recremekim Reviews

Cold Mountain (2003)

Where is the American Viewpoint?

[3/10 · 16 April 2010]

Lets see, Anthony Minghella the director and screen writer, is English.

Jude Law is English.

Nicole Kidman is Australian.

Like many English movies many of the lines are whispered or slurred or otherwise difficult to hear and subsequently to understand.

Without having read the book, the movie is almost unintelligible.

I didn't know beforehand that Minghella was also responsible for the English Patient, another incomprehensible mess.

It explains a lot.

The movie misses an American viewpoint very much.

Next time Hollywood films an American Historical Novel, please use use Americans.

The book is hard to start and contains a lot of uninteresting side observations. But I would prefer to reread the book than re-watch the movie!

Blood on the Sun (1945)

It's no Casablanca!

[4/10 · 10 January 2007]

The Plot is confusing. The Asian/American??? girl's role is deliberately misleading. The romance, I'm sure was tailored after Casablanca including the ending, but doesn't work. Cagney is no Bogart. If there was a precondition for the romance as there was in Casablanca "Remember we'll always have Paris", I missed it. For the two of them to meet, fall in love and make love Yes they followed the convention of the time showing them in a deep kiss, breaking to a long dark transition, then showing them engaged in a serious post coital discussion; not a tie disturbed. Quaint, but unbelievable. There are several continuity errors, as others have discussed, but I find the most troubling discontinuity is the actual plot. Given the amount of time since its release in 1945, the action is acceptable and the tone respectful. It's not propaganda, it's supposed to be an Asian Casablanca. I guess they needed a piano player and a catchy song.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004)

Unbelievable bad

[1/10 · 9 December 2006]

A book has been sitting on my Mothers bookshelf since 1929, written by a classic American playwright, Thorton Wilder, creator of "Our Town." I have always wanted to take the time to read it, instead I ordered the 2004 movie from Netflix. What a mistake! Robert De Niro is not Spanish and it shows, he is awful. Can't make sense out this mishmash of colorful scenes supposedly set in Peru but shot in Spain. It is laughably bad. If you like to watch for the little things watch for three scenes in a row where an Indian leads two llamas through the scene. Both are so different as to draw attention to themselves, one is whiter than the other. That's the only enjoyable thing I can take away from the movie. No plot, poor sound, scenes cut in and out randomly, and did I mention De Niro's non performance? Reading the other reviews it appears it isn't even true to the novel. I'm guessing that when a playwright writes a novel and then Hollywood turns it back into a screenplay, it has been translated once too may times. Forgettta bout it.

Nijinsky: The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky (2001)

Watched for the dance got a lunatic instead

[15 October 2002]

As we listened to Minnesota Public Radio classical music station they mentioned that the University Film board was showing a movie on the life of the famous ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. So my wife and I went intending to learn more about the music and dance of the early 20th century.

What we got, was endless drivelings of a madman, and I'm not talking about Nijinsky. If this is an art film, where's the art? We learn nothing about Nijinsky's life or impact on the dance or music scene in the early 20th century. We find out more about his sexual life than I needed to know, and nothing about his artistic life or contributions or professional collaborations.

The endless repetition of a crane flying overhead, and of foamy mountain streams is way overdone and in the end is a frustrating waste of film and time.