Change Your Image
gnostic21
Reviews
Trust (2010)
The Selling of Sex to Young Girls
My issue is with how the 'crime' is framed - the words 'assault' and 'rape' are tossed about liberally. What is never mentioned is 'seduction', the enticement of naive young women /girls by appealing to their romantic fantasies, which has a long social and literary history. The need to feel 'loved' and 'special'. No violence is ever used. A plot point unnoticed or unmentioned by any of the posters is the father's profession. Advertising. Marketing stuff to 'tweens' using highly sexualized images. Tweens are children between the ages of 9 or 10 and 13. They're fed a constant diet of the ways to be 'desirable' and 'sexy, usually by buying stuff to make them look older and more sexually available . How can parents overcome this barrage of noxious merchandising - especially if that's what provides their good upper middle class life. It also provide the psychological conditions, along with the anonymity of the Internet, for the seduction of very young girls. Charlie is an utter creep, but he's aided and abetted by an economic order that will do anything to find new 'markets'.
I.O.U.S.A. (2008)
Cat's paw
Peter Peterson is one of the chief proponents of 'entitlement' reduction; i.e. Social Security and Medicare. Never in any discussion of deficits are the exorbitant sums spent for military boondoggles, outdated ineffective weaponry (corporate welfare) , uncontrolled and unexamined payments to our corrupt 'allies' (Karzai, Pakistani Intelligence Services, Israel). So be careful, especially if you're a boomer and just about ready to get Social Security - it may not be there if Peterson has his way. His argument sounds so sensible, unless you include the elements he's ignored. It's noticeable that there are almost no voices on this panel to protect Social Security & Medicare.
David Copperfield (1999)
Amputated Dickens
The rave reviews of this version are due more to contemporary audience's total ignorance of Dickens' writing, comfortable familiarity with the actors playing the roles and limited attention span. I saw the 1974 version first, with utterly unfamiliar actors, and a 300 minute length, as opposed to 186 minutes. Massive amounts of plot were excised. The only actor whose performance was worthy of Dicken's intentions was Pauline Quirke as Pegotty. In the 1974 version, Martin Jarvis played Uriah Heep, an icon of unctuous, oily, perfidy and criminality, so much richer than the current one. And Mr. Micawber (I love Bob Hoskins, mind you) but the script gave much greater depth to his pecuniary failures in the 1974 version. And the actor chosen to play Copperfield - what were the producers thinking? Copperfield is an alter-ego of Dickens himself, not some wimpy pretty naive boy. An intellectual, a writer. Everything came out right at the end (as Dickens always arranged)but it was so neatly done and so unsatisfying. If you're a Dickens fan, I enourage you to watch the 1974 version.
Rebels and Redcoats (2003)
Elementary School Social Studies classes would benefit from this
A brilliant revelatory documentary, in spite of the ludicrousness of a bunch of overweight men traipsing around in bright clean British Army Uniforms. I would love to know if they were actors hired by the producers, or actual re-enacters. I've never thought much about the Revolution, but this documentary offered revelations, first,that the loyalists were a much stronger element of the population than American mythology permits; the actual story of the significance of Washington Crossing the Delaware (the battle for Trenton), how touch-and-go American victory actually was, and how much our ultimate victory at Yorktown depended on the aid of the French fleet.In the light of 'Freedom Fries' and our excoriation of the French following 9/11, this is a great correction. Watch it, show it to your children, try to correct the myths that get passed to us as 'American History'. I enjoyed it immensely.
Sweet Sixteen (2002)
Superb
How I love Ken Loach! How I love DVDs that offer subtitles, 'cos Loach movies absolutely need subtitles, especially this one with its thick working class Scots accents (fascinating that the English language has somehow incorporated this almost medieval dialect). Loach takes us to places we would never go to in The Disneyland Tourist world that we are sold as the 'real'world, but of course it isn't - Loach's world is the real one and his actors are real people, brilliantly directed, or allowed to be as natural as possible in a context of the narrative.The title is deceptive -one thinks one is going to see a teen coming-of-age movie in the American tradition (learning how to seduce romantic conquests, learning how to be 'marketable" - but it's a teen movie in the tradition of a socio-political context, absolutely unheard of in the American movie tradition.
The Wackness (2008)
Teenage-angst boredom
It's a coming-of-age story for the millennial generation, and if you're not in that demographic, it has a limited appeal. It's a bildungsroman, an exercise in teen-age angst for the 90s, which includes stoner / doper humor and sensibility. Not my shtick. I found it utterly boring meaningless. Perhaps had I been much much younger than I am, I would have been enchanted. Perhaps what we need, when we read movie reviews, is some coded indication of which demographic group this movie is aimed at so we can be alerted to avoid it, if we don't belong. Demographics are the marketing imperative of the movie industry and one is doomed to disappointment if one falls outside of that criterion.
Marion Bridge (2002)
So subtle I'm still puzzled
I rented the DVD of this movie because indie movies, and 'fringe of empire' movies (Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, sometimes British) are not corrupted by the demands of Hollywood blockbuster profitability. And because it had Molly Parker and early Ellen Page. The crucial element of this movie, that 'Agnes' had borne an illegitimate child due due to parental incest was so subtle that I had trouble understanding it - it passed by in a confession so low-keyed and fast that I'm not sure I heard it. It is mentioned only in coded fashion in IMDb reviews. I'm in the process of watching the director commentary, hoping that it will be revealed more openly. I don't understand why the secrecy, unless it has to do with the movie's potential for international distribution. Also the possible lesbian interest of one of the sisters. They give mystery to the plot that seem to be unnecessary, unless the religious component of the sister's lives is a defining element. Parental incest / lesbianism are NOT rare shocking phenomena. The movie was interesting as a historical artifact. Molly Parker and Ellen Page were great nevertheless.
Joyeux Noël (2005)
A Song to go with the film.
I haven't seen this movie yet; it's on my list. But I want to tell the people who loved it that there is a wonderful song called 'Christmas in the Trenches', by John McCutcheon, an American folk song writer and performer that is very haunting and beautiful. Unfortunately, it only gets played at Christmas time; in this nightmarish era of massive bloodshed and death, it might be helpful to play it more often. If you type 'Christmas in the Trenches' into Google, you can get the words. If you look up John McCutcheon, you can find out how to get the CD. Whenever I think about this movie, the song plays in my mind. It's unlikely that it will be heard in the film, a Franco-German production, which is a shame.
Bad ma ra khahad bord (1999)
Slow-movie lovers
There should be a club for slow movie lovers, as there is for slow food lovers; those of us who are too old for our visual comprehension to be shaped by MTV style editing. This is one of those movies. It's a meditation on history - this historical difference between the protagonist (the engineer), who lives in a world defined by contemporary speed, but isn't, because he has to get into his car and travel several miles up-hill every time he gets a cell phone call (very funny I thought) and the ageless, timeless lifestyles of the villagers he's studying. My read is that he's doing an ethnological project, trying to record a ancient ceremony of mourning that involves self-mutilation of mourners to prove their allegiance to the deceased, thus protecting their livelihoods, as a symbol of the power politics of a small in-bred community. As Westerners, for whom most of the world that doesn't include McDonalds and KFC is a great smeary blank, the visuals of the landscape, the golden houses, the rabbit-warren quality of the village, the constant presence of pastoralists, are a revelation, in their beauty, and the ancient forms of human life on earth that they evoke. These are the movies I love; the mystery of their meaning and their reminder of what life was like for thousands of years before MTV/ iPods and the Internet is a crucial part of why.
Happy Endings (2005)
Bad Casting
Casting is crucial to believability, whether it's thriller or a comedy. It's very difficult to believe in a character who, at 16, is a dark haired adolescent member of an Italian American family (Peppitone), and suddenly, 17 years later, as an adult, develops an English accent! Didn't the casting director notice that this was bizarre? Couldn't they find a fine-featured dark haired American actor for the part? And the implied revelation of Mamie's lost 'son',(never actually stated), the offspring of two dark haired people, turns out to be a fair-haired (red-headed) beautiful boy. That's the Hollywood factor that reduces the whole movie to a 6. Plus the fact that in the scene where Mamie flees the Kunitz household when she understands who the lost son is, Charlie grabs the hand-bag from the 'lost son', and as he runs toward her stricken body, it disappears. These little Hollywood-isms are the difference between an interesting movie and a great movie.
Hidalgo (2004)
Political meanings
Think of this movie as Hollywood's gift to the Administration at a very crucial moment, while at the same time capturing the enchantment of the moribund western genre. Our hero, Viggo, is the epitome of the American hero, polite, deferential, unassuming, but proud, confident (but not violent!) not so much of his powers, as the power of the Mustang, the wild western/Spanish horse that is currently being captured by the Department of the Interior/ Bureau of Land Management to be sold as animal food, or to European horse- flesh eating markets. His opponents are perfidious and either Muslim or European. Sound familiar? Nevertheless it's a very beautiful movie, because the desert is always beautiful, and horses are elegant,beautiful animals. But keep in mind, as you watch, what it's really about.
The 'special features' information revealing the fact that there were 5 Hidalgos carefully made up (with non-poisonous make-up) to replace each other is comforting in the context of animal abuse. It's also the best things about DVDs.
The Trouble with Perpetual Deja-Vu (1999)
Unspeakably horrible
Do not rent this movie. I feel it's my duty as DVD / Video viewer to warn people when a film is indescribably incompetent, incomprehensible, pointless, irrelevant, etc. When a film is wonderful, there are hundreds of viewers ready to tout it. I've asked my video store to put death head stickers on DVDs/VHS cassettes that shouldn't be rented under any circumstances. Todd Verow has a 'following' - I can't imagine why. Is that a statement about the human condition or what we expect from movies in the 21st century? Please please note the 4.9 judgment. They're being generous. It's a 1.00 or less. Too bad; I'm sure the cast acted their hearts out, but the script is really lousy.
Après vous... (2003)
Unspeakably horrible
One of the worst French movies I've ever seen (and I'm a fan of French movies). Was it trying to be a 'madcap comedy', like 30's Carole Lombard films? Unbelievable characters, unbelievable behaviors, unbelievable acting. Such a sad mess. Auteuil, who earned his fame in the marvellous movies 'Jean de Florette' and 'Manon de la Source', where as a former TV comic, he stunned the French public with his performance as a turn of the century Midi peasant, is absolutely wasted in this movie. One can see his skill in trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but he's unable to overcome a stupid script, an idiotic concept and one can only assume he did it for the money. To be avoided at all costs. We don't want to encourage these people.
The Straight Story (1999)
exquisite masterpiece
That this film was distributed by Disney and directed by David Lynch is quite unbelievable! However, if one reads the credits carefully, one will notice that it was underwritten by Canal+, a French company, and that there were French co-producers. Its essence is European, although the settings, tone and mood are essentially Mid-Western America. Its concern is the human condition, that we get old, and infirm and we die. And that we must take care to make amends for the brutality of life, because the universe is so much greater and more beautiful than we are. There is only one gun visible in this picture, when Alvin shoots his first and unworthy lawn mower. It is slow, much slower than American movie goers have been trained to tolerate; elegiac, utterly alien to the the shoot-em-up, blow-em-up thesis of most internationally marketed American movies. The scene with Alvin and his chance encounter with another WW II veteran is one of the most heartbreaking scenes in current cinema and is a poignant warning of what we are about to do in the current geopolitical climate. It is also a reminder of the finest aspects of the American soul - caring, compassion, kindliness, neighborliness. Farnsworth and Spacek are superb. It made me mourn Farnsworth's death, and gave me even greater respect for Spacek, whom I adore as one of the finest actors and human beings in America.