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Reviews
Distortion (2006)
No Hollywood flash; just good film making
Poor reviews for this style of film show how accustomed people have become to escapist polish of big Hollywood films, where the characters are unremittingly attractive, articulate and witty. "Distortion" is taught, engaging, well-filmed and realistic. Here the characters are confused, contradictory and irrational: in short, absolutely natural and how we act in real life. I've been with the kind of people in portrayed in this film -- living on the ragged fringes of society, lost, aimless, drug damaged, each operating according to a confused and changeable mash of ethics and corruption -- and this film accurately portrays how these people look, think and talk. The cinematography and lighting is particularly interesting being obviously low-budget, rough and stylish all at once. All the characters in this film are convincing. The heroine, played by Sara Lahti, is darling and pragmatically amoral. The hero, played by writer and director Kirk Fogg, is a basically good guy who can hardly function on his own anymore. It's a true romance as our hero is driven to a sort of effectiveness sheerly by love.
The Man from Earth (2007)
If Duncan McLeod were an academic...
I will temper the many rave reviews with another perspective so you can decide if you think this movie would be for you or not.
The title is prefaced with Jerome Bixby's name. This explains the high rankings it gets: People who watch it already know and care who Jerome Bixby is and are most likely fans. Those who already know they don't like Jerome Bixby's work will give the movie a miss. I never heard of Bixby and I'm not a particular sci-fi fan although I'm not completely ignorant of it. Who will like this script: (1) People who think Star Trek is deep and profound. (2) People who think Bertrand Russell is a great thinker. If you are neither of those, my guess is you are likely to think this script is sophomoric and tedious.
I read that Bixby wrote this on his death bed, his last work. Seems obvious he needed a vehicle to make clear his views on religion before he passed on. What disappointed me was that after a life time of creative work this script supposedly represents the greatest depths of his thinking. The whole time I watched this I was thinking, "You're kidding. That's the best you can come up with?"
It's nicely filmed and nicely acted. Good atmosphere. A couple of nice touches here and there. These are all due to the director and cinematographer. Sorry, but I just can't get passed the puerile philosophizing that supposedly represents the culmination of the writer's intellectual insight.
Sherlock Holmes (2010)
What an odd, odd little film!
What an odd, odd little film. It's one of those where as you watch it you wonder how the producers raised the money to make it, but yet you are sort of glad they did. Two of the most notable characters, Sherlock Holmes himself, played by Ben Syder, and the intriguing, interesting Elizabeth Arends, have very thin CVs, this being their first commercial film, are actors I hope to see again in future films simply based on their performance here. Not all actors in this creatively low-budget flick are new comers. Gareth David-Lloyd who plays Watson, and Dominic Keating, who plays Holmes brother, are both established actors with substantial bodies of work. It is puzzling that screenwriter Paul Bales (100 Million BC and Reasonable Doubt) named Holmes' brother Thorp. Conan Doyle named Sherlock's brother Mycroft. Mostly, though, the story is consistent with details established by Conan Doyle. This story has nothing to do with stories written by Conan Doyle and the basis for the plot seems an insoluble enigma in offering an explanation for notable events in London of 1882 that in reality never happened. The film is short enough to remain interesting and entertaining. Don't take it too seriously, sit back and be enjoyably baffled by this cinematic curiosity.
The Shape of Things (2003)
Misses the big point
Has anyone ever told you a long involved joke that ends in a very weak punch line? You thought, "That story wasn't worth the time it took. It might have been a little funny if it hadn't taken so long." That's how this movie is, except it takes nearly two hours to get the equivalent realization. Even more the pity because the movie is a very good setup to probe an intriguing question: Not, how important is honesty in art, but how important is honesty in the creation of art? As it is, the middle of the movie is way too long for the ultimate point it is trying to make and somewhat frustrating because this big implied question is left unaddressed. It's a sophomoric let down, one of those movies where you get to the end and ask yourself, "That's it?" Neil LaBute fans will like this movie in any case, plus Rachel Weisz makes any movie better.
The Invisible Circus (2001)
Beautiful movie, engaging story, leisurely pace
I've seen this film three times and each time I appreciate it more. I think Jordana Brewster should have received an Emmy nomination for her real and natural performance. Many of us who were Phoebe's age at this time the story takes place will understand how real it is. Life for most of us is neither softly glowing romantic or harshly cynical pessimism. It is a blurred balance, and this film captures this balance. It is well constructed, too, with so many fine details in its composition. Like the film or not, judging from the extraordinarily high ratings it gets from the demographic of females under 18, we can know that this movie reveals some important truth about how young women see themselves in the world.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
This movie doesn't know what it wants to be
This schizophrenic movie sort of gives you three really bad stories in one. It starts out as an historical fable about perfume with perfumers who live in stench, pull water straight out of the Seine and then can discern fine scents at distances and with spatial accuracy that would stump a pack of drug-sniffing canine. Then it morphs into a serial murder mystery. Then it becomes a sort of sci-fi fantasy with the power of scent overcoming human individuality and free-will. It's terrible at all three. If you have a fragile suspension of disbelief this movie has too many non-sequiturs, inconsistencies and inaccuracies to ignore. If a story is going to be pointless it has to at least be entertaining.