Gozlukluimam Reviews

Waking Life (2001)

An insult to the animation medium

[20 June 2009]

I don't review movies often, because there's usually other people who express the same thoughts I have in a much better way. Same thing goes for the piece of garbage that is Waking Life. I'll pass over the pretentious, preachy tone present throughout the whole film, as most reviewers before me pointed it out so eloquently.

What bugged me the most was the decision of using animation for telling the story or whatever was going on the screen. Once the perfect medium for conveying impossible worlds and materializing all things abstract, animation is today left in the hands of directors who attempt to make an otherwise uninteresting story stand out. Relatively recent examples include A Scanner Darkly and Waltz with Bashir. These, plus Waking Life have two things in common: they're rotoscoped, and nothing would've changed if they were shot in live-action. Tracing over live footage has to be the most hilarious attempt at novelty, ever. It's mind-blowingly unnecessary. The human beings depicted are wobbly, unnatural and ugly. Where's the personal touch of the animator? What's the point? Nothing improves, but everything becomes awkward. Nevertheless, A Scanner Darkly had a somewhat exciting story to tell, and Waltz with Bashir made a point, without insulting the audience's intelligence, I might add. Here's how I imagine it went with the production of Waking Life: Alright, let's film some mediocre actors monologuing about whatever, gather untalented technicians so they can trace over every goddamn frame. Looks deep enough to me.

Escape from New York (1981)

Great premise, poor execution

[2 September 2008]

When I decided to watch Escape from New York, there were a few good reasons;

The setting's awesome: one of the world's largest metropolis' is in ruins, turned into a huge prison. I don't know about you, but I always dreamed of spending a day in a humongous city, devoid of peace and order, full of scum ready to get their asses kicked. There's simply something in the idea of survival in an urban hell that is appealing and gives you great ingredients for a good story.

Snake Plissken looks like one tough bad-ass: at least when he's not speaking. I mean the eye patch, the stubble beard, the gloriously violent past, the general dirty look: Snake's a picture of a bad-ass pirate, only cooler, because of all the gun-toting. But as I mentioned earlier, the way he speaks disturbed me. It was a little forced and cheesy, as if Kurt Russel tried to emulate Clint Eastwood's legendary attitude, and failed.

So where does John Carpenter fail in this movie? He's got an awesome premise, a decent actor in the shoes of the perfect anti-hero, what can go wrong? Well nearly everything; The guy is simply unable to use his material well. I'll pass over the cheesiness of the soundtrack, since it didn't sound that out of place back in the 80s' sci-fi and action flicks. But there are absolutely no suspense, tension, "F*** YEAH" moments, etc. when you feel there should be. We're introduced to a world of pure visual genius and general awesomeness for the first 15 or so minutes (it's amazing, all the things you can do with lights and shadows. Pay attention to those 15 minutes if you happen to watch the film again) and then it's your usual, boring string of events movie. I wouldn't care if those events were presented in an interesting way. I mean just take a look at what the hell James Cameron has achieved in the prologue of Terminator 2: the sight of a burning swing, plus a couple of instruments playing in the background, and drama ensures. THAT is cinema; Being able to dramatize a goddamn playground toy. Whereas in Escape from NY, I was unable to even feel a few nerves tingling at the sight of two bad-asses about to split each others' skull in half. Yep. The swing wins, John. Man it's so depressing. This movie could've been awesome at the hands of an action movie expert like James Cameron, but I can't blame him. He was only background painter at the time. Oh well. I gotta admit, though, the ending made me laugh for a long time. Awesomest ending ever.

So as you can see, I was very disappointed with Carpenter's work here, but...

When I think of all the amazing people this film has inspired, (William Gibson, JJ Abrams, Hideo Kojima, among others...) it kinda makes the time I watched this average movie worthwhile. Plus you don't get to see that kind of anti-hero with attitude that much anymore.

Stealing Beauty (1996)

Art blows

[22 May 2008]

I gotta admit, I had quite high expectations when I bought the DVD of Stealing Beauty, having heard mostly good stuff about the film. So I sat down in front of the screen, expecting a highly emotional, entertaining flick. Boy was I wrong! There were just too many things that didn't seem right in this. I don't even know where to start so I'll just write the first things that come to my mind;

The plot. It just went nowhere. Before watching the film, I had an overall idea of the story, in which there was this 19-year old American girl involved, who travels to Italy in order to resolve the mystery surrounding the father she never knew. With a premise as simple as this, I was expecting the director to surprise his audience with a twist in the plot or two. Alas, as soon as I saw the credits popping up, I shouted out loud "so, is THAT it?!" What was the point of all this? What was I supposed to get? Nothing important happened during those 114 minutes. Let's face it, the countryside is fine for resting, but if you don't have a damn good story to tell, it's just a boring setting for a movie.

Cinematography is not enough to make a good film. If I want pretty images, I watch a documentary, or here's a better idea, I just take a walk outside. Watching the regular lives of useless country people don't really match my idea of quality entertainment.

The characters are another matter. There are simply no characters that you can relate to/show sympathy, because frankly, there's something disturbing about horny, aging hippies. The only likable person is Lucy, then again, that might only have something to do with Liv Tyler herself, rather than her character.

Come to think of it, Liv Tyler's the whole reason I forced myself to watch this to the end. 2 stars for casting her.

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

Are you tasteless? You might be. Watch this thing to find out.

[30 March 2008]

This waste of film has to be the biggest insult to the name of cinema. What was the director thinking? Stringing together cheap stock videos (that's the impression it gave me, anyway...) combined with dull, skull-scratchingly horrible sound (I'm not calling this music)? It's not even so-bad-it's-fun. Just plain boring.

Why do people even think about giving this a +10 vote? Oooohh look! A series of unrelated images supposedly telling us how bad technology/mankind is killing the world! Big whoop. If you ever managed to feel any emotion during this movie, tap your skull. you may have dropped something on the road. No seriously, if you want deep social commentaries about the environment, dig gems such as Mononoke-Hime, the Plague Dogs and whatnot. Showing me cityscapes in fast motion doesn't move me. And neither does some baritone dude dreadfully chanting the title in the background.

Just because this film doesn't follow conventional storytelling methods, doesn't mean it should be praised as an "original work of art". No. It's a dull, boring piece of trash, and a waste of 86 minutes of my life. Art blows. I'd rather watch a cheap action flick starring Hulk Hogan, probably expressing deeper messages than this.

All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

You can't see anything like that elsewhere

[15 May 2007]

This movie has been overlooked so much, it saddens me every time I see an empty review about it that fusses over tiny elements.

Yes, "All Dogs" is weird; There are dogs, orphans, corruption, murder, gambling, alcohol, afterlife, machine guns and a singing alligator, all mixed-up in the same movie. Yes, "All Dogs" has plot holes; Charlie can't talk to horses but can talk to alligators, the bad guy is allowed to enter heaven and the story is overall confusing.

So what?

This is one of the few movies that managed to make me "feel", in the true sense of the word. Have you ever been sad and hopeful at the same time? "All Dogs" made me feel that way. It makes me smile every time I watch it -without even knowing why-, and occasionally makes me cry. "All Dogs" has one of the most powerful endings I have ever seen in my life. The art is sublime; the characters' expressions, the backgrounds and special effects are astonishing. The symphonic and jazzy musics rolling in the background make whole with the 30's atmosphere. The dialogs are all fitting where they should belong. There are so many things to tell about this movie... I've noticed that many reviewers have been disturbed by the unusually dark tone spilled throughout the film. In real life, people are able to drink, gamble and/or kill. Don Bluth seems to be one of the few directors that takes children seriously, and present them the not-so-bright sides of life.

For those who are unsure about watching "All Dogs" or not because of some disturbing interpretations of the movie; Give it a try. You'll either hate it or love it to death, but one thing is sure: you won't be seeing anything like that in the near future. This is one of the strangely addicting movies that you love without knowing why (see also "Six-String Samurai" and "The Man Who Saves The World" to see what I mean).