imdb-2078 Reviews

A History of Violence (2005)

Remarkably Inept

[4/10 · 5 September 2006]

Great acting can't save this film, in which absolutely everything feels unnatural. Its origins as a "graphic novel" are all too apparent: every scene, word, and action feel like panels in a comic book.

The problem is that it disturbs the flow of the movie; it's hard to stay with the plot when every character acts like a comic-book character instead of a real one. If the movie were tongue-in-cheek it might work, but clearly we're supposed to take things seriously -- and that's hard to do when every word and action ring false.

Mortensen is very good, Bello is excellent (and smokin'), Ed Harris is brilliant, and William Hurt is completely miscast as a Philly gangster boss.

Both the violence and sex are graphic; the former is gratuitous and disturbing, the latter is very affecting.

Scorcher (I) (2002)

There's bad, and then there's BAD.

[1/10 · 19 January 2006]

Wow, is this bad.

The problem with this movie--besides a budget of $11--is that the premise contains no real conflict for the hero to overcome--it just wouldn't be that hard for the US military to detonate a bomb in an evacuated Los Angeles. So the makers start pulling obstacles and conflict out of thin air about halfway through--none of which make a lick of sense.

Characters inexplicably turn bad or suddenly start behaving contrary to everyone's interest, including their own; boogie men pop up out of nowhere for no discernible reason; and of course the hero's daughter improbably needs to be rescued from conveniently nearby. She, by the way, survives a car fire by hiding--get this--in the trunk. Yeah, that would work.

About three-quarters of the way in you realize that the reason the bomb has to be detonated in Los Angeles is that the director needed to shoot this movie across the street from his brother's dry cleaning shop so he wouldn't be late for his shift.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "A-hah! This guy doesn't recognize a spoof when he sees one! Clearly this movie is tongue-in-cheek!"

Wrong--it isn't. It's just really, really bad.

House of Sand and Fog (2003)

Great acting overcomes flaws.

[7/10 · 12 August 2004]

Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo are brilliant in this adaptation of Andre Dubus III's novel. Kingsley in particular simmers as Col. Behrani; his performance at the climax will stay with you a long time.

Jennifer Connelly is quite good, though perhaps a bit young for the part. The decision, though, to make her character somewhat sympathetic undermines to a degree the motive for her behavior. This may be the film's only objectionable flaw.

One wishes they'd resisted the temptation to make Connelly's character more complex; it would have reduced the need to rely on Ron Eldard's deputy as a plot driving device. People surely do stupid things in life, but you'll be hard-pressed to accept his character's exceptionally numb-skulled behavior as anything but an expository tool. Kingsley versus Connelly would have been enough had they allowed both, and not just Kingsley, to dig in unwaveringly.

No matter. Suspend your disbelief, ignore the plot problems, and let it wash over you like a parable.

The Prisoner (1967–1968)

Tale of the Tape

[30 July 2004]

Patrick McGoohan quit his gig playing a secret agent on UK TV to write, direct, and star in his own series.

He made 13 episodes (one season), 12 of which aired before he left to make a movie, after which three horrible episodes were cobbled together by others as filler, after which they aired the original 13th episode, after which he wrote and shot a "final" episode in about an hour.

The series itself is an entertaining science fiction/cold war spy thing that's mostly an allegory about man's struggle with society--except the last episode, which is a jumbled mess resembling "The Magical Mystery Tour" that McGoohan threw together to confuse his audience and leave them arguing about its meaning on the Internet for centuries.

By the way, it turns out we're our own captors in society, and therefor struggling with oursel--oh never-mind.

Concert for George (2003 Video)

Really nice film only slightly marred by Lynn's perfectionist mixes.

[9/10 · 4 January 2004]

Touching, heartfelt. It was wonderful to hear all those great songs so perfectly performed.

Almost too perfectly. Of course, Jeff Lynn and Mark Mann of ELO mixed it, and lord knows Lynn would never burden us with anything human.

Apart from that injudicious perfection, the film is a glorious and uplifting celebration of the coolest Beatle and his music. So many of these songs are stand-outs that it nearly breaks your heart to think that George performed so seldomly. One wonders if his having been a Beatle deprived the world of the fullest blossoming of a great singer-songwriter.

It's hard, from our perspective, to understand how Beatledom must have caged him in, both personally and professionally, and we're left with only inexplicable regret for what might have been.

But never mind. On this film his music sings with the soaring spirituality and optimism that George Harrison clearly felt was what the world needed. The optimism may be dated, but the need is not.

The DVD looked great on wide-screen HD. Highly recommended.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)

How did the actors get through this?

[4/10 · 4 January 2004]

Add me to the list of people who saw this as a kid, loved it, rented it for my own kid to watch, and was disappointed. It hasn't aged well.

There are great performances in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but the musical numbers are so dreadful that you have to feel for Van Dyke and Howes. How did she ever get through "Lonely Man"? And the bamboo song--what in the world was that supposed to be?

"Posh" would be good if it wasn't so shamelessly contrived to sound like "A Little Bit of Luck" from "My Fair Lady". Jefferies does a fine job, but the material--ugh. It's a wonder they didn't put him in a top hat and shabby tails to complete the rip-off.

Howes in particular deserves credit for a great effort on her numbers; it must have been quite a challenge to learn and perform material so lacking in focus and so utterly unmoving. I dare anyone to do a good job with "Lonely Man"--it's an awful song.

The one unqualified success is Robert Helpmann as the Child Catcher. My son--a jaded product of modern media excess--was as scared as I'd been all those years ago. We had to show him IMDb's photo of Helpmann in street dress to get him to sleep that night.

But, sadly, as another has commented: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang provides a great view of Hollywood hopelessly lost from generational confusion.

Sorry to slam the happy memories, but this mostly stinks. Great acting but really, really, horrible music.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)

Hilarious.

[9/10 · 8 August 2003]

How it made me think of my mother growing up working in her uncle's restaurant, her father behind the grill. She, too, begged to go to college, and used Anglocized variations of her name.

Maybe you have to be Greek to appreciate this movie fully.

Toula's father says to her, "you look so old--when will you get married?", and when her brother--just a year younger--says "I'll get married, too, dad" the father smiles and says, "Oh, Nicky, you have plenty of time!".

Did you catch her eating a sandwich on plain white bread with the "in" girls in college? Not going to make the same mistake twice!

Her fiancé agrees to be baptized in the Orthodox church, and Toula's bimbo cousin Nikki is his godmother. Nice boobs.

He must really love Toula a bunch, huh? Seems to pleasantly endure an awful lot: the baptism, the pranks, the fact that his wedding is co-opted by her family and that his parents are marginalized. Yup, he must love their daughter a whole lot.

Maybe they realize this?

The food. Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin) tells Ian to come over her house for a big meal; he says he's a vegetarian and she says "that's OK, I'll make lamb".

And do you think Toula's mother peeled enough potatoes for dinner?

If your family hasn't been in this country since the War of 1812, rent this movie.

East Is East (1999)

A great film greatly misunderstood.

[8/10 · 22 June 2003]

Contains spoilers.

Not a movie for those with literal minds, obviously.

This is not a film portraying Muslims or Pakistanis as bad and western society as good. It's not about wife-beating or making fun of ugly girls, or homosexuals, or any of that nonsense. It's about a man--overly concerned with society's opinion of him--who struggles with an increasing feeling of impotence in a changing world.

He could be any man in any society. The film could as easily be about a fundamentalist Christian father who fears his children's slipping away. To view this movie strictly in literal terms--to think it is about Muslims or Pakistanis--is to completely miss the point. That's simply the canvas for a larger theme.

This father mistakenly places what society thinks of his family ahead of what the family itself wants. He's not evil--he's trying to do good--but errs in identifying what good is, and misses the signs that he's gone wrong.

He has his youngest son circumcised at 8 years old. He hits his devoted wife, beats the one son who takes his side, and promises his two middle sons to ugly cows whose snobby mother sits in his house and insults his wife and children--all in the name of doing what's "right" for his family.

His wife tells the awful prospective mother-in-law "my sons are too good for your daughters" because it's TRUE. Her husband has his head so far up his butt that rather than be embarrassed in front of his peers he takes for his sons the girls no other father would. His son Tariq is the catch of the town-- gorgeous women are literally fighting over him--and his father signs him up at a moment's glance to the ugliest girl in England.

This after his first son ran out on an arranged marriage.

Please don't tell me I'm horrible for judging the girls by their looks. They're SUPPOSED to be ugly to make a point. They're a PLOT DEVICE, meant to illustrate just how wrong George has gone. We're not "laughing at fat girls"--we're laughing at a father who doesn't realize his own sons are way out of these particular fat girls' league.

I'm sure they're lovely people, and that there are nice boys out there for them. But not his sons.

Ultimately the family bands together to stand up to him, and only then does he realize whose side he's really on.

Highly recommended to anyone who had a parent who meant well. Great film.

The Closet (2001)

Funny, and easy to watch.

[6/10 · 9 June 2003]

Mild French farce in which a sad-sack office worker with a go-nowhere job in a condom factory (Daniel Auteuil) rises socially and professionally after his co-workers and boss mistakenly believe he's gay. Gerard Depardieu is hilarious as the office jerk who's forced to be nice to Auteuil once this "homosexuality" is discovered.

Depardieu as a rugby-playing Neanderthal stuffed into a cheap, too-small business suit is a riot. His entire world is turned upside down by the PC mandate that he be nice to "the gay guy".

The film is predictable without being boring, and winkingly chastising without being pedantic. Don't worry about troublesome plot gaps--it's funny and charming and entertaining anyway.

Not "War and Peace", but definitely good for a laugh.

Sunshine State (2002)

Great characters, too much dialog

[5/10 · 15 May 2003]

Love Sayles, and while in this film he creates some memorable characters--particularly Desiree and Marly--the fact is he wrote it a little too tight. There's simply too much he wants to say to fit in the mouths of the actors, and they're left reciting paragraph after meaningful paragraph instead of acting.

The effort is laudable, but the result is a dearth of real emotion. It plays a bit like the penultimate draft of a script, before the final paring removes all but the truly essential.

Compare it to the brilliant "Lone Star", which left lots of space around the dialog but lacked for nothing.

Sunshine State is game effort from a great writer, and it's enjoyable for the acting. But the packed script left me feeling a bit like I'd just prepared for a test.

Best in Show (2000)

Hilarious

[7/10 · 15 May 2003]

Damn, is Fred Willard funny in this movie. He's like Joe Garagiola gone completely bananas.

Also great is Christopher Guest's hound-dog accent as "Harlan Pepper". How does he keep it up?

Catherine O'Hara is hilarious. Eugene Levy is funny playing the same character he always does--hey, someone has to be the nerdy Jewish guy, right? In Guffman he was a dentist; here he's a men's clothing salesman. With dorky glasses, of course.

Best of all is John Michael Higgins an the funniest guy character you've seen on the screen. Neither a victim nor a fool, he's funny, carefree, out of the closet, and a fearless button-pusher. Not at all a buffoon ala Nathan Lane in "The Bird Cage". And Michael McKean is brilliant playing his straight-man bubba. Really funny comic pairing.

This is the best of Guest's "mockumentaries".

Amélie (2001)

Charming.

[9/10 · 15 May 2003]

A wonderful, fun, and charming movie. Lots of eye candy to amuse, and plenty to think about later.

If you're capable of thinking, that is. Do not bother with this movie if you think France is a "socialist" country. It's over your head. Try "Jeff Foxworthy" reruns.

Those who don't believe there's a "War on Christmas" will marvel. In a world in which it makes sense to play away from trouble, to mind one's own business--in which it's hard enough to make oneself happy, let alone others--Amelie makes it her business to bring happiness to others with small but meaningful gestures. How she does this will charm you while you watch; why, and what it means, will stay with you a bit longer.

Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

Cool design but too dark and disjointed.

[3/10 · 15 May 2003]

This sequel is too dark for its intended age group. The design is interesting--an almost Batman-like Metropolis--but its effect is not at all in keeping with the tone of the original.

Moreover, the darkness makes no sense. If the idea is to contrast "the city" with "the country", it misses the mark.

A bigger problem is the the lack of flow; it's more a collection of scenes than a cohesive movie. There were numerous plot problems, and even kids will sense when things don't follow.

Worse: in all honesty, the animated talking mouths are creepy, rather than cute as in the original.

Sorry to say: really disappointing. Needed another run or two through the script before shooting.