Change Your Image
SladoledMan
Reviews
Troy (2004)
Dumbed Down plot
(Some Spoilers) Troy is just another classic Summer Hollywood epic that does not live up to the great story that it is based on. I have read the Iliad and think it is a fantastic story that is really timeless, but this movie does nothing to honor its timelessness. Maybe i should not have expected it too, as most if not all movies fall short of the books they are transcribed from. Some characters that were killed in the movie were never killed in the book. Complex relationships that were explored in the novel were completely disregarded or painted in such an arbitrary black and white way that it left the characters bland and almost robotic in their actions/sayings. Agamemnon v. Achilles (black and white, Good v. Bad)the multi-layered relationship that was the lynchpin of interactions in the novel was represented in such an artificial Hollywood way. Menelaus and Helen(who in the story actually get back together and live on for eternity) I know i should not expect every possible detail to be expressed in detail, but they could have at least been a little truer to the story and not killed off essential characters that did not perish in the book. (Ajax, Agmemeon, Menelaus all lived on in the story) The only character i was impressed with was Priam (Peter O'Toole). The proud caring patriarch of the Trojans was played perfectly by O'Toole and portrayed exactly like the character in the novel. It really does not take many lines of dialogue to correctly style a characters personality, unfortunately the people who made this movie felt that over-complex characterizations would lose their core audience. Just Hollywood underestimating its consumers once again. Finally the fight scenes were actually very good. Some of the best and most epic that i have ever seen on the silver-screen, and future epic battle scenes will be compared to this. Maybe i just went into this movie expecting too much, but if your going to make a 2 hour 45 minute movie, you should at least make the characters a bit more multi-dimensional (besides Achilles) and extend it another 15 minutes if need be.
Queen of the Damned (2002)
Was this a movie...or a Music Video?
So I'm sitting there in a packed theater opening night of this movie thinking to myself is this just another episode of MTV's TRL (Total Request Live) or a movie? I was just waiting for the plain faced tool known as Carson Daly to pop out and start interviewing Lestat. You know Interview With a Vampire...shoot i think that was done already. Honestly I had low expectations going into this movie and i was not let down. This movie really left me asking a bunch of questions, it left so many loose strands that probably someone not familiar with Anne Rice novels (like myself) do not understand. The premise was pretty interesting I thought...Lestat coming back into the public eye through a Goth Rock band. A very smart and modern type of way to go, and you would figure in your head if an immortal vampire did exist in our time it stands to reason that he would probably be a member of a Goth rock band. Unfortunately the union of Lestat and a band seems really rushed. We get introduced to an even older vampire Marius, whose past seems very interesting but you feel cheated because they do not even develop this character at all. Its all about the good looking/modern vampire Lestat and any other vampires in this movie are secondary because they are not as good looking as Stuart Townsend. The late Aaliyah was beautiful in this movie, she really did look goddess like but her role was a bit short and underdeveloped too i felt, more Aaliyah would have been a good thing. This movie really felt like it was targeted to the TRL audience ages 13-18 so if you fall below or above that or are not a HUGE Ann Rice fan skip this damned movie.
Monster's Ball (2001)
Relationship out of Necessity
A Relationship out of Necessity is exactly what Monster's Ball is all about. Halle Berry, and Billy Bob Thornton were absolutely brilliant in this movie, Heath Ledger who i do not particularly like as an actor put on a fantastic show in the role as Billy Bob's "weak" son...but the surprise of the whole movie was Sean "Puff Daddy/P.Diddy" Combs playing the imprisoned husband of Halle Berry with an artistic flare. His performance was actually awe-inspiring, i never thought the sampling rapper who once spouted that "It's all about the Benjamins" could pool off such a powerfully proud role...Bravo Puffy Pufferton. Two emotionally drained and distraught people come together out of necessity by seemingly coincidental circumstances, that for the most part do not seem too unbelievable or hard to swallow. Instead the plot engulfs the audience from start to finish as you watch wondering how this pair of completely opposite souls seem to be entwined together by some unseeing yet powerful force. Excellent film, Berry and Thornton were amazing...Berry's unkept look made her even more beautiful because of the vulnerability in it. An A- on my scorecard.
Lepa sela lepo gore (1996)
A different and more realistic take on the war in Yugoslavia
What an absolutely amazing and realistically poignant take on the war in the former Yugoslavia. Being of Serbian descent this movie is considered an epic by our people. With all the anti-Serbian propaganda that was spewed by the media and by other movie directors that have done films about this horrific war, it was gratifying to my nationalistic side to see a movie that told it like it really was. This is one of the first movies since maybe Platoon or Apocalypse Now that shows the true damage that war can do to the human psyche. The soldiers were seen as regular guys with regular lives before the war and not as Balkan Brutes which the western media has portrayed them as many times. What made it more believable was the fact that the people fighting in this war (Serbs and Croats) were as close as brothers before the war, and seeing the reaction of the characters to each other during the war seemed very believable.