Mrswing Reviews

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Great acting in utter trash

[3/10 · 12 November 2018]

A truly weird experience: incredible acting performances in an incredibly bad script. Yes, it's unpredictable but it's also totally unbelievable, with forced plot twists and character arcs which make no sense. And when Frances McDormand starts monologuing a CGI female deer, all residual good will goes up in smoke just like the billboards. McDonagh has nothing to say, just like in the execrable but well-acted In Bruges. He prefers shock value over good storytelling, character development and depth. Unfortunately the Oscar success of this misfire means we'll be subjected to his 'art' for a long time to come.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Best of the Brosnan Bonds - by far

[8/10 · 27 December 2016]

Tomorrow Never Dies sort of repeats the You Only Live Twice story line, though with some notable differences. Brosnan is more relaxed in the role, though he's still not great with quips (though the quips and one-liners he has got as Bond have been abysmal on the whole, so it's not really his fault). Michelle Yeoh is the most robust Bond Girl ever, and the only one who's almost a match for Bond. She's far more competent than Barbara Bach's agent XXX, for instance. Of course, Yeoh isn't a sex pot so the relationship is far less sexual than ever before. Teri Hatcher is forgettable as the other Bond love interest, and she's the one participating in the ongoing weakening of Bond which started with Brosnan's arrival: here, he was afraid when things got serious between them and ran away. Yeah, right. Luckily, there's no character arc where Bond has to overcome yet another psychological trauma this time. Jonathan Pryce is a brilliant actor, and throws himself in the part of evil media mogul Elliot Carver (who was based more on leftist/spy Robert Maxwell than on right-wing fiend Rupert Murdoch). However, Carver isn't really a strong enough opponent for Bond. Perhaps the movie would have worked even better if a Chinese general had been the main villain and Carver the secondary bad guy. Anyway, the action is top notch, with a great teaser, a fun back seat car chase filled with gadgets, a great motorcycle chase (gadget-free) in Vietnam, and a very lengthy and protracted final battle aboard Carver's stealth ship. I would have preferred Bond and Wai Lin to have had a squad of military support (a Bond movie should end like a war movie to be really successful), but they perform like a two-person army anyway. Brosnan kept getting better as Bond - unfortunately the movies got worse, with World Is Not Enough being a garbled mess and Die Another Day going so ridiculously over the top it became painful to watch.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Nail, meet coffin: When John Glen took over James Bond

[3/10 · 28 November 2016]

After Moonraker's insane hijinks, Cubby Broccoli decided to put Bond back with both feet on the ground. No more sci-fi trappings, but a small-scale plot about getting your hands on a decoding device buried on the not-very-deep bottom of the Mediterranean. Also hardly any gadgets, a Citroën 2CV takes over for the top-of-the-line luxury sports cars smothered in gadgets. And the villain is just a normal smuggler, who was awarded a medal by the Brits at the end of WW2 (he must have been all of ten years old then) but who now aids the despicable KGB. Pretty cynical when you think of what the British did to the (communist) Greek resistance once the Nazis were booted out of the country. He's utterly forgettable, and has a correspondingly boring death. John Glen films everything in a bland, almost TV-show like way. There's no personality, no life to this or the majority of the following Bonds.

However, they kept the jokes. The BAD jokes. It starts with the ridiculous end to Blofeld, and just continues from there. Every action scene is riddled with gags, Bond is beset by a libidinous American teen who is only there for some really awful comic relief. Tension is almost completely absent, and the finale is so low-key it barely registers. There are a few moments where the film works (the raid on the warehouse, the climb up the mountain), but generally, comedy is king - as it would be ever increasingly until Licence To Kill.

In a way, this film isn't so much a return to Fleming as a return to Live And Let Die and Man With The Golden Gun, which were also lumbered with 'small' stories and let the comedy run away with the movie. Roger Moore's best Bond was The Spy Who Loved Me, getting the balance just right on every level. Everything before and after that was seriously flawed.

Oh, and special mention must go to Bill Conti's horrible disco soundtrack. We don't even get to hear the Bond theme in the correct style once.

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man (1976)

Sarcastic commentary on the genre?

[5/10 · 6 May 2016]

The plot has been explained well enough by the other reviewers. Porel and Lovelock are basically lower class James Bond homologues: pretty boy fashion plates who kill, screw and bully without regret, knowing they can do so because they're on the right side of the law. This leads to some entertaining sequences (the opening chase - in which they do not run over the guide dog, the villains do that, but they do zoom past the distraught blind man and just leave him to his fate, the quarry shootout, the prevention of the bank robbery, the hostage situation). But there's no real strength to the narrative, the heroes are astoundingly unlikeable and never taken wholly seriously. And they are incompetent at heart: the dud finale (which only works as a very ironic grace note) shows just how hopeless they really are at what they do. There's also the scene in which they interrogate the sister of the bad guy, and she voraciously forces them to have sex with her, leaving them totally exhausted. The violence is rough and cruel, yet the gore is lessened because the blood is of the thick red paint variety so beloved of early 1970's filmmakers. Also, one bad guy is shot through the head from behind and has a larger exit wound than usual (nothing too extreme though), but when he tumbles down there is no entry wound at the back of his head... Not a classic, not really enjoyable, but a movie with a few effective/cool scenes which would work well in a best of- compilation.

Spectre (I) (2015)

Bore... James Bore. (Spoilers ahoy)

[1/10 · 2 November 2015]

So Spectre has landed. Another step in the incremental return to the Connery Bonds: M is male again, Spectre is back and Christopher Walz ends up as close to Donald Pleasance in You Only Live Twice as possible. In fact, the entire film is a giant love letter to the entire series. Hardly a single sequence is truly original: they are all variations (usually bigger and flashier, though not always) on old material.

So is the movie a rousing success? No. It's something of a disaster, really.

First and foremost: Daniel Craig is a terrible Bond. A great actor, but a terrible Bond. Boring, unsexy, self-satisfied, empty, thuggish - and worst of all, he doesn't even seem to be having any fun. Neither as actor or as the character. In the olden days, Bond was the ultimate male wish fulfillment figure. Nowadays, Bond is a tortured, boring individual with a dreary love life and lots of unresolved emotional issues. There are a few quips, but they aren't funny in the first place and Craig's low key delivery robs them of whatever life they might have possessed in the first place.

Secondly, the fanatical determination to make all these new Bond adventures 'personal' is detrimental to the plotting. In CR, Bond had to get his hands on a bad guy's money in order to get him into trouble with his bosses. In QoS, Bond has to prevent Bolivian water resources from being privatized. In SF, Bond has to get a list of agents back - a list which is promptly forgotten about after an hour (barely). And here, Bond has to go looking for... well, basically not very much. There's a nefarious plot about surveillance, but that's M's problem, really. But it all doesn't really matter anyway, because we discover that Blofeld has started Spectre just to ruin James Bond's life (some goal), all because Bond was his foster brother and 'stole' the love of his dad away from him. Not only is this the most ridiculous motivation in the history of the movies, but Bond doesn't even share one personal memory of Oberhausen/Blofeld, making this entire plot twist moot.

Thirdly, the pacing is off. There are a number of action scenes, but there is far too much padding between them. The love affairs (with a far from glamorous Monica Bellucci in one of the dumbest seduction/exposition scenes ever) and with waif-like and dull Lea Seydoux are totally unconvincing. Chemistry between Craig and his female co-stars is non-existent. The lack of a tangible threat means that there is almost no forward impetus to the narrative. Sure, Bond is busy all the time, but the viewer, especially one not versed in Craig canon, often doesn't know why the events on screen are supposed to be important.

Fourth, the movie resembles MI5:Rogue Nation to an incredible degree. Even down to having the penultimate chapter of the adventure take place in Morocco, and the finale in London! And just like in MI:5, the entire final act is a gigantic anti-climax. Possibly the least exciting Bond finale ever. Where Bond isn't even necessary to solve the plot...

We can only hope that this is truly the end of the Craig era, and that the Broccoli/Wilson clan will soon lose control over this property. High time that the 007-niverse was handled by a new creative team.

Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969)

What Kind Of Fool Was He...

[6/10 · 11 September 2014]

One-of-a-kind is the correct description for this musical/autobiography/therapy session/emotional strip-tease. Much has been made of the self-aggrandizement which permeates the picture, but actually, it mainly reveals how much Anthony Newley despised himself anno 1969. It's basically the story of a young man who gets into show business, is seduced by the devil and becomes a narcissistic, substance-abusing sex addict who hurts everyone around him and is incapable of finding lasting happiness.

Much has been said about the film: it looks good (in that typical zany late-sixties way), many performances are atrocious and the jokes are weak, though it's never sexually explicit, it is very perverted (Newley admitting to being what would now be called a pedophile, and capping the movie off with a fairy tale fraught with bestiality). In 1969 the nudity would have been very risqué, now it's fairly run-of-the-mill. The songs aren't Newley's greatest, though the 'Picadilly Lily'-song is repeated in totally different styles as Hieronymus/Newley's career progresses. Including spot-on impressions of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra (in saloon singer mode).

What really boggles the mind is how Newley admits on-camera to hating women, with every seduction being a kind of symbolic murder. I've never seen a major star bare his soul, warts and all, like this before. It's unsettling and fascinating, and both brave and very foolish. I mean, the plot is basically Newley telling his real kids (and fake mother) that he's been cheating on their real mother (Joan Collins) with an underage strumpet. How he ever thought this was going to have a happy ending for all involved is beyond me. Especially as at the very end, he already shows his marriage imploding, right after he reprises his egocentric anthem 'I'm All I Need'.

And that's really the film in a nutshell. An entertainer who's monstrously self-obsessed realizes that this self-obsession will (and does) cost him everything and everyone he holds dear in life - and yet he's unable to change or overcome his inner demons. Though he does cast them out in a way (the icky Frozen Freddy-segment), and they no longer scare him.

A good film, no, a brave and unique film, yes, and despite the flaws, it remains mesmerizing. And too bad no other celebrity has ever had the guts to be as open as Newley about their inner life. Just imagine Sinatra or Martin indulging in this type of therapeutic exercise!

Code 37 (2011)

Abysmal

[1/10 · 17 May 2012]

Code 37 takes the surprising step of finishing the continuing plot line from the TV series (who raped Hannah Maes' mother and why) in a movie, rather than in a season finale. But in order to provide a 'normal' movie experience, the writers have bolted this onto a standalone case - which has NOTHING to do with the rape-mystery. So on the one hand we have Hannah (Veerle Baetens who overacts like crazy) and her three diminutive chums (Michael Pas, Marc Lauwrys and Gilles Deschrijvere) looking into the assault on a crazy writer who has had a sexual encounter with a young prostitute in a porn cinema. The assault is later followed by a murder and another violent attack, always on people who are associated with the prostitute (Maaike Neuville in a dreary and thankless role) and her 14-year old sister who's also started to go on the game. And Hannah meets an old flame who now runs a big bad nightclub in Ghent, and who happens to be the uncle of both girls.

Never mind that Hannah as a vice cop would never have been put on the assault and battery case. Never mind that the cops are dumber than the audience by a mile (the 'mystery' is so predictable and shallow that you guess it by the half-way mark). Never mind that the solution to the continuing plot line is so uninteresting and unexciting that it's a mystery why this was reserved for a movie. What's so sad is that this is nothing more than a bad episode of a TV series, with a TV-series aesthetic (flashy but claustrophobic), there's no extra spectacle, not a second of true suspense or emotional attachment to any of the characters. It isn't even racier than the TV series (which goes pretty far for a mainstream show at times). Truly dreadful.

Borgia (2011–2014)

the very definition of Europudding

[4/10 · 8 May 2012]

Comparing the first episode of this to Showtime's effort, it's obvious that the narrative in the other series flows much better, and it also has a better hook. On the other hand, the sex and violence is stronger here. You pick your poison...

The problem is that we have a French/German co-production written by an American. Tom Fontana did some very good writing on Oz, but lightning hasn't struck twice. The first episode almost collapses under tons of exposition (who is going to war with whom and why this is a good/bad thing, who is related to whom etc. etc.) which makes the narrative very hard to follow - and not very engaging, especially for a viewer with little to no knowledge of Italian history. Occasionally it lurches to life, mostly when bloody fights break out or when characters get really angry at one another. But mostly it just sits there, looking good but empty and lifeless.

One of the main reasons for this is the cast. Mark Ryder does not convince as Cesare Borgia - he comes across as a weak whiner. John Doman has been so great in The Wire, but here he seems to wrestle with his florid dialog (as do the other actors who are not native English speakers). At times, the lifelessness of some line readings renders the dialog unintentionally ridiculous. When you keep hearing completely different accents, in one and the same family, it makes it very difficult to become immersed in the reality of the series (American, British, Spanish, Eastern-European, German and French accents all merrily collide, sometimes within the same on screen family). Combine this with literary, florid dialog, some clunky scenes, and a lack of a strong narrative drive, and you end up with a first episode which is nice to look at (great production values) but which falls short as compelling, convincing drama.

Machete (2010)

What's Mexican slang for crap??

[1/10 · 18 September 2010]

Robert Rodriguez strikes (out) again. Stringing together some cruel moments of gore with lame comedy, a few bare breasts (how people can rave about the copious nudity in this movie when there's hardly anything on show is beside me), heavy-handed political satire which makes his sincere message come across as racist stupidity and some of the least exciting action scenes ever, Machete is a complete failure. Acting performances are weak across the board, and Danny Trejo is a frightening figure, yet he doesn't cut it (ooh, look, I made a pun) as an interesting lead character. He doesn't have the charisma to transcend the extreme simplicity of the character. And while I know he could crush me with his bare hands, he certainly doesn't convince when going up against villainous henchmen half his age. The finale is the worst part of the film. The heroic Mexicans attack the racist American vigilantes, and much slaughter ensues, but without any tension at all, with extremely weak choreography and telegraphed 'cool' moments referencing 'classic' exploitation characters which are largely embarrassing. Nothing is quite as embarrassing as the final battle between Trejo and Steven Seagal, though. No choreography to speak of, shot and edited in the least effective way (I've seen better fights in TV-series), and with an utterly lame ending, it has absolutely no redeeming features. Except that it's short (barely one minute of screen time). Maybe one day Rodriguez will accept the fact that he can't write or tell stories, and start working from scripts by other people who can. Until that day, we'll be stuck with crap like Machete, however.

Dagen zonder lief (2007)

Boring as hell

[1/10 · 7 April 2010]

Incredibly dull and pointless film with bad, self-consciously 'real' acting. It starts out with totally uninteresting scenes of one of the lead characters returning from New York - no character development, no interesting events... Just semi-documentary boredom. The acting is bad, the dialog is insipid, the storytelling non-existent... Top this off with puerile 'humour' and you have a truly losing combination. Endless 'conversations' about painting a garden shed, burping contests, and characters which are spectacularly uninteresting. Why make a film about how boring life is - and have that film be even more boring than real life???

Either go out and spend time with your friends or watch paint dry, both options are infinitely more exciting than this self-indulgent tripe.

Up (2009)

Beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, technically marvelous... but too inconsistent

[6/10 · 3 November 2009]

Up has some of the saddest moments ever seen in an animated feature since Bambi, great visuals, wonderful imagination, some great gags (though not as many as in other Pixar films), and a positive message.

So why wasn't I swept up in it?

I had real problems with plot holes and character development, this time around. The appearance of the fantastic in a fairly realistic story (hoisting the house up by the balloons) was too big a leap for me. And Carl's conflicts with boyscout Russell, snipe Kevin and dog Doug felt sort of gratuitous, though my wife pointed out correctly that his problem was he didn't want to admit anything new into his life after his wife died. But then, the conflict with the builders wasn't the best way to get that point across (better if Carl lived in a wonderful neighborhood but shut everyone out of his life, instead of living in a situation where he was a clear victim). Similarly, once he meets Kevin and Doug, it's just bizarre he doesn't use them to help him get the house to Paradise Falls (as they both were clear assets in that respect). Finally, hero-turned-villain Charles Muntz should have been far older than Carl (at least 35 years between them) and his 'heel turn' was so extreme and so illogical, it just didn't fit the theme of the film.

Though it would have been an extreme downer, the film would have made more sense if it had been the fantasy of an old man about to be shipped off to the living hell of a retirement home. But that would have sent all audiences home in a state of depression...

It's clear to me that Pixar should develop an animated feature project intended primarily for an adult audience. Twice, now (here and in WALL-EE) they take mature subject matter with a real edge, and then they back away from taking it as seriously as they should. And end up with a manipulated feel-good ending, which diminishes the film as a whole (unlike, say, Toy Stories 1 and 2, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles).

Shoot 'Em Up (2007)

not a movie but a non-interactive video game (spoilers)

[1/10 · 30 July 2008]

Inane plot, bad acting all around, for the most dreadful oneliners... It's what happens when a director with no sense of narrative puts all the cool ideas he can think of with regards to shooting and ultraviolence in one movie. Owen is dull, Belluci has looked and acted MUCH better, Giamatti is cast totally against type, but it doesn't work. Sure, it's a largely live-action cartoon (a lot of dodgy CGI as well which completely ruins the freefall gun battle), and it succeeds in meeting its goals (sick humor, extreme violence, insanely impossible shootouts). Yet these goals really aren't worth the effort, and compared to the inspiration for the film (the Hong Kong heroic bloodshed movies) the result is anemic (despite all the CGI-blood spurting). And that's mainly because of a complete lack of emotional involvement, frenetic editing and the fake nature of all the action. Why I say it's a video game is that every action sequence consists of Owen's character using the environment in an unnecessarily complex way (doing the 'cool' stuff) just like a game character will have to solve a puzzle. Whether that's using a table or an oil slick or using machine guns from a distance... It's always illogical, far-fetched and too deliberately 'cool'. And the obvious trickery (hyperkinetic editing, CGI) results in the end result never having the impact and visceral excitement of the original, despite being technically superior. There's not a single 'wow'-stunt in sight, despite the army of stuntmen involved (and by this I mean some of the insane falls or acrobatics performed in the HK films which make you wince while seeing them).

In Bruges (2008)

Hell isn't Bruges... It's this excrement of a movie (SPOILERS)

[1/10 · 23 July 2008]

In Bruges is so relentlessly, mind-bogglingly bad, it's a miracle anyone was stupid enough to put up money for this piece of crap. Not only does it take forever to get going, is it full of people doing completely unbelievable things, does it completely fail to capture the spirit of Bruges and its inhabitants (and believe me, there's plenty material there which can be parodied mercilessly if one is so inclined), but worst of all it doesn't even know what it wants to say. And it's pretentious, to boot.

The romance is ridiculous, the midget/dwarf character is only there to function as the punchline of a sick joke-oid (which really isn't funny or profound or thought-provoking). None of the secondary characters are believable (a pregnant woman ordering an armed gangster out of her hotel - without showing the slightest worry or fear, for instance, or someone piloting a boat down the canals of Bruges who doesn't react when someone leaps onto his boat from a hotel window and bullets start flying), they're badly written and acted, and except for the ticket seller none of them are Flemish (let alone from Bruges). They're mainly French speakers - why, for Christ's sake? There are hundreds of Flemish actors and a few dozen of them are actually quite good.

Script-wise, the problem is that the jokey tone of many of the scenes completely clashes with the extreme tragedy of what Colin Farrell's character has done. And once this horror is revealed (which makes it very hard to empathize with him at first), absurd crime situations and 'cool' bits of ultra-violence just don't fit with the overall tone. This should be a story of either reprisal or redemption, but it ends up being neither and both. As the film progresses, it becomes more and more ludicrous, with the scene in the hotel between Farrell, Fiennes and the landlady as the absolute nadir. There's also some quite shocking gore (a boy with his brains blown out, a character with half his face blown off)

On the plus side, Farrell (whom I really, really hate, normally) is extremely good, Brendan Gleeson also does a good job, and Ralph Fiennes does his best with a very ill-conceived role. And some of Farrell's rants and jokes are amusing. But the weaknesses of the script and the weak acting of the rest of the cast make this an unalloyed disaster.

Too bad McDonagh didn't jump off the Belfort instead of Gleeson's character. Then the world would have been spared this travesty of a film.

Ratatouille (2007)

Technically brilliant, but Pixar storytelling process stumbles - SPOILERS ABOUND!

[6/10 · 10 August 2007]

I went into Ratatouille with huge expectations due to the glowing reviews. I generally love Pixar features.

To my surprise, I wasn't immediately swept off my feet as the movie started. I waited, and waited... and though there were some brilliant sequences, there were just too many elements which did not ring true for me to get into the film.

Things I had problems with: 1) Remy isn't really a rat, he's a human in rat shape. He already knows how to cook, he can read, he's hygienic, he has moral qualms about 'stealing'... His only problem is that he's a rat, and thus unable to achieve his desires. That's a purely physical limitation, not a psychological one. So there's no real growth on his part, just the search for the opportunity to live his dream.

2) Linguini is so passive and incompetent, he's really an uninteresting character. The conflict between him and Remy is forced - even when he's taking credit for Remy's talent (very late in the story), he does so because of circumstance and Remy has never before given any indication he's not okay with this.

3) Colette is completely superfluous to the story. Moreover, she starts off extremely feminist and violently tough, but soon after becomes just another lovelorn female pining for idiotic Linguini. Her anger at the female-unfriendliness of the haute cuisine world is immediately forgotten.

4) Skinner is a badly realized character. He's only interested in his line of Gusteau frozen foods, yet he keeps the restaurant open and expects it to produce quality food. However, he doesn't try to improve the star rating (which could only help his business plans). On the other hand, he doesn't deliberately cut corners or lower standards to save money. (It's not clear to me whether his frozen foods have already been launched or whether this is a secret plan of his - if so, it's never discovered (as a revelation) by anyone during the film, so it doesn't really add to the storyline. Also, Skinner is so very concerned about Linguini being Gustave's son, feeling certain that he 'knows' something and his appearance just before the deadline is no accident. However, nothing is ever discovered about Skinner, he doesn't appear to have any dark secrets. So why the paranoid worrying? Finally, Skinner isn't really a successful villain to oppose Remy, as their goals never really clash. When Skinner finally captures Remy, it's not to kill him but to force him to cook more deep-frozen meals... Not exactly a fate worse than death. I was also irritated by his English name being coupled to a French(ish) accent.

4) Anton Ego is an even less suitable opponent for Remy. He's a very mean character (almost vampire-like in looks), and directly responsible for Gusteau's death. Yet there is no punishment (though he indirectly killed Linguini's dad!), only a sense of immediate and total redemption. Why did he become such a monster (compared to the sweet and innocent boy he used to be)? If you think about it, the character is all about exercising tyrannical power (destroying the reputation of chefs for the fun of it), not the love of food as he claims. How does this put him into direct conflict with Remy? He's the main threat of the film but only shows up in the third act (when the less imposing Skinner has been largely disposed of). (It would also have been nice if Remy's food had first provoked culinary hallucinations of an incredible potency before flashing him back to his childhood)

5) Remy learns to control Linguini perfectly, but when they have to cook the sweetbreads, Linguini is once again careening off the walls etc. like in the much earlier apartment scenes.

6) The kitchen personnel is very dull: nothing is done with them, and they have almost no personality (despite being introduced in a way which makes you expect them to have a far greater impact on the movie). Perhaps the whole rat family theme should have been dropped and more time should have been spent with the kitchen staff)

7) major coincidences propel the story forwards: Remy losing his family and (especially) finding them again is really arbitrary.

8) The final fate of Gusteau's restaurant is disappointing.

9) Remy's unwillingness to believe humans hate rats when his father shows him the shop is really strange, as he's experienced the homicidal old lady. It would have been better if he remained convinced that Linguini is his friend and would never harm him no matter what, unlike other humans.

10) The film lacks a climax as spectacular and inventive as Monsters Inc., Nemo and Incredibles.

11) The paternity angle is resolved extremely quickly, after having received quite a build-up. The resolution was very unsatisfactory (more could have been done with it story-wise, and during development it probably was at one time or another).

Finally, the film isn't that funny, compared to the other Pixar classics. Heck, Flushed Away (which had a less likable hero by far, and was less emotionally involving) is funnier by far than Ratatouille.

Ratatouille is more serious in tone than many other Pixar films, but for me, the story told didn't convince and the moral lessons were far too heavy-handed (follow your dream, prejudice is bad, family comes first, critics are generally bad :-)...) The set pieces are very impressive, technically the film obviously breaks new barriers, and there are some nice jokes and little touches scattered over the film - but to me, the magic was missing. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say the development process of the story must have been extremely complicated and I often had the feeling that bits were left in that probably worked better in previous versions of the story, or alternately were added later without fitting the overall story perfectly.

The Emperor Waltz (1948)

surprisingly enjoyable, check it out

[8/10 · 5 January 2007]

After having read all the negative reviews and the complaints about Crosby wrecking Wilder's original intention with the film, I was quite amazed to discover that I liked this film a lot. Crosby's interference isn't noticeable, by which I mean that the film has a quite evenhanded tone. And near the end, Crosby is absolutely horrid to Joan Fontaine (cruel to be kind, but he still takes it to extremes) in a cynical way which just smacks of Wilder's black-heartedness. Crosby's character in this film is also somewhat different from his usual persona: not laid-back, but a pushy, brash, fast-talking salesman (Hope or Cagney might have suited the story even better). Joan Fontain is very icy and remote at first (making her unattractive), but she melts very convincingly once the love affair starts. The film is also a sort of a parody of the musical: Crosby's yodelling song is full of yodel jokes, and during THE number of the film (I kiss your hand in dreams madame), a chamber-maid, Fontaine's goofy chauffeur and the middle-aged pudgy 'receptionist' of the inn at which Mr. C is staying launch into a wonderfully silly (deliberately so) ballet routine clearly intended as a stab at the conventions of the genre. The last part of the film becomes less amusing, and the puppy finale drags a bit, though the final confrontation with Franz Joseph (a great Richard Haydn) makes up for the lull. Finally, Fontaine has one of the greatest lines in movie history when she finally surrenders to Crosby: 'My husband was dashing and suave. He was 6'2". He was the most handsome man in all of Austria. You're so different!!' And kiss. Sheer brilliance.

Summer Stock (1950)

Kelly's best and worst number in one and the same film

[8/10 · 5 January 2007]

Summer Stock is a lightweight yet enjoyable romp, full of songs and dance numbers, though the best new song (Fall In Love, which can be heard as an audio outtake on the DVD) was cut from the picture (perhaps because it features Phil Silvers and Gloria DeHaven instead of Kelly and Garland?).

Kelly and Garland work very well together, as usual, and the barnyard dance is probably her best ever dance performance. But she's equally good in the lovely You, Wonderful You-number, which presages You Were Meant For Me on a much smaller scale.

Kelly is in great shape in the barnyard dance, Dig for your dinner (reminiscent of Tomorrow from Cover Girl and The Hat My Dear Old Father Wore Upon St Patrick's Day in Take Me Out To The Ball Game). But the best number is without a doubt his solo to You, Wonderful You with the newspaper and squeaky board. To me it's Kelly's most Astaire-like performance (especially conceptually - the steps and style are all Kelly).

Unfortunately, the big show is fairly weak (excepting Get Happy, small wonder they added it), and Kelly and Silver's redneck number Heavenly Music is a disgrace. Unfunny, bad song and bad choreography/concept. I can't recall Kelly having done anything more disappointing.

So skip that one every time you pop in the DVD and enjoy the rest of Judy Garland's swan song for MGM, and Kelly's last 'normal' musical (before all his pictures became events).

Rhythm on the River (1940)

delightful comedy-musical

[8/10 · 24 December 2006]

Billy Wilder is co-credited for the story, and his unsentimental touch is noticeable in this quite original tale of ghostwriting songwriters who both work for burnt-out music legend Oliver Courtney. The obvious misunderstandings are gotten out of the way quite quickly, thank heaven, and what remains is a witty and breezy concoction with some fine songs (and some more forgettable ones), Crosby at his most charming, a great turn by Broadway legend Mary Martin and Basil Rathbone and Oscar Levant providing most of the cynical barbs (Levant is in rare form and his quips haven't dated at all). A delightful surprise, and recommended for all fans of the genre.

The Tiger Brigades (2006)

The French Untouchables

[9/10 · 28 November 2006]

Very nice historical thriller/adventure, based on the hit TV series of the same name. In 1912, an elite unit of the Sureté becomes involved in a complex case including anarchist attacks, an international financial scandal involving France and Russia, political corruption and a mysterious, beautiful woman married to a Russian prince but with an agenda of her own. The production is handsomely mounted, action scenes are fairly sparse (like in The Untouchables) but very well done, real set-pieces. There's a huge shootout, hand-to-hand combat, fencing... the lot. Acting is very good across the line, but I would like to single out Diane Kruger for her performance as Constance. Multi-layered, very well written, the character is at the heart of the plot and shows a richness and subtlety rare in genre fiction. Hindsight provides an extra layer of appreciation: the events in the film occur before WW I and the Russian Revolution, but will influence both these cataclysmic upheavals. As we know more than the characters do about how things will turn out, the narrative gains extra poignancy. Definitely one of the best French mainstream entertainment films of recent years. A success on every level. Roll on Brigades 2...

Match Point (2005)

dull and plot-driven

[2/10 · 1 November 2006]

After reading all the hype about this film, I had very high hopes for it. Unfortunately, the end result was very, very disappointing. First of all, the plot is an extended variation/rehash of the tragic plot line of Crimes and Misdemeanours. So despite the London backdrop to the story, again nearly nothing new under the sun. Secondly, the movie is SLOW. Almost nothing happens for a very long time, and there are several extremely short scenes which could have been removed without the slightest impact on the storyline. Some scenes have dreadful explanatory dialogue, while others do sparkle (the ping-pong scene, for instance). Third, Rhys-Myers is extremely uneven. Sometimes his performance is riveting (epescially during the third act), sometimes it is stilted and mannered to an extreme. I kept expecting this to be for some sort of story reason, but no such luck. Four, the potential of the plot is underdeveloped. There were tons of possibilities for further complications and obstacles to confront Rhys-Myers with, but they were all ignored. Just when the film becomes interesting, it ends. Five, the resolution of the plot is not believable. And this mainly due to exceptional stupidity from the London Police. In real life, a cop like James Nesbitt would not give up his investigation immediately - he would stay on the scent, try to trap his suspect, look for clues (DNA, gun) etc. Allen wants the punchline about the role of fate to drive the entire film, and sacrifices both character and suspension of disbelief to this end. That's lousy writing. Six, Scarlett Johansson's character becomes intensely unlikeable, although her expectations and desires in the story are justified and basically honest.

In short, Woody Allen is nowhere near on top form again. The sad reality is that he probably never again will be...

Sin City (2005)

Violence without depth = dull

[1/10 · 14 September 2005]

So it looks like the comics. Well done. So it's a triumph of digital movie magic. Okay. So it's really, really violent yet by keeping the blood bright white it is kept tolerable for a more or less mass audience. ho-hum. The problem with Sin City is that it's totally uninteresting. The characters aren't clichés, they're caricatures of carbon copies of clichés. The 'stories' (it's really an insult to call them that) are so basic, so utterly devoid of anything resembling intelligence, wit, suspense, structure, relevance, depth, that it's impossible to care about any of these cardboard cut-outs. There's a lot of women empowerment in this film, except all women are whores, basically, who exist to service men or be their victims. All men perform astounding feats of violence and survive insane amounts of damage, which totally kills any suspension of disbelief. Robert Rodriguez still has absolutely no story sense or feel for pacing. The short story-system used for the film makes it fragmented and repetitive. Reading Frank Miller's comics will probably take all of ten minutes per episode. That's 40 minutes versus a two-hour film (which had deleted material to boot). And that's just far too much time to spend on these sadistic, shallow trifles which are terribly overrated as comics, let alone as films.

Transporter 2 (2005)

(mild possible spoilers) It must be nice to be Luc Besson...

[1/10 · 31 August 2005]

... You can dream up any utterly crap screenplay idea, write it in less than a month, have no one tell you it's no good, and get it made. This one has all the hallmarks: a ridiculous non-story without any semblance of coherence, spastic editing which obscures almost all of the action, 'characters' which are almost too simplistic even for a dumb comic book... It's really disheartening. The truly bad: the CGI-work which was often very badly done (tv-series level), Katie Nauta's psychotic slut who only lives for killing and/or screwing everyone she meets (with a decided preference for the former), some sequences which are simply incomprehensible, François Berléand who's even less necessary to the plot than in the first one, the climax which is so completely unrealistic (both action-wise and emotionally) that it completely throws you out of whatever hold the picture still had on you at that point, the editing which ruins just about every fight scene and chase, the total lack of narrative coherence.

The somewhat okay to good: the Audi car, Amber Valetta as the only human character in the film, Jason Statham's cool, and the fight in the garage which almost let you make out what was happening, and had some neat tricks and moves. Though even here the old '70s kung fu movie staple of having a lot of villains stand around in a circle and wave their weapons in a threatening way while attacking the hero one by one was so noticeable that even my wife (who hasn't seen ANY of these flicks) immediately noticed it.

Luc Besson - the Prequel-trilogy George Lucas of Europe, but with only half the talent (at best). What a waste of time, energy and money.

Man on Fire (2004)

Pretentious and trite

[1/10 · 27 July 2005]

Denzel is good as always, but this turgid, dull potboiler really is a damp squib. It's overlong, too much information gets repeated ad nauseam (how many times do we have to hear what The Brotherhood is?), the director doesn't play fair (the phony Sixth Sense glimpses of Pita), Dakota Fanning is like no kid I've ever met outside of the movies, and the oh-so-hip hyperkinetic editing and visual trickery straight from today's edgy commercials just induces motion sickness, every plot twist is guessable long before it occurs. Plus a gratuitous downer ending... what less could you ask for? Avoid. Note: the DVD has tons of deleted scenes, including an ending suggested by Denzel which I had also thought of while watching the film. It's much better than the current pseudo-Christlike choice, but it's still nowhere near strong enough to save this film.

The Reincarnation of Isabel (1973)

No redeeming features whatsoever

[1/10 · 12 May 2004]

Totally incomprehensible mess of a film, which mixes Satanists, reincarnated witches and vampires to no good effect - apparently the shoestring budget didn't allow for plastic vampire teeth, plus these so-called bloodsuckers (there's never any actual evidence of neckbiting) do not follow any of the usual vampire rules. The editing is extremely confusing, the score ridiculous, the acting... what acting? Hardly any gore, and what is present is very obviously fake. Lots of strictly R-rated nudity, so even on the sleaze level this is a very mild entry. Apparently this film had been lost for many years - and with good reason, too. Avoid unless you're in a masochistic mood.

Protégé de la Rose Noire (2004)

Far from great

[5/10 · 12 April 2004]

Incomprehensible Rose Noir comedy. The '90s parodies weren't that hot either, but this one is far worse. Two morons (the Twins)get drafted by a moronic ex-superheroine (Rose noir, Teresa Mo) to succeed her, and a moronic taxi driver (Ekin Cheng) tags along for the ride. They go up against a - can you guess? - moronic all-girl gang led by the daughter of Rose Noir, Miss LavenCam. Donnie Yen is co-director and probably mostly responsible for the action. Which isn't that hot, except for a short bit in which the Twins copy Jackie Chan's training sequences from Snake in Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master, and the fighting performed by a lethal schoolgirl played by Chris Yen, Donnie's sister. She's awesome, and looks good to boot. Let's hope she gets more and better chances than this! For the rest, Ekin being less boring than usual, but in a fairly thankless role, the Twins being not very funny and overly cute to no effect, and a few funny moments. But far too much duds, no storyline to speak of and no real classic moments.

Dreamcatcher (2003)

Absolutely dreadful

[1/10 · 28 February 2004]

No redeeming features. Horrible script, bad acting, no tension, no suspense, no believable characters - not even the first part of the film is that great (far too obvious and unsuspenseful). The special effects are okay but the creature design is far from impressive or scary. And people farting on screen is not scary, even if those farts are caused by two-foot long alien tadpoles with more teeth than they know what to do with. Writer William Goldman proves that his law of Hollywood (nobody knows anything)applies to himself as well. It's like an episode of South Park without the intentional laughs (but a truckload of unintentional ones). Everyone involved with this (including Stephen King) should be extremely ashamed of themselves.