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Reviews
Hurlyburly (1998)
Actors' special
The stars who appeared here had obviously very much fun doing this. I would have, being an ex-actor myself. The director should have done a better job to alienate the movie version from the original play. This would do well on stage, but: overplayed, predictable, theatrical and thus dull.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
What if the movie had been completed?
There's no other movie that has been so generously awarded before its premier! Years of headlines about Kubrick, Cruise and Kidman this and that, sex, body doubles, takes and re-re-re-re-re-retakes,hype after hype and finally, Kubrick's death. Which seems like an excuse for leaving the film as it appears. Mediocre. Skeletal. Uncut. Most and foremost: uncut. During the first half an hour I got irritated about the dialogue: - How do ..........you........think about.........that? - ..........How do.........I...........think about..........that? Wellll...... how I.....think about that izzzzz......eehhhh....This is really difficult for me to say....but.....
and so on. Kubrick forced his actors act naturally, to act and react, but I don't think all of this slow thinking was meant to appear in the final version. I havent really done any research, but I suppose one third or fourth of the movie could easily have been left out. Of course, the movie would have felt unfinished then, and not the Last Will and Testament of the God.
The erotic aspect is OK, but not erotic. Asses and tits come and go, but are more like sculptures. White gypsum copies of the original marble artwork of the antiques. No insight, really. We know that Kubrick didn't actually fool around, meet people, or stay tuned with the world. It shows.
The approach is very theatre-like. I actually lost my concentration thinking about how much of the dialogue is Schnitzler and how much isn't. Especially the slimy and sleazy Hungarian, who would very much have wanted to f**k Nicole Kidman, acted nothing like a turn-of-the-millennium-c**t-licking playboy would. Maybe Kubrick thought nothing has changed since the times of the original story.
Very sorry. I think Stanley Kubrick was one of the greatest. Eyes Wide Shut is beautifully shot (in Lightbulb Yellow and Nuit Americaine Blue), has a driving screenplay and a genuine no-hurry Kubrick feel, but I still think it's nowhere close to what it would have been, if the director could have worked on it for another five years.
The Killing Time (1987)
Another director might have done a better job
This one could have been better. The scenario works, the good cop not being totally good and the bad guy not entirely bad. Beau Bridges does a reliable job and Kiefer Sutherland even works to do a role out of the ordinary kiefer. However, the director ruins everything. The result is boring beyond limits. All the suspense comes from the screenplay and the final is totally flat. As a matter of fact, I have never seen a movie where screenplay and direction differ in quality as clearly as in this one.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
A meta-movie
We all now the two legends: the one about the three students doing a documentary project on Blair Witch , and the one about the two wannabe billionaires doing a documentary project on three students doing a documentary project on Blair Witch. The first one doesn't have a happy end, the other one does. The idea of "showing the students' filmed material" as is is very effective in terms of creating terror among the spectators, and the result is purposedly shaky and non-professional, but unfortunately creates a lot of empty space, minutes of breathing into the microphone, panning of a forest without any signs of life (the trees included, due to the season). In Finland we have a theater/TV director called Jouko Turkka. His methods of making his actors act include (or rather: consist of) having them drool, make faces, sweat, shake their bodies and cry for extended periods of time, the story being of minimum importance. So, the BWP looks somewhat familiar to me. So familiar that I had to cut down some points.
But: the movie really is scary. Until having seen it I wouldn't believe that a horror pic could be made this good in absence of Industrial Light & Magic.
The Prince of Egypt (1998)
Excellent graphical work!
+ mentioned above + Ramesses was superb + Wonderful realization of Moses's (and God´s) parting the Red Sea + The mixed emotions worked well - Where did they lose Moses's and his wife´s love story? - Too much religious stuff, still - Moses did too well in the desert - And then again, he couldn,t have survived inthe end, buried in the sand.
F/X (1986)
Surprise!
I've seen this one, and considered it somewhat mediocre. I have the F/X on video, but never bothered to put it in my VCR again. Yesterday I saw it in TV and was stunned. It has more to it than simple 13 years special effects. It has Jerry Orbach, who never dies. It has Brian Dennehy, the Bad Lieutenant. On the other half, . But the screenplay! It is excellent!
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
Not as bad as you might think
Who said that Carpenter is getting old? There are two and a half things I like about this one. 1)the suspense 2)all the things (Maine, the author selling bigger than King) that refer to my all-time favorite Stephen King (even though Lovecraft seems better) and 2.5) fx full of humor. When broadcast in Finnish TV, the reviewers granted this 1 with 1 to 2 stars out of maximum of 5, but what more could a horror movie achieve? I'm proud to give Carpenter an eight!
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The best King films omit the gore
Years ago I decided to start collecting Stephen King paperback editions (and reading them, too) to prop up my excellent English. I'd found out that in the horror genre, everything that had something to do, had the label 'Stephen King' or 'John Carpenter' on it. Luckily both (as in 'Cat's Eye). But as I introduced myself with Mr. King's works I found out that the Enchantment in it isn't in the gore (which he describes splendidly, meaning that I can smell the rottening human flesh despite the fact that my nose exists only for cosmetical reasons) but the professional skill to tell a story. King gets paid by the page, so nowadays he's apt to write stories up to three bricks thick before his eyes wear out. Luckily, his best stories to be filmed are the ones that don't need 'overwriting',nor 'overfilming' as in mini-TV-series as 'The Stand', 'Golden Years', and so on. The best way for Stephen King to make an original story for a movie seems to be to: 1) keep it compact and 2) stay out of intestines, awkward smells and anything that comes out of your body when you're dead). We saw 'Stand by me me' already and 'Dolores Claiborne' afterwards, but this is the upmost number one. When King tells a little story in size of a novelette with no hurry at all, there should be nothing to add. But: then comes the movie with its more than perfect casting plus the original serenity maintained! I conclude my speech with saying that no other movie ever has collected full 10 points, horror or not.