Lt Wolf Maker Reviews

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

Uh, no. [Possible spoiler.]

[18 May 2002]

Borrrrrrring.

Lucas(s) doesn't know what he's doing anymore. Clones plagiarizes at least 5 huge, famous blockbuster movies. I've heard that the movie picks up after 40 minutes, but guess what IT DON'T. Looking at Portman's solid torso we see George's age as he seems now to cast only for looks and no personality. She looks damn good, but there's something incredibly dead about her.

Clones clunks along and is too easy. And YODA kicking @$$ at the end is too much of a desperate attempt to please the losers who actually came to my screening with their light sabers. [There just ain't no way that little gremlin midget can jump that high.] Come on now. I'm not an elitist prick Star Wars hater. I LIKE the series...but a piece of crap is a piece of crap.

Waste of my freaking money.

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Renoir on acid

[16 January 2002]

You know that hyperactive, burlesque trailer for Moulin Rouge? Well uh, the whole movie's like that. And when all is said and done, if you don't have at least some amount of respect for what Luhrmann tried/was trying to do, then you are officially a dinosaur of the cinematic progressive revolution. What we have here is the onset of the new "Editing" era, to where digitization and special effects are invading the theater tenement like the asseverated pretension of color or the introduction of surround sound. It's a collagen enhancement to spoil us even further. The fearless, continuous prostitution of the movie experience.

Let's face the fact that the old new Hollywood of post-Vietnam is over; Kubrick is unfortunately dead, Spielberg has peaked, and Coppola is off making things like JACK (with Robin Williams; yes that was a Coppola production). The 70's directing generation has reigned, and now let a new wave sweep through the forever changing Hollywood. New ground needs to be broken, and the introduction of such cheeky fireballs like Moulin Rouge are needed to pioneer through the old and stale. And if you're not with the movement, you're against it.

Personally as a film, I thought Moulin Rouge was thin and obvious. To me Nicole Kidman will always have the personality of a wet fish, and don't tell me that when Cameron eventually saw this, he didn't think for at least a minute that Baz was ever-so slightly plagiarizing his $1.8 billion baby. Yet I liked it anyway. As a film, it was meager.

But as a creative statement...it was spectacular spectacular.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Kind of scary. [spoilers]

[22 December 2001]

Description: long narration, Renaissance fair, dialogue/action [repeat for 9 hours], a mountain, the end. No problem with imagination. But realize how not original it is. The "humble hero gets stuck saving the world" scenario with "sidekicks." The "come along for the adventure" vibe, with things I've been introduced to before.

The FX are cheesy with a capital Gouda. Overall it is somewhat lame, with too many uninteresting dialogue "getting to know ya" starters, and not enough delving into those highly frightening suspense scenarios. (Ratio would be 4:1 or less.)

Nothing against the hobbits, but I thought there'd be more action. Damn the trailer!

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

insanely complicated [the movie, not the review]

[6/10 · 26 November 2001]

From the scrolling yellow text at the start, to made-up names and languages used by the fantastic plastic aliens stuttering and mumbling through their lines, Phantom is a menace to society.

Gifted technical specs outweigh classical training in visual composition. The screen is completely saturated with details, leaving no "white space" to diffuse and compliment structured architecture. You must understand, when a person looks at a "scene" for several seconds [such as during a film], the eyeball naturally finds and gravitates to the most visually important object. Such as Leonardo DaVinci's Last Supper -- we find Jesus and stare at him, even if we're Jewish and would rather choose not to. Unfortunately in Phantom, the screen is decorated with thousands of layers of movement and color, completely disrespecting our chance within the several second allotment to focus on one spotlighted image, and saturate it into our mind.

The beginning not only has chaotic dementia in exploding every possible idea that Lucas could have accumulated in the 22 years of not directing, but dialogue and placement of action is unbelievably hard to attach emotion to. Only when we get to Anakin does some human fork prick the sterilized intergalactic muscle of wars and stars. The machines stop blocking the screen and we get the penetration of the hierarchy within the story line about Obi-Wan and Darth Vadar and such people.

From there on it is quite optimistic, bright and imaginative; a happy candyland. Beautiful places that ARE credible, for at some point you realize that you're watching 100% pure Star Wars, all done by the original creator. Not a remake of Episode IV, but something fresh and new. The spill-over concept about Vadar shouldn't surprise us, since Lucas had originally planned to make 9 movies.

Yet the special effects were more believable in Episode IV. And here we have goofy fluffy slap-stick (that was very hard to stomach). We have Ewan McGregor's haircut (that was even harder to stomach). Mechanized alien puppet faces with big lips that are only as charming as their remote control operators. Venetian cities in flat CG and perfectly choreographed sections of digital birds added to frames that didn't seem full enough. Overall it's a very child friendly affair, with token preschool-esque characters shoved in (to cover all demographics) in the form of everybody's favorite target practice -- Jar Jar Binks, or as my father calls him, that stupid horse.

But despite it all, I like sci-fi and recommend Phantom. It has its uses.

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Not sexy. Just spitfire dialogue in a murky apartment. [[spoilers]]

[16 November 2001]

Tennessee Williams was a sadist. While this movie is Mary Poppins compared to The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone [probably the most cynical movie you'll ever see], Streetcar is also mean.

Vivien Leigh's "Blanche DuBois" is very annoying. We've got Vivien as a 38-yr old blonde bombshell (to escape the brunette "Scarlet" typecast) who moves in with her poor younger sister and her husband, Stanley Kowalski the POE-lack.

Stanley (Marlon Brando) is vulgar and hateful. He verbally decimates Blanche, who is a harmless, yet crazy, flake. The end is fascinating because Brando apparently rapes Blanche....thus proving that her opinion of his brutal violence and mean-streak were correct all along.

Blanche at one point is insinuated to have affairs with young boys [around 17 years old], which doesn't make her a pervert. She's just stuck in the time-frame of losing her young dead lover, and as she ages, in her eyes HE doesn't, and that is her infatuation with young boys. The prostitution bit has probably more to do with loneliness than nymphomania.

Direction is plain. The reason to see Streetcar is Vivien (who is irritating yet that's the character, not her) and Marlon Brando. Brando was one-in-a-million. Even Marilyn Monroe had a crush on him. His volatile yelling and ruthless savagery are intriguing here, and come on...I could spend all day watching Vivien Leigh.

Good writing. GREAT characters. A classic (yet very dry) adaptation of the play. See it once. Your status will increase.

Violent Saturday (1955)

The Amishinator: It's Pitchforkin' Time

[8 November 2001]

Good for a 1950's flick (an era whose fashion and neurosis annoys me). The beginning is terribly dry, full of frolicking children and bad pants.

But the dialogue is good! Some classic one-liners. The movie picks up at the bar scene (with Fairchild drunk, calling everybody Roy). Then things fit like a puzzle. You've got a rushed little bank job, and the aftermath of that heist going awry.

Amusing, even despite the Amish "I shall get thee help, neighbor!" speak and jerry-curl sideburns movie spam.

Magnolia (1999)

What's with all this existential crap?

[25 October 2001]

There is no ingenious and life-changing philosophy behind Magnolia. Actually most of the stories had a dry prosaism that altogether COULD have been shortened. [Magnolia: The never-ending movie?]

The director's a kid, barely out of his 20s, with an ego probably rivaling Spielberg. He extracts what little wisdom there is out of those 20 someodd years, and tells ME about what I should get out of life? A topic too large for a kid, that in effect is only some generalized concept to have no regrets and talk to your old man before he crusts over on his deathbed.

The actors [Tom Cruise, ever the opportunist] were involved because P.T. had some leverage and momentary status after Boogie Nights [notice how he's on vacation from the face of the Earth in 2001] and thought it'd be pretty cutting edge to have characters that swear a lot. [There's nothing wrong with the F-word, but notice how irritatingly repetitious it becomes as the hours drag....the english language is vast and could have been used with much more color regarding insults than just breathing out f--- every other second.]

The movies gestating our society today were made by directors who knew a few people rather than being chosen out of raw talent. Back in the day movies were actually ABOUT something. Movies used to have plot. Today the high culture bracket like Ebert and his kind get some rise out of the wandering cancer/suicide/loneliness set-up, as over used as it is.

Sure, go ahead and do the intersecting-story thing, it's the fad nowadays. But it was done much better with Go -- which was funny, interesting, had much less severely pathetic characters, and although not a classic it at least didn't have that "wing-it" script quality. It was much tighter and vastly more clever. Magnolia is nothing more than an arrogant high schooler's perception into adult life. [The IQ factor must be low in 2001 for Magnolia to get 8.1 on the IMDb tracker.] People today just eat this s--- up.

Because that's basically all it is.

Gilda (1946)

The worst ending to a film I've ever seen in my life.

[25 October 2001]

Otherwise a beautiful movie. Gilda herself is as immortal as Marilyn Monroe (both were characters, in essence). Directing was exquisite. It was smart. It was kinky.

Absolutely one of my favorites...but that tacked-on, ludicrously lame ending makes me contemplate about eating my own vomit. I can't fathom why it copped out like that. It is tragically "happily ever after." How wretched.

And about that commentator who seemed to believe he was revolutionizing the analysis of Gilda by proposing it was "homosexual"....then I severely disagree. Upon my first impression, and then a calculated second look with the "homosexuality" theme in my mind -- both times leave me with no gay insinuation. Nothing. Mundson is a little wimpy, but to automatically assume he is gay because he's a pasty blonde is prejudice and an ill-incepted theology. Johnny isn't gay either. When he first steps into Mundson's casino he whistles heartily at the back of a woman. Gilda is not ripping the two "apart." Actually Mundson is pushing Gilda and Johnny together.

Homosexuality in Gilda doesn't hold water. If that's the way you're going, then you could practically apply homosexuality to everything, from Thelma & Louise to The Three Stooges. So the stars are the same sex, does that automatically mean they're having sex? I understand the sentiment and the idea, but there isn't any proof of it.

Just because the casino is full of men, doesn't make it a brothel.

The Mummy Returns (2001)

I want my Munny Returned. [No hard feelings.]

[8 October 2001]

Because no matter how sore my frontal intellect lobes were, or the sorry state of my insulted reasoning in forming realistic maniacism, you've gotta give it up to Stephen "Indian" Sommers for pumping out an unbelievable success story. His two Mummy movies put out as threateningly terrific marketeering ploys of sucking out America's millions under the front of an effervescent little action movie.

Mummy 1 was incredibly fun, no matter how the more pompous of the deployed critic army had hailed otherwise. It was a great resurrection of the light-hearted comedy farce centered around historical trumps from the same gene pool as Indiana Jones. (Or else a determined remake justified through better available special-effects/face-lift technology.) And it worked. We had a laugh. Universal made some money. And life went on.

But there is something fishy about Mummy 2. A little TOO eager to please, this sequel. More like a specifically precisioned beast of translucence based on randomly selected telephone surveys to anonymous people about what the studio needs to do to get a rise out of & get this potential movie goer to see this thing on opening day. Obviously that Oded Fehr guy was a big hit with the ladies, since he had a bucketful of these Fabioesque, heartthrob man-meat promo shots for tall dark and handsome Arabian GQ. They porked it up with flashbacks of that ever-cliché Ancient Egypt gold chantilly Renaissance paradise, as well as fight scenes with sci-fi creations of an obvious 3D computer-generated quality.

It WAS pretty. But it was also pretty confusing and pretty ugly in the IQ department. You can almost see this thing being written for the theater reaction -- where swashbuckler searches in dank cave but finds nothing, then a loud boom accompanies the "turn around and find ogre breathing down your back" scare tactic. (Insert popcorn flying towards ceiling here.) Although, the Virilliant Vosloo not only looks believable as a 21st Century Boris Karloff, he's a good sport with stage directions that must have looked humiliating in real time AND he milked some sympathy out of the audience at the end by shedding a few trick tears...dare I say triple threat? Dennis the Menace had at least some sort of listless command, and the end was on the brink of sheer excitement.

But like a drunk girl, Mummy 2 was just too goddamn easy. No sport in watching it take any chances...just another air-headed run around.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

"Once Upon A Time" is to the western as what "2001" is to sci-fi

[7/10 · 9 September 2001]

Sergio Leone. What more is there to say? Don't be fooled by the context: Charles Bronson, Henry Ford, the end of the 1960's, a "western"...no, no, my friend -- this movie is liquid style that transcends its own time period. Not even a "western" anymore, but a cool Leonefied experience.

The best soundtrack ever (Ennio Morricone's famous thrusting ballad was composed first, and then Leone wrote it into the script). Beautiful to listen to, fascinating to watch. Claudia Cardinale (a delicious Italian beauty) plays the part of lead woman, which is the largest difference between this and the "Trilogy" Leone made prior. Those had no women in them, except in small roles as the hostage and/or mother and/or rape victim and/or food fetcher. Here Miss Cardinale is magnified under the Sergio Leone patented spotlight and transformed into the pouty grieving widow, in all her false eyelashed, holier-than-thou attitude and spicy comeback glory.

And then people die. Lust for revenge boils blood. Threats are made. Threats are carried out. Harmonicas play. A beautiful, dusty, long, dangerously deliberate masterpiece plays out that curls your lips into an amused little smile by the time Jill serves the water to the men, and then the great opera finally ends.

Leone was a great director. Rumor has it he was in line to direct The Godfather. All of his trademarks are in this one, including some surprisingly deeper poetic touches [the sound of the ocean as the cripple looks at the painting, which foreshadows his fate] and classic irony [the cripple on the train has enough money to afford everything, except his own health]. As usual, the sound effects are exquisite -- everyone's voice seems amplified, and the detail of smaller elements are emphasized, like the buzz of a fly in a gun barrel, or dripping water, or doors opening.

Leone wanted Angel Eyes, Tuco and Blondie to make cameos as the 3 wanderers in the opening sequence, but Eastwood backed out so it never happened. Actually it turned out better this way. Some have said that "Once" is too slow. There is an obvious difference between "Once" and the "Trilogy," which was much more commercial. This looks more minimalistic, and is moodier than the Trilogy. Perhaps this difference in starkness and stubborn pretension via Leone is why it never became a huge hit.

Italian directors are masters of this genre. If you're starved for more, try to find "A Fistful of Dynamite (Duck, You Sucker)" -- it's another great, yet often overlooked Leone film.

WarGames (1983)

James Cameron's [unofficial] favorite movie

[8 September 2001]

It's all here.

1. Casual talk as the workers enter the deep core of their ultra secretive workspace (Schwarzenegger and Tom Arnold in True Lies)

2. Backward countdown from three, after which 2 independent key holders turn their keys (seen twice in Terminator 2)

3. Matthew Broderick is a young punk teenager in an arcade (Furlong in Terminator 2)

4. Similarity between the game Broderick and Furlong play in the afore-mentioned arcade is uncanny

5. Teenagers ride motorbikes (Terminator 2)

6. Both Broderick and Furlong are hackers

7. Annoying parents, a family dog (Terminator 2)

8. Pay phone abuse (Terminator 2)

9. Reflections of faces in dingy computer screens (Aliens)

10. Computers that use green fonts (Aliens)

11. Security fence with guards outside of a complex (Terminator 2)

12. August 15 (August 29 in Terminator 2)

13. Nerd friend of Broderick (looks similar to Catfish in The Abyss)

14. Suspense with elevators (Terminator 2)

15. Anti Nuclear War moral lesson at conclusion (Director's Edition of The Abyss)

16. "WOPR" ("Weyland Corp" from Aliens)

Perhaps more, but at some point I stopped keeping track. The look of this whole movie is like Aliens (murky and claustrophobic). Overall, a fun 2 hours. The director also did Blue Thunder, and co-writer here also co-wrote Sneakers so that should give you some context. Fairly aged, but the story is neatly tied-up and proves quite satisfying by the time credits roll.

Recommended.

3 Women (1977)

Great if you're looking for that Liquid Television buzz.

[4/10 · 6 September 2001]

Sissy Spacek seemed to be cast as the "weirdo" only because of her obvious stereotype in the aftermath of Carrie. Many amateurish technical faults (painfully sliced camera movement; jerky panorama). For a while I was angered because directing style was like cheap Kubrick, story seemed like from some wannabe Stephen King and music reminded me of The Shining. But then you realize....this thing came out 3 years BEFORE The Shining.

Themes loosely mirror All About Eve and Road House. The title is horrible ("3 Women" is a bad title, no matter what the context). And it's rather slow -- a very downed tale of 2 women meeting through work and eventually becoming roommates, that's it.

I believe the end has something to do with the guilt the women feel, therefore their apparent obligation for Woman #3. That's why #3 asks "Why are you always so mean to her?" regarding Pinkie.

If only she knew.

Don't go out of your way to see this, but if you get the chance, sit through it.

(And there must have been some chemical leak in that desert, because those people were just bizarre.)

Memento (2000)

otnemeM

[5/10 · 5 September 2001]

Surprise endings don't excuse complicated, explanatory meanderings. The story is much more shrewd than the film makes it out to be -- things are still falling into place long after the credits have stopped rolling.

Kind of slow, forcing you to give it a chance, since we presume to know the rest. Through all the billowing sequences and finally settling for some lucid crime/detective/drug theme, at the end the surprises pop out and BOOM credits roll, but only after a very cocky, humorous Guy Pearce says with the utmost pretension "Now, where was I?" You can almost hear the filmmakers sneering into your ear "Aren't we just so goddamn clever?"

Yeah, you were clever...but not much else.

5 Fight Club insinuations out of 10.

The Cell (2000)

Freudian trash. [[spoilers]]

[5/10 · 2 September 2001]

Basically yet ANOTHER predictable, boring, slow paced "Silence of the Lambs" rip-off.

The Cell is extremely dumbed down for its audience -- they seem to think that we're as inane as our public educations would suggest. There might as well have been huge yellow arrows pointing at D'Onofrio with "crazy bad guy" spelt out nearby, or at that albino dog with "pseudo-exotic symbol for crazy bad guy's soul."

Lopez (magnanimous as always) is some sort of sugarsweet Mary Poppins character that magically makes everything better for everyone. A hateless, unhated curly-topped Curly Sue. The Saint of all Saints? (How un-sacrilegious of our dear Catholic conceptor and this, his psychological daystallion/nightmare.) Vaughn, on the other hand, is nasty. This man couldn't act himself out of bed in the morning. I'm glad somebody finally disemboweled him. (I was having an urge to do something similar...)

Albeit all that, final remark: I actually recommend at least one sit through. Simple reason is that the sequences where you FINALLY enter D'Onofrio's brain are beyond words. Incredible cinematography that hasn't been seen before [aftertaste not of Liquid Television quality, but still interesting]. These vignettes are obviously the only talent of our director -- they are greatly different in style than the surrounding lameness of the "crime investigation." Glossied up, perfected, liquefied visual compositions, that although sometimes too conveniently obvious t, why don't you just give EVERYONE those stupid white contacts...oh wait a minute, you did], they're quite impressive, PhotoShopped, bubbling apple cores and apple skins of the pre-assumed subconscious of our D'Onofrio. ((These would be what the trailers used: Lopez in the desert, D'Onofrio with the purple cape attached to his back, etc. etc.)) Eye candy on a Godiva level. The rest of it (the inexcusable, pathetically boring stale bread surrounding the delectable delicatessen choice meats) is completely avoidable and too predictable to be taken seriously. But those subconscious travels -- wow.

Hell, just skip to Chapter 12 of the DVD and from there on is all you need to worry about.

5 nude body-builders out of 10.

The Blonde Bombshell (1999)

Five years between Dors #1 and Dors #2. (Those must have been a brutal 5 years.)

[29 August 2001]

Part 2 of this mini-series just goes to illustrate why the British are not [and never will be] taken seriously in film.

Part 2 probably had the stupidest movie scenes I've ever seen. Hippie Lake and grandma Dors (Dors #2) as their marriage flourished from the swinging sideburns and flower-child 60s to the polyester and Norma Arnold from The Wonder Years of the me-generation 70s. Dors' death scene, with her gagging last breath, mingling with complete melodrama and the abuse of illegal artistic license via the director....all of it had a horribly ludicrous effect.

BUT besides the sham of Part 2, I'd like to express the slick easiness of Part 1. It was quite the charming extended 90 minute episode of Diana's rise [the most interesting part of any biography -- how they go from diamond in the rough to ringmaster of their own historical circus of fame, incomparability and glamour]. Dors #1 was incredible. Perky, intriguing, talented and fresh. Confident and secure in her own body (what a body). The cinematography sets the mood of the 50s with respectable authenticity. It is fun to see Dors #1 comprehending her dream and handling it when it finally arrives full force. Stereotyped personalities in the forms of her mother [happy-go-lucky "Diana" enthusiast] and father [humorless yet harmless suppresser] contaminated some parts, and yet...couldn't help but amplify the overall cuteness of Dors #1 and her youthful solutions to every problem. Sleek and sophisticated and worth the watch.

Part 2, though, should be avoided. It falls into a mountain of hopeless confusion that loses the innocent faith of Part 1. Diana's biography takes control and suddenly children and pregnancies pop up. Husbands come from nowhere, and so do poorly explained reasons to marriages and divorces. An ensemble of events that lead up to...something, yet nothing. Alan Lake didn't seem convincing as being so madly in love with Dors #2 as to justify his own conclusion. Jill became that tedious character that popped up to move the plot along [a tired concept, the "friend serving as the audience" script ingredient]. Decades change. Lake's sideburns change. There are some dinner parties thrown in (what for?). And then that infamous death scene. Her....children? The movie didn't seem to like the fact that she even HAD children, so they conveniently just forgot those little kidlets all together. Actually, Diana's last son was eventually omitted from the entire movie altogether. Of course. Why wouldn't he?

The British filmmakers got lost in their own network of Diana portrayal. Was it fear in not representing the truth correctly? Something was obviously wrong with something, but nobody spoke up and the gears became over-lubricated. The thin slice of elegant pie caked over into a toppled mess of aged make-up and hokey drama. Silly representations that made Diana Dors seem oblivious and in a personal stupor about her own cancer. Didn't anybody tell her she was dying?

Part 2 seems insulting towards Ms Dors. The bio gets transformed into some

audience-demographic, cartoonized, British-stylized soap opera fest that reveals the temperament of the British people an assumed guess of their temperament thanks to the production studio]. This system can only stain England's credibility to their approach of cinema television [and perhaps even film]. But then again maybe a solution is impossible, since 99% of all decent British talent ends up immigrating to Hollywood. Even Diana Dors eventually moved to America.

Maybe she was the one who started the trend.

Ghosts of Mars (2001)

Oh, so they're AFRICAN Martian tribal bad guys that decapitate...

[4/10 · 27 August 2001]

I really enjoy science-fiction....but this was a little too stupid for me. Dialogue barely on a 3rd grade level. The contagious "ghost" syndrome became starkly fascinating, but was plagued with inconsistency. The set of the film is completely invariable -- just the single, abandoned cell of the city. For a special-effects movie, it practically had none. It could have been a play, it was so meek in production. The only interesting person was Zhora (sorry Ice Cube, but you're almost as flat as Henstridge). Natasha is so strangely masculine that the only moment she had any sex appeal was during that [completely deliberate] "blue underwear" scene.

Wish it was faster-paced and more intimate. It mostly used universally-inclusive scare tactics, which would have worked successfully if the drama had been more tightly wound. Campy, with points for originality, but overall incredibly B-grade. Still....I prefer this over those Val Kilmer and Gary Sinise mutations posing as Martian-based film work.

And I didn't know Carpenter had such a D&B influence to his scores (sometimes it slipped into some pseudo-1980s Whitesnake guitar riffs that, combined with the stylings of the zombie get-ups, I thought I was watching some vintage Poison concert à la Mars). What, no groupies?

Listen, the ONLY good Mars-genre movie that ever came out was Total Recall (of course, until James Cameron makes his version -- can't freaking wait!!)

Ghosts of Mars: 4 headless Foxy Browns out of 10

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

Too much talking, not enough suiciding.

[4/10 · 26 August 2001]

Completely boring, average and plain piece of film work. Not special. Not influential. The story is poorly adapted [it is too all-inclusive and "full"]. Simplicity should have been the inspiration -- taking the girls and their darkly fascinating destiny into a bold, one-lined trip. Instead, it was overwhelmed with details, with one thing rushed in so another could be included. Perhaps with the subject matter, I was expecting something more controversial. Instead the movie is a light-weight, polite, feel-good documentary trying too hard to respect everybody's memory and viewpoint. Barely an extended episode of some WB Network, teenage, school-stagnant, monotonous consumerism/commercialism that needed the title "Virgin Suicides" [which ends up being the most erotically interesting thing about the whole film] to hook in viewers.

You'll be snoring. If Sofia didn't have that famous last name tacked on like some flashing red alarm, I doubt she'd even be worth mentioning. Poor direction; poor movie.

4 suicidal virginettes out of 10 (and I'm being generous).

Jurassic Park III (2001)

A very unintelligent movie. [Grant, first you wait for the check to clear...]

[2/10 · 9 August 2001]

Steven Spielberg was executive producer. What's the point? There were no opening credits.

Saving grace - the puppetmaster God himself, Stan Winston. His talent is unsurpassed and undeniable: incredible dinosaurs from start to finish. But this is also the man who brought us the imagery of Jurassic Park 1, Jurassic Park 2, The Terminator, Terminator 2, Aliens as well as Predator (so how can we expect anything-less-than-fascinating creature effects to a point past realism, creeping toward nightmare inducing). Mr Winston, you are an asset to the industry and I thank you for your contribution to cinema and my imagination.

Now back to our regularly scheduled movie review. Which movie, you ask? The one suffering from massive "coincidental" syndrome? Yeah, that's the one.

Mystery Science Yourassic Park 3,000 --- pure crap. Not provoking. Not thoughtful. Dense fun from a rather ignorant writer, but I won't mention his name. The fable is pathetic and stupid. A low-level quality story lacking an absorbing resurrection usually desirable in sequels. JP means fun masochism, not shovelful-ed ingredients of "look" "dinosaur" "run" "escape" "relax" (repeat cycle).

Come on, what am I stupid? Dinosaurs in embryonic, liquid-filled chambers and kids surviving weeks alone in lonely, violent environments (can you say Newt from Aliens?). Idiotic conceptions with probability. [Everything is laid out so smooooothly, and always on schedule. How boring.]

It's not funny. At least not humor for an intelligent person. Overall, this movie was not written by an intelligent person and isn't geared to entertain an intelligent person. It's just dumb at this point. The Jurassic Park franchise is alive and well due to clever pioneers, but in the wrong hands it's an ugly nothing. The not-as-glamorous, not-as-interesting, paler, thinner, extracted little brother of the original.

The setting is murky, misty, green and stinky. HORRIBLE sense of location. You just don't know where the characters are or where they're coming from. No internal philosophy with the haunting unpredictability when the dinosaurs emerge from the great unseen of the lush forest. The all-Caucasian cast are in this hazardous, venomous environment but don't realize the potential of their horror. They are out in the open and not panicking because there is no dino-scene scheduled at this time - and they know it. In a good movie, nobody EVER knows. It's in the fear of the mystery that we become enveloped; it's then when our imaginations create the uncreatable and we get our delicious terror. Fear of the unknown, fear of what's out there --- THAT is good cinema. But not now. Not here. Not in JP3. Nothing new. Nothing fun. Only a dissolved concept in a dead movie not even a ghost of the first. Not even worth remembering. I wish I never saw it. My idea of what JP3 was going to be before going was more interesting than any of the regurgitated impetuosity that the movie actually was. It sucked.

Jurassic Park 3, you are extinct. 2 stillborn raptors out of 10.

Mean Streets (1973)

Nasty and unhappy movie.

[4/10 · 6 July 2001]

I really hated it. There is NO plot here. It's just a few days in the lives of these idealistic go-alongs with Harvey Keitel having the most screen time. Yeah, I saw the spiffy DVD with a macho, young DeNiro on the back and thought "Hey, this might be cool. Mean Streets, huh? Scorsese? Okay, I'll bite. It's probably pretty good." Yeah - as good as a big face rash on photo op day. DeNiro is SUPPORTING actor. The best thing in the whole movie was when he blew up the mailbox. While they were at it, too bad nobody threw the script and screenplay in there.

Scorsese's [randomly experimentational] direction was moody and lost all novelty after a short while. So did the overly saturated "song system" stream-lined through you'd think they forgot to turn off the radio while they filmed. Watching a movie should be fun, whether it's perverted fun or bloodlust fun, wallowing fun, emotional pitfall or escapist fun - you should still have a good time while you melt away your life in front of the little glowing screen that solves all your problems for just a little while. But Mean Streets? Stale and depressing. Afterwards, I felt like I died (which, in terms of living, defeats the entire purpose, now doesn't it). I'm not saying I wanted a sunshiny, happily-ever-after marshmallow ending. I'm just saying the WHOLE thing was sad and lonely. Everything was so tormented, the part where they walked into the cemetery, the mood actually lightened up.

Mean Streets could have gone on for hours and hours. But OOPS lookee here, the 2 hour mark is coming up, so it's time to shut down Hollywood. Let's go for a big, completely unpredictable splashy ending to prove we're still macho (justifying all of our girlie, mushy romantic moments) and wam bam there we go. Aren't we clever?

Scorsese did Goodfellas. So what? What the hell does Goodfellas have to do with Mean Streets? You know it's a bad movie when a filmmaker's future work is name-dropped to justify past work. Maybe I'm overanalyzing. Mean Streets just wasn't my style. I'm sure some conformists out there liked it because 1970s American Cinema History dictates Scorsese is ONE of the FEW, and since he's friends with Spielberg, Lucas and Coppola (our honorary demi-gods, let's face it, these people are practically our fathers) so to be critically popular we sell the product. Almost without thought, we sell the merchandise, scared to death to look at it hard enough to realize what it AIN'T. But I'll do us all the favor and call it as I see it ::: Mean Streets needs to be closed down for repairs. Divert your traffic elsewhere. For the love of Spielberg, take a DETOUR.

I'll be over at Cafe Fellini on 23rd and 4th.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

What? No jet pack?

[16 June 2001]

The tragic thing is that they showed most of the best parts in advertisements. I mean they literally took every decent scene and packaged it up and shipped it out to the recycle bin of commercial wasteland until we'd wake up in the middle of the night with the subliminally, surgically implanted fight scenes and the surprise concept that the ninjas are anti-gravitational. Over and over with that drumming and some strange scene with the wisps of green trees sinking from the weight of Chow Yun Fat. Sword fights. Oscars. Word of mouth. Ang Lee here. Geisha runway fashions there. All profitable concepts are pimped to the extreme. And the mystery is gone.

I saw the movie before I even saw the movie.

But regarding the film, the story was just too childish for me. Too bad I'm not Asian. They're the only ones who seemed to like it.

Requiem for a Dream (2000)

His clapping days are over.

[6/10 · 16 June 2001]

I must be desensitized, because it did nothing for me. And whatever residue was left over - it was from the story, not the direction.

Requiem was actually incredibly romanticized. Idealistic. People with their heads in the clouds, carefree and terrified to take on responsibilities. Everybody was a victim. Passive. Sucking pity from their bad luck cows for all it was worth. Pouty kids afraid of the real world. Afraid of work. "It's a b---- out there" I believe were the exact words. Hey, it took you this long to figure that out? This is new to you? You think the world owes you something? Wake up and smell the system.

By the end, each character is impaled with cold, hard reality. A metaphor for life always slapping the daydreaming escapist in the face. And the movie ends and we are forced to mourn. But grieve for what -- the four fools? Babies in a world of wolves resistant in converting to maturity.

What did Aronofsky add to Requiem? Just another MTV music video for the doper. An organically motivated skip-fest interested in everything from the mundane to the outrageous. But there is compassion - in all the mistakes and humiliation, a subtle glow of empathy haunts the film like a possessive ghost. Requiem could have been creepy. Perverted, disturbing and hard to watch. But instead it had a relatively main-stream focus. Pulling out before we couldn't handle it. Leaving all the bad stuff to be insinuated. Moments of talent, but no limits were pushed. But I suppose that is the practical approach, since all movies are so commercialized today that once a director finally breaks into the business, (s)he is terrified to gamble that safety for the sake of true cinematic exhilaration.

And what exactly was so original? The editing tricks? That cliché dock hallucination? That Smashing Pumpkins video rip-off effect? Pupils dilating? That cult of geriatrics? Intimate human drama impresses me. Flying pastries do not.

Traffic (2000)

jam

[5/10 · 15 June 2001]

Now I want to know -- all those drugs hanging around on the set, were the camera men doping up? Something should be said about the cam movement. Even stoic shots had a kind of shaky, Parkinson's quality.

But maybe it was me. After all, I was on full brain-power to keep up with the name dropping, referencing and overall lecturance of the dialogue, that maybe after a while everything naturally melted into one big, subtitled, drug happyland available in both surround sound and occasional Espagnol.

It should also be said that somebody got a little too happy-go-lucky with the color filters. And Michael Douglas looked lost. No, I mean literally. ("This isn't the 711?")

Director Steven Soderbergh has a weird, schitzomorphic style. He gives life to his equipment - his little Frankensteins set off to capture the world of Catherine Zeta-Jones and....all those other actors. All that footage and all of it used. Traffic is edited to the maximum. Complete discrepancy overload - a film saturated with wavering, floating ADD looks into 3 separate stories revolving around drugs and its glamorized stereotypes. A voyeuristic look into a world of guns and stake outs, hopefully made to affect us - seduce us - with its exoticism. And we are either intrigued or invariably confused. The movie speaks for itself. Take it or leave it.

A Night at the Roxbury (1998)

brain damage from all that head bobbing

[10 June 2001]

Content. No freakin' content. A shallow concept stretched to the maximum. It tries TOO hard to be funny. Technically, though, it's very good. The lighting and overall direction -- standard Hollywood systematized unoriginality. (Gee, what a surprise.) But CONTENT was low. Monotonously low. Come on, now. You can actually tell when they're trying to get a laugh. You can actually freeze frame and pinpoint the exact moment when Chris Kattan is trying to do "comedy." They're ugly and they can't act. Somebody scared these SNL guys because it seems like they were intimidated. It completely fails. The movie is boring.

For God's sake, Loni Anderson is in it. Doesn't that just say it all...

Vertical Limit (2000)

Climbing K2? Leave your beard at the door.

[25 May 2001]

Poor, poor Krycek. He only wanted the best for everybody.

I am actually recommending this movie. Give it a chance. It becomes quite interesting and exhilarating toward the end. Vertical Limit, of course, is hokey most of the time. Some things I just couldn't swallow. And I still don't know what to make of Cheech and Chong - rock climbers extraordinaire? Hmm....I dunno.

Hudson does a good job wearing the "lovable yet selfish/murdering/greedy billionaire" character jacket. The special effects are complimentary rather than embarrassing. But let's stress something. If you're the type of person that has a blood-lust out of b****ing about all the plot flaws, inconceivably hopeless coincidences in action triangulation, and complete disregard for exact, precise realism...then you're NOT going to like VL. But if you just like adventure-movies that use their dramatic license, then I say go for it.

Just lighten up. Vertical Limit is an entertaining, fun escape out of your meaningless, pawn-like existence, so stop trying to look for God in every movie you let yourself sit through...relax and enjoy the ride.

And one more thing: an incredible performance by Nicholas Lea. (Nobody ever mentions him, do they? Damn shame.)

The Operative (2000)

No KGB --- it's a renegade/bank/hostage comedy

[6/10 · 22 May 2001]

Straight-to-video, B-action movie...but it's better than you'd expect. The director obviously went to film school [I'm assuming], because it isn't technically autistic like you'd probably expect from the film's context (B-actors, Russian accents and a low budget). And the story didn't suck so I wasn't bored. Cheers.

Beginning credits were cool. Then when it starts you're hit with a sex scene, which made me suspicious as to the quality of the rest of the movie (since you know a movie is bad when they revert to good old fashioned sex to grab your attention). But my suspicions were wrong.

The Russian guy "Gregor" looked like a buff, steroided up version of Bobby DeNiro (cool!). Basil looks like Larry Drake. Moments of pure Desperado-like violence. The music is successfully folded in. Could I also say that the guy who wrote this has been watching WAY too many Smokey & the Bandit movies.

The Operative: cheap, but entertaining.