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joeleejoel
Reviews
Little Children (2006)
Snokel at the pool
This is how to think of the snorkel at the pool scene: "I know. We'll have Ronny come to the pool in snorkel and flippers, and jump in. He'll swim around for a few minutes and ogle the kids, then someone would notice him, and it'll be a big freakout. Wait a minute. That won't work. The minute that guy shows up at that pool they're all screaming. He could never get into the pool unnoticed. That scene has no integrity." And you don't do it.
So many of the scenes in this film are like that, so stagey and unlikely: anything with Larry, anything with the football team, May and Ronny---just a cartoon, all of it.
Memento (2000)
sub-lim discovered
There is a sublim at 1:29:28. In a b&w sequence (forward), Leonard is talking to a mystery man on the phone (obviously Teddy) just finishing up the story of Sammy Jankis where Sammy is sitting pathetically in a Home, after he's killed Mrs. J. But after the camera goes behind a pillar and returns, the one seated in the home is not Sammy, for a split-second, but Leonard. This is not evident in normal speed. I discovered it as I was splitting the movie into 43 discrete segments, and arranging their playback in absolute linearity.
That's only important insofar as that's how I found this sublim. It's very subtle and, though not over the top in reach (it's only meant to emphasize Leonard's wretchedness) I think we as a civilization have decided that this kind of thing shouldn't be allowed, or at least have some sort of warning label attached to it.
Other than that, this is about the greatest movie in the last five years.
Monster's Ball (2001)
Don't be fooled
This movie is a fraud and easily recognizable by anyone who prefers not to be manipulated by soapy contrivances. Things happen, people exist, that are so preposterous that it's impossible to suspend disbelief and be engaged in any way. Let's look at the Musgroves: the only way a family could possibly more dissimilar is if one or another member was from another planet. It's always completely obvious that it's actors we're seeing. I'm having trouble imagining a black single mother in rural Georgia, who's husband has been on death row for 11 years, can be as impeccably turned out and well kept as Halle Berry. I can certainly see one being as histrionic, but to me her performance was more of the same as we saw Oscar night, desperate, flailing, overwrought, like a Joan Crawford caricature at her most mawkish. Sean Combs, chosen for this role clearly because of his familiarity with the inside of a penitentiary (what else could it be?), recites his lines as if he's up in front of class. He and Halle, both beautiful hardbodies, beget a son who looks like Jabba the Hutt. Then, the lifelong violent racist Thornton becomes a caring loving person the moment his son, whom he hates and has always hated, kills himself. I don't get it. I can't get involved in it.
This is one of those movies that's made in utter contempt for what happened five minutes ago. In a way it's like Memento, except that here the film plays as if it's we who have no memory.
K-PAX (2001)
Bad Movie
This is the worst movie I've seen all year, even more disappointing because of the good reviews it's gotten. It is a series of obvious cliches, one piled inexorably on top of the other. Awakenings, Patch Adams, Cuckoo's Nest, and particularly The Fisher King have all presented this material before, not always more adeptly, but a fantasy movie depends on originality to succeed. When the plot themes are all tired, it becomes a soap, which knows that its unsophisticated audience will look past the fifty-third evil twin in order to get its daily jolt of tinkly-piano'd emotional thrill.
Cinderella Liberty (1973)
Caveat
This is a fine sweet-natured character study about big-hearted losers groping their way. The flavor of pre-grunge and pre-latte downtown Seattle drenches the film, evoked by the many authentic locations unearthed by director Rydell. Caan and Mason, as many have pointed out, are just terrific, and it is fun to see the younger Burt Young, Bruno Kirby (credited as Bruce Kirby Jr.), and especially Dabney Coleman, before their careers blossomed.
A word of warning though: the abysmal Paul Williams score and singing are rivaled only by Richard Baskin's infamous turn in "Welcome to L.A." for sheer auditory torture.
Blue in the Face (1995)
another precinct heard from
(Most) everybody's wrong about this movie. It's an absolute delight the whole way through. The ad-lib scenes are true, all the monologues are intersting, the stars just pound on their likeability and it works.