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Reviews
Antarctica (1991)
Disappointing, and I wanted it to be much more.
Normally I love documentaries about Antarctica. The grandeur and desolation of the continent lends itself to phenomenal photography, while the animal life provides insight as to how tough the living conditions actually are.
But this film was a great disappointment. I'm not really giving anything away by saying it tried to do too many things within the course of 40 minutes. Everything got short shrift: human exploration, current scientific missions, fauna, geology, weather. All of these things have been explored much better in other documentaries. This movie should have stayed to the strengths of its format: wide angle views of the desolate landscape. There is little action here, why try to create some? The sound editing was atrocious. On what is essentially a frozen wasteland, one would expect some quiet when the wind wasn't howling. But the sound editors seemingly went out of their way to add in noisome effects.
The music was especially annoying. Scenes of boats and hovercrafts simply moving next to icebergs were accompanied by minor-key aural blasts more suitable for a horror movie. And I can't even comment on the cloying, near-onomatopoeic track accompanying the Adelie penguins. It must be heard in context to be believed.
Not that I recommend you doing so. Four stars.
V for Vendetta (2005)
Impressive Indictment of Power
**note: I don't know why IMDb insists on misspelling-through-spell check Portman's character's name, but please try to ignore it.**
V for Vendetta is an important indictment of government power. File this one under Films That Matter.
After a brief introduction to Guy Fawkes' foiled attempt to destroy Parliament 400 years ago, the film, set in London in the near future, opens as Eve-y (Natalie Portman) is stopped by police for being on the streets after curfew. The film's masked antihero, V, saves her from being raped. After she later saves him from being killed by police, he protects her by hiding her. In so doing, he brings her into his world of revenge and revolution.
The film is as stylish as anything in the Wachowski Brothers' Matrix Trilogy, but with much stronger characters. Portman once again proves how phenomenal an actor she is. V for Vendetta is as much about her journey as it is V's revenge.
Whether it comes in the guise of shadowy manipulators, smirking simians, or charming rogues doesn't really matter. The power of the State is always arrayed against the liberty of the people. The last scene is hopeful, recalling as it does the fall of the Berlin Wall, where an impotent government finally crumbled before the will of a determined people. The people are powerful, and the most powerful thing they can do is to refuse to go along with the program.
La marche de l'empereur (2005)
Phenomenal, even after multiple viewings
(This is a comment on the US version.)
I greatly enjoyed March of the Penguins, and not just because I'm a huge fan of the birds. I'm also a huge fan of Morgan Freeman, and his smooth (near-hypnotic) voice-over matched the pacing of the film wonderfully. I won't add a review of the movie per se (you can judge from the comments of others), but I'd like to comment on the audiences. I'm afraid that, normally, respectful audiences are in short supply in my town. However, the folks lining up to see this movie have been well-mannered and quiet, even the little ones. This must truly be a family film: I've seen three generations in some groups! Round up the whole family, you're not going to see something like this in the theaters for a long time to come.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Better the second time around
The film greatly benefits from a second viewing. The first time I saw it at the end of Trilogy Tuesday, I viewed it as a film critic might, or a fan of the books. I was too busy trying to take everything in and noting the changes from Tolkien's canon to get fully swept up in it. But everything changed with the second viewing on Saturday morning, and I can honestly say I now consider it the best of the three. If you were at all put off by the film the first time you saw it, please give it one more chance. You will be rewarded. 10/10
2010 (1984)
Pales in comparison to "2001" and Clarke's book
This film was a huge disappointment to me. "2001: A Space Odyssey" was an unqualified masterpiece, in many ways unrivalled decades later. I don't think it is fair to compare Peter Hyams to Stanley Kubrick, but it is fair to compare Hyams' screenplay to the source material, Arthur C. Clarke's "2010: Odyssey 2". I thought it one of Clarke's finest stories, almost a pure adventure yarn, and a book I've reread many times. Hyams nearly wrecked the story with his Cold-War political posturing.
In the film, the Russians and the Americans were almost mortal enemies; in the book, they already knew each other at least by scientific reputation, and their relationships were warm. The political intrigue was provided by a rival Chinese spaceship that raced ahead of the Russian vessel, and the Chinese scientists provided unequivocable proof of life on Europa when they landed to refuel. In the movie, the evidence was merely speculative.
The worst disaster, though, was Bowman/HAL's last message to Earth. Hyams tacked seven words onto the message (which I will not spoil for you) that essentially served to reduce the godlike alien race that transformed Bowman into your garden-variety aliens that are actually concerned with what happens with humanity. The book makes clear that they were not.
The most enjoyable scenes were pretty much lifted straight from the book: almost every scene with HAL, Vasili and Curnow's spacewalk, and Floyd's meeting with Bowman (except for that "something wonderful" crap). Do yourself a favor and read the vastly superior novel, and you will realize what a travesty this movie was.