Monster (DVD)

...TITLE: Monster RATING: ****½ CAST: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern, Lee Tergeson, Annie Corley, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Marco St. John, Marc Macaulay, Scott Wilson, Rus Blackwell, Tim Ware, Stephan Jones, Brett Rice, Kaitlin Riley, Cree Ivey, Catherine Mangan, Magdalena Manville, T. Robert Pigott, Kane Hodder. DIRECTOR: Patty Jenkins STUDIO: Media 8 Entertainment / DEJ Productions / K/W Productions / Denver and Delilah Productions / MDP ...
...to tell the story, and MONSTER is probably no exception. In this film, Jenkins asks her audience a most unusual question: should we feel sympathy toward a serial killer? Of course, it all depends on one’s personal perspective. As for myself, after buying the film on DVD and watching it several nights ago, I will say that she had no excuse for what she did, though she did have reasons. According to the facts of the real-life case, Aileen (better known ...

eve6kicksass 11.06.2004 (13.06.2004) · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

“Monster”, the film for which Charlize Theron recently won the Best Actress Oscar, is based on the true story of serial killer, Aileen Wuornos, who was executed in 2002 for the murders of seven men in the state of Florida. Part road movie, part crime thriller and part biopic, the movie explores the events leading up to Aileen’s conviction and subsequent execution. In the film, Theron plays Aileen, a hitch-hiking prostitute. Aileen had a traumatic ...
...age, a victim of incest at the hands of her brother and grandfather, and sleeping around with local boys. She became pregnant in her early teens, with no idea who the father of her baby was and gave the baby away for adoption. Disowned by her family, she turned to prostitution at the age of thirteen and since then has lived from one encounter to another, sleeping rough, spending all her money in bars and finding food where she can. Aileen is teetering ...

Pumpkin 27.05.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

...the original murders occurred. However, Monster also portrays a poignant and tender love story that develops between two misguided and disturbed young women. It begins with Wuornos, a prostitute on the brink of suicide, until she befriends a girl named Selby Wall (Christina Ricci.) The two women quickly enter into a passionate relationship, until things go amiss and Wuornos is raped by one of her clients - (not a scene for the faint-hearted.) Eventually, ...
...vengeful killer. Yet Monster is a film that has been beautifully paced, so that there are moments of joy and humour as well as sheer horror at the fate of all the victims, including Wuornos herself. When the protagonist is eventually convicted, the sheer bleakness and isolation that the central characters display is conveyed to the audience; in a final act of love for Selby, Aileen Wuornos gives herself up to the police, denying her lover’s partaking ...

Principessaxxx 14.04.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

Aileen is a prostitute with few friends. She hates her profession and hates the men that she has to rely on, but she needs the money to live. When she first meets Selby at a bar, she realises that she is a lesbian and rebuffs her. However, Aileen craves affection so much that she lets Selby into her life, and before much longer, they are living together. Aileen tries to change her ways, applying for jobs for which she has little in the way of qualifications. ...
...she is soon forced to return to prostitution. When she is attacked one night, she decides that enough is enough and fights back, killing her client. This is the first of many killings. Can she maintain her lust for blood and her relationship with Selby? Or will Selby give her lover up to the police? I went to see this film in the cinema when it first came out, purely out of curiosity about the female serial killer, Aileen Wuornos. And I came out ...

sunmeilan 10.04.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

...do what she does. Monster also shows her relationship with a young woman named Selby (Christina Ricci), which has a dramatic knock-on effect on her murder spree. It all intertwines with each other and will have you utterly shocked throughout. The stare of Aileen Wuornos literally goes straight through you as you sit and watch the story unfold. Despite the circumstances of the murders, I couldn't help but feel slightly sorry for her as a human being. ...
...do what she did is unthinkable. Charlize Theron expresses this woman's horrific life history without softening her personality at all and the performance is undoubtedly outstanding. Christina Ricci, performs very well as the outcast young girl Selby, the passion and love between them is definitely caught on camera and you very get caught up in the emotions of this real -life dramatisation. This is certainly a performance of gripping, devastating, ...

grown_up_girlie 15.05.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

Monster tellls the very graphic and rather shocking real life tale of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who became a serial killer after one of her clients became abusive. This is an extremely gritty and compelling story, with Charlize Theron giving an absolutely outstanding performance as Wournos. Aileen Wuornos was executed back in 2002 after being found guilty of the deaths of seven men, with all of them (except one) paying her for sex before they ...
...partner Selby for comfort. Monster is definately not a happy film, and is the kind of film that leaves you feeling upset and angry at the end, as Aileen is sentenced to rot in death row, yet again shunned away by society. The film starts with Aileen sitting with a gun in her hand, contemplating the end, and ends in pretty much the same way, as she is led away in handcuffs from the court. There are so many unlikeable characters in the film that it's ...

bigmike33 15.11.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

Aileen Wuornos joined a select club in the late 1980s as one of the most prolific serial killers in the USA. In a relatively short space of time, the prostitute killed seven men. She never showed any remorse for the crimes. She was proclaimed a monster. Director Patty Jenkins has created a film that is largely sympathetic to Wuornos. It opens with a brief montage depicting pivotal events from her abusive childhood and then cuts to a scene in which ...
...put us on her side and show us how damaged she is. The main focus of the movie is not the murders she committed, but her relationship with Selby Wall. We are led to believe that it is chance that the relationship and killing spree coincide, although Wuornos’ first same-sex relationship leads to her redefining herself, as do the murders she commits. It is only the circumstances surrounding the first killing that we see in any detail, allowing us to ...

afy9mab 14.05.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

...is it clear who's the monster here? Certainly, Aileen is a psycho-killer, taking out her rage against men. But then there's passive-aggressive Selby, who, whenever money runs out, whined her out, suggesting Aileen to go find another car. She does this even after Aileen decides she's sick of killing and wants to get a regular job. The life with real people never is black and white. Imagine comedy when a prostitute Alieen gets humiliated naively expecting ...
...Aileen and Selby are living in the worst kind of reality, where one murder only makes the next, and the next more easier to commit. Watching the film we learned more than we want about the techniques of disguise from applying film makeup, in order to transform an attractive 28-year-old woman into an street prostitute, which is communicating with a faceless man, in the shadows of sunny Florida highway. That’s one of the questions following "Monster". ...

barefoot777 21.03.2004 (22.03.2004) · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

‘Monster’ is the movie that propelled Charlize Theron to international megastardom and won her a Best Actress Oscar to boot. It is the ‘true’ story of the infamous Aileen Wournos, prostitute and serial killer, who was executed in 2002 for the murders of seven men while going about her business on the Florida state highway. Aileen Wournos’ childhood was horrendous. Some of the ‘facts’ written about her are open to conjecture, but it is fairly certain ...
...her brother and grandfather, and raped by someone else close. She had no real friends and was constantly teased. Before hitting her teens, she was selling blow-jobs for cigarettes and soon after that began having sex with any boy or man who looked her way. She became pregnant in her early teens – some say by her grandfather, some say by the local paedophile, some say by any of the innumerable males who had lain between her legs. Her family made her ...

sandrabarber 12.10.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

...The story Monster is based on a true story about Aileen Wuornos; Aileen was an American prostitute who developed a taste for killing. Aileen had become a prostitute at the age of thirteen, she had a hard life with no family to support her, and she made her own way through life always feeling unloved. In 1999 she met a young woman called Selby, Selby was a young woman coming to terms with her sexuality, when she met Aileen she was instantly attracted. ...
...love took over and she started a relationship with Selby. Aileen and Selby decided to go on the road together, but with no money Aileen was left to find some. Aileen finds her self in a compromising situation and accidentally kills a man, after realising that she has got away with the murder she realises she can do it again, and so her taste for killing begins. Instead of having sex with men for money Aileen started killing men for their money and ...

LIZKEMPO 16.11.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

'''Classification:''' 18 === Introduction === My boyfriend is an avid movie fan and manages to find great pieces of cinema often just by browsing in the dvd shops. He picked this title up yesterday and we watched it last night. I wondered how come I had never heard of movie despite the publicity of the real events and one with such an outstanding perfomance. === Synopsis === It's indeed very hard not to spoil the plot if the movie is based on ...
...Wuornos has been referred to in the media and also in The Guiness World Book of Records. Lee (as Aileen is called in the movie) is a prostitute who is on the verge of rapidly going down the gutter for good when she meets a young girl. She desperately grabs at her last chance of quitting and having a normal life she's never had. === Performance === Lee is played by Charlize Theron (The Italian Job, The Devil's Advocate, Hancock) who even had a body ...

lillamarta 04.11.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

Monster is a 2003 true crime drama of the American serial killer Aileen Wuornos. The film was extremely highly praised by critics and Charlize Theron ended up winning several Best Actress awards for her role including and Academy Award. Monster was made on a budget of $8,000,000 and grossed an estimated $60,378,584 at the box office. The film is rated 18 and runs for approximately 109 minutes. Aileen Wuornos killed 7 men between the years of 1989 ...
...women to being a real monster (no pun intended). She looks so much like the real Aileen Wuornos it’s uncanny. The acting in this is absolutely amazing and all credit should go out to Charlize Theron for that, the role of a serial killer can’t be the easiest role to play but she took to it like a duck to water. She somehow manages to convey emotion from her character and at some points you almost find yourself sympathising with her tragic upbringing ...

Great_reviewer07 19.05.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

...think that the script for Monster is particurllay good, for me it didn’t establish any emotion connections that was all left up to the actors. I didn’t like the way the script portrayed Aileen, to me she didn’t seem like a human, it felt like the writers had no interest in Aileen. One of the major good factors is that the emotional scenes are subtle and not as in your face as it could have been, an okay script, but I have seen better in less critically ...
...some more material on the actual court case, which is extremely interesting, as Aileen claimed that the police had set her up. Would have probably been a more interesting film if it was just about the court case. But I think that the last scene is extremely well dealt with, as Aileen is taken to be executioner. Violence Extremely violent, where did you get from? I think I have seen more violence in certificate 12’s Hellboy for instance. I agree ...

JayHall1991 03.10.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

...first female serial killer. MONSTER (2004) 18 CERT Director - Patty Jenkins Cast - Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern Running time - an enthralling 109 mins approx The Business End - We begin with a voiceover introduction from the character of Wuornos (Theron) charting her troubled childhood. She talks of her dreams and aspirations to become 'somebody' or a star and to endure anything to achieve this ambition. This we see includes ...
...turning tricks for the boys, before eventually becoming a homeless hooker at the tender age of just thirteen. We leap forward then to present day (1989) and Aileen sits in the rain holding a gun, down to her last $5 and contemplating suicide after one last beer. Abandoned and unloved - she has tried to forge emotional bonds with a number of her 'johns' - it appears that love has deemed never to grace her presence and she has had enough and is near ...

REDF 07.04.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)

...a few nights ago when Monster was shown on TV I found myself watching it. The film is based on the true story of Aileen Wuornos, America's first female serial killer. I knew a bit about her story before watching the movie, having seen a documentary about her a few years back. ~The Plot~ Aileen (Charlize Theron) became a prostitute at the age of 13 after a difficult upbringing. She also had a baby at this age, giving it up for adoption after its ...
...herself up. Although these issues were briefly touched on at the beginning of the film, where the film really starts is the day Aileen (referred to throughout the majority of the film as 'Lee') meets Selby (Christina Ricci) in a bar. Selby is a lesbian, and although Aileen isn't, her craving for affection, means that they start a relationship together. Selby is younger than Aileen and Aileen is willing to do anything to keep her happy. Selby moves ...

pink_champagne 19.11.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Monster (DVD)