Change Your Image
JPOmalley
Reviews
Relocated Mountains (2008)
Nice...But Why?
I feel a bit funny about leaving a "negative" comment on a film with no comments, but I get the distinct impression that this entire film existed as an excuse for the film's subject to re- unite with his family. This is a wonderful event, indeed, but as the film ended I felt I had learned little and seen a lot. So much of the information was dispensed in generalizations and lambasted with emotion that when the film ended, I wasn't sure I received what was so nobly promised in the beginning of the film. From seeing reactions of the Kurdish people of Syriah, Lebanon, etc., I did not get the impression that hope was being passed on to the countless hoards of Kurdish refugees as was the intent, and as the film wound to a close I began to realize that the film was more about the narrator than the people for whom he set out to make this film.
I suggest seeing NEW YEAR BABY, about a similar subject - The Kmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. Somehow they managed to touch on all points, the personal and the plural.
This film seemed to exist simply to show the reaction of its protagonist to his own past, one I feel no greater closeness to after having seen the film.
Los Angeles Now (2004)
A sweeping glance in the present tense
I'm not sure quite how to describe this documentary. On one hand it plays like a "Welcome to LA" film by the tourism board...that is if the tourism board were Latino and cared much more about the truth than the myth of the yellow brick road to Los Angeles. On the other hand, it lacks a foundation of history and fact to make any of its opinions (as balanced as they are) stick. It is told completely through interviews, with colorful characters, and even more colorful visuals (as it was shot completely in HD), and it paints a solid and tangible image of Los Angeles as city and a massive meta-culture. I simply wish in the end, (though perhaps this is the aim, to be aimless), the film had left me with a more steady grasp of what I had learned in the past hour and a half. It is a quick, colorful, musical documentary that is as vast and void of a central thought as its subject. Well worth watching if you are moving to L.A, especially if your dreams match your expectations.
Rent (2005)
Good, Great? Hardly Perfect.
Rent is a musical that could have, if anything benefited from a movie. It is gritty, real, at times absurd, but rife with film-y potential, if done correctly.
Chris Columbus (Need I remind you: director of Bicentenial Man) succeeds more often than not in creating gorgeous musical moments that, well, connect to something and I would be lying if I said I felt nothing leaving the theatre. I was moved. But I also know the show and the movie was not the show. Here's where Chris Columbus fails.
For once, can someone have the balls to create a filmed musical that DOES NOT break from the music. I gripe more about the Titanic disaster that was PHANTOM OF THE OPERA than this. But if people are willing to pay $100 a ticket to see a musical with no dialogue, why wouldn't they be willing to pay $10. It is as though the producers fear that America has eaten itself RETARDED and thus won't understand RENT without explanatory dialogue, but they would have and the lack of dialogue wouldn't have ruined the pace of RENT as the "words" do in the film. Unfortunately what RENT becomes is a "greatest hits" film of the best moments in the musical, with the occasional benefit of finding out how a character gets from point A to B, in silence.
My dream would have been for RENT to never stop, from beginning to end, unless (and this would have been great) they threw and intermission into the film. If it worked for Sound Of Music it could have worked for RENT. Unfortunately Chris and Co. doesn't trust itself, or its audience, to make a perfect adaptation. They are fine (as is the audience) with a compromise. I would just like to remind them that no one else gets to make another version. There's sticks, and I am sad to say, disappointed.
The cast however was incredible and Jesse L. Martin should be applauded and lauded with gifts. End of story
The Boondock Saints (1999)
The funniest piece of crap I have ever seen
A friend recommended this film to me and so a group of us got together to watch it. Not understanding that Dafoe was gay at first and then realizing in hilarity that he was, I laughed my way through this absurd attempt at a good independent film. The casting of Ron Jeremy in any role in this film immediately diminished any legitimate value it held. I especially like the need for a Ron Jeremy sex scene, (give him something he knows guys, don't let him stretch his characters beyond porn). There are too many horridly overacted Willam Dafoe scenes to recall, and for this reason I figured it was made early in his career. 1999! Less than five years after the English patient (though four, after speed 2) it is so sad to see a good actor acting badly in such a ridiculous film. Willam Dafoe has had a rollercoaster career of inspiring roles and hilarious flops. The sad part is that, (I imagine) Dafoe and the makers of this film thought they were doing something truly important. Save this stuff for film school, and Willem...I'm disappointed.
The Big Lebowski (1998)
One of the funniest films ever made!
While some criticize the coen brothers for making "Lebowski", I praise for they have given to me a film I can watch endlessly. I have seen the film upwards of 15 times, and every single time it is hilarious. The writing is ingenious, as is the twisted plot. John Goodman will never have a role like this again and I feel that it is his if not also Jeff Bridges' finest work. Phillip Seymore Hoffman never ceases to amaze me. If you haven't seen this move...see it! If you don't like it, than I am sorry, because I will always have this movie on my shelf, just waiting for a lazy day so that I can once again laugh.