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Reviews
Evan Almighty (2007)
Boredom Almighty
Steve Carell better watch out--if he takes many more scripts like this he'll start overexposing himself as that guy in terrible movies just when his career should be skyrocketing. This film is one more symptom of Will Ferrell-itis. Just say no, Steve! My wife disliked this movie because she said the religiousness necessarily behind the concept was a little too over-the-top and in-your-face for her. I personally think the movie does its best to keep from alienating people whose belief in biblical events like those portrayed here is minimal at best, even making fun of Congress' lack of faith, but it's almost as if the movie tries so hard to avoid this problem that it pours on the "love your family" sap with so much thickness that the audience just can't get unstuck or see beyond it.
My main problem with the movie: it's not funny. Plain and simple. The only somewhat chuckle-inducing moments come from Wanda Sykes' one-liners; Steve Carell does not have a single funny thing to say the whole movie. I almost felt bad for him, stumbling through this poorly-written and ridiculously implausible script with a goofy look of frustration the whole time about how the world didn't believe him and God expected too much of him. In reality he must've been frustrated by having been suckered into what will hopefully be the worst film role of his career.
As other reviewers have stated, why are there two of all exotic animals if the flood is a brief local event that hits only suburban DC? Why does no one believe Evan even though it would be quite easy to demonstrate how his beard grows back immediately? Why haven't the producers of "Click" sued for the cheesy family-is-more-important-than-work point hammered repeatedly into the viewer's skull when the protagonist has to go through some ridiculous experience to gain some perspective? Watch repeats of The Office instead of wasting your time on this pile of absurdity and inanity.
Babel (2006)
Three unrelated short stories, no cohesive plot
After seeing the intense and provocative "Amores Perros," I had very high hopes for Babel, and, WOW, did it disappoint. Beautiful cinematography, convincing acting, and sound directing was completely undone by the lack of any cohesive narrative whatsoever. The three plots were held together by no more than a single strand of hair; no one plot line had any impact on or involvement with another. What made Amores Perros so brilliant was how it wove three seemingly separate lives into and out of each other because of one freak accident; afterward all lives would be intertwined. In this case, no intertwining. I felt as if I was hopping back and forth between three entirely unrelated movies. And, because of the hopping, no single plot was given the character development, subplots, etc that they all desperately needed.
Can someone please explain to me what the Japan plot had to do with ANYTHING? So he gave a gun to a Moroccan? So what? I'm sure some dollar bill I spent 10 years ago is probably in the hands of a terrorist right now, but that doesn't mean that our plots are interconnected. Or maybe it does, and that's why I don't get why people like this movie so much. Anybody's lives could be interconnected through some chance encounters and freak occurrences, but they just weren't compelling or tight here.
Not to mention, the whole "let's leave my aunt and the kids she watches in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night" plot line. That makes a ton of sense! Nobody, no matter how drunk, would ever do that. There are enough dramas involving real illegal immigrants suffering in the desert that putting two gringo children there...I'm sorry, there's no way that could ever be considered anywhere in the realm of something approaching realistic.
There is just too much wrong with the story here to make it a good movie. I appreciate the attempt to show how our attempts to understand each other so often fail and the complexities that come from living in such a diverse world, but there are any number of ways that could better be shown than through three random plots that have nothing to do with each other.
There. Got that off my chest.
The Aristocrats (2005)
How can so many comedians be so painfully unfunny?
This is not a film; it is not a documentary; it is simply a 90-minute excuse for comedians I used to respect to string as many bad words as can come into their heads together in a disorganized heap very poorly disguised as "humor." Obviously, if you're a prude or in any way easily offended you should not see this movie, but even if you consider yourself enlightened and open-minded, there's nary a laugh in this movie. It's not a funny joke, period. Why devote an entire movie full of comedians to a joke that's not funny? Why not allow them to each tell their favorite joke?
For the record, Jon Stewart refused to tell the joke to the filmmakers, so at least there's one comedian out there I'm still able to respect. Wow, what a sad, sordid underbelly lies beneath the surface of American comedy.
Open Water (2003)
Production values of a porno flick
Part of the charm of "Open Water" is that it delivers thrills on a low budget. Yes, it is thrilling; the idea of being eaten alive by sharks is something everyone has nightmares about. It's a very real, very primal emotion, and "Open Water" does capture that.
With that said, low budget or not, the production itself was flat-out awful. It literally took until the couple was actually in the water for me to believe that I wasn't watching a porno. The acting was equivalent to what anyone pulled off the street would be able to muster. The direction--capturing random shots for no apparent reason and from terrible angles--appeared to be put together in such a way that the director was just trying to eat up time, knowing the material alone did not make a feature-length film. And if what other posts have said--that this isn't about character development, just about primal emotion--is true, then why bother throwing in the random tidbits about their lives at all? You can't go halfway with the character development, but this movie does.
The issue I have with "Open Water" is not that it's a bad thriller, or that it's not true to the real story (which no one could possibly know). The issue is just that the production values are flat-out repellent--and while I typically like to give low budget movies a chance, this one just misses the mark so poorly that it's almost painful to watch. I half-expected the ba-chic-a-wa-wa porno beats to start thumping in the background at any moment.
7th Heaven (1996)
Boggles my mind...
...not simply that this show is still on the air, but that it is the WB's highest rated show. That says something about what the WB has going for it.
I get dragged in occasionally because my girlfriend watches the show--something soothing and mindless at the end of a long day, I guess--and I can honestly say that this is the worst show in the history of television. All the way around. 10-minute plot lines repeatedly stretched into an hour, pregnancy after pregnancy, enough wholesome family goodness to make you sick... and worst of all, the acting, my God, the acting! I think the director specifically asks the entire cast to act as poorly as possible, because somebody walking in off the street with no experience would do better than these people hands down. Even the father character, who has experience, is flat-out awful.
What really bugs me about this show is that it is really marketed as the "wholesome, family alternative" to mainstream drama, and people watch it ostensibly for that reason, and then the show proceeds to turn their brains to mush with insipid plot lines and acting so bad it is an insult to our intelligence. This show does a disservice to the country, and the world, and should be banned moreso than something like "Sex and the City" or "Sopranos".
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Convincing argument, Moore's best work
I am not a fan of Michael Moore. He's obnoxious, overbearing, and gets in the way of his own arguments by interjecting hypotheses that have no basis in fact. I hated Bowling for Columbine precisely because of this; Moore ranted without a coherent plot, point, or trajectory to his diatribe.
That said, Fahrenheit 9/11 is by far Moore's best work. Granted, he has a lot of material to work with, and he still gets in the way of himself too often (i.e. why does he have to hypothesize what Bush is thinking as he sits in a Florida classroom the morning of 9/11? The shot itself conveys the point). However, he really does pull together many obscure and little-known facts--about the Bush family's relationship with the Saudis, about war profiteering, about recruitment of poor and minority individuals, about the U.S.'s involvement in a place where it had no business being--to make a coherent story that paints a frightening picture of our far-too-casual-in-the-face-of-war president. The movie is often gruesome, showing how the impact of the Iraq war goes beyond the unnecessary death toll--it's also reflected in the wounded citizens and military personnel--thousands upon thousands--whose lives are forever ruined, and in the perpetual state of fear it has put the country in when it was ostensibly supposed to do the opposite. Some scenes are simply stomach-turning.
I am a borderline Republican with an open mind, and this film really opened my eyes. It may not have been done in the most pleasant or tactful way, but it introduces facts about Bush and Iraq that many people wouldn't otherwise know about, in a convenient, entertaining, emotionally-wrenching 2 hours. Recommended to anybody, Democrat or Republican, with an open mind. 8/10
The Village (2004)
Forget the twist; this movie holds its own regardless
I won't comment on the predictability of the twist in the end, for that has been done to death. The problem many people have with this movie is that they always expect a knock-your-socks-off twist from M. Night to the exclusion of being able to appreciate anything else about his films. This film holds its own, both because of and in spite of the twist at the end.
Ultimately, this is not a horror film, mildly a suspense film, but mostly a drama about the extent to which people will go to protect those they love from the world outside and how, ultimately, such protection is hopeless and life must be lived. That is a message each of us grapples with whether explicitly or implicitly, and one that's brought to beautiful life by Shyamalan.
Other comments: perfect cinematography, as usual, by Roger Deakins. Bryce Dallas Howard will be big--her performance here was really the only one that stood out in what was mostly a wasted cast (for example, Michael Pitt, who did a great job as the lead in "The Dreamers," has one or two lines in the whole movie, and Sigourney Weaver...well, she's just left out to dry). Because of those flaws, I'm giving this movie a 9/10, but its message is so pure and well-meaning that even without the twist it made me smile.
Garden State (2004)
Good? Yes. One of IMDb's top 250 movies of all time? Hardly!
Garden State is an entertaining and downright visually stunning piece of film-making by Zach Braff. It is both painfully sad and hysterical, and overly melodramatic cheesiness is always interrupted at the perfect time by comic relief, usually delivered by Natalie Portman's character. And, as other users have noted, it does speak to my generation; as a 24-year-old I am at that stage where home is no longer the same, and there's an abyss in front of me that I'm terrified to face since I have no idea what's in it.
With that said, Garden State's screenplay is flawed to the point of being patronizing. The movie succeeds and has been so well-received because it plays off the emotions and experiences of all 20-somethings, but it does so with a great deal of half-hearted philosophizing that tries way too hard to make a point about life that just isn't insightful. Yeah, life is hard, but you're off your drugs, you're in love, and, aside from your mother dying, you really don't have any problems. You're in your 20's, and there's lots to figure out but it will happen in time, so stop obsessing over it! And the end, my God, the end! Without giving anything away, the ending of this movie is the worst kind of forced dramatic tension and predictably melodramatic resolution when there is just no dramatic tension coming from the story itself. We know that Andrew Largeman has a flight back to LA that he has to get on, but why is it such a big deal for him to go back to LA? Is his life there really so important that he can't stay in NJ with Sam? There is just no dramatic energy to create the tension that the character seems to be facing; it just comes out of nowhere as a vehicle for Largeman to spout off some final words of quasi-philosophical self-evident baloney. His life is not that bad, and the decision is not as hard as Braff wants it to be.
So, this movie gets a 5 from me. It is beautiful, the acting is superb, and it does speak to me. But it tries way too hard and the plot and drama ultimately fail to deliver.