Change Your Image
leecushing
Reviews
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
8 Oscars
Best Picture "Moulin Rouge" Best Director Bax Luhrmann, "Moulin Rouge" Best Actor Ewan McGregor, "Moulin Rouge" Best Actress Nicole Kidman, "Moulin Rouge" Best Supporting Actor Jim Broadbent, "Moulin Rouge"
Plus the requisite visual effect, cinematography, and costume oscars.
After seeing the mediocre "Gladiator" sweep through the Oscars (how it even got *nominated* was beyond me), my sincerest hope is that this film cleans up next year. *For once* we see visual effects used in a way that implies artistry, rather than crass "Ma, look what I can do" boredom.
Don't try to watch it like a traditional film. Like a warm ocean wave or a strong gin and tonic, let it wash over you.
A Simple Plan (1998)
Powerful Parable on the Banality of Evil
Beautiful acting, beautiful direction and photography, a real movie with real characters we can relate to, and a real plot that keeps you guessing. Weaves together strands of Hitchcock, Shakespeare, and Tarantino into one powerful combination. Not to be missed.
Revelation (1999)
Latest "Revelation": This Movie Stinks
"Revelation" ended up in my home by a fluke. Boy is someone in the doghouse for that one...it was an innocent enough mistake (with "End of Days" and other millenial thrillers out there). "Revelation" though isn't just a millenial thriller. Its a millenial thriller produced by the religious right.
Okay, its hard to review "Revelation" as *just* a movie without tipping one's hand about its religious point of view. So, to be fair, fundamentalist Christians are likely to be entertained by this film. If you happen to fall into the majority of the world's population that isn't Christian, or the even larger majority that isn't *fundamentalist* Christian, you'll get a glimpse into the eerie world of apocolyptic Christian prophecy (or, even worse, a glimpse into what happens when no gay people are involved in the making of a major motion picture).
Its clearly good guy/bad guy, black and white, good vs. evil (not a problem in and of itself). However, I think most people are at a loss about exactly *what* they would do if given the choice between 1) surrendering to the authority of an evil anti-christ or 2) putting up with the self-righteous banter of the films' good guys. Isn't there a door #3? What happened to all the Buddhists?
An over-the-top performance from a queeny John Lithgow-wannabe playing the anti-christ's right-hand man doesn't help. Amateurish elements pop-up periodically. Real life TV televangelists show up on the television throughout the film. This is where the film becomes truly unbelievable. Instead of hitting the remote control, the characters in this film actually *watch* them! Even more unbelievably, the televangelists are on the t.v. screen for more than 30 seconds without even once hitting the audience up for cash.
The "Revelation"...this movie stinks.
LeeCushing
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Best Horror Film of the 1940s
MGM did a stellar job of producing a high quality Horror film, putting together director Victor Fleming (of "Gone with the Wind" fame) and stars Lana Turner, Ingrid Bergman, and Spencer Tracy. This film demonstrates that horror doesn't have to be campy, low-budget schtick. Like 2000's "The 6th Sense," 1941's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" actually respected the horror material enough to demonstrate the heights to which a major studio could take the genre.
The film takes us to darker places than we dare imagined existed at good ol' MGM, home of the happy-go-lucky family musical. We see the confident, handsome, Jeckyll dissolve into a cruel, crass, foul-minded Hyde with Tracy's masterful performance.
Bergman and Turner also turn in gritty, splendid performances with their less-than-life affirming characters. Rather than playing it for sci-fi thrills, this interpretation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel focuses more on Tracy's losing battle to tame the demon of Hyde. The result is a riveting parable on the banality of evil (all the more visceral in retrospect, given the film's release at the brink of World War II.)
The Film Snob, Lee Cushing
Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)
Worst Horror Film of 2000 (and of all time?)
"Urban Legends: Final Cut" makes me wish that there's a special place carved out in the afterlife for the punishment of bad film makers. This film is painfully derivative of the Scream trilogy. Even worse, it pretentiously (and ridiculously) offers itself as a serious homage to Alfred Hitchcock.
"Final Cut" is linked only tangentially to the original "Urban Legend" (both are movies, ok...both are horror movies...all right, both are teen horror movies...that's about where the similarities end). Don't get me wrong, the first "Urban Legend" was no masterpiece. Nonetheless it did give us an original premise and entertaining horror vet Robert Englund.
Lacking either, we're left with...well, over an hour and a half of bad (but, alas, not "so bad its good")film. Absent of any entertainment value, this film is only interesting to the extent it merits consideration as the worst horror film of all time.
Do yourself a favor. Rent a *real* Hitchcock film, sit back, relax, and forget you've ever heard of Urban Legends: Final Cut.
The Film Snob Lee Cushing