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Reviews
Alien (1979)
what nightmares may come...
Extraordinary sets, visuals and perfect pacing create a mood and tone that has perhaps not been achieved by any movie before or since. Scott is aware that the anticipation of fear is far more chilling than the actual fear itself, and this cardinal law defines his whole approach : Economy. We barely get a few glimpses of the creature, and even at the end we don't see it fully. The film's characters disregard good sense at every stage, and do everything to put themselves in harm's way for the benefit of the audience. The only thing that looks dated in this three-decade-old picture is the alien itself (although it is still a frightful beast). To miss the film's mind-boggling production design and photography would be a crime, even for those who dislike horror films (me!). The images of space owe their very existence to 2001. Alien is one of the earliest reminders of how revolutionary Kubrick's film was.
Unlike 2001, this film will never stand up to a rigorous scientific evaluation. Its no more than a haunted-house film set in space. It is intense, but not profound. The film's gritty and vivid atmosphere creates a degree of verisimilitude which makes it particularly frightening. I wont watch this again.
P.S. : Just about every sci-fi/art film has at least one bum line that I can see coming, and which makes me cringe. In Alien, you have Ash the robot mouthing the following pearls of wisdom : "I admire its purity. A survivor - unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality." Ugh ! Disgusting line. These facile notions of "human nature" persist to this day, meaning only that nobody really knows much about what we are.
Up (2009)
not just cute.....
*SERIOUS SPOILERS*
I'm amazed at how many Hollywood movies today explicitly acknowledge the power of cinema to shape minds and lives. Since this is now a trend, how can Pixar be far behind ? This film opens with a film within, the documentary on exploration which is seen by our hero as a very young child. The notions of mystery and adventure, conflated with the larger-than-life celebrity figure of Charles Muntz, burn themselves into the child's consciousness. They virtually define his life and existence. Along the way, he meets a girl who is similarly besotted with Muntz and the fantasy he represents. They get married, and their mutual love is founded on the film they both saw and fell in love with. Soon they get swept in the grind of everyday life, but they keep their dream alive. When she dies, leaving him an abandoned old man, he attempts to transform their dream into reality.
So the movie begins, but the rest of it is more or less generic animated fare. And its oddly more Disney than Pixar. Sure, the animation has the usual high level and the color palette is much wider, but the comedy and action sequences are rather tame by modern standards. I actually think that 'Kung Fu Panda' (which is quite lowbrow) is more effective as an action comedy, and has a far more rousing third act. I'm surprised they didn't try to make this deeper, or extend the self-reference to the entire film. Too bad. But that opening was very nice.
The Insider (1999)
spectacular storytelling
I am not normally a fan of mechanically moralistic films like this one. These are essentially feel-good movies; the perspective is that of a highly simplified morality play where good and evil are radically drawn. But this particular presentation is so expertly delivered that it blows your mind. The whole thing is composed with extreme care and grace. There is a harmony among writing, acting, music and photography that is unequalled in my experience. This is one of the finest American films ever made.
The point the film makes is that tobacco companies go to great lengths to deliberately make an addict of every consumer, and they go to equally great lengths to conceal the nature of their actions from the authorities as well as the public. In this film, both Crowe and Pacino's characters become "insiders" at some point, and each man is forced to confront his conscience and make a choice between his career and conscience. The story isn't very new, but the storytelling is absolutely incredible.
Avatar (2009)
the maverick delivers....
I was lucky enough to see this in IMAX 3D, and for what amounted to about 8 USD. I had felt that much of the hoopla about "game-changer" and "enter the world" was just that - marketing. How wrong I was. This is really an amazing, immersive visual experience. Much of that has to do with how the visual effects are used (in technology terms), quite apart from their actual quality and magnitude.
From the trailers you just cant tell what this is actually going to be like. It looks pretty, but not so very novel, and maybe even a little disappointing. While what we get in the theatre is of another visual order. The third dimension allows for a presentation of objects that the flat screen simply cannot. Thats what seems to have worked in its favor - people going in with reduced expectations and then coming away stunned by the actual experience. Because the WAY in which photo-real CGI and stereoscopy (i.e. 3D) are combined is the key to this new threshold for visual verisimilitude.
Think about the worlds that we saw in the Pirates and Spiderman movies, the Rings movies, the Harry Potter films, even the Matrix trilogy. Compare that to what we see in Avatar. Credit must be given where it is due, and the fact is that very little of what we've seen earlier compares with this film. This is essentially a different approach - they've actually created a new world out of whole cloth, and they found new ways to deliver this world visually, in spatial terms. The director's intentions - that the viewer should feel no distinction between real and artificial, that photo-real CGI should necessarily surmount the Uncanny Valley - these are achieved, at least to a far greater degree than anything we've seen before.
Unfortunately the story and characters are as banal as everyone reported. I was shocked at how unmoving this was non-visually. This completely fails to engage on an emotional or thematic level. I actually felt that 300 was far more emotionally rousing, and thats pretty damning. Both the story and the storytelling were needlessly trite. Why ?? Was it a deliberate strategy to aim for the "broadest common denominator" ?
For now I believe we should see this as an experiment that largely succeeds visually. That it does not do so in other ways, that it does not enter our minds and souls, is hardly the point. This is a new way of doing things, and it is only the beginning. What James Cameron and others are doing is freeing the filmmaker from the bounds of hardware and physicality. A film can now truly be ANYTHING the filmmaker wants it to be - that seems to be the promise realized by Lightstorm and Weta. Think about when someone like David Fincher or Tarsem Singh or Zack Snyder get their hands on this technology. Someday someone will integrate narrative, imagery and music in the "new way", and we as viewers will greatly evolve in our conceptual reasoning abilities. Audiences did not necessarily appreciate the water tentacle in The Abyss for what it was. But recall what came after that : the T-1000.
Dear Lord. Fox gives this guy half a billion to make a film with untested methods, and it becomes the highest grossing film ever. Unbelievable
Suspicion (1941)
the internal surrogate
The thought of a woman as beautiful as Joan Fontaine having to spend her life as a spinster is pretty humorous. So yes, this is as narratively simple and unsophisticated as they come, but its a good lesson in how a storyteller has to keep his audience engaged. Long before this came out, the world of film was already diverging and expanding beyond the realm of plays. Filmmakers had realized that it was possible to enhance the effectiveness of storytelling using techniques that were impossible with plays. In cinema it was no longer enough to have just "pure" storytelling, or mere filmed-plays. With films you could engineer the narrative in such a way that the viewer is somehow more directly placed within it. Today there are hundreds of such methods. This film (and Rebecca as well) used a trick that has now become the most common strategy to engage the audience : the viewer surrogate. Here it is the Fontaine character. We experience the world of the film through the limits of her vision. In these early films you can see this technique in its most elemental form. And to make it more engaging, the director adds intrigue and suspense in his usual way. Fontaine acts well, and she's lovely. Surprisingly, even a film this old contains self-reference : we have a husband who loves mystery novels, and a character who is an obvious nod to Agatha Christie (who worked in the very same genre of stories as Hitchcock).
Raging Bull (1980)
career zenith for De Niro & Scorsese
Jake LaMotta is a middleweight boxing pro. Inside the ring he's an unbridled sociopath. Outside it, he's a very, very typical and unremarkable product of his age. He's an emotionally weak, testosterone-crazed loud-mouthed roughneck, as conservative and bourgeois as they come. He's terribly paranoid about people, and has a knack for alienating his friends and peers. He's also intensely chauvinistic, seeing women as no more than f**k toys and domestic chattels. His extreme paranoia about other people's motives, his basic unsociability, his lack of self-awareness coupled with his intense jealousy for his beautiful wife inevitably destroy him. At the end, he is thrown onto the garbage heap of civilization.
People say that Raging Bull is the "we'll make our point so obvious that there's no way you can miss it" type of film. In a way this is true, because there is no ambiguity about it. It is equally true that the director is so aware of his intentions, so clear about the material he is handling, and at the same time has so much command over his craft that his film succeeds in communicating with almost anyone who watches it. Raging Bull is Scorsese and De Niro at their peaks, individually as well as in collaboration.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
someone doesn't know their Eisenstein....
This one was a shocker all right. Its a f**k-up on a scale you couldn't imagine till you see it. This is a film in which absolutely nothing works. It is truly, incredibly embarrassing to watch, displaying cringe-inducing levels of incompetence rarely if ever seen in such high-profile films. All this is made more puzzling by the fact that they actually got the first film right on nearly all counts.
In every way possible, this film makes an enormous mess. The fundamental problem here, over and above everything else, is that Michael Bay seems to have no idea WHY one shot is placed next to another. Its an editing nightmare coupled with a narrative disaster. The moderating influence of Mr. Spielberg is nowhere to be seen or felt.
Wow. So much effort and money spent, and there is no impression made at all. The fanboy term "epic fail" is very apt for this film.
Inception (2010)
its different, and yes, thrilling too, but.......
In Chris Nolan's films, the narrative (and not anything else) is the main character, the center around which all else assembles. In terms of narrative complexity, this film doesn't really hold a candle to what 'Memento' and 'The Prestige' (or even 'Following') gave the viewer. The narration is linear, and the story ultimately harbors no mysteries. None at all. My guess is that all potential complexities were ironed out in order to secure finance and avoid risk. Even the human drama is totally unengaging and non-complex. This film doesn't give the viewer anything non-filmic to think about. Its a decent thrill ride, albeit with a new concept.
The "money idea" here is the notion of nesting dreams within dreams in a potentially infinite sequence, like a Russian doll. This part of the film is really done well, and I'm sure everyone must hold their breath at the moment when all four (five?) levels "synchronize" and the "kick" is transmitted top to bottom.
I suppose Nolan and his group must get credit simply for attempting something like this. Unfortunately there are problems here. The biggest one is how the dreams are constructed. They are mere action set-pieces. This is certainly not how we dream, not at all. Even allowing that, the dull and careless way in which the film is shot and edited is jarring. Worse, all the different levels are shot in the same visual style; there is no way to distinguish a dream state from reality, even when the viewer knows its a dream. Compare this with Martin Scorsese's use of two distinct visual palettes in 'Shutter Island' : one was surreal, and one prosaic; to denote two different states of mind. 'Fight Club' and 'Matrix' come to mind too.
Nolan prefers an extremely wordy exposition over showing things visually. He expects viewers to understand concepts like the "unconscious", when truly speaking, few understand it well. Everyone has heard the word; how many people have studied it as a psychoanalytic concept proper ?? Even the particular interpretation that the unconscious and lucid dreaming are given, it is all just way too literal.
With all due respect, someone needs to tell Chris Nolan to allow the use of second units. I'm sorry, but it seems he just cant shoot a decent action sequence to save his life. I'm surprised how no one has pointed this out.
'Inception' was financed for one reason, and one reason only. Think of the amount of money that Batman 3 will make, if only they can get Nolan on board. It will obliterate any losses that 'Inception' may make.
Jackie Brown (1997)
A Tarantino film for non-poseurs...
Pitch perfect. So Tarantino actually made at least one film that doesn't allow viewers to get high on gore, and does require some concentration to get it. No wonder people didn't like it. Jackie Brown is like a Coen Bros. script directed by Tarantino. A bunch of people all scrambling for a bagful of cash - except unlike a Coen Bros. movie, these people aren't all morons, and someone manages to get away. The director executes it like a pro, never letting a viewer's attention wane.
The dialog in this film is smart and sober. Samuel L. Jackson is the epitome of scum, and plus he's badass to the core. Pam Grier is an absolute FOX. These two were born to play their parts. The casting is uniformly perfect - except De Niro. I have no clue what he was doing here - seems like the studio wanted more "star value". He sleepwalks through the whole thing, dragging down the quality of the entire film.
Overall this film is just a BIT slow. A couple of places require some speeding up, but on the whole the mood and pace is perfect. The character of Jackie Brown is one of the most interesting things Tarantino has come up with. He seems to have very quickly realized that his fans don't want anything even remotely resembling substance, and so he went commercial big-time with his next project. Kill Bill struck the mother lode. Its eerie; the man has a frightening grasp of the average movie-goer's likes and dislikes.
The Matrix (1999)
the architecture of cognition
'The Matrix' must be one of the most ambitious and highly successful projects of the past twenty years. Its difficult to imagine how this film could have gone from conception to execution, and succeeded with such flying colors. For a long time I've avoided writing a review because this was my "Godfather" or "Star Wars" movie, having first seen it at 13 and instantly falling in love with it. I could never be truly objective about this movie, nor could I find a single truthful, objective analysis of it anywhere on IMDb or RT. Roger Ebert's review was nice, but too harsh.
'Bound' helped me appreciate better how 'Matrix' was conceived. Neither of these two films has a single wasted moment. It seems that the Wachowskis build a film by cascading a set of scenes, like a series of dominos, so that each scene projects into the next one. This is of course what all screenwriters do, but as simple as it sounds, it is no mean feat. The most important part of any film, I think, is how you connect scenes, how you work on transitions so as to create meaning and plausibility. What you show, how you show, and most importantly, what you Don't show. This is extremely difficult. It requires a deep understanding of the cognitive mechanics at work between a film and a viewer. It is, if you like, the most important part of film-making, as important (if not more) than the actual shooting process.
The brothers nailed this whole conception business down to the last detail. The editor won an Oscar, but the film was streamlined by the directors for perfect editing. The cinematography and sound design is breathtaking. Joel Silver brought another influence to bear in terms of production expertise. They worked on the formidable design and effects requirements, even bringing in a legendary Hong Kong action choreographer for the martial arts scenes.
And then they made casting choices that could not have been better. This film rests on the visual and vocal libido of the leads. It works only because the actors work, because we relate and identify with them. Just watch Weaving and Fishburne scorch the frame in their respective parts; these are their best roles. Moss is visually apt. Reeves is unwittingly perfect for his role, more perfect than anyone could have imagined.
Another important part of this film is the self-reference. This film riffs on itself many times in many ways, such as when Mouse asks Neo how the machines could possibly know about the taste of Tasty Wheat. This is essentially winking at the viewer by momentarily snapping the plausibility of the whole idea. Also, this whole franchise is one big stab at the Terminator movies and their enduring popularity. Instead of time travel, we have virtual reality. Instead of terminators, we have agents. Instead of John Connor....
None of this explains how they came up with this concept. The keystone of the arch is hidden. There are countless other 'influences' here : Phil Dick, William Gibson, Doctor Who, Grant Morrisson's 'The Invisibles' etc. And as with Tarantino, we are unable to say for sure whether it is homage or plagiarism. The innovation lies in the architecture of the whole thing, in the layering, in the flawless integration of so many different design elements to form a seamless, coherent entity. The Matrix is everywhere indeed.
This is the only way to make movies.
Se7en (1995)
grim
David Fincher's fiercely idolized Seven is certainly an interesting and well-made film. Finely acted, meticulously shot and composed. It very effectively portrays the greatest city on earth as dark and Gothic, rotting and falling to pieces, its citizens weary and confused. What prevents Seven from being a true masterpiece is that there is very little meaning or depth below the layers of supposed erudition. It doesn't help to allude to Dante and Chaucer when your film has nothing to do with their work ; it seems to me that these references were deliberately added just to create a false sense of meaning in the minds of viewers who don't know any better. Ah, Thomas Aquinas ! Hemingway !!! Deep stuff this must be......well, not really, though. The film is content to scratch the surface of difficult ideas, hinting at more interesting things but resolutely going for the cheap thrill nine times out of ten. John Doe is a grand and terrifying killer, but one that exists only in the imaginary world of movies.
Hard Target (1993)
a horse's ass
I shouldn't even be watching a movie like this, leave alone reviewing it, but Yancy Butler is so easy on the eyes that I couldn't help myself, so beat me if you like. Has anyone ever noticed how any two randomly picked Van Damme/Steven Seagal films are indistinguishable ?? Small American town, check. Powerful scumbag villain who terrorizes over the whole town with his pack of goons, check. Inept cops, check. Tough guy who is indestructible & wont bow down before anybody, check. Standard issue damsel-in-distress/sex-machine with blue eyes & long hair, check. Guns, knives, martial arts, slow-motion, chases on foot, chases with dogs pursuing, chases in gas-guzzling SUVs', explosions, ALL check. This has all become boilerplate B-movie material since Patrick Swayze's 'Road House'.
This film still actually has a "fan following", which is beyond belief. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson also made a movie obeying the exact same template. I think it was called 'Walking Tall' or something like that. This film also stars Lance Henriksen as the villain, who stares into a mirror while playing a piano. Henriksen didn't get one decent role after Aliens, which is a pity. An interesting fact is that the Governator has not EVER made a film following the above template, which is quite an achievement.
I've again begun watching 2-3 bad films a day. Exams have really begun.
The Recruit (2003)
ennui
The first half of this movie is extremely entertaining. Its witty and a lot more realistic than the vast majority of mainstream Hollywood movies. I wonder if even a single MIT engineering grad is as good-looking/athletic as Colin Farrell....but anyhow, he fits the part of a rookie spy. The most banal dialogue, when it comes out of Al Pacino's mouth, sounds like the most profound wisdom ("NOTHING is what it SEEMS."). At the risk of sounding like a creep, I must say that this was the movie that made me want to do terrible things to Bridget Moynahan. Like all of Roger Donaldson's films, this one too is technically very proficient, with a nice score and gorgeous photography. Its during the last third that somehow everything goes downhill and the massive build-up of suspense is totally wasted. The rarest of commercial beasts (the realistic spy movie), this film could have been a true genre-bender.
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Rain of Madness
Apocalypse Now is a nosedive into madness, both literally and metaphorically. A film made with sheer egoism, but in the spirit of uncompromising art.
We know that this film arose out of the director's attempt to adapt the modernist novella Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. We also know that Mr. Coppola actually went to the Phillipines to shoot this film, that too just after the war had ended, and that the film was very nearly not made at all, because of immense production hassles which might have seemed obvious to a more sober (and less successful) director.
Being well acquainted with the novella, I can confidently say that the film version is NOT successful at articulating the ideas of the original work. Some of the dialog in the film - the briefing given to Willard, the photographer's rants, Kurtz's last lines - seem to be simply lifted from the novella and pasted onto the film, without any proper explanation or context. No Country For Old Men is a film adaptation of a book that is obstinately true to its source, articulates its ideas correctly, and also stands independently from the novel as a film on its own. If we didn't know the source for Apocalypse Now, there would be no way to make sense of the climax. Definitely not. In fact, the film is anticlimactic - the first two thirds are a surreal tour-de-force of visuals, sound and fury ; the last third is a disappointing damp squib.
I would say that this film demonstrates the limitations of cinema. In a play or a novel, the writer has all the freedom to conjure up whatever he likes, and it is all upto him, it is as he wills. Whereas a film relies on the co-operation of literally hundreds of artists and technicians, and rarely does the director, producer or writer have complete authority over the final product. For instance, everyone knows how Marlon Brando behaved on this project, and the climax' failure is more his fault than the director's - the film was doing fine precisely till Mr. Brando shows up. Also, literature has far more freedom of technique - for example, Heart of Darkness relies heavily on ambiguity to play up the readers' perception of Kurtz and his life - while film-making often has no comparable equal to many of these techniques.
The film is a must-see, however. Forgive me, thats putting it way too lightly. What it lacks in consistency and coherence, it more than makes up for in sheer visual and technical virtuosity. In an age when there was no CGI, no sophisticated camera rigs and steadicams, and no optical FX, Mr. Coppola and master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro conjured up a surreal montage of imagery that leaves one breathless, and nearly appalled in fact. The film seems to shuffle colors, textures, tones, light and shadow like a pack of cards. In particular there are two sequences - Willard's first encounter with the Air Cav, and the chopper assault on the village - that are more surreal than anything made by Kubrick or Fritz Lang or anybody. A chopper airlifting a bull for a meat roast, the choppers taking off and approaching the village with Kilgore kicking off Wagner at full blast, "Hi tiger, bye tiger !", the playboy bunnies' lap dance, colored smoke grenades, the flare attack, the ghostlike bedlam at the final bridge - these images indelibly stab your memory.
The additional footage in the REDUX version doesn't really add anything more to the original version, by way of greater insight or substance. The French plantation sequence has one comment on the Vietnam war that would not have been allowed back in 1979, had the US government had its way. For instance, Black Hawk Down was made entirely with US military support. Which is to say that the Pentagon suitably airbrushed the script, completely throwing out the Somali perspective (which the book included) and portraying the Somalis as the bad guys and the American troops (surprise surprise) as the good guys.
In short, far from perfect, but perfectly insane, and also perfectly unavoidable.
The Devil's Advocate (1997)
banal, pretentious, amateurish.....
So, in this film they pair one of the the greatest actor of all time, Al Pacino, with the worst actor of our generation, Keanu Reeves. The premise is audacious and intriguing : no matter how terrible your crime, no matter how obvious your complicity, Kevin Lomax can save you from conviction. He's a brilliant young criminal defense lawyer with a small problem : he has a conscience, and a very real one. With every case he wins, his personal guilt mounts, because he is all too aware that all his clients were guilty....
Soon, Mr. Lomax gets a call to the big boys' club, in the form of an enormously powerful law firm in New York. He is befriended rather quickly by his new boss, John Milton, a fiery, enigmatic and strangely charming man who always seems to know things the others don't.....
Lomax and Milton's first meeting, on a designer rooftop, is spectacular, both visually and symbolically. There's an elevator scene where Lomax's mother and Milton meet, which is one of the eeriest things I've ever seen. TDA sets itself up beautifully, and then like most other films blows it all to hell. Now who else but a criminal defense lawyer with a perfect record would get a call from Lucifer, right ? It sounds perfect, metaphorically, and it IS perfect, but instead of taking the film in that direction, it turns into a freak show (i.e. cheap-thrill-type horror). Its an engrossing film that runs out of steam just when its getting interesting, and the final act is bizarre and anti-climactic. Too bad. This could have been a truly great Al Pacino film....
Insomnia (2002)
under-appreciated Nolan film....
Nolan's sophomore effort is unfortunately jinxed as being his most underrated, although arguably his strongest film so far. A detective whose task is to nail a killer finds himself murdering a colleague, because he might have compromised his decisions on past cases to Internal Affairs. The man is conscientious - did he kill him on purpose, or was it a genuine accident ? He cannot decide, but either way he did fire the fatal bullet, and this robs him of his sleep - hence the title. Worst of all, the killer he's looking for saw him do it and is now threatening to compromise him further. So very Shakespearean - Nolan himself calls it "Hitchcockian" on the director's commentary. Pfister's camera takes in some gorgeous Vancouver scenery, and Al Pacino hits this one right out of the ballpark. Just watch Pacino during the interrogation scene. There's a beautifully acted moment when he is restraining himself terribly from lunging across the table and strangling the murderer - so much does he hate his guts. Nolan is so intensely focused on the internal drama of the leads, he chooses very simple and direct shots, which are nonetheless elegant. Compare this to David Fincher's Seven, an exquisitely stylized movie that is ultimately about nothing real. Unlike the chilling but wholly unrealistic John Does and Hannibal Lecters of the film world, killers in real life are most often the weakest of human beings - Fincher admitted this with regard to the Zodiac killer - and that is the whole point of Robin Williams' character in Insomnia : a weak, cowardly and very ordinary man who becomes a killer simply by unfortunate accident ; a forlorn middle-ager who dares to imagine himself in love with the first seventeen-year-old girl who gives him some attention, and then kills her when she offends him by literally laughing at his advances.
Admittedly Nolan's austere visual style may leave something to be desired for. Occasionally the film feels too talky - too much dialog and character-based exposition, and too little of things actually happening. But these are minor nitpicks.
Apparently there weren't enough Batmobiles and explosions to satisfy the popcorn-munching hipster douche bags who also saw this film. Empty thrillers like Seven and The Silence of the Lambs which are thematically hollow and pointless will always garner greater popularity than a deeply psychological film like Insomnia.
Kaante (2002)
Reservoir Dogs + Heat + Usual Suspects = A very muddled, weak, amateurish effort....
The only reason you might want to see this film is for the extremely effective use of fish-eye lenses and wide-angle anamorphic shots, especially in the LA strip bar. Well, of course, since they employed an American crew to shoot the film. Thanks to the top-notch production values, this film does manage to create an authentic atmosphere, to an extent. As an attempt by Indian filmmakers to adopt Western technical standards, it is just fascinating. Everything else is as wrong as wrong can be - a poor screenplay, too much style and no substance, terrible casting choices, the overuse of yellow filters, and above all, a glaring lack of realism. It must be said, however, that the dancers in the strip bar were drop-dead gorgeous, yes. Not that it helps the film. The fantasy of Indian "gangsters" in LA unintentionally reflects the degree to which Indian audiences (and directors) enjoy aping American action-movie stereotypes....
Quiz Show (1994)
Excellent
Based on a non-fiction book by one Richard Goodwin, a former US Congress investigator who played a key role in unraveling the American TV quiz show scandals of the late 1950s. An exquisite and beautiful film.
The time is the fifties, the place America : the Soviets have just launched their Sputnik, the first man-made object to enter space, heralding the US-Soviet space race and heightening Cold War tensions ; Dwight Eisenhower is in his second term as US President ; and two in every three households has a TV set. To ensure greater viewership, the producers of certain TV quiz shows secretly provided the quiz contestants with questions and answers beforehand. This virtually guaranteed the shows' popularity, because the viewers "just wanted to see the money", as one character says.
Ralph Fiennes as Charles Van Doren plays another of his idealistic yet morally ambiguous characters, who is sucked into the morass against his will by the producers' guile, and also by his own need for fame and attention. And so Van Doren comes to make his own little Faustian pact with the Devil. Fiennes is one of those rare actors, like Al Pacino or Michael Douglas, who simply exude charisma, and whom it is always a delight to watch no matter what they're doing. And yet it is John Turturro who steals the thunder right from under Fiennes' nose. If you really want to understand the phrase "disappear into a character", just watch Turturro in this film. In his voice, his walk, his physiognomy and right down to the movement of his eyes, he becomes Herb Stempel, the geeky and disgruntled contestant whose antics lead to the whole controversy. Every scene he's in, no matter how serious, threatens to become uproariously funny.
Robert Redford as director proves to be a consummate storyteller, fully self-possessed and in control of the medium. The story is told as part drama, part history lesson and part comedy. The script is so interesting that even though one knows the outcome, its a lot of fun watching it happen. Every line of dialog is perfect, every scene is necessary no more no less. The whole film is peppered with literary and scholastic references, from Shakespeare and Keats to more obscure figures like Proudhon. The Shakespearean motifs are especially pronounced, from the verse game played by Charles' family, to the comparison of Charles Van Doren to Hamlet.
This is yet another film that enough people haven't seen, or have simply forgotten. One of the very best films I've seen in some time.
Sin City (2005)
ugly
First things first : this film is extraordinarily violent, without there being any sane reason whatsoever for it to be so. It can safely be classified as comic-book gore porn. While watching it, there were at least a dozen occasions when I wanted to hit the 'eject' button on my DVD player ; the only thing that kept me going was simply that I wanted to get it over with.
Is this what art has come to in this age ? Were the filmmakers so desensitized that they went to these levels of harrowing cruelty to titillate their audience ? And just why is this film so chock full of celebrities for roles that a C-List actor would avoid ? Elijah Wood plays something like the ultimate misogynist-cum-cannibal......eh ? That being done with, Sin City is still highly remarkable for its novel and sophisticated filming style. The film was shot on a digital backlot, first in color, which was then converted to high-grade black-and-white, and then desaturated to give it a high contrast. Colour is added in interesting places, like all the girls' eyes, lips, hair, apparel.....you get the point. Oh yeah, and the barrels and barrels of fake blood used here was accentuated to a deep dark red. I also liked how they used CGI only as and when necessary, so the film looks like a cross between a very real and a completely fictional world.
Maybe the film's only true saving grace is that unlike Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, it doesn't even try passing off as high art ; the film is perfectly aware of itself as being simply low-brow violence for violence's sake, and nothing more. Let me tell you that if you haven't seen this film, save yourself the trouble, you're not missing much. Give your time to something more worthy of it. This film isn't half as clever or funny as it would like to be, and just because a film goes into places with violence that other films don't DOES NOT make it revolutionary or original. It doesn't even matter that Rodriguez supposedly "stayed true" to the source material, since the "source" in question is jarringly stupid to begin with. This film will most certainly appeal to rapists and women beaters, so if you liked this hunk of sado junk, well......
A friend of mine called Sin City "misogynistic crap". She's perfectly right. Armond White of the NY Press called Oldboy a "virtuosic stupid movie". Now THAT is clever, and funny too, and what's more, that phrase is even more true for Sin City.
Mission: Impossible II (2000)
Woo takes it up the --- from Cruise
Powerfully lousy film-making. Lets see now, most good action films justify the pretext for the ensuing violence very well. Or they have some decent drama & emotion to prop up the action. Die Hard, T2, Speed, Point Break, The Rock are some examples that follow this basic template the best. And as such these are great, if empty, pieces of entertainment. You don't HAVE to be a teenager to enjoy these films.
This film essentially has no organizing principle whatsoever. Cruise has hijacked the entire production. His "ghost-direction" is painfully obvious and proves to be the death knell for the film (and Woo). The whole thing is in thrall to his infantile pretty-boy narcissism (ugh!). The man STILL cant get over his looks. Cruise is *not* an authentic human being with genuine emotional response. You'll notice he has this weird thing going on in his films where his real life & thoughts creepily show up in whatever role he may be doing at the moment (Jerry Maguire, this, MI-3). And it usually has to do with his attitude to women. He turns into this psycho creep around them. His scenes in 'Lions for Lambs' with Meryl Streep made my skin curl. Oh, the horror.
No more unkind words are left to heap on the hideous Mr. Tom Cruise. He's a madman, we all know that. You, dear reader, may be wondering why I'm wasting my time on such a wearying dud. I read Roger Ebert's review after watching this film last night, and it made me re-evaluate my perception of the man. The only way to make sense of that review of his is to look at it as some kind of Kaufmann-esqe parody where he's laughing at the viewer/reader. He uses some obfuscating, post-doctoral Derrida-speak to describe what is quite obviously a very bad movie. Surprisingly, for once IMDb gives this a pretty sane (though still very high) rating of 5.6/10.
Marketing blitzkrieg saved this stillborn project. No wonder Paramount got fed up of Cruise. The guy is an egomaniac, and a no-talent to boot.
The Fountainhead (1949)
bad philosophy
I grade 'The Fountainhead' & 'Atlas Shrugged' as fairly decent novels, in that they are far more engaging than most other books you find in an airport stall. Unfortunately, Ayn Rand's "philosophy" is powerfully idiotic, half-baked and contradictory, and highly capable of misleading the naive and the directionless. She frequently resorts to the techniques of writers like Dostoevsky and Victor Hugo, but she seems to have little understanding of the ideas of these very writers whose methods she apes. Her character archetypes are plausible on paper alone; they could never exist in reality. Her "philosophy" is what Dostoevsky referred to as 'monomania'. Ayn Rand chose to write precisely the kind of middle-brow books that would sell in coffee-houses/airport lounges, and she comes nowhere close to any of the 20th century behemoths such as Orwell, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Camus etc.
Compare her trite notions of the 'Ideal Woman' to the amazing & truly radical ideas of Simone De Beauvoir, the French existentialist who wrote during the same period as Rand. To Rand's mind, the Ideal Woman plays a dominatrix around everybody else, but when the "right" man comes along, she turns into a BDSM enthusiast, asking for "rape by engraved invitation". Her portrait of the ubermensch is the misanthropic, alienating sociopath. Every admirer of Rand must think of himself as a misunderstood genius. All of us thought I was a messiah once in third grade. She hated collectivism, but imposed her personal notions of individualism on EVERYBODY ELSE (!?!).
Coming to this film, well, its extremely unremarkable on every front, and not even worth watching as a curio. Every decision Rand makes on the screenplay is uniformly bad. Its a good argument for not letting novelists adapt their own screenplay. Someone on IMDb rightly says that this film has the worst and most unbelievable dialog you'll ever hear in an A-list Hollywood film. Its funny without intent in many places - the scene where Patricia Neal gets a hard-on watching Gary Cooper with the drill, for instance. That scene sums up Rand's silly idea of man-woman sex. Incidentally, even today, most women don't love men who don't disrespect or violate them. Irony.
The real love-affair in this novel isn't between Howard and Dominique. Rand had no understanding of homosexuality, and she wrote this novel without realizing that Gail Wynand had the hots for Roark. One cant read that part of the novel without sensing the steamy undercurrents of homoeroticism between those two. And Ellsworth Toohey seems to be a thinly disguised version of Roger Ebert - in reverse.
Adaptation. (2002)
Ouroboros
#MINOR SPOILERS#
To a person who is unacquainted with the history of narrative technique, Adaptation will appear to be a groundbreaking film. The fact that narration can become completely self-referential is certain to seem novel to most film buffs, because movies generally are too popular and expensive a medium to attempt anything that deviates even slightly from the norm.
So its not new or original in an artistic sense, but its still a clever movie, and its very well made for the most part. Charlie Kaufmann achieves a number of goals with his script : (1) He successfully articulates the essence of Susan Orlean's book 'The Orchid Thief". (2) He portrays the writer's (i.e. his own) personal struggle with writing, Hollywood, and life in general. (3) The film's third act is a parody of Hollywood norms, and by logic it is everything that Kaufmann was against.
The three above strands of the film are perfectly welded together. Spike Jonze's direction is absolutely faithful to the script (for all practical purposes, Kaufmann IS the director, more like a playwright w.r.t a play). Kaufmann's self-portrait is frighteningly candid. The Donald Kaufmann character is, shockingly, very thinly written, like a joke that gets lame on repetition. Kaufmann might despise his peers, but if he thinks they are as soggy as his "brother", then he's terribly in denial. J.J. Abrams and Steve Zailian might be sell-outs, but they are at least as clever as Kaufmann.
The androgynous Tilda Swinton looks smoking HAWT here !
Good Will Hunting (1997)
typical mainstream film product
The only reason this movie got made, I suppose, is that Robin Williams found a role he liked and wanted to do. A few notes : (1). The type of "genius" that is portrayed here does not, to my knowledge, exist. Mathematics and the humanities emanate from two different areas in the brain, both of which are NEVER simultaneously developed to the extent indicated here. On top of that Will Hunting has what is apparently a photographic memory. AND he's very good-looking, *AND* he's a tough. Wow. This is really yet another dumbed-down Superhero movie in disguise.
(2). Psychiatry is a highly complex and arcane field, as intellectually formidable as anyone could want. You can neither embrace it nor reject it wholesale. The pompous, self-deluded disdain shown by uneducated people for "shrinks" is here also shown by Will, thereby negating his supposed intellectual worthiness. Also, psychoanalytic theory ceased being at the forefront of psychotherapy decades ago. People who are still bashing Freud should really do a bit of reading.
This falls into the category of 99% of films that are designed for passive viewing, and not to challenge or stimulate the viewer in any real sense. It all adds up to a big nothing ; just a bunch of oversweetened moments that will work for people who have no real mental life. The "math" here is little more than a set-prop with no real depth or detail (Disclaimer : I am an engineer). Will Hunting and his coterie of "friends" are really total dumbasses. The "girlfriend" is skin-crawlingly obnoxious, but then again men are desperate fools, so I guess he COULD endure her.
The two kids who wrote this movie have never actually read a difficult book. Its a film made BY the uneducated, FOR the uneducated. If you liked this, you are a pseudo-intellectual.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Mediocre, and deliberately so...
I have no idea how James Cameron, assuming that he did see this, did not reach for his sleeping pills. Michael Bay & Paul Anderson are unjustly derided as the worst directors working today; none of their films, with maybe the exception of Pearl Harbor, are less than watchable. The crown must belong to Jonathan Mostow, who with this mega-abortion proves himself to be the most soulless capitalist whore of them all.
It wasn't necessary that this film had to be so abysmally bad - it could have been watchable and reasonably competent even without trying anything radical. But the brazen approach that Mostow and the producers have chosen, to rehash all and change squat, to deliberately aim for the lowest possible denominator, this is the epitome of the most abhorrent and depressing attitudes in mainstream film-making. Of course, these smug a-holes can get away with it because they know there's a ready market for car chases & special effects that don't alter from one film to the next. There's a ready crowd of idle, passive, self-professed "fans" who can be whipped into a viewing frenzy by means of bombastic advertising, plus industry-endorsed film pundits who only care about their paychecks, and nobody will be the wiser. The loser at the end of day is the average movie-goer who has no idea he has been film-flammed by marketing.
T3 takes place entirely in movieland, where nothing is real or plausible or of any consequence. Its the passive film-viewer's most delirious fantasy come alive. It has "cash-in" plastered all over it. The thing couldn't possibly get worse, till you notice that this film scores 6.7/10 at IMDb and 70% at RT. The "tongue-in-cheek" humor that everyone was clamoring about is revolting. Was that what the first two movies were about ?? Anyone who rates this higher than 1/10 deserves to have their film-viewing license revoked.
Blade Runner (1982)
something different....
There are certain movies that pose a challenge for a calm, unbiased viewer. Blade Runner is one of these films. Over the years this film has acquired the status of a religious cult, something almost akin to Scientology or Objectivism, and so its difficult to simply dismiss it as long, slow, tedious and overrated. Let me start by comparing this film to other "sci-fi" movies. Scott's previous 'Alien' struck a precarious balance between commerce and art - not as hopelessly shallow as Star Wars, and yet hardly as ambitious as 2001. Blade Runner abandons the traditional narrative style altogether; it communicates almost entirely through images, symbols and motifs, and it has a loopy, splintered, chaotic, upside-down narrative pattern.
The future is incredibly bleak. Corporations rule the roost. The government and police are totalitarian. A new type of technology allows us to play God - to CREATE human beings, and USE them for our purposes. And then to KILL them, once they cease to be useful, or before they acquire enough volition to become dangerous. The central question seems to be - who is truly human, the "clones" or the "natural" people ? The powerful seem to be inhuman in their exploitation of the clones, and the people on the lower rungs of the social ladder tend to be robotic in their behavior, since they are powerless and live only to follow orders. And so, as a friend remarks, the main idea here seems to be that the clones are the ONLY humans, since they are the final victims of a vicious cycle, and they alone experience any authentic emotions at all.
First the pros. Money has been spent, and some shots are absolutely amazing. The remastered Final Cut is dazzling to look at in Blu-Ray. If you love production design, photography and original visual effects, you will be in heaven. Its obvious, however, that no consensus was reached during pre-production on what the final film was going to be. Now come the cons. Recall how streamlined and systematic 'Alien' was; Blade Runner sits on the opposite extreme of the discipline scale. No care has been tendered on producing a cogent, coherent screenplay. Shot composition and editing are terrible : the timing and sequencing of consecutive shots is shockingly bad, resulting in a distracting, unfocused and overly long narrative that will not appeal to most viewers. Terrible choice of music that works only for one scene (the "tears in the rain" speech). Another thing that is, in retrospect, a failure, is the casting and acting. All the actors are consistently, terrifically bad.
Blade Runner is a movie that will mean different things to different people. I don't think this is a film that communicates well at all. Its about ideas all right, but I think you should have a solid, fool-proof plan in place before you embark on any big project. Easier said than done, of course.