crosma Reviews

Leo (2002)

A fantastic performance that time forgot

[15 March 2004]

Writing gives you the ability to create worlds and examine your own life more effectively. Could writing be the perfect ticket to self-understanding? That may sound contrived, but it may just not be.

Leopold Bloom is a young gifted writer, but his mother believes he is the product of an affair. For this she resents him. Stephen on the other hand, is an ex-convict. He's quiet and controlled, as is Leopold. In a class, Leopold is asked to write a letter for an exercise. He writes this letter to a convict, where it is received by Stephen. They exchange letters, and become each others only friends.

The ending is cliched, but with the rest of this highly original behind it, there was no other way.

You'll be surprised by how moving this becomes towards the end after remaining quite sterile for most of its runtime.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

Worse film than I previously thought possible

[1/10 · 5 September 2002]

This film is so clearly bad, I can't believe anything except that Simon West and co. were trying to make a weak film.

For the first 20 minutes there're about 10 lines of dialogue, each impossibly horrible. The density of lines increases as the film progresses, but their quality does not. The actors are made to speak in ridiculously unrealistic english accents, which grates (to say the least). Jolie pronouncing "Uranus" in the modern American way with her thick fake-english accent can only be described as *confusing*. Of course, this isn't a "dialogue film", it's an action film.

The action ranges from rudimentary to pathetic. Every shot is either poorly thrown together or a set-piece shot for the trailer. In the first action scene Lara runs around firing pointlessly at a robot, each bullet bounces off, but she continues to run around firing at it like an idiot, with a stupid smirk on her face. Instead of making the audience think Lara can handle herself (obvious intention), it makes her appear like an amature adventurer with no real skill.

While this film is quite short, it allows large segments of time to be thrown away with seemingly irrelevant, slow moving scenes, where nothing happens and no-one really says anything.

In total there's only about 15 minutes of content here. There aren't many action scenes, but they're all long and boring. There aren't any real dialogue driven scenes. The plot's not particularly interesting. This could easily be editted down to 15 minutes without missing anything.

When films are "stupid" bad they can be laughed at, and thus enjoyed on a different level. This film can't, because it drags too much. "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" is an awful, pitiful, pathetic, excuse for a movie. At the present time I cannot name a worse film.

My Wasted Life (2000 TV Movie)

Matt Groening looks back on his life

[20 May 2002]

The summary pretty much sums this up. Groening takes a look at his life from his childhood up to the present, mostly at the TV programs he hated as a child (because they were so nice).

The most interesting part is Groening's `Life In Hell' which is a superb comic strip, and what helped him breakthrough to The Simpsons. The program leads up to just after Futurama started and Matt claiming he wants to do a TV series about Rock ‘N' Roll.

An intriguing watch for fans of The Simpsons.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Tripe

[3/10 · 20 May 2002]

What can I say about this film that hasn't been said before? How about, I'm glad it's not in the top 250!

Hammed-up acting, bad script, bad idea, bad everything. The only reason this film was successful was the hype surrounding the "is it real?" element. Sure, if you think people act badly in real life.

I will say this though, in reality "plots" don't exist, life is just a bunch of events. That's where this film shines, the plot is realistically incoherent and flow less. Is it a good idea to base a film on the things about life that don't work in film? No.

I hope this film goes down in history as something that was hyped up beyond reproach and then turned out to be one of the worst films in recent history. I couldn't believe this was the same film I'd heard about once I'd left the cinema, and they

Evil Dead II (1987)

The funniest film ever made?

[17 May 2002]

The script, comic timing, and everything else that makes a great comedy is contained within this film. Instead of the serious, boring (seriously boring?) "The Evil Dead" we're served up Troma style comedy with the worst looking blood a film has ever contained (looks like dyed water to me). You won't be able to stop the laughter, your jaw will hurt, your sides will split (and spill red water). You'll never look at your hands in the same way again, in fear of them trying to kill you! Don't watch this for the horror, because it doesn't even try to provide it.

Waking Life (2001)

Original idea, but filled with unoriginality

[11 May 2002]

It's true that I watch and enjoy all types of films. I like dumb films, and I like smart films. My acceptance as to whether a film taxes my brain depends solely on whether the ideas deserve it. Anyone even remotely versed in philosophy will have either read (or heard) about the precepts being proposed, or have come to the same (or similar) conclusions (or ideas) themselves. Waking Life requires an interest in philosophy, at least at some level, to mean anything to the viewer. What I'm suggesting is this: the target audience of freethinkers will find nothing new to mull over here, because there isn't anything, it's just more of the same-old-same-old. Even if you watch an average amount of TV you will come across everything, and most of the ideas are only slight variations of others.

Having said that, these thoughts being brought into one arena and fired at the audience in quick succession is quite refreshing, even if they won't learn anything new. Also, someone could learn a lot about society and the human race's perception of it's own existence just from watching this film, so it'd be a great film for aliens that have invested interest in the human race.

This is not a bad film, because it's refreshing and entertaining. However, don't expect to tax your brain unless you don't have any thoughts of your own.

The Simpsons (1989– )

Oh My God! They killed The Simpsons!

[14 April 2002]

It had to happen sooner or later, and it did happen later rather than sooner. Does anyone actually enjoy this show anymore? The jokes are lame, becoming more and more immature with every show, etc. It just seems like they're running out of material, something that happens to all TV shows that go on this long. I used to be one of the biggest Simpsons fans there was, watching every new episode religiously, but now it's just garbage.

Yes, I do still watch every episode, hoping it's going to revert to actually being funny. The only time I've laughed for four series is at Homer's Popeye impersonation ("I need some fuel for my mule, some gas for my ass."), the fact that that's the best the show can do is surely a major insult.

Now that we've got/had other similar series (South Park, Duckman, Family Guy, Futurama) I can safely say that my found memories and many other people's fond memories are because this was first, it had nothing to compete with to be the best. All the other series I've mentioned are smarter, funnier and more socially aware (even Futurama), not to mention their far better storylines. The earlier episodes of The Simpsons were great, but still not as good as what the other series have to offer. Perhaps The Simpsons only saving grace is that it can be watched safely with people of all ages (although children don't understand any of the jokes, I know this from watching it years ago as a child myself).

Anyway, The Simpsons is dead. Talking about beating a dead horse...

Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Twice as pointless as Magnolia and half as entertaining

[1/10 · 26 January 2002]

Firstly, as an anti-drugs film this is flawed, because the characters come across as being generally dislikeable regardless. Secondly, instead of pier-pressure or anything like that, these people chose to become drug addicts.

Apart from the drug related messages in this film there's nothing of interest, there's no dialogue, no humour, nothing. This film is void of anything remotely intriguing.

Whether intentional or not: the TV show kept releasing more information throughout, but never completed itself. This alone made the film fall flat, because too much effort was put into a segment that was left unfinished and pointless. Unless there's some message about life being a TV show and dying early through drugs means you will never get to see the end (yes I'm reaching).

My point is this: with this type of anti-entertainment film the only point in watching it is the messages and guidance it may contain within, but this film doesn't contain anything. It's just a crap story about crap characters that the writer decided he wasn't going to end properly.

If you want an anti-drugs film that gets the message across far better, and actually is entertaining then check out Trainspotting. I get the impression from this film that this is an attempt at a `cleverer' Americanised remake, obviously the writer of Requiem For a Dream missed the point entirely.

Pure rubbish - 1/10

Shrek (2001)

Computer animation and toilet humour unite!

[11 July 2001]

I'm not a prude, far from it, but even I found certain elements of the film disgusting and unwarrented. Especially for a childrens film.

Exibit A: Donkey urinates on a fire to put it out. Exibit B: Shrek farts in a pond, killing natural wildlife. Exibit C: Shrek farts, burps, etc. throughout the rest of the film.

Normally I wouldn't mind, but there's no other humour in this flick. Apart from the "Gingerbread Man" scene. Other attempts are poor at best, for example: the "Robin Hood" scene, and crime on crime, he's doing the riverdance and is french (?!?!).

Shrek wins the accolade of, "Having the most predictable ending since The Sixth Sense". Formulaic is this films middle name.

On to the acting, it's not awful to say the least, apart from Mike Myers awful Scottish accent (even worse than in Austin Powers 2). John Lithgow is superb as usual, Cameron Diaz and Eddie Murphy surpassed themselves.

So then: to summerize, take your children to this film if you don't mind them laughing constantly as the main characters: fart, burp and urinate.