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maury_markowitz
Reviews
Impostor (2001)
Moderately interesting plot concept, ruined
Philip's early works are often based on "Red Under the Bed" scare stories, a theme that's well explored in practically all of the movie adaptations of his works. So in spite of the interesting concept, considered in a vacuum, it's already been done to death. There's only so much story here, enough for the 30 minute product it was originally meant to be, but for a feature it's seriously stretched.
So if this was going to fly, Impostor would have to be a finely crafted work. And it's not. Quite the opposite, it's a low-budget shoot that looks like B-channel movie of the week garbage.
Most of the film takes place in one of three poorly-set locations, making it seem oddly airless. To add to its woes, the director seemed to have serious problems getting the actors on the same level. With D'Onofrio overacting every line, and Stowe disappearing into the background, even Sinise's passable performance has no hope of making this film work.
Admittedly the ending wasn't quite as predictable as I thought, but the hail-mary doesn't save it. Skip.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Visually interesting, but little else to recommend it.
Kubrick seems to have had a habit of vacillating between movies that are primarily visual and plot driven, and ones that are word-heavy. Sparticus was followed by Lolita, 2001 by A Clockwork Orange. Eyes wide shut falls into the later category, and frankly, Kubrick's never been very good at it.
The entire movie is based on a simple premise; the male lead is astonished to learn that his wife has (unfullfilled) sexual fantasies involving other men. This leads to an escalating series of events that fills the rest of the movie.
The problem is that we're supposed to believe that this admission would actually be surprising to anyone. Is there any man that is not aware of this fact? I can see this being a plot of a movie from the 1960s perhaps, but today it simply feels outdated, maybe even misogynist. An actual affair sparking things off might be believable, but he's upset because she _looks_ at other men? Come on! It just doesn't ring true. The plot feels completely artificial.
To add to the problems, the movie is heavily based on dialog, and it is here that Kubrick always seems to fall flat. The dialog is filled with pregnant pauses and flat dialog, one assumes deliberately, that simply add to the overall artificiality of the plot. People simply don't talk like they do when Kubrick directs them, and I found it sad to see two otherwise fine actors (yes, Cruise is a fine actor) reduced to a series of bland, empty statements. There was nothing remotely like emotion coming out of either one. Nothing could put this into better contrast than the final line of dialog, which Kidman delivers in an astonishingly unconvincing manner.
On the good side, Kubrick's visual taste remains as good as ever. The motion is slow, but this is deliberate, and works well. It would have worked much better had the movie been 120 minutes, instead of 159. Once again it seems Kubrick couldn't resist the siren-call of introducing bit characters, filling up some time and then instantly cutting them adrift.
I have to say that overall the movie isn't _that_ bad. Faint praise indeed, I know. But simply put, if not for Kubrick's earlier body of work, and well-timed death, this movie would have disappeared without a trace.
Real Men (1987)
Terrible, terrible movie
I think the only reason this hasn't made it onto the "worst 100" list is because no one's ever heard of it. Or perhaps former viewers brains, in a desperate attempt to save themselves from febrile nightmares for years, simply erased it from their memories. No, really; a couple of weeks after seeing this piece of schlock my friend and I saw a poster for it in a video store and he couldn't even remember it.
I can't even figure out where to start describing how bad this movie is. It seemed to start off OK, but within maybe 2 or 3 minutes it just fell completely flat. It tries to be funny through absurdity, which can work out just fine if you do it well, but in this case it was just unbelievably lame. The story simply wasn't funny, it was just dumb. They tried to add some "direct humor" with jokes and setups, but they were even dumber. So we end up with a continual stream of horribly telegraphed "jokes", none of which were funny even if we didn't see them coming. And to add to the insult, the delivery and timing was all over the place.
I have to agree with the other reviewer in that Ritter can be under-appreciated, but even though he actually seemed to be trying (unlike Belushi, who couldn't be bothered), nothing could possibly save this movie. It's simply so stupid that I couldn't help feeling the joke was on me, that some jaded burned-out exec in Hollywood was laughing at MY stupidity for thinking that a movie with two "stars" couldn't be THAT bad. Maybe he's still laughing today, judging by the continual stream of garbage that's come out over the last couple of years.
Really, don't see this movie, it's not even good as camp.
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Overall worth a watch, but somewhat jarring
Ok, it's a good movie. The acting varies from passable to excellent, and Spacey play's his disinterested slacker bit to a T.
But overall I just don't get it. The movie starts as a collection of subplots and character snapshots as the camera follows the players around on a typical day. I quite liked this portion. And then suddenly most of the characters and plots are removed and the movie is now "about" a single crime. Then just as suddenly it's an action movie with a big shootout.
I don't know, it's as if they couldn't decide what sort of movie they were trying to make and kept changing their mind as they went on. Worth a watch by all means, but best movie of the decade? Pshaw.