billr-3 Reviews

Dangerous Beauty (1998)

40s melodrama meets 90s costume drama meets Australian feminism

[5 April 1999]

It may be a cry in the wilderness, but I abhor the appropriation of history as a forum for just about any point of view one wishes to peddle. If one wishes to make a fantasy film about proto-feminist in 16th century Venice, do so. I will not quarrel with your choices. But do not pass it off as history. Do not indulge the disingenuous premise that the resultant fiction is history. It is a lie. It is lying by omission and distortion. It is a poor use of an education, if nothing else.

Firelight (1997)

Jane Eyre for adults

[29 March 1999]

This is an adult version of the Jane Eyre/Mr Rochester romance known to all English reading school girls. Full of surprises, and with a moral ambiguity worthy of Henry James, it is a nicely played and directed gem. A wonderful, small film of a children's classic rewritten for adults. I loved it.

The Mambo Kings (1992)

Ambitious, but in the end overreaching...

[4 March 1999]

The start of the film is interesting, though the violence (before the credits, I think) is/was overplayed. BTW, Talisa Soto as Nestor/Banderas lost love was strikingly beautiful. It seems to me that this film is seriouly flawed in three ways. 1: Generally, I felt the actors were under directed. The priciple performances failed to coalesce. Which brings me to my second reservation: The casting of Maruschka Detmers as Delores Fuentes. A Dutch actress I think, but a credible latina. However, this role called for an actress with star quality. Casting Detmers in this role was a producer/director flaw of serious proportions. Perhaps someone else can provide a reason for this casting decision. The film was doomed from that point on. And speaking of doom, I feel anytime a film kills off a major character, to bring about the dramas resolution, it is an act of desperation, or more frequently perhaps a common, everday failure of imagination. Don't ask me to care for a character, and then kill them off for some phony resolution. Such dramatist cannot be trusted with my feelings.

Gia (1998 TV Movie)

Bad movie/good performance

[6/10 · 9 February 1999]

Hard to watch, lurid, middlebrow sexploitation; without the redeeming empathy necessary to engage more than one's salacious curiosity. Jolie was so happy to have such a good part, the character's sad decline was completely unconvincing, but the self-destructive, manic, drug-high scenes rocked.

The Island (1960)

a perfect movie

[10/10 · 4 December 1998]

I remember this film from my student days. I saw it in an uptown, shabby, art house theatre (when art meant porn) in Philadelphia. I was amazed. As I recall, it is a film without dialog. Not silent, but no dialog. Black and white, but singularly visual. Three, maybe four characters with self- effacing directing and camera work, it was as intimate as small off-Broadway theatre. I've seen nothing since as cinematic, or moving. No one I've ever met, has seen it. But I remember it vividly.

Titanic (1997)

Well made bad movie.

[6/10 · 23 November 1998]

Tragedy as action movie entertainment. Bill Paxton's lines at the end about not getting it could not have been more ironic. There wasn't a genuine emotion in the entire film. Winslet's performance was heroic, but not even the Wizard of Oz could have breathed life into these straw figures. Not since Around the World in Eighty Days has such a bad movie been so acclaimed.