Change Your Image
Basil-3
Reviews
300 (2006)
Warcraft: Spartans and Persians
A "cut scene" is a sequence in a video game over which the player has no control, often breaking up the gameplay and used to advance the plot, present character development, and provide background information, atmosphere, dialogue and clues.
Cut scenes use animated and/or live-action footage. Blizzard Entertainment has a department created especially for making cinema-quality cut scenes for games like Warcraft.
If Blizzard had released "Warcraft: Spartans and Persians," after you won the game, it would play the movie "300" as a cut scene.
And they would have done it better.
Lost in Translation (2003)
Definitive stealth chick movie.
For me, most romantic films make false, insincere statements about love and relationships. In contrast, Lost in Translation (2003) is painful in its honesty and candor. It asks brave questions about love and intimacy.
Lost in Translation (2003) is a progressive example of a "Stealth Chick Movie", a term on Internet postings for a film that a guy would enjoy seeing on his own, but takes his girlfriend or wife because it'll make him look sensitive. The oldest use I found for this term was for Muriel's Wedding (1994).
There is a similar theme that seems to have a lot to do with the remarkable guy-friendliness of these two films: these aren't the typical romantic stories that provide an example of love and relationships. Instead, both explore love and relationships as concepts, asking thought-provoking questions about what love is and is not, what does and doesn't qualify as a relationship.
Lost in Translation (2003) depicts a contemporary, not-quite-improper relationship among two people for whom such a psuedorelationship seems to be what they need and want. I won't be more specific for fear of spoiling the film.
I will say that this film depicts a two people reinventing the who-what-when-where-why-how of intimacy and relationships, an underexplored topic in film, presented with brave realism and sincerity by director Sofia Coppola.
Home Movies (1999)
The cartoon I wanna show to my grandkids.
"Home Movies" is a timeless show about kids making movies. The writer, producer and director of the show also provide the voices of the principal characters, kids who make movies down in the basement.
Normally this insular arrangement would make for a claustrophobic or emotionally unrealistic program, but this show is built by people who seem to genuinely like each other and connect creatively. This do-it-yourself quality is reflected in the script, characterizations, and animation style, and is a recurring moral theme in the program.
This homemade organic intimacy presents the show as its own complete world, where kids are fed, loved and left alone to create things and occasionally give advice to adults. Twenty years from now, I'll be showing "Home Movies" to my grandkids.
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
No one cares about your dogma!
A movie musical starring an unsexy sex symbol with an actor pretending to be a writer making up songs off the top of his head that are actually hacked from other musicals or pop songs, most of which were achingly bad in their original form. My wife wanted me to see this with her, and I just kept staring at her. Eventually, she was embarrassed by the bad call she made in picking this movie and wanted to leave, but I insisted that we stay to the end, and delighted in sharing the remaining 45 minutes of cinematic punishment.
This movie is a textbook example of two phenomena. The first phenomenon occurs when the developers of a movie and its consumers convince themselves that a corporate-approved, non-threatening movie with talented actors and a big budget and flashy movement and costumes and the trappings of decadence must be a great movie since all the easily recognizable components of a great movie are covered in the "checklist of elements of great movies."
This phenomenon actually works to some extent because the self-deception creates and moves the product. In the U.S., demand for Titanic was so high that copies went on sale in stores that had never sold a videotape before. At one point, everyone was telling me to see Titanic. Then everyone was telling me to buy Titanic. Then everyone told me not to bother. Now they sell on Ebay for US$1.00. By the time that most of you read this review, this process will have already occured to Moulin Rouge.
The other phenomenon is when the creators of a film convince themselves that movies about superficial themes, like a Paris dance hall/whorehouse musical, can or should be superficial films, because there's the available defense of "of course it's a superficial film! This movie is ABOUT surface! Truth! Beauty! Freedom! Love!"
What truth? The romantic element of the plot rung false. What beauty? Nicole Kidman is recurringly described in the American Press as "alluring," which is code for "really pretty, but not in a way that provokes an erotic response." What freedom? Everyone in this movie is a whore, and none of them seem to earn any grace or learn any worthwhile lessons. What love? I'm not sure what any of these characters really love or believe in.
Maybe this film is escapist in a way that speaks to other people. Maybe my fellow US citizens are as superficial as this movie seems to assume they are. I doubt it. I've never been this negative in a film review before, because I only review films that I see to the end, and I would normally stop watching a film this bad.
Good lord, what a dog.
AMENDMENT: Apparently, there is some legitimate beauty in this film, as my wife assures me that Ewan MacGregor is a hot piece of beefcake.
Wo hu cang long (2000)
A practically perfect film.
Wu Hu Zang Long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is a magic-reality martial arts coming-of-age action movie date film. Any film with a premise this encompassing would be either incredibly bad or incredibly good. Fortunately for us, this film is a masterful work, raising the expectations of the forms and depth to which an action film can affect an audience. This film is Enter The Dragon, The Joy Luck Club and The Lord of the Rings all rolled up into one, presented with a coherence that only a five-thousand-year-old culture could portray. Goddamn it.
Bring It On (2000)
A well written, intelligent cheerleader movie.
I really didn't want to like this film. Cheerleader culture and the people who subscribe to it are abhorrent to me. This film penetrated my prejudices and told a valid tale, admitting the bizarre priorities and culture of cheerleading and transcending the boundaries of what one would expect a cheerleading movie to accomplish. A must-see movie for its craftsmanship alone.
Ryôri no tetsujin (1993)
The cooking show for people who hate cooking shows.
Calling "Iron Chef" a cooking show is like saying "Jurassic Park" is a film about animal husbandry. In Tokyo's Kitchen Stadium, Chairman Kaga has assembled the greatest Tokyo chefs in every major world cuisine. Each week, the programming staff selects a challenger to do battle with one of the Iron Chefs. The two chefs have exactly one hour to make as many dishes as they can, using a mystery ingredient revealed by Chairman Kaga just moments before the battle.
The dishes are judged by a panel of Tokyo celebrities, and even scores go to a thirty-minute tie-breaker. However, the most entertaining part is watching the chefs cook as quickly and efficiently as possible.
This is the only cooking show where I actually learned something useful. It's also the only cooking show that I would watch with a roomful of friends and a six-pack.
Buttcrack (1998)
My roommate was a fat zombie redneck!
Buttcrack sends up classic roommate-from-hell movies with a dose of Troma-style redneck zombie killing. Combines funny young-adult existentialism with Mojo Nixon blasting zombies with a shotgun. Mojo plays most of the soundtrack too. I didn't expect to like this film. Boy, was I wrong.
The Big One (1997)
A bio-pic of Michael Moore's state of mind.
The Big One (1997) presents itself as a spontaneous documentary of Michael Moore's outrageous adventures during the tour of his book, "Downsize This!" Moore does a good job of focusing on what's wrong in America- people work 60+ hours a week just to get by, profitable, productive factories closing to move to Mexico where workers are paid 60 cents an hour.
Unfortunately, for all of Moore's focused anger at corporate America, Moore doesn't offer much of a solution. When someone asks him why he didn't limit his book tour to union or non-corporate stores, he makes a joke about the success of his book changing his politics. Moore asks a corporate spokesperson if she thinks it's a good idea for the US to pass punitive laws against profitable corporations who export their labor to other countries. This is admirable, but I wish he had followed up on his own question.
In this film, Moore comes across as someone who has spent a lot of time focused on America's problems, but spends only a token effort in dwelling on potential solutions. This imbalance handicaps what could have been a sublimely entertaining, informative documentary. I expected information at the end of the movie about corporate ethics organizations like Corporate Watch (http://www.corpwatch.org) or information on how to start a labor union (http://www.aflcio.org). Alas, no such luck.
Despite its faults, The Big One (1997) is a must-see for anyone who believes 1) unions are corrupt; 2) corporations are corrupt; or 3) earns a salary of less than six figures a year.