dontspamme-11 Reviews

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Rules of Engagement (1996) Season 4, Episode 17

One of the bad ones....

[7 August 2011]

I am about half-way through the entire Deep Space Nine series, and some of these 'filler' episodes are agitating to watch. Don't get me wrong, I understand that to enjoy most Star Trek materials, there needs to be some suspension of logic (especially the time travel episodes). Deep Space Nine is prime-time TV science fiction from the 90's, it can't be measured with the same yardstick as more mature and sophisticated productions like Battlestar Galactica: Re-imagined. This is where Ron Moore cut his teeth, and I always felt that many of Deep Space Nine's episodes were quite impressive and demonstrated his writing talent. But having made that disclaimer, I have to say that the script for this episode stands out as particularly bad.

The Klingons have declared war on the Cadassians. Since the Federation refused to support the invasion, Chancellor Gowron declares the Federation-Klingon peace treaty/alliance to be null and void. Worf, while commanding the Defiant on a convoy escort mission in a 'combat zone', is harassed by Klingon warships. After a number of 'shoot-then-cloak' attacks against the Defiant, Worf decides to adapt to the strategy and fires on a ship just as it de-cloaks, destroying the ship. As it turns out, the ship is actually a Klingon civilian transport with some 400 passengers on board. So the Klingons are apparently outraged and demand Worf's extradition to the Klingon Empire where he can stand trial for "murder." The premise for the story is virtually nonsensical. It is inconceivable that the Federation would even consider extraditing Quark under such circumstances, let alone one of their own officers. That the Klingons would make such a request is suspicious enough, but what's worse is that none of the obvious questions were asked during Worf's extradition proceedings.

Why would a Klingon civilian transport ship be equipped with a cloaking device? Why would you install classified military hardware on a civilian transport ship to begin with, then send it to a combat zone? What conceivable reason would there be to cloak a run-of-the-mill civilian transport ship? Are there cloaking device dispenser booths on every planet in the Empire to ensure that every Klingon and their grandmothers owned a ship cloaking device? Why did the civilian transport ship de-cloak in the middle of a battle between Federation and Klingon warships? It seems the answers would be obvious, and one hardly needs to rely on Odo's contacts in the Klingon Empire to dig up some incriminating evidence that would indisputably establish this extradition as a farce (speaking of which, for someone so anti-social, Odo seems to have a lot of social 'contacts'....). I would not have taken this episode so seriously if it didn't take itself so seriously (I don't care to run the premise of the Ferengi episodes through a fine comb, because they are just plain fun to watch), and as I said, this one stand out as particularly bad.

Attack on Darfur (2009)

Awful.

[23 June 2011]

'Attack on Darfur' marks one of Uwe Boll's first foray outside of the 'video-game to film' genre, a category of films familiar to us not for its tendency to be award winning, cutting edge, artistic, or intellectually sophisticated productions, but more because they tend to involve bad acting, gratuitous violence, nonsensical character motivations and plot-lines, low production value, and generally anything you can think of when you think of trashy flicks intended to turn the audience's brains off for a couple of hours.

In an attempt to gain recognition as s 'serious' film director and producer, Boll decides to tackle more 'serious' topics for his films--by making a video-game caricature of the civil war in Sudan: poor and oppressed African villagers in Darfur are slaughtered by maniacally evil Arab oppressors, while kindhearted white 'Westerners' helplessly look on, wondering why there is no international effort to 'get involved' and halt the atrocities (Like video game protagonists, the American journalists in the film decide to pick up guns and conduct their own little covert operation).

This is, of course, not what is actually happening in Sudan since the onset of the civil strife--it's a caricature, that reduces the complexity of the genocide to a simplistic one-sided affair that rather conveniently effaces much of its reality, in which numerous oil based economies from the US to China were in fact already implicated in generating the violent conflicts unfolding in Sudan, thus making it possible to fabricate a myth of 'international (military) intervention' as one of 'heroic rescue.' Apparently, Boll doesn't know that the word 'Arab' in Sudan is used in a different context than how it is widely (mis)used in Europe and North America, so he recruits a number of actors who look like they are of Middle-east descent to play the Sudanese Arab militia. The result is a poorly researched, poorly conceived, 'political-drama wannabe' that shares the same signatures as Hollywood action flicks: bad guys have bad aim, guns never need reloading, and every random person in the film has received small-arms training and can effectively use any firearm that is handed to them. The shaky cam technique, already over-exploited as a cheap method for conveying a sense of 'amateur realism' and 'immersion', makes an appearance here in a vain effort by Boll to induce motion sickness that he hopes will be confused by the audience as revulsion over the subject matter and the film's portrayal of violence. What it ends up producing, however, is depression.

What is depressing is not only the level of ignorance exhibited by the film and its director, but the number of reviewers who seem to think that this garbage delivers an accurate portrayal of the Sudanese civil war accompanied by a well-meaning political message. Meanwhile, Boll fires off angry letters to the press that his film is not being endorsed by supposedly progressive Hollywood celebrities, with all the righteous indignity of a crusading philanthropist that in fact turns out to be baseless.

I use to think that Boll was some sort of misunderstood talent that had a knack for subtle parodies and self-depreciation. I realize now that I was wrong.

Kamui Gaiden (2009)

Silly beyond the point of redemption

[20 June 2011]

After reading the other (positive) reviews, I am still unclear what redeeming qualities this film (purportedly) has. I am particularly boggled by the fact that some of the previous reviewers argued that the film was worth a watch or even deserved to be considered a "classic" (really?) without supplying any explanations or actual reasons, nor provide a comparison between this film and other films in the same genre (although, in what genre would this film really belong? 'Trashbin flicks'?). In fact, I wonder if we actually sat through the same film.

To provide a quick synopsis, the film has a premise (a rogue ninja hunted by other ninjas, trying to find a 'safe harbour'), but no plot. The story meanders through a series of cliché scenes with predictable outcomes, occasionally interrupted by people flying on wires performing 'special moves' that needed a narrator's help to explain (I guess if you like being treated as an idiot, this film might be for you...), ridiculous twists with nonsensical motivations, and animal cruelty that even I--someone not anything close to being a card-carrying member of PETA--found rather distasteful.

At some point, the only way to rationalize why we continue to subject ourselves to this filmatic torture was to find some small solace in nit-picking the technical errors and nonsensical development of the story. For example, I don't think the writer actually understood -how- crucifixion works as a form of capital punishment (puncturing the prisoner's body actually works to undermine its effects), and I particularly didn't think it was good parenting to have your 14 old year daughter take off her cloth and use her body to warm a stranger of sketchy background.

I've never read the manga, and after watching this film, I have no desire to. So if translating the manga into film was intended to extend and expand the franchise, it's failed to do that with me. I am not sure how anyone but the most fervent fans of the manga series might find this film appealing. If you have an attention span of longer than 3 minutes, I recommend you avoid this mess altogether.

The Hovering Blade (2009)

Pretty to watch but not enough substance

[24 February 2011]

If this was an American film, there would be truckloads of guns, gallons of blood, more dead bodies than I have fingers, and raging masculinity. The rapists would be Yakuza leaders who castrate their subordinates at whim and terrorize entire neighbourhoods as full time employment, laughing at impotent/incompetent/corrupt police investigators as they escalate their rampage. They would be so incomprehensibly evil that the audience would have little choice but to share a sense of vindication when the rapists' heads explode from a twelve gauge at point blank range after the avenging protagonist dispense one-liners like "I'll be back..." or "do you believe in Buddha? Well, you're gonna meet him." Also, there would be at least one glimpse of bare female breasts.

Alas, this film is not one of those formulaic Hollywood trash flicks, and it's not some standard crime-drama out to deliver elementary moral messages about juvenile delinquency or 'law and order' (and anyone who thinks it is, wasn't paying attention), and here it stands out.

Instead, the film focuses on the characters who are connected, however loosely, to the tragedy of the abduction and murder of Nagamine's daughter, from the police detectives investigating the case (and later attempting to apprehend him) to the country lodge hostess and her father where Nagamine stays during his search for the last rapist. But 'focus' is not the right word, because we never come to know any of the characters. They are like blank slates with no backgrounds. Other than the grieving father out to avenger his daughter, they have no motivations. They are strangers you will never get to know, whose fates you will never come to care about even as the end credits roll. So in spite of the score, the performances, and the desire to render a story premise more complex than simply 'revenge', in the end, the film simply becomes unmemorable.

On a side note, one thought came to me as I watched the scene where the police enters an abandoned mansion to apprehend a suspect without semi-automatics, gas masks, and a portable ram, just flash lights: Americans -do- live in a police state.

Unthinkable (2010)

Makes you think....if you have never exercised that brain function before.

[30 May 2010]

I can see why this direct rip-off from a season of '24' received so many negative reviews (although the rating average on IMDb still boggles me). This film engages in classic manipulation 101, by affirming and propagating some problematic cultural assumptions as facts, then blanketing over them with cinematic devices of distraction and sleight-of-hand.

The distractions are the A-list stars who attached their names to this film and the performances they give, without which the glaring holes and gaps in the plot and character motivations would be blatantly apparent. This is evidenced by a number of reviewers here who professed that they were on the "edge-of-their-seats" and captivated by this "thriller" despite the fact that they didn't understand why Younger did not seem to anticipate that his wife and children would be used as bargaining chips (when he supposedly anticipated almost everything else), or why Younger would turn himself in and risk the discovery of the bombs. These reviewers make the people who think that this film is somehow "anti-American" come across as slightly sophisticated, because I am fairly certain that actual military/contractor interrogators, who (should) understand that physical torture is a limited (and only one of many) interrogation technique, would find Jackson's character and his persistence on physical torture when it is clearly not working to be absurd and laughable. These reviewers are under the impression--manipulated by the film to think--that the film is about some moral reflection on whether torture can be justified if the situation is dire enough.

This is not what the film is about.

This film is about (melo)dramatizing certain assumptions and rendering them compelling and believable enough to be taken as fact. One such assumption is that only 'terrorists' face the possibility of torture in the name of US national security, which is a neat sleight-of-hand to obfuscate the fact that the majority of people who have actually been imprisoned and abused in the "War on Terror"--for example, in places like Abu-Graib, Guantanamo Bay, and other 'black sites'--are not guilty or even charged with any crimes related to 'terrorism.' But questions about how entire categories of people have become disposable in the name of security is blanketed over by the film which tells the audience that the only question we should be concerned about is whether we should prioritize morality or survival when confronted with the "ticking time-bomb" scenario. How did this 'scenario' come to be? It doesn't matter, the film tells us, because the antagonist is "Muslim"--as if that explains everything. What it explains is the other assumption the film affirms, that the writers and the producers hope no one will be conscious of, which is that all Muslims are 'suspect', and 'they' hate 'us'--an assumption that slides perfectly into a dominant cultural explanation for '9/11' and the subsequent 'War on Terror', as evidenced by some threads in the IMDb message forum where some posters have parroted all the tiresome rhetoric we've all heard countless times from government and military officials, talking sock puppets, and films.

There seems to be a 'commonsensical' notion floated by numerous reviews that something can be (cultural) 'propaganda' only if it can be easily recognized as such. If it's easily recognized as such, then it no longer fulfills that function. And the fact that so many people were entertained by this film without an inkling of its pedagogical function is a clear indication of the intensity of its manipulation.

Rendition (2007)

Depoliticizes a highly political issue.

[27 May 2010]

If evaluated on its own terms, this is a decent liberal attempt to articulate something resembling a critique about the "War on Terror." But the fact that the US outsources torture comes across as disturbing or informative to those who have had the privilege of not having to know is downright insulting to others. The movie conveys the impression that "rendition" is an exception to the norm limited to a few highly publicized cases, when it is in fact a practice that is deployed far more widely than what the mainstream American media would have us believe. What followed in the film was an attempt to deliver some important messages as a Hollywood narrative, replete with formulaic techniques, through characters with unbelievable motivations (in particular the Jack Ryan-wannabe played by Gyllenhaal). All the references to US foreign policy and post-9/11 security policies dropped -into- the film are never fully developed and then dropped -from- the film altogether as the story progressed. On those terms, there really isn't much distance between this movie and made-for-idiots shows like "Twenty-four."

American Outlaws (2001)

What?

[27 May 2010]

I am not sure what this movie was aiming for. Entertainment? Fail. A historical expose? Fail. Plot? Fail. Acting? Hahaha.....

"Lame" does not adequately describe this Hollywood trash. Comparing this movie to other movies of the same genre (eg. "Young Guns") just insults the other movies. All of rave reviews here come across as if they are written by 12 year old girls, and even then it's a bit shocking for me to see them gushing and fawning over this poor excuse for a movie. It's hard to imagine how anyone with even a single brain cell kicking would find this trash to be enjoyable. This film receives one star from me because I can't give half-stars on IMDb.

Re-cycle (2006)

Naive

[27 May 2010]

This film is so damn preachy, I figured out the intended message about 1/3 through. It's funny to see so many reviewers and comments disavowing an obvious political message that can only be described as politically naive.

But even the most expensive CG effects and subtle religious intimidation disguised as emotional blackmail cannot allow you to chart a straight path through what is in fact a complex political issue. Eye candy is no substitute for genuine creativity (of thinking). This film is just completely thoughtless, abort it from your "to see" list (pun intended).

Gunner Palace (2004)

Repetition of compulsory patriotism

[29 April 2010]

"Oppose the war, support the troops"--This tiresome message that some self-identified American "liberals" believe bridges the partisan divide in US politics has become the M.O. of countless American war films and and documentaries since the Vietnam War. It's tiresome because it actually works to re-center US soldiers as 'victims', deflect attention from those most victimized by wars, and generally erases the larger politics in which it is not the individual soldiers, but nationalism, that is most complicit with the violence of war we have now habituated ourselves to as part of the everyday, that we can simply switch off, click away, and ignore.

The soldiers here are real people, and the documentary shows that (unlike de Palma's "Redacted" which, while not a documentary, pilfered docu-aesthetics to appear as one, and failing miserably in its delivery because the characters were so one-dimensional). The Iraqis are rarely shown here, except as malcontents pelting rocks at military Humvee, suspected 'insurgents' having their homes broken into late at night, and getting arrested for the sketchiest of reasons. The film attempts to shore up critical reflections on the Iraq debacle near the end, but only as an attempt to convey the impression of a 'balanced view-point.' A passing grade because the film at least tried--even though it fails.

Bratz (2007)

I hope they never make a sequel to this film...oh...wait...dang..

[28 April 2010]

O..M...G...I heart the Bratz! This flick was da bomb! My fav is Jade, but I luv them all! I learned soooo much from the Bratz. Like, what do you do when you don't want to go to a party but you have to go because you would be seen as an outcast if you don't go? Put on tons of make-up, buy new cloths, and accessorize! I totally get the "be yourself, but dress like Britney and Avril!" message. I love how the four friends band together to resist the school cliques, because four friends who think they are better than everyone else does not make a clique! The racial stereotypes were totally dead on! Nerdy Asian chick, sassy black chick, dumb blonde white chick...people are really that easy to classify! Yeah....this film is worse than crap. It's actually HARMFUL to your brain, young girls' self-esteem, the ozone layer, and countless other things.

Outlander (2008)

Caviezel needs a new agent

[28 April 2010]

Poor Caviezel. His only real claim to talent was in "A Thin Red Line", and he's been steadily sliding down the scale of quality productions ever since. "The Passion of the Christ" only manage to get any attention at all because of the media controversy and the commercial reputation of its director (that is, Mel's "pre-DUI anti-Semitic rant" reputation).

I feel sorry for everyone who appeared to this movie. It will set many of them on the path of "B-movie" and "straight-to-DVD" career. This is a thoroughly dismal attempt to spin a mildly interesting premise. The story was boring and predictable. The script was so convoluted and poorly written that the CG generated monsters had better dialogue than the human actors. I almost cried at the end of the movie, when the monster died, because it was the only thing that gave this film a pulse.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)

Bad. So very bad.

[28 April 2010]

Is it worth adding another review that bashes this film? Why not.

This is a colossally stupid excuse for a film. Is this film intended for kids or adults? The director can't decide, and instead combines the worst possible of both worlds. The film is replete with gratuitous violence (and I am not referring to the uninspired, poorly choreographed 'fight' scenes) and sexual innuendos (none of which were convincingly executed), then dumbed down to a level that would bore anyone who has ever seen moving images on a screen. After the horrendous Street Fighter flick of the mid-90's, I didn't think any filmmaker would ever touch that title again. I guess they thought the stink cloud had blown over--and they needed to create a new steaming pile....

....and they sure did.

To 'enjoy' this film, it's not enough to turn your brain off when you sit down to watch it. You actually have to be someone who is incapable of higher brain functions to begin with.

Left Behind: The Movie (2000)

Definitely 'stands out' from all the films I've seen....

[28 March 2010]

I am a believer.

I believe if religions in general were not invested in propagating uncertainties, fear, anxieties, and panic about (afer-)life, as this film does, no one would bother to donate a penny or a thought to their causes.

I believe in miracles.

Given that the acting was so pervasively bad in this film, it must be a miracle these people can still make a living through their acting.

I believe in hell.

I can only imagine this must be one of the films they show to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, because watching it was torturous hell.

Seriously, I don't recall how I got roped into watching this film. It certainly didn't 'sound bad' at the time, as it was being pitched as a doomsday disaster film. But I daresay that of the thousands of films I must have seen throughout my life, this is one of the worst.

Miss Castaway and the Island Girls (2004 TV Movie)

Two mysteries

[28 March 2010]

This is a film that revolves around two mysteries (which I have now demystifed).

First, did the film makers understand the concept of 'parody' before using it to carpet bomb the audience throughout the film? Parody is when a reproduction attempts to mock, comment on, or pay homage through self-depreciating humour to, the original work. In other words, there should be reasons to parody such work, and they should definitely be clever. I didn't see any of those in the film. I did see some awful 10 seconds jokes that fell flat within 2 seconds of delivery. Bryan Stoller probably went to Eric Roberts and said "hey, I was drunk last night, watching Survivors, and had this brain fart for a straight to DVD release. I want you on board without reading the script...because I plan to direct this film without one!"

And herein lies the second mystery: Eric Robert's career. I use to think Eric Roberts had the career he had because he was unlucky. Now I realize it's because he is stupid (and therefore deserves the career that he had). After watching this movie, it is apparent that he would have been better off had he gone into mainstream adult films, which has higher budgets, more...intense...scenes and roles, better acting and direction, more elaborate and compelling plot lines, and a much wider audience than this B-movie reject (C-movie?).

Max Payne (2008)

Fail

[28 March 2010]

The major problem with this film is the major problem with almost all films inspired by popular video games: video game and film are two distinct forms of media, even if we are currently witnessing a 'convergence' between them. What works to entertain gamers does not necessarily work to entertain film viewers. It's often 'ok' (to many gamers) when video games are built around a thin plot and one-dimensional characters, just so long as they boast a well designed game engine with flashy graphics, an intuitive interface, an interesting premise, and something about the gameplay that might be considered 'ground-breaking' by industry standards. So, for example, since a 'thin plot' is virtually a convention in most FPS/TPS-action shooters, there are rarely any complaints because if the players were interested in the plot more so than the opportunity to 'blow things up', they wouldn't play these kinds of games to begin with. After all, these games primarily appeal to attention deficit teenagers, or perhaps more accurately, the attention deficit teenager in us.

Films have a more established history and presence in our lives. We've grown accustomed to various techniques films use to affect us. In fact, we've become resistant, because it takes a lot more than flashy CGs, eye candy cinematic, pretty faces, glimpse of a female breast, foreseeable twists, to entertain the more discriminating film (re)viewers. The cinematic sequences in this film are reminiscent of some of the techniques and aesthetics that have been widely deployed in Hollywood since they were introduced by "The Killer", "The Crow", "Sin City" and "Saving Private Ryan." But take away the CGs and CG enhanced shootouts in this film, and you realize that you are left with something grossly simplistic, something boringly familiar, something completely bereft of creativity that you've seen before, when it was called "The Punisher"--which you've also seen before, when it was called "Death Wish", and so on, and so on....

Changeling (2008)

For Eastwood-groupies only

[28 March 2010]

Can Clint Eastwood ever make a bad film? Contrary to the innumerable lemmings gushing over his Hollywood recognition and reputation, the answer is "yes." This film had the production quality, sophistication, and entertainment value of a tedious made-for-TV flick trying desperately to be taken seriously. It didn't help that none of the characters were well conceived by the script (which is strange, considering this film was inspired by a "real" event and "real" people), and the actors were clearly bored with their roles.

Angelina Jolie could not help but be 'emotionally distraught' in every scene, not only because it was called for by the script and the film, but because she seemed genuinely distraught that more discriminating viewers might not embrace this film on Eastwood's reputation alone. Malkovich doesn't even look like he's awake in most of his scenes, and Feore plays the same bureaucrat bit-role he's played in countless major Hollywood productions that continue to gloss over him. The only component worth mentioning is the score, which Eastwood purportedly composed himself. I guess that's something....

Red Cliff (2008)

Hit and miss

[28 March 2010]

Reportedly the most expensive film ever produced in Asia, dubbed "epic" throughout the marketing phase of its production, and they get John Woo, of all people, to helm the project. Bad mistake.

Instead of doing a 'historical drama', Woo directs it like one of his HK triad gun flicks. Therein lies the problem, because the most agitating, annoying, out-of-place scenes in this movie are the fight sequences. Instead of being entertained by the sheer scale and intensity of CG enhanced armies squaring off on battlefield of varying terrain, what we get instead are prolonged sequences of individual generals dismounting from horses, after abandoning their own weapons, so they can steal other people's spears. These are generals in command of armies, John, not the assassin in "The Killer." So instead of battles that are convincingly brutal and gritty, they just look ridiculous and irritating.

Historical accuracy and fidelity to the source texts aside (which means overlooking every character in the film who exhibits modern sensibilities), this film was otherwise entertaining, not least due to the fact that Woo and the writers take great liberty in their interpretation of the relationships between these various historical-fictionalized characters. The problem is Woo and his regurgitated signature style of character development. We see a clear resurgence of the 'band of brotherhood' sentimentality that is embedded in all of Woo's HK triad films, which is tiresome as always. There are also the moments when he treats his audiences as complete morons (as evidenced by the relationship between the princess portrayed by Zhao and the child-like Cao soldier) and tries to milk emotional sentiments from his audiences using the kind of lame devices one might find in a Disney film. Minus John Woo, and this would have likely been a more entertaining, if not better, film.

The Stoning of Soraya M. (2008)

Not sure which is worse...the film or the reviews.

[13 March 2010]

It's interesting to see a film where the majority of the reviews seem to be less about the film and more about the film's subject matter, as if they are so regaled by the subject matter that they forget to review the actual film itself.

As a film, The Stoning of Soraya M is sheer exploitation. The characters are one-dimensional with motivations as simple as their dialogue, and the acting is uneven at best. Marno is convincing as a woman struggling to survive in a society in which women have been reduced to the status of chattel – although her role is so simple that she is not expected to do very much. Aghdashloo is clearly the main attraction in the film as the fiery-tongue aunt who passive-aggressively rails against an injustice of a cultural magnitude. Everyone else, on the other hand, just come across as over-the-top caricatures - clearly a failure of the script and the direction.

Soraya's stoning scene is, as expected, completely gratuitous. We know she gets stoned – it's the name of the film. In fact, in spite of all the supposed 'outrage' about the topic of 'stoning', that is what the audience is paying to see. The film uses this to its advantage by turning Soraya's stoning scene into a long and graphic torture porn. It's used to climax the film and the audience, as if this kind of voyeurism is perfectly palatable if you can attach some sketchy politics to why it is shown.

And politics is what this film is really about, because it's impossible to divorce the film from the contemporary political climate of 'Islamophobia', national insecurities and infinite war justified in part through rhetoric of 'liberation' that serves as the context of its release - which is what the filmmakers are counting on. It is why so many commentators and reviewers read this film as if it was a documentary rather than a fictionalized narrative adapted from a book that was supposedly based on a second-hand account of an incident which reportedly occurred some 20 years ago.

'Stoning' has always been a controversial practice in Iran, even when it was introduced in Iran through its Islamic penal code in 1983. It has already been suspended for almost a decade by the Iranian judiciary, who are now contemplating whether the practice should be outlawed altogether. It's an issue that has generated enormous national debates, almost akin to how some deeply divisive issues, like capital punishment or abortion, are taken up in countries like the US, with some members of the clergy in Iran having spoken out to condemn the practice. Of course, this is not to imply that the current Islamic Republic is some sort of paragon of international human rights. That people can be legally punished for supposed 'moral crimes' like 'adultery', 'promiscuity', or homosexuality, should be seen as an inherent violation of humanity.

But this film does not aim to educate. It aims to entertain by sensationalizing the sight of a women buried from the waist down and used as a human piñata - something that might just as easily be a random scene in any run-of-the-mill Hollywood budget horror flick. It also aims to mobilize - and here is where it is most unethical - by appealing to a dodgy liberal sense of ethics with a dash of ignorance about modernity's 'other' that can be aligned with certain political constituencies in 'the West' that, much like the antagonists in this film, already place differential values on human life by their very actions and words.

Dirty Pretty Things (2002)

A film about 'bare life' that barely makes the cut

[11 March 2010]

I don't recall many people rating down Star Trek and criticizing it on the grounds that they didn't find the film "believable" or "reflect their experiences." Of course, Dirty Pretty Things is a different genre of film, intended to provoke (albeit not entirely successfully), to raise awareness (in a very narrow sense), and less obvious in its fictional tendencies than a film about (illegal) aliens of a different kind.

I felt the need to preface my review of the film with a review of some of the comments about this film, because I want to critique this film. This is not a 'great' film, it's just 'so-so', but not for the reasons indicated by a number of comments that seems clearly blanketed by an undercurrent of racism – even though such a charge just simplifies these reviewers' obvious investments in various identities of national belonging in which immigrants have been constituted as (security, social, economic) 'threats.'

This film is about entire categories of people who have been made invisible and disposable – "bare life", as Agamben would call them – but it never really attempts a more sophisticated engagement of the international order that makes them so. It's enveloped in a certain kind of politics, but not the kind that actually demands an ethics beyond 'feel sorry for....' Frears would like us to believe that it is the narrative that drives this film. It's not, of course. The story would not be as palatable if Ejiofor was not playing the lead, or that the lead he was playing was not an easily sympathetic character, or that the antagonists in this film – like the antagonists in Star Trek – were not clearly dis-likable. Just like Okwe's ethics, the supporting characters in the film have no shades of gradation. Once the window dressings are recognized for what they are, the gaps in the script and the direction become apparent. The actors scramble to do what they can with what they've been given, but in the end, it all becomes predictable.

There are numerous other films that do a much better job of articulating those most affected by the exercise of sovereign power, but receive far less attention and praise. And this is why DPT is just "so-so."

Confucius (2010)

Judge Judy vs. Confucius

[5 March 2010]

This is the film that the film bureau of the PRC's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television wanted to pit against Avatar? Really??? This film wouldn't even last five seconds against Judge Judy.

Here is what I learned from the film: Confucius would have made a perfect litigant for Judge Judy's binding arbitration, 'make belief' court, being sued by his wife for back child support and breach of contract by his 'students.' The film portrayed Confucius as a 'bum'--as Judge Judy would say--who abandoned his wife and children after becoming unemployed. He then meandered all over the feudal kingdoms of ancient China, turning down job after job for the next few decades or so while taking on more students to service him, even when he had no funds or resources to see to their education. In his defense, Confucius say: "I want to change things!" However, other than the fairly common desire to see an end to the perpetual conflicts between warring principalities that characterized the Spring and Autumn Period, it is not entirely clear in the film what specific changes he wanted to affect or how his teachings were going to bring about those changes. In fact, other than dispensing one liner fortune cookie wisdom, when did he actually 'teach' in this film?

Now let's put this film into context. As the PRC's communist ideological framework crumbles under the reality of its free market political and economic reforms, the post-socialist Chinese state 're-discovers' once banished Confucian ideals as a way to attempt to re-align its political authority with a moral authority, re-unite the disparate social and political elements of Chinese society, and distinguish the uniqueness of its modernization from Western industrialized countries. But even as a propaganda film meant to promote social values that would reconcile the PRC's authoritarianism with market capitalism, this film fails. It fails because the story was badly scripted and delivered by an over-dramatic acting style reminiscent of the last generation of period Chinese films. It's not smart or stylish, but is desperately trying to be in order to reach a new generation of Chinese movie-goers who would rather be stupefied by films like Avatar instead of being stupefied by films like this.

Two stars, for the women in the film - the only aspect of this film that was not profoundly irritating.

The Eye 2 (2004)

So bad...it's....bad...

[2 February 2010]

I am trying to find something positive I can say about this movie...Shu Qi is still cute (except when she is vomiting)...some scenes were laughable to the point of hilarity...suicide -is- a way out, apparently (which by the way, in spite of what the film's producers may think, is actually contrary to Buddhist teachings)....

Alright, I give up. How badly starved for entertainment would one have to be in order to find this film 'entertaining'? Most of the fanboy reviews here come across as being written by people who are discovering horror films for the first time. The film pilfers everything from a range of predecessors (The Sixth Sense, The Grudge, The Tenant), but reassembles them in the most convoluted fashion. This film could have been funny, but I get the feeling that script writers took their brain fart too seriously. As a jab against Buddhism, this probably would work to offend (I don't know, since I am not a Buddhist). So, one star for at least managing to accomplish something. The other star is for Shu Qi.

Mulan: Rise of a Warrior (2009)

"Red Cliff" was a decent idea, this one is not....

[11 January 2010]

First, let us dispel some misunderstandings. 'Mulan' is folklore--like Robin Hood, King Arthur--initially popularized as literary fiction, perhaps with some 'historical grounding', but so heavily mythologized that what is 'fact' and what is 'fiction' is virtually indistinguishable (this in turn produces multiple versions of the story, including of course, Disney's campy animated 'revision'). I specifically mention this because as silly as the 'plot twist' near the end of the film may seem to those familiar with the premise of the story, it is not nearly as silly as the rest of the film—-and just as a footnote, this version is campier than Disney's.

Zhao Wei plays Hua Mulan, a young woman who pretends to be a man in order to substitute her ailing father as a conscript in an army raised by the Northern Wei dynasty to fend off incursions by the Rouran Confederacy. Since women are not allowed in the military, she conceals her sex from her comrades while simultaneously demonstrating how much better she is as a warrior than her male colleagues.

Yes, Zhao Wei is a bad choice for this role. Her 'speech scenes' are particularly painful to watch. She seems incapable of shaking her soft-spoken and demure mannerism and it is hard to believe how anything she says can actually mobilize the morale of an entire army before a battle. There was virtually no transformation between her 'rural girl' persona and her 'soldier' persona other than what she was wearing (which made the gap in her acting even more apparent). Her appearance in this film as 'a woman dressed as a man' is no more convincing than her cameo appearance as 'a woman dressed as a man' in John Woo's "Red Cliff II." The difference is that in this film, that is actually central to the plot.

The battles were uninspiring and poorly paced. Fast-motion fight scenes intended to conceal the fact that most of the actors were physically inadequate for their roles, coupled with too many slow-motion sequences of people getting impaled or killed, made for lousy, lousy battles. "300", while not a good film, has at least proved that this could be better done (first by asking the actors to get into shape...). The army field formations were sort of epic but brief, as much of the cameras' attention were focused on individual fighting (meaning that you don't see "big battles", only CG generated/enhanced armies standing around or moving, then small battles with that annoying fast-motion sword swings/spear lounges and slow-motion death scenes...). Lastly, the whole 'band of brotherhood' rhetoric was just entirely over-the-top, more so than even the silly (but at least expected) love story.

Poor choice of actors, poorly written script, mind-numbing dialogue, bad filming techniques, and too big a budget for its own good. If you liked this film, you're letting something get the better of you....like your h***-on for Zhao Wei or a misguided sense of Chinese nationalism....

Good Hair (2009)

Funny but not edgy

[12 December 2009]

I was expecting a crass and superficial documentary. I didn't get that. But I also didn't get a documentary that had much substance.

Inspired by a question his daughter posed to him one day, one of the themes of Rock's film is to highlight the absurdities and contradictions associated with the multi-billion dollar beauty industry that concerns itself with making African American women's hairs look more 'natural' and 'relaxed.' This component of the film was conveyed by the excesses portrayed in Rock's salon interviews and the hair-dresser competition (that had less to do with hair and more to do with…everything else). Rock approaches the subject matter seemingly with a degree of 'innocence' not unlike the disposition of his daughter's inquiry. He interjects comical observations into his interviews to highlight the ways in which a visible and highly racialized 'beauty norm' circulates the American cultural landscape to cultivate the desire for African American women to look 'a certain way.' But while this component of the documentary is interesting (and often entertaining), it is severely inadequate and fails to provide his daughter with a thoughtful and satisfactory answer to her question.

First, the "9 billion dollar hair trade industry" is far more exploitative than as portrayed in the film. In fact, the film actually makes invisible a whole network of people involved in the 'hair trade', in particular those involved in processing the hairs to be used as weaves and wigs. The is an illicit component of the 'hair trade' steep in child labour and sweatshop labour that flies in the face of Al Sharpton's "do whatever you feel like as long as you are not hurting anyone..." liberal rhetoric. That it came out of the mouth of a self-proclaimed 'civil rights activist' is all the more ironic.

Second, the documentary fails to ask why 'long relaxed hair' is a beauty norm even in African American culture (as well as other African 'diaspora' communities). Why do so many African American women feel the need to 'de-naturalize' their hair at such extravagant financial expense and associated health risks? This omission in the film has been subject to a significant number of criticisms, and rightly so, considering it is at the heart of the question posed by Rock's daughter (that we are told, was the inspiration for the film). It is not as if Rock had to do the research from the ground up since there is already a lengthy and extensive list of materials addressing this topic in film and in print--contrary to a number of reviewers who have suggested that this topic has not been discussed before.

What is particularly surprising is how ignorant most of the reviewers here seem to be about this topic (compared to most of the 'professional' film critics I read, who seem to be more educated about it). I can understand if they are actually from countries that do not have a sizable population of African descent. But if you are an American (and especially if you are an African-American) and you never gave a thought about this topic until you saw this film? You'd rank 9 on the scale of ignorance, right behind Miss Teen South Carolina and her "some people in our nation don't have maps" spectacle.

Murderer (2009)

Silly to the point of hilarity

[6 December 2009]

It is not that rare to find a film in which almost all of the IMDb reviews are negative. However, it -is- rare to find a film in which all (or almost all) of the reviewers gave the film negative reviews for virtually the exact reasons.

Aaron Kwok plays a police detective in charge of an investigation into a string of serial murders, who suffers amnesia apparently as a result of an incident shown in the opening sequence of the film (and in which another police detective was seriously injured). The first half of the film shows his state of mental decline as he gradually succumbs to paranoia when he (re)discovers clues and evidence that seems to finger him as the murderer. This part of the film is very well done, minus the grizzly murder scenes and the opening sequence, which are clearly gratuitous. Kwok makes a convincing performance as a detective who is simultaneously convinced that he is being framed but unable to deny the trail of evidence that confronts him. The uncertainty over his role in the murders is compounded by his amnesia and his personal conviction regarding his innocence, which compels him to conceal damning evidence from his colleagues while trying desperately to hunt down a killer that he believe is still "out there." "Western" audiences are most likely to compare this segment of the film to Memento given the amnesia component and the gradually unfolding clues that lead the main character to question his starting assumptions.

Half way through the film, things take a horrendous turn. A rather ridiculous "twist" is inserted into the plot that begins to unravel the film, rendering it "silly" to the point of laugh out loud hilarity. I won't spoil the "twist" here, but there are a number of reviews with spoiler warnings that will save you the 2 hours or so that you might otherwise waste watching this film. It's too bad, really, since this film could have been so much better.

A Very Short Life (2009)

An over-budgeted "after school special" for adults

[28 November 2009]

There are many films that deal with the sensitive subject matter of child abuse. They typically fall into two categories: those that attempt to treat the subject matter with complexity and seriousness, and those that exploit the subject matter to sensationalize and trivialize the issue. This film pretends to be the first but falls into the latter category.

Pinky Cheung plays a HK police inspector who recounts a particularly disturbing case she has been working on to friends and strangers at a Penthouse BBQ party. The case involves a young girl who died as a result of injuries suffered at her mother's hand, but was later revealed by the police autopsy to have endured repeated sexual assaults over a period of time. As the investigation unfolds, the mother's boyfriend is implicated as the culprit of the sexual abuse, as well as having made child pornography videos with the young girl. While the mother (played by Leila Tong) feigns ignorance, a police commissioner (played by Maggie Siu) who personally took charge of the case believes there are some unanswered questions and decides to torture the mother to induce answers.

This is where the film becomes "sexploitation", as we are treated to lengthy scenes where the mother is humiliated and assaulted by the police commissioner and her subordinates, who seem completely oblivious to their role in perpetuating the cycle of violence and abuse. Ironically, the cycle of abuse turns out to be the answer to the 'unanswered questions' that plagued the police commissioner (and in the process, we learn something about the motivations of the police commissioner which turns out to be stupidly simplistic).

Given that the acting here is also sub-par, there is really nothing else worth salvaging from this film. The combination of an elementary moral message and the film's category III rating makes this an "after school special" for adults.