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Reviews
Standing in the Shadows of Motown (2002)
Important story, BAAAD documentary
This documentary is based on an extremely interesting group of guys, The Funk Brothers who are responsible for a large amount of Motown number 1 hits, but never got the credit. And now this film unfortunately has immortalized these guys on celluloid in an incompetent documentary. The story is all about how these guys were left in the shadows, more attention was given to the lead singers instead of them. In this film there are a number of songs performed where these guys get to reunite and play once again. But during these songs, the camera spends 80% of the time focused on the singer. Here the documentary works against everything it was preaching. And during these songs whenever we do get a glimpse of the Funk Brothers, we aren't able to see them play, the camera is swooping too fast, and is too impatient for this. Usually we'll get a glimpse of a hand playing the guitar and then we'll see a close-up of a smiling face, and then back to the singer. And that's another thing, the singers in this film. These guys are so important and yet the best talent they can get is Bootsy Collins, and Joan Osbourne?? Joan Osbourne who is responsible for "What if God was one of us?" which includes classic lines like "nobody calling on the phone, except for the Pope maybe in Rome" is in too many scenes of this film, and why?? Is she related to the director? Was Aretha Franklin busy that day? In the film there are at least 8 songs played in full, not so that we can get a chance to see these guys play, no, since the scenes are focused on the singers anyway, but there are so many songs because the movie has absolutely nothing to say at all. During some of the horribly unoriginal anecdotes, we get to see "dramatizations" of dull stories which seem to echo the cinematic brilliance of an E True Hollywood Story rather than a credible documentary. And through these anecdotes we never really learn about the tribulations these guys were under, we never find out anything about them really, except little cute stories. Suddenly one of the guys will say, "Yeah, that's when he died of drugs," but the film has not set up that this individual had been having any problem with drugs. These guys never become clear characters and it is never made clear how they feel about being forgotten, what it was like then, or anything, not from episodic little anecdotal segments placed between songs. And there are two white guys in the Funk Brothers, but there is no dramatization showing either of their pasts. For the other African American guys, we get to see how a boy would strum a guitar string in an ant hole and make the ants dance, and we get to see how another guy made a guitar on the side of his house. But the white guys just get stepped over, they don't fit into the simplistic minds of the filmmakers. And even the scenes which propel the men to talk about their anecdotes are ridiculous. In one scene we get to see one of the men on his back attempting to play a bass, he then says "Man, nobody can play a bass on the floor like this," this then spurs one of his buddies to say "No, that's not true, Jemmerson could do it. Why I remember one time..." Not only does this scene have horrible acting embarrassing these men, but it also has such a contrived premise to bring on pseudo nostalgia that it recalls sitcoms like The Golden Girls when they have one of their "remember the past" episodes. The story dealing with these guys is very interesting, and they deserve to be honored and remembered, but not like this.
The Grey Zone (2001)
A maniuplative, horribly done film
This is a horrible, shallow, manipulative movie. Tim Blake Nelson is good at playing the goofy stupid guys, and the way this movie is directed, you'd think that maybe it's less of an act that you thought. When adapting any play to the big screen, occasionally one can run into the problem of wordiness, and scenes that go on too long. Every scene in this movie goes on waaay too long, and every conversation is painfully stretched to the breaking point. And the dialogue itself which due to the extremely constructed interruptions from one character on to another- always seems to be artificial, even though ironically, Tim wanted to use the effect to create realism. The dialogue and the scenes are sloppily written and incredibly unsubtle and on the nose. The characters are made to sound like Mamet creations, but the writer here only shows his pretension and his lack of talent. And overall, the worst thing about this movie is the fact that it uses violence in the movie to manipulate, and to exploit the people. After every very long boring scene between two guys, usually one of which is Harvey Keitel, doing the most embarrassing German accent one is likely to ever hear, there is a violent scene. The violent scene may be Jews going into the showers, a Jew being beaten for his watch, Jews being lines up and shot, etc. If one looks at the movie they'll see that these scenes were put into the film so that the viewer would sympathize with the film, and perhaps forget about the intensely boring scene that preceded this one. These violent scenes only want you to believe that this is a better film than it actually is, and it stoops to the lowest level to do so. It's not surprising that Nelson says there was no violence or anything in his stage play- this explains why these scenes seem so tacked on. And when the film is just about to end, before you can think of how unaffecting and poorly done it was, we get an extraordinarily sentimental, intensely manipulative voice-over of a dead Holocaust girl describing what it was like to have her body burned to dust inside the ovens. This is pandering filmmaking. If I made a short film about a learning disabled boy, had him get shot in the head, and then had a voice-over in which he cries `I didn't want to die, I wasn't too smart, but I never wanted this to happen. Where's my mommy, I'm scared mommy' The audience would be affected, but this is exploitative, and horrible, manipulative filmmaking. This is what Tim Blake Nelson does here with, of all things, the Holocaust. It's a shame because it seems like the actual story of The Grey Zone had something important to say. It's too bad that Tim Blake Nelson read the book before a better more honest director could have a chance.
Unbreakable (2000)
Boo M Night, Boooooo!
This is a horrible movie! M Night Shyamalan is supposed to be considered a genius because he has multiple scenes filled with nothing but master shots?? That doesn't do anything but make the film boring. If the films is going to be shot like this at least make the dialogue or story interesting, but alas that doesn't occur. Nothing happens in the entire movie! Nothing at all. Bruce Willis begins to believe that he is unbreakable, this after about 90 minutes of screen time. And what does the subplot with Willis and his wife have to do with anything? It does nothing but fill screen time. And why does everyone in the movie have to talk like they just woke up?? And the ending of the film is an entire let down. Night has his signature "surprise" ending, but after that, the movie just ends with text explaining what became of these characters.