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Reviews
Arsenal (2017)
A family black-sheep almost destroys his good brother and his family.
This is a totally stupid and disgusting and cynical movie. Stupid because the plot is so childishly contrived and derivative you'd have to be a moron to believe it. Disgusting not for the ridiculously over-the-top violence and gore, or Nicholas Cage's terrible acting, but how it insults your intelligence. And derivative because it sets a new standard for use of clichés and crap we've seen a million times before.
It is also disgusting that impressionable and ignorant kids might see this movie, which is one big lie about life, about the effects of beating and brutality on its victims, etc. It is pure sadism for the sake of sadism, and there is nothing else in this movie to redeem it. Miller is the ultimate cynical panderer to the lowest taste level. He should be drummed out of the business.
Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)
Nineteenth century manners and protocols are ridiculous today.
All the reviewers commented on the weak character development and the beautiful photography, but no one commented on the ridiculousness and unbelievability of the plot, with transparent, contrived devices:
1. When the sheep were sick, Gabriel was only man in the whole neighborhood of farmers and sheep herders who knew what to do about it. So they all stood around like idiots waiting for him to arrive. Ridiculous.
2.When the storm threatened the haystacks, Gabriel was too timid to go up to Troy in the party and make him realize the farm was about to be ruined. No one except Gabriel knew there was a problem—like they hadn't a clue the storm might be bad for the hay. Ridiculous.
3.When Bathsheba encounters Gabriel and hires him for her farm, both characters act like they had never in their lives ever seen each other before. Ridiculous.
Additionally, while Boldwood, Gabriel and Troy were paper thin stereotypes, Bathsheba was a hopelessly confused and poorly realized character, wildly vacillating between proud, strong, meek, girlish, tough, headstrong, conceited, foolishly childish, coquettish, vain, flirtatious— you name it, she had it, and none of it coherent or believable.
Assassination Tango (2002)
Refreshingly unmanipulative
I am so sick of Hollywood formula crap that I embraced this movie, even with all its faults. Duvall is an artist of depth, and he's created a movie here of some substance, in spite of the fact that the improvised dialog is often dull and even meaningless. But the movie has an ambiance, albeit slow, and atmosphere. Most of all, though, it is refreshingly free of most of the typical Hollywood manipulations. One could say that Duvall threw in the whole assassination idea just to carry the tango business—and that is true. But The tango part had no plot at all, so that the assassination plot serves as a sort of skeleton to support the real business, which is tango.
Some have observed that tango dancing is an acquired taste that probably left much of the audience cold. But like all movies that introduce you to something you don't have any prior knowledge of, it is not the subject itself that's important, but rather the reaction and relationship of the character(s) to that subject. His love of tango gave the Duvall assassin an unusual depth of character that made him not only more interesting than your average assassin, but made him more human. This fact not only justified his getting away with murder, but also solved the common problem in movies of trying to portray sociopaths as believable people.
I won't dwell on the many shortcomings of this movie because I found it refreshingly original, even honest, and as I said, mostly free of cynical Hollywood tricks.
Tenderness (2009)
Suspenseful, but fails to deliver, and the characters are badly drawn.
The best I can say about this movie is that it provides suspense by constantly suggesting that something might happen. But nothing convincing or satisfying ever does.
But it has serious problems with characters. A case can be made that Lori, who perhaps witnessed Eric kill a teenage girl, is traumatized and fixated with horror and fascination and thus becomes Eric's perverse groupie. Additionally she was abused by her mother's boyfriend and by her boss. So all those elements in her chaotic young life can form a coherent picture of a girl who, in a sort of Wagnerian lovedeath, finally commits suicide. (Sophie Traub, the actress who plays Lori, is a classic German "Brunhilde" type, especially in the scene where her hair is in braids. All that's missing is the lederhosen and a stein of beer.)
The Russell Crowe character tells Eric, and us, that he, Eric, is psychotic and hence destined to kill again, a simplistic viewpoint that borders on the inane. Ironically, Crowe's character is the only one in the movie who behaves as though he might be psychotic.
But the Erich character portrait is totally screwed up and psychologically preposterous. We have to accept, from his actions alone, that he's a murderer, but he never acts psychotic or like a person capable of murder. He appears to be a normal, if morose and disturbed, teenager. And why wouldn't he be, given what he's been through? He gives the lie to the label of "psychotic" by the intense pain he suffers over Lori's death. A psychotic would be incapable of feeling such empathy. The movie teases us with instances where it appears he is attempting to murder Lori, touches that are totally out of character for the movie and surely resulted from someone heavy-handedly screwing around with the script in a dimwitted attempt to make it more exciting.
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009)
Manipulation
I agree with most of the negative reviews of this movie. Various writers of these reviews seemed to sense what I found to be the worst feature of this movie, but they didn't quite articulate it. That is, this is a classic example of modern manipulative movie making.
Every few days I turn away from all the newer movies being shown on the premium channels and go to TMC to renew my faith in human nature by watching "honest" movies. Oh, those old films from the 40s and 50s had plenty of faults and are often very hard to take. But almost nothing in them is as bad as this audience manipulation!
In the last 3 minutes of this flick we are told that this sweet young man is actually a cold blooded murderer, which is utterly out of character with the person we had been watching for the first 98% of the movie. This is the baldest kind of audience manipulation, done for the sake of a cheap thrill (as are the gratuitous car chases in this movie) and by going so counter to human nature destroys any character integrity the movie might have generated earlier. This isn't really a movie at all, but more like a video game.
Disgrace (2008)
Ugly, depressing movie with no redeeming qualities except good acting.
The motivations of this cast of characters is practically unfathomable. Playing against all reasonable expectations about human nature seems to be the point, here. This is an ugly, depressing movie about extremely neurotic people, none of whom elicit an ounce of sympathy. These people live in a society where "getting along" trumps pride and self respect. They are so world-weary, presumably from the black-white violence of their recent past that that will degrade and humiliate themselves just to maintain peace. It's not noble, it's not sensible, and it's very depressing. Why did the young black girl student, in the beginning of the story allow herself to be, essentially, raped by this odious troglodyte of a poetry teacher? She obviously didn't like him at all. Are we supposed to believe these blacks in South Africa have a slave mentality that prevents them from resisting a white man? I don't believe that for a moment. And how could the Malkovich character, so contrite about what he's done to the girl that he prostrates himself on the floor and apologizes to her mother—how does that attitude square with his seduction of the veterinarian woman without any regard for the feelings of her husband? And it goes on and on, all against a painful, callous background of dog euthanasia. Disgusting.
Nothing But the Truth (2008)
Lurie went for one too many thrills
This is a very intelligent and effective drama that I enjoyed very much. Compared to most Hollywood output this is a stunningly good, literate, intriguing story. But I don't think it was necessary to carry the protagonist's martyrdom quite so far. That was more abuse than we needed to see in order to get the main point across. Now this is the spoiler, which I will reveal because, unless I am stupid and missing the point somehow, why on earth would the reporter need to protect her source, which turns out to be a six year old girl? It's "treasonous" to "out" a CIA agent—so what were they going to do to the little girl? Send her to the gas chamber? It's silly. Or perhaps, because the reporter made the promise she "wouldn't tell anyone" to the little girl, she would rather spend all that jail time and lose her family rather than go back on that promise? That's carrying ethics to an absurd extreme. Or was she trying to protect her newspaper which went out on a limb on the word of a little girl? (even though they didn't know it). I can see how that might have some validity, but not enough to warrant the reporter's sacrifices, by any means. Ultimately, the writer of this film (or whoever was responsible) couldn't resist the excessive sensationalism that these absurdities provided. Shame on you, whoever you are, for almost ruining a very good film!
The City of Your Final Destination (2009)
This is a rare fine movie.
The City of Your Final Destination is an excellent, intelligent, adult movie about believable people. The behavior and motivations of the characters are brilliantly presented; totally real people with real emotions and mature concerns. These days we could die waiting for this kind of great movie to come along! The meaning of the word "adult" with reference to movies should be changed to describe this kind of movie rather than the pornography genre that now carries that appellation. What the industry calls "adult" should be changed to "adolescent," a more appropriate term for pornography, so the word "adult" could be freed up to describe movies of this maturity and quality.
At least 90% of Hollywood's output is banal commercial junk. But in this movie there are no car chases, barroom brawls, drug addicts, topless bars, shooting and killing, corrupt cops, liars, cheats, con men, muscle men, superheroes, martial arts, gratuitous sex, pretty-faced vapid ingenues trying to pass for professional people such as doctors and scientists, and so on. They even kept the cigarette-smoking to a minimum! But don't mistake my objection to Hollywood as moralistic. I'm talking about intelligence, taste and maturity.
Still of the Night (1982)
Streep has never been so beautiful, before or since.
I almost turned this movie off in the middle because I was tired of being manipulated by the corny scary stuff that was overwrought and too dragged out. That stuff was okay for the master, Hitchcock, but today it has whiskers.
I was very surprised to see Meryl Streep looking more beautiful than ever before or since. It was the way her hairdo framed her face, I think. Any way, this movie was all Streep. Scheider has a certain gravitas which many Hollywood Idols never achieve even though they are far more popular. But Streep—from her first moment on screen I said to myself, I've never seen this side of her! She's created an entirely original person! Then she delivered a soliloquy toward the end of the movie which she fashioned with such skill and insight that one would think it was Shakespeare!
There is simply no one as good as Streep, man or woman. She turns this average movie into something worth watching.
Starting Out in the Evening (2007)
A breath of fresh air
This film is such a welcome breath of fresh air in the midst of the commercial claptrap that constitutes 90% or more of Hollywood's output that it almost seems mean-spirited to talk about its faults. One of the comments here suggested that the dialog is stilted: "People don't talk that way." It's true that most people "don't talk that way," especially in the movies. But academics, people involved in writing and the arts in general, in other words, the very people this movie is about, do indeed "talk that way." It could just as well be said that people don't talk like the average gangster in the shoot-em-ups, either, but for some reason their arcane argot is acceptable, whereas literate English is not. Go figure. Other comments suggested the character of Heather and her relationship with Leonard is unbelievable. Fact is, it is the most trenchant and vital thing about the whole story—an old man, to his utter consternation, finds himself sexually drawn to a young, emotionally unscrupulous woman who seduces him intellectually—and probably physically. Yes, she's a little kookie, too full of herself, immature and out of control, so he finally has to reject her violently for trying to mess up his orderly and heretofore peaceful end-of-life. She has tried to tell him that the reason he can't finish his last novel is because he has, in effect, already checked out of his own life, but he's not willing to confront that fact about himself. That theme is a much more interesting one, I think, than, for instance, the subplot about his daughter.
The Good Shepherd (2006)
Bad script, non-existent characters, "Get Smart" parody
A draggy, clichéd, and in keeping with a deplorable modern trend, a too-hard-to-hear for us older folks, movie. There were no characters to care about, and the acting is overrated. John Turturro caricatured himself. Matt Damon totally failed to create a character probably because of the bad script. But a good actor doesn't start shooting until he's figured out who the person is he's going to play, and Damon failed. The Jolie character was a total cliché from top to bottom. The cloak and dagger stuff was almost caricature. I thought I was watching an old episode of "Get Smart." The jumping back and forth in time served no purpose other than to confuse us. A very dull and pretentious movie. The star cameos were only distracting-Foolish casting.
Burn 'Em Up O'Connor (1939)
A memory from the deep deep past
I am 76 years old. A few days ago something caused me to dredge from the past a faint memory of a race car movie I saw when I was 8 years old. I remembered the name, "Burn 'em Up O'Connor." The phrase had stuck with me for 70 years. All I remember about the movie was that the hero was trying to win a race while partially blinded, as I recall, by some kind of white powder in his eyes, the result of an effort of some nefarious bad guy to kill him. I was amazed to type in that title in Google and actually get hits, after all these years! As an 8 year old I was very impressed with the movie. My opinion would probably differ if I saw it today.