ke82 Reviews

Jonah from Tonga (2014)

pure, concentrated teenager

[6/10 · 18 August 2014]

Another reviewer here put it very well: Summer Heights High was balanced and engaging, but when Chris Lilley ventures off with single characters, the stories and character development falter.

Jonah is not an unrealistic character; he is that hyper, intensely irritating, in-the-name-of-all-that's-holy-STFU teenager that we've all seen somewhere, even if only in passing. He's pure, concentrated annoyance, desperate for any kind of attention or reaction. And I give Chris Lilley full points for being able to recreate that. But unless you're a social worker or a teacher specializing in behavior disorders, do you really want to spend time with that kid, even from the safety of your living room? Seriously, when the teacher breaks a chair against the wall or Jonah's father chases him across a bowling alley with a steady stream of obscenities and death threats, you understand completely.

And that's probably Lilley's point: How do you deal with someone so profoundly and unrelentingly obnoxious, but who is, after all, still a kid? I like that there are no Very Special Episodes (at least not so far) in which Jonah learns his lesson and vows to do better. Instead, we're only given brief glimpses of his possible humanity, e.g., his love for his younger brother or his semi-endearing delusions regarding his dance skills. But while it's more realistic for Jonah to carry on with little forward movement, the lack of development does mean that the show is repetitive and circular.

In Bruges (2008)

What a Disappointment

[2/10 · 6 July 2008]

It's getting harder and harder to find decent movies to attend or rent, so I was looking forward to In Bruges. High praise, Brendan Gleeson, hapless gangsters, etc. What could be better? But what a disappointment.

I can't believe this movie has garnered the praise it has. It was boring and amateurish, there was nothing to the characters, and if the dialogue was half as clever as it thought it was it would've been mildly amusing. Every single plot device may as well have come with sirens and flashing lights. And to tie it all together into one big mess, Ralph Fiennes is miscast, and for Colin Farrell, apparently, acting equals working every facial muscle he owns. This is no successor to Tarentino or Sexy Beast. Not at all. If it weren't for the glimpses of Bruges's canals and medieval buildings, I'd say this was a total waste.

If you want to see wit, humor, and Brendan Gleeson as a reluctant thug with a younger sidekick, try to find a copy of I Went Down.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Trite and boring

[2/10 · 22 December 2006]

I wonder if our movie choices are so diminished that we applaud films like Little Miss Sunshine simply because they're supposed to be about "real people"--as opposed to being about model-gorgeous twenties-somethings falling in love or idiot teenagers being offed by spree killers. Otherwise, I'm at a loss to understand LMS's appeal.

The main characters--I don't even know their names--are complete clichés. The harried mother. The clueless father. The irascible grandfather who barks out inappropriate sentiments. These characters could be played by anyone--and they are, on any given sitcom. And the quiet desperation of their lives--the fast-food dinners, the self-help dribble that passes for thought, the tired resignation that stands in for character--this is what Hollywood imagines real people's lives are like. But there's no more truth here than there is in 50s musicals. The fact that this movie has the gloss (or dullness, I suppose) of a faux-indie film doesn't make it truthful. The plot suffers from the same asinine clichés as the characters. Could anyone not see, a hundred miles off, that the VW van would break down? And stuffing Grampa in the truck? Yep, that's what everyone would do. Ride around in the desert with the rotting corpse of a relative in your car just so that your kid wouldn't miss a minor beauty pageant. There's quirky and funny, and then there's inane.

The only characters with a spark of ingenuity are the kids. Olive comes as close to being a normal kid as I've seen in any movie in ages. And I even liked the sullen teenager. I understood him--I wouldn't want to talk to these people either. But even in their stories, there are big gaps in logic. Why would a Nietzsche-reading outsider want to join the Air Force? And when Olive arrives at the LMS contest, she's so clearly out of her element that it was painful. It's obvious she has no idea how beauty contests work, but at the beginning of the movie, the mother explains that Olive has been going to contests. In fact, that's how she got into LMS. And what about her routine--seriously, her parents had NO clue what the kid was doing before she got up on stage?

And speaking of the routine, how is teaching your eight-year-old granddaughter to do stripper moves to Rick James better than slapping make-up on her and ratting her hair? If Olive had come out and done a simple kids' dance routine that ended up looking innocent and sweetly dorky next to the polished weirdness of the other little beauty queens, that would've made sense. But to have her pull her pants off to Superfreak was as unsavory as the rest of the pageant. But I guess we weren't supposed to expect much from a man who'd do heroin in the same hotel room as his granddaughter. That would just make us prudes, wouldn't it?

And for those reviewers who think this is somehow a brilliant insight into the dissolution of the American dream, get a grip. This is a sloppy half-gesture from writers who couldn't even be bothered to rise above trite characters and inane plot devices.

In the Cut (2003)

Boo, hiss

[3/10 · 1 November 2003]

I went to see "In the Cut" mostly because Mark Ruffalo was so good in "You Can Count on Me." But Ruffalo's character here could have been played by anyone. There was nothing to him.

I also usually like gritty mysteries. And as far as this mystery goes, I did not guess the identity of the real killer until the end of the movie. However, this was not the mark of clever plot twists. In fact, after about 30 minutes, I couldn't have care less who did it. But I did appreciate the film maker's efforts to keep me awake by slapping me upside the head with a red herring every three minutes.

Meg Ryan did a decent job in unfamiliar territory. But her character suffered under the movie world's delusion that "real" people all wear glasses and don't shampoo regularly. She also had absolutely no chemistry with Ruffalo.

After the lights went up in the theatre, a woman in front of us turned to her friend and said, "You don't get to pick out any more movies for awhile." And the guy behind me complained,"Well, now I have 'Que Sera Sera' stuck in my head." That about sums up the impact of this movie.

28 Days Later (2002)

not your average scary movie

[14 July 2003]

Countless scary movies, even teen slasher flicks, make use of the classic Gothic conceits. Remote locations, empty houses, dark and stormy nights. But 28 Days Later distinguishes itself as an urban dweller's horror film. The story begins when Jim awakens from a coma in a silent, empty hospital. Outside is a silent, empty London. He's completely alone in a place built by and for millions, now all gone. He wanders in the unreal city, past monuments and everyday places. It's natural for him to look for someone else, so he shouts hello over and over, and eventually turns into a church, hoping to at least find a priest. Soon enough, he discovers that he is, most unfortunately, not really alone.

From then, the movie uses the half-conscious language of an urbanite's paranoid nightmare. Shadows growing on a wall. Footsteps running up behind you. Getting a flat tire in a bad place. Knocking on the wrong door for help. The fumbling and the adrenalin. Get the car going. Get up the stairs. Get the door bolted. Just in time. Now that's terror.

This is the best part of 28 Days Later. The center of the movie, when Selena (another survivor) and Jim meet up with a father and daughter, is a chance to understand who these people might been before the plague. It may not be standard horror movie fare, but it was funny and affecting. The last part of the movie began to drift, however, oddly enough just as it drags out all the Gothic images, down to the remote mansion and an on-cue thunderstorm. The conflict becomes more one-dimensional and predictable, rather than being any sort of insightful commentary on human behavior. The infected are replaced with the vile, and the new threat hanging over the protagonists feels gratuitous. And with interest waning, I had too much time to start thinking over plot holes.

Overall the movie was worth seeing. The London scenes are amazing. The interlude in the green countryside was striking. The infected scared the hell out of me, while the protagonists easily drew me in. The actors playing Jim and Selena were terrific. And I'd watch Brendan Gleeson read aloud from a telephone book. I just found the last part of the film disappointing, despite getting to see Christopher Eccleston doing a bit of a Mad Hatter thing during the dinner scene.