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Reviews
The Ninth Configuration (1980)
Tedious and predictable allegory
Came to this having read it's an undiscovered gem.
If so it's paste.
Presented as a fable, Blatty is more interested in presenting a God/No God debate on familiar Catholic terms than creating an engaging film. The characters aren't humanised beyond types, the colourfully 'mad' inmates aren't as amusing as Blatty seems to think, and the visual language doesn't add much and descends into an eye-rollingly heavy-handed Passion by the end.
Stacy Keach's main character undergoes a trial by biker scene which livens things up a bit and shows where Blatty's real fears lie ((ooh, eyeliner bad!). It does feature a fab moment for the main villain lowering himself next to suffering Stacy which was the best thing in the film.
Apart from the hilarious Bad Bikers, what really limits the film is its shallow central debate; it's more about comfortingly restoring a lost Catholic faith rather than seriously challenging its basis or exploring an alternative.
Any stars are for Stacy Keach - who sleep walks through most of the film but has a few moments where he's permitted to show flashes of the characters' terrifying true self - Jason Miller who makes the most of his 'loony' caricature, and the splits.
The Machinist (2004)
Thin gruel
*Spoilers ahead* In spite of a committed and interesting performance from Christian Bale, and striking cinemaphotography, this was poor stuff. The premise - man haunted by a figure representing his own guilt - is familiar fare. Not a necessarily a bad thing, because a familiar premise can mean that the film contains a powerful idea worth re-exploring, but I feel the director and/or writer made a bad choice by trying to make the central character's predicament a mystery.
It might have made a well-shot, well acted, and even moving mood piece about the impact of guilt and the importance of atonement if we'd been shown the reason for Bale's guilt upfront (cf. Crime and Punishment, and the numerous other spurious Dostoyevsky references that littered the film in a sixth form attempt to make it appear 'more cleverer' than it actually was), but the forced and unconvincing attempt to warp the story into a suspenseful mystery made it seem like a grossly overstretched episode of the Twilight Zone. And I like The Twilight Zone.
By halfway point, Bale's character was completing the word of the hangman game on his fridge with M O T H E R, and I was silently screaming 'no, it's K I L L E R, and that's you, f*ckwit' and wishing I could fast-forward.
Shame.
Murder City (2004)
Feeble
I had the misfortune to catch the latest episode of this show. I'm a regular viewer of TV crime shows but had never seen this. I was lucky.
Feeble in every department. It looks like it was shot through a filter of soup, the script was terrible - the story was hackneyed, psychologically inconsistent, and dull, the acting was weak. Kris Marshall is particularly unconvincing and looks uncomfortable in the role, even though this is the second series. The world the characters inhabit is a collection of watered down lifts from other shows (the light box they use to view photographs a typical example, ripping off the transparent boards from Waking the Dead to considerably less effect and impact).
Will go out of my way to avoid future episodes.
King Kong (2005)
It's so loooonnngggg....
God, it's long. And repetitive to the point of dullness. Looked great, but I want 90 minutes of my life back. Would have made a fantastic 100 minute movie, but as it is seems as ponderous as its sophomoric literary references straining and failing to upgrade this from a B-movie.
Explorers attacked by natives. Dinousaurs attacked by dinosaurs. Girl attacked by Dinosaurs. Kong attacks dinosaurs. Insects attack men. Bats attack Kong. Men attack Kong.
I started fidgeting after the third repetition, but stayed to see the monkey climb the Empire State. And yes, it looked brilliant, but did I care? Not a jot. Soulless stuff. And Jack Black is badly miscast. He has a great "now I'm proper acting" look that irrestibly brings the word "constipation" to mind.
The ravishing opening in Thirties New York, a wonderfully romantic evocation of period, elevates it from a 4.
The Changeling (1980)
Classic spook
A very well executed ghost story of the classic haunted-house kind. A strong central performance by George C.Scott gives it a sense of reality often missing from FX dominated movies. If you like M.R. James or Shirley "the Haunting of Hill House" Jackson, I reckon you'll enjoy this. Slowly growing tension, a few scary bits, and the ubiquitous "oh my god the stupid woman's going back to the house" scene. A terrifically eerie seance, exploding windows, a disturbing flashback and the scariest chair in the business - how can you resist it?
I see that it was released in 1980, the same year as The Shining. One thing I really enjoyed was the use of sound and Medak's creeping camera - very reminiscent of Kubrick's use of steadicam in The Shining. Wonder if they'd seen each other's film before shooting started...?
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Yeah - and...?
Three fight sequences, a couple of gags, no story, no suspense, and plenty of references for those seeking that little thrill of self-satisfaction, but otherwise...
Oh sod it, I was bored stiff. I'm just hacked off I fell for the big marketing campaign and actually paid money to go and see it. Dull dull dull dull dull. More does not necessarily mean better (see also Matrix II and the next one).
I'm not 14 any more, and I want to see a good story.
Will I bother to go and see the second part? No chance.
Signs (2002)
Are they serious...?
Some fine craft in the visual realisation and an excellent sense of pace fails to make anything out of a frankly laughable story. Am I missing the point here? Is the staggeringly banal dialogue and simplistic approach to faith actually a sly comment on the credulity of the audience? Or are we really - as I suspect - supposed to swallow this dull-witted stuff whole?
The writer/director can make a tense and engaging sequence, with a very nice sense of shading in performances, no doubt about that, but his technical facility isn't matched by his way with a story in this case. The hackneyed and bowel-numbingly predictable storyline, last seen circa 1970 in one act tv plays (told more economically and with equal tension by less self-important directors), goes exactly where it signals in the first five minutes, telling us nothing new on the way.
The script of Signs seems to me like an apprentice piece, and one that M Night would have been advised to leave in the bottom drawer. If he's running out of material, maybe it's time for M Night to direct someone else's story - I think he'd benefit both as director and as a writer.
Jeepers Creepers (2001)
Lamentable
Nice opening 5 minutes plummets into cynical and poorly thought out and utterly unscary garbage from then on. It simply doesn't work as a scary and/or suspenseful slasher, simply ticking off the required genre elements without bothering to find out how they work, let alone use them in an unexpected fashion. The worst aspect of it is the cynical and deeply depressing set-up for the sequel.
Which at least can't be any worse.
Surely...
The Hole (2001)
Disappointing
Classic British fudge - wanted to be a tight psychological thriller, but had pretensions to cleverness, and so failed on all counts. Psychologically implausible (the pace of breakdowns etc. seemed misjudged)and a poorly structured and very predicatable thriller plot meant that little tension was generated. And ultimately if a bunch of overprivileged public school brats want to lock themselves down a hole and die horrible deaths - who cares?
Pay It Forward (2000)
Shockingly badq
If you're ever short of a definition for the word mediocre, this'll clear it up for you. Appalling sub-movie of the week bilge. Kevin Spacey reveals the soft fleshy ham that lies beneath his technique, Helen Hunt relies on eyeliner to turn her into a recovering alcoholic. Dreadful script ellipses through awkward questions, director looks for pretty shots to endow hollow profundity, inappropriate production design (mm - she has to have the largest, cleanest, most well-designed trailer I've ever seen...) leads all in all to horribly overworked tv movie of the week. I paid money to see this and feel seriously robbed. All involved should feel deeply ashamed. Was it for the money guys, or did you really think emoting is the same as acting? Shame on you.