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Reviews
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Think of it this way
Next time you intend to watch a couple of meh movies, settle in and watch this one good one instead. You'll probably be much more rewarded.
What irks some people about this movie is that it is long and "nothing happens". It's exactly as long as it needs to be to truly bring you into her world. It isn't plot driven but there is in fact a lot going on. There are some huge payoffs, hours in the making. It's not a paint by numbers script but it becomes gripping.
How to say without sounding pretentious? It's about meaning in life. Jeanne has none. Her son that she attends to never even looks her in the eyes - and she offers him no emotion either. The johns say nothing except "see you next week". She doesn't connect with the baby. She doesn't read, watch, or do anything of depth or consequence. She speaks little and keeps a firm distance from everyone. She fills time but not life.
And so the peeling of potatoes, the flicking of light switches, the stumbles in what have become a hypnotic routine, become moments of drama. Because this is all she has. Or merely all she has been taking?
By the end things are sideways, and she then undergoes experiences which are not banal. What is going through her mind in the final shot is surely a matter intended to be debated. I see disbelief and then exaltation.
Watch, and see for yourself.
Super Cyclone (2012)
What the...!
Please make it stop... So bad... So stupid... Can't... process... the badness... Noooooooo!
I wish the 10 lines requirement was not in place because this movie is so bad that 10 lines are completely unnecessary. I would have to pad this with a lot of redundant adjectives. Any further commentary would suggest a level of depth that simply is not there.
I figure a 12 year old with a video camera could come up with a movie half as good as this. That's right, this movie is on par with what a 12 year old could come up with. And not even a talented 12 year old.
Should be required viewing in film schools on how NOT to make a movie.
Yes really, that bad.
10 lines yet?
Naked Lunch (1991)
terrible
This is the worst movie I have ever seen in my life.
I hated it so much I wanted to trash the theatre and burn the print of the movie.
It was an excruciating experience from beginning to end.
The only reason I was compelled to watch this piece of trash in it's entirety is that I saw it in a cinema very far from my home, and I needed to catch my ride from the friend who was accompanying me. There was no where else to go in the area and, of course, no where in the lobby to sit and await my friend. I have never put myself in that predicament again.
Do not watch this movie if you love yourself.
Solaris (2002)
in the right frame of mind, a great movie
If you want a "popcorn" movie, get something else.
If you are looking for "entertainment" (or at least what Jerry Bruckheimer says is "entertainment"), this is not the movie for you.
If you want to turn off your brain and relax with something mindless or at most mildly diverting, watch tv. "Friends" is good for that.
Nothing wrong with any of these things, but if they are what you want then Solaris will not satisfy you. It is not a popcorn movie, it is far from mindless, and it isn't entertaining in the conventional sense. Solaris is thoughtful, intelligent, emotional, deep. If you are only looking for something with the depth of "Friends", you will want to kill yourself long before this movie is over, as I am sure you will notice in reading some of the other reviews for this movie.
I'm scaring you already, aren't I? Well there is no need to be scared. Solaris is very accessible and quite engrossing, you just need the right frame of mind.
In the right frame of mind you will be moved by George Clooney's rich and complex performance, haunted by Natascha McElhone's beauty and intensity, impressed by the realistic set design and understated visual effects, and intrigued by Steven Sodherberg's provocative direction of his thoughtful script adaptation. Too many adjectives? Perhaps, but this is a movie that defies being described by catchphrases and glib compliments, and that is probably why it didn't "succeed" in theatres.
The plot setup in a nutshell: (mild spoilers ahead) At some point after his wife's (McElhone) suicide, psychiatrist Clooney is sent to a distant space station around an unusual planet, Solaris. Strange things are happening there, and the crew is becoming unbalanced. After his arrival and a couple of peculiar conversations, Clooney falls asleep and wakes up in the arms of... his wife. Solaris has recreated a version of her from Clooney's own fragments of memory. It has done something similar for the other crew.
What follows through from this is an exploration of memory, loss, regret, and deep, deep love. In other roles Clooney does not necessarily come off as being a particularly deep man, but here his emotions are written on his face in vivid strokes. His confusion, pain, loss, love, hope are palpable. I was both touched and engrossed by his performance.
There are surprises, but Luke Skywalker does not come crashing through a door. The ending is a true resolution, not a trite "Ha ha we did it" or "Aren't we wonderful." This movie will keep you thinking and reflecting.
I watched this film on DVD, and might have been inspired to give it 10/10 (instead of 9 for being just slightly short of a classic) if the commentary soundtrack featuring Sodherberg and producer James Cameron wasn't so annoyingly overwhelmed with assertions of how brilliant each thought the other was (Cameron was particularly bad; he just oozed b.s.). It was only intermittantly revealing and added little that a conventional second viewing would not have uncovered.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
the right notes
Though not any kind of masterpiece, T3 brings an effective closure to the trilogy (let us pray that T4 never happens) and was a better movie than I thought it would be.
The scope is on the slightly more human scale of the first movie. Of course there are obscene levels of stunts and special effects, but what drew me in was that the notions of fate and consequence were dealt with in a more - dare I use the word - realistic manner. The sheer terror of the first movie and the operatic melodrama of the second have been brought down to a more plausible scale. One gets more of the feeling that the two human principles are real people. Their flaws are not gigantic tragic flaws, but real qualities of fear, bravery, uncertainty, and shock. This gives more drama and entertainment in their interactions with the two machines.
For it's back to basics philosophy and high entertainment value I give it a solid 8/10.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Do I HAVE to wait for Two Towers and Return of the King? (sob sob)
Lots of other people have gone to great lengths to talk about how great this movie is. I'm sure that they have said everything I could say, I won't bother just repeating them. I just thought it was an extraordinary film.
All I can add is that when I walked out of the theatre (even after the sixth time) I kept saying to myself, Do I have to wait for the next two movies? I want them now! Now! NOW! Aaaaaaaargh!
Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001)
If it had been only half as cute, I would have liked it twice as much.
This movie tried SO hard to be whimsical, it ultimately turned me off. Someone seemed to say, "I want to make the most absolutely CUTE movie possible. Cute! I want CUTE! CUUUUUUUUUUUUTE!" Now, I'm a sucker for romance and "quirkiness", and, yes, even cute, but this went way over the top. It reminded me of a commercial which desperately pushes every possible emotional button so that you will like it, but you just see right through it, change the channel, and decide you will never buy the product because of that commercial. Now imagine such a commercial going on for almost two hours, and you have this movie. Too bad because the lead actress was beautiful and had a lot of charm, the photography was great, some parts of it did work pretty well, and the concept had had a lot of potential.
I had rented the dvd, and didn't bother with the extras on the second disc, because enough was enough.
Wo hu cang long (2000)
a breakthrough film
You will say "ooh" and "aah" more at this movie than at any other you will see for a long time. This movie really sets a new standard for complete entertainment. One of the finest films of the past 40 years. And it is subtitled.
The one hang-up that many North American audiences still have - going to a non-English-language movie - may at last be seriously eroded by this film. At the time of this writing the highest grossing foreign film ever, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon should show many white-bread North Americans that movies made away from Hollywood and Britain are not all heavy, murky, existential, remote, artsy, and/or incomprehensible.
Rather, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon blends together everything you could like about movies: action, love story, epic, comedy, tragedy. The story, photography, score, acting, direction, editing, and special effects are second to none. Maybe you'll be amazed by the fight scenes; maybe you'll shed a tear or two over the love story instead (maybe both like I did).
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is simply great entertainment. Subtitles or not, isn't that the reason we go to movies?
Score it 10 out of 10!
Falling Down (1993)
this is the world today
SPOILERS!
One of the interesting things about this film is the way it observes, expands upon, and ultimately deflates many of the stereotypes of the North America of today.
The guy in white shirt and tie... who turns vigilante by mistake. The corner store owner who defends his business... before collapsing into fear and surrender. The gang members seeking vengeance for a slight... who are Three Stooges stupid and clumsy. The fast food chain... where the customer always comes last. The beggar... who barely pretends to be little more than a thug. The neo-Nazi... destroyed by his new idol. The occupiers of a lavish estate... who are only the hired help. Untouchable country-club types in their golf course paradise... driven to terror and panic by an outsider. The innocent children... well versed in the operation of weapons of great destruction. The big city cop... emasculated by a deranged wife and humiliated by his colleagues.
The chaos and violence of a big city... where law, order, and morality is ultimately restored.
One of the more trenchant observations of society since some of the great movies of the Seventies like Network, Nashville, and others, Falling Down takes us on a fast-forward, no-holds-barred ride through the stylized hell of modern life, replete with alienation, hatred, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, cynicism, suspicion, and general human baseness. This is a world in which every element of society has completely lost touch with every other element. And the Michael Douglas character, feeling caught in the middle, lost in a world he no longer understands, snaps, grows bold, and swaggers through the twisted landscape, determined to make everything "right" again.
He says he only wants to give his little girl a birthday present, but there is far more to it than that. Note that this gift he gives her is one of those little globe worlds, like a snow-shaker: an ideal world he feels once existed and which he wants to be able to give to her.
That world does not exist, of course, and perhaps even he knows it, but things are not as bad as his eyes see them. Chaos eventually resolves itself into order, and in the movie this happens through the Robert Duvall character: from meekness and weakness he hardens into the figure of strength and righteous authority. Order is restored. The world is as it should be.
We have never stopped relying on stereotypes, and this movie is very effective at puncturing them all, and leaving a little kernel of truth to observe and appreciate. Each of the little episodes that make up this movie always end in an assertion of simple humanity. The little masks that we wear, and that we see on others, are torn away and we see ourselves as we really are, no matter what image we might try and pass off for ourselves: in the end, we are all fragile, vulnerable, often a little stupid but ultimately idealistic, and we are only good or bad by accident.
Mixed with a sense of humour, a good cinematographic scheme, some decent secondary characters to support the powerhouse performance of Michael Douglas and the more subtle shadings in Robert Duvall's role, and the very real urban locations used, and you have one of the more notable achievements in film in the past decade or two. Enjoy.
The General (1926)
You will laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh...
Even before the first talkie, the movie that set the standard for cinematic comedy for all time. Hysterically funny silent movie that doesn't need words. One gag after another that any other comic could have only wished they could do. Stunts that keep you on the edge of your seat and cheering in amazement. This is the kind of movie that you will remember for the rest of your life.