rexbasior Reviews

The Saint (1997)

he stole money, he stole technology, but most of all - HE STOLE HER HEART!

[5/10 · 2 December 2004]

i just watched this movie again for the first time in five years. fortunately, i was in a mood to revisit it. i remember from watching it the first time a vague annoyance with elisabeth shue's character, her relationship with with simon and a kind of letdown by the ultimate result of things. watching it again, i couldn't believe just how laughable the love affair was. actually it was kind of beyond laughable. as a human being, i found it outright offensive that elisabeth shue actually fell for simon's ridiculous sleazy lines. the girl makes a ridiculous scientist. her scientific speeches about cold fusion are like a little girl's. even denise richards was more convincing as a famed science phd. the movie should have been made with less of an aim toward val kilmer's vanity. less scenes of him talking to himself would have been really really nice, especially since he's much duller than shue and the Russian mafia.

anyway, there were good things. i love seeing movies in Russia for some reason. nice change of scenery. also, nobody hates chase sequences. hearing some mid/late nineties music by underworld is always a plus.

the flick needed less romance and more chases. well, maybe more romance if it was the good kind of convincing romance and not the blatant drivel sent to us.

5/10

Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993)

surprisingly and wonderfully linear

[7 November 2003]

the concept works. i like how the film is composed of individual films, yet the individual films do an excellent job of telling a singular, cohesive story. the best aspect is that we don't have to deal with the boring plot proceedings- we just fill in the blanks ourselves. learning about gould's personality through the dialogue kept my interest, but looking back, it was actually the strictly instrumental pieces that really kept my interest. fortunately gould's actual performances are mesmerizing enough on their own to really supplement the visuals. a couple of favorites off the top of my head are "man sitting in chair" and "a day's journal" (sorry, not the exact titles i think). colm feore, i've seen you in about a dozen pictures, but this is the one that made me really notice your name.

Legend (1985)

enter a world where nobody wears pants

[7/10 · 6 August 2003]

let me start off by saying that the movie is sincerely awful for a lot of reasons, but i gave it a 7 because there are just too many things i absolutely adore about it.

ridley scott and some fabulous art direction and set design went all the way after they figured on titling this thing 'legend.' maybe i'll get some disagreements, but the film is just spectacular to look at. every shot looks like a very lush painting from a fairy tale. very romantic, in that it was like nowhere i've ever seen. it looked like they pulled a 'moulin rouge' and used interiors for all shots -- even the forest scenes. the result is a forest i've only seen in dreams i've had. there is also plenty of detail in the evil lair. statues, pillars, weird light sources, etc. someone put some overtime in.

i also liked the fact that there was always something floating in the air -- snow, sprites, fairies, fantasy-bugs, bubbles. like i said, dreamy.

i liked that darkness has the two biggest horns i've ever seen. might as well go over-the-top in makeup and costume design if your movie is called 'legend.' wow... that thing is pretty evil.

and of course i liked the reason i decided to rent the thing in the first place -- mia sara. where's she been? ferris didn't even know how lucky he had it.

anyway, there's a lot of silliness too. the dialogue is like the journal of that weird 6th grade girl who just sat under a tree at recess. sort of like a junior high assignment to try and sound as much like a cliched shakespeare as possible. i knew going into the movie that it wasn't known for dialogue or deep characterization. i figured that the visuals would make up for it, but as much as i loved the vision, the action made me lose interest a few times. and the dwarves and the weird dubbed kid -- yeah, weird.

also... couldn't they find some pants for tom cruise? ick. i guess they felt that since 'risky business' was a success...

7/10

Far from Heaven (2002)

but just as uneventful as i always imagined heaven to be

[22 July 2003]

i finally saw this film a couple of weeks ago and i have to say that i was actually a little disappointed. i guess my main problem is that i already knew about about the three characters' situations. unfortunately the movie doesn't really move much past that. it's two hours of premise with few actual events. i do concede that the acting is probably great (although julianne moore is pretty interchangable between this and 'the hours'). however, once again i realized that acting is pretty far down on the list of reasons i personally like a film. also, deagan was the only character i didn't find obnoxious. if i lived in that town i'd probably hang out with him and bag the lame-o coctail parties. i do admit that the conceited town's obnoxiousness was fun to watch, so that's not necessarily a bad thing. and overall the film wasn't necessarily a bad thing, just a little voidy as far as story and action goes. fortunately the girl i saw it with knew nothing about the characters so she was as shocked as julianne moore when she discovered dennis quaid's secret.

6/10

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)

all's fair in love and war and torturing movie-goers

[4/10 · 30 May 2003]

the makers of this movie failed to realize a very important element of romantic comedies. the audience has to WANT the two main characters to fall for each other. there wasn't one point in the movie where we wanted andie and ben to actually 'come to their senses' as we're supposed to always do in movies of this type. both are extremely self-involved and don't know anything about caring for another human being. of course in a good movie this leaves plenty of room for heroic changes, but they never made any (at least not before the audience stopped caring). i never got the feeling that ben would sacrifice his really stupid ad pitch (frost yourself?!) or that andie would quit her job or even the story because of how she feels (even though she hated it anyway).

i thought a more interesting love story was the one about andie's co-worker who starts the whole thing off. a movie about a girl who really loves a guy, but does all the wrong things on ACCIDENT would actually be more funny and more touching to watch. i really loved when the boyfriend comes back to her and says his pillow doesn't smell like the perfume she sprayed on it anymore. obviously he HATED when she did it originally, but because she was genuine he wound up missing her. that actress reminds me of someone too-- mary lou retton or something.

anyway, i may be a guy, but i can really love a good romantic comedy. this movie wasn't romantic or funny. people who love romantic comedies should hate this one. if they actually fall for this one, we're gonna get a lot more lame ones down the road.

Dreamscape (1984)

love scene music is the ultimate anti-aphrodisiac

[7/10 · 30 May 2003]

my best friend has mentioned this movie to me several times in the past 15 years, but i just barely caught it on amc. i can see how the snakeman scared him as a little kid. it's quite fantastic and i think the concept of dreams has a lot more of an effect when we're kids.

so this flick has what i think is a pretty cool concept: joining people in their dreams. it sort of reminded me of flatliners what with all the unreal imagery and the possibility of dying for good under the gas if you're not too careful.

anyway, i'm actually really glad they didn't attempt to make the special effects too non-cheesy looking (maybe they did, i dunno). the dreamscape sequences themselves look a little cartoony which i think enhanced the idea that we were in someone's dream. i think it would be easy to laugh at 'em, but i found the effects quite effective (except for one-on-one with the snakeman).

but the music! the music! eeegah! it sounded like an 8-year-old practicing minor scales on that hockey keyboard from 'strange brew' (incidently why didn't max von sydow simply crush the heads of those pansy government agents?).

all in all the crazy visuals carried the fun concept (7/10).