steve1480 Reviews

Togetherness (2015–2016)

Lovely, Amazing, Funny.

[8/10 · 8 March 2015]

It's sad that so many people can't appreciate this show. We're apparently miles apart...in sensibility. To my mind there is a unique, original kind of imagination behind it. I see it pointing the way toward a new maturity in pop filmmaking. In fact it brings the best of indie film sensibility to the small screen. It's significant that Nicole Holofcener directed one of the episodes, because her 2001 film "Lovely and Amazing" can be seen as a progenitor of the Duplass brother's capacities and interests here. I also don't think I have ever seen filmmaking that had me laughing so gratefully at such odd moments. The show's comic sensibility is very restrained and subtle. The brothers see a direction thru yearning and frustration that avoids despair and violence at all costs. It's obvious that parenthood has played a major role in getting them to this point. The portraits of the infant, for instance, are stunning.

Tehilim (2007)

Another Aesthetically Deplorable Film with No Ending

[2/10 · 30 December 2013]

Oy! Again with the no ending. Okay, Israeli filmmaking hasn't been spared this malaise. Ya'know, it really isn't fair: these people know how to make films, they understand acting, editing, movement, color, the whole thing...except the ethics of storytelling. This is about the fourth time I have run into this menace on Netflix. The world of a movie is a closed world, an imaginary world and filmmakers have a responsibility to their viewers to tell a complete story. Either that or let us know we are watching the first reel of a serial to be completed in our minds. If a guy walks out of a film, as the dad does in this film, we, as those who have invested time in the offering - valuable time - have a right to a complete story. If the artists can't come up with a plausible ending they shouldn't make the film. If they can but insist on keeping us out in the cold so as to mimic our ignorance in real life or some such teaching position, then they deserve to have the plug pulled on them. I am figuring that the reason behind this particular filmmaker's sado-masochist (willfully withholding gratification) chop cut ending is some kind of political point he is trying to make regarding the futility of religious faith. Only problem is, they also have no faith in art and no real sense of literature. In the end nothing is inexplicable. Something always happens. There are reasons and stories behind everything. Everything. Maybe this is post-modernism, as in "Deal with it viewers, you have to manifest the ending in your own minds". Feh.

The Vanishing (1988)

Despicable, hateful film

[1/10 · 6 October 2013]

There are horror films that are meant to scare but leave one whole, and then there are those that mean to maim our souls, to give us a simulation of a kind of cruelty that is unimaginable to most of us, a kind of cruelty that one would never want to imagine, a kind of nightmarish cruelty that the imagining of alone would constitute a kind of punishment. Once you see something iike this you can't un-see it. You are marked for life. Luckily I encountered this piece of sado-masochism on Hulu+ where I was able to skip ahead to the ending, having picked up clues somehow that I was viewing something made by a filmmaker without pity. Here's pity for the person who would inflict such an imagining on us.

It's a Disaster (2012)

Clueless Young Adults Confront Haha Imminent Death

[1/10 · 30 August 2013]

God-awful, unsatisfying movie about a bunch of really clueless people, each more annoying than the one before, who get caught in a house during a national multi-city dirty bomb attack that is killing everything that comes in contact with the air outside. They tape up the cracks to the outside but at some point come to the conclusion that they are doomed and there is no way they will be able to ride out the gas and it will eventually leak in. One of the group, in an attempt to help everyone have a spiritually benign afterlife, adds rat poison and barbiturates to some wine for everyone to enjoy. When this is discovered a discussion ensues, and it's finally decided that, tho no one believes in the culprit's religious views, drinking the wine will in fact allow them to escape the horrible death from the gas that awaits them. They decide to drink the wine on the count of three and the movie ends abruptly after they twice balk at doing it. This is all sort of played for laughs, by the way, but the ending isn't funny. It's up to us to imagine it.

I feel sure that people don't get to make and market moronic movies like this in the rest of the world. What is wrong with our culture that this kind of thing is brought before us as a major release with talented actors? Someone has too much money.

I'm not going to try and deconstruct the action that takes place during the hour or so before the final scene...what these people go through, the parts they play, the games they play with one another while contemplating the end of their lives...because it is all so clichéd, trite and uninteresting. See for yourself. I will confess to enjoying two or three good lines but all in all a great, great waste of time.

The Great Gatsby (2013)

Makes One Want to Avoid Book at All Costs. Serious Razzie Contender.

[2/10 · 30 August 2013]

Occasionally one comes across the movie version of a novel that makes one anxious to read the book - Brideshead Revisited comes to mind. This picture on the other hand makes it clear why, more often than not, book lovers are hesitant to even see movie versions of beloved books: it's not pleasant seeing ones dreams treated poorly. Baz Luhrman, here, seems determined to turn Gatsby into a grotesquely mannered pop-cgi cartoon opera. Our minds and hearts are assaulted by old roadsters flying through busy streets at three to four times their normal speed and a horrific soundtrack of amped up contemporary sounds including hip-hop. The acting is so arch/over-the-top that one finds oneself actually looking away in embarrassment. The actor's facial gestures, DeCaprio's in particular, are at times so extreme and unnatural that one wonders if Luhrman were trying to get them to appear as tho they were in a silent film from the era. Yet we're expected to pick up the emotional ball when's things become truly serious. We're meant to feel for these marionettes. Amazing costumes and sets tho. Tour de force in that era. Ditto fireworks and photography. So this is the $100 million Saturday morning cartoon version of Gatsby...could be collecting multiple Razzy Awards.

Clear History (2013 TV Movie)

Three Laughs Out of a Hundred "Jokes"

[3/10 · 29 August 2013]

Kate Hudson actually cracks up entirely out of character in this movie and it's been left in, the filmmakers having presumably convinced themselves that the audience has so thoroughly bought in to their stick figure reality that it will just accept the moment as quirky/delightful. No. This is just another vastly self indulgent pastiche of over acted improv bits making it clear again that there is some kind of illiterate, crap-comedy virus weaving its way through Hollywood. One's jaw drops to find a community filled with movieland celebs plotzing over the remade "history cleared" Larry David. How could it be possible that anybody likes this Constant Whiner? They don't go into it and in fact give ample evidence for the absurdity of the idea. This is not a half-hour episode of quick jokes in an imagined environment whose history we well know, such as Curb or Seinfeld....this is a full length movie and the non- sequiturs start to add up very quickly. Nothing grates like seeing real movie stars giving performances worthy of bad community theater often too serious and too "funny" at the same time. The many testimonies on the movie website to the joy and creativity of doing improv with Larry give additional evidence as to the addled and deluded world these people live in. Philip Baker-Hall thinks the David Method is superior to Stella Adler etc. Bwahahaha. The characters in this film are the Walking Comedic Dead. Reality Score on a scale 1-10: 1 Giving it a 3 for the scenery, Larry David's make-up and the star sightings. Only guy missing is Michael J. Fox, God bless him for staying home.

Macho (2009)

deja vu all over again

[3/10 · 5 June 2013]

Ground Hog Day without the ending. It's very sad to me that young people are making films when they really don't have much to say. This is a movie about two interesting people who have a sexual attraction but not much else. They don't seem to have any life outside of the bed. The filmmakers hasn't given them any life outside of the bed. Okay, it's kind of hip. There's a cool party scene or two. Yadda yadda. He's supposed to be in love with her but why? We have no idea. He's just that way. Then she breaks up with him, he mourns, looks at their twee memorabilia, gets over it, goes to party and, beer in hand, always a beer, gets together with another late 20's red head and the movie ends. Help!!!!

Fairhaven (2012)

Beautifully Made but Incomplete

[6/10 · 24 April 2013]

You know, it isn't easy to make a good movie. To begin with, I believe you need a good script. That is to say, in my mind at least, the story has to be complete. You can have great acting, great direction, great film making and yet, because of the script itself, it's literary values, the film isn't complete. The story isn't complete.

That is the case with this movie. (Spoiler Alert) Two of three main characters are released, so to speak, from their torment. The third character, the one played by Messina: we don't really know what happens to him. He goes back into the oblivion.

These are my film aesthetics: the viewers need to have the complete story. It's fine if a character doesn't come to terms with his life, but we want to know how. Messina's character has screwed up his life. He's run away from a tough situation with a woman he loved and he has refused to understand his parents. His girl has found another guy. His life has been emptied out. But the movie leaves him pretty much where it found him, except now he most likely knows he has screwed up. It's not enough.

I obviously hate it when filmmakers leave things hanging. I really believe there's a laziness to it. If they can't complete the story they shouldn't make the film.

Watching the Detectives (2007)

many great laughs in a shallow pond

[7/10 · 25 June 2008]

This is an original movie with some amazingly funny and surprising moments, some preposterously bad acting and action, and a premise and resolution that really strains the imagination. Plus some very very good lines. It's a movie that plays, rather joyously, at 'being dumb' (Lucy Liu's nipple pops out of her dress and remains there for a whole scene) but creates hysterical situations and carries them off thru the sheer pleasure of Murphy's enthusiasm. Liu's athleticism is on subtle display and it is pretty amazing. It also has two of the best rock and roll moments I've ever seen in films; one, a great indie band in a club running thru the heart riff of a unique song and two, a highly produced backyard karaoke performance that perfectly resolves the needs of the film's moment. The ending is kind of forced but to come up with a real resolution of this story would take a writer of true genius. Summary: not so good, but you can't find this many laughs of this quality very easily. A must-see for a totally non-serious I-don't-know-what-to-do-today day.

Lovelife (1997)

Wonderful, Wonderful Film

[10/10 · 11 February 2008]

Minor masterpiece. Everybody gets not only what they deserve but what is best for them. Saffron Burrows, dumping her shallow lover, explodes in a controlled rage that is so perfectly positioned I could only shake my head in wonder and admiration, and I have never seen anything quite so uniquely touching in a film as Carla Gugino's funky gesture re Matt Letscher's brow sweat. I could go on and on. No clichés. One of those rare movies in which every scene surprises. Great depth and restraint to the performances. These actors may never again get a chance to be so human in a film. Very, very amusing on what I would call a high level. And LA has never looked more idyllic, perfect for what is being served up: palpable Grace. Postscript 2020: this filmmakers last directing job. !!!! What a world.