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lav13
Reviews
Wide Open Spaces (2009)
What is this?
I'm not sure exactly what this is.
It's like someone has watched a couple of Beckett and Pinter plays then a Carry On film and decided to have a go themselves.
It's full of inexplicable silences and overblown slow prop mishandling. There's an over- current of drabness with a lot of very affected acting. There's the conversations that go nowhere and have no purpose.
All of these things can be great, if done well... and a lot of it has been done well but still isn't great. There's a mystery here somewhere as to why this has gone wrong; it's hard to point a finger at. Can't fault the actual performances and it's an interesting enough story...It just somehow doesn't work.
If I had to make a stab at it I'd say that there is something in the execution that puts a distance between me and the film. It's the putting together that's made the problem maybe.
I'm coming to the conclusion that they meant to do a play and accidentally ended up making a film. I could see it working as a play, but it just doesn't as a film.
Open Range (2003)
wood directs and stars in wood.
watched the costner western. no surprise that he directed it, 'tis as wooden as him. waited for plot, waited in vain. looked for any kind of directional artistry, nope. it's like waiting for godot without the dialogue.
sorry for anyone who liked it, i can only hope that you can get some help for your 'nice scenery' problem. practically every good western has nice scenery. he obviously only read part of his 'how to direct a western' book. he covered scenery, costume and the mysterious 'wooden' factor, but seemed to forget plot, dialogue, mise en scene etc. compare this to high noon or even unforgiven and the difference is obvious.
oooh, we've got some cows running around. isn't that of historical importance!
American Psycho (2000)
why?
Why do most questions on this site centre on what actually happened in the film?
In any film the reality that we are presented with is not any actual reality. it depends entirely upon a directorial eye. With this in mind it is hard to judge the success of the film.
There are moments of postmodern brilliance (when he shoots at the cars and they explode with a single shot), and there are equal moments of frustration (anyone for pastiche?).
It could never be the book (what could?) and that is not the point. this is a film, it is not great. but there are great things about it.
The Devil's Advocate (1997)
typical hollywood- burning up a good idea
I liked the idea for this film. I liked the general themes and issues. The majority of the acting (excepting mr reeves of course, whose 'supreme shock and surprise' face looks exactly like his ' i've just discovered that my badger is a quadruped' face) is excellent; beyond question.
The film is woefully executed, there is no suspense. We are told from the start that there are bad people who look especially bad in the 'hero''s eyes and ...wow... they really are bad.
Pacino (as always) is the devil, but he is the devil the whole way through the film. He sticks his hand in the font and makes it boil; scary - if we hadn't been treated to a hell of a lot of his evil winks and leers in the process.
Hello director, the things that the script said about being the least expected thing were pandering to the least intelligent things on the planet. Treat your audience with more than big names, there are people out there with half a brain that could have walked out twenty minutes into this film and told everybody else what would happen in the end.
Verdict? No Comment
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
one of the worst films i have ever seen
I was surprised at this film, considering who wrote the screenplay. There are not enough words to describe how bad this is. I looked at the timer on the dvd player and was surprised to learn that i had only been watching for about 80 mins. It felt like about three days. This is a film that cannot make up its mind. Someone has been up late at night watching noir, thriller, black comedy, avant garde, disney... acting is horrible, all the nice filmy touches are sporadic and nonsensical. It is as if someone has taken a good idea for a movie and figured out how to ruin it entirely. every comment that i have seen about this 'thing' is about what is happening in the film, trying to figure it out. the secret is that there is nothing to figure out. it is a stupid film for stupid people. this is a case of a 'star' director with more money than talent. he pleasures nobody but himself and the morons who loved him in the first place