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Reviews
Cleopatra's Second Husband (1998)
keeps you guessing, but for no good purpose, a long setup with a mean payoff
usually a movie that starts bad stays bad in a monotonically descending pattern. This bad movie started to seem to get better before going into a steep dive. The acting, save for the male antagonist, was awful. The plot was essentially a set up for the final main scene, which is probably good as performance art, but it was wasted in this movie. Not sure why this movie was made.
The Third Miracle (1999)
beautifully shot, great acting (Ed Harris), and almost subtle
There is beauty and sadness and obviously grace in this movie. The high contrast film used evokes Rembrandt, not in a sentimental way, but to imply the presence of a spirit greater than simply flesh. Sometimes Ed Harris's body would disappear and his head would gleam in a black background. Much was not said but implied here, yet there were false steps that broke the tone of this movie, the miracles in the US were to literal, while the movie was mostly working on the level of subtle metaphor, this was simply not necessary, Harris's strugle with his god contraposed with the naive love of the woman/Saint was all we needed to power this movie, the coincidences and mechanical miracles belonged to a different movie. This being said, the miracle of the bombs not dropping was actually done very well and could have easily sustained the power of the movie. Perhaps there was just too much to tell within the time constraints imposed. At anyrate, there is much to recommend in this great, flawed effort. Notes: Ann Heche was good as always, but why does she always have to have love affairs with men 20 years or older than her
La vita è bella (1997)
a quaking wreck of a movie: humor
I saw this movie although I had a strong sense beforehand that it was drastically misguided, after seeing it, I realized that it was far worse than I could have imagined. Roberto Benigni in his benighted way, probably thinks what he did here was heroic, I can excuse poor judgement and taste in an artist, but for the life of me, I cannot fathom how anything so misbegotten could be so popular and somewhat critically acclaimed. Certainly, there are true stories of incredible bravery, fortitude and even humor in the face of such unrelenting evil, but these are true stories (like the escape from Sobibor). Benigni, however, creates, out of whole cloth, as far as I can tell, a fairy tale which uses the Holocaust as background. He creates a character and situations that could simply not exist under such conditions and are not even remotely related to anyone or anything in the history of the holocaust. To further compound the problem, he constructs Aushwitz-lite in which the latter half of the movie takes place. A place with gas chambers, unrelenting, (but Chaplin-esque) hard labor, and with such seemingly lax security that Benigni's character can commandeer the camp's PA system, and effectively hide his son. Further, the inmates, who in reality, were starved and worked to death never appeared more than "bushed." These fictional liberties, to my mind, are unforgiveable. The Holocaust is always foreground, and there is no "lite" available. The Germans simply killed you, unrelentingly, for any reason whatsoever. Further, one of the worst aspects of arrival at a death camp like Aushwitz was the sudden separation (culling) of the children from the parents, husbands from wives. This activity, never overlooked, immediately told the prisoners they had passed from the land of the living into hell. Somehow this little fact was passed over by Benigni. He simply keeps his son with him. Indeed, none of the playful little camp activities portrayed could have ever existed for even a milli-second. Benigni's story could have taken place in any particular bad situation, why set it in a concentration camp. Perhaps my reaction seems humorless, but really, the humor here is strained and out of place. What was he thinking? Evil triumphed, millions were dispatched in the most monstrous of conditions. Nothing can modify this, the pure fact of its occurrence makes interpretation, let alone heart warming entertainment an impossibility.
La vita è bella (1997)
a quaking wreck of a movie: humor
I saw this movie although I had a strong sense beforehand that it was drastically misguided, after seeing it, I realized that it was far worse than I could have imagined. Roberto Benigni in his benighted way, probably thinks what he did here was heroic, I can excuse poor judgement and taste in an artist, but for the life of me, I cannot fathom how anything so misbegotten could be so popular and somewhat critically acclaimed. Certainly, there are true stories of incredible bravery, fortitude and even humor in the face of such unrelenting evil, but these are true stories (like the escape from Sobibor). Benigni, however, creates, out of whole cloth, as far as I can tell, a fairy tale which uses the Holocaust as background. He creates a character and situations that could simply not exist under such conditions and are not even remotely related to anyone or anything in the history of the holocaust. To further compound the problem, he constructs Aushwitz-lite in which the latter half of the movie takes place. A place with gas chambers, unrelenting, (but Chaplin-esque) hard labor, and with such seemingly lax security that Benigni's character can commandeer the camp's PA system, and effectively hide his son. Further, the inmates, who in reality, were starved and worked to death never appeared more than "bushed." These fictional liberties, to my mind, are unforgiveable. The Holocaust is always foreground, and there is no "lite" available. The Germans simply killed you, unrelentingly, for any reason whatsoever. Further, one of the worst aspects of arrival at a death camp like Aushwitz was the sudden separation (culling) of the children from the parents, husbands from wives. This activity, never overlooked, immediately told the prisoners they had passed from the land of the living into hell. Somehow this little fact was passed over by Benigni. He simply keeps his son with him. Indeed, none of the playful little camp activities portrayed could have ever existed for even a milli-second. Benigni's story could have taken place in any particular bad situation, why set it in a concentration camp. Perhaps my reaction seems humorless, but really, the humor here is strained and out of place. What was he thinking? Evil triumphed, millions were dispatched in the most monstrous of conditions. Nothing can modify this, the pure fact of its occurrence makes interpretation, let alone heart warming entertainment an impossibility.
The Thin Red Line (1998)
an artist for the ages treats war
It slowly dawns on the viewer that the voices heard on screen could be his/her own. It is a leisurely explosion, from the inside out. The voices rise and fade, go from voice-overs to voices on screen (similar to the first hour of the great Wim Wender's movie "Wings of Desire") and we become part of the experience, the experience becomes part of nature, finally we are left on a beach that leaves the world, inexhorably, the way it has always been. There are no missteps in this movie, we are witness to a miracle of sorts, a movie ostensibly about war, that needs the audience to complete it. The vicariousness of even the most masterfully rendered battle scenes of most movies seems obscene when compared to the emotional palette this director utilizes to unlock our own internal existential dialogue(s). There are no easy tropes to guide us to an expected conclusion. We are confronted with the majesty and sadness that is the human experience. War is not separate from this, just a heightening and compression. In most war movies, we feel like we've been on a scary amusement park ride or witnessed a car wreck, there is very little emphathic reverbation after the credits role. In the Thin Red Line, we are led inward, our own existential questions are encountered and voiced, and meld into the voices and lives on the screen. The movie and our responses to it attain a synergy of reference and reflection that will hopefully keep the Thin Red Line from petrifying into a classic. Mallick's vision is the counter point that, while not always stated or explicitly thought, shadows all our waking moments. See the movie at your own risk.
Léolo (1992)
a work of genius, completely unexpected, fantastic film score
I was completely unprepared for this movie. There is an alchemy in which sadness and humor are made into something more. I was left in a very different world at the end of this movie. An absolute must see. By the way, the score is way cool, Tom Waits, Lorena Mckennit, etc.
Gods and Monsters (1998)
Very Sad, well acted, unexpected
Movies that do the unexpected without making a big to-do about doing the unexpected are very rare. The acting is exquisite, nuanced (notwithstanding the meanspirited, doctrinaire comments to the contrary on this list). There are no conclusions drawn, a new range is added to one's emotional palette. The ending in the rain will become as iconic as scenes from Whale's own movies.