mikel weisser Reviews

Lean on Me (1989)

Much more realistic than "Dangerous Minds" with hardly any cussing

[9/10 · 14 May 2005]

I work in a school that was totally struggling and considered hopeless, marked as "failing" and basically in the same position as Eastside High in Paterson, NJ, the subject and setting of "Lean on Me." "Lean on Me" is a very good, nearly great movie. But better than that it is the true story of a true hero who truly made a difference (http://www.joeclarkspeaker.com/index.html.)

Even if i wasn't a teacher, "Lean on Me" is a solidly recommendable film. Fine workmanship in depicting the underdog who deserves to win from the director of "Rocky." Justifably award winning acting by Morgan Freeman, well before he became a stereotype of himself. BUT, better than the traditional "movie-ishness" of the picture, the story is not only a story of hope, but it is a true and ongoing lesson that real commitment can create real change.

The whole process of the often startling and occasionally unpleasant shock and force necessary to rebuild a dangerously failing school is accurately portrayed. And so is the joyous feeling sensing the turn around taking place.

Even if you never learned anyone's name from the film, the story will inspire. Even if you think of none of the ideas of it, you cannot help but feel its heart.

Rosewood (1997)

A horrible history we only wish wasn't true: Rosewood did happen

[9/10 · 13 May 2005]

So much of what i'd seen in reviews of Rosewood made the film seem a fabrication of some totally removed never thoroughly investigated minor incident in American history. But the fact is Rosewood did happen. In watching the film earlier this evening, again and again, i thought how shabbily and implausibly invented some of the developments and characters seemed. Then i went to the official website--not of the film, but of the Florida foundation which promotes the continuing study of the massacre, "Remembering Rosewood" (http://www.displaysforschools.com/rosewood.html). The massacre at Rosewood is a horrible history we can only wish was not true.

The shooting of Sarah Carrier on her front steps with a children's birthday party inside and the house being burned down. True. Two white men killed in the attack. True. A white man named Wright whose family risked their lives saving blacks who were being hunted by a mob that eventually grew into the hundreds. True. And the daring rescue of some of the town's children by train. Not only true but those children eventually grew up to cause the state of Florida to finally officially investigate the atrocity and make restitution to the survivors in 1994. Furthermore, author Michael D'Orso wrote a 370 book on the subject "Like Judgement Day" which is available through Amazon complete with accompanying essay from John Singleton. (The Ving Rhames character seems to be an invention, however.)

As a teacher i've commented on Rosewood each year during February/Black History Month and always remained hazy about it, not knowing any details beyond a few sketchy ones i'd found in an article on race riots and had not much discussed the Singleton film, not knowing how truth based it might be. No more. Singleton has brought to life a horrendous chapter of shameful history with impressively accurate detail and a heart wrenching message.

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Redux the better

[10/10 · 8 May 2005]

Just finished reading a very lucid and well prepared argument against the redux version of the film released in 2001. I must admit, at the moment i am neither particularly lucid nor well prepared, but i found the redux version superior to the original release for several reasons, a few of which i suspect to be sound. Clarity. I am as much a fan of drug induced incoherence as anyone (a quick stroll through my other IMDbposted remarks should prove that); but the expanse of the redone film film with its little morality play Playboy bunny arc and Renoir homage French Plantation sequence adds so much moral weight to the vision that it is barely the same film. The 1979 version is like an acid trip, jumping from one great scene to the next where the mind spend much of its time trying to catch up. In the Redux version all scenes seem connected, everything makes sense, even if the sense is somewhat uglier than the original. To me the French plantation sequence is of paramount importance to establishing the gravity of the film as a grand indictment and not just a heady horror story with intellectual presumptions.

Sure, rent either, preferably both, but i believe if you do rent both you'll agree the extra clarity and gravity of the longer version was worth the 22 year wait.

Cold Mountain (2003)

excellent adaptation of a superior novel

[10/10 · 7 November 2004]

"How can a name, not even a real name, break your heart?" Here's how. There have been few film versions of a celebrated novel that have done better justice to their source material than Anthony Minghella's movie of Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain. If you've read the book you will be able to feel most of the major scenes soul shakingly recreated. I personally cried numerous times while reading the novel and spent much of the evening watching the film through tears.

Astounding scope, beautiful words, great acting and great music. In the interview on the DVD accompanying the film Minghella talks about the multiple layers of the story. All of them work. One of the best films I've seen and an invitation to one of the greatest novels of the last ten years.

Wonderland (2003)

hyper-stylish, bloody & hypnotic: lurid in the best possible way

[10/10 · 22 August 2004]

Just saying you've got a movie about John Holmes is a guarantee to get some folks in front of the screen, but writer/director James Cox delivers oh so much more. A "Rashamon" of the sleazy Hollywood set, the film splitters the July 1981 Wonderland murders through a variety of angles (and film stocks), but mostly through the filter of John Holmes' coked out weasel brain. In a film full of bad guys Holmes is either the most vile, the most pathetic or both. Several versions of the story emerge and merge as Cox flashes jump cuts and twisting title cards amid effects and emoting. The dialogue is fast and naturalistic and never once rings false. While the film takes places two years after Holmes had fallen out of porn and into a truly wicked drug fueled depravity, Kilmer relentlessly exudes a sexuality so intense it can be measured in inches. This sexuality at its edges creates a sense of foreboding that hangs over the entire film almost as heavily as the violence at its center. Those murders are teased at through the whole film though are never clearly shown, not even at the climax,though the violence of them relentlessly infuses the whole picture and much blood is splattered across walls and crime scene photos. Once again Val Kilmer as Holmes shows he can act wacko better than anyone else working. Strutting, cringing, bragging or begging, Kilmer is constantly in character and the character is constantly a fascinating car wreck. Stand out performances beside Kilmer definitely include Ted Levine as the lead cop in the investigation and Lisa Kudrow as Holmes estranged wife. The trio of criminals Holmes falls in with include the frighteningly high energy Josh Lucas, the ever interesting Timothy Blake Nelson and an absolutely unrecognizable Dylan McDermott in a pivotal role as the teller yet another version of the murders. Cox suggests that no matter how much we learn about Wonderland, there is always a worse version possible, but looking through the debauchery surrounding it is much more fascinating than understanding the truth.

Elephant (2003)

give back the awards Gus

[7/10 · 31 May 2004]

NO! This movie doesn't work. The long mid-range shots Van Sant used fairly effectively in his just previous work, "Gerry" are totally wasted here and EXTREMELY annoying. Van Sant's governing creative idea of flat effect for everyone and everything precisely works against the plot: a high school massacre, which is supposed to be emotionally charged and direct, not smugly oblique. The first 3/4s of the film jump cuts amongst the various soon to be victims, but the midrange camera work and midrange emotional detachment Van Sant operates with fails to allow the viewer the connection to give a crap and often even understand what's going on on the screen. Also the genre seems also to morph as the film goes on, from kicky pseudo-mockumentary with no resolution to teen splatter film with no set up. And the "medias res" ending totally sucks. At one point in the film a character is playing a first person shoot-'em-up video game with all the realistic detachment of a typical bored teenager. Van Sant's choice to not develop viewer relationships with either the victims or the perpetrators turns the climax into virtually the same thing--a placeless, faceless shoot-'em-up with endless blood and hallways. I tell ya, the last thing I expected from a Cannes grand prize winner was to feel like a typically bored teen.

Bruce Almighty (2003)

The film you saw isn't nearly as good as the one they cut

[8/10 · 31 May 2004]

Sometimes watching the deleted scenes on the DVD of a movie leaves you hankering for the film that could have been and suddenly disappointed with the film you had thought you liked. Like the DVD for John Dahl's "Joyride"(2001), the DVD package for Tom Shadyac's "Bruce Almighty" reveals a whole other movie that was shot, but underperformed at the test screenings and got chopped down to a simplistic version of itself. Don't be confused, "Bruce" still amply earns it's 8 of 10 rating and that's an 8 tending toward 9 due to the reasonable attempt to discuss philosophical issues amid Jim Carrey's rubber faced mugging and fart jokes. The plot: "what would happen if you got to/had to be God?" is rife with possibilities and the finished film reels like a Marx Brothers telegraph of a Tolstoy novel. Pretty darn good, but Oh what could have been. Watch the deleted scenes and the "Method of Jim" reels on the extras portion of the DVD then pause to imagine the film that "Bruce Almighty" was before "Shady-hack" went to chopping. It's an editing job that trades divine for dividend.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

wonderfully stylized, but as false as a gusher of blood

[9/10 · 31 May 2004]

Don't get me wrong, I think of a 9 of 10 as pretty high praise, but it's no #77 on the top 250. That kind of rating should be for films which are about something more than live action anime. Tarintino does do a wonderful job at capturing and honoring the mood of today's violent cartoons and yester-year's B-movies. And those recurring gushers of blood are hilarious in a "Yeah I'm sick but it sure can be entertaining" sort of way. Tarintino also does a credible job incorporating a great variety of styles and approaches to the material, but the film's continuous winking at itself telegraphs that the plot is secondary and you end up wondering how much of the film is Tarintino and how much is second unit directors and stunt coordinators. ALSO, and this may be me and my watching Kill Bill, Matrix II, and Blade II all in the same weekend, but I'm awful tired of scenes where a horde of attackers supposed there to assail the main character take their turns politely waiting to get their butts kicked instead of just zooming in and dispatching the hero's ass like they should. Oh Quentin, if you could put this much love into something that really mattered ... sigh.

Gerry (2002)

hypnotic maybe, but too darn annoying to be good

[8/10 · 27 May 2004]

When i read reviews that said they'd hated "Gerry" i hoped they were wrong and insisted on going against reviewers advice because, among other things i live in the desert. But Van Sant was too overwhelmed by it and chews through far too many three minute wordless panning shots just staring at it's vastness. Damon and Affleck (the one who can act)are fantastic in their descent into dehydration delirium and the desert, like i say is great, but the pacing and vast wordlessness of the film distance it from the viewer and make really hard to not get impatient, not to mention the stoner stupidity of the characters getting themselves into such a predicament in the first place. Definitely not a waste of time, but expect to want to bitch slap Van Sant and his editor.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

worthy conclusion to transcendental series

[10/10 · 27 May 2004]

Some have said that the time gaps between issues of the Matrix series rendered dramatic developments and narrative techniques irrelevant. I say no. The 3rd and concluding chapter of the "Matrix" saga,at least on video lives up to its predecessors and far outstrips the technically impressive but emotionally inert second chapter. The challenge for a movie of scope is to be able to embrace the personal and the Wachowski brothers amply achieve that. Even more, the challenge of a series is to culminate, not merely conclude, and Matrix Revolutions does indeed finish and exceed the previous chapters, BUT ONLY if you watched the first two. As a movie oriented afternoon/evening of philosophical impact, emotional enlightenment and kick-ass entertainment, it was be a challenge to surpass the Matrix trilogy and in particular, this conclusion of the series.

Formula 51 (2001)

smartly stylish & jazzy however insignificant

[9/10 · 15 May 2004]

I don't know what you're looking for, but when it comes to stylish quick cut hard-edge entertainment, you could fill your hour and a half with far worse than "Formula 51." I'll give it a 9 of 10 for the fact that it is so very well done for what it is. The script has a definite Danny Boyle/Guy Ritchie style and edge: "we're tough English blokes with no morality, but plenty of gun play and slo-mo violence, capped by clever one-liners and doesn't that make us interesting?" While the usual answer would be "Duh, NO!," in veteran chop-socky director Ronnie Yu's hands the answer is decidely YES! A visual style like a video game and Samuel L.Jackson and Robert Carlyle trading their best "hard as ^&%#* nails" attitudes, the sharp stoner fantasy script by first timer Stel Pavlou, giddies it up with its depiction of the ultimate party drug being hustled by the hardest of the hard cores in the midst of some of the trigger-happiest criminals on both sides of the atlantic. Like I say, if you're looking for "Citizen Kane" look elsewhere, but if Cheech and Chong comedy squared by "Snatch" sensibility, well done with plenty of shoot 'em up and just a taste of T&A, "Formula 51" is a hot and happenin' way to invest your hour and a half.

The Gambler (1974)

excellent character study, caan can act

[9/10 · 25 June 2002]

a shocker in the 70s james toback's take on Dostoevskyan's fate, caan actually seems to act instead of react and gives a far more compelling performance than say, Thief 7 yrs. later. The Gambler is James toback's career making debut and has some of the most intense scenes toback would ever film despite numerous strong films later on. the ending is monumental. watch it build and be amazed. 9 of 10.

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

forget the "mindless entertainment" BS, this movie is a thinking proposition

[10/10 · 23 May 2002]

(9 of 10) trey parker and matt stone have done an amazing job of mixing social commentary with fart jokes and created a commentary on american mindlessness that takes on a chilling appropriateness in light of our current "war against terror." I don't know what canada's austin andrews (the imdb featured review) was doing when this film unspooled but it could not have been watching this moview for it is far from mindless. the ubiquitousness of the insult and the outrageous behavior shows that parker and stone were more than just purveyors of potty humor but consciously reaching to make a major statement. perhaps canadians like andrews don't really get the points parker and stone were trying to make, perhaps most americans didn't either though the film did gross well [in a multitude of ways]. when my teenage son first got into south park i thought he was wasting his time. now i see i was the one wasting time by dismissing it. irony is the people who most need to learn the lessons of this film are probably the ones who'd be outraged by it and hit the off switch when the 1st joke strikes home.

Ghost World (2001)

... and it seemed like my kind of movie ...

[8/10 · 18 May 2002]

(8 of 10) i don't know what happened, maybe it was lighter than i expected, the colors brighter, the script more gentle than expected. i don't think i can fault the director, Terry Zwigoff, who truly shows that he can craft a quality film and that "Crumb" wasn't just a fluke. i know i can't fault thora birch, steve buscemi or scarlett johansson all of whom really do commendable jobs with their characters. i just wanted more. there are so many opportunities where real commentary could've been written. there was a fatalism that wasn't borne out like it should've been or refuted sufficiently either. then there was an art show subplot that is just too arch. it's odd, for the several months it's been out and i've been preparing to rent it, i've championed it to several others, but seeing "Ghost World" at last was a little like finally, i guess, growing up, i just thought there'd be more to it, more reward, maybe, just more. ... and it seemed like my kind of movie ...

The Tao of Steve (2000)

incredibly literate truthful funny script supported by great acting

[9/10 · 16 May 2002]

no wonder this thing snagged donal logue top acting honors at the 2000 sundance festival, but i don't know what the better script could've been. this thing has it all: guy talk, girl talk, echoes and resonance, love and respect for all its characters, wit, poignancy, politics, uplift, a tremendous depth and breath of literary allusion, and a substantial dose of digestible philosophy from some of the greatest minds of world thought. seriously, this may be the first movie to quote Kirkegaard and george jetson in the same scene and make them both look wise. it's a movie about love, about wisdom, about fun, but mostly it's about learning real values and gaining all the rest through learning to be the best person you can be. that's a big load for such a funny film, but this one handles it all and then some. this doesn't mention the beautiful sets, the music (original, appropriate, and inventive, though probably the film's weakest suit)the cute kids and the celebration of contemporary gentle-souled hipster lifestyles. AND it's only 82 minutes long, you can almost fit it in on a lunch break but it will last you far longer than that. thanks so much to Greer and Jenniphr Goodman for their script and direction. from all us steve wannabes, but actual duncan north's of the world, thank you!

Schindler's List (1993)

it may be only 6th on the imdb list but i've got a new #1

[10/10 · 6 May 2002]

perhaps it's a clue about the sad state of our world, the inevitability of the holocausts of the past and the holocausts yet to come, that a full half of the films rated higher on the imdb top 250 than this monumental movie celebrate violence and war. blood and death are now and have always been the high art of our greedy raging world. we can pray for the future, but peace can only come true if people are willing to see the world through the vision of justice, respect for humanity and willing to sacrifice so others may live. That is why i suggest the visions of Keneally, spielberg and oskar schindler. this movie is so magnificent from here on out all my grades will go down in perspective. 12 oscar noms, 7 wins (including picture and director), a host of other accolades, all amply deserved. there is just so much to admire: the mix of large scale storytelling with countless smaller story arcs (kudos to Steven Zaillian's oscar winning adapation of keneally's wondrous novel), hundreds of amazing and daring cinematic touches (set design, cinematography, and editing all also picked up statues) dozens upon dozens of bravura performances, monolithic sets with literal casts of thousands, impressive historical accuracy, the list is near endless, a series of beauties rising into ultimate truth: a film with a soul. perhaps the powerful beauty of this film is that spielberg does not put a hollywood polish on the fact that oskar schindler was a comprised man yet capable of tremendous goodness. in some ways this can be seen as spielberg's first mature film and it's entirely appropriate that this was the first time he collected an oscar after 5 noms. the journalist in me wants to document all the details in this well earned victory, but the humanist in me just wants to thanks everyone involved for the fact it exists. whatever else may be wrong with our planet we can still find hope in the fact that men like schindler are remembered and revered and honored in such an celebrated and immensely popular film. if my words can make you see a film or work for peace, let this one be the one, let now be the time.

Erin Brockovich (2000)

a definite winner, uplift, social conscience, and knockout acting

[10/10 · 5 May 2002]

Steven Soderbergh's Erin Brockovich is exactly the uplift picture you've always hoped for. strong acting, moving script, important issues, legitimate procedurals and best of all it is scrupulously faithful to its true story. Struggling outspoken single mom, Erin (the Oscar winning performance by Julie Roberts proving irrevocably that she is more than just tits and teeth), gets on with a law firm run by Ed Masry (Albert Finney in a justifiably nominated supporting role)just in time to break open the biggest direct action corporate lawsuit in american history. it is not a simple magic act either. Erin's got her character flaws (many of which are visited on supportive biker boyfriend George, played by Aaron Eckhart) and the lawsuit is immensely complicated, though Screenwriter Susannah Grant's nominated script keeps it all in focus and understandable. It's the kind of story we can all learn a lot from. Erin works her tail off, polishes her own too harsh rough edges and ultimately wins a richly deserved reward (just the film itself was so amply rewarded.)It's a story that inspires americans to believe in the system and fight against corporate injustice on their own personal level. It's the kind of thing that shows each and every person can make a big difference. everybody should be proud of soderbergh for realizing what a huge hero Erin Brockovich is and for bringing her struggles and triumphs to the screen.

Spider-Man (2002)

pretty good FX bring this thing up to a 6

[6/10 · 5 May 2002]

when i think of all the movies that are great pieces of cinema (do the right thing and erin brokovich are two that quickly come to mind)it galls me to see spidey in the imdb top 250. cold line readings, extended FX sequences that begin to feel as repetitious as saturday morning cartoons, plot holes you could squirt a web through and plot inanities that reduce this thing to mere merchandising that's plotting a sequel. i watched the saturday morning cartoons religiously as a kid. they were hip and quick and funny. all things this movie is not. worse still, all the actors feel stilted but i'll give special mention to cliff robertson, J.K. Simmons, and kirsten dunst for especially lame performances. there is a particularly bad exchange between the principals right at the end of the movie that is so awful i left the theater muttering. spidey? where art thou sting? bought and sold ... down the river.

To Die For (1995)

wonderfully sustained meditation on the opiate of fame

[10/10 · 1 May 2002]

a clever little parable, a social indictment, a delightfully wicked dark comedy. what do you want to call it? To Die For is to die for. Nicole Kidman gives the performance that put her over the top as an american movie icon and she earns every kudo with her flawless turn as a woman driven mad by her lust for fame. Buck Henry's script is a perfect pitch commentary on america at the end of the 20th century and our ever increasing obsession with our fifteen minutes of fame. But to look at this film strictly as a moral lesson is to miss out on the beauty of Gus Van Sant's most fully realized stylistic achievement. all the parts add up, particularly the acting. the trio of young actors that play the henchmen(Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck, and the revelatory Alison Folland-the film's christ symbol) Kidman lures into her twisted plans shine brighter than any of the older solid actors, though no one is doing a toss off on this one. Ileana Douglas in particular should be commended for finding a full depth of range playing Kidman's sister-in-law. Gorgeous, hypnotic, devastating. it's the kind of movie you jump up from immediately wanting to write a review about.

Bulworth (1998)

another independent for Bulworth!

[10/10 · 30 April 2002]

as a social studies teacher i am always looking for movies and music that express the dire situation of today's america in a voice that will a) wake kids up to the disaster we've made of the american system and b)won't leave them feeling totally hopeless about it. Bulworth manages to achieve both aims, in both the script and the soundtrack. I can't remember a movie more pertinent to the problems of america and their possible solutions, though i could never directly recommend a film to junior high students with this much profanity in it. but as the film's big monologue points out the real obscenity is the condition of our country not a cuss word. hoorahs for warren beatty who has made such an impressive film. all is forgiven for heaven can wait.

Panic Room (2002)

latest header trip intensely effective despite a few tired tricks

[9/10 · 29 April 2002]

SPOILER ALERT. once again the stylish vision of david fincher gives us some heady visuals in his 2002 thriller, Panic Room, a film so effective at creating viewer tension that it handily surpasses its few glaring lapses into mundane cliche film making. from the very beginning with its surrealistic cityscape title sequence there isn't a doubt that fincher eye for the unusual is as keen as ever. once the paranoia soaked plot, of jody foster and her ill daughter trapped in a house w/ three seriously ruthless home invaders, gets underway, for a sustained hour and a half the viewer's breathing comes in "oh my god, what'll happen next!" gasps and veteran spookmeister screenwriter david koepp's plotting stylishly works itself through an impressive series of variations on the old cat and mouse routine. BUT STILL, a couple garish visual and plotting cliches and a few major logic faults in the final ten minutes hold this one back from the seamless excellence of Fincher's benchmark tour de force, Fight Club. maybe not a rare truly visionary classic like his last film, but Panic Room is easily the best pulse pounding thriller you'll likely runs into anytime soon. i just wish fincher hadn't given his unique New York vision such a worn-out Hollywood ending.

Training Day (2001)

an electrifying performance by denzel washington hoists film above its average plot

[9/10 · 28 April 2002]

the last fifteen minutes of Training Day are so average as to almost sink the otherwise fantastic film. this movie went from a 10 to a 9 to an 8 as its closing seconds ticked away. this is not to say you shouldn't watch it but when you get to the part where the ending becomes obvious just rewind it right there so you'll be left with the memory of amazingly realistic dialogue, satisfyingly complex plotting, and some of the best street cop performances ever. no doubt denzel's ferocious alonzo harris clearly thoroughly out-acted russel crowe's jittery timid john nash. the dialogue and plotting are also superior, up to the ending which reeks of the twin taints of outrageous coincidence and typical superhuman heroes and villains in a tired old climatic battle royale. the video offers an alternative ending which doesn't help matters one bit

Happiness (1998)

possibly as perverse as it gets (possible spoilers)

[9/10 · 26 January 2002]

if there's been a more perverse mainstream movie than Todd Solondz's "Happiness," i've neither seen nor heard of it and i watch a lot of wicked movies. but, that's not saying this isn't good, doesn't touch onto greater human themes, isn't tremendously well acted, intriguingly plotted with realistic dialogue and an interesting and appropriate soundtrack. still when one major sympathetic character is a serial rapist, another an obscene phone caller and a third has dismembered the man who raped her, when a son cries because his father, said rapist, won't rape him, when the climax of the film is that son's voyeuristic masturbation and that is only one of the film's two cum shots and the second of which is licked up by a dog and then licked onto the face of the ejaculator's mom, well, let's just say this puppy's got a major case of the kinkies. not that there's anything wrong with that. on the contrary the realistic torment of Solondz's characters is one of the film's strengths. everyone is seeking happiness and most of the characters take the pursuit to agonizing extremes only to leave themselves in even more misery, only to lament, "i couldn't help myself." with a wondrous sense of irony the characters who claim the most to have found happiness are the ones with the least clue of their true situation. to hammer the point home the female saddest sack of a character is named joy. folks this is human misery at its almost most vivid (it'd be hard to outdo P. T. Anderson's "Magnolia"). Solondz's tale is accurately and astonishingly well done, with enough humor mixed in to keep the viewer from turning it off and running away shrieking. on the negative side however is Solondz's typical static camera work (see "Welcome to the Dollhouse" twice: first to be amazed at his script and Heather Matarazzo's amazing performance. then watch it a 2nd time and realize how devastatingly dull the cinematography is. in that film the camera work was somewhat forgivable because it really really felt like everyone both cast and crew was still learning the ropes. "Happiness" features a full cast of quality actors and a complete armada of crew members and yet you can see tree roots taking hold in the corners of some shots.) also unsettling is a sameness of the actors deliveries. most every character is in near paralytic pain and this leads to a lot of supposedly supercharged droning; but sometimes it just sounds like droning. maybe that sounds a little harsh on a film i just gave a 9 vote to (in fact i'd give it an 8, but it is, i swear, one hell of a script). still, after the shock value and arresting depiction of human misery wear off, you are still left wishing Solondz would stick to scripts and let someone else direct, preferably someone who can remember no matter what the bathos they are called "moving" pictures.

Sam Kinison Banned (1990 Video)

Should be "Banned" due to ineptitude.

[3/10 · 25 January 2002]

the first half of the tape is devoted to a guest comic, Carl Del Bova who mercilessly and witlessly trashes gays, women, and fat people. He doesn't get many laughs either. after that is the first of a series of kinison music videos featuring glam rock celebrities such as Jon Bon Jovi, Slash, Ozzy Osbourne, Bily Idol and a host of others, in addition to bikini clad babes shaking their groove thing for the camera. kinison pretends to play the guitar and postures as if this was the his crowd and he there leader, but the energy falls off first the first vid ("wild Thing")is even completed and the subsequent ones (Mountain's "Mississippi Queen" and the Stones' "Under My Thumb") only produce cringes. When we finally get to kinison two thirds of his actual show is not even comedy routines at all but set pieces substituting spectacle for inventiveness: a drunkern kinison-clad MS victim trashes Jerry Lewis, Kinison calls an audience member's ex-girlfriend and screams obscenities at the girl's roommate, and a herd of comic has-beens are trotted out to extoll Kinison's "genius." The two actual routines (one on trying to buy booze at 5am and one on sex with amyl nitrate) aren't that bad (hence my vote of 3 instead of 1)but the overall feeling on the tape is that kinison didn't have an actual hour's worth of material and stuffs the show with filler, slightly lames filler at that. they say that kinison's quality went down the longer he was on drugs and the more famous he got. i would like to see a vid of his earlier material because by the time of "Banned" he is obviously totally wasted here, as is the crowd of adoring fans. Which, by the way, is how i felt about my rental money: totally wasted.

U Turn (1997)

devilishly twisted noir gets the oliver stone touch

[9/10 · 21 January 2002]

Oliver Stone could make a sow's ear at least look like a silk purse and he proves it with his superb rendition of film noir in "U-Turn." Like the Coen Brothers' "Blood Simple" this movie continuously astonishes as the viewer wonders what outlandishly awful thing will happen next. Beau coups credit to fantastic performances by Sean Penn and Jennifer Lopez as a really messed up drifter and the femme fatale he falls for when he finds himself stuck in Superior, AZ. Jon Voigt is also commendable in a supporting role as a blind wise-ass wise man, who see everything far more clearly than the sighted fools around him. A bevy of other noteworthy actors such as Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Bob Thornton, and Powers Boothe also turn in spot on performances in supporting roles; but the acting accolades really belong to the leads here for working their way through a story that puts them through the emotional and the physical wringer. John Ridley's script is so dark it's frequently comic in the grand guinol sense, but the star as in any Stone film is his masterful cinematography and editing. It might also be said that Stone make superior use of his AZ setting if folks will forgive the pun. Though the story is too slight and many moments are too cringe inducing for this to be a normal "A" movie, but this is about as good as "B" gets.