winstonnc Reviews

Physical Media Lives (2021)

Creepy people hording horrible movies

[1/10 · 17 September 2022]

You'd think someone interested in the art of filmmaking or film history or the evolution of a director or even an actor might have been interviewed. But no, it's just an endless parade of man-child dolts (and one woman or two) blathering on about how they've turned their houses into mini-Blockbusters filled floor-to-ceiling with gory D-grade horror movies. I'm a collector, too, and am appalled at the black eye this "documentary" gives us. Really, if any of these guys ever got off their duffs (or had the intelligence), they should have been proctologists since they relish cinematic excrement so highly.

It's a Sin (2021)

Superb, engrossing and heart-breaking drama

[9/10 · 24 February 2021]

There are been many, many plays, movies and TV shows about the AIDS epidemic, and for many, the subject, indeed the genre, may seem exhausted and, with today's treatments, far away. "It's a Sin," however, offers something new and quite different, especially in its later episodes, which take on facets of the epidemic - the denial of gay men who put themselves and others at risk, the behaviors of parents and friends - I've not seen brought up before. The cast is excellent and so is the writing, though a lad urinating into Margaret Thatcher's coffee seems rather off the wall. American audiences may have some trouble with the dialogue, as the regional accents are rather thick.

Almost Famous (2000)

A blast from the past!

[9/10 · 18 January 2020]

If you are old enough to remember the era and its music, you'll have a blast! Great performances and wonderful music here. What a great time the early 70s were. Avoid the director's cut which bogs down the story and stick with the original theater version which is harder to find now.

Apollo 11 (I) (2019)

Exciting material, dull presentation

[7/10 · 16 May 2019]

OK, I couldn't see this in IMAX, which might have made the unearthed 65mm footage look spectacular. Otherwise, this is a rather pedestrian overview of flight. I was 26 then and remember the thrill of the event. Somehow this film doesn't capture the excitement. It's just a by-the-numbers, Readers Digest version of history. I rather preferred the older moon history, "For All Mankind," better.

Score (2016)

Not bad but ...

[7/10 · 8 September 2017]

"Score" is not a bad overview of film music history and craft, albeit somewhat simplistic ... and some folks here, perhaps inadvertently, say things that are obvious or pretty stupid. Is there a single reference here to Erich Wolfgang Korngold? I think not. Instead Steiner and Newman get too much credit that symphonic sound in films forged in the 1930s. But what mostly irritated me was the film's way of equating of today's film composers with the masters of yesteryear. Most of them aren't worthy to shine their shoes.

Antarctica: A Year on Ice (2013)

A visual marvel

[8/10 · 31 August 2015]

Powell's time-lapse cinematography, which seems to take up about half the running time, is astonishing - eerie, hypnotic and beautiful. This is a world very few will ever know firsthand - or want to - but Powell certainly reveals its beauties. The film is meant to be a chronicle, and there is no narrative per se. The last third of the film drags a bit here and there and some of the interviews get a tad repetitive. Those who like this will find Werner Herzog's "Encounters at the End of the World" an interesting contrast. Werner Herzog's focus is less on the place but the filmmaker's fascination with the people who go Antartica and their reasons for wanting to be there.

The Visit (1964)

Weak adaptation of classic play

[4/10 · 27 December 2014]

Bergman and Quinn are ill cast and way too young as the leads but the insurmountable problem is the castration of Durrenmatt's finale - in which the good but greedy citizens of Gullen take the money, strangle Schill and present Claire with his corpse, which she carries off with her with much pomp and circumstance. I saw the Lunts play the leads (their theater farewell) when I was 17 and still remember the play, especially the ending, vividly. (I've seen Kander and Ebb's stab at a musical version, as well.) The play is a kind of dark parable or fairy tale about vengeance and the ways love can be perverted into something horrible. Claire has a line about her love growing gnarled and twisted like the roots of the trees in the forest where she made love to Schill as a girl. The film simply doesn't work. Perhaps in 1964 there was no way to get Durrenmatt's ending past what remained of the censors. Also the film looks pretty bad, obviously shot on the cheap in eastern Europe,and the only available DVD (in the US) is a pan-and-scan version of the original 2:35:1 B&W print.

The Two Faces of January (2014)

True to Highsmith

[8/10 · 8 December 2014]

Whatever its faults, this is one of the few film adaptations of a Highsmith novel that gets the feel of a Highsmith story just right. The exotic locals, bored ex-pat Americans, the tension (sexual and otherwise), the "frisson" of the characters and their interactions - it's all here. Not a lot of physical action occurs in some of Highsmith's novels ("The Tremor of Forgery" being a prime example) - it's all in the psychological and often deadly interplay of the characters. This film has it and I salute it for getting it right. Clearly the writer and director have studied Highsmith enough to know the style. "Two Faces" is far truer to her than "Strangers on a Train" or "The Talented Mr. Ripley."

Leather (2013)

Amatuerville

[3/10 · 11 February 2014]

Why does every "gay" movie seem so much the same? Gay life is enormously varied but you'd never know that from the movies about gay life, most of which rehash the same clichés of father-son angst and trite rites of"coming out." "Leather," whose title might lead viewers to think it's something it's not, is yet another film in that long, tiresome line. I suspect the filmmakers' hearts were in the right place. There are moments when you suspect something heartfelt and meaningful is going to happen in this rural tale of a New York City boy who falls in love with a boyhood friend who's morphed into an idealized woodsman - but the writing and acting and are so amateurish and the production work so slipshod the emotions of the film never gain traction.

Kon-Tiki (2012)

Sometimes the truth is better

[7/10 · 1 February 2013]

Heyerdahl's original Oscar-winning documentary shot on 16mm film during the voyage made a lasting impression when I first saw it in the early 1950s, when I couldn't have been more than 7 or 8. About five years ago, I was able to see it again and marvel not only at the courage and perseverance of Heyerdahl and his crew, but the strides man has made in transportation, electronics and communication in my lifetime. The new film, unfortunately, fails to capture the spirit of the original documentary, inserts a lot of highly speculative high drama, then stops when the raft finds the right currents to carry it to Polynesia. The differences in the films is symbolized by the men's mascot, Loretta. In the real-life film, she's a very small parrot who gets lost a storm. In the new film, she's a brightly colored Macaw who gets eaten by a pack of CGI sharks. Sometimes the truth IS better.

Somebody Moved My Mountain (1975)

Vanity production happily forgotten

[1/10 · 31 December 2012]

Joseph Wallace King, a one-armed portrait painter and jester at the court of the family of R.J. Reynolds, concocted this vanity project. King wrote, produced and directed this epic about a college boy who discovers his girl friend has been unfaithful and runs off to the North Carolina mountains to "find" himself. About all he "finds" are dozens of King's friends (some of who were rumored to have paid to be in the movie) and various notables from Winston-Salem NC in the mid 1970s. Ralph Scales, then president of Wake Forest University, turns up, as do Hamilton Horton, a popular politician, and scads of others. I originally reviewed the film for the local newspaper and wondered as the time how anyone as far off as Greensboro (a mere 30 miles away) would make heads or tails of it. The premiere was akin to a cross between a Hollywood gala and getting your vacation pictures back from the drug store.

Road to Perdition (2002)

Superbly done

[9/10 · 22 July 2002]

Casting, casting, casting. It's been said before and it can only be said again here. Take a great cast, give it a good director and a decent script and watch the sparks fly. Casting Hanks was a gamble, but it pays off handsomely. Watching a man so equated with moral, normal men pay a troubled hit man makes us squirm ... and puts us smack-dab in the discomfort of the character's dilemma. Newman, well, this is his best work since "The Verdict" and "The Color of Money." He's not going gently in to that "good night," and the lightning flashes and the thunder rolls. Law, as the film's creepiest villain, is the psychopath of years to come, one who kills not for money or honor but sick thrills. Oscar noms are richly deserved for all three, and Conrad Hall will take home another for the photography. If the film has a flaw, it's probably it's very neatness. Apart from the failure to do anything much with Jennifer Jason Leigh's character (some of her scenes must have wound up on the cutting-roon floor), the film is almost too symetrical and neatly fitted together. But it's a small flaw.

Nine Queens (2000)

Ingenious ... Can't wait for the remake

[7/10 · 22 July 2002]

A very ingenious film, with more twists and turns than you can count and a deliciously droll kicker of an ending. As good as it is, I can easily see a better Americanized version, with perhaps George Clooney as the con man who gets conned, Julia Roberts as the sister and bright newcomer as the "innocent" younger con man. Too bad Pitt and Damon are too old for that now, and have lost the edge of guileless innocence the part requires. But the seedier side of New York City would be a perfect American setting, and I can see Abe Vigoda as the forger, Sylvia Miles as the aunt and an number of veteran New York actors turning in great supporting turns. A good project for Soderburg, one would think.