Oneiric Reviews

Civil War (I) (2024)

A well-crafted film with no fatal flaws

[8/10 · 18 April 2024]

I haven't read any critic's reviews, and only saw one brief comment from a friend before I went for myself.

I was prepared to have an emotional (and unhappy) response, but I think one of the only weaknesses has prevented that-a score that only occasionally leads the mood of the scene, and not to any great effect.

There's one remarkable, central, and truly horrific and tense scene that I will remember for a long time, and includes one of the best performers in a typical best performance. Both before and after is a multi-layered, coming-of-age epic journey that's well-directed and paced, with carefully crafted and beautifully shot action and character-building.

I find almost no sustainable politics in this film. I imagine some might say the violence is glorified at some points, but I'd have to disagree. There is some celebration of professional soldiery, but it's muted; this is not a 'patriotic' film on either side of any current debates, or even the imagined debates inside the world of the film.

There's some real respect for the Fourth Estate as a profession that deserves and may need it. I liked that.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Subspace Rhapsody (2023) Season 2, Episode 9

Daring, well-executed, and effective

[10/10 · 4 August 2023]

As and anticipated described within the script, multiple storylines (the kind barely ever included in TOS) that could have become tedious if they had been suspended over many more episodes or even seasons were instead advanced here well past the final arc. Also, it was wonderful to see that the cast, effective in their standard idiom, had breakout talents. Only one soliloquy seemed draggy to me (La'an's first).

It's the kind of episode that purist devotees will love to hate, but that's not a fault of the idea or the execution. Instead, the natural intersection of the Star Trek universe and fans of this episode's genre is small, and this episode will never be loved in the canon, but I'm glad they did it.

Ted Lasso: Sunflowers (2023) Season 3, Episode 6

Everyone gets stretched

[10/10 · 22 April 2023]

A hinge episode showing character growth risks being predictable, and aiming to do it for three pairs, two solos, plus the team as team, all in one episode-while steering away from both shtick and booms-was daring. It demanded an orchestration of chewy empathy that the series had been struggling to find so far this season.

The depth and significance varies. Jamie's arc is least believable-he's close to being a wizened elder now. And we've peeled one of Higgin's layers every season, and the gay storyline, while important and poignant, doesn't break new ground. But a Rebecca who reclaims the present and a Ted who finally integrates his Americanness with his circumstances are refreshed heroes, and I look forward to where they'll lead.

I'm glad they pulled this off.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Fun to watch

[9/10 · 8 July 2022]

After a stinky sequence of mostly forgettable and at least one outright bad movie, the post-pandemic MCU gets charged up again with Vikings in Space. It's not the genius romp that Ragnarok is, but Thor, his goats, and his allies (including a PC UN of "Asgardian" children) hit their comic marks, the CGI monsters writhe and wriggle, and two controversial but also accomplished actors bring both a major and a minor villain to wicked life. There's a whole slew of love triangles and odd couplings playing atop a rock-and-roll score and aesthetic, too.

District 9 (2009)

I dare some of the naysayers to try it again

[10/10 · 5 September 2009]

First, I've barely played any video games, so please don't dismiss this comment as those of an impressionable youngster. I'm middle-aged. I loved Blade Runner, Alien, Terminator etc. in their (my) time.

Which is one reason I loved this film. It is one of the most original, non-derivative science fiction movies I've seen produced in at least half a generation. The central character is compelling and the actor holds your attention through comedic and tragic moments.

What is this movie? A sci-fi, love-story, epic, buddy-movie social commentary.

Honestly, I read hundreds of the negative postings trying to understand that point of view but I just can't. I sympathize with those who get nauseous watching hand-held (not a problem for me). Otherwise, the vast majority commenting seem to have missed basic plot points, missed all the dry humor, and missed a great film--one that will be setting the pace and style for another half-generation or so ahead (unfortunately for these detractors!).

Shrek the Third (2007)

Mostly enjoyable

[8/10 · 22 June 2008]

Just caught it on HBO. I was a fan of the first two movies but never found time to see this one in the theater. I have to say it was a lot more fun than the average poster seems to say...but maybe watching it at home is different.

I'm surprised no poster has mentioned the gingerbread man's life flashing before his eyes, complete with bionic legs. That made me laugh out loud. There are other moments to cherish, including a pair of geeks at the high school, the dronkeys playing with their dad, and above all the Disney heroines morphing from their long-suffering roles as passive victims into a bra-burning assault squadron. There's enough subtext rolling by to make this film well worth the time.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

Wow, that was bad (very slight spoiler).

[3/10 · 17 July 2004]

My expectations were low. I've liked Will Ferrell's brand of soft-edged mania well enough in the past, but not enough to go see a movie just because he's in it. I went because I remember San Diego in the 1970's, and even the network news in that sleepy city in that era.

As I say, my expectations were low, and I was still very disappointed. I realize it's the 14-year-old inside this was aimed at, not my 41-year-old outside -- but I know a lot of teenagers, and none of them are stupid enough to enjoy this. The script was atrocious, even when you're not bothering to score for plot. Most of the jokes and set pieces were lame -- even "Afternoon Delight" fell flat.

The performances were no better. Will Farrell was not much more than present. I've seen him show more heart in SNL sketches, or even as the cop on the trail in the Jay and Silent Bob movie. Fred Willard, so brilliant in Best in Show, looked sad and tired. Most strangely, the comedy casting at the center was deeply flawed. Two of the three sidekicks were worthless: just...not...funny. Not even for one second. Steve Carell was funny, or at least absurd, for about five seconds.

You know you're watching a bad movie when the senseless cameos and animal dialogs are the only things you can summon up as enjoyable memories. Waste no money or time on this turkey!

Bad Santa (2003)

Dark indulgence

[9/10 · 26 November 2003]

I laughed from the opening monologue to the final voice-over, with barely a noticeable pause in between, and I heard everyone else laughing around me -- pierced teenagers and middle-aged matrons alike.

Not for the kids or the violently sentimental -- because the film won't take you there; this is not the Peanuts special for a new generation. But otherwise a triumph. Billy Bob Thornton is anything but a jolly old elf: he's a messy, degenerate, dipsomaniac thief with a Machiavellian sawed-off sidekick. He has the foulest mouth this side of the North Pole and reserves his most sardonic lines for the unsuspecting kids unfortunate enough to reach his lap.

Santa and his elf are in for a series of December adventures punctuated by 11-month tropical benders, and along the way he'll meet a repressed store manager, a hard-eyed store detective, a half-Jewish nymphomaniac and most memorably a Christmas angel in the form of 8-year old not-so-tiny-Tim, whose appearance, demeanor and story play with every sad-sack stereotype on the way to absolute redemption for all.

Even if it's telegraphed and obvious, the second best line in the film is: "Why do you need all this (stuff)? It's Christmas."

God bless us, everyone.

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Hype-powered (slight spoiler)

[6/10 · 1 January 2003]

The performances are good. Christopher Walken is himself, and even when he's sympathetic, he's odd. The movie looks clean. But for a caper/con movie, it's very slow.

(Spoiler) Also, the movie suffers from the typical neat Spielberg coda where "Poof! Now he's happily married and a millionaire!" Kind of like Mike Milken, Ivan Boesky and (soon to be) Enron, Adelphia and WorldCom figures who bilk little people for millions, serve almost no time, and come out ready to restart with all their cronies. I'm all for redemption, but without the context of the interceding years, this amounts to glamorizing grand theft and fraud. I'm sure the facts are true, but they didn't belong in the movie. Unless the director is making an expensive lesson advising his (and my) children that crime can pay if you're just clever enough.

Adaptation. (2002)

Another Jonze film with integrity and guts (slight spoiler)

[8/10 · 12 December 2002]

Call it an insider's joke, or call it "smart," even if you mean it as an epithet. But don't complain about the last 20 minutes...because hating the last 20 minutes suggests that a) you don't get the Moebius-strip nature of the entire work or b) you do get it, but you're so smugly superior to hack/alter-ego Hollywood screenwriting that you can't tolerate it even when it serves a purpose. A Christmas-season analogy: would you go to hear Handel's Messiah, enjoy almost all of it because you haven't heard it that much before, and then bitch afterwards that the "Hallelujah Chorus" part at the end was too familiar? It's too familiar because it's the distilled, often-substituted version of a great work, and "Donald's" final 20 minutes of this film is the distilled, plot-addled, shoot-em-up version of Charlie's elegy on the search for pure beauty and survival within the swamp of pop culture. It doesn't negate the earlier humor, pathos and performances, it completes them. This is not a perfect film, but it's exactly the kind of communication I want from directors in Hollywood. It is about ten times more illuminating as an outsider's meditation on insider film-making than "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," and equivalent, possibly better than "The Player." I expect it will move Jonze's career forward. Kudos to Carter Burwell for another exceptional score, too.

Ali (2001)

Surfing movie

[7/10 · 28 December 2001]

Watching 'Ali' was like surfing -- several long waits of nothing happening interrupted by a few incredible rushes.

Mann got many things right: the tone, the balance of a complicated life, and great work from the actors. But there are many frustrating slow scenes. I looked at my watch twice in the first half-hour of the movie, and twice during the ten-minute sequence of Ali running in Kishasha, which was a self-indulgent piece of under-edited crud. "Look, everybody, it's REALLY Africa!"

We aren't allowed to detect the drama of this moment, we're going to have every single emotion forced through Will Smith's face and body language. Too much. Exploring character does not mean devoting several hundred frames of film to a tight focus on the protagonist's tortured features. In Ali's case, much of that attempt to show him thinking could have been skipped.

There were several much better scenes demonstrating character -- the byplay with Cosell, a fascination with termites on TV while Malcolm X has come to tell him something important, or walking away, momentarily silencing his motor mouth in bitter anger at someone else's lack of confidence.

Other pacing oddities riddle the movie. We get to see every single bullet coming straight at Malcolm X's POV, but we're at a medium distance when Ali publicly voices his political concerns about the Vietnam war, wrapped up in one 20-second news conference. This is the emotional center of the film, and all of a sudden we're ten rows back?

Timing issues aside, Will Smith finally fulfills the dramatic promise he made years ago in "Six Degrees of Separation," living into a complex character who is both charismatic and human. I haven't seen all the competing performances this year, but his could easily be in the top five. Great job on sustaining the soft Kentucky cadence. Most of the supporting performances are excellent as well.

But for a character study (with good places to hit fast-forward), you could wait for the rental. There are not enough visuals in here to make you rush to the big screen. A couple of the lighting choices are overdone (wow...everyone's BLUE!). I thought the boxing sequences were effective; Mann puts you right in the middle of the action without the cheat of too much slo-mo. But they would be nothing unusual for people who already watch a lot of boxing, and for people who don't like or watch boxing, it will be just as painful as you always thought.

Final hint: if you're taking anyone with you under 40, sit together ahead of time for half an hour and review the history highlights of Ali's life. Without that, you might not keep up with the story at all...my 14-year-old nephew couldn't even figure out who had won the Ali-Frazier fight!

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

"All that glitters..."

[10/10 · 19 December 2001]

I first devoured these books when I was 10, and I have read them seven or eight times since. The inhabitants and issues of Middle Earth are important friends from my childhood, and the trilogy's sensibilities are part of my adult makeup. The full quote "All that glitters is not gold, not all those who wander are lost," has been an apt theme for my life. (Since the quote is not in the movie, I'm sure only the readers are reading on at this point!)

Which is all to suggest that the bar was pretty high for me in these movies. And it is with a very deep sense of gratitude and relief that I can say the Fellowship of the Ring has passed...summa cum laude.

I reject the most effusive commentary here. I've only just seen the film, and just seen it once, so whether or not it surpasses Citizen Kane, or whatever is being implied, is premature. However, it is as fully realized a vision as I could have demanded.

For the book lovers, the movie will not have the same rich detail and nuance. But it shows and tells the story masterfully. The upwriting of Arwen Evenstar's role is seamless and well-played by the very young actress. In fact, all of the casting is astounding, especially Bilbo, Gimli, Gandalf, Saruman, Boromir, Galadriel and Samwise. And the actors live into their characters well.

The least successful for me is Frodo. Elijah Wood is excellent, but too young. Throughout the film Frodo is shown as the holy innocent, while in the book he is an eccentric bachelor approaching middle age, a generation older than his hobbit companions. Maybe this is just important to me as self-description...but then maybe it was important to Tolkien too. Adventures do not happen only to the young.

In any case, this was probably an inevitable casualty of a moviemaker's responsibility to sell tickets, but it changes the story just a little. To Jackson's and Wood's credit, a bit of the steel (or mithril) in Frodo's character begins to assert itself at the very end of the movie...but it is a bigger part of the book from the beginning. I trust it will be an important part of the other two films.

But that's a quibble. One other quibble is that the mallorn woods of Lorien were too dark. But overall I thought the special effects in the movie showed true vision and excellent craftsmanship. All the details of plot that really matter are presented in a logical and manageable, if rapid scale. The characterizations have been well written. I didn't really notice the score or shots much, but I tend to catch those things on second viewings with any movie.

I thought the back-story synopsis at the beginning was genius, a far better way to exploit the medium than having Gandalf and Frodo talking it all over in front of the fire. It throws us right into Middle Earth, a place where history is never far below the soil.

Mr. Jackson et al.: thanks for showing the entire birthday party, right down to the Proudfeet. Thanks for containing both Aragorn and Strider in one man, and hats off to Viggo Mortenson for surpassing my expectations. Thanks for allowing a 3,000-year-old elf to look ageless, even at the risk of confusing the non-reader audience. Thanks for those waterfalls in Rivendell, and for bringing Orthanc and Moria to life. Thanks for distinguishing the Uruk-Hai (in fact, I think the movie does this better than the book...making me look forward to The Two Towers a lot). Thanks for Gwaihir's flight. Thanks for using so much of New Zealand, already familiar to me as the planet's most beautiful place.

I have a long list of other things I'm grateful for...but I'm going to be too busy heading out for a second viewing!

Traffic (2000)

Major Artery

[9/10 · 7 January 2001]

The best way to appreciate this movie is to read "Drug Crazy" by Mike Gray, an objective and factual account of the decades-long US war on drugs. You might still think some details of the movie are overplayed, even contrived, but you'll realize that there are many cases of truth far stranger than this fiction.

Then I have to second most of the praise for the movie's lighting, camera and editing achievements. No false notes in the performances, either, although I didn't think anyone was brilliant. The movie-movie scope necessitated some short cuts in character development.

This marriage of craftsmanship with a balanced political message has to make this one of the most important films released this year. No doubt many viewers will find both style and substance too challenging, but that's no less evidence of mastery. See it twice.

The End of the Affair (1999)

Yawn..the best Ralph Fiennes wartime romance since...

[1/10 · 22 December 1999]

[A couple minor spoilers here]

Much as I wanted to like a film from a talented director, that exposes Julianne Moore once again...for the tremendous talent she is...it bored me silly.

A gentleman two rows behind me snored except while the two leads were shtupping...i.e., about the first third of two interminable hours.

I saw fine filmmaking, including a narrative structure that hangs on two diaries -- one framing the film while in progress, one central to the plot turn. Neil Jordan knows what to do with a camera, and he uses all kinds of rain and half-lit closeups and fuzz-bordered (slow) flashbacks. On the downside, the score kinda sucks. The script wastes Stephen Rea's talents, and Ralph Fiennes' career continues rolling down into oblivion. Julianne Moore excels, and holds an English accent just fine, despite reading lines that would sound familiar and comfortable to a six-year-old.

Which brings me to the problem with this movie. If I could remember who advised me that this trite and stupid story had something profound to say about love and God, I'd ask them for my $8.50 back. I haven't read the source material, but some of the best parts must have been excised from this script in order to show more of Ralph Fiennes' pale, hairy shank and Julianne Moore's luminous eyes and chewable lower lip. I'm ready to grant that artistic license only in the latter case.

Some hints to remember if you hope to greenlight the next great romantic movie:

1. Graham Greene wrote great 20th century novels, conflicted and passionate and decent and stillborn...but as the 20th century fades, Greene needs to go. We already know everything he has to say. Love hurts. Lovers die just inside the border of Happiness Forever, and others never get there. Blah bleak blah. Even Forrest Gump looks profound in comparison to this "timeless" message.

2. If you want a profound meditation on love and God, make a movie about St. Theresa, or St. Augustine, or even St. Francis; you could set the latter in Haight-Ashbury in the 60's. A woman is challenged and a man embittered by parallel conversion experiences in London during the 2nd World War? How interesting can that be? Lotsa lotsa people find or lose God when bombs rain around them. Nothing revealing or miraculous about that.

Magnolia (1999)

Not an everyday movie experience

[8/10 · 18 December 1999]

Characters...elders trying to bury, forget, outrun or live up to their past, with no success...and a pair of clear-eyed youths aiming at mastering their future...and at the center, unexpectedly, a man-child in a policeman's uniform who's been saving himself so he could save others.

Settings...a new Valley of kings, subject to bondage, plagues, towers of commerce and mausoleums of futility. We stare at an empty kitchen, we stare out from a burgled safe, we watch a televised interview and a game show and a freak rainstorm from all angles at once, and like a passel of dogs we run back and forth across the floor to see what's happening next.

I won't say this is a perfect movie; a couple of scenes slide along at a pace that makes no sense. But anyone who really likes movies should kick themselves into the theatre to see this one...maybe twice. Tom Cruise and Jason Robards join many of the best from the Boogie Night cast in a collection of excellent performances.

Life (I) (1999)

Not funny

[1/10 · 17 April 1999]

All the elements were there for a Forrest-Gump thing with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence yuks...but it just didn't work at all. Weak script, poor direction, a couple of characters with way too little back story to care about. Just awful. You'll feel like you're enduring a life sentence watching it.

A Place Called Chiapas (1998)

Rough but well worth a look

[8/10 · 13 April 1999]

It's far from polished, but as always a documentary camera in sympathetic hands can capture unexpected and vital truths about a tough political situation. In this case, although the Zapatista commandants themselves are a fairly sympathetic lot, their dreams of revolution are being fought by the far more moving 2,000 (now more) very poor, powerless and uncertain people in the northern part of Chiapas -- people who have no guns and very little voice. If it did nothing else, the film awakened me to that part of the problem. Marcos comes off as something of a poseur, but since he has been there twelve years you want to have faith that he and his anonymous comrades will prove to be the heroes the indigenous people need.

Go (1999)

Appealing on several levels

[8/10 · 10 April 1999]

I was expecting a comic thrill ride, a Pulp Fiction for the millennial generation and something clearly pitched to teenagers. And I got what I expected. What I didn't expect and was happy to see were some great plot twists and memorable characters. The situational high comedy was more evident than the grossouts or other belly laughs that satisfy most filmmakers.

And Katie Holmes is a hottie.

The Matrix (1999)

Deserves its attention, but it won't last

[8/10 · 10 April 1999]

The visual style is terrific, and the story sucks you in well enough if you can get around the (under-exposed) primary premise. The mythic allusion and religious allegory is all-just-sort-of-OK. No one is going to emerge from this movie with a much deeper view of life or anything.

It's hard to root for Keanu Reeves, whose choppy pace can interrupt any good story for me, but it's undeniable that he pulls this one off. Everyone who usually holds their nose and steers clear of a project because he's in it, go ahead and go.

Personally, I wasn't too thrilled with the dialogue or the other performances, and the soundtrack did most definitely suck. But as eye-candy this ranks high. Find the biggest screen near you.