ebolart Reviews

The Real...: John Lennon (2000) Season Unknown, Episode Unknown

Pretty one Sided

[3/10 · 12 October 2007]

This documentary about the life of John Lennon is a little interesting in its early parts and more or less slanderous in the latter ones. It's most interesting features may well be the interviews with relatives of Lennon, who provide insights into his childhood and Liverpool days. But as time passes and more and more of the documentary is about what a terrible controlling person Yoko Ono is supposed to be the stranger it gets. In the end a cousin of Lennon even tells a story about how the Ex Beatle had sent a letter to his British family telling them he would return home "to take care of his real family again", just days before his murder. It would have been interesting to delve deeper into the delusions of these people, but the film is supposed to be about Lennon, and so it ultimately fails. Not because of the very negative stance towards Yoko Ono, but because the woman Lennon spent the last 13 years of his life with doesn't even get a chance to tell her side of the story.

A one sided, very opinionated documentary. For the Beatles info watch the Anthology series, and i am sure there are more balanced and insightful films about Lennon's later career as well. Nothing to get excited about.

The Soul of a Man (2003)

Waste of Time

[1/10 · 16 June 2007]

This really doesn't do the blues justice. It starts out badly with images from the voyager probe and Blind Willie McTell (or was it Blind Lemon Jefferson? Someone blind anyway) apparently narrating from outer space (?) and telling us the life stories of various blues musicians. Corny as it is, this might be the visually most interesting part of this documentary. Afterwards the only thing to see is actors incompetently mouthing the classic tunes, filmed in fake 20s black and white intercut with the likes of Beck and Shemekia Copeland raping the same songs afterwards. This is a good device to show us why the old Blues greats were really so great, but it doesn't make for compelling viewing. There is hardly anything in here that could justify making it a film and not a radio play. Nobody should be forced to see these badly done reenactments. It's a shame for Wenders, Scorsese and especially for the Blues. Avoid at all costs.

Casino Royale (2006)

Same old, same old ridiculous, childish Bond. Twist: It's also boring.

[3/10 · 3 December 2006]

What a terrible film!

It started off nicely, the pre title stuff was pretty hard core and cool (at least for a Bond movie), the action stuff with the Parkour guy was cool as well, but overly long. As soon as the real story started it degenerated into a snooze fest though. There was no suspense at all! The stuff on the Bahamas was just silly. "Here, park my car boy!" That joke is what, 30 years old? When Eddy Murphy did it it was funny, but Bond?! And don't even get me started on the minute long Ford commercial that was there for no reason: "Ah, he's driving a Ford family car. I bet he will have a great day at the beach with his wife and two little kids. Wait, isn't that supposed to be James Bond in there?! What the hell?"

They managed to make the poker game mind numbingly boring, every little detail was explained ad absurd-um ("See, he scratches his head! That's his tell!" well thanks for that information!). There was NO chemistry between Bond and the girl whatsoever, they were just some idiots taking themselves to seriously staring blankly at each other. Wasn't this stuff supposed to be, i don't know, sexy? He falls in love with her right? Nothing of this was on screen, they just tell you: ooh, he loves her. And the shower scene where he sticks her fingers in his mouth for no reason at all? Completely ridiculous. Talking of ridiculous: First he gets poisoned like a total "noob" (okay, it was his first mission, but come on: even without a supposedly top notch secret agent training nobody would be that stupid!) The scene where he has to shock himself back to life and forgets to plug the defibrillator in was just painfully dumb. Then she shocks him back to life and a second later he's a suave player again cracking a stupid one-liner, AFTER HE WAS DEAD! Retarded! Then they abduct the girl, high speed pursuit, yet they find the time to place her in the middle of the road and hide out of sight. Yeah, right, that made sense! And what was the plan anyway? "We'll put her in the road so he runs her over and feels sad?" I can only repeat myself: What. The. Hell. Why didn't they just abduct him? Would have been easier wouldn't it? But then there wouldn't have been a chance to show his car rolling over in slow motion eight times.

The torture scene: If you describe what's happening in that room to any man, he twitches with phantom-pain. Yet the inept director managed to make that scene completely unpainful. I didn't even flinch once. In the end it was just 10 boring minutes of staring at a naked guy! Who watches this stuff and thinks: wow, cool movie?! I don't get it. All the romance stuff in Italy afterwards was just out of another movie. He suddenly turns all emo and soft and quits the secret service (with an email he sends from his SONY VAYO LAPTOP - BUY NOW! An email?! It basically said: "Dear M! I quit! Yours, James Bond" That's how you quit being a top spy? Sending an email to your mom?) Blabla, huge stupid action scene (right, buildings in Venice float on huge air balloons and when they pop, the buildings just sink) the woman he supposedly loved is dead, so he's back to cold hearted killer again. He murders some white haired business man, says his name and the Bond theme kicks in. We are supposed to feel good about this, yeah, he's James Bond Bitch! In reality this is a guy who has nothing left to live for except being a hired killer for the British government. Everything human in him is dead. That's not kick-ass, that's terribly sad! Watch the Bourne Supremacy to see a somewhat similar situation handled infinitely better.

Even though all the critics say "wow, this is a totally new Bond, real acting, real drama, character arks blah" it's still the same bullshit they have been doing for more than 40 (!) years. They took some situations and put an ironic twist on them, but they're still the same scenes as in every other Bond film. There's now 21 of these things, and with one or two exceptions they ALL sucked. How much more of these films does the world need?

Oh and don't even get me started about the title sequence: A 13 year old with down-syndrome, after effects and some default plug ins can make that thing just as good (if not even better). There's card playing in the movie - WE GET IT. At least show some naked girls, but they didn't even manage that!

Last Ball (2001)

not worth the effort

[1/10 · 11 June 2005]

boring, unimpressive movie, with no sense of direction. lacking anything at all to make it interesting for the viewer. the main character (and the screenwriter) go through the motions, meeting this person, meeting that person, meeting the girlfriend, meeting the first person again - over and over. nothing happening, just boring, heard a thousand times before "coming of age" dialogue and teen nostalgia. it's so shallow and devoid of any original thoughts, it's amazing anyone seriously thought people could find it really interesting, intriguing or at the very least not coma inducing. for a movie that aimed at a comparable mood but succeeded watch "garden state". last ball is a major waste of time and money - avoid.

Ocean's Twelve (2004)

style in motion

[10/10 · 15 January 2005]

The key to understanding Ocean's Twelve and enjoying it is to realize that this film does not try to be a film about a bunch of gangsters pulling off a heist. It is a film about style. When it is explained in the end how they pulled off their heist, we understand that almost everything they did in the last third of the movie had no reason at all. They just did it for the style points and to make their adversary's defeat even more bitter. In my book, that's style. The movie flows freely, never really climaxing, watching beautiful people with beautiful voices, dressed in the height of fashion. It is amusing, not really funny except occasionally, not really suspenseful, but it is permeated by the feeling that everyone involved had a lot of fun - and it practically oozes out of the screen infecting the audience. It seems as if Soderbergh thought that he had done "his heist-movie" in Ocean's Eleven, so now he made the "meta heist-movie". It is a thoroughly enjoyable experience and i left the theater with a feeling of joy in my heart and the wisdom of true style in my bones. Style Uber Alles! Mahalo!