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Reviews
Titus (1999)
Brilliant and daringly original
See this film. It is one of the most original and daring films I've seen in the past few years. How the academy passed over this film for best picture is both surprising and depressing. Every aspect of the film is amazing: music, cinematography, special effects, acting, direction, costumes, editing, etc. Thank god a genius like Taymor has been recognized by hollywood, and has had the chance to make this film.
Titus is actually really funny. For those of you confused about whther it's alright to laugh, read Ebert's review or Harold Bloom's opinions on the play. For the film is suposed to be funny, supposed to make one squirm, torn between disgust and laughter, marvelling at the brilliant juxtaposition of the two.
If you care about originality, and if you care at all about risk-taking in film (an act usually reserved only for the theater), see Titus. It will blow your mind.
Trekkies (1997)
One of the great documentaries
Trekkies is not about Star Trek or its fans. It is about life. This is one of the great documentaries, up there with Roger & Me. The director has achieved that which is so rare in documentary: transcending the topic in question to make a film about everything.
Trekkies is about the hope of a better future. It is about tolerance and accepting those who are different. It is about finding yourself and a place to fit in. It is about the responsibility that television so rarely accepts to portray hope, and what can happen when the media doesn't always glorify evil. It is about a singular dream of peace that more Americans share than is apparent.
The film starts off strong, climaxing about half-way through with a tear-jerking story by Scotty about a life-changing letter (get your tissues). And even though it slows a bit in the denoument, it always remains fascinating. The film follows several fans as they attend conventions, go grocery shopping, go to work, attend jury duty, and live at home. These day-in-the-life's are interspersed with interviews with the stars, and their anecdotes of fans, letters, and conventions. This is a tight documentary that is well interviewed, well shot, well edited. Trekkies is definitely a must-see.
Boiler Room (2000)
The Glegarry Glen Wall Street for the next millennium
Surprise, it's actually good! While advertised as another half ass Ben Affleck POS, the heartthrob hack actually makes just a cameo. Affleck plays a recruiter at a sketchy brokerage firm deep in long island. Among his new recruits is Giovanni Ribisi, who gives a brilliant performance as a trainee learning the ropes. It is Ribisi who elevates what would otherwise have been a lame movie.
Ribisi's character takes a job at a cut-throat brokerage to please his judicial father. The I-want-my-father-to-love-me character is nothing new to late 20th century film, but Ribisi brings a new patience and sense of purpose to the archetype that makes him easier to identify with. Eventually Ribisi suspects that things might be legally amiss at this too-good-to-be-true firm, but by then he has his own moral issues to deal with.
The script is insightful, from the observation that stock brokering is the white man's slinging crack rock, to the slinging epithet's and flying fists that grow from the machismo of male greed. Boiler Room is an entertaining film worth the matinee price.
American Beauty (1999)
A failed attempt to expose the horrors of the Nuclear family.
American Beauty follows a man and his family as he rediscovers his true self during a mid-life crisis. Spacey's character develops a crush on his daughter's hot friend, smokes pot with the neighbor's kid, and quits his job.
Beauty isn't much more than an interesting fantasy for the viewer, a "what if I really did what I wanted?" It falls short of any real social commentary or entertainment. In addition to its general lackluster, the film contains a non sequitur sub plot about the neighbor's homophobia, which, having nothing to do whatsoever with the rest of the story, comes out of nowhere to play a pivotable role.
If you found Beauty interesting, there's two other films I would strongly suggest. If you liked the this-is-an-american-family-with-some-disturbing-problems aspect, watch Tod Solontz' "Happiness;" it's more disturbing and fits together better. If you liked the I'm-a-corporate-employee-who's-discovering-who-I-really-am-and-loving-it aspect, watch "Fight Club;" it's a better film, and it's "Take this job and shove it scene" is infinitely more satisfying.
The Best Man (1999)
A nonsensical ensemble buddy film that falls flat.
While watching this film, I kept wondering how this ever made it past the pitching stage. I keep seeing the writer in the room saying, "But this really happened," for the plot appears to be a lame adaptation of some post-college celebrity's life experience.
What actually happens in this movie is unclear, and not made any more clear by the jagged, amateur editing and directing which (maybe for the best) distracts us from the first half hour of the film. Thence on, the viewer is subjected to a reunion of college buddies getting together for the wedding of a famous friend. Doubt and betrayal appear and disappear magically, as in all buddy-wedding films, but instead of adding to the cliched plot, Best Man takes away from it, destroying the charm and levity of the original. What is left is nonsensical anger, contrived forgiveness, and a waste of time.
Huo zhe (1994)
An epic Chinese film following a family from the 40's to the 70's.
Many people ask me how I liked China, and I imagine a good response would be, "It's like watching this film." For both experiences are difficult, tiring, and confusing, but offer some memorable laughs and an education well beyond that of textbooks.
"To Live" is a film well worth the price of setting aside two and a half alert hours. Like many epic foreign films (cf. "Underground"), "To Live" shoves its viewer through three decades and scores of incidents much quicker than the American cinema would think possible. We learn about the characters not through their dialogue and actor characterizations, but through their actions in the scores of vignettes we see span their lives.
The film begins in the forties, while China was still under imperial control, and follows one couple through the fifties, when communism took over, to the tragedy of the cultural revolution in the sixties. The well-cast family experiences few joys, and many tragedies and deaths, with the last death in the film one of the greatest ironies I've ever seen in cinema.
"To Live" is infinitely more valuable because it came from the country it talks about. Although tiring at times to Western attention spans, it's portrayal of Chinese life during its difficult times is invaluable to anyone who claims to want to understand world affairs and human nature and suffering.
The Fifteen Minute Hamlet (1995)
A brilliant film adaptation of Stoppard's Play.
This short film has stayed true to its theatrical roots and has broken new ground in filmmaking. A director makes a 15-minute film adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, which he must cut down several times with hilarious consequences, to its final length of 1 minute.
The first 15-minute version contains almost no cuts, feeling very alive, like its theatrical counterpart. However, the director is no slave to the tripod, moving the camera constantly between sets and actors. The Director also straddles the line between abstract and realistic film, by dressing the set with props relevant to the plot and closing in on them at the appropriate time (my favorite being the ship in the bucket of water which zooms by when Hamlet's sea trip is mentioned).
This short film is a very well choreographed ballet duet between the actors and the camera, both of which dance in and run throughout the well designed sets.
The cast and crew have created an awe-inspiring sequence shot (comparable to Orson Welles' opening to "Touch of Evil", and John Woo's hospital shot in "Hard Boiled."), which opens this film. Hamlet is a hilarious, laugh-out-loud film which is well worth the trouble it might take to find this rarity.