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Reviews
The Hurt Locker (2008)
THIS won Best Film? NO WAY! Academy's gone whack.
I didn't get it. I was expecting this emotional tour-de-force type of war drama, focusing in on the bomb diffuser guys. Instead, we have this cold, kind of detached, blazé kind of narrative that doesn't get deep enough or emotional enough to really involve the viewer. It certainly left no real impression on me, I practically had forgotten about it 5 minutes after I'd seen it. Really, it doesn't do enough. They employed this shaky "24" style hand-held camera movement, rather haphazard and meaningless in so many parts, unnecessary, even, because the emotional impact of a certain scene is killed due to the invasive feeling of this shaky camera in the character's faces, because it feels like a documentary a lot of the times, and it shouldn't. It's really not worth wasting your time on this film. I can't believe it won Best Film.
The Reaping (2007)
Poorly executed, over indulgent drivel
Would've been a much better film in the hands of a better director. I don't know what happened to Steven Hopkins, but his narrative style went way down the hill ever since he did 24. This film is so segmented into bits and pieces of awkward transitions from scene to scene, I was waiting for chapter headings and commercials to be played in-between to help with the pacing. They used some weird ADR to give it that canned audio feeling and it just doesn't work as a lot of the dialogue is sort of not quite heard or spoken by the character on the screen, a lot of it is heard off-screen; a supposed creepy effect that doesn't work, because this film was trying to be scary like a horror film but fails in the visuals because it doesn't go all the way with killings and slashings and gunshots and sickening things because you don't see any of it for any sort of horrific effect. I was really disappointed, and so were the producers and the studio, as you can tell, because nobody got behind the film much to promote it because they knew it was below par. Should've been so much better.
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
This is worse than the other one! And that's saying a lot.
Wow. You're going to watch this one and ask yourself "Why?" And realize that the other one was a little bit better. At least Ang Lee knows how to tell a story better with the camera. I kept asking myself why throughout. This one was a totally wasted effort, a waste of money, waste of time, waste of resources. The only reason, I believe, they wanted to make this one, was because they wanted to make the connection with Robert Downey Jr's Stark, and a possible set-up for a sequel based on that connection. Other than that, this one was poorly executed. The performances were fine. The direction wasn't. There were so many awkward moments of weird non-sequitur type of edits, I kept asking "what was that shot for? what was that cut for?." A lot of this film makes no sense. Don't waste your time.
Star Trek (2009)
It's still just a TV show.
This one was nothing more than just an extend version of the TV series in a way: the action is about the same; the story seems conveniently crafted to get the crew out of difficult situations with some silly/cute escapes; and everything is always OK at the end, with a bright look at the future. What I mean by this is that the violence wasn't really violent. The phazer shots surely do hit the bad guys and they all go flying and dying, but they're not intense, violent, nasty shots with blood and guts pouring out and heads flying. The torture scene even skirted away from actually showing Captain Pike getting the creature biting down into his brain stem. The bad guys didn't really seem like such bad guys, they all point fingers, speak loudly and bang their chests like gorillas but it all seems kind of hollow. Even the quick scene of the ice monster biting down on the other ice-cow on Delta-Vega didn't seem scary, it was more comical, ending up in another convenient escape for Kirk. All of the characters are supposed to be re-introduced and re-imagined, and besides Kirk and Scotty, all of them seem to be just a bunch of caricatures. Zach Quinto seems to be trying to figure out whether he needs to be more like the Nimoy Spock or his own version and never really is fully able to be just this particular Spock the entire movie. Chekov seems forced in this version by Anton Yelchin . All of Sulu's life seem to be drained out of him in this version as John Cho does nothing to bring the warmth and humor that we knew of George Takei (and perhaps that's because John Cho is Korean-American and Takei was Japanese-American - just because they're Asian, doesn't mean they're the same). And Uhura is all kissy-kissy sexy but she looks like she is almost put aside on deck and just tries so hard to get everybody's attention. As for the bad guys, Eric Bana is a complete waste in the movie, it didn't need to be him as he is so limited in this film. A major plot point was forgotten about and skipped: when Nero inserted the bug into Pike, I was waiting for the code that Nero was asking for to be spat out by Pike, so I fully expected the Romulan to head to the Federation to destroy it from the inside with the code obtained. So why go through that hassle of obtaining the code and tell us the story if you're not going to follow that tale? I gave it a pedestrian mid-grade for this movie, because just for once, I would like to see an intense, R-rated, truly scary, truly violent-action version of Star Trek instead of this child's play. I'm glad I only saw it as a rental at home on Blu-Ray, as I would not want to pay the money to go see a movie that's about as good as what you might see on TV normally. I'm glad I didn't pay the $10. People are blind to think this was a great movie for the big screen, it really isn't. It's just a slightly more embellished TV-movie. The SFX and designs are about what you would expect these days, so unless they do something spectacular, it's just an overblown TV-movie. Even the final sequence of the Romulan ship being sucked into the black-hole was tame and not very exciting, bunch of Romulans running around and bits of barely discernible broken ship parts edited together with swish-pans to make it seem exciting, but instead it just looked like Abrams ran out of ideas on how to make it look desperate and threatening and original and just sort of created a swish-edit sequence of bits and pieces as you might see on a TV show any given night on the networks. Just like Abrams' last effort MI:III, he really is a TV director, not a feature film director, where the intensity is always just a bit tame and not so serious and is always conveniently explained away or not explained at all and the story just sort of moves along to the next thing with a convenient edit. He still hasn't learned how to handle scene transitions: you can always tell where the commercial would come in between scenes with Abrams. I could literally pause the film at those moments and go to the bathroom and come back and I wouldn't feel like I left the movie in any way whatsoever. I hope Abrams sticks to doing TV and let a real feature film director take the helm when he produces.
Spread (2009)
Good effort, but it's got a lot of stuff missing, and other stuff that didn't quite get fleshed out properly
For a story about a pretty boy coming to Hollywood and sort of making it with the upper echelons of the money-elite women living in the Hollywood Hills, being surrounded by all this Star Power in L.A. and all the nightclubs that are meat-markets for the like = and Kutcher owning a couple himself in real life, I was quite surprised that the film did not even come remotely close to approaching the subject of Hollywood, the whole casting couch thing, nor the flamboyant lifestyle that this kind of wandering country pretty boy would easily come across in real life. Also, this movie proves, and absolutely and emphatically, undeniably confirms, that Ashton Kutcher is just not a very good actor. If you took all the best bits of emotion that he showed in this film, all of his facial and bodily expressions that he presented in one montage, you would immediately say that he cannot do serious drama. He should stick to the silliness of the type of sitcom where he made his name. Which is a drag - because the rest of the cast are good, though not great, but that comes from the direction, I think, and that might be partly be blamed on a script that has really empty, cold and very un-emotive dialogue. The narration is, in fact, excellent, as it explains a lot about what's happening and why, but I think the actors themselves struggled to really put on a good face when the dialogue doesn't explore anything deep. Some will say that that is the intention, but unfortunately, going shallow-shallow all the way through leaves a lot to be desired regarding whether there is anything redeeming to be had in the film, and there isn't much. Everybody goes their separate ways, and it turns out, the only truly solid guy is his best friend Harry. I think the film would've been better without Kutcher, but I understand it was his project so there you go.
The Wicker Man (2006)
Absolutely gawd-awful waste of time.
I wish I could give it 0, but I gave it a 1 to be generous because Nic Cage tried, he really tried, to do his best to keep a straight face throughout this whole thing as he ran all over that country farmland. If ya gonna re-make something, then you're supposed to at least make it as good, if not, then better than the original. He failed on both counts. What was he thinking, and what were the producers thinking when they green-lit this stupidity? I don't think Labute himself understood what he was making. At least what he should've done, if he wanted to give it a slightly more glitzy, modern-day look to the film, was to remake the film shot-for- shot as Gus Van Sant did for Psycho. That might have worked, albeit with American accents, of course, and new music. Every scene in this film that was supposed to be somewhat shocking and surprising and scary were executed poorly. Labute seemed to not quite understand where to put the camera, how to cut the jumpy bits, and it just felt as though every scene seemed like a real trifle to direct, as if he was at conflict with the script that he wrote himself! Perhaps Labute was lost for words as to how to describe what he saw when he wrote the new version and that was what made it to the screen, the whole mise-en-scene and photography completely dull and flat, with no real mysterious feeling in any of it. The music also did not help, and that is because the composer must have found it difficult to accompany anything with any sort of crescendo when the shots and scenes sort of go from one to the next in a meander without specific moments of tension that should've heightened everything. It's amazing that these things get made at all, what a waste of time and money for everybody involved (except for the crew and actors who got paid to work on it).
District 9 (2009)
Nice effort, but not that great.
The film could've cut about 20 minutes from the beginning and skipped the whole documentary bit following Wikus around, as well as all the interview bits describing what kind of a good man he is. Instead, they should've just used news bits to say that, and moved right into the story. The film was trying to balance the weird and strange dry humor of the South Africans in the documentary bits, but all those interviews of the people were completely unnecessary as nobody in the audience cares about what they had to say. The film was relatively low-budget for a sci-fi of its calibre and thus I suppose it needed filler to make it the length it is, otherwise it probably would've been about an hour long, which goes to show you that the filmmakers weren't too confident in the stories involving the characters who are actually in the action. For example, the 2 buddies are able to all of a sudden just smash and grab and escape without too much hassle. That scene could've been much more interesting had it explored more ways to bring out the relationship between the characters, including those in the military and the government, and it would've been nice to have seen much more of the city where the building stands! We don't even really find out how they get to the building! They just show up with an explosion, and that's that. The 2nd half is much better than the first, simply because we get to see much more action and sci-fi of the aliens, the ship, the robot and the computers. The story doesn't even explain how that alien battery liquid could've had the biochemistry to transform into what he is. It just happens, and that's it. The whole scene of the surgery is rather unimaginative, as we all know, if that sort of thing happened they would've knocked him out with drugs and gone right ahead with surgery/experiments. Anyway, overall it's a nice effort, but I wished they had not done the whole interview & documentary thing.
King of California (2007)
"Romancing the California" (SPOILER ALERTS!)
This movie was as if the Jack Colton character in Romancing the Stone character got older and lost his mind, forgot where he was but still has a knack for treasure hunting, had a kid sometime with Joan Wilder but they got divorced because she couldn't handle his cuckoo-ness, had a daughter at some point and she unfortunately had to grow up by herself somehow, and decided to go her own way and ignore her father's treasure-seeking instincts, but not losing her mother's story-telling nature. Overall it was a good film, but I could not get away from Michael Douglas doing his manic Jack Colton schtick from Romancing the Stone the whole time. That's about it, really.
Japanese Story (2003)
Watch "Walkabout" or "Hiroshima Mon Amour" instead. (Minor Spoiler)
Oh well. Talk about trying to be "Walkabout" and "Hiroshima Mon Amour" and completely failing. Sure, the script must have been good reading, so you would think with the right director and the right film crew this would turn out to be OK, but no, this is what you call poorly executed and poorly conceived. I do understand what it was trying to say, but I just think that the whole of the first half should've been done with much more attention to the detail of the characters' feelings and dug deeper into their emotions further. I think the director has good intentions but did not quite deliver on this part. The film should've been called "Australian Story" to make more sense of the lopsided and biased view of what the Aussies perceive to be the strange cultural behaviour of the Japanese - after all, the whole film depends upon a Western view of the woman looking at this strange man from the Far East who seem to have no cause or reason to be wandering about the Outback other than the fact that he can. Whether the last third of the film explains his reasons for being there or not, the film should've focused much more on what she needs, what she is experiencing and should've explained a lot more of her backstory of who she is as an Aussie geologist, rather than let them both be strangely stranded "tourists" who are seeking for some sort of direction from the plot!!! The performances were stilted and without much heart, Collette looked like she was just sort of skimming through all of her scenes and dialogue as if she was rather not bothered about being in this film. Tsunashima did his best to behave like the Japanese caricature that the filmmaker wanted, and of course same goes for the wife and the whole setup in the last third of the film. At the end, I wandered why they bothered to make this film at all, as it probably reads much better than it does as a film. Perhaps if another, more accomplished artist's hands had got hold of it, the film would've turned out to be an interesting film in character study, but the photography is bland, the music is typically "American Beauty" ripped and tinny, and the direction and editing are completely unimaginative. They could've done so much with some truly spaced-out scenes of desperation in the dessert, but somehow everything is conveniently moved along and that only leaves the viewer scratching their heads wandering why they bothered at all. The film tries to drive some meaning into the reasons for these two to be out there in the wild for emptiness in significance of their own lives, but the cultural complications are brushed aside because the filmmakers do not quite get why there is any of that sort of experience in the first place for these characters who should not have had any need to spend any time out there at all. For Collette's character to give in to his demands so easily after having said her piece about not going out there, and then to complain about what he did to them out there, and then not to explain why she even has this job and what it really means - might have been a much more interesting film if the Japanese guy had to find his own way around, and had met a strange woman in the desert with whom he plays, instead of having this geologist lead the way. Poor poor effort.
Dekalog (1989)
If you're not Christian and don't know the 10 Commandments, you won't care as much (MINOR SPOILER)
I'm rating it a middle-of-the-road 5. Though the films are well produced, the meanings may seem somewhat far fetched for people who are not Christian and do not believe in Christian reasonings for being. Now for those of you who are Christian, please do not be offended by what I said, as I appreciate cinema for its art and entertainment, as well as its educational values. There is some wisdom infused into this series, but once again, some people who do not believe in the Bible and the 10 Commandments may not find the series as meaningful or palatable. The humanity and the human struggle for existence and the search for meaning are mostly universal, just the fact that religion has to be brought to make these ideals, to make them seem more profound and important, is what makes this series less powerful than they would be, if they were not associated with the 10 Commandments. I liked the storytelling, and the acting is superb. Unfortunately the whole production was on Polish TV's budget and this may have hindered some of the quality of the photography and production design.
Tasogare Seibei (2002)
Twilight OF the Samurai.
This is one of the classiest movies ever made. Excellent acting, excellent story telling, excellent historical realism. In film history we talk about certain styles and categories that films fall into - well this one is the quintessential "Pre-modern Japanese Historical Realism" movie. The only thing I will say is that for some viewers in our modern world of the 21st century who take freedom for granted, who do not understand that there existed a strict Class-system of discipline, law and behaviour in Japan's Samurai periods, may find it hard to accept why the people all behaved in such a proper and restricted manner within their own domain, instead of striking out, trying to change the world around them - but this is also the point of this movie, about a quiet and un-assuming, self-respecting, family-oriented and well-behaved Samurai-worker who understands and appreciates his position and place in life in his realm of Masters and Servants, which are supplemented with wonderful, subtle impressions of the daily lives of the period, of farming, of children going to school, of household chores such as cleaning and cooking, fishing and of course the hard times of the period due to famine and the sometime burdensome duties of the samurai to obey orders and kill. The title is quite fitting as well, seeing as the time for Samurais was coming to an end with the Meiji Period of Japan's entry into the world's affairs, heading into the 20th century. Thus the underlying title would be "Twilight OF the Samurai."
The film is a study of the people and place, of culture and behaviour, and the plot moves along right about the nice pace of the life as it was in the days represented. Being just over 2-hours long, I wished that it wouldn't end. Worth every moment of your time. Do not miss it.
On connaît la chanson (1997)
Genius and the Jellyfish (sorry that's a spoiler, isn't it?)
*********** SPOILERs GALORE***************** so read at your own peril,but by now I hope anybody who reads these comments know the film already, and are here to find out more about the film, eh?
We all float.......... don't we, in life? And we all wish we could sing as well as them singers do! And in tune! In a way, this is like a "Karaoke" movie to express how we feel inside using the tunes that suit the moment and acting it out, too. At least, that's what I kept thinking, instead of thinking that this film is purely a tribute to Potter and all the classic chansons.
But it's undoubtedly a masterpiece. To weave the story so well with the tunes is a remarkable achievement, the writers who also acted in the film know their material very well! C'est la vie indeed, as good things turn bad and bad things turn good and what was unknown is all of a sudden discovered and passed on and misunderstandings are cleared up.
Yes we all love Paris, and that view is vital, it's a metaphor for how things must be seen to be understood, how that heavenly site is exactly why the imagination stir the soul and love blossoms in that city. It is the clarity that cannot be and shall not be blocked, and for those who try to subvert that clarity will be exposed and punished.....! And then there are those who simply shrug and say that such is life and we move on, Paris will always be Paris, with its hysterics controlling the sights and the rest swimming through it without actually affecting anything.
Ahhhhhhhh............ j'aime Paris, aussi.