BenjCarr Reviews

Deep Murder (2019)

Good premise, could've gone further.

[6/10 · 15 June 2019]

The idea of setting a legit comedy or mystery in the world of a Skinemax movie was pretty genius. It reminded me of 'Who Killed Buddy Blue?,' except with characters who slowly come to realize they're in softcore. That could've been taken a couple steps further. Chris Redd is particularly good as the quarterback with a secret - who appears to know nothing about sports. And the Bechdel Test conversation is the scene that lets them pass the Bechdel Test, which was funny.

Margolin and Beswick wrote it, so they give themselves protagonist roles. Seize that opportunity if you ever get it. They should do more work. I'd be interested to see it.

Broken Flowers (2005)

God awful boring.

[3/10 · 4 August 2005]

"Broken Flowers," I guess, is supposed to be this long, contemplative film about a man's journey into his past to discover how his life and history of loves has added up. Initially, the film is structured as a mystery - as Bill Murray's character tries to find the old girlfriend who bore his son, but it's more about the journey than the destination.

But, to me, this movie was one of the most boring things I've ever sat through. There are an endless number of minutes-long takes of Bill Murray driving a car by himself. There are several scenes of him sitting alone in his living room, listening to the stereo and thinking. A couple of these scenes, where the silences could be meaningful and carry depth, would be fine in a film like this, if the film carried more weight or gave Murray's character more of a background than "a bemused, aging Don Juan." Instead, once the movie ends, I felt like it contained several good scenes where Murray interacted with the old girlfriends and about 30 minutes of dead air. Why, why, WHY were there four editing cuts done as Murray drove a Taurus down a country road? Wouldn't one shot establish the plot point as much as is necessary? I get it. He's driving.

Oh, and I figured out that Murray's character was an aging Don Juan within the first five minutes, when he's watching the movie about Don Juan. I didn't need to have Julie Delpy call him "Don Juan," then have Jeffrey Wright call him "Don Juan," then have everyone comment on how his name is Don Johnston. I get the point. Don't hammer it into the ground.

This is not a good movie. If it gets across-the-board good reviews, I'll be baffled. It's pretentious, meaningless and doesn't go very far. It doesn't function as a mystery. It doesn't function successfully as an illustration of a character. Good actors, like Jessica Lange, Frances Conroy and Sharon Stone, are given little to do in episodic scenes.

All in all, the emperor's not wearing any clothes.

Septem8er Tapes (2004)

Awful. My review uses quotes because this isn't real.

[1/10 · 23 September 2004]

I just got back from this free screening, and this "Osama Witch Project" is the hands-down worst film I've seen this year, worse than even "Catwoman" - which had the decency to at least pass itself off as fiction.

In "September Tapes," a "film crew" of "documentary journalists" heads to Afghanistan - despite being thoroughly unprepared for the trip, the conditions and, oh yeah, the psychotic and ridiculous vendetta of their filmmaker leader to avenge his wife's death on Sept. 11 - to track down Osama bin Laden.

They "made" eight tapes on their journey, which now "document" their travels and, of course, their attempts to kill the terrorist leader. (The eight tapes, thankfully, all end at points significant in the narrative, which is convenient for a "documentary.")

The psychotic, idiotic protagonist - who is given to long, significant speeches that he probably learned watching "MacGyver" - cares nothing for his own life or the life of his innocent crew as he gets them further and further into danger through a series of completely dumb mishaps. I don't know why he didn't just wear a sign on his back that said "Shoot me."

The crew's translator, supposedly their sensible voice-of-reason, does little more than whine and gets baffled as the idiot hero leads them into doom.

You wish they'd brought along someone on their trip to call them all morons.

Around "Tape 4," I began rooting for the terrorists to shoot the film crew.

The Village (2004)

Awful. Don't see it. (Possible spoilers.)

[1/10 · 31 July 2004]

Though M. Night Shyamalan's unable to make a visually uninteresting film and though a cast of this magnitude is equally unable to deliver wholly bad performances, "The Village" is an awful, awful experience.

It's got a one-note, unbelievable premise that would barely hold up a half-hour episode of "The Twilight Zone." (Actually, episodes of "The Twilight Zone were far more clever than this movie.) It's got a horrid script featuring no lines spoken with prepositions, plot twists that could be guessed from a million miles away.

To top it all off, the movie's not even scary. Not at all. The ad campaign, which makes this look like it's a HORROR movie about MONSTERS, is completely misleading.

A better movie could be made of this premise if the movie didn't insist on keeping the whole premise a secret. A better movie could be made of this premise if it didn't insist on being so dark, bleak and falsely suspenseful.

The way it's written, the actors are given little to do. The characters have little life, no charisma with one another and feature no one among them who is individual enough to care about.

Don't see "The Village." There is little worth watching in it.

Swimfan (2002)

Was anyone else rooting for the villain?

[18 December 2002]

Erika Christensen, as the homicidal psycho girl who becomes obsessive whenever Jesse Bradford takes his shirt off, steals the movie as Madison Bell, an intelligent, attractive girl who thinks everyone else around her is a dim, uninteresting moron. Usually she's right. Shiri Appleby, that girl from "Roswell," plays Bradford's boring-as-hell, plain-Jane, working-class, sweet girlfriend so well that you wonder why on Earth he'd be attracted to her over the gorgeous, forward, albeit nutso Erika Christensen.

When my friend Kacoon and I saw this, our favorite scene was Madison's "swimming lesson," where she essentially rides cleavage-first on Jesse Bradford's chest until he takes the not-so-subtle hint.

The plot is your formula psycho-stalker movie, done to death with films like "Fatal Attraction" and "The Temp." If you want to see a variation on the theme that actually works really well, watch "One Hour Photo."

To see cute people in trouble and in the swimming pool, watch this.

The Vanishing (1988)

OK, I hate that the PREVIEW for the bad, American remake spoiled this ending for me. (SPOILERS)

[7/10 · 18 December 2002]

This is the original Norwegian version of a film remade in America, by the same director, no less, about a boyfriend who becomes obsessed after his girlfriend vanishes right from under his nose at a gas station.

Because I wanted to see the original after seeing the trailer for the American version and hearing the original had a far better ending, I bought the Criterion DVD of this and watched it.

The ending probably would've shocked me more if I hadn't seen the trailer for the American version, which gave the closing plot twist away.

I've never been more angry at my own culture in my life. If you want to see this, don't even bother watching the trailer for the other movie, which starred Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland.

This surprise ending would've chilled me to the bone ... if I'd not already seen Kiefer Sutherland live through it in the trailer.

Misery (1990)

Let us take a moment to reflect in Kathy Bates' glory. (Spoilers.)

[12 December 2002]

I love, love, love Kathy Bates in this movie. When I think of it, she is what I think of. When it was playing in theaters, I was about 14, and I managed to see it at least three times. Rob Reiner's direction is competent. James Caan's acting is surprisingly subdued. Even Richard Farnsworth, Lauren Bacall and Frances Sternhagen create sympathy for their barely shown characters.

But, my God, Kathy Bates is brilliant, playing Annie as someone quirky, scary and even funny. William Goldman's script, which originally called for Annie to use a welding torch to remove Paul Sheldon's feet, does allow her the chance to go over the top, of course, but Bates' subtlety at key points in the film is what floors me. The little touches showing Annie watching "Love Connection" or dancing around to Liberace records. Through these scenes, Bates actually builds sympathy for Annie's character, her loneliness, her "morality" and her need to love a fictional character.

As a viewer, I cared deeply for her, even after she went nuts, tied a man to a bed, took a sledgehammer to his legs, held him captive, let everyone around believe he was dead and then tried to shoot him to death.

Kathy Bates has been uniformly great in films ever since this one, but this one is my favorite of hers. She's amazing.

Taken (2002)

OK, I'm hooked. (SPOILERS)

[10/10 · 6 December 2002]

The Sci Fi Channel has done us all a great service by airing this ad nauseum for the next two or three weeks, for, though its beginnings were slow, I can now see where the show is going ... and I'm addicted.

The actors, most of them from the indie film circuit or relative unknowns, are impressive, as are the effects. But the story, my God, is the most compelling thing I've seen on television in years.

The series is 20 hours long, covers about 60 years of U.S. history and "alien encounter" history and, like a grand old soap opera, follows four generations of three families - all of whom are having encounters with aliens that seem to link them for some, so far unrevealed, purpose.

The purpose, I'm learning, is the creation of the story's narrator, the great-granddaughter of an alien abductee from the first episode and also the granddaughter of the alien hybrid baby conceived in the first episode. But what do the aliens want with her? And what is she capable of? And why exactly is she, in some way, being planned by the aliens from the very first episode?

That's what's keeping me watching. This is great TV.

It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002 TV Movie)

Scooter cage-dancing at a rave!

[7/10 · 3 December 2002]

This movie was cool, as warped as THE MUPPET SHOW that I remember but with a lot of modern touches. It borrows liberally from all the Christmas movies, including A CHRISTMAS STORY, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and, though it's not a holiday film, MOULIN ROUGE.

Very funny.

Far from Heaven (2002)

Like the best old movie you've never seen before.

[10/10 · 18 November 2002]

Days after seeing this, I find myself still saying things like "My stars, Debbie! Don't you look fetching!" and "Goodness!" The reason for it, strangely, is the delight I felt about this movie, which is not supposed to be set in the actual 1957 or a parody of 1957. This movie is supposed to evoke the feel of those cheesy Douglas Sirk too-perfect Technicolor melodramas for the time by standing alongside them, looking like them and treating its subjects in the manner that those movies did. It is, as best it can be, a fun old movie (that just happens to have been made today).

It's almost impossible to describe to people who aren't familiar with Douglas Sirk. (Even if someone's seen "Imitation of Life," they don't necessarily associate Sirk with it.) The movie's like an episode of "Leave it to Beaver," only Ward's fighting his attraction to guys and June's main confidante is her black male gardener. They try to maintain their idyllic appearance in the society, though the issues that they can't completely comprehend nor put into words are tearing apart their world.

This was everything I wanted "Pleasantville" to be. But it's better than that because it represents its '50s movie culture subject without making fun of it, just going along with the joke completely straight-faced. At the same time, it manages to say more about the issues it faces by placing them in that environment, forcing its characters to confront things that are completely alien to them.

I don't know if a lot of people are going to get this movie, and I fear that it's going to face a backlash. I overheard someone on the way out of the theater calling it "too stylized." To me, though, the style was, yes, campy but apt. The acting was across-the-board excellent. The movie was important, beautiful and fun.

The Transporter (2002)

Dude, this was so damn funny. Take a friend. (SPOILERS)

[5/10 · 4 November 2002]

Oh my God, THE TRANSPORTER was incredibly funny. CROSSROADS funny. ORIGINAL SIN funny.

It works like a parody of one of those '80s action movies, where the villain has henchmen who shoot machine guns at the hero but don't hit him. Meanwhile, the hero finds ways to effectively use a random object, like a sweatshirt, to subdue large groups of people.

Seeing Jason Statham in SNATCH and LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, I was not prepared to see him completely ripped, cool and awesome. And the whole movie plays like one of those Clive Owen BMW ads, except without the deep emotional resonance or without the obligation of having to make any sense.

After the first two action scenes, including the kickass opening chase scene, I looked over at Jessika and said, "My God, I want that man ... now."

Unfortunately, in the movie, his love interest is Miss Horrible Asian Stereotype (whom he gives noodles and, strangely, chopsticks when he first entertains her at his home).

She apparently can read and follow an English cookbook recipe despite not being able to read it aloud. Her broken English line-readings are, I think unintentionally, the funniest damn thing in the film.

"That ... is ... point of romantic swim, no? No ... witnesses..."

There are also the typical moments. The cheezoid rap music that segues into the romantic violin music when a fight scene ends with the hero encountering Miss Asia. A villain walks into every scene with the same facial expression. A cop walks away from the hero's seaside home castle but isn't able to hear or return to the scene when it's attacked by a barrage of cruise missiles and machine-gun fire two minutes later. (When the first missile flies toward the house, I laughed out loud.)

Then comes the scuba-diving escape scene. Jessika told me that the hero probably keeps two full diving suits and equipment under his house for just such an occasion. I told Jessika it was lucky that Miss Asia was a certified diver.

We were 40 minutes into the movie, and Jessika turns to me and says, "You know, we still haven't figured out what the hell this is about."

Soon, another guy shows up in the film, wearing so much pancake makeup that I told Jessika he looked like Little Richard.

When you do realize the plot, though, it's so wildly implausible that I was asking Jessika. "OK, so the hero's trying to stop people from smuggling illegal Asian slaves in the back of MACK trucks through the French Riviera? Where are they going? Who keeps Asian slaves in Europe? I thought Asia was the only place where they could employ Asians under deplorable conditions at a slave wage."

(Later, I mentioned to Jessika that the scene where Miss Asia frees the slaves reminded me of the time when Catherine Zeta-Jones saved Mexico single-handedly in THE MASK OF ZORRO.)

At one point, during one of the hero's slow-motion, shirtless running scenes, I pretended to be running with him. And Jessika howled.

"No, it gets more gay!" Jessika said to me. "Soon, he's going to be covered in oil!"

It did. At one point, the hero, shirtless and doused in barrels of oil, deeply kisses a dead man underwater - to stay alive. (Yeah right.) I almost fell on the floor I was laughing so hard.

This reminds me, where can I hire myself an evil henchman? You know, someone who only exists to run at my more heroic enemies only to get killed?

And the ending, when Miss Asia frees the slaves (while I was wondering why they weren't all sick from being stuck in the back of a truck during an elaborate, multi-accident chase scene), also has her deliver what must be the worst line in the history of film.

Jessika and I laughed so hard that we both cried. We're going to gather a group of people to see it again later this week. I suggest you do the same.

Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

One of the best films of the year.

[10/10 · 29 October 2002]

On Saturday, I saw one of the most obscure, bizarre, different and ultimately conventional and rewarding films, and I have to recommend it to all of you.

It's the Adam Sandler-Paul Thomas Anderson movie, PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE.

Usually, with Adam Sandler, I'm on the fence. I remember him from when he was on REMOTE CONTROL when I was 12. I remember him when he started on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, and I loved his skit there called THE DENISE SHOW, where a dumped, depressed guy uses a cable access program as an excuse to stalk his ex-girlfriend. P.T. Anderson, I noticed from interviews, remembered Sandler from THE DENISE SHOW, too, and made this movie with the complexities and sadness that character in mind.

All the rage (not range) that Sandler showed in films like THE WEDDING SINGER, which at times was smart and good, or THE WATERBOY, which at times was dumb and good, is on display in PUNCH-DRUNK, but Sandler's character, Barry Egan, is more awkward than goofy. He's shy, damaged, browbeaten. In his words, he "doesn't like himself very much sometimes."

In the role, Sandler's able to maintain his character's oddness, manic temper (complete with fits of violence) and essential goodness, generating sympathy and care even when he does things like call a phone-sex line or destroy a restaurant bathroom.

As I've watched more Paul Thomas Anderson films in an attempt to better understand them (for MAGNOLIA frequently left me baffled and confused), I've come to appreciate some recurring elements: twists of fate that inject magic into everyday life, characters that exist only to forgive and love the damaged characters and random, off-the-wall dialogue and plot twists.

PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE has these. Its hokiness, for it is a somewhat-formula romantic comedy, is redeemed by these elements.

Lena Leonard, played by Emily Watson, is the character whose sole purpose in the film is to unconditionally love Barry Egan. The character isn't as clearly defined or quirky as Sandler's because she exists for a sole purpose, to save Egan from himself, to teach him how to hold relationships with others, to trust others, because she almost instinctively understands that he's been hurt a lot and hasn't really deserved it.

The arrival of Leonard in Barry's life coincides with the arrival, as well, of a harmonium on his doorstep. The harmonium, one of those air-organ type instruments, shows up by complete chance, and its arrival, strangely, initially frightens Barry. Yet, as he comes to accept it and learns how to play it, everything else in Barry's life comes into order.

I loved this movie so much that I wanted to give it a hug. It's not laugh-out-loud funny. It probably won't appeal to a lot of people. Some people may find it too off-the-wall. Others may just not get it.

But I embrace any film that understands its themes clearly, knows what it's trying to say and says just that. I don't even mind a happy ending if a film earns it.

Through accepting that goodness and magic does occur in the world and that the world isn't all hurt, Barry Egan is able to accept that there is goodness inside him and that he deserves love.

I thought that was pretty great.

So see it.

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

Not great, of course ... but damn fun (SPOILERS)

[8/10 · 7 June 2002]

All right, the writing is terrible; the talented actors give the most wooden line readings; and the love story is hamhanded, silly and just WRONG.

But who cares? Ewan McGregor, even with that hair, Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman sure are nice to look at. Samuel L. Jackson gets to say "The party's over." JarJar's barely in the damn thing. And, to top it all off and save the movie, Yoda FIGHTS!

All in all, the last 45 minutes made me happy that I made the trip to the first midnight screening.

The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)

Fair is Fair! (SPOILERS)

[5/10 · 7 June 2002]

God, from Helen Slater's rebel Joan of Arc haircut to Pat Benatar's brilliant theme song "Invincible," this movie is so-o-o self-righteous in its "Don't doubt the children" message that you'll almost forget that it's about kids fighting a man over a broken dirt bike.

Basically, the movie now works as a trivia footnote. This was Yeardley Smith's biggest actual performance, before she became the "voice of Lisa Simpson" and did that cameo in "As Good As It Gets." Here she plays a mousy young girl who finds her own independence and her own short, rebellious haircut through her admiration of tortured teen-turned-media goddess Billie Jean (Slater). Also, Christian Slater, whom I don't think is actually related to Helen Slater, plays Billie Jean's troublesome-with-all-sorts-of-misguided-anger brother, whose dirt bike problems cause the whole movie to begin with. Keith Gordon, who played the guy who had the demon-possessed car in "Christine" and the guy with the demon-possessed father in "Back to School," gave up on acting shortly after this and became a pretty good director.

My biggest problem with this movie is that it loses its message in the course of showcasing misunderstood youth. By the time Billie Jean starts throwing money at people and they burn theme T-shirts of her in effigy, I was confused. Was the point that Billie Jean wasn't a heroine? Was the point that all she wanted was fair treatment and didn't get it? Are we to believe that this is the only way kids can be understood, if they go on some rampage and fake a kidnapping? What does the film say about kids in general? What underlying themes are we, as an audience, supposed to carry away from this film?

The only thing it seems to conclude is that it's really cool and really rebellious to get a short haircut.

High Crimes (2002)

Garbage from hell. (With spoilers)

[17 April 2002]

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** OK, so Ashley Judd is this high-powered attorney, right? (So, yeah, already we've lost all plausibility. In one scene, she uses threatening legal jargon while wearing a ball gown. It's that kind of movie.)

Anyway, she finds out that her husband is a) a fugitive; b) a former Marine; c) a suspected murderer; and d) someone who didn't give her his real name or life story from the time they met. I'm guessing most people would ask for a divorce. Certainly, if I were Ashley Judd's attorney in this movie, I'd have told her to dump the b**tard, even if he did look like Jim Caviezel.

Unfortunately, Ashley acts as her own attorney, so she doesn't have anyone around to give her any good legal advice. (Is she acting as her own agent? Someone's not giving her good career advice, either, if she thought it was a good idea to appear in this.)

Morgan Freeman's in this movie, but that doesn't save it. Nor does the "Duh, I told you to divorce the guy before all this crap happened ..." surprise ending.

Of course, you don't have to listen to me. My friend I was with loved this movie, while I was shaking my hands at the screen, calling Ashley Judd's character stupid.

Crossroads (I) (2002)

Not as bad as you might think ... (Possible spoilers)

[5/10 · 1 March 2002]

So I saw this movie twice in two days, with a combined sense of admiration and mocking, and I must admit, to myself and to everyone, that I am a closet Britney fan. I don't really like her music much. I'm not attracted to the girl ... woman, whatever. I just think she's fun to watch, whether complaining about how her dancing is killing her on the latest episode of "Making the Video" or talking with Rosie O'Donnell about just how much she loves Justin Timberlake, that stick figure boyfriend of hers. I like her presence. I like that she seems like she'd be cool to hang out with, like she's the sort of girl who's nice enough that your parents would like her but also the sort who's wild enough that you know she'd say bad words about her own parents behind their back.

"Crossroads," her film debut, is complete cheese. It's not childish in the issues it deals with (sex, drinking, date rape, child abandonment, miscarriage), but it doesn't deal with those issues in any profound sort of way. In the film, if Britney's friend, White Trash Girl, had been retarded and Britney'd been on speed and run through a plate-glass window, then essentially you'd have every Helen Hunt Afterschool Special ever made. Her acting, given the story, is competent enough.

If you go into the theater with a playful attitude and are ready to make fun of it as a parody of every predictable teen message movie ever made, though, "Crossroads" provides you with a damn fine time. Try to watch it without referring to any character by their given name, since all the characters are archetypes anyway, and the formula behind the film becomes both apparent and laughable.

Britney (the Smart Girl), White Trash Girl and Popular Girl used to be friends, but the evils of high school society have forced them to break up their once solid friendship. Through odd twists of chance and through the arrival of, dare I say it, restructured priorities, they reunite, renew their friendship and hit the road with Really Cute Guy With A Past.

Each has their own goal, of course. (It's a formula road movie.) Britney wants to find out why her nouveau-riche skank of a mother abandoned her. Recently knocked up, White Trash Girl wants to get out of the trailer park and feel the Pacific Ocean on her toes. Popular Girl wants to visit her fiance. Along the way, much of the usual fun and shenanigans occur as each of the girls (sob!) finds they have to grow up and learn about the real world. And then, they all sing!

At face value, it's not that bad of a movie. It's watchable, which is what I come to expect when a film is released in the first two months of any given year.

But if you go in ready to give it the "MST3K" treatment, you'll have a blast.

Project Greenlight (2001–2023)

Good show about what looks like a bad movie.

[10 January 2002]

Watching this one-disaster-after-another reality show, I can't help but wonder if Pete Jones realizes just how lucky he is and how much scrutiny he's under. I mean, he's been pushy, demanding and silly on the set. He's not following a shot schedule or taking advice from anyone, particularly Chris Moore (who comes off in this show as a sort of wiseass, common-sense-spouting hero).

Incidentally, did you count how many drinks Ben Affleck had in the first episode? No wonder they sent him to rehab.

"Stolen Summer," which had a script that Matt Damon said sounded too much like an afterschool special, looks like it's going to be painful to sit through, but this show makes me want to suffer through it.

Angie (1994)

Let's just introduce 15 subplots and abandon them all

[3/10 · 25 June 1999]

Though Geena Davis is a great actress, good at playing particularly strong-willed women, the screenplay for "Angie" just meanders all over the place, from light comedy to the staunchest of melodramas.

I mean, what kind of a movie has a woman go into labor while gyrating in a Santa Claus suit then show her give birth to a one-armed baby, get abandoned by her married lover, watch as her stepmother breast-feeds the one-armed baby, abandons said baby, finds her long-lost mother (who it turns out is a schizophrenic), learns that one-armed baby is in a coma... all in about 15 minutes.

This was one of the most uneven films I've ever seen. Turturro's particularly good in it as the best friend, yet her character is left out of the final half hour, though she's a central character, and never returned to. Rea and Gandolfini's potentials are completely wasted in a movie that just doesn't seem to know what to do with itself.