BlancheDeLaForce Reviews

Frailty (2001)

Interesting movie with a morally dubious ending

[30 August 2004]

(Spoilers) Some movies include in the end a twist that virtually no one in the audience would see coming, which would turn the whole vision of the movie upside down. Sometimes this unexpected ending is very clever and makes perfect sense, in fact it makes everything in the movie snap into place. Think Se7en, The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense, Mulholland Drive. Sometimes the twist is unexpected because it is so completely idiotic, that it has no right to be expected at all... like in, well, Frailty.

This story about a deranged man who claims to be commanded by God to kill certain people on the basis that they are 'demons' could have had any possible ending, but no, no, no, that the deranged guy is right and that God is actually behind the crimes. Only a complete bigot can reach this repellent conclusion or approve of it. Unfortunately, the movie conclusion is quite literally what it seems to be. You can suppose that the whole thing may be attributed to the unbalanced imagination of the self-appointed Angel of Death, but there is the thing about the video that denies this theory. However, if they insist on the supernatural there is an alternative hypothesis that the makers of this movie do not seem to take into account. Mind you, I don't believe this any more than I believe that God made them do it, but, if someone ordered the crimes, how do they know that the crimes were actually ordered by God and not by the Other Guy? Wouldn't it be very much like he who is, after all, the Father of Lies, to appear before his dupes under the disguise of God, in order to make them commit acts which are, after all, evil and foul? Oh-ho.

It is a pity that the ending ruins it, because Frailty is, all in all, very competently done. It keeps the suspense and manages to be quite gruesome and horrifying without any display of gore. The child actors are very good, in fact better than their adult counterparts. As a study of madness it would have been immensely interesting. However, it is not.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Did they really think this was love?

[19 March 2004]

There are many things that went wrong with this movie, but even if there weren't, it would still be a failure, because something about the very premise it is based upon does not work: the story of a `robot' that is programmed to feel love. To see what I mean, it is enough to compare this movie with a vastly superior one: Blade Runner. In that movie, replicants are not programmed to feel love, pity, sorrow or rage about injustice, but they develop these feelings spontaneously and mysteriously. As a matter of fact, these human feelings render the replicants not only unusable but dangerous, and hence, they have to be eliminated. Blade Runner is about what makes humans human: if androids can have feelings that are real and not planned, if they have memories, if they can appreciate beauty, if they have a will of their own, aren't they human? Isn't destroying them murder? In A.I., there is never a question of David being human: he is nothing but a machine that smartly apes a real loving boy. The boy robot has a chip or whatever it is that programs him to feel `love,' being such `love,' if correctly interpreted (something the movie does not do), not real love, but an unhealthy fixation. A real boy who developed such an obsession with his own mother would be a Norman Bates in the making. Unlike Blade Runner, where we empathize naturally with the replicants, it is impossible to feel anything but irritation, at best, and horror, at worst, for David, and, indeed, it is easier to pity the bad mother: who wouldn't be unnerved by such unblinking adoration? (and unblinking it is; Spielberg erased Osment's blinking, apparently not realizing that a blinking robot would have been more lifelike and therefore, more useful to its purpose, to replace a real boy. Apparently, it was Osment who suggested the unblinking thing. Now, this is what happens when you listen to child actors instead of your own judgment). That's not the way the movie thinks, however. It assumes that this pre-packaged, superficial feeling is the real deal, which is rather disturbing.

As a matter of fact, just like David, A.I. is a movie that wants to be what it is not. It wants to be profound and philosophical (we know that because from time to time some character, or the voiceover narration, says something sententious). Spielberg's unquestioning admiration for Disney has already landed him in trouble in some of his other movies, but never as devastatingly as in this one. Any hope to take the movie seriously is dashed by cartoonish stuff like the Dr. Know or the Blue Fairy, and by the sickening sentimentality that clogs the whole movie and reaches its peak in the completely stupid ending. I spent the last half-hour or so gaping at the screen, and I mean that literally. I felt (and probably looked) like the audience watching the Hitler musical in the movie `The Producers.' I was so nonplussed at the nerve of someone ending a movie in such a ridiculous fashion, I could not even feel rightfully angry as I should.

All things spoken, I did like Teddy. I wish I had one of these. But then, of course, when the only thing in a movie that keeps you minimally interested is a talking teddy bear, the movie in question is really in deep trouble.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Full of rewards for those who dare

[19 March 2004]

(Spoilers) This and probably most other reviews here contain spoilers; but in fact the best way to enjoy this movie is to watch it without learning anything about it beforehand, to have the pleasure to fit the pieces of the puzzle by yourself. This is the kind of movie you shouldn't try to make sense of while you are watching it, but after the movie ends, you can actually see all the pieces falling together; it's quite beautiful. It stays with you long after it's over.

As most people who got it have already said, the movie has two parts: a convoluted dream/fantasy part during the first two thirds, and what really happened in a last part that is in fact quite linear and straightforward. Diane does not want to face her real self and she cannot deal with the real story, so in the dream sequence she rearranges facts recasting herself and others in ways more pleasing to herself. The sordid affair becomes a beautiful movie-like adventure complete with damsel in distress and ugly Mafia henchmen. In her dreams her lover is pliant and defenseless, depending mostly on Diane, quite the opposite of the real thing. She puts the director she hates in every sort of ridiculous situations, and in her fantasy he doesn't choose Camilla because he loves or desires her, but because she has been imposed on him. Most importantly, Diane reinvents herself as dashing and resourceful, taking everything on stride, a bright young thing loved by everyone who meets her. She is no longer sullen, unloved and disappointed, she hasn't a failed acting career kept alive mostly because her former lover finds roles for her: she is full of hope, with her entire future ahead of her. Reality intrudes in the dream when Diane sees her real end, mangled and decomposing in her own bed, and the eerie Club Silencio, in which there is no band and no musicians, indicates that what we are seeing is smoke and mirrors, all illusion.

Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

One hell of a ride. A theme park ride.

[23 February 2004]

One good thing can be said that about this movie: that at least it is substantially less stupid than the original, which isn't much of a point. Unlike another William Castle remake, The House on Haunted Hill, which was flawed but rather hysterically entertaining, this new 13 Ghosts isn't much fun: it is, in fact, mostly boring. Its look and feel is that of a theme park ride. As a ride it would have worked very well, but movies also need things like plots, characters and the like.

The funny thing is, that their attempt to improve on the original ends up working against the movie. Namely, unlike the old version, in which only Emilio the cook and the lion-tamer and his lion are distinctive in any way, this new version individualizes the ghosts and even gives them rather poetic names. Unfortunately, one feels that their story would have been more interesting that the story the movie actually tells and about that we know nothing. Whose son was the First-Born Son? Why is the Torn Prince torn and the Bound Woman bound? Or the Angry Princess angry, for that matter? What was the deal with the Great Child and the Dire Mother? Why did the Juggernaut live (well, "live") in a scrap yard? Alas, we don't know. Now, isn't that a pity.

Battlefield Earth (2000)

You join a cult, this is what happen to you

[29 December 2003]

It has been said that this movie was devised as propaganda for the Scientology cult; if so, it has failed on that level as well.

You only have to think this: that any cult that could drive a world-renowned movie star to produce and act in a flick that is not even attractive in the way many bad movies are, then this cult is definitely bad for you.

This is all I have to say about this.

The Matrix (1999)

Dumbed-down virtual reality

[27 January 2003]

I think this is a nice little action movie that I would like a lot better if it had not developed a following that goes on and on about the movie's supposed originality and profoundity (and who refer to the movie's critics, derogatorily, as "intellectuals," which is kind of funny). Well, it is entertaining, but it is not profound and it is certainly not original. Even someone like me, who has read some sci-fi but not a lot, can quote a few examples in which every single allegedly original or profound aspect of the movie has already been written by some sci-fi author. Let's see: we have a computer-generated world designed to keep a person entertained (so to speak) in Philip K' Dick's "I Hope We Will Arrive Soon;" we have a computer-generated world created to fool people into believing they are living in a fictituous world, while they are lying immobile in pods... millions of them, in "The Angel of Violence" by Adam Wisniewski-Snerg; we have a false world, this time drug-inspired, crated to mask the unbearable reality of a devastated world, AND the use of a pill to "lift the veil" and see the world as it is, in "The Futurological Congress," by Stanislaw Lem. And I'm not going to mention the overuse of technology that renders humans helpless... that one was already in H.G.Wells and E.M.Forster. Now, nobody would be able to make a movie out of any of these very fine works, without some idiot piping up "Oh, just like in Matrix!" In fact, you cannot do anything about virtual reality without the Matrix comparison, which was already been made about things as diverse as "eXistenZ" and "Open Your Eyes."

And, and then there are all the philosophical concepts the movie filches from diverse religions and philosophical sources; I suppose this works for some people, but I don't enjoy my philosophy or religion dumbed-down and sugarcoated in a `Kung Fu' setup. About the thing about Neo being an equivalent of Jesus Christ, I'll give the moviemakers some credit and take for granted that they didn't intend it, because it is so unflattering. Neo's character as `the chosen one' does not include a high degree of intelligence or awareness, but merely his ability to move very fast and dodge bullets.

A Murder of Crows (1998)

Makes you wonder if the good thriller is something like a lost art...

[3 October 2002]

(Spoilers) (Sort of, as if something could spoil this)

Lots of thrillers count on the audience being stupid; this one must be unique in the sense that it counts on the audience being not only stupid but also illiterate. If there is a character that introduces himself as Christopher Marlowe, and later on another claims to be called Goethe, anybody with some degree of culture smells right on there is something fishy about the setup. Presumably, this is aimed at an audience who never read anything above the Reader's Digest.

Those with some degree of culture may still enjoy the movie, because the characters' idiocy and blindness makes it so (unintentionally) hilarious. When Russell meets Marlowe, he tells us (in voice-over), that there was "something funny" about him... Really? Like what? Like his being all covered in theatrical makeup? Of course, in spite of presumably having gone to college and of quoting Aristotle, Russell never sees the Marlowe-Goethe connection... it is a county clerk who points it out for him! No one sees the connection between the actual murders and the book (though apparently the book did not even change the murder locations) until the killer sends the book to a detective... who never doubts that the book has been sent by Russell himself. In spite of his being chased by the police, Russell walks unchallenged all over the place, and when they do recognize him, he gets away without sweating in excess.

And what is it with the ending? What is he being on trial for? Corvus's murder or the lawyers'? And why is he acquitted? Because he has a hotshot lawyer? There was some potential for irony here, but then they spoil it all by claiming that "the weak sometimes win."

In a more intelligent movie, I would say they were being sarcastic. As things stand, I doubt it.

The Ninth Gate (1999)

Not scary, but intriguing

[30 September 2002]

(Spoilers) In this very cool and cerebral movie, Mr Polanski is back to the subject of satanists, again after Rosemary's Baby. And, although the Baby was much better, I still have a soft spot for this latest effort. Maybe it is because I am a bookworm and I am tickled pink by stories about books and the power they wield. But in fact, beyond the inanity of the whodunit plot, the fact is that there is a very smart idea underlying the movie. And here comes the spoiler: I have to say that if you did not understand that the Girl is Lucifer himself (or herself, if you wish), there is nothing much left for you to understand, because it is a key point.

The idea is, you don't choose to follow Lucifer, but he chooses his companions himself. Or, you are not evil because you want to, but because you are. We know how evil Corso is: right in the beginning, he commits a very cruel deed (he swindles a rare book from the relatives of an old man, right under the nose of the book's owner, who has been rendered speechless by a stroke, so he cannot protest). He shows repeatedly that he cares for nothing or nobody. And, ultimately, the Girl chooses him, and discards all the wannabe satanists. The scene at the club ceremony, in which Balkan chides the cultists, saying that Lucifer would never deign to appear before them because they are such buffoons, is in fact heavily ironic, because the Girl is walking freely right before him and he never recognizes her.

The movie is not frightening (not as the Baby was), but it is still intriguing. Johnny Depp plays a flawless Corso and I liked Emmanuelle Seigner as the Girl: she plays it with a cool humor that goes very well with the movie. And I liked the off-the-wall details, like the mannish secretary or the book sellers who are identical twins. Only one thing bothered me: do the dealers of rare books really smoke so much among their merchandise? At one point, one of them drops ashes all over the Portas book... I actually cringed at that!

Am I Beautiful? (1998)

Quest for love

[8 September 2002]

This movie knits a web of stories that revolve around the loveless wedding of a girl, concerning her mother and father, her sisters, her former boyfriend, the wedding party caterer, a girl accidentally met in a rainy evening, and the people these people meet: a Spanish man who brings the ashes of his dead German wife to Germany, to bring her to the rain and green grass she missed; an extravagant girl who seeks the attention of strangers by pretending she is handicapped or ill; the father's mistress who slashes her wrists in a clandestine visit to her lover's house; an abandoned old woman found by the younger sister in the airport.

The stories, located half in Germany and half in Spain, can be intensely poetic, or intensely brutal, or funny, or poignant, and make up an absorbing whole. All of them have to do with love, love being found, lost or hankered after. By the end of the movie the stories have not been brought to any closure; like in life, there are no neat endings.

The Way of the Gun (2000)

An editor is sorely needed

[7 September 2002]

I'm rather bemused by the kind of benevolence this movie has received from the critics. In one review I read, the critic rather sheepishly says that the movie is flawed but "there is some great movie somewhere in it." Hum. This is like saying that any blue-eyed blonde with an hourglassy figure can be a potential Marilyn.

The story starts out with a couple of losers who overhear a conversation about millionaires and surrogate mothers in a sperm bank and on that basis they hatch a harebrained plot for a kidnapping. If you've read enough hardboiled literature you'll know that things will go to hell soon enough, and they do, but in rather unexpected, and not very credible, ways. The increasingly confusing action involves a flight to Mexico, a mafia henchman with a rather supernatural skill to show up all over the place, the losers' loser "friend" who mysteriously turns out to be a friend also of the other bad guys, a stressed mafia boss, his deranged wife and his son, a doctor with a serious ethics problem and who on top of that, can't act.

And, for a Spanish-speaker like myself the movie has yet another reason to be grating: whenever the characters speak in Spanish, whatever they say is unintelligible. Starting with the name of the Mexican hotel, Nació Madre. In really hackneyed Spanish (I mean, no real Spanish-speaking person would use such a phrase, and much less name a hotel with it), this means something like "a mother was born." The meaning of that, as with most things about this movie, is for me as clear as the foot in my face.

The Next Best Thing (2000)

Someone should put Madonna's acting career out of its misery

[2 September 2002]

I find it unbelievable that after so many years, and so many flawed attempts and so many flops, there is still people willing to put money in movies for Madonna to act in. Just face it, people: the woman can't act. She is good at changing her image, which is the main reason why she is still around and has not yet joined the rest of the '80s pop acts in that big prairie in the sky where dead pop acts go when they pass on. Image changing, however, is not the same thing as acting; you don't make everyone believe you are a different person just by changing your hairdo. But there are still suckers who remain unconvinced: not only they still put her in movies, but also, the movies they put her in are not real movies: they are Madonna's vehicles. Everything in the movie is built around the concept that she must look good at all times. In this movie, they even shine a torch or something on her face all the time, with the purpose, I guess, of making her look luminous and other-wordly.

It doesn't help at all that her character in this movie is a repellent, manipulative and selfish woman. The only reason why I watched this excruciating piece of torture till the end was because I hoped she would get her just deserts by the end. I should have known better, ha?

Vertical Limit (2000)

So unendearingly incompetent...

[15 July 2002]

You know those movies in which the hero/ine is so incompetent that you find it hard to sympathize with him/her at all? Like the bimbo (as described in "Scream") who goes up the stairs instead of out of the front door when the slasher is going after her? Well, if you do like this kind of movies or heroes/heroines, you'll have a field day with Vertical Limit, in which the protagonists, purportedly the best climbers ever, commit over and over again the kind of mistake that would get them killed if they tried to climb a flight of stairs in their grandmother's house, not to mention what would happen to them if they tried indeed to climb a very high and bad-tempered mountain, as they are supposed to.

So the movie is about two hours of watching our heroes slipping, tripping, getting lost, their ropes snapping, their axes sliding out, their dangerous and extremely toxic explosives spilling out... They are soooo stoooooopid, it is very very hard to feel anything but impatience for them.

Not to mention the toilet-paper-thin realism. Everybody else has mentioned how they lit fires and don't suffer of any kind of oxygen deprivation in thin air, or how you cannot see their breath even in very low temperatures. This is one no one else has mentioned so maybe I'm the one who's wrong, but, aren't loud noises a no-no in high mountain, because they can trigger avalanches? So, isn't it a bit unorthodox to attempt a rescue by blasting the mountain away with nitroglicerin? Isn't it a bit unorthodox in any case?

What else can be said about this movie. The acting is bad, the plot is bad, the special effects are bad. The continuity is bad. The direction is bad. It does not even work as unintentional comedy. And they found Ed Wood so funny because of the incompetence of his movies. These guys are just like good ol' Ed, only with more money.

Final Destination (2000)

Good opening scene... but forget about the rest

[6 April 2002]

I actually wasn't going to watch this movie, I had the TV on while I was doing something else and this movie came up. I was hooked, however, by the plane crash scene in the beginning, which must be the scariest, most horrific, most realistic scene of this type ever. The story about its being a dream that comes true after the dreamer and some other passengers leave the plane and are therefore saved, this was also interesting, as well as the fear, instead of gratitude, that the dreamer inspires. Maybe this was not such a bad movie after all.

Ah, but in the end it was. All of a sudden it becomes a supernatural teen slasher movie, with Death playing the part of Freddy Kruger, Jason and other famous slashers. After the first survivor dies, the dreamer protagonist works out that by escaping the plane they have cheated Death, who does not take kindly to this, and therefore sets out to finish his business, by killing the survivors one by one, in true slasher movie fashion. Our hero not only deducts this, but he is also more or less warned about this by an odd mortician who may or may not be Death himself. And then he works out Death's "design" (a favorite word of the scriptwriter), by guessing who will be the next victim, and how the victims can be saved if someone else intervenes on time. If this sounds terminally ridiculous, it is because the movie well... is silly indeed. Even those who loved the movie cannot deny that every word I've just written is true.

The problem here is an indigestible mixture of things that just don't work together; it is like a pizza with meringue and cheese topping. There is nothing wrong with a good slasher movie, if your tastes run that way, but good slasher movies never take themselves seriously, something fully understood and taken to the limits by Scream, a top example. Final Destination, however, takes itself dead seriously (sorry, bad pun). Its mixture of profound speculation about the possibility of cheating death and the slapstick nature of the death scenes is just self-defeating. Since Death cannot wield the knife himself, everybody just has to die in an accident; not just any accident, they have to be particularly bizarre and convoluted, and (unintentionally, I suspect) hilarious.

Anyway. If it is shown on TV, you can watch the opening minutes. Then you can find yourself something else to do.

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

A sociopath with a conscience

[16 March 2002]

I don't think that movies based upon books should follow slavishly their source (for instance, the recent verbatim movie transcription of Harry Potter is for me a pointless exercise). But, at least, the movie should respect the spirit of the original, and this is what didn't happen with the movie version of Patricia Highsmith's "The Talented Mr Ripley," in which Ripley, the most calculating, icy-blooded sociopath ever to hit the world of fiction becomes a repentant sinner, a killer with a conscience who sees the ghost of his murdered victim on the streets. This is all wrong: it is like a movie version of "Crime and Punishment" in which Raskolnikov doesn't repent. Maybe you would get an interesting movie, but it would not be "Crime and Punishment" and it should not be entitled to call itself an adaptation of that book.

Another thing is the homosexuality angle: it rather bothers me, this trend to believe that authors did not refer to certain things in a brutally honest manner because they were prudes or because censorship restraints prevented them from doing so. I think that Highsmith's subtle handling of Ripley's possible homosexuality is a conscious aesthetic choice. Let's say that the movie's handling of this matter is as unsubtle as everything else about it.

The general result is, as Stephen King put it, not good or bad, just blah. It underestimates the intelligence of its audience and essentially wastes a very good cast, starting with a fine Matt Damon and an excellent Jude Law. Nobody gets more wasted, however, than Cate Blanchett, whose character (which does not exist in any of Ripley's books) is so fluffy that there is very little she can do about it, other than rolling her eyes and smiling uncertainly.

Or, then, maybe it's me who is all wrong. I have read other comments from people who claimed to be disturbed by the movie. If they were disturbed by this diet version, how would they feel about the real thing, that puts you squarely in the shoes of a heartless killer and even forces you to root for him? Maybe the makers of this movie knew what they were doing after all...

Resurrection (1999)

This movie wants to be 'Se7en' when it grows up

[13 March 2002]

This movie held me in awe: not because it was that good, but because of how shamelessly it ripped-off David Fincher's 'Se7en.' Let's see: right in the beginning, there is a scene in which the protagonist Prudhomme parts from his wife who is still asleep but not quite. Then he goes to see a dead body in an old house. It is raining. Then he gets into an argument with two fellow cops by a staircase (a curious scene, because it was supposed to demonstrate that he is not liked by the other cops, who get along well enough with him during the rest of the movie). Then he goes to see the dead body, which has been badly mutilated. I had decided by then that if the dead person was a fat guy with his face in a dish of spaghetti I would switch channels. It wasn't, but the guy in question had been mutilated while still alive, like another one of the victims in 'Se7en.' Then they go to see the coroner. Anyway, if you are familiar with 'Se7en' you must have realized by now that 'Resurrection' is almost a scene-by-scene carbon copy of that movie. I spent the rest of the movie recognizing scenes I had already seen in Fincher's movie. The plot is similar (the chase of a religiously inspired serial killer), there are similar incidents, like the eternal rain, the killer whose identity is impossible to know, the threat to the protagonist's wife, the messages written in blood, the clues left by the killer. Even some camera takes and some dialogue lines have been culled directly from Se7en: it is truly uncanny. They went presumably as far as they could go without risking a plagiarism suit. And, whenever it is not stealing stuff from 'Se7en,' 'Resurrection' is busy borrowing from other movies, like when the killer glues a gun to the hands of an innocent man, so the cops would think he is threatening them and shoot him, something seen in 'F/X,' and the 'crucified' dead body from the 'Silence of the Lambs.'

Of course, 'Se7en' is far superior as regards depth, characters' psychology, interest, not to mention originality, and virtually everything else. Also, in all the places where 'Se7en' was adventurous and daring, 'Resurrection' chickens out; it is rather like a Se7en for people with weaker stomachs and more conventional tastes. Christophe Lambert is no Morgan Freeman (he's not even Brad Pitt), the killer is no Kevin Spacey, and Russell Mulcahy, a director who started well his career with a nice horror movie called 'Razorback' but never lived up to his promise, is no David Fincher. If I had not been so interested in seeing what else they would steal from 'Se7en' next, I would have probably given up on it, because after a while it gets very irritating. It takes so long to catch the killer not because if his intelligence, but because of the incompetence of the detectives, the judges, the district attorney, the beat cops and everybody else in law enforcement. The only feeling this movie left in me is an intense impression that I should have been watching 'Se7en' again instead.

Titanic (1997)

An apotheosis of cheese

[19 February 2002]

I am not as much offended by this movie because of its historical inaccuracy. It is true that for all the hype about how the china, carpeting and furniture reproduced exactly those of the Titanic, and how the ship sunk exactly in the way described by the movie, and so on, the plot is entirely fictitious and proud of it. In itself that is not bad, what's bad is how cheesy and cliché this plot is, and that this cheesy, cliché and invented story occupies 90% of the movie's attention, with the sinking of the ship treated as something on the side. The only important people are the main couple, Jack and Rose, her fiancé and her mother. The remaining characters are treated with a disinterest that borders on disrespect. We only get to know that the third-class passengers are fun-loving and warm, and those in first-class are stuffy, snobbish and exceedingly preoccupied with dinner cutlery. Wow, isn't that new! The whole thing is so fake, it was really difficult to get minimally interested.

This movie is the triumph of Hollywood's latest formula, followed also by `Armageddon' and `Pearl Harbor': some action for the boys, romance for the girls, everybody happy (though from the comments I've read here from boyfriends dragged kicking and screaming to see it, maybe I'm wrong about everybody being happy). In the case of Titanic it worked: Leo's fans went to see the movie over and over again, sending its box-office gains into the stratosphere. Truth to tell, it is too much to ask of a megazillion-budget movie like this to be anything but cliché: it just had to be meretriciously agreeable for the largest possible number of people, so anything adventurous, minimally controversial or profound was out of the question.

But, as I said, so many people liked it, so, what do I know? However, if you are interested in seeing something really related to the Titanic, watch the British movie `A Night to Remember.' The special effects are not so cool, and it is in black and white, but it is far more accurate and infinitely more dignified.

Wild Things (1998)

One twist too many

[16 February 2002]

This is the typical movie that is far too clever for its own good. The plot has lots of twists and turns, which in itself is not bad, of course. The problem is that eventually there is a twist too many and the plot finally derails, with one of the most unconvincing endings I have seen in a movie of this kind.

Of course, you are not supposed to notice that because of the movie's rather lurid, um, erotic side, evidently designed to deviate the audience's attention from the plot's holes. The problem with it is that it apparently takes into account only the male audience, which is supplied with abundant eye candy under the form (forms?) (I'm sorry, I can't help it!) of Ms. Denise Richards, who can't act, but I understand that men should consider her pretty nice to look at. The female audience, on the other hand, is only offered the charms of Matt Dillon, something I really don't get, and Kevin Bacon's butt. Well, not just his butt, you can see something else if you look closely enough. Because it is during such a brief moment, I mean, not because the item in question is too small. Again I'm sorry, I suppose I'll be fulminated by lightning by saying this, but this is exactly the kind of thing this movie inspires.

To make matters worse, the acting is uniformly bad, because the actors cannot do better or because their characters keep on changing personalities in such a way that it was impossible to keep up. Thank God for Bill Murray, whose ambulance-chasing lawyer is not only the movie's best performance but also its most likeable character. I guess, enough said.

The Red Violin (1998)

As inanimate as the violin itself

[16 February 2002]

I prefer not to speculate on the reasons why so many people gave such good scores to this movie. This is the worst kind of "art" movie, as self-indulging, fawning, simplistic and manipulative as the worst kind of Hollywood product. It intends to portray the power of music to affect the lives of human beings, but it does so in such a facile way that it never achieves the power to move, only to irritate. The only segment I found (a bit) moving was the Chinese story, and even this one wastes the character of the old music teacher who risks prison or worse in order to save his instruments. The English segment was sooooo ludicrous, I would have laughed if I hadn't felt my intelligence so thoroughly insulted. The other segments were just forgettable.

The music is pretty, but that's it.

Armageddon (1998)

I knew this movie would be stupid, but...

[16 February 2002]

There is a movie from about thirty years ago called "The Dirty Dozen", which, if I remember correctly (I haven't seen it again lately) was about a bunch of criminals, perverts and psychos who are sent to a suicide mission behind enemy lines; if they got back alive, they would be pardoned. This movie spawned a series of sequels and ripoffs, none of which was as good as the original, as it is usual in these cases. The latest of this bad imitations, and probably the most ridiculous, is "Armageddon," a centaur of a movie in which the old world-goes-blooey theme gets spliced with the Dirty Dozen concept. Granted, in this movie the heroes are not actually criminals (I guess that would be stretching things beyond breaking point), but they are as close to that as you can be without actually getting in real trouble with the law (beyond the occasional bar brawl, I mean).

Now, the Dirty Dozen didn't really have much trouble in the plausibility department, because the idea of reckless, nothing-to-lose men being more able to carry out a not completely kosher kamikaze mission than regular and disciplined soldiers is not unbelievable. But, why are we supposed to believe that, true as it is that the powers that be can be quite dumb, they would trust the delicate task of saving the Earth to a bunch of unreliable, undisciplined, uneducated, unprovided-for in the brains department, un-everything-that-matters bunch of louts, instead of asking regular astronauts and scientists, who are paid anyway to deal with such things? In most movies of this kind you just know that what you are seeing is not real, but at least while the movie lasts you believe it. That famous suspension of disbelief stuff, remember? The funny thing is that the movie seems to be aware of its weaknesses and does nothing to address them. At one point Willis's character asks: There are so many billions of people in the world, why me? And later, hearing the scheme to destroy the asteroid, he asks: Now is this the best you could come up with? Interesting questions! The pity is, nobody thinks it fit to answer.

Even if the movie concept was silly, it could have been saved if at least it had some good action in it, but I have to say I felt amazed (considering its juicy budget) at how incompetently this movie was made: the action scenes are all shot in images shuffled at machine-gun speed and hardly intelligible, and how can you root for the good guys if you can hardly see them? And the syrupy, saccharinous, high-glucose, actually-poisonous-for-diabetics love story thrown in for the chicks' benefit… well, I'm a chick, and my opinion is Yikes! I wish they stopped doing that! If a girl watches an action movie, it is because she likes action! If she wanted to watch sentimental drivel she would stay home and watch the Hallmark Channel!

The Truman Show (1998)

How's it going to end?

[10/10 · 16 February 2002]

(Warning: spoilers ahead) For me, The Truman Show is as close to a perfect movie as you are likely to get: not only it provides you with abundant food for thought, but also it is beautiful to see and very, very entertaining. It goes beyond the simple speculation about the value of privacy and the lack of ethics in the entertainment business, but it leads to ponder about weightier things, for instance the matter of a sheltered but not very interesting life vs. a life of adventure with nothing guaranteed. Also, the reason why utopias don't work: Christof thinks that a world that resembles a fifties movie is the perfect world, whereas Truman's dream is to explore some South Pacific island never visited by man. And, of course, the quest for truth vs. a beautiful lie: In his obstinate search for the true world, Truman understands that truth's beauty surpasses any lie, no matter how shiny or cozy.

The movie is full of visual beauty, especially towards the end, when the "perfect" world starts to unravel with Truman's flight. The Magrittesque images of the moon-as-a-spotlight, the boat ramming the sky and Truman walking on water to a staircase apparently suspended above the horizon are the kind of thing that you just can't forget.

Jim Carrey plays a perfect Truman, innocent but also determined. In fact it is hard to imagine another actor playing this role. Ed Harris is also perfect, truly frightening in a role that would have looked ridiculous in the hands of a lesser actor. Laura Linney, as Truman's dimple-cheeked "wife" plays very well the sinister side of her character.

Of course, everyone is free to dislike this movie, but there are some things I'd like to say about the negative comments: to begin with, lots of people wondered about the possibility of anyone wanting to see a TV program like this... The only thing I have to say about this is that I'm surprised at how fast (only within a couple of years) this objection has become irrelevant. The other objection was about the movie's allegedly "happy" ending. I don't think the ending is "happy": Truman and Sylvia disappear both through dark doorways, and, although we are free to imagine that they will eventually be together and happy living in Fidji, we don't know if this is really what will happen. But this is the point, isn't it, not to know how's it going to end?

The Crowd (1928)

If you watched in your life only one silent movie, this would have to be it

[16 February 2002]

Many movies from the silent age are beautiful to look at but we always feel that they belong to a different age, and it is hard to relate to them. On the other hand this one, although it cannot be said that it is as if it was shot yesterday, is almost incredibly fresh and up-to-date.

This is the story of a perfectly ordinary man with no special talent, who thinks he can succeed and "beat the crowd" and is defeated. Sounds familiar? King Vidor didn't want big stars in this movie, and his concern was to portray the life of ordinary people trapped in their circumstances. We are quite used to this kind of story these days, but at the time it was revolutionary. The shots of everyday New York life were something new (also, this is the first movie in which a toilet appears). Thanks to this commitment to realism, the acting is far more natural than it was usual for the age. James Murray, Eleanor Boardman and Bert Roach are all excellent. The protagonist John is certainly a pathetic creature but in the movie he is invested with tragic dignity.

Most people seem to be particularly taken by the expressionistic scene near the beginning in which the camera examines the city and the crowd and then picks up John in the middle of what seems to be a sea of desks. I myself prefer the ending, in which it seems that John has a shot at achieving success, but such success would be as a writer of pathetic publicity slogans. Then him and Mary dissolve back into the crowd, in the middle of a theater crammed with laughing idiots.