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Reviews
Eye of the Beholder (1999)
Good actors, camera-work; but Plotless and Meaningless.
Eye of the Beholder is a movie which follows the two main characters over a long but undeterminable period of their lives (only in the imdb plot summary are we told it is 10 year span.) The actors play their separate parts well, Ewan McGregor as an obsessed spy and Ashley Judd as a seductress/murderer and object of obsession. The camera work is beautiful and many scenes were neat to look at. If this is all you need in a movie then go right ahead and rent it.
The big problem with this movie was meaning and plot. First of all these movie has many plot holes and no Hollywood ending, but that's sometimes okay. I have watched surreal movies before. I have watched plotless movies before. The reason why they were so much better then this one was that they had MEANING! The characters were too unbelievable and their actions so unexplained that unless you think real hard you can't come up with a shred of evidence as to the deeper reasons behind their actions. You are told these at one point but they seem superficial and unconnected to their actions on a level anything deeper then the surface. It in no way explores the human condition or examines anything more than a superficial glance at obsession. It is devoid of anything more than pretty pictures.
If you are used to American movies, don't see this movie. It's totally plotless. You should realize by reading all the other reviews that it is.
If you are used to surreal experimental movies, you might want to give this one a rent but it's definitely in no way the best in it's genre, and the lack of deeper meaning leaves you with an unsettling feeling of WHAT? that is definitely less fulfilling then the Roman Polanski film.
Blue Juice (1995)
Only slightly interesting mind candy about surfing and Cornwall.
A movie about dealing with the problems with growing up and being true to yourself, Blue Juice is mind candy for those who like surfing and Cornwall. Sean Pertwee is the real star of this film, while the more famous Catherine Zeta Jones plays his girlfriend and Ewan Mcgregor plays his drug addicted pal.
For those who don't like surfing or Cornwall in the slightest, you'll find that it takes a long time before the movie even hints at being interesting. The beginning is slow and spends too much time on long shots of only slightly interesting landscapes. Plus too many main characters leads to most of them being one dimensional. The plot is an interesting idea but because of the shallow characters you have no idea why they act in the situations they're put in.
Only Ewan, Sean and Catherine's characters make this a film worth being on videotape, which is why it was only released on videotape in the US after Ewan and Catherine reached mainstream fame.