Change Your Image
tildybeth
Reviews
A Fall from Grace (2020)
Tyler Perry needs more practice
I love what Tyler Perry has been doing--the Madea series never pretended to be anything other than what it was--and I love that he casts his movies with a majority of black actors; whether or not he did it consciously, it's a positive way to right a wrong.
So, maybe his next thriller, he can right the wrong that is this one. I have no problem with the setting, nor the casting--Crystal Fox and Phylicia Rashad performed, as always, extremely well, fleshing out the characters the best they could.
But the writing...I feel like his team said, "OK, we're gonna write a murder mystery about elder abuse; then they decided how it would begin, then how it would end, and then they divvied up assignments of the story to about 8 different people, and then when they all submitted their work, there was literally no editing or rewrites.
The character development and relationship establishment between the characters was really shallow, although the cast did a great job of fleshing the characters out the best they could. Their facial expressions and nonverbal cues were as good as they could have been.
It's a shame that Perry's writing and editing staff didn't do their best work.
The photography and set design, they were OK, but there were some old techniques that were way overdone back in the day, and I guess if you've watched a lot of film, you recognize that the old techniques weren't a part of some bigger picture to hearken back to other filmmaking techniques, but rather, those were the tricks the cinematographer had in their bag.
I feel really bad writing this review, I love Tyler Perry because he's a good human and he's entertained millions throughout his career. I just wish this movie had been better. I hope he gets it right the next time around!
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012)
Nihilism at a time when we need it not to be
I know that comics are NOT the best people to seek out when you're in the middle of a crumbling world political economy, but Seinfeld seems particularly impervious to the reality that the rest of us are dealing with. The editing all along in this series has been choppy, in that it edits out the conversations about the most emotionally authentic and heartbreaking aspects of modern life. His bit with Ellen was one example, in which she was trying to say something real, and I feel that just as she approached something deep and touching, they cut the film. Maybe Seinfeld understands that comedy isn't the place to deal with such topics, but isn't that what good comedy is all about? Finding the darkness in life and making us laugh at the ridiculousness and absurdity of it all? It's not like I want to be deeply touched at the end of every episode, but the materialistic and nihilistic nature of the conversations in this series is tone deaf at a time when we really need people with money and power to be speaking about what is going on. Seinfeld seems to have made a career out of avoiding it. I hope, at least, he hasn't made a life out of avoiding it.
The Comedy (2012)
It's not funny unless everybody's laughing
This film is not easy to watch; there is no underlying plot line nor any narrative development, and no redemptive qualities amongst any of the cast of characters, nor within the series of idle and pointless vignettes, marked by occasional cringe-worthy "pranks" conducted by the lead character, Swanson, and his amoebic gathering of ironically-clad, Ozark-bearded idle hipster friends and their following of "groupies," women who want to associate themselves with the hipster intellectual set, but are too stupid to realize these guys are just losers. Although the film ended a bit less apathetic and bleak and cringe-worthy than it began, it gives the viewer little hope for eventual redemption of the midbrain-damaged characters nor of the nonexistent "plot line."
I'm not sure what Director Rick Alverson was going for, but what I took from it is a stark indictment of the sophomoric "Buddy Movie" genre, of which "Road Trip" and "The Hangover" are representative. It's also a brilliant commentary on the empty self-absorption and studied nihilism of modern-day hipster culture. Alverson's sub-textual commentary seems to be one of "this is how it really ends, folks."
The film's lead character--played extremely well by Tim Heidecker--could likely have been cast 10 years ago in any of those drunken frat boy road trip films as the smelly, unkempt comic relief friend who is blowing his trust fund as fast as he receives it--and this film could well be a sequel into the frat boy's life as a 30-somthing wasteoid, long after the "epic adventures" of his salad days have fermented into something even beyond bitterness and disaffection, but rather something soulless and cynical and lizard-brained.
In trying to outdo the comical capers of their youth, Swanson et. AL. are now nothing but mobile menaces, jolting themselves out of their utter numbness to enact occasional bouts of annoying, disturbing and criminal mischief. Trouble is, nobody's laughing any more; not even the pranksters themselves are laughing; instead, their countenance during their mischief is only slightly more animated than during their (unnervingly successful) attempts at bedding their "groupies," a countenance which is only slightly more animated than when they are sitting around getting high in one of their parents' dingy basements.
Through the film, Swanson and friends remain stuck in the emotionally bankrupt world of fraternity hazing, ironic discount store wardrobes, and fake intellectualism. And, the only thing that seems to get their blood pumping is to mess with other people as they go about their daily business. I wouldn't even call their acts "mean-spirited," because I doubt the characters could muster up enough emotional energy to feel "meanness." They're just messing with people for the sake of the game. No emotion needed.
So, given this bleak scenario, why did I rate the movie so high? Because it's real. Because this is, in fact, how it ends for "Hipster Boys and Girls." It's one thing to try on the ironic, sarcastic, glib persona of a Hipster for a brief while in your young adulthood. We all expect that 20-somethings are not fully emotionally developed yet, and we give them some slack until their neurons mature and develop into the fullness of their advanced hominid potential. But, Hipsters, don't forget to drop the persona by the time you reach your mid-20's, otherwise, nobody will be amused anymore. Not even you.
The Workshop (2007)
Nothing but a sales pitch.
I would have been more convinced of the "Spiritual Enlightenment" of the teachers of the workshop had they not shown the same nubile 20-something female the ENTIRE MOVIE. You want to convince me that you've reached full enlightenment? Show me the ENTIRETY of the workshop attendees, not just a handful of the most commercially viable "students." Show me a scene in which the "Chakra Opening Massage" is administered to the 50-something large woman with cottage-cheese arms rather than the young British lass. Bottom line, just a bunch of dirty old (and obviously still immature and emotionally stunted) men looking for a new angle to land some young, fresh tail.