jondoran Reviews

Dreams (1990)

underwhelming

[4/10 · 26 November 2006]

I have little experience with or knowledge about Kurosawa. However, I have to agree with the naysayers here - this movie is not only slowly paced but often amateurishly staged and acted. The messages are obvious and shallow and the much vaunted visuals seem oddly dated and low budget. Even the conceit of couching segments as drawing from Kurosawa's dreams is ineffective in light of their surprisingly literal dramatization - where is the surreal, subconscious dream logic of, say, David Lynch's "Lost Highway"? Instead, many of the segments are "surreal" in the artificial manner of an episode of The Twilight Zone. Underwhelming.

The Green Mile (1999)

Nice save

[6/10 · 22 June 2002]

This movie has all of the elements of a disaster in the making - it's based on a novel by Stephen King that was written long after he had exhausted any iota of originality he may have once had, has a familiar 1930s jailhouse setting (with the usual heavily art-directed "period" sets), stereotypical characters, a familiar supernatural plot, a heavy-handed sense of melodrama, even a twist ending. Most of all, it has 3+ HOUR RUNNING TIME. Despite all of these factors, The Green Mile is perfectly watchable, if not particularly memorable - it's a great example of how good actors and casting can elevate a potentially terrible movie to a watchable one. David Morse, who has never stood out in anything I've seen him in, puts in a great performance. Michael Clarke Duncan is no more than a serviceable gentle giant, but his amazing physical presence makes his performance notable nonetheless. Tom Hanks, as usual, is reliable. Remove these actors, though, and you would be left with a mediocre TV miniseries. At best.

Training Day (2001)

Gets worse as it goes on

[6/10 · 18 May 2002]

What starts as a thought-provoking study of moral brinkmanship among drug squad cops - asking how much detectives should compromise their ideals in order to put criminals behind bars - quickly devolves into a by-the-numbers Hollywood corruption thriller, replete with high-level coverups by sleazy blow-dried political bosses who convene at a supper club, a rooftop chase, a needlessly extended fistfight in which the two leads prove virtually indestructible, an ironic denouement, and many of the other tired elements we have seen so many times before. The strong performances, sharp cinematography, good use of L.A. locations, and brisk pacing still elevate Training Day above the most pedestrian genre fare - but barely.

Porgandite öö (1998)

highly original

[8/10 · 20 January 2002]

Though apparently steeped in symbolism and allegory that mostly went right over my head, this animated short is still highly enjoyable on a purely entertainment basis. This head-scratchingly surreal film effectively (and amusingly) creates a fully developed universe that operates under different - but somehow internally consistent - logic than our own. The voice-over narration is wonderfully pompous and incoherent, and who can ever forget the character of Miss Nipple, the self-punishing elevator button? Great music, too.

Traffic (2000)

ehhh...

[16 December 2001]

***SLIGHT SPOILERS*** This film is OK, but wa-a-a-y overrated. Soderbergh does a decent job weaving together the various storylines, which is a difficult task... but they're kinda boring, to be honest. Soderbergh's detached cool doesn't really work for a story that's supposed to act as a hard-hitting drama, especially one with a pretty unequivocal political mesage. While the acting is solid and the editing tight, the cinematography is amateurish and over-stylized - the too-contrasty photography, the exaggerated use of colored filters, the NYPD Blue-style shaky handheld-with-an-exclamation-point shots. Plus, I don't buy some of the plot twists: Catherine Zeta-Jones goes from being a genteel housewife who doesn't know her husband is a major drug tycoon to a hard-bitten, assassination-ordering femme fatale in the space of like two scenes, and the only justification we're given for this is that she grew up poor and doesn't want to lose her upper-class lifestyle. Then Michael Douglas, instead of resigning his post, actually breaks down DURING his first press conference as the U.S. Drug Czar and renounces the nation's "war on drugs" as misguided. Yeah, right.