ormich Reviews

The Apartment (1996)

Uneven stalker plot, not redeemed by the top-tier cinematography

[5/10 · 9 August 2022]

I can make peace with Cassel's fuzzy unibrow, but not the plot. Any movie that romanticizes the stalker and has the object of their obsession actually fall for them (and ALL other characters involved being miserable or literally DYING for that to happen) is an instant sub-3/5.

This one in particular executes this already rotten movie trope in such an emotionally unbalanced way. The characters' responses to almost all situations are inexplicable. They constantly react in ways that are either flat out illogical - implausible or that contradict their previous reactions and their (one-dimensional) personalities.

Such a shame because the cinematography, the colors, the sets, the atmosphere... it's all so beautiful and immersive. A waste.

Zodiac (2007)

Pointlessly skimming through

[4/10 · 25 January 2022]

Objectivity, realism and lack of sensationalism for the sake of it are all great, but damn. This is dull and always has been. No idea why it's considered so good (but that's how I feel about most of Fincher's work except for his directorial peak, the "Vogue" video, of course).

Nothing is a big deal here, nothing has any particular weight. Not the murders, not the cyphers, not the process of decoding them, not the suspect, nothing. Nothing is worth slowing down and building up. Everything just happens, and quickly, because the next thing has to happen and we only have 162 minutes, we can't take our time. How are we going to show the cartoonist's marital problems if we spend too much time creating tension for new clues that may point to the killer?

The real-life story has no conclusion or resolution to this day, which is a handicap for any crime film. However, the source material remains interesting enough to make for an interesting movie, and could have made for one if directed by someone who didn't just present every development as a random, tedious flash that only one and a half of the film's own protagonists cares about. It's a miracle how a film that seems so, rightfully, bored of itself has managed to pique the interest of so many.

Yellow Cat (2020)

Refreshing, bittersweet, unorthodox

[8/10 · 29 November 2020]

Rarely do I root for a character to succeed as much as I was rooting for Kermek to fulfill his dream of building a movie theatre in the middle of nowhere.

The movie blends escapism and reality, as well as humor and tragedy. It offers some of the most memorable sequences I've seen in a long time, and it achieves that while being as minimal as it gets. There are almost no sets, little dialogue, we don't get to know much about any of the characters and, even though there is a plot and it develops in a linear way, that's not what really drives the movie. It's all about watching Kermek and Eva's journey, as they strive to build a cinema and, by extension a better world for them, unfazed by the bleak reality that everyone and everything around them adheres to. It's a slow journey, but it's worth it, for the aftertaste it leaves. I enjoyed every bit of it and it really stands out from everything else I've seen this year.

Goads (2020)

Definitely worth watching

[8/10 · 25 November 2020]

Possibly my favorite short of the year. I wasn't sure where it was going at first, but it kept winning me over, frame by frame, scene by scene. The ending, in particular, is one of the most striking and memorable I've seen in any short

The Opposite of Sex (1998)

A dark comedy that misses the mark

[3/10 · 10 November 2020]

As Dedee Truitt (Christina Ricci) begins to narrate the film, after warning us she's no good, she promises "there's other people a lot nicer coming up". Unfortunately, she doesn't make good on that promise. Not a single likeable person is ever presented to us. She remains the only interesting character (and the only capable actor) and her deadpan, unconventional narration is the movie's sole saving grace. When the story pushes her to the side and demotes her to a supporting role, we have nothing left to focus on but the plot itself. And that's not a good thing.

The movie throws quite a few things at the wall in its attempt to be a provocative, dark comedy and maybe it did stick in 1998 (seemingly, it didn't), but it certainly doesn't now. It would be hard to single out 20 minutes of this movie that haven't aged terribly. Half of it would be seen as mundane and fail to make any impression and the other half would be seen as tacky and problematic. A young gay student lying about being molested by his openly gay professor to blackmail him really didn't sit right with me.

Sadly, the movie lives and dies by the scandalizing nature of its source material, so when that fails to single-handedly make the film interesting, it doesn't have anything else to offer. It just meanders its way through uninteresting and uninterested characters doing illogical things until it reaches an unearned happy ending : After the troublemaker has shaken up their lives, a group of people who were previously lost and confused in their pursuit of sex, love or both, now get everything they never knew they wanted. Except the troublemaker herself, who leaves them behind to follow her own, undisclosed path. Can't say it made an impact.

Betty Blue (1986)

Stunning but exhausting

[3/10 · 30 April 2020]

The film is in no rush to get to where the IMDb synopsis says it's meant to go. It doesn't only focus on its titular character's "descend into madness", in lack of a less callous term. Instead, it follows the protagonists on their journey in 3 different parts of France, presenting vignettes from their everyday lives. Some of those were more connected to the spine of the story than others, but they were all equally exquisitely shot and acted. Few of them were, however, interesting enough to keep me invested for the 185-minute long runtime of the director's cut (the only version I could find)

I loved the first 40 minutes of the film. They were tight. Every scene was compelling and entertaining. The film started gradually losing me when the couple re-located for the first time. Throughout that second part of the movie, very few things happened to drive the plot. It was mostly detours and anecdotes, mainly ones intended to be funny. Nearly an hour worth of those. On the one hand, those made the movie more natural and prevented it from being a monotone melodrama. On the other hand, they completely deprived it of tension. The tone vacillated from serious to humorous way too often, at the expense of both the dramatic and the comedic scenes.

By the time the movie was (finally) ready to reach its dramatic conclusion, not only had I lost interest, but it also, somehow, managed to seem abrupt even though the film had 150+ minutes to set it up. The fact that I found the ending to be awful and unjustified made matters worse. In hindsight, I should have at least looked harder for the theatrical version

12 Monkeys (1995)

How to ruin a masterpiece 101

[1/10 · 27 March 2020]

Right before the climax of the movie, Bruce Willis' character hugs his partner in crime, the woman he's in love with, and whispers to her that he's scared. The next shot is a cinema usher snoring. Literally. That pretty much sums up the whole film

The tone is too inconsistent for it to be a dark, foreboding sci-fi movie. It's even comical at times, like Brad Pitt's Golden Raspberry-worthy performance, the quirky, post-apocalyptic prison officers, those ridiculous wigs and outfits that the characters used to disguise themselves at the airport... Almost felt like a parody, albeit not funny. It's also too lethargic, passive and spineless to be an action movie. Doesn't work as a romance eiher, as the love affair is lukewarm and unconvicing. There's zero chemistry between the two actors and the connection the characters are supposed to be sharing is communicated to us without heart or spark. It basically boils down to Stockholm Syndrome. So, what box does this movie even tick?

There are no captivating moments, no spikes. The whole movie is just a flat line that keeps throwing random things in my face without a build-up and without any significance. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be shocked or at least intrigued when it was revealed that the titular group, that we had spent about 100 minutes focusing on, were nothing but a red herring only for a random character that had been awkwardly presented about an hour in advance to be revealed as the real culprit. I... didn't flinch. It just happened, like all the other things that just happened in all 3 worlds that the movie tried (and failed) to construct.

La Jetee, the atmospheric masterpiece this atrocity took its main storyline from, captures the inconceivable power of time travel, the agony of (hopeless) love and the cruelty of humanity in a little over 20 minutes. This movie takes 6 times as long to butcher it. It sucks every bit of soul out of it, over-stuffs it with useless characters and useless subplots, buries the heart of the story under endless deviations, twists and turns that it couldn't set up in a proper and enticing manner and devalues every single element of the original that it touches, from the zoo (that it incorporates just for the sake of it to create its worst and most ridiculous subplot) to the haunting image of the post-apocalyptic underground world. And on top of all that, it makes off with an 8.0 rating.

If I could travel back in time, I would make sure this didn't get funded.

What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969)

Not a big fan

[2/10 · 17 December 2018]

The movie is not smart enough to be a captivating crime story, it's not well paced enough to be an exciting thriller, it isn't edgy enough to be a shocking horror movie (not even for its time, considering Arsenic and Old Lace came out 25 years ahead of it), it isn't campy enough to be a cult diamond and it's too dim to be comic relief.

Both leading ladies turn in good performances and the script has some scattered moments of spark, but it's ultimately weighed down by the flat supporting characters, the tepid love affair that was awkwardly pasted on and, finally, the lack of a satisfactory resolution or a proper climax. The movie's biggest downfall, however, is the heart of it ; the actual plot, the series of events that lead to the outcome. A lot if is juvenile and illogical, making it hard to take the movie anywhere near as seriously as it seems to take itself. Some striking visuals could have made up for these shortcomings, to an extent, but the movie doesn't deliver in that department either. Everything from the set and the wardrobe to the lighting was rather poor and that especially shines through in moments where the tone is supposed to be haunting and foreboding.

The Apartment (1960)

Good until it becomes a spineless rom-com

[5/10 · 24 July 2018]

Going into "The Apartment", I had very high expectations. I was hoping the plotline of 5 people using the same apartment to cheat on their wives would be the core of the movie. And that is one hell of a premise for a comedy, so I was excited.

Unfortunately, that aspect is pushed to the background about 40 minutes in and the movie turns into a full-fledged romance. And a very typical one at that. A beautiful girl is wanted by a good guy and a bad guy. She's in love with the bad guy, but he keeps mistreating her, so the good guy sweeps in and we wait for her to make the right choice for about an hour. I'm sure this concept was not much less typical in 1960 than it is now.

And it's really hard to root for a resolution. Baxter is the guy the viewer naturally feels compassion for (and the movie is certainly fixated on making us feel sorry for him), but the girl is clearly not all that into him and she only decides to settle for him after she's delivered 5 dramatic monologues about the hopelessness of unrequited love and being involved in a love affair with a married man. She doesn't even reciprocate his declaration of love in the end. I must admit this is certainly not unrealistic, but as a movie ending, it falls short for me.

Sidenote : the "wise" joke really wore thin, didn't it?

To Our Loves (1983)

Inconsistent and lazy

[3/10 · 18 July 2018]

The movie doesn't offer much in the way of plot, so it relies heavily on character development. And that all goes smoothly until halfway through, where all the characters disintegrate and become inconsistent and unpredictable. Why does the father abandon his family after 20 years? Why does Suzanne react in such a nonchalant way about this if she loves her father so much? Why does the brother become an abuser? Why does Suzanne continue to take that abuse? We find out in the end that she keeps in contact with her father and the two still get along, so why doesn't she seek shelter in his house? Why does she get married? Why is she not pushing her brother away when he keeps being all over her and insulting her during the dinner, after all the abuse he's put her through? All of these things could be explained, but none of them is. Not to mention there are so many characters and faces throughout the film that make no impact. They're just flashes. They appear and disappear without doing or saying anything significant. The only character whose reactions and overall trajectory made sense throughout the movie was the mother. She's distraught after her husband abandons her and she's struggling to cope with her 2 children by herself, so she starts losing it. Logical. The rest of the characters are just exhibiting random behaviors in random situations, with no consistency.

I don't generally mind vague characters or insinuated plotlines, but there has to be a foundation, something concrete to tie it all together. The movie doesn't have one. It deals with everything and everyone on a surface level and seems too lazy or too unfazed to go any deeper. So, in the end, it gave me nothing and left me feeling like I wasted 2 hours of my life (or so). I gave it a 3 -and not lower- mostly because I absolutely love Bonnaire and because I did enjoy the first half of the movie visually.

Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)

A complete waste of an exciting premise

[1/10 · 15 January 2017]

It's just an overall terrible movie. The dialogue is painfully weak and lackluster and there are way too many awkward pauses and silences. The characters are not particularly captivating or engaging, minus maybe Mikal. The plot is not interesting or properly developed and starts to drag halfway through. I cringed during most of the second half of the movie, to the point where I wasn't even curious about the ending, which, of course, turned out to be a disappointment as well. Sloppy, corny and lacking any momentum.

I'm very puzzled as to why it has a 7.4 and mostly positive reviews. I usually find myself agreeing -at least to an extent- with the ratings and the general consensus here, but this one... I really don't get it. The movie is a complete waste of an extremely exciting and intriguing premise.