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Reviews
Working Class Rock Star (2008)
Interesting but incomplete documentary
I stumbled across this documentary by accident in a local indy record store. I'm more of a progressive rock, British 70's metal and early thrash fan, so I didn't really care for much of the music. On the DVD there's a selection of videos featuring whole songs. Tub Ring look like college frat boys, not at all like rock stars, and their name is a bit dorky, but their music is just quirky enough I'll probably check them out later.
Anyway, on with reviewing the movie.
The format here is pretty straightforward. Director Justin McConnell goes on tour and into the recording studio with three up-and-coming acts, then mingles in some candid and frank interview snippets of music celebrities who've already "made it." I don't know if McConnell has seen or is referencing Penelope Spheeris' "The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years," but "Working Class Rock Star" is definitely a worthy follow-up to that. And in comparing the two films, something greater might just be revealed about where we currently stand in history. The decline of western civilization, indeed.
Whereas Metal Years focused primarily on how musicians dealt with the onslaught of fame (or the narcissistic desire for fame), this documentary focuses primarily on the musicians' support network friends, family, lovers, and (lastly) record labels and everyone's egos seem to be firmly in check. Frank Marino of Mahogany Rush (his hair still looks great, btw) gives a little monologue at the end of this film giving away the Secret Rock Star Formula, which was brilliant, but would probably have been more relevant to the Spheeris film. This film is about where these guys (and one gal) get the creative, moral, spiritual and financial support to do the things they love doing... making music and taking it on the road. The portrait of the family behind the band Bloodshoteye is absolutely beautiful (if only the singer didn't go all Cookie Monster, I might want to listen to them).
The documentary is incomplete, however, in that while it continually condemns the greedy aspirations of record labels, it never actually goes to a record label to see what those conniving worms might have to say in their own defense. Maybe McConnell just couldn't get an audience with anyone willing to talk on camera, I don't know. But it certainly would have been interesting and informative to hear what the corporate bean-counters have to say about how they view the music industry and how it operates.
So, bottom line... I enjoyed this film greatly, and would recommend it highly to anybody who even thinks they'd enjoy it.
Superman Returns (2006)
Basically a waste of time, money and creative talent
What I liked:
- The effects were better than the 70's movies. Some of the plane crash sequences were extremely blurry (and how did Lois not have any broken bones after being thrown around like that?), but that scene in Zemeckis' Cast Away is hard to top.
- Noell Neill. If you don't know, the old woman Lex was married to was Lois Lane to George Reeves' Superman. Her voice is still so very charming.
- Luthor's Prometheus dialog: "I don't want to be a god. I just want to bring power to the people. Oh... and I want my cut." This perfectly underscores what the character is all about.
- I'm not a Kevin Spacey fan, but he does some remarkable impressions of President Clinton and Johnny Carson. So I don't know if he was doing something with his face, or if it was the makeup, or whether he really kinda looks like Gene Hackman. Not that I think Hackman was the best choice to play Luthor in 1977 (Yul Brynner would have been more obvious), but I liked the reference. I liked Lex's wardrobe, too.
- The inventive usage of the Marlon Brando archive material.
- The relationship between Superman and Richard White. These things usually go with either one guy or the other getting dumped (and often humiliated) while boosting the other one up to "get the girl" at the end. The only exception I can think of immediately was Mrs. Doubtfire, but even there the two men were not considered equally heroic in the end.
- That they only gave the kid one super feat. They could have easily made him fully manifest his powers and "save the day," which was cheesy even in a comedy movie like Sky High.
- Eva Marie Saint was great, as always. I loved her reaction to the "horror" moment of Clark reaching out to her. No startled jump scare, just motherly love.
- Frank Langella. Another performer who always shines. Perry is written unbelievably (why doesn't he want to know what caused the blackout?) but Langella performs it to the best of his ability.
- The guy who played Jimmy Olsen. More annoying than most who've played him before, which I liked.
- Parker Posey. Easily the best best lines in the movie.
- The girl playing Lois now is way hotter than Margot Kidder or Terry Hatcher.
What I didn't like:
- I always thought Lex Luthor made his money being an evil scientific genius. But here he stoops to Anna Nicole Smith tactics? Great. Then Perry said that Lex hadn't been heard from in years. Ummm... if the guy who almost killed Superman had just inherited billions from some old lady, I'm sure it would have been front page news.
- Superman using his powers for eavesdropping and stalking. When he was watching Lois go up the elevator, I was expecting him to look through her clothing also.
- The kid. Who didn't know right away the kid was Superman's? They even made his hair long (because it's hard to cut) as a clue. Sure, they tried to throw us off the trail by making him physically frail, but it was too obvious a plot contrivance. And either this is a direct reference to the short period of time Superman was powerless in the second movie (thus negating 3 & 4), or Larry Niven's essay (Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex) was wrong after all.
- The question of the kid's heritage. Lois and Richard would have had to get together pretty soon after Superman left for there to be any confusion over this. Or maybe it was going on before he left, which would have really been ugly.
- Clark. Was there even a reason for him to come back to the Daily Planet?
- Routh's portrayal of Clark. The true value of every actor who's ever played Superman was what they brought to the role of Clark Kent. Routh merely apes Christopher Reeve's portrayal for his slim usage of the character. And then he drinks a beer.
- Pa Kent being dead. What was the purpose of this, other than to further the obvious "things changed while you were gone" rhetoric? Lois has a kid now and writes anti-Superman articles, so that should amply fill that requirement. There was no need to kill Pa Kent. Then they didn't even go to his grave site or anything. Jeez, there's gratitude. Plus, killing Pa Kent takes away the potential for exploring the parallel of Richard White in the adoptive father role. Lame.
- Superman cocking his right leg when he flies. What is that, the on-off switch for his anti-gravity powers?
- Parker Posey's character. She did with it what she could, but it was written as a poor mix of Miss Tesmacher from the first film and Jon Cryer's dopey character from the fourth.
- Lex's scheme. He said he wanted to bring power to the people, and he wants his cut. So... He plans on killing the people? And destroying the wealthiest nation in the world? Sorry, Lex Luthor isn't that stupid. He has the technology of several spacefaring alien civilizations at his disposal and this is the best he could come up with? Current events could yield a better plot. Imagine the military of North Korea outfitted with Kryptonian weaponry...
- The crystals. Drop 'em in water and they grow? Kitty dumped all of them in the ocean. They didn't grow. What?
- The curl. In some scenes (like in the hospital) it was just too ridiculous looking.
- The music. It was way loud.
- The costume. The darkened colors, the textures, etc... Why mess with a classic?
- The running time. Two hours forty? Gah.
Sin City (2005)
commits the ultimate movie sin... it's boring.
Basically, it's three stories (four if you count the bit before the title) crammed into one disjointed mess of a movie. The source materials are three comics mini-series: "Sin City," "The Big Fat Kill" and "That Yellow Bastard." Sort of in that order. Sort of.
The movie starts out with an original short before the title, mainly just to set the mood, but also to introduce the Josh Hartnett character who reappears later. You can largely disregard it, because it's inconsequential to the overall movie.
The first sequence is the Bruce Willis segment, "That Yellow Bastard." Well, the first part of the Bruce Willis segment. It gets cut about a third of the way into it. So, we'll have to come back to it.
Next up is the Mickey Rourke segment, the original "Sin City" serial which ran in the comics anthology Dark Horse Presents. Bad prosthetics makeup on Marv (Rourke) conjures memories of the Dick Tracy movie. Other than giving a pre-glimpse of the killer, the story is taken whole cloth from the comic. Which is a bad thing, because the villains' motivations are still extremely vague. Exploring that some might have made this a more interesting story. Marv's infamous "Is that all ya got, ya pansies?" line was one of only two laughs in the movie (the other being the arrow guy in the Clive Owen segment). This segment has all the breasts (yep, that's all the tits you get). Watch for an appearance by Frank Miller himself as a priest.
Then comes the Clive Owen segment, "The Big Fat Kill." See, the problem with this part is that it's a sequel to a previous story entitled "A Dame to Kill For." Dwight McCarthy (Owen) makes a reference to having a "new face," but that doesn't make any sense without the context of the previous story. Which isn't in this movie. It probably would've been best to just leave out this segment entirely, because it really has no bearing on the other two segments. The film's overall run time is too long, anyway, so this would have been a beneficial cut. Benicio Del Toro chews the CGI scenery, which is really the only redeeming quality this installment has.
***SPOILER***
In the comic, the Alexis Bledel character (Becky) is killed in the prostitutes' ambush. Here she survives to show up again in the very final scene. Presumably meeting her fate at the hands of Josh Hartnett, who was paid by Rosario Dawson's character. A rather clumsy way of trying to make the middle segment fit, but apparently serves the traditional purpose of "bookends" on an anthology-type presentation.
***END SPOILER***
Then we get back to the Bruce Willis episode. What was his storyline again? After being pummelled for over an hour with the other two stories, it's hard to recall. Okay, yeah. I remember now. Anyway, there's some editing of the original script here (for example, Willis' character's wife never actually appears in the movie), for whatever reasons. Some details reveal that this *entire* segment occurred chronologically before the Mickey Rourke segment, not just the part that played prior to it in the movie. Probably very confusing for those who haven't read the comics!
There's another quick flash of the Elijah Wood character (this also happened in the comics), which doesn't make any sense other than to further establish that this event took place before the Marv section. Wood's character was a man of action and heightened awareness, and should have been involved in the final fight. But he wasn't. Oh, well.
***SPOILER***
Dangling threads:
The "evil senator" (portrayed by Powers Boothe rather than Chelcie Ross, which would have been a clever bit of stunt-casting) doesn't get a comeuppance. I can't remember right now if he ever did in the comics, but it would have been a more satisfying experience if this point were addressed in the movie.
Also, we still don't know whose finger that was in the envelope.
***END SPOILER***
So, in summary...
Bad makeup
Bad CGI
Bad acting all 'round, by people we've come to expect better from
Bad dialogue that was often even corny in a comic book
Plot and pacing lifted directly from the comics, not adapted at all to fit the needs of the different medium
I give this movie 2/10 stars. I'm so generous only because the main complaints about movie adaptations are so often how they aren't true to their source materials. Whereas this one is like ninety-five percent accurate. Unfortunately, this film is probably also the best reason *WHY* movie adaptations shouldn't be literally copied from their source materials.