Iro's One Movie a Day Thread [Archive] - Page 5

Iroquois

07-08-15, 12:13 AM

#421 - The Notebook
Nick Cassavetes, 2004

https://d12vb6dvkz909q.cloudfront.net/uploads/galleries/27625/the-notebook-2.jpg

An old man reads an old woman the story of a young man and woman who meet and fall in love in the summer of 1940.

The Notebook has earned a somewhat unfortunate reputation in the years following its release. The common joke about the film is that women will force their male significant others to watch it presumably so that they can learn a few lessons from the extremely idealised love-conquers-all relationship that forms between its charming and attractive leads. This much is especially true considering how male lead Ryan Gosling's love for female lead Rachel McAdams manifests itself in such grand romantic gestures as building her dream house single-handedly or writing a letter to her every day for a year. A rather reductive joke, no doubt, but one that loomed in my mind even when I did have one woman (not my girlfriend) suggest that we watch it together. I declined at the time, instead deciding that the appropriate thing to do would be to watch it on my own since it was available on Netflix. At least that way I'd be able to resist making constant jokes about it and possibly annoying someone, because even the scenes that were supposed to tug heartstrings one way or the other were more likely to make me chuckle with amusement rather than make me feel sad or uplifted.

One could argue that the story is as generic as they come, with its tale of a poor boy and a rich girl having a tempestuous summer fling that is naturally interfered with by all manner of unfortunate circumstances (disapproving parents, the girl moving away to college, the onset of World War II, etc.) and how, despite their many arguments and fluctuating feelings towards one another, they still love each other. This goes on for a while and is intermittently broken up by the framing story involving two residents of a nursing home as one (James Garner) reads a book (presumably the titular notebook) containing the story to the other (Gena Rowlands). This totally doesn't end up being relevant in a way that you can guess from the very first scene. Otherwise, it's extremely standard stuff that isn't totally without its charm but doesn't exactly pull off anything surprising or captivating. There's also something to be said about how much of Gosling's behaviour towards McAdams could be considered creepy and manipulative rather than genuinely romantic (his first attempt to ask her out involves him threatening to jump off a ferris wheel in front of her and her actual date, after all). Despite how easy it would be to hate this film, it's still far from the worst way to pass a couple of hours, but it's still a derisive chore of a film underneath its modern-day take on period-piece melodrama.

1.5

cricket

07-09-15, 09:31 AM

Sanjuro is also my least favorite out of the Kurosawa movies I've seen, but like you said, that certainly doesn't make it a bad film.

Iroquois

07-09-15, 01:30 PM

#422 - The Last Airbender
M. Night Shyamalan, 2010

http://electronmagazine.com/content/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/the-last-airbender-movie.jpg

In a fantastic world where people are capable of manipulating the four elements, a young boy is awoken in accordance with an ancient prophecy in order to lead the fight against an oppressive regime.

It's always an interesting experience watching a film that has managed to earn a reputation as one of the worst films ever made even in the relatively short period of time that this one did. If it doesn't meet your extremely low expectations, does that logically make it a "better" film or does the disappointment at this relevation actually end up proving that this is a genuinely bad film? Thinking about that will make your head hurt about as much as it hurts to watch The Last Airbender. Though I had never actually watched a single episode of source material Avatar: The Last Airbender, I had to admit that the premise was an intriguing one and so, for a time, I was prepared to give the film the benefit of the doubt. Said benefit did not last long as the story (which apparently attempts to condense an entire season worth of the TV show into a 100-minute film) quickly gets submerged under a cavalcade of extremely lacklustre performances, effects work of haphazard quality, and tiresome narrative developments. It's an interesting enough concept, if a little familiar - the four elements of earth, fire, air, and water (but not heart) can all be manipulated or "bended" by certain members of the world's populations, with each of the fantasy land's tribes identified by a single element (Water Tribe, Air Tribe, etc.). There is a prophecy about a constantly reincarnated hero called the Avatar who can bend all four elements, but the Avatar is missing in action - it turns out that he's been frozen in ice for a century and so ends up being revived around the same time that the Fire Nation is ruling the other tribes with an iron fist.

What stands out about The Last Airbender is that it isn't genuinely offensive (apart from the apparent whitewashing of the heroic characters, which is especially egregious considering how many of the villains are still the same people of colour that they were in the show), but it does waste a lot of its story's potential in its telling, often through including narration over things we can clearly see happening on-screen in a way that does seem to insult one's intelligence. Even when the film establishes some relatively complex characters like Prince Zuko (Dev Patel) as a disgraced villain trying to reclaim his honour, they still get flat performances that effectively cancel out any characterisation (and the less said about the romantic sub-plot that gets shoehorned into the film's second half, the better). Some of that can be credited that quite a few of the principal characters are played by children, but even that doesn't feel like a good enough excuse at times. Though the film's art direction and production design is generally alright, it's undone by the poorness of the computer-generated effects. This applies to both the decent-quality effects that are used to depict ridiculous-looking things, such as the various acts of "bending", or the genuinely bad effects, such as the Falkor-like creature that the characters ride throughout the film or some very noticeable instances of green-screen. It's a shame, because there is some half-decent camerawork in the action sequences, but that's also cancelled out by just how horrendous some of the non-action camerawork is (there are some notably awkward-looking close-ups involved).

The Last Airbender is definitely not a good movie, but its reputation as one of the worst films of all-time does it a very slight disservice. Every possible positive I could name would still come across as damning with faint praise and it's still an extremely half-baked waste of a good story, but I feel strangely mellow about it. I figure the worst of the worst should at least invoke some degree of anger at the fact that such a thing exists and that I wasted my time on it. Not even the fact that this film not only cost $150 million to make but also turned a profit seems to be doing that for me. Even so, just because I don't get completely annoyed by its existence doesn't excuse its many shortcomings. I'm not sure if I'll ever pick a completely satisfactory rating for this film - I'm constantly tossing up between half a box and one box and will probably change my mind again even after I post this - but I guess for now I'll grant it the infamy it deserves. As far as 0.5 films go, at least it's not the most irritating one.

0.5

Gatsby

07-10-15, 03:38 AM

The Last Airbender is my least favorite movie of all time. I give it a 0-. If there is ever a MoFo Bottom 100, Shamalamadingdong's piece of absolute crap that sh*ts directly on a animated series I love, will be number one on my list.

The Gunslinger45

07-10-15, 09:44 AM

I have watched the show, and refuse to watch this movie.

Iroquois

07-10-15, 10:55 AM

#423 - Black Dynamite
Scott Sanders, 2009

http://i.imgur.com/diugYdz.jpg

Black Dynamite, a former commando and CIA agent turned kung-fu pimp, vows to take on the local drug syndicate responsible for the death of his brother.

This (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=553587#post553587) is the write-up I did on Black Dynamite in 2009 after seeing it in a packed cinema that laughed itself silly at this pitch-perfect parody of the blaxploitation genre and made for one of my most enjoyable cinematic experiences of the year. However, this is my first time watching it since that time and the experience of watching it on DVD by myself doesn't recapture the exact same level of magic. Even so, Black Dynamite is a fine example of how to do a genre parody, especially since it attempts to recreate the objectively terrible nature of a lot of low-rent blaxploitation films (the obvious point of reference being Dolemite more so than Shaft). It's anchored by Michael Jai White as the eponymous anti-hero, who manages the ideal blend of natural charisma, deliberately bad acting, and action-star prowess to the character. He is surrounded by a number of recognisable and not-so-recognisable faces to play allies and enemies alike, all of whom commit just the right amount of ability to their parts (which isn't difficult).

https://38.media.tumblr.com/ea59ef4a10885debf77b49e8a725a0d7/tumblr_nhph3gHaYN1rdb6zlo1_500.gif

Even if you have no real familiarity with the films that Black Dynamite is parodying, it's not hard to find something of worth with its constant barrage of gags. If there are any flaws that prevent this from being a genuinely great film, it's that it does struggle a bit to keep a consistently engaging plot, so much so that it seems to invent an entirely new one for its third act. It's also something of a shame that there aren't really any references to Pam Grier vehicles like Coffy or Foxy Brown; there is a character who appears to be modelled on Grier but she more or less gets relegated to being Black Dynamite's sharp-tongued love interest. The humour is an appropriate mix of verbal and physical that also invokes a lot of gags involving the low-rent production value of actual blaxploitation films, whether it's visible boom-mics or bad editing or ludicrous plot developments. It even goes so far as to feature a "message" in centring its tale around the debilitating influx of drugs into the black community (especially into the local orphanages) that starts off sounding halfway reasonable and goes into amusingly off-the-wall territory during the third act. The score is also a well-done parody of Curtis Mayfield's songs for Superfly that consist of funky jams with expositional lyrics, plus the "Dy-Na-Mite! Dy-Na-Mite!" is always used to maximum effect. While I don't love it as much as I did when I first saw it, I still recommend it to people who are looking for good parody and comedy that deftly dances on the fine line between clever and vulgar.

3.5

P.S.

"HA! I threw that sh*t before I walked in the room!"

honeykid

07-10-15, 11:25 AM

As you know I adore this film. Probably the only film I'd add to my 100 atm were I to do it again. I would've added it then, but I hadn't seen it enough to qualify.

BTW, that line still cracks me up just thinking about it. :D

Iroquois

07-10-15, 12:32 PM

#424 - The Color Purple
Steven Spielberg, 1985

http://movie.info/mh/The-Color-Purple-1985.jpg

During the first half of the 20th century, a young African-American woman must contend with a series of traumatising and difficult circumstances.

The Color Purple is probably the first example of Spielberg's first major attempt to craft the kind of long-form period-piece epic that would soon come to define him just as much as the crowd-pleasing yet creative blockbusters with which he first build his reputation. As a result, I have somewhat mixed feelings about it. It's got an interesting enough story in that its cast consists primarily of black characters yet for the most part it doesn't explore the racial tension that exists between them and white characters (though that doesn't mean it ignores it completely). Instead, the story focuses on one woman (played by Whoopi Goldberg as an adult) as she undergoes all sorts of harsh situations - as if starting the film having children borne of parental incest be forcibly taken away from her, things then get worse as she is married off to an abusive widower (Danny Glover). Though she does occasionally get support from other women, such as her tempestuous stepdaughter-in-law (Oprah Winfrey) or an old friend turned nightclub singer (Margaret Avery), she still frequently has to endure some horrendous hardships at Glover's hands.

It's always difficult to appreciate a film that's basically about watching one character's near-constant suffering because it runs the risk of growing monotonous. Though the performances are generally decent, the story underneath them is little more than a cavalcade of miseries interspersed with the occasional lighter moment. These often involving the protagonist temporarily escaping their circumstances or focus on another character of greater endurance standing up to injustice in a way that the protagonist just can't (the prime example is Winfrey's character, whose mainly serves as a stronger and more independent foil to Goldberg's extremely meek housewife). It does make it a little difficult to sit through two-and-a-half hours of this, even if it does have a decently reconstructed and photographed period-piece vibe to observe. Quincy Jones' score seems like it'd make a change from regular Spielberg collaborator John Williams, but it ultimately sounds nearly indistinguishable from your typical Williams score. The Color Purple is sporadically interesting thanks to its concept and actors, but underneath its troubling subject matter it's still a somewhat hollow and repetitive film. It's far from the worst film Spielberg ever did, but I think one viewing was probably all that was necessary.

2.5

Iroquois

07-10-15, 01:14 PM

#425 - The African Queen
John Huston, 1951

http://www.thestate.com/incoming/h485nc/picture13713659/ALTERNATES/FREE_960/gJOSb.So.74.jpeg

During the outbreak of World War I, a missionary and a steamboat captain join forces in other to survive both the African wilderness and the German military.

Considering how good John Huston's previous collaborations with Humphrey Bogart have tended to be (if nothing else, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is an undeniable classic), seeing the two of them move to Technicolor and attempt to up the scale of their adventures should be rather promising. The African Queen does up the scale by taking place in Africa and involving a decidedly adventurous tale involving two occupants of a steamboat being forced to contend with multiple challenges along their journey. Bogart won an Oscar for his turn as a Canadian steamboat captain whose easygoing attitude masks a considerable issue with alcoholism, which often manifests through his belligerent interaction with the equally snarky Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn's sharp mannerisms and acid-tongued delivery shine through even when she is playing one half of a brother-and-sister team of British missionaries whose attempt to educate the locals is brought to a tragic end by the German invasion. To this end, she team up with Bogart's listless captain in order to not only survive the dangers presented by their natural environment such as whitewater rapids or leeches but also to possibly take some revenge on the Germans by explosive means.

Visually, The African Queen is okay even though there are far too many instances of noticeable rear-projection (I know it was the Fifties but the outlines surrounding characters are not only visible, which I can accept, but also bright green) and a somewhat meandering plot that seems to come across as a screwball comedy that plays at being a wartime drama. Bogart and Hepburn are talented enough to carry it off just fine, which is just as well considering how often they are the only ones on screen. Things breeze along at a rollicking pace, but it still feels oddly inconsequential despite the apparent stakes for its leads. The ending is also a credit to a film that's this old and well-acclaimed. All things considered, The African Queen is decent enough, but Huston, Bogart, and Hepburn have all done considerably better.

3

Iroquois

07-10-15, 03:23 PM

#426 - Eden Lake
James Watkins, 2008

http://cdn1-www.shocktillyoudrop.com/assets/uploads/gallery/eden-lake_6131/Eden_Lake_13_20111212_7376533059.jpg

An urbane English couple decide to take a holiday in the countryside but soon have to contend with a gang of vicious delinquents.

In a lot of ways, Eden Lake reminds me of a film I reviewed earlier this year - Harry Brown. Both films are set in England, both feature Jack O'Connell as a gang member, and - perhaps most importantly - both of them belong to sub-genres that I don't seem to have the most patience for. While Harry Brown was firmly rooted in the vigilante sub-genre of action thrillers, Eden Lake makes a good case for belonging to the sadistic horror sub-genre, which I've often disliked because it sacrifices a lot of what I enjoy about films (compelling narrative, good characterisation, impressive visuals) for the sake of cheap gore that substitutes genuine thrills with shock and disgust. The plot is as basic as they come - a boyfriend (Michael Fassbender) and girlfriend (Kelly Reilly) have decided to take a holiday for the weekend and so venture into the countryside. Of course, circumstances result in the two of them having a conflict with a gang of youths (led by O'Connell) that starts off as a dispute over a loud boombox and soon escalates into a genuinely violent conflict as the unlucky couple are forced to fend for themselves in the middle of a very hostile environment.

At this point, it's a legitimate question as to why I'd even bother watching a film like this, and I guess my defence would be that I was trying to fit in a full never-before-seen movie into my day and this was merely the shortest one I could decide on that late in the day. Unfortunately, it lacks just about everything that I enjoy about horror movies as well. The film tries for a sort of moral ambiguity by attempting to frame its villains as a largely misunderstood group of teenagers who are driven to violence by both their backgrounds and the couple's intrusion; even then, there are quite a few members of the gang that are clearly uncomfortable with the violence being perpetrated against the two leads by a couple of ringleader types. Conversely, the film also tries to frame said couple as some rather elitist inner-city types whose reversion to violence is mired in disdain for rural types as much as in a desperate need to survive. Of course, striking this balance is difficult even at the best of times and this film definitely doesn't signify the best of times. The realistic setting also means that the violence is vicious without being inventive and so does not leave that much of an impression.

Eden Lake does attempt to redeem its rather pedestrian body with an ending that is somewhat shocking, but it definitely isn't enough and instead only serves as yet another reason to feel like this film was a fundamental waste of time. At best, it lacks innovation and is good for a few easily crafted bits of gore or suspense. At worst, it tries and fails to be more complex than it actually is and its finale is just the last nail in the coffin for an otherwise nasty little film. I should credit it for at least trying to introduce some flexible morality that takes it beyond the sort of us-versus-them mentality that normally defines a film like this for the worse, but instead it just inspires a severe sense of apathy that goes to extreme levels considering the grossly realistic violence that's involved. Said apathy is not aided by how the film also takes credible actors and reduces them to boring stereotypes so that it's even harder to care about what happens one way or the other. All in all, a very disappointing excuse for a horror film.

0.5

Sane

07-10-15, 04:25 PM

Iroquois

07-11-15, 11:15 AM

Eden Lake was very good. Whilst it's not as uncommon as it used to be it's nice to see a horror movie with a strong female protagonist. Also, the "evil" not actually being evil but being a relatively normal group of teenagers was very effective. It did a very good job of looking at various issues surrounding youth in a horror context and whilst anyone can see the ending coming a mile away it was still very well handled.

It was a nice change to see a thoughtful, thematically interesting horror movie rather than all the bland, generic ghost movies that seem to be all we get lately IMO.

This post got more +rep than my review? Ouch (for me, not you).

I grant I was probably a little harsh on it as far as the rating went, but just because it attempts to do something a little more thematically complex than your typical backwoods slasher doesn't automatically make it an overall success. I did note that the moral ambiguity was present but it's debatable as to how well it was executed. Though the "heroes" were obviously flawed people (especially considering the lengths to which Reilly was willing to go to guarantee her survival, which disturbed even her), the fact that the main antagonist gets a last-minute Freudian excuse to explain his behaviour feels like a cop-out more than anything, especially since it proves the main justification for why he forcibly rallies his group to take part in vengeful torture. It still doesn't compensate for the otherwise underwhelming thriller that makes up the rest of the film, though.

Iroquois

07-11-15, 11:22 AM

#427 - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Michael Bay, 2009

http://d29jbctdwr34u9.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/TF2.jpg

Two years after the events of the first Transformers film, the principal characters are roped into a conflict involving another evil Transformer.

You know what? I have no excuse. As much as I may justifiably malign the films of Michael Bay in this thread, that should indicate that I would be better off notwatching his films, but no, I really had to know if his follow-up to the 2007 live-action Transformers film (which cracked my Worst 100 a few years back) really was as bad as I'd heard.Let's be honest, bad films are more often than not fascinating in ways that good films frequently aren't, even if it is for the wrong reasons. Bay in particular is an especially fascinating figure because his films tend to be complete fiascos yet he still turns them out and profits off them. Even The Rock, which is probably the only film he's ever done that could considered genuinely enjoyable, still had enough of his fingerprints to prevent it from being a truly great piece of '90s action cinema. I know that there's not that much reason to expect high art from a Hollywood film about giant alien robots fighting each other, but Bay and his collaborators somehow found a way to make such a premise incredibly tedious and irritating thanks in no small part to its bloated running time and poor characterisation. In trying to provide a whole new experience beyond the Transformers' origin story, Revenge... could either improve on its predecessor's flaws or exacerbate them considerably. It's not hard to guess which of those two outcomes actually happened.

Revenge... once again relies on the heroic Autobots and villainous Decepticons fighting over an ancient MacGuffin, this time with the introduction of another evil Transformer known simply as "the Fallen" who wishes to find and harness the MacGuffin in order to destroy Earth. Naturally, the film finds an extremely contrived way in which to re-introduce a lot of the same human characters from the first film, most notably the gormless teenager (Shia LaBeouf) who just wants to be able to go off to college and live a normal life with his mechanic girlfriend (Megan Fox) but soon finds himself being targeted by good and evil robots once again. This is where Bay's worst narrative tendencies take over as he wastes so much time on incredibly frustrating comedic sequences, whether it's Rainn Wilson's cameo as a lecherous professor or the protagonist's mother accidentally ingesting pot brownies. There's also an all-too-familiar bit of romantic confusion involving the appearance of a young woman (Isabel Lucas) whose true nature as a Decepticon comes as no surprise given that her acting is so robotic that it makes Kristanna Loken seem like Meryl Streep. The less said about the continued inclusion of LaBeouf's character's parents and the two soldiers (Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson), the better - Gibson's presence in particular seems incredibly forced considering that he only exists to spout snappy one-liners, all of which land with the dullest of thuds. That's without getting into the characters who are clearly intended to be comic relief, whether it's John Turturro's long-suffering ex-government agent or the two goofy robots who definitely earn their reputations for being awfully racist-sounding stereotypes (the fact that at least one of them is voiced by Tom Kenny only serves to make me think of SpongeBob, which is extremely distracting considering what the ).

Even if you were to push all that out of your mind and focus on the part of the film that actually involves Transformers, it's still an absolute travesty. Given the director, there's understandably a lot of wanton destruction and explosions, which I guess is okay enough. However, the extremely complex and barely-distinguishable designs of the Transformers (which obscure the bright colours of the transformed exteriors with massive chunks of extremely detailed but blandly grey-and-silver machinery) combine with their heavily filtered vocals and slim characterisation to make it harder to distinguish between the heroes and villains. This ends up diluting the stakes and excitement that such scenes should offer simply because of how difficult it is to keep track. Even when the film takes time to have characters deliver large clumps of exposition and allow you better looks at the robotic characters, it does little to clarify much of what's going on. I may have given out a couple of 0.5 ratings recently, but in light of having seen Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen I'm starting to remember exactly why, despite my reputation for being a harsh critic, I give out relatively few 0.5 ratings. I use that as the absolute low end of my scale and usually try to make sure that a film thoroughly deserves to be placed there. Revenge... ends up being the kind of film against which I tend to measure whether or not a film truly deserves the lowest of the low. It is a prime example (no pun intended) of Hollywood excess at its absolute worst, to the point that even the big-budget disaster of The Last Airbender seems like a brief and inoffensive alternative in comparison.

0.5

Iroquois

07-11-15, 12:47 PM

#428 - A Day at the Races
Sam Wood, 1937

http://www.alifeatthemovies.com/images/2010/09/day-at-the-races1.jpg

A young woman is forced to enrol the help of a trio of oddballs in order to make the money necessary to save her sanitarium using a racehorse.

Duck Soup was the first Marx Brothers film I ever saw, and I really liked it because it condensed all the brothers' strengths - Groucho's witty wordplay, Harpo's mute tomfoolery, and Chico being a capable foil for both of them - into a quick and easy film about a fake European country going to war. Unfortunately, every film of theirs I'd seen since then has felt like an example of diminishing returns. The schtick that had worked wonders the first time around started to seem oddly underwhelming to the point that I've given up expecting any of their films to live up to the high standards set by Duck Soup. A Day at the Races is no exception in this regard as it indulges a lot of the lesser facets of a Marx Brothers film. The plot is familiar enough; it involves a young woman trying to save her sanitarium by any means necessary, including hiring a doctor (Groucho) at the insistence of her wealthiest patient - this is despite the fact that Groucho is actually a vet, which he hides in order to maintain his employment. The plan to save the sanitarium involves a desperate ploy involving her boyfriend's newly-acquired racehorse and the local racetrack, which naturally involves a snobs-against-slobs struggle as Groucho, aided by a scam artist (Chico) and a jockey (Harpo), must work against a variety of stuffy authoritarian types in order to save the day.

One of the main problems that distinguishes A Day at the Races is that it's far too long. It clocks in at almost two hours in length (over half an hour longer than Duck Soup), most of which is because of extremely extraneous musical numbers. Granted, every Marx Brothers films has had them but they've never felt as much like dead weight as they have in this movie (one extremely lengthy musical sequence takes place in an African-American section of town and involves the brothers using blackface in an attempt to hide from their enemies, which is awfully distracting on several levels). Length notwithstanding, it's not hard to feel like there aren't any interesting variations on the brothers' own particular gimmicks, which are somewhat clever but don't inspire any laughter. Every time I watch a new Marx Brothers movie and find it wanting, I worry that I'll revisit Duck Soup and have a similarly underwhelmed reaction. It's a shame because I can definitely respect their contribution to modern comedy but I'm disappointed that their actual work doesn't do a whole lot for me nowadays.

2.5

honeykid

07-11-15, 01:08 PM

Maybe the problem is that you started at the top? I know there are dissenters, I used to be one of them as I had Horse Feathers are my favourite Marx Bros. film, but after few repeat viewings of both I crossed the floor to the Soupers.

Iroquois

07-11-15, 01:39 PM

Quite possibly, though I suspect that the reason Duck Soup is considred the best in the first place is because it avoids the same sort of excess that ultimately hinders other films, such as the fact that the A-plot doesn't involve a young pretty couple where one or both of the members are singers that do perform during the film, which I've found is a common factor in every Marx Brothers films I've seen that wasn't Duck Soup.

Iroquois

07-11-15, 01:40 PM

#429 - Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion
Shunya Ito, 1972

https://hopeliesat24framespersecond.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/prisoner701scorpion3.jpg

Focuses on the eponymous inmate of a women's prison as she forms an escape plan in order to exact revenge upon the people who got her imprisoned.

Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion blends together two popular exploitation sub-genres - "women in prison" and "rape-and-revenge" - in order to provide a film that is nasty, brutish, and short. Given those sub-genres I mentioned, it's obviously not a pleasant movie to watch even when its protagonist, who is first seen making a failed escape attempt with a fellow inmate, spends much of the first third of the movie being tortured by male guards and a vindictive inmate. Of course, it's not long before she starts getting her own back and causing trouble amongst the prison's general population. It's not like she doesn't have a good reason, as the whole reason she's in prison turns out to be the result of her attempt to murder her corrupt detective boyfriend after he not only uses her as bait in order to arrest drug dealers on rape charges but also works for a rival crime syndicate. At the very least, her cold and calculated approach to vengeance makes some sense, though one might wonder where she even acquired the skill to take down her enemies in the first place. It doesn't matter in a film like this, though - all you're watching for is some amusing and thrilling ways in which the heroine achieves her goals.

Unfortunately, the exploitation vibe does lean a little too hard towards the serious in its depictions of the horrors of a women's prison, with virtually all the sexual content involving rape in some capacity (even a scene late in the film involving male guards and female inmates). Of note is the blackly comic gag in which the protagonist manages to seduce an undercover cop posing as an inmate (which is so effective that it prompts said cop to react very unhappily to being re-assigned) that starts off as non-consensual and still feels ambiguous enough to be uncomfortable. At least the other types of physical violence are appropriately bizarre and ridiculous, such as another inmate attempting to murder the protagonist in the showers and being suddenly coated in demonic makeup in the process (just look at that header image). However, for a short film it certainly spends a lot of time on lengthy prison punishments such as solitary confinement or digging and refilling holes, which does feel like an attempt to pad out the film in between its shocking visual imagery. It does run out of steam a bit towards the end and still has too many harsh or boring scenes to be a truly enjoyable experience, but it does keep one's interest reasonably well despite its more problematic aspects.

2.5

Friendly Mushroom!

07-11-15, 10:43 PM

I never watched a single episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender

Why not? It's like one of my favorite things. I think you should give it a watch. I think you will enjoy it.

(I will never see :mnight:'s movie)

Friendly Mushroom!

07-11-15, 10:45 PM

I have watched the show, and refuse to watch this movie.

Speaking of which, have you watched Korra or read the comics yet? Its been a while since we talked about the Friendly Mushroom scene so I think you would be done with ATLA.

Edit- Also if you are done with ATLA, what did you think of the final season and what is/are your favorite episode(s)?

Iroquois

07-12-15, 01:22 AM

Why not? It's like one of my favorite things. I think you should give it a watch. I think you will enjoy it.

(I will never see :mnight:'s movie)

Mostly it's because of a lack of opportunity.

Zotis

07-12-15, 01:49 AM

Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion is a great movie.

honeykid

07-12-15, 11:32 AM

Really?

I'm with Iro on this one, even short it feels padded out, but maybe that's because I'm not a fan of either of the subgenres that are indulged in here. The 'women in prison' subgenre I find particularly boring more often than not and scenes of torture have never done anything for me either.

I'd recommend seeing the Lady Snowblood films if you've not already.

Friendly Mushroom!

07-12-15, 01:29 PM

Mostly it's because of a lack of opportunity.

I figured. :D

Iroquois

07-13-15, 04:44 AM

#430 - Audition
Takashi Miike, 1999

https://viewinggum.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/audition1.jpg

A middle-aged widower who works for a video production company decides to hold an "audition" in order to find himself a new wife.

It's probably just as well that the promotional artwork for Audition frequently emphasises the female lead with her cruelly vacant expression and a lengthy syringe held ever so casually in her gloved hand, otherwise it's possible to walk into the film thinking that it's going to be some off-beat dramedy about a widower looking for love through unconventional methods. I mean, just look at that logline, then look at that header image (or vice versa). Of course, the fact that the film effectively spoils itself before one even gets to sit down and watch it is most likely a deliberate choice by the filmmakers - even when one watches the film and starts to pick up on the subtle hints that all is not what it seems, it's not hard to jump to some rather extreme conclusions. The film is content to play the waiting game as it sets up its sad and tragicomic tale. The widowed father of a teenage boy is encouraged to get back out there and remarry, so his friend who works in video production suggests that they hold an audition for a film and select a suitable companion from one of the applicants who isn't talented enough to actually get the role (which is not an uncommon practice within the world of the film, apparently). Eventually, he decides on one young woman whose despondent prose draws him in and...

Well, to go into any further detail would naturally spoil things too much (though like I said, it's one of those films where you do have to spoil it a little when talking about it), but it's an effective slow-burn that, though it does venture into genuinely unsettling and disgusting territory, doesn't feel like the kind of gratuitous shock-value content that I've condemned other films for using in the past. The frequently unobtrusive technical style eventually gives way to sufficiently mind-bending choices of photography and editing that are enough to keep an audience on edge through the surprisingly unpredictable second half and all the way up until the closing credits roll. The second half guarantees that this will most definitely not be a film for sensitive viewers, but Audition surprisingly exercises a relative amount of restraint that only serves to make the film as a whole have that much more of an impact as a result. It's got considerable substance beyond its more graphic scenes, with many scenes taking a satirical view towards subjects such as gender roles, loneliness, and the entertainment industry. It's all carried by some solid actors who are able to pull off shallowness or depth as the characters and story require.

4

Derek Vinyard

07-13-15, 04:46 AM

This is a movie that I didn't really like the first time I watch it but then I rewatch it and like it a lot by the way very nice review Iro !

ash_is_the_gal

07-13-15, 10:47 AM

i have a question - are you watching movies from a list? like do you have a to-watch list you're drawing these from, or is it just kinda random/dependent on your mood? i've noticed you watch all different kinds of movies so i was suspecting that you were taking requests, ha

Iroquois

07-13-15, 10:54 AM

Iroquois

07-13-15, 11:35 AM

#431 - Margaret
Kenneth Lonergan, 2011

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YAVMr0762Dc/UOy_jWLDgJI/AAAAAAAAB24/X7dZhZCeaQ4/s1600/margaret.png.scaled1000.png

When a woman is struck and killed by a bus, the outcome affects the lives of several different characters.

The difficult path that Margaret took from its 2007 production to its 2011 release saw the film get whittled down from a five-hour rough cut to a more digestible two-and-a-half hours in time for its release. This development goes some way towards explaining why the final product comes across as an extremely disjointed attempt to build an elaborate ensemble drama, though it does little to excuse it. The plot unfolds when a high-school girl (Anna Paquin) distracts a bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) and causes him to run over a bystander (Allison Janney), leading to her immediate death. Though the film does appear to juggle a few different character strands, it focuses mainly on Paquin's character as she struggles with the guilt of having not only caused a fatal accident, whether it's through attempts to bury the pain through empty sexual encounters or by getting into heated arguments with multiple different characters. The moral dilemma eventually leads to her trying to launch a case against Ruffalo and the bus company for negligence, which drives much of what could be considered the A-plot.

Said A-plot almost gets buried under a film that tries to develop a number of different character arcs, most of which involve Paquin interacting with other principals (the exception would be the protagonist's mother dating a cultured European gentleman). Unfortunately, the moral dilemma that drives the film is too thin to hold up under such an unwieldy running time and results in a film that works on a scene-by-scene basis more so than as a sufficiently unified whole. There are decent actors in the mix as well, but they are never used to their full potential and can often feel redundant (the prime example being Matthew Broderick as a high school teacher and, to a lesser extent, Matt Damon as another teacher). Ironically, the most interesting scenes tend to be ones that have almost nothing to do with the actual development of the plot such as some tense high-school diatribes about subjects like Syria or King Lear. It's hard to know how much of Margaret's shortcomings can be credited to its troubled production and heavily edited end result, but based on what is seen here it's hard to imagine this film being significantly better at five hours long or even three hours long. Even within relatively intact sequences, the editing is noticeably choppy and threatens to completely derail the film. Every other technical aspect is unremarkable. The characters are flawed but rarely in an interesting way while the performers alternate between sleepwalking through their roles and melodramatic overacting. Even so, I'm not about to give this an especially horrible rating, if only because I really want to convince myself that it was worth watching. For the most part, though, it's not.

1.5

Iroquois

07-13-15, 12:19 PM

#432 - Creature from the Black Lagoon
Jack Arnold, 1954

http://ourgoldenage.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/GAC_CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon.jpg

An expedition into the heart of South America discovers a monstrous amphibian creature who intends to either capture or kill the explorers.

I haven't really tried all that hard to keep up with the various classic movie monsters from the first half of the 20th century. Creature from the Black Lagoon is a pretty lean and mean little movie that doesn't exactly reinvent the wheel but it doesn't make for the most engaging film of its type either. I'm not really sure how best to appreciate old-school horror movies either. Age should not be a significant barrier when it comes to judging classics, but one wonders whether or not this really deserves to be considered a classic beyond the iconic nature of its creature and title. It's not like it doesn't try to be a good movie as far as technique goes - the rubber suit used to bring the eponymous creature holds up relatively well for someone jaded by MST3K episodes featuring monster movies from the same era. The plot and characterisation, meanwhile, is about as passable as it gets without being truly terrible.

Given the time period, it's unsurprising that the film would rather try to pad out its extremely brief running time by drawing out the suspense, even if it is by rather ridiculous means (why yes, token pretty female character, take a leisurely swim in the mysterious Amazonian lagoon - even without the threat of a "gill-man", that still seems awfully hazardous). It gets some credit for its underwater photography and a decently conceived creature, but it's difficult to care a whole lot about the human cast beyond not particularly wanting them to get attacked by the creature. Not automatically terrible, but I'd have a hard time recommending it to people who didn't already have some interest in classic monster movies.

2

Iroquois

07-13-15, 01:16 PM

#433 - Anna Karenina
Clarence Brown, 1935

http://www.garboforever.com/Bilder/Film-Pic/Anna_Karenina/Anna_Karenina-052.jpg

In 19th-century Russia, a married aristocratic woman begins an affair with a dashing military officer.

The 1935 film version of Anna Karenina attempts to accomplish the impressive task of condensing hundreds of pages of Russian literature into a ninety-minute film, and it does so rather well. It features the screen presence of Greta Garbo as the eponymous heroine, though her uniquely pronounced accent only serves to draw attention to how most of the cast don't seem to bother affecting even remotely Russian accents (though maybe that's for the best). They deliver acceptable performances in the meantime and do a decent enough job bringing Tolstoy's dialogue to life. The same goes for the production design that does quite a good job of bringing the film's period setting to life.

Though I haven't finished reading the novel (I will someday), you don't have to have even started it in order to feel like there is something missing in such a lean adaptation. You get a good enough sense of the tragic love story that exists between Anna, Count Vronsky (Fredric March), and Count Karenin (Basil Rathbone) but a sense is basically all that can be provided in the space of ninety minutes as it covers all the basics of the plot with the use of decent enough actors. Anna Karenina is not a bad film, but it does really feel like the CliffsNotes version of the novel as it chops out entire sections of the book (such as the entire plot about Konstantin Levin, who is only glimpsed briefly in this film but has a much larger significance to the book) in order to tell a decent romance story. It's enjoyable enough, but it's not that great of a classic.

3

Iroquois

07-14-15, 09:35 AM

#434 - Going My Way
Leo McCarey, 1944

http://s.mcstatic.com/thumb/7799395/21113104/4/flash_player/0/1/going_my_way_1944_water_for_the_birds.jpg

A young and easy-going Irish Catholic priest is transferred to a new parish and comes into conflict with the strict old priest who already resides there.

It could be very easy to just hate Going My Way and its unapologetically sentimental tale that would help to lay the groundwork for decades of Oscar-bait to come, but as far as those particular types of film go, this one isn't exactly bad. A lot of that is due to the charming presence of Bing Crosby as the charismatic Father O'Malley, whose arrival into the local parish is almost too easy to predict. There's his being set up as a free-spirited alternative to the crusty old Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald), whose grouchy traditionalism makes him the closest thing this story has to an antagonist; even then, he still comes across as a somewhat likeable curmudgeon more so than a genuine villain. Due to the presence of such a talented singer as Crosby, the attempts to try to reform local delinquents and care for a runaway woman naturally come about in the form of musical numbers, which don't grate for the most part.

What could easily have descending into irritating fluff has just enough quality to it so as to be merely tolerable instead. The film does seem to know just how schmaltzy it can be and its self-awareness is a point in its favour, but self-awareness only goes so far when the film is padded with some generally average numbers. Crosby and Fitzgerald make for good actors who anchor the film reasonably well, though their abilities only go so far in otherwise passable company. There's enough charm so that you can't really hate it, but it isn't exactly spectacular either.

2.5

Iroquois

07-15-15, 08:58 AM

#435 - Taxi Driver
Martin Scorsese, 1976

http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/Taxi%20Driver%20pic2.png

A disgruntled ex-Marine starts working as a New York taxi driver to fight off insomnia, but his encounters with the population only serve to fuel his own mental instabilities.

I'm not sure when the last time I saw Taxi Driver was, but I've considered it a major favourite ever since I first saw it about a decade or so ago. It's interesting to see which films I loved back in the day have held up even now (and it'll be interesting to see what holds up ten years from now), and it's always interesting to see how the opinions change. Approaching Taxi Driver as a teenager, it was hard not to get taken in by the intimidating yet intriguing imagery surrounding the film, such as Robert de Niro's mohawked protagonist wielding multiple hand-cannons as he threatened to make good on his promise to rid New York of the scum of the earth. Of course, even as I watched the film then it wasn't hard to see that there was a lot more ambiguity to it than that, and subsequent viewings have only revealed a lot more (though there is the odd exception).

It almost goes without saying that a lot of what makes Taxi Driver a nigh-undeniable classic is due to the masterful performance by Robert de Niro as Travis Bickle, who initially garners an audience's sympathy as he struggles with unspecified mental problems (possibly as a result of being a Vietnam veteran) and frequent self-medication amidst a general sort of loneliness that is only exacerbated by the reactionary unfriendliness of many New Yorkers that he meets. Of course, there are enough incidents to convince an audience that just because he's clearly disturbed and wants to connect with people in some meaningful way doesn't mean that he doesn't go about in all the wrong ways and can stop being sympathetic; even his most ostensibly friendly encounters with Cybill Shepherd's idealistic campaign worker have a somewhat mean-spirited undercurrent of social ineptitude that makes his inevitable failure not seem like so much of a stretch.

While de Niro easily creates his most iconic role (if not his best) and often has to carry the film in isolation, the film still wouldn't be quite what it is without the considerable ensemble of characters that populate the rest of the film. Shepherd makes for a believable straight character and her interplay with Albert Brooks' snarky co-worker has little to do with the film's main plot yet is amusing enough to not feel like a distraction. Jodie Foster also does well at acting beyond her years as an underage sex worker, while Harvey Keitel delivers a brilliantly off-kilter performance as her pimp (and their one scene together might just be the most uncomfortable in a film riddled with uncomfortable scenes). Even bit parts such as the group of cabbies that Travis hangs out with (one of whom is memorably played by Peter Boyle) or a Secret Service agent still manage to make for memorable and well-performed characters, even if they do end up being little more than sounding boards for de Niro a fair chunk of the time.

As far as technique goes, the film looks amazing with its incredibly harsh neon-soaked aesthetic that tries to make New York look as dark and hellish as possible. Slow motion, smoothly gliding camera movements, editing that manages to be rather jagged at times but not without purpose, plus the washed-out film stock in the finale that attempts to dilute graphic violence but ends up coming across as a distinctive stylistic decision. There's the late great Bernard Herrmann's score that may be more than a little repetitive but its jazzy score that alternates between wistful saxophone and atonal orchestral bursts suits the movie just fine and it's hard to imagine anything else replacing it. Part of the reason that Taxi Driver has managed to stay a major favourite for well over a decade is because, underneath its character study of "God's lonely man" that has been often imitated but never bettered, it still remains a mercurial film that oozes with personality and offers up an immersive cinematic world to the point where its somewhat thin plot almost feels irrelevant, and if a film wants to have some serious staying power then it needs to have some astounding atmosphere to take over when the narrative starts getting a little too familiar.

5

ash_is_the_gal

07-15-15, 11:23 AM

for some reason after reading your review, it just occurred to me all the weird similarities there are between Taxi Driver and Fight Club. both are about young troubled men with insomnia, who find themselves increasingly disgusted with the people they see around them and in the end take steps to destroy the 'chaos' they see around them, thus causing more chaos. plus i think it's kinda safe to say that Travis Bickle probably has some kind of personality disorder.

Iroquois

07-15-15, 11:42 AM

I'm sure there are more as well, but yeah, it goes without saying that Taxi Driver and Fight Club share similarities. I even considered putting them in a three-way tie with Mike Leigh's Naked due to the superficially identical "disaffected white male lashing out at urban society" premise when I put together my last Top 100 but I eventually decided that they were distinct enough beasts to be counted separately.

Iroquois

07-15-15, 11:43 AM

#436 - The Insider
Michael Mann, 1999

https://refractionsfilm.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/theinsider2951.jpg

Based on the true story of a respected biochemist who intends to blow the whistle on a tobacco company's unethical practices but soon finds his personal and professional life falling apart as a result.

Michael Mann's career has always come across as a director whose work tends to be classified rather easily as "genre fare", most frequently involving dramas and thrillers that could be filed under the crime sub-genre. The Insider does technically involve crime as its driving source of conflict, but it is far different to just about every other Mann film I've seen. Here the crime is white-collar by nature, with the executives of tobacco companies using plausible deniability as part of their testimonies before Congress in regards to the addictive nature of nicotine. One such company's practices involve adding chemicals to increase addictivity, which prompts one of its most prominent biochemists (Russell Crowe) to speak up about the illegality of the company's activities. Enter a hard-hitting journalist (Al Pacino) who is cynical enough to know how corporations work (including CBS, which he works for in order to bring big stories to 60 Minutes) but still holds fast to a code of honour when it comes to protecting his sources even when others won't, which ends up causing all sorts of conflict between him and Crowe as the latter's decision to go public with his knowledge results in unemployment, marital strife, and threats that may or may not be coming from his former employers.

Pacino and Crowe both turn in a couple of their best performances here - the former keeps his cartoonish late-period overacting to a minimum, whereas the latter plays very much against type as a hapless family man who communicates a believable combination of frustration and vulnerability. They lead an impressive ensemble cast that all deliver good performances, especially Christopher Plummer as 60 Minutes interviewer Mike Wallace. They definitely elevate the story, which does threaten to drag a bit due to its lengthy running time and almost complete lack of external action, but that doesn't matter since it leans more towards drama than thriller and only has the occasional hint of justifiable paranoia to prop up the true-story narrative. Of course, while Mann has a tendency to get good performances out of a variety of actors, he has always been a director who made a name on the basis of technical prowess, and there is a lot of that here. There's a distinct colour palette made up mainly of blues and greens, which provides a largely mundane film with visual flair while also complementing the film's dour tone perfectly. While The Insider doesn't provide much in the way of elaborate spectacles, it is definitely not a film that needs such things to maintain one's interest. The fact that it can earn a reputation as one of Mann's best despite the lack of external action common to his other films is as good a testament to his filmmaking ability as anything else.

4

The Gunslinger45

07-16-15, 08:45 AM

Iroquois

07-16-15, 10:01 AM

What an unexpected and surprising response.

Iroquois

07-16-15, 11:25 AM

#437 - Avatar
James Cameron, 2009

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/38/Avatarjakeneytiri.jpg

In the mid-22nd century, a paraplegic Marine is recruited into a space exploration mission on a moon populated by a race of humanoid aliens.

Oh, dear. (http://www.movieforums.com/reviews/589252-avatar.html)

That was the review of Avatar I wrote at the tail end of 2009 on the basis of a single theatrical viewing (and judging by the last paragraph, in 2-D, no less). Fast-forward to almost six years later and I not only never saw it in 3-D per what I said in that review's final paragraph, but I more or less forgot about ever trying to watch it again until it aired on TV the other night. This was probably in no small part to the cynical malaise that settled in once people started to see past the hype involved with Cameron's supposedly revolutionary decade-in-the-making follow-up to the mega-blockbuster Oscar gold of Titanic and started to dissect its rather hollow and derivative premise. Sam Worthington plays the paraplegic Marine who has been chosen to participate in a scientific mission to a moon named Pandora that is covered with lush wildlife, rich in valuable resources, and has giant blue humanoids known as the Na'vi for a dominant species. He is brought to Pandora simply because he is the twin brother of a recently deceased scientist who served as the basis for an "avatar", a Na'vi clone that can be controlled through a neural link. Of course, it turns out that the reason for the existence of avatars isn't just for the purposes of benevolent anthropology as it turns out that the real reason humans are on Pandora is to search for aforementioned valuable resources and they will stop at nothing to get them.

While I do have to concede that, when you're putting together a massive effects-driven blockbuster with a nine-figure budget and a brand-new intellectual property then you're going to want to play things reasonably safe, here things are played disappointingly safe without significant variation on the other pieces of fiction to which it bears incredible narrative similarity. The characters and their performers are serviceable enough in some rather clichéd roles; however, the people who have to act from underneath motion-capture CGI have a bit of a hard time trying to emote convincingly without audible overacting, which is difficult considering that they also have to contend with a fictional language and cat-people mannerisms. That's also the one instance where the CGI falters, because the rest of the film is otherwise a spectacular piece of visual work. However, the same lack of creativity that scuppers the narrative also bleeds through to the visuals as well, which paint Pandora as a lush rainforest environment whose only real concessions to its extraterrestrial nature come in the form of floating mountains or bizarre dinosaur-like creatures. The film does develop a somewhat consistent mythology, but it feels like little more than window dressing in this regard. Though the quality of the visuals still hold up even on 2-D TV, the weaknesses in the plot and characterisation are more than enough to prevent Avatar from being a genuine classic or even just a decent blockbuster. If Cameron and co. really is planning on spinning a whole franchise out of this concept, there are plenty of things that need fixing for when the sequels start to happen.

2

Iroquois

07-16-15, 11:25 AM

#438 - Evolution
Ivan Reitman, 2001

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jjWmOxopq5o/maxresdefault.jpg

After a meteorite crashes to Earth, a pair of high-school teachers investigate it and discover the existence of an alien life form that evolves at an incredibly fast and dangerous rate.

Evolution is a real blast from the past that I enjoyed immensely back in the day, but getting the chance to revisit it lately for the first time in over a decade hasn't exactly been too kind to it. Given who directed it, I probably should have realised far earlier that it basically reworks the premise of Ghostbusters to be about aliens instead of ghosts and works in a bunch of typical alien invasion tropes in the process. The core group of heroes is fundamentally the same, with a comically serious scientist (David Duchovny), a wise-cracking womaniser (Orlando Jones), a clumsy scientist (Julianne Moore), and a gormless layman (Seann William Scott). In addition to the supernatural threat, there's also an obstructive government official trying to disrupt the heroes' attempts to save the world, here an Army general (Ted Levine) seeking to deal with the alien menace however he sees fit. Of course, while the plot rolls along as quickly as the creatures climb the evolutionary chain, much like its spiritual predecessor the plot is only there to serve the comedy more so than be compelling in its own right.

I don't know if it's the fact that the comedy hasn't held up or if it just wasn't too funny in the first place, but either way watching Evolution now just makes me feel like there's an awful lot of wasted potential here. Just enough thought is put into the plot and effects to make them come across as somewhat decent (for a 2001 comedy, in any case), but that just makes the film's lack of good comedy stand out even more. Leaving aside its derivative nature, the humour is perhaps a little too immature for its own good. Duchovny and Jones have a few good moments thanks to their odd-couple chemistry (the latter of whom definitely steals the show as this film's version of Peter Venkman), yet there's not a lot of good humour to be derived from the alien creatures themselves. There's possibly the sequence involving a particularly large and invasive alien mosquito, but even then that comes across as a bit too immature for its own good. Evolution may involve some good actors and uphold its rather interesting take on the alien invasion premise with some decent enough effects work, but since it advertises itself mainly as a comedy it's hard to ignore just how often its jokes fall flat (and how the storyline's resolution/punchline basically depends upon an unapologetic use of product placement). Under different circumstances, this could have been a minor classic, but as it stands it's just a major misfire.

2

Iroquois

07-16-15, 12:14 PM

#439 - Shark Tale
Rob Letterman/Vicky Jenson/Bibo Bergeron, 2004

http://static.rogerebert.com/uploads/review/primary_image/reviews/shark-tale-2004/hero_EB20041001REVIEWS40920002AR.jpg

In a world where fish and sharks share an uneasy co-existence, one fish who dreams of rising above his station gets the opportunity when he takes the credit for the death of a shark.

Shark Tale is probably the best indicator of DreamWorks Animation at its worst. It's a computer-animated film about talking fish that just so happened to come out in the wake of Pixar's own computer-animated talking-fish movie Finding Nemo, but it also happens to expose the main differences between the two studios at the time. In DreamWorks' case, this was not for the better. While a lot of family-oriented films try to provide something for the whole family, whether it's cartoon slapstick for the young ones and clever gags for the older members, here Shark Tale takes it to the extreme in its building a story off a rather cracked-up Mafia parody where the general fish population of an underwater city (which already beggars belief even without the fact that it apparently has a sushi shop) live in constant fear of the gangster-like sharks that live in the wreck of the Titanic (yes, really). Enter Will Smith as a cocky lower-class fish who wants to make it to the upper class and, thanks to a series of bizarre circumstances involving the two sons of the local shark boss (Robert de Niro), becomes renowned for becoming the first fish to ever kill a shark and thus becomes a rich and famous hero, but of course all sorts of circumstances threaten to bring it all down...

While it's become common practice for American animated films to star a lot of recognisable Hollywood actors, Shark Tale once again takes things to an extreme by modelling its aquatic characters on the vocal talent to uncanny effect. That way you get weird moments like a great white shark with de Niro's distinctive facial mole or a femme fatale fish that you can tell is being played by Angelina Jolie even before she says a word. If anything, most of the appreciation for your typical DreamWorks film from the 2000s seems to come from picking apart the nonsensical nature of its world-building and humour (just look at Bee Movie, which might be the only DreamWorks movie that's more ridiculous than this one), and Shark Tale becomes way too dependent on surreal human-based behaviour or simple pop culture parodies for much of its humour. Though it does have the occasional genuine chuckle (I laughed way too hard at this scene (m.youtube.com/watch?v=EKxPXNby12k), for instance), most of the time the obvious nature of the references and jokes is enough to induce cringing. The story and message are also kind of simple and also a bit muddled by the universe that's been established, while charismatic actors do their best with the sub-standard material. The animation also looks pretty decent and colourful for the most part, apart from the aforementioned detours into the Uncanny Valley. Shark Tale may have earned a place on my Worst 100 a few years back, but it's grown on me just enough to not make it back on there. It may be an extremely cringe-worthy example of everything wrong with family films in the 21st century, but that doesn't automatically make it the worst movie ever. At the very least, it's too bizarre to not be at least a little entertaining.

1

The Gunslinger45

07-16-15, 07:05 PM

What an unexpected and surprising response.

:p;)

Iroquois

07-17-15, 07:21 AM

#440 - Ida
Pawel Pawlikowski, 2013

https://kaist455.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/ida01.jpg

In 1960s Poland, a novice nun is about to take her final vows when she is sent to meet a long-lost relative who knows the truth about her past.

The most recent recipient of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film is a brief and monochromatic venture where the 1960s setting and focus on religion is enough to conjure easy comparisons to the work of Ingmar Bergman, differing nationalities notwithstanding. Ida is substantial enough to define itself outside of that particular frame of reference, but not quite enough to come across as a truly great film. It has an interesting enough premise with the titular novice being urged to visit long-lost aunt Wanda who reveals the truth about Ida's background - that she is actually of Jewish descent and that her parents were killed during World War II. Thus begins a road trip where Ida and Wanda have different goals - Wanda wants to give Ida a chance to experience more of life before taking her vows, while Ida wants nothing more than to find her parents' remains and give them a proper burial.

Ida maintains an appropriately bleak aesthetic with uncomplicated cinematography and a lack of non-diegetic music, while its cast give naturally understated performances. You don't have to have the greatest knowledge of Poland's history during World War II to properly comprehend the drama involved, though it does kind of become a bit too familiar with its "one last trip" narrative that naturally ends up vastly changing its odd-couple participants. That being said, it handles that familiar set-up reasonably well and the film's brevity is also a point in its favour. It is most definitely not a waste of what little time it takes to watch, but it's not hard to feel like it doesn't bring anything especially new to the table aside from its stoic-faced yet emotional treatise on post-WWII Poland.

3

Iroquois

07-17-15, 10:50 AM

#441 - Don't Look Now
Nicolas Roeg, 1973

http://criticsroundup.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/dont-look-now-still.jpg

After their young daughter dies as a result of accidental drowning, her parents travel to Venice for work reasons.

Nicolas Roeg is one of those filmmakers who makes interesting films but not necessarily great films. On paper, Don't Look Now doesn't make for the most interesting film - Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie play a married couple who are left distraught by the accidental death of the daughter and both eventually relocate to Venice as part of Sutherland's job restoring old cathedrals. Where things get interesting is when Christie encounters a pair of old ladies, one of whom is apparently psychic and is capable of communicating with the dead (which naturally includes the couple's dead daughter). Of course, this sets up a fundamental believer-versus-skeptic conflict between her and Sutherland and...well, that's about as much elaboration as the plot really gets. Of course, if the Roeg movies I've seen are any indication, he generally isn't concerned with developing elaborate plots so much as using said plots as springboards for captivating visuals. Don't Look Now definitely provides enough of those with its extremely kinetic camerawork and rapid editing making for a handful of memorable scenes.

Of course, just because there are a handful of well-done scenes doesn't automatically make the film as a whole great. Despite its distinctive visual style, Don't Look Now is probably still a little too long for its own good as it spends several scenes trying to develop its plot, which still feels kind of besides the point. The two leads are good actors and most of the supporting cast are serviceable, but the histrionic acting of the old psychic lady is a bit too distracting for its own good. It works reasonably well as a psychological thriller outside of its attempts to actually focus on a plot and that infamous ending is still as bizarre as ever. It's definitely worth watching if you haven't seen it before, but I can't help but feel like its appeal only goes so far.

3.5

Iroquois

07-17-15, 01:00 PM

#442 - Lady Snowblood
Toshiya Fujita, 1973

http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/images/film/lady-snowblood/w1280/lady-snowblood.jpg

When her quest for revenge against a gang of murderous thieves is prematurely halted by her imprisonment, a widow conceives a daughter who will finish her quest off for her.

It's no surprise that Quentin Tarantino "steals from every movie ever made" in his own words, but in the case of Lady Snowblood his tendency towards affectionate homage becomes especially pronounced. This is no slam against the film itself, but it does mean you have to consciously apprecite the film on its own terms, which is almost besides the point when it comes to getting lost in a film. Lady Snowblood does compensate for any imitations for rising above its apparent genre limitations. After its convoluted set-up that ambitiously involves flashbacks within flashbacks explaining not only its protagonist's back-story but also her deceased mother's back-story, the protagonist then gets started on taking down the remaining members of the gang that pre-emptively wronged her. I've talked before about how revenge movies have started to bore me in recent times, but I never got that particular feeling with Lady Snowblood. It helps that it does have a rather solid plot developing at a strong pace underneath its exploitational surface.

As for the action, well, it's used sparingly and the film is developed in such a way that it keeps from being boring even when it's not showing Lady Snowblood wreaking bloody vengeance on her foes. The action consists mostly of sword-fighting with the occasional spot of gun violence thrown in for good measure, which is all captured with some effective use of cameras and editing without much use for background score. and there is a degree of moral ambiguity to a lot of the violence perpetrated in this film (most obviously when it turns out that one of Snowblood's targets is now a miserable drunkard full of regret and whose only daughter must resort to sex work in order to pay for his habit). That at least promises to lend a bit of depth to the cartoonish geysers of blood that frequently erupt from characters that are mortally wounded. The setting also means that there are some interesting undertones of European imperialism (the finale takes place during a very French-looking masquerade party, for instance), while the film has twists that can be seen from a mile away but do little to lessen the entertainment. Though Lady Snowblood may not be quite as awesome as I'd have hoped, it is a fine example of a film that exceeds its exploitation-like standards and becomes a genuinely enjoyable film in the process.

3.5

Iroquois

07-17-15, 02:09 PM

#443 - 42nd Street
Lloyd Bacon, 1933

http://drx.typepad.com/psychotherapyblog/images/2008/01/06/ruby_keeler_george_brent_bebe_dan_2.jpg

Follows the behind-the-scenes drama that happens as a production company attempts to mount a Broadway musical.

Regular readers of this thread will know that I don't have the greatest appreciation for musicals, especially those of the old-school variety. It's hard to tell if I have any particular preferences for the type of musical that prioritises song over dance or vice versa, but I guess there is room to criticise the musicals that somehow end u prioritising plot over both. 42nd Street ends up being the lattermost type of musical, with much of its brief running time being dedicated to following the cast of characters involved with the production of a Broadway musical at the height of the Great Depression. As a result, there is barely anything in the way of musical numbers until the film's third act, where the musical itself actually gets underway.

In the meantime, you'll have to content yourself with the occasional glimpse of auditions and rehearsals in between some very 1930s melodrama with a few clever lines there and there plus some relatively competent acting, which is only just good enough to stop me seriously disliking the film. I think this marks the first instance of me watching a film where the numbers have been choreographed by Busby Berkeley, and the ones in the last third of the film were easily worth the hype with their elaborate routines being captured by some reasonably complex camerawork, though the songs themselves are passable at best. The location changes that happen during the extended number towards the end are certainly a nice touch, in any case. Ultimately, though, there's not enough here to make me think I need to see this again, even though I am giving it a relatively good rating. I guess I'm starting to think that I prefer a good dance-based number to a good song-based number, and it's easy to tell which one 42nd Street features most prominently.

2.5

honeykid

07-17-15, 04:23 PM

I like 42nd Street. It's one of the few musicals that I do like, though I've not seen it in forever. Like most early 30's talkies, I remember it as a little stagey/static when the musical numbers aren't taking place, but I'm ok with that.

I really like Lady Snowblood, so I'm pleased to see that you liked it, too. Do you have any plans to watch the sequel?

mussonman

07-17-15, 08:28 PM

Man... browsing through this thread just leaves me in awe of how many different movies there are out there. It's astonishing!

Iroquois

07-18-15, 01:25 AM

#444 - The Ring
Gore Verbinski, 2002

http://basementrejects.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/the-ring-tv-escape.jpg

After the death of a relative, a journalist starts to investigate a supposedly cursed tape that will cause whoever views it to die within the space of a week.

I had somehow managed to miss seeing the American version of The Ring yet had still heard about its intriguing urban-legend premise. I did watch Ringu a few years ago and liked it well enough, so I had a pretty good idea what to expect from a remake. In that regard, it's good that The Ring is actually a rather decent example of a remake that (at least to my memory) doesn't stray too far off the script of the original. Though you could easily make the case that this does make a remake even more fundamentally pointless, I'm just glad that the existence of a remake doesn't insult my intelligence too much. It is a bit difficult to think of this as a horror film despite its paranormal premise, and it's debatable as to how well the actors involved pull this off. Good actors such as Naomi Watts and Brian Cox deliver decent enough performances, but these generally aren't the most demanding roles as they serve the story and do little more (Martin Henderson in particular doesn't feel especially good here).

The film tries to replicate the visual style laid down by the original complete with VHS-like flickers and tracking effects but also renders events in washed-out shades of blue-green so as to lend its own style to proceedings, which is a decent enough attempt to differentiate itself from the original. While I don't particularly care for the acting on display and there's not all that much in the way of serious scares beyond its inherently unsettling and abject premise, I can't fault The Ring too much. It's a passable attempt at introducing new ideas to 21st-century American horror without grossly unnecessary variations upon its source and at the very least it maintains a decent visual aesthetic, but that's not enough to make it a classic.

2.5

Miss Vicky

07-18-15, 02:47 AM

Oh look, yet another movie that I like and you don't. :laugh:

Iroquois

07-18-15, 04:56 AM

#445 - Cars
John Lasseter, 2006

http://i424.photobucket.com/albums/pp330/kivaeeva/cars.jpg

In a world populated entirely by sentient vehicles, a self-absorbed racing car ends up being stranded in a small town while making his way to a big race.

Cars has earned the unfortunate reputation of being the first misfire in Pixar's generally impressive filmography, which is rather understandable for a number of reasons. The emergence of DreamWorks Animation as a serious competitor for Pixar's dominance of the CG animation market may have been the inspiration (or lack thereof) that was less about trying to tell a genuinely interesting story and more about trying to keep up with a growing trend that started to over-emphasise the medium's flashy visuals and simple yet family-friendly humour over well-developed plots and characters. In that regard, Cars isn't exactly a shambles, but it falls apart a bit because of just how generic its story is even by family-film standards. It begins with a fast-paced race sequence that establishes its hero (Owen Wilson) as a bright red sports car whose spotlight-hogging showmanship and refusal to depend on others costs him a very lucrative victory against his even more arrogant rival (Michael Keaton) and means that they must have a re-match in a week's time. Of course, a series of unlucky circumstances result in Wilson being effectively stranded in a small town in the middle of the Californian desert with the locals refusing to let him leave until he repairs a road he broke upon entering the town.

In short, it's a fairly basic journey of self-discovery for the arrogant hero as he learns to be more humble and to be content with what he's got (wait, isn't that kind of the same deal as Shark Tale?), which would be fine if the film itself didn't run for almost two hours. Even in an age where blockbusters regularly pass the two-hour mark, that seems especially excessive considering how the film doesn't pad out its thin plot and themes with much in the way of good jokes. The characters aren't awful or irritating, but they generally don't come across as genuinely amusing, though they are played by quite a few good actors (of note is Paul Newman as the small-town judge, adding world-weary gravitas to every line he speaks). At the very least, even the country-bumpkin tow-truck (Larry the Cable Guy) could have been a lot more irritating but he, like everyone else, ultimately ends up being tolerable instead of terrific or terrible. Another point in the film's favour is that, if nothing else, it is visually impressive with its well-rendered desert landscapes, striking use of neon lighting, and fast-paced action sequences (though the quality of the actual character designs are debatable). Unfortunately, the main thing to take away from Cars ends up being a whole bunch of questions about how the film's universe works doesn't seem to make any sense even within the bounds of fantasy. Other Pixar films may also build worlds that beggar a lot of questions once you stop and really think about them, but at least they're entertaining enough so that you don't really mind at first. Cars may look like a treat and it's not aggressively awful, but it's ultimately a bit too boring for its own good.

2

Miss Vicky

07-18-15, 04:58 AM

And you strike again. :tsk:

I love Cars.

Camo

07-18-15, 05:12 AM

I agree with you on The Ring, I'd probably give it a half a popcorn higher than you though. Both Cars and Inside Out are the only Pixar's I've still to see.

Miss Vicky

07-18-15, 05:14 AM

I'll admit that Cars is not quite as imaginative as some of Pixar's other efforts, but it's still a fun movie. It also makes me cry. Every. ****ing. Time.

Camo

07-18-15, 05:20 AM

I watched Brave like two weeks ago..man. Not a bad film but full of potential it failed to realize, I know how cliche that is but if it is ever right to apply that to a film its Brave.

Miss Vicky

07-18-15, 05:22 AM

I really don't like Brave. When I watched it in the theater, I kept thinking "I've seen this movie before, only it was better and it was called Brother Bear."

honeykid

07-18-15, 09:30 AM

Not seen Cars, but The Ring remake was pretty underwhelming. Not bad or anything, though I hate the stylistic choices, but not as well done as the original which results in it being less atmospheric, which was the main selling point of the film for me.

Mäx

07-18-15, 10:19 AM

To me, Cars is one of the worst Pixar movies. I'd probably give it the same rating, maybe even less.

linespalsy

07-18-15, 10:27 AM

The Ring is a solid remake that surpasses the original in just about everything you mention, but especially in style.
Cars is okay. Certainly way better than Evolution.
And your Shark's Tale rating is too high.

Iroquois

07-18-15, 02:21 PM

#446 - Deadfall
Christopher Coppola, 1993

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PrRBjDvkDn8/UAcJwZ7cuDI/AAAAAAAABrw/wDGC1Fv1o04/s1600/Deadfall.jpg

After accidentally killing his father during a botched con, a criminal goes on the run and plans one last job involving his long-lost uncle.

Like almost every Nicolas Cage movie I've watched, this one ended up on my watchlist less because it was likely to be a good film and more because it'd earned a certain degree of notoriety on the basis of Cage delivering a memorably unhinged performance in it. His character in the film is almost never seen without a pair of wrap-around sunglasses, a bad wig, and a scraggly pencil moustache - and that's without getting into his weirdly sleazy and off-kilter delivery that frequently lapses into scenery-devouring yelling. Unfortunately, Cage's character is but a supporting one in the tale concerning a con artist (Michael Biehn) who works on jobs with his father (James Coburn), but when he accidentally shoots his father during one such job he then splits and ends up seeking out his long-lost uncle (Coburn again), who needs Biehn to help out with his own con involving counterfeit diamonds. Of course, Biehn isn't that capable or level-headed and soon ends up carrying on an illicit affair with the girlfriend (Sarah Trigger) of one of his uncle's offsiders (Cage).

Considering the surname of the writer-director, it's easy to jump to conclusions about nepotism that would explain why well-known performers of varying degrees of respectability would appear in a film that would have to work its way up to amateur-ish. At the very least, it would explain why many of them give such half-assed performances (Cage notwithstanding). It's an incredibly dated and patchy neo-noir that is incredibly dull for the most part as it tries to spin Biehn as a character whose fate is out of his hands while also having him make the kind of decisions that threaten to ruin everything (case in point - affair with a co-worker's lover). Even the odd moment of non-Cage weirdness, such as Charlie Sheen's sole scene as a sharp-dressed snooker player or Angus Scrimm's crime boss with a gold pair of clippers for a hand, aren't enough to give this film the personality it needs to not be genuinely terrible. Throw in a twist ending that somehow manages to be predictable and ridiculous and you have a real chore of a movie on your hands. You're far better off just looking up Cage's scenes on YouTube rather than bothering to check out the whole thing.

1

Iroquois

07-19-15, 11:47 AM

#447 - Jurassic World
Colin Trevorrow, 2015

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TTA0DIZ5EdM/maxresdefault.jpg

A highly successful theme park where the main attraction is the presence of genetically engineered dinosaurs gets into trouble when a newly-bred dinosaur breaks free and wreaks havoc.

Jurassic Park was always going to be a tough act to follow. Its combination of ground-breaking special effects, rollercoaster narrative, and general fun-for-the-whole-family vibe were deftly combined to make for what was then the highest-grossing film ever made (and an erstwhile entry in my top 100 movies to boot). A couple of sequels followed, but they were both distinctly underwhelming follow-ups that couldn't replicate the magic of the original as they attempted to maintain the thrill of dinosaurs come back to life amidst the blatant recycling of the original's concepts or introducing terrible new ones. Even so, that didn't deter Hollywood and they eventually hit upon the idea of making a sequel that also effectively functioned as a reboot (that particular type of franchise installment . seems to be getting really popular these days). Though it does reference the events of the first film, this time around the theme park has not only been constructed and filled with dinosaurs but now it is a bona fide success that draws in thousands of customers a day. However, with the public getting used to the existence of dinosaurs and interest in the park dwindling as a result, the powers that be have decided to introduce a new attraction in the form of a genetically engineered dinosaur that combines several different types of dinosaur into one highly dangerous package. No prizes for guessing what happens next...

Ultimately, Jurassic World feels like one big exercise in cinematic self-awareness. It's not exactly subtle in its use of dialogue or plot developments that reflect its status as a film that knows it's not going to match up to its much-beloved source film but still wants its viewers to have some fun anyway. To this end, it peppers the film with all sorts of call-backs to the other films not just in the way of sight gags or references but also in its re-use of certain plot elements (and even recycles a few concepts from other films). In that regard, I have to wonder if the decision to make the film's main villain a genetic mix-and-match of many different beasts was a deliberate choice that reflects Jurassic World's true nature. Human characters feel like nigh-disposable plot devices that are occasionally bumped against one another to provide humour or otherwise provoke some emotion, but they all feel like extremely hollow archetypes that aren't exactly terrible but generally don't create much in the way of favourable impressions. They all just feel like means to an end in ways that not even the most talented of performers are able to rectify, even when trying to play things for.

Leaving aside the plot and characterisation that is the very definition of serviceable in its supporting of the spectacle that is the film's main draw. Given the greatly expanded scope of the action, one can sort of forgive how much the film depends on CGI in order to bring its creatures to life. What one may find it hard to forgive is the ridiculous sequences to which said CGI is applied, which feel weightless at best and ire-raising at worst due to the implications. All things considered, Jurassic World isn't a horrible film; it deserves credit for at least managing to wrangle a decent enough plot out of the series' main premise and adequately compensates for its extremely familiar characters by casting some decent actors. It also deserves credit for not being a mess when it comes to its gratuitous use of CGI. Unfortunately, all the clever call-backs and self-deprecating jokes aren't enough to make me totally forgive how this film still feels very inessential.

2.5

Iroquois

07-19-15, 02:17 PM

#448 - Only God Forgives
Nicolas Winding Refn, 2013

http://d1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net/20/05/e12d0ec142a282ce314da96cca46/only-god-forgives-ryan-gosling.jpg

An American criminal living in Bangkok is forced to go on a quest for revenge after his brother is murdered.

If you thought that Drive was a disappointingly slow and ponderous film underneath its seemingly action-packed premise about an expert getaway driver, then avoid this film at all costs. Ostensibly, it's a revenge film about a man (Ryan Gosling) getting revenge for his murdered brother, but of course it's more complicated than that. Said brother was a remorseless degenerate who raped and murdered a teenage girl and was then brutally murdered by the girl's father at the behest of a mysterious man (Vithaya Pansringarm), who then proceeds to mutilate said father for killing someone. Things only get more complicated when Gosling's mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) flies into Thailand and wants nothing more than revenge for her dead son, belittling and manipulating Gosling until he does what she wants.

As you may have gleaned from the previous paragraph, Only God Forgives is a fundamentally unpleasant film with its extremely grey sense of morality that makes virtually all its characters not only too unsympathetic to root for but also too poorly-developed to even halfway care about. Gosling takes the same type of dispassionate yet violent character he played in Drive and exaggerates that character's flaws past the point of good definition, while Thomas makes for one of the most downright despicable characters I've seen in recent memory. It gets to the point where Pansringarm, who is probably the closest thing the film has to a main antagonist (though it's debatable where his character falls on the morality scale) ends up being the most interesting character to watch even as he engages in his own inscrutable acts of extreme violence. Despite being on the lighter side of 90 minutes, the film also drags extremely hard even by Refn's idiosyncratic standards due to its extremely thin vengeance narrative feeling for a movie-length afterthought that is padded by plenty of drawn-out sequences involving Pansringarm. On the other hand, the film's main saving grace ends up being Refn's trademark visual style that emphasises static shots filled with high contrasts and bright colours, soaking almost every frame in lurid neons. While it's entirely possible that I may have missed the point of the film (writing this out certainly makes me think that it's got some strengths that I may not have properly appreciated), that doesn't exactly excuse how dull and reprehensible it manages to be for the most part. Knowing Refn, that's probably the point, but as far as points go, it's one I guess I'd rather miss.

2

cricket

07-19-15, 07:51 PM

As much as I like Drive, I think Refn is a director who's not for me.

Iroquois

07-20-15, 03:48 AM

As much as I like Drive, I think Refn is a director who's not for me.

Yeah, he's definitely not for everyone, but despite being let down by this one I still want to see more of his stuff. Drive and Bronson alone have generated considerable goodwill, but time will tell if it lasts.

Iroquois

07-20-15, 05:47 AM

#449 - Judge Dredd
Danny Cannon, 1995

https://filmdump.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/judge-dredd-3.jpg

In a futuristic dystopia where people live in gigantic cities that are governed by law enforcers known as "judges", one such judge ends up being wrongfully accused of murder.

It would be remiss of me to ignore the rather unforgiving reputation that hangs over Judge Dredd like a noxious smog, especially since I already managed to watch 2012's Dredd a couple of times and genuinely enjoyed it thanks to its rather simplistic Die Hard-style plot that got played for maximum effect. Judge Dredd, on the other hand, involves a slightly more complicated tale where the titular judge (Sylvester Stallone) is framed for murdering a journalist that openly criticised his particularly violent brand of justice. Thus begins the epic fight to escape from custody, prove his innocence and take down the people responsible, chief among them being a criminally insane former judge (Armand Assante) who has escaped from prison and is getting ready to take over the city. It's a lean enough plot and might have worked if the circumstances were different - unfortunately the execution is extremely shoddy. Having Stallone play the protagonist seems like a bad idea as his thick accent makes it hard to take his hard-bitten character seriously (it's pretty bad when his first line of dialogue is the character's iconic catchphrase and he delivers it like...this (m.youtube.com/watch?v=itmNiTwHOsM).) Even so, he still doesn't ham it up quite as badly as Assante does nor does he match up to notably superior actors like Jürgen Prochnow or Max von Sydow. Having Rob Schneider get thrown into the mix as a comic-relief sidekick (guaranteeing him a lot of screen-time in the process) is also a major misfire since he's the least funny thing about the movie, while Diane Lane doesn't fare much better as Dredd's partner.

As for the film's action aesthetic, well, it's very much rooted in both the '90s and the sensibilities that accompany your typical Stallone action film. The film spends much of its time bouncing between two extremely familiar settings - that of a fairly standard used-future metropolis where ordinary skyscrapers easily dwarf the Statue of Liberty plus the endless desert that exists outside the city walls and is populated by atavistic cannibals. Some decent production design is involved, but it is generally applied in such a hopelessly generic way that the film made me wish I was watching Demolition Man instead - at least some thought went into developing that world to be at least slightly different from all the usual grim, dark future worlds. Judge Dredd is a considerably awful movie that's good for the odd spot of cheese thanks to its mix of good and not-so-good actors (Rob Schneider is neither) but the action generally fails to be entertaining even by the standards of pulpy '90s sci-fi movies. Even if I hadn't already seen Dredd, I'd still think this was by and large a waste of time that is only intermittently entertaining and only ever in a bad way. For crimes against cinema, the sentence is...

1.5

cricket

07-20-15, 09:12 PM

I never tried Judge Dredd despite my love for action films. I doubt I ever will.

honeykid

07-21-15, 09:08 AM

I saw this at the cinema when it came out and it was just as bad at the time of release. I've seen it once since then as well as a couple of partial watches and there's so little to redeem it that it doesn't even have that 90's "of its time/action" feel to recommend it. I don't know if Rob Schneider has ever been worse, but sadly, I suspect he has. And on numerous occasions, too.

Iroquois

07-21-15, 10:21 AM

I have only ever seen one Schneider solo movie all the way through (The Animal, which cracked the "top" 20 on my worst movies list) and have been bits of others, but they don't seem to be any good. I remember some feature in a MAD magazine from about a decade or so ago that was titled "50 Bad Things That Hollywood Keeps Doing" or something and it floated the idea that Adam Sandler keeps producing solo Schneider movies simply to make his own movies look better by comparison. While it's clearly a joke, one has to wonder if there is any truth to it.

Iroquois

07-21-15, 12:46 PM

#450 - Love Story
Arthur Hiller, 1970

https://wondersinthedark.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/369ac-lovestory05.jpg

A rich boy and a poor girl fall in love with each other.

I considered making my logline for Love Story consist of four simple words - "A story about love", but then realised that I should save the smart-assery for the review proper. If anything, the fact that it is bluntly called Love Story speaks volumes as to just much of a generic and unimaginative piece of work it is. One could argue that said bluntness is supposed to be reflective of a New Hollywood sensibility that wants to do away with the flowery pretensions of ordinary romantic titles but the film underneath ultimately doesn't seem to reflect that sensibility. Love Story starts off with the opening scene that spoils what will happen in the end for no good reason whatsoever before flashing back to the start to introduce us to the story's leads (Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw) as they meet up with one another during their time at college and start off as a constantly bickering odd couple from two very different backgrounds. In case the title wasn't a big enough giveaway, eventually they realise just how much they do love each other and proceed to get married, damn the consequences.

I'm not sure how accountable I can hold Love Story for the many imitators that copied its apparently very successful formula (I did watch The Notebook recently, which does seem to owe an awful lot of inspiration with its own class-divide told-in-flashback romance), but even on its own terms it's just so dry and lacking in personality that I have a bit of trouble understanding how it became a hit in the first place. O'Neal and MacGraw are both at the point where acting wooden would be an improvement, as their attempts to trade pointed banter are not only unremarkable in and of themselves but also seem slightly preferable compared to the greeting-card platitudes they share with one another as the film progresses and the obstacles between them grow greater and greater. Love Story is as boring and generic a romantic drama as you're likely to find, and I can't forgive it for its lacklustre attempt to build charm and sympathy through having its charisma-free leads make pointed barbs about one another for half the film before professing an undying love for another throughout the rest of the film.

1

ash_is_the_gal

07-21-15, 01:54 PM

Iroquois

07-21-15, 02:00 PM

have you seen Splendor in the Grass? i would like to see your review of that one. it's one of my favorite movies in this vein, and it's pretty well done and honestly leaves plenty to talk about. i've never seen Love Story though

What a coincidence (http://www.movieforums.com/reviews/1244584-splendor-in-the-grass.html). Sadly, I didn't like it all that much.

ash_is_the_gal

07-21-15, 03:10 PM

haha oh. i think i remember that review actually, it sounds vaguely familiar.

oh well!

christine

07-21-15, 04:01 PM

I'm a bit disappointed you didn't like Don't Look Now more. I think it's a tremendous film.
It is a very visual film which you recognise, but there's a real connection between the pain and malaise in their marriage and the decay of the buildings. I don't know if you've been there but Venice is a place of immense riches, but massive disintegration, and Don't Look Now I think gets that atmosphere beautifully. Visiting at the right time, without crowds of tourists you can end up in dead end streets and under dark, dank bridges, exactly like the chase at the end. After seeing it on release at the cinema back in '73 I never wanted to visit Venice it seemed such a doomed place. Scared the wits out of me that film did - the ending struck me and my mate absolutely dumb at the time. It's an all time classic in my book :)

Thursday Next

07-21-15, 04:21 PM

I think Don't Look Now will never have the same effect on someone seeing it now to someone watching it in when it first came out, it's just been parodied too many times.

Cars is not a good movie, but it's a fine enough movie for its target audience - 3-8 year old boys whose parents will spend a lot of money on the related merchandise. I must have seen that film (and the ridiculous but very well animated sequel) more than 20 times.

Iroquois

07-21-15, 11:20 PM

Well, it was a repeat viewing and has a notorious ending, of course it's not going to hold up all that well (to be fair, I believe I gave it a 4 the first time that I saw it). I imagine seeing it in theatres when nothing else quite like it existed would be far preferable to catching it on TV with commercial breaks, too.

Iroquois

07-22-15, 12:19 PM

#451 - Akira
Katsuhiro Ôtomo, 1988

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17iqz7p71w98pjpg/original.jpg

Decades after a mysterious explosion devastates Tokyo and triggers World War III, a teenage delinquent's chance encounter with a government test subject leads to him developing psychic powers.

Animé has gotten a lot more advanced and fluid in the decades since Akira's release (and the fact that this particular viewing was of a 35mm print complete with noticeable scratches meant that there were probably no Special Edition touchups), but that doesn't stop it from still being a visual extravaganza. Sure, its depiction of the futuristic Neo Tokyo may take considerable inspiration from Blade Runner with its urban landscape bathed in gloomy darkness and neon lights (that's also set in the year 2019, no less), but Ôtomo takes advantage of the medium's freedom to expand upon his source of inspiration and recreate it on a scale that befits the action-packed narrative.

The narrative, which is complex enough to take more than one viewing to fully absorb, is a fundamentally simple one about a pair of teenage bikers named Kaneda and Tetsuo. Kaneda is the arrogant and snarky leader of the gang whereas Tetsuo is a withdrawn, embittered member with a lifetime of emotional damage and resentment. This ties into the plot when he almost runs over a withered-looking young boy. It turns out that the boy is a test subject for a government experiment on telekinesis, and his encounter with Tetsuo triggers the latter's own latent psychic abilities. There are plenty of other plots and characters thrown in for good measure such as Kaneda falling in with a group of saboteurs because he's attracted to their sole female member or a no-nonsense Army colonel who must contend with dangerously curious scientists and incompetent politicians, which all play their part in pushing the story along and serving as different facets of the film's fantastic take on post-war Japan and the devastating events that still affect the country's cultural identity. As a result, the world they inhabit feels very well-realised over the course of two visually captivating hours. It's not like there's anything especially black-and-white above most of the film's morality save for the occasional greedy executive or excessively violent gang member. Kaneda makes for an especially flawed hero thanks to his generally self-interested behaviour influencing any possible heroism he may possess, whereas Tetsuo's newfound powers are put to work against the world that has kept him down for his entire life regardless of how justified his actions are.

While the plot and characters do contain considerable thematic resonance to the point where I seem to pick up on something new each time I watch (and I've watched Akira a lot), the film's greatest strengths is as an extremely immersive cinematic experience. The film creates an amazingly detailed and arresting futuristic setting that covers grimy industrial areas and labyrinthine government facilities, all of which back up some great sequences. The opening feud between Kaneda's gang and a rival gang (resulting in the iconic shot from the header image) is filled with streaking tail-lights and fiery explosions, while the film's eventual escalation into psychokinetic acts of destruction is definitely astounding. That's without going into the stuff that doesn't pull from the regular sci-fi/disaster playbooks, such as Tetsuo's hellish hallucinations of giant toys that bleed milk or watching the world (and himself) crumble to pieces. When the line between nightmare and reality gives way as a result of the infamously grotesque and mind-bending finale, you know you've watched something outstanding. Credit also has to go to the Geinoh Yamashirogumi score, which has only the slightest nods to stereotypically synthesiser-filled sci-fi scores as it builds most of its score around chants, choirs, percussion, and pipes. Though they all amount to variations on the same theme, the execution for each particular track distinguishes them all with aplomb.

I try not to throw around the phrase "all-time favourite" lightly because I'd rather not run the risk of re-watching such a film and feeling disappointed, but Akira has more than earned it in the decade or so since I first watched it. As of writing, I've seen it in theatres four times (which is tied for my current personal best - for now) and countless more times on DVD. Its narrative density and unsettling subject matter that invokes many horrors of the body and mind are factors that may alienate some viewers, but if you're willing to brave such a proposition then you'll definitely come away with something worthwhile. I've been going back to it again and again and have written at length about some of its most interesting factors (as I mentioned, its allegory for the attitudes of post-WWII Japan is a rather elaborate and multi-faceted one even while it serves as window dressing for graphic catastrophe) and it's a film that I still find consistently rewarding.

5

Addendum: I feel like I should address the different types of dialogue tracks that can accompany this film. Most of my viewings have involved the 2001 Pioneer English dub, which sticks to the original Japanese script pretty closely (though the idiom doesn't translate into English perfectly, but thats a minor flaw considering the talent on display). The 1989 Streamline English dub plays fast and loose with the dialogue and is objectively the weaker of the two English dubs but the rough quality and comical turns of phrase (plus the legendary Cam Clarke playing Kaneda as a snot-nosed surfer type) at least guarantee some amusement, which is good since it's the version that tends to accompany film prints and thus provides lots of laughs in a theatrical context. Of course, you can always avoid both and stick to the original Japanese with subtitles.

Yoda

07-22-15, 12:21 PM

Wow. You've got 481 reviews tagged and that's one of just 11 that you've given a perfect rating (http://www.movieforums.com/reviews/search/5/higher/any/Iroquois).

Iroquois

07-22-15, 12:25 PM

Wow. You've got 481 reviews tagged and that's one of just 11 that you've given a perfect rating (http://www.movieforums.com/reviews/search/5/higher/any/Iroquois).

Yeah, but those are old reviews. I think nowadays Grindhouse would get a 3 and both No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood would both get 4.5 (though that's not that significant a step down). Besides, you know how I do things these days.

ash_is_the_gal

07-22-15, 12:39 PM

linespalsy

07-22-15, 01:28 PM

As of writing, I've seen it in theatres four times

I'm jelly!

Iroquois

07-23-15, 03:00 AM

#452 - Ghost in the Shell
Mamoru Oshii, 1995

https://thevaultpublication.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/gits-post-1.jpg

In a future where fully artifical humans exist, a counter-terrorist cell does battle with a mysterious hacker that is capable of manipulating human beings.

I really have to respect Ghost in the Shell for continuing to be just as complex and puzzling each time I watch it (I believe this particular viewing is at least the third in the space of a decade). It clocks in on the lighter side of 90 minutes, but it packs a lot into that time that admittedly makes it feel overly long. At least it does so in a way that at least feels challenging rather than irritating. It does work off a somewhat simple premise at first - the lines between human and machine are blurring further and further in the future, with plenty of humans having at least some mechanical modifications to their person. Some citizens are even full-blown artificial humans - the titular "ghost in the shell" refers to what could best be considered an artificial human's soul and whether or not such a thing truly exists. Questions about the perception of reality and the nature of humanity are what provide considerable weight to the film's main plot, which concerns the members of a counter-terrorist department known as Section 9 initially trying to foil some duplicitious diplomats before being drawn into a conflict with a mysterious hacker known simply as "the Puppet Master", who is good enough to actually hack into people's brains and control their minds.

For the most part, Ghost in the Shell earns its reputation as a classic within the field of animé. In addition to the incredibly detailed character models (which is emphasised during the credits sequence where protagonist Kusanagi is created), credit must go to the elaborate depictions of a futuristic Tokyo range from glossy penthouses to rainswept slums. There are plenty of scenes that take the time to show off the scenery and effects more so than advance the plot, so it's a testament to the artwork's quality that these moments don't feel boring. The plot does ultimately feel rather secondary to a lot of what's going on here, as characters are frequently given to conversations that elaborate upon the film's preoccupation with souls and whatnot. There are a few well-executed action sequences thrown in for good measure, but they are far enough apart to mean that this should not be remotely considered an action film. The problem with prioritising lengthy philosophical discussions over plot is that when the two eventually start to bleed together as the film progresses (most notably in the climax), it can end up being just mind-numbing after a while. That's the kind of thing that can prove especially alienating and may cause people to write off Ghost in the Shell as pretentious navel-gazing, but I like that coming back to this movie never truly feels boring no matter how slow and ponderous it may get. That same slow, ponderous nature may be what ultimately stops me from considering it a major classic, but otherwise it's a magnificient-looking piece of work with a solid core that is definitely an essential for anyone looking to see animation in general reach its full potential.

4

Iroquois

07-23-15, 09:17 AM

#453 - Lucy
Luc Besson, 2014

http://thegeekiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Screen-Shot-2014-04-04-at-12.25.43-pm.png

A young woman who is forced to become a drug mule starts to absorb the brand-new drug she's carrying and it turns her into a hyper-intelligent superhuman.

In the past, I have bought into some admittedly ludicrous science-fiction premises for the sake of good action sequences (most notably Equilibrium building a world where becoming an efficient marksman can be reduced to a martial-arts discipline rooted in complex mathematics), but these days I'm not likely to forgive such a premise since they're just too damn ridiculous for their own good (case in point - Wanted). Lucy takes things to an especially absurd level by taking a long-debunked myth (namely, that since humans only use about 10% of their brain's potential then what would happen if we could use the whole 100%?) and uses it to build an incredibly soft science-fiction premise that allows for its eponymous protagonist (Scarlett Johansson) to go from hapless everywoman to a superpowered freak of nature.

Of course, to get there first the film spends its first third setting up Johansson as an unwitting victim of a Taiwanese mob (led by Choi Min-sik), who have plans to smuggle several packs of a brand-new recreational drug out of the country by using Johansson and a few others as mules who get the packs surgically inserted into their abdomens. Of course, thanks to the extremely implausible plot development where Johansson is kicked in the stomach by one of Choi's subordinates (who you'd think would know about the whole drug mule situation and would, y'know, not kick a drug-mule in the part of her body that was carrying a pack of drugs), the pack breaks and leaks the drug directly into her system, which causes her to start unlocking her genetic potential and before long she escapes and starts to go on a journey that initially seems to be about revenge against her captors but soon develops into something far greater than something as petty as vengeance. This, of course, means enlisting the help of a professor of scientific theory (Morgan Freeman, who helpfully spends a sizable chunk of his screentime providing us with exposition and undesirable flashbacks to Wanted) and a French detective (Amr Waked), even though Choi and his gang are in relentless pursuit.

The problem with Lucy isn't so much the bogus science that gives it its premise (though that does beggar some considerable belief) so much as...well, everything else. Johansson's rapidly evolving state of consciousness means that she soon evolves into a Dr. Manhattan-like humanoid who loses her empathy for humans to the point where she has no problem shooting and running over innocent bystanders yet will conspicuously leave most of the film's actual villains alive, (mostly) unharmed, and free to come back and attack her later because this film needs to generate conflict somehow. Speaking of conflict, the fact that Johansson's abilities include not just increased power and intelligence but also the increased power to manipulate the people and world around her also sucks any real tension out of the conflict as she can work her way out of every situation (and it's not like Freeman and Waked being endangered as a result of the plot makes for much in the way of stakes due to their sheer lack of characterisation). This lack of tension is very much present in the climax, which draws inspiration from a handful of different movies (including Besson's own Léon) but fails to make anything impressive out of it.

Lucy drew some ire when it first came out due to not only its scientifically ridiculous plot catalyst plus its somewhat racist overtones (almost every villain in the film is Asian, the token white villain never suffers any comeuppance, the white American protagonist non-fatally shoots an innocent Asian taxi driver simply for not knowing how to speak English, etc. in ways that not even the casting of Freeman and Waked as heroes can compensate for), but now that I've actually seen the film it's easy to see that it's quite simply a horrible film in general. The premise serves as a launching pad for an incredibly hollow and low-stakes film as Johansson gets progressively more powerful and is only as competent or incompetent as she needs to be in order to pad the film out to 90 minutes. It gets to the point where even attempts to add some emotional resonance to the film (such as Johansson's tearful phone call to her mother before she evolves beyond human sentiment completely) come across as failures at best. Lucy in general comes across as a failure at best where bad science ends up being the least of the film's problems and the action sequences aren't remotely good enough to justify the rest of the film's existence.

1

honeykid

07-23-15, 09:58 AM

Have you ever seen The Lawnmower Man, Iro? Is this like a C21st version of that?

Iroquois

07-23-15, 10:05 AM

I have not seen The Lawnmower Man. It might be because of the proximity in viewings, but my main association was with Akira considering how both films revolve around an ordinary person being forced into circumstances where they develop increasingly powerful abilities that allow them to manipulate reality as they see fit (and that's without taking the extremely similar endings into account, to boot).

honeykid

07-23-15, 10:23 AM

Well if you ever get the chance to watch it for free, I'd be interested to hear what you thought about it.

Iroquois

07-23-15, 10:28 AM

The full movie seems to be available on YouTube. I'll report back when I do.

Iroquois

07-23-15, 11:03 AM

#454 - THX 1138
George Lucas, 1971

http://thefilmstage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/thx-1138-original.jpeg

In a dystopian future where people's emotions are repressed and, a man and woman end up rebelling against the oppressive regime.

George Lucas's first foray into feature-length filmmaking is a pretty standard example of 1970s dystopian cinema that takes place in a world where humans are referred to by serial numbers (for example, the title is the name of Robert Duvall's protagonist) and have their humanity repressed by a combination of factors such as mass-produced medication, booths dedicated to religious worship, and robotic enforcers that are very willing to resort to physical violence to keep the humans in line. As with many other dystopian films, the plot is driven by a need to escape from the film's oppressive reality by any means possible, and Duvall eventually conspires to escape with his roommate (Maggie McOmie) with whom he has developed a romantic connection that is outlawed by society. Thus begins a journey through the reasonably well-developed but not too inventive world of the film as Duvall encounters all manner of obstacles in his bid for freedom, most notably when he gets imprisoned over his rebellion.

THX 1138 is decent enough for a feature-length debut that draws in some considerable talent (aside from Duvall, distinguished character actor Donald Pleasence shows up as a fellow citizen) and has an interesting enough visual aesthetic with its metal-faced police officers and bright white prisons, but it's let down a bit by the fact that it's not an especially inventive film in terms of plot or characterisation. The characterisation can't really be helped due to the fact that every character is supposed to be an emotionless drone with no personality, but at least Duvall sells his own character's doubts reasonably well on occasion. The plot suffers because, well, it's a pretty standard dystopia plot and thus it only seems to exist in service to the world as opposed to vice versa. The satire on display is pretty entry-level, but at least the visual style is decent. While THX 1138 doesn't exactly do anything especially new when it comes to dystopia fiction, it's still a short and somewhat watchable film that might be worthwhile for sci-fi fans looking to see a different take on a familiar sub-genre, but if that sounds like you then you shouldn't get your hopes up over this being amazing.

2.5

Iroquois

07-23-15, 03:59 PM

#455 - Blue Steel
Kathryn Bigelow, 1989

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YXkvdRFoLGs/maxresdefault.jpg

When a rookie cop shoots an armed robber, a bystander acquires the robber's gun and becomes obsessed with violence.

Blue Steel marks the fifth Kathryn Bigelow film I've seen and it marks the first film of hers that I have genuinely disliked. Sandwiched between a pair of cult classics, 1987's vampire neo-Western Near Dark and 1991's extreme-sports caper flick Point Break, it is ultimately a rather disappointing cop movie that was co-written by Bigelow and her Near Dark collaborator Eric Red. Granted, it does offer a somewhat unusual premise in having a female NYPD rookie (Jamie Lee Curtis) get caught up in a convenience store robbery during her first day on the job. It results in her shooting the perp, but the perp's gun goes missing when a yuppie bystander (Ron Silver) picks it up and, inspired by the events he's just witnessed, begins his own gradual descent into wanton violence. Meanwhile, Curtis must go through some serious struggles as her superiors question her use of deadly force on a supposedly armed robber when no gun was recovered from the scene...

I give Blue Steel some credit for doing something slightly different with its takes on both protagonist and antagonist. Curtis's gender does understandably draw some derisive comments from her male superiors and her partner (Clancy Brown, who becomes the subject of one especially forced romantic sub-plot), plus it adds a somewhat interesting spin to her relationship with her parents (Louise Fletcher and Philip Bosco), especially when it comes to her abusive father. Silver, on the other hand, makes for a somewhat interesting villain due to his being a rather ordinary Wall Street type whose growing obsession with mindless violence as a release from his everyday drudgery feels like an antedecent to characters like American Psycho's Patrick Bateman. Of course, this is about all the depth there is to these characters before they are both plunged into a excruciatingly standard cat-and-mouse game that's given only the slightest of variations on the generic Hollywood cop movie formula. Other films have shown Bigelow to be a reasonably talented filmmaker who has worked with some intriguing high concepts, but here that talent just gets wasted on a series of sequences that fluctuate between slow-motion shoot-outs and slasher-like suspense. As a result, Blue Steel feels like a horribly dated and inconsequential piece of work that takes a somewhat interesting premise and yet doesn't make a sufficiently interesting film out of it, which is very disappointing considering what the director and her collaborators have otherwise been capable of doing.

1.5

MovieMeditation

07-23-15, 04:42 PM

I was never really interested in watching Lucy. And after that review, I definitely didn't become more interested. :p

It just seemed ridiculous from the very beginning and from what I have read and seen the actual execution of it was just as silly as the plot.

But a good review! :up:

ursaguy

07-23-15, 06:04 PM

cricket

07-23-15, 10:00 PM

It's been a while, but I remember liking Blue Steel. I'm a big Bigelow fan; my favorite of her's is Strange Days, just ahead of Near Dark-have you seen it?

Lucy sucked-agreed!

Iroquois

07-23-15, 11:27 PM

When I heard bad things about Lucy, I thought people were being stubborn about it. Yes, the premise is stupid, get over yourself. A lot of great sci-fi movies have dumb premises. Then I actually saw the movie. It's pretty terrible. It almost makes me disappointed, because if I was told about how awful the characters and storyline were instead of just the premise I wouldn't have seen it at all. Oh well. You nailed a lot of the problems I had with it, mostly at how the hero is murdering innocent people. I can't root for that.

I do have to wonder if the fake brain science was supposed to be a smokescreen for the fact that the whole movie makes very little sense aside from that, and what parts do make sense suck anyway for reasons I mentioned in the review. Even from a "switch your brain off and enjoy" point of view (which is ironic considering the premise), it's an extremely dissatisfying piece of work.

It's been a while, but I remember liking Blue Steel. I'm a big Bigelow fan; my favorite of her's is Strange Days, just ahead of Near Dark-have you seen it?

Lucy sucked-agreed!

The other Bigelow films I've seen are Near Dark, Point Break, Strange Days, and The Hurt Locker. Near Dark is probably my favourite by default, though I've been meaning to revisit Strange Days and The Hurt Locker (Point Break is fun, but not enough so to be my favourite).

ash_is_the_gal

07-24-15, 09:52 AM

you didn't like it, but you make Blue Steel sound kinda interesting so i'm gonna take note of it. thanks :p

Iroquois

07-24-15, 09:57 AM

Yeah, Blue Steel is somewhere between a 1.5 and 2 on the basis of its premise and leads alone, but I obviously wasn't fussed about the execution in general.

Sexy Celebrity

07-24-15, 10:00 AM

I tried to watch Blue Steel once. The key word is "tried."

Iroquois

07-24-15, 10:56 AM

#456 - The Shop Around the Corner
Ernst Lubitsch, 1940

https://adamcr007.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/shop-around-the-corner-1.jpg

A pair of employees in a Budapest store share an extremely belligerent co-existence in person without realising that they are in a romantic pen-pal relationship with one another.

It's a credit to any film where you can know just about everything there is to know about a film before going in and it still manages to win you over just fine. The Shop Around the Corner uses a very tried-and-true formula for its story - that of the people who hate each other in reality but who have unwittingly forged a secret relationship through another medium. Here, it is between two colleagues at a leathergoods shop in Budapest, one a stubborn veteran (James Stewart) and the other a newly-employed go-getter (Margaret Sullavan) who instantly step on each other's toes in their attempts to appease their boss (Frank Morgan). The film's main variation on this familiar formula ends up being something of a heavily foreshadowed twist when it is revealed that Stewart and Sullavan are pen-pals who got into contact through an anonymous classified ad. Their passionate and intelligent correspondence naturally makes for an ironic counterpoint to their passive-aggressive work environment.

Even as the film's A-story follows a somewhat easy to predict progression, it is buoyed by a good cast of characters and some capable performers. An interesting thing I've noticed about old Hollywood films that are set in foreign countries and feature characters native to the region is in how most of the cast members don't even bother attempting any remotely European accents (while some of them coincidentally do have such accents), though it's a forgiveable trait that I figure makes things more convenient for actors and audiences alike. Imagine James Stewart trying to sound Hungarian - yeah. He still makes for a sufficiently earnest and likeable protagonist anyway, while Sullavan makes for a good counterpart as they both avoid completely descending into acid-tongued antipathy and thus don't come across as boring. The supporting characters don't all ring true (the shop's wise-cracking errand boy is more than a little irksome), but they flesh out the film and its setting impressively enough so that when the film ends up dedicating time to a sub-plot involving the shop's boss suspecting his wife of infidelity, it doesn't feel like a weak attempt at padding. Throw in some clever little jokes (often involving the cigarette case that doubles as a music-box), surprising yet believable plot developments, and a general sense of warmth to the shop and those who work in it and you actually have a reasonably well-developed old-school romance film that is definitely worth a watch.

3.5

Iroquois

07-25-15, 11:20 AM

#457 - Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Kevin Smith, 2001

http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/images/film/jay-and-silent-bob-strike-back/w1280/jay-and-silent-bob-strike-back.jpg

When a pair of low-level drug dealers find out that a comic book loosely based on their lives is being turned into a movie, they set out for Hollywood in order to stop production on the movie.

I don't think I've seen Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back all the way through in at least a decade and not since I first went through a Kevin Smith phase that involved me watching his first five films (Jersey Girl's reputation put me off watching it for a long time), all of which take place in the same inter-connected cinematic universe that is colloquially referred to as the "View Askewniverse" in reference to Smith's View Askew production company. The most prominent connection between the Askewniverse films is of course Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith himself), a pair of marijuana dealers who play a classic comedy odd couple. Jay is rude, talkative, and not very bright, whereas Silent Bob lives up to his name as a perpetually mute character who tends to communicate through small gestures and generally comes across as smarter and more polite than Jay. The two of them have played supporting roles of various sizes in Smith's other films, though here they get to be the leads as they set out on their own adventure after they finally get banned from their favourite spot to hang out and deal - the Quick Stop from Clerks. They soon learn that Bluntman and Chronic, a superhero comic based on their actual selves, is being turned into a movie and is prompting anonymous Internet commentors to start mocking the duo themselves. Naturally, Jay and Silent Bob decide to trek from New Jersey to Hollywood in order to stop the movie from being made and therefore stop people making fun of them on the Internet.

The plot of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is fundamentally rooted in metafictional irony - it's a Jay and Silent Bob movie that ends up being about sabotaging the people who are making a Jay and Silent Bob movie. This spreads to the jokes that leave no target untouched in search of a laugh. There are many call-backs to other Smith films, self-deprecation, biting-the-hand humour aimed at Hollywood (especially Miramax, who produced this film), random pop-cultural parodies ranging from Charlie's Angels to Scooby-Doo, and when all else fails there's some easy juvenile humour thanks to its two immature leads. Indeed, it seems like the most genuine laughs I got out of this film now can be credited to Jay and his tendency towards either spouting foul-mouthed one-liners (case in point - the scene where he and Silent Bob get online and write their own response to the Internet trolls) or ending up on the receiving end of some rather painful and humiliating circumstances (such as his surprise encounter with "the Cock-Knocker", who does exactly what you'd expect). Unfortunately, easy jokes at the expensive of the more insufferable member of the leading duo only throw into sharp relief how bad the film ends up being when it tries to genuinely be clever. A blatant example is how the film recycles the "movie character complains about movie's badness before facing the camera and staring" gag from Top Secret! at least three times, but plenty of the barbs end up failing, especially when they invoke self-deprecation. This much is clear with Chris Rock playing a militant black director whose cracks about Hollywood's inherent flaws just tend to induce groans and fond memories of when Smith could actually write decent jokes for characters like Hooper X from Chasing Amy or Rufus from Dogma.

On that note, so many of the call-backs to earlier Smith films just feel horribly forced, especially since the film with the greatest relevance to the wacky stoner-buddy road movie adventure of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back ends up being the extremely tragicomic and realistic relationship drama that is Chasing Amy. Even the parodic non sequiturs based on films like The Fugitive and Planet of the Apes tend to fall flat more often than not and do feel like weak padding (the best example of this being the Scooby-Doo segment, which could easily have been cut without anyone noticing). The biting-the-hand humour that starts appearing in droves once the pair finally reach Hollywood also leaves a lot to be desired even as it parodies iconic Miramax properties like Good Will Hunting or Scream and the people involved in making them (such as indie darling Gus Van Sant being too busy counting out stacks of cash to actually direct - ho ho). That's without getting into how weak the sub-plot involving the van full of female jewel thieves posing as environmentalists tends to be even for a broad comedy, though at least that gives us Will Ferrell in one of his more bearable roles as an incompetent wildlife marshall intent on chasing down the pair. That's without getting started on how downright obnoxious the film's tendency towards resorting to gay jokes can be regardless of any spontaneously amused reactions one might get out of them.

While Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back isn't the worst movie that Kevin Smith ever made, knowing that he intended it to be the final film in the View Askewniverse does make me feel that this is really is the beginning of the end for Smith as it showcases a lot of the same narrative and comedic flaws that would be exacerbated to greater levels in each subsequent film (with the possible exceptions of Clerks II and Red State, which I contend are the only truly decent films he's made in the past fifteen years). Jay and Bob make for funny enough comic-relief characters in other movies (and I'm not just saying that so that they don't threaten to find me and kick my ass), but in trying to fill an entire feature-length film about them he throws in just about everything that he hopes will stick and the film ultimately becomes a serious mess as a result. It did get enough laughs out of me so as not to be a total failure as a comedy, but they are stretched far too thin across this film's running time to make it a genuinely decent film. It also made me feel like re-watching Purple Rain, for whatever that's worth.

2

honeykid

07-25-15, 11:46 AM

I've not seen it for two or three years now, but I love this film. It's just stupidly funny.

nebbit

07-26-15, 12:28 AM

Glad to see you are not a huge fan of Love Story :yup:

I bought Lucy on bluray for $10 I over paid for it :yup:

tatmmw2

07-26-15, 12:39 AM

#453 - Lucy
Luc Besson, 2014

1

I knew you were going to qualify it like that! :p. Although the movie is not well received by people I enjoy it! However, it's a fact that it's not a good movie as you said there is no conflict, she is so powerful that it's boring. I enjoyed watching the cinema sins version of it and constantly repeating why didn't she just kill all the enemies and stuff. People often say the same about Superman, that he is really powerful and boring, if it weren't because of his weakness he will be like a God but I think I enjoy God-like people so I am totally okey with it :).

Tugg

07-26-15, 03:16 AM

Superman is action hero so it is problematic that he is too powerful. Lucy is not an action film, it is philosophical sci- fi.

Iroquois

07-26-15, 12:43 PM

I've not seen it for two or three years now, but I love this film. It's just stupidly funny.

Yeah, it's a pity that virtually all the funniest parts are generated by Jay's own idiocy and his interplay with Bob, plus some of the sillier jokes (everything about the C.L.I.T., for instance) but that means that its attempts to get clever just fall apart.

I knew you were going to qualify it like that! :p. Although the movie is not well received by people I enjoy it! However, it's a fact that it's not a good movie as you said there is no conflict, she is so powerful that it's boring. I enjoyed watching the cinema sins version of it and constantly repeating why didn't she just kill all the enemies and stuff. People often say the same about Superman, that he is really powerful and boring, if it weren't because of his weakness he will be like a God but I think I enjoy God-like people so I am totally okey with it :).

I really want to see CinemaSins' take on it, but unfortunately it is apparently restricted in Australia due to copyright claims from Universal. Don't see why they have to make a big stink about it, especially since about 90% of the other CinemaSins movie videos are still available anyway. Superman is a whole other kettle of fish because he still has his Clark Kent persona and upbringing to keep him honest and good-hearted so he doesn't abuse his powers for evil, against which his weakness to Kryptonite doesn't seem to have much of an effect.

Superman is action hero so it is problematic that he is too powerful. Lucy is not an action film, it is philosophical sci- fi.

Sci-fi, definitely, but the philosophical kind? Please elaborate.

Iroquois

07-26-15, 12:48 PM

#458 - Blue Jasmine
Woody Allen, 2013

http://cdn2-www.craveonline.com/assets/uploads/2013/07/Blue-Jasmine-Cate-Blanchett.jpg

A highly neurotic woman who used to enjoy a more expensive lifestyle is forced to move back in with her poorer sister.

Exactly how many chances should you give a filmmaker to impress you before you decide to just give up on watching their films altogether? Whatever the answer may be, I think I've probably passed it when it comes to Woody Allen and thus have nobody to blame but myself for my continued attempts to see him do something worthwhile. Blue Jasmine marks the sixth (and, surprisingly, not the last) film of his that I've seen, though I imagine it was more to do with seeing what kind of performance won Cate Blanchett an Oscar than anything else. If nothing else, Blanchett definitely delivers a performance that's appropriately nervous and pathetic as the eponymous Jasmine, but I never shook the feeling that it was a performance that deserved a better film. Jasmine is introduced while talking non-stop about her life and problems to a fellow airline passenger in a sequence that lasts from the plane's flight to the luggage area, eventually revealing that the passenger in question hadn't invited any conversation in the first place. Such a sequence really sets the tone for the rest of the film, but perhaps not in the way that actually makes the film any good as a result - I still feel just like that bewildered passenger from the start of the film, all the way up until

the final scene where Jasmine sits next to a woman on a park bench and once again starts talking out loud about herself, at which point the woman promptly gets up and walks away.

I suspect the main reason I tend not to like Allen's films is that I find it difficult to really care about the characters in them. Jasmine is clearly intended to be a complex character who constantly zig-zags between winning and losing an audience's sympathy, but it's done to the point where it's easy to lose interest in how her situation is resolved, whether for better or worse. This same viewpoint does not completely apply to her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins), who has her own series of troubles that are less self-imposed and more inclined to make one sympathetic as a result but still feel like largely inconsequential window-dressing for Jasmine's A-plot. Said A-plot basically involves Jasmine pinballing between different characters as she attempts to get her life back on track while still having to contend with her conflict-riddled past (which is gradually revealed through a series of flashbacks that are never clearly announced as such) and also present-day crises such as an amorous dentist/employer or Ginger's rather abusive loser of a boyfriend. Unfortunately, there's very little in the way of ostentatious style (apart from Allen doing what he usually does and picking some of the most boring-sounding background songs possible) to help compensate for the lack of substance that seriously undermines some rather good performances on the parts of both Blanchett and Hawkins.

1.5

Tugg

07-26-15, 01:32 PM

Sci-fi, definitely, but the philosophical kind? Please elaborate.
"Lucy" explores themes of evolution, consciousness, drugs, artificial intelligence and religion. Lucy is revolutionary being that keeps reaching new frontiers of higher consciousness in the evolutionary process. It might be by Devine intervention or drugs or becoming God itself. Each stage Lucy reaches comes with different moral outlook therefore killing or not killing is made by Lucy at a different stage of evolution. The movie gives many answers for what intelligence or consciousness might be and it's up to a viewer weather he considers them relevant or not. Brain power percentages is just a meme used to explore these themes.

Gatsby

07-26-15, 08:28 PM

mark f

07-26-15, 08:42 PM

For everybody who overthinks something - and let's face it, that's what this thread is often about - there's somebody who underthinks it to make an unliked film look worse than it is. Not that that's really eye-opening. :)

seanc

07-26-15, 08:48 PM

I loved Blue Jasmine, my second favorite Allen. I love a lot of his films for the reason you seem to hate them. I think his characters are amazing, neurotic and flawed. His dialogue is, of course, some of the best around.

Iroquois

07-27-15, 01:04 AM

"Lucy" explores themes of evolution, consciousness, drugs, artificial intelligence and religion. Lucy is revolutionary being that keeps reaching new frontiers of higher consciousness in the evolutionary process. It might be by Devine intervention or drugs or becoming God itself. Each stage Lucy reaches comes with different moral outlook therefore killing or not killing is made by Lucy at a different stage of evolution. The movie gives many answers for what intelligence or consciousness might be and it's up to a viewer weather he considers them relevant or not. Brain power percentages is just a meme used to explore these themes.

Dude you are totally overthinking this. Lucy is just an excuse for Luc Besson to have Scarlett Johansson destroy stuff with her nonsensical abilities, all the assumptions about evolution and consciousness are simply very weakly explored themes attached to look intelligent, sort of like fake nerd glasses.

Yeah, I don't deny that it adds those themes, but Gatsby is right in that they are explored very weakly, if at all beyond the most cursory of references. My original review even compared Lucy to Watchmen's Dr. Manhattan in that both were once ordinary humans who underwent traumatic events that resulted in them becoming God-like beings that were capable of manipulating matter but were losing touch with humanity as a result. Lucy's state of consciousness and moral outlook may shift constantly as she unlocks more and more of her brain power, but that doesn't excuse some severe lapses in logic. The most obvious example of this is when she tortures the mob boss for information and then lets him live even when she should know that, if he lives, he still has the power to pose a threat to her. Even if she evolves to the point where she cannot physically be killed, he can still interfere with her plans thanks to his goal of recovering the drugs, which he does. Then there's the scene where she's recklessly driving through the streets of France and endangering civilians while also causing police cars to crash. When the detective in her car calls her out on this behaviour, she simply responds that "nobody ever truly dies", which is an awfully convenient way to handwave any collateral damage she might do in her search for enlightenment and whatnot.

Another thing that's never actually established about Lucy is whether or not she can actually be seriously hurt. She learns how to ignore pain early on (as evidenced by her getting surgery without anaesthetic to remove the burst pack of drugs) but that's about it, with the only real threat being that she might disintegrate completely if she doesn't get any more of the drug (which sounds an awful lot like the "keep your adrenaline high" gimmick from Crank), so that also sucks a lot of the tension out. That might have been fine if Lucy was willing to emphasise the philosophical side more so than the action side, but its philosophical side is too superficial (and is caked in badly done knock-offs of animal documentaries and The Tree of Life, to boot) and ultimately undermines the action so that it can't even provide adequate suspension of disbelief even within the context of such a fantastic premise. As I said before, the brain percentage myth actually ends up being the least of the film's problems.

For everybody who overthinks something - and let's face it, that's what this thread is often about - there's somebody who underthinks it to make an unliked film look worse than it is. Not that that's really eye-opening. :)

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/47/6c/71/476c711be0922c0a6750d262d7d7fceb.jpg

I loved Blue Jasmine, my second favorite Allen. I love a lot of his films for the reason you seem to hate them. I think his characters are amazing, neurotic and flawed. His dialogue is, of course, some of the best around.

That's probably true.

Guaporense

07-27-15, 01:54 AM

#452 - Ghost in the Shell
Mamoru Oshii, 1995
4

I think should try to watch his other movies, like Angel's Egg, Urusei Yatsura 2 and Patlabor 1 & 2, I think you will like most of his movies, they are pretty cool overall, though Patlabor 2 is the closest to GitS (since he made it 2 years before GitS). GitS still is my favorite of his so far, perhaps because it was the first of his movies I watched, when I was 14, in fact. He is the director with the second largest number of movies in my top 100 animated movies behind only Miyazaki.

Iroquois

07-27-15, 03:43 AM

I watched Angel's Egg about five years ago now and gave it a 3.5 on the basis of that viewing. I would not hesitate to re-watch it, though.

Iroquois

07-27-15, 04:45 AM

#459 - Battle Royale
Kinji Fukusaku, 2000

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QFLfkWrtLAQ/maxresdefault.jpg

A class full of middle-school students go on a class trip only to find that they have been stranded on a remote island and are being forced to fight each other to the death.

Another day, another favourite film - this time it's Battle Royale, the instant cult classic that spun a darkly fun little film out of a well-worn sci-fi trope by building a dystopian world where the Japanese government's plan to crack down on growing socio-economic problems such as unemployment and juvenile delinquency is to...randomly choose one class of middle-school students each year to be placed on an island and forced to compete in "Battle Royale", where they must fight to the death until there is only one student remaining. To guarantee that the students comply with the rules of the game, they are fitted with explosive collars that will detonate if there isn't a clear winner left by the end of the game's three-day period. Other factors - such as survival packs that each contain a single randomised "weapon" (ranging from practical ones like guns and knives to non-lethal ones like binoculars and GPS trackers) so as to make things more interesting. Once the classmates (and a pair of mysterious newcomers who are added at the last minute) are set loose on the island, they all respond to the situation in a variety of different and disturbing ways (some go on killing sprees, some opt out through suicide, some try to fight back against those in charge, etc.), but the common goal for many of them is to survive no matter what.

Multiple viewings and the passage of time have made it easier to see through the flaws that were easy to ignore the first dozen times I saw this film, but I think it's to the film's credit that it blows past a lot of them pretty easily. The film's cold open indicates that each year's Battle Royale attracts a media frenzy whenever it's over, yet this year's class have to have the whole thing explained to them as if they had never heard of it (presumably for the sake of developing exposition to the audience). There are other inconsistencies provided by the rules of the game, such as the references to "danger zones" that set off the players' collars but play virtually no significant role in the story, as well as the entire sub-plot involving a trio of computer nerds planning their own subterfuge that doesn't make a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. I think stuff like this is easy to tolerate because, despite its rather disturbing premise involving schoolkids being forced to murder each other, it is a fundamentally pulpy and satirical piece of work that doesn't go overboard in terms of seriousness but instead knows how to play up its absurd premise for some twisted laughs here and there. This much is emphasised by the casting of renowned comedian-actor Takeshi Kitano as the man overseeing this year's contest, with his haggard appearance and worn-out demeanour making him a definite scene-stealer. The other actors in the film tend to be young ones who are close in age to their middle-school characters, and though they vary in terms of ability they fill out the roles of scared teenagers reasonably well no matter what.

What makes the film really come alive is how it uses its premise to stage some unforgettably bloody and comical vignettes as students do battle with one another. Having a couple of minor villains stalking the island make for constant threats (case in point being wild-haired transfer student Kiriyama, whose silent yet gleeful stalking of his prey also make him a scene-stealer whenever he shows up), but often the film plays out a bunch of unrelated conflicts that have tenuous connections to the main plot. Individual scenes use use the teens' heightened emotions as springboards for memorable moments - one of the best scenes of the film involves a group of best friends turning on each other in the wake of a suspicious death, while another involves a girl getting bloody vengeance on a boy who won't stop pestering her. The scenes are brought to life with some impressive effects work with well-done mixtures of the practical and the computerised that still hold up a good fifteen years later. These scenes prop up the development of a main plot that involves a pair of friends swearing to both make it out alive by any means necessary, which isn't all totally interesting on its own but is a decent enough narrative thread to follow through to the end.

While Battle Royale is far from a perfect film that's got its fair share of shortcomings, even now it's still an oddly charming piece of work that manages to invent a clever yet controversial variation on a familiar trope yet not get bogged down in tedious dramatics. The film may be a little slow at times and it steamrolls over possible plot holes so quickly that you can't always pick them up or you just assume that they're part of the plan, but it's more than made up for by some rather inventive scenes of emotionally charged carnage as well as an extremely bizarre sense of humour bubbling underneath its extremely tense surface. Some excellent slices of classical music are used to great effect, plus there are some great leitmotifs (such as the ominous chanting that starts up whenever Kiriyama shows up). The film still stands tall and remains a major favourite of mine even today, and if you can handle an off-beat yet blood-soaked piece of dystopia then you should definitely check this one out.

4.5

Iroquois

07-27-15, 04:47 AM

#460 - Akira
Katsuhiro Ôtomo, 1988

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17iqz7p71w98pjpg/original.jpg

Decades after a mysterious explosion devastates Tokyo and triggers World War III, a teenage delinquent's chance encounter with a government test subject leads to him developing psychic powers.

Original review found here (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=1356539#post1356539).

5

Iroquois

07-27-15, 09:22 AM

#461 - Pixels
Patrick Jean, 2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUnyUrA34bQ

Gigantic versions of classic arcade game characters start coming to life and terrorising the world.

It wasn't until reviews started pouring for the brand-new sci-fi comedy Pixels that I learned that it was actually an expansive remake of a computer-animted short of the same name. It runs for only two-and-a-half minutes but it's an entertaining two-and-a-half minutes. There are no human characters save perhaps for the faceless person whose discarding of an old television at the start of the clip seems to be the catalyst for this sudden invasion as it comes to life right before waves of pixelated attackers appear in the sky and start wreaking havoc on the city by taking the form of characters from the most old-school of videogames such as Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Donkey Kong.

Of course, I can't really rate Pixels too highly because it is a very simplistic affair even after taking its extremely brief running time into consideration. Aliens invade in the form of videogame characters and wreck stuff (presumably out of revenge for being disregarded by the human race, as evidenced by the discarded television). The animation is nice, colourful, and competent enough that I managed to believe I was watching actual cars being destroyed by killer spaceships. It's definitely worth the short amount of time that it takes to watch, but it's too lightweight to be truly great.

3

Iroquois

07-27-15, 10:11 AM

#462 - The Caine Mutiny
Edward Dmytryk, 1954

http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/theoryandpractice/caine-mutiny-bogart.jpg

During World War II, the crew of a U.S. Navy battleship must contend with their new captain and his incredibly frustrating methods of commanding.

Geez, spoiler alert. But seriously, The Caine Mutiny is a decent if not amazing piece of wartime drama that starts off by stressing that a mutiny has never actually happened in the history of the U.S. Navy and that the events of the film are merely the exploration of such a hypothetical situation. Naturally, the film decides that the perfect way to frame such a situation for the audience is to introduce a new transfer (Robert Francis) who gets to witness events unfolding firsthand, from the titular ship's old captain getting sick of the ship's lack of discipline through to the new captain (Humphrey Bogart) and his obsession with discipline that ironically ends up causing more problems and discontent amongst the crew. Naturally, this leads to the crew considering relieving Bogart of his command, and it's not long before the opportunity arises...

The Caine Mutiny is pretty straightforward as far as dramas go and it's held up by some respectable actors. Bogart brings an appropriately unhinged demeanour to his usual grouchy charisma that becomes sufficiently challenged under stress (especially during the courtroom scenes that make up the film's third act), while actors such as Fred MacMurray, Van Johnson, and José Ferrer (especially the latter, who gets in some powerhouse moments despite only appearing during the film's final third). It's competently directed, though it does have its odd moment that doesn't work so well (such as a romantic sub-plot for Francis) and I can't help but feel like the quiet, character-driven courtroom scenes end up being more interesting than the action-packed thrills that actually take place onboard the Caine itself. It's decent enough for one watch, but it doesn't have much staying power.

3

Iroquois

07-27-15, 11:13 AM

#463 - The Defiant Ones
Stanley Kramer, 1958

http://cdn5.movieclips.com/mgm/t/the-defiant-ones-1958/0494390_9607_MC_Tx304.jpg

In the middle of the Deep South, a pair of convicts - one black, one white - manage to escape from captivity but they are forced to co-operate with one another since they are chained together at the wrist.

The Defiant Ones has one of those great high concepts that's very of its time and yet truly timeless. Given the time period and setting, it's no surprise that racism plays a major role in the proceedings. Most prominently, there is the blatant racial tension between the two convicts (Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier) that must work together in order to evade the search party that is hot on their heels and find a way to break their shackles while they're at it. As can be expected, both characters gradually learn to overcome their socially ingrained hatred for what the other represents amidst trying to navigate obstacles such as whitewater rapids and lynch-mobs. Definitely some tried-and-true material that is elevated by having a pair of charismatic leads who play off each other well as they move through a lot of the usual beats for such a narrative (even going so far as to introduce a romantic sub-plot for Curtis).

Technically, the film is rather utilitarian and dedicated to telling its story, generally avoiding music while using some fittingly monochromatic cinematography. The actors are generally decent, but it wouldn't be what it was without its leads being as good as they are. Curtis may start the film as a wild-eyed racist spitting a lot of the usual epithets but he soon grows over the course of his journey with Poitier, who carries himself with a dignified air of tranquil fury that makes for a captivating performance. It's not the most shocking film you'll ever see, but it's got enough surprises to stay compelling all the way through.

3.5

Swan

07-27-15, 11:17 AM

ash_is_the_gal

07-27-15, 12:03 PM

i've refused to watch another Woody Allen film ever again because i find him unforgivably despicable, though i admit i had heard decent things about Blue Jasmine and was a little curious about it. but i share your opinion that Woody Allen and his characters are nothing all that special.

Iroquois

07-27-15, 12:12 PM

Yeah, I don't particularly like the guy as a human being either. I even noted in my Annie Hall review that it's hard to separate the art and artist when it seems like just about every film of his prominently features a character that's so clearly modeled off himself (which becomes exceedingly obvious when said character is played by Allen himself). Similar examples include Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris and Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine.

Iroquois

07-28-15, 05:59 AM

#464 - Match Point
Woody Allen, 2005

http://webomatica.com/wordpress/images/movies/match-point.jpg

A newly-employed tennis instructor starts to ingratiate himself with a rich family by promising to marry the daughter but soon begins an affair with the son's girlfriend.

Credit where credit's due - Match Point at least tries something a little different to just about every other Allen film I've seen (this makes the seventh one I've seen as of writing). There's no character that could be loosely be considered a surrogate for Allen himself, which is often a major sticking point regarding my appreciation (or lack thereof) of his films. However, the film still gives us a rather reprehensible protagonist to follow in the form of a tennis pro (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), who is quickly established as a smooth-talking social climber who warms up to a pair of wealthy siblings (Matthew Goode and Emily Mortimer). Mortimer becomes infatuated with him, while Rhys-Meyers does not share her feelings but instead becomes attracted to Goode's fiancée (Scarlett Johansson) and intends to start his own affair with her.

While Match Point changes things up significantly by shifting the action to England, using predominantly British actors, and introducing certain complications at the end of the second act that feel rather unlike anything I've seen in other Allen films (though they could have happened for all I know), for much of its running time it still feels like a mess of flat characters interacting in manners that come across as theatrical yet soulless (even though the actors playing them are generally decent). While one could argue that that is the intent when it comes to Rhys-Meyers' character, it doesn't make him or his self-inflicted predicament especially engaging even when less guilty characters like Mortimer's and Johansson's are involved and are capable of being damaged by his cruel and self-serving nature. As such, most of the film only feels like it's biding time waiting to kick things into high gear for the rather surprising third act, which almost made me give this a higher rating. Unfortunately, it's the kind of slow-burning build-up that's too slow and uninteresting for its own good and so the third act feels like too little too late, especially considering how it works as a shallow exploration of the themes of chance and fate that are mentioned during an opening shot that uses a tennis ball striking the top of a net as a metaphor for said themes.

1.5

ash_is_the_gal

07-28-15, 11:16 AM

out of curiosity, what other Allen films have you seen?

Iroquois

07-28-15, 10:50 PM

out of curiosity, what other Allen films have you seen?

As of writing, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Broadway Danny Rose, Hannah and Her Sisters, Midnight in Paris, and Blue Jasmine. With the exception of Broadway Danny Rose, all of them have reviews in this very thread.

Iroquois

07-28-15, 11:08 PM

#465 - Wag the Dog
Barry Levinson, 1997

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wJuCRJufpc4/maxresdefault.jpg

A clandestine spin doctor teams up with a renowned Hollywood producer in order to create a fictitious war in order to cover up a presidential sex scandal and ensure his re-election.

Despite its occasional dip into darker comedy, it's funny how quaint Wag the Dog seems in the wake of subsequent political satires like The Thick of It and its feature-length spin-off In the Loop, which also mined the concept of spin doctors and the more disturbing implications of their jobs for comedic gold (especially considering how both the Levinson film and the BBC sitcom focus on the experts running around behind-the-scenes without ever actually showing the chief executive that they're trying to protect, though Wag the Dog does cheat a bit by having a brief seen-from-behind televised appearance). Even so, Wag the Dog still takes an extremely absurd premise and manages to make it seem extremely feasible within the otherwise realistic world depicted here. The film introduces us to Robert de Niro's frumpy-looking "Mr. Fix-It" whose air of matter-of-fact geniality disguises a rather cunning and manipulative figure responsible for keeping the government running as smoothly as possible no matter what kind of obstacles pop up. When the President is caught up in an extremely damaging sex scandal less than two weeks before election day, de Niro decides to seek out the help of a veteran film producer (Dustin Hoffman) in order to help him stage a fictional war with Albania so as to distract both the media and the public from the scandal. Hoffman readily agrees simply because it sounds like fun. They use all sorts of tricks in order to try to keep attention on the Albanian conflict even as many other players - from the C.I.A. to the man they choose to play their "war hero" - threaten to undermine the ruse for whatever reason.

Though it's arguably been improved upon by other films covering similar material, Wag the Dog still holds up just fine on its own. Hoffman and de Niro make for good leads that complement each other nicely, while the rest of the cast turn in decent (though frequently brief) performances. Anne Heche may be the weak link in the cast as she gets little else to do but play de Niro's beleagured offsider, but she's amply propped up by actors like William H. Macy and Woody Harrelson (the latter of whom steals every frame he's in). This even extends to Willie Nelson, who I thought was supposed to be playing himself but was in fact playing a completely fictitious country singer put in charge of composing the war's official protest song. Much like that particular moment, there are plenty of clever jabs at both Hollywood and the mainstream media, such as Hoffman's perfectionist tendencies interfering with the team's attempts to falsify footage of wartorn Albania using a blue screen and a bag of potato chips (complete with noticeably generic stock screams, which I think makes it better) and the fact that the media actually sells it to a public who buys it ("I didn't know Jim Belushi was Albanian!"). There are also enough twists to the plot to not only keep it from getting stale but also in exposing just how audacious the lies can get, especially when the decision to invent an American war hero yields some darkly amusing consequences. Ultimately, the only real problem with Wag the Dog is that it is clever more so than it is funny and, despite some still-trenchant commentary on the 24-hour news cycle and the people who constantly seek to manipulate it for their own gain, it's not a major classic either. An important and reasonably influential piece, to be sure, but you can definitely see how it's been improved upon since its release.

3

Iroquois

07-28-15, 11:09 PM

#466 - Frenzy
Alfred Hitchcock, 1972

https://twscritic.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/frenzy-movie.jpg

An alcoholic bartender is being dragged into the hunt for a serial rapist and murderer who strangles his victims with neckties.

A decade after unleashing Psycho on the world and inspiring a new wave of filmmakers in addition to loosening the restrictions on what could be shown on the silver screen, Alfred Hitchcock returned to the serial killer sub-genre with his penultimate film, 1972's Frenzy. Though the similarities to Psycho are fairly easy to pick, one also notes how it employs the same "wrong man" narrative that had served Hitchcock and his career well for decades by having its slovenly anti-hero (Jon Finch) become the prime suspect for the killings after his ex-wife ends up becoming the latest victim around the same time that he was seen reconnecting with her. While Psycho held off on the reveal of its villain's true nature until its final scenes, Frenzy establishes the villain's true identity at a relatively early juncture, which does add a bit of an interesting cat-and-mouse dynamic as the audience frequently ends up being witness to the villain's murders (or the implications of such) and his attempts to cover his tracks by any means necessary. The most memorable sequence in the film ends up being the blackly comic scene where the villain tries to retrieve an incriminating piece of evidence from the clenched fist of a corpse that has undergone rigor mortis - while both are bouncing along in a truck full of potatoes.

I thought it was an interesting touch that, where Psycho's villain becomes a serial killer partly out of extreme sexual repression, Frenzy's villain does so for the exact opposite reason. Those themes run rampant throughout the film and not without touches of irony, such as Finch's ex-wife running a rather successful matchmaking agency while he attempts to connect with a female co-worker. The freedom offered by relaxed censorship codes is evident from the occasional scene involving female nudity, but Hitchcock doesn't go overboard with it or let its sparing use come across as titillating. The actors are decent enough - Finch makes a believably worthless yet somewhat sympathetic protagonist who never makes the leap to being the hero, while Barry Foster effortlessly steals the show as Finch's sharply-dressed businessman friend. If there is a flaw that stops Frenzy being a genuinely likeable piece of work, it's that it goes on for too long and does feel like it's padding out its running time quite often even when the scenes are still somewhat relevant to the main plot. Prime examples include the subplot involving another of Finch's friends sheltering Finch to the chagrin of his extremely suspicious wife or the attempts to add humour to the chief detective's off-duty epiphanies by having his own wife attempt terrible-tasting gourmet cuisine. It's aged a bit too much for its own good, but there are still plenty of decent moments that mean Frenzy is definitely worthy of some recognition, even if it does feel like Hitchcock is imitating himself at times.

2.5

Iroquois

07-28-15, 11:15 PM

#467 - Valhalla Rising
Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009

http://i.imgur.com/h0tlxvg.png

In medieval Scandinavia, a mute warrior escapes from captivity and joins a group of Crusaders on their voyage to the Holy Land.

From what I can tell about the Refn films I've seen, his output is most definitely not for the impatient viewer (with the possible exception of Bronson, which at least has the extremely magnetic lead character to carry its scenes). Despite its rather brief running time (it barely passes the 90-minute mark), Valhalla Rising will make you feel every second of each minute as you watch its admittedly rather basic narrative play out. The film is broken into six chapters of approximately equal length that chart the journey of "One Eye" (Mads Mikkelsen), who starts off the film as the prisoner of a group of clansmen who pit him against other fighters for sport. Eventually (and I do mean eventually), he breaks free and kills off the men who imprisoned him - save for their leader's young son, who proceeds to follow him because he has nowhere else to go. The pair then run into a group of Christian soldiers who intend to go to Jerusalem in order to fight in the Crusades.

It's at this point that the film does gain a bit of structure, even if it does seem to be channeling Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (especially since one of the chapters takes place entirely on a seemingly interminable boat ride). Refn's slow and purposeful approach to narrative means that it is going to be very easy to be bored by this film as it indulges frequent overcranking and shots where nothing much of interest happens at all. Mikkelsen's protagonist never speaks nor does he do too much acting through his body language, but the dialogue still tends to be sparse and focused on themes such as violence and morality (reflecting the changes to Scandinavian culture as Christian missionaries seek to convert Norse heathens by any means necessary, including violence and slavery). The colour palette is surprisingly neutral and low-contrast for a Refn film save for the occasional flash-forward or artistic shot that features high-contrast shades of red. The camerawork is smooth and gliding or notably static no matter what highly frenetic and graphic acts of violence may be occurring. The background score tends to consist of frequent drone tracks that range from low rumbles of dread to high-pitched shrieks, which seems appropriate as the soldiers gradually succumb to the various obstacles that are placed in their road, whether by God or the Devil or both or nobody.

Valhalla Rising might be the slowest film by a director who has build a reputation on making slow films, but at the very least it's not the most boring or reprehensible film he's made. Though its plot can easily be summed up as Aguirre with Crusaders in place of conquistadors, Refn adds in enough of his own style to make it a distinctive work for better or worse. Despite giving it a relatively positive rating, I still feel hesitant to recommend it to just anyone. Not only is it slow enough to feel twice as long as it actually is, but it's a gloomy and miserable piece of work that doesn't hesitate to show its characters of questionable sympathy being ground down by the film's events and by each other. The phrase "endurance test" is often used in derision towards a film with difficult pacing and content, but I think that it not only applies to Valhalla Rising but is also a pretty apt description of just what kind of film you're getting into.

3

Iroquois

07-29-15, 03:51 AM

#468 - Onibaba
Kaneto Shindo, 1964

https://billsmovieemporium.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/onibaba.jpg

In war-torn feudal Japan, a pair of women who scavenge off soldiers in order to survive find their routine shaken up by the return of a local fisherman.

I knew nothing about Onibaba going on except that the title translated to "demon hag" and that it appeared to involve a freakish masked figure that appeared to be said demon hag. As if that wasn't enough of a promise of horror, the cold open that prominently featured a massive hole in the middle of a field and a pair of marauders being murdered, stripped of valuables, and thrown into said hole indicates that this isn't going to be your run-of-the-mill demon horror. Instead, it's a young woman and her mother-in-law that try to make ends meet by attacking whatever individuals stray into their stretch of land and pawning their possessions to a local merchant. Their operation is disrupted by the return of a local fisherman who had been conscripted into the army along with the young woman's husband, who has not returned because he had been killed (according to the fisherman). From there, the film becomes something of a slow-burning psychological drama that revolves around the three characters' relationships with one another - the fisherman makes several advances on the younger woman while the older woman, who cannot maintain the operation without the younger woman, intends to ward him off by any means necessary.

For a film that's not really about horror, it still maintains an impressively consistent line of tension thanks in no small part to its singular setting being a field of tall grass that just so happens to have an incredibly deep pit in it, guaranteeing the constant possibility that characters moving through the grass will end up in the pit. The small cast of actors are given solid material to work with, though I never quite buy the younger woman giving in to the fisherman's admittedly creepy advances (and scenes where he runs through the field while thrashing around and screaming due to sexual frustration definitely come across as unintentionally comical). That's a minor complaint amidst a film that builds a great atmosphere even before the introduction of the iconic mask and the escalating tension that accompanies it. Onibaba occupies a grey area between psychological period drama and outright horror, though it gradually shifts from one to the other as the film progresses. The camerawork is effective, as is the sparse yet appropriately harsh background score. It capably expands upon its folk-tale origins and ends at just the right moment.

4

Iroquois

07-29-15, 06:09 AM

#469 - Battle Royale II: Requiem
Kinji Fukusaku and Kenta Fukusaku, 2003

https://thatwasabitmental.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/battleroyaleii1.jpg

Three years after the events of Battle Royale, a class of juvenile delinquents is coerced into storming the island compound of a terrorist group led by a survivor of a previous Battle Royale.

Warning: contains unmarked spoilers about the first film.

Battle Royale is one of my favourite movies and the number of times I've seen it over the past decade is definitely in the double-digits. Despite that, in all that time I have only attempted to watch its sequel once in that time and even then I only made it about halfway through before shutting it off for reasons I don't remember, though I don't quite think it was because it was so awful. Battle Royale II: Requiem has received an awful lot of flack for generally being inferior to its much-beloved predecessor, but that wasn't enough to make me swear off watching it completely. Spurred on by my recent re-watching of Battle Royale, I looked up the sequel on Netflix and proceeded to finish what I started.

Requiem takes place three years after the events of the first Battle Royale, with original protagonist Shuya Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujiwara) having not only evaded capture by the authorities but also formed his own terrorist cell that has decided to "declare war on all adults", bombing several skyscrapers simultaneously. In response to this declaration of war, the same authority figures that passed the "BR Act" responsible for the middle-school free-for-alls now pass..."The BRII Act" (yes, really) that once again picks out a class of middle-school kids to be forced into deadly combat, though this time it seems like they've deliberately picked the most worthless group of delinquents in the country (which sort of explains how one student is able to deliberately insert themselves into the program). The catch here is that, instead of the students being forced to kill each other, they are instead shoved into military uniforms, given guns, and are sent to an island occupied by Nanahara's group with the goal of killing him and his comrades. Explosive collars are once again employed in order to guarantee co-operation, but this time there's a twist - everyone in the class is paired with a "buddy" so that, if one of them dies for whatever reason, then their partner's collar will detonate as well (yes, really). Of course, once the class actually manages to make it to the island and confront Nanahara, things do take a rather expected turn...

Battle Royale may have had its fair share of holes in its premise, but it still had a consistent sense of internal logic and even then it made up for it with its fairly innovative and entertaining action thriller sequences and kept its satire basic and unobtrusive. Requiem, which was made in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, sacrifices much of what made its original great for the sake of some extremly on-the-nose political commentary. I can definitely understand how the creators attempted to reflect their criticisms of totalitarianism and the military industrial complex by having its premise be based entirely on a group of untrained teenagers who are sent off to fight and die simply because the adults reason that if Nanahara and other "kids" want to fight, then they'll send other kids to fight back. This also sort of explains the two-collar system outlined above, which also works to subvert the original's premise by killing off its cast of characters twice as quickly. However, just because the metaphor can be understood doesn't mean that it's one that works in service to the film - leaving aside the sheer lack of logic, it also completely destroys one of the original's most interesting facets in favour of recreating the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan but with more exploding necks.

While deliberately avoiding the same plot as the first film was probably preferable to a straight rehash, the problem is that the plot here is so badly executed. I grant that this is because original director Kinji Fukusaku died shortly after filming began and the bulk of the film's directing duties was turned over to his son Kenta, who worked on the screenplay for both films but hadn't directed a film before. Even so, an experienced director might not have been able to salvage such an overly long story that introduces a whole new group of characters to fight the system, but the only one that stands out in a remotely good way is Shiori Kitano (Ai Maeda), the daughter of the villainous Kitano from the first film who wants nothing more than to meet Nanahara and find out why her father died (before also killing him out of revenge, never mind the pair's strained relationship that's demonstrated in a flashback featuring Takeshi Kitano). Unfortunately, that character arc goes nowhere in favour of setting up a bland Nanahara-like protagonist in the form of a platinum-blond rebel (Shugo Oshinari), who isn't exactly horrible but does little to actually earn our interest even as he emerges as the class's leader and becomes a foil for the freedom-fighter Nanahara. That's without mentioning that the plot once again brings in a villainous teacher (Riki Takeuchi, again sharing his real name with his character) to oversee the operation; however, in trying to distance himself from Kitano's trademark stoicism, Takeuchi ends up chewing the scenery mercilessly as he prowls around in a leather trenchcoat while making extremely rubbery facial expressions and yelling at everyone he comes across. He ultimately ends up being the most genuinely entertaining thing about this film as he attains Nicolas Cage levels of overacting to the point where his final scene in the film (m.youtube.com/watch?v=PUcFKzTILow) is enough to make one feel broken apart and reborn anew in its mind-bending ridiculousness .

I don't totally hate Battle Royale II: Requiem, but as far as sequels go it's definitely of the same stock as Highlander 2 in that it takes the simple yet effective premise of its predecessor and effectively trashes its existing mythology in favour of a number of poorly-handled factors. There's the political commentaries and allegories that hinder the film instead of improving it; the most notable example of this is the two-collar system - satirical intent or not, that still results in the first third of the film becoming a mess of arterial spray and beeping countdowns that lacks any real tension. Performances range from the dull to the hammy, with Takeuchi's aggressively over-the-top turn almost compensates for the amateurish teens that are made to carry the film. While the first film earned much of its favourable reputation based on impressively constructed scenes of suspense and violence, here the action sequences devolve into generic wartime shoot-outs that are frequently nonsensical in ways that go beyond the two-collar system. What few entertaining qualities are present get buried within an extremely long and frequently boring film that feels much longer than it actually is and works its way to an extremely unsatisfying conclusion. Despite this possibly being the longest review I've written for this thread yet, I feel like there's so much more I could bring up about this film and how it ends up being truly awful, but I think you get the idea by now. It's too silly to hate, sure, but too silly to truly like either.

1

Iroquois

07-29-15, 07:50 AM

#470 - Killing Them Softly
Andrew Dominik, 2012

http://www.asset1.net/tv/pictures/movie/killing-them-softly-2012/Killing-Them-Softly-2-DI.jpg

During the early days of the Global Financial Crisis, a pair of small-time crooks hold up a Mafia-organised poker game and draw the attention of a fixer.

Much like John Hillcoat, Andrew Dominik is yet another Australian director that managed to make enough of a name for himself through down-and-dirty flicks about local crooks that he was able to launch into a reasonably respectable career. However, he's also very much like Hillcoat in that I'm generally not all that impressed by his work. His break-out film Chopper about the charismatic underworld figure of the same name was sort of impressive at first, but my lasting impression of it remains rather underwhelmed, whereas his first major Hollywood production The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford promised to bring his sensibilities to a greater scale but I still remember the resulting film leaving me cold as well (though I don't deny that I am due for a re-watch of that). Killing Them Softly dials back the scale in order to deliver another low-rent crime film that is closer in style to Chopper even though it mainly feels like Dominik trying to do a Coen brothers film.

It starts off alright with its establishment of the two crooks (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) who get a hot tip on a seemingly simple job - rob a poker game being held by a player (Ray Liotta) who is already under suspicion for having set up a previous game of his to be robbed, effectively making him the fall guy if his game ever got robbed a second time. The sequence in which the pair, already looking comical with their hold-up gear including yellow dishwashing gloves and a shotgun that's so sawn-off you can see the shells, hold up Liotta's poker game is a sufficiently suspenseful scene to the point that there's no way the rest of the movie can match it. After the two make their getaway, a criminal enforcer (Brad Pitt) arrives in town and makes contact with the middle-man (Richard Jenkins), thus kicking off the plot...such as there is one. Much of the film is given over to various discussions that are naturally influenced by the climate of the film - talk about the GFC is frequent while several TV screens are seen broadcasting news about the lead-up to the 2008 Presidential election. This presumably extends to characters that exist as metaphors - I can think of no other reason why the film would introduce James Gandolfini as a washed-up hitman that Pitt calls in to help with the job but who seems more concerned with drinking and screwing instead (though Gandolfini does play such a limited character with heft). This didn't have to be an action film, of course, but there's generally not a whole lot of profundity to the conversations in this film except perhaps when Pitt and Jenkins are interacting with one another.

Other flaws plague the film, too. There are some especially egregious soundtrack choices that feel so blatant as to be insulting - the "best" example of this would be a scene where McNairy and Mendelsohn shoot up heroin to the tune of..."Heroin" by the Velvet Underground. It makes Pitt's introductory scene playing out to the sound of Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" look downright subtle. The experimental nature of some scenes doesn't do it any favours - one slow-motion murder is executed reasonably well (no pun intended), but the aforementioned heroin scene being filmed from the bleary-eyed perspective of Mendelsohn doesn't do it any favours. Considering how the best scenes in the film generally play things straight, it just makes the visual flair feel especially superfluous. The on-the-nose musical choices also reflect the extremely straightforward nature of a lot of the film's meditations on its themes; the final scene alone may be written and performed reasonably well but it only goes to show why Killing Them Softly is a generally underwhelming film that's not as smart or thrilling as it thinks it is despite having a few moments that seem to suggest otherwise.

2.5

honeykid

07-29-15, 07:53 AM

Dammit, Iro. Now I've got so much to catch up on.

Iroquois

07-29-15, 07:56 AM

Considering how much I've posted, I'd say everyone does.

The Gunslinger45

07-29-15, 08:48 AM

I know I do. I didn't even know there WAS a Battle Royale II! And from the looks of it, there never should have been, :sick:

the samoan lawyer

07-29-15, 09:06 AM

Great reviews Iro. Out of interest, would Onibaba have made your 60's list had you watched it before?

Iroquois

07-29-15, 09:41 AM

I know I do. I didn't even know there WAS a Battle Royale II! And from the looks of it, there never should have been, :sick:

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, then. It's almost worth a watch for the sheer silliness of it all, but unfortunately it's more dull than silly so I have trouble giving a sincere recommendation. If you don't think you'll bother, you might as well check the clip I linked to in the review since it's from the end of the movie and contains a heavy spoiler. It'd be interesting to hear the opinion of someone viewing it out of context.

Great reviews Iro. Out of interest, would Onibaba have made your 60's list had you watched it before?

Possibly, though I forgot to add a few recently-watched films to my shortlist (e.g. The Americanization of Emily) so it might well not have if I'd forgotten. My final list was a bit sloppy, even though every entry is generally well-liked.

ash_is_the_gal

07-29-15, 09:51 AM

i never knew Onibaba existed and it sounds pretty good. thanks!

Miss Vicky

07-29-15, 10:54 AM

Onibaba's an excellent film and another rare instance when we agree. :up:

ursaguy

07-29-15, 10:54 AM

Iroquois

07-29-15, 10:05 PM

Fantastic review of Requiem, but I think you bothced one thing. The social commentary most definitely does not justify the use of the double collar system. I just can't comprehend how counter productive this is. The governments emotion towards these new kids is apathy, not hatred. Why would they intentionally kill off half of them? That just makes it harder for them to do the thing they do have an emotion about, killing the kid from the first one. If they kill off everyone, do they just send in new kids? I get that they're disposable, but I would think that efficiency would be valued. The first one wasn't especially intelligent, but it had a clear focus.

I addressed this (or at least hand-waved it in the process):

However, just because the metaphor can be understood doesn't mean that it's one that works in service to the film - leaving aside the sheer lack of logic, it also completely destroys one of the original's most interesting facets in favour of recreating the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan but with more exploding necks.

Even so, I can see how it makes some twisted sense to the adults in charge. The explosive-collar system in the first film was implemented to motivate the students to kill each other by threatening them with a violent and painful death if they refused to kill - it was every kid for themselves. The logic in the sequel seems to be that it would act as sufficient incentive for the kids to not only avoid dying but also to force them to co-operate with one another and complete the mission. I don't think they intended for most of the kids to die - if anything, the adults come across as short-sighted in this regard. In fact, I'm pretty sure that this was the first instance of the BR II act being implemented so it's entirely possible that the adults are still working out the kinks in the system. Also, I think that the apathy that adults have for kids has definitely been replaced by hatred once Nanahara and his team blow up several buildings and cause lots of deaths explicitly out of their war on adults - the teacher is eventually revealed to have lost his daughter in Nanahara's bombings, so of course he has a grudge against him and kids in general. Besides, since the whole BR program was started to minimise juvenile delinquency, putting kids from one of the worst schools in Japan (who are so blatantly guaranteed to end up in Battle Royale that Kitano's daughter deliberately enrols there to increase her chance of getting into Battle Royale) on the front line would probably come across as killing two birds with one stone. It's still a ridiculous plot device, sure, but it makes some sort of sense to me.

Iroquois

07-30-15, 09:36 AM

#471 - Lava
James Ford Murphy, 2014

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2001826/images/o-LAVA-PIXAR-facebook.jpg

A volcano in the middle of the ocean sings a song about how he feels lonely and wishes he could find someone to love.

Lava is the short film that plays just before Inside Out and it tells its simple story through a ukelele-driven song that tells the story of a stout, kind-faced volcano living in the middle of the ocean with no other land masses in sight as he sings about how he wishes that there was another volcano in the same vicinity as him so that he had someone to "lav-a". The fact that the title and seemingly the whole plot of the film is predicated on such a painful rhyme does hurt what is already a sickeningly saccharine song that has a pleasant enough melody but isn't all that strong in the lyrical sense. At least it doesn't quite manage to become an irritating earworm, though it does come rather close.

The story manages to condense all the usual Pixar beats into the space of a few minutes without any interesting variations. The animation is definitely top-quality as befitting the studio's high standards and at least tries to add some vibrancy to a story that is literally about an immobile volcano. There are some good-looking shots - the most prominent of which is a time-lapse early on in the piece - but the strength of the shots is probably the only genuinely enjoyable aspect of Lava. Even by the simple standards that a family-oriented short film should be held against, I consider it sub-standard with its romantic storyline being well-intentioned but not particularly engaging or entertaining even on its own terms. It's not horrible, it just feels too twee and inconsequential despite some nice visuals.

1.5

Iroquois

07-30-15, 09:45 AM

#472 - Inside Out
Pete Docter, 2015

https://ladygeekgirl.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/inside-out-emotions.jpg

In a world where people's core emotions are personified by a small handful of brightly-coloured humanoids, an 11-year-old girl's move to a new city causes major problems for her emotions.

I haven't done a good job of keeping up with Pixar in the past few years - prior to this, the last film of theirs that I saw in theatres was Toy Story 3 (I caught Brave on an airplane and still haven't bothered with either Monsters University or Cars 2), but figured that Inside Out was getting enough hype to warrant a trip to the theatres. This was in spite of the fact that people were already joking about how it took Pixar's tried-and-true "what if *insert non-human creature/thing here* had feelings?" formula to the logical extreme by applying it to, well, actual feelings. Specifically, the film works on the principle that inside each person's brain is a fantastic landscape structured by a person's life experiences - core parts of their personality become brightly-lit floating islands, entire sections are dedicated to thought processes like imagination and dreams, ball-shaped memories are stored in labyrinthine archives, etc. The movie focuses on a control room-like area where a handful of emotions (which are understandably few in number for the sake of keeping things simple) all work together in order to make their human feel emotions, with the unpredictable nature of emotions being reflected by the group's constant bickering and overriding each other because they feel like it. The five emotions include Anger, Disgust, Fear, Sadness, and Joy (the latter of whom acts as the de facto leader of the group) and they all work together reasonably well until their particular human (an 11-year-old girl named Riley) has to contend with moving away from her beloved Minnesota hometown to the foreboding new world of San Francisco.

While rendering of the inside of a person's mind as an actual environment populated by its own unique type of denizens is hardly the most inventive concept, the powers that be at Pixar do a good job of providing making it easy for audiences of all ages to follow along. The core ensemble of emotions are colour-coded manage to make the most of their deliberately one-note personalities that influence every possible emotion they could possibly have on their own (which naturally makes you wonder if they have little people inside their heads, but I guess that's not important). The film also reuses a fairly simple odd-couple dynamic for the main source of conflict as Joy and Sadness are separated from the others and forced to work together in order to save Riley's mind from going into meltdown, with their interplay being sufficiently amusing and solid enough to carry the film. The settings do run through a laundry list of recognisable modes of thinking but their depiction is usually given some interesting twists, such as a dark room dedicated to abstract thinking or the fact that the area dedicated to dreaming is depicted as a film studio. The world-building is enough to invoke comparisons to the elaborate industry of Monsters, Inc., which will probably come apart a bit when you think about it for long enough but it's still the kind of bright and eye-catching rollercoaster adventure that you'd expect from the best Pixar films.

Just like its human protagonist's mind, Inside Out does have a strong emotional core that carries the film through a lot of the usual family film narrative beats (though I give it some credit for its opening montage, which comes across as a conscious attempt to create a positive counterpart to the infamously tragic beginning of Up) and is backed up by some extremely solid vocal performances that sell some surprisingly complex characters and relationships as well as some rather familiar ones. It doesn't feel like an instant classic, but it's good to see that Pixar is still ready and willing to lift its storytelling game with well-executed takes on old science-fantasy tropes.

4

Iroquois

07-30-15, 09:48 AM

#473 - Chappie
Neill Blomkamp, 2015

http://hplusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/chappie-and-dog.jpg

After the Johannesburg police service have replaced human officers with robots, a researcher looking to develop artificial intelligence is forced into uneasy co-operation with a gang of criminals.

When District 9 first appeared in cinemas, it seemed to herald the arrival of some rather fresh filmmaking talent as Neill Blomkamp took the basic plot of Alien Nation and turned it into a low-level blockbuster. I thought that I'd try to keep up with whatever else he would direct, yet I ultimately didn't bother catching his follow-up Elysium until earlier this year. To my disappointment, I found that it was an extremely generic take on class-divide dystopia that didn't proffer much of worth beyond some rather decent special effects. When trailers for Blomkamp's newest film started coming out, I had trouble believing it was going to be a legitimate film, mainly because it made the film look like the members of South African hip-hop group Die Antwoord were not only playing themselves but also were apparently teaching a robot how to act like a gun-toting gangster. That was enough to convince me that this could at least wait for the DVD, and wait I did.

Chappie takes us to the not-too-distant future where Johannesburg has become such a crime-infested hellhole that a line of durable human-sized robots are used to replace human police officers when it comes to keeping the peace. The plot kicks into gear as a result of the convergence of two separate plotlines; first, that of a programmer (Dev Patel) looking to develop artificial intelligence for the robots and who is willing to ignore the rejection of his profit-minded boss (Sigourney Weaver) in order to do so. Secondly, a group of crooks (Jose Pablo Cantillo, Yo-Landi Visser, and Ninja - the latter two being the members of Die Antwoord whose characters happen to share their names) must pay a debt to a local crime boss and so plan on reprogramming a police robot in order to help them pull off a big heist. Naturally, this leads to them kidnapping Patel and forcing him to carry out the reprogramming, which he does. Things get complicated as the reprogrammed robot (the "Chappie" of the title, here portrayed by a motion-capture Sharlto Copley) is torn between Patel's stuffy, condescending academic and the dysfunctional surrogate parents that are Ninja and Visser. Throw in a sub-plot about Patel's rival (Hugh Jackman) and his intention of creating a better type of police robot and you have enough conflict to sustain a plot.

Unfortunately, the film surrounding said plot leaves quite a lot to be desired. If Elysium could be said to suffer from a lack of personality, then Chappie suffers as a result of having too much of the wrong kind of personality. Though it starts off with the same grimly adventurous vibe as Blomkamp's last two features with its depiction of a city that's threatening to crumble due to widespread violence, it abandons that vibe in favour of some wacky comedy that arises from the presence of Die Antwoord and their influence on Chappie. Ninja in particular threatens to kill the film dead with his incredibly obnoxious bad-boy persona that's mixed in with elements of an abusive father to the point where it's hard to buy any further character development; this applies to Visser to a lesser extent as she plays the squeaky-voiced mediator between Ninja and Patel as well as a doting mother to Chappie. Not even reasonably talented actors like Jackman, Weaver, or Patel get decent enough material to adequately compensate for those two, while Copley isn't exactly Andy Serkis as he plays Chappie like the excitable and emotional child that he's apparently intended to be, which doesn't make for the most engaging or enjoyable characterisation.

Even though Blomkamp has always been better at developing technique than narrative, the weakness of the latter causes some problems for the former. Never mind the extremely unnecessary documentary intro that seems to exist purely to remind us of Blomkamp's better days or the extremely derivative nature of the film's plot (to the point where I've spent the entire review actively resisting the urge to compare it to other films), the action is still rather underwhelming. The effects hold up well enough, but that's about it as it runs through some extremely mediocre action sequences that have very little weight considering how badly the characterisation is handled. As a result, Chappie comes across as even more evidence that Blomkamp is something of a one-trick pony that isn't bad when it comes to technical directing but otherwise leaves a lot to be desired in every other department. It's at the point where I am genuinely unwilling to revisit District 9 in case I realise that it's not much better than either of Blomkamp's subsequent features.

1.5

cricket

07-30-15, 08:37 PM

Hey alright, very happy to see how you felt about Onibaba-#2 on my 60's list:)

I was very disappointed in Killing Me Softly.

ursaguy

07-30-15, 09:09 PM

nebbit

07-31-15, 02:33 AM

I'm a big fan of Frenzy :yup: nice review :)

Iroquois

07-31-15, 03:19 AM

I really agree with what you wrote about Chappie, and I would go even further. Apparently I'm alone in calling it one of the worst acted major movies ever. Yolandi and Ninja aren't just annoying or mean spirited, they are both awful at acting. All of Eminem's roles have been pretty lazy, but at least he gives a passable performance most of the time. I can't see either of them ever getting a film role again. Honestly I've never been a Dev Patel fan. I thought acting was a weakness of Slumdog and he threw away any goodwill he had on Last Airbender. Jackman gave me the impression that he read the script, knew it was bad, and made a promise to himself to chew as much scenery as physically possible. The CGI model of Chappie was fantastic though.

Well, to be fair I don't often think of films in such narrowly superlative terms such as "worst acted major movies" (in which case, you should see what film I'm going to post next). As I've noted before, directing performances doesn't seem to be one of Blomkamp's strong suits in the first place and hiring non-actors like Die Antwoord was probably a major misstep considering how the characters they played were already difficult ones to play.

Iroquois

07-31-15, 10:18 AM

#474 - Jupiter Ascending
Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski, 2015

http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/JupiterAscendingRedmayneKunis.png

A young woman learns that not only are aliens real but that, according to their complicated systems of laws and genetics, she is the rightful owner of the planet Earth.

Part of the reason why I have a tendency to watch a lot of obviously awful movies is because, despite my highly critical approach that sometimes renders the most highly-acclaimed films on par with the most disposable cinematic dreck, there's almost always a part of me that expects to find something of worth in even the most disastrous-looking pieces of work. Jupiter Ascending is one such film with its extremely vibrant visual aesthetic covering for a rather stock-standard narrative about a seemingly ordinary protagonist (Mila Kunis) learning about her destiny that results in her being whisked away from the dreariness of her everyday existence. Of course, this all amounts to the Wachowskis tweaking the specifics of their break-out blockbuster The Matrix and its existing chosen-one narrative, which already used a mishmash of science-fiction influences in order to create something that seemed fresh and innovative enough for people to copy for years afterwards. Jupiter Ascending also uses a mishmash of influences that draw from the space-opera playbook. It involves human-alien hybrids, radically advanced weapons and technology, an expansive interplanetary conflict that lends light shades of moral ambiguity to its otherwise straightforward good-versus-evil conflict...all of which revolve around Kunis' unremarkable cleaning woman as she is targeted for elimination by some power-hungry siblings looking to lay claim to the resource-heavy Earth.

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Jupiter Ascending is just as much of a mess as its flashy yet hollow advertisements made it out to be. I guess I can't complain too much in that regard considering how those advertisements do a very good job of letting you know just what kind of experience you're in for. When the plot isn't being extremely derivative and familiar even of previous Wachowski films, it's getting into the sort of convoluted political dialogues that tarnished the reputation of a certain other space opera film. The characterisation and acting varies in terms of any kind of quality - Kunis and her wolf-man guardian (Channing Tatum) both prove to be extremely wooden excuses for leads, while the supporting cast don't get much more to do as they play everything from no-nonsense soldiers to artificially affable nobles. Of particular note, however, is recent Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne as the film's nominal villain-in-chief, whose performance alone was one of the major deciding factors in convincing me to watch the whole film. Redmayne alternates between airy, stilted whispers and face-scrunching howls of anger as he lounges around on screen with slicked-back hair and shiny black robes, giving what is probably the best performance in the film for all the wrong reasons (the least of which have to do with him personally). It's a shame more people don't seem to either commit as much effort or have as much fun as he seems to do, especially since he doesn't have as much screen-time as I'd have hoped.

Though there's something to be said for the polish of the visuals, they are put to questionable use. The widespread use of orange-and-blue contrast as a method of creating captivating visuals has never seemed so flagrant as it does in this movie's scenes, many of which do take place on or around the semi-eponymous planet. Flashy visuals are nothing new to the Wachowskis, but there's nothing about the fantastic world they've created here that truly engages. Even the attempts at sci-fi pastiche go nowhere in some sequences, most memorably the extended montage of obstructive bureaucrats that drives home its intention to pay homage to Brazil by having Terry Gilliam himself cameo as the last official they visit. Regardless of their intentions, the fact that the Wachowskis were able to make a movie like this with a budget that could have easily financed several Gilliam projects makes their casting him feel less like the sincerest form of flattery and more like rubbing salt into a wound. Even so, I think Jupiter Ascending isn't exactly worthy of hatred despite its searingly colourful yet fundamentally bland dedication to fantastic excess. It's goofy, sure, but I'm pretty sure that that was at least partly the intent so it can be appreciated to an extent. Unfortunately, it'd have to work its way up to being something that I genuinely liked.

2

Iroquois

08-01-15, 11:38 PM

#475 - It Follows
David Robert Mitchell, 2014

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2717100/images/o-IT-FOLLOWS-facebook.jpg

After a seemingly ordinary sexual encounter, a young woman becomes the latest target of a malevolent spirit.

It's tough trying to provide a unique experience in horror today. This is an era where the found-footage gimmick is frequently used as a shortcut for creating a frightening atmosphere while also allowing for easy thrills thanks to the in-universe vulnerability of the camera operator as well as their on-screen companions. This has led to filmmakers trying their best to do throwbacks to previous generations of horror that recapture the same sense of dread using more deliberately immersive techniques. Right from the opening scene's sleepy suburban street strewn with autumn leaves and synthesised keyboard blaring into a viewer's ears, one can easily identify horror veteran John Carpenter as a major influence of the sensibilities of It Follows. It (the film) starts off with the tried-and-true trope of having a random victim fall prey to the monster off-screen so as to let us know just what lies in wait for our cast of main characters. The main character is Jay, a woman whose casual relationship with a man eventually results in the two of them having sex one night. He then chloroforms her and ties her to a wheelchair in order to explain the film's premise - that he has inflicted a sexually transmitted curse upon her where a mysterious creature (the "it" of the title) will relentlessly pursue the person who most recently joined the chain in order to murder them, then murder the person who originally had sex with them, and so on and so forth. As Jay starts to notice "it" appearing in the forms of haggard-looking individuals stumbling slowly but surely in her direction, her paranoia grows and she soon becomes desperate to stop "it" by any means necessary...

Even for such a clever take on the "sex equals death" horror trope, there are holes in the central premise that you could drive a truck through. The most prominent one ends up being how, despite the earlier claim that "it" can take on the appearance of an intended victim's loved ones in order to trap said victim, "it" almost always appears in the form of a mute, shambling, dead-eyed, gaunt-faced stranger that would probably prompt even non-cursed people to run away. Slow-moving monsters are nothing new to the genre (the many mundane-looking incarnations of "it" can easily remind a viewer of zombies), but here the execution is botched somewhat judging by the number of times that the protagonist is able to evade a grisly demise at the hands of "it" even in the least logical of circumstances. Then there's some of the characters' more ridiculous plot-driving decisions, including trying to form a plan to kill "it"...yeah, even for a film that's supposedly earning a cult reputation it still doesn't lack for blatant shortcomings. Even after taking these specific flaws into account, the core idea is still strong enough to justify a film that runs on dread right from the moment that Jay gets chloroformed. Though "it" may have some very impractical methods of attacking its victims, the paranoia involved with scanning a crowd or the horizon for any sign of "it" is solid enough to make up for it. The film then manages to maintain a perpetually tense atmosphere where even scenes dedicated primarily to character development might still result in an apperance by "it". There's also the weight of the moral dilemma weighing down on Jay as she has to decide whether or not she can go through with passing on the curse to anyone else, even if her only two male friends are (perhaps unsurprisingly) willing to make that sacrifice.

Given the low budget on display here, It Follows seems more naturally dependent on doing more with less. The actors are little more than serviceable while the handful of central characters get relatively little in the way of development between scenes where they are being menaced by "it". I've already noted the Carpenter influence, but that only goes some way towards describing the rather decent visual aesthetic on display here. I have to give the film some credit for camerawork that occasionally seems like it's setting up a jump-scare, but does so only to emphasise the tension involved with long-shots that implore audiences to be on the lookout for any sign of "it" (and that's without mentioning how well the camerawork is done in the wheelchair scene). The score is an unapologetic homage to the tinny keyboard squeals from Halloween, which do suit the film and its ambiguously anachronistic setting rather well. Though It Follows does a reasonably good job at generating suspense on the basis of its simple yet inventive premise, it still opens itself up to the same criticisms that affected many of the films from which it draws inspiration. The messy nature of its monster and the less-than-positive effect that it has on the narrative are significant flaws that will probably lessen my view of the film as time goes on, but as far as a single viewing goes it's a sufficiently tense little film.

3

Iroquois

08-01-15, 11:43 PM

#476 - Kingsman: The Secret Service
Matthew Vaughn, 2014

http://www.thebaynet.com/site_media/photos/gallery/ed02d9b0-7b93-4a77-8c75-9d64b1d36960.jpg

A working-class youth is invited to join a top-secret organisation of spies just as a philanthropic billionaire is launching his own sinister plan.

Original review found here (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=1267763#post1267763).

(Additional comments: Ah, screw it, I'm bumping it up to a 3 this time. There's too much wrong with it for it to be truly great but considering what other films I've been giving 2.5 and 3 to lately, I think the fact that I thought this was worthy of a second chance has to mean something. I could still pick the hell out of many of the things I brought up in the original review. Also, while Firth definitely delivers a good performance I think Mark Strong is a bit underrated - his delivery of the line "oh, that is ****ing spectacular" is glorious.)

3

Iroquois

08-02-15, 01:41 AM

#477 - Mission: Impossible III
J.J. Abrams, 2006

http://www.theworkprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/mission-impossible-3-still-005.jpg

When a secret agent becomes part of an operation to rescue a colleague, he soon gets embroiled in a plot involving a vicious arms dealer and a mysterious device.

I never got around to seeing Mission: Impossible III in theatres because it came out around the same time that Tom Cruise's public antics worked to lower the movie-going public's opinion of him, myself included. With TV airing all the previous four Mission: Impossible films in the lead-up to the release of Rogue Nation, I figured now was as good a time as any to watch it. Unfortunately, right from the cold open flash-forward that seems to exist only to establish its otherwise unassuming-looking villain (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) as a force to be reckoned with, it becomes clear that M:I-3 doesn't really have enough confidence in itself to actually be a good film. It feels like an attempt to play things safe after the apparent misfire of the franchise's heavily stylised second film - this much is reflected in the fact that this film is co-written and directed by TV hit-maker J.J. Abrams, whose experience with spies and convoluted narratives makes him seem like an ideal fit for the series. Of course, "ideal" only goes so far and I'm honestly inclined to think of M:I-3 as my least favourite in the series (to the point that I wish I could retroactively bump up the rating I gave the first film earlier this year).

At least this time around, M:I-3 tries to change things up by having Hunt be engaged to a civilian nurse (Michelle Monaghan) who is unaware of his true occupation; even if the whole "love interest unaware of hero's double life" trope is a bit overdone, I guess people would prefer their clichés to be plausible ones. Even so, I could easily debate its execution and inevitable progression in relevance to the main narrative. Of course, he then ends up being called in on a mission that eventually leads to him going up against Hoffman's notorious arms dealer, who naturally swears revenge when Hunt and his team interfere with his plans. A lot of what makes this movie good is versatile character actor Hoffman's turn as the villain, who overcomes his unimposing physical appearance to make for a genuinely menacing antagonist whose matter-of-fact delivery and cold-hearted demeanour easily overshadows every other performance in the film and becomes of one of its greatest strengths.

On the action side, it is somewhat interesting to see the franchise start to break away from having auteurs like Brian de Palma or John Woo direct the films and instead allow for relative newcomers like Abrams to hone their own styles amidst the demands of a studio-driven action blockbuster - unfortunately, between this and the Star Trek films I'm not all that sold on Abrams as a director. When the action sequences here aren't being call-backs to the previous films (another one where Hunt dangles from a cable?), they're still given some less-than-spectacular treatment (such as a heist to steal the film's MacGuffin not being shown in favour of some rather pointless development between two other members of Hunt's crew, or an early gun-fight in a darkened building that is somewhat disorienting). Though the bridge sequence from halfway through is a high point, it does make the finale seem a little underwhelming, if appropriate enough for the narrative. In the end, M:I-3 is caught between the rough but stylish first two films and the smooth yet utilitarian last two films, leaving it in a sort of no-man's-land with little to appreciate about it save for Hoffman, a couple of good scenes here and there, and the ultimate "Tom Cruise runs" sequence.

2

Iroquois

08-02-15, 07:22 AM

#478 - Death Race 2000
Paul Bartel, 1975

http://www.blastr.com/sites/blastr/files/DeathRace2000Car.jpg

In the year 2000, America has become a theocratic dystopia where the biggest event of the year is a coast-to-coast race where competitors win points for running over pedestrians.

Given how I've reviewed at least a couple of other '70s dystopia films of a considerable pedigree and found them wanting, you probably wouldn't have expected me to like this Roger Corman-produced blends of carsploitation and death-sports. Well, expect again, people, because Death Race 2000 is good old-fashioned exploitation fun of the kind that I'm always on the lookout for but seldom seem to find in any of the films I watch. In this particular dystopia, the bread and circuses take the form of the Trans-Continental Road Race, where a grand total of five cars (each one commandeered by a team that contains driver and a navigator, all of which just happen to be man-woman teams to boot) as they not only have to race from coast to coast but also try to rack up as many points as possible by running over pedestrians in the process. The closest thing this film has to a hero is Frankenstein (David Carradine), the battle-scarred living legend who dresses like the Gimp in a superhero cape, who definitely has more depth than his position as a champion would indicate. His rival is the incredibly violent and ill-tempered "Machine Gun" Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone), but of greater concern is the comically incompetent resistance that launches frequent attempts to sabotage the race by any means necessary, even up to planting one of their members as Frankenstein's navigator.

Thanks to the old-school low-budget aesthetic of the film, Death Race 2000 definitely feels authentic with its use of practical effects in every regard. Cars smash into things, dummies get crushed, explosions light up the screen, and so forth. The performances are appropriately pulpy as they range from gruff badasses to outrageously smarmy television personalities. Characters are outsized to all hell - the leader of the resistance is named Thomasina Paine, other drivers include Matilda the Hun and Calamity Jane, the president is only ever referred to as Mr. President as if that is his real name, etc. The satire doesn't try to take itself seriously, as evidenced by one scene where a hospital wheels out elderly patients to be "euthanised" by racers (only for Frankenstein to take a detour and run over a bunch of hospital staff instead), and is all the better for it. It's on the short side of 90 minutes and packs them all out with great moments. The sheer goofiness of the whole thing is what elevates it above more ostensibly serious attempts at dystopia, plus I'm grateful that this is the kind of exploitation film where I don't have to side-eye it for any inherently problematic aspects that have put me off similar films. It does what it sets out to do quite well and, though I don't quite love it, I think it's a generally good example that has room to grow on me.

3.5

Iroquois

08-03-15, 02:17 AM

#479 - Mission: Impossible II
John Woo, 2000

http://www.theworkprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/mission-impossible-2.jpg

A secret agent must go up against a rogue agent who is planning to acquire a genetically engineered virus by any means necessary.

Another Mission: Impossible sequel that kind of makes me regret rating the first one so low when I reviewed it a few months ago, Mission: Impossible II is generally considered the weakest film in the franchise. In order to follow up the high-tension balancing act that Brian de Palma did in combining complex plotting with dangerous action sequences worthy of the source series' title and theme music, the powers that be decided to enrol acclaimed Hong Kong action director John Woo. While Face/Off definitely demonstrated that Woo was able to handle a Hollywood picture full of implausible action set-pieces and complex plots involving treachery and face-swapping, that didn't exactly translate all that well when it came to actually making M:I-2. Much like the first film, I was young enough when I first saw it that even now I can't help but look at it through a nostalgia filter, but I don't deny that it's still a very lacklustre film.

Plot-wise, the film treads into Bond territory as it sets up Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) against a former colleague (Dougray Scott) who plans to steal a genetically engineered virus for his own gain. This amounts to recruiting a thief (Thandie Newton) who also happens to be Scott's ex-girlfriend, which is naturally part of the plan to gain information. This makes for one especially contrived romantic love-triangle between these characters that only serves to drag things down a bit rather than generate much in the way of genuine intrigue. All the fun parts are generated by the action more so than any genuine attempts at building suspense or tension. Woo's theatrical sensibilities bleed through into a lot of the scenes, even in scenes that emphasise stuntwork more so than his trademark affinity for gunplay. The opening sequence where Hunt free-climbs a mountain without any gear is still decent enough, though the attempt to do a fancier variation on the cable-drop from the previous film leaves a lot to be desired. The same goes for the film's attempts to emulate Bond with chases involving cars and motorcycles. When the film does occasionally resort to a gunfight, the results are still rather underwhelming even without comparing them against Woo's best work.

Woo's capacity for composing elaborate action scenes that are organically tied together by sufficiently complex stories and characters is part of why several of the films he's directed have ended up becoming favourites of mine. That fondness for his best work extends to me giving M:I-2 something of a pass - at least enough so that I was willing to re-watch it even though I had no reason to expect it had gotten better in the decade or so since I last watched it. Learning that Woo's original rough cut was three-and-a-half hours in length goes some way towards explaining the haphazard development of the plot, with its emphasis on some rather weak characterisation that can't quite be saved by the actors no matter how good they may be. The film also has a tendency to overextend itself, most notably through the franchise's notoriously realistic rubber masks (I'm pretty sure none of the other films relied on masks as much as this one did). Hans Zimmer delivers a rather by-the-numbers early-2000s action film score that mixes his usual fondness for orchestras with elements of nu-metal and flamenco (not at the same time, fortunately). While I can see how people do consider it the worst of the series, I still sort of like it in spite of its many flaws. Not nearly enough for it to even qualify as a guilty pleasure, of course, but it's strangely tolerable for a film that has as many popcorn boxes as it does.

2

Zotis

08-03-15, 02:22 AM

Iroquois

08-03-15, 02:23 AM

#480 - Tomorrow, When the War Began
Stuart Beattie, 2010

http://media.coveringmedia.com/media/images/movies/2012/02/12/twtwb_02f.jpg

A group of teenagers living in rural Australia go camping one weekend and come back to find that their hometown has been invaded by a foreign military.

Back in 1993, John Marsden published Tomorrow, When the War Began, a novel where the premise could be quite easily summed up as an Australian version of Red Dawn in that it involved several teenagers banding together to fight back against the foreign powers that had managed to occupy their home country. This proved the basis for the Tomorrow series, which lasted for seven books (all of which I read) and was followed by a further three books called The Ellie Chronicles (none of which I read). I somehow managed to read the books I did without being aware of Red Dawn, so I thought it was a sufficiently interesting story in its own right at the time - then again, I was twelve. I remember hoping to see a live-action version of the series, but that hope had all but faded by the time that a film version finally arrived in 2010. I have only just gotten around to watching it (after having finally watched Red Dawn to boot), so it would have to work hard to get around this particular set of expectations.

Unfortunately, what little there is to distinguish Tomorrow, When the War Began only serves to undermine it. The attempt to create a fictional enemy with a made-up language falls apart a bit when every soldier that is seen in detail is clearly Asian, which I can't decide is better or worse than the actual Red Dawn remake straight-up using North Korean soldiers as the enemy. Playing up the coming-of-age teen movie vibe through some clunky angst-ridden dialogue and poppy acoustic-driven songs on the soundtrack doesn't make for the best first impression and makes the film's first half drag really hard. Even the film's more action-packed second half isn't especially spectacular despite the odd explosion or chase. The characters never really evolve past their broad archetypes - the fish-out-of-water prep, the quiet religious one, the lovable rogue, etc. - and the performances are too mediocre to carry them anyway. The film even thinks it can get away with a sly exchange between two characters as one reads a book during a lull in the action and comments that it's "better than the movie". That may be inherently true with Tomorrow, When the War Began, but the film shouldn't try to use that as an excuse.

1.5

Iroquois

08-03-15, 05:43 AM

#481 - Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Christopher McQuarrie, 2015

http://cdni.condenast.co.uk/813x494/k_n/Mission-Impossible-05-GQ-23Mar15_b_813x494.jpg

A secret agent discovers that there is a clandestine organisation of former spies carrying out acts of worldwide terrorism and works to stop them.

It's one thing for a long-running franchise to admit that it's getting old, but the best examples at least try to incorporate that into the plot in an interesting way (case in point - the second and sixth Star Trek films). After the cold-open that features the infamous plane stunt that manages to not lose all its impact despite being constantly featured in every possible advertisement for the film, Rogue Nation then dives into a tribunal where Alec Baldwin's gruff bureaucrat seeks to hold the IMF responsible for the carnage they've perpetrated over the course of the past two decades (notably skipping over the events of the second and third films for obvious reasons) and have it be shut down completely, which of course draws some comments about how it's outdated and obsolete. Of course, it is around this time that daredevil superspy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) discovers that the shadowy terrorist "Syndicate" he's been obsessively tracking has turned out to be real all along and he is soon captured by them. After escaping with the help of one of the Syndicate's members (Rebecca Ferguson), he not only has to stop the Syndicate but also avoid being captured by Baldwin and his cohorts, who are not convinced of the Syndicate's existence.

2011's Ghost Protocol provided the franchise with a much-needed shot in the arm by choosing to focus on providing the greatest possible examples of stuntwork (especially those involving Cruise himself in precarious positions) to prop up the elaborate scenes of action and suspense that have always been the series' biggest drawcard more so than the convoluted spy-versus-spy plots. Rogue Nation doesn't stray too far from those fundamentals as it peppers in elements of the first film (namely, Hunt and his crew being pursued by both the good guys and the bad guys). Familiar faces are brought back - Simon Pegg once again serves well as the comic relief, while Jeremy Renner and Ving Rhames are serviceable enough as the remainder of his team (even though they don't get all that much to do). Ferguson's character is a good addition to the story - her constantly-shifting loyalties to both Hunt and the Syndicate are enough to keep one questioning her for just the right amount of time and she plays the role well. The only real weak link in the casting would be Sean Harris as the film's primary villain - even considering the fact that his indistinguishable appearance and off-beat mannerisms are supposed to reflect his mysterious nature, it's still an underwhelming performance. Though I had my problems with the third film, there's no denying that Phillip Seymour Hoffman's performance set a high standard that none of the franchise's other villains seem able to reach.

More importantly, the action scenes on deliver tend to be par for the series. Aside from the opening plane sequence, there is a well-executed piece of work taking place backstage at an Austrian opera house that literally makes good use of music (whether it's weapons disguised as instruments or the ways in which the action is timed to the opera itself). A less plausible but no less thrilling sequence involves Hunt having to spend several straight minutes underwater in a sequence that is all the better because of its lack of music, even if some of the techniques involved feel artificial enough to counteract Cruise's own commitment to doing the stunts himself. It gets to the point that the film loses some momentum when it has to resort to doing more "generic" action set-pieces such as car chases or hand-to-hand fights. Even so, I'm willing to give Rogue Nation the benefit of the doubt for the time being; though I'm obviously not expecting it to hold up all that well, we'll see if it does.

3

nebbit

08-03-15, 06:57 AM

#480 - Tomorrow, When the War Began
Stuart Beattie, 2010

http://media.coveringmedia.com/media/images/movies/2012/02/12/twtwb_02f.jpg

1.5
I didn't like this movie much either :nope:

Iroquois

08-03-15, 08:50 AM

Glad you liked Deathrace 2000.

I didn't agree with your criticisms of It Follows. I don't think those things constitute "plot holes." But at least you liked it and made an effort to appreciate it's other strengths.

I think the whole "appearance" thing I mentioned definitely qualifies as at the very least a minor plot hole. It'd be one thing if it was mentioned that "it" could turn into people's loved ones and never actually did, but I think it's especially egregious that after Jay spends the whole movie seeing "it" appear in the form of strangers, after she passes on the curse to her neighbour he goes for a few days without seeing it at all until "it" breaks into his house and appears to him as his mum. Since "it" apparently feeds on "its" victim's emotional pain and that "it" will appear as a victim's loved one in order to increase the pain that "it" feeds on, I'm surprised that "it" doesn't actually even try to do that to Jay at all during the film.

As for Jay being able to get away from "it" in unlikely circumstances, I present that one sequence where she and her friends go to the beach only for "it" to appear out of the marshes and grab her hair, giving her friends a chance to attack "it" and free her. After she escapes from the shed, she steals the car and, with "it" and her friends still following her in the background, she drives a short distance away from the beach house only to spin out and crash in a field. The next thing we know, she's in hospital and has not been attacked by "it". That constitutes a pretty big plot hole.

Iroquois

08-04-15, 05:58 AM

#482 - Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Sam Peckinpah, 1973

https://wondersinthedark.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/pat-garrett.jpg

Based on the true story of the eponymous characters who start off as friends but soon end up on different sides of the law.

Despite the fact that The Wild Bunch has been a long-time Top 100 favourite for me, I generally find the films of Sam Peckinpah to be rather challenging propositions, and not always in the best way. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid marks another revisionist Western, but it is a far different type of deconstruction to that of Peckinpah's most well-renowned film. It (or at least the 2005 special edition DVD that I watched) begins with the shooting death of aged lawman Pat Garrett (James Coburn) before flashing back a few decades to the days when he wasn't a lawman and was actually friends with notorious outlaw Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson). However, events transpire that lead to Garrett becoming a sheriff and thus declaring his intentions to bring in Billy by any means necessary. What follows ends up being a lengthy and bloody game of cat-and-mouse as Garrett pursues Billy across the frontier, with a vindictive cattle baron being thrown into the mix as an obstacle for both men.

Much like Ride the High Country and The Wild Bunch, Pat Garrett... once again sees Peckinpah attempting to deliver a new perspective on the Western by examining themes such as loyalty, honour, and morality. The previous movies touched upon the idea of friends on both sides of the law (Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott in the former, William Holden and Robert Ryan in the latter), but here such a story is front and centre. The film spends its whole running time in a moral grey area; Garrett may be a lawman but he has no qualms about meting out his own draconian brand of justice or slapping a woman around for information, while Billy is a charming renegade who generally has no problem killing those who cause him trouble (though he isn't a complete monster and many of the people he kills are far more vicious than he is). However, there's a reason why this sort of story ended up amounting to a sub-plot in both the earlier films instead of providing the crux of the narrative; because it's too thin. As a result, the film has to be padded with a bunch of vignettes that are only connected in any way because they feature one of the film's leads. When a film becomes dependent on individual scenes more so than the strength of its overarching plot, that's quite the gamble where results can vary quite wildly.

Granted, there are some good vignettes here, most of which involve Billy (the sole exception might just be the entire sequence of scenes featuring Slim Pickens as an old sheriff who is recruited by Garrett). The characterisation is rough and it's more or less up to the actors themselves to sell whoever they're playing, which of course has a debatable effect. There is some impressive widescreen cinematography in a lot of scenes, and the fact that the film is scored entirely by Bob Dylan songs in an unusual touch that is generally solid (the most famous song off the soundtrack, "Knocking On Heaven's Door", is put to phenomenal use), though the same can't really be said for Dylan's on-screen appearance as one of Billy's accomplices. Even so, the rather disjointed and anti-climatic nature of the film serves to work against it. How much of that is due to the film's troubled production or on its most recent restoration is up for debate, but I wouldn't put it past Peckinpah to simply be difficult. I can definitely understand why people would treat this as a lost classic - enough so that I can see myself giving this another chance in the future, at least - but after two viewing I definitely feel like it's too uneven to quite make it there.

3

Iroquois

08-04-15, 05:59 AM

#483 - Funeral Parade of Roses
Toshio Matsumoto, 1969

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/ec/ec/ecec5a09acd6737f2e21b95eef055a2d.jpg?itok=0sm_dEfH

Follows the day-to-day misadventures of a teenage drag queen living in Tokyo.

As with last week's Onibaba, I knew next to nothing when going into yet another cult film from Japan's 1960s cinematic new wave. What I got was a very surprising piece of work indeed thanks to its intentions to explore queer Japanese sub-cultures. The film is old enough that the language used to refer to different gender and sexual identities feels quite outmoded to the point that it'll affect how I write about it. Specifically, the film is focused on "queens", which here describes gay men who are more comfortable dressing as women but not enough to undergo gender reassignment (which is described and portrayed ambiguously enough so as to make me wonder if the characters would actually qualify as pre-op/non-op transgender women, especially considering how many of them are referred to with female pronouns). The film plays fast and loose with cinematic convention as it does centre around a fictional narrative but frequently breaks away from that to launch into visual non sequiturs and non-fictional interviews with subjects not unlike the film's protagonist (whose actor is interviewed here as well). The protagonist, a young queen named Eddie, is established as carrying on an affair with a legitimate businessman (to the point where Eddie will help out in the businessman's drug-smuggling racket) while also working as a hostess in a nightclub staffed by queens. A love triangle ensues between Eddie, the businessman, and the club's proprietress, but it's just one plot strand of many that drives the film and its wildly experimental nature.

The anarchic style of the filmmaking makes it an interesting watch as you're never quite ready for what kind of images are going to pop up out of nowhere with all kinds of inventive choices when it comes to cinematography and editing. It does veer into comical territory with the recurring leitmotif of a chintzy music-box tune, but never enough to ruin the film. There are plenty of flash-forwards that are devoid of context but make more sense as the film progresses, making the film make you work to appreciate it without it being too incomprehensible either. This even extends to breaking the fourth wall by having the director yell "Cut!" in the middle of several scenes and even interviewing the film's subjects as if this were actually a documentary. This does undercut the film's most shocking moment slightly (and I do mean "slightly") at one point:

Late in the film, the director interviews the actor who plays Eddie, who comments that, while his own history and lifestyle does share a lot in common with his character, this does not extend to "the incest". At this point in the film, there has been no real implication of incest, which makes the line into blatant foreshadowing of the reveal that Eddie's businessman lover is actually his long-lost father, prompting the extremely graphic and disconcerting conclusion of the film.

That's a relatively minor flaw in a film that, whether it is genuinely good or not, definitely makes for an interesting visual experience. The looseness of the plot may be a strike against it, as well as the feeling that it does drag (no pun intended) quite a bit at times and that its attempts at metafiction may ultimately prove a bit of a hindrance more so than a benefit. Even so, Funeral Parade of Roses is definitely a requirement for those of you who are looking to get into more old-school foreign-language arthouse fare, as it is definitely a memorable piece of work that will definitely challenge your perceptions at least a little.

3.5

Iroquois

08-04-15, 09:32 AM

#484 - The Fault in our Stars
Josh Boone, 2014

http://thediscussion.net/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/fault-in-our-stars1.png

A teenage girl with terminal lung cancer attends a support group and befriends a teenage boy whose own cancer is in remission.

The fact that I not only read The Fault in our Stars but also watched the film version twice would suggest that, deep down, I actually sort of like the story. In fairness, the first viewing was on an airplane and the second viewing was a cable recording that somebody else wanted to watch, but that still doesn't excuse reading the whole book considering how I can barely finish the books I want to read these days. I guess I just had to know what the big deal was considering how large a book about teenage cancer patients loomed so large in the cultural consciousness, and it's pretty easy to come to the conclusion that The Fault in our Stars is simply not a "me" movie, but I figure I can at least try to meet the film on its own terms. The main sticking point in this regard can be credited to its two leads, Hazel (Shailene Woodley) and Augustus (Ansel Elgort). The former is the viewpoint character, a teenage girl who definitely has terminal lung cancer that is only kept in check by an experimental drug program. When Hazel is encouraged to attend a cancer support group in a church basement, she meets Augustus, whose sunny disposition and tendency towards clever turns of phrase initially repel but ultimately charm Hazel and soon a bond develops between them.

The two leads develop a rapport built on their incredibly precocious idioms that draw unfavourable comparisons to the contrived diction of the eponymous teenager from Juno, and just because I can understand the reasons why they interact the way that they do doesn't mean it doesn't feel rather dull. Throwing veteran actors like Laura Dern and Willem Dafoe into the mix does help the material out somewhat, but the whole thing is awfully slow-moving and what little there is to distinguish it isn't especially well-done (consider the extremely tone-deaf nature of the scene that happens when the pair visit the Anne Frank museum, though I will concede that a certain church scene towards the end of the film is a good concept). Peppering the soundtrack with all sorts of blandly forgettable bits of modern indie pop doesn't exactly sweeten the deal. The Fault in our Stars is a passable tragicomic indie romance that has some personality but that doesn't necessarily endear it to me. While I've managed to watch twice now, it's only managed to confirm that there's not enough of worth here to make me think I need a third.

1.5

Iroquois

08-04-15, 10:39 AM

#485 - The Princess Bride
Rob Reiner, 1987

http://princessbrideforever.com/site/wp-content/uploads/banner_07.jpg

An old man visits his sick grandson in order to read him a fairytale about a princess who loses her true love and is kidnapped by outlaws.

Oddly enough, I find it difficult to write about my all-time favourites. While you'd think that kind of passion would be able to fuel all sorts of lengthy paragraphs elaborating on each and every little thing that I might like about a film, I find that those kinds of reviews can be a little boring to write. Then again, the times where I've expounded on a film's flaws are somewhat undercut by the "but I still love the film!" caveat. This kind of meta-commentary about the nature of film reviewing makes for the ideal introduction to my review of The Princess Bride, a film that I knew would be very special from the instance that I witnessed the sequence in which mysterious man in black take on the trio of mercenaries responsible for kidnapping the titular character, ranging from fighting a master swordsman to the infamous "battle of wits" scene. Aside from being some of my favourite scenes put to celluloid, those are the kind of scenes that are designed to win over even the most reluctant of audiences, much like the framing story's skeptical young boy who grumpily resents his kindly grandfather interrupting a sick day full of videogame-playing in order to read him an old fairytale. It can be difficult to pull off a framing story that is intended to poke holes in its main story, but the interjections are pulled off well and at all the right moments, accurately echoing an audience's likely reactions to the same scenes.

As for the main story, well, there's no doubt that there's a lot of parody at work as the film takes inspiration from all sorts of literary and cinematic fairytales. With legendary screenwriter William Goldman adapting the screenplay from his own novel, the story becomes an appropriately playful combination of all the great elements from swashbuckling fantasy tales. The romance at the core of the film is undeniably trite, but the fact that it's trite by design manages to make it work surprisingly well. Of course, the real fun comes from pretty much every other aspect. The outsized cast of characters that populates the film is excellent - Cary Elwes is great as the dashing hero who has quite the sarcastic streak, while the trio of mercenaries (Wallace Shawn, Mandy Patinkin, and André the Giant) all create some comical yet complex characters, especially Patinkin as a swordsman out for revenge against the man who killed his father. Various cameos also serve to make the film work well - Peter Cook as a clergyman with a bizarre speech impediment is memorable, but Billy Crystal's single scene as a miracle man threatens to overshadow many of the film's already-impressive scenes. Rob Reiner and co. do an excellent job of recreating the same aesthetic of old-school Hollywood adventure films with obvious sets and some very practical special effects, but the technical improvements afforded by the film's '80s production only serve to make the film look a treat rather than neuter the parodic edge. The score by Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler predictably has a lot of guitar-driven melodies but he also commits to the synthetic replication of swashbuckling fantasy soundtracks. In short, The Princess Bride is a definite favourite and it's hard to imagine a day where I don't think so. It's probably my favourite example of a film that's fun for the whole family. Films that promise action, comedy, and romance seldom deliver on those promises as amazingly as this one does.

5

Gatsby

08-04-15, 10:57 AM

Good review of The Princess Bride Iro. I give it the exact rating as you did, it's an all-time favorite for me too. I love how a film can be possibly so laid back and clever in it's approach and the amount of pure fun that can be intelligent at the same time, a true rarity. Wish I could give you more rep.

ursaguy

08-04-15, 11:45 AM

I wanted to like TFIOS, but I couldn't get past the writing. John Green cannot write dialogue. This is a problem in every single one of his books and I'm assuming his other movies. I think that the writing of high school movies makes it or breaks it a lot of times. Something like Project Almanac crafted it's characters, dialogue, and plot like the people were real people, which makes its flaws easier to accept. I've heard people say that John Green writes his teenagers like college grads talking to their coworker at a prestigious job, and that's not wrong, but the big problem is that he writes them like movie characters. It doesn't let me get invested in what's happening.

Miss Vicky

08-04-15, 12:29 PM

I finally witness Iro give a perfect rating to something and...

it's for a movie that I don't like. :laugh:

honeykid

08-04-15, 12:54 PM

Loving the rating for Death Race 2000, Iro. :up: Obviously I do love it, but it's great to see a rating so high from you for it and words of room to grow make it even moreso.

I've got loads to catch up on, so I'll try and get some more of these read over the next couple of days. :)

gbgoodies

08-04-15, 01:59 PM

#485 - The Princess Bride
Rob Reiner, 1987

5

Great review of The Princess Bride. :up:

You seem to hate so many movies that I was afraid to scroll down and see you rate one of my all-time favorite movies with a 1 or 2 star rating.

Iroquois

08-04-15, 09:47 PM

I finally witness Iro give a perfect rating to something and...

it's for a movie that I don't like. :laugh:

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/6f/6f5e7af0325624bcedeb4f0741265c2b9d2c0d5efa97884171858e30db8f3abc.jpg

Iroquois

08-04-15, 10:42 PM

#486 - Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Alexander Witt, 2004

http://gamesretrospect.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Resident-Evil-Apocalypse-04.jpg

A genetically engineered virus that turns people into zombies is unleashed on a city.

I have seen bits and pieces of various Resident Evil films in the past while also playing only one game in the series to completion (Resident Evil 4, for the record). While you'd think that I would have gotten enough of an idea of what such a film would've been like from those snippets, apparently that wasn't enough and, when Resident Evil: Apocalypse aired on TV recently, I decided to actually give the whole thing a shot. In hindsight, I probably should have given it a few shots to make sure it stayed down. It's not like I didn't expect this to be a horrific piece of work (and not really in the way that the filmmakers intended), but it either didn't live up to my expectations or surpassed them. I'm really not sure. Apocalypse follows on from the events of the first film by having the zombie virus that was originally contained in a secret laboratory break out and infect the population of the fictional Raccoon City. The series brings back Milla Jovovich as the film series' protagonist, a genetically engineered super-soldier who is unleashed on the city because of...reasons that don't actually make sense in the face of later narrative revelations. She eventually joins up with a handful of survivors, who are then tasked with finding the young daughter of a scientist (Jared Harris) who has betrayed the evil corporation in order to rescue her.

Even for an inherently silly action-horror movie, the film definitely doesn't seem to care about whether or not it respects its audience's intelligence. A scene takes place in the morning, then a title card that reads "13 hours later..." appears before cutting to...an establishing shot that takes place in broad daylight. They just didn't care. The same applies to the characterisation, which is pretty weak or nonsensical - Jovovich plays a boring invincible heroine whose only real development comes from her history with a person who also ends up being turned into a genetically engineered super-soldier, while other characters play into a variety of stereotypes such as a loose-cannon cop, a self-serving journalist, sympathetic employees of the evil corporation going rogue, etc. It gets to the point where you are barely given any reason to care about their survival beyond the fact that they are the only humans in a zombie movie that aren't straight-up villains. The worst one of all is easily Mike Epps as a civilian who gets caught up in the fracas with his first appearance involving him being handcuffed to a zombie at a police station. Though he is clearly intended to be comic relief thanks to his general ineptitude and sheer dumb luck (such as surviving the evil super-soldier mini-gunning a building to pieces around him), his presence is neither comic nor a relief. There is literally a scene where he drives down a road and yells out, "G-T-A, mother****er!" as he runs down a zombie. They just didn't care.

On the action and horror fronts, things are not just underwhelming, they're downright irritating. Jump-scares are set up on the flimsiest and least sensible pretenses possible, the many scenes of zombies and other infected creatures being gunned down or blown up look ridiculous, and the film never builds up a sufficient atmosphere of dread because it's relying on clichés half the time (there are at least two instances of characters calling out to unresponsive humans who have their backs turned before approaching them anyway...) The hyped-up technical approach does little to generate any excitement; the extremely fast editing in some sections is more likely to bring on a headache. At least it's a point in the film's favour that the main villain is rendered somewhat competently through practical effects. Even for a film that wants nothing more than to deliver about ninety minutes of zombie thrills, Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a major disappointment that gets a couple of technical aspects right but also gets most of them wrong, and that's without getting into the problems that plague the plot, action, and characters. Might be good for some incredulous entertainment, but if that's not your thing then avoid this.

1

MovieGal

08-04-15, 10:43 PM

Iro, I met Carey Elwes this past spring. He's a great person. Truely loves his fans. I enjoyed that movie when I first seen it and it has been a while since then... since when it first came out. I guess some of these older films I havent seen in a while, I need to rewatch.

Iroquois

08-04-15, 10:47 PM

It's a film that certainly has replay value.

Miss Vicky

08-04-15, 11:32 PM

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/6f/6f5e7af0325624bcedeb4f0741265c2b9d2c0d5efa97884171858e30db8f3abc.jpg

Oh I'm totally used to being disappointed by your ratings. It's just that you normally disappoint me by how low you rate things.

Zotis

08-04-15, 11:47 PM

I finally witness Iro give a perfect rating to something and...

it's for a movie that I don't like. :laugh:

You don't like The Princess Bride?

http://h2g2.com/oldblobs/white/2259375.gif

Iroquois

08-05-15, 01:09 AM

Oh I'm totally used to being disappointed by your ratings. It's just that you normally disappoint me by how low you rate things.

Exactly, this is a whole new kind of disappointment that you have to get used to.

Miss Vicky

08-05-15, 01:11 AM

You don't like The Princess Bride?

http://h2g2.com/oldblobs/white/2259375.gif

Nope, not at all.

Iroquois

08-05-15, 01:58 AM

Why?

Miss Vicky

08-05-15, 02:06 AM

I just found it unfunny and kind of dull. Maybe I would have loved it if I'd grown up watching it. I'm pretty sure I saw it as a child but it wasn't one that got watched multiple times back then so when I saw it as an adult it had no nostalgic value.

Iroquois

08-05-15, 02:19 AM

I see. I do reckon it's got more going for it than mere nostalgia value, though - at the very least, I don't completely think of it as a nostalgic fave in the same way that I do with, say, The Blues Brothers. I'll concede it does lose its momentum in the second half, but it's still fleshed out with a very quotable script and distinctive characters.

ash_is_the_gal

08-05-15, 10:27 AM

The Princess Bride might hold that soft warm feeling of nostalgia for a lot of people, but putting that aside, it's a damn well-made movie. the best cast, clever writing, and fun and exciting. i can't take that opinion seriously.

honeykid

08-05-15, 12:04 PM

No, it's horribly cast. I don't like most of the actors or the characters they're playing. Plus, it's not funny.

ash_is_the_gal

08-05-15, 12:20 PM

why?

Yoda

08-05-15, 12:29 PM

Since when did honeykid ever need a reason for liking or disliking anything? ;)

But yeah, I'll just come out and say it: people who don't like The Princess Bride are weird and smell funny and are probably Communists.

ash_is_the_gal

08-05-15, 12:33 PM

Since when did honeykid ever need a reason for liking or disliking anything? ;)

well, i'm asking why he doesn't think it's funny, and why he hates the cast.

i know Honeykid never really has reasons for these things but that won't stop me from trying to force him to give some :cool:

Yoda

08-05-15, 12:53 PM

Well, I hope you have more luck than I did when I tried to do exactly the same thing with him (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=659808#post659808) five years ago.

ash_is_the_gal

08-05-15, 12:56 PM

five years ago

geez Yoda

ash_is_the_gal

08-05-15, 01:43 PM

tried to do exactly the same thing with him (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=659808#post659808)

actually, he did respond to you and give you 'reasons' and such... well, kinda. he basically just said 'i don't like it, i don't like Robin Wright, i don't like sword fights."

honeykid

08-05-15, 02:05 PM

I did answer and give reasons. You didn't like them or think they were valid, that's fine, but I did. I still agree with that post and the one I made after it, though. :p:D

Nostromo87

08-05-15, 03:42 PM

honeykid is actually a martian. one of the martians Swan conquered in Swan Conquers the Martians. which is why he's here

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/1/14751/299146-110004-marvin-the-martian.jpg

except not a cartoon martian, honeykid doesn't like cartoons. honeykid likes some earth stuff, but not things like ET: the Extra-Terrestrial or Aliens (1986) or 2001: a Space Odyssey, Honeykid's actually been on space odysseys so he knows how wrong that stuff is

honeykid

08-05-15, 03:49 PM

Actually, HK does like E.T. :yup: That said, it's been quite a few years now, so maybe I don't. :D

Iroquois

08-05-15, 10:21 PM

But E.T. sucks, though.

Iroquois

08-05-15, 10:36 PM

#487 - G.I. Jane
Ridley Scott, 1997

http://haironfilm.net/menu/Images%5C26%5C05.jpg

As part of a politician's lobbying, a female Naval officer becomes the first woman to undergo training to join the Navy SEALs.

One of the problems with being a prolific director is that it's very easy for the quantity-to-quality ratio of your films to become rather unbalanced. Ridley Scott has been making films fairly consistently for the past few decades and, despite being responsible for making at least two of my all-time favourite films, more often than not the films of his that I've seen range from alright to unlikeable (but not utter travesties). Even so, when it came to reaching a consensus about his absolute worst film, there seemed to be one film that stood head and shoulders above the rest of his filmography - G.I. Jane.The premise does sound like a rather absurd high-concept - a senator (Anne Bancroft), looking to challenge the sexist attitudes of the U.S. military, concocts an experiment where a female member of the Navy would be allowed to undergo the incredibly rigourous training required to become a Navy SEAL. To this end, she settles on an officer (Demi Moore) who manages to demonstrate resolve and tenacity while also having a sufficiently photogenic appearance and publicly agreeable persona (i.e. she still comes across as feminine and heterosexual). As a result, Moore is taken to boot camp and is forced to contend not just with the hellishness of the training (overseen by Viggo Mortensen's extremely harsh instructor) but also with various strata of institutionalised sexism, whether it's the misogynistic jeers and attacks of the other recruits or the patronising attitudes of her superiors that only serve to create a vicious cycle.

G.I. Jane isn't quite as bad as I'd been led to believe but it's still a long way from being good. Moore is passable as an officer who wants to finish out the program since the experience would be good for her career and at least she has the physical capability to make one accurately believe that she is capable of doing the many arduous tasks that she is given throughout the film. Mortensen does what he can with a rather tiresome drill sergeant type but it's not enough to sell later developments that hint at hidden depths. While the most obvious similarity with Alien 3 would be that both films feature bald female protagonists, they also shares a less admirable quality in that there are too many nigh-indistinguishable bald white guys in the cast, which doesn't speak much for the performances or characterisations. Bancroft does get some interesting qualities as the senator with ulterior motives behind her radical agenda, but the character still ends up being flat.

As for the action, well, this is definitely Scott indulging the weakest aspects of his filmmaking ability as he muddles through an overly long training montage of a film that veers into Top Gun territory by the time it reaches its third act. The attempts to simulate the chaos of combat extend to some distractingly poor cinematography that predates annoying shakycam by involving a lot of zooming in and out rapidly and repeatedly many times. At least he definitely improved on that kind of technique with later films (though that's not exactly difficult). G.I. Jane definitely comes across as a viable candidate for Scott's worst film, and if I ever got around to arranging them in order of preference then I might just rank it as such, but as a film in general it's not completely objectionable despite its more trenchant commentary on gender roles and the politicisation of such being buried underneath an otherwise stock-standard boot-camp movie.

1.5

Iroquois

08-06-15, 01:51 AM

#488 - Hell Comes to Frogtown
Donald G. Jackson and R.J. Kizer, 1988

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53307ed9e4b0338489b4827c/t/53330e84e4b0f4d709492b12/1395854984323/frogtownbdcap5_original.jpg

In a post-apocalyptic future where the world's population is mostly female and infertile, one especially fertile man is forcibly recruited into a mission to recover a group of fertile women from a town populated by frog-like mutants.

I picked up a DVD copy of Hell Comes to Frogtown for $2 a year or so ago but it basically sat around in my collection until I heard the news about the passing of Rowdy Roddy Piper and figured that that would be as good a time as any to finally check it out. Though it came out in the same year as Piper's most indelible cinematic outing, John Carpenter's staunchly anti-consumerism B-movie They Live, Hell Comes to Frogtown is a far different beast. Piper stars as a character who is literally named Sam Hell (which would explain the title), whose most distinguishing character trait is the fact that he is an exceptionally fertile male human in a post-nuclear landscape where not only is most of the male population dead, but the majority of remaining humans are infertile. This makes Piper and his special purpose extremely plot-relevant to the point where he is fitted with an electro-shock chastity belt that monitors his activities. Before long, he is driven out into the post-apocalyptic wasteland in the care of two women - one a soldier, one a scientist - in order to fulfil his duties, which eventually involves a mission to rescue a group of fertile human women from Frogtown, a wretched hive populated by (you guessed it) frog people.

As another user pointed out, yes, that plot does share a few similarities with the plot of Mad Max: Fury Road (and more than a couple with the Y: The Last Man comic book series), but it's still wrapped in a pulpy '80s exploitation style with enough differences to distinguish itself. The film does play its absurd sci-fi premise for a lot of laughs thanks to Piper's turn as a cocky yet reluctant hero who is rather unwilling to help repopulate the Earth (never mind the implications of trying to do so using only one man, this isn't that kind of movie), leading to all sorts of goofy shenanigans that do occasionally get a little too dark (such as his scientist supervisor encouraging him to impregnate a traumatised and sedated Frogtown escapee despite him not being in the mood for it, though that is naturally glossed over). Things lighten up a little once the get to Frogtown, which basically looks like the inside of an abandoned factory but is compensated for by some relatively solid practical effects when it comes to the frog people themselves. The designs are ugly, sure, but they are at least semi-competent in a way that does make them somewhat charming and at the very least the characters underneath are capable of giving appropriately over-the-top performances.

Due to its low-budget nature, the film does take its time building up to any sort of viable action, and what does occur feels like too little, too late. Some distinctive elements, such as the fact that Piper and his comrades travel through the dangerous post-apocalyptic wasteland in a neon-pink hot-rod with a mounted machine-gun, do serve to distinguish the film somewhat, but even the explosive finale isn't quite enough to wholly redeem a film that is extremely mediocre even by '80s trash standards. It's fine enough if you're looking for something short and weird and sort of fun (with a bit of gender role subversion thrown in to boot), but there's too much working against it to really make it any kind of "good".

2

Iroquois

08-06-15, 01:52 AM

#489 - They Live
John Carpenter, 1988

https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/451615067_640.jpg

A homeless construction worker discovers a pair of sunglasses that allow him to see that the world is controlled by grotesque humanoid aliens in disguise.

Watching this on a double-bill with Hell Comes to Frogtown probably didn't do the former any favours, nor did the fact that They Live has been a favourite of mine for close to a decade. More of this has to do that this film involves one of my favourite filmmakers at the helm, building a lean and mean little film based around his considerable dissatisfaction with the reckless consumerism and class warfare prompted by the Reagan administration. He combines this with an extended homage to 1950s B-movies such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (though not nearly as ambiguous in its metaphor, though it would be interesting to see someone try to interpret this film as being pro-capitalism), with the vibe of such films definitely manifesting in how actual reality is only ever seen in classic black-and-white instead of full-bodied colour. Of course, the film does more than ground itself in the '80s through the casting of Roddy Piper as its hero. While there's always a part of me that will wonder how this film would have gone if Carpenter had cast regular collaborator Kurt Russell (who had up to that point always been there if a Carpenter film needed an unambiguous leading man), it is very difficult to imagine this film being quite as charming as it is without Piper and his character's particular brand of everyman charisma that is believable even when he segues into bubblegum-related one-liners. This much is supplanted by the always-dependable Keith David as one of Piper's co-workers, and the two have great chemistry in virtually every single scene they share. The rest of the cast are merely serviceable - Carpenter regular Peter Jason makes for an affable enough member of the human resistance, while Meg Foster is a serious ice queen who I'm still not sure is giving an appropriate performance or an underwhelming one.

Given its relatively low budget, Carpenter and co. do render their sci-fi allegory reasonably well. The sunglasses that turn the world to black-and-white are a simple yet effective plot device as they reveal many stark subliminal messages underneath seemingly innocuous billboards as well as the bug-eyed and mottled faces of the alien oppressors. It's all shot through with Carpenter's ability for doing more with less as he crafts a slick yet down-to-earth B-movie, even as the film does enter some ridiculous territory when it decides to throw in some action. That being said, the lengthy back-alley fight that happens between Piper and David about two-thirds of the way through the film still remains one of the greatest scenes in Carpenter's career, with the two actors fully going at it and exchanging barbs and blows for about six straight minutes. It certainly compensates for when the film spends its final third act indulging some fairly standard gunfighting action. There's also the fact that the first act takes a while to set things up and get the film going, but that slow-burn nature is helped once again by Piper and David. I also like the score (once again composed by Carpenter and regular musical collaborator Alan Howarth), with the synthesised-sounding mix of country and blues being the perfect fit for a setting that's all about creating the ideal America out of sheer artifice. The fact that it's still so eminently watchable thanks to its bizarre cult charm means I'm going to give it an extremely subjectively and unusually high rating. Now it's time for me to go get some more bubblegum.

4.5

Iroquois

08-06-15, 04:18 AM

#490 - Boyz n the Hood
John Singleton, 1991

http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/b/boyz-n-the-hood-sp-500x250.jpg

Centres on the lives of three African-American teenagers as they come of age in South Central L.A.

How legitimate is the criticism that a film has not "aged well"? Granted, a film's more distinctive period details and sensibilities can actually be strikes against it, but on the other hand such a film can also be seen as a cinematic snapshot of a certain historical period and location that deserves recognition on that basis alone. If nothing else, Boyz n the Hood does a fairly decent job of providing the latter as it is loosely based off writer-director Singleton's experiences growing up in Los Angeles. After a lengthy prologue set in 1984 that introduces us to the leads as kids, the film jumps forward seven years to re-introduce them as teenagers. The protagonist (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is learning how to be a man from his extremely serious yet approachable father (Laurence Fishburne) but he is still caught between his two (related) best friends - one a gang-banger (Ice Cube) and the other a football scholarship hopeful (Morris Chestnutt).

However, the attempt to capture the reality of life in the African-American community does come across as more than a little heavy-handed in some of its points. This results in the film's best scenes also coming across as the worst scenes for the very same reasons. Examples include Fishburne (who gives what is easily the best performance in the film) occasionally stopping the film dead to deliver Singleton's messages, whether it's snarking at a black police officer that racially profiles other black citizens or the part where he waxes lyrical about the gentrification of black neighbourhoods. This even extends to him lecturing Gooding Jr. about safe sex, which is also another thing that needed to be heard, sure, but only adds to the criticisms that lingered in the back of my mind about how the film was essentially "an after-school special with cursing". Such a criticism especially applies to Chestnutt's story and his struggles to make it out of the 'hood, while Cube is virtually content to hang out with his gangster crew. Gooding Jr. gets the driving arc but that just results in his character generally being a blank slate to be manipulated by the world and characters around him, with his only real desire being for the girl next door (Nia Long). The soundtrack alternates between period-appropriate hip-hop and also more conventional orchestra score, further reflecting how this film ends up being caught between being a truthful depiction of hood life and a more conventional piece that feels like it's been crafted by an outsider looking in on this world. It makes me want to re-watch Menace II Society to see if the problem is limited to just Singleton's film or if it is endemic to other films of the same genre and period.

2

honeykid

08-06-15, 11:32 AM

I can't remember, but did you ever see The Hidden, Iro?

JayDee

08-06-15, 09:05 PM

As another user pointed out, yes, that plot does share a few similarities with the plot of Mad Max: Fury Road

Yay Iro just gave me a shout-out...of a sort. I have a name you know! :p

Oh and like you I love They Live. Such a fun, charming and exceedingly watchable film.

Iroquois

08-06-15, 10:27 PM

I can't remember, but did you ever see The Hidden, Iro?

Yes, I did. I'd probably give it a 3.5, possible a 3. I haven't seen it in a few years but I definitely remember liking it.

Yay Iro just gave me a shout-out...of a sort. I have a name you know! :p

Oh and like you I love They Live. Such a fun, charming and exceedingly watchable film.

I decided to err on the side of caution in case you didn't want to be named in a review. At least now people can scroll down and see.

Iroquois

08-07-15, 12:15 AM

#491 - Big Trouble in Little China
John Carpenter, 1986

https://emerdelac.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/bigtrouble3.jpg

A trucker must help his friend rescue his fiancée from an ancient sorcerer who has taken up residence in San Francisco's Chinatown.

The mid-1980s marked an interesting shift for John Carpenter. After the commercial failure of The Thing and the modest success of Christine, he got the unlikely offer to direct Starman, a fairly respectable sci-fi road movie that earned Jeff Bridges an Oscar nomination. He followed that up with 1986's Big Trouble in Little China, which flopped and understandably made him disillusioned with Hollywood's filmmaking process. Of course, that didn't stop the film from becoming a beloved cult classic, and not without reason. It's almost on par with Starman when it comes to being the lightest and most ostensibly accessible film in the director's filmography, but even so much of its reputation rests on its bizarre genre-blending mix of action, comedy, martial arts, and low fantasy. This much is clear from the opening scene, a distant epilogue designed to set up protagonist Jack Burton (Carpenter stalwart Kurt Russell) as a capable and courageous hero who saved the day before mysteriously disappearing. Of course, this is supposed to be studio-mandated insurance against the actual truth of Burton; that he acts the confident, all-American hero throughout the film despite being outclassed in nearly every aspect (aside from his reflexes, of course). Despite that, it's a credit to Russell's outsized performance that the character comes across as a likeable fool rather than an irritating one, especially since he channels John Wayne in very much the same way that he channeled Clint Eastwood for Escape From New York.

Otherwise, the casting works very well for some generally great characters. Kim Cattrall makes for a good female lead as Gracie Law, who has sufficiently belligerent chemistry with Russell and sufficiently independent goals and motivations, while Dennis Dun as Burton's friend Wang Chi is good at portraying the right mix of the plucky sidekick's affable personality and the capable hero's day-saving prowess, to say nothing of his unflinching turn as a straight man to Russell's buffoonery. Veteran character actor James Hong all but steals the show here as chief villain Lo Pan, appearing as either an ancient old man in a wheelchair or a sharply-dressed spirit straight out of the Qin dynasty. His distinctive voice adds the appropriate level of humour or gravitas as the scene demands. Victor Wong provides a strong foil to Lo Pan as the unassuming Egg Shen, whose Chinatown tour bus is a front for his own earthy and benevolent type of sorcery. The rest of the cast is populated by a variety of characters with few weak links (for example, Kate Burton's turn as an intrepid reporter feels underdeveloped and more than a little contrived). That being said, I also can't go without mentioning the "Three Storms" (who appear to be modelled off the straw-hatted trio of assassins from the second Lone Wolf and Cub movie), who do get in their fair share of memorable moments.

The comedy on offer generally works, often at the expense at Jack Burton as he constantly finds himself in all sorts of unforgiving slapstick-like situations but is still willing to wisecrack about his ordeal to strong effect. The action stands out reasonably well with its emphasis on the exact kind of heavily choreographed and fantastic-looking martial arts that tend to involve physics-defying stuntwork and combat. Obviously, it's not quite on par with the kind of stuff that guys like Jackie Chan or Jet Li were doing around the same time, but it's still some pretty good work for a time when Hollywood hadn't quite cottoned on to the lucrative possibilities of martial arts films. Though the effects are arguably dated, they are dated in the best possible way with combinations of green-screen, stop-motion animation, and practical effects that look pretty fake (occasionally hilariously so, as is the case in one character's demise) but that's all just part of the charm. The same goes for the art direction (why does an ancient underground temple of doom have neon lights everywhere? Because it looks cool). Carpenter once again collaborates with Alan Howarth for the background score, which takes the pair's usual capacity for well-crafted synthesiser-heavy scores and combines it with Chinese influences. Big Trouble in Little China isn't quite the non-stop rollercoaster ride it wants to be, but it comes admirably close and ends up being one of the best films in John Carpenter's filmography. There's a dud moment here or there but not enough to significantly alter my opinion of the film, which is probably one of the most straight-up fun films in my collection.

4.5

Iroquois

08-07-15, 09:23 AM

#492 - Angel Face
Otto Preminger, 1952

https://twentyfourframes.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/angel-face1.jpg

An emotionally unstable heiress involves an ambulance driver in her plot to murder her stepmother.

A major problem with Angel Face is that it's way too derivative. An experienced viewer of classic noir films can easily pick apart the various films that Angel Face takes obvious inspiration from to the point where mentioning the right titles would be tantamount to writing direct spoilers. Despite that, it's still a perfectly watchable film thanks to the work of its two leads. Robert Mitchum and his appropriately weather-beaten features make him an ideal lead for noir movies, but here he's not some jaded detective - instead, he's a simple working-class ambulance driver who has been called out to the Beverly Hills mansion of a wealthy businessman whose wife has almost died due to a gas leak. While there, he meets with the businessman's daughter (Jean Simmons) whose demure demeanour hides a more mentally and emotionally complicated individual. Mitchum is soon torn between the different lives offered by both Simmons' upper-class heiress and his working-class girlfriend (Mona Freeman), which is further complicated by Simmons' manipulations and plans to murder her stepmother.

While Mitchum is as dependable as always, Simmons is the one who delivers a stand-out performance by playing against type. Prior to this, I had only really seen her play gentle, benevolent characters in Elmer Gantry and Spartacus, and while the same superficial sweetness translates to almost every scene here, each time it is subverted by the revelation that her character is unhinged at best. As Simmons' actions escalate from sabotaging relationships to plotting murders, the story is constructed and paced reasonably well but for the most part it all feels like it's been done before (again, I could name some titles but won't) even with some unusual twists here and there. That being said, when the film finally reached its ending it surprised me to the point where I did have to rewind it just so I could be sure I saw what I saw. While technically competent and reasonably well-acted, Angel Face is too derivative to be a true classic. That does not stop it from being an eminently watchable piece of noir that has some good leads, but if you're working your way through classic noir films then this doesn't feel completely essential.

3

Gatsby

08-07-15, 10:00 AM

Bro you are underrating Big Trouble in Little China. Needs to be at least 5. :yup:

Iroquois

08-07-15, 10:08 AM

My 4.5 is like the average MoFo's 5+.

Mäx

08-07-15, 10:08 AM

One can't underrate Big Trouble in Little China.

honeykid

08-07-15, 11:12 AM

But they sure can overrate it. And many, many do. ;)

MovieGal

08-07-15, 11:16 AM

My 4.5 is like the average MoFo's 5+.

my 3 is like an average Mofo's 5. Im far more harsh on films than you.

Mäx

08-07-15, 11:46 AM

But they sure can overrate it. And many, many do. ;)
That's what i'm saying: Even 1/10 isn't underrated. :D

Iroquois

08-08-15, 03:22 AM

my 3 is like an average Mofo's 5. Im far more harsh on films than you.

Coincidentally, I gave Valhalla Rising 3 recently.

Iroquois

08-08-15, 03:36 AM

#493 - Sunshine
Danny Boyle, 2007

http://www.scifibloggers.com/wp-content/uploads/sunshine-1.jpg

When the sun starts to die out and threaten the human race with extinction, an expedition is launched to deliver a massive nuclear bomb to the sun in the hope of restarting it.

I really liked Sunshine when I first saw it. Boyle, who has often attempted to channel a Ridley Scott-like versatility when it comes to working in as many genres as possible, had crafted a sleeper hit that drew on a range of sci-fi influences in telling its tale of a world-saving voyage to the heart of the solar system that is suddenly plagued on all sides by a number of internal and external problems. Of course, my opinion of Boyle and his films has started to wane a bit in recent years - watching Trance earlier this year was a major disappointment, and while I feel like revisiting pretty much every film of his I've already seen, the conviction generally isn't very strong. Even so, I had fond enough memories of Sunshine to try giving it a second shot to see how well it has held up.

For the most part, Sunshine holds up as a reasonably compelling space film. It keeps the setting nice and isolated with a handful of very good actors making for a solid ensemble that rise above their seemingly archetypal roles both onboard the ship and inside the narrative. Cliff Curtis gives what's probably the film's best performance as the ship's psychologist who is ironically starting to develop an unhealthy obsession with staring at the sun, while Cillian Murphy and Chris Evans develop a believable rivalry as a nuclear physicist and spaceship engineer respectively. Michelle Yeoh and Hiroyuki Sanada also bring considerable weight to their roles, especially the latter as the ship's captain. Rounding out the main cast are Rose Byrne, Benedict Wong, and Troy Garity, who admittedly don't get all that much material to work with compared to the others but they do well enough with what they've got. As a group, the actors believably sell both camaraderie and tension between one another, especially when various technical difficulties threaten to set them against one another.

As far as the plot goes, Sunshine manages to be fairly compelling even though much of its conflict is human-versus-nature as opposed to human-versus-human. The ever-looming sun sends out flares that threaten to damage the ship, there is no hope of rescue from Earth, even the most essential team members must be able to risk their lives for the mission and so forth. This is enough to sustain things for the bulk of the film, though Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland seem to realise that there's only so much conflict that can be generated by having the crew encounter various setbacks involving environmental hazards and abandoned vessels. This gives rise to the film's somewhat controversial third act:

Basically, what happens is that the ship's crew locate the first ship that was sent out to do the mission but never completed it or reported back. After exploring the empty ship and finding the crew dead, the surviving members head back to their own damaged ship to complete the mission only to find that the captain of the first ship (Mark Strong) has not only survived for several years - with severe burns all over his body, no less - but had deliberately sabotaged the mission after going insane. As a result, he then tries to stop the mission so as to wipe out the human race and be the last man alive. This has understandably raised some criticism for taking an otherwise fairly creative and well-developed sci-fi thriller and sending it into trite slasher territory for want of a better ending. This is only made worse by the fact that Boyle tries to disguise this rather unoriginal and diabolical turn of events by adding blur effects to the villain every time he appears in a shot, without which it would presumably look like the crew was being terrorised by a naked Freddy Krueger and therefore even more ridiculous. It honestly feels like Boyle is demonstrating the same kind of pretension that led to him insisting that 28 Days Later... wasn't a zombie movie.

While I can definitely understand why such a development feels like a bit of an anticlimax to what had up to that point been a generally solid and organically developed film, I also concede that I'm not sure where else the film could have gone from there and that it was at least decently foreshadowed rather than a completely nonsensical twist designed to give the film an exciting ending. As such, I tolerate the third act more so than flat-out dislike it, though that's probably because even then the rest of the film still pays off. Boyle's capacity for generally good visuals and striking art direction are definitely evident here with the ship being built on technology from the not-too-distant future. The production design is evocative of the best spaceship films while still being distinct enough on its own merits, while the effects used to generate space, the ship, and the sun itself are all of sufficiently high quality without drawing significant attention to themselves. The score mixes electronic styles with standard orchestras to create a solid accompaniment to the scenes, especially several scenes where characters are directly threatened by the sun's incredible heat. Sunshine may have its problems and it certainly isn't exactly the most epic venture committed to film, but it doesn't need to be as it ends up being a fairly solid contender for what could have been one of the best sci-fi films of the past decade but is merely just a really good one.

3.5

Camo

08-08-15, 05:01 AM

Moviegals 8/10 is actually 10/10 no matter what she says ;).

Sunshine is a film I've wanted to see or a while, i actually watched the first five minutes twice, looking forward to actually watching it.

jrs

08-08-15, 05:54 AM

Pixels - 3

Raiders of the Lost Ark - 0

Something seems screwy here.:eek:

Iroquois

08-08-15, 07:06 AM

In my defence, that is the two-minute short Pixels instead of the hundred-minute waste of time Pixels.

Iroquois

08-08-15, 07:15 AM

#494 - Fireworks
Takeshi Kitano, 1997

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R-HMLC91YkY/U3c4QZVj65I/AAAAAAAAFPY/1lr5c2OE8Iw/s1600/Hana-Bi.png

A veteran police detective with a terminally ill wife and a sizeable debt to the Yakuza must pull off a bank robbery in order to set things right.

I think I'm about due to get back into Kitano's movies. Sonatine is definitely worthy of my Top 100 these days, but as of writing nothing else has quite made the same leap. If any film was likely to do it, it would probably be Fireworks, which is the consensus pick for Kitano's best directorial effort and not without reason. Kitano's idiosyncratic filmmaking style means that I'm pretty split on how much I like each individual film, but I've never outright hated any of them (hence why I think I'm due for some re-watches). Fireworks definitely features a lot of the same Kitano trademarks - extra beats between scene transitions, long stretches of no action punctuated by the odd spot of brutal violence, characters whose performances alternate between muted understatement and vitriolic outbursts, etc. - but wraps them around a plot that is more consistently compelling than that of Sonatine. Kitano once again plays the lead, this time as a police detective who already starts the film with a variety of money troubles thanks to both the medical bills of his dying wife and the Yakuza breathing down his neck due to some gambling debts. After his long-time partner is shot and disabled by a criminal that he was supposed to be staking out, Kitano decides to settle things once and for all by planning a bank robbery.

The plot is fairly simple, but it's filled out reasonably well. Knowing about Kitano's near-fatal motorcycle accident a few years before this film was made certainly seems to inform the sub-plot involving his character's partner adjusting to life after his injury (especially when he takes up painting, showcasing Kitano's actual paintings from the time period in the process). The film does spend a lot of time focusing on the paintings to the point where it does feel a little like padding, but they are adequately complemented by Joe Hisaishi's appropriately elegaic score. Such scenes set the standard for the film as a whole and extend to what could be considered the plot itself, as Kitano takes a premise full of worn-out tropes (corrupt cop with a heart of gold pulls "one last job" to redeem himself) and filters it through his own peculiar sensibilities. That much is true of the bank robbery scene itself, which is humourous due to its extremely po-faced subversion of the typical Western heist sequence without descending into predictable slapstick. In the same way that Sonatine's second act consisted of a drawn-out sequence of mundane events as the characters waited for the seemingly inevitable conclusion of their journey, Fireworks delivers an extended third act that also subverts the typically suspense-filled finale as Kitano slowly but surely makes his getaway. This may try one's patience, but even on a second viewing the tension surrounding the final scene is pretty tough to bear.

While I don't think it's likely to up-end Sonatine as my favourite Kitano film any time soon, Fireworks is easily the purest distillation of everything that defines Kitano as a filmmaker while also managing to be a strong film in its own right. I naturally recommend it to everyone who doesn't mind a film that's willing to stretch out and deliver something different rather than play its well-worn premise for easy excitement. Everything about it is off-beat in just the right way - the humourous sociopathy of its characters, the balance of both predictable and unpredictable types of violence, the frequently static camerawork, the weirdly sweet core that's buried under layers and layers of nihilistic nastiness, and so forth. The only possible exception might be Hisaishi's score, which is frequently wistful and beautiful in its own right and therefore is at odds with the film as a whole, but when it is used it is used brilliantly (especially during that final scene). I'm starting to think this might even be a contender for the next Top 100, and if that's not a glowing recommendation then I'm not sure what would be.

4.5

MovieGal

08-08-15, 11:14 AM

Coincidentally, I gave Valhalla Rising 3 recently.

So you just found it average?

mark f

08-08-15, 01:47 PM

He found it pretty good. I rated it 2 so I found it average.

Citizen Rules

08-08-15, 02:27 PM

I liked your review on Sunshine, I reviewed that myself some time ago. I mostly agree about the third act except I'm in the WTH camp and feel it deeply hurts what could have been a modern classic.
There's ways they could have went with the films ending, without pulling a Freddy Kruger out of the 1st ship. The film touches on a spiritual mystery contained inside sunshine (or is it more like a narcotic?), Cillian Murphy earlier in the film is almost burnt to a crisp because he won't stop staring into the sun. That sunshine 'mystery' could have been expanded to be the crux of the third act instead of Capt Pinbacker as a boggy man.

Iroquois

08-09-15, 12:38 AM

So you just found it average?

3 (out of 4, as is the case with all my first-time ratings) is "above average".

I liked your review on Sunshine, I reviewed that myself some time ago. I mostly agree about the third act except I'm in the WTH camp and feel it deeply hurts what could have been a modern classic.
There's ways they could have went with the films ending, without pulling a Freddy Kruger out of the 1st ship. The film touches on a spiritual mystery contained inside sunshine (or is it more like a narcotic?), Cillian Murphy earlier in the film is almost burnt to a crisp because he won't stop staring into the sun. That sunshine 'mystery' could have been expanded to be the crux of the third act instead of Capt Pinbacker as a boggy man.

As I recall, it's Cliff Curtis's character who spends all his time staring at the sun (and when he's left behind on the first ship, he chooses to kill himself by opening up the sun room so as to stare at the sun full blast). I know the Pinbacker development is a bit ridiculous from a narrative standpoint, but if you're working off the assumption that there is an inherently spiritual mystery about the sun then Pinbacker becomes a necessary part of that equation. Pinbacker becomes something akin to a religious fundamentalist in that he interprets the sun's inherent spirituality in an incredibly selfish and dangerous way. He thinks that the sun going out is "God's will" and so he must sabotage not only his own mission but the back-up mission so as to guarantee the extinction of the human race. This much is backed up by his line where he goes on about how there will be one man alone with God and then he asks Murphy "am I that man?", indicating that underneath his religiously motivated villainy, he really is just a selfish, insane man.

Of course, that doesn't stop the execution of such a thing being handled kind of shoddily.

Iroquois

08-09-15, 12:43 AM

#495 - Outrage
Takeshi Kitano, 2010

http://screencrave.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/outrage.jpg

The alliance between a group of Yakuza clans starts to come apart after a minor dispute escalates into all-out war.

In 2000, Takeshi Kitano attempted to bring his own idiosyncratic brand of crime drama to the United States with Brother, which saw him play a Yakuza lieutenant who had to be relocated to Los Angeles. It down-played the existential nature of a Yakuza film like Sonatine in favour of a complex power struggle between both American and Japanese gangsters that stands out in my memory mainly for just how freely it was willing to kill off, well, pretty much every character, often in some extremely gruesome ways (the scene involving chopsticks and one particularly foolhardy henchman's nose isn't going to leave my memory anytime soon...) It was an enjoyable enough film that had a fair bit of Kitano's usual charm but not enough to make it truly great (though I wouldn't hesitate to rewatch it). Even so, it wasn't that much of a commercial or critical success and Kitano has since expressed dissatisfaction with the film. I bring this up because Outrage feels like an attempt to refine that film's pulpy structure as it centres on a Yakuza kingpin's plan to rein in an unaffiliated minor clan by using one of his associates to do the dirty work for him. Of course, this seemingly simple plan escalates due to a variety of factors and soon a war erupts not just between different clans but also between the members of each individual clan as the betrayals and bodies pile up.

Outrage may not be much of a challenger for Kitano's best film but it's fairly uncomplicated in terms of what it sets out to do. The plot may get a little convoluted at times but it's still capable of keeping your attention no matter what. A lot of that is down to the frequently vicious acts of violence that are perpetrated by the various criminals, not just against each other but also against less deserving victims (most notably the put-upon Ghanaian ambassador who is constantly coerced and blackmailed into helping out the Yakuza). Some of them are darkly comical and play to Kitano's rather warped sense of humour, such as a sequence involving the unfortunate proprietor of a noodle bar. Some of them can be genuinely unsettling - let's just say that the most unforgettable scene involves a serious misuse of dental equipment. Characters are given just enough definition to not be flat vessels of mayhem but not enough for most of them to be sufficiently sympathetic. Kitano himself seems to play a supporting role at first as he spends much of the first half in the background but he soon emerges as a sufficiently compelling (if not particularly likeable) character. Your tolerance for Outrage will definitely depend on how well you can handle a film about despicable characters killing each other for a hundred straight minutes (to say nothing of Kitano's own particular style of filmmaking, though here it's relatively accessible). Fortunately, I can definitely handle Kitano's strange cinematic rhythms, which adds to the brutal gangland chaos that is weaved in and out of this twisted thriller and makes for an adequately entertaining experience.

3.5

Iroquois

08-09-15, 12:51 AM

#496 - Blackhat
Michael Mann, 2015

http://movieshrink.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/890.jpg

An imprisoned hacker is brought in to help track down another hacker.

Michael Mann has been responsible for quite a few good movies in his time, but I don't feel fussed about his most recent work. Collateral was an extremely solid thriller, but I skipped over his modern-day revamp of Miami Vice (though I still have half a mind to see it) and was extremely disappointed by Public Enemies, which seemed to take every thing I liked about Mann's films and ground it all down into a horrible mess. His decision to shoot Public Enemies on high-definition digital video instead of film was a major strike against the finished product - how was I supposed to get truly lost in a 1930s gangster tale where any sufficiently swift movement was accompanied by noticeable video blur? At least the present-day cyber-thriller that is Blackhat seemed like a more suitable vehicle for Mann to experiment with digital video; though the video blur is still distractingly present, there are plenty of other problems with Blackhat that are even more distracting.

It's not like Blackhat doesn't try to be interesting - the premise is some standard use-a-thief-to-catch-a-thief stuff, but it's got some promise thanks to some decent casting and a technologically paranoid plot. Chris Hemsworth trades on his natural charisma and physical prowess to believably play a person who's just as capable of fighting off enemies as he is at actually doing hacking, plus it also sells what could have been a terribly forced romantic sub-plot with one of his teammates (Wei Tang). Viola Davis is appropriately taciturn as Hemsworth's FBI handler, while Leehom Wang gets some decent material as he not only plays the Chinese lawman working with the Americans but also gets extra complication due to being Tang's character's brother. Characterisation only goes so far in this film as everyone plays some fairly rote roles - this much is true of the villains as well, who get barely any development beyond being ruthless greed-driven terrorists (though this may just be because so much of the film involves the heroes trying to figure out who they are, leaving very little time for development). As a result, the heroic characters are only just good enough to hold one's interest, but even then they have the capacity to lose one's interest when the film instead chooses to emphasise its plot.

The main problem with thrillers that involve hacking as a major plot point is that there's nothing terribly exciting about watching other people tap away at electronic devices and reading whatever pops up on the screens of said devices. Mann's decision to do right by the story's demands is at once a bold move but also one that doesn't seem to pay off all that well - even interspersing it with his usual moments of quiet introspection doesn't do the film as a whole much justice. It's got some decent twists and turns but only really seems to pick up towards the end. As far as the technical side of things goes, the heavily-contrasted cinematography would be fine if not for the instances where it exposed its artifice through the aforementioned blurring. At least here it seems like a proper stylistic choice to reflect the characters' focus on computers instead of the real world, but it doesn't feel like an effective one. This much is true when the film actually decides to veer into an action sequence but the direction is let down by the camerawork and, to a lesser extent, the editing. I was hoping Blackhat would be a bit of a return to form for Mann and that the largely negative reviews were coming from a place of prejudiced misunderstanding. While it's certainly more entertaining than Public Enemies, it is still plagued by some serious problems that make it difficult to think of this as a good film. I would not be totally averse to a second viewing, but as of right now I have to concede that the flaws only just manage to outweigh the strengths.

2.5

nebbit

08-09-15, 07:05 AM

I finally witness Iro give a perfect rating to something and...

it's for a movie that I don't like. :laugh:

http://www.smileys4msn.com/displaysmiley.php?show=455

Iroquois

08-10-15, 12:34 AM

#497 - Interstellar
Christopher Nolan, 2014

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03079/interstellar-revie_3079047k.jpg

When Earth undergoes a massive blight that threatens the human race with extinction, a small team of explorers is assembled to travel through a wormhole and find a new planet for humans to colonise.

All things considered, it was surprisingly easy to get fatigued by Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight and Inception were pretty impressive cinematic experiences, but after the rather underwhelming follow-up that was The Dark Knight Rises it was easy to start becoming less impressed by the man's work. As such, when Interstellar started to gather buzz I was obviously skeptical about it; this same skepticism persisted as I sat through the film. Even so, I didn't outright hate it and decided to give it a second chance recently. As such, I find that I do have a rather complicated attitude towards it that doesn't necessarily translate into a wholly positive or wholly negative rating. If I had to summarise my attitude towards Interstellar in a word, it would be "ambivalence". This is definitely one of those reviews where a rating demands an explanation and I figure I owe it to myself (if not loyal readers) to put it into words.

One of the main things I took away from my first viewing was how much of a sci-fi pastiche this supposedly visionary work ended up being. It begins with documentary footage of old folks talking about living in the Dust Bowl in order to establish a dying Earth that is prone to frequent crop failure and dust storms (because nothing establishes how doomed the world is like having old people reminiscing about the apocalypse as if it were decades in the past). Amidst this, we are introduced to Matthew McConaughey's protagonist, a widower (*ticks off a square in Nolan bingo*) with two young kids who used to be an ace pilot before being forced to abandon his dreams so as to look after his kids and keep his farm going. After the film's gone on for a while, he discovers that NASA has been secretly organising a project that aims to keep the human race alive by searching for inhabitable planets and colonising them, though they are also trying (and struggling) to find a way to establish self-sustaining space stations. To this end, McConaughey's character is recruited to be part of the next mission to go through a wormhole near Saturn and follow up on the explorers who went in search of new planets, but of course things gets complicated...

I'll get the things that I like about Interstellar out of the way first. For starters, it looks pretty good. Nolan and co.'s attempt to create a thoroughly realistic take on science-fiction extends to the development of some incredibly detailed production design and art direction, to say nothing of the interesting technological designs such as those of the military robots that accompany the astronauts. The film understandably won an Oscar for its visual effects, which do well to capture a variety of phenomena such as wormholes, alien planets, and of course the film's climatic sequence that doesn't quite bear discussion without spoiler tags. Hans Zimmer avoids a lot of his usual compositional clichés or at the very least offers interesting variations on them as he composes an organ-driven score that admittedly reminds me of Philip Glass's work on Koyaanisqatsi. The resulting marriage of this music to various scenes of grand interplanetary tableaux is probably one of my favourite things about this movie.

Unfortunately, just because the film manages to create some impressive combinations of sound and vision doesn't mean that the film is impressive as a whole. I mentioned earlier that I considered the film a pastiche, though that's only because there are so many moments that feel like they were lifted from other films and given the slightest tweaks. Whether it's the explanation for traveling through a wormhole that is identical to the one from Event Horizon or certain developments that only serve to remind me of Sunshine (even before I re-watched that film recently), it was hard not to play spot-the-reference rather than get totally lost in the story (though I concede that the former is necessary for translating the science into layman's terms, earlier movies be damned). Considering the fairly inventive take on the heist movie that Nolan provided with Inception, the extremely straightforward nature of this film comes across as a let-down (though I suppose that it might have something to do with the fact that it was someone else's idea in the first place). Even some of the more interesting ideas in use (such as the time dilation caused by space travel affecting the plot in a significant way) don't have the greatest pay-off.

There are reputable performers involved, but even they aren't good enough to elevate a script that frequently feels extremely utilitarian in its attempt to craft a sufficiently intelligent and complex blockbuster. Nolan has drawn less-than-favourable comparisons to Stanley Kubrick for prioritising technical prowess and provocative spectacle at the expense of strong character development; that particular shortcoming seems especially pronounced in a film that is (rather ironically) about the fundamental triumph of the human spirit and how humans as a species are special enough to deserve to survive. Any emotional expressions seem to exist solely to push the narrative forward (which is also ironic considering how the film's narrative seems to imply that the opposite is true) - while that's arguably true of many a film, here it feels exceptionally blatant that the characters and their feelings are of less concern than the plot. This utilitarian approach to sentiment even extends to some of the film's best scenes, such as the one where McConaughey checks his messages. The fact that it gets to the point where an emotionally distant scientist starts to wax lyrical about how the power of love is a tangible force in the universe only serves to drive home that this is probably the most human-oriented film that Nolan has attempted yet and it still feels incredibly rough when it comes to developing humans. It's just as well that several of the performers involved have just enough talent and charisma to infuse some rather flat characters with at least some personality, though they can only do so much in this film.

If you rate on a strict ten-point scale with no allowing for fractions or decimals, there is no true middle of the scale. A five out of ten is slightly below average and a six out of ten is slightly above average. Though there is enough to like about Interstellar that I don't feel like I can hate it as a whole, there's still so much wrong with it that I still don't feel like I can give it a good rating due to its incredible inconsistency. It runs for almost three hours and is clearly intended to be an epic blockbuster that also has a considerable degree of smarts to it, but such smarts are undone by the underweight development of the human factor. I may yet give this film a third chance, but it'll be a while away because I'm not altogether convinced that the grandiose depictions of the final frontier and what lies beyond the infinite are enough to carry a lengthy and somewhat hollow film. In this context, I find it somewhat amusing that Zimmer's score sounds so much like the music from Koyaanisqatsi, an art film that featured no human characters to care about and was mostly focused on creating a mesmerising series of audio-visual experimentations. Most films that receive the following rating usually provoke complete indifference, but Interstellar - for all its many flaws and not-so-many strengths - provokes anything but that.

2.5

Iroquois

08-10-15, 11:12 PM

#498 - A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014

http://images1.villagevoice.com/imager/u/original/6443295/10145890.0.jpg

The inhabitants of a small Iranian town are haunted by a female vampire.

Considering how oversaturated the vampire sub-genre has become in recent years, if a work of fiction is going to feature the world's favourite blood-sucking creature of myth then it has to provide a unique take on the subject for better or worse. Arthouse favourite Jim Jarmusch already decided to make a film about vampires with 2013's Only Lovers Left Alive, though he did so by creating a film full of stark colours and jagged post-rock as befitting his most recently developed style of filmmaking. 2014's A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, on the other hand, is easy to compare to the style of Jarmusch's early films with its black-and-white photography, retro soundtrack, and barely-connected vignettes featuring a small collection of odd characters. As a result, the film has a fairly decent visual aesthetic as it slowly burns its way through a fairly brief running time, but unfortunately it doesn't have all that much in the way in substance. The film's main character is a young man named Arash, who has to put his goals on hold in order to care for his drug-addicted father, which naturally means doing whatever it takes to pay off the local dealer/pimp. Enter the mysterious girl of the title, a vampire who roams the town at night and occasionally picks someone to feed upon, whose path directly or indirectly converges with Arash's several times over the course of the movie.

While the monochromatic look of the film is a nice choice and the soundtrack is also pretty good, there's ultimately not a lot to seriously distinguish A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night from other arthouse vampire films. The Iranian setting (and the pervasive influence of Western culture upon it) does provide an interesting subtext to the characters, most notably through the Girl's trademark outfit that combines a headscarf and cloak with tomboyish Western clothes as she skateboards around or listens to disco records. One can also pick up a coming-of-age narrative for Arash as he pushes through a number of hardships and foolhardy decisions, though that doesn't end up being all that interesting even with the introduction of a vampire to help shake things up. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the Girl could qualify as a "manic pixie dream girl" underneath her frequently silent and dangerously foreboding persona. That would certainly explain why the Girl's own arc isn't too interesting either; she's established as a "good" vampire of sorts (her on-screen victims tend to be bad people and she chooses to scare a child off rather than feed on him), but there doesn't seem to be much reason given as to why she suddenly takes interest in Arash. The story is superficially unpredictable enough that you never quite know where it's going to end up right until the credits roll, but it takes its time getting there and the twists don't feel all that shocking. As it stands, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is pretty middle-of-the-road as far as vampire films go, but I give it points for trying.

2.5

edarsenal

08-12-15, 12:21 AM

glad to see you liked outrage, haven't seen fireworks. Definitely need to see that one
Thanks Iro!

Iroquois

08-12-15, 02:27 AM

#499 - Visitor Q
Takashi Miike, 2001

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4uni67EYz6k/hqdefault.jpg

The members of a highly dysfunctional family have their lives changed when a mysterious stranger comes to live in their home.

I generally don't go out of my way to view films that could be classified as "extreme" cinema, and after having seen Visitor Q I now remember why. Out of the other three Miike films I've seen, two of them also showcased his capacity for perversely graphic imagery (The Bird People in China was an exception); Ichi the Killer was a cartoonishly hyper-violent crime movie and thus my opinion of it is generally unfavourable, but I did see Audition recently and could at least appreciate that its more graphic content worked within the context of its slow-burning psychological thriller narrative. Visitor Q, on the other hand, is a leaner film (clocking in at under 90 minutes) that is intended above all else to be a satire, but in doing so it constantly assaults your sensibilities by showcasing the actions of four members of an incredibly depraved family. The father is a disgraced employee of a television station who is desperately trying to achieve professional notability by any means necessary, even if that resorts to exploiting his other family members by documenting their lives with his camera. The mother is a heroin addict due to her suffering frequent physical abuse at the hands of her son, who is himself constantly bullied by a trio of classmates that are willing to launch fireworks into the family's home when they're not beating him senseless outside it. Meanwhile, there's the daughter who ran away from home to become a sex worker and has no qualms about taking on her own father as a client. Things all start to change when a mysterious stranger (presumably the visitor of the title) bashes the father in the head with a rock and then comes to live with the family for...some reason.

I can definitely see what kind of film Miike and his collaborators are trying to go for - one can easily pick apart a satire of not just your typical dysfunctional family comedies where the dysfunction is taken to grotesquely absurd degrees but also the growing desensitisation to said absurdity caused by the digital age. This much is apparent given the film's status as an experiment in low-budget digital video filmmaking, which is amply reflected by the father obsessing over rebuilding his journalistic reputation by filming everything in the hopes that it'll make him famous. This reaches an incredibly absurd level when he settles on filming the bullies who are constantly targeting his son and trying to pitch the concept to a thoroughly unimpressed co-worker as a documentary series that focuses on how his son's victimisation affects him personally. As the already-unhinged family members start to act in increasingly depraved ways (which is no mean feat), the mysterious visitor either encourages them on their own twisted journeys or captures them on camera per the father's request and nobody (well, not in the family, anyway) really seems to question his continued presence, as if a camera-wielding stranger hanging around their home is just one more thing to tolerate. Whatever satirical elements are brought to the table are more or less buried by Miike's tendency to invoke a number of deliberately disgusting subjects as part of his treatise and showing them in unflinching detail. He does this to the point where it seems to actively harm the film rather than help it, especially since it is all being played for laughs and there are few things that are worse than an unfunny comedy.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Visitor Q turned out to be such an unpleasant experience. Not only are the plot events I outlined above played for extremely dark comedy, but they don't even begin to describe some of the seriously messed-up things that happen in this film. The climax of Gaspar Noé's I Stand Alone is preceded by a flashing intertitle warning viewers that they have thirty seconds to leave the theatre before the film gets really bad, causing viewers to acknowledge whether or not they could bring themselves to handle whatever Noé was about to show next. Visitor Q has a similar scene towards the end, though it definitely signposts what is about to happen next as if to warn viewers that now would probably be the best time to bail on the film if they hadn't already. I persevered through to the end, but I definitely feel like the third act's developments shattered what little goodwill I still had towards this incredibly twisted piece of cinema. I get what Miike and co. are going for, but despite their best attempts the extremely shocking imagery never quite manages to make the leap from plain sick to sickly funny and, though I grant that it's at least got an illusion of depth that separates it from low-grade shock-horror like The Human Centipede, that's still not enough to stop me from giving it half a popcorn box on basic principles. A thoroughly abhorrent experience.

0.5

Iroquois

08-12-15, 02:31 AM

#500 - Raiders of the Lost Ark
Steven Spielberg, 1981

http://d1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net/9c/21/8a809d334b9dbd7b1086441aded2/harrison-ford-raiders.jpg

A professor of archaeology who travels the world in search of new artifacts is recruited by the U.S. government to recover the mysterious and powerful Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis do.

I figured that I needed a special film to commemorate reaching 500 films in this thread, and what better choice than one of my true all-time favourites? Also, Indy 500. Ba-dum-tish. But seriously, folks, where do I begin with Raiders of the Lost Ark? It's been a favourite of mine for as long as I can remember - to quote one of the film's antagonists, I grew up on this. Indiana Jones was one of my earliest childhood heroes and even now he holds up as a believably developed action hero who has very human flaws that lend serious weight to his more notable acts of derring-do and sell the film's quieter moments really well (thanks in no small part to Harrison Ford's surprisingly good range here). The film surrounds him with an impressive cast playing everything from tough-mannered women to smarmy rivals through to sadistic interrogators. The plot moves along at a constant pace where even the non-action scenes still manage to bring in good characterisation or plot developments. On a technical level, there is a lot of craftsmanship put into every possible aspect of the film, whether it's the detailed production design or the clever mixtures of both cinematography and editing that keep things running at a brisk pace no matter what...and that's without mentioning the fact that it features one of John Williams' best scores.

Now, because positive superlatives are boring, let me write about the flaws that I find with the film.

Of course, it's still a major favourite, but that doesn't mean I can't subject it to the same kind of scrutiny that has come to define my reviewing style in recent times. I give the film some credit for introducing audiences to Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), a rough-and-tumble heroine who is first introduced winning a drinking contest against a larger male opponent in the snowbound tavern that she owns and her reaction to seeing ex-lover Indy for the first time in a decade is to punch him in the face. These are some pretty good badass credentials that do add to the reasons why the tavern fight is one of the best bar-brawl scenes I've ever seen, but it's a shame that they soon go to waste as she ends up becoming something of a damsel-in-distress for much of her screen-time (even though she does do her best to escape, but would it really have killed Indy to free her that one time? Maybe, but still...) That's without mentioning that her whole line about being a child in love is quite possibly the clunkiest line to ever come out of a George Lucas-penned story, though I think that might just be because the rest of the dialogue feels so polished. Just watch the scene where Belloq (Paul Freeman) and Indy meet in a restaurant, then have one of the better "we're not so different" exchanges in film history.

The flaws even extend to the action that has come to define the franchise so well - the truck sequence may be one of the better-executed vehicular chases in film history, but after so many viewings it gets hard to ignore the haphazard ways in which the scenery changes for Indy's convenience (such as trees that dislodge the enemy soldiers clinging to the outside of the truck almost immediately changing to a cliff for an enemy jeep to go flying off). It's interesting to see just how many plot-holes get covered up by the power of editing - there's the notorious submarine situation, but scenarios such as Toht (Ronald Lacey) being ignored in the wake of the fiery bar brawl or even the speed with which the film reaches its conclusion. Having learned that the film won an Oscar for editing, I wonder if it did so simply because it was good enough to cover up certain narrative shortcomings. To this day I still don't quite know what the hell is going on with the room full of mummies that Marion stumbles into at one point, only that it works as an easy enough scare that probably shouldn't be thought about in depth.

Some of you may be wondering "if this is one of your all-time favourite movies, then why are you poking holes in it like this?" In short, because it can take it. Listing everything that I like about Raiders would not only take a while but it'd be boring to read and boring to write. Everybody knows how great Raiders is - even if somebody does somehow read this without knowing, then I can sum it up reasonably well. The characterisation is generally strong when it's not coming second to the narrative - having well-trained British thespians like Freeman or John Rhys-Davies on hand to bring extra gravitas to familiar archetypes certainly doesn't hurt. It may draw heavily on classic adventure serials, but its attempt to add a modern spin to the genre works wonders in every instance. There's a well-developed humour that doesn't fall completely into banal slapstick, the romantic sub-plot stands out because it doesn't feel poorly-developed, the music is constantly changing things up and makes use of not just one but two heroic leitmotifs that never get old, and so on and so forth. You shouldn't need me to sell you on how good this movie is even to people who don't normally go in for films like this. I'd argue that this is one of the few truly essential Hollywood adventure films. If you haven't seen it, then please do so at the earliest opportunity.

5

Iroquois

08-12-15, 02:37 AM

#501 - Resident Evil: Extinction
Russell Mulcahy, 2007

https://theflawedguru.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/201307170945_resident-evil-extinction-2.jpg

In the wake of the zombie apocalypse, a genetically engineered super-soldier must team up with a group of humans in order to survive.

Yep, even after the drubbing I gave the previous installment when I reviewed it recently, I was still willing to give its most immediate sequel a shot. As befitting its title, Extinction takes place in a world where the supervirus that caused the events of the first two films has not only turned much of the world's population into flesh-eating zombies but has also greatly affected the environment by drying up bodies of water and covering the planet in endless desert. Despite this, water does not seem to be a major concern for the characters. Instead, the plot concerns series protagonist Alice (Milla Jovovich) becoming a road warrior who rides around on a motorcycle trying to stay off the radar, to the point where she won't stay in touch with fellow survivors for fear of endangering them. She is right to fear, because it turns out that one of the few remaining Umbrella Corporation labs is monitoring her. One of the lab's lead scientists (Iain Glen) is not only trying to create a capable and obedient clone of Alice, but is also trying to figure out a method of domesticating the rampant undead.

I recently summed up this film as being "Day of the Dead meets Mad Max 2". The former is pretty much a given considering the elements that make up Glen's side of the plot (underground bunker, chain-link compound on the surface, plans to make the zombies less dangerous and more "civilised", etc.), whereas Jovovich's plot definitely uses a lot of elements from the latter as she is set upon by murderous raiders before eventually uniting with a team of good survivors. This team just so happens to have characters from the previous film in it - while I can take or leave Oded Fehr as a generally likeable ex-Umbrella commando, I can't believe that they brought back Mike Epps as the token black guy/comic relief. Though he may not be quite as obnoxious as he was in Apocalypse, his arc basically extends to him getting bitten during his first appearance and hiding it from his comrades. Pretty impressive how they took an already unlikeable character and united him with one of the most tiresome zombie tropes in existence. There's a whole group of survivors but their developments are minimal and ironically give me little reason to care about their continued survival or well-being beyond the fact that they're there. The highlight is Glen, if only because he's so good at fitting one of my favourite bad-movie requirements - that of the respectable classically-trained actor whose acting ability adds weight to an otherwise underdone role, and he plays an increasingly mad scientist perfectly straight.

Even though Extinction is fundamentally less a character piece than it is a blend of action and horror, that still doesn't mean it's a good example of either of those genres. You get a lot of zombie-killing shenanigans that involve Jovovich's high-powered heroine fighting off a variety of (mostly undead and shuffling) enemies using guns and knives, but none of it feels engaging or impressive despite Jovovich's considerable physicality. The film tries to use the same sort of rapid-fire cinematography and editing to generate excitement, but it's used messily and feels irrelevant considering how little development the heroic characters get. The effects are generally underwhelming; there's even a sequence where the survivors are attacked by infected CGI birds that unfortunately ends up coming across as a slightly less terrible-looking version of Birdemic. While the attempt to combine the series' usual zombie apocalypse setting with a post-apocalyptic desert seems like a nice touch (setting a scene in a sand-covered Las Vegas amidst several half-buried miniature monuments is an admittedly inspired choice), that's not enough to make up for the lack of inspiration or quality in almost every other department. Even so, I still get the feeling that this won't be the last Resident Evil movie I watch. That would imply that I get at least some enjoyment out of them, but it never feels like I'm enjoying them for the reasons that the filmmakers intended.

1

gbgoodies

08-12-15, 02:48 AM

Great review of Raiders of the Lost Ark. :up:

However if you're looking for flaws, here's one you missed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYa26EnN8t0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCCmd4jODc4

Iroquois

08-12-15, 03:51 AM

Yeah, I'd heard that one before yet I forgot to mention it. That being said, it doesn't feel like a serious flaw even when thinking about it in hindsight. Seeing as nobody on both sides of the conflict knew the Ark's true power at first, it was still a potentially dangerous unknown that could be weaponised and thus had to be accounted for, hence why the government agents sought Indy out in the first place. Plus, even if Indy knew that the Ark would kill the Nazis anyway, he's still being offered the chance to go after a legendary artifact and getting paid handsomely on top of that so of course he'd still go ahead with the mission. At the very least, his interference doesn't actively cause problems like it does with the heroes mentioned in this Cracked article (http://www.cracked.com/article_18684_6-movie-heroes-who-actually-made-things-worse.html).

Iroquois

08-13-15, 04:11 AM

#502 - Catwoman
Pitof, 2004

http://www.asset1.net/tv/pictures/1024/341/movie/catwoman-2004/Catwoman-LB-1.jpg

When a lowly office worker at a cosmetics company is murdered for accidentally overhearing her superiors conspiring, she is brought back to life as the latest in a long line of "catwomen".

The early-to-mid-2000s were not the best time for superhero movies, and this thread will definitely attest to that fact. Even so, there seemed to be an especially high level of vitriol reserved for Catwoman to the point where I knew that it had to be something that I saw for myself. When watching the so-called worst movies ever made, I often get a twinge of disappointment that the film doesn't seem to quite live up to its reputation as a horrible excuse for cinema (I think the most recently watched example of this would have to be The Last Airbender, though that was still plenty terrible anyway). Catwoman, on the other hand, is the real deal. Even by the already low standards of mid-2000s superhero movies, Catwoman is pretty impressive in its ineptitude and not just for seeming to throw out the established canon in favour of crafting a whole different story. Catwoman starts off with a flash-forward to the protagonist (Halle Berry) lying dead in the water and narrating to us just so that the following handful of scenes don't fool audiences into thinking that they've walked into an extremely trite Hollywood rom-com. Berry's character is the typical klutzy introvert that lives in a crummy apartment and works a soul-crushing job in the marketing department for a make-up company that is planning on launching a new face cream. Of course, when she ends up visiting the office late at night, she is murdered and left for dead, but things change when...a cat brings her back to life.

While I grant that this isn't too far removed from what happened to Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, here it's taking to excruciating levels. The film tries to ape Spider-Man by showing how Berry's powers are animal-based with typically cat-like reflexes and agility, but this also involves her mimicking cat behaviours like sniffing her hands or eating cat food straight out of the can in what I think is supposed to be comical but just comes across as ludicrous. To this end, the film establishes a whole new mythology in its opening credits that show how "catwomen" have been around since time immemorial and that Berry is now the latest to take up the mantle thanks to cat magic. In addition to the set-up outlined above, the film once again strays (no pun intended) into boring rom-com territory as she strikes up a relationship with a police detective (Benjamin Bratt) that is challenged when he starts investigating a recent wave of cat-burglaries. There are also her bosses (Lambert Wilson and Sharon Stone) who do make for some terrible characters even before the truth about them is revealed. Then there's her whole ludicrous quest for revenge against the people who killed her. This includes hunting down a henchman played by Michael Massee, whose presence really made me realise how much this film lifts from The Crow. Ordinary person is murdered as part of an evil conspiracy but is brought back to life by a magic animal and starts taking revenge on those who wronged them? Yeah, it sounds very familiar.

There's enough going on with Catwoman to guarantee that its reputation for being one of the worst movies made in living memory isn't without good reason. The way in which this film's story completely distances itself from its supposed source material would be one thing, but here it's exacerbated by the film trying to aim for a rough mixture of superhero campiness and post-Matrix coolness. The effects are rubbish, as is the case with the magic cat or even the long shots of Catwoman scurrying along walls and over rooftops. This make for a pretty bad experience when combined with an aggressively obnoxious filmmaking style - look no further than the scene where Berry and Bratt play one-on-one basketball while on a date to see just how aesthetically unappealing this film manages to be. When you're not noticing how much of its style and tropes it cops from other comic-book movies, you're noticing how much it plays out like a generic rom-com that just so happens to be about a superhero. Berry's whole transition into Catwoman feels a lot like the trope where the frumpy-looking woman gets a makeover to show that she's actually beautiful underneath. That's without getting into the reveal behind the plot, where the film's attempts to define itself as an action film that isn't afraid to be feminine get pushed to a ludicrous extreme. Camp value may be something of a redeeming factor when it comes to a lot of bad movies, and while Catwoman does try to be campy, here it just comes across as painful.

0.5

jrs

08-13-15, 05:10 AM

#502 - Catwoman
0.5

This is just too high of a rating for this. :p

Iroquois

08-13-15, 05:17 AM

What can I say? I don't give out zeroes.

cricket

08-13-15, 10:12 PM

I've had Visitor Q on my watchlist for a very long time. That basically means that despite my interest, I'm not expecting to enjoy it.

Agree with every word regarding Raiders of the Lost Ark-brilliant film!

Iroquois

08-14-15, 04:12 AM

#503 - The Hunt for Red October
John McTiernan, 1990

http://www.themoviethemesong.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/The-Hunt-for-Red-October-6.jpg

When the captain of a high-tech Russian submarine goes rogue at the height of the Cold War, a CIA analyst is brought in to determine what is going on.

I had not really gotten around to seriously checking out any of the Jack Ryan movies and I decided that if I had to watch one then it'd have to be The Hunt for Red October. A lot of that was due to the fact that it starred Sean Connery as a Russian submarine commander who naturally spends much of his screen-time talking in an extremely thick and broad Scottish accent. Of course, that ends up being the most remarkable part of a film that is pretty middle-of-the-road as far as thrillers go. Having a somewhat respectable action director like McTiernan behind the camera doesn't do all that much for this film, which you'd think would benefit from taking place while onboard submarines but doesn't quite deliver when it comes to palpable tension. It does deliver some ambiguity thanks to the various conflicts that develop between three sides and the people within those three sides, but that's about all that film has going for it. Though there are some solid actors involved in the conflict, the characterisation is ultimately pretty empty, especially on the part of Ryan himself (Alec Baldwin) who doesn't have much in the way of distinguishing features apart from seeing things that other good guys don't.

From a technical standpoint, The Hunt for Red October is decent enough. Some of the effects work hasn't aged well, whether it's torpedoes being fired underwater or something as simple as really obvious rear-projection. At least there's a nice visual aesthetic thanks to the complementary contrast of red-soaked control rooms and the deep blue sea. Unfortunately, not even the constantly shifting conflict between the Americans, the Russians, and Connery (plus the men involved in each faction that have their own agendas) isn't enough to make this glacial underwater drama generate all that much in the way of thrills, to say nothing of how generally forgettable Basil Poledouris's score ends up being. It's got its charms thanks to a solid cast and a somewhat twisty plot, but this is a film where the slow burn isn't pulled off all that well. I may watch the other Jack Ryan movies at some later junction and might even try giving this film a second chance, but there's not all that much going on here that makes me think that will be a priority.

2.5

Iroquois

08-14-15, 04:16 AM

#504 - 28 Days Later...
Danny Boyle, 2002

http://www.thatfilmguy.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/28-Days-Later.jpg

A young man wakes up from a coma to find that England has suffered a viral epidemic that renders people murderously insane.

I was surprised to find myself underwhelmed by this film the first time I watched it. Even so, it still had enough quality to it that I sort of liked it and did not mind giving it a second chance, and give it a second chance I did. Of course, having gotten a lot more critical in the intervening years probably wouldn't do it any favours. The early scenes are full of this, whether it's the incompetence of everyone involved in the laboratory prologue that leads to the virus getting released in the first place or the fact that the film's protagonist (Cillian Murphy) even manages to wake up from a coma in an empty hospital in the first place and doesn't encounter so much as a single dead body as he wanders through a desolate London. This soon gives way to a film that tries to offer a somewhat serious take on zombie movies (specifics be damned) but it is that same attempt to be serious that does undercut it somewhat. While the first half does guarantee some striking imagery of an empty world that is occasionally plagued by red-eyed monsters, it also results in a rather flabby middle as Murphy and a more experienced survivor (Naomie Harris) team up with a father and daughter (Brendan Gleeson and Megan Burns respectively) to try to survive together by heading towards a remote broadcast signal, which does result in strong attempts at character-building but not in any sufficiently meaningful way.

While the film has drawn some flack for its third act involving the main group of survivors meeting a platoon of soldiers who are holed up in a mansion, by this point in the film it's a welcome change of pace from the extremely repetitive zombie-survival structure of the rest of the film (even if it does feel like a somewhat derivative and condensed version of Day of the Dead). Arguably, that's the main flaw with 28 Days Later... - despite the insistence on the enemies in this film not technically being zombies and the maintaining of an unusual visual aesthetic thanks to the frantic documentarian style provided by digital video, it struggles to actually provide a decent enough plot. Characters give us just enough reason to care whether they live or die and little else beyond that, even though there are some decent actors in the mix. I can also appreciate the musical choices - playing Godspeed You! Black Emperor over post-apocalyptic scenery is one of the most appropriate marriages of sound and vision possible, while the music that plays during the film's finale gets under one's skin in the best way. Of course, without a sufficiently solid core on which to build things these little moments and the technical quality that goes into them, the film's quality ultimately comes across as a little haphazard and thus I don't feel like I generally liked it. A bit of tightening things up could have done this film some serious good.

2.5

Addendum: I don't think this was on the DVD version that I first watched, but this time I watched the film on TV and the ending was different for some reason:

After playing the ending I remembered - where the heroic characters all survive the events at the mansion and manage to attract the attention of a patroling aircraft - there was an intertitle that read "what if..." and that then played a sequence where Harris and Burns worked to save Murphy, but their attempts were unsuccessful and this screening apparently ended with the two of them walking off into the unknown. Though the happy ending does stretch credulity with how sudden and optimistic it is, ending it with a morbidly realistic ending somehow feels worse despite matching the despair-laden tone of the rest of the film, and the idea of grafting it onto the original ending is a terrible one. This isn't Clue, dammit.

gbgoodies

08-14-15, 04:19 AM

It's been many years since I saw The Hunt for Red October, but I thought it was better than a 2.5 movie. I'll have to re-watch it and see if it still holds up today.

Iroquois

08-14-15, 07:49 AM

#505 - Kurt & Courtney
Nick Broomfield, 1998

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/84/Kurtandcourtneydvd.jpg/220px-Kurtandcourtneydvd.jpg

A documentary that is primarily concerned with investigating the conspiracy theory that Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain did not commit suicide but was actually murdered.

Kurt & Courtney is quite underwhelming as far as documentaries go. Host-director Broomfield proceeds to assemble an extremely unauthorised documentary that starts off with a cursory exploration on the life and death of Kurt Cobain, starting off in his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington. Though Cobain's aunt makes for a kind enough person with which to start the film, Broomfield himself immediately comes across as an extremely irritating investigator, especially when the first thing he says while entering Cobain's old middle school to interview a teacher is to say that people investigating Cobain is the only reason people ever come to Aberdeen. Another early segment involves him trying to chase up as many possible leads as possible in trying to investigate Cobain's life - one of the most memorable instances involves him bursting into a lottery office simply because Cobain used to fire a BB gun through the windows during his adolescent years. This prompts the desk clerk to call security on him and his crew. The hypothesis that drives this film is that Cobain did not actually commit suicide via self-inflicted gunshot wound, but was in fact murdered. To this end, the film decides to lay the blame on Courtney Love, Cobain's wife and the lead vocalist/guitarist in alt-rock band Hole, who allegedly hired someone to murder Cobain and make it look like a combination of a heroin overdose and shooting death.

Though it's arguable that Broomfield's constant barreling into areas while wielding a microphone is supposed to either catch his subjects off-guard or capture tense situations first-hand, but even so he still comes across as an obnoxious muckraker. His extremely dull and monotonous manner of speaking only serve to make him an even more grating presence. It's impressive how the few people who willingly grant him interviews seem so gracious about his presence, even if they lack every other possible social grace (as evidenced by the interview with the incredibly abrasive El Duce, whose wild-eyed wackiness makes his claims of Love asking him to kill Cobain for $50,000 seem equally outlandish and believable). This being an unofficial documentary that paints Love in an unflattering light (especially when Broomfield interviews her father, who has some rather unkind words about his daughter), there aren't any actual Nirvana songs on the soundtrack and Broomfield is careful to explain this to you. I do like how songs by noise-rock Earth appear on the soundtrack, as well as the fact that Earth founder and Cobain's long-time friend Dylan Carlson is interviewed and makes for an interesting screen presence without being annoying. This much goes up until the film's closing minutes, which feature Broomfield crashing the stage at an event being held in part to honour Love. That moment crystallises everything that distinguishes Kurt & Courtney for the worse. Though the conspiracy theory premise is somewhat interesting, in the hands of Broomfield and co. it feels too weightless to sustain a 90-minute documentary.

1.5

honeykid

08-14-15, 09:53 AM

Iroquois

08-15-15, 04:07 AM

I've seen Kurt & Courtney and 28 Days Later once each. I agree with you about the former. It just doesn't work well at all and that's coming from a fan of Broomfield's work. The latter I felt was ok until about 45 minutes in or when they leave London. It's about that time. After that I was really done with it and I hated everything at the mansion.

I've not seen Catwoman as it's just never been something that I thought I'd like to watch, even as bad as it is. Lately I've been thinking I might give it a go with a Rifftrax, though.

I think I saw The Hunt For Red October two or three times in the 90's. I remember liking it, but enjoying it far less with each viewing. Basically all these Ryan/Reacher/Bourne/whatever films are Bond, though, and I'm only a fan of Bond when he's in full 70's Moore mode.

I won't deny that 28 Days Later... drops off in quality a bit once the four of them make the trip out of London - too much of a road movie for its own good. That being said, once they arrive at the mansion the change in pace feels like a decent enough development. I do wonder if each of the film's acts is supposed to reference the different parts of the Dead trilogy - you have the lone survivor joining up with fellow survivors and holing up in a house (Night), then a group of four escapes the city in search of somewhere to survive (Dawn), and then winds up trapped in a military compound (Day). What problems do you have with the whole mansion sequence specifically?

Also, a related question - which half of Natural Born Killers did you like more - the road half or the prison half?

Iroquois

08-15-15, 04:23 AM

#506 - Cobain: Montage of Heck
Brett Morgen, 2015

http://www.billboard.com/files/styles/promo_650/public/media/kurt-cobain-1993-bw-getty-billboard-650.jpg

A documentary about the life of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.

For someone who's not really a fan of Nirvana, one must wonder why I'd not only watch Nick Broomfield's unauthorised conspiracy theory documentary Kurt & Courtney but also follow it up with a documentary that purports to be the absolute opposite of that. Cobain: Montage of Heck is a far more official documentary that may toe the party line and deliver a fairly straightforward summation of the man's life with little in the way of significant insight, but that doesn't mean it's not well-made. Montage of Heck (so named after Cobain's first mixtape, the creation of which is depicted here) compiles a number of different sources from which to build a film that spans from troubled childhood to tragic demise. This includes interviews with the people that knew Cobain best - his parents, long-term ex-girlfriend, wife Courtney Love, and Nirvana bandmate Krist Novoselic (whose presence only made the complete absence of a Dave Grohl interview especially noticeable). Of course, these interviews don't make for the most interesting exploration of Cobain. Instead, that extends to the considerable archive of material that Morgen and co. have brought together for this film, which includes a large number of journals, notebooks, and recordings created by Cobain himself. To add the kind of visual flair that's often lacking in straightforward documentaries, the film features a lot of animated sequences based off Cobain's output. Whether it's rotoscoped-looking reconstructions of certain life events (mainly from his time as a juvenile delinquent) or disconcerting animations based on his sketches, the film does make a reasonably good attempt to keep things looking interesting, though whether or not that's appreciated will naturally vary from viewer to viewer.

Seeing as this is a sanctioned documentary about Cobain, this naturally means that the soundtrack is laden with a lot of Nirvana tracks and variations thereof (though the variations can be corny, such as an a cappella choral rendition of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" playing over footage of the song's video). Even though the film tries to keep your attention as it speeds through its two-hour running time, it ironically seems to lose momentum as it covers Nirvana's meteoric rise to fame. This also means having to put up with an increase in appearances by Love - while I still have no opinion one way or the other about whether or not she was directly responsible for Cobain's death, she's still a fairly irritating presence here and the film hits something of a brick wall whenever it plays Love and Cobain's home videos. Even so, Cobain: Montage of Heck is a sufficiently solid documentary that does try to provide an engaging warts-and-all insight into the man. If you don't know much about Cobain, then it's a fairly educational experience. If you do, then this will still have quite a bit to offer you as it creates some rather well-animated sequences that do their best to approximate what Cobain's thought process was like.

3

Iroquois

08-15-15, 04:54 AM

#507 - Maggie
Henry Hobson, 2015

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zW5nI49S9Bw/VU4VfEZPsyI/AAAAAAAAFWQ/P7RlL6oj7bs/s1600/Maggie.jpg

A man learns that his daughter has been infected with a slow-acting zombie virus and brings her home to care for her in her last days.

What I've seen of Arnold Schwarzenegger's post-Governator career generally hasn't been too impressive. The Last Stand was a fairly generic attempt at remaking High Noon that wouldn't have drawn my attention without his presence, Escape Plan had a decent high concept but didn't make the most of having him team up with long-time rival Sylvester Stallone, while Terminator Genisys hasn't felt particularly good in recollection. Amidst all these predictably action-oriented projects that tried to work around his advancing age, there came a little movie called Maggie. Here, Schwarzenegger goes completely against type as he plays a Midwestern family man who is searching for his teenage daughter (Abigail Breslin) in the wake of a zombie apocalypse. When he does find her, he learns that she's been bitten by a zombie and is infected. Rather than run the risk of her being forced into quarantine with other infectees, he chooses to spirit her back to the family homestead in the middle of rural America, which of course presents its own set of complications as he must figure out how to deal with her incurable condition.

While the idea of a Schwarzenegger zombie movie would imply that it would result in a fairly standard film where he would mow down hordes of the undead, here I'm grateful that this instead tries to be a more contemplative drama. The whole "infected family member" trope is one of the oldest tropes in zombie fiction yet this is the first instance I can think of where it formed the basis of an entire film more so than a singular dramatic device within the context of a larger narrative. This is possible because, unlike other zombie infections that range in duration from a matter of seconds to a couple of days, the zombie infectees in Maggie happen to turn very slowly over the course of what seems to be weeks (though of course it's all up to each individual person just how much time they themselves take). The extremely long duration of the infection means that the normally apocalyptic zombie uprising is more or less relegated to the background, but that's just as well since the film is supposed to be a small-scale story. This also results in the zombie virus being like a terminal illness, which does mean that the whole film's main conflict plays out like a metaphor for euthanasia (with a bit of virus paranoia thrown in for good measure). However, the metaphor does get a little muddled by the existence of "quarantine"; people are being encouraged to turn over infected loved ones to be quarantined before the infectees become full-fledged zombies, even though quarantine is heavily implied to be a horrible fate in and of itself. As a result, Schwarzenegger must try to decide how and when he must deal with Breslin's inevitable transformation into a zombie, while Breslin herself is forced to face up to not just her own mortality but also cope with the wasting disease that takes its toll on both her body and her soul. Both sides to this story make for simplistic but effective drama that is solid enough to sustain the film for 90 minutes.

This might be a bold claim to make, but I genuinely think that Maggie might be the best film Schwarzenegger's done since leaving office. He gets the chance to show some range by playing a decidedly ordinary man who may fight off the occasional zombie (and manage to not look awesome while doing it) but is mainly concerned with guaranteeing his family's well-being, frequently showing cracks in his typically stony countenance as his world crumbles around him. Breslin, meanwhile, manages to infuse her character with a very believable vulnerability that manifests itself in manners ranging from self-harm to a doomed romance with a fellow infectee, all the while losing more and more of her humanity. Other characters may be relatively flat in comparison but they don't distract from the core conflict at the heart of the film. There is some nice cinematography thrown in as well; though the film does occasionally lapse into cheap horror tactics that rely on disorienting visuals, it is done rarely and manages to serve some purpose when it appears (such as Breslin's flashbacks to her being infected). It does feel a little drawn out at times for such a short film, but it still manages to include some affecting character moments and keep the suspense over its main conflict going until the very last minute. It's rough, but if this review has piqued your interest at all then you might very well find something of worth in this film regardless of your attitude towards Schwarzenegger or zombie fiction.

3

Iroquois

08-15-15, 09:51 AM

#508 - A Most Violent Year
J.C. Chandor, 2014

http://cultureoverdose.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/A-Most-Violent-Year_612x380.jpg

In 1981 New York City, the owner of a heating oil company must contend with mounting pressure from organised crime outfits.

I watched J.C. Chandor's feature-length debut Margin Call a couple of months ago and thought it was a perfectly respectable ensemble drama, albeit one that got dragged down a bit by the fact that its jargon-heavy script about the events leading up to the Global Financial Crisis demanded constant attention in order to follow along. With A Most Violent Year, he downplays the verbosity while still attempting to make a sufficiently cerebral and morally complex drama, this time set against the backdrop of early-'80s New York. Oscar Isaac (who is shaping up to be one of my favourite new actors) leads the film as an up-and-coming businessman who is trying to get his oil company off the ground. Though he himself just wants to make a honest (if lucrative) living, he is beset on all sides by people trying to grind him down, whether it's the assistant district attorney (David Oyelowo) who is trying to dig up dirt on him or the actual criminal organisations who are trying to sabotage his operation by any means necessary. This even extends to his home life, where his wife (Jessica Chastain) plays Lady Macbeth as she encourages him to fight fire with fire and take a stand against the constant aggression, especially when it extends to their house.

A Most Violent Year definitely feels like a throwback to all the classic '70s dramas and thrillers that used the grimy and crime-infested New York City as not just a setting but also a character in its own right. This much even extends to the instances where the film tries to break up the various verbal exchanges with the occasional piece of external conflict, such as a gunfight erupting between one of Isaac's employees and some hired goons or a pitch-perfect homage to The French Connection that sees Isaac himself chasing down a hijacker. Aside from simply being the best scene in the film, that chase scene is good at illustrating just how well Chandor can stage a solid action sequence but it also exposes how overly dependent the film is on interpersonal conflict. Isaac delivers a suitably intense and driven performance as a man who is constantly struggling to do the right thing in a world that seems to want him to do anything but, while Chastain makes for an equally intense and driven character but in the complete opposite direction and generates some engaging arguments with Isaac in the process. Other solid cast members such as Oyelowo or Albert Brooks (as Isaac's attorney) also get in some good scenes with Isaac, especially the former. Though it's not quite as challenging to comprehend as Margin Call, there are still plenty of plot threads that you do need to pay close attention to in order to follow along, though the fact that the film is willing to pace itself by throwing in more viscerally thrilling scenes is a plus. As it stands, A Most Violent Year definitely has more than a few strengths thanks to some good performers and Chandor's willingness to balance out a mostly dialogue-driven film with some rather well-crafted and sparingly used action (which might just give it the edge over Margin Call), but it's still a way off from being a genuinely great movie.

3

cricket

08-15-15, 09:54 AM

I think I'll try A Most Violent Year and Maggie. They sound like they're worth watching.

honeykid

08-15-15, 10:22 AM

When I get through these bloody headaches I've had for the last couple of days, I'll try and catch up with this thread. A Violent Year was something I thought looked like my kind of thing. Are you looking forward to Black Mass, Iro?

Iroquois

08-15-15, 10:29 AM

I think I'll try A Most Violent Year and Maggie. They sound like they're worth watching.

I'm never quite sure exactly how high/low my rating has to be to make a film "worth watching". I figure people can leave it up to their own discretion.

When I get through these bloody headaches I've had for the last couple of days, I'll try and catch up with this thread. A Violent Year was something I thought looked like my kind of thing. Are you looking forward to Black Mass, Iro?

Ehhh, not really. I wasn't all that fussed about other Depp-starring gangster true-stories like Donnie Brasco or Public Enemies so I can't imagine this one being significantly better. I probably will end up seeing it, though.

cricket

08-15-15, 10:35 AM

I love Donnie Brasco and am very much looking forward to Black Mass. I'm sure a lot of that has to do with being a Bostonian.

Iroquois

08-15-15, 11:20 PM

#509 - Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky, 2010

http://www.thatfilmguy.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Black-Swan-1024x576.jpg

A young ballerina starts to suffer a nervous breakdown around the same time that her ballet company makes her the lead in their upcoming production of Swan Lake.

I think it was around the time that Black Swan came out when I realised that Darren Aronofsky was something of a one-trick pony. As of writing, I've seen all his films save for Noah, but they all feature a common thread in that each film features a protagonist having a breakdown, each time for a different reason. Mathematics, drug addiction, a dying spouse...these all provided other Aronofsky protagonists with their own reasons for collapsing. However, while these were all sufficiently different at first, when Aronofsky ended up making The Wrestler and Black Swan back-to-back it was not hard to feel like he was repeating himself a bit. Both films share a common thread beyond the downward spiral narrative common to every other Aronofsky film - they both focus on professions that are physically and emotionally demanding in the name of providing extremely theatrical but entertaining performances. The Wrestler may not have shied away from showing the inherent falsity that has characterised professional wrestling as we know it, but it definitely demonstrated the serious duress that it takes on Mickey Rourke's ageing has-been as his dedication to the one constant good in his life proves hazardous to his health and relationships.

Black Swan is superficially similar in how many of its elements seem to be deliberate attempts to provide a contrasting counterpart to The Wrestler. Instead of the low-culture thrills of pro wrestling, there's the artistically respectable world of ballet. Instead of a middle-aged legend fallen on hard times, the protagonist (Natalie Portman) is an up-and-coming ballerina whose star is on the rise. Instead of Rourke trying to rebuild his life by connecting and re-connecting with people, Portman is caught in a Kafkaesque situation where every other character seems to have an ulterior motive when it comes to interacting with her. The parallels between the two films do reflect somewhat unfortunately upon Black Swan (to say nothing of other obvious influences such as Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue), but Aronofsky and co. do their best to distinguish it in its own right. Portman understandably earned an Oscar for her work as a ballerina who is clearly struggling with mental instabilities that are in no way aided by her former ballerina stage mother (Barbara Hershey) or her rigid dedication to being a perfect ballerina that ironically makes her an imperfect choice for the role of the loose and uninhibited Black Swan. Throw in some potentially destructive influences such as a sleazy director (Vincent Cassel), an embittered has-been (Winona Ryder), and the company's free-spirited new recruit (Mila Kunis), and what you have is a recipe for disaster...and perfection.

Portman certainly puts in the hard yards to showcase the rigours of ballet training while also demonstrating a considerable range of emotions as both the training and her delusions start to take their toll on her. The style in which they are captured is worthy of note as it starts small with details such as out-of-focus paintings with shifting eyes before blossoming into self-harm that disappears instantaneously, Portman's face appearing on other characters' bodies, and eventually full-on body horror. While this was all especially striking on an initial viewing, a repeat viewing hasn't done it a lot of favours. Some of it is still effective, but some of it just looks silly. The same goes for the twisting, turning narrative - while not knowing what was real or imagined (within reason, of course) worked wonders the first time I watched this, it doesn't hold up during the second time. Black Swan definitely demonstrates enough competence to make it a somewhat solid piece of work, but since a lot of what made it so well-liked (especially by me) was its constantly surprising nature, this is unfortunately not one of those films where being aware of what the film had in store made it any better. Much like its protagonist, it tries for perfection and achieves it once, but that's all it does.

3

Gatsby

08-15-15, 11:23 PM

Iroquois

08-15-15, 11:34 PM

#510 - Ant-Man
Peyton Reed, 2015

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/markhughes/files/2015/07/Ant-Man-7.jpg

A recently released ex-con attempts to pull a burglary and instead ends up being recruited by an old scientist who has designed a high-tech suit that allows the wearer to shrink to the size of an insect.

My general opinion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe varies pretty wildly to the point where I'm not inclined to think of it as a genuinely great franchise but it's at the point where I'm willing to watch virtually every entry, if only to keep up with all the other geeks out there. Even so, Ant-Man had my interest from the outset simply because it had Edgar Wright attached. Wright has been responsible for directing generally likeable pieces of work that combined raw pop-culture enthusiasm with some rather inventive filmmaking and I have yet to see him direct anything that I genuinely disliked. As such, I was intrigued when I learned that he would be handling Ant-Man and then disappointed when I heard that he had left the project due to creative differences. Even so, I figured that I had to see for myself what the final result would be like. At the very least, it seemed like it would be a film that knew how to have fun with its admittedly ludicrous premise even within the studio-mandated parameters common to the MCU. To this end, Paul Rudd is an example of good casting as he plays an ex-con recruited by the former Ant-Man (Michael Douglas) to be the new person to don the red-and-black suit that allows the wearer to shrink down to the size of an ant. The fact that said suit is driven by an incredibly advanced scientific formula also ends up being what drives the plot as Douglas's protege (Corey Stoll) seeks to develop his own version of the formula that can be weaponised and sold off to the highest bidder. In order to stop him, Douglas hires Rudd to help him steal Stoll's prototype suit with the help of his estranged daughter (Evangeline Lilly), who is able to train Rudd while also spying on Stoll.

Much like last year's Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man seems to compensate for its superficially bizarre premise by having its narrative beats play out with a certain degree of predictability. The juxtaposition of an invention being alternately used for good and evil has served as the plot device for many a Marvel film (the ones that don't revolve around magic stone MacGuffins, anyway) and it's getting to be rather repetitive. I can take the recycling of plot developments a bit, but it becomes especially egregious considering how long the film's first act takes to set all the pieces in motion. Origin stories always feel like a chore, though at least in this case it's helped along by the characteristically snarky Rudd and especially Michael Peña, who threatens to steal the show as Rudd's fast-talking and overly enthusiastic ex-cellmate (his speedy storytelling sequences definitely have Wright's fingerprints all over them). Lilly and Douglas also tend to provide good foils not just for Rudd but also for each other as they argue about training and mission specifics while also dealing with the conflict that has kept them apart for years. Stoll ends up being something of a weak link whose character does not stand out enough to avoid feeling like a composite of previous Marvel villains (specifically the ones from all three Iron Man films).

Being a Marvel film, Ant-Man boasts some relatively slick effects when it comes to depicting the hero's powers and how they allow him to provide a rather interesting variation on the standard heist film. The film also mines Ant-Man's powers for comical effect on a regular basis, whether it's through the rigours of the inevitable training montage or the delightfully absurd climatic set-piece (though I am rather disappointed that the fight that plays out to the sound of The Cure is awfully brief and forgettable - it is one of several things that I can't help but feel would have been improved by Wright's direct involvement). There are also an unsurprising number of references to a bunch of other MCU films (such as one scene where Ant-Man must fight off another member of the Avengers in order to recover a plot device), but nothing that feels like a major lock-out to neophytes. While the stand-alone Marvel films tend to vary rather wildly in terms of quality, Ant-Man can at least be appreciated as some fairly escapist fun. It doesn't reinvent the wheel or anything, but nobody really watches Marvel films for that.

3

cricket

08-15-15, 11:35 PM

I thought Black Swan was a very good movie overall; I just didn't like the ending. Chypmunk recently shared a similar opinion. Now The Wrestler is a movie that I absolutely loved. Of course, I could very much identify with Rourke's character.

Iroquois

08-15-15, 11:43 PM

Aronofsky a one trick pony? Then a lot of other directors should be considered the same too, including Hitchcock and Ozu. His plot might be similar but inside I consider them to be really diverse and intense. It's what he's best at, and he keeps doing it, and for that reason I love his works. Glad you at least didn't hate Black Swan.

I didn't say it in a bad way - for some reason, I thought of something I read once that was attributed to François Truffaut and said that every director makes the same film over and over again (presumably regardless of quality or talent). Also, I did already note the variations in each of the films but especially how the proximity of The Wrestler and Black Swan made the latter feel like a deliberate attempt to create the opposite film of the former. A heavily stylised psychological thriller about a female ballerina would be quite the antithesis to the gritty realistic sports drama about a male wrestler.

Also, yeah, cricket, the ending didn't really do it for me. That in particular felt like another instance of Black Swan being too similar to The Wrestler for its own good:

I mean, both leads do end up dying in service to their entertaining professions, though Rourke's heavily telegraphed "last dance" that implied he knew he would die and didn't care since nobody loved him except for the fans is a far cry from Portman's chasing perfection at the cost of her sanity and eventually her life. Even so, that's not a significant enough difference to make it feel like a good ending.

ash_is_the_gal

08-16-15, 01:56 AM

i saw Black Swan and The Wrestler right around the same time, and i thought The Wrestler was far more memorable than Black Swan. it hit me right in the feels. i can still remember that 'last performance' Rourke gives before it freezes the frame. Portman, well, i forgot what happened to her until i just clicked on your spoiler there.

MovieMeditation

08-16-15, 10:34 AM

Good review of Black Swan and interesting comparisons, though I don't know if it flaws the picture(s) in any way. I love both of the films and weirdly enough I never thought about the comparison though it is definitely obvious.

Iroquois

08-16-15, 10:48 AM

I don't think the similarity between the films is enough to significantly affect my opinion of Black Swan. I addressed plenty of other reasons as to why I thought it was merely alright more so than a great one.

Iroquois

08-17-15, 02:05 AM

#511 - Catch Me If You Can
Steven Spielberg, 2002

https://becomingthefuhrer.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/catch-me-if-you-can.jpeg

Based on the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr., a teenage runaway who becomes an incredibly talented con artist whose actions result in him being constantly pursued by the FBI.

As this thread will attest, I haven't really cared too much about Steven Spielberg's post-2000 output. The films I've seen have ranged from the passably tolerable to the aggressively mediocre (with the possible exception of Minority Report, though I'll see how well that holds up on a re-watch). Even so, I proceeded to re-watch Catch Me If You Can to see if my relatively lukewarm first impression after watching it over a decade ago had changed much at all. Granted, It's got a decent enough high concept based on a characteristically Spielbergian story of a larger-than-life character - namely, Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), who starts off as an ordinary high school student in the early 1960s, albeit one who receives tutelage in small-time cons from his respectable businessman father (Christopher Walken). When his parents divorce, he decides to run away and eventually starts to devise his own methods of conning people, mainly through combinations of forging bank checks and adopting various cover identities that include pretending to be an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer. Eventually he starts to draw the attention of the FBI (personified by Tom Hanks as a strait-laced investigator who takes the case incredibly seriously) and so begins a merry chase across America and eventually across international boundaries between the two extremely different yet fundamentally similar characters.

Catch Me If You Can does have some strengths. DiCaprio is somewhat unremarkable with his rather familiar method of playing a charmer with a sad side. He is still decent enough to carry the film and has some good interplay with Hanks, who makes for a goofy yet sufficiently threatening antagonist. Walken is also pretty solid in an Oscar-nominated turn as a character with some wily charm and pronounced vulnerability. Other good performers show up as well (such as Amy Adams as Frank's first truly serious girlfriend and Martin Sheen as her affable father). However, these performances are all in service to a film that is drawn out a bit too long and a bit too dependent on the comedic nature of the conflict involving DiCaprio staying one step ahead of Hanks. Some credit has to go to the little flourishes, such as John Williams' score that downplays his typically sentimental approach in favour of a perpetually nervous type of music that suits the film's cat-and-mouse narrative (and combines with the elaborate opening credits sequence to set a tone that the rest of the film can't quite seem to match). I also question the effectiveness of having several scenes throughout the film that detail Hanks' mission to extradite an imprisoned DiCaprio from a French prison; the foregone conclusion and most of the scenes referencing it add very little to the film (not even the fantasy sequence that opens the film and takes place on a made-up game show). As a result, Catch Me If You Can is a very middle-of-the-road film that has some okay performances and the odd clever moment but is generally stretched a bit too thin and doesn't bring all that much to the table.

2.5