Binba Reviews

Enemies of the State (2020)

Forget about Matt DeHart; this film is about facts, spin, and disinformation

[9/10 · 10 January 2022]

What happened with the reviews here? I was almost shocked by the reviews as I was by some parts of the film... Are people so used to be fed "the truth" with a spoon, that they get angry in the face of ambivalence? Because this was exactly what this film dealt with.

Other reviewers here seem to have panned the film because its subject may be a "bad guy". You know you're rating the movie, not Matt DeHart, right?

Enemies of the State deals with half-truths, spins, perspectives, the dearth of information and what we as the public make of it all. It deals with it in a subtle way and yes, starting with one perspective and gradually revealing more, while all along the way reminding the viewer that the facts are few, and to be suspicious.

By the time it's over, I hope you have made up your mind. This case may be clear by the film's end, but when it comes to other controversies in the news, who do we root for, and who do we vilify?

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Awful

[3/10 · 5 January 2013]

My background is mixed: I loved LOTR and thought it was an exemplary execution of the epic journey genre. I am also a video engineer in L.A., and hated The Hobbit in its book form. The Hobbit comes across as a pale clone and completely unnecessary movie that follow's in LOTR's steps. I saw it essentially as a professional duty to go and see it in 48fps. The impact on us filmmakers is major and the Hobbit's importance in that regard is unquestionable. I have the eye to spot different frame rate all the time, and think that 120MHz TV's and "fluid motion" features are the worst thing that has ever happened to home theater. Nevertheless 24fps is constricting to filmmakers and I was looking forward to see what 48fps could bring.

The difference was obvious from the second the WB logo came up. Despite my 3 hours of genuine attempts to enjoy the movie, I couldn't. The action seemed horrifyingly sped up at times as if the projector was malfunctioning, and everything had a cheap, unmagical feel to it, no matter how exquisite the lighting, camera work, and production design were. This was the key - unmagical - in the kind of movie that needs it like no other. HFR might work for other genres or dramas that call for more realism, but it fell completely flat for this fantasy epic. I'm able to separate resolution from frame rate so the movie didn't seem "clearer" to me at all - and I was trying to NOT look for detail but enjoy the story as a whole. This, though, might also have to do with the fact that we probably watched the movie in 2K, on a non-huge screen in a Chicago suburb.

I read The Hobbit a decade ago when I was in the military and posted in the middle of the desert for a week. I didn't remember the plot, but to this day I remember how boring it was for such a short and renown book. It was all worsened by the decision to inflate it into 3 double-length movies. Every plot point is utterly mundane, non-dramatic, and cliché, and they're all stretched to the max. 400 reviewers have already given plenty of examples for that.

To my personal dismay, the 7 relatives I saw the movie with had no qualms with the frame rate and they all loved the movie. Oh well, I'm allowed my one vote.

Tron: Legacy (2010)

The real CLU is Disney

[3/10 · 20 December 2010]

The heavy iron that is Disney Pictures seems keen on squashing every sense of freshness and imagination, producing products so perfected and polished that they leave nothing behind when you're done watching.

First and foremost, the story:

The more Hollywood moves on with its tent-pole "events" and skyrocketing budgets, the more I find myself asking: "300 million dollars, and THIS is what they come up with?" We often distrust each other here on IMDb, but I would safely hand out the screen writing job of Tron: Legacy to any of you readers or fellow reviewers, knowing that you'd do a better job than what ended up on the screen. As for all the, um, technical details - why did they bother? No one debates the existence of The Force, Hogwarts magic or that DiCaprio can bend dreams. Legacy created a silly trap for itself trying to explain too much.

The graphics are mostly TOO good - we're getting so used to amazing out-of-this-world VFX that we get numb. The CG in the 1982 original was so crude it was abstract, and in a weird way more engaging than the $300M sequel.

The old Tron didn't make much sense and the storytelling was clumsy, but it had a vision, and it was bold. You can sense it still today. Skip Tron:Legacy and revisit the original, or go watch a movie like Where The Wild Things Are to remind yourself that films are about imagination - and that they can have a heart.

P.S. That odd disclaimer about keeping your 3D glasses on is even odder because you should ignore it. There's so much 2D in this movie that you can safely put them aside and enjoy large swaths of increased sharpness, brightness, and color.

Avatar (2009)

A visual spectacle and a storytelling debacle

[5/10 · 14 January 2010]

VFX supervisor James Cameron does it again, delivering awesome, revolutionary, unbelievably believable visuals. Oh wait, he was the director? And the screenwriter??

Many of the performances in Avatar were terrible, and I don't blame the actors. I don't blame the technology either; the performances from our lead Na'vi couple actually felt solid and moving. It was the live-action segments which were left behind, with cardboard delivery that seemed to match the depth of the dialogue. In comparison, Michael Bay is a cinema verite auteur.

Every single line Michelle Rodriguez utters is a headache-inducing cliché, and Sigourney Weaver has the diction of a table reading. Lang actually does a good job of immersing himself and being true to his cartoonish character. Evidently they're all capable of better performances, it's simply a director's carelessness.

As for the script, the ultimate question is: really? 300 million dollars and nobody could amass the time, effort and talent to add some depth, food for thought, or just plug in the plot holes? Avatar explores - make it "should have explored" - a fundamental question: what makes a species prevail? The concept of an interconnect nature was also promising, but there was no attempt to explore anything, from these big ideas to the small details.

How could Sully not tell the Na'vi anything about the invasion until the last minute, even though it was the whole purpose of his mission? How can they remote-control brains from miles away flawlessly but simpler things are prohibitively expensive? How do things burn in an oxygen-starved environment? There answers may be there, the problem was that they were deemed insignificant and unworthy to include in the movie. Moral dilemmas? A Marine killing dozens of Americans? Eh, who cares.

Avatar delivered the "new movie experience" it promised. It completely disappointed by neglecting and foregoing everything film-making used to be - a good story brought to life by actors.

Watersmith (1971)

Sheer cinematographic beauty

[9/10 · 7 October 2005]

One good thing about attending film school, is that I had the opportunity of watching an original film copy, and hope there are good DVD transfers out there since this film is all about the visuals. Except for the existence of a beginning, Hindle throws away any narrative conventions and celebrates the sheer visual qualities of human body in water. Being such a focused work, it's refreshing to be reminded of how much photographic beauty can be "extracted" from one mundane location, and what the phrase "film is a visual medium" is all about. Hindle also employs a host of optical effects that are even more striking nowadays in light of all the dazzling digital effects - the analog, "low-tech" technique holds unique beauty that CG has to work so hard to imitate.

I tend to stay away from experimental films, but this is one I'd like to watch again. What makes it less than perfect for me is the eventual downside of its lack of form - it feels too long and becomes excessively repetitious at times.

A Hole in My Heart (2004)

Either pointless or ineffective

[3/10 · 14 July 2005]

I chose Moodysson's film out of another 200 at the Jerusalem Film Festival because of the good impression of Fu__ing Åmål. Apparently, he has gone to a totally different place meanwhile...

Even before genres and modes, I believe there are two basic elements for any film whatsoever: there has to be a reason, a motivation for what you see, and there needs to be some effective cinematic language in use. Some good films do well with just one, sometimes one feeds the other. My problem with Ett Hål i mitt hjärta, and eventually what made me give up watching halfway through, was that I found none.

A blatant, border-breaking experiment? nice, but after 15 minutes it got boring. A manifest against the porno industry? OK, but the shattered style blocked any attempt of mine to get closer to the characters. If anything, it reinstated how essential it is to identify with your protagonists on the screen in order to feel empathy.

I don't mind seeing labia all over the screen - there just has to be a REASON. It's the fine border between noise and music, scribbles and art.