09.30.07
Posted in Film Review, Film analysis at 1:30 pm by Administrator
I have a simple theory when it comes to most Hollywood comedies, if the critics shower a particular film with golden showers of praise I tend to stay away. What critics tend to find humorous usually involves a lot of what I like to all “non-jokes”. A non-joke is something that really isn’t funny but if you remain silent long enough after you say it people start to laugh. Knocked Up is one such film, sure their a few unexpected jokes here and there, but for the most part I thin it proves that what you say when you hang around with your buddies is really just funny to you and doesn’t belong in a major motion picture. But if that were the worst of it I wouldn’t even be writing this review, Knocked Up sends a very dangerous message to its viewer. One that had my head rolling every minute or so as these two morons on screen seemed to come right out of the 1950’s.
First up to bat, Alison, a successful young woman, independent, and works for E entertainment news. She’s given a chance to even star in her own show which is most anyone’s dream who works in that industry. On the other side of the coin you have Ben, probably didn’t graduate college, sits at home doing nothing, and his dream is to open up a web site where you can find how far into a film your favorite actress shows her boobs. These two would only get together in one way, the super drunken one night stand, that part the film gets right. The part that it gets wrong is that someone in Alison’s position never would have kept that baby. The film lightly mentions abortion as an option and it’s immediately shrugged aside as if the Christian coalition busted in and forced it out of the script. Am I crazy or was that truly the best option in this situation? Ben is a loser, a stranger, and she’s going to destroy her career to have his child? Maybe this film was funnier then I thought, or maybe we traveled back in time when women had to use coat hangers because the law told them they didn’t have a choice.
Next up on the list, now that Alison is properly knocked up as the title promises, she not only decides to keep the baby but once again she travels back in time to learn that now she must force herself to love the man who got her pregnant. WHOA! That’s the biggest mistake 99% of couples make, assuming that pregnancy ties you down to someone you don’t love, don’t like, and never would have married if that baby wasn’t part of the equation. Couples that that marry for this reason always end up hating each other and having miserable marriages. Instead of debunking these myths Knocked Up decides to reinforce this fairy tale that the person you don’t love, well you can learn to love them, and even better you can change them.
I just didn’t buy anything these characters said or did, not in this day and age. Maybe if at the beginning they told us the film was taking place many many years ago. In the end you got this baby, parents who will probably just end up divorcing each other, or parents that stay together to be miserable just for the sake of this poor little baby who was born into this terrible mess.
2/5
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09.21.07
Posted in Film Review at 1:58 pm by Administrator
David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen are a match made in cinema heaven. David’s masterful treatment of tension, mood, and pacing are perfectly paired with Viggo’s strict dedication, discipline, and attention to detail. What these two create when placed in the same room is a melting of forms and ideas that dig deep beneath the skin of the characters. Although it’s very clear these days that Cronenberg is far more interested in the inner workings of the mind then his past fascination with all that lay inside of human flesh.
Easter Promises is unfortunately what you come to expect from the mob genre. This time we are treated to the inner workings of the Russian mob. Naomi Watts is a midwife who investigates the identity of a pregnant girl who dies in her hospital leaving behind a child and a diary written entirely in Russian. Unfortunately Ms. Watts is rather wasted on this very straightforward role and hardly gets any chance to show her acting chops due to being criminally underwritten in favor of more scenes of Viggo and the mob dealing with family business. One thing is certain this is Viggo’s film and he takes the leading man role as if he’s been doing it his entire life. Whatever you thought of him as Aragorn in Lord of the Rings melts away into this foreigner with a perfect Russian accent and even when he speaks in the language it sounds as natural as his English. His commitment to his roles is almost unmatched as you feel a real sense of dedication to fully portraying the inner workings of his character, a chauffer who seeks to rise in the ranks as he deals with the bosses incompetent son and is hired to make sure the secrets of the girls diary never reach the desk of Scotland yard.
The Direction is tight and never meanders off topic for but a moment or two to explore the separate worlds of our two main characters. What never allows the film to truly excel to greatness is a story that never feels quite like it was ever truly worth telling. Instead the end of the film felt like the beginning of an even more interesting tale that will probably never be told. Cronenberg has a knack for always making you want more and this film seems to hold onto a couple of aces that he refuses to lay on the table. The film deals in some ways with the bigotry still found in very closed-off cultural neighborhoods. The infamous bathroom fight feels almost prehistoric in nature and does feed the film with a much needed center piece bringing all of the built up tension to fruition.
It ultimately feels very much like an extension of A History of Violence, sharing many similar themes and would make for a perfect double feature with this one. Unlike its bigger, wiser, older brother Eastern Promises lacks a lot of what made AHOV far more effective and complete. I wonder if Cronenberg will continue down this path in his career because a part of me misses his far more outlandish over the top masterpieces, but he’s made so many that he’s allowed to do anything he wants at this point. Eastern Promises is worth watching for fans of either Viggo or David but anyone else may feel short handed by the thin plot and abrupt ending.
3/5
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09.18.07
Posted in Film Review at 1:08 pm by Administrator
A musical is a tough cookie to crack because if you’re not into the music being played it is far more difficult to care about what the characters are saying and doing (Dream Girls). Other times the music is excellent but everything else feels drab and uninspired (Chicago). While those are two examples of Hollywood adapting existing musicals to the big screen the other school of thought on this genre is to take pop music and build a musical from pre-existing compositions. Moulin Rouge is the film that perfected this method and since then we’ve had to watch Broadway take a good idea and run it into the ground. Once again Hollywood takes another stab at it with far less success than the Baz Luhrman effort.
As you must have heard Across the Universe is composed entirely of about 30 Beatles songs. In the midst of this collection of greatest hits we follow several characters through a path that will…good lord I can’t even bring myself to finish that synopsis, lets face it this movie has been done a million times before, boy from London comes to NY, meets girl, loses girl, and gets girl back. Knowing full well that this plot thread is weaker then an old man’s bladder they throw in a full cast of characters that you will never care about, including a Janis Joplin sound alike, a Jimmy Hendrix look alike, and a small stab at a homosexual version of Yoko Ono. Julie Taymor is a director I respect, her visual style is unmatched and Frida is one of the most under rated films out there. So what could have gone so horribly wrong?
What brings down this house of cards is that they built a movie around 30 Beatles songs, instead of crafting the music around the film and characters. The film struts around thinking to itself how clever it must be, characters named Jude, Prudence, and Lucy should make any Beatles fan think they are real smart for figuring out that those are all taken from popular songs. The Hippie years are once again idealized to myth status, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before already. Even worse is that this film contains some of the worst covers of certain Beatles songs I have ever heard. Their take on “I want to hold your hand” makes me want to break mine so that the film not dare touch it. I will admit their are a few tracks that I did enjoy, mostly because the film leaves them mostly unchanged. Bono stands out with an awesome take on “I am the Walrus” and the film version of “Because” is left to its original sound so it remains a complete joy to my ears.
The performances are standard but Jim Sturgess (Jude) is no Ewan Mcgregor and Evan Rachel Wood (Lucy) is far from being Nicole Kidman. Jude in the film is very much Paul McCartney; the hopeless romantic. Still one of the most obvious elements is that you’d guess his buddy Max, played by Joe Anderson, is supposed to be John Lennon, instead I wonder what Kurt Cobain is doing in a film about the Beatles because that’s exactly who he looks and acts like, none of Lennon’s depressed idealism shines in him. Instead its mindless rebellion that drives his character for most of the film before he is shipped off to Vietnam.
You’re better off purchasing a greatest hits collection and listening to it if you really want to hear the timeless music of the Beatles. Why suffer through two hours of this drab lifeless bile to get to the center of a tootsie pop?
Across the Universe – 2/5
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Posted in DVD Tuesday, Film analysis at 12:29 pm by Administrator
This week The Weinstein’s are single handedly going to sell you half of a movie for the full-suggested retail price of your average DVD. I understand that they were foolish enough to release a three hour R rated movie on Easter weekend but in a mad rush to get back a lot of lost money they are splitting up the two films that make up Grindhouse to sell extended cuts of each film separately. This film was made up of two movies, one directed by Robert Rodriguez, titled, Planet Terror, and the other made by Quentin Tarantino, Death Proof. Both movies are an homage to the 70’s exploitation cinema where you could see two terrible movies for the price of one. Fortunately this time around they offered two good movies that made up one great movie-going experience.
What starts to become painfully obvious when watching Death Proof on its own is that without Planet Terror’s over the top excitement this movie cannot really stand on its own two legs. What was once forgivable is now incredibly cringe inducing. Tarantino needs to cut back on the self-referential dialogue. I am tired of him name-dropping movies just so that he can snub his nose at the very audience who paid to see his movie. What really hurts Death Proof is the second set of girls who are loud-mouthed caricatures. You see I was able to look over these faults when I could think of Death Proof as half of one awesome movie. Planet Terror is looked down upon simply because it has more gore and less talk, if you ask me I’d take that over Death Proof’s asinine conversations any day, especially when all of that talk ultimately adds up to nothing.
My recommendation is to wait until the Weinstein’s release both films as they were originally intended to be watched; as one three hour experience where one film compliments the other. After the 90 minutes of bullets and blood I welcomed QT’s far more relaxed pacing and slow build up to the car chase scenes. Now you must sit and wonder why Zoe Bell thinks squinting is acting or how many times one black character can say “bitch
Grindhouse: Death Proof – 2/5
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09.13.07
Posted in Film Review at 2:10 pm by Administrator
Sorry for the lack of updates these past few weeks. Things will be picking up real soon, the free screenings are all starting to come rushing in so I’ll try and keep up with my advanced reviews. In the mean time I got the chance to watch a small film from Korea that I thought you might enjoy.
Chan Wook Park, director of Old Boy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, has ended his vengeance trilogy with a bang, and many of his fans have wondered what could be next for this break out director? He’s followed his bloody, violent, and sometimes disturbing trilogy with a far more light hearted affair that is merely sprinkled with the red goo he loves so much. I do him a great disservice to merely label his films as violent spectacles; instead they are truly deep meditations on the motivations behind violent acts. What would drive a normal person to such unbearable ends? Having explored this topic in various situations at length he now instead turns to the human mind to decipher what causes normal people to lose their grasp on reality?
If nothing else Chan Wook Park retains his visual flair from Lady Vengeance. His color palette has certainly been expanded as his films became a bit more colorful with each one and now he’s splashed the screen with bright whites, deep reds, and a cast of characters who almost excrete just as much vibrancy from their performances. The film follows Cha Young-goon, a seemingly normal girl who works in a factory doing mindless, repetitive, drone-like work. One day she reveals to her mother, whom also suffers from mental illness, that she is indeed a robot and after attempting to plug herself into an electrical socket is admitted into a Psychiatric facility. There she meets Park Il-sun, a man whom all the patients believe has the ability to steal various aspects of ones personality.
Still with me? What may sound like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest becomes a far more spirited affair that’s light on the drama, heavy on the humor, and does all but take itself too seriously. Its a love story of sorts between our two misguided leads, soon they discover a mutual relationship. She wants her last human traits stolen, but he can only steal them if she will be upset if they are gone. Both characters are revealed to have past situations that may have led them to their current state of minds. The initial cartoonish nature of the hospital was a real downer for me especially since I find very little funny about mental illness and at times the films deals a little too simply with why they behave the way they do.
Still their is much to enjoy as the film dares to go into a bizarre plot that finds Yoon Goon determined to kill the entire nursing staff at the hospital and return some dentures to her sick grand mother who is being held at another hospital, also for mental problems. The film taps lightly around a family history of severe mental illness but its hardly worth exploring since he makes it so obvious. After an hour the film finally focuses simply on the two would-be lovers, it at last finds a place that’s far more comfortable, compassionate, and yes more real than this hospital full of excentric loonies. It’s a must-see for fans of Park’s previous work and I applauded the different direction he’s decided to take with this film. It may not work all the time but when it finally settles into its own groove the last thirty minutes were a complete joy to watch. Perhaps that is what saves this film from remaining in a limbo world where it was neither terrible nor great, but now it safely stands as a good film for all intensive purposes. You can find this one on ebay or playasia.com.
I’m a Cyborg, but that’s okay – 3.5/5
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