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Reviews
Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)
What movie were you watching?
I saw a movie that was completely unbelievable. And the unbelievability not only kept me from caring about all these characters, but I found I started to really dislike them.
This is a movie about love. 95% of the movie doesn't show us why these characters fall in love--the one exception is the two minutes when ryan gosling and emma stone's characters finally socialize. Otherwise, for a movie that revolves around how we love others, we are never shown why. At least tell us why, which would be bad filmmaking, but at least it's something. But from the onset of the movie we know certain characters love other certain characters, only because they tell us that they do. Never do we know why. There's no meat added to the bones. In the movie, love is a defined thing. Not as ambiguous as it is in real life. But although it's a singular defined thing, they never define it! Secondly, these characters have no motivation to do any of the things they do. Or let me rephrase: the motivation that's offered is shotty, unbelievable. Why is ryan gosling helping steve carrell? I don't get it. Why does Steve carrell change the person that he's been for 40+ years? I don't buy it. Why does Marissa Tomei become attracted to Steve Carell, because the plot needs her to. Why does Emma Stone walk into a bar and kiss a guy who just happens to be there after a 3 minute conversation she had with him over 1 week ago? And why does she grow to hate her boyfriend? Why does the son build this huge thing, somehow lug it to a high school, cut school himself, and stand up in front of kids much older than him to profess his love? Why does the seventeen year old love an older man? To be clear, motivation is offered for most of these scenarios, but it's unbelievable. And in some cases no motivation is offered. That's bad writing. Not even in a "it's so bad it's fun" kinda way. It's just bad. And it makes the movie totally uninteresting.
Steve Carrell attempts to save this mess with a few punchlines that do push out a chuckle and there's a funny little farce at the end of the movie (also with half-assed motivation, but you'll give it a pass). But in the hands of creatives with something interesting to say and who don't have the pressure of a major Hollywood studio backing the film, this movie could have been very good.
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Slumdog is wildly overrated
Slumdog Millionaire presents a refreshingly original concept, but it fails when it plays like a typical action romance. The main problem is that the screenplay follows the same formula that so many other big-budget action romances follow with two major exceptions. One, we have Indian characters, not American (it gives the film a special allure). Secondly, the story is told in non-linear fashion. But the formula is the same.
One of the biggest problems in the writing is that everybody except for the two main characters is a villain. Key characters are one-dimensional and that's far too easy to write. For example, everybody with the exception of three key characters are pure evil and even then, one is mostly evil. It's lazy and a way to spoon-feed the audience. It's easier for audiences to identify some one as wholly good and another as wholly evil. Writing complex characters causes more ambiguity and it might make audiences think!
Secondly, Slumdog suffers from what I'll call "Inverse Deus Ex Machina." Instead of characters always being saved by the bell, these characters are always being harmed by the bell. Just when you think something good will happen, something bad happens to increase drama. This is a problem when it happens at every single opportunity it gets except one.
Another problem is a philosophical one. Jamal searches for his true love, a girl that he barely spent any time with making it hard to legitimize this destined love. Now, this can work by giving the main character a reason to love a girl he barely knew. Maybe she reminds him of innocence or maybe she was the only purely good person he ever knew. But the movie does not justify this distant and unknown love, they simply expect us to believe that the overly passionate Jamal would be so unbelievably attached to a stranger and vice versa.
Boyle also applies some annoying gimmicks to this film. Almost every other shot is canted dutch (camera tilted at an angle). Critics seem to confuse this as art but it's simply aggravating. The Third Man is the only film that can use canted dutch shots nearly as much as Slumdog did, although it still does it less. Also, every time it happens in 3rd Man, there's an obvious reason for it. Here, there's no reason other than to create never-ending chaos, even during the calm scenes.
Also, Boyle doesn't something extremely elementary. He changes the positions and colors of the subtitles, especially throughout the earlier scenes. This is a way of telling the audience, WE KNOW YOUR ATTENTION SPAN IS TOO SHORT TO READ BLACK AND WHITE SUBTITLES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN, SO WE'LL APPLY COLORS AND MAKE THEM MORE VISIBLE BECAUSE THAT'S THE ONLY WAY THE American AUDIENCE WILL WATCH THIS. Man on Fire and El Cantante also did this, I believe for the same reasons, and it's unnecessary. Trust the audience. They're only dumb if you treat them as such. And I won't even get into the end credits. I'll just say this isn't 40 year old virgin, this movie can't pull that off.
Also, Boyle has a nasty habit of playing popular, modern songs non-diagetically against scenes that take place well before the song was made. I may be nit-picky here, but this too is unnecessary, sloppy film-making. More importantly, Boyle exhibits a petty reliance on music, making most of the movie feel like a really expensive music video.
Slumdog fails to capitalize on the most interesting character in the film. THE SLUMS. There's a brief moment in the film where the camera is sitting on a tri-pod, there isn't any wacky editing, and a serene song plays. We watch Jamal re-enter the slums. Here, the slums are treated with tenderness and a little nostalgia. The film needs more of this.
Ultimately, the great reviews stem from the appreciation of an unusual concept made in a fast-paced, City of God-like environment using incredibly epic scenery of Mumbai slums. Unfortunately, the content, editing and cinematography is treated like a Michael Bay film and the theme (and ending) is one to satisfy an audience of teeny-boppers. Slumdog may very well win best picture this year while a simpler, more thought-provoking and more mature film in The Wrestler isn't even nominated for the award.
The Women (2008)
Starving for Sex n the city? The Women tries to satisfy your craving
Many other reviewers have written that The Women is a poor remake of the 1930s Ms. English. This is true, but let us not overlook the fact that the foundation of the story may be of Ms. English, but the motive for this movie was to imitate Sex and the City. The film was released with pristine timing. Shortly after Sex and The City sucked in millions but not too far in advance so that girls will forget about it. Even the trivial title of the film, The Women, screams that the filmmakers had no intentions of creating a reputable film, but a commercial piece for those starving for more Sex and the City. By titling the film, The Women, it's an obvious attempt to beat you over the head about who this film is made for, in case the five women on the poster didn't do that for you already (speaking of which, the marketing dept didn't miss a beat by identifying every possible ethnicity and age group in the movie poster). This film had no intentions of being good, and I feel that way because I give the actresses, at least the actresses, more credit than this. The intention was simply to get people in the movie theater and get their money out of their wallets and into the cash register. Once that was done, how people felt about the movie was a moot point. Also, important to note, that there are absolutely no men in this film!!! Not that you need men to make a movie or a good movie. That's not what I'm saying. But this film went so far out of its way to be about the women that men completely avoid the set! I don't even recall seeing an extra as a male! Overall, this is the epitome of Hollywood garbage; I film created not to tell a worth-while story but to attack a market, a certain demographic that will surely bite the bait is all the essential elements are included: High end nail salons, plastic surgery, Saks 5th Avenue, lesbians, liberated women, women disputing over men and friendship and mainly, selfishness. I urge to not support this film.
Sweet Movie (1974)
Proof of Intelligent film Survived
Sweet Movie is a brilliantly absurdist expose about ideological imprisonment and innocence lost. OK, that sentence might sound absurd itself, but let's put it this way. Makavejev has created a brave, brave film. It communicates very engaging thoughts without spoon-feeding us. It does this visually and relies on the experiences and intelligence of the audience to make of it what they will. Montage is used in a smart way. Collages are created with the mis-en-scene. Hilarious juxtaposition, vibrant colors and detailed textures are constant. The music is underground and reoccurs in natural points in the. And politically speaking, it's an incredibly brave and isolated film that accuses the soviets of a crime they had long since denied at the time. Sweet Movie is NOT a snuff film. It is NOT a cult film. Those adjectives water down this intelligent avant-garde film. This is film is nothing like the films of John Waters. Plus, I would like to criticize some of the harsh critics of this movie. Many dislike the film because of the brutal scene in the commune where the members vomit and spit amongst other things. And this film was banned in London because of the scene where the young boys are seduced on the boat traveling through Amsterdam canals. I find it peculiar that those are the scenes that would disturb you, when there is an gut-wrenching intercut scene of raw footage revealing the aftermath of heinous massacres where bodies have been burned to a crisp and shoved in the ground. It's an example of how society finds sex and bodily functions more disturbing than the savagery of genocide.
Hard Candy (2005)
Another torture film, another dollar
Hard Candy is probably, so far, the better of the "torture" films that have been released in the past 4 years (texas chainsaw remakes, Hostel, Wolk Creek, Turistas, Saw all included). However, it is a still a torture film, a genre that struggles to find any redeeming qualities. In Hard Candy, a teenager tortures a pedophile after he agrees to meet her at a local coffee shop. The acting and interaction between the two is relatively enjoyable for the first 20 minutes of the film. But once the torture begins, the teenager becomes nasty and unlikable, even though she is supposed to be a hero, or an anti-hero to the audience. Her character is written no different that the villains in other torture films. In fact, the confidence and ease that the teenager exhibits while performing these acts seems to abandon logic and makes her acts less heroic. Also, the pedophile's character remains likable throughout, the audience remains sympathetic to him. Hard Candy puts me in the uncomfortable position of rooting for the pedophile to escape torture. The idea is that because the pedophile is a bad person, watching him being tortured is supposed to be excusable or justified. But it just isn't. The film smothers its audience in the idea that pedophilia is wrong and it seems like this is supposed to work as a warning for active pedophiles. I found myself more upset at the teenager for being a vigilante than at the pedophile for being a pervert.
Crash (2004)
spoon-fed drama
Crash is not nearly as good as everyone has hyped it up to be and here's why: The film is filled with drama and it's mostly forced. What I mean is, the film abandons logic so we conveniently find characters facing the most dramatic, heart-wrenching scenarios imaginable. Of course, this ignites emotion out of the audience, but the drama is spoon-fed and the reason is because it doesn't hold true to story and, in some cases, character. In simpler terms, once you discover the film's dramatic pattern, the characters and story mostly feel fake. And consequently, you may realize that what you're watching isn't a true and real story, but an obvious attempt by the filmmakers to bury the audience in drama so they have no choice but to shed a tear. In addition, most of the movie feels like a music video. These filmmakers feel like the only way they can successfully weave together this large cast of characters without confusing the audience is by adding music to most of the film. Camera movements, acting and editing are all dictated by the music. That's when you know you're watching a music video. Plus, the music is not very good. The soundtrack makes you want lay inside an empty bathtub and down a bottle of aspirin tablets. All in all, the movie is full of silly coincidences that audiences mistake for good screen writing. It's a film that banks on America's vulnerability to films on racism. However, with all that said, I don't want to come across as Mr. Negativity. Here are some good qualities about the film that get lost in its desperate attempts to spoon-feed its audience: Performances by Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, and Terence Howard; their characters were the best written of all in the film and, despite having their characters flung into unrealistic situations, they managed to turn in believable performances. Also, keep an eye out for the relationship between Bullock's character and her housekeeper. This portion of the film tends to be overlooked because it's the least tear- jerking, but it may be the best presented. And, despite the films flaws, it attempts an important and somewhat original message. That's more than I can say for most modern-day Hollywood films.
Border Radio (1987)
This independent get the criterion treatment?
I've become a fan of the criterion collection over the past few years or so. I consider the institution a staple in the film industry, both in recognizing and preserving pivotal pieces throughout the years. In fact, seeing the criterion collection symbol on a DVD cover sparks my interest in films that I probably wouldn't think twice about watching otherwise. An example of this is Border Radio. I anxiously awaited a screening of this film because of its importance to indie film explosion, and I am a big supporter of indie flicks. But as I watched it, I realized that this is a very good student film. But it's too amateur and unseasoned to earn any comparison to better indie flicks and better Hollywood flicks. The film is sloppy in its structure. After establishing the characters, the film takes the shape of a documentary where these characters are interviewed, one-on-one. The idea itself isn't a bad one, but the filmmakers don't give a reason for doing so. Why are these characters are being interviewed? How does it contribute to the story? The characters themselves have absolutely no redeeming qualities and the filmmakers don't give us a way to relate to any of them. The acting is horrific, and better directors in better movies have proved that non-actors can produce good and sometimes great performances. The actors in this movie all look like film students although we know some aren't. The best performance was produced by the Mexican who sang and drank a corona for 1 short scene. The story itself is dull and cliché. If another film student makes a movie that has to do with somebody owing a club owner money, I'm going to scream. More importantly, the film has no premise! Most films have a premise without trying. This one has none, no moral of the story, or no point to the story. These things are learned in film 101. In fact, these things should come natural in any form of storytelling. The only thing that makes this film worth anybody's time is its photography and some of the music. There are some great landscape shots and a beautiful scene where the daughter is circled on a music merry-go-round. Ultimately, this film is a perfect example on how some indie flicks get much props simply because their indie flicks. How this gets the criterion treatment, I have no idea. This is simply a bad movie made my amateur filmmakers still searching for a voice. It took them 4 years to make this movie and, despite how low-budget a film is, it should never take 4 years to make an 83 minute movie with non-actors and a bad script. I do appreciate a movie with good intentions and I would assume that these USC film students had good intentions to make a non-Hollywood film about real people; but those intentions fall massively short. The ridiculously high acclaim that some indie flicks get because they're shot with shoe-string budgets with plot less stories has to stop (in the same way the acclaim some Hollywood flicks get because they have big stories and a predictable storyline has to stop).
Funny Games (1997)
Premise
Director Michael Haneke said in a DVD interview about his film Funny Games that the film was an exhibition of how audiences consume violence. I'm paraphrasing of course, but he makes it clear that this was his premise. And in addition, he tried to show how we, as voyeurs by nature, act as accomplices to violence.
Though Funny Games is well made, it fails to reach Haneke's premise. The reason is simple. There aren't any motifs in the film to lead the average moviegoer to that conclusion. The one theme that is consistent (though mainly in the last act of the script), is that of the audience member being a character in the scene. This is done in clever fashion, as we learn that the culprits are filming their crimes. However, this does not insinuate a tongue-in-cheek satire about violence in media.
Because the premise of the film does not match the director's claim, the meaning of the film itself is diminished. Directors of violent feature length films have a tendency to justify their films by claiming that the film is a commentary on society. It's a convenient cop-out in some cases, especially this one.
Case in point: A film that sucsessfully satirizes how the media sensationalizes violence is Man Bites Dog (1992). The film is shot in documentary style and our subject is a consciousless serial killer who finances a film being made by penniless filmmakers who soon enough becomes just as involved in the murders than the serial killer. The reason why this is more successful than Funny Games is because the film's comedic themes are maintained throughout. The comedic approach to a disturbing subject matter is an indicator that the film is a satire.
In Funny Games there is both a comedic and tragic approach that is juggled throughout, making the intended premise unreachable. The torturers maintain the comedy and the family maintains the tragedy. Consequently, there are no indications of a satire. In fact, the most crucial point of the film, "the rewind scene," disproves the director's intended premise by introducing a world of fantasy when the only thing the viewer knows up until this point (as well as after this point) is a world of brutal reality. It's sloppy art and it's by far the low point in what was otherwise a well made film.
Haneke has a track record of making films about motiveless violence. That is all this film is about, nothing more and nothing less. There is no difference between this film and other torture film that are more horror-oriented. By torture films I'm referring to films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I Spit on Your Grave, as well as newer ones like Hostel and Wolf Creek. The killers in Funny Games are written a whole lot better and its brutality is admirable. What diminishes the film is the preteniousness of the director and "the Rewind Scene." Man Bites Dog is a much better alternative.
Dark Ride (2006)
What did people expect?
(this is in response to the previous message written about Dark Ride) Dark Ride is a bad movie, but what did people expect? First of all, this movie was made in 2004, so Ms. Di Scala was still on Sopranos when she signed on for this movie. Second, and more importantly, did anybody think that a movie studio, in this case Lions Gate Films, would take a good and well- made movie and limit its box-office success by giving it no commercial spots on TV? If this was a good movie, they wouldn't have to package it with seven or eight other films. It would have been allowed to stand on its own. And same probably goes for the remaining films of Horrorfest. Look, Dark Ride was a bad movie-but like anything, it's all in relation to the value you give it. For instance, if you went to a Cavs game and Lebron James scored 18 points, you'd say...Geez, Lebron had a bad game. But if role playing point guard Damon Jones scored 18 you'd say, geez, Damon Jones had a good game. My point is this: Dark Ride is a fun movie for what it was. It probably should have been straight to video, but I think the budget might have been too high. There is some bad lighting, amateur editing, weak plot, and cliché everything, but it was still fun. The cutaways to all the different props in the dark ride make for a pretty creep environment. There is some tongue-in-cheek humor that's enjoyable. It's nice to see Patrick Renna on screen again. Whatever, it's a bad horror movie and it was packaged with other horror movies that I'm sure are equally bad so that it can appeal to die-hard fans of the horror genre. Shame on people for going into this movie expecting anything more than drugs, sex, pointless bloodshed, and a cheap laugh. I recommend seeing Dark Ride if you like bad horror movies. If you like walking into a video store and picking out a movie with the silly scary cover citing a couple of has-been stars, then watch this movie. And if you want, spend $10 on it. If not, then just pass it up. But don't go into this expecting some piece of art that revitalizes the horror genre...