Change Your Image
MattAlexG
Reviews
Dude, Where's My Car? (2000)
Dude, Where's the Exit?
I went to a free advanced screening of this "film," and I was still tempted to walk out after the first 10 minutes and demand a refund. A movie ad-libbed by a class of 3rd graders would have been more entertaining, and one would at least have been able to understand where the writers were coming from.
The whole plot of this movie revolves around two moronic stoners trying to figure out what happened to them the previous night; they can't remember because they were incredibly high and wasted and stupid. I can only assume the film makers went through this exact process after they woke up and found out they had produced this abomination:
Writer Philip Stark: "Dude, where'd this script come from?"
Director Danny Leiner: "I don't know, man, we were wasted. Wow, this is awful!"
Ashton Kutcher: "Dude! Sweet! Sweet! Whoa! Sweet, dude! Dude, sweet!"
Sean William Scott: *drools on himself*
Even people (including myself) who enjoy movies that are "So Stupid, They're Funny" will find themselves nauseated and insulted after even brief exposure to this comedic black hole. I hope that those responsible for inflicting the world with Dude, Where's My Car? are very, very sorry. And poor. And covered with fire ants.
Fight Club (1999)
Breaking the First Two Rules
When I first saw Fight Club, it blew me away; I absolutely ate it up. The film itself is superbly acted, well written (screenplay as well as original novel), and masterfully directed, with exceptionally skillful and subtle use of special effects. One can really tell that this movie was a labor of love for everyone involved, from David Fincher to Rhett Wooden.*
More than this, though, it was the message that got to me. This movie in no small part led to a drastic shift in my personal outlook on life and my critical perspective. I became highly sensitive to - and critical of - uncontrolled consumerism, individual insulation, and media manipulation, among other things. I can honestly say that this movie helped change my life.
After time and subsequent viewings, however, I have become more critical of Fight Club. Isn't Tyler Durden - and thus, through his less-than-subtle preachiness, the movie itself - practicing the same force-feeding of ideology on Ed Norton's narrator and his "space monkeys" that he spends the whole movie railing against? Isn't this movie, as a prepackaged, glitzy media spectacle, just another element of the mass media fixation and dependency that the narrator is trying to escape? Other critics have said as much, and denounced the movie for hypocrisy and didacticism.
However, one ought to consider the idea that the medium itself is always a part of the message. The movie itself hints at this, as Brad Pitt's mischievous character (think Puck meets Travis Bickle) splices pornographic images into movies even as the viewer sees images of Brad spliced into Fight Club occasionally. Think the irony of Hollywood Hunk Brad Pitt cast as the character who proclaims, "We're all brought up to believe that we'll be movie gods and rock stars, but we won't," is accidental?
If someone watches Fight Club and latches on to the message with intensity, like I did, then obviously that person needed to hear what Tyler Durden had to say, and had to hear it from Brad Pitt's famous & attractive mouth. Conversely, if someone watches Fight Club and is able to say "that movie, while nicely executed, is overly preachy and hypocritical in its stated purpose," then that someone is independent enough of media not to need the media/cultural liberation that Fight Club preaches.
That's what Fight Club's about, really - breaking free from cultural restraint of all kinds, even the restraints that allowed the genesis of that freedom. It's about questioning everything - especially ads, magazines, TV, and - you guessed it - big-budget movies that tell you how to live your life. So, while I've become more critical of Fight Club than I was originally, I only respect the movie that much more for its ability to subject itself to the same scrutiny it gives everything else.
For these reasons and more, Fight Club is one of the best movies of the decade, and may well prove to be one of the defining movies of our generation, like The Graduate for the 60s and Saturday Night Fever for the 70s.
I highly recommend consumption of Fight Club in any form, although this is one rare instance where I think film is the better-suited medium over print. I do have a beef with the movie's adaptation of the ending (considerably happier than the novel's), but that just enforces the idea that the movie itself isn't free from the trappings of Hollywood.
The DVD is especially high-quality, with insightful commentary from the novelist, screenwriter, director, and main players (notably film buff Norton).
9.5/10
*David Fincher is the director. Rhett Woodon is the best boy grip. In Fight Club, everyone has a name.
Falling Down (1993)
White-collar castoff tries to break the mold, as does the film
The Plight of the Little Guy has been a prevalent message in film and literature, and the theme has lost no relevance in these days of massive corporate mergers and business-oriented government. Thus, "Falling Down," a drama following a downsized, formerly dedicated defense contractor ("D-FENS," reads the vanity plate on his dilapidated hatchback), treads familiar plot territory, even for its release in 1993. Fortunately, the film navigates its way around the potential for redundancy through a self-critical awareness of the clichés it uses to tell the story, using them as just one strength among many in this American allegory.
For example, Robert Duvall plays the ubiquitous "Last Day on the Job" cop, but his colleagues jibe him about that very myth of the mortality of retiring police officers. Furthermore, Duvall's nuanced portrayal of the problems that age and meaningful relationships bring to a masculinity-dominated world allows his character to transcend any mere stereotype. The film lets the viewer know that yes, it is aware of the cop cliché and no, Duvall's life is not picture perfect, either.
In that same respect, Michael Douglas' protagonist Little Guy, while sympathetic in some respects, is not a very lovable character, and is downright reprehensible at times. While some would criticize the filmmakers for the flaws in Douglas' character, the film provides enough evidence to show that D-FENS' estrangement from his family and society in general is at least partly his own fault. Thus, "Falling Down" avoids the unrealistic depictions of saintly Everymen crushed under the foot of an Evil Empire like the recent Denzel Washington vehicle "John Q.," and manages to present a complex (read: realistic) portrait of the problems in post-Cold War American society, most of which still exist. After years of focusing on external threats during the Cold War of the Reagan Era, America was forced to examine its many problems at home, and "Falling Down" delves into them: latent racism, unemployment and inflation, drug culture, the apparent breakdown of the family unit.
But I digress. What I'm trying to say is that "Falling Down" presents a problematic picture of American society on purpose, and it's an entertaining and insightful picture at that. Those who criticize the film for supposed racism need to realize that the story is told from the perspective of a middle-class American male Caucasian; no one in the movie claims that that is the right or even preferable perspective, it just happens to be the majority perspective. The standard movie cliché of One Man Taking a Stand Against the System is that old democratic message; "Falling Down" adds a more specifically American tone. The movie goes a bit further than the standard redemptive theme by adding that the one man taking a stand needs to face the problems within himself before trying to overcome those around him - or he may well find himself falling down. The need for coming to terms with oneself before external reform, while particularly applicable to America in the early 1990s, is a fundamentally human message. It's a message worth hearing, and "Falling Down" is a movie worth watching.
Firehouse (1987)
Among the worst movies I've ever seen.
Perhaps I don't have enough exposure to the "adult comedy" genre to have an informed opinion, but if the rest of the genre justifies the absolutely abysmal quality of this piece of drivel, I'll stand by the age-old maxim of blissful ignorance. Even the sexual scenes - which, judging by the cover art, were expected to sell the film - are atrociously acted and boringly unfunny groaners. I never thought I'd say this, but: Firehouse is a travesty and a smear on the legacy of the Police Academy series.