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Reviews
The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue (1998)
Every wrong choice you can make in a sequel
I make family films for a living, and I think this film should be required viewing for everyone in the industry as a cautionary tale of how not to make a film.
Almost everything that can be wrong with a sequel is wrong with this one.
I'm convinced that the people who made this film hate animation as a medium, hate charm and beauty, hate Don Bluth personally and want to dance on the man's grave when he passes, and most of all hate audiences intensely and wish them to suffer.
But while it would be illustrative to emerging tradespeople in the industry to study specific points about individual failings of this film, it is pointless in a capsule review -- it'd be like writing a culinary review with details as to why Twinkies are not very good pastries.
Chaos (2005)
Around each bend of this twisting plot lies... more cliché
Laughably bad dialog. Boring action sequences. Bad cop movie clichés galore. Character conflict that goes nowhere. And piled on with more twists than a plate of fusilli -- but not nearly as filling. You'd think a movie with this many plot turns might actually be interesting, but around every bend is yet more cliché. It's as if there weren't enough cliché to begin with, so they kept adding more and more clichéd endings until they met some self-imposed cliché quota. Jason Statham comes off the same as does is in every film, which you either like or not (I do, which is part of why I can give it 4 stars), Ryan Philippe is pretty good (the other part of those 4 stars), and Wesley Snipes gives a wonderfully metaphorical performance in which he completely "phones it in" by literally being on a phone for most of his dialog scenes. I only finished watching it about 10 minutes ago, and it's already starting to fade from memory into the morass of typical action films I've seen.
Cidade de Deus (2002)
Takes Tarantino to School
This film takes Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie to school about how they ought to be making their own films. Every technique and trick those directors employ are done in City of God with equal aplomb, so the difference is in the content and context of the story. City of God does not take place in a slick fairyland of well-manicured, clever hoods, and it is not The Young Ones with guns. Where Tarantino's and Ritchie's films employ a cynical, "I'm so much cleverer than you" device, this film instead uses raw emotion. City of God says to the viewer "this world is real" in a way which neither requires you be in on the joke, and without looking down upon your priveledged life as if to say "you could never understand".
While a Tarantino movie makes you wonder what kind of strangely kitschy but still over-the-top murder scene will occur next, City of God makes you wonder what will happen to the characters. Instead of collecting quotable quips to throw around at parties, you spend your time in City of God following the story. Some reviewers here have accused this film of being humorless, but if there is any humor to be found in situations so steeped in violence this film does as good a job of it as either Tarantino or Ritchie.
City of God isn't as hip as a Tarantino or Ritchie film, and it's not as ponderous (or pompous) as The Godfather. However, it has all the exciting aspects of the films of its genre, employed in a believable yet engrossing way. Watching City of God didn't require waiting around for the good parts that would make the rest of the film worth enduring, and to me that easily puts it above Pulp Fiction or Snatch. It's emotional, honest storytelling gives City of God a level of tension and engagement which even the excellent acting performances in Reservoir Dogs couldn't quite salvage from the detached cynicism of the script.
You might hate the film, and that's your own personal taste, but it's worth watching at least once.
The Pianist (2002)
Honest Portrayal Of Szpilman's Complex and Horrible Situation
Danger: Spoilers Ahead
I had an opportunity to see The Pianist this weekend, and I must say, I thought it was excellent - more so than I had expected, and I generally appreciate both Adrien Brody (who plays Wladyslaw Szpilman) and Roman Polanski.
I've seen pretty much every WWII and Holocaust film ever made or subtitled in English, and The Pianist is quite possibly the best (in my mind better than my previous 3 favorites of this genre: Europa Europa, Life is Beautiful, and Schindler's List). Have read pretty much every book on the subject I can find, also, I can say that The Pianist also strikes me as the most balanced and realistic portrayal of the situation - and indeed this may be a problem for some people. (Like Schindler's List and Europa Europa, The Pianist is based on a true story - and I think it conveys this story more convincingly than either of those films).
What I think makes the Pianist such an excellent film is that it accepts the moral ambiguity of people on both sides, and makes obvious the fact that opportunism as much as ideology played a part in the actions of individuals on both sides. One "villian" in the form of the Jewish Police officer also plays a beneficial part in the life of Szpilman. The unexpected hero in the form of the sympathetic German Hosenfeld does not reap any reward for his good deeds. Szpilman himself feels that perhaps he should have stood by his comrades more directly in various actions such as the Ghetto Uprising, and while everyone who has read about it thinks they understand "survivor guilt" Polanski and Brody do an excellent job of making you believe that Szpilman really feels it.
Some reviewers seem to have missed the point of the moral ambiguity, which I find disheartening. They say that the good Jews help Szpilman out of sympathy, ideology, and comraderie, and the Gentiles out of opportunism, guilt, and only because he is a great pianist. I felt that the film showed that both groups who helped Szpilman had reasons ranging through all of the above, and part of the truthfulness of the portrayal was that the "moral divide" was not so clear.
The scene with Hosenfeld, in particular, struck me as being indicative of the filmmakers' perspective on this. While many may believe that Hosenfeld doesn't kill Szpilman because he is a great pianist, the beginning of the scene, in which Hosenfeld questions Szpilman with no weapons drawn, calling none of his subordinates to him, and in a civil, human tone is indicative of the filmmakers' belief that this person's core beliefs have eaten through his indoctrination. Hosenfeld has no reason, within the context of the Nazi system, to bother to find out anything about Szpilman, yet he does. When Hosenfeld attempts to get out of the prison camp by saying he helped Szpilman, it seems a desperate attempt rather than one calculated during the time in which the tables were turned. It becomes the undeserved punishment of someone who, for no reason other than his own character, performed good deeds in a terrible situation (which he helped to create, but which others of equal anonymity who went unpunished did more to create and less to counter).
Similarly, the moral ambiguity is amplified by the pragmatics of the situation. When Szpilman's brother and sister choose to be with their family in "relocation", their actions read as "morally correct" but pragmatically quite stupid (as Szpilman himself comments). It calls into question whether or not it is equally morally correct to save yourself in order to carry-on the struggle to save not just yourself, but what is left of the community, perhaps even to join with Partisans in a direct attempt to change the situation. Szpilman recognizes the value of carrying on, but feels tremendous guilt about both abandoning his family and not joining in the Ghetto Uprising.
It is this moral complexity which makes The Pianist so compelling. It does not attempt to paint the picture in terms of "Good Jews" and "Bad Germans", but rather that both sides had their heroes, villians, and confused people who could be seen as both, and that not every good deed was rewarded or bad deed punished - which from my readings, and from the stories my grandmother has told me (such as my Grandfather's life being saved by a Ukranian SS officer), is much more honest and plays on-screen as more compelling and realistic. The film does this without overstating its point and falling into the trap wherein it tries to make Jews "equally culpable" for the Holocaust. Rather, it makes clear the morally complex situation into which people were thrown, and that each responded to it according to their own character.
I think Szpilman would find this film an appropriate interpretation of his writing, and I recommend both the film and the book to anyone who is interested in such topics.
Office Killer (1997)
What it lacks in direction, it makes up in poor dialogue
I'd say this film was poorly directed, except I'm not sure any attempt was made to actually direct it.
Cindy Sherman is a good photographer, and as such the shots which are framed as moving photographs are well art-directed (in particular, the David Lynch rip-off psychedelic gathering of the souls of the victims), but that (and the Marc Ribot style song over the closing credits) is about the only good thing about this film. Otherwise, technically as well as artistically, this film is deeply flawed.
Carol Kane's performance is at times overwrought and at times dull, while the rest of the cast phones-in the expected flat, B-grade horror film acting job. None of the lead characters are at all engaging, and the attempt at garnering sympathy for the horrendously pathetic Dorine is a failure in light of how successful the film is at making her both despicable and irritating. The emotionally charged scenes are so awkward as to immediately break any momentum the film had managed to gain and leave you feeling embarrassed for the filmmakers.
All in all, this film went direct to video for a very good reason, and unless you're doing a "Bad Horror Movie Marathon" I'd say it's best left collecting dust at your local video shop...