Change Your Image
josh-bassett
Reviews
The Lovely Bones (2009)
Book worth a look, give the flick "the flick"
I saw TLB at the Palace in Westgarth (Melbourne) last night. My girlfriend knew I didn't like the film as soon as the credits rolled because I apparently made an audible groan of displeasure. I couldn't help it, for me the ending was the icing on a very crappy cake.
In short, the use of CGI was abused at the cost of developing the real characters/story (typical in Hollywood), the characters lacked depth and the screenplay was trite and lacked subtlety.
I won't repeat what others have already pointed out, but here's a few of the major issues which I couldn't get over:
* Jackson didn't build any depth in the relationship between Susie Salmon and Ray Singh (aside from Susie's infatuation). But he expected us to believe that they had some kind of enduring love which transcended life and death.
* How did the Gothic girl know to find Ray at the gazebo in the mall? Ray told Susie to meet him there (it was unlikely that he also wrote it in the note).
* I don't believe it would have been possible for Stanley Tucci to dig the bunker (in which he murdered Susie) without having been seen by anybody. We're shown a shot of Tucci digging out the first couple of shovel loads of soil in the middle of the harvested corn field. But the bunker he digs is fairly large and certainly well over his head height as he is able to stand up in there with headroom. So where did all the excavated soil go? Did he wheel it away a wheelbarrow? A truck? How did he manage to dig a hole that deep with just a shovel? You would need bucket and winch to get the soil out of the hole. In any case, this would have taken a considerable amount of time and someone would have witnessed him. Finally, he had to have brought all the soil back to fill in the hole after he killed her!
* When Lindsey Salmon is in Tucci's bedroom flipping through his secret diary, she hears him come back into the house. At that point she'd seen enough to seriously suspect that he was guilty of murdering her sister. Why then does she sit there and keep looking though the pages while he creeps around the house listening? Why did she not grab the book and head straight for the window?
* When Lindsey is climbing out the window after he hears her drop the floor board and runs up the stairs, why does she not start screaming for help? Obviously it is a family-friendly neighbourhood. Surely there would be someone around to hear her and come to her aid.
* After Lindsey runs back to her parents house, why doesn't she run in the door screaming? Help! Dad, (oh hi) mum, grandma...our neighbour murdered Susie! Quick call the police! But no, she stands there quietly (her heart no doubt pounding in her chest) while her dear old dad hobbles down the stairs for a tender moment now that her mum decided to come home from her fruit picking retreat. Seriously WTF? Why did she wait so long to tell someone?
* Why did Tucci keep Susie's body in the safe in his basement for a year? Isn't he meant to be a cold calculating serial killer? That doesn't seem very smart to me, considering that he got rid of all the other girls' bodies. Furthermore, unless that safe was air and water-tight (which I doubt because it was so old looking) his basement/house would be smelling like 1-year-old rotting corpse and all kinds of rancid liquid would be oozing out onto his basement floor. Lindsey would have smelled it when she broke in to the basement. The guy at the garbage dump helping him heave the safe into the sinkhole surely would have been able to smell the rotting body inside.
* Why did Jackson (or was it Spielberg) have to make the afterlife a Christian "heaven"? And do all the angels in heaven wear little crucifix earrings? If Jackson had been less specific (and more subtle) here then the audience could have read into it with their own beliefs.
My point is that this is not a 7-star movie and that just because Peter Jackson directed it doesn't mean a thing. See it at your own risk.
Samson & Delilah (2009)
Overrated and half-baked
Samson and Delilah was screened to a full house at Cinema Nova in Carlton, Melbourne last night. Knowing little about the film other than it being a hard-hitting insight into the lives of two Aboriginal kids growing up in a remote community in central Australia. Also, hearing that it had received glowing reviews from well-known film critics, I was prepared to be treated to a 5-star piece of Australian cinema.
Unfortunately, I found S&D a real disappointment. I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to shoot this film down. Indeed, it is a laudable attempt at tackling some of the issues faced by many Aboriginal youths in Australia. The cinematography was excellent, though I think this suggests Warwick Thornton is more comfortable as a cinematographer than a writer/director.
My gripe is with the film critics (David Stratton, Margaret Pomeranz, et al.) who unanimously appraise this film as a 5-star crown jewel of Australian cinema. Quite simply, this movie is NOT the pinnacle of Australian film making and to advertise it as such is a disservice to the Australian film industry. In my opinion, the highest level of appraisal should be reserved for the absolute cream of cinema. This is not cream, people! Is it somehow un-PC to call it like it is because of the politically sensitive content in this film? These critics need to put down the champagne and caviar, pull their heads out and start being honest and accountable.
I'm not going to reiterate the synopsis here, I only want to point out a few of the main issues, which in my view, let this film down: * The lack of dialogue gave us little insight into the main characters. Although we felt a great deal of sympathy for their situation, they were painted very 1-dimensionally and thus the viewer had a hard time empathising with their actions. Why didn't Thornton expand the relationship between Delilah and Kitty? They only managed to exchange a handful of lines before she died early in the film.
Samson and Delilah don't speak to each other during the entire film. If this was supposed to be for cultural reasons then Thornton completely failed to convey that important detail to the non-indigenous members of the audience. Lack of dialogue aside, there were too few other devices used to develop their relationship. Their interaction was minimal –even contemptuous– and most of the time they just followed one another around in silence.
Finally, to turn around at the end and suggest that Delilah actually really cares for Samson and they both live happily ever after in a little shack in the outback is quite a stretch given how little Thornton developed their relationship. To market this as a "love story" is an absolute joke.
* When Delilah was abducted it was unrealistic that she didn't break her silence. In real life someone being abducted by two hooded men would be screaming for their life. But no, Delilah just silently taps them on the head with her rolled up piece of canvas as they muscle her into the car.
* The car accident involving Delilah was dramatic and unexpected. Indeed, most of the audience in the cinema audibly gasped during the shock of the scene. Surely if Delilah was hit by a car with such force she would have been either killed (as Thornton lead us to believe) or severely injured and placed in hospital for a considerable period of time (weeks to months). However, when she shows up to rescue Samson she's hobbling on one crutch, her leg in a brace, and nary a scratch to be seen.
Logic provides the viewer with two options here: either she was in hospital for such a long time that she had recovered from more serious injuries, in which case Samson would not be sitting under the bridge in the same spot. The other option is that the car miraculously hit only one of her legs and that she sustained no other injuries whatsoever.
* The fact that Samson didn't hear the car accident (only metres behind him) and turn around is laughable. He was walking along, out of it, but not unconscious. It would be a reflex reaction to turn and look. He was in a similar state when Delilah was abducted, but there he heard the car screech away and ran after it.
* Delilah cuts her hair with a knife after Kitty dies. For the rest of the film, her hair looks professionally cut. Unless she's supposed to be an expert in knife-blade hair dressing this is a major oversight in the continuity of the film.
* Similarly, Samson cuts his hair with a knife after he thinks Delilah was killed in the car accident. However, for the remainder of the film his hair cut is unchanged.
* It's unrealistic that the priest would ignore a young woman (of any race) who wondered into a church looking like she'd just been severely assaulted.
* It's unrealistic that in their small community there were no other children around. There would at least be some (if not many) young kids running around.
All in all, there are some memorable moments in this film, but overall it's grossly overrated. If it wasn't for the cinematography I'd feel like I was watching a half-baked student film. Definitely not a 5-star experience.
The Dark Knight (2008)
The Dark Knight Rocks!
I was lucky enough to take an early afternoon off work and catch this film at the Melbourne IMAX. After downloading and watching the HD teaser (opening 5 minutes of the film) off of Demonoid I knew I had to go see it. Who ever said file sharing hurt Hollywood in the box office sales? Pfft.
I'm sure this film would still be as exciting on a regular cinema screen but like someone else said: if you've got the choice go see it at IMAX. Some of the aerial cinematography really blew me away in all it's full high-def glory.
Earlier, I was reading a review where the critic was saying the film was slow to start but that's a load of BS in my opinion. I reckon it started at about 7 on the adrenalin gauge and cranked it up from there. All the performances were surprisingly authentic for a big budget Hollywood film. Heath Ledger WAS the Joker...no wonder he was disturbed by taking on such a psychologically deranged character.
Anyhow, fans of the series will be able to comment more authoritatively on how well the movie does justice to the Batman saga. I'm simply writing this from the perspective of someone who enjoys seeing an action film from time to time, and no doubt - The Dark Knight delivers. Word!