Change Your Image
Drxtc
Reviews
Bloody Sunday (2002)
Thank God Hollywood Didn't Get Hold of This...
My God, what a movie. I'm staggered by this film. I'm not familiar with any of these actors, but every single one of them should receive some kind of award or nomination. This WASN'T a documentary? I'll be perfectly honest, and this is how powerfully dynamic every performance was, if there were no opening credits, listing actors and writers, I would have believed I was watching a documentary. That's what I'm talking about when I say this entire ensemble deserves special recognition. If even one person looked out of place or out of character, the piece would have fallen. But this...the settings, the costumes, the hair, the grainy element of the picture itself...this is absolutely, magnificently brilliant. Paul Greengrass - how did you DO this? How could you organize the chaos, synchronize the sounds, phones ringing, crowds swirling, eight conversations going on at once, bullets flying, this is absolute genius.
In the hands of Hollywood, this would have been an absolute farce. Jennifer Lopez and her embarrassing Irish accent would have fallen in love with Dermot Mulrooney and his embarrassing Irish accent, they would have realized that love was more important than any old conflict between Catholics and Protestants, and they would have daringly slipped through the barbed wire and lived happily ever after in Galway.
This film presents real life. Well, I mean, it really happened. But so did "Enemy at the Gates", and look what Hollywood did to that. See this film. It's amazing. It's brilliant. It's genius. I can't say enough about everyone involved in this production.
Naqoyqatsi (2002)
I Had No Preconceived Notions...
AFTER seeing this film, I logged on to IMDB and read all of your reviews. And there is one common thread that linked all of the negative reviews together...everyone had a pre-conceived notion of what this film was to be, they had already drawn pre-cast conclusions about the work based on the previous two films in the trilogy. Most of all, and this is what is what closes the mind the most when observing a work of art so open to personal interpretation, everyone had already decided what this piece would MEAN TO THEM BEFORE they saw it.
That said, I had heard of neither this film nor the trilogy it completes before I saw it. In the truest sense of the term, I was a blank slate going in. This is what I saw.
This truly is life as war. More on that later.
I saw brilliant, beautiful moving images of the human condition. Pain, happiness, loss, sorrow, joy, all the perfectly precious elements of humanity that make us who we are. We are all, each and every one of us, a work of art. Each of us holds the brush to our spiritual pallet, and, through being born, and experiencing, living, loving, growing, we slowly, yet masterfully create ourselves, our values, our souls. All of us together, works of art drawn into one, create, for better or worse, the enormous canvas that is our world, each of us drawn together like a collage to form the overall work of art that is humanity. It is our idiosyncrasies as well as our ideologies that make us who we are; "Naqoyqatsi" clearly presents the beauty of these idiosyncrasies in a swirling, glorious montage.
Humanity has spent millennia growing, learning, striving, achieving, evolving. Keep that in mind.
Montages of celebrities are certainly nothing new. "Naqoyqatsi" presents to us those who have reached within themselves and strove to achieve all they could. For better or worse, these are people who changed the world, who exemplified and personified the human condition. The symbolism here is that we all have the power within us to make a difference, to effect a change, to be the representative work of art our generation. Hitler, Lincoln and the Beatles certainly wouldn't be mingling at dinner parties, but they changed the world, and, in some microscopic way, they have played a part in forming us.
Every human being is influenced, touched, formed, brushed by all the events of the past. Keep that in mind.
What is the message? This is what I saw...
No other review has touched on this, and, again, it may be because they had targeted other interpretations beforehand. Besides the war, I feel that the other blaring, screaming message inherent in this work is that WE MUST NEVER, EVER CLONE HUMAN BEINGS. The images of the beauty and magic of the human condition speak to the divine beauty each of us is inherently born with. Now look at the sequence full of crash test dummies and humanoid life-forms. Moving the same, looking the same, no life no soul, no art. CAN A CLONED HUMAN HAVE A SOUL? My God, what an unbelievably complex, mind-blowing, staggering question. As this is a film review, however, I will simply state that the answer I got from this film is NO!
And now, the war. So many reviewers were disappointed by the fact that they were not confronted with 90 minutes of war montage. I would go so far as to say that some of the reviewers actually felt they had been intentionally deceived by the title. I ask you all, what is Reggio's statement? Think about it. Not YOUR statement, and not what YOU WANTED Reggio's message to be before you watched the film. Remember, I was a blank slate going in. This is what I saw...
Humanity has spent millennia growing, evolving, learning, striving, achieving. Thousands and thousands of years.
And how long would it take to completely obliterate all of it? As long as the war montage of this film.
This was beautiful.
Swept Away (2002)
More Truth than Dare
*** WARNING! SPOILERS CONTAINED HEREIN! ***
This is a semi-autobiographical look at what might happen to Madonna if she were ever to be stranded on a deserted island. There's absolutely no challenge to Madonna in this role, and it shows. She's just Madonna playing Madonna, and she can't even get THAT right. I know what you're saying, you're saying, "How do you know this is what Madonna is really like, you've never met her!" Correct, I haven't, but we all remember "Truth or Dare", don't we? I know Kevin Costner does.
You would think, in the year 2002, that Madonna might have learned something, one way or the other, from the "crossover" ladies that have also made their way across the silver screen. For goodness' sake, hasn't Madonna seen "Glitter"? Mariah Carey showed the film world HOW IT IS DONE!!! Mariah kicks Madonna's trashy butt to the curb in beauty, talent, screen presence, charisma, characterization, you name it! All we see from this glimpse into Madonna's world is she's the only one in it.
If there's one thing to be said for Madonna, it is that she's consistent. When she was an MTV darling, she set the world of women's fashion back 20 years. Now, in film, she has set women's roles in film AND society back 20 years, by glamourizing all the most hated, horrible, reprehensible, odious qualities women have been reputed to have locked away inside them, qualities they have been so desperately trying to prove they really don't possess.
***HERE'S THE SPOILERS!!! DON'T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW...***
Here's the one good thing I will say about this film, and I really was impressed by it. They didn't go for the "Hollywood Ending" - Madonna's character lives. In the typical, happy Hollywood ending, Madonna's character would have died on the island, and her long-suffering, oppressed, whipped husband would have been free to finally settle down with a good, decent woman, a woman who would be the exact opposite of his deceased wife, and they both live happily ever after. But in this extremely depressing conclusion, she is rescued, and once more, this poor victim of a husband is once again saddled with his demon of a wife, and his life will once again become a living hell.
*** HERE ENDETH THE SPOILERS ***
Tadpole (2002)
Nothing to see here.
I don't understand this film. I'm not being facetious, I seriously don't understand this film. The story revolves around a fifteen year old dickhead. This idiot is so arrogant, conceited, cold, condescending and rude it defies description. There is not one redeeming quality about this character whatsoever. In real life, with his attitude towards women, this guy couldn't get laid in a whorehouse. He's the type of arrogant dickhead that women laugh at and turn away from in disbelief.
Yet, in this...whatever...piece, women are flocking towards him in unbelievable numbers. Sure, I could understand if these were women that have no self-esteem or confidence, and actually wanted a man to abuse them so they could feel some sense of importance. After all, even abuse is a form of attention that they otherwise wouldn't be getting. But no, these are attractive, confident, successful professional women, and that's what I don't get, and that's where the whole premise of this film falls apart. There is not one speck of reality or believability in either the characters or the situations. No confident, successful woman would ever, and I mean EVER put up with the endless torrent of condescension this dickhead unapologetically throws their way. If these were destitute, suicidal women, or women who had been left alone and neglected their whole lives, then I could see an element of believability. But not the beautiful classmates and established women that line up to get near this guy. True, all the girls I know would also be lined up to get to this guy, but they would be lined up for blocks to bitch-slap him up and down the street and tell him to get over himself.
When I said "whatever", I meant regarding genre. What is this? It certainly isn't a comedy; there's nothing funny about either the dialogue or the situations. It's not a drama; dramas are more character pieces, and certainly nobody watching this film could possibly care about the lead character. You instantly hate him; your hate grows as you realize exactly how much he hates women and, to a lesser degree, everyone else in the world. Actually, in the one dose of reality you do get out of this dreck, you don't even care about the women he treats like dirt, because they all obviously could do so much better than him, but they keep coming back for more!
I'd love to live in this guy's world - because if this dickhead has this many beautiful women clamouring for him, I'd have a harem from here to Australia!
Just don't see this movie, O.K.? Please?
Glitter (2001)
A Tour-de-Force!!!
Move over, Meryl Streep and Dame Judy Densch...the next wave of young thespian geniuses is storming the screen, and the path is being blazed by stunning Mariah Carey. Given nothing but a bare-boned outline of a plot to work with, Ms. Carey explodes across the screen with a depth and complexity of character unseen since Vivian Leigh's multi-faceted Scarlet O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind" back in 1939. Every colour of the rainbow, and some even out of the range of the known colour scheme, are clearly and sharply delineated by Mariah in every frame of this masterpiece; every subtle shade and nuance of Billie Frank is drawn with precision sharpness and crystal clarity. It is said that the ultimate sign of true artistry in film is when one can look at any single frame of a motion picture and instantly know what is going on just from the facial expressions and body language of the actors within. "Glitter" certainly exemplifies this theory. At any given moment, one can look at Mariah's Billie Frank and instantly see every idiosyncrasy of the woman inside. The relationships she has with, and her feelings towards, every character she interacts with in the film is beautifully fleshed-out and drawn with a broad brush. Each and every word Mariah speaks in "Glitter" was meticulously delivered by her, and obviously carefully studied during perusal of the script.
Mariah delivers infinitely more than the one-dimensional Billie other reviews have led us to expect. Her transitions from despondency, to loneliness, to anger, to triumph...all brought forth with a crispness and clarity unknown to this age of the cinematic experience. And the ease with which she presents all these ranges of emotion draws you into the character of Billie, to the point where you hang breathlessly on Mariah's next word. She has such a natural talent, such an incredible comfort in front of the camera, that you instantly forget you are watching an actress playing Billie; you believe she really is Billie.
This can only be the smallest taste of what is to come from this future screen legend. Mariah has made her mark on the film industry, and now can, and must, move on to deeper, more complex roles...she must rightfully stake her claim as one of the greatest screen presences in cinema history. How marvelous it would be to see her take on some of the great female characters of literary classics, so in vogue today. A "Jane Eyre", for example, or Lizzy in "Pride and Prejudice". Many of Shakespeare's greatest works have remained uncommitted to celluloid; what greater compliment to the works of the master himself than to have them graced by Mariah Carey?
Please, do yourself a favour; you must see this movie, and see it with an open mind. Those who scoff are simply those who had already decided that Mariah would be a failure in the cross-over from music to film. They cannot admit they were wrong; for, unlike Barbra Streisand and Madonna before her, embarrassments both, Mariah Carey is a fabulous, fantastic, brilliant actress. Again, look at everything she was able to do with this meagre script!!!
Mariah Carey is the most stunningly beautiful, breathtaking, sexy, sensuous, heart-stopping woman ever to appear on the stage or screen. So many times during this movie, I realized that I was so captivated by her beauty that I wasn't even breathing; my heart was pounding so fiercely at the sight of her, I though it would burst.
Believe me, Mariah...keep acting...keep singing...you will always be remembered as a priceless legend.
Rollerball (2002)
Questions that might be less frightening than the answers
*** WARNING! POSSIBLE SPOILERS MAY BE INCLUDED IN THESE QUESTIONS! ***
What causes the "instant" global ratings to go up? Are all 8.2% of the people watching calling their friends to tell them to turn it on? And if they are, wouldn't the people they called be watching the show instead of calling more people? And if the "new" viewers are so impressed, why is it still only the same 8.2% watching the beginning of all subsequent "roller games"? Why was it suggested that Aurora couldn't hear Marcus screaming at her about the trail of fire coming at her because of the roar of her motorcycle and their distance apart when they're both wearing headsets? How could Larry Ferguson (screen writer) possibly have Petrovich's lackey tell Jon-a-ton that they are deliberately keeping Aurora alive to keep Jon-a-ton cooperating, when, in fact, they had tried to kill her in the previous "roller game"? What was Larry Ferguson thinking when he wrote the line, "I don't need a political position because I own the men who do"? The men who do what? Who need a political position? If they NEED a political position, what's the advantage to owning them? Why is everyone in the stadium reacting to all the English-language statements being read in the broadcast booth, since these statements cannot be heard over the stadium public address system? Why couldn't Mystery Science Theatre 3000 stay on the air long enough to bring justice to this film?
Bubble Boy (2001)
Garbage; symbolic garbage, but garbage
This piece actually had a chance to achieve so much more. I saw potential in the first 33 minutes, as I thought this work actually had something to say.
The symbolism of the bubble as the protective net thrown over America's youth by paranoid mothers was strong and apt. America's overzealous right-wing would be well served by taking a lesson from this part of the film. Notice that our young hero, repressed by his bubble, knows exactly as much about the outside world as his mother would have allowed him to see even if he were not challenged.
This film took another strong step towards its' apparent statement when our protagonist encounters the "Bus Stop Attendant". In the bus stop attendant, we see a glimpse into the life of someone who has voluntarily put himself into his own "bubble", shutting himself up in a ticket booth almost the same size as the bubble, only this man is comfortable where he is. In his ticket booth, he is king and kingdom, condescending to the outside world, trapped in the rigid, regimented world of the petty rules he has established for himself. He is alone, friendless, washed up on the shores of the desert he has created for himself.
At this point, I was mildly surprised by how much this film was offering; a compelling illustration of what happens to those who refuse to take risks, who refuse to rise to challenges, who are content to remain trapped in the day-to-day routine that life always offers. We see this point brilliantly illustrated in the character of our hero's father, who has settled in to the point that he las lost his identity, his drive, his potential, and his lust for life. He lives vicariously through his son, and when you put all of these elements together, you have a very nice piece.
Then they go to Las Vegas and the movie falls apart. Once this thing falls off the cliff, it goes on a free-fall that doesn't end until the gentle viewer lands in a hell that doesn't end until the credits roll. Suddenly, we're thrown from a thoughtful, insightful statement about today's youth and society into "Magical Mystery Tour 2001". At least with the orignal "MMT", you could dose yourself and get some entertainment out of it. But this...I don't know what in the heck happened here. Stupid, outlandish caricatures and stereotypes take over the movie and never give it back. Nothing is funny. Well, wait a minute. Any movie with Fabio in it automatically gets a bump in the ratings because he has no qualms at all about making fun of his own novelty as an actor.
If you ever see this movie on Pay-per-view, please, save yourself. This movie could have achieved a lot. It didn't, and I want that hour of my life back. Notice I don't want the first 33 minutes back; that wasn't bad.
Thir13en Ghosts (2001)
One of the coolest movies ever!
This was one of the coolest movies ever. It wasn't scary, it wasn't suspenseful, it was just cool. And totally fun to watch. The special effects were great without looking "special", the house totally rocked, and the gore was right on target.
After "Amadeus", I usually regard anything F. Murray Abraham does as a waste of his infinite talent, but I found "Thirt13en Ghosts" worthy of even the great one.
Shannon Elizabeth was adequate, and certainly not as sensational as she thinks she is, (check out her web-site for a glimpse into the sordid world of this mirror-hugger) and the rest of the cast was fine, but really only played as scenery to the real star of the film, The House.
See this film. It's fun, it's quick, it moves. It's like going to Disneyland in Hell without leaving your house.