Change Your Image
jaded_viewer
Reviews
Series 7: The Contenders (2001)
99% "1984" and 1% "Running Man"
I saw this a couple of years ago with very little idea of what what was in store. Since then it has bubbled up to the top of my consciousness maybe once a week or so. As a point of comparison I don't remember too much about the original "Running Man" but I do recall it was a ham-handed "what if" scenario of a brutal futuristic game show that asked me to believe in the fairy tales that good is 100% good and always wins, bad is 100% bad and can't survive the light of day - if only it were so. In these times of corporate dominated media and government domestic spying such notions seem naive in the extreme.
So, to me anyway, this film was more about how incredibly effective the corporate media is at manipulating one's persona, and how anyone can fall victim - on both sides of the screen. None of the contestants seemed to have any choices. They couldn't not participate in the killing, but almost more important they had no control over how they were portrayed on the screen, their humanity subsumed absolutely by the stereotypes thrust upon them in the editing room. And we, being the flawed creatures we are, fall for it time and again, even if we suspect we are being manipulated, which I find profoundly depressing.
I've seen tons of all sorts of movies, and this is one of the few that I desperately wish I'd had the idea for. The intentional cheesiness of the acting and intentionally lame TV video quality only enhance the reality of the experience. What a totally genius, high impact, low budget, incredibly effective project. Bravo!!!
The Machinist (2004)
More of a rip-off than a "homage"
First of all, I really like Christian Bale - he generally stars in very good movies. He was great (IMO) in American Psycho, Equilibrium, and Batman Begins. The reviews for The Machinist are way up there, which I suspect increased my expectations. Regardless of the reviews, I would have watched it merely for Bale's decision to be in it. But here all of the actor's talents go to waste, which is a shame as Mr. Bale possibly shortened his life by losing so much weight for the role.
- Spoilers and rants ahead -
The plot was unfortunately made incredibly obvious to me early on in the scene where the machine shop head honcho in the office said that no one with the mystery man's name worked there. OK, so the mystery man is a figment of the main character's imagination, no other explanation. Why do I need to watch the rest of the movie again? It was really a stupid move writing the scene that way, a little ambiguity here would have gone a long way.
Outside of the plot itself being the tired, overdone, reveal the lame-and-only twist too early sort, the music was annoyingly Hitchcockian and obtrusive. Telegraphing scenes with buckets of Theremin-laden orchestration worked pretty good back in the day, but there are good reasons no one does it in supposedly well-crafted movies anymore.
And the "gritty, depressing" blue filter thing has got to stop, and I mean now! A touch of blue is perhaps OK now and then, but nothing but shades of sickly blue just whacks you over the head and screams "look how arty we are!" Enough already. Drop the editing machine and back away from the blue filter, I just can't stand it anymore.
This is the kind of movie you get when the writing and direction just aren't up to snuff. What a waste of everyone's time involved with it, including this viewer's. Rating = 2/10.
Casa de los babys (2003)
With a name like "Casa de los babys" it's got to be bad.
I must say I am a minor fan of Sayles, having enjoyed several of his movies (Lone Star in particular). And when it comes to creative endeavors, I'm all for people wearing multiple of hats - singer / songwriters have my deep respect, as do writer / directors. But the editing of this film should have been left to another person, as Sayles was most likely too close to see it objectively by the end of filming, and consequently the film suffers. Case in point: watching the DVD extra features, I was introduced to the background motivation for the various characters via the interviews with the actors. Too bad that background didn't actually MAKE IT INTO THE MOVIE! Is it on the cutting room floor somewhere? Who knows.
This film is a mish-mash of characters, situations, and locales - NONE of which are developed in a satisfactory manner. As a result we are left to watch a variety of bland scenarios involving people we don't really know doing things we don't fully understand or really care about in a country somewhere in South America. The side plots, not being fleshed out, are more of a distraction than anything, which is a shame. The intersection of adoption, first vs. third world economics, capitalism, etc. would seem to be a fertile one, but the movie for some reason doesn't employ this to anywhere near full advantage. If being boring is the cardinal sin of movie making, this film will probably pass purgatory altogether and go straight to hell.
As for the acting, It was a real treat seeing Rita Moreno after all these years. Marcia Gay Harden was terrific as the ugly American (I really hated her). Daryl Hannah was so-so as the new age health nut suffering in silence (though not quite enough silence for me - I started to wonder when she would whip out the chicken gizzard in the "psychic surgery" scene - can Hollywood please stop validating new age BS please?). Mary Steenburgen is always welcome, though she played a rather low-key role here. Lili Taylor seems doomed to play Lili Taylor for the rest of her life: outspoken, brash, self-assured to a fault, and a bit too quick on the snappy reply, though she did have some of the best lines. I had the feeling Susan Lynch was cast in order to relieve some of the white breaded nature of the US cast - she was generally fine, but her scene with the maid struck me as insensitive and self-indulgent (not what Sayles intended, I'm pretty sure). But the real sore thumb here was Maggie Gyllenhaal who played a weak, weepy, superstitious, infantile character that seriously grated on my nerves. The movie would be 10% better if her character were just somehow cut out.
I just about fell off the sofa when the character played by Susan Lynch was relating her fertility surgery - paraphrasing: "they did a tubal ligation or something on me along with other things I can't even begin to understand". Earth to Susan's character: no wonder you are having fertility problems, you were freaking sterilized! Here's a tip: you might want to spend two minutes Googling your medical issues before someone starts carving you up like a thanksgiving turkey. Why the hell didn't one the actresses pick up on this and have Sayles fix it? I was struck dumb by this glaring technical idiocy, and it took me a while to come to my senses and get back into the movie (such as I was able to) after that.
And when did it become OK again for movies to portray women as total flitty morons? Haven't we as a people progressed beyond this point over the last couple of decades or so? Some of the dialog was embarrassing close to "I don't know nothing about birthing no babies" - and these are supposedly women with fertility issues, who I would expect to have at least a passing knowledge on the subject. I'm aware that people like this do exist in real life, but can they not be rubbed in our noses as some kind of example of normalcy by Hollywood quite so much? Am I asking for too much here? My rating: 4/10
Battlefield Earth (2000)
Between this and "Fight Club" I've lost all trust in the ratbrained reviewing community.
I've lost all trust in the reviewing community. Case in point: my experience with "Battlefield Earth" was the exact opposite of my experience with "Fight Club". Due mainly to IMDb and other on-line reviews, with FC I was expecting a fantastic movie but instead found my teeth gritting almost to the breaking point at the end of this incredibly overrated stinking pile of stupidity. I sold the DVD as fast as I could. With BE, I started out with gritted teeth in anticipation of a true dog, but instead found it to be a fantastic movie, and have since bought the DVD and have enjoyed watching it twice more. What gives??
To everyone giving it a bad review (this includes almost all of you): OK people, you need to check your hatred of L. Ron Hubbard, John Travolta, Scientology, etc. at the door before reviewing this movie. You also seriously need to develop some INDEPENDENT critical thinking skills. You ratbrains hear some good or bad buzz and just start piling on. Are you incapable of not following the leader? Could you please not cave to conventional wisdom with such depressing regularity?
People seem to hate John Travolta, but he's been in several risky but excellent movies such as "White Man's Burden" "She's So Lovely" "Pulp Fiction" and now "Battlefield Earth". My DVD collection would be poorer with his absence. And come on, the BE novel was a HUGE milestone in SF! Think what you will about the whole Scientology thing (I personally wish we could evolve past all forms of superstition including religion) but it has no direct bearing on the quality of this movie.
I'm guessing here, but I think people are offended by they way humans are portrayed in the film. Take away our technology and we revert back to the stone age in terms of our superstitions and barbarity. The veneer of civilization is indeed very thin. It is so thin you can plainly see through it in places if you take the time to look. This movie does, and so it offends our tender sensibilities.
Look what this movie has going for it:
- It has commentary on religion: humans revealed as the primitive beings they are, flying jets nonetheless. How many times have you seen a crucifix in a vehicle in our time?
- It has commentary on big business, empires, etc.: much like Rome, the Cyclos control too much, become corrupt, overreach, lose control.
- It has an misunderstood comedic element that may make it seem over-the-top to those who don't understand it: corruption leads to inefficiency and ineptness. This was in Star Wars too, e.g. the stormtroopers, or for that matter everyone in middle and upper management in the death star.
- It has moral commentary: the extinct teaching race was done very effectively and thoughtfully - the meek most often don't inherit anything.
- It has a big sweep, good effects, the ships are believable, the towering presence of the alien costume is impressive, lots of stuff blows up.
What could have been better:
- I hate to say this, but the main human character could have been better looking and / or a bigger name actor. He has kind of a weasel face, thus giving a 'B' movie feel to his scenes. He's a fine actor though.
An Intimate Friendship (2000)
Decent plot & acting (as they go) but poor technical quality
The technical quality of this film, and by this I mean the source audio, video, and DVD transfer, is quite poor. After a fairly slick opening, the movie drops into porn territory in terms of quality. The video looks like it was done on Hi8 or something, and the audio often has lots of distracting background noise. Though there was one party scene where the audio was actually of the party, almost unheard of these days, and it was rather interesting.
The DVD transfer suffers from a terrible audio sync problem, where the audio increasingly gets behind the video as the movie progresses, so you have perhaps a highly distracting one second or so of delay by the end. A previous reviewer mistook this for bad looping but I don't know how - the audio constantly reveals its true source via the ambiance; perhaps a couple of very short instances were dubbed, but that's about it. The DVD has no chapter points either, and appears to be a VHS capture. Honestly, I could have done a better job with my ADS InstantDVD! Almost the worst transfer I have ever seen.
But once you get past that, the plot is pretty good, the acting is pretty good, and there are some decent lines delivered here and there. I thought the love scenes looked a bit forced, but I guess not bad for the shoestring this thing must have been made with. As usual for the genre, the ending was one of those tacked on up-beat things where the characters spit out dialog that maybe looks good on paper, but no one ever says out loud due to the pomposity level.
In case you're wondering, there is absolutely no nudity in this film.
If you like the genre, you might like this one. I give it a 6/10. I got into it after a while and enjoyed the characters and the soapish atmosphere. Keep an eye peeled for the bull-dyke ex-lover, who is played by the writer/director.
Monolith (1993)
Monolith? What Monolith?
I tend to cut SF more slack than other genres, simply because there is so much more setup work to be done in establishing a believable reality in which the story takes place. It is also my favorite genre. That said, this movie was one of the worst I've seen (I've seen a lot and own over 1000), which was very surprising considering the star power among the cast. Every, and I mean every, scene was stereotypical of some previous movie (cop buddy, action, etc.) done countless times before. And these worn out scenes strung together do not a plot make.
I kept dully pawing the remote in a futile search for some way to lower the frickin movie music volume somehow. It was just relentless! The "smoky sax", the "distorted guitar", the "ominous strings", etc. Someone got their hands on the latest 1993 synth and was wearing it out - and me too. It was often louder than the dialog, telegraphing the "mood" of every boring scene, removing even the possibility of anything unexpected happening in this dog.
An what's up with the name of the movie "Monolith"? I was expecting some large structure ala 2001 to appear at some point. No one even mentioned the word. I don't get it.
I'd rather watch the space saga Albert Brooks was editing in "Modern Romance".