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Reviews
He Was a Quiet Man (2007)
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A movie with serious and poignant themes that isn't afraid to let out the full force of human emotion and confusion. Brilliant in its ability to draw parallels between the mind of a very "sick" individual and our own lives. Various unpleasant modes of motivation are also explored in the screenplay via archetypal imagery and polarity. More than entertainment, the movie is likely to touch a chord in the psyche of even the most jaded part of oneself, encouraging hope for change, while at the same time exploring the inevitable outcome pursuant to the present course as delineated by the characters personas. Let me try saying it this way. Intense themes of alienation, lust, power, anger and confusion are painted with broad and overlapping strokes in this powerhouse of a movie. The canvas of the screen time and again extrudes into the mind of the viewer through imagery, tone, familiarity and by the commentary of a fish. Don't over look the fish. Likely should have gotten a nomination for some screenplay award, and was, well overlooked. And then there is the hummingbird. We aren't really asked to look to deeply at these two pivotal characters in the film, yet they act as a prism regarding the various themes and characters in the film; arguably helping to blend and mix them so we can more easily identify with the film itself. Then there is the use of black and white at the very beginning of the film, one of the rare times I felt that it created more than mood or atmosphere; the footage there was poetic and beautiful. And then the descent into the everyday. Bound to continue to work on the mind, and possibly the psyche, days after viewing. I'd see it again with a friend, or as a film night kind of thing. I think that it would be interesting to listen to what other people thought of it, how they interpreted it, and also to listen to the naysayers of which there likely would be few. It deals with various taboos, and foul motives. Not an upbeat movie, I give it thumbs up.
Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966)
Great for the period and genre, still holds up today.
Believe the hype, this movie is all that it's cracked up to be. Fortunately, that's not much! For the genre that it represents, it is excellent. As a movie, it is very, very good.
The soundtrack, often imitated, never duplicated or surpassed; provides exaggerated suspense and unintentional comic relief through out the movie. It also creates an atmosphere and texture for the movie, that many other movies might benefit from.
The camera work is good. There is lots of great scenery, rapid change ups from landscapes to close ups of the actor's faces; and other interesting use of the camera, at times. At other times, there is a lazy quality to the shot choice that highlights the movement or plot at the moment.
The characters are archetypes, and as such, don't stray too much from their respective modes. There are moments when I wished for a bit more, but there was plenty of true to form moments from the major characters that made up for a lack of further development or dimensionality. Stark, interesting, comic, tragic (if you will) and intense. Good acting all around, with Eastwood giving a trademark performance, later to be more fully developed as Dirty Harry, as a comic and merciless but just defender of his own ethic.
The film has some funny scenes, and also, it has some places where it starts to drags. It's 2 hours and 45 minutes long, so it does take a certain suspension of time to sit through it all. Worth it though! Especially, if you happen to like rough and rugged westerns. I think that Sergio Leone's brilliance is overlooked in the direction and screenplay of this movie. There is something so classically cheesy and yet at the same time universally comic and tragic about the unfolding of events.
As an example, I was particularly struck by the scene in the graveyard where the three men are about to dual over the sum of $200,000 in gold coins. Truly a king's ransom. The interesting counter point being that it is a soldier's graveyard, and that most, if not all of those buried there died in the pursuit of much less then that.
The ideas of greed, confusion and ignorance were also interestingly intermixed throughout the movie. While at the end of the movie money is given a gold star (so to speak) all the tragedy and malice throughout the rest of the movie can be tied directly to it.
There is a fair amount of violence in this film, which counts against it. Over all, I have a very positive response after viewing this one. Thumbs up, and with the right people, those who might laugh along with me, I'd be happy to see this one again.
Plot synopsis.
At the beginning of the film we are introduced to the three major characters who are defined as: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The might as well have been introduced as The not so bad compared to a wolf; definitely Mean and the completely evil one. However, this would have robbed the movie of its pretensions to be a moral tale of some kind, or perhaps just obscured it's spiritual (?) message a bit deeper. Anyway.
The three characters compete with one another to see how many people the can kill, or lives that they can ruin. The good guy starts out by killing three people, so he has a good start! As the movie progresses, we see them each killing various other people, and threatening to kill one another. Except for the good guy; his utterances are generally followed through with actions. Anyway.
They each become aware of the existence of the some of gold earlier mentioned. Actually, the bad knows about the gold at the beginning of the film.
Well, suffice it to say that there is a lot of shenanigans, and then at the end of the movie, there is a showdown. Lots of thematic mood music, and then each of the three gets their just desserts: The Bad dies, The Ugly get stranded in a graveyard with his hands tied behind his back with more gold then he can carry at his feet; and the Good rides out of the graveyard with the other half of the gold. All the other stuff in the middle, is just plot devices, and chances for the characters to show their archetypes in action: not worth repeating, save to say that it was easy to follow, entertaining, and epic in scope as it involved the United States civil war as a backdrop. Entertaining, engrossing and in the final analysis a bit over worked and long. But very, very good nonetheless.
May you reading this be well and happy.
The Strangers (2008)
Predictable and unfathomable
Not my kind of movie. It was only 50 cents at the B-wood theater, so I thought I'd go see it. The rest of the day was mostly just work, and slow going at that.
So, anyway, the movie was a horror movie!! That's right, the kind of movie, where if they played a different soundtrack for a lot of the scenes, it would be boring, or maybe amusing. But, they play that icky horror music: you know like a organ playing slightly off key. Some of the scenes were preceded by not horror music, but there weren't any surprises really (unless you count the fact that I stayed all the way through it.
Oh, I did find 50 cents in the bathroom, so that kind of made up for the money I spent to get. I didn't really want to be working any more today, and so I'm glad about the time I spent there . . . in the theater . . . in the dark . . . with horror just around the corner at every turn, down the alley on the left and so on. Actually, all the action was mostly confined to a little house. It could have been worse.
This movie was really just OK. I suppose that if you like horror movies, nothing really unusual about this one, you might get a surprise here and there, but mostly just have to wait for the off key organ to crescendo horror follows!! No need for a plot synopsis, since I really don't think I'll ever be scratching my head wondering about the deeper intricacies of this movie, or what happened in it anyway.
Thumbs down. I just don't like horror movies. They interfere with my breathing. I like psychological thrillers though. Go Figure.
La vita è bella (1997)
Definitely worth seeing
Definitely a great movie, worth seeing. Very funny, and horrific; not in a Clockwork Orange kind of way, rather, like slapstick, jokes and slapstick. The horror of the movie unfolds as the protagonist is slowly revealed, and we see that it is told from a distance of many years. Presented as a story remembered, it could fall into a trap of too much artifice or sentimentality. It doesn't even get near that line, dealing with the horrific overtones implicit in the plot with restraint. I give this one thumbs up! Plot Synopsis: The story begins with the story of the protagonist's father, and how he met his mother. He was a Jew, and she not, in prewar (WW 2) Italy. His father is very fond of humor, slapstick and joy. He wins his wife away from another gentile. The boy protagonist is born into prewar Italy, and then we fast forward to the time period when Jews were rounded up and killed. The protagonist's father makes believe that it's all a game to the child, who is at just the right age to make it believable that he would swallow such nonsense hook line and sinker. They (all three main characters) are interred at a concentration camp; where they manage to stay alive until the allied forces come. Except that the father dies saving his child's life. Did I mention that this is a really good movie? You could rent it tonight, and have some real eye opening fun.
The Butterfly Effect (2004)
Not based on the Ray Bradbury novel of the same name.
Not a bad movie at all! A bit convoluted, at one point I found myself reviewing the narrative so that I could be on point with the story, and was able to do it. The main actor gets a chance to show more range of emotion than many actors, or perhaps it is more a tribute to him then to the script. While it has a Hollywood ending there is a bit of a bittersweet quality to it, suggesting that the best of all possible worlds may not be the one that we would most like to inhabit. Another tribute to the scriptwriter to pull off such a feat without being preachy or (other than already noted) overly convoluted.
The cinematography in the movie is first rate; employing a restrained use of dynamic techniques at the right moments. It might have been better with more beauty, but not everyone needs that to be suitably impressed. There was also a quality to the flashbacks that at once was recognizable, and at the same time suggested an urgency that drove the movie forward. Kudos to the special effects crew here for a subtle point well taken.
The actors all did a fine job considering the roles that they were presented with, though not all of them had the impact as the lead. The prison sequences, I think, were most impressive and visceral. The gritty childhood sequences were a bit overly intense (due to the subject matter) and underplayed (due, I suppose, the ratings board). I think that this is one of the places where the script faltered, and could have been fleshed out (ala Pan's Labyrinth) or reworked (the better choice I think) for the better. Still, it works in a better than average way here as well.
Again, overall, the movie was really good! I'd see it again to dissect it with a friend, but don't think I'd want to see it by myself again. Thumbs up.
Plot synopsis: Convoluted mess of journals. The boy is subject to blackouts. These happen at intense moments of his life. We later learn that these blackouts coincide with his future self going back in time and mentally inhabiting his younger self's body, spewing out words and actions that change the future. Never with overtly amusing consequences. It's not that kind of movie, unless you happen to be a sadist, in which case the ending will be disappointing (unless you have nurtured you inner happiness monger).
So the child witnesses events both disturbing and emotionally charged that he blacks out over; and the future self keeps finding himself in different alternate realities. Did I mention that it's kind of convoluted? So there is no linear storyline associated with this picture. Instead there are multiple aborted story arcs that leave various of the main characters in stages of emotional or physical damage. As one example, the main actor goes back in time and stands in front of a powerful fire cracker. When he finds himself in the future, his has no arms from the elbows down. The same firecracker kills his (later to be estranged, no, make that never even flirted with, let alone dated etc.) wife. You get a sense of how convoluted the story line is by these parenthetical asides, so it is a testament to the story writer that the movie was as easy to follow as it was.
These various alternative realities continue to play out, and the main character continues to hold on to the memories of them. The other characters amount to figments of his imagination (albeit flesh and blood ones, with there own hidden desires and life paths) since they are continually moved from one alternative reality to another with out even the whisper of a doubt in their minds that the one that he (or is that He - the stigmata does apply here) is currently inhabiting is the only one that ever existed, and any other ones that he might be talking about are clearly fictional.
The movie ends with the girl happily alive and wearing all white; and he's apparently a businessman (though actually he could be a drug dealer, a gigolo, an antiques salesman or a presidential candidate for all we know; all we really know is that he's done playing with the past (and therefore the future)) just going about his businessman's life.
It's a movie that suffers from this kind of linear, didactic exploration, and would be better suited to a discussion of the themes involved, which I have already touched on.
May you reading this be well and happy.
Teeth (2007)
Gobble! Gobble!
The premise for this movie - that a virgin discovers that she has teeth (that bite hard) in her vagina - is more terrible than the movie itself; unless, that is, you consider the acting, shot choices and dialogue. It aspires to somewhere between camp and Lovecraft and falls short on both counts, being neither a tale of horror, nor something that will delight generations to come. It falls by the wayside, a burnt out shell of a novel and disturbing idea.
It has it's moments; but they are occluded by the very visceral nature of the subject matter and then obscured by the low grade acting and camera work. It just doesn't add up to the sum of its parts. Which is too bad, since it is such a novel idea.
It has left me stunned. That's about all I can say in its favor. I give it a thumbs down. Don't bother with this turkey!
Ai nu (1972)
Best Kung Fu Flick Ever!!
Oh my god! This is, like, the perfect movie ever!! If you think that Kill Bill had style and class, it is just a jumped up lego building next to the Taj Mahal of classical kung fu madness, revenge and unbridled sexuality. This movie, made in 1972 - my god I was just 7 then - was years, no decades ahead of its time. It is a testament to the original director, writer, cast and crew that they were on the upper mast of a ship heading towards the new world of cinema and saw the infinite possibilities lying with in the dormant medium. And at the same time, it would be tantamount to lying to overlook the fact that in the last 30 odd years Hollywood has been treading water, left in the wake of that crew's ship.
The sets are beautiful, the acting; just cheesy enough to be spot on; the plot twists are at once predictable and yet so in your face as to be satisfying. What a bonus to have sadistic laughter erupt on screen at just the same moment as the mirthless chuckle emerged from my own gut watching this titan!! To say that this was an great movie would be like saying that Moby Dick was a long story; the ultimate understatement.
Look about you now. A computer screen, lights, your hands; the room your in. Imagine a new meaning to it all, insight, wit, fulfillment (of the cinematic variety at least) could be yours, simply by watching this gem of a movie. Almost on par with Hidden Tiger, Crouching Dragon this is a movie to be cherished by young and old alike. Find it, buy it, rent it, steal it, borrow it: just do your consciousness a favor and watch it - from beginning to end!! Did I say thumbs up yet? I'd see it again, almost any time.
Plot synopsis: Who needs that kind of thing in the face of pure genius!! This movie is like a barrel of monkeys, each one with a different face, gesture, sound; but all coming from and ultimately going to the same happy hunting grounds.
Really! To tell the plot line would just belittle the ultimate insight and profound joy (of a purely sadistic nature) that lies with in the heart of this amazing creature. However, in brief: girl is abused, fakes acceptance, kills people, people try to kill her; her weakness is exposed when she has the upper hand - no gyrations just death! - and she also dies. A fine ending to a fine movie. The only way it could have been better, is if the straggler of a detective had met his merry end as well! But in a sense, perhaps he does, if one cares to reflect on such things. Which is again the glory of this movie. No need for reflection afterwards, all is spelled out for the viewer, loose ends neatly tied in a bow.
Stop reading this and rent it already!!
American History X (1998)
Racism in the United States: alive and well today.
Here is a movie that addresses one of the most important divisions in the United States, the color line between black and white. It brings this into focus by going to some of the extremes that embody these differences in our society. It is a powerfully written, directed and filmed movie. Some of the acting is a bit over the top; however, most of it is very good.
The film doesn't leave us with a lot of answers, nor does it bother to sugarcoat the stark realities that still plague our country regarding this racial divide. Would more good have been done if the money and talent put towards this film had been expended towards directly solving the problem? With out art, our society would be even more pathetic then it is.
Some of the cinematic devices employed were too obvious; black and white for memory scenes; some aspects of the film were jarring and others were rife with stereotypes. Nonetheless, there was a great deal of fine intention and actualization brought to the screen. Thumbs up; I'd see it again under certain circumstances.
Suna no onna (1964)
A movie aimed at the subconscious.
The movie was very long. Obviously meant to be an allegory and full of symbolism. Not all of it was lost on me, though why it had to drag on for 2 hours and 28 minutes was. Overall it was a good movie. I thought that the camera work was very good, the costumes excellent (though it did occur to me that poverty suggested in the movie wasn't reflected in some of the kimonos shown).
The interplay between water and sand was interesting. The movie was understated, moved slowly and had very little action between action sequences. The action sequences in the movie were predicated on inaction - it was the nothing before that made the squeak seem like a roar.
Definitely a movie that works on the subconscious level. I'll have to see how it sticks with me. In the mean time, Thumbs up; but I wouldn't want to see it again. If you read the plot synopsis that follows, you'll see why.
Plot synopsis: The main character, a school teacher with a profound interest in bugs in out in the desert looking around for specimens. He lies down to take rest, and misses the bus back to the city - Tokyo or some such.
Some men come along and offer to help him find shelter for the night. They take him to a pit at the bottom of which is a hut and woman who lives there. She welcomes him to her home, makes him food and offers him drink. There are ominous allusions to the fate that awaits him in the rest of the movie.
She is digging sand, placing it into a dumbwaiter/pulley system that first night. The next day he is expected to do the same. There is no way out of the pit. The rope ladder is gone. He tries to escape. Fails. He continues to struggle against his fate. Food and water rations run out. Sexual tension grows between him and the woman. Wrestling, washing and sex ensue. We are enticed by the images. He succumbs to his fate, to the extent that more rations are granted. He continues to search for a way to escape.
He escapes. Encounters quicksand, is rescued by his tormenters (the villagers), and taken back to the pit. There he is building a trap for crows. A bucket buried in the sand. It fills with water, due to osmosis/pump action; its a freaking desert, and earlier in the movie much is made about how every thing rusts and rots there. This pump action explains it.
The villagers want to see the two of them have sex; if they do, his request to see the sea for an hour a day will be granted. He tries to rape her, but is too ashamed/human to follow through. It definitely relates to the sexy imagery we saw earlier in the movie - begging one to reexamine the response it first generated.
She gets pregnant, and there is a life threatening complication. She is removed from the pit, and the ladder is accidentally left in place. He goes out and looks about at the sea, and then climbs back into the pit. He wants to stay there, so that he can tell someone about the neato discovery he made with the water gathering device, and perhaps there are other reasons for his staying. They are left to the imagination.
The final shot gives a time frame of at least 7 years that the man has been left for missing by the authorities.
Phörpa (1999)
A unique movie
Made 4 years before Travelers and Magicians by the same writer/director. The story is a bit more insular, as it deals with monks living in a monastery. Much is lost on the non-Buddhist viewer, though it is material that are more knowing asides, and therefore neither essential to the plot, nor of great importance to the viewer. There are a number of points that the movie makes which is great. The journey is the destination, the greatest love we feel can be transmuted to the whole of the universe; that there are many enemies too many to defeat but that there is a way to defeat them all. That is to conquer hatred.
Somewhat preachy, somewhat schmaltzy; this movie ain't for you if that isn't your cup of tea. It is well put together, funny and doesn't try to convert you or drown you with its preach or schmaltz.
I'd love to work for the guy, if he's good to work for. His principles.
Thumbs up, I'd see it again with a Buddhist teacher or someone who wanted to see it themselves.
Week end (1967)
Don't waste your time!
This was perhaps the WORST movie that I have ever seen. It had it's moments, certainly. Most notable among them was the ending, not because of any cinematic genius, but rather, because the film had finally come to an end. Running at 105 minutes, it went on about 100 minutes longer then it should have. Not that the first 5 minutes was any better then any of the rest of the movie, but rather, that five minutes is for grace and forgiveness.
I would suggest any other movie over this one; if for example, you are a pacifist I would suggest watching Southern Comfort instead. If you fancy something uplifting, I'd recommend Irreversible before suggesting this film. There is a comparison here though, for in Irreversible we are witness to a terrible scene, one that is hinted at in Weekend - that of a rape. So despite all of Weekends pretensions to be about something, this little scene is a throwaway, almost a joke. Irreversible makes the point that rape is never a throwaway, a joke.
Weekend tries again and again to be more then it is. It fails on every count. It doesn't even rise to the level of camp. The scene that best crystalizes the movie is when the leads are being driven around in a dump truck and reciting philosophy. That is the point of the whole movie: it could have made a funny/insightful/memorable one panel cartoon; but a whole hour and forty five minutes? Come on!! Watching the sunset would be more enjoyable, enlightening and rewarding; and I should know.
Now I wouldn't want to point out that a lot of time, money and talent went into the production of the movie, and that and the time frame of its release has doubtless clouded the vision of many a reviewer. However, again, I say that it is clear to me that this is a movie that bored me, confused me with pointless dialogue (that might have been insightful . . . but was presented in a way that only a philosophy major would understand it), had countless scenes that bore no relation to the overall scope of the film (if there was one) or to each other. The costumes were dated, the soundtrack amateurish (on purpose I suppose);the characters were not likable.
On the upside, there was some interesting camera work, and one scene succeeded without the need of dialogue. That being when the cars are all in a traffic jam. That one scene encapsulated the whole movie, and had Godard had the good sense to just leave it at that, it would have been an enjoyable and memorable film. And it would have been less then 5 minutes long . . . and you can't have that!! I cut off my thumbs and throw them down in contempt on the very floor of the room that this movie was once edited in!! Not recommended!!