omayfield Reviews

$50K and a Call Girl: A Love Story (2014)

everyone dies, it is not an excuse for living stupidly

[1/10 · 27 January 2014]

the first thing the terminally sick character in this fictional film does is to steal a comfort dog from the children's cancer ward of a hospital. the second thing is to declare loudly, that he wants to "fuck a hooker". now you know the intellectual and spiritual level of the people portrayed herein. no one here has escaped from their spoiled childhoods. neither the dying man nor his brother seem to have the slightest inkling of how to try to understand life, or to love someone other than by indulging themselves, striking a pose, spending unearned money, and having a frat party. i can certainly feel sorry for them, living or dying so pointlessly, but without any worthwhile qualities to offer, i found it impossible to care.

and of course, of course, this fake documentary is a fake documentary.

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

tell me about human life, i would really like to know

[10/10 · 25 December 2013]

I am dazzled by this type of film, because it is about real life. I don't know real life. I couldn't tell you where I, for instance, am exactly, what I am feeling or how I got here. I couldn't distill myself or any of my history into an explainable and recognizable plot. But that is exactly what the makers of this movie and presumably the biographical book it is based on have done. The people seem real, the layers of each others lives fit and adjust and make room for each other. And we are given a God's eye view of the otherwise unknowable human stage. How accurate this method of distillation is is hard to say. Certainly there are limitations. At the end we are shown the real person's photos and we are startled to see how little they actually resemble the actors with whom we have just so intimately met, lived and breathed. Movie stars are very pretty after all, and we are not. We resent the real people a little for daring to step on our dearly acquired representations of them. Much of what happened here was taped, and yet the tapes don't quite feel exactly true to the movie, or is it the other way around? We have films about Lincoln, about Kennedy, and a thousand others and yet we don't really know those human beings. Not really. A painting is flat and still, dry pigment on stiff canvas, and no amount of genius or craft can make it more than that, no matter how much the image startles or moves us. The representation of the thing is never the thing itself, "Dont eat the menu" as Alan Watts used to say. Having said all that and therefore distanced myself perhaps too much from my admiration for this film, all I have left to say is that to do this kind of art, to take real people and to introduce us to them with dignity, empathy and insight and whatever accuracy the material allows, is a monumental achievement. I write, and everything I write is fantasy whether I want it to be or not. I make people and things up. To do the other thing, to make sense and beauty of what is always experienced as an opaque and chaotic reality as we live it, that is truly wonderful. This is a great film.

Closed Circuit (2013)

you can have hope or truth, you cant have both

[8/10 · 21 December 2013]

I see that a lot of reviewers have noted that this film seems a bit light and simplistic in its mood and plot, a bit undeveloped in its characters so that we have difficulty feeling very much for them aside from the fundamental human dilemma of their peril. That all is true but I don't want to talk about that. It also stars Rebecca Hall, a chronically underpraised actress who whenever she is allowed to (unlike in Ironman) turns in performances of startling layers of intelligence, beauty, and insight. Consider watching Bruce Willis's most unknown film "Lay the Favorite" if you'd like proof of her versatility. But I don't want to speak about her. Instead I am most struck by how movies reflect the mindset of their time. In the forties and fifties the federal government was the very definition of the good guys. Whether it was the Army or the FBI, if you were really in trouble you called them and you would not be sorry. Even in the Bond films as wreckless as they were, government agencies were always above reproach. Then came the long sad slog of the last few decades. We learned, or thought we did, about conspiracies, cover ups, and who holds real power in our world. Do you remember "Three days of the Condor"? It is exactly the same story as this film, except for one glaring and breath stopping difference. In this, and yes, heres a Spoiler, the heroes give up. They surrender to the Power. At one point the two characters look at each other and say "We cant fight them, can we?" I remember how soul deadening it was when I first read "1984" and the two lovers were tortured into compliance, and this is the same but instead of loving Big Brother, they have breakfast with him. This is 2013. The planet will not be saved. This film makes me wonder how Edward Snowden will ever get a good nights sleep in his entire life. Fighting back is a fantasy we have left behind and like the best bad advice given here, we choose to "Let go and think nice thoughts." In Condor the last scene is of the entrance to the New York Times, implying that the press is our last hope and strongest defense. In this film the NYT reporter is murdered just as easily as anyone else. And that is where we are.

Army of the Damned (2013)

there's no way to spoil something this bad

[1/10 · 16 December 2013]

I am right proud of myself, I think. I sacrificed 26 minutes of my life to endure watching the first third of this film which was an act of outlandish optimism and generosity. But thats as far as I could, or anyone should, go. Its just awful. And there you have it friends, a complete three word review. I could end right there but I feel the need to explain that Id heard a lot of the actors here were either wrestlers or porn stars, which intrigued me, and with a few old time character actors thrown in. A few of them I recognized, and Joey Fatone was in it. Not that that means anything but you know how it is when we watch new movies, we hope for good things, we hope for people to surprise us and reward us. We hope that even a bad film will be so bad its kinky good. We hope that someone at least tried, or made an effort, or cared about the work. Nope. No one tried in this movie, no one cared about anything whatsoever. There is no humor, no horror, no charm, no originality, no sex, no realism, no surrealism, no creativity, no emotion, no sophistication, no sadness, no joy. Actually the sadness comes after, when we realize that so many people are involved in the making of any film, and in this one all that time and money and effort were totally wasted, finally also taking a little bit of our own. Someone actually invested some money into this. How is that possible? All the subhumanly moronic characters in this movie keep screaming the same blathering profanities over and over (of course, just like in real life) and the line we hear repeated most often is "Are you f-ing kidding me?". I feel exactly the same way.

White Reindeer (2013)

you cant spoil whats already rotten

[2/10 · 15 December 2013]

Well yes, once again we see that seconds do indeed count when editing a film, don't they? And more are definitely not always better. This movie could well be used in film school to illustrate exactly that point. A scene of someone lying on a couch farting and then sniffing could maybe, maybe be amusing for two or three seconds, but add just one or two or (NO!) three or four more beats and the drag factor just multiplies agonizingly. She stands on a meaningless beach, and we must sit and watch her stand on that beach. Over and over again she cries while sitting on a toilet, and there we are stuck in the airless bathroom with her, endlessly and pointlessly observing until we realize that the great thing about the old days of VHS was that the fast forward button was always right there so very close and ready in our grip. One important point I would like to make is that this is NOT a family Christmas movie, despite the title and some reviewers calling it a dark comedy. It involves death and drugs and porn and alcohol abuse and pathetically, childishly, boringly simulated sex. I have the strong suspicion that no one involved in this project has ever had an actual orgasm. And that includes the caterers and the key grips, dammit. And there's even an orgy in the movie! Don't get your hopes up about that, its about as erotic and intimate as an SNL skit, without any musical guest to look forward to. One last point for yall film school kids... dialog is a really, really good thing. And it costs nothing. Most of the conversations in this movie are three or four sentences long and the last one is usually "Me too" or "I know". And then we are left staring at a dining table or a mall or one more too long time at the reliably blank and dazed actress's face. And we certainly know just how she feels. Or rather, doesn't feel. And what oh what is the deal with so many directors feeling the need to show people throwing up? With actual material seen coming out of their mouths? Is there supposed to be something interesting or real or daring about that? Enough! I seem to see it all the time and there is simply not. Three vomits in one movie is prove that the storytellers really had nothing whatsoever better to say. A man does die unexpectedly early in this film, and as time went on I noticed myself experiencing a certain gut response to his quick exit and I just now realized what that feeling actually was... envy. NOBODY has enough time to watch this movie. Quadriplegics don't have that kind of time on their hands.

Open Grave (2013)

so much better than it could be, well done and memorable

[8/10 · 7 December 2013]

I wish I knew how to say Wow in Hungarian. This is an impressive film in many ways, and mostly what I feel at the end is... gratitude. This would be such an easy movie to screw up, but they did not. Grateful that they didn't veer off into the groanfully familiar American horror habit of mere show-us-your-boobs pointless sex and or silly and nauseating splashes of gooey boring gore. No reliance on things jumping out at us with loud noises or screeching nightmarish music. That reminds me, do try and listen to the piano piece over the last credits. "Day of Wrath" (also a thirteenth century hymn), played by Maria Lopez-Gallego the superb musician and artist and this director's SISTER from Madrid, is quite lovely. She also worked on his previous film, Apollo 18. So far I've listened to the credits a dozen times, and I'm going back. There's not a great deal that can be said about the plot here since this movie is extremely spoiler sensitive. Try to avoid letting anyone ruin the mystery it offers for you. Suffice to say that this is a very intelligent twist on the infinite themes of memory and, in its own unique way, our apparently dominant current cultural motif of this century... zombies. Its way better than that though. So very subtly foreign in its mood although entirely in English. How often do you see a film crew whose most frequent first names are Attila and Zoltan and Zsolt? Or whose three credited production attorneys are all listed as Dr.? Or where all of the "bodies in the pit" are credited by name as employees of the same website development company, docler holding? Or is it holding docler? Depends on the Google listing. Thats all pretty cool. You do know that there is a long history of questioning whether the Hungarians might be aliens, right? starting with the Manhattan Project in WWII. I would like to go for a visit to this remarkable country someday, but which side of the river should I see first? Buda or Pest? Both, apparently, would be quite interesting. At least it would get me out of New Mexico.

Chilling Visions: 5 Senses of Fear (2013)

sometimes 5 senses are not enough

[5/10 · 3 December 2013]

This movie contradicts its own premise in a way. The short vignette format works very well for horror, maybe because we don't really want to stay in those designed to be unpleasant environs for way too long. Everyone can remember being exhausted by some bloody and horrific film going on and on, like a nightmare we'd much rather just wake up from. Once we meet the good guys and the bad guys and the severed heads start flying, we get the idea pretty quick. The great old Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock TV shows both used only very short tales that were just long enough, they led us into and back out again of an chilling or startling worldview in a way that was just complete enough to be satisfying and never too much to be dull, like a great restaurant that brings just enough to your plate, but not piled on with a ladle. The problem with this effort is that the brevity is actually too brief. It suggests a writer's laziness instead of a skilled and intuitive conciseness. After each segment we are surprised by the fade out and ask, "Wait. Is that all?" This is especially true of the middle film about a clever blind boy, we just barely meet him and he takes his leave, and he is an intriguing enough character that we would love to get to know him more. The 5 senses motif is really just a pose of course, like a writer's class exercise, it offers nothing substantial to increase interest and every storyline is pretty much unoriginal and forgettable except the final one about a song that kills people. That is just bizarre enough to leave a permanent mark. One cute trick the filmmakers use is to recycle the actors, proper names and places in unexpected ways in different stories so that we get to have fun keeping track and see who pops up again. I kept expecting some of them to wink at the camera and say "Hey! Remember me"? I would be happy to wave back.

Lay the Favorite (2012)

a good group, a fun film, a great actress

[9/10 · 1 December 2013]

If you'd like to view a brief and startling master class in brilliant acting, watch Rebecca Hall in this and then go and see her in "The Appearance". It takes a while, at least it took me, a while to realize that this is truly the same remarkable actress lurking somewhere underneath two such very disparate characters. RH is apparently one of this current generation of Brits who find it incredibly easy to portray utterly convincing Americans. Witness the cast of True Blood, Walking Dead, and Vikings, fer yer good examples. I wonder what will become of her career... She is certainly in demand enough, from Woody Allen to Iron Man, but the roles are not true kick ass starmakers. Her danger is that she may remain appreciated but not adored, she is certainly not yet a household name although she is talented enough to be. Like a Meryl Streep waiting for the career making door opener of Sophies Choice she stands the danger of becoming successful without stardom, and parking her car forever in the second rows of small lots where the dreadful appellation of "beloved character actor" denies all any further expansion or exit. We will see what opportunities to supernova come her way. This film is a game, friendly and likable, supposedly true fable of modern Vegas, based on the central character's book, although true is always a flexible description in these matters. I don't recall any smoking or drinking or sex in the movie and although that is a pleasant omission to witness, this is supposed to be real life Nevada after all. Willis and Zeta-Jones make credible appearances as flawed but still admirable human beings, and the guy from Fringe shows up as a smiling and insignificant yet desirable male. Its nice to see big stars in small films, and I would love to know the inside story of how they were all somehow wooed into this one. Probably Willis first, then the rest followed. Its Hall who gives the movie any weight and memorability however, I have watched it twice now just to see her upside down close up face as she stands on her head for the affable psychopath who wants to time her, and the so great way she says "lay" on the phone when BW teaches her how to call in a bet. See? Now you have to see it too, donchya? Donchya now huh?

The Internship (2013)

if wasting talent is criminal, this would be a felony offense

[1/10 · 1 December 2013]

I walked out of this movie about halfway through because of sadness. There is such aching sadness when I see talented and intelligent persons like Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, the great John Goodman for goodness sake and the charming actress Rose Byrne involving themselves in a project so limp, so soulless and spiritually and intellectually void as this worn out dishrag of a film. Why didn't someone stand up and say something, I wonder? Like for instance, "Hey guys this is just too terrible for us to make! Lets do a rewrite, lets make it funny or poignant or insightful or you know... good." Im sure I know why not, they were all concentrating on their next projects, no one had any heart or hope or mind in this one, they were all shruggin it off and taking their paychecks and moving on to better things. The lack of caring is obvious, numbing and deadly. The laughs in this movie are half laughs, the ideas are half thoughts, the emotions half felt and badly spoken. That Google would have had even the slightest connection to this wasteland is only more disappointing. I kept waiting for some of the energy and creativity of similar classic "bad boys take over" movies like Mash or Animal House or even Caddy Shack to show up, but no, someone has to care to accomplish that, someone has to at least try. In the middle of this dreary slog the two older louts take the brilliant but geeky kids from Google out to a hideous and slimy strip club where they get toxicly drunk, listen to truly obscene music, have a brawl, and wind up vomiting in a public park at dawn. They then righteously demand of the students, "Wasnt that the best night of your life?" And they are not kidding. It would have been so much better if they were.

OutPost 11 (2013)

if only i could get my hour back

[1/10 · 1 December 2013]

OK, picture this... you are an ambitious movie producer seeking a worthwhile project and someone pitches you this... three British army men living in a weird, slightly techie dystopian future version of an endless World War I are stuck in a bunker in the Arctic going slowly crazy. "So what happens?" you would ask."Nothing really, thats the whole movie" the writer replies. "What?!" you shout, "No women?, no outdoor scenes, no flashbacks to civilian life, no character development, no quirkyness, no humor, no sex, no hope, no action or plot to speak of, nothing except that dreary descending misery throughout the whole film?" "Well," he says, squirming a little at your righteous and obviously justified outrage, "they do salute a lot and say 'Long live the King' and look out the window for the Prussians and in the end they play games and eat spiders". Now seriously friends, wouldn't you throw this person and his so called idea right out of your office with all possible speed? Couldn't you write a better screenplay with a cocktail napkin and a dull pencil in say, three minutes time? For some bizarre reason, this film's producer did not do that. Someone actually funded this movie! "What were they thinking?" keeps coming to mind. I dunno, maybe they were dreaming of a kind of Kafka or Poe or Lovecraft analogy, but that is wildly, inappropriately generous. I saw this on Thanksgiving and I was most prayerfully thankful on that day that the fast forward button on my remote was working properly. Actually, it occurs to me that a "making of" documentary of this film would be fascinating, if only to answer the three questions that I have, "Why?. Why? and of course, you know already... Why?" There's just no excuse.

Burlesque Assassins (2012)

incredibly bad, but credibly good

[5/10 · 29 November 2013]

Exactly what this bizarre film is, or attempts to be, is hard to say. Amateurish and inept beyond description, it has the feel of not exactly a very bad high school play, but more like the first rehearsal for a very bad high school play. But then about half way through the unremittingly cartoonish awfulness of it all I got the sense of a hidden subtext much like when watching a sneakily religious or political movie. It was only when I saw the credits that I figured it out, I think. This was apparently made by a group of Canadian Burlesque aficionados. Who knew there was such a thing? Only the Burlesque dancing itself (G rated nippleless striptease) is given any serious attention at all. The girls are indeed beautiful and skilled, they each did their own remarkable choreography, and everything else on the screen just didn't matter to the filmmakers. And I guess doesn't matter, after all, to me. I wish they had made a frank and personal documentary about themselves instead of such a witless farce, I would be quite interested to know the talented real women dancers behind all this muddle, but hey kids, dance on, strip on and have fun. Just don't call it anything like a real movie.

3 Days of Normal (2012)

if you are pleasantly asleep and want nothing more , this works

[5/10 · 21 September 2013]

"Slight" is the word that springs spontaneously to mind after watching this tiny and trite, almost microscopic film. It feels more like a long preview of something better than a completed piece of art and we are left waiting for and wanting something, anything to seriously surprise or deeply delight us. Very little ever occurs at all, no characters are layered, or unpredictable or transformed, and much of what action there is is transparently unreal and therefore uninvolving. And yet, movies like this deserve their due faint praise, if for no other reason than that they successfully rise above the great and nearly constant morass of truly gaggable junkwork that so many current features seem to be made entirely of. It is not awful. It is peaceful and pleasant and pretty throughout. No jiggly camera, no cartoonish sex or antihuman violence. The acting and production is professionally competent. I'm almost grateful after having seen it... it didn't hurt me. It didn't empty my soul or defile my mind, and these days that is almost enough for a recommendation. Almost, almost. When just not being betrayed by a movie feels like a needed gift... what does that tell you about where we are in cinema today?

All Is Bright (2013)

a flawed mirror too beautiful to not look into

[10/10 · 17 September 2013]

what an startling film this is. delicate, crystalline, complicated, pure. there are four motifs repeated here... smoking, theft, poverty, and humanity. the first three are agonies. they twist us, they defile us, they make us smaller and darker and less able to realize ourselves and to see each other. the fourth is our only hope, and surprisingly, it is not out of reach. even now, even here. i guess the original title of this movie was Almost Christmas, and now All Is Bright, but i would have called it that... Even Now, Even Here. the writer, Melissa James Gibson, must be a remarkable person, well traveled if not in the world then in her head and heart. she gives us fresh tasty layers of french Canadian, (tabarac!), and a little Inuit and black African and such a wonderfully precise, carved and sculpted Russian individual that i found my inner voice speaking in her hauntingly wrong accent for days after meeting her. "You must have Russian blood." Sally Hawkins says ruefully, sadly. "Why?" Paul Giamatti asks, "Because you do what you must." some movies leave you wanting to see more of the movie, this one left me wanting it to not be a movie at all. i wanted to meet and to continue to be with these people. i still wonder and worry about them, even now. that these big stars would find this script attractive is impressive and gives me hope because surely there is no box office here. turn away ye tweens in your millions, there are no lusting vampires here. and nothing is 3D. there is one gun in the movie, but it needs to be there and it only exists to break hearts, it isn't sexy just as real guns never are. i had forgotten what a precise and life affirming artist Sally Hawkins is since Happy Go Lucky years ago. a poet also needs to be a surgeon, and this actress whose characters are so much like poems would no more betray a gesture or slaughter a syllable than a surgeon might misplace a vein. just to see her work again is worth the time. i remember one scene... a man is trying to talk another man into doing a burglary and when he resists, he grabs a saw and holds it against his friend's throat. whats next? karate chop? car chase? CGI zombies with Mr Pitt in dull pursuit? no. the threatened man reaches over and touches his friend's face. he gets it. he feels the humanity in himself and the other, and he knows the desperation and the cause. that's a good thing. straight men should be able to touch each others face if the need arises, but how often are we allowed to in real life, much less in film? the peevish puny pecking side of me wants to criticize when the movie is unreal, i am too big a fan of realness, i confess. like the absurdity that a Steinway grand piano is a portable gift that plays well in the snow, or that a dingy disloyal woman who sits on her front steps and smokes would have hair that anyone would want to smell. and that loud and glaring final song, although pretty enough, makes us feel that we are being preached at under a neon sign instead of just simply being shared with, which is all we ever wanted. but these are small complaints when all i really come away with is gratitude for amazingly intelligent work. if you have no soul or mind, or want to abandon yours, go see Now You See Me. if you want to spend real time with our flawed and fragile human mirrors, artfully portrayed, see this. jusboutded/salon/blog