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Schabe
Reviews
Pi (1998)
Not brilliant, but not bad.
In my view, this is what you might call a "litmus test" film. You can tell a lot about a person by how they react to it.
The dimmer bulbs will complain they just didn't get it. The plot leaves a lot up to the viewer -- if you don't pay attention and try to fill in some of the blanks on your own, this movie will lose you in the first half hour. Most of what's going on is never explained, and must be inferred -- I think a lot of people will have to see this one twice.
The moderately bright will be impressed by the film's treatment of mathematics, patterns, and a conspiracy that spans reality itself. This is inherently cool stuff, but has already been handled better by the likes of William S. Burroughs and Robert Anton Wilson. Ultimately, the mathematics angle falls flat... I had to suppress an outright laugh at lines about machines becoming self-aware after being fed a certain equation, or the main character -- a mathematician -- accusing some rabbis searching for the True Name of God of "already trying every 216-letter combination" -- a feat which would require more time than our planet has been in existence.
The places where this film shines are in the editing, the soundtrack, and the overall look of the film. The plot is ultimately shallow, a story that could probably have fit on a single page, but the film is techno-noir eye candy de luxe. I am looking forward to see what the director does with the formidable writing talents of Frank Miller on his side in the forthcoming "Batman: Year One" movie. As for "Pi", I probably won't be springing for the DVD anytime soon -- but I *will* be purchasing the soundtrack.
Titan A.E. (2000)
Soo close...
This is one of those movies where I walk out of the theater thinking 'that was great, but...' I really hate when that happens. I can deal with really great movies, or really bad ones, or ones that are so bad that they're good, or even movies that are simply too weird to be judged at all. But when a movie is so good in some ways, and a let-down in others -- even a little -- it tears me up inside. It really does.
Long story short, this movie has only two things wrong with it: the story and the soundtrack. Visually, this movie is a knockout. The acting is great -- not a single casting mistake in the bunch. Characters, dialogue? Great, brilliant. Even a couple of fairly accurate sciency scenes. But the story just doesn't add up.
The overarching plot is that a bunch of evil aliens single out Earth and its inhabitants for destruction, apparently because we built something called the Titan Project, which is a device specifically designed to deal with the problem of what to do if Earth gets destroyed. How's that for cause and effect?
Of course, the problem is that we don't really know why the aliens hate Earth so much, or why the main character decides to accept his destiny and fight for humanity, or why one of the characters turns traitor midway through the movie (oops, uh, SPOILERS!) or much of anything. It's all just sort of accepted that these guys are good, and these other ones are bad, and this one other guy was good but now he's bad but (SPOILER!) he turns good again just in time to save everybody and etcetera. The thing is that the actual writing is excellent, but the plot doesn't hold up. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that several minutes of footage that would have made this all clearer, or foreshadowed some of the abrupt twists, wound up on the cutting-room floor... Or in this case, the Deleted Items Folder. Which just makes it all the more painful to think about.
Then there's the soundtrack. Not only do they bring the movie to a screeching halt to play some godawful disposable top-40 tune by Jamiroquai, but the song is actually directly related to what's going on on-screen. It's like they decided at the last minute to try and make this a musical. Seriously, the main character, a refugee from the destroyed planet Earth, is first introduced to us over the strains of a little number called 'Cosmic Castaway'. Later, they halt the film so he can practice piloting a spaceship while they play a song called 'It's My Turn to Fly'. I'd say it's like a Disney cartoon, except that Disney usually includes songs which at least attempt to be timeless, whereas these tracks are going to show up in a Not-Available-in-Stores-6-CD-Set-With-Free-Poster sometime before this film hits video.
Feh. Now that I've got that off my chest, I actually like the movie better. Yeah, it's pretty good. Go see it. But you'll probably feel better about it if you catch a matinee.
Plutonium Baby (1987)
Two bad films for the price of one
Here's a first: a movie so unbelievably awful even I was unable to watch it all the way through.
From the title, I was expecting some kind of "It's Alive!" slimy puppet show... Instead I get the lamest "four teenagers enter the woods..." story ever scripted. The title character isn't a baby at all, he's a poorly socialized 14-year-old named Danny, and not particularly mutated at all. As far as special effects, there's a radioactive bunny sock-puppet that's amusing for a few minutes, and a couple of well-done corpses, including one whose small intestines are inexplicably tied in a bow, but by 20 minutes into the film, it's clear they've used up all their good ideas. A quarter-hour after that, the plot finally expires altogether, and the movie does something I've never seen before -- it launches straight into its own sequel: "Plutonium Baby II: Danny Takes Manhattan".
In this phase of the film, it's ten years later, and Plutonium Baby is now Plutonium Man, with a girlfriend (from whom he must hide his Terrible Secret, of course) and a festering leg wound. He's being stalked through the streets of New York by the now horribly deformed scientist whose radiation experiments caused his plutonious state. The tension *really* fails to build here, as by now you've lost interest in the survival of any of the characters, and the chances you're going to see somebody attacked by a radioactive squirrel or pigeon or something appear to be slim. Apparently the whole thing builds up to some kind of Highlander-esque final showdown, with creator facing creation in a battle royale, but I just couldn't take any more. I still haven't returned the video, so maybe I'll find out how it ends sometime this week, but I'm not sure I have the strength...
Rolling Vengeance (1987)
The Greatest Monster Truck Story Ever Told
I *loved* this film. It's a classic, universal story -- the story of a young man named Joey whose entire family is killed by Ned Beatty's mentally retarded offspring. Unable to cope with his feelings of loss and helplessness, Joey makes a decision we can all sympathize with. He builds a gigantic, flame-spouting tank with 7' tires and proceeds to take revenge on those who have wronged him, as well as their vehicles and buildings.
The vehicle itself is impressive -- it's not just a pickup truck on huge tires, it's a wholly scrap-built "Mad Max" battlewagon. It carries a gigantic retractable drill/metal cutter on its front bumper, apparently scavenged from some gratuitously suggestive metal-rendering machinery. There's a great scene involving the drill, a drainage pipe, and the protaganist's girlfriend that conjures echoes of Tetsuo, the Iron Man.
The thing that surprised me most was the acting. Let me make this clear -- the script is awful, a tissue-thin vehicle intended to carry the film from one scene of gasoline-fueled mayhem to the next. Yet, this cast of mostly unknown actors all rise far above the occasion, adding unexpected dimension to a movie that's really all about the sound of crunching metal and breaking glass. Ned Beatty, the sole recognizable name in the lineup, delivers a stellar performance as an aging greaser and single parent, trying to protect his quasi-legal business interests and his fetal-alcohol-syndrome afflicted bastard children as they are crushed one by one under the wheels of a vengeance-crazed truck driver. Even the weepy girlfriend and the one-day-before-retirement county sherrif are played as low-key, believable characters.
So, there you have it. Rolling Vengeance -- a timeless story of tragedy, family, and monster trucks. See it with someone you love, and a case of cheap beer.
Rituals (1977)
Hal Holbrook! Hal Holbrook! Hal Holbrook!
Despite some weird directorial flubs, inconsistent soundtrack, bad audio editing, and overall ill-conceived plot, this film actually does manage to justify itself as, if not a worthy competitor to "Deliverance", at least a not wholly unredeemable imitation. Besides, it features Hal Holbrook. Say it with me... Hal Holbrook! Hal Holbrook! Hal Holbrook!!!