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Reviews
The Mambo Kings (1992)
If you liked the book, you won't like this
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love is one of those novels that, despite a fantastic story, great characters, and overall brilliance, should not be taken to the silver screen.
This was a weak adaptation of what is arguably Oscar Hijuelos' best novel. Are the characters intact? Mostly. Is the music good? Yes. But the story is drastically different.
Novels like this simply cannot be compressed into a standard feature-length film. Too much character development is lost (along with half of the plot!), and the standard Hollywood story changes deprive the viewer of worthwhile material.
The point is, despite some points of tragedy, this film was basically a feel-good story with an uplifting ending. Maybe you could call it a "romantic tragedy." But that's not how the novel played out, and when the studio cuts out the real tragedies of the story, we the viewers pay the price.
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Contrived and unrealistic
*POSSIBLE EARLY FILM SPOILERS*
After watching this movie, I plan to file suit against Damon & Affleck to get my two hours back.
The characters are thoroughly unrealistic; never in my life have I met anyone who was anything like these people. Damon is thoroughly unconvincing as either a genius or a blue-collar working stiff, and certainly not as a combination of the two. Affleck is completely script dependent yet again, portraying one of his weakest characters yet. And Williams is at his worst.
Please, Robin, stick to comedy and playing psychopaths, that's what you're good at. Not "serious" drama.
But the sad thing? It's pretty obvious that neither Damon or Affleck took much college-level math. That first problem Will Hunting solves in the hallway can be done with just graph theory, combinatorics, and a little linear algebra. The first problem was trivial; anyone with some discrete math background should be able to solve it. Please, aspiring screenwriters, don't underestimate your audience. You never know who might be watching.
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
the art is in the interpretation
*** POSSIBLE SPOILERS ***
As I see it, the great thing about this movie is Lynch's brilliant technique. Like Blue Velvet, the experience relies heavily on minor amusements in individual scenes (for instance, the smashing of the car window, or the mobster effortlessly punching out two people during the raid on the house). It ends up feeling like Blue Velvet, where the characters act as though they're in a fantasy land (though in this case, that fantasy is Hollywood/L.A. rather than a mystery novel).
Now the interesting thing about Mulholland Drive is the way it allows for multiple, equally valid interpretations. I side mainly with three: the first is the "Jacob's Ladder"-esque notion that one half of the movie is basically a dream sequence.
Second, and I think a better explanation, is that the first half is a projection of actual events into an unreal context. This could, of course, be applied to the second part as well (as in "think what could have happened if things had gone a little bit differently").
The third is that Lynch is telling the same story with two different protagonists. The story is simply trying to make it big in Hollywood, but the first protagonist is the bubbly, optimistic Betty, with family support and a good heart, and the second is the beat, worn-out Diane, who has abandoned all hope of success and become paranoid and vengeful. In this view, the "point" becomes the importance of character in how life plays out. As the Cowboy said, "A man's attitude goes some ways toward how a man's life will be."