t very good. Maybe it’s the idea that she’s playing the dumb bimbo blonde, but she didn’t impress me at all, in this movie at least; there have many other titles that she’s excelled brilliantly.

This also being Jim Carey’s first big blockbuster hit, he acted as a cartoon to the greatest ability I have ever seen; and did I mention how dirty his humor was in this movie? No? Well it was fitly.

I wish Jim Carey would have come through and did a sequel to this movie. And I’m not talking about the horrible straight to DVD sequel s that actually did come out. But a highly produced, well written studio film; a film done right.

The Jerk Film Critique

Matthew Nichenko

The Jerk Film Critique

Having only hearing about this movie from a fellow film student this semester, I had to find out what all the hype was about. Only recently have I become obsessed with every aspect of the film industry, I was not familiar with Steve Martin’s sarcastic sense of humor. After watching The Jerk, I believe I can pick out a Steve Martin joke a mile away.

Some may find this sense of humor stupid and uninteresting; however, I think the exact opposite. While Martin’s jokes were sarcastic and sometimes over the edge, they were never predictable and kept you guessing. And sense they weren’t hinted at beforehand, it caused the humor to be even better. One of my favorite parts of the movie (and shamefully admit, I didn’t understand the joke at first) was when Steve Martin was working as the gas station and discovered that the gas cans were ‘defective’, only to quickly find out that some redneck was trying to shoot him. “These cans are defective, these cans are defective”, screams Martin; quite possibly been one of the funniest parts of any movie I’ve ever seen. I might just have to give that an homage when I become a famous screenwriter myself.