paulgatlanta Reviews

The Dirt (2019)

I'm Not Buying It

[2/10 · 14 April 2019]

Trying to make a movie about Motley Crue is something akin to trying to make a movie about The Beatles or Led Zeppelin. You really better know what your doing or you're going to wind up with a colossal mess.

That is exactly what happened here.

I was a teenage metal fan in the 80s. I saw some of the shows and actually got to meet some of the members of the band. Vince Neil included. As such, I can tell you that whatever else they may be, the people depicted in 'The Dirt' are not Motley Crue. If anything, they are bad copies.

Much like the movie itself.

It would be easy to nitpick the whole piece to death but the core problem with 'The Dirt' is that it is a film written and made by people who do not know their subject matter . . . but think they do. Visually, the world of the 1980s is recreated in exacting detail and looks great. But neither the writer nor the director make any attempt to understand the music culture of the time or the musicians who formed the band beyond the cliff notes version.

The result is a caricature movie. Well costumed actors pretending to be Motley Crue without really knowing who these people are and why their fans care about them and their music. The portrayals are over-the-top and often completely inaccurate, with Tommy Lee coming off like a jittery millennial fanboy and Vince Neil sounding like a cross between Jeff Spicoli and C.C. Deville.

The reality is that Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Vince Neil and Mick Mars were products of the 1970s culture who happened to appear on the Sunset Strip at a time when that culture was undergoing a dramatic shift. They, along with slate of other young musicians, launched a new style of music for the next decade.

This is the point of the story and what ultimately makes Motley Crue unique. The partying and drug use are interesting but the music is what we, the fans cared about, what launched them to stardom and what kept us coming to the shows and buying the albums. And this is what we want to know about and is barely touched on in the movie.

With a few notable exceptions, (Iwan Rheon's interpretation of Mick Mars, is a bit uneven but believable and Tony Cavalero's Ozzy Osbourne is dead on) this is one you want to miss if you were there.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999)

Worf Should Have Stayed With Piccard

[3/10 · 10 March 2019]

Having been a fan of Next Generation, I wanted to like this show. And honestly, I did give it a number of chances.

Unfortunately, it simply doesn't live up to it's potential. Maybe it's the fact that the program is set in a fixed location, rather than a ship which is constantly exploring new territory, or the reliance on characters created for other incarnations, such as Worf and Chief O'Brien. Whatever it is, there is a hollowness to the whole thing, as if the concept never really gelled and the characters never quite figured out who they were. The two exceptions being Quark and Odo.

For all his power as an actor, Avery Brookes' Sisko seems to react to every situation with the same mixture of slight confusion and annoyance and Major Kira never really gets to be the badass she is set up to be. Having instead, to play second fiddle to Dax. Arguably, one of the most disappointing and annoying characters ever put on television. For having lived multiple lives and gained a wealth of knowledge and wisdom from other people, this person seems to have retained none of it. Making some of the dumbest statements in the entire series.

Perhaps the most aggravating part of all of this is the introduction of a trait which would go on to be overly exploited in Star Trek Voyager. The tendency to address and solve every crisis by having the characters stare at consoles and punch keys, while spitting out chunks of computer babble. This comes across less as an adventure in space and more as the Ultimate Geek Fantasy. Not to mention, extremely boring.

I think this could have been a good show, if it had had a sharper focus and stronger writing. Jettison some of the extraneous stuff and personal nonsense and focus on the reason the station is there in the first place. No one really cares about the good doctor's relationship problems and if Keiko and Dax never appear on the station at all it won't affect the story. Likewise, there is no real reason for Worf to be assigned, other than to turn him into a Klingon version of a lap dog. Something no one asked for.

Watch if you want but overall, not the best work the franchise has produced.

License to Drive (1988)

Good Idea, Wrong Execution

[5/10 · 18 April 2018]

First of all let me say that this is an idea that, in the right hands, could have been a really good film.

Not great but good.

Let's start with what does work because there are some things that do shine in the movie. Carol Kane is great as she always is, as the pregnant mom, who is dealing with two teenage kids already. She's seen it everything twice, so nothing is a real surprise. Likewise, Richard Masur is wonderful as the dad - who is about to be a dad again. He's up to here with these crazy kids and one step away from just blowing his stack. Which he finally does, in great comedic fashion. James Avery is spot on as the driving instructor you hope you never get. There are also a number of other fun moments by talented character actors and Corey Haim, Feldman and the rest of the cast pour themselves into their work.

But the film suffers from two major flaws.

It doesn't know it's subject and it's central characters are woefully miscast. To have credibility with your audience, you need to be reasonably familiar with your material. In this case, what it's like to be a teenage guy trying to get around not having a driver's license for one night and sneak dad's car out so he can pick up a girl. It can be done but you need to know how. You also need to know young people. Real young people, not the ones on TV. There have been a number of good films made with this kind of story that have the genuine smack of authenticity. 'Dazed and Confused', 'Sixteen Candles' and 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' come to mind. In each of these, the writer was able to create realistic characters and storylines by drawing on his own experiences as a young person for inspiration.

None of that feels present here. It's as if, having gotten past the initial setup, the movie is unsure of how to execute it. The story feels contrived, the gags forced and the situations not believable. Many border on implausible. Spicoli crashing Charles Jefferson's sports car and blaming the Lincoln football team we can buy, because we would have done it. Or know somebody who would. Trying to climb from one moving car into another, on a freeway, because the old drunk guy driving it passed out and oh - by the way - that's actually your car and you're driving his . . . You're pushing it. REALLY pushing it.

The other problem is most of the principle cast do not look old enough to play teenagers. The cast of 'Dazed and Confused' all look like high school students. So does the cast of 'Fast Times' and even 'Ferris Bueller'. Watching Les romp around with Mercedes however, it's had not to believe that they're actually grammar school kids on a safety patrol trip. This also causes the scenes featuring Mercedes and the 'older guy' she is seeing to take on an uncomfortable, creepy feeling. Can anyone say, 'Lolita'?

Again, the concept could have worked with a different writer and a director like Harold Ramis or John Hughes behind it. Truthfully, I think the studio was just looking for anything they could pair the two Corey's with and this was the first one they grabbed.

I won't say you shouldn't watch 'License to Drive', it does have a certain junk food charm, but you could do better. 'Weekend at Bernie's' or 'UHF' come to mind.

Say Anything (1989)

A Tad Awkward

[7/10 · 16 April 2018]

Before I get to my review, I'd like to respond to the wet-blanket elitist, who wanted to diagram this film like a term paper. 'Say Anything' is a teen film from the '80s. It was made about young people in the 1980s, for young people in the 1980s and deals with the issues of young people in the 1980s. If this means the film is 'dated' then every movie that has ever been made is 'dated'. To some extent, all movies are time-capsules of the period in which they were created.

It isn't 'Hamlet' or 'Othello' nor is trying to be and if you are going to view a movie aimed at young people, you shouldn't be surprised by what you get. Primarily, that it will depict the world as it appears and is understood to be, by adolescents and that the storyline will revolve around the things that are important to them. These may seem naive, trivial or idealistic by adult standards but this is not the adult world.

That being said, 'Say Anything' does not connect with me, personally. It is a well written, well acted and well directed film in it's own right. My issue is with the version of the world and characters it depicts. You see, I was a teenager in the late '80s and in lived in that world. In fact, remember when the movie came out. I watched it in the theater and had the same problem with it then as I do now. That being, it doesn't get it right.

The '80s I knew was a combination of 'The Breakfast Club', 'Sixteen Candles' and 'Some Kind of Wonderful'. Those were the people who inhabited the high school I attended and that was the culture I saw and lived in. Cameron Crowe's version, while interesting, misses the mark by this much.

I have a theory for this however, and that is Crowe was not a teenager in the '80s. The movies he made about his own adolescence and undercover work at a local high school, 'Almost Famous' and 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' capture their time and people wonderfully. And they should because he was there. But he wasn't there in the '80s and so he's having to guess.

Does it matter?

Probably not.

'Grease' isn't an accurate representation of the 1950s and 'That 70s Show' is not an accurate representation of the 1970s. This is a film that is beloved by legions of people and the fact that it doesn't connect with me doesn't diminish it's quality or validity. It just means that I saw things differently than the filmmaker.

For those of you who were not there and plan to view 'Say Anything' for the first time though, I would suggest you watch 'Some Kind of Wonderful' afterwards as a comparison. You may find it interesting.