Change Your Image
JocMet
Reviews
Woman on Top (2000)
a bit...
...stupid.
Penelope Cruz is too good as an actress to play in a movie that is so naive in its straightforwardness as that one. Haven't we seen this all before? The desperate lover (what else could he be). The want-to-be-lover (there has to be one). And the transvestite friend (Could not be a man nor a woman instead and at we need a person like him to cheer up the plot a bit...). And what else could happen than the two lovers being eventually united again.
Oh god, she is so cute... .. OK, I take it back. Go to see the film! Forget about the s****y plot! Penelope alone is worth it..!
Romance (1999)
Provocation as a self-purpose
Oh no, this is really too old-fashioned - we've had this already 20 years ago! An explicit film about sexual desires and addiction. It was provocative then - is it still provocative nowadays? Maybe in France. No one was really interested in seeing this film in this country. And I had myself cheated by some over-enthusiastic critics, I think!
An explicit film about a woman living her sexual desires? A film about sexual addiction?
I think on top of it, this is a film about a French director whose only chance to attract public attention is, to make films like those. And there's few beyond that. Least of all a film to start a discussion on sexuality in a new and refreshing quality. The pseudo-philosophical off-comments don't alter a thing.
The Man with Rain in His Shoes (1998)
nice romantic, comforting comedy
...and a bit melancolic, too. I liked it. If you go for films like "Sliding Doors" or "Groundhog Day" this is the one for you. Though I find the story a bit more witty, getting a bit more into detail with thought experiments like "what if...I could un-do it all live it all over again...would anything finally be different?"
The end is not disappointing nor sad or frustrating. It is nice to follow the way the film tells the story of a man who gets a chance to live it all twice and ends up seeing himself in a different light which is the important thing to go on with, ... and less the way things finally turn out to be.
I give it a nine.
Underground (1995)
crap
I don't know why everybody likes this film. At least in the user ratings there were more people rating it as awful (1) than people who gave it at least an 8.
The point of the story is obvious: Kusturica wants to give an account of the history of his people since the 40ies. He puts this into the form of a satire showing people living underground without realizing what is going on "on the surface" - in real life. Conflicts resulting and consequences (nation falling apart, war) are unavoidable. Good idea for the story, so far.
But what a horrible show does Kusturica make of this! Pointlessly the story drags on forever from one set to the other all of which want to show us something important, something that can only be understood metaphorically or at second sight. The whole plot is split up into several long-drawn-out parts, the last one of which ends in Berlin - nobody knows why. (Does Kusturica perhaps think about that fascist Ex-Yugoslav war spreading over the rest of Europe, eventually?) The two protagonists are being shown in a justifiable - let alone sympathetic manner - pretending to everybody: "Well it is a tragedy with our people and our history, but that is the way we are...this is our way of life - we cannot help it..." By and by you feel like wanting to shout out loud (if only Kusturica sat in the cinema) "FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, COME TO THE POINT, PLEASE..!" In fact, if this movie really shows something the basic mentality of the Ex-Yugoslav people - why do we still keep asking ourselves why they don't get their acts together to come to terms with their political problems?!
This film really got on my nerves. If I had not been stuck in this crammed cinema right in the middle of narrow rows of seats I would not have finished watching it. And then it had overlength whereas I had given up hope that the plot would become any better by the middle of it... The pictures themselves are brilliant, it is true, they recall Fellini's films - yet only in that point. But then again, there was that terrible disharmonious brass music with it, starting in regular, unpleasant intervals.
Did I get anything wrong? I felt like being talked at by a mad preacher trying to convince me with his distorted, pathetic view of god and the world, instead of seeing a good and entertaining story, with a well written plot with some - at least some - suspense in it.
This is one of the most embarrassing films that I have ever seen. I give it a 1 (awful) in the rating. But only because there is no 0 to be given. If a director knows how to make a good picture but does not find a way to express his views in a good story he should either keep on trying until he can or do documentaries instead of political satires.
The Arrangement (1969)
I like this story...
I know, it is for sure not Kazan's best film, it might be a bit lengthy. But if you like stories of people getting away from their former well-settled lives because they discover some truths about themselves, then you should definitely go and watch it. Faye Dunaway playing Gwen who makes Eddie (Kirk Douglas) change his way is simply stunning in her appearance.
Some of you will definitely think: "Oh god, if only this happened to me..!" (Read the book, I say..!)
I give it a 10, for the story which is, on the long run, the important thing.
Happiness (1998)
...it hurt...a film showing the real American way of life...
This film hurt - at times it gave me an almost physical feeling of pain because it is just a pure mirror of real life. Disappointment is real, perversion is real, lying is real, ingnorance is real and superficiality is real. I never saw a film (except maybe "Welcome to the Dollhouse" by the same director) in which fiction came so close to reality like in this film. This is an American film - it shows the real American way of life. More films like these are necessary.
No facade, no dream, no fake.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
The best film one could imagine about sexual addiction...
Maybe Kidman and Cruise are not the best actors to play the role of the couple in the film, but maybe Kubrick had some second thoughts of having them play their own parody (in fact: what movies do we know them from, up to now???) It is a shame that this film is obviously being censored in the US. You miss an important part of the story then. It does not have something to do with age to be able to see this film not as a primitive porn but with intelligence. Maybe it would help to read Arthur Schnitzler's "Traumnovelle" (dream novel) first, on which this film is based (see Bobby Elliott's comment).
I give it a 9/10.