HiPalmetto Reviews

Obsession (1976)

One of De Palma's Lows

[5/10 · 10 July 2015]

As a fan, big fan, of the majority of De Palma's work, I was looking forward to seeing this. I'd never seen it before , somehow it had slipped past me. Now, having watched it, I can only say that maybe I had a kind of 6th sense when I was younger that warned me away from it. Sadly, that sense seems to be fading. This tale of triple obsession (yes, triple) should've been a huge turkey. Difficult to believe it ever broke even, never mind made a profit, as I see it has from this website, though I reckon it must've taken a while. Visually it's interesting, the only real strong point from De Palma that I'd note, though given the Italian locations especially it's still surprising he doesn't do more with the visuals. The performances he gets are barely satisfactory and rarely convincing, not helped by a ridiculously bewigged and mustachioed John Lithgow. Cliff Robertson, a fine actor, is suitable for the romantic side of the story but never at any time convinces as someone tortured by guilt for some 15/16 years.

That may not have been entirely his fault since the Paul Schrader script gives him, and everyone else, so little to work with. Full of anomalies and plot holes, while the viewer will likely have every plot twist worked out in the first 25 minutes, the script itself doesn't seem to know where it's going for the first hour with it's snail's pace development and reliance on atmospheric score to keep the audience warm.

I've seen this called a psychological thriller but what thrills it has, and there aren't many and they aren't that thrilling , mostly come in the first and last ten minutes. Having sat through most of the movie waiting for something to happen, when it does, it only highlights the worst shortcomings of script and direction with unbelievable character u-turns, revelations, coincidences and just plain stupidity, such as Robertson going to the airport to book a flight , finding out there's one about to leave at that moment and just running for it without getting a ticket. The script actually makes a comic moment of it just to emphasise how stupid it is. (Even stupider than the 1959 New Orleans police as represented here also.) The film ends, more or less, with a priceless look of bewilderment on Robertson's face as, even with all the previous revelations, he finally starts to understand what has happened to him. He can't do tortured guilt, but by goodness he can do bewilderment. Funnily enough that exact look was visible on the faces of quite a few others in the cinema as the lights went up, though most likely for other reasons, that they'd sat through it all, that it had ever got made in the first place, that this stylish piece of trash could come from De Palma, etc..

Passenger Side (2009)

Character-driven low-budget movie that works...to a point

[7/10 · 8 July 2015]

Quite glad I took the time to watch this. The surface premise is quite light - two Canadian brothers with some issues to work out drive around Los Angeles County for a day looking for one of them's ex-girlfriend. As the day progresses first some of the deeper tensions emerge, the driver, elder brother Michael (Adam Scott)is a writer suffering some kind of writer's block on his second book and it's his 37th birthday, while the searcher, Tobey (Joel Bisonette)is a recovering addict who appears to have betrayed family trust in the past. The dialogue between the two leads is realistically the type of deprecatory, disparaging code often used between rival siblings, containing itself below the level of anger because along with the dearth of trust there is an accompanying freedom of communication. It will obviously be a bad day when these two do not understand each other and this is not that day. It becomes clear after a while that there is a mutual help process in action, that they are clearing life paths for one another and re-assessing their relationship and previous perceptions of abandonment.

Scott and Bisonette pull off the difficult dialogue effortlessly and and create engaging characters. Scott has the best of it as his driving task begins to open up for him a world around him that he doesn't seem to have been conscious of before - his first book had been based on the relationships among his family members "only made much worse, because that's what people want to read" and there's a sense that the day's experience will be good for him creatively. Bisonette plays the dark horse with the past, streetwise and possibly fearless in a kind of Stanley Cup way, ie not always involving a great deal of obvious intelligence, with enough pathos and uncertainty to convince as the recovering addict who doesn't really believe in programmes as much as (certain) people.

The anticlimactic dènoument can be seen far away without much difficulty but is anyway less immediately important than the bonding between the brothers. Unlikely to change the way you look at cinema or satisfy any hunger for action/suspense but scoring quite high on feelgood factor.

Parallels (I) (2015)

Good for what it is - but too obviously a TV pilot

[7/10 · 22 May 2015]

Completely fails to transcend its TV pilot origins. Looks like just enough of the budget of this 83 minutes went on effects to leave fairly lengthy dialogue-only scenes. It would've been nice if they'd maybe gone a bit deeper into unexplored territory, been a bit more philosophical, etc., so I could at least say this was thought-provoking, but that doesn't seem to be all that marketable these days. At least they bump the plot along where they can and allow for some character development. In the end, despite attractive cast and better-than-average performances, I didn't learn enough about the characters or their plight to make me really care - but that may have been because the first alternative world they went to reminded me of Tarkovsky's Stalker just enough to get my expectations far too high. I still seem to be giving it a higher score than most reviewers but then it is solid sci-fi, with good twists, and well made, even if some of the ideas are underdeveloped. Leaves too many questions unanswered - unless there IS a series follow-up (how long before it gets boring as a formula, though?) – to merit more than a generous 7.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Just when you thought it was safe to leave your grave...

[8/10 · 19 August 2012]

A Joss Whedon co-script credit state-of-the-genre teen horror/comedy, with just a hint of conspiracy theory, delivers on the laughs and a few thrills, but not the chills – unless you're of such a nervous disposition that you shouldn't be watching horror in the first place. A very acceptable alternative to the occasional pretension and over seriousness of even such self-conscious ventures as Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity and Insidious. The title gives the game away – this is horror as cliché, parodying itself, but thankfully at a much higher than Not-Just-Another-Teen-Movie level, scaling the same heights of postmodern genre-bending meta-horror as Scream and Jason X, in this case, a pleasant buzz and head-high blend of The Truman show, Bruce Campbell ... and Scooby Doo.

***MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*** Keeping Earth's ancient evil giant gods happy has gone super hi-tech (with modern high priests not unlike movie moguls and control-freak directors using the stock-in-trade devices of the horror genre as its tools, including in this case the ghosts, ghouls and monsters ). It's a secret global industry, with rules/rituals not dissimilar to the postmodern horror guideline laid down in Scream, the number of victims, the order in which they die, the role of the virgin, etc., etc.. The gods are getting angry and they must be appeased. Various appeasement projects around the world fail and it's up to the US to save the day (which for some reason I'm sure intentionally reminded me of the Fox network's view of the global economic crisis). For a moment it looks as if they've pulled it off, but they suddenly realise in the middle of something like a wrap-party that it's going wrong and they are in serious trouble... the "sacrifice" industry appears to have become too tech-sophisticated for its own good, and finally appears to have succumbed to that scariest of all scenarios, human error. No wonder the hi-tech priests talk about simpler times when all they had to do was throw virgin's into volcanoes...

At this point we are in a strange dilemma, do we want the "bad" guys to win and safeguard humanity, or do we want the dumb youngsters (so dumb they almost make dumb-as-they-come inbred redneck zombies look clever) to survive and secure the horrific destruction of mankind?

All this happens in the first half of the film, and while the execution of the idea is interesting and entertaining, the telescoping of the normal 90 or 120 min horror narrative into this much shorter time, coupled with the fact that every clichéd move is intentionally telegraphed, tends to rob it of any jump-out-of-your-seat moments that were potentially there. But that's hardly what the movie is about, and in the second half it really comes into its own in a roller-coaster of subtle, not-so-subtle and over-the-head-with-a-baseball-bat referencing of too many genre favourites to mention. After I've watched it a few times more for the laughs, I might watch it once more to see just how many I can identify, they come too fast and furious to get in just one or two sittings, but if you don't get at least a dozen the first time, you are something of a tourist in this territory.

OK, so there are as many plot holes as there are clichés and if you don't buy into it or want something genuinely frightening (why?) it will come across as horror 101. But with some friends, some beer and pizza, it's hard to go wrong with this.

Devil (2010)

Doesn't quite get where it wants to go...

[7/10 · 12 December 2010]

Full of shortcomings, clichéd and derivative, and not really delivering the promised chills, but all in all a decent film, especially with Christmas in the air. It's not so much that the plot is lame, but that it's apparently, within the context of the film, based on a story for children, to teach them about the existence of the title character, and that feeling that it's not really an adult tale sticks with you as you watch it. The premise develops by means of cheesy talkover and stereotype Latino security guard, cinematography that avoids graphic violence and a dénouement can be seen coming a mile off, with a little nod to "Saw" as some other reviewers have mentioned.

There is a lot to be said, though, for how he gets there in the end. It's not a long film and for all the narrow focus on the inhabitants of the elevator, it has enoughs twists and turns to keep you entertained and may even provoke a thought or two. Restores a bit of MNS's reputation after "The Happening" but if you're expecting a real film maker's film, then you're likely to be disappointed by everything after the slightly clever opening credits and first few minutes.

Buried (2010)

Just about the most excitement you can get out of a box!

[7/10 · 29 October 2010]

Incredibly gripping, incredibly claustrophobic. Don't be surprised if you find your fingernails embedded in the armrests at the end of this film, if you haven't already squirmed to the floor. Sags momentarily in the middle, but remains a quite overwhelming experience, given the limitations of the scenario. Even though I found the plot predictable - there are only so many twists that can be added to the original situation - it never failed to satisfy. For some of the audience the ending was unexpected. Not for me, but that din't detract from the way I experienced this movie. And it is a movie to experience, not just watch. Scarier than a dozen Paranormal Activities.

Machete (2010)

If you already love Robert, it's for you...

[7/10 · 12 October 2010]

Can't say what I like most about this without revealing myself as a sadistic sexist pig, so I'll limit myself to saying that I also enjoyed it a lot in relation to the association with Tarantino - the Grindhouse origins are obvious, he does his own version of the "film as propaganda" angle Tarantino carried off in Inglourious Basterds and I don't think it was any imagination on my part to hear echoes of Reservoir Dogs, but a little more depth even here would be welcome. Maybe nobody does shallow better than Rodriguez, but when one of my favourite shots is a split-second of De Niro hopping bound hand and foot, and that this is probably the best part of his performance, I'm hoping that Rodriguez finds a real story to tell soon. (Surely can't be that difficult!) So it gets a 7 for good-clean gratuitous sex and violence, for as long as I believe the sequel trailers are just an extension of the Grindhouse joke! Looked like a lot of fun, but I don't see it getting too many new fans!

Cemetery Junction (2010)

What are these two up to?

[8/10 · 12 October 2010]

Loved this film. It really took me back. They don't quite nail the period, but you can tell when Fiennes is talking about his schooldays at the start, about leaving at 14, that they're blurring things a bit, or at least his character doesn't realize how things have changed... The preoccupation with obscenity, for example, is more 60s than 70s. (They work the idea so much of the Swinging 60s passing Cemetery Junction by that it's almost homage to Tom Courtenay and Rita Tushingham and that crowd!) It's England before punk, before the computer revolution, when the establishment thought they had won the argument that there was no cause left worth rebelling for/against, when there was still a workshop rather than silicon chip flavor to working life.

You can criticize the Hollywood stuff if you like, but Gervais and Merchant like to work where they can at different levels, as long as they get to take the mick out of all of them. I didn't hear the old radio shows much, but enough to know that. This is no exception. Not a strong plot. You have seen it lots of times before. Billy Liar is a better variation. But great dialog, great comic acting , beautifully observed, very funny, fantastic soundtrack. The only time I have ever liked the Osmonds' Crazy Horses. Great entertainment. You'd need to be really hard to please to be disappointed on that score. Personally I'd have liked a bit more sync with the Reading Festival, maybe some Rory Gallagher on the soundtrack, but bluesy Zeppelin will do, I'm not complaining. I'll take 2 stars off, though.

You still have to read between the lines to see the influence Ireland is starting to have. Made me wonder if they were starting to chicken out a bit from the path they've established, but we'll see, and I think there is something there. In the meantime, if you fancy a really funny film set in Belfast (different decade, 73 in Belfast was hell) there's always "An Everlasting Piece". But Cemetery Junction is not as petty and insignificant as some of the reviewers suggest. What exactly were they expecting? "Jane Eyre"? "War and Peace"?

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

I think it might be his best work yet!

[9/10 · 21 September 2009]

Loved it! Very very juvenile. Hideously violent. Tighter than a drum, and a barrel of laughs. It bothered me for the first hour that this reminded me of something I couldn't quite put my finger on, then I was amazed to realise it was Peter Pan, for goodness sake. Right down to Christoph Walz as the nastiest Captain Hook ever and the ticking alarm clock. Clever!! But then I realised I how stupid I was being, what the hell! Still, fun for all the family, as long as your family are Nazi-haters. Maybe better to leave the more impressionable kids at home, though. Wouldn't want them trying to copy the actions of the Apache and his homicidal crew .

Smart, not too intrusive echoes of his previous work and lots of irony there if your looking for it, Operation Kino is drenched in it, and not the sad kind, but the laugh out loud kind. Is this Tarantino filling in the application form for the job of Obama's Propaganda Minister. I certainly hope so.

I'd give it 10 but for the soundtrack. I'm actually trying to be very objective here, even if it doesn't, sound like it. Because it worked for me, big time, but there's one point that I think might jar a bit. You'll know it when you see it. Can't wait to get hold of this on DVD. I might just put it on a loop for a month.

Mother Night (1996)

Same plot, but a whole different mood from the novel.

[7/10 · 29 September 2008]

I am a huge fan of Vonnegut's work and I'm very fond of this movie, but I wouldn't say that this is a film of the "Mother Night" that I read. When people say that Vonnegut is unfilmable, two things come to my mind. One is that many of his themes are very near the knuckle or even taboo, despite the accusation sometimes used against him that he chooses relatively "easy" targets for his satire. This means less every day that passes as far as filmability is concerned. Directors these days appear to revel in breaking taboos and I have high hopes for the version of "Bluebeard" now in production. Amazing to think that an innocent piece like Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" would probably have been the equivalent of "R" rated if filmed when it was published back in the 50s, for its violence, language and sexual and thematic content, though it's a tragedy that nobody's come up yet with a filmable script for it. And in the present economic climate, I also hope some director out there is looking closely at "Jailbird", "Galapagos" and "Hocus Pocus".

The other thing is his narrative style, heaping irony upon irony upon irony but still making it hilariously funny. It seems impossible to objectify, and that appears to be the biggest obstacle to making great films of his great novels, because the little authorial comments that colour our response as readers are just not possible in movies without resorting to too often clumsy techniques like "talkovers". Vonnegut suggested that there was a character missing from filmed versions of his work, himself as author/narrator. To its credit, "Breakfast of Champions" (the movie) tried to keep the comedy and came a bit of a cropper for its pains. As did another turkey made from a Vonnegut novel, "Slapstick" in an even more spectacular way.

Still, there's nothing wrong with a director giving us his subjective interpretation of Vonnegut, and "Mother Night" is an excellent example of how, as another reviewer put it, a good director can add a visual poetry to a source like this. But so much of the humour is lost that though it's the same plot, it's not really from the same novel I read. If it had been, I'd probably have been rolling in the aisles laughing a few times watching it. For a reader of the novel, I think a chuckle even at the end is forgivable. The end of the film, however, is truly poignant, and I think one of the film's successes is that it can genuinely leave you feeling that you've watched someone walk a razor's edge between good and evil, and the jury is still out.

Standing alone and of itself it's well worth a look. Technically there are some minor but glaring errors, notably in continuity, and it too often looks drab and theatrical, but most of the time it hits an acceptable note and occasionally shows considerable imagination and resourcefulness. The acting in general is of a high order, even if maybe the dialogue is by today's standards a little stilted.

It survives quite well watching back to back with "Slaughterhouse-5", and there is actually quite a bit more "good" filmed Vonnegut out there, mostly versions of his short stories - "Harrison Bergeron", "Who Am I This Time?" and some other things like, of course, the misfiring filmed version of his very funny but disposable play, "Happy Birthday Wanda June". Also there was an interesting piece , if it still exists, done in the 70s called "Between Time And Timbuktu" which Vonnegut apparently didn't like much, although he was involved in its production, because he felt it misinterpreted him in its generality. He said it reminded him of the bizarre surgical experiments performed in the HG Wells tale "The Island of Dr. Moreau", but it did for many people serve as an excellent introduction to his work.

But if the films don't make you want to go to the superior source material, they're not doing their job.

As the man said, more or less, the big show is inside your head.

Freedom Writers (2007)

Thank goodness this was based on a true story...

[6/10 · 4 July 2008]

I found this film very moving as I watched it, and I agree that much of the acting is of the highest quality, but thank goodness this was redeemed by being based on a true story because in the end its the kind of saccharin sweet mush that would normally have me reaching for the zapper.

It's a gratifying experience to watch such a positive film but when it was over and I considered the way it skirted round the social and abuse issues involved, how it had painted such a black and white picture of idealism triumphing against the system I felt that it was just another vapid cop-out. So one teacher, with almost limitless enthusiasm and social resources, puts her career and her family life on the line to help a bunch of gang-subservient kids find their own voice by revealing the truth about "the biggest gang of them all" the Nazis. And everyone learns to stop worrying and love Anne Frank. But they don't. The horrors of the world the students live in go on as before while on the screen we are presented with the illusion that the world has become a better place.

I think I shed a tear as I watched then five minutes later my attitude was pretty much "So what?" But the story did get my interest and I intend to follow it up. I think there is a documentary out there which might tell this more objectively/realistically so I'll try to track it down. And if the real thing is as sweet as this movie - let's just say I'll be surprised.

The Prodigy (2005)

Great late-night movie

[8/10 · 28 June 2008]

This must have slipped past me at the cinema - a big regret! But at least I caught it last night on TV and it was a fine way to spend the early morning hours. It's hardly highly original and it has a dark, comic-book (super-villain) feel to it that initially had me wanting to laugh, but dialogue , action, direction, etc., are so tight that it soon had me drawn into the plot. Boggs does a remarkable job in bringing the hardened mobster Truman Fisher sympathetically to life, in contrast to the complete soul-lessness of the evil killer he pursues.

There are moments which reminded me of, for example, Saw and Se7en and though the plot falters slightly towards the end as we are led towards the significance of the intrusive flash-forward/dream sequences that pepper the film it redeems itself with a cute touch of Angel Heart.

Shame about the title. Slightly too comic-book for the final content of the film. The sort of title that might better suit a Jet Li film than this little gem.

Honeydripper (2007)

Harlem Comes To Cotton

[8/10 · 8 June 2008]

I was a bit confused before seeing this movie about what exactly I was going to see. The reviews I could find seemed unanimous in that it was a musical. But was it a highly fictionalised biopic of a black Rock and Roll pioneer, was it a whimsical look at the history of the blues, was it a downbeat story of how a hard-nosed juke-joint owner with a heart of gold saves his place from falling into the hands of the local mob? Could it even be a subversive story of a stage in the emergence of rebellious black culture from the institutionalised dominance of a racist state in a way which was to capture the imagination of young people all over the world and send seismic tremors through the "civilised" world? That too. The truth is this I ended up agreeing with everyone. It's all of these and more.

More or less.

I loved this film. It was great to see some of the great emblematic images of the blues woven together in such a natural way. I was delighted to see Danny Glover as the juke-joint owner, and Keb' Mo' as a blind blues street singer, "reunited" like this (I'm talking about Peter Meyer's docudrama "Can't You Hear The Wind Howl" on the life of Robert Johnson). And the newcomers (to me) were also great, Gary Clark Jr, who occasionally does resemble a very young Chuck Berry, and Yaya Da Costa are revelations, veterans like Stacy Keach as a corrupt-but-benign sheriff, Carles S Dutton as Danny Gover's friend and "go fer" , impeccably cast ... as was everyone else. The script is strong and well directed. Some have commented on the slow build but I can't say I noticed it. Nor did I think the film overlong. The story does moralise ever so slightly, but not in the normal "Hollywood Ending" sense. Only the young are permitted their idealism, everyone else has to deal with the cares of the world, which most often seems to be about choosing the lesser of two evils. The direction is never heavy-handed. The characters appear all the more real because they are taking time to think before they act. I hadn't realised until I saw this how much that was missing in so many movies these days with their impossible spontaneity, rapid fire dialogue and appetite for action or raw sensation. John Sayles' direction has more than once been accused of being loose but it is never languid. I hardly even noticed the use of flashback - a device I don't really appreciate.

I especially liked the take on the emergence of R&R as the baby of the blues. When people, even fans, talk about it, there is always Elvis, and there is always lip-service to hillbilly, country, folk roots. Now I love Elvis - he's never off my CD player for long - but everybody should know by now that it was because of his love of the blues that he sang and performed the way he did. If Howlin' Wolf had been white (what a terrible thought) there would have been no need for Elvis (an equally terrible thought). In one sense, "Honeydripper" gently sets the record straight from a blues point of view.

I sincerely hope as many people as possible get to see this film. The blues as a musical form is surprisingly healthy these days, but it has been badly misunderstood culturally in recent years. The consumers, if not the artists of rap/hip-hop culture tend to see previous black musical forms as tainted by an association with slavery and Uncle-Tom-ism. But the blues was not about being told what to do by a slave-owner. The opposite, if anything. At the particular time when "Honeydripper" takes place, 80plus years after the abolition of slavery, the blues was "about" how far you could escape from slavery and still not be free, among other things (like just having fun)! But I hope they watch it not just from the point of view of the music or the story but because it is a damn good film that takes us a step closer to understanding why so many of us behave as we do today.

Las 13 rosas (2007)

...almost a companion piece to Pan's Labyrinth...

[8/10 · 21 October 2007]

Before seeing this film I was already familiar with the principal book covering the incident, Las Trece Rosas Rojas by Carlos Fonseca, and I think this helped me to keep track of what was happening on the screen. It tells the story of 13 young women who were executed as a group just a few months after the end of the Spanish Civil War. Amid promises of justice and national reconciliation many thousands of people who had been on the side of the democratically elected republican government were rounded up and put in overcrowded jails. These were often people who had only been on the edges of the political organisations or had joined political Youth organisations, the social organisations of the time. Most of the girls in this particular group were under legal age when they were executed, no more than children in the eyes of their contemporaries. At least one, the oldest, was entirely innocent of any association with the political left. She and her husband (executed separately) paying the price for helping a known communist and fellow musician and colleague evade the fascist repression. Executions of this type and on this scale continued for many months, perhaps several years.

There is a lot to keep track of in the movie. Not that the storytelling was confused, the opposite is the case, but covering the stories of so many individuals can be demanding of the viewer. But thanks to a tight script, where possible using the actual words of the girls, and fine acting by the entire cast, especially those in the main roles, a real sense of the injustice and tragedy of the situation is ably conveyed, though we only really get to know half of the girls involved. Personally I think of this as almost a companion piece to Pan's Labyrinth. The direction of the story is much more conventional and realistic, but they both deal with the "reality" of how repressive political systems crush the innocence and spirit of youth.

For some reason, the film has only had a lukewarm reception from the political left in Spain, though it is an extremely important addition to the body of film concerning the Civil War. Perhaps it is slightly too subtle for the mood of the times. One older woman in the cinema when I watched it certainly seemed to have expected a somewhat different film and felt moved to explain very loudly at the end to all present that the dictator Franco had known nothing of these executions! To get this reaction is quite an achievement in itself.