aswerve Reviews

Go Go Tales (2007)

Funny tale about lotto tickets

[1/10 · 23 May 2009]

Shot in November 2006, Abel Ferrara's Go Go tales isn't the comedy he was selling us, that honour goes to Driller Killer with his artist in turmoil overacting.

This film is nowhere near the screwball comedy a Director with 30 years experience under his belt would spit out. Did Ferrara think the punchline joke that ends the film was worth sitting through 1 hr and 40 mins? No. His lacking script or should I say the editing room helped dig this film further into distribution hell, as of 2009 the film has hardly been seen, DVD's cannot be easily sought, no screenings anywhere unless you download the film for free. I for one would buy the DVD, not for the film, but to listen to Ferrara's hilarious commentary which is always good for a laugh!

Poor Italian investors, unlucky crew and especially embarrassment for the cast.

Many actors are wasted with nothing to do, as I blame the editing which Ferrara loves to shoot everything on set and then try to stitch it all up coherently later, which he did brilliantly with SNAKE EYES (Dangerous game) and partly successfully in NEW ROSE HOTEL and failed miserably in THE BLACKOUT.

Hamming it up seems to be another problem with Go go tales. Sylvia Miles maybe an icon from the 60's Warhol set but her acting hasn't IMPROVed either. Asia Argento may be pretty but she is as bad as Sylvia Miles with the improv and she wasn't even born when Warhol put down his Bolex and switched to Polaroid. Credit to Matthew Modine for making a third appearance in a Ferrara film, an actor whose career has drifted off slightly since starring in his first Ferrara film THE BLACKOUT in 1997. Special mention to Willem Dafoe who actually pulled what he had out of the bag to give us that smirk in the final shot of the film.

Years of pre-production hell. Distribution legal troubles and an ever changing cast made this film a trouble project for Ferrara. Then again he was the writer and director of this tale and unfortunately not one for recommendation.

Into the Wild (2007)

90 year old man, what do you know about life!

[1/10 · 13 May 2008]

Films have to be viewed in their own light as it's own single art piece, as the filmmakers intended to deliver their narrative through sound, picture and editing to us. Forget all knowledge that this film was 'based on a novel' that was 'based on a true story'.

Saying that, this film is hypocritical from start to finish with a touch of left wing anti- establishment thrown in for good measure and some very lazy film-making indeed.

Society is awful. Join a charity and help out. My dad was a meanie. Stand up to him when he is beating up your mum, not when he is offering to buy you a new car.

I do not understand how this film is regarded so highly that it appeared on many top 10 critic list for 2007. This is why I am writing my 2 cents worth.

Technically this film is sloppy. It uses every filmic cliché device possible to spoon feed it's audience and not allow them to make their own decisions of what is happening on screen.

Main protagonist starts acting dizzy as if he has ate something bad. Not sure if you were right? Sean Penn the Director cuts to the word 'Poison' then to the bag of weeds, then to a full screen text of 'Death' back to the bag of weeds and then if you weren't sure what was happening we get a blurred, stretched out effect laden close up of the protagonist getting sick.

Too many problems with this film; the length (2hr 20min), the anti-establishment themes (we get it), Not sleeping with sexy trailer park girl (?).

Society is awful and evil, so what he denounces it. Then why hitch-hike with people who own cars, steal rides on trains and eat food from people who live in houses. Nice ideals.

Finally, standing in the soup kitchen line he realizes that society is so disgusting that he does not want to be in a room full of homeless people as it hits him that he actually has parents to fall back on when his self-righteousness does not work out.

Up there with 'Life is beautiful' as a truly overrated film.

A Family Secret (2006)

A funeral digs up it's own little secrets.

[9/10 · 25 April 2007]

A delightful French comedy from Quebec, which brings an entire family to a funeral in which past memories are revealed through various relations to unravel past secrets.

Entertaining and visually engaging, "The family secret" moves along with it's great use of colours, music and a script that takes many twists and turns, which like it's main character leaves the audience in the dark as to what the family secret really is.

I met the Director while on holiday in Vietnam and she told me that the story was based on a event that happened in her own life. I guess real life is definitely stranger that fiction.

CQ (2001)

Film about love and the love of films

[8/10 · 21 March 2007]

Part David Halsmanns Diary, part Alphaville and part Contempt, Roman Coppola's debut feature is a light, caring homage to the cinema of the 1960's.

Everything from the sets, costumes, music, even the detail gone into the film within a film "Dragonfly" captured the era perfectly. Performances by the entire cast were spot on. Giancarlo Giannini as the old school producer who can never decide how many films he has made to Gérard Depardieu's as the director whose films have to have soul and not sell out.

Biggest credit must go to Roman for choosing Jeremy Davies to play the lead, as I was constantly intrigued how a creative character like his would finish his journey in this film. Giancarlo Giannini's as the producer even mentioned "The most important part of a film is the ending, this is the last thing the audience will remember when they leave the cinema!"

An important statement as Jeremy Davies goes on to finish his major film as Gérard Depardieu intended and he also got to finish his personnel film, where he discovered a lot about himself through the truth of cinema.

The most enjoyable film from all the brood of Francis Ford Coppola.

The Responsive Eye (1966)

MOMA 'OP ART' opening Doco

[5/10 · 25 February 2007]

I found THE RESPONSIVE EYE on a DVD compilation I have entitled "ANNEES 60".

A 20 minute film documenting the opening night of a OP ART exhibition at the MOMA in New York 1966. An interesting piece as it contains many fantastic art works and even contains quick interviews with some of the artists, such as David Hockney.

I don't know if it was intentional, but the way this film was cut (by Brian De Palma) it comes across in some scenes as a poke at the so-called art experts and New York art set (no-one under 40 years old) and Andy Warhol Factory bunch is here as well.

"This work is a sham!" "It makes my head hurt" "I would love to buy one, but they are not selling!". My favourite edit contains an ultra-cool woman talking about the beauty of the work and mid-interview stops to say "Hello" to a friend of hers, which De Palma kept in it's entirety.

An odd curio from a decade of art that still seems even more odd and alive today.

The Last House on the Left (1972)

It ain't no Virgin spring

[1/10 · 13 March 2006]

This film has to seen in the context of when it was made in the history of film. Post Vietnam war and 70's grind house cinema. The reality and horrors of that war combined with cheaper equipment such as the 16mm Bolex camera, gave great means to many to quickly pump out cheap films for high profit returns. Horror did have a connection to the war, as Herschell Gordan lewis hit pay dirt during the 60's when he mutilated women and cut up people for the camera to see, as a lot of the filmmakers from this generation where either Vietnam vets or college left wing hippies who used the camera to show the horror of our human existence, through pre-images of the internet era, of soldiers smiling on top of corpses or Vietnamese villagers running down streets naked with their arms missing. Now to the film Last house on the left. Directed by a university lecturer, who looks like he wanted to intellectualize a snuff film and produced by a porn director who wanted to make a quick buck.

Kapo (1960)

Life is beautiful

[10/10 · 1 February 2006]

Roberto Benigni was hailed as a genius in 1999 for his whimsical and magical film 'Life is beautiful', which was about love surviving all adversities in the harsh playground of a Nazi concentration camp. I never liked that film, I felt it was a low and cheap way of playing the 'Love can survive any obstacle' schtick that filmmakers push on us viewers to make us feel all warm inside.

Wife with cancer. Thats been done. Family in car accident near death. Boring. If Roberto Benigni is such a talent then where is he today? Miramax not backing his films anymore?

KAPO made in 1959 by the Gillo Pontecorvo, who would later go on to make the brilliant 'Battle of Algiers', does more with his film about love surviving through all adversities than Mr Benigni could ever throw up for his own film about the harsh realities human beings had to do in order to survive.

I caught this film just as I was going to sleep late one night and stayed up till the early morning riveted on what would become of 'Nicole', a 14 year old Jewish girl who along with her parents are thrown into a concentration camp during WW2. The little lost girl learns to adapt and survive in the camp which eventually leads her to become the 'Kapo' in the title.

'They lied to us' seems to be the motto of this film, as Nicole learns to trust and look after only herself, until she opens up and discovers there is love once more in her awful life.

I will not give too much away about this powerful and totally mesmerizing film, which once again opens up another story of life inside a concentration camp through the eyes of young Jewish girl who grows up quick and becomes a Nazi lackey in the form of a KAPO.

The Work of Director Michel Gondry (2003 Video)

I like girls who fart too!

[30 May 2004]

This tall, skinny, big nosed French man has become a big influence on my own work in the last year that I get cranky every time he out does himself with a new music video.

This DVDography makes you jump in your seat when you discover he is the director of certain works you enjoyed many years ago.

Who knew he is the most awarded commercials and video director of all time? Check the smirnoff ad pre Matrix 'bullet time' days.

Besides, I like him cause he puts 'girlfriends' into 3 catergories; ones that hate farting, ones that don't mind farting and ones that fart back at you!

Come on Michael Jackson let Mr Gondry direct your last music video.. He is French you know!

Tuff Turf (1985)

Should I give his bike back!

[30 May 2004]

This film was so influential to me back in 1986 that I took my dad's

portable video camera (The kind where you strap the deck over

your shoulder like a bag and has a cord running to the camera),

grabbed the neighborhood kids in our street and re-enacted

scenes from Tuff turf after we had just finished viewing it for the

third time in a rental day row.

Hell, I even stole the soundtrack and dubbed the dialogue into our

version of the film.

The tuff guys, the not-so tuff guy who is misunderstood by his

parents and tuff guys who beat him up every chance they have, a

sexy lead actress (why Kim Richards did not get an award for

longest, straightest hair is a travesty!)

But best of all is the soundtrack! The tense music under the gang

running over Spaders racing bike still haunts me today! Who

wouldn't wet themselves getting humiliated in the school parking

lot in front of your class mates and teachers who did not nothing

but laugh at you wetting your pants.

NOTE the apostrophe in the title summary as the gang leader is

not asking the question, he is merely answering it?

Purple Rain (1984)

spooky premonitions into Prince's future?

[10/10 · 9 May 2004]

SPOILERS CONTAINED IN ORDER TO MAKE A OBSERVATION.

Twenty years on from 1984, this film speaks loads about Prince's future in the music industry.

There is a scene that sums up Prince's musical output of the last 10 years perfectly, which is if you took the best two songs off his last 10 albums you would have one fantastic album!

The scene plays like this. Prince runs off to his dressing room after playing one song and the owner of the club enters the dressing room to give Prince an earful about his fall from grace during the 90's and putting out albums that only the most hardcore fans would be able to tolerate and support his artistry.

Club owner- "You're not packing them like you used to. The only person that digs your music is yourself!"

Spooky huh! How about the musical underscore which makes Prince even more evil when he smacks Apollonia to the ground in two separate scenes! It gave me chills that that was not the only scene women where mistreated in this film.

I'm all for the comedy sparring's between Morris Day and Jerome Benton as these two stole every scene they were in. But what was funny about throwing a woman into a trash can? That was plain nasty! The other nasty bit was the chalk outline of Prince's father on the floor thoughtfully provided by the Minnieapolis police, which causes Prince to go even more loony!! FANTASTIC!!

Purple Rain is an entertaining film overall, as it is the soundtrack of Prince songs that boosts it's value by 110%. But then again the film gives us another theory on Prince and his music, as the film tells us that Prince's biggest song of the film is written by Wendy, lisa and Princes wife beating musical father!

Are Prince and the filmmakers trying to tell us that Prince stole all his best songs from his father after finding his fathers music sheets of written songs? Maybe that is why Prince started to run out of steam during the 90's because he ran out of his fathers ideas???...........Hmmmm.....

Igby Goes Down (2002)

Rich kids and the problems I have!

[8 December 2003]

The bottom line for filmmaking is entertainment. It is there to make us laugh, cry, think about the world and our place in it, but more importantly it is there to allow us to escape into the fantasy of living someone else's life (which is why Reality TV is so addictive)

'Igby goes down' took me to a place where I fell asleep, where I had to finally press stop and could not care less what happened to the little rich boy with problems. This is the kind of thing I have no time for in real life, so why would I care for such a character in a film.

Overly pretentious + indulgent = booorrriiinnnng. The fantasy in this film is that this director will go on to make another film, but then again the filmmakers of 'The Royal Tennabaums' had several attempts making their 'Igby films' before they made a decent one.

The Human Tornado (1976)

Mr Moore and his hush puppies!

[8 December 2003]

Who said sequels suck? Not Rudy Ray Moore who IS the human tornado! You better hope you never meet Dolemite just before he drops one of his ass kickin', head beatin' rap soliloquay's, as this would warrant a reversed film jump onto a rooftop with a sloppy slap to the mouth, while his topless beauties sit in the background laughing it up in what must be the (intentionally) funniest Blacksploitation film ever (yes funnier than the original Dolemite film!)

You will not only laugh at the fight scenes, but the dialogue is hilarious! Forget competent filmmaking as that adds for all the enjoyment!. All serious expectations should be left at the front door when watching this.

A true gem that will never be recreated except in the music video's of Snoop dogg. (and thats a good thing!)