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Reviews
Irrational Man (2015)
A parody of himself
It is a shame to see that a great master like Woody Allen, who has given us masterpieces in both comedy and drama, can make such a bad movie in the end of his career. This movie is like Woody Allen parodying himself, but without being funny.
Several things about this movie made me angry. First of all, the setting: a bunch of rich white men and women who play piano, ride horses, drink single malt whiskey all day and discuss Kierkegaard with each other in a New England campus near the sea. This type of setting might have been interesting thirty or forty years ago, but now it seems completely disconnected from reality and from current days and worries.
Then, the plot: one man decides to commit a murder because he thinks that the victim deserves to die, and that he can get away with it without guilt or punishment (yes, Woody Allen hits us over the head with Dostoievsky more than once). This same plot was used in Crimes and Misdemeanors (in the dramatic half of the movie) and in Match Point; the difference is that those movies were amazing, and that there was a believable psychological tension before and after the murder. Here the professor (Joachim Phoenix) decides to kill a man to entertain himself, and has no moral dilemma at all about it. Why should the viewer care, if the characters don't'?
Next: the romantic relationship between Joachim Phoenix and Emma Stone. how many times have we seen, in Woody Allen's movies, a relationship between a "wiser", older man, and a young woman who needs to be "educated" by him? Off the top of my head, I can remember the painter in Hannah and her sisters, and the optometrist in Crimes and Misdemeanors. Maybe this is just Woody Allen projecting his fantasies (intellectuals are sexy, young women are attracted to them and fall under the spell of their superior knowledge), but it just seems creepy and anachronic.
The rest of the problems with this movie, I will just quickly list them: the dialogues, absolutely forced and unrealistic; the constant voice-over, explaining and commenting absolutely everything, even the things that we are seeing on screen; the music, repetitive and out of tone (a cheerful piano melody that appears even in the scenes where Joachim Phoenix is planning and committing the crime); and the ending, oh, the ending. Just ridiculous and unwarranted. Yes, one of the themes of the movie is that everything is subject to chance, but when chance appears so forced in the final scenes of a movie, that is not chance at all, that is just bad writing.
I still maintain my admiration for Woody Allen: I love Manhattan, Hannah and her Sisters, Annie Hall, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Match Point, Blue Jasmine, and also more goofy comedies like Mighty Aprhodite or, of course, Everything you always wanted to know about sex... But many of his most recent films are just failed attempts, so much so that one wishes he would take a year off, and only come back when he has a really good idea for a movie. I for once are not very excited to watch his next one...
V/H/S Viral (2014)
A nice found footage movie
I watched this movie at the Lisbon Horror Movie Festival (MotelX); when I did, I hadn't watched any of the previous ones (now I have), so I did't really know what I was going to see, and I quite enjoyed the experience.
As its predecessors, V/H/S Viral is formed by three found-footage stories, tied together by yet a fourth frame story, also filmed in a found-footage fashion. (Apparently there was supposed to be one more segment, directed by Todd Lincoln, but it was never filmed or it didn't make the final cut).
The frame story, "Vicious Circles" by Marcel Sarmiento, is quite unsettling. It starts with a police car chase of an ice-cream van, and a young couple much in love who is split by the intrusion of pure horror in the form of viral videos that appear in their mobile phones. This story is split in four small segments, some very brief, others much longer, until the final scene which closes the circle, so to speak. It was in general quite enjoyable, with some concessions to gore, a few clichés flowing around and some very enjoyable scenes. The use of music in the very last segment (Beethoven's 9th symphony) was very clever, in my opinion. My score for this story, 7,5/10.
The second story (first of the viral videos), filmed by Gregg Bishop, is more a mockumentary than a found-footage, although it obviously includes many "interviews" and closed-circuit camera footage. It tells the story of "Dante the Great", who always dreamed of being a magician and got to do so when he discovered a mysterious cape: a cape that was so powerful that apparently it frightened Houdini himself. This story is the least gore of all the pack, and it is in a way quite predictable, but it is well executed. The main sin for me is that at one point the movie abandons the "found-footage" form and includes some scenes with a more traditional filming; and that is hard to accept in a movie that is precisely about videotapes being found. Score: 6/10.
"Parallel Monsters", by Nacho Vigalondo, is probably the best of them all. It is filmed in Spanish and has a slightly different look, more professional, more acted, less realistic in a way. It tells the story of a scientist who opens a gate to another parallel universe, only to find that in that universe there is another version of himself, who has built exactly the same machine. When they decide to exchange universes for 15 minutes, he will discover that there are in fact a few, ahem, minor differences between their universes. This segment is quite original, very funny, very cruel; it explores its premise with intelligence and leaves quite a few things unexplained (which is not a bad thing at all). The only thing that disappointed me a bit was that the development of the story turns to more conventional horror clichés. In any case, I am giving it a 9/10.
"Bonestorm", by Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, follows a group of teenage American skaters who decide to go to Tijuana to explore an abandoned skating park and film some videos. When they get there, they get haunted by a death-worshiping cult (or something similar) who used that skate park as their ceremonial ground. The premise is extremely simple, and apart from a few scares and gore scenes you won't get much out of it. The best part is the humor in the creation of the characters. Score: 7/10.
All in all, I enjoyed the experience. The segments are obviously uneven, but I guess that's inevitable in a collective movie. Nacho Vigalondo's segment is one level above the rest, followed by the frame story by Marcel Sarmiento. After watching the three films of the trilogy, I think it was a good idea to abandon the "damned videotape" idea and update it in a form of viral videos, which allows for a different kind of frame story.
Oh, and I think the movie is trying to tell us something about our urge to be famous at any cost and by any means, but quite sincerely, I don't think anyone who sees this movie will really care about that.
Overall score: 7/10
Knowing (2009)
Worst movie I have ever seen
I will just say this: I have just registered in IMDb to be able to comment this movie and tell you that it is probably the worst movie ever made. It's not just all the hidden (not so hidden, really) religious content that other people have already told about: it's also that the script has more holes than a Dutch cheese; that the characters are dull and stereotypical; that you cannot care less about what happens to them; that the movie ends and none of the clues and McGuffins that have been force-fed to you get an explanation. There's not even a hot girl (or guy, unless you like the old version of Nicholas Cage) to keep you entertained...
The only good thing about this movie is Beethoven's 7th Symphony, which we can hear a couple of times, at the beginning and then again at the end... if we bear it until the end, that is...