The elements of this film do not work. It is one of those movies like The Counselor or Righteous Kill that has a fine cast of talented actors and hands them an unworkable script. For Catherine Deneuve, the solution is simple. She should not be in this movie at all. She makes no sense as an upscale LA prostitute. Faye Dunaway or Catherine Bach (who is in the movie) could have played this part far more convincingly. It doesn't matter though because Deneuve's character shouldn't be in the movie anyway. Her scenes as a cop's love interest are so boring and pointless... they make the movie very hard to get through. Burt Reynolds is fine as a depressed alcoholic cop. His character pretty much does acts believably, drinking, hanging around bars, solving crimes when he can. It's not believable that he also runs around with Catherine Deneuve and goes to see French films with her, or that the filmmakers could have thought that we wanted to watch several long conversations between the two. Storywise, the characters talk about a young dead woman in vile ways, and it makes for very sleazy viewing, as does her father's roaming strip clubs trying to prove that she was murdered. The sleazy parts about the young dead girl jar badly with the pseudo-intellectual nonsense of the boring Reynolds-Deneuve scenes. The movie tries to have heart for it's absurd romantic plot line and has none for the portrayal of the victim and her parents, where it would actually make more sense. I'd always been told that George C. Scot's HARDCORE was a really sleazy movie. I saw it though, and I thought it had a lot of heart and an intelligent script. HUSTLE, by contrast, fails at showing heart and almost collapses under its own sleaziness. Almost, because what really collapses this film is dull romance between a realistic alcoholic burnout and a magical fairy lady from Narnia.
Reviews
53 Reviews
31
(2016)
31: Rob has now gone fully in the wrong direction.
5 November 2016
Warning: Spoilers
All I have to say about this movie is that in the middle of this movie, the people come upon a filthy circus tent. Inside is a woman who has been pinioned to a platform on the ground with barbed wire for some time, and has been raped repeatedly by two of the killers. She is in a terrible condition and has been tortured horribly (in the beginning of the movie we saw her husband get killed). They keep her draped under a deflated blow-up sex doll. One of the people try to free her while the other one yells at her because he thinks she is somehow in on the trap. The killers come in and one of them kills this woman with his chainsaw. The reactions I have to this scenario are sadness, anger, hate, and disgust, but not fear. This is not horror. I don't actually know what to even call it.
A movie about a group of innocents trapped in a warehouse with killer clowns could be done a number of ways, but the only way that really works would be to be over the top, intense, and ridiculously fun. The scene I described above is certainly over the top, but in a very bad direction, and is definitely not in any way fun. None of this movie is fun to watch at all.
The kind of boost that Rob Zombie got to his credibility for the rape scene way back in Devil's Rejects was not a blank check. If he wanted to be seen as a serious filmmaker of serious films, as seems to have been the case, throwing in a rape scene was only going to work once. He was more than welcome to keep pursuing serious material, but it had to be different kinds of serious material. Instead, all of his films have had rape or forced oral sex content. His films had to develop into better and more serious films, and they haven't.
The usual complaints against RZ are his bad characters and bad dialogue. Those are valid complaints, but I was willing to overlook them, because he is an amazing talent and as a cinematographer, he is at the very top of the game. But the real problem that I think has finally solidified into a habit, is the rape filled nature of his movies, which I never signed on for, I think is NOT horror, and I am not interested in.
Most of the reviewers have praised Richard Brake's performance. He's basically this movie's Bill Moseley. I'm happy for him, because this is his first turn as a lead as far as I know, and he does do a good job of playing an irredeemable villain. To be honest though, the movie itself is just not good. I miss Bill Moseley though.
Also, most of the reviewers have yet again complained about Sheri Moon's acting. Those complaints have always been bull. She does fine, like always.
The best performance in the movie is from Meg Foster, as beautiful and engaging as ever, and not afraid to show her true age. She is truly something special.
31 could have been many things. A rape movie should not have been it.
2 out of 10, only for Meg Foster and some good cinematography.
A movie about a group of innocents trapped in a warehouse with killer clowns could be done a number of ways, but the only way that really works would be to be over the top, intense, and ridiculously fun. The scene I described above is certainly over the top, but in a very bad direction, and is definitely not in any way fun. None of this movie is fun to watch at all.
The kind of boost that Rob Zombie got to his credibility for the rape scene way back in Devil's Rejects was not a blank check. If he wanted to be seen as a serious filmmaker of serious films, as seems to have been the case, throwing in a rape scene was only going to work once. He was more than welcome to keep pursuing serious material, but it had to be different kinds of serious material. Instead, all of his films have had rape or forced oral sex content. His films had to develop into better and more serious films, and they haven't.
The usual complaints against RZ are his bad characters and bad dialogue. Those are valid complaints, but I was willing to overlook them, because he is an amazing talent and as a cinematographer, he is at the very top of the game. But the real problem that I think has finally solidified into a habit, is the rape filled nature of his movies, which I never signed on for, I think is NOT horror, and I am not interested in.
Most of the reviewers have praised Richard Brake's performance. He's basically this movie's Bill Moseley. I'm happy for him, because this is his first turn as a lead as far as I know, and he does do a good job of playing an irredeemable villain. To be honest though, the movie itself is just not good. I miss Bill Moseley though.
Also, most of the reviewers have yet again complained about Sheri Moon's acting. Those complaints have always been bull. She does fine, like always.
The best performance in the movie is from Meg Foster, as beautiful and engaging as ever, and not afraid to show her true age. She is truly something special.
31 could have been many things. A rape movie should not have been it.
2 out of 10, only for Meg Foster and some good cinematography.
Fifty Shades of Grey
(2015)
A Dull Film that does Nothing Right
22 February 2015
Warning: Spoilers
This movie has several problems and almost no virtues. Let's just go down the line.
1. It's boring. No matter what a movie is about, there is no excuse for being boring. This movie in particular, which is supposed to be so hot and erotic, should be engaging. It is not. The filmmakers' sole mission was to get people into the theater, but they felt themselves under no obligation to entertain them once they were there. Once the tickets are bought, mission accomplished. You are not in good hands here.
2. Jamie Dornan. Little Jamie Dornan, who is trying to portray an uber-confident, menacing, Nietzchean superman, just has no way to pull it off. With his boyish wave of sunny curls, he seems like he could play a farmer's hardworking son in a period piece, or an innocent young sailor like Billy Budd, or maybe an earnest young priest in an episode of Murder She Wrote. Christian Grey was supposed to radiate sexual menace. Jamie Dornan radiates kinda wanting to ask you to a prom. (It also doesn't help that he is very short). Grey is supposed to be serious and commanding, but when Dornan tries to be this character he just sounds like a robot. He would be an excellent choice to play C-3PO in the Star Wars revival because he's definitely got the moves, but if he'd have to work on giving his voice some personality.
3. Christian Gray. This character makes no sense. He sets all these rules on this woman he's trying to court, but that's really it. That's all he does. He thinks up rules and gets her to come to his house. Because of the awkward flow of the movie this makes even less sense, because he sets these rules and then breaks them, but still acts like they're inflexible. Maybe this makes more sense in the books, but I will never know. He is also a big douchebag. There's no other way to describe him. Ana drunk-dials him and his reaction is so dorky and lame that it would be great comedy if it were intentional. "Have have you been DRINKING???" Uh . OK .. Then he shows up at the bar and angrily flexes on the most harmless character in the movie as if either of them were badasses of some sort It's a moment that really just falls flat.
4. Anastasia Steele. The character, not the actress. Anastasia is a frumpy cipher who works in a hardware store and is pursuing a useless degree. You know the phrase "she basic" . well, she basic. The only thing I can figure out about her is that her lack of personality or motivation makes her non-threatening to other women. As long as she is nothing and has accomplished nothing, none of the women readers feel as if she reflects badly on them.
5. The visuals. This is a bleak, joyless, sterile movie. A movie that is supposed to be sensual and erotic should be something you can't take your eyes off of, but this movie is almost challenging to watch. Everywhere they go, inside or outside, looks like the inside of either a clean or a dirty bucket. Also, the movie spends way too much time in closeup on the leads. I got really tired of their boring, expressionless faces.
6. The supporting characters. Anastasia's friends are just supposed to be pieces of a support structure that holds her up for us to like but the problem is that they are actually more interesting and likable than she or Christian Gray. Eloise Mumford plays Anastasia's roommate Kate, and she is supposed to be superficial and shallow, but supportive. The problem is that Eloise Mumford is more interesting and fun than anything else in this movie. She lights up the screen whenever she's on. Anastasia has a young suitor named Jose, who is a photographer and likes her a lot. He's actually a little too good for her, but she friendzones him rather mercilessly. He does give Christian Gray an opportunity to act like a douchebag in a very funny scene though. She also works with a nice young guy at the hardware store. He is easygoing, friendly and supportive, and is also interested in her for some unfathomable reason. She can't stand him. Well, the guy is tall. Really tall. Tall for women is like big boobs and blue eyes for men . There's no way she would physically prefer little Jamie Dornan over her tall co-worker.
7. Story. Ultimately, the movie can not possibly succeed because the story is just so stupid. The fetish/BDSM elements are shoehorned in so awkwardly and they never, ever work at all. The story would make more sense without the dungeon and the contracts. Those aspects are really just obvious metaphors for Gray's sexual impotence. Not very sexy at all.
8. Dakota Johnson. Well, she basic. They really would have been better off giving this to Sasha Grey. She could have livened it up considerably and wouldn't have been nearly as dull.
Funny side note... after I wrote this I noticed that it was my 51st movie review on IMDb!
1. It's boring. No matter what a movie is about, there is no excuse for being boring. This movie in particular, which is supposed to be so hot and erotic, should be engaging. It is not. The filmmakers' sole mission was to get people into the theater, but they felt themselves under no obligation to entertain them once they were there. Once the tickets are bought, mission accomplished. You are not in good hands here.
2. Jamie Dornan. Little Jamie Dornan, who is trying to portray an uber-confident, menacing, Nietzchean superman, just has no way to pull it off. With his boyish wave of sunny curls, he seems like he could play a farmer's hardworking son in a period piece, or an innocent young sailor like Billy Budd, or maybe an earnest young priest in an episode of Murder She Wrote. Christian Grey was supposed to radiate sexual menace. Jamie Dornan radiates kinda wanting to ask you to a prom. (It also doesn't help that he is very short). Grey is supposed to be serious and commanding, but when Dornan tries to be this character he just sounds like a robot. He would be an excellent choice to play C-3PO in the Star Wars revival because he's definitely got the moves, but if he'd have to work on giving his voice some personality.
3. Christian Gray. This character makes no sense. He sets all these rules on this woman he's trying to court, but that's really it. That's all he does. He thinks up rules and gets her to come to his house. Because of the awkward flow of the movie this makes even less sense, because he sets these rules and then breaks them, but still acts like they're inflexible. Maybe this makes more sense in the books, but I will never know. He is also a big douchebag. There's no other way to describe him. Ana drunk-dials him and his reaction is so dorky and lame that it would be great comedy if it were intentional. "Have have you been DRINKING???" Uh . OK .. Then he shows up at the bar and angrily flexes on the most harmless character in the movie as if either of them were badasses of some sort It's a moment that really just falls flat.
4. Anastasia Steele. The character, not the actress. Anastasia is a frumpy cipher who works in a hardware store and is pursuing a useless degree. You know the phrase "she basic" . well, she basic. The only thing I can figure out about her is that her lack of personality or motivation makes her non-threatening to other women. As long as she is nothing and has accomplished nothing, none of the women readers feel as if she reflects badly on them.
5. The visuals. This is a bleak, joyless, sterile movie. A movie that is supposed to be sensual and erotic should be something you can't take your eyes off of, but this movie is almost challenging to watch. Everywhere they go, inside or outside, looks like the inside of either a clean or a dirty bucket. Also, the movie spends way too much time in closeup on the leads. I got really tired of their boring, expressionless faces.
6. The supporting characters. Anastasia's friends are just supposed to be pieces of a support structure that holds her up for us to like but the problem is that they are actually more interesting and likable than she or Christian Gray. Eloise Mumford plays Anastasia's roommate Kate, and she is supposed to be superficial and shallow, but supportive. The problem is that Eloise Mumford is more interesting and fun than anything else in this movie. She lights up the screen whenever she's on. Anastasia has a young suitor named Jose, who is a photographer and likes her a lot. He's actually a little too good for her, but she friendzones him rather mercilessly. He does give Christian Gray an opportunity to act like a douchebag in a very funny scene though. She also works with a nice young guy at the hardware store. He is easygoing, friendly and supportive, and is also interested in her for some unfathomable reason. She can't stand him. Well, the guy is tall. Really tall. Tall for women is like big boobs and blue eyes for men . There's no way she would physically prefer little Jamie Dornan over her tall co-worker.
7. Story. Ultimately, the movie can not possibly succeed because the story is just so stupid. The fetish/BDSM elements are shoehorned in so awkwardly and they never, ever work at all. The story would make more sense without the dungeon and the contracts. Those aspects are really just obvious metaphors for Gray's sexual impotence. Not very sexy at all.
8. Dakota Johnson. Well, she basic. They really would have been better off giving this to Sasha Grey. She could have livened it up considerably and wouldn't have been nearly as dull.
Funny side note... after I wrote this I noticed that it was my 51st movie review on IMDb!
Inherent Vice
(2014)
A lot like watching someone pour thousands of jellybeans from one bucket into another.
19 January 2015
A pothead is enlisted by his obnoxious young ex-girlfriend to help her solve some problem involving two people who are trying to have her married wealthy boyfriend committed. Simple enough beginning, although their conversation is very vague and talks around the basics, which is what all 2 1/2 hours of this movie will continue to do. She doesn't tell him what she wants him to do, just that she needs his help somehow. Then she disappears, having given him exactly as much information as I just gave you.
Our pothead protagonist, a private investigator named Doc, knows about half of the people in Southern California. We meet them all. We also meet all of the people in Southern California whom he doesn't know. By the end of this movie, he knows everyone, and everyone has been trotted across the screen for us to figure out their varying degrees of relevance to anything.
Fans of Raymond Chandler get this kind of mystery plot, very dense and vague, and by the end you couldn't really explain whatever had been going on the whole time, but you have a sense of how it ends and whether or not things turn out well. This is that kind of story.
Normally when a sprawling, complicated mystery novel is adapted to the screen, it is trimmed down considerably. LA Confidential, for example, which jettisoned half of the book. Inherent Vice on the other hand sets out to cover all of the characters and plot of its source novel. This makes for a very confusing and frustrating viewing experience, where character after character shows up very briefly and then vanishes, having made very little apparent contribution to what's going on. They're all very pretty and funny while they last, though.
Joaquin Phoenix as Doc looks like Wolverine and acts like Johnny Depp. The concept of the hippie or beatnik detective has been done before, like Eliot Gould in The Long Goodbye or Richard Dreyfuss as Moses Wine in The Big Fix. Those are really good 70's movies. this is also a really good 70's movie except that it was made in 2014, which begs the question, what's the point of having made it? Since the plot remains so vague, it's not about the story. Character-wise, we have a love story, and we have a little family that needs saving (though typically for this kind of confuser they are usually just hinted at). If anything, the film seems to be an experiment in trying to build a mystery potboiler around an actor who stays high the entire time.
The conclusion that I draw is that PT Anderson undertook this film as a personal challenge, to put a complicated and dense mystery on screen while remaining faithful to its source, while filming with a leading man who is constantly baked. Safer than Fitzcarraldo, I guess.
Our pothead protagonist, a private investigator named Doc, knows about half of the people in Southern California. We meet them all. We also meet all of the people in Southern California whom he doesn't know. By the end of this movie, he knows everyone, and everyone has been trotted across the screen for us to figure out their varying degrees of relevance to anything.
Fans of Raymond Chandler get this kind of mystery plot, very dense and vague, and by the end you couldn't really explain whatever had been going on the whole time, but you have a sense of how it ends and whether or not things turn out well. This is that kind of story.
Normally when a sprawling, complicated mystery novel is adapted to the screen, it is trimmed down considerably. LA Confidential, for example, which jettisoned half of the book. Inherent Vice on the other hand sets out to cover all of the characters and plot of its source novel. This makes for a very confusing and frustrating viewing experience, where character after character shows up very briefly and then vanishes, having made very little apparent contribution to what's going on. They're all very pretty and funny while they last, though.
Joaquin Phoenix as Doc looks like Wolverine and acts like Johnny Depp. The concept of the hippie or beatnik detective has been done before, like Eliot Gould in The Long Goodbye or Richard Dreyfuss as Moses Wine in The Big Fix. Those are really good 70's movies. this is also a really good 70's movie except that it was made in 2014, which begs the question, what's the point of having made it? Since the plot remains so vague, it's not about the story. Character-wise, we have a love story, and we have a little family that needs saving (though typically for this kind of confuser they are usually just hinted at). If anything, the film seems to be an experiment in trying to build a mystery potboiler around an actor who stays high the entire time.
The conclusion that I draw is that PT Anderson undertook this film as a personal challenge, to put a complicated and dense mystery on screen while remaining faithful to its source, while filming with a leading man who is constantly baked. Safer than Fitzcarraldo, I guess.
Friends with Kids
(2011)
Does a lot right and a lot wrong.
30 March 2014
Pros: -This movie is very well shot, directed, and filmed. -The characters are real and engaging. -GREAT supporting cast. -The premise is dumb and common, and from the first scene you know exactly what kind of movie this is and where it is going, but the script itself is pretty damn fine, and keeps things intelligent and lively.
Cons:
-There's not much to Julie other than her character sketch. When she could show some personality and engage with the audience, she disintegrates into Ally McBeal-esque stuttering. Of course we want Jason to like her, but whereas we see a lot of who Jason is as a person, with Julie we have to take a lot of things on faith. When Jason has his first little Jerry Maguire speech at the ski lodge and talks about how they have similar taste and ideas about everything, I wasn't convinced that Julie hadn't just led him to believe that in the way people will chameleon for the person they're interested in, because all I knew about Julie even by that point was that she was young and successful and had nice hair.
-2 or 3 different Jerry Maguire-esque speeches.
-Adam Scott isn't really believable as the super-lothario he's supposed to be.
-The premise itself is insipid.
-The "Boy-loses-girl" moment is so huge that there's no believable possibility of recovery.
-Awkward insertions of atheism, which are distracting.
Cons:
-There's not much to Julie other than her character sketch. When she could show some personality and engage with the audience, she disintegrates into Ally McBeal-esque stuttering. Of course we want Jason to like her, but whereas we see a lot of who Jason is as a person, with Julie we have to take a lot of things on faith. When Jason has his first little Jerry Maguire speech at the ski lodge and talks about how they have similar taste and ideas about everything, I wasn't convinced that Julie hadn't just led him to believe that in the way people will chameleon for the person they're interested in, because all I knew about Julie even by that point was that she was young and successful and had nice hair.
-2 or 3 different Jerry Maguire-esque speeches.
-Adam Scott isn't really believable as the super-lothario he's supposed to be.
-The premise itself is insipid.
-The "Boy-loses-girl" moment is so huge that there's no believable possibility of recovery.
-Awkward insertions of atheism, which are distracting.
Movie 43
(2013)
Know what you're getting into. Let me help you.
3 February 2013
Warning: Spoilers
STOP!!! Read this before you see this movie! Trust me, I'm looking out for your best interests.
MOVIE 43 is similar to two previous films, KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE, and AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON, in that it is basically a series of comedy sketches.
One difference between MOVIE 43 and the others is that MOVIE 43 is more vulgar and scatological. The skits are VERY vivid dramatizations of the kinds of dirty jokes teens and old guys tell each other. The other difference is that all of the skits feature big-name stars.
It is gross-out humor. If you like that, you'll love the film. If not, you won't. Don't think something like, "Oh, that nice Elizabeth Banks does shampoo commercials and played Laura Bush! She's classy. I'm safe seeing this movie, she wouldn't do anything gross!" EVERYONE does something gross.
With that, you have all you need to know whether you will enjoy this movie or not. Good luck :)
MOVIE 43 is similar to two previous films, KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE, and AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON, in that it is basically a series of comedy sketches.
One difference between MOVIE 43 and the others is that MOVIE 43 is more vulgar and scatological. The skits are VERY vivid dramatizations of the kinds of dirty jokes teens and old guys tell each other. The other difference is that all of the skits feature big-name stars.
It is gross-out humor. If you like that, you'll love the film. If not, you won't. Don't think something like, "Oh, that nice Elizabeth Banks does shampoo commercials and played Laura Bush! She's classy. I'm safe seeing this movie, she wouldn't do anything gross!" EVERYONE does something gross.
With that, you have all you need to know whether you will enjoy this movie or not. Good luck :)
Texas Chainsaw
(2013)
Something special.
13 January 2013
Warning: Spoilers
Producers have long been confounded by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. On one hand they want to make lots of profitable movies out of it, but storywise they just aren't creative enough or risky enough to come up with a sustainable continuing story. All of the TCM movies since the first one, with the sole exception of the TCM part 2, have basically just been remakes of the first. Even the prequel THE BEGINNING still followed the plot structure of all of the others.
The producers for TCM 3D were fortunately able to devise a story that would continue that of the first film, rather than just repeat it. By showing the first film's aftermath they answer some questions and set the stage for new developments.
Alexandra Daddario as Heather is the film's MVP. She is better than we could hope for for a horror heroine: sweet, intelligent, sexy, vulnerable, strong, and tough. She makes the whole movie work.She is destined for big things, but I wouldn't mind seeing her come back for another TCM in the meantime.
The producers for TCM 3D were fortunately able to devise a story that would continue that of the first film, rather than just repeat it. By showing the first film's aftermath they answer some questions and set the stage for new developments.
Alexandra Daddario as Heather is the film's MVP. She is better than we could hope for for a horror heroine: sweet, intelligent, sexy, vulnerable, strong, and tough. She makes the whole movie work.She is destined for big things, but I wouldn't mind seeing her come back for another TCM in the meantime.
The Devil Wears Prada
(2006)
The engine that drives this film.
8 December 2012
Warning: Spoilers
This film is entirely wish fulfillment. The central character is a nice, smart, and pretty, yet down to earth. She is basically what all women wish to be seen as.
She goes into a superficial environment where everybody makes fun of her for being down to earth and smart. But, everybody recognizes the goodness within and quickly come around to praising and admiring her. She frequently meets challenges and the outcome is always that everyone around her is impressed.
She is faces with an unpleasant, jealous co-worker, but she turns this person around into being her friend even as she usurps her place.
She meets a dashing, idealized young man who helps her out of jams and tells her how pretty she is.
Her mother figure is cruel and demanding. She strives to please her and becomes more like her, and finally gets free of her having created her own success.
Most blatant is her relationship with her girlish boyfriend, who exists only to support her ego and be perfect. He is is good looking, successful, kind, and loyal. When she disappoints him and demands to discuss it, his offensive is to tell her that she is, in fact, pretty.
This movie has no relation to reality. It is a Mary Sue story with candy coated walls that validates every insecurity women nurture within their empty heads.
She goes into a superficial environment where everybody makes fun of her for being down to earth and smart. But, everybody recognizes the goodness within and quickly come around to praising and admiring her. She frequently meets challenges and the outcome is always that everyone around her is impressed.
She is faces with an unpleasant, jealous co-worker, but she turns this person around into being her friend even as she usurps her place.
She meets a dashing, idealized young man who helps her out of jams and tells her how pretty she is.
Her mother figure is cruel and demanding. She strives to please her and becomes more like her, and finally gets free of her having created her own success.
Most blatant is her relationship with her girlish boyfriend, who exists only to support her ego and be perfect. He is is good looking, successful, kind, and loyal. When she disappoints him and demands to discuss it, his offensive is to tell her that she is, in fact, pretty.
This movie has no relation to reality. It is a Mary Sue story with candy coated walls that validates every insecurity women nurture within their empty heads.
Killing Them Softly
(2012)
It's not perfect, but it's enjoyable.
1 December 2012
KILLING THEM SOFTLY is one of those movies that feels like the director is trying to channel Scorsese. Kinda like HARD EIGHT, or WE OWN THE NIGHT, etc. It's very derivative. Scorsese setting, Tarantino dialog, Ted Demme doing BLOW musical sensibility, there ya have it.
In the 90's, small time crime movies like this were a dime a dozen and most didn't get theatrical releases. This one wouldn't have either, were it not for the great cast.
It's Andrew Dominik's third film, but it has the feel of a first film, kind of a lack of self awareness. Dominik is just trying too hard, from the very beginning. He tries some experimental film effects, like during the painfully irritating opening credits, and during a heroin sequence, that are mostly just distracting and annoying.
A lot of the time they are throwing songs in your face in that annoying way that some film makers do. Hmm... what song should we use for a heroin sequence? How about the Velvet Underground's "Heroin"? NO ONE has done that before!!! And then, why not make the audience listen to that Godawful "Paper Moon" from the 30's!!!! YES the whole thing, are you kidding? They'll love it! When? What do you mean "when"??? During a shoot out, DUH!!!
Even the idea of using Kelly Lester's awesome song "Love Letters" during a shoot out was done before in Blue Velvet.
The main character is not actually Brad Pitt, it's Scoot McNairy, hipster icon. The guy every underachieving narcissist longs to be and every 23 year old coffee shop girl wearing glasses she doesn't need wants to smoke weed with. He annoyed me to no end in MONSTERS and he's just as bad here. However, he is playing a lowlife scumbag and he does pretty much nail it.
But other than Scoot, the cast is great across the board, and they save this movie from the director, with his apparent love of Scoot McNairy and heroin and annoying songs and ideas like constantly having Bush and Obama speeches coming out of radios and TV's. Brad Pitt is just fun to have around. The only movie of his he couldn't save was that stupid movie "The Mexican". Gandolfini comes in to give the film some indie color, and method acts a broken down, bitter old alcoholic to perfection. Ray Liotta has a great scene where he keeps his composure during a hold up and tries to keep things from going over the deep end, but that's it, after that his only major scene is getting the living crap beaten out of him underneath a Rain Machine Supersoaker 3000.
It's a good, solid, straightforward story. Very interesting and entertaining to watch when you're not being distracted by unwelcome elements like the freaky credits or the bush speeches or the incongruous songs.
You'll hear a lot about the ending. The only real problem with it is that it isn't much of an ending; everything just stops and the credits roll, like the Sopranos series finale. It's like Dominik doesn't know how to bring things to a close. I'm sure that they cover that in film school, you can't just stop things and roll credits. There are a hundred ways to end a film. Have the main character drive away. Have people leave a scene to some music. Do a montage of the settings in the film to some music. Do something. Don't just roll credits all of a sudden.
I've heard that this movie was supposed to be longer. I'm very glad it wasn't. The relatively brisk pace and short running time are definitely to the film's benefit.
In the 90's, small time crime movies like this were a dime a dozen and most didn't get theatrical releases. This one wouldn't have either, were it not for the great cast.
It's Andrew Dominik's third film, but it has the feel of a first film, kind of a lack of self awareness. Dominik is just trying too hard, from the very beginning. He tries some experimental film effects, like during the painfully irritating opening credits, and during a heroin sequence, that are mostly just distracting and annoying.
A lot of the time they are throwing songs in your face in that annoying way that some film makers do. Hmm... what song should we use for a heroin sequence? How about the Velvet Underground's "Heroin"? NO ONE has done that before!!! And then, why not make the audience listen to that Godawful "Paper Moon" from the 30's!!!! YES the whole thing, are you kidding? They'll love it! When? What do you mean "when"??? During a shoot out, DUH!!!
Even the idea of using Kelly Lester's awesome song "Love Letters" during a shoot out was done before in Blue Velvet.
The main character is not actually Brad Pitt, it's Scoot McNairy, hipster icon. The guy every underachieving narcissist longs to be and every 23 year old coffee shop girl wearing glasses she doesn't need wants to smoke weed with. He annoyed me to no end in MONSTERS and he's just as bad here. However, he is playing a lowlife scumbag and he does pretty much nail it.
But other than Scoot, the cast is great across the board, and they save this movie from the director, with his apparent love of Scoot McNairy and heroin and annoying songs and ideas like constantly having Bush and Obama speeches coming out of radios and TV's. Brad Pitt is just fun to have around. The only movie of his he couldn't save was that stupid movie "The Mexican". Gandolfini comes in to give the film some indie color, and method acts a broken down, bitter old alcoholic to perfection. Ray Liotta has a great scene where he keeps his composure during a hold up and tries to keep things from going over the deep end, but that's it, after that his only major scene is getting the living crap beaten out of him underneath a Rain Machine Supersoaker 3000.
It's a good, solid, straightforward story. Very interesting and entertaining to watch when you're not being distracted by unwelcome elements like the freaky credits or the bush speeches or the incongruous songs.
You'll hear a lot about the ending. The only real problem with it is that it isn't much of an ending; everything just stops and the credits roll, like the Sopranos series finale. It's like Dominik doesn't know how to bring things to a close. I'm sure that they cover that in film school, you can't just stop things and roll credits. There are a hundred ways to end a film. Have the main character drive away. Have people leave a scene to some music. Do a montage of the settings in the film to some music. Do something. Don't just roll credits all of a sudden.
I've heard that this movie was supposed to be longer. I'm very glad it wasn't. The relatively brisk pace and short running time are definitely to the film's benefit.
Gardens of the Night
(2008)
An actual injury to the soul.
16 November 2012
Warning: Spoilers
There are a few film efforts I've seen that hurt me so badly that they diminished my ability to feel peace of mind or happiness. Oz season 4, Megan is Missing, The Killing Gene, and this movie. This movie hurt me more than any of those. Years after seeing it, I still have nightmares about it.
I can not complain about anything in this movie on a cinematic level. It is very well filmed and directed. It is very well acted. The story is mercilessly realistic and honest. It is a noble, worthwhile effort to have made this film.
The conundrum is that there is not one person I can think of whom I would put through the pain of watching this. Anyone who could watch this movie and not be injured by it is just closed off to its realism.
The life that is evoked by this film is that of people who have had everything taken away from them. That things like this actually happen is too much to bear.
I can not complain about anything in this movie on a cinematic level. It is very well filmed and directed. It is very well acted. The story is mercilessly realistic and honest. It is a noble, worthwhile effort to have made this film.
The conundrum is that there is not one person I can think of whom I would put through the pain of watching this. Anyone who could watch this movie and not be injured by it is just closed off to its realism.
The life that is evoked by this film is that of people who have had everything taken away from them. That things like this actually happen is too much to bear.
Skyfall
(2012)
Many, many missteps.
11 November 2012
Warning: Spoilers
This review really does have spoilers, just to let you know.
SKYFALL has amazing action! One of the strengths of the Daniel Craig Bond films has been unbelievably intense, nerve shredding action sequences, and Skyfall's have lived up to the standard and then some. Except for an unfortunate final act.
Daniel Craig's performance as Bond is superb for the third time in a row. He made the role his own from his first Bond film. His presence is riveting in all of his scenes.
Javier Bardem is a fun villain, as we'd expect. I pretty much rooted for him the whole movie. His odd bleach job is a little annoying, especially when he's trying to run around in the subways in a policeman's uniform.
OK, now that that's over, Let's get into this movie's problems.
#1. More length than story. Like X2, Superman Returns,and Moonrise Kingdom, this movie reaches a point where it should be over, but then drags on for another half hour.
#2. This movie is not really a James Bond film. It is a Judi Dench "M". film with James Bond cameos. Apparently, this being her last, the creators felt they had to center it around her, and give her a massive send off. A Viking funeral, of sorts. It is a sentimental character piece that pays loving tribute to a background character as if she were the heart of the whole franchise. This really wears out its welcome very quickly.
A strength of both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace was that their villains' plans were global and so complex they really couldn't be explained within the context of the films. We, as the audience, were along for the fast paced ride, and just had to snatch the details we were given out of the air as we raced by. It wasn't important to understand every facet of the enemy, and that was for the better.
So, to bring this back to the point, Raoul Silva's plans, at first intriguing and exciting, suddenly become simply about his obsession with M. In fact, getting back at her and trying to win her love seem to be his only motivations. It's really kind of a letdown.
#3. Another strength of the Bond films was that moving or emotional content wasn't up front, but rather shone unexpectedly through the cracks, and was all the more moving and gave the films substance through their subtlety.
In SKYFALL, that subtlety is replaced with heavy-handed, unwelcome sentimentality. All the fawning over Dench is bad enough, culminating in a ridiculous parliamentary inquiry where she pontificates, but even that is really just a prelude to the film's worst aspect, the final act, where Bond takes her to his parents' stately abandoned Scottish manor to await a siege.
It's a mistake to start shining a light into Bond's past if all they're going to reveal comes out of Harlequin romances. The dashing fellow from the Scottish highlands who takes the lady to his stately manor to save her life... really? THIS lady? But it's not just romance novels that this film evokes. It also evokes comic books. Now Bond is a tormented orphan (like Batman!) with a faithful manservant (Like Batman!) who has a mansion full of secret passages (like Batman!)... It's been noted that Mendes says he was inspired by Nolan's Batman films. Well, it really shows.
Another dubious thing about this reveal is that it is ALSO revealed that "James Bond" is in fact his actual name. I liked it better when it seemed to have been a cover name. But that's just me.
We go through an awful lot of drawn out siege-style action at the end of this movie that somehow reminded me of both Straw Dogs AND the end of Pineapple Express except that it's just not all that interesting, because it's only about protecting Judi Dench, who had apparently some years prior deliberately blown Silva's cover and let the Chinese have him (???) for reasons she gives that seem pretty weak... She's not all that likable and I wasn't that invested in wanting her to survive. Which means I wasn't that invested in the actual plot of this M. movie.
SKYFALL has amazing action! One of the strengths of the Daniel Craig Bond films has been unbelievably intense, nerve shredding action sequences, and Skyfall's have lived up to the standard and then some. Except for an unfortunate final act.
Daniel Craig's performance as Bond is superb for the third time in a row. He made the role his own from his first Bond film. His presence is riveting in all of his scenes.
Javier Bardem is a fun villain, as we'd expect. I pretty much rooted for him the whole movie. His odd bleach job is a little annoying, especially when he's trying to run around in the subways in a policeman's uniform.
OK, now that that's over, Let's get into this movie's problems.
#1. More length than story. Like X2, Superman Returns,and Moonrise Kingdom, this movie reaches a point where it should be over, but then drags on for another half hour.
#2. This movie is not really a James Bond film. It is a Judi Dench "M". film with James Bond cameos. Apparently, this being her last, the creators felt they had to center it around her, and give her a massive send off. A Viking funeral, of sorts. It is a sentimental character piece that pays loving tribute to a background character as if she were the heart of the whole franchise. This really wears out its welcome very quickly.
A strength of both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace was that their villains' plans were global and so complex they really couldn't be explained within the context of the films. We, as the audience, were along for the fast paced ride, and just had to snatch the details we were given out of the air as we raced by. It wasn't important to understand every facet of the enemy, and that was for the better.
So, to bring this back to the point, Raoul Silva's plans, at first intriguing and exciting, suddenly become simply about his obsession with M. In fact, getting back at her and trying to win her love seem to be his only motivations. It's really kind of a letdown.
#3. Another strength of the Bond films was that moving or emotional content wasn't up front, but rather shone unexpectedly through the cracks, and was all the more moving and gave the films substance through their subtlety.
In SKYFALL, that subtlety is replaced with heavy-handed, unwelcome sentimentality. All the fawning over Dench is bad enough, culminating in a ridiculous parliamentary inquiry where she pontificates, but even that is really just a prelude to the film's worst aspect, the final act, where Bond takes her to his parents' stately abandoned Scottish manor to await a siege.
It's a mistake to start shining a light into Bond's past if all they're going to reveal comes out of Harlequin romances. The dashing fellow from the Scottish highlands who takes the lady to his stately manor to save her life... really? THIS lady? But it's not just romance novels that this film evokes. It also evokes comic books. Now Bond is a tormented orphan (like Batman!) with a faithful manservant (Like Batman!) who has a mansion full of secret passages (like Batman!)... It's been noted that Mendes says he was inspired by Nolan's Batman films. Well, it really shows.
Another dubious thing about this reveal is that it is ALSO revealed that "James Bond" is in fact his actual name. I liked it better when it seemed to have been a cover name. But that's just me.
We go through an awful lot of drawn out siege-style action at the end of this movie that somehow reminded me of both Straw Dogs AND the end of Pineapple Express except that it's just not all that interesting, because it's only about protecting Judi Dench, who had apparently some years prior deliberately blown Silva's cover and let the Chinese have him (???) for reasons she gives that seem pretty weak... She's not all that likable and I wasn't that invested in wanting her to survive. Which means I wasn't that invested in the actual plot of this M. movie.
Paranormal Activity 4
(2012)
Nothing new in terms of story or shocks for PA, but some bright new faces worth seeing!
28 October 2012
Warning: Spoilers
So, PA4 is not a bad film. It only adds minimal development to the story that had developed in the first three films, and in my opinion it doesn't have any big shock scenes like 2 and 3 did. For shocks, it's more on the level of PA1. I would call this one the mildest of the PA's. If you've seen the other three, then story-wise, you will probably feel like you've seen it all before.
However, it is still a well done film that makes inventive use of easily accessible recording media. The family is relateable and engaging and I cared about what would happen to them.
For me, the movie was most enjoyable for the lead actress and the actor who played her boyfriend. Kathryn Newton is radiant and engaging. She has a sweet, likable energy. Matt Shively, as her boyfriend Ben, right off the bat seemed like someone I would not like at all, but he very quickly won me over with his friendly sense of humor. These two leads made what would have been a redundant movie an enjoyable experience.
However, it is still a well done film that makes inventive use of easily accessible recording media. The family is relateable and engaging and I cared about what would happen to them.
For me, the movie was most enjoyable for the lead actress and the actor who played her boyfriend. Kathryn Newton is radiant and engaging. She has a sweet, likable energy. Matt Shively, as her boyfriend Ben, right off the bat seemed like someone I would not like at all, but he very quickly won me over with his friendly sense of humor. These two leads made what would have been a redundant movie an enjoyable experience.
Neighbor
(2009)
America the beautiful. And Crazy.
20 February 2012
Warning: Spoilers
I saw this movie for the actress America Olivo, because I had noticed her as a bit player in the boring "Friday the 13th" remake and thought she was pretty hot and interesting looking. I wanted to see more of her, so when this movie became available and I saw that she was the main character I picked it up. I have now seen more than my share of her.
I liked her vibe in this movie. She is a crazy slasher who acts ditzy and quirky and cute and pleasant while she butchers everyone she meets. This movie lifts a lot from Funny Games, including the quirky nature of the killer, their tendency to get to people in their homes for long, drawn out tortures where no one will see or interrupt them, and the gimmick of showing the victims turn the tables on the killers and get away, only to have that turn out to be a dream sequence of sorts.
She's cute and fun, unfortunately she also butchers everyone she meets, so you can't bring her home to meet your mom
Fun trivia: I noticed while I was writing this that her profile on IMDb also comes up on IMDb as America Campbell, so I guess she married the main character who she tortured all throughout this film. Man, if they ever get divorced I hope he doesn't re-watch this, or he will just get more ticked off.
I liked her vibe in this movie. She is a crazy slasher who acts ditzy and quirky and cute and pleasant while she butchers everyone she meets. This movie lifts a lot from Funny Games, including the quirky nature of the killer, their tendency to get to people in their homes for long, drawn out tortures where no one will see or interrupt them, and the gimmick of showing the victims turn the tables on the killers and get away, only to have that turn out to be a dream sequence of sorts.
She's cute and fun, unfortunately she also butchers everyone she meets, so you can't bring her home to meet your mom
Fun trivia: I noticed while I was writing this that her profile on IMDb also comes up on IMDb as America Campbell, so I guess she married the main character who she tortured all throughout this film. Man, if they ever get divorced I hope he doesn't re-watch this, or he will just get more ticked off.
Megan Is Missing
(2011)
Almost (?) unbearable, but there's a strong movie in here alongside the gratuitous one.
28 May 2011
Warning: Spoilers
MEGAN IS MISSING is a very bleak look into the sad and scary world of teenage girls. Megan is popular at school, but she and her mother have a horrible relationship, she has been sexually abused by her mother's boyfriends, and she hasn't figured out how to deal with other people except through promiscuity. She tries to escape with drug use, which doesn't help. A lot of her friends are also sexually overactive and drug users, so they aren't a real option for talking things out. What she needs is a good listening ear and genuine caring.
Those are things she gets from Amy, another of her friends. Amy is friendly and nice and has a good heart, but despite a loving family, she has terribly low self esteem and body dysmorphic disorder. At first Amy is envious of Megan's social life until she accompanies her to a pretty disgusting drug party where an older man gropes her and punches her in the face when she resists, everyone makes fun of her, and when she finds Amy, she is being treated like a dog by a boy she is fellating.
Amy begins to see that Megan's life is not so much to be envied, but the revelation does not carry over to lessening her self-punishing perspective. She sees herself as being dumpy, and she hates herself for it.
So, neither of these girls have very happy or hopeful lives, and they seek validation and affirmation where they can get it.
Megan starts talking to a strange boy online. Of course, if you know anything about this movie, you know the boy is really an adult internet predator.
The situation goes from bad to as bad as possible. The movie pulls absolutely no punches. If anything, it shoots you in face and then the gut and leaves you to bleed out.
The movie is not without its problems. For one thing, there is no upside at all. There is no happiness to balance the misery. Things start out bad and just get worse.
But a greater problem is the level of gratuity with which it establishes itself. The drug party is like watching Larry Clark's KIDS or MTV SKINS, and gives the impression of being conceived from a sleazy, pedophilic perspective. I don't think the party is unrealistic, I just think it's a very extreme example of a teen gathering.
Megan's interactions with her friends and everyone else are also pretty vulgar and over the top. Constant references to oral sex lead to a long discussion about it. It seems like all the over the top underage sexuality is in here for a reason other than realism.
But the filmmakers, in the special features and on the packaging, claim this film is a public service, warning us of danger. I can believe them, and I want to believe them, because I don't want to believe that there is some intent to titillate in the film's final scenes. However, the party scene puts their intentions in doubt, as does the overload of sex talk. There is a demographic that will get off on all of this, and I don't blame the filmmakers for the existence of those people, but it is not clear to me how much of this was deliberately made for satisfying predators and how much was aimed at warning their prey.
Yes, this movie is a call to be careful of strangers. There is also a call to just be better people to those around you, and to be better parents. Megan's relationship with her mother is horrible, and we find out that Megan's mother did nothing while a boyfriend sexually abused her daughter. This is very realistic. This is very commonplace. Just go for a walk outside and watch people and you'll see horrible parents everywhere. The screaming matches they have are directly the fault of the woman who never learned how to be a mother, who comes home and immediately takes her day's frustrations out on her daughter. The girls who are Megan's "cool" friends treat Amy like crap because they can. Someday all the things that are so important to them now are going to fade away and they will be left with the memory of how they treated her, and it's not going to be something they'll want to think about, but it will be something they can't take back.
That's the thing. When you're cruel to someone, you can't take it back.
Either way, because of or despite the filmmakers' intentions, there is a very strong, effective, and realistic movie in here, which does a very valuable thing: it makes us think. I just wish I was sure what they filmmakers were and were not going for. What is not in question is the powerful message of this movie about protecting your loved ones and being kind to people, which should stay with us forever. We all know an Amy and a Megan. Let's take a few extra minutes to tell them we love them, and to think about keeping them safe. In that sense, this is the most valuable and important movie you can see. Love your loved ones.
(I gave this movie a ten, not so much for enjoyability or cinematography, but for importance and urgency.)
Those are things she gets from Amy, another of her friends. Amy is friendly and nice and has a good heart, but despite a loving family, she has terribly low self esteem and body dysmorphic disorder. At first Amy is envious of Megan's social life until she accompanies her to a pretty disgusting drug party where an older man gropes her and punches her in the face when she resists, everyone makes fun of her, and when she finds Amy, she is being treated like a dog by a boy she is fellating.
Amy begins to see that Megan's life is not so much to be envied, but the revelation does not carry over to lessening her self-punishing perspective. She sees herself as being dumpy, and she hates herself for it.
So, neither of these girls have very happy or hopeful lives, and they seek validation and affirmation where they can get it.
Megan starts talking to a strange boy online. Of course, if you know anything about this movie, you know the boy is really an adult internet predator.
The situation goes from bad to as bad as possible. The movie pulls absolutely no punches. If anything, it shoots you in face and then the gut and leaves you to bleed out.
The movie is not without its problems. For one thing, there is no upside at all. There is no happiness to balance the misery. Things start out bad and just get worse.
But a greater problem is the level of gratuity with which it establishes itself. The drug party is like watching Larry Clark's KIDS or MTV SKINS, and gives the impression of being conceived from a sleazy, pedophilic perspective. I don't think the party is unrealistic, I just think it's a very extreme example of a teen gathering.
Megan's interactions with her friends and everyone else are also pretty vulgar and over the top. Constant references to oral sex lead to a long discussion about it. It seems like all the over the top underage sexuality is in here for a reason other than realism.
But the filmmakers, in the special features and on the packaging, claim this film is a public service, warning us of danger. I can believe them, and I want to believe them, because I don't want to believe that there is some intent to titillate in the film's final scenes. However, the party scene puts their intentions in doubt, as does the overload of sex talk. There is a demographic that will get off on all of this, and I don't blame the filmmakers for the existence of those people, but it is not clear to me how much of this was deliberately made for satisfying predators and how much was aimed at warning their prey.
Yes, this movie is a call to be careful of strangers. There is also a call to just be better people to those around you, and to be better parents. Megan's relationship with her mother is horrible, and we find out that Megan's mother did nothing while a boyfriend sexually abused her daughter. This is very realistic. This is very commonplace. Just go for a walk outside and watch people and you'll see horrible parents everywhere. The screaming matches they have are directly the fault of the woman who never learned how to be a mother, who comes home and immediately takes her day's frustrations out on her daughter. The girls who are Megan's "cool" friends treat Amy like crap because they can. Someday all the things that are so important to them now are going to fade away and they will be left with the memory of how they treated her, and it's not going to be something they'll want to think about, but it will be something they can't take back.
That's the thing. When you're cruel to someone, you can't take it back.
Either way, because of or despite the filmmakers' intentions, there is a very strong, effective, and realistic movie in here, which does a very valuable thing: it makes us think. I just wish I was sure what they filmmakers were and were not going for. What is not in question is the powerful message of this movie about protecting your loved ones and being kind to people, which should stay with us forever. We all know an Amy and a Megan. Let's take a few extra minutes to tell them we love them, and to think about keeping them safe. In that sense, this is the most valuable and important movie you can see. Love your loved ones.
(I gave this movie a ten, not so much for enjoyability or cinematography, but for importance and urgency.)
Whatever Works
(2009)
What DOESN'T work.
27 May 2011
We begin with the standard Woody Allen opening. Crackly ragtime music, stark white credits against a black screen. As always, I wonder why he is so attached to this opening. It was interesting the first time I saw it. Then the list of names... Some respected, well known character actors, whatever young actress is really hot right now, some young men from genre films... Pretty much writes itself. We settle in for some Allen hijinx, hoping for the best.
It's clear from the beginning that this is not the best. We meet Larry David as "Boris Yelnikov", sitting at an outdoor cafe with some friends, holding forth about religion and corporate America. He is supposed to be a well-known intellectual, and he goes on to break the fourth wall and lecture us for several minutes, but none of his spiel is particularly insightful or brilliant or interesting. In fact, although he and his friends are supposed to be deep-thinking academics, they just sound like some dull guys at a diner. None of what they are saying is particularly insightful or original. To make matters worse, apparently the simplistic things he's saying are somehow over their heads.
Characters like this should provide a window into a world of thought the audience hadn't explored. These guys just sound very unexceptional. David's opening monologue goes on for so long that I had time to consider the possibility that we were supposed to see him as not actually being very bright and just someone who thought he was smarter than he was, but then it keeps going even longer, assuring me that we are, in fact, supposed to be impressed with these pronouncements.
Well, the movie does get rolling into a story, wherein Yelnikov meets a homeless hick girl (Evan Rachel Wood) from the south and reluctantly takes her in. After enough exposure to his rantings and diatribes, she begins to absorb fragments of his perspective, becoming kind of a Frankenstein's monster roaming the streets of New York, bewitching people with her rural sensuality, and then throwing them for a loop with her grave philosophical remarks. This becomes the source of most of the movie's funny moments. Even so, she's just a rural re-run of Mira Sorvino's character from Mighty Aphrodite.
(In case you're wondering, it's a Woody Allen movie, so yes, Evan Rachel Wood does quickly become sexually infatuated with Larry David. In fact, they get married).
I guess a whole new generation is discovering Woody Allen, so maybe this is new for them, but there are about 40+ years worth of his movies, and there is nothing new in this one. The music, the style, and the plot elements are all standard Allen. It is funny to me that the poster's tagline is "A New Comedy", because there is nothing at all new about it.
In Allen's "Hannah And Her Sisters", there is a subplot with Barbara Hershey and Max Von Sydow. Von Sydow is a mopey older artist, and Hershey is his longtime younger girlfriend. She meets Michael Caine, and realizes she's tired of the depressed intellectual.
This subplot was very insightful, I thought. You could immediately see how Hershey and Von Sydow had gotten together in the first place, without ever having it explained. Their relationship was something that moved both of them outside of their boundaries. She got gravitas and respectability, and he got a splash of youth and beauty and joy.
And you could also see how they would break up. After enough time being the depressed guy's muse, she finally be over it and need to get away the first time a more normal, cheerful man made a pass at her.
I often think about this, and what it says about relationships. You really can't be too much of a certain way, or you can really wear someone down. This small subplot from Hannah is basically expanded to become the main plot of this film, but is approached with a more light-hearted perspective.
Unfortunately, this movie is just not well done. The theme of the "super intelligent" New Yorkers educating the ignorant hillbillies from the farm isn't going to play well outside of New York City. And the usual Allen conceit of beautiful women falling out of the sky seeking relationships with him or his avatars isn't easier to take than it ever was. This is just kind of a New York movie, only really for New Yorkers.
It's clear from the beginning that this is not the best. We meet Larry David as "Boris Yelnikov", sitting at an outdoor cafe with some friends, holding forth about religion and corporate America. He is supposed to be a well-known intellectual, and he goes on to break the fourth wall and lecture us for several minutes, but none of his spiel is particularly insightful or brilliant or interesting. In fact, although he and his friends are supposed to be deep-thinking academics, they just sound like some dull guys at a diner. None of what they are saying is particularly insightful or original. To make matters worse, apparently the simplistic things he's saying are somehow over their heads.
Characters like this should provide a window into a world of thought the audience hadn't explored. These guys just sound very unexceptional. David's opening monologue goes on for so long that I had time to consider the possibility that we were supposed to see him as not actually being very bright and just someone who thought he was smarter than he was, but then it keeps going even longer, assuring me that we are, in fact, supposed to be impressed with these pronouncements.
Well, the movie does get rolling into a story, wherein Yelnikov meets a homeless hick girl (Evan Rachel Wood) from the south and reluctantly takes her in. After enough exposure to his rantings and diatribes, she begins to absorb fragments of his perspective, becoming kind of a Frankenstein's monster roaming the streets of New York, bewitching people with her rural sensuality, and then throwing them for a loop with her grave philosophical remarks. This becomes the source of most of the movie's funny moments. Even so, she's just a rural re-run of Mira Sorvino's character from Mighty Aphrodite.
(In case you're wondering, it's a Woody Allen movie, so yes, Evan Rachel Wood does quickly become sexually infatuated with Larry David. In fact, they get married).
I guess a whole new generation is discovering Woody Allen, so maybe this is new for them, but there are about 40+ years worth of his movies, and there is nothing new in this one. The music, the style, and the plot elements are all standard Allen. It is funny to me that the poster's tagline is "A New Comedy", because there is nothing at all new about it.
In Allen's "Hannah And Her Sisters", there is a subplot with Barbara Hershey and Max Von Sydow. Von Sydow is a mopey older artist, and Hershey is his longtime younger girlfriend. She meets Michael Caine, and realizes she's tired of the depressed intellectual.
This subplot was very insightful, I thought. You could immediately see how Hershey and Von Sydow had gotten together in the first place, without ever having it explained. Their relationship was something that moved both of them outside of their boundaries. She got gravitas and respectability, and he got a splash of youth and beauty and joy.
And you could also see how they would break up. After enough time being the depressed guy's muse, she finally be over it and need to get away the first time a more normal, cheerful man made a pass at her.
I often think about this, and what it says about relationships. You really can't be too much of a certain way, or you can really wear someone down. This small subplot from Hannah is basically expanded to become the main plot of this film, but is approached with a more light-hearted perspective.
Unfortunately, this movie is just not well done. The theme of the "super intelligent" New Yorkers educating the ignorant hillbillies from the farm isn't going to play well outside of New York City. And the usual Allen conceit of beautiful women falling out of the sky seeking relationships with him or his avatars isn't easier to take than it ever was. This is just kind of a New York movie, only really for New Yorkers.
Hall Pass
(2011)
I can't believe this was from the Farrelly Brothers.
22 April 2011
Warning: Spoilers
There used to be certain elements one could count on in the Farrelly Brothers' films. Of course, everybody knows about their gross-out moments, but their films were also genuinely funny and also had a lot of heart, they were able to get a lot out of their stars, and use unusual locations to great effect. Best of all, they had a kind of daring to create a slapstick comedy environment and then take it into a meaningful direction (KINGPIN being my favorite example). Judd Apatow movies do this now, but I still expect the Farrellys to continue making the kind of comedies they pioneered. THE HEARTBREAK KID had given me a lot of hope that they still have the touch, but in the case of HALL PASS, my expectations are definitely not met.
HALL PASS is lacking entirely in the qualities that made the Farrellys respectable. I had no idea this was even a Farrelly Brothers movie, because it doesn't have their way about it. Even when I saw Rob Moran show up, my only thought was "Hey, that guy's usually in the Farrelly Brothers' movies".
There's nothing about it that stands out from any of the other plastic comedic efforts of the past couple of years, like COUPLES RETREAT or FOUR CHRISTMASES or whatever other rom-coms you can think of. The plot is not unusual, the settings are entirely cobbled together from product placement deals (Applebees, Dave and Busters, "All that talk about arches makes me want to eat AHEM McDonalds!") The movie has a great cast of talented actors we all know and like, but they're given nothing interesting to do or say.
The script needed a lot of help. The jokes just aren't there. The interesting settings aren't there. The heart isn't there. There are some gross out surprises, but that's it. People who didn't get the Farrellys used to focus only on their gross-out humor, but this time, those people would be right because there isn't anything else to this movie.
HALL PASS is lacking entirely in the qualities that made the Farrellys respectable. I had no idea this was even a Farrelly Brothers movie, because it doesn't have their way about it. Even when I saw Rob Moran show up, my only thought was "Hey, that guy's usually in the Farrelly Brothers' movies".
There's nothing about it that stands out from any of the other plastic comedic efforts of the past couple of years, like COUPLES RETREAT or FOUR CHRISTMASES or whatever other rom-coms you can think of. The plot is not unusual, the settings are entirely cobbled together from product placement deals (Applebees, Dave and Busters, "All that talk about arches makes me want to eat AHEM McDonalds!") The movie has a great cast of talented actors we all know and like, but they're given nothing interesting to do or say.
The script needed a lot of help. The jokes just aren't there. The interesting settings aren't there. The heart isn't there. There are some gross out surprises, but that's it. People who didn't get the Farrellys used to focus only on their gross-out humor, but this time, those people would be right because there isn't anything else to this movie.
Casino Jack
(2010)
Typical HBO style docudrama.
8 April 2011
Movies like this, Spinning Boris, Barbarians at the Gate, Recount, bla bla bla... A lot of the reviewers on this board are treating this like a real movie and complaining about the style, the pacing, the acting, or whatever. They don't realize that the HBO docudrama is a genre of its own, and they all are directed like this, and have this kind of music and structure and pacing and so on. If you've seen one, you've seen them all. They are fakey, boringly executed accounts of real things that happened, they feel like they take a million years to watch, and they really only appeal to people the first time they see one.
Republican culture is full of sleazy, cynical con artists with big dreams that hinge on manipulating people and ripping them off. This movie is about two such men, Jack Abramoff and Mike Scanlon, and they are worthless people that no one with a soul can empathize with or relate to at all. Watching them make their plans and cheat people and be disloyal to their friends and lovers is boring. there's no entertainment value to it.
In movies like this it is important for the screenwriters to feel that they've painted their main character as an irascible, charismatic character, rascally and witty, full of little zinger lines and whatnot. The real Jack Abramoff seems to be a boring douchebag, and he probably did constantly do impressions of celebrities, but I doubt he was as interesting to watch as Kevin Spacey (who is not interesting enough to save this movie).
Republican culture is full of sleazy, cynical con artists with big dreams that hinge on manipulating people and ripping them off. This movie is about two such men, Jack Abramoff and Mike Scanlon, and they are worthless people that no one with a soul can empathize with or relate to at all. Watching them make their plans and cheat people and be disloyal to their friends and lovers is boring. there's no entertainment value to it.
In movies like this it is important for the screenwriters to feel that they've painted their main character as an irascible, charismatic character, rascally and witty, full of little zinger lines and whatnot. The real Jack Abramoff seems to be a boring douchebag, and he probably did constantly do impressions of celebrities, but I doubt he was as interesting to watch as Kevin Spacey (who is not interesting enough to save this movie).
Serendipity
(2001)
A good movie to watch if you want to understand women.
4 March 2011
Warning: Spoilers
If you really want to understand women and why they're all so unhappy and unreliable all the time, this is a good movie to watch, because it demonstrates quite accurately the kind of idiotic, self-destructive nonsense that they base their decisions on. Kate Beckinsale plays a starry-eyed moron who drifts through life trying to read signs in everything that happens around her, like Jim Carrey did in that movie The Number 23. But this movie doesn't paint her as a dangerous obsessive compulsive, or a psychopath, it paints her as a kind of free spirited saint who can do no wrong, full of giddy wisdom and kindness.
John Cusack plays a John Cusack character, which means he is good looking and quiet except for little fits now and then. He meets her at a mall, they fall in love at first sight, but instead of making plans to see each other again, she writes his number on a $5 and spends it, telling him that when that bill "finds its way back to her", she'll call him.
Any normal man would see her as insane and just walk away, but not John Cusack, because this is a movie. He is immediately infected with the same obsessive compulsiveness as she, and looks for signs in everything, and looks for faults in his innocent fiancée (who does not deserve to be put through this garbage just because he is disloyal and unfaithful).
Beckinsale has a weird beatnik musician fiancée who is absolutely perfect for her, but she is constantly testing his every action to see if the universe is telling her to dump him. She is appalled at every fault she finds in him.
These two undestined lovers get it in their heads that they are destined, they ruin their fiancée's lives, and run around like idiots trying to find each other without trying, if that makes any sense. I know what would happen in real life to people who did stuff like this: they would spiral into depression and go begging their fiancees to take them back and be refused, or they would find each other and then have to break up the first time some unpleasant thing randomly happened to her (because it would be a "sign"). So, that's what would happen in real life. Guess what happens in the movie, though? Far be it from ME to spoil the ending...
John Cusack plays a John Cusack character, which means he is good looking and quiet except for little fits now and then. He meets her at a mall, they fall in love at first sight, but instead of making plans to see each other again, she writes his number on a $5 and spends it, telling him that when that bill "finds its way back to her", she'll call him.
Any normal man would see her as insane and just walk away, but not John Cusack, because this is a movie. He is immediately infected with the same obsessive compulsiveness as she, and looks for signs in everything, and looks for faults in his innocent fiancée (who does not deserve to be put through this garbage just because he is disloyal and unfaithful).
Beckinsale has a weird beatnik musician fiancée who is absolutely perfect for her, but she is constantly testing his every action to see if the universe is telling her to dump him. She is appalled at every fault she finds in him.
These two undestined lovers get it in their heads that they are destined, they ruin their fiancée's lives, and run around like idiots trying to find each other without trying, if that makes any sense. I know what would happen in real life to people who did stuff like this: they would spiral into depression and go begging their fiancees to take them back and be refused, or they would find each other and then have to break up the first time some unpleasant thing randomly happened to her (because it would be a "sign"). So, that's what would happen in real life. Guess what happens in the movie, though? Far be it from ME to spoil the ending...
The Rite
(2011)
This movie needed to take more risks.
14 February 2011
Warning: Spoilers
This movie needed to take more risks. The makers played it way too safe. The result is a 2 hour film that has an hour and a half of clichés and predictability, and a final half hour that starts to find it's own voice way too late.
The protagonist didn't need to be an arrogant, argumentative unbeliever to be interesting. This in fact made him dull, and an impediment to the story. He also didn't need to have these family problems, because they lift from Father Karras's mother problems in THE EXORCIST. He didn't need to have a romantic interest, because out of place clichés like that take viewers out of the movie and encourage them to turn off their brains as they watch tropes which have been done a million times over.
The last half hour kicks off with a particularly unpleasant encounter in a park, and from there the unpleasantness kicks up a notch and the movie finds some momentum, but it is too late to save things.
The desire to be less gratuitous and more intellectual is commendable. However, the tired tropes are no better, and should have been avoided. Had Michael, the protagonist, been an earnest student who wanted to learn, the movie would have been allowed to be more intellectually engaging, especially in the classroom scenes. I don't object to Alice Braga's character being in the movie, but she is reduced to being a nice looking bit of filler, motivated by an unlikely attraction to a snotty, bratty man-child.
Hopkins is playing a mixture of characters we've seen before, kind a mixture of his Van Helsing and his Sir John Talbot. Doesn't matter, because he is as mesmerizing as always, adding a riveting performance to an otherwise cold, thin mix.
This film would make a nice companion piece to The Exorcism of Emily Rose, another well-meaning but for the most part wrong-headed exorcism flick.
The protagonist didn't need to be an arrogant, argumentative unbeliever to be interesting. This in fact made him dull, and an impediment to the story. He also didn't need to have these family problems, because they lift from Father Karras's mother problems in THE EXORCIST. He didn't need to have a romantic interest, because out of place clichés like that take viewers out of the movie and encourage them to turn off their brains as they watch tropes which have been done a million times over.
The last half hour kicks off with a particularly unpleasant encounter in a park, and from there the unpleasantness kicks up a notch and the movie finds some momentum, but it is too late to save things.
The desire to be less gratuitous and more intellectual is commendable. However, the tired tropes are no better, and should have been avoided. Had Michael, the protagonist, been an earnest student who wanted to learn, the movie would have been allowed to be more intellectually engaging, especially in the classroom scenes. I don't object to Alice Braga's character being in the movie, but she is reduced to being a nice looking bit of filler, motivated by an unlikely attraction to a snotty, bratty man-child.
Hopkins is playing a mixture of characters we've seen before, kind a mixture of his Van Helsing and his Sir John Talbot. Doesn't matter, because he is as mesmerizing as always, adding a riveting performance to an otherwise cold, thin mix.
This film would make a nice companion piece to The Exorcism of Emily Rose, another well-meaning but for the most part wrong-headed exorcism flick.
Not Since You
(2009)
The most fun you'll ever have watching a movie about an Alcoholic Hobbit.
28 December 2010
Warning: Spoilers
A creepy man who looks like a rapist comes home after a 3-year journey (to Europe, apparently to find himself), and is inexplicably horrified to find out that his ex-girlfriend from 3 years ago is married. He embarks upon a plan that involves sitting around and frowning, and giving snotty looks to her kindly new male-model looking husband (who is constantly going out of his way to be nice).
The filmmakers did not understand some of the usual visual language of cinema with how they present this ex-girlfriend. For example, when we first see her, she is doing her make-up with her friends. She's in the middle, and she's the tallest. This makes her seem vain and imperious. Later, we see her combing her hair while talking to her husband, but not looking at him. This makes her seem cold and witchy. The actress is very beautiful but very cold looking, with very sculpted, unnatural features. She almost never smiles. Basically, she seems like the mean girl in the '80's movie, or one of those girls who was mean to Toni Collette in Muriel's Wedding.
They don't make her likable or inviting, is what I'm saying, so we can't relate to the creepy guy's fascination with her. Actually though, they do seem made for each other, because just as she is plastic and icy, he is sinister and ominous. Come to think of it, they are very like Heathcliff (not the cat) and Catherine from that Kate Bush song Wuthering Heights.
Meanwhile, his other friends cope with their own earth-shattering, soul-destroying problems. One of them is a tiny, babbling man who does everything he can to irritate the crap out of everyone around him. He not only is a salesman trying to pitch ideas, but he never ever stops talking. He is stunned that a girl dumped him for a quieter friend of theirs. When he is not badgering rich people about investing in his simple ideas, he is picking fights in public, walking around with a shotgun, and splashing people in the pool.
(What he acts like is that little dog from the old Warner Brothers Cartoon that always ran around the bigger dog, talking nonstop about what great pals they were.)
Babble Guy's ex-girlfriend who dumped him for Quiet Guy just wants to get married. Quiet Guy apparently keeps putting it off or something. He may or may not be waiting for Babble Guy to stop holding a grudge, it's not too clear. There isn't any more to their characters than that, so they are easy to describe. She pressures him about getting married and complains about him, and he tries to fend off Babble Guy's random physical assaults. Babble guy is tiny but feisty, like a kitty-cat.
A third friend is a man who looks just like a hobbit, or like Lars Ulrich. He is an alcoholic, but not one who does any of the problematic things that real alcoholics do. He doesn't stink, pick fights, vomit a lot, have health problems, annoy people, lose money, fail to show up when expected, wake up in strange places, be mean, cry a lot, get into accidents, or any of the other things alcoholics do that make them impossible to be around. All he really does is take naps on pool chairs or porch swings. So, he is a cute, cuddly alcoholic who might smell like Downy fabric softener. Luckily for him, a perfect, kindly, beautiful white girl decides that he is exactly the man she's been looking for, and she walks around their little town with him a lot. After he responds to her sexual overture with a tearful confession, all of his mental problems lift from his shoulders and drift away like a cloud on a summer's morning.
This movie has a very nice musical score, and a pretty scene with some fireflies. I was glad that they didn't set that scene to the song "Fireflies", so kudos. That scene unfortunately ends in a zoom-in close-up of Rapist Guy's face, as he apparently realizes something creepy, and he gives a terrifying serial killer smile at the camera. They cut to another scene before he can break out into a maniacal laugh. (Oddly, when you find out what he figured out, it's just that he and the ex-girlfriend aren't right for each other.)
If you want to see the tough guy who always beats the crap out of everybody on Leverage be a nice, sweet person, he plays the Ice Woman's new husband.
The filmmakers did not understand some of the usual visual language of cinema with how they present this ex-girlfriend. For example, when we first see her, she is doing her make-up with her friends. She's in the middle, and she's the tallest. This makes her seem vain and imperious. Later, we see her combing her hair while talking to her husband, but not looking at him. This makes her seem cold and witchy. The actress is very beautiful but very cold looking, with very sculpted, unnatural features. She almost never smiles. Basically, she seems like the mean girl in the '80's movie, or one of those girls who was mean to Toni Collette in Muriel's Wedding.
They don't make her likable or inviting, is what I'm saying, so we can't relate to the creepy guy's fascination with her. Actually though, they do seem made for each other, because just as she is plastic and icy, he is sinister and ominous. Come to think of it, they are very like Heathcliff (not the cat) and Catherine from that Kate Bush song Wuthering Heights.
Meanwhile, his other friends cope with their own earth-shattering, soul-destroying problems. One of them is a tiny, babbling man who does everything he can to irritate the crap out of everyone around him. He not only is a salesman trying to pitch ideas, but he never ever stops talking. He is stunned that a girl dumped him for a quieter friend of theirs. When he is not badgering rich people about investing in his simple ideas, he is picking fights in public, walking around with a shotgun, and splashing people in the pool.
(What he acts like is that little dog from the old Warner Brothers Cartoon that always ran around the bigger dog, talking nonstop about what great pals they were.)
Babble Guy's ex-girlfriend who dumped him for Quiet Guy just wants to get married. Quiet Guy apparently keeps putting it off or something. He may or may not be waiting for Babble Guy to stop holding a grudge, it's not too clear. There isn't any more to their characters than that, so they are easy to describe. She pressures him about getting married and complains about him, and he tries to fend off Babble Guy's random physical assaults. Babble guy is tiny but feisty, like a kitty-cat.
A third friend is a man who looks just like a hobbit, or like Lars Ulrich. He is an alcoholic, but not one who does any of the problematic things that real alcoholics do. He doesn't stink, pick fights, vomit a lot, have health problems, annoy people, lose money, fail to show up when expected, wake up in strange places, be mean, cry a lot, get into accidents, or any of the other things alcoholics do that make them impossible to be around. All he really does is take naps on pool chairs or porch swings. So, he is a cute, cuddly alcoholic who might smell like Downy fabric softener. Luckily for him, a perfect, kindly, beautiful white girl decides that he is exactly the man she's been looking for, and she walks around their little town with him a lot. After he responds to her sexual overture with a tearful confession, all of his mental problems lift from his shoulders and drift away like a cloud on a summer's morning.
This movie has a very nice musical score, and a pretty scene with some fireflies. I was glad that they didn't set that scene to the song "Fireflies", so kudos. That scene unfortunately ends in a zoom-in close-up of Rapist Guy's face, as he apparently realizes something creepy, and he gives a terrifying serial killer smile at the camera. They cut to another scene before he can break out into a maniacal laugh. (Oddly, when you find out what he figured out, it's just that he and the ex-girlfriend aren't right for each other.)
If you want to see the tough guy who always beats the crap out of everybody on Leverage be a nice, sweet person, he plays the Ice Woman's new husband.
Mirrors
(I) (2008)
Ever want to see Jack Bauer fight demons? Here ya go...
21 December 2010
Warning: Spoilers
This is one of those movies that has a good preview that catches your attention, but even as you watch the preview you can tell that the movie can't take the idea anywhere interesting. Any elaboration on the intriguing idea will just ruin it. If you thought you saw all the good parts and could skip the movie, you're right. When you watch the preview, and you see the images in the mirror act independently of the people reflected and make threatening faces when the people turn away, and you wonder what is going on and if the explanation will be at all interesting, the answer is no. The more you learn about what's going on, the less interesting it gets.
You also see Keifer Sutherland, as a security guard working in a crappy looking darkened building, and you think how it might be nice to see him in a different kind of role, especially after so many seasons of 24.
Well, predictably, the film's creators decided not to take too many risks, and Sutherland turns out to be just playing Jack Bauer all over again, like he wandered off the 24 set and crashed a horror film.
Yes, here he is, the law enforcement guy with the tormented past and the estranged family. He has knowledge of some threat and no one will believe him. He has to go off the grid, conduct his own personal investigations. and, finally, here he is as a desperate, frantic man, abducting a nun at gunpoint and screaming that he has to save his family. Yes, this is really 24 meets Stigmata.
That disappointing direction is the biggest problem, but it is not the only problem. there are too many clichés and tropes, such as the bitchy estranged wife. Sometimes I think every screenwriter in Hollywood is separated and having custody problems and has to work his issues out on film, but I've seen this subplot so many times and I was sick of it from the very beginning. Paula Patton, as Jack Bauer's estranged wife, really lays it on thick. The script calls for her to be intense about everything, all the time whether she is intensely annoyed, concerned, worried, terrified, you name it. She might as well just stand in the middle of the set just screaming whenever she's on screen, because it would have the same effect as her just reading her lines. It's too bad her character didn't actually get killed.
The sets are overdone just like Paula Patton's acting. The burned out mall doesn't look anything like a burned out building. It just looks like one big special effect. If they made it look like an actual place, the mirror antics would have been ten times scarier.
Sometimes in horror films the protagonists seem selfish and stubborn and responsible for their own problems. If we don't care about them, then they just seem selfish, as in this film. When Kiefer Sutherland is forcing the nun to go with him at gunpoint to save his family, I wasn't convinced that he and his unpleasant wife and snotty kids were worth dragging the nun into their problems. I really wasn't on his side at that poinnt, or for the rest of the movie.
You also see Keifer Sutherland, as a security guard working in a crappy looking darkened building, and you think how it might be nice to see him in a different kind of role, especially after so many seasons of 24.
Well, predictably, the film's creators decided not to take too many risks, and Sutherland turns out to be just playing Jack Bauer all over again, like he wandered off the 24 set and crashed a horror film.
Yes, here he is, the law enforcement guy with the tormented past and the estranged family. He has knowledge of some threat and no one will believe him. He has to go off the grid, conduct his own personal investigations. and, finally, here he is as a desperate, frantic man, abducting a nun at gunpoint and screaming that he has to save his family. Yes, this is really 24 meets Stigmata.
That disappointing direction is the biggest problem, but it is not the only problem. there are too many clichés and tropes, such as the bitchy estranged wife. Sometimes I think every screenwriter in Hollywood is separated and having custody problems and has to work his issues out on film, but I've seen this subplot so many times and I was sick of it from the very beginning. Paula Patton, as Jack Bauer's estranged wife, really lays it on thick. The script calls for her to be intense about everything, all the time whether she is intensely annoyed, concerned, worried, terrified, you name it. She might as well just stand in the middle of the set just screaming whenever she's on screen, because it would have the same effect as her just reading her lines. It's too bad her character didn't actually get killed.
The sets are overdone just like Paula Patton's acting. The burned out mall doesn't look anything like a burned out building. It just looks like one big special effect. If they made it look like an actual place, the mirror antics would have been ten times scarier.
Sometimes in horror films the protagonists seem selfish and stubborn and responsible for their own problems. If we don't care about them, then they just seem selfish, as in this film. When Kiefer Sutherland is forcing the nun to go with him at gunpoint to save his family, I wasn't convinced that he and his unpleasant wife and snotty kids were worth dragging the nun into their problems. I really wasn't on his side at that poinnt, or for the rest of the movie.
The Hungry Ghosts
(2009)
One of those indie slice of life films.
10 November 2010
This film is like many, many indie films, in that it follows some desperate separate lives as they wrestle with their addictive behaviors and regrets. As this kind of film, Hungry Ghosts is good. That's my review.
I've seen a zillion films like this. Just last week I watched Powder Blue with Ray Liotta and Jessca Biel, same kind of thing. Or go see 13 Moons with Steve Buscemi. The Life Before This with Catherine O'Hara and Joe Pantoliano. Shrink with Kevin Spacey. Dancing at the Blue Iguana with Sanda Oh. Crash, that piece of garbage movie that was so popular 6 years ago, was this kind of movie but with an inexplicably larger budget. The thing about movies like this is that if you've seen them you know what they are and what to expect. In the first minute, you know what you're dealing with. Desperate people, aimless lives, some intersections, some deaths, no story structure, nothing much is going to happen. You know this in the first minute. If you have complaints after that you're being ridiculous. It's like complaining about your face hurting after you smash your head against a cement wall. It's like complaining about the wall.
I've seen a zillion films like this. Just last week I watched Powder Blue with Ray Liotta and Jessca Biel, same kind of thing. Or go see 13 Moons with Steve Buscemi. The Life Before This with Catherine O'Hara and Joe Pantoliano. Shrink with Kevin Spacey. Dancing at the Blue Iguana with Sanda Oh. Crash, that piece of garbage movie that was so popular 6 years ago, was this kind of movie but with an inexplicably larger budget. The thing about movies like this is that if you've seen them you know what they are and what to expect. In the first minute, you know what you're dealing with. Desperate people, aimless lives, some intersections, some deaths, no story structure, nothing much is going to happen. You know this in the first minute. If you have complaints after that you're being ridiculous. It's like complaining about your face hurting after you smash your head against a cement wall. It's like complaining about the wall.
Stripped Naked
(2009 Video)
A lot of fun!
21 October 2010
Warning: Spoilers
STRIPPED NAKED is a lot of fun, with a sexy anti-heroine protagonist, who has a tiny black heart and great big Technicolor dreams of what she would do with $90,000 and $90,000 worth of methamphetamines.
Because the movie is so brightly lit and doesn't utilize the conventional shadowy visual language commonly associated with Noir Cinema, it's genuine noir aspects will probably be overlooked. But NOIR it is, reflective of a light-hearted James M. Cain story; fast moving and following grifters on the make.
Kassie finds herself holding a bag of money and a bag of drugs, and sees her dreams of moving to France becoming a possibility. She returns home to take care of some loose ends, and of course her plans begin to get complicated. Her recently ex-ed boyfriend, her admiring roommate/lover, and her sleazy boss all unwittingly throw monkey wrenches into plans they don't even know she has, while (of course) a hit-man arrives looking for his boss's money and drugs. Meanwhile, someone in town is randomly killing some of the town's shadier denizens.
Sarah Allen is startlingly sexy and alluring. Her blue eyes and elfin face are transfixing to look at. It's an unusual choice on the part of the filmmakers to make her as unlikeable and cold hearted as they do. (Think Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction), but it also makes the ending less predictable. A woman this naughty is less likely to earn a happy ending, after all.
The Russ Meyer-esquire cover art and the strip club setting promise more lurid thrills than are actually on hand. The movie is fairly free of blood, sex, nudity, or violence, which when it happens, is not very graphic, but it is still a fun story.
This is the kind of movie that I'm not sure why it was made, but I'm glad it was. A nice, fun afternoon movie to watch over lunch. Good show.
Because the movie is so brightly lit and doesn't utilize the conventional shadowy visual language commonly associated with Noir Cinema, it's genuine noir aspects will probably be overlooked. But NOIR it is, reflective of a light-hearted James M. Cain story; fast moving and following grifters on the make.
Kassie finds herself holding a bag of money and a bag of drugs, and sees her dreams of moving to France becoming a possibility. She returns home to take care of some loose ends, and of course her plans begin to get complicated. Her recently ex-ed boyfriend, her admiring roommate/lover, and her sleazy boss all unwittingly throw monkey wrenches into plans they don't even know she has, while (of course) a hit-man arrives looking for his boss's money and drugs. Meanwhile, someone in town is randomly killing some of the town's shadier denizens.
Sarah Allen is startlingly sexy and alluring. Her blue eyes and elfin face are transfixing to look at. It's an unusual choice on the part of the filmmakers to make her as unlikeable and cold hearted as they do. (Think Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction), but it also makes the ending less predictable. A woman this naughty is less likely to earn a happy ending, after all.
The Russ Meyer-esquire cover art and the strip club setting promise more lurid thrills than are actually on hand. The movie is fairly free of blood, sex, nudity, or violence, which when it happens, is not very graphic, but it is still a fun story.
This is the kind of movie that I'm not sure why it was made, but I'm glad it was. A nice, fun afternoon movie to watch over lunch. Good show.
Good
(2008)
Is this movie supposed to be a joke?
30 September 2010
Warning: Spoilers
What were they thinking? This is the least German movie about Germany I've ever seen. It's not just that all of the actors talk with upper crust British accents even though they're supposed to be German, the whole movie looks and feels like it was filmed in London. The soundtrack sounds like a Merchant Ivory production. In fact, the whole movie feels like a Victorian romantic "drama" by Merchant Ivory. It certainly seems more like some comedy of manners. The characters are trite to the point of absurdity, and their lives are dull and painfully self-centered. I only rented this movie to see Jason Isaacs, and he is wasted here.
The dialogue is so absurd. "He wants us to pump out more babies for the Fuhrer!" "I must study history, but WHY!" ..... This movie is a bomb.
The dialogue is so absurd. "He wants us to pump out more babies for the Fuhrer!" "I must study history, but WHY!" ..... This movie is a bomb.
So bad it's still not good.
28 July 2010
Warning: Spoilers
2001 Maniacs was not bad at all. It was cheaply done but well done, and a lot of fun. I hadn't expected this sequel, and was excited when I saw that it would star Bill Moseley, because the world does not get nearly enough of him.
Well, we still don't. Neither he nor Lynn Shaye can save this movie. They are not given any good lines or good scenes, or any opportunity to show their considerable talents.
Well, there would be a lot to have to save. Most of the actors in this movie are just painful to watch. Most notably bad is Miles Dougal as "Jerry Schmidt". It's like these people aren't even trying. So many scenes are just so irritating I found myself wishing the movie were over just 10 minutes in.
There's some eye candy. Christa Campbell and Andrea Leon are very nice to look at, but like everyone else in this movie, they aren't given ANYTHING interesting to do.
Ther problem is that the makers didn't get their own concept. The first movie was good, but could have been better. A sequel should have just been an attempt to do it better. Same concept, the ghostly southern town and its tormented inhabitants, some hapless travellers, cue the fun and then the carnage. That's all that was needed here.
Instead, they try to take on current reality TV tropes, they move the venue, they get tired of exploring southern stereotypes and try to do stuff like have Lynn Shaye do a mock performance on Michael Sembello's "Maniac" song from Flashdance (Oddly enough, it's not called "Maniacs", it's called "Cannibals"). Unlike the rousing "The South Will Rise Again" number from the first movie, neither "Cannibals" nor any of the other musical attempts are listenable.
No one wants to watch reality TV, so why would we want to watch a parody of reality TV? The idiots are like the Jersey Shore idiots. It seems like it might at least be fun to see them all get massacred, but it takes forever and the kills are all pretty spare.
The filming is very rushed. Each scene has so many quick cuts that no actor really gets to stand out. Each scene and each cut in each scene feels hasty, yet at the same time the movie drags its sorry arse endlessly until all the protagonists are finally, FINALLY killed. Not that I'm some homicidal maniac who wants everybody to die, but it is only after all the deaths that this sorry excuse for a film can be over.
Well, we still don't. Neither he nor Lynn Shaye can save this movie. They are not given any good lines or good scenes, or any opportunity to show their considerable talents.
Well, there would be a lot to have to save. Most of the actors in this movie are just painful to watch. Most notably bad is Miles Dougal as "Jerry Schmidt". It's like these people aren't even trying. So many scenes are just so irritating I found myself wishing the movie were over just 10 minutes in.
There's some eye candy. Christa Campbell and Andrea Leon are very nice to look at, but like everyone else in this movie, they aren't given ANYTHING interesting to do.
Ther problem is that the makers didn't get their own concept. The first movie was good, but could have been better. A sequel should have just been an attempt to do it better. Same concept, the ghostly southern town and its tormented inhabitants, some hapless travellers, cue the fun and then the carnage. That's all that was needed here.
Instead, they try to take on current reality TV tropes, they move the venue, they get tired of exploring southern stereotypes and try to do stuff like have Lynn Shaye do a mock performance on Michael Sembello's "Maniac" song from Flashdance (Oddly enough, it's not called "Maniacs", it's called "Cannibals"). Unlike the rousing "The South Will Rise Again" number from the first movie, neither "Cannibals" nor any of the other musical attempts are listenable.
No one wants to watch reality TV, so why would we want to watch a parody of reality TV? The idiots are like the Jersey Shore idiots. It seems like it might at least be fun to see them all get massacred, but it takes forever and the kills are all pretty spare.
The filming is very rushed. Each scene has so many quick cuts that no actor really gets to stand out. Each scene and each cut in each scene feels hasty, yet at the same time the movie drags its sorry arse endlessly until all the protagonists are finally, FINALLY killed. Not that I'm some homicidal maniac who wants everybody to die, but it is only after all the deaths that this sorry excuse for a film can be over.
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