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Reviews
A Map for Saturday (2007)
Around the world in hostels
This documentary is about a young man, originally from Rhode Island, but at the start of a successful career in New York, working as a producer for HBO. Wondering aloud whether he can settle down with a wife, kids, and a mortgage, he decides to give it all up for an around-the-world adventure. His friends are suspicious of his trip.
Brook Silva-Braga takes off for 50 weeks as a backpacker to visit 26 countries. He stays almost exclusively in hostels. Along the way, he meets fellow backpackers from around the world, romances young women, and discovers a new world of hostels. Packing a mere 5 pounds of clothes but 30 pounds of video equipment, he traverses from the US, to Australia, southeast Asia, India and Nepal, Europe, Brazil, and Argentina.
In the film, Braga-Silva discovers a hidden world of budget travel, friendly "Canadians" who were born south of Toronto, and romance in strange places. He is guided through Nepal and mugged in Brazil. At the end, he finds friends and a new way of living.
This is a wonderful film. It was featured in several film festivals and on MTV. Braga-Silva will be the keynote speaker at the Hostelling International - USA 's national convention in November 2007.
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Excellent sci-fi movie, but has flaws
A Scanner Darkly, based on the story by Philip K. Dick, is an excellent movie. The animation, acting, story and plot are all top-notch. The only minuses are (1) the usual twisted ending typical of Dick's writing, and (2) the animation made me nauseated.
It is made in animation drawn over film. This style of animation is very jittery, and can make one motion sick, like I was made. If you get nauseated from IMAX films, this will also, so you are warned. That was the biggest problem for me, which is why I didn't give it a 10.
The acting is great. I was most impressed by Keanu Reaves and Rory Cochrane -- both are truly excellent in this film. Keanu plays Bob Arctor, an undercover narcotics cop in suburban Orange County, CA, who we first see making a presentation to a fraternal organization, called the Brown Bears, about the scourge of the drug Substance D. (Arctor is cognate to the Greek and Latin words "arctus" -- meaning bear. Orange County was made famous by "The O.C.") Cochrane plays a friend of his, Charles Freck, who is a serious Substance D user. Freck is affected by hallucinations of bugs crawling out of his skin and paranoid delusions.
Society of 7 years from now is dominated by the Government trying to control Substance D users, by use of a scanner that spies on people. Arctor takes Substance D and gets into trouble. The plot goes downhill from there. Arctor realizes he has become addicted to D, and that the scanners are being used to take away our liberties, wondering whether a scanner can look darkly into a man's heart and not just spy on his surface actions.
A Scanner Darkly leaves much to think about, and is relevant to today's loss of liberties due to the war on drugs & war on terrorism.
Clueless (1995)
Oh. My. Gawd. I'm in love with ... this movie!
Wow, what can I say? This is the most fun I've had while watching a movie in years and years. Adopted VERY loosely from "Pride and Prejudice", Clueless is the story of Cher Horowitz, a 16 year old "virgin who can't drive" from Beverly Hills, CA. A nice girl, but often without a clue about other people's feelings, or even her own, she has the usual anxieties and problems of an upper-middle-class girl of her time and place. She lives with her divorced father, a litigator, and her ex-step-brother (son of her father's second wife, now divorced from him). Cher attends a high-class high school with her friends, and is trying to learn how to drive a car and to navigate through life and love. She falls in love first with Christian, who dresses well, also had divorced parents, is very cute, and is brave and loves old movies and shopping. But that doesn't go as planned.... He's gay. After failing her driver's test, losing one of her best friends, fighting with her ex-step-brother, and drinking too many cappuccinos, she realizes, perhaps too late, that (1) college guys don't like high school girls, because they wear too much make-up, (2) doing a deposition digest for litigation is very difficult, and (3) she's not that good a person as she thought. She tries to become a better person by doing good deeds, like donating her skis to flood victims, match-making two of her teachers, getting a friend off pot, and helping her father with a difficult case. Will Cher get her true love? How many more laughs can I take? Will they all live happily ever after? This is a very funny movie. It's not just another teen comedy.
The X Files: Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' (1996)
The best X files ever!
There are so many great things about this episode: 1. Charles Nelson Reilly steals the show. He is a comic genius. 2. The show highlights many of the urban legends, myths, and nomenclature used in UFOlogy. 3. All of the acting is fine. 4. Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebeck as MIB. 5. Are the government agents really aliens? 6. Great lines, such as: "I read it because I wanted to, not because I had to." "Crazy?!(underline)" "I'm making a whole new genre." 'I know how that is." 7. Is Scully actually a man in drag? 8. Did Mulder really eat a hole pie? The list could go on forever. This is quintessential X files, a must-see if you see even one of the show's episodes.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Why I don't like it
Normally, I would rate any memorable movie, even if I did not like it, or certain parts or acting, a 6 or 7 at least.
The reason I rate this so low is for the gratuitous violence. Mad Magazine did a dead-on satire of this movie two decades ago. The violence is repulsive and over the top. It's putrid. The rape scene, and the constant batteries and assaults are too much.
Most unusual is some of the dialog between the gang members, which uses a made-up slang.
That being said, I loved the acting and the score. The plot is basically relevant to modern times. The set design and live action scenery is excellent.
Everyone should see this, but hold your hand on the fast-forward, which is used on one sex scene anyway, very humorously.
The Apple (1980)
Don't waste your time, it's not that funny
Don't waste your time, it's not that funny to see.
There are some movies that are so bad, they deserve to be watched just to gasp and laugh at how bad they are. This is sadly, merely really, really bad.
The Apple is a re-working of the Adam and Eve story, filmed in Germany in 1980 but set in the 1990's, about a young singing couple who are hood-winked by a devilish promoter. They start out starry-eyed. They get convinced to go into an American Idol type of contest to become the newest singing sensation. The guy thinks second of it. They escape to hippiedom. God arrives from heaven, in a Rolls Royse, in a Deus ex machina scene to rescue them.
Oh, did I say it was a sceince fiction musical? The orgasm song was the best of the terrible lot.
Howling V: The Rebirth (1989)
It bloody sucks
First up: I'm going to give away what happens. This is so you don't have to watch one of the worse films of all time.
The only decent scene is when the vampire, played by Victoria, has her head chopped off. I knew it was her long before they copped her head off. It is unintentionally funny. It's hilarious to watch her head bounce and roll down the steps. By the end of the movie, you are so happy that it's finally going to be over.
The acting, direction, production values, clumsy plotting, and silly set design make this terrible all-around. I was angry that it's not even about werewolves, per se, but vampires. But the fact that it steals so shamelessly from Agatha Christe is what make me want to scream! I can not believe this is not in the worse 50 films ever. My old friend Paul loved it. That makes sense, as he's a total misanthrope.
L'âge d'or (1930)
One of the three worse movies of all time
How do I describe the horrors?!!! First, some points: First, this review should be taken with a grain of salt -- I saw this over 20 years ago, when I was a boy, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Secondly, I am giving away some scenes and plot points. However, it does not have much of a plot.
Finally, I don't enjoy these type of art films anyway.
This film was directed by proto-auteur Luis Bunuel. He was a surrealist and dadaist. These were modernist themes or movements popular critically in the 1920's and early 1930's. Surealism was the school of art that made things hyper-real, yet often had Freudian symbolism. Dadaism is based on what is supposedly the first word made by an infant -- Dada, or father.
Made in black and white, it was also made by a band of communists (or as they preferred the term, socialists). Bunuel and his group of fellow film-makers and artistes had been working on a number of symbolic ideas and issues in Spain and France between the world wars.
Dadaism and surrealism influenced a lot of artists -- The Police (Doo doo doo da), poet Arthur Rambaud, Edvard Munch (The Scream), Rene Magritte (floating hats in space), Salvador Dali (melting clocks), and even Hitchcock (Psycho). No Norman Rockwell.
Here's what I recall most about this film: a girl meets up with a cow; her eye gets slashed by a razor; clownish men cavort in a meadow. There is not, as I said, much of a plot, but then again, that must be the point.
This was attacked as porn back then, and would be again today. One of the trade-marks of surrealism is a significant anti-feminism.
Cluny Brown (1946)
One of the best movies of all time
Cluny Brown is an orphaned teenage girl working as a plumber's apprentice for her uncle, and living in London between the World Wars --and between classes. While cleaning out a clogged sink, she meets an older, expatriate Czech freedom-fighter, Professor Bilinsky, and starts a battle of the genders. She is also romanced by the scion of a gentry family and a local middle-class chemist (pharmacist).
Cluny is lost in Britain between the wars. The British class system is still strong in the late 1930's. Cluny, however, does not fit into the rigid castes of the day. She's not exactly working class (she has too much natural intelligence and style) -- nor is she middle class (too independent) -- nor manor born (cockney through and through). She too practical for the chemist and too rough for the gentry. She ends up being hired as a maid, and not a very good one at that, dropping food and not knowing when, where, and to whom to speak. Of course, the Professor is also outside the system -- he has to borrow evening dress just for dinner and has no visible means of support.
Cluny dates the other men before she realizes that she's a better match for Bilinsky -- and for the US, where class strictures are less strict.
The acting is all-around excellent. Peter Fonda shows his chops at this early phase of his career. The screenplay and direction are especially fine. "Cluny Brown" is a wonderful treat. I saw it at a revival, but I urge you to rent it if you can.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Merely good but wraps it up
Star Wars II is merely a good movie, compared with the classics. However, it did do a good job of wrapping up lots of loose ends. The fight scenes were too long, the pacing off, and I hate Jar-Jar. But overall, it was good. It's certainly worth renting if you didn't see in in the theaters.
The story is basically how the take-over of the Republic by the Chancellor occurred, who uses his guile and the Dark Side to turn Skywalker over from the light. Much of the background seems to be political - the "you're for us or against us" bit. The Republic is too bit for its own good -- too many aliens races can't come to democratic compromises. It does not help the Republic that forces are conspiring to kill off the Jedi.
Two bits of gratuitous violence -- the killing of of the young-lings and the burning alive of Skywalker pères to make him into Darth Vader. I'm not sure they need screen time.
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Absolutely wonderful
This is one of the best movies I've seen in years, and the best this year. The mother of all Oscar buzz clichés. The acting and direction is fine. I have to agree with a lot of the posters on this site.
I saw it with two very long-time friends on December 11. They didn't cry, but I had to break out the hankies. I have been an emotional wreck since watching this, and even read the story in the New Yorker archives.
I want to add a few ideas of my own. (Warning - major spoilers!) There is a lot of religious symbolism. For example, religion suffuses Jake's and Ennis's lives, but they are so uneducated. They don't even know what the Pentecost is. Ennis refuses to go to a church social. The use of a rose ("stem the rose") in the movie is interesting -- liturgical symbolism of penance and joy combined. Jacob's name means Twist -- the actor's first name is a literal translation of his character's last name. Even DelMar -- from the sea -- evokes drowning, perhaps the drowning of Jake in his own blood.
I really started to cry when Ennis started to cry into the shirts in the closet -- closets are for clothes, not people! -- oh I started to sob.
If you haven't seen this, you must go. And read the story.