jjalan Reviews

The Fog of War (2003)

Watered down confession of a war criminal

[3/10 · 15 February 2005]

Hooray for Robert McNamara! As the Grim Reaper gets ever closer to calling his number, former defense secretary and mass murderer Robert McNamara sits down in front of a camera and admits he could be considered a war criminal. Maybe a war criminal? Here's a news flash for you, Mac, you are a war criminal. There is nothing fantastic or enlightening about Robert McNamara confessing to war crimes. Gee, if only Henry Kissinger would feel a little guilty when he undertips a waiter at a Vietnamese restaurant. McNamara can do all the documentary pseudo-confessions he wants but the gates of hell are opening up nice and wide just for him. If he really wants to purge his sins, it's going to take more than a half-hearted I might have goofed; perhaps a thousand-mile trek carrying Kissinger's head on a pike before prostrating himself on a Cambodian killing field, or maybe on top of some leftover ordnance in Vietnam, or perhaps he could set himself on fire like a Buddhist monk or that silly Mormon. If McNamara is seeking some form of redemption with this postgame mewling, he fell way short of the mark.

Aside from the above complaint, this documentary is also kind of boring. I give it a three out of ten because at least McNamara owned up to something, though not nearly enough, while Henry Kissinger still walks the streets with his goodies intact.

She Hate Me (2004)

Really good idea, potentially great director, but bad movie

[3/10 · 8 February 2005]

First of all, this is no Spike Lee bashing. I like Lee's films a lot--most of the time--particularly Do the Right Thing, Summer of Sam and 25th Hour. This is a very interesting premise, but it is entirely too mixed up. It is part comedy, even dark comedy, drama, social commentary, all rolled up into one big confused mess. It starts as an indictment of Corporate America's greed--Enron, WorldCom, and the like; then it abandons that theme rather quickly and then becomes a story about--all of the following in uncertain order--gender issues, homosexuality, race--again, all rolled up into one big mess--and then you throw in the mafia, the SEC, the Feds, a stereotypical and contrived media circus, before it becomes a maudlin, sort of prison martyr tale, a courtroom drama, and finally a superficial political diatribe--however correct in its criticism--mix into this a sappy, false feel-good ending and an overbearing score mostly consisting of soft jazz, which doesn't often work with a dark comedy--if that's what this is--I'm not sure.

This is a shame. There is a lot of potential here, but it is never realized. This movie fails most of all it seems because it can't pick a genre and ends up being less funny than clever, less wise than preachy, and less unique than just bizarre in too many different and conflicting ways.

One last note on Spike Lee: His movies always reveal the very interesting fact that Blacks and other minorities can be just as narrow-minded, bigoted, racist, morally blind and dogmatic as White people. If Spike is showing this knowingly and intentionally, which he must be somewhat, then he's a shrewd social commentator; if not, well, that's the kind of irony that always eventually boomerangs back at you like a pie in the face. But, like I said, he's probably at least somewhat aware of this.

Catwoman (2004)

Try to make a worse movie--I dare you

[1/10 · 6 February 2005]

Oh, where to start...imagine all the intellectual depth of Showgirls, plus all the excessive and ridiculous special effects of Charlie's Angels, and then throw in some dialog crafted by whomever wrote for Governor Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze in the fourth Batman movie, and only then are you even close to a movie as awful as this.

I suppose one should not expect much from a director who actually refers to himself as Pitof. But let's come back to that. Let's move on to Halle Berry. Note to Halle Berry: Letting Billy Bob Thornton ream you endlessly on camera is certainly degrading, but it was also a good career move--and you won an Oscar; feverishly eating catnip and licking people's faces on camera, however, is not a good career move--and you'll probably win a Razzie this time. They make you return Oscars for movies like this. Oh yeah, as for the supernatural explanation for Patience Phillips/Catwoman's superhero status--she gets CPR from an immortal Egyptian cat--I am not kidding.

And then there is Benjamin Bratt, who happens to be a pretty solid actor, but could have very likely damaged a good career. If his participation in this movie isn't enough to stigmatize him, then I'm sure he had to pass up a lot of good roles because of all the time he spent having his foot surgically removed from his former agent's rectum. There is a scene in this movie--probably the worst, and that's no small achievement--that is reminiscent of that ridiculous scene in Daredevil where Jennifer Garner/Elektra and Ben Affleck/blind superhero have a Kung Fu fight at a playground in broad daylight; in this movie it's Halle Berry and Ben Bratt playing one-on-one hoops and her doing Catwoman flips and yet no one appears to be too amazed by this, much less pants-soiling surprised, and on top of that it has a sort of VH1/Color Me Bad/early New Edition video feel to it. And I'm really not sure what city this is all supposed to take place in--Gotham, Metropolis, the land beneath the whole in the cutting room floor--but apparently this place only has one detective, the unfortunate Bratt. No matter what the crime is--burglary, murder, domestic disturbance, interrupted ballet performance--he's always there.

As for the rest of the cast, that annoying woman from Mad TV--I know that's not specific enough; I mean the most annoying one who plays what I guess is supposed to be some bizarre Asian lady--well, she plays Catwoman's annoying and sort of slutty co-worker comic relief since Rosie O'Donnell was apparently unavailable.

And then we come to Sharon Stone. Now I know her career is going down the crapper with all deliberate speed, but it's still hard to understand this one. The only thing I can guess is that the opportunity to break into silly, pseudo-feminist diatribes made this a role she couldn't turn down. Of course Sharon has often lamented the lack of good roles for older women in Hollywood, and she's absolutely right about that, but this is not the best way to lodge a complaint, and plus that's always been a little peculiar coming from an actress whose greatest cinematic achievement is the conspicuous exposure of her labia.

Briefly back to this Pitof character--I thought that pretentious one-named idiot who did the Charlie's Angels movies--McG, I believe--was bad enough, but this guy is even more shameless and obviously lacking in talent. What's with these guys who've never made a movie and are already going by only one name? Don't you have to work up to that? I mean if is Scorsese wants to go by Marty, fine; if Tarantino wants to be just Quentin, or even just Q, whatever, but where does a hack like this get off using one name? This movie deserves every Razzie it receives, and while some reviewers may say it's not really that bad, remember, it took a lot of money to make this godawful thing, and if people don't speak out about how dreadful it really is, they just might make Catwoman 2. Can you live with that?

Vanity Fair (2004)

Mira Nair's revenge on British Imperialism

[3/10 · 5 February 2005]

You can't blame anyone from India for wanting revenge on those imperialist British bastards, but I don't see why you should take it out on Thackeray. He was just an author; what did he do to deserve such treatment? It's been a pretty long while since I read Vanity Fair, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't about India. If you want to make a movie about India from a book by a British author, Kipling would be a good idea. Or if you want to make a film about India, by all means, make a film about India. I'd like to see more films about India. How about Salman Rushdie? But this is just ripping off Thackeray's novel for revisionist self-indulgence. If you're not going to even remotely adhere to the novel, don't call it Vanity Fair; make your own movie and call it something else.

One last thing, Becky Sharp has been utterly defanged for some reason. It's just not Vanity Fair if Becky Sharp isn't something of a conniving, amoral little hussy. That's what makes her interesting and entertaining. Yes, this Becky Sharp is much nicer, but she's also rather dull.

Dogville (2003)

Unutterably boring, pointless and just plain inexplicably bad

[1/10 · 5 February 2005]

This movie seems to be fairly well reviewed on this site, which is surprising since it is absolutely dreadful. Lars Von Trier, an interesting director without question with some very good films under his belt, decided to make a movie like a play, or something like that. So all the characters act out this movie pretending to open doors and walking around chalk outlines intended to be furniture or whatever. I have no idea what the point of this gimmick is. If you want to do a play, then go ahead and do a play. I have no clue what Von Trier was thinking with this abysmally boring movie. It is three hours of lifeless, self-indulgent nonsense.

I've heard the movie is somehow supposed to be anti-American; I didn't get that. Perhaps I didn't notice that theme because I was too busy wondering aloud how a movie with such a good director and great cast could suck so remarkably. I'm American and I more or less detest the present course the United States is on as much as the next reasonable person, but if this movie is trying to say something about America or society or the state of nature or anything else remotely deep or interesting, then I'm afraid whatever theme it's going for is completely undercut by the fact that the movie is interminably boring.

This is nothing more than a three-hour gimmick. I implore you not to waste your time. If you sit through this entire movie, you will end up weeping for three hours of your life irretrievably lost for nothing.

Alexander (2004)

Not horrible but seriously disappointing

[4/10 · 3 February 2005]

While this movie is not as bad as many reviewers and others have said, it is deeply disappointing.

Let us begin with the homosexuality thing. Whether or not Alexander the Great was gay, straight, bi-sexual, or something else altogether involving monkeys or whatever with regards to sexual preference is really not that important. In the Greek world of Alexander's time, sexuality--historians and the like seem to say--was nowhere near as prudish and puritanical as America today, blue state or red state, and if one were inclined to sleep with men or boys or girls or slaves or what the hell ever, then society in general wasn't likely to obsess about it.

Oliver Stone has said as much when discussing the film, and that makes the film's treatment of Alexander's sexuality even more peculiar and unfortunate, because the film absolutely DOES obsess about Alex the Great maybe being a bit of a homo.

If it was not that important at the time, why spend so much time on it. If it's not that important at the present--and it certainly is not--why devote so much screen time to it.

It's like this: You're making a movie about one of the most interesting and enigmatic historical figures ever--really; you have give or take three hours in which to tell this epic story. It's not that Alexander's sexuality should be avoided or glossed over; it's just not that important. The guy conquered a rather large portion of the known world; so his favorite place to store his genitalia just is not that important. The guy is queer; the guy is sort of queer; the guy is not queer at all--whatever, get back to the more interesting world conquering business already.

Let's move on. I am a huge fan of Oliver Stone. He's not everybody's cup of tea; I think he's phenomenal. Perhaps, though, he was not the right director for this difficult material. I usually enjoy Stone's trademark directorial indulgences, but, as with the gay/not gay stuff, there is just a limited amount of time for this story. So, maybe Stone just Freuded out too much on this one.

As for the cast, it's OK. Colin Farrell is OK. Kilmer is decent. Jolie is way over the top, but oh well. Jared Leto is actually pretty good. Rosario Dawson is actually quite good, and there is a scene with her that I guarantee will hypnotically transport you back to your breastfeeding days.

The problem with the movie is just simply the script. This is an epic story; it is challenging material, and it just did not pull it off. If there is a fatal flaw in this flawed film, it is the inability to fully convey the historical, cultural and military achievements of Alexander the Great--or even come close.

This was Alexander the Sort of Interesting, Alexander the Possible Flamer, Alexander the Braveheart Clone, and Alexander the Still Mysterious because they couldn't write a screenplay not condescending to moviegoers.

The Anniversary Party (2001)

This is very, very pretentious.

[2/10 · 1 February 2005]

This movie is extraordinarily pretentious. First of all, all of the characters in this film are unlikable and annoying. If such people exist, you certainly would not want to spend any time with them--not even for two hours--at a distance. This seems to be an instance where a group of Hollywood stars got together to make a movie, created a cast of characters almost no ordinary person could possibly relate to in any way, and then expects an audience to indulge in their pitiful neuroses with them. I'm not at all anti-Hollywood or one of those deeply idiotic right-wing morons who complain that celebrities are so out of touch with mechanics and Midwest elementary school teachers, but these characters are truly vapid, self-indulgent and just plain annoying. You might be tempted to rent this movie because of it's excellent cast--don't. Yes, there are some very good actors, but I assure you they are all entirely wasted in this masturbatory exercise in film-making. Jennifer Jason Leigh is a fine and quite underrated actress, but apparently that talent evaporates when she moves behind the camera. As for Alan Cumming, I suppose he's good in a strictly Joel Grey-Cabaret sort of way, but rather limited as an actor. For instance, in the movie he plays Jennifer Jason Leigh's husband--despite the fact that he is undeniably, screamingly homosexual. The movie even points this out, but it still expects us to believe in this relationship, which is sort of what the movie centers on--that and a group of very superficial entertainment people getting together, doing drugs, embarking on a voyage of self-discovery--blah friggin' blah. Stay away from this movie; it bites.