jse126 Reviews

Love Serenade (1996)

Set me free!

[10/10 · 24 April 2008]

How much can one say about a film that they truly loved? I find it much easier to write about the ones that are bad; not the ones that are badly made but entertaining in their earnestness, but the ones that Hollywood keeps churning out to a worldwide audience that grows exponentially. The ones that Karl Marx might today call the opiate of the masses; although I, having experienced both, am here to say that opiates are much more enjoyable than "Die Hard 9" or any film with Jerry Seinfeld providing the voice of a bee could ever be. I could just get off my soapbox and let it go, but the tragedy is that most Americans are f'ing idiots who, by substituting Hollywood's audience tested, product placed, fast food promo'd exercises in greatest common denominator blandness for any real and meaningful interaction with their fellow humans, make it so insanely profitable for the film INDUSTRY to churn out these movies that they lead other countries who previously produced great "small" films like Love Serenade into a sparkling future of uncompromising blandness.

Fortunately Australia, probably through the sheer good fortune of being so far away from the USA, has not been bitten as hard by the bug as, say, Great Britain has (and I am a certified Anglophile - please UK, turn it around before it's too late!). They still make films like this one in Oz today, and, speaking of this one, I am supposed to be reviewing it, right? Blowhards on soapboxes going off-topic are almost as bad as bland Hollywood movies! But any time that I start to give my countrymen the benefit of doubt I hear something like "America's favorite singing rodents" - so perhaps at worst you can grant a terminal malcontent his eccentricities and at best stop giving the bloodsuckers your money?

So- back to the subject at hand. This is a great movie! I loved everything about it. I'd have to say that the fish sub-theme is biggest stretch here, but it was not obtrusive and seemed to fit, sort of, in some way that will probably hit me at 3am on some sleepless night in the future. I like fish, anyway; I mean to look at them. I stopped fishing because I felt bad about killing them, although I did eat them and wasn't some a-hole on the pro bass fishing circuit (think about those four words for a moment - when did we become a people that needs a pro bass fishing circuit?) who found his American dream at the expense of the dream of a lot of fish. Yeah, they release them, but how would you like to be repeatedly jabbed with a hook and pulled from your house, unable to breathe while people did strange things to you, then released only to have it happen again, every year like clockwork; while a bunch of loud and strange machines fly about overhead and make your eyes burn and everything smell bad? And of course many of those fish swallow the hook and die, or die from the stress. So a bunch of fat morons can get rich and famous. We're not talking one guy standing on the shore with a fishing pole here. What's NOT for sale in America? OK soapbox guy emerged again, sorry! But the fish topic is relevant here. For a movie that's not about fish, it's about fish a lot. Characters: Ken Sherry - talk about love/hate. I alternately thought he was sorta cool (he wasn't, but I am an Anglophile, remember?) and a slimeball (he was). The girls, I'd never heard the name Dimity before but if I ever have a daughter I'm gonna name her Dimity. I like it. And yes, she IS odd. Her sister is annoying, but not TOO annoying. Both are cute to look at and likable in their ways. Albert is the sleeper here. Just about everything he said was gold. And I swear to you - I have had the urge to break into "Wichita Lineman" for absolutely no reason before, and have. Long before I ever saw this film. Did I tap into some universal unconscious "Wichita Lineman" thing? Who knows? But I do know that that soundtrack was excellent. Spot on. And Ken's semi-profound soliloquy? I knew where it came from, but if you don't then you will be quite surprised if you ever do find out (it's not credited but it is on an album by a famous person).

If you prefer pirate Johnny Depp to Dead Man Johnny Depp, don't bother with this movie. Actually you are probably not even reading this, and if you are reading it, you have no idea that I've been making fun of you the whole time. You and I have absolutely nothing in common. But I will give you some great advice - you'd enjoy a couple of hours at Wal-Mart a lot more than you would watching this. For the rest of you, enjoy it. And a bit of knowledge about the end (which I did not know until later) makes it all the more poignant. RIP.

Time of the Wolf (2003)

This is not a film.

[10/10 · 1 May 2007]

Really. It is not a film. It is an experience. And I do not mean that it is an experience in a Disney-fueled idiot fest where Spielberg pushes emotional buttons to get predetermined responses way. I mean that it is a true experience, and I can honestly tell you that I have never felt this as strongly in any film that I've ever seen.

I saw this film in the best way possible, in that I had never heard of the movie beforehand. I only knew that it was French and post -apocalyptic, and having had good luck with my last French post-apocalyptic film "Delicatessen," I hit the play button and looked at the screen. This proved to be very beneficial. If you are reading this then you probably did not have the exact same experience - but while a bonus in my opinion, it is not necessary and usually not possible anyway.

So - the experience. What does that mean? The film opens with the most subdued credits possible. Completely silent and barely legible for the small font. Then the film opens, and the one cleverly placed automobile that we will see reveals that the time period is the present, without anything else being referenced to time frame for the rest of the film. Nothing seems amiss, but within five minutes we know that something is very wrong. It turns out to be a post-apocalypse of some sort, but we do not know what type of apocalypse it was, when it happened, how widespread it was, or much of anything else about it. We can only assume that it was not nuclear because there are no references to any type of sickness. It is rather odd because we do not see much, if any, evidence of property damage. But whatever it was, people were getting down to the bare essentials of what it means to be a human being and it did not seem like much time had gone by since the event occurred, so it must have been pretty bad. Not only does it seem to be a relatively recent event, but there is no evidence whatsoever that the event was any more widespread than a hundred miles or so. And we don't know how much the people who survived know either - for all we and they know, the world outside of their general area is fine.

We are dropped into this situation and left to figure it out. This is where the film starts to become an experience. Other than knowing exactly what the apocalypse was, we are on equal footing with the people in the film and as they go, we go. This has to be the most realistically human film that I have ever seen. What I mean by that is that there seemed to be no actors, no actresses, no directors, nothing but life that we are part of. Nobody stood out as a "better" actor than the others - it was not even possible. The audience is as much a part of the film as anyone in it - and most importantly there are no plot tricks and devices; no emotional button pushing; no special effects; no tricks at all. Everything that you find in this film will be gleaned as in real life and just as the people in the story glean it. The only type of device whatsoever was that a couple of scenes ran extra long; but just long enough to get you feeling whatever it is that you would feel in such a situation in reality. They are very effective - and they tell you absolutely nothing. But just as in reality, where scenes don't change by the minute and things are not always explained, you have time to sit there and just look and think, or wander off, or whatever you would do - but it is real. They're too long for 99.9% of the American audience I'm sure. I will say that many things, such as that automobile, seemed expertly placed and calculated - but they never came off as manipulative. They were simply ways of illustrating something with a picture instead of a thousand words.

Just as in the beginning when the film drops you into a situation that you must join into and glean information from what your eyes can see and your ears can hear, it leaves you the same way when it ends. Actually, this film really has no beginning or ending - it's simply a chunk of time that we become part of. The ending credits are just as subdued as the starting ones were, and I get the feeling that the filmmakers would have preferred to have no credits whatsoever. Just start and stop. I suppose that that's not allowed though. Even French cinema needs to pay its bills.

This is an incredibly hard film to assign a numbered rating to, but in the end I can give it nothing but a ten. Having said that, I can tell you assuredly that I will never watch this film again. Although huge in its bleakness it did not depress; on the other hand watching it again would be like taking a very bad part of my life and living it over. This is probably the only film that I have ever seen that has not one tiny speck of humor or even levity in it. Not one. It makes the most dour Bergman film look like a bit lighthearted, and I am not saying that to be funny or "witty." I really mean it. The sad part about that is that at its core this movie is about us all. It is about human beings, and it challenges all but the most casual of viewers to make some difficult predictions about what they might do in such a situation. And I hope that we would do a -little bit- better than most of the people here did.

The Death Wheelers (1973)

Just watch it

[10/10 · 8 March 2007]

Don't watch this movie if you plan to play the film critic; just watch it and enjoy. It isn't so much scary as it is creepy; it creeps all over you like a thick slimy blue-purple haze, reminiscent of the tint of the film that it and most other British acid-movies (as we call them) seem to be filmed with. I give it a ten and it deserves an eleven at least; not for being a great film but for being so mindblowingly (is that a word?) entertaining. Hollywood can spend a hundred million dollars making a film and you would not be a hundred millionth as entertained as you would be when watching this. No test marketing, no product placement, no toys, no promotions at fast food restaurants - just good old ridiculous and retarded fun. There is hardly a situation in this film that is even remotely believable, so don't expect one and just enjoy the ride.

PS - The music is AWESOME!

The Departed (2006)

Scorcese gets his Oscar - for this?

[4/10 · 1 March 2007]

The Departed not a horrible film and that's the best thing that I can say about it. It was instantly forgettable. As soon as it ended, I felt about the same as if I had just watched a rerun of "Family Ties." It was a sterile, by the numbers film that featured phoned-in performances from everyone. DiCaprio was probably the best but there was not much there with him either. Jack was just unshaven, ugly old Jack being Jack the mobster. I didn't get much depth from the character, at the most I felt that he had been doing what he was doing for so long that he was locked into it and didn't much care anymore. But the whole plot line of the two kids from Costello's neighborhood and the paths that they took - and the initial uncertainty of which was which - was very much underplayed and subtle to the point of not being the strong plot device that it should have been. As far as Matt Damon, I can only say that he sucked. Sorry but that's all that I can think of to say. Bland, boring, a true flatliner. He and Affleck made their names on one overrated film and now they are in my opinion a major factor for the dullness of Hollywood these days. I wish that "Good Will Hunting" had been mistakenly put into the shredder before anyone ever saw it, but what are you gonna do...

This is a by the numbers Scorcese film without the fire. It's no "Goodfellas" - it's nowhere near being in the same conversation otherwise. Where Goodfellas was chock full of memorable lines, and left a dramatic impression on you after the film ended that lasted and lasted, this film has not one line that I can recall, hardly a scene, and left no impression - in fact it was overlong in its dullness and I was glad when it was over. And unlike the riveting Goodfellas, it took me three separate viewings to get through this.

I think that Hollywood felt that it owed the guy his gold piece - it did - and wanted to get it to him before he had to get an Irving Thalberg. Feel free to skip this one, secure in the knowledge that you are not missing anything.

The Black Dahlia (2006)

The what?

[2/10 · 1 March 2007]

It's hardly even about the murder case, a fact that I found out later. I can't really say what this film is about - it just sorta sits there on the screen and stuff happens but there is not much of a point to any of it and the viewer has nothing to grab hold of. I mean, it is about the case, but not really. If that does not make sense then you must indulge me, because it is an apt description of this turkey. It's a muddled, dull and unfocused affair with no focal point. I almost never review a film that I did not watch until the very end, but I had ordered this on cable and had 24 hours to watch it - and after two separate viewings and with about twenty minutes left I simply did not care enough to complete it and the 24 hours expired. That pretty much says it all.

The Anniversary Party (2001)

Duller than watching the lawn dry

[1/10 · 2 February 2007]

I can't find much to say about this film. It was as dull as laundry day and filled with self important yet completely vapid people who cannot get along with anyone because they are all so concerned with themselves. They whine and moan and complain so much that after a while you'll feel like killing them all. It was made by Jennifer Jason Leigh, which to me is quite telling. This woman is regarded by many in Hollywood to be a great actress, which does in part explain why American movies are so awful. She is a dullard. Her name in the cast list of any movie is like a warning that a dull movie lies in store - and she MADE this one.

I got the impression from the film that she thinks that it represents how people truly are and what "real life" is - but if for some reason she happens to be reading this, let me say emphatically to her that it does NOT. Of course it does paint a picture of her tragic little world of NY to LA movie types - but that is her problem, and there is a real life beyond Hollywood's artificial one (it's telling how these adults take Ecstacy, a kiddie drug that provides users with artificial emotions to go with their artificial lives). I do not want to be a part of that world and do not want to attend their parties, therefore I am sorry that I watched this. It might be a good wakeup call to anyone who dreams of movie stardom though. These people are so full of themselves because they are so empty of everything else. Actually I have to amend that statement - they are full of something else, though the twain may be hard to discern.

This film, the type of people in it, and Jennifer Jason Leigh - they all deserve each other. I can't wait until Hollywood falls into the ocean.

My Son the Fanatic (1997)

Why can't we get movies like this made in the USA?

[8/10 · 28 November 2006]

I don't feel like writing a long review on this one. I just want to say that, while not a great and classic film, this is a very good one that stands on the cusp of greatness. It is beautifully filmed and most importantly to me, it understands its characters and takes the time to explore the main ones in great detail. This a character study at its core, with a subplot about alienism within families and some of the many causes of it which include religion, age, culture, and the loss of intimacy for a spouse. I do not think, as others have said, that this is a movie about Islam or even religion at all. Although the participation (or not) in Islamic fundamentalism was a big issue for the family in the film, these same types of issues have erupted in families of all faiths since the dawn of religion and are in no way related solely to the Muslim faith. Certainly Islam is prominent in the film - but the film is not about the religion per se and does not go far in the direction of commenting on Islam. As a non-Muslim American, I did not get the sense from the movie that it was either promoting or condemning the Muslim faith, and I give great credit to the filmmakers for this. Islam is a hard subject to tackle and be able to get very far into while maintaining a middle ground, but that has been accomplished here and it does a great deal to elevate the film. Had I felt like I was being manipulated to feel one way or another about Islam, I would not have gotten nearly as much from the film as I did. But as it stands, I alternately felt respect for some of the Islamic men and their moral standards and commitment, and revulsion for some of their actions, such as the attack on the women's home (I realize why they did it, but that does not make it right). I felt that the movie gave me a chance to view Islam objectively without the need to question how I already felt; this gave me the ability to see all of the characters in the film as human beings instead of as representations of a religion. I wish that more films would take this tack - so many feel the need to steer the audience towards feeling one way or another about the always-volatile subject of religion.

OK that was bit longer than I intended. But what I really wanted to ask was why we can't make quality films like this in the USA? The reason that I pointed out that this was a very good film but not quite a great one was because I wanted to comment on how even a very good film made elsewhere is so much better than any so-called "great" film made in the USA. Why can't we count on seeing films that explore people, that don't have an agenda, and that are more than opportunities for product placement money and mass marketing of action figures and video games? Well, I do know the answer, at least I think that I do. The almighty dollar. But does Hollywod really think that people in America are so stupid that all they want to see is another movie with Adam Sandler being an untalented hack, or Wesley Snipes as another cop in a movie where everything blows up, or Tommy Lee Jones as some sort of government agent, or Jennifer Aniston being as dull as she is, or Ben Stiller being as dull as he is, or anything with Cameron Diaz or Jennifer Lopez or anybody named Affleck? And I haven't even delved into such atrocities as Rob Schneider or David Spade. Actually my biggest fear is that all of their mega zillion dollar research proves conclusively that Americans really ARE that stupid. Now there's a horror flick for you...

Where Angels Go Trouble Follows! (1968)

Yes indeed, it's good clean fun

[7/10 · 28 November 2006]

Why am I reviewing this? It's not typical of what I normally review , although that doesn't mean anything in particular because I don't review 99 percent of the movies that I see. I had never heard of this movie before but I was bored the other day and it happened to show up on cable on a channel with no commercials - and I'll watch just about anything that is sans commercials. Plus I'm a sucker for a road trip flick and I will take any chance that I can get to take a sixties road trip, even if it is with a bunch of nuns on a bus instead of freaks on motorcycles.

First of all, while fairly well made, this is not a great movie. It's mainly the story and plot, or rather the lack of them, that causes the problems here. Technically it looks fine and the shot on location photography is very nice. But the story is so incredibly thin and silly and riddled with the most over-the-top clichés and contrived plot devices that it becomes distracting. The entire film is nothing more than a series of connected scenes of the type that junior high drama students might come up with. The only progression in the film is the physical one of the bus travelling forward in time and space, because otherwise the scenes could be mixed and shuffled like cards and placed in any order and the end result would be about the same. This film has got to be one of the very last examples of well made but quickly written hack jobs written by old school Hollywood hack writers - except for a few of the "modern woman" touches gleaned from the swinging sixties optimism pre-Altamont this film could easily have been made in 1958 instead of 1968.

Just a few examples of the above can be illustrated by the church's school bus. The basic "plot" of this film is that a group of girls from a Catholic school and their Mother Nuns take a road trip to California for a rally. That's pretty much it. They have an old broken down school bus, which in one of a seemingly endless line of contrivances (you'll have to watch to see what this particular contrivance is) gets replaced by a brand new one for the trip. A nice shiny yellow brand new bus with the school's name on it. Early on in the trip, the driving nun stalls the bus on some railroad tracks with a train coming (of course). The brand new bus won't start. They start to evacuate the bus and the door won't open. It's one of those bus doors with the handle that the driver pulls - when have you ever seen one get stuck, especially on a brand new bus? So they go to evacuate out of the back emergency door. That one is stuck too. What the heck is happening with this bus all of the sudden? A brand new, perfectly functioning bus turns into s teenage virgin and nun deathtrap all of the sudden. So the girls start clambering out of the windows - I was only surprised that all of the windows weren't stuck too. Well, of course they all got out and the nun was able to restart the bus just in the nick of time. And the scene just ends with a circle fadeout and that's that. No mention of how they were all able to reboard the bus with the stuck doors and all.

Further on down the line the bus suffers a blowout on on of the brand new tires, runs out of gas (not the bus's fault there, but leads to a great scene with ridiculous biker "toughs" roughing up nuns), gets filled with water and suds in a truck wash, and breaks an axle while evading a charge of Indians on the warpath (yes, you read that right). I think that they would have been better off with the old bus!

I'm sorry though, I must apologize. It's easy to find fault with the writing here, as it is atrocious. But at the end of the day I enjoyed this film. It's a period piece to be sure - in the extreme. Movies like this will NEVER be made again. It echoes a sentiment that was naive even in 1968. It was past its time before it was even made. But it is entertaining, and even if you do pick it apart by the clichés and contrivances, well that can add to the fun. The cinematography is pleasing and the scenery of late 1960's midwest is pleasing too. You are not going to watch this film and then get depressed, and there is something to be said for that.

So go ahead and watch this movie, and take a road trip yourself back to a more innocent age. Relax and enjoy it - there is also much to be said for taking a detour to a couple of hours away from the stressful mood of the planet Earth in the year 2006. And as hackneyed as they can be, I'd still prefer one movie like this to one hundred of the market analyzed, test audienced, product placed and merchandise marketed complete and total cr@p ones that ooze from Hollywood's rear end these days.

The Plumber (1979 TV Movie)

From one plumber to another

[8/10 · 4 November 2006]

When I first heard of this film sometime around 1986 I was employed as a plumber, so I of course I had to see it. I found it in the public library and ended up watching it with my eleven year old sister in law. Twenty years later I have long since stopped making my living as a plumber and my eleven year old sister in law hasn't been my sister-in-law for a decade. But I have a feeling that she still remembers this film because we both had a great time watching it, and we spoke of it for years afterwards.

The Plumber is not a big movie. It is a character study filmed in a very small setting. Although I usually see it categorized as either a thriller or as a horror movie, it is neither of those. It is a study of an obviously disturbed plumber who is set off for some reason by Jill Cowper, the tenant in the apartment where he is called to look at the plumbing. I say that he was "set off," because if he did in every apartment what he does in Jill's then he would have been locked up a long time ago. He could not have made a habit of behaving in the manner in which he behaves in the film. Although he really did not harm anyone, he made himself threatening and tore the bathroom apart for no reason - neither of which is conducive to being a satisfactory plumber.

I have to say that when I worked as a plumber I was quite competent and I did not wreck people's houses. I did clean work, as much as plumbing can be clean anyway, and I took pride in it. However, I have always had an odd sense of humor, and sometimes I would mess around a bit with the heads of my clients. Nothing mean or scary like our buddy Max in this movie, but funny nonetheless. I can recall one time when I was called out to an apartment that had water dripping into it from the unit above. When I arrived there was a college age girl there, but the water was not presently dripping and the tenants in the apartment above were not home, so I could not go upstairs and investigate. There was not much that I could do about it at the moment. So I started to ask the girl about the problem and she told me that water was sometimes dripping from the light fixture on the ceiling. I looked at her very seriously and asked "was it wet?" She asked me what I meant, and I said "this water - was it wet?" She looked confused and unsure of how to answer. I told her that I needed to know if the water was wet, since I could not go upstairs and see for myself. She continued to look confused and sort of stammered out something like "yeah I guess so" and looked quite baffled, as if she was wondering if there was something more to water than meets the eye that a plumber might need to know about, and what it could be and why she didn't know about it. She had that look about her like she suddenly found herself in an alternate universe, where the simplest things that she took for granted were all of the sudden strange and alien, and nothing made sense. I left soon after and never did tell her that I was messing around - I didn't make any money if I went to a call and couldn't do any work so I suppose that was my payment. I did a lot of things like that, certainly never harming anyone or even being mean but I did leave a lot of confused customers in my wake.

Anyway, as a plumber myself, The Plumber was doubly hilarious. Everything about what he did as a plumber was completely absurd. He was there for a very minor problem, yet soon he was carrying in all sorts of supplies that had nothing at all to do with the problem at hand. Cut to later shots of Max the plumber in the bathroom and we see sinks coming off of walls and, most absurdly of all, a full set of scaffolding covering the entire bathroom! That last one is so completely over the top that any plumber could not help but be struck by the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Then there was Max's piece de resistance. Cut the the bathroom again, and there is Max, sitting on the toilet with a guitar and one of those harmonicas in a brace that fits around the neck ala Bob Dylan, composing a song that must have been titled "I'm Me, Babe" but we don't know for sure. The whole thing just took the cake right over the top and heaved it over the fence. My sister in law and I sang that song for months afterwards. Think about it - not only is he in there with a guitar and singing when he is supposed to be fixing the plumbing, but he has a neck mounted harmonica too! It's a classic moment, and I don't use the word classic very often.

Overall, you don't have to be a plumber to enjoy this movie, but if you are, or even involved in a trade that brings you into people's homes, then the absurdity of the situations in this film will probably hit home a bit harder. And yes, as others have noted, the ending is bit weak; but there are enough "moments" in The Plumber to overcome it. You'll be singing "I'm Me, Baaaaaaabe" long after you've forgotten the ending.

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

If you don't suffer from depression yet...

[1/10 · 30 August 2006]

...then watch this movie and you will. You've been warned. There is nothing to be gained from watching this movie except misery. And not even _good_ misery, of the type that makes you reflect on something, or even teaches you a lesson. No, this is just a bleak movie about people that you could absolutely not care any less about - people that frankly would do us all a favor if they would just kill themselves quietly and not bother the rest us with all of the self pity and drama. Really. As the movie went on I started hating the people that we for some inane reason are supposed to empathize with (that much is clear, given the pretentiousness of this gloopy dreck of a film) - I started hating them so much that I started hating the entire human race and wishing that a giant fireball would incinerate all of us RIGHT NOW. This movie made me feel sick to be a human being.

Las Vegas is about the most depressing place on the planet. There is something especially and uniquely depressing about a place so devoid of spirit and purpose in a country that has supposedly made it to the pinnacle of whatever "it" is. Far from being a horrible Third World country that by all rights _should_ be depressing (but is not, and is populated by suffering people with hope and spirit), the USA has it ALL yet is filled with empty people with no spirit and no real purpose or direction. Is this what happens when human beings "make it?" After they conquer the basic problems of feeding the population and housing them and having running water and all of that great stuff - is this what we end up with? God I hope not. While I don't see it happening in my lifetime, I hope that as a race we can progress to a point higher than where after we get a bit comfy we run out of all ambition and go to places like Las Vegas. Because it is these empty Americans who are the ones who flock to Las Vegas. And the two principle characters in this film are the king and queen of them. The last time that I passed through there ("passed through" being the operative words here)the oppressive weight of the empty pursuit of the material, coupled with the so blatant advertisement, no, BOASTING of the fact that every single molecule of every fibre of the place is designed solely to take as much as is possible and then a little more on credit from, while giving as little as humanly possible to, people who willingly line up and bend over to donate what little is left over after slaving away for another year in some stupid, mindless job that at the best of times only makes them want to kill themselves a little bit less than they did the previous day - multiplied by the air of desperation from those who still think that they will hit that one big score to finally get ahead, all the while knowing that if they ever do (they don't) they will just give it all back to the Vegas machine; divided by the ones on every corner with absolutely nothing left of life or spirit, nothing left to donate to the machine after giving it their entire life's pittance - once welcomed with open sucking arms but now about as welcome as a broken syringe spilling HIV infected blood into a shrimp cocktail buffet (but still allowed in for a moment to drop that nickel that they found on the sidewalk into the slot machine before being pushed back into the hot and stinking street) - yeah that's Vegas and that last time that I passed through the place was literally crushing the life right out of me, I was on my Hog and I could feel it literally pushing me down and I ran a few red lights to get the hell out of there as fast as possible and today there is nothing in this world that could ever drag me back to the place.

So yeah, if you want to watch a movie about a place like that, and that features the two people on Earth who most DESERVE the place and each other weeping and moaning in self pity until you want to punch the television - be my guest. As I said, you've been warned. But I'll give you a little piece of advice that you will thank me for later if you do decide to take the empty trip to Las Vegas instead of leaving it - there is absolutely NOTHING to be gained by forcing yourself to watch this to the end. As soon as it starts to make you sick, and it will, just turn it off and nip in the bud the two day gloom that is otherwise going to drape all over you if you do watch the whole trainwreck.

BTW - I don't know what Nick Cage did here to get anyone to award him an Oscar, because his portrayal of an alcoholic was laughable. Hell, I'd give him the trophy for Valley Girl before this mess. His supposedly drunken slurring in this movie sounded like the blithering of one of those old burlesque drunks of the type that Red Skelton and others portrayed - it was quite literally laughable. And it was not realistic either - any alcoholic that far gone with enough money to buy his own booze has a drink of choice and that is it. They don't buy twenty different kinds of liquor, and they only mix drinks when depending on others to supply the booze because mixing makes them sick(er). And I gotta tell you, there is something inherently hilarious about Nicholas Cage not being able to portray a drunk.

Basquiat (1996)

Genius or exploitation?

[6/10 · 14 August 2006]

"Basquiat" is a film with an agenda. Far from being a neutral stage upon which the life and emotion of the artist is played out for us to observe, this film wants to make a point about the art world, casting Basquiat as Oliver Twist. If you are looking to find out what drives an artist you are not going to find it here - unless the answer is money. The filmmakers did not go very far into the head of their subject - either that or he was a very shallow and vapid person. I did not get the feeling from this film that Basquiat was a true artist; rather, he came off as an opportunist who figured out how to capture the mechanics of bad abstract impressionism and pass himself off as one. Then a lucky break, combined with silly art collectors who have way too much money and not enough of their own thought processes, multiplied by a guilt ridden population of white people flush with 1980's cash, combine to equal the phenomenon of Basquiat.

I am not saying that this is (or is not) the truth. In the world of art there are no truths anyway. What I am saying is that this is not a neutral biography. It may pay to do a little bit of research into Basquiat before watching the film. As for myself, I admit to watching it only because I was bored and nothing else was on. I knew vaguely the story, and who Basquiat was, but had no opinions of and no real knowledge about him. Since I am not the type of person who forms his opinions on any subject based on information from only one source, I did some research into Basquiat after the film before coming to any sort of conclusions. What those conclusions were are irrelevant as far as this review is concerned - but what does concern me are the many people who undoubtedly had their opinion about Basquiat fed to them by this film and who now consider themselves educated on the subject.

As far as the film itself, it is not bad. Not great, but not bad. It had a certain feeling to it. But it is hard to get beyond its portrayal of the subject, as he is the reason for the film. As noted, Basquiat comes off as an empty headed and shallow individual without a lot of talent or original thought who likes to use drugs and drink a lot. The film's Basquiat seemed not to care much about art, that it was an afterthought to him. He was shown as a dabbler - dabbling in music too but not doing much or giving it much effort. Perhaps that is the truth, I don't know, because overall the film is more a study of art and what constitutes it and gives it value than a biography of an artist - and postulates that today's art is more about the name than the actual piece. The same thing that is given away for free by a homeless man who lives in a box can be worth six figures if the right people decide that it should. I also felt that he filmmakers relied on cliché' a bit too much for my liking. The scene that sticks out in my mind is the one where Basquiat was on a schoolyard basketball court with his buddy, who was trying to get him to play. Basquiat was totally inept at the game and had no desire to play whatsoever. The filmmakers were obviously trying to demonstrate either one or both of two things - that Basquiat was so much of a cerebral artist that he was incapable of physical sport, or that Basquiat was a black man who could not play basketball. Whatever the case, the scene was painful to watch. It was ham-fisted imagery at its worst. A well done scene with some good conversation and emotion could have sent the same message intended in the schoolyard - actually could have done it better because as blockheaded as the schoolyard scene was, it still did not send a clear and defined message.

The acting in Basquiat was for the most part serviceable, with David Bowie turning in the most inspired performance as Andy Warhol. Bowie brought a subtle warmth and humanity to a person who is often portrayed as a cold cartoon character. Although Warhol was clearly intended to be an exploiter in the film, Bowie managed to show him as a person who felt that Basquiat was a true friend and not just a paycheck. This is an Andy Warhol who cared about people, and who could have his feelings hurt just like anyone else. This is not the stereotypical movie Warhol, playing with people like the proverbial chess pieces. This Warhol genuinely admired the work of his protégés. And David Bowie would know, wouldn't he? He was there. I got the feeling that Bowie took the part to make a statement about Warhol - as if he was annoyed by younger filmmakers using the stereotypical Warhol image in an exploitative way. I felt that he was subversively reading the lines between the lines. Good for him.

This film is more a commentary on the art world, on racism, and on exploitation than it is a biography. I would say that it is better to look at it this way, for as a biography it is biased and somewhat mean-spirited. Remember the first line of this review? It seemed to me that the filmmakers were saying that Basquiat was bereft of talent and inspiration - that he was a bum and a drug abuser who got lucky. Perhaps he was, but I'd prefer to make up my own mind. So it would pay to know a bit about the subject before watching - this Basquiat is a light dessert, not the main course.

The Libertine (2004)

When the good and the bad cancel each other out

[5/10 · 29 July 2006]

I begin this review with a few quotes from reviews of "The Libertine" from the lowest end of the rating spectrum. To wit -

"We were only able to stand this movie for about one hour."

"I left after an hour."

-Gotta love those reviews from people who didn't even watch the movie.-

"I wish Walmart would take returns for DVDs that have been opened. I'm going to stick with Disney-Syndicated Johnny Depp movies from now on."

-That's fine, you just stick with your Wal Mart and your Disney, bastions of the filmmaker's art as they are.-

"Wait for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie Dead Man's Chest, now that should be a big 10 for Johnny Depp fans!"

-See above.-

"The trailer was misleading. My fiancée showed me the preview and it looks like it'll have horses and sword fights and the occasional TnA. But no..."

-Dang, dontcha hate those misleading trailers...-

"if a movie should do anything it should, at the very least, leave you with a smidgen of concern about, at the minimum, one character in it."

-What about movies with no characters? Hint: lay off the commas until you learn how to use them.-

"I'm sickened by the thought of anyone finding this mildly entertaining."

-Thank you for your concern.-

"I have not seen a more awful movie - except perhaps "Toys" with Robin Williams and Shelly Duval."

-What the hell? What kind of a mind links these two movies in any way, shape, or form?-

OK, enough of that. What can you expect from the mall hordes? But apart from the reviews by people who have no business reviewing anything that did not come from the Industrial Hollywood Complex, there were many who found fault with this film and I would have to count myself among their number. While it was not a bad film, it was about as flawed as its subject.

First the good. Tremendous acting by Johnny Depp. The guy was certainly in a zone. Much of the rest of the cast turned in inspired performances. Nobody phoned this one in. The sets and scenery were spot on too. I really got the feel of the times - the movie felt seventeenth century.

Now for the bad - just about everything else. I am well read and (for a layman) fairly knowledgeable about European literature, particularly that of the United Kingdom. This is basically from reading for pleasure. But I will admit to not being very familiar with the story of John Wilmot. I'd heard the name in passing but that's about it. And I did not know what this film was about before watching it. All that I knew was that it was set in seventeenth century England and starred Johnny Depp. So I can tell you that the film did not do much of a job of explaining itself. Not that a film always needs to explain itself - but this is a historical drama. It was not until at least halfway through the film that I understood that John Wilmot was a poet or writer of anything at all. Until then it seemed that Wilmot was just a lewd and decadent man who was born with a silver spoon. And even when I figured out that he was a poet, there was never anything to demonstrate that he was in any way a good one or gifted with words. The film never offered any type of justification as to why history would remember one syphilitic drunkard out of millions. So as a historical document the movie fails miserably.

Then there is the script, or the lack of one. Only the acting saved this one, because there was not much to hold the interest otherwise, apart from the oft-mentioned midget riding the giant penis. And what script and dialogue existed was sometimes maddeningly hard to hear. I have to say that for a film with high pretensions like this the sound and the print were terribly amateurish. Much dialogue was simply impossible to discern at any volume (I had my TV's volume on max...) and the print of the film was extremely grainy to the point that I thought my equipment was malfunctioning. Regardless of anything else - why release a so-called professional film with a grainy texture that hardly looks better than that of a video shot with a cell phone?

Overall a somewhat interesting, certainly pretentious, and highly flawed film. As hinted at in my title, the good and the bad of this film seem to cancel each other out so it is stuck firmly in my middle rating ground. Would I recommend that you watch it? I'm not sure. Do you purchase the majority of your videos from Wal Mart?

BTW - I cannot agree with the folks who raved about this film either. Apart from Depp's acting and a couple of other things the movie was not a great one. I must postulate that those who would call this a classic etc. were taken in by the pretensions of the film. It certainly set itself up as a film for the ages but ultimately did not deliver much to last.

Stryker (2004)

Not quite the feel good movie of the year

[5/10 · 26 July 2006]

I did not just fall off of the turnip truck. I've lived in a lot of different places, with people of many different backgrounds, and have experienced situations that the average person will never see. And yes, I spent quite a few years on the "wrong" side of the law, although I'm all better now. I will admit to not having spent any time in the North End of Winnipeg, but based on my experiences in life, I find it hard to believe that people really act like the supposedly gritty-realistic characters in Stryker do. The characters in this movie were so over the top as to be cartoonish, buffoonish. Some of the dialogue, well let's just say that I felt embarrassed for them. Nobody talks like that - I don't care if you are an angry Ojibwa or an LA banger or a wannabe. The dialog was simply ridiculous. I don't know how else to put it.

The settings that the film took place in and the situations that the characters found themselves in were equally ridiculous. People simply do not talk and they do not act like they do in this film. Being that the film is supposed to be a documentary of sorts, although fictional, this is not a good thing. I am not aware of any gang bangers that spend most of their time partying with, and trying to get in the pants of, transvestite prostitutes. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as the saying goes, but still. Most of the rest of the situations are equally absurd. The gang leaders turn out to be male strippers? The toughest of the drug lords wears a big red feather boa tiara-type thing and serves drinks, shirtless, in a male strip club but gets mad when it is inferred that one of his cronies may have had a homosexual affair? Not getting it? OK, then, there's this. The leader of one of the gangs in the movie owes a large amount of money to the drug lords. They give him a day to get the money - or else. Or else what? They posture and pull out guns and laugh and say that they are going to make him dance. Of course the viewer assumes that they are going to make him dance by pumping him so full of lead that his body will dance - or some such thing. The next day comes and he does not have the money. They're gonna make him dance, and they do. At a male strip club. They literally make him dance on stage at the strip club. He gets tips. Seriously - WTF? Hell, I'd never pay those guys either. What happens next time - he doesn't pay so they rub him all over with feathers while naked women fan him?

Violence is inherent in any gang banger flick, and it's here too. But based on this movie alone, if I were still leading the life I might choose to head on up to the North End and take over. Seriously - what a bunch of punks. Guns made an appearance once or twice but for the most part it was like fifth graders in a playground brawling over who gets the swing set next. It was quite silly, silly being the word most proper to describe it. These people wouldn't throw fear into my ninety year old grandmother. I'm serious. She lives in SoCal, near Eagle Rock. She would have told these punks to get lost quick before she beat them with her cane.

Then there is the acting. I'll be easy on these kids because most of them are amateurs. It shows, to be sure, but if you suspend disbelief then they are not -that- bad. But some of it can be quite painful. The scene where the transvestite prostitute Daisy Chain is talking to the new girl in a café is painful to watch. And towards the end, where one of the Asian gang members quits the gang - it's too awful for words. It's beyond painful. It made me want to invent a time machine, just so I could go back in time to stop the guy before he tried to act. It's that bad.

This is not a well made film, nor is it realistic. That's all well and good, there is a place for movies like this. But in this case, the filmmaker sets himself up to be a serious documentary filmmaker and seems to feel that his film is art. And apparently it was being shown in the New York art houses to upper middle class twits who undoubtedly thought that it was the art that they were told that it was and that now they are experts on the whole disenfranchised Ojibwa scene. I'm not Canadian, nor am I Ojibwa or indigenous at all, but if I was I would want to kick Noam Gonick's a**. I gave the film a halfway decent rating of five because I must admit to being entertained - surely not in the way that the filmmaker intended, but we take our thrills where we can get them.

Lonesome Jim (2005)

Where have you gone Steve Buscemi

[2/10 · 24 July 2006]

I like Steve Buscemi. I like his work very much, both as an actor and a director. You could say that I am -into- Steve Buscemi. A Steve Buscemi freak. I lurv Steve Buscemi.

I remember when I first saw Buscemi's full length directorial debut, "Trees Lounge." I enjoyed the movie, although it wasn't as good as it could have been. It was -almost- there. It -almost- scratched that itch, the itch of wanting to see "small" movies about "small" people in "small" bars that are in "small" towns. It was close enough to where I would say that it was a very good movie - one that with a few tweaks could have been great. But that's OK. I like the movie and I've watched it more than once.

But this review is not about Trees Lounge. It's about "Lonesome Jim." When I saw the description of the movie and then I saw who's movie it was, I was excited at the prospect of finally seeing the movie that I knew that Trees Lounge could have been. But what I actually experienced was not unlike that of leaving one of those smalltown bars with a belly full of cheap whiskey and an armful of cheap floozy, heading back to your apartment with a mushy brain full of exciting prospects that inevitably disintegrate into the reality of alcohol-induced impotence and headspinning regurgitation.

In other words, this movie left me flat and unrequited and sorry that I wasted the time and the money that it took me to get to that state - the film equivalent of waking up next to that cheap floozy the next morning, or if you happen to be the floozy, waking up next to that stinking and farting and unshaven imbecile. The film had all of the substance of a stale white bread sandwich (with store brand white bread, no less) and the emotion of a cadaver. I am not sure what the point of this film was, and since it was supposed to have some sort of a point and was not an exercise in abstract surrealism that can get by without one then this lack of a point is a sin of omission. Sorta like those new cars that don't come with ashtrays anymore although there are millions of people who smoke and buy new cars (I'm not one of them, but hey, I can sympathize). Overall it was a boring film about boring people doing boring things and had none of the grit and believability that can carry and save such a film. I mean, Trees Lounge was about boring people doing boring things, but it was interesting.

I blame a lot of this on Affleck. Why do people keep casting these Affleck turds? They suck the life out of anything that they are connected with. One Affleck was in one decent film (and wasn't even the reason why the film was decent) and all of the sudden every butthole named Affleck is stinking up as many films as they possibly can. And Liv Tyler is no better. Being the daughter of a rock star does not necessarily make an actress. She is as lifeless as Affleck. These people simply do not rise from the flat page of the script. People pay to see films and they deserve to see actors and actresses with a bit of charisma - these two duds together don't have the spark of the old guy who hands out shopping carts at Wal Mart. I always thought that Steve Buscemi was the type of guy who would rise above this type of pablum, but oh Steve you let us down. This film makes me want to stuff you into another wood chipper.

London (I) (2005)

blah blah blah...

[4/10 · 23 July 2006]

...is the sole reason for this movie to exist. A bunch of vapid and meaningless cocaine conversation (as if there is any other kind). If you've ever had the pleasure of observing a group of people using cocaine and listening to their conversations; and afterwards you wished that you could watch a film of more of the same, then "London" is the film for you. Otherwise you may want to pass it by.

I'm no angel. I grew up in Miami in the 1970's and 80's. I've been an active and willing participant in cocaine fueled discussions and some were indeed in bathrooms (although never as nice as the bathroom here). And even though it has been years since I went down that road (and don't miss it, it was depressing and ultimately a dead end) I can still recall the discussions that seemed so damn important and meaningful at the time but ultimately had all the weight of helium. So I can comment a bit on the reality of the film.

The filmmakers did not in any way capture the ultimately lonely and dirty world of the cocaine user. They seemed to limit their portrayal of the users to wild talk of God and Universe and Meaning - pretty much a stereotype of various drug and alcohol induced conversations everywhere. And while people who are coked up may talk about these things, they probably don't do it any more than the average drunk or pothead. What the filmmakers didn't show was the paranoia (they hinted at it briefly, but not really) and most importantly the drastically decreasing mental state of the users as the night wears on and the drug ceases to provide anywhere near as much of an effect per use as it did at the beginning of the night. Any person who is snorting coke in a bathroom all night is going to be severely worn out by 5am. They have long since stopped with any pseudo-intellectual conversations and are now just concentrating on keeping their "high" to a level where they don't feel like killing themselves. Because the down side to the cocaine high is a dark one indeed.

The point being this: near the end of the film (I will be vague so as not to spoil) when the situation changes somewhat, our two protagonists would not be in the mental position to act as they did. They were behaving like people who were not using cocaine at all. Believe me, it does not work this way. The very last thing that you are going to do after snorting coke in a bathroom all night is to confront your ex-girlfriend, the one who hates your cocaine use, at the party for her that you were not invited to and is filled to the rafters with people who hate you. And believe this - they would have had to pry the guy out of the bathroom with a crowbar, long after everyone went home, and then drop him off at the nearest insane asylum. Because that's about where his mind would have been by then, being in the particular situation that he was in and considering how much cocaine he had been ingesting. It's called cocaine induced psychosis and I've seen it happen to people who used less cocaine and were in much less stressful situations.

OK, so let's get beyond the erroneous portrayal of the coke user. The acting in the movie was pretty bad, particularly by Chris Evans as the lead character, Syd. I am not the type of person who usually notices bad acting. It's generally lost on me. So when I notice bad acting, it's very bad indeed. And Evans' acting was. When he spoke it sounded like he was reciting lines from memory, well of course he was, all actors are, but you are not supposed to be able to notice it in the final rendition. But I just kept seeing him sitting at home, in "real life," and repeating his lines. There was no substance at all to his acting, which in a way is odd because ultimately cocaine is without substance and this is a cocaine movie. The other actors and actresses were marginally better but everyone just seemed to be trying to portray a caricature of what they thought that the character was supposed to be. Rather than become the character, they became the description of the character at the beginning of the screenplay.

Finally - I have noticed that many reviewers said that the character of London would never have been with Syd in the first place. I completely disagree. She is almost as vapid as the self-centered Syd, even without the cocaine. She comes off as an idiot airhead, just the type to lose her head over a good looking "bad boy." Actually, everyone in this movie is very good looking. Perhaps if the filmmakers had substituted real actors for the mannequins that they used, the film would have had some substance. As it is, it is as empty and meaningless as the cocaine lifestyle that it attempts to comment on.

Beg! (1994)

I know garbage when I see it...

[2/10 · 19 July 2006]

The insane asylum film genre seems utterly incapable of producing anything that sits firmly in the center of the bell curve; what comes out of it is either brilliant or awful, with the awful being just that and only that and not awful in that wonderful way that some films can be. Out of the first category come things like "House of Fools" and "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" and the slightly lesser but still admirable "Quills" among several others. At the other end of the bell emerge films like "Beg!"

There seems to be a toybox of images and affects that filmmakers pick and choose from when piecing together their vision of an insane asylum. It appears that the makers of Beg! raided the toybox in drunken madness, and took everything out and threw it into the big jumble that is this film. But as is often the case with drunken projects, the end result looks just like the mess that it always was. The non-drunken audience will not be fooled; however the drunken audience is just that - a drunken audience; drunk on bad imagery, inaudible dialogue, and their own pretensions.

If you choose to subject yourself to a bad insane asylum movie by purpose (I did not), then I do not think that I am spoiling anything by telling you what you will see. You will see the garish but fuzzily muted colors that unimaginative filmmakers seem to think represents the clouded yet energetic lunatic mind, the fuzzy colors that are supposed to let you know that you are seeing the world through the eyes of one deranged. Of course, with this timeworn modus operandi comes the notion that anybody connected with the lunatic world long enough comes to see everything in the same muted shades; ie., just who is the sane one anyway? Gee - that's a novel proposition. Never thought of that one before. And with this tactic comes the inevitable lack of much else in the way of a story or a reason for being - anything goes, since it's from the looney perspective. Anything can make sense, anything can be explained away. Who needs to understand (or even HEAR) the dialogue? Just look at the face of the tortured singer. That explains it all, right? RIGHT? Now, I'm not saying that a great movie needs to make sense. It certainly does not. Hell, "Yellow Submarine" makes no sense and it's gloriously enjoyable. Fellini made many films that, for many people, fall into the "makes no sense" category. And even those who think that they understand everything that Fellini did probably have most of it wrong, if he ever really "meant" anything with them anyway (I prefer not to look for sense, but that's just me). However, even Fellini's "worst" films were one thing that Beg! could never be - interesting. A poorly executed film that is in no way interesting is a waste of time and space; actually it's even worse than that, it can suck the life right out of a person for an hour or two that that person is never going to get back.

If I had to compare this to one film, one that seems to have the same feeling on the surface of it, it would be the French "Delicatessen." It's not really a fair comparison - Delicatessen is a great movie where Beg!, well, sucks. And although Delicatessen is not about an insane asylum, if any film ever explored that oh-so-fine line between sane and insane then it is Delicatessen, with its images of "normal" people who were quite "normal" before the bomb dropped and now seem to have no qualms about eating dead family members. That one takes quite the trip into the human psyche. I use Delicatessen as a yardstick for Beg! in part because Beg mines the same territory, but mainly because Beg! has the very same look and feel that Delicatessen did. When the first reel of Beg! started rolling I was immediately transported back to the same emotional place that Delicatessen exists in and for a brief few moments thought that I had stumbled onto another great one. But it soon panned out to show that I had not. It's as if Delicatessen was a sort of "PhotoShop filter" and the makers of Beg! applied it liberally to their movie. But anyone who is familiar with PhotoShop knows that no amount of filtering will make a truly bad and boring photo good and interesting. You can get the same fuzzy muted colors but they don't go anywhere. Like Beg!.