MacacoBanditi Reviews

Clusterf**k: Woodstock '99 (2022)

Poor effort on a non-event

[4/10 · 14 August 2022]

The late 1990s were an interesting time. The bull market seemed unstoppable, the State and Unions were retreating and corporations were poised to take over the world. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were the undisputed leaders of the "Free World", China was a sleeping giant and Russia was licking its wounds after defeat in the Cold War and a catastrophic economic collapse in 1998 that took an obscure former KGB agent called Vladimir Putin to power. The USA was wreaking economic, cultural and military havoc all over the world and calling it "globalization". Internet was beginning to show its formidable potential to radically change the way we live, work, consume and communicate. The dot com bubble was reaching peak size and would soon burst, setting the scene for the few survivors (Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google) to establish their megalithic dominance in the next decades. The turn of the millennium was expected with a balanced mix of hope and anxiety. Baby boomers were still largely in control of all the economic levers and the G-Xens were growing increasingly cynical and disaffected as they woke up in fright from the American Dream. Riots broke out at the WTO meeting in Seattle and other subsequent ones, revealing a simmering discontent with the lack of opportunities and the precarization of work.

Against that backdrop, a few baby boomer money-grubbers used the "Woodstock" brand to make a quick buck organizing a 30th anniversary event. They hoarded them like cattle and milked them out of every penny in conditions resembling a POW camp - in an abandoned military base of all places. What could go wrong? Not much in fact, all acts appeared on schedule and the audience put up with the deteriorating conditions with incredible forbearance. Until, that is, at the 11th hour the organizers failed to deliver the grand finale everyone expected, so riots, looting and fires broke out which were incredibly photogenic but otherwise inconsequential. The documentary amps up all the events leading to the messy ending with an ominous sense of foreboding, with ticking clock and all, but art here imitates life in letting us down completely with a lackluster ending. The level of analysis is on par with the non-event it describes and the talking heads fly very low in language or analytical ability. One quickly loses count of the instances of "literally" and profanity in the interviews. In fact, one suspects that the British director has it in for Americans, as his cast of characters appears to have been specifically chosen to display the worst stereotypes that the red-white-and-blue slaps the world with: shrill, hyperbolic, self-important blowhards uttering the stupidest platitudes with a smirk. There's even a girl called "Heather" (how perfect is that?) that seems to have become even more annoying today than she was back in 1999.

The lack of self-awareness is strong in this one: in spite of the abundant use of "horrific" and "horrifying" all throughout, and of the protagonists insisting in the that this was an era-defining catastrophe on par with the crash of the Hindenburg or 09/11, the festival attendees wrap it up cheerfully admitting that it was the best day of their lives and that they would do it all over again any time. The organizers also seem quite content, speaking from their mansions or corporate offices and never asked about the 37 million dollars they cashed in overpriced tickets. It is also never explored who decided that it was a good idea to charge 4 dollars for a water bottle or who was in charge of the garbage collection and couldn't be bothered. A couple of accidental deaths and four rapes are mentioned but no solid evidence is produced to back them up, nor are responsible people, suspects or police investigations mentioned. In any case, if any deaths or rapes happened, they were hardly related to the riots at the festival's end (which is quite astonishing to be honest). Compare that to the three confirmed (with name, surname and cause of death) deaths at the original Woodstock in 1969 and four at the subsequent Altamont Speedway Free Festival in the same year. So much for the Peace and Love generation. So, to sum up, inappropriate context, quick-fire editing, grating interviews, messy footage, no music, and a disappointing ending all blend perfectly to produce a completely forgettable feature which is not even original: just an also-ran to a similarly poor effort from HBO max. Oh well, at least they spared us Moby in this one. If you want to see how it's done watch "Gimme Shelter" instead.

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Shut up and take my money Mr. Cruise

[9/10 · 24 May 2022]

This is what going to the theater used to be all about. No, you are not going there to be challenged about geopolitics, global inequality or climate change. You want escapist fun, a thrilling joyride to forget about it all and feel a rush of adrenaline without actually putting your body on the line.

I have a personal connection to Top Gun in that it was the first movie I ever watched at the theater, back when in was six years old in 1986. So it was very difficult to disappoint me to begin with. But I was still pleasantly surprised by the quality of this product, the rewatch potential is almost 100%

Mr Cruise is pushing 60 but hits all the marks perfectly. Perfectly I tell you! He puts himself in the foreground, as expected, but gives the right amount of space to the younger performers. Jennifer Connelly is pitch-perfect as the love interest and they even allowed themselves a few self-deprecating jokes.

I have enormous admiration for this cinematic achievement, for the engineering prowess behind the creation and construction of the planes on display and for the almost unreal skill of the pilots involved. This is such a treat - if, like me, you are an X-Gen old-timer, this will be right down your alley, trust me!

Masters of the Universe: Revelation (2021)

The desperation is strong in this one

[1/10 · 23 July 2021]

Not a good sign when the animation is embarrassing even for 1987 standards. When the opening contains no music and the voices are a far cry from the originals that gave the characters so much... well, character. This is the swan song of Netflix, a platform that overstayed its welcome and now thinks it can get away with anything. But no.

Annihilation (I) (2018)

Fear What's Dumped in Netflix

[3/10 · 19 March 2018]

I awaited eagerly the release of this movie, as I am an avid consumer of science-fiction. I usually rate Sci-Fi flicks slightly above what they deserve, just because it is an intrinsically challenging genre and filmmakers should be commended just for trying their hand at it. In this case, however, I feel this movie was vastly overrated and my rating of 3 stars is an attempt to bring balance to the hype. I will provide some background to the story but keep my review spoiler-free.

The premise of this movie is by no means original and yet remains a compelling one. Some alien force takes over an area on the Pacific Coast of the USA and transforms it into a realm of mystery that gets bigger by the hour and from which nothing ever returns, The Shimmer. The action gets going when, out of the blue, one lone trooper does eventually return from it and the people in charge decide to send one further expedition, this time composed solely of women of various professional backgrounds, mostly academic/scientific. All of them are given assault weapons, even though only one of them appears to have any military experience. None of them wear any protective gear, even though it has been determined that biological activity is strongly affected within The Shimmer. From here on the flaws in logic, even within the weird world of the movie, begin to pile up so fast that any suspension of disbelief is not possible anymore.

The Professor of Biology in Johns Hopkins University states that "different species cannot cross-breed". Seriously? Ever heard of a mule? It's a cross-breed between a horse and a donkey, two different species. The characters actions are completely irrational, the dialogue is contrived and expository aiming at the lowest possible common denominator. We live in the year 2018, it is very unlikely that anyone watching a science-fiction movie will not have at least a vague idea of what a "mutation" is. The heavy-handed didactical tone of the characters becomes annoying very quickly, besides being unrealistic: people simply don't talk like that unless they are teaching a high school class.

Plot, dialogue, and some of the effects are quite amateurish for such a high budget movie. Some are downright unintentionally hilarious. No matter how spectacular the vistas or the colors, we as an audience are quite desensitized to astonishing visuals at this point. Anything is possible with CGI. When the direction doesn't succeed at making you care about the characters, most of which are quite annoying and act illogically for their outstanding level of education, it is difficult to empathize with their plight and get emotionally involved in the action. The tone is never set unambiguously, what are we supposed to feel? Fear? Anxiety? Tension? Horror? Curiosity? Sadness? It tries to be a blend of all of them and ends up being none.

In summary, the three stars are for the interesting premise and for the ambitious scope of the project. The seven stars that are missing from a tenner are from poor execution at all levels, including the acting, which in a few cases is as amateurish as the characters in the movie. I am worried that Netflix is taking advantage of its 'hostage' audience to force this kind of product on people. This is not high quality science fiction, it is science dumbed down to the level of illiteracy, minus any thought-sparking, tension-building, attention-grabbing plot. An unfulfilling and highly disappointing experience.

Dunkirk (2017)

World War II for millennials

[6/10 · 30 July 2017]

It has finally happened. A WWII movie for kids with the attention span of a lightning bolt, who couldn't care less for historical accuracy nor want to get emotionally involved in anything. A series of dizzying and nauseating POV shots strung together coupled with loud, bombastic music. No plot, no characters, no arc, no sense of purpose whatsoever. Not much in the way of dialogue, and most of it mumbled and inaudible due to the loud music. War as a video game experience? Here it is.

Besides slightly nihilistic Nolan's take on the Dunkirk disaster stroke me as contradictory. 400,000 soldiers were stranded in Europe's longest sand beach, along with 500 tanks and thousands of vehicles and heavy weaponry. They were eventually evacuated by 933 ships, including 39 destroyers, suffering 68,000 casualties. The RAF flew almost 3,000 sorties and lost a whopping 106 planes. The Luftwaffe dropped 45,000 bombs on the city and harbour. I see two mutually exclusive ways of portraying this gargantuan military undertaking: full-on IMAX to capture the big picture or small-scale POV story to capture the human drama. For the former you would use long shots of panoramic vistas and intensive CGI to recreate the colossal numbers I just cited above. For the latter you would go gritty, hand-held camera, following a couple of soldiers through the whole ordeal.

Nolan tried to have his cake and eat it too and did both - and failed at both. Refusing to use CGI, he hired 1,000 extras, managed to get hold of 3 Spitfires, an old Heinkel bomber, a couple of Me109s and Stukas and one destroyer. The massive flotilla of smaller vessels is depicted by something around 20-30 yachts and cruise ships. So much for the gargantuan aspect of the operation. As for the POV action, we follow a pilot, an amateur crew in a leisure craft and a couple of soldiers stranded at the beach. None has any back story and in fact, I can't even remember their names. So there's little if any character development and you fail to connect with them in any meaningful way that would involve emotionally investing in their plight.

The factual mistakes in this movie are so many and so great that I won't even bother listing them here. Besides, Nolan has clearly jumped into the post-truth bandwagon so this is inconsequential. As many reviewers have pointed out "this is not a documentary" - Trump himself would endorse such a poignant rebuttal. Unfortunately once an actor or director has ventured into the world of superhero franchises, all possibility of objective and fair evaluation of their performance is lost. Forever. Fanatical praise and absolute contempt for constructive criticism will abound. Which is another hallmark of millennial thinking.

Irrational Man (2015)

A painful lesson

[1/10 · 5 March 2017]

Maybe the lesson is that you can't make one movie per year and expect them to be all top notch. Although some will be brilliant, many will flunk, and some others will be massive failures, it's pure statistics. Unfortunately, this one sits strongly in the latter category. Even when he is not at the top of his game, Woody Allen manages to make movies that are entertaining, passable or at least watchable. Not this one. After 95 minutes of the first bars of "The In Crowd" repeated endlessly, it is a relief to get to the end titles. Many other reviewers have already pointed out the paper thin, miscast characters, the non-existent script or the laughable cop-out ending. But it gets worse, this movie fails even at technical aspects, which has usually been one of Woody Allen's strong suits. Awfully lit, badly framed scenes and appalling photography contribute to make this a very sad and painful cinematic experience.

One can't fail to notice how Woody's stories have evolved over the course of his directing career from being set in working class Brooklyn to the ultra-rich one percenters in The Hamptons or Martha's Vineyard. Not that there's anything wrong with that, in fact, that is probably the trajectory that Woody Allen's life itself has followed. The problem is that while his previous characters were usually quite likable quirky simpletons or neurotic intellectuals, they have now become unbearably spoiled, cartoonish, vacuous and pretentious ivy leaguers. Who can possibly like, or even feel the slightest interest for such despicable people? I would like to emphasize that this has nothing to do with their affluent lifestyle; you can make strong, interesting characters out of billionaires. The Great Gatsby being a case in point.

Will still watch a Woody Allen movie over a blockbuster any day, and I hope he continues making them for many years. But Irrational Man was a terrible misfire which does him no honor - skip it and you will be missing nothing.

SOMM (2012)

Pathetic

[1/10 · 29 April 2016]

A so-called documentary about four guys who are preparing for the "Master Sommelier" exam. Never mind that we are never told who the organization behind this contest is, or who bestowed upon them the honor of conferring such a dubious distinction. But we are told that you are supposed to completely dominate not only wine tasting, but also five different languages, spirits, cigars, geography, history, climatology, geology and whatnot to pass this exam. Unfortunately all the main characters seem to miss the mark completely, none of them have the demeanor of someone who has been born and raised in a very cultured environment, speaking multiple languages. In fact, they look that they only learned what the capital of Slovenia is just to impress and top their peers. Honestly, it's just a bunch of bros dating bimbos (inexplicably they interview their wives too) whose only goal in life is to be the best at something. Wine is completely irrelevant, they could be talking about sports or any other topic, the only real driver behind it all is competition. Imagine a Master Bach Listener title and a test where you have to identify the piece, the ensemble playing it and provide details about the harmony, composition and sonority. All in 10 seconds. That is how stupid this whole endeavor is. At the end of the day I'm not sure the filmmakers are taking this seriously or it is all just to mock this contest and the participants. Not A SINGLE person appearing in this movie (except for Bo Barrett) is likable, appealing or really impresses us with their understanding of wine. They are a bunch of soulless, superficial, pathologically competitive a*holes fighting about a title no one in the world really cares about nor takes seriously. If you have a minimal appreciation for wine, this movie is downright offensive, so please avoid like the plague.

Generation War (2013)

A flawed approach to deflecting blame

[6/10 · 3 February 2014]

This movie is Germans trying to come to turns with their horrible horrible past. Mind you, every single collective of people in the world has skeletons in the closet, so kudos for them for at least trying. We are still waiting for the French to reflect on what they did in Haiti, the English in India, the Dutch in Indonesia and the Belgians in the Congo. And so on until every single nation is on the list.

What troubles me is that, to achieve its aims, Generation War throws historical accuracy overboard. Here are five friends in their early twenties (two girls, two brothers who are about to be mobilized to Russia and a Jew who is beginning to realize what's coming his way) in 1941 Berlin. The war has been raging for 2 years and the Final Solution is just around the corner. Over the next 4 years each one will go through an ordeal of their own. The take-home message is that all five of them are essentially moral and kindhearted youngsters who are forced circumstances to perform dubious acts, including downright crimes. The makers somehow insist on pretending that these were actual people who actually existed. The problem is that even if people like them did in fact exist, they are far, very far from being representative of a German in their early 20s living in 1941. None of them is a Nazi fanatic. None of them believes that Slavs are sub-humans, or that Jews are vermin contaminating the purity of the Aryan race. They more or less believe in the Final Victory, halfheartedly, but not with the psychotic fanaticism that had been instilled in most youngsters by that time. The plot could have easily shown this and pin it down on the 8 years of brain-washing conducted by the totalitarian Nazi state. If you read letters of German soldiers in the Russian front you will realize that an immense majority among them actually believed that Russians were simply not humans, it had been "proven" to them "scientifically" by the evil propaganda machinery of Goebbels and Rosenberg. And we are talking about cultured and sophisticated guys here. It was this mindset that allowed them to perpetrate the most horrendous atrocities remorselessly. "We were all behaving like zombies, brainwashed by a criminal gang that hijacked the country". That would have been a more historically accurate way of deflecting blame - if you want to call it that way.

This movie also takes the very cheap shot of putting Ukrainians and Poles on the same footing as the Wehrmacht when it comes to war crimes. Surely there is a long history of anti-semitism in Eastern Europe but all in all those countries took way more than they gave. They themselves were brutalized by Germans. That Ukrainians welcomed them as liberators but then reverted to siding with Stalin hints at what happened there. And Poland was barbarized by both Germans and Russians.

Another point of contention. The German treatment of Russian POWs and civilians is unparalleled in its ferocity, probably not since Genghis Khan had the world seen something like it. This issue is carefully dodged in the movie, but it ends up being like trying to hide an elephant in the closet. The couple of times when Russian POWs are depicted they are either idly sitting by or being tended by a German nurse. Again, this is forcing statistics to the breaking point. Perhaps there were a couple of instances where such things happened, but it is so uncommon, so unusual, that it can be squarely considered a total misrepresentation.

Basically that is the approach taken by the script writers here: take the most unusual, exceptional people and facts and lead the viewer to believe that this was the norm. It is a shame and a pity they decided to go that way.

I still give it a thumbs up and recommend viewing for good cinematography, gripping war scenes and overall careful mis-en-scene. Performances are OK without being exceptional. Hopefully there will be more German film-makers willing to pick up where this movie left and set the record straight.

Hôtel Terminus (1988)

French self-indulgence strikes again

[3/10 · 21 January 2014]

This is a French documentary about the sadistic Gestapo commander in Lyon, who captured Jean Moulin, the leader of the French Resistance, during WWII, and tortured and deported a load of other people along the way. Fascinating premise, too bad the result is as exciting as reading a phone-book. Seriously, all you get here is an uninterrupted strain of random people talking in the most monotone and grammatically convoluted way, with no context and no emotion whatsoever. Every single person interviewed, but particularly the director, M. Ophuls, are such boring self-indulgent drags. They seem to enjoy just listening to themselves instead of trying to engage the audience by conveying something other than an exaggerated love for their own mother tongue. Take for instance this question posed to Moulin's former secretary by Ophuls while the camera focuses on himself: "But isn't it incredibly arrogant to try to form an opinion to presume to judge the fragility of the behavior of people who were submitted to torture, or who have... who have, been submitted to torture or, or who have been threatened to be tortured?" Of course in French this takes almost twice the time to spell out. And then it cuts away to him (Ophuls) posing another question to another guy, always in that same overstretched, convoluted and elliptic fashion. The first 30 minutes are spent contrasting the testimonies of different people who disagree as to who was the whistle-blower for Moulin's arrest. But it's so horribly BORING. They might as well be neighbors arguing over who let the garbage bin open for stray dogs to make the sidewalk dirty, when in fact they are discussing matters of life and death. Very, very poor result for such a fascinating premise. I had high expectations for this documentary and was completely disappointed.

Thesis on a Homicide (2013)

Unfulfilled promise of a good thriller

[5/10 · 17 January 2013]

Following up on the success of "The secret in their eyes" comes another Argentine psychological thriller starring Ricardo Darín, a professor of law who suspects one of his students of committing a heinous crime in the university where he teaches a postgraduate course on law. Strong performances all around, especially Calu Rivero as the victim's sister. Unfortunately there are some very serious flaws in the pace and cinematography, which at times gets so pretentious it comes across as amateurish. The first 60 minutes of this movie are excruciatingly slow and filled with close-up shots. Close-ups of hands, eyes, fingers, cigarettes, coffee mugs. The very few wide shots are from a very low angle. Whether the idea was to make it experimental or artsy, it failed, and it becomes annoying when you get to see the dirt in the skin pores of the protagonist.

The topics of justice, fairness, ethics and the law are brought up repeatedly but regrettably never get discussed deeper than coffee-table level. The plot is set up in a promising and original way, but it quickly gets bogged down in a succession of long, meaningless shots and the story loses grip. After a while the suspense atmosphere appears contrived and more or less imposed by the music and the cinematography rather than the story unfolding. This movie could have been great, but some of the key elements that make a good crime/psychological thriller are absent.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Doesn't disappoint

[7/10 · 14 December 2012]

"Expectations" is the name of the game for this movie. If you are expecting a 'LOTR reloaded' kind of flick, you will certainly come out whining. However if you keep in mind that the spirit of the original book is completely different to the epic-to-end-all-epics tone of LOTR (in fact, The Hobbit is a story that JRR Tolkien improvised to put his children to sleep), then you will enjoy this journey.

It is hard not to enjoy a movie made with so much attention to detail and such impressive visuals. The cinematography is flawless and the photography is stunning. Doesn't remind you at all of a little chubby someone who recently sold his company to Disney and can only shoot flat angles and shot, reverse-shot dialogs. No, this is top-class film-making and story-telling. I particularly enjoyed the extensive use of the original fictional languages by the characters, it was a wonderful touch by PJ.

On the cons side, you can say that some scenes drag on unnecessarily, the run time could have easily been cut to 2 hours with no harm to the story. Some characters from the LOTR are shoehorned in this one with no particular reason other than referencing the original trilogy. And finally the chase in the caves seems more fitting to a video game than a motion picture.

Although this is far from a masterpiece, it still is a very enjoyable movie, quite possibly the best of 2012 hands down. If you know what to expect you won't be disappointed. Looking forward to the next installment.

Futurama (1999– )

Wrongly timed, deceptively marketed

[3/10 · 29 August 2012]

In 1999 the series "The Simpsons" was on season 10 and beginning to run out of creative steam - its last universally praised episode was Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo, aired in May that year (from then on the series has been a money grab and more and more oriented to children rather than adults). So it was with huge anticipation that in the midst of the turn- of-the-millennium frenzy, Fox announced a new series from the creator of The Simpsons that would be set a full 1000 years in the future.

I, for one, was a huge fan of The Simpsons back then (not anymore) and of scifi (still am), so I couldn't have been more eager. And then it came out. I think I dropped it after 4 or 5 episodes and over the last decade I have been watching bits and pieces, mostly through not changing the channel over dinner.

The animation and the visuals of the show in general are high standard. There are a few very clever ideas about the future chucked into it as well, some original and some adapted from scifi literature. And yet the series totally fails at engaging the viewers and fueling their curiosity (this fact is borne out, or rather, the reason, that the series was prematurely cancelled in 2002). Why? I'll try to answer based on my own experience.

The first and foremost problem with this series is the tone. The Simpsons are a dysfunctional middle-class family of the American suburbia. You know what to expect from that premise. The day-to-day life of the family is used to depict and criticize (using a generous helping of wit and sarcasm) specific individuals or institutions and society in general. I have no idea what the tone is in Futurama. You have a random guy that gets accidentally transported to the future. Is it about him trying to go back? Nope. Is it about how bleak and dystopic the future is? Niet. It doesn't feel like anything, and that's usually a big problem. It's not scifi, it's not wacky space adventures, it's not a quest to go back, and it's not grossout comedy, but rather a very insipid blend of it all in a horrid and overused sitcom format.

Secondly, let's look at the characters. In The Simpsons, the characters are very strong and internally consistent, you tend to know how they will behave and react because they have clear-cut personalities and motivations. They are also deep and feel human so it's easy to connect with either one of them, according to your own personality. There's nothing of the sort in Futurama. The main character is Fry, a bungling doofus of probably less than average intelligence who has no redeeming feature whatsoever. He's not smart and idealistic like Lisa, structured and systematic like Marge, cunning like Bart, aloof like Maggie or a complete idiot (yet creative and likable) like Homer. He's a selfish, immature, dull average Joe. Mind you, Fry is the very person with whom the audience is supposed to connect with, since he is the only real human of the series and we are his contemporaries. The rest of the cast is just as bland, random, annoyingly quirky, one-dimensional and off-putting as he is. In a massive casting misstep, the writers followed the 90s canon of politically correct diversity quota, even though the series is set a whole millennium later. Thus, we have a Jamaican overweight guy, an Asian chick, an old man, a "handicapped" lobster-man, the good-looking chick and the completely devoid of scruples annoying alcoholic a-hole. Bet you you had never seen such a bunch before? Lastly, I found the script lacking if not completely non-existent and the setting in the distant future is never fully taken advantage of. There were many potential directions the story could have followed, instead, after a promising start with the dumbass protagonist arriving in 2999, the whole thing gets bogged down in utter nothingness. You could use the distant future setting for social or political criticism of our own time, as is usual for scifi. They never do this consistently. You could bestow Fry with some kind of drive, any would do really, but the most obvious would be trying to figure out a way to go back to 1999? I guess? Yet this is almost immediately lost and only picked up again once in a blue moon. Or you could have him help out the crew in some kind of quest or errand. Instead, he just blends in with the bunch of misfits as yet another good-for-nothing and off they go into yet another workplace sitcom with the most contrived plot devices. The rest of the cast being weird aliens is now and then exploited to produce creative twists or turns in the story, yet they do the same stupid trivial and mundane things as they would have done as next door guys in 1999. For instance: the lobster guy has a go at stand-up comedy and flops. So they write to his uncle who was a very successful comedian for tips. Mmmh-uh. They didn't need to be lobster men from 2999 for this to happen right? Oh yes, but they write letters to one another using ink they produce from their ass. So there's your pun.

To sum up, although technically flawless, the series had a very interesting premise which was never exploited. They recycled all the worst clichés and devices of 90s sitcoms, just as they were growing old and boring audiences in 1999. Maybe this series could have worked 10 years earlier. It was almost a case of deceptive advertising, an original scifi comedy was announced and a dull, trite, workplace sitcom was delivered. Very disappointing indeed.

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

It could have worked

[8/10 · 2 February 2012]

But it didn't. Will Ferrell delivers the performance of his lifetime though, and that's probably the only thing that can keep you going all the way till the end titles.

The greatest merit of this movie is supposed to be its quirky, non-linear narrative and yet there's a misplaced feel-good tone and a nauseatingly clichéd Hollywood happy ending.

In a nutshell: the most grey, dull, mechanical, efficient, obsessive, lonely, soulless IRS employee in the whole history of the universe (Ferrell) discovers a voice in OFF that narrates his life. He sets out to discover what the heck is going on and ends up consulting with Dustin Hoffman, an annoying, overacted literature professor who sips his coffee in a way that is known to drive some people into a homicidal frenzy.

They discover that Ferrell's life is actually being created on-the-go by a famous writer, overplayed by Emma Thompson. She inexplicably has Queen Latifah as an 'assistant'(?) to finish the novel on Ferrell's life, although at no point is it shown in what capacity she helps on that, unless sarcasm and smug get books finished.

In the process of all that quirkiness happening, Ferrell goes through a metamorphosis and reveals a tender soul where dwells a funny, creative, flirtatious guy who scores with a hot anarchist hippie (who hates to pay taxes), by playing a lousy song on a guitar.

If you haven't been nauseated away at this point you discover that Emma Thompson (who is the best writer alive) kills off all of her characters in her books, so Ferrell's life is in clear and present danger. Sound stupid enough? Yes, the best writer in the whole planet ALWAYS kills her main characters. So the whole story revolves around what to do next, leave Ferrell alive for a mediocre story or wipe him out and score a 'masterpiece'. This is a great plot device to introduce at least a pinch of thoughfulness, introspection, questions about life and death, free will, fate, art and... well, no, forget it. The whole knot is undone with a romantic comedy twist that makes you feel cheated, and cloyed as if you had had 20 mars bars in one sitting.

In summary, a promising first 15 minutes with a clever premise, but nothing to write home about when the end titles start rolling. What a shame. Watch "Adaptation" and you'll see what this movie wanted to be but couldn't.

Free Zone (2005)

Is this a drama? Is this a movie? Am I still alive?

[1/10 · 2 February 2012]

Those are the kind of questions the viewing of this flick will trigger in your mind.

First we see the opening titles against a black background. At 01m10s there's a close-up of Natalie Portman staring through a car window. It's raining. A dramatic 1980s pop song sang in Hebrew by a woman plays in the background. Natalie starts crying. At 04m27s Natalie lowers the car window. She keeps crying inconsolably. At 05m50s the song in the background starts to fade out. Natalie keeps crying. Crying, crying, crying and weeping. Singing is heard from what appears to be a procession or a funeral outside. At 06m55s Natalie rolls the car window up. Still crying. Shockingly, at 07m06s she says "can we go?" and then something in Hebrew. A dialogue ensues with a woman on the driver's seat about going somewhere. At 09m06s we hear the car engine starting. The car moves. At 09m50s something incredible happens: the camera position changes from Natalie's face where it had been up to now without interruption, to her p.o.v. in the back seat of the car. Now we see a road. I couldn't get past this point and decided to go out for a pizza. I recommend that you save your time and go straight for the pizza. It was the best thing about this movie.

Persepolis (2007)

A good movie for children

[5/10 · 5 January 2012]

Interesting demographics from IMDb: the age group that rated this movie the highest is "males under 18" (8.6). That is an enlightening piece of data.

In a nutshell the story is about an upper middle class girl in Teheran who grows up witnessing the political turbulence in 1970s Iran. That could make a good story, the problem is that "witnessing" may be too strong a word here, "staring blankly" would be closer to the mark. The protagonist does not seem to commit, care or even remotely understand any of the events around her and this applies to her at ALL ages depicted in the movie. It's flabbergasting to me how some reviewers could find her character engaging, while others go as far as praising her "courage". This is plain insulting to people who put their bodies on the line while the little spoiled brat just went to Vienna and Paris to drink, smoke and date as many dull and stupid guys as she could. And when she gets bored she goes back to Iran, because she loves her homeland so much (?).

The expressionistic visuals are good, but certainly fail to convey the drama of the revolution, war, and other emotional events depicted in the movie, rather lending them a surreal feel that is not what it should be like for relatively recent historical events. No single character has any depth to them, and this is not due to the movie being an animation. With the exception of the uncle everyone's motivations are shallow and hedonistic, which is not what you would expect in such turbulent times.

In a country of 75 million I'd bet my house that any random 40-year-old person you picked on the street would have a more interesting and engaging walk of life than the director/protagonist of this movie. But as the IMDb demographics show, if you are under 18, you'll probably like "Persepolis", learn some basics about a country called Iran and your 90 minutes will not be wasted.

Horrible Bosses (2011)

Horrible in every possible way

[1/10 · 23 December 2011]

It's difficult to write 10 lines about this movie, but after wasting 60 minutes of my life on it, I might as well save other people's time.

Roger Ebert gave this 3.5 stars. But we know Roger by now, he also gave The Phantom Menace 3.5 stars.

IMDb has it rated at 7.1, but again, nowadays children as young as 3 can access the internet and probably know how to click on the little stars.

I had to turn my TV off at the 60 min mark because it was impossible for me to stomach anymore of this completely over-the-top, uninteresting, lame, repetitive, clichéd, bigoted, and horribly miscast piece of crap. Hey guys, you sure Jason Sudeikis was meant to be the suave womanizer and not Jason Bateman? At least he has the looks and doesn't act like a mentally impaired 12-year-old. And Charlie Day makes you want to go out on a homicidal rampage like Michael Douglas. His character is introduced as someone whose "childhood dream was to be a husband". What kind of B.S. is that???

Were it not for Kevin Spacey and Colin Farrell I wouldn't have made it past the 10 minute mark. But please avoid like the plague.

The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)

A decent but overrated movie

[5/10 · 22 April 2010]

I think Campanella was never able to decide whether to make a police thriller, a suspense drama, a romantic comedy or a comedy of manners, then decided to stick in a bit of everything. What emerged is a hodgepodge that considerably reduces the effectiveness of the film. There are constant and annoying changes of tone: you get into the oppressive atmosphere of courts and then you are transported to a comedy scene in a countryside town. The action takes place in two units of time, the 70s and the year 2000, but interest is almost entirely concentrated in the past. The current scenes are just forced dialog between Darin and Villamil that at no time justify the revisionism on which the whole story is based. To add confusion, real events are interspersed with imaginary situations from the head of Darin writing his novel.

Plot

A court employee retires and decides to write a novel about a court case in which he participated during the 70s. This is loosely tied to a very feeble and uninteresting love story between himself and a colleague. Both the court case and his love story are unfinished business he somehow decides to deal with now, although we are never told why. In fact, the motivation of any of the characters for what they do is hardly clear ever.

The crime story has a good hook up to halfway through the movie, when the case is solved, without too many turns in fact, and it becomes clear that the murderer is Isidoro Gómez. The interrogation scene, on top of the gratuitous male nudity bit, is not an ode to finesse. So instead of punching him stupid until he confesses (after all that's what they did with the other two poor fellows before), Hastings decides to get him pumped? Wow. Psychopaths are usually devilishly clever and, by definition, unbreakable psychologically, so you would expect him to just play along under duress. Here they just got lucky and caught the stupidest psychopathic murderer of all time.

IMO the film climaxes at the scene where Gomez, now free and doing free-lance work for the paramilitary forces of the government (hint to Argentina history here, very obscure to foreigners though), enters the elevator with the other two and forks out a gun. This sequence is great. From here on it is difficult to imagine what twists and turns might top this, because the several story lines of narrative converge neatly with historical framework. But no, Campanella's weak spot for Hollywood comes out. He switches the focus to the romantic side plot, and starts to add turns to the crime story to use it as a catalyst for the development of the romance between Esposito and Hastings. This affair has less credibility than that of Anakin Skywalker and Natalie Portman and really does not come even close to generate the same interest as the investigation of rape followed by murder. From this point onward there's an abuse of closeups on and references to eyes ("the love I saw in the eyes of this dude", etc). Okay, we get it, the movie is called The Secret In Their Eyes, you do not need to hit us with a pan on the head with it, genius. Darin, who for those who have seen him before, had been playing himself quite flawlessly, starts to under and overact horribly. He goes after Morales, who in 25 years has aged about 50 and is even having trouble to walk (!). A very forced dialogs ensues, and when Esposito leaves, Campanella turns the "Agatha Christie Mode: ON". Esposito begins to tie up loose ends with flashbacks of pictures and voices, so he turns around and well, the film finally flounders with the absurd and grotesque scene of the home prison.

Verdict

Technically the film is flawless. Photography is great and the director uses the camera smartly to set the tone. The plot is compelling and leaves one on the edge of the seat until halfway through, where the writer obviously ran out of ideas and decided to stuff things in for sheer convenience. The potential to exploit the convulsed Argentine political background of the 1970s is wasted. The moral overtone about justice and punishment is extremely risky and borderline appalling, I'm surprised no one has commented on this so far. The motivation of characters is seldom clear. The ending scene made me cringe for its cheesiness and implausibility.

All in all it is worth watching this movie, but it is far from the memorable masterpiece some people have represented. Thus I have focused mostly on the negative aspects of it, but there are various aspects on which it does deserve praise, especially coming from a country were the film-making industry is small and chronically underfunded.