Ulex Reviews

Walk This Way (1996)

I loved this Movie

[10/10 · 2 October 2000]

As I started watching this movie, about a man who was born without working legs, I thought that it would be another one of those TV movie-of-the-week deals designed to make us feel sorry for the poor victim. I was wrong. This is a truly inspiring story about how one person, born with limitations, didn't spend a minute feeling sorry for himself but lived life to the fullest.

As the film begins, we see Ron Bachman as a ten-year old, in a black-and-white doctor's video. Although he has flabby, useless legs, he can use incredible upper body strength to move around the room with amazing dexterity, leaping over chairs and beds. When the doctors give him artificial legs, they are awkward and inhibit his movement. That sets the theme for the film, as it shows how Bachman lived with his disability, rather than trying to deny it.

I feel awkward saying "disablilty" because it is uncertain exactly what abilities Bachman doesn't have. He is a partier. He goes to concerts, and has become close friends with Aerosmith's Steve Tyler. He chased girls through high school and now has a wife and family. He rides around on a custom-made motor-bike, looking like Meatloaf from the waist up. He still has massive upper body strenght, and can move around his house at the same speed at which a normal person can walk.

I expected that I would feel sorry for Ron Bachman at the end of the film. Actually, I envied him. Here is a man with a lust for life that many people with fully functioning bodies lack. Instead of paying lip service to the power of the human spirit, this film demostrates it to show how it can overcome any obstacles.

Forgotten Fires (1998)

A thoughtful look at the causes of racism

[9/10 · 2 October 2000]

One thing that bothers me about the modern civil rights movement is that the tendency is to blame problems on racism and then leave it at that. As the recent out-break of race-related crime seems to show us, that's not good enough. "Forgotten Fires" is the first film I've seen which really deals with *why* people turn to racism. It is a documentary about the burnings of two African-American churches in Manning, South Carolina, but the center of the film is an interview with Timothy Welch, one of the Klansen who helped with the burnings. Through his interview and other interviews with those involved (including a Klan leader), we begin to understand how economic situations and personal desperation can drive men to hate. Welches interview is enormously compelling; he has moved beyond his racism, (he may never have been racist in the first place), but doesn't yet feel redeemed for what he has done, and although he mentions the reasons he thinks he turned to hate, he still takes full responsibility for his actions. His motivations were so complex, that he in fact burned the church of his black godmother, whom he describes how much he loved. The film also examines how the African-American community coped with the loss of their churches, and includes one involving part where a black leader reflects on how drugs ruined the civil rights movement. This film has an undercurrent of hope, hope that the community can recover from the loss, and hope that those who did it can move beyond their hate.

Bless the Child (2000)

So bad it's good

[3/10 · 27 August 2000]

Bless The Child is a film so audaciously and boldy bad that I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy some of it. A religious thriller which appartently has a problem with 12-step programs or Scientology, it is so inventively goofy that I found myself watching it is suspence, wondering what goofy thing the filmmakers would come up with next.

But the underlying premise of the movie isn't so bad: the retelling of the temptation of Christ in a modern setting. The problem is that the filmmakers were more in love with computerized bats and rats than they were in telling an intelligent movie. Some of the actors emerge unscathed, although it can't be said that all of them do. Rufus Sewell revels in his role, with giant green eyes that almost seem to glow. He's having fun. Ditto for Ian Holm, who plays a renegade Jesuit priest who quotes the Bible, and "The Usual Suspects." But Basinger doesn't fare so well as the hapless heroine, in fact so hapless that she doesn't seem to really do anything helpful until the end. But this film has dozens of delightfully dumb, goofy moments. Here are a few: (SPOILER ALERT)

The doctor solemnly tells Kim Basinger that her adopted daughter has some form of autism. "It's a difficult diagnosis," he says, and he's right, because throughout the movie there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with her.

Rufus Sewell sits atop an office building in a bad part of New York with our six-year-old heroine, and as he looks across to more office buildings, says: "All of this will one day be yours if you follow me." How this is appealing to a six-year-old is beyond me.

Jimmy Smits the smart, religious FBI agent assigned to catch a ritualistic murderer. He wanders on to a seemingly normal crime scene, notices some incriptions on the ground which lead to a great breakthrough. Does he look at all of the crime scenes for clues?

The police must break into the bad guys mansion, which is described as "heavily guarded," and the police prepare like they are infiltrating the Pentagon. Three minutes later, Kim Basinger single-handedly breaks into the house by breaking the glass on the door and opening it.

A bunch of nuns pray for our heros, and arouse and angel of death to vanquish the bad guys. The filmmakers chicken out on this part; they could have copied "Raiders of the Lost Arc," but instead let the Jimmy Smits guy do the hard work.

All in all, I would never recommend that an intelligent person see this, but if you are with some friends and want to have a good, dumb time, sure.

City at Peace (1999)

A powerful punch in the face

[10/10 · 28 September 1999]

I am by no means a great watcher of documentaries, but this is by far one of the most powerful ones I have ever seen. We need to force-feed this film to our politicians. It shows the bleak outlook on life that teenagers have right outside the capital doors.

The documentary follows a group of teens living in Washington D.C., who collaborate together to write, direct, and star in a musical. We watch as they form friendships and bond, and as they discuss issues such as racism, gangs, and AIDS. For some of us, these are nice, distant things to talk about, but for these kids they are just talking about their lives. This film shows the limited future which all of these people have been forced to face. There is one scene where a young black man explains about how he *knows* he will one day be shot. The only question involved is when.

One of the things which has happened since the Civil Rights movement is that although the societal structure has changed against discrimination and racism, it still exists in places we choose not to look. One of the things "City at Peace" does is force us to look there. We share in a white girl's shock as she recalls how her parents politely told her not to bring a black boy to the dance, and we reluctantly accept the scene where the group, after months on bonding, still cliques together according to race. We begin to understand how little things we think don't matter can be just as oppressive as the Jim Crow laws we set out to banish.

This film makes no tricks, takes no shortcuts. There are perhaps too many teary emotional scenes, but they all work because we feel that they are genuine. It makes its point so bluntly, simply showing what life is like for these teenagers, that it feels almost impossible to talk about it. At first, this film is a powerful blow to the belief that everyone in America has an equal opportunity. But it ends with the powerful affirmation that it is possible to escape your beginnings. It is a very powerful film.

Rating: **** out of four.

First Daughter (1997)

A great debut film

[26 September 1999]

I'm not entirely sure that I thinking about the right movie here, but I saw a short film entitled "First Daughter" at the Heartland Film Festival last year. There can't be too many of them around.

What I saw was a very thoughtful, engaging story. It was definitely the best short film at Heartland that year. It was the story of a young Vietnamese girl, and how she copes with the death of her father and grandmother. Although the film was made on a very small budget, it has a great deal of fantasy, including one scene where paper puppets seem to come to life. The movie's plot involves the grandmother explaining the Vietnamese legends and custom's involving death to the young girl, who is still trying to cope with her father's death. (She does this by obsessing about the heart, for her father died of a heart attack. The film opens while she reads her brother's pulse and records it, making sure that he is OK).

The film is very intuitive about how a child deals with death. It may not be easier as an adult to deal with the death of a loved one, but children cannot yet fully understand how to deal with it. This film demonstrates that beautifully.

Rating: ***1/2 out of four

Breast Men (1997 TV Movie)

Based on a true story, slightly augmented

[10/10 · 25 September 1999]

HBO has a great knack at taking bits of history which we never think much about, and turning them into incredibly entertaining movies. Example: This breezy, very clever satire about the rise and fall of the two inventors of the silicone breast implant.

The film deftly raises the central question about breast implants without forcing an answer upon it: Are they exploitive or theraputic? Sure, they seem like perverse objects invented by horny men, but if women really feel self-conscious about their breasts, why shouldn't they be allowed to improve them. This question is carried out through the movie, as we see a semi-inspired idea turn into an exploitation industry.

David Schwimmer and Chris Cooper star as the two doctors who come up with the idea of the implant, and both play there parts very well. Say what you want about Schwimmer, (I never liked him in other roles), he fairs pretty well here, as he almost constantly shifts from burnt-out loser to a man with new-found riches. But even if you don't like Schwimmer, Chris Cooper more than makes up for it. This has to be the most engaging performance so far in his career. He plays a past-his-prime doctor who is lucky enough to come across Schwimmer's breast ideas and finance the surgeries. He is a nice, agreagble man while you're on his side, but he bursts into fits of rage whenever his authority is questioned. The center of his performance is that, despite what he does, he wants to feel like a normal, respectable doctor. He steals every scene which he is in.

The film perfectly transports us back into the 1970's, emphasizing the point that back then, subtly didn't matter. (SLIGHT SPOILER WARNING). We follow the duo's path as split, grow from a practice into an industry, and finally are hammered by lawsuits. The film wisely makes no statements about whether or not the impants are harmful (as is should, since the facts are not yet in), but instead uses the event to highlight its characters personalities. The David Schwimmer character finds a way to skirt around the catastrophy while Chris Cooper raises hell about it. The film is also annotated by interviews with real women with breast implants, their identities concealed because (surprise!) the camera isn't centered on their heads. Their interviews help explain the emotional baggage which comes along with the implants.

In it's style, and the way it views sex as an industry rather than eroticism, Breast Men can be compared to Boogie Nights. I'll admit that Boogie Nights is a better film, but Breast Men is somehow easier to watch, mainly because it doesn't take itself so seriously. It finds the perfect note, dealing with its subject seriously enough to get the point across, and detached enough to still be hilarious.

Sphere (1998)

One bad movie

[1/10 · 16 September 1999]

I thought I would comment on this one, because I thought it was one of the most God-awful movies to come out in 1998. It is by far the worst Michael Crichton-based movie yet. Perhaps it's because I had high hopes (the book is one of my favorites), but I cannot remember the last time I saw a movie as jarbled, disorganized, and ultimately non-interesting as this one.

This is a special effects movie with no special effects. The most high-tech shots are the opening credits, for God's sake! The plot requires (spoiler warning) an underwater habitat, a gigantic submerged spaceship, a humongous alien sphere, several underwater creatures and finally a giant squid attack. All of these elements are handled with incredible incompetence. The habitat is filled entirely with grey---the navy is smart enough to put color in habitats like this, to keep people from going crazy. Nobody wants to spend much time in a place like this, especially a movie audience. The squid attack is so bad its laughable---we never see the squid! Imagine the T-Rex scene in Jurrasic Park if it began with a tree shaking and then stopped. In Sphere, we basically get a blip on the radar screen, then the camera moves around a lot.

The writers try to remain faithful to the plot, but get so many critical points wrong that the whole things falls apart long before we see any squids. Its almost as if they read certain chapters of the book, then tried to guess what the rest was about. The final act, when all is explained, made perfect sense to me in the book, but in hopelessly incomprehensible in the movie. And the ending takes a *major* turn from the book---what was that about! I have no trouble when movies make intelligent changes from their inspirations, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Barry Levinson is a good director, and I'm sure he will make a better movie some day. Perhaps he should stick to comedy. Or perhaps he thought he would need to do a big-budget movie to go along with the indie hit Wag the Dog. Either way, he gets a crucial point wrong here: What made the book Sphere so compelling to read wasn't squids or jellyfish, but our fascination with the Sphere itself---Where did it come from? What is its purpose? Neither the book nor the movie answers those questions completely, but the difference is the movie never seems to care.

Amy (II) (1997)

Absolutely incredible

[10/10 · 16 September 1999]

I saw this movie at the Heartland Film Festival last year here in Indy, and I though it was probably one of the best movies I saw last year. Even if it wasn't, it was certainly the most original and different I've seen in quite a long time.

It is the story of Amy a young girl who has been mysteriously deaf-mute for several years, for no medical reason. She lives with her protective mother, played by Rachel Griffiths, who tries, with no avail, to understand her daughter's condition.

Most of the plot involves their move to small alley in a downtown Australian town, which is populated with all sorts of different, funny characters. The film goes along with just the right pacing---it doesn't rush or lag, just goes along, much like its characters, who aren't entirely sure of where their lives are going, but go on anyways.

This film blends tragedy, comedy, drama, and fantasy without every confining itself to one genre. It creates its own world, using nothing but a subtle script and incredible acting.

One more comment: I thought that the scene involving the little girl and the little guy, and his drumset had to be one of the cutest scenes I've seen in over a decade.

Citizen X (1995 TV Movie)

One of the best movies I've ever seen about a serial killer

[10/10 · 16 September 1999]

This has to be one the best movies about serial killers that I've ever seen, and this is coming from someone who absolutely loved Silence of the Lambs. HBO has hit the jackpot here. This film is compelling from the first moment until the last.

This film has so many underlying themes its hard to tell exactly what it is about. It chronicles the decade-long search for the Russian serial killer Andrea Chikatilo. Stephen Rea gives a brilliantly reserved performance as the inexperienced forensic expert who is put in charge of the investigation, and Donald Sutherland gives an even more involving performance as his cynical superior, and the only person in the Russian government willing to help him. Both of their performances are subtle masterpieces---Rea begins naive and unwilling to compromise, while Sutherland begins detached and almost amused by the situation. Towards the end, Rea becomes more world-weary and beaten by the system, while Sutherland finds himself more passionate and idealistic.

In any other movie, I would have said that Sutherland's performance stands out above the rest, but here even it is rivaled by Jeffrey DuMann, as the serial killer himself. DuMann brilliantly creates a character here who inspires empathy rather than the hatred we think we would find---he is a monster, but he doesn't want to be, and we get the idea that he is just as disgusted with what he does as we are. He is tortured, ashamed, but vicious as well.

If you can take the incredibly dark subject matter, (and it is *very* disturbing), then you should see this movie.