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MrMarcus
Reviews
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Doesn't fit well in the Star Wars saga
As the first of the three prequels, and therefore the most distant from the original story, Phantom Menace was probably always destined to be the least interesting. I was prepared to accept this film would be mostly background and story development, and that I wouldn't fully appreciate it until I'd seen Episodes II and III. All fair enough.
But Lucas made the problem worse by starting too far back, to the point where the movie feels almost disconnected from the Star Wars story. The political crisis at the centre of the plot is supposed to highlight the beginning of the Republic's downfall, but is too mundane and obscure to be engaging. Some trade companies are protesting- big deal. And it's impossible to make any connection between the obnoxious boy Anakin and the greatest villain ever seen. Perhaps Lucas was trying to highlight "from little things big things grow"- how Anakin's bratty cockiness foreshadows Darth Vader's evil? It might have worked if the child Anakin was an interesting character, but he's just plain annoying and adds nothing to the story. There's no real reason the prequels couldn't have started as Episode II did, with Anakin already a young Jedi, which makes this whole movie a waste of time.
There's also a very leaden feeling to the production, a problem which plagues all three prequels. The spontaneous fun of the originals is missing, and the acting and dialogs is often predictable and wooden. Jar Jar was the one attempt at injecting some humour, and fails horribly. And Darth Maul, the most interesting character of the lot, is largely sidelined. In fact, pretty much everything ends up sidelined by the complicated political posturings that clog up most of the film. Even the battle scenes have a very sterile and forced nature to them, probably because you're so bored by that stage you don't care anymore.
The only thing I really liked about this movie was watching Palpatine skilfully manipulate the trade crisis as his first step to becoming Emperor. That's probably the one and only key element in this movie for fans of the original. As for the rest, you could easily begin at Episode II and not miss a thing.
Anatomie de l'enfer (2004)
Comic Genius!
Most people who criticise this movie are coming from two angles
They found it offensive, or They didn't 'get it'
In contrast, I simply believe that this is a bad movie. As in, the artistic decisions made by writer/director Catherine Brelliat are detrimental to the film.
First up, don't believe the hype. It's not that offensive. In fact, I've never seen a movie try so hard to be 'confronting' and 'controverial' and failing so badly. Brelliat clearly wants to shock and upset her audience, with plenty of explicit depictions of oral sex, wrist slashing and the like, but she goes overboard in this respect. The scenes are so explicit, constant and in-your-face that the audience becomes numb to them. This makes scenes like the 'lipstick' and 'hair-gel' moments come across as silly rather than shocking.
And the movie is certainly not erotic. It's full of that cold, passionless 'realistic sex' so favoured by the European art-house.
Where the movie really fails is in the plot, acting and dialogue. Brelliat casts Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi and actress Amira Cassa in the leads, but bungles this horribly by giving Siffredi all the important scenes and dialogue. We're treated to him mechanically reciting some impossibly pretentious rubbish while the more accomplished actress Cassa does little but lie down with her legs apart for most of the film. Again, this is more likely to trigger some guffaws rather than the philosophical discourse Brelliat was hoping for.
And the plot, such as it is. Our hero can overcome his homosexuality by embracing his combined love and fear of the female genitalia. Or something. The idea that homosexuals are actually repressed heterosexuals and can be 'cured' is both ridiculous and offensive. Being a hardcore feminist doesn't give Brelliat the right to spout homophobic garbage.
So, stupid plot, woeful dialogue, wooden acting, and explicit scenes so over-the-top you end up sniggering. Anatomy of Hell is a terribly wrong-headed and unintentionally hilarious film that even devotees of hardcore art-house cinema should avoid.