tbc0 Reviews

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

too preachy

[4/10 · 12 December 2008]

I wanted to give this film zero stars for being so preachy. But I have to give it 4 stars for the excellent casting (Reeves, Connelly, Bates, Cleese, and others), cool Gort, and overall good Hollywood production quality. I would've given the movie an extra star if only they had found a way to fit "klaatu berada nikto" into the remake script.

I can accept that the "stop being mean to one another" message of the original needed an update, but "stop killing the planet" wasn't convincing. It made me think of "The Arrival" starting Charlie Sheen. (That film wouldn't play today, though, because it portrays global warming as not being humanity's fault.)

Final Solution (2001)

the film is based on true events

[7/10 · 25 October 2005]

I know Gerrit. He presently lives in the U.S. This film is based on events in the lives of both Gerrit and Celeste Wolfaardt. It's a remarkable story. It inspired me to read "Cry, Beloved Country." The film is well-produced. The music is beautiful.

The story is told in flashbacks. You learn the stories of a white racist South African (Gerrit) and a black South African (Moses). Their lives intersect violently. The ending is not typical Hollywood -- it's unusually realistic and ends on a note that encourages you to think about the characters and the themes.

Be sure to watch through the credits -- you'll get to see footage of Gerrit in real life.

Paparazzi (2004)

Revenge served warm.

[6 September 2004]

This seems to be a celebrity's fantasy of getting even with paparazzi. They are portrayed as scum, while the actor is an individualistic family man. He's from Wyoming, Gibson's from Australia, but we get the idea. It's less violent than many of Gibson's movies, and at least the protagonist is likable (which sets it apart from Payback, an earlier Gibson revenge film). I enjoyed the ride, even though there's not a moral lesson at the end. Without spoiling the plot, I can still say that the script explores one man's descent into sin and, by the end, a sort of return from the brink. It's also fun to see how Gibson gives himself a cameo and how he makes fun of the Baldwin brothers.

Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003)

Good lead actors, bad writing and directing

[1/10 · 14 June 2003]

The story was lame, not just dumb. The scatalogical jokes were constipated. The scenes between the principal and his lover were pathetic. The best part of the movie was the imitations the new actors did of Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels. Too bad they will never get a chance to do it over. The writing was simply putrid.

Gosford Park (2001)

boring, unintelligible, no characters to care about

[1/10 · 14 March 2003]

I only got through the first hour of this movie. I returned it to Blockbusters and asked for an exchange. It has me biased against Altman. The overlapping dialogue makes for realistic staging, but I couldn't make out all of it. The sound simply sucked. The plot was boring, and I couldn't find a single character to care about. 1 out of 10 stars.

A Walk to Remember (2002)

Finally! A teen film that portrays virtue with neither ridicule nor lectures.

[11 March 2002]

Finally! A teen film that portrays virtue with neither ridicule nor lectures.

"A Walk to Remember" opens with in-your-face teen rebellion. The "in-crowd" at Beaufort High sets up a wannabe for a prank that goes too far. The principal punishes the protagonist by forcing him to interact with "people different from himself." And so Landon Carter (Shane West) crosses paths with Jamie Sullivan (Mandy Moore), a plain Jane Bible-carrying astronomy geek whom Landon has known and ignored since kindergarten.

What follows is a love story with predictable milestones, innocent teenage romance, and devices to close the loose ends. What makes this film special, though, is the way it develops the characters. Landon is portrayed as an angry son who doesn't want to forgive his father for leaving his mother. Jamie has a seductive inner peace that Landon can't resist. The trailer use Landon's question, "Don't you care what people think about you?" and Jamie's answer: "No," to set her up as a rebel against rebellion. But she also sees something good in him despite her first instincts (and her father), which tell her he's nothing but trouble.

Reverend Sullivan (Peter Coyote) could have been less aloof, but the screenplay doesn't give him much to work with. He has to raise his daughter alone after his wife dies. He does the best he knows how, trying to balance the transfer of his values with the acceptance that he has to let his daughter grow up to become her own person.

It's typical for Hollywood films to ridicule anyone who doesn't break the rules, and films praised by the Christian community often suffer from proselytizing that turns off secular audiences. This film doesn't pander to either side. Jamie, by being an old-fashioned symbol for virtue, is the hero of the film, and yet the Christian overtones are muted.

The tone of the mainstream critics of this film is merciless, which is another indication that this film is rebellious in exactly the way it sets out to be. It's a sweet story with a bittersweet ending, and grace is plentiful. That's too much for cynical nihilists to tolerate. But read the negative reviews for yourself. The criticisms sound empty and shallow, just like Landon's in-crowd friends who fail to ridicule him into abandoning his relationship with Jamie.

Emma (1996)

screenwriter must have been a playwright

[10/10 · 25 April 2001]

4 out of 5 stars

"Emma" is a period piece set in a timeless classical England age of Victorian courtesy when ladies and gentlemen had leisure time to manipulate relationships with patience and subtlety unheard of in this modern age of 24/7 fast-food life. The dialogue will be objectionable to attention-deficit post-moderns who like one-liners with no set-up and who have neither the patience nor the cunning to follow a complicated plot. The film has the pace and verbal wit of a play, not an action flick. The cinematography is tasteful and complementary to the dialogue, though, so we should be grateful that this story made it to the screen rather than being relegated to the theater.

Gwyneth Paltrow plays a 21 year-old member of the gentry who delights in making matches. Her attempts to find a man for Harriet (Collette) are humorous in a real and subtle way, not screwball. Some might find the plot contrived, but I wanted a happy ending with all loose ends tied up, and I got it! Ewan McGregor fans beware - his part is relatively small (but significant) and you will hardly recognize "Obi-Wan."