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starrywisdom
Reviews
Heaven (2002)
More Like Hell
What a piece of pretentious claptrap. This is why I really, really hate European movies: they all seem to think breathless non-dialogue and ridiculous premises and big over-dramatic ambiguous endings are, you know, Art. More like Crap. Cate Blanchett was wasted and the other actors were just painful to watch. Not to mention the fact that the premise of this utter boresome snooze made no sense whatsoever. So, her husband was dead, there were drugs pushed by the big bad, she made an oopsie that killed four people, there are these Big Significant Connections between the two protagonists...what a crock. Doesn't require a suspension of disbelief but more like a total abdication of common sense. I really hope Blanchett didn't actually cut her hair for this, because it was a vain sacrifice if she did. There's a couple hours of my life I won't get back. Oh, and the half English half Italian dialogue trick was just plain tiresome. Do yourself a favor: go read a book instead. It gets a 3 for the gorgeous scenery and architecture. That's it.
NYC 22 (2012)
Give It A Bullet
Puerile nicknames, soapy plots, jargony dialogue, unrealistic situations...I tried to give this one a shot, because I like shows with genuine NYC backgrounds and this one delivers on that score.
But not on any other. Too many people doing incomprehensible, unrealistic things. Background music is awful, as others have noted. And, well, Adam Goldberg's chipmunk cheeks distract me. So now his character, besides being a failed journalist, is a closet drunk, apparently? Lord, Lord, are we to be spared no cliché of the cop genre? We've had the overbearing dad pushing his kid into the force, the spunky women with chips on their shoulders trying to prove themselves, the ethnic girlfriend with something shady going on, and many more I can't even recall because my eyes are burning with the awfulness of it all. Plus between this and "Blue Bloods", I'm just sick of copycat cops. Won't be watching any further eps. Though it is nice to see Leelee Sobieski.
Peter Pan (2003)
Fairy-Dusted!
What an absolute delight. I'm old enough to have seen, as a child, the Disney version when it was first released, and yeah, it was okay, but I'd read the book/play first, and thought it was pretty cheesy, especially the songs.
But this is simply brilliant. The casting could not be bettered: the incredibly talented and lovely Jeremy Sumpter and Rachel Hurd-Wood in particular, and of course the amazing Jason Isaacs. The soaring waltz with Peter and Wendy, and Hook watching from below and lamenting to Tinker Bell, is probably my favorite moment in the film. Well, along with the "I do believe in fairies! I do! I do!" part, which is so corny in other versions and instead is so gorgeously handled here...you really do believe, you do, you do! And all this talk here about alleged grossness or oversexualization or whatever: what rubbish. Sure, it has subtext (growing up, the tension between being a kid and being an adult, parent-child relationships), but without getting all Freudian about it, so what? That's what great stories do. They tell stories, but they also have all this other stuff going on.
Plus the movie is a total stunner. Art direction, costumes, photography, music...all are exquisite. I went and bought the DVD just to have it around, when I feel just too grownup to feel good about things and could use a little trip to Neverland...and Peter is always there. What a joy this movie is.
Tristan + Isolde (2006)
Wood Floats, Franco Doesn't
I missed the first 20 minutes...why is he Tristan of "Aragon", which is Spanish? Very odd. But "Tristan" is a true Cornish name, and Isolde (original Yseult) is an ancient Irish one. Not German at all.
As for the film itself, I found it to be much better of its kind than a lot of this sort of thing we've seen lately, like the godawful Keira Knightley "King Arthur", where she looks like a skinny warlike Smurf. Sure, there are plenty of anachronisms (architecture, costume, books), but nothing really glaring. Rufus Sewell is amazing as always, and I liked Sophie Myles and just about everybody else.
Except...
Yeah, that's right, James Franco. What a waste of space. Can't act, not incredibly attractive, mumbles his lines, definitely NOT warrior material...there are so many young British actors who could have done a much, much better job. The spirit of Keanu Reeves lives on! Wasted opportunity here...he's even more wooden than one of the boats.
Down to the Bone (2004)
Bleaker House
I caught this tonight on PBS, in their Independent Film program. Would never have seen it otherwise, which would have been just fine with me.
I found this to be possibly the most depressing, boring, blank thing I've seen in ages, perhaps since the last depressing, boring, blank indie film I watched on PBS.
Why why why do directors and writers...filmmakers...think that this approach makes in any way for compelling and interesting watching? They're so in love with their boring vision that they think everyone else is as well.
Not an engaging moment in the piece. The performances seemed to take place underwater, the actors seemed to actually be on drugs (which may or may not be indicative of their acting skill), and the upstate locations (fond as I am of upstate NY) were photographed, and telegraphed, to be the outward manifestation of the characters' paucity of spirit. Which annoyed the hell out of me. In fact, this whole movie annoyed the hell out of me.
Eye of the Needle (1981)
Blunt "Needle"
I don't know what it is about Donald Sutherland's acting style, or vocal style, but he always seems to be acting from behind a massive wad of soggy Kleenex. He's just...I don't know, THICK? Somnambulistic? On meds? Weird.
That said, I just saw the flick again for the first time since its original release, and frankly, I don't remember it ending anything LIKE that. A bad ending, too, because nothing gets tied off. What about the dead husband? The annoying child (and was the kid dubbed?)? The Scotland Yard and military pursuers? I would have liked something wrapping things up and giving some dramatic closure to it all, not just the big panoramic pull-away.
And what woman sleeps with the man she knows just killed her husband? Even if she was trying to allay Needle's suspicions to protect her kid, she could always have had a headache. That last encounter made me feel way too itchy and uncomfortable...
Star Trek (2009)
Star Drek
As one who has followed Star Trek through all of its various incarnations (except for the last three movies and the entire "Enterprise" series), I have to say that I am very, very disappointed.
First, THE DESTRUCTION OF VULCAN and THE DEATH OF AMANDA. What, pray, is the point?
I HATE this ill-considered retcon and I HATE time travel plot lines. And I very much doubt if I shall bother to go see future entries in the JJA/ST canon. Unless they somehow revert to the original timeline events.
Well, they gave fair warning, I suppose. Abrams and the writers boasted endlessly that "This is not your father's Star Trek", and by the gods of Kronos, they're right about that.
As for the actors: I didn't dig Chris Pine till the end, when he kind of clicked for me. Zachary Quinto was awesome (best line delivery: "Out of the chair..."). Karl Urban, brilliant. Simon Pegg (Scotty), phenomenal. Kid who played Chekov was preposterously awful.
Zoe Saldana was fine, though I didn't really like the romance plot 'twixt her and Spock: what, no Pon Farr and yet he kisses by all appearances with enjoyment? Bah.
Nimoy's appearance was meh: I knew it was him immediately, just as everybody else did, I'm sure. He sounded a little thick and hissy in his sibilants: perhaps he needs some dental tweakage?
I didn't much care for Winona Ryder or Jennifer Morrison... Liked the Taun-Taun and Wampa critters.
The implosion of Vulcan was amazing to look at, however much I hate the new canon. And speaking of canon: so our well-known crew really did get assembled and in charge of the Enterprise at such tender ages? Seems weird. Don't we have references to all of them on other ships before they ended up on 1701?
But perhaps since it appears that the entire senior class of Starfleet Academy was killed, except for the handful on board the Enterprise, that might explain the rapid promotions...
The movie seemed very dark (as in bad lighting) throughout. The cadet uniforms were ridiculous: red longjohns. I wonder if they had feets. Little spacegoing Dr.Dentons! \ And...RED shirts!!! Bit of a spoiler there, perhaps?
Do not like AT ALL the new swirly transporter effect. But that drill/column of fire thingy was really cool.
That Romulan ship looked waaaaaaay too much like a Shadow ship (Babylon 5) for my liking.
Did I say I really, really hate, loathe, detest and despise time travel plot lines? Because I do.
And sorry, but 10,000 surviving Vulcans are not going to be enough to keep the race going. Even if they breed like bunny rabbits. Oh, wait, once every seven years...well, scratch that.
All in all, very disappointed and deeply annoyed.
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
A Glory
Apart from a few quibbles (daffodils in Wales bloom in February/March, not in high summer as the film would have it), I think this is, for the most part, an absolutely amazing piece of work.
It captures exactly the small-minded hypocrisy of village life and the petty viciousness of the villagers, only too ready to turn on their own, and much as we still see it today. And the spittle-flecked religiosity of Chapel folk of the old school. But it also brings to the screen the warmth and beauty of family life and living in an age that will never come again.
Although Maureen O'Hara seems to recycle her skittering servility for "The Quiet Man," for the most part the women's performances, especially Sara Allgood and Anna Lee, are luminous. Donald Crisp is a marvel, and the actors who play the Morgan sons are solid. And even the Welsh is correctly pronounced, which is a marvel of itself.
As for the music that ties it all together, it is sublime. I am so glad that this magnificent film prevailed in the Oscars over the tired, tiresome, arid and boring "Citizen Kane." For once, the Academy got it right.
The Avengers: Too Many Christmas Trees (1965)
An Avengers Christmas
I loved this episode when I saw it way back on its first US television run, and I love it just as much now.
I don't even care that it breaks Avengers "conventions", with its ESP and telepathy-based plot. Steed and Mrs. Peel are an absolute delight, and the Dickens stuff is great fun. Plus the country house is spectacular.
It's just such a joy to watch these two pros skate elegantly across acres of double-entendres, obviously enjoying themselves as much as we are. And Emma reverses when she waltzes! Who knew? And Steed wanted socks for Christmas, just like Dumbledore...
Anyway, possibly my single favorite Avengers ep ever. Don't miss it.
Armageddon (1998)
Okay, I'm A Sucker For Stuff Like This
Yeah, yeah, I know the science is rubbish, and the acting (except for the adorable Owen Wilson and the estimable Will Patton) is trash, and the script is laughable. Except...when it's not.
I confess! I always tear up at the end, ham-handed and hammer-subtle as it is: the wall painting of JFK and the little kid with his spaceship toy and all the rest. I don't watch it for enlightenment, or to admire good direction or good acting. I just watch for fun, and I've probably seen it a dozen times on TV.
I have a thing for end-of-the-world movies, and I also enjoy, if that's the right word, everything from "Earthquake" and "Volcano" and "Dante's Peak" to "Deep Impact" and "Day After Tomorrow." It's a weakness, but it's MY weakness. Better that than bonbons.
King Arthur (2004)
Oh, Woad Is Me!
You know, I know just a bit about King Arthur. (And by "just a bit" I really mean "I'm an entry in 'The Arthurian Encyclopedia'"...no, really. I am.)
And this? What. A. Piece. Of. Poo.
The historical inaccuracies are beyond counting...
The WOADS??? What's wrong with calling them Picts? The Round Table was a bunch of SARMATIANS??? Not bloody likely; Rome did not generally post such people to the ends of empire. (The few Sarmatians sent to Britain were gone by about 200 CE, 250 years before the movie has them there. Rome didn't like to post conquered "ethnics" to the far-flung corners of other conquered ethnic lands: afraid the auxiliaries would sympathize, and go native and desert or rebel against the Eagles. And NEVER were they without a firm solid-Roman legionary hand over them, just in case.)
A Sarmatian named LANCELOT??? And Galahad and Bors???
A Christian boy destined to be pope called ALECTO (name of a Harpy)?
The Pope running things as a military commander and dictating Rome's foreign policy? Nuh-uh. By then Rome was ruled from Constantinople anyway.
Pelagius? He died before the historical Arthur was born. They could never have been friends.
The Roman pull-out from Britain happened 50 years before the movie says it did. And the Saxons didn't invade until many years into the reign of "Arthur", whoever he was. Hengist and Horsa, people!
Bogus battle tactics. In those days, you were infantry OR cavalry, not both. And you don't hurl your axe in battle, 'cause you might never get it back and what will you do after you've flung it and people who hung on to theirs come after you? You're toast, baby.
BADON HILL??? Came at the end of Arthur's reign, not the beginning.
Mail? Though the Celts invented it centuries before and the Romans improved on it, mail was rare and expensive, and not until the Saxons did it get popular. Nobody back in that day wore dramatic long sweeping cloaks into battle: looks good on film, but they'd impede the sword swing and wrap around your legs.
And that's just some of the FACTUAL stuff.
The violence it does to the legend (The Sword in the Grave? Oh please! As if an expensive thing like that would have lasted stuck out there in the open more than ten minutes!) is even worse. And the Pagan/Christian thing? I won't even get into it, because my head will explode and there's no one around to clean it up.
They couldn't even get the geography right! Giant stone fortresses? Never existed in 5th-century Britain.
Stonehenge at TINTAGEL?? No. Just...no. Tintagel on sea. Stonehenge inland. Way inland.
Wall in North. No Romans north of Wall, with big fancy villas or not.
No Saxons coming from north of Wall. They came from the east and south, like the Vikings 300 years later.
No glaciers or big giant frozen lakes in Britain, except during the Ice Age 10,000 years previously.
David Franzoni, a scriptwriter I have liked, was asleep at the wheel for this one. He just didn't do his homework. Or maybe the dog ate it and he threw together this farrago so he could hand it in on time. Or maybe he got it right and Bruckheimer messed around with it. I don't know. But it is truly, truly awful.
Oh, and the really bad Italian accents for the Roman characters? Hilarious. They all sounded as if they should be reciting the daily specials at my favorite pasta palace.
And of COURSE all the leaving knights loyally ride back to the side of the lonely Arthur on the hill awaiting the oncoming Saxon hordes. And of COURSE they go eight against several hundred if not thousands, and of COURSE they are triumphant. How very Kurosawa.
Killing off Lancelot was very smart, though. He's a 12th-century French import anyway.
I guess we should count ourselves lucky that Rohan didn't ride to the rescue in the ruin and red day ere the sun rose...it was just a bunch of faintly blue, possibly radioactive people in tattoos and skimpy leather outfits coming out of the woods. And...leather bikinis in WINTER???
Once I got over expecting anything good or real, of course, I just sat back and enjoyed the cheesiness. Not to mention the scenery and costumes (kind of hard to do, actually; the lighting director must have been freakishly photophobic--I mean, yes, it's called the DARK Ages, but they weren't literally...), and had many good laughs at the whole thing.
Especially the end. So, the souls of the knights dead in battle went into a bunch of very groovy-looking HORSES. I laughed so hard at that one I almost tipped over the laptop...especially at the lingering, almost porno slo-mo closeup on this gorgeous galloping black stallion, who you just KNOW was meant to be gorgeous Ioan Gruffudd/Lancelot...
People have played around with Arthur's story for hundreds of years. Even I have tinkered with it... BUT you can't tinker and then still say your version is truthful and accurate and based on the most recent and up-to-date research.
Which is what Bruckheimer and Franzoni and even Keira Knightley, poor deluded lass, claimed for this mishmosh. I'd like to see their justification for postulating one Lucius Artorius Castus (a quite historical Roman cavalry officer, but of the SECOND century as opposed to the fifth) as Arthur based on "newly discovered evidence." They want to have it both ways: to have all the Arthurian mojo and cred, and also to pimp it out and glam it up.
More cheese than a roomful of cheddar. What a waste. The definitive Dark-Ages Arthur remains to be put on film. I suggest somebody (NOT you, Bruckheimer!) go buy the rights to Rosemary Sutcliffe's "Sword at Sunset"...
Jumping Off Bridges (2006)
I'd Call This Charming, But...
...it's about suicide. So I'll call it compelling and deeply affecting instead.
I caught this a month or two back on our local PBS station's Saturday night indie movie slot, and was glad I stuck with it. Michael Emerson's presence was a pure gift, and it was so nice to see him as someone other than crazy Ben Linus, King of the "Lost" Island. He was excellent as the well-meaning but essentially clueless widower father, and the young actors were good as well.
The only character who grated on me was the young girl, Grove. She just didn't seem real or even particularly interesting, and at times I found her deeply irritating. The character, not the actress, who did a good job.
But the music. When Sufjan Stevens's "For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti" played all the way through over what was all but a real-time progress from home to school, I cried like a little girl. A gorgeous, moving song, used brilliantly.
I'll be buying this on DVD.
Dark Justice (1991)
A Dark Knight
Loved this show! I thought Bruce Abbott was perfection in the role: a true Dark Knight, with a sense of humor. The show should have lasted at least twice as long as it did, especially when one considers the boring, imitative, humorless CSI-type clones that infest today's schedule. (Not "NCIS", though: that has a lot of the same sensibility as DJ.) Dick Moon, Clayton Gibbs and Janet Gunn were likewise terrific, and the writing was clever and witty. Some of the plot twists were hilarious, and I never found it boring. Is it still not yet available on DVD? Because I would buy it in a heartbeat...I taped a bunch of them, but DVDs are so much better than homemade.
Oh,and by the way, Bruce's hair was pinned up for the courtroom sequences and left in its natural long state otherwise.
My Boy Jack (2007)
A Story. Just So.
As a Kipling fan from the age of 8, 50 years and more ago now, I was knocked out by "My Boy Jack." David Haig, as writer and actor, is beyond brilliance, and though I found Daniel Radcliffe a bit stiff and modern, he too was excellent.
Kim Cattrall: surprisingly good. But I was totally distracted by her American pretending to be English pretending to be American bizarre accent. Let her use her natural speech (and yes, I know she was born and spent time in England) or else hire a good dialogue coach.
Though the whole production was gorgeous (Bateman's!) and moving in its interrelationships, the bookending of the scenes with friends King George V and Rud just tore my heart out. The King having just lost a "boy Jack" of his own (young Prince John, an epileptic, subject of another fantastic Masterpiece series, "The Lost Prince", some years ago), Rudyard recites the poem he wrote for his Jack. I sobbed through the whole recital, and was still weeping when I went to sleep a few hours later. Staggeringly wondrous. And cathartic in the sense in which all tragedies should be. Fine, fine work by all concerned.
Stargate: The Ark of Truth (2008)
Still Hungry...
...for more STUFF.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS:
Where was Jack O'Neil??? Obviously RDA was unavailable, but still.
I was utterly bored with the replicators showing up yet again. They were fun at first (in the series), but they quickly got tiresome, and to see them pop back yet AGAIN was just annoying.
Couldn't stand Currie Graham OR his character.
But mostly, I thought the big throwdown/showdown between Adria and Morgan Le Fay was scandalously skimped and a huge honking anticlimactic disappointment. Two balls of colored CGI light fizz around the ceiling for a while and then just...vanish? Sorry, that's not epic enough for the situation. Even Gandalf and the Balrog got more time than this.
I started to watch the commentary version, because I like to watch those on all movies I enjoy, but quickly turned it off. Because they NEVER COMMENT ON WHAT'S ACTUALLY GOING ON On screen. I really wanted to find out about that scary mountain, where it was and everything (since it seemed real, because we saw it out the helicopter window when Cooper was flying the chopper around), and instead they're blabbing about something inconsequential.
People do this in ALL comment tracks: I still haven't forgiven Pirates of the Caribbean and The Return of the King for committing the crime.
But I did really enjoy this. Looking forward to "Continuum."
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Flatter than a Flounder
Many years ago I had the pleasure of writing for and directing Bill Murray (and Laraine Newman, and John Belushi, and Jane Curtin) in radio spots for CBS Records. It was the very early days of Saturday Night Live, and most of the cast was happy to get extra radio work; we were all the same age, and we had the best time working with them.
Well, the outtakes from those studio sessions were a million times more laughworthy than the whole of this alleged movie.
Murray, so entertaining in other work (and whose improvisations and between-take chatter on my radio scripts were so brilliant that I wished I could have used THEM as the spots instead), is here monotone, monochromatic, purely reactive and a dead bore.
The only character with a speck of life, the very appealing Owen Wilson's Ned, was pointlessly killed off. And the rest of the cast, all of whom I ordinarily enjoy, were simply wasted.
I don't find a shred of humor, spark of life, or snap of wit in the whole of this mishmosh, and it amazes me to see the reviews it's garnered here. There's no accounting for taste, I know, but I found "The Life Aquatic" dreary, stale, flat, dull and...the cardinal sin...unfunny.
The Favorite (1989)
Turkish Delight
Although I can see where the dissers are coming from, I found this film charming. Yeah, the script and acting could have been better, but man, what a story! Aimee Dubucq de Rivery, cousin of the French Empress Josephine, captured by pirates and sold into the Turkish ruler's harem, in later life ends up transforming Turkey into the modern age through her son. She was known as the Sultan Valideh, the Veiled Power, and she made herself and her son a bridge to the West.
She must have been something and a half, and Amber O'Shea, with a pretty crappy script, somehow manages to sell it. And of course any harem run by F. Murray Abraham is my kind of harem.
All in all, a pleasant couple of hours. I await the REAL movie of Naksh, the Sultan Valideh.
The Young Visiters (2003)
There'll Always Be An England
mikmiki, kindly keep your religious commentary to yourself. It has no place in a movie review. Thank you.
This is one of the most charming movies I've seen lately. I tried to get into the book, several times, but found it too twee.
Which is why I'm grateful for this film. More reasons to be grateful: Bill Nighy (whom I hadn't seen in anything other than "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest") and especially the incomparable Hugh Laurie tarten it up just enough.
Glorious period sets, costumes and landscapes. Makes you feel with good cause and certainty that there will indeed always be an England. Especially in the movies.
Just delightful.
The 13th Warrior (1999)
Lo, There Do I See All Sorts of Stuff....
I can see where some of y'all didn't get off on this...it's dark, it's confusing, etc....but I have to say I thought it was fascinating and really enjoyable.
There actually was an Arab who traveled up to the Viking lands and later wrote about it. But the thinking of many of those who think about this stuff is that he must have been irked at his hosts, because he's got the Vikes doing all sorts of unsanitary things, whereas in actuality they were among the cleanest people in the world. That spitting in the washbowl stuff? Nuh- uh. Behavior like that would have been grounds for combat and fines among Celts and Vikings alike. You could actually be fined if you didn't offer an arriving guest an immediate bath... So, lies. Or maybe the Vikings were putting the Arab on...
And the ship-burial with attendant sacrificial maiden...maybe, maybe not. I think that Ahmed's diary is the first place where that prayer was written down, though, since the Vikings, like the Celts, were a non-writing, purely oral culture. Also, the tradition with both cultures was that the battle ended when the leader was killed, so the fact that the Wendol were shown fleeing after Hornboy bit the dust is accurate as well.
As to the film itself, lovedlovedloved Dennis Storhoi and Vladimir Kulich. Banderas is wooden as ever, though it served him well here, and I was annoyed at the subplots (to do with the women, mostly) that didn't go anywhere. It didn't dawn on me for a while that Weilew was actually the queen, because women in Norse society had a lot of power and she looked pretty powerless. And the blonde who hooked up with Banderas's character kinda came and went out of nowhereland, too.
Plus Neanderthals (if that's what they were supposed to be) didn't coexist with modern man--they were gone thirty thousand or more years ago---so not so much there either, and I doubt they'd have had organized cavalry even if they did.
Still, as so many have pointed out, we don't see enough movies made from this mythology, so I'm grateful for even an imperfect one.
Troy (2004)
Troy? Oy...
I SO wanted to like this movie, I truly did. But so very much makes that so very impossible...
Brad Pitt, for one thing. Yeah, yeah, he sulked in his tent most Homerically. Just not homoerotically. Poor Patroclus, demoted to cousinly status. Though Briseis gets treated a bit better as a result, so maybe not such a bad thing.
Oh, the much-ballyhooed Pitt torso had its moments, for sure. What a pity that the face, the line readings, the flat California voice and the acting ability didn't measure up in buffness... After a while I was beseeching the gods, any gods, to step in and end my suffering.
Not to mention the vast liberties taken with canon. (Though, after Peter Jackson, why are we not surprised?) Hey, won't Clytemnestra and Orestes and the rest of the family be in for a shock, though! And there was a nice little Sir Thomas Malory/end of "Camelot" moment with this kid Aeneas and a sword...
Still, Eric Bana eminently watchable, O'Toole quaveringly scenery-devouring, Julie Christie I didn't even recognize till the credits. Which revealed a number of other nice surprises: John Shrapnel, Nigel Terry, Julian Glover.
And what's with the apparently eccentric pronunciations of people's names? I've been reading all this stuff for years, not to mention attending productions of "Hamlet", and never before have I heard PREE-am, PAT-roclus or Me-ne-LOUSE for PRY-am, Pa-TRO-clus and Me-ne-LAY-us. Praps Shakespearean me has been saying 'em wrong all these years. Well, that'll teach me to listen to Derek Jacobi and Ken Branagh..
So call me a petulant classicist, then, and not just for that reason alone.I'm going to go sulk in MY tent now...
The Brave (1997)
This Brave Deserves No Fair...
I begin to think no actor should be allowed to direct a movie he or she appears in or writes or co-writes, except perhaps for Kenneth Branagh and even then only if it's Shakespeare...
"The Brave" had for me an extremely unpleasant aftertaste. It's a ham-handed bummer of a story, right enough---oooooh, allegory! An Indian family living in a garbage dump picking over the trash, wow, that means they're like, you know, the castoffs of American society, how DEEP is Depp---heavvvvy, man...
Much as I like and admire Johnny Depp, and however valid his points may be, as I watched this film unfold at a pace that would make glaciers seem like Secretariat, I found myself totally unable to suspend my disbelief that (a) the character of Rafael would agree to be snuffed for money to save his family, (b) that he'd squander most of the payoff on a sort of garbage-dump fun fair for the kiddies, and (c) that he wouldn't just blow away the go-between and the Marlon Brando characters, take the money and his family and go live in a suburb of Baltimore or somewhere.
But Johnny Depp is certainly worth watching, and he does some nice stuff. Brando? Just appalled me...what a wreck. Absolutely, painfully unwatchable. The young actors who play Rafael's kids are gorgeous and unaffected, and the omnipresent Floyd Red Crow Westerman is always a hoot.
Oh yes, Clarence Williams III as Father Link! Well, again with the suspension of disbelief: no priest in his right mind would let even a nonparishioner go off to blithely allow himself to be slaughtered. Not only is it a sin, it's also, duh, a crime...
So, for me not so much the believing any of these characters thing. The script jerked me around and never paid off really, the pacing was interminable (reminded me of somebody's UCLA student film), and all in all it seemed like just the sort of pretentious, half-baked art-swill that would earn itself a prize at some preening filmfest.
And it left me with an annoyed, unsettled feeling after watching it that required yet another viewing of "Pirates of the Caribbean" to counteract. Or maybe "Chocolat."
Girl (1998)
Pity in My Heart...
Not for the preciously self-involved and blinkered adolescent character of Andrea Marr (portrayed rather well, even so, by Dominique Swain), but for the character of Todd Sparrow, streaky-blond grunge-attired Kurt Cobain clone, who, when he finally allows himself to fall for the vain little twerp Andrea, is promptly kicked in the teeth and smugly dumped with, o cruel irony, the same line he used to her in the beginning.
Difference being, Sparrow didn't care about her then and did at the end, and Andrea never cared about him at all. First, he was just a status symbol notch-in-the-bedpost and at the end he was pretty much nothing, as ham-handedly hammered in by the script making him temporarily sexually incapable with her...yeah, right.
All that said, though, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, particularly Sean Patrick Flanery's performance as and embodiment of Todd Sparrow---attractive actor, nice characterization. And I thought the music bits were seamlessly lip-synched...though the production values were a tad too smooth and amped to sound like real club sound. But still.
And I'm long past my teen years, too, so it's not that at all.
Alfred the Great (1969)
Guthrum the Great, Actually...
When I saw this film for the first time back when it was released, I was vastly disappointed. I wanted better dialogue, better costumes, and above all more fidelity to actual history. Some of the big plot engines, especially the one involving Michael York's and Prunella Ransome's characters, never happened in reality, and I have this stickler historical mentality that feels if you make a historical movie about real people, it should be, you know, accurate.
I was a critic at the time, and as I recall, I gave it a fairly scathing review. But upon subsequent catch-as-catch-can late-night viewings (and why why WHY isn't this out on video and DVD?), I have come to temper my opinion. Michael York especially is outstanding---when he's onscreen you can't take your eyes off him, though I very much doubt the real-life Guthrum the Dane looked anywhere near so cute---and I so wish that Clive Donner and the writers had given his rather swoonalicious Guthrum---the Beatle Viking!---a whole lot more to do.
(It's not in the movie, but in historical fact Alfred and Guthrum made a peace treaty afterwards that split England between them, Alf taking the south and west and Guthrum taking the north and east. So really Alfred bargained for his peace, and if it's Alfred the Great, it should darn well be Guthrum the Great as well...)
David Hemmings's performance is as good as can be expected, given some of the thankless dialogue, and he is both tortured and twinkly; while Prunella Ransome's Queen Aelhswith is not only decorative but intriguingly liberated for a noble ninth-century lady (however historically inaccurate and ultimately unconvincing).
And the supporting cast is nothing short of tremendous: Ian McKellen (and you can see Gandalf the Grey in his eyes...), Colin Blakely, Vivian Merchant (who reportedly insisted on playing her character as a mute after a dialogue rewrite was not forthcoming), Julian Glover, Peter Vaughan, Sinead Cusack in her film debut.
Pity the script didn't give any of them but McKellen anything to really get into, though Vaughan munches a bit of scenery. If they'd had something better to work with, "Alfred the Great" might have been the Anglo-Saxon "Lawrence of Arabia"...