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Reviews
Dave Made a Maze (2017)
Nifty premise and astounding production design underserved by lame script and direction
This comedy-drama starts with a neat idea: Dave, a 30-year-old slacker (Nick Thune), builds a whimsical cardboard fort in his apartment. Inside the fort, however, lies a seemingly endless labyrinth which traps him, his girlfriend, and numerous other acquaintances. There are plenty of inventive visuals on display, but writer/director Bill Watterson - no relation to the "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoonist - and cowriter Steven Sears don't know where to take them.
The film's MVPs are production designers Trisha Gum and John Sumner and art director Jeff White. What they and their team have accomplished, with what was surely a minuscule budget, is spectacular. Room after cardboard room, the sets amaze and delight. But Watterson's staging is uninspired and Jon Boal's cinematography looks cheap. Mostly, however, the script is to blame: the kernel of a good story is lost, like its characters, in a cardboard maze of unfunny gags and the occasional bit of psychobabble. (There's some symbolic blarney about how the maze represents Dave's creative inertia or something.) James Urbaniak, the poor man's Kyle MacLachlan, is always a welcome presence, though his meddling documentarian character grows tiresome. (Blame the script, not the actor.) Adam Busch is likewise game, but the weak material drags him down. The rest of the cast is unremarkable.
I genuinely dislike criticizing a film that was clearly a labor of love for its creators, but Dave Made a Maze was so frustrating that I had to come here to lament its wasted potential. Bravo to the art department, though.
Southland Tales (2006)
Bloated, superficial junk.
First of all, I freely admit to being pretty much the only person I know who didn't go for Richard Kelly's 2001 debut film Donnie Darko. I found it a weak attempt at David Lynch-level pop surrealism aimed at self-serious teenagers. Years later, I agreed to watch it again, after reading all the notes on the film and after Kelly, with his "director's cut," bent over backwards to convince his audience that what he really made was a complicated science fiction movie, not a typically Lynchian drama about a lonely loser's fantasy life during the moments before his death. It made more sense, but for me it also took away what little heart the story actually had. Now that Kelly's long-awaited sophomore effort Southland Tales has hit the screen, I am more convinced than ever that the emperor's not wearing any clothes. Richard Kelly is a bad filmmaker.
Set in a sci fi version of 2008 Los Angeles, Southland Tales is a muddled mess, tying together a trillion different plot lines that revolve around the Republican vice presidential candidate and his family, a Hollywood movie star (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) who has gone missing, a national security tracking system that keeps tabs on everybody, a porn star (Sarah Michelle Gellar) who is trying to sell a script she wrote with The Rock, Seann William Scott playing two characters, a mysterious alternative fuel, neo-Marxists, World War III, the Apocalypse, the Second Coming, and legions of cheesy B actors and former "Saturday Night Live" stars. And Justin Timberlake.
It's ambitious, to say the least. Overly ambitious. WAY overly ambitious. While Kelly continues to ape Lynch's trademark weirdness - Wild at Heart, Lynch's only self-congratulatory film, is the main influence, but Mulholland Drive is there too (Kelly even uses Mulholland's Latin chanteuse Rebekah Del Rio in a similar scene), and actually there's quite a bit of Kathryn Bigelow's mediocre, undeservedly admired Strange Days in this movie too - the life Kelly's leading as a director is more akin to that of George Lucas: Lots of half-baked ideas, some terrible casting choices, and nobody to lean over his shoulder to tell him "Make some serious script revisions, or have somebody else write your screenplay." Kelly seems overwhelmingly convinced that he is a genius, as his pretentious storyline shows - only the last three "chapters" of an apparent six-chapter saga are presented in the film (hey, just like the first Star Wars movies!), with audiences expected to buy the first three chapters in graphic novel form - essentially forcing people to once again do lots of homework in order to fully "get" the movie, just as with Donnie Darko. Man, what an ego this guy's got. But I'm not buying it. Despite the heavy-handed use of Biblical references (gee, that's a new one) and classic poetry (particularly T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men, which Kelly paraphrases), the low humor and flat dialogue in this tepid satire are what betray Kelly's true sensibilities: Look, there's Kevin Smith dressed up like an old man! Haw haw, John Larroquette from "Night Court" got his private parts tasered! Tee hee, The Rock just called that slutty Bai Ling a "bitch" and then she fell on the floor going "Ooh!" - that'll show her! This is an AWFUL film, devoid of any truth, emotion, intelligence or genuine creativity. (Kelly works hard to explain a lot of his story here, too, and guess what - in the end, it's kind of like Donnie Darko, with its parallel universes and temporal shifts and such.) The actors, most of whom are the sort who need a lot of direction to be good, recite their lines without feeling, as lost as the rest of us. (I assume Johnson, Scott and Gellar signed on for Kelly's hipster cred; the rest of the cast were surely just hungry for any work whatsoever.) Even the CG effects are poorly done! Even the cinematography's bad! I could go on, but what depresses me most is that there will doubtlessly be new fans who will defend all this shabbily-executed nonsense as "visionary," and the misguided cult of Richard Kelly will only grow.
Office Killer (1997)
Take it or leave it
In the mid-90's, there was this weird trend where 80's New York art stars were all given the chance to direct feature films. The less-than-impressive results: Robert Longo's "Johnny Mnemonic," David Salle's "Search and Destroy," Julian Schnabel's "Basquiat" and finally Cindy Sherman's "Office Killer." That only Schnabel moved on to direct a second feature says a lot about these poor directorial choices. Surprise - just because you can paint a picture or take a photograph doesn't mean you know how to make a movie.
That said, "Office Killer" has a unique look to it: Sherman's photographic eye makes for some nice creepy compositions, even if her philosophy about using a camera cinematically is of the bolt-it-to-the-ground-and-maybe-pan-a-little school. And she works well with cinematographer Russell Fine, though the whole film is shot through a murky lens that had this viewer crying out for the occasional bright exterior just to add a little contrast.
So what went wrong with "Office Killer"? Well, pretty much what you'd predict would go wrong with a photographer director who had never made a film before: uneven pacing; more attention paid to the setup of a shot than to what's going on in it; a lack of tension; and a cast who, with the exception of the ever-willing Carol Kane, don't seem to know what to do. Aware that they're working for a famous photographer, they quietly obey, even while Sherman clearly has little experience in working with actors. Michael Imperioli and Jeanne Tripplehorn have been far better elsewhere, Barbara Sukowa is flat-out bad, and Molly Ringwald is her usual depthless self. The script is also somewhat leaden, given its dark comic potential.
"Office Killer" is still a curiosity, interesting mainly for aficionados of Cindy Sherman's work (and you've got to admire those cool opening credits), though horror fans who enjoyed the better-received "May" (which I personally didn't care for) might like this movie's look and mood. As for me, I couldn't shake off the feeling that this is the product of a bunch of chuckling New York hipsters who thought they were doing something "postmodern" and "ironic" but only churned out something uninspired and limp... albeit artsy.
Zero Prospect (2003)
Remarkable low-budget semi-short
Though "Zero Prospect" is no great epic, what it achieves on a truly shoestring budget is pretty extraordinary: nearly the entire film was shot in the director's basement on sets he built himself, but you wouldn't know it, with a number of intricate spaceship interiors, highly-detailed miniatures and nearly flawless special effects. The story centers on two regular joes who pilot a spaceship and are just trying to get by; when a competitor sabotages a simple ore mining mission, they have to scramble just to make it out alive.
This is one of those movies made sheerly for the love of it; the cast may be just a bunch of the director's buddies, but they are believable enough in their roles, and their natural Alabama accents add a bit of charm to their characters. Kudos also to Cressall for writing a script that, while not 100% thrilling, has an inarguable authenticity that will appeal to detail-oriented sci fi fans. You really get the feeling that this is what everyday life might be like for ordinary folks in the interstellar future.
All in all, the film looks as though it was shot for about 100 times its budget, and I'm not exaggerating. Worth a look, if you can find it. (It's not commercially available to my knowledge.)
Skidoo (1968)
Embarrassing
I like a good bad movie. I can go on and on about how wonderful "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies" is - and I have. And I don't need those MST3K idiots adding lame improv chatter to make a bad film more enjoyable! So I had been looking forward to "Skidoo" for years. I finally watched it last night, after procuring a copy on eBay (pretty much the only place where you can find this film, currently).
My reaction, in a nutshell: Blah. Yuck. Ho hum.
It's pointless to say more, especially when so many "Skidoo" fans have already weighed in - quite eloquently, I might add - within these comments pages. But I will say this: Usually on the IMDb, when you see so many well-written praises for a famous train wreck of a film, you get the feeling that this is something to see. Don't be snowed as I was! What most of these folks are not telling you is that "Skidoo" is meant to be a wacky comedy. But it's simply a deadening, painful-to-watch document of the twilight of many a great performer's career, where, before either dying or retreating to the safety of TV movies, the cast - some game, some barely even trying (I'm looking at you, Groucho Marx) - flounder in this pathetic attempt by the dinosaurs of 1950's Hollywood to try to stay relevant by making a "hippie movie."
This film is flat, boring, pretentious and hopelessly uncampy. It has the distinctively ugly look of late 60's studio cinema, and like many of those other strident, unfunny all-star comedies of the era ("The Great Race," "The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!" et al), it's just plain awful.
Camp Utopia (2002)
Let's be very generous and call it a mixed bag
A bunch of college kids go to a remote mountain area, the scene of a legendary mass murder staged by a Manson-like guru (Ratt singer Stephen Pearcy, who's in the film for all of 5 minutes in a flashback), so the boys can scare the girls.
You gets what you expects from a movie like this: Some slashing, some blood - and some T&A, of course - but no suspense, surprise or originality.
Jessica Jordan is actually quite appealing as Gretchen, the girl who inadvertently winds up the heroine. But the jokes are lame, the rest of the cast forgettable, the production values low and uncreative.
Mole (2001)
Relentlessly creepy; good gooey atmosphere
I won't summarize "Mole" here, as the other reviewers have already done a pretty good job. I will just share my impressions: though "Blair Witch" comparisons may be inevitable, they only skim the surface. "Mole" is far more tense, with a fully fleshed-out storyline and well-developed characters whose ambiguity grows exponentially as the story's screws tighten on them. And you just can't get over the rawness of the look, so central to the film's effectiveness. It's obvious that Mauro, Savini and their cast & crew really ARE down in the subterranean tunnels of New York, and it's terrifying enough just imagining them all there, in pitch dark, with rats and God knows what else crawling all over them, just to get this film made. This you-are-there creepiness fills every frame and enriches each performance, especially Sam Tsao's. She comes across at first as a bit stiff, but eventually sinks her teeth into a role that is as dark and disturbing as the setting and as "Mole" is itself. An honesty in the storytelling and no B.S. attitude to the dialogue and camerawork also help make this film well worth tracking down.
Nick and Jane (1997)
Romantic comedy delivers the goods
As the punny title suggests, "Nick and Jane" delivers everything you'd expect from a typical romantic comedy, with a little twist. While I found the secondary story involving Jane's professional life a bit uninteresting, this is a romantic comedy first and foremost, and thankfully it works. And what makes it work so well is the chemistry between Dana Wheeler-Nicholson and James McCaffrey. It's that "are they a couple in real life?" sort of chemistry. (To my knowledge, they're not.) Wheeler-Nicholson doesn't always convince me when she's working alongside the other actors in the movie, but McCaffrey is so good that he brings out the best in her, and I for one fell for their storybook romance hook, line and sinker. The supporting cast is goofy but likable, especially David "Hot Hot Hot" Johansen and Clinton Leupp as two initially annoying gay stereotypes who turn out to be thoughtful, agreeable characters. A thoroughly sweet little movie that proves you don't need major stars to make a romantic comedy work. Still trying to figure out how such a low budget production got to incorporate a Bjork song into its soundtrack, but I'm not complaining.
J. Lyle (1994)
Bottomlessly horrible
Bill Plympton is an excellent cartoonist. His kinky, disturbing animated shorts have long enjoyed a healthy following of both underground film fans and the MTV generation. So I looked forward to watching "J. Lyle," his first (and thus far only) live action feature, expecting some of the same nasty wit and perfect timing.
Boy, was I disappointed. "J. Lyle" is as uninspired, ugly and unenjoyable a "comedy" as they come. The story centers around an obnoxious New York yuppie who learns a few lessons about life and love from a "magical" dog (with cartoon eyes) and, as mentioned in the rudimentary IMDb synopsis, it does include a musical number featuring puppetized body organs. It's hard to recall what else happens because the movie is so completely amateurish that the plot defies recollection. I do remember lots of empty walls (painted in primary colors and flatly lit), a stiff cast (Plympton's buddies, probably, looking like they'd rather go home), moron-level writing, and cinematography that seems to be of the "place camera randomly, then nail to the floor" variety.
Bad timing, bad looks, bad actors, bad idea. I've already spent more time writing these comments than this never-to-be-seen-again film deserves. But if you're reading this, Mr. Plympton, I beg of you: never, ever try making a live action feature again. Please.
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (1964)
I love this film, and I'm not kidding.
I may be one of the few to have watched this film on its own, years ago, without the MST3K commentary that "legitimized" it as a bad film. This is news? It IS a bad film. That's its charm! Super-saturated cinematography, a gypsy that looks exactly like Elizabeth Taylor with an enormous mole (and I agree with the comment that Cash Flagg bears more than a passing resemblance to Nicolas Cage), Atlas King's wonderfully earnest bad acting... and those dance numbers! Years later, I still can't get the tunes to "She Knocks the Ship Outta Shape" and "A Woo A Wah" out of my mind. Not to forget that one shot of the creepy bobbing clown head at the carnival! This movie is great fun. To paraphrase John Waters, the worst films ever made are not bad films, but boring films. Say what you will, ISCWSLABMUZ is anything but boring.
That said, I give you all a stern warning NOT to see director Ray Dennis Steckler's Batman parody "Rat Fink a Boo Boo." It is mind-numbingly awful. Humorless, ugly - and very very boring. If you think ISCWSLABMUZ is terrible, you have not yet sunk to the very bottom depths of Steckler's abilities, which is "Rat Fink." (Steckler's B&W "The Thrill Killers" falls somewhere in between these two bookends of his talent.)
Lithivm (1998)
Plain awful
The young director of this film is obviously aiming for a gritty, "Dogme-95" look and feel - something that worked well for another contemporary Swedish film, "F**king Amal" ("Show Me Love" in the U.S.). However, here it is merely a shallow exercise in stylistics, supporting a moronic story about a young journalist who pursues a man she believes is a serial killer. Of course he is, but that doesn't stop the journalist from doing some insanely stupid things - she even goes to the man's house and wraps his tie around her neck, asking him to strangle her! Moreover, several scenes where we apparently go "inside the head" of the killer just come across as silly.
Despite a few random moments of inspiration, the film as a whole is a pretentious, overlong mess, thoroughly ugly in every respect. Somebody in Sweden was shocked that this was included in the Hollywood Film Festival. Don't be shocked - that festival included several of the worst films I saw in 1999. There were perhaps 20 people in the audience when I sat down to watch "Lithivm;" by the time the film was over, perhaps 5 were left. No doubt masochists like myself.
Boys Don't Cry (1999)
Don't forget one important fact of the killings
I won't go on about how I liked this film - I did, and my comments are very similar to most others you will find on these Comments pages. But now that the movie has introduced many people to the tragic story of Brandon Teena, I would like to take a moment to remind people of the dramatic license used in the film.
In short, it should be noted that Brandon Teena was murdered along with TWO other people: Lisa Lambert, with whom he was living at the time (she is replaced in the film by a fictional character named Candace), and a friend named Phillip DeVine, who is not represented in the film at all. Brandon Teena was above all a human being, and his murder deserves to haunt the American landscape. But Lambert and DeVine were also human beings, and they should not be forgotten just because their own lives were not considered dramatically necessary to this film's plot.
The Limey (1999)
Artful, independent American cinema lives
I have to hand it to Steven Soderbergh: in an era where "independent American film" often falls into one of two stiff categories (play-it-safe studio knockoffs like "Happy, Texas" and novelty acts like "Blair Witch"), he continues to make original, challenging, and above all entertaining films. With "The Underneath," "Out of Sight" and now "The Limey," he's also proven to be pretty much the only interesting American working in the noir genre today - so much for the promise that artless noirist John Dahl ("Red Rock West") once held.
"The Limey" drips with smoggy L.A. atmosphere all the way through. One of the most wonderful things about Soderbergh's films is the distinctive atmospheres he creates around the cities his stories take place in - New Orleans in "sex, lies and videotape," St. Louis in "King of the Hill," Florida and Detroit in "Out of Sight." This film shows L.A. in all its sun-baked glory.
A final appreciation for the startling editing. Relative newbie Sarah Flack proves that, under Soderbergh's creative lead, she is just as capable at nonlinear editing (in both senses of the word) as "Out of Sight's" editor, the legendary Anne Coates.
Support artistically muscular filmmaking and go see "The Limey." It goes without saying that the actors are all first-rate, especially Terence Stamp, who for my money turns in THE coolest performance of the year.
Wandafuru raifu (1998)
Don't let the literalists steer you away from this film
Time after time, this lovely little movie gets trashed by western critics (and would-be critics) who are so absorbed with imposing their own strict guidelines as to what a movie about the afterlife should be about (just as they may with the idea of the afterlife itself) that they too quickly write off this wistful meditation on the beauty of ordinary life and the power of human memory.
Yes, the film is slow, but I don't think a moment should be trimmed. It takes time, after all, to follow the paths of some 20 odd "newly dead" characters, as well as the half dozen caseworkers assigned to them, to their conclusions, and "After Life" does so in a surprisingly clear-headed and satisfying way. Not for a moment is the viewer confused as to who is who - a special feat for western eyes viewing an Asian film.
That a film can have the power to make disparate viewers reflect upon their own lives afterward is significant enough to highly recommend "Afterlife" to anybody currently alive - the grouches of this comments page notwithstanding.
And a special nod towards the casting: I deeply admire the ability of many contemporary Japanese films (such as "Shall We Dance?" and "Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald") to create such a wide variety of well-formed and memorable characters with just a few gestures and the right faces. It's an ability that was once mastered by Hollywood studio films, now since entirely lost - the notion of the "character" role replaced by an outbreak of barely indistinguishable, poorly fleshed-out "types."
Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö (1990)
Incredibly depressing - and highly enjoyable
Short, simple, almost completely free of dialogue, "The Match Factory Girl" is perhaps cinema at its purest form. How brave to create a film where the viewer is forced to watch the poor heroine spiral down further and further into wretchedness, all the way to the bottom, with a wry smile and deadpan detachment all the way. But just because the movie's tone is cold and standoffish doesn't mean it's unaffecting. I saw this movie over 5 years ago and the memory of it still ties my heart in a knot.
Out of Rosenheim (1987)
It gets better with each viewing
I have seen this movie at least 3 or 4 times and every time I watch it, I am that much more closely moved to tears. I can't explain it. Perhaps it is just the beauty of Marianne Sagebrecht's performance. The film goes far, far beyond mere "quirky," believe me.
And "I'm Calling You" has got to be one of the hands-down best songs ever written for a film. A real shame it didn't win the Oscar the year it was nominated. (I believe Carly Simon's middling song for "Working Girl" got it instead.)
A wonderful film to curl up with in your pajamas, either with a bowl of popcorn or a pot of tea, on a quiet evening at home.
Badlands (1973)
The Velvet Underground of films
"Badlands" is a terrific film, no question about it, and others have noted the "homages" to the film evident in both "True Romance" (which intermittently aped its style, even copying the same Carl Orff tune at the end) and "Natural Born Killers" (which riffed off its content - though, to be fair, "Badlands" itself was seen at the time of its release to just be following in the footsteps of "Bonnie and Clyde"). Though I don't know whether Tarantino indicated in his scripts for these films or if the directors themselves looked to "Badlands" for inspiration, the influence is doubtless.
However, I'd also like to hold up "Badlands" as the film that singularly influenced a large number of filmmakers who would mature in the years following its release: Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch and Atom Egoyan, just to name a few.
For "Badlands" was the first mainstream feature to establish many of the film trends we now take for granted: ironic placement of pop music (compare its use of Mickey and Sylvia's "Love Is Strange" to the purely nostalgic use of oldies in "American Graffiti" that same year); the leisurely - and thus bold - pacing of a story of violence; deadpan black humor; sudden bloodshed played for a wry laugh; Malick's taste for holding inanimate objects and unpeopled landscapes in the same regard, and relevance, as his human actors.
Hitchcock and the James Bond series might have been the primary encouragement for today's movie audiences to laugh smugly at graphic violence, but it was "Badlands" that pulled the same stunt while reminding us that these were still quite human beings who met their grim ends, and that if a violent death is laughable, it is only because of its randomness and pointlessness. Sadly, something must have been lost in the translation.
A Patch of Blue (1965)
Wonderful, wonderful performances
What a surprise. It had been a long time since I saw such an honest, sensitively-made film, and it really brings to mind that old statement "They don't make 'em like they used to." How refreshing to see a film that handles potentially mawkish, TV movie-of-the-week style material (blind white girl falls in love with sighted black man) with sophistication, grace and lack of sentimentality. These are real humans that emerge out of the script, and the central performances of Sidney Poitier and the sadly forgotten Elizabeth Hartman take the tender screenplay and deliver beautiful, deeply touching performances. It is, simply put, a joy to watch them perform together.
Credit must also be given to a young Jerry Goldsmith's sweet, delicate score, and Robert Burks' (Hitchcock's favorite DP) rich black and white cinematography. Almost impossible to find in its original widescreen format, still very worthwhile rental material.
The Innocents (1961)
David Lynch's secret influence?
Rather than merely echo the sentiments of my fellow reviewers - suffice it to say, "The Innocents" is a breathtaking film and remains one of my all-time favorites - I thought I would take a moment to provide some food for thought.
A friend of mine once said, whimsically of course, that the moment that made a young David Lynch decide he wanted to make movies must have been the scene in "Mad Love" in which Peter Lorre appears wearing an enormous neck brace and bizarre metal gauntlets on his hands, under sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat.
I myself prefer to muse - tongue firmly in cheek - that it was "The Innocents" that made Lynch see the light, the specific moment occurring early on when Deborah Kerr, clipping roses in the garden, spots an ivy-covered statue of a cherub. The cherub holds the broken hands of some long-missing older playmate. As Kerr stares at the statue, suddenly a hideous insect crawls right out of the cherub's mouth! With the film step-framed and slowed down, no less. A wonderful moment - frightening and artful, surreal and perverse - and an amazing feat when one considers the year of the film, and the laudable but oft-considered workaday talents of director Jack Clayton. For those who have seen the film, of course, it is just one of many such moments.
While I'm musing, I must also add that when David Lynch sought a cinematographer to shoot his own widescreen, black and white Victorian "monster" movie, "The Elephant Man," he looked no further than "The Innocents'" own DP, Freddie Francis. Coincidence?
Pleasantville (1998)
Self-important and self-congratulatory
This is a movie that might have been made in the 60's, when young trendies embracing "free thinking" (to justify their self-indulgence in sex and drugs) would have hailed this film as the perfect message - even instrument - of change. In other words, it suggests that change is always beautiful, ultimately makes everybody happy, and leaves no battle scars. Groovy, man.
Well, the radical changes that took place in the late 60's did much good: they broke down a lot of prejudices and opened up many young minds to the possibilities of life. They also left us with rampant egotism, mistrust (even hatred) of authority, and a party's-over cynicism that, 30 years later, has only gotten worse.
The key problem with "Pleasantville" is that, despite a rushed (and insincere) "reality check" at the very end of the film, writer/director Gary Ross wants us to believe that changing the world is as simple as opening up your mind to sex, jazz and art. It's hard to really see this as a metaphor for greater things; "Pleasantville" is much too simplistic in its "power to the people" faux-idealism to mean much more than what it shows on the surface.
It's also very significant to note that, by film's end, the town of Pleasantville is completely technicolored and every citizen is just as happy and docile on the surface as they appeared in their black and white beginning. In other words, everybody changed... But everybody changed in the exact same way. Who's against conformity? Not Gary Ross, and not "Pleasantville."