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Reviews
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
It just keeps getting better
Looking at reviews worldwide, they tend to focus on all the great elements of this movie as if existing on their own. They talk about how brilliant Gollum is portrayed both technically aswell as acting-wise (which is true), or they talk about how the battle at helm's deep is the biggest battle-scene ever produced on celluloid (wich is also true). But my main praise for this movie is that it works as a complete picture, and it's sum is even greater than it's parts.
With the two towers you've got a story which is, well, a nightmare to translate to screen. No beginning, no real end, two different storylines, told in such a way that they don't seem to connect (which in the book is no problem, but it just doesn't work in a motion picture like this).
But when I look at Peter Jackson's film, I cannot see any weakness in it's story. Even though it hasn't got a real beginning and ending, it does open with a bang, and ends with a BIG bang, and the picture comes to a more satisfying conclusion than FOTR.
Next to this all the technical elements are once again flawless. Shore's score works, in my opinion, just that bit better than his FOTR score, the FX are not even in the same league as FOTR's, their waaaay above them. Acting is great once again, with special praise to the actors portraying Aragorn, Theoden and Gollum.
So is this movie perfect? Well close, in the same way FOTR was. But that's a personal opinion. I do understand that people don't like the change to Faramir's character, even though I liked them, and I do understand people don't always appreciate Gimli's humor, even though I thought it worked extremely well. Also I have to say that the ending is in some parts a tad unconvincing and unsatisfying. The way Faramir changes his view seems abrupt, and you really don't see much of the characters reactions after Helm's deep, but that is probably saved for ROTK, wich will surely be even better.....
All in all, I have to say, I DO like this one better than FOTR, because it's tighter told, has a more satisfying conclusion, is much more breathtaking, if it was ever possible, and it just flows better. But the best compliment might be; It is a perfect followup to FOTR, expanding on it, while remaining faithfull to the feeling of part 1.
Ali (2001)
Truly an incredible piece of cinema
I personally think this movie was one of the best of last year. As a biopic it might be interesting to compare this movie with Beautiful Mind, that other biopic that won too much awards. I often thought about, what if Ron Howard,together with his writer made Ali, how would that movie be? Because Ali's life can be told in a very Beautiful Mind'esque way.
Show how Ali became the greatest, then let his world fall, show how he begins suffering from his disease, until he has to stop boxing, and end the movie with some sort of heroic end moment, maybe an award show, where Ali get's an award like, sportsman of the decade/century whatever (I don't actually know if he ever got something like that, but it's just an example). Can you see where I'm going?
Now if you look at Ali, how this movie turned out, you see it's a complete different movie. They don't show Ali getting sick, they show only 10 years of his life, the 10 years that transformed him from a Good boxer to a Legend.
By limiting it's storytime to these 10 years, I think Michael Mann, succeeded in not making Ali sentimental. When we leave the theater we don't feel pity for Ali because he had such a hard life, like we did have in a sense with John Nash in B.mind. We leave the theater in a state of awe. The movie shows us how Ali became a legend. How he struggled and fought, and we never pity him, Ali is to powerfull a personality to pity, we respect him, and given that Ali is very much real and alive in the real world, we can't help but to look up to that person.
However, the movie doesn't glamourize Ali, it doesn't make of him a flawless larger-than-life hero. By portraying his troubled relations with his many girlfriends/wifes, how he more than once let himself be used by others etc. the movie shows Ali was human. It doesn't shy away of his questionable relationship with The Nation of the Islam, for instance. Just as Ali in real life probably wouldn't hide those facts.
Now to come to the practical aspects of this movie...because Ali is truly a magnificent film. Of course Smith plays Ali incredible, and if you compare him to footage of the real Ali, when he was about 20/30 years, you see just how close he comes to recreating Ali. But next to him we also have Jon Voight, Jaimi Foxx, Mario van Peebles, all playing so completely in-character that you hardly recognize them as actors. Then there is Mann's directorial power. From the brilliant opening 10 minutes, to the truly awe-inspiring, moving, scenes in Africa at the end, Mann carefully directs this picture, never making it dull, but also never forcing plotlines. He tells the story so subtle, you won't ever feel like he thinks that you as an audience can't understand something unless it's explained in big bright words. If someone breaks down in tears, he won't compliment this with violins in the background, soft-focus or whatever, he just shows a person breaking down. And I like this style incredibly well, especially in a biopic like this.
So to come to a conclusion, Ali is indeed a masterpiece. Not as instantly accesible as the Insider or Heat, and not as conventional as Beautiful Mind, but in it's own right one of the (not THE:) greatest Biopic's yet made.
Pearl Harbor (2001)
a good war movie, if understood.
After repeated viewings of this movie, including the (quite superior) director's cut, I think I can finally give a good judgement on this movie. When people critisize this movie they most often complain about the corny love-story and the abundance of american patriotism (especially in the last part of the movie). But I think you're missing the point of the movie if you do that. Michael Bay wanted to recreate the emotions and experiences of Pearl Harbor. He chose as main theme, the loss of innocence, how the isolated USA suddenly realized they weren't invinsible and couldn't ignore the conflicts in the world. How he did this was by recreating the life-style of that era, of the 1940's. You have to understand that our ideas about love, sex, romance etc. are so different from people's thoughts in 1941. What to us sounds like cliché's, at that time, might very well be considered normal. The smooth-talking, the romantic goodbye-kisses etc.
This makes Pearl Harbor an interesting movie, because the movie doesn't really project the society in wich it was made (like American Beauty or Fight Club and probably about 90% of all movies), it's like a time-capsule. Pearl Harbor recreates the era of the 1940's with all it's beliefs and ideas. That also makes this movie, nowadays, not very easy to appreciate (especially when the whole world has already seen the quite similair Titanic), people just don't accept the movie, because it doesn't fit our current state of mind. It maby is too soft, too unchallenging for our minds.
And here lies the main critique you could pose to Michael Bay. Pearl Harbor isn't THAT facinating anymore in 2002, because the audience has already seen Saving Private Ryan, Titanic, even Tora!Tora!Tora!. Pearl Harbor isn't breaking any boundaries, as a movie (ignoring the FX), so people feel like they're watching a rehash of other War/Disaster movies. If it would have been released pre-Titanic, who knows, maby back then it would've won 10 oscars or whatever, because in my eyes it certainly isn't a worse movie than Titanic.
Taking this all into consideration, you come up with a movie that is actually quite good. The slick directing of Bay might not appeal to you (it isn't my favorite style either), but it has it's strong points, especially during the battle-scenes. The cinematography is also beautiful, though not really inventive. Acting, writing, it's all pretty solid. But you HAVE to accept the film for what it is, because if you look at it with a pair of 21st century-glasses, it looks like the most repulsive kind of military propaganda ever, full of cliché's and repeated formulas. Seeing it as a flashback-piece, a look in the past, Pearl Harbor becomes a gripping, spectacular and facinating look at the attack and how it changed America at that time.
overall, yeah, about an 8 out of 10.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
As much an Internal- as an External Epic
I can probably summarize my review best with this quote from Martin Scorsese talking about Lawrence of Arabia. Because that's what The Fellowship is, as much a movie about emotions as it is one about spectacle. And on both levels, the movie succeeds in an amazing way. How does it work?
First of all, let me cover the internal side of this picture. It contains a lot of characters, but in this first part I say about four characters stand out, Frodo,Gandalf, Aragorn and Boromir. Each of these characters has his own conflicts, history and motivations. And again I see a similarity between L.o.Arabia and Fotr, and I'm referring to the similarities between Lawrence and Frodo. Frodo's story is about being taken out of the confines of a familiar culture, his own, and being placed among cultural strangers. Secondly it's about him having to carry a burden he is not sure he can handle (carrying and destroying the ring). These two aspects of Frodo's story are of course comparable to Lawrence's story in Lawrence of Arabia. Besides Frodo you've got the other three characters wich I will not cover so deeply, but it's to say they each have their own problems and conflicts they must try to overcome. How much time Peter takes to explore these emotions is significant, especially for such a large production wich, in Hollywood, almost always means, lots of effects and cardboard characters, and it has renewed my hope for feature Hollywood blockbusters.
And this brings me to the second aspect of Lotr, watching it as an External Epic. To put it mildy, the movie is breathtaking. Seamless CGI, wonderful sets, locations etc. etc. Visually it might well be one of the most amazing movies ever made. Nothing more to say about that.
So to sum it up. Lotr is indeed a movie wich works on a lot of levels, contains facinating characters, wonderful visuals, a rich soundtrack etc. It may be (and I know I said this already with Moulin Rouge, but it simply is the truth) the most complete cinematic experience imaginable. Keeping in mind you have to be open-minded enough to appreciate fantasy, there are very few faults to detect and it may well be one of the cinema's greatest epics!!
The Discovery of Heaven (2001)
One of the best Dutch movies of recent times
I went to see Discovery of Heaven with a lot of anticipation. Having read the book it's based on by Harry Mulisch, and loving it, I really wanted this picture to succeed. But you've got to be honest and understand that a 900 page epic spanning 3 generations and so many different locations is impossible to translate to a movie no longer than about 135 min., right?.. Wrong!! I'm extremely pleased to say that Jeroen Krabbé has done the -almost- impossible and pulled it off! He translated the book into an amazing piece of cinema wich sets new standards for motion-picture in the Netherlands, and may well be one of the best foreign language films of this year.
Just like the book, the movie has so many layers on wich it works. You've got the wonderful, extremely well acted, roles of Onno Quist (Stephen Fry), Max Delius (Greg Wise) and Ada Brons (Flora montgomery). And although they all acted very well, it was Stephen Fry's role wich is most memorable. With extreme charisma and charm he brings the role of the exentric Onno to life in a magnificent way. Then there is the screenplay, wich so brilliantly succeeds in summarazing the book and making sure all the important elements of the book are in place. And better still, it adds to the book on numorous levels, giving extra emotion to key scenes and extra meaning to certain themes. The screenwriter Edwin de Vries had a difficult task but he succeeded, with help of Mulisch himself, in creating a captivating story wich never bores throughout.
I could go on much longer now, covering about any aspect of the picture (most of it with praise), but I won't. I just want to finish with a big thanks to Krabbé and the whole crew who worked on this picture. You've pulled it off brilliantly, and brought a bright shining light in the otherwise often relatively dull Dutch Cinema.
Final score, a solid 9 out of 10!
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Cumulation of everything that makes cinema great
I really have to say that Moulin Rouge is, so far, the best film i've seen this year. It really gave me confidence that cinema can still produce wonderful movies. Moulin Rouge is such a wonderful experience to watch. Everything, from the beautiful sets, bizar cinematography excellent soundtrack and wonderful acting is flawless. It's such an amazing achievement. The story itself, centering on the love-affair between Nicole Kidman and Ewan Mcgregor may be old, it may be unoriginal, but it's told in such an entertaining way that it never becomes irritating or dull. And credit for this achievement should be given especially to the main characters, Nicole and Ewan. They really shine in this picture, not only acting extremely well, but also singing extremely well. They've succeeded in making the story seem fresh and original simply by acting so well.
And then I have to say that this movie is the first one wich in my eyes really deserves an oscarsweep this year, or at least get a lot of nominations(male & female performance, art-direction, cinematography, costumes). This movie contains everything that makes cinema great, makes you laugh, cry, and brings you in a state of awe that won't leave you quickly.
Beautiful, original, wonderful, captivating etc. etc. Moulin Rouge is the cumulation of everything that makes cinema great!!! 10/10