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DarthZardoz
Reviews
A Night at the Roxbury (1998)
So many bad things to say...
I had an ongoing debate with myself while watching "Roxbury" as to whether this was the worst movie I'd ever seen, but in the end it comes out just slightly above such "classics" as "Bio-Dome," mostly because it isn't trying to be patently offensive.
Unfortunately, it's trying to be hilarious and misses that mark by light-years. As some others have pointed out, most SNL spinoff movies fail miserably, with the two exceptions being "Blues Brothers" and "Wayne's World."
This one should fall into a class of its own, though - it had utterly failed in the first three minutes, which is probably a record. Put it this way: when you make a movie, whether intentionally, that starts off looking like someone shot it on a Sony Handicam in their basement, you're not setting yourself up for success.
And of course, then you get smacked in the head with the idiot story, the moronic dialogue, the forced nature of pretty much everything - the conflicts that fly up to drive the plot are among the most ridiculous and hackneyed pieces of drivel ever to get written into a film.
Sure, there are brief moments where you'll laugh, but not so much because the film is funny. You'll laugh out of pity. You'll laugh because you're uncomfortable and laughing's the only way to escape the mindlessness you're facing.
Skip this one, just like you should skip most SNL spinoffs. You'll never get back the time you waste watching "Roxbury," and you'll regret that.
Fight Club (1999)
Violence of a different breed, philosophy that just misses
Some movies go for stylized violence, a la "Pulp Fiction." Some
take it to something very near ballet, like "The Matrix." Others skirt
the issue and blur the worst moments, as in the hospital scenes
in "Pearl Harbor."
But the violence in "Fight Club" is a different breed - a raw,
unadulterated sort that sears at your eyes during some of the
intense sequences. It's back-alley stuff: bloodied knuckles and
noses, bruises and lacerations, and all worn like Bronze Stars by
the characters.
And mixed in there is a sort of quasi-Nietzche cant, a half-formed
philosophy that's equal parts Machiavelli and Unibomber.
I'm not totally convinced by the intellectual end of the film - there
are inconsistencies in the idealogies, though I appreciate the irony
of the highly structured Fight Club made up of a bunch of
anarchists.
Roger Ebert makes mention of the "Keyser Soze syndrome"
regarding the conclusion of the film, which has some merit - it
does seem to unravel everything in a heartbeat, though there are
subtle signs pointing to what's revealed in the closing act. It takes
a little (well, perhaps a lot) of insight, but it's there in front of you if
you're thinking as the movie goes along.
Of course, the caveat to that is that the movie, with its torrent of
violence and mayhem, makes it difficult to do anything but get
swept along in the madness.
"Fight Club" warrants a few viewings - it's tough to say you love it or
hate it after watching just once. You'll either appreciate the
nuances after seeing it two or three times, or absolutely hate the
oversaturated machismo of it all. It's up to you to take that stand.
Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
A 180 from the original
The original "Blues Brothers" had just the right blend of silliness, camp, randomness, off-the-wall plotlines and great music. "2000," well, it has some music. At the end. Played by a different band.
Other than that, "2000" is just bad. It recycles jokes, scenes, ideas - and all poorly. Plus, it's missing the key element: Belushi. That man's willingness to make a complete ass of himself doing the most insane things a script has ever called for made the Blues Brothers what they were. Sure, Goodman's competent, but he couldn't fill those shoes.
For that matter, no one could.
And on top of that, they add a kid in there who has absolutely no business anywhere in the movie. Look at the original - the Blues boys were drunks, philanderers, Public Enemy #1 to both cops and Nazis, angered nuns, cursed and were general hellraisers. Kids, though sometimes hellraisers, don't belong anywhere else on that list, nor do they belong in the movie.
But it's not all bad - the appearance at the end by the Louisiana Gator Boys is classic. The movie's almost worth watching for this all-star band, but the scene they're thrown into is just awful.
Really, this one shouldn't have been made. Ever. Though it's not as bad as any Pauly Shore feature, "Blues Brothers 2000" is just as much as waste of time, money and effort.
3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)
A low point
Bad. Remarkably bad. A low point for film, a low point for Costner (pretty incredible, considering some of the trash he's been in) and a low point for audiences.
I'm not sure who to lash out against to begin - but I'll take my shots at director Demian Lichtenstein first, since he's the most obvious one to answer for this mess. The man may be a more than capable music video director, but he may want to stick to that particular genre if every effort of his on the big screen will look like this one. Excessive slow motion shots, random compressed footage and an eye that wanders so often as to make almost every scene difficult to watch don't add up to success. It's obvious that Lichtenstein was still thinking in 3:05 mode - the short-attention-span mode might appeal to 12-year-olds on sugar benders, but not too many others.
Writing's next, since the plot, characters, storyline, etc. (i.e. every essential element) is a major weakness in this one. Why anyone would ruin what's a neat idea - Elvis impersonators shaking down a casino, an operation that takes about 5-10 minutes of screen time - with close to two hours of garbage is beyond me.
What really bothers me is they missed out on the real story - the planning of this admittedly cool crime leading up to the actual event, where it doesn't matter if they succeed, but that they tried it - and went with something I can't even begin to describe.
Sure, they were aiming for original and offbeat here, but wow did they miss the mark. We're not talking 4th ring outside the center, either - the target's in Central Park, and their shot landed somewhere in downtown... Siberia.
There's no salvaging this wreck. Let's just pray it sinks deep beneath the waves - maybe somewhere in those vast oceans you might remember from Costner's bad but watchable Waterworld - and, unlike the Titanic, is never heard from again.
Total Recall (1990)
Don't get too distracted by the acting...
Aside from some truly horrible acting (does anyone actually think Arnold is talented in that realm?), Total Recall's an interesting piece. The plot has more twists than a Rold Gold factory, and there's the interesting notion that any part of the movie could actually be the dream/hallucination - even what we consider the eventual climax and resolution.
And effects-wise, absolutely superb. This one definitely deserved its awards - from the violent action sequences to everything on Mars, the visuals are crafted to near perfection. Complaints that Recall is too heavy-handedly bloody ignore the fact that ruthless dictators are almost universally violent - look at Somalia or Iraq if you're confused on that measure. Bad guys in charge need guns to keep themselves in place, no matter where they are in the universe or in time.
Recall is worth watching, even a couple times. Put it in your DVD player or VCR on one too many an occasion, and you'll probably start noticing some of the ridiculousness - but that's okay, so long as you appreciate both the bad and good elements of the movie.
An American Tail (1986)
Misses on plot, quite dark children's fare
"An American Tail" is an interesting study. For a children's movie, it's remarkably dark and depressing, and it avoids what could make it a gripping movie - the fact that Fievel and his family were driven from Russia because they were Jewish.
The opening moments are particularly disturbing, as Cossacks arrive on scene to burn the quiet village. No reasons are given, no thoughts are offered, and there are some seriously twisted images of both humans and mice fleeing their respective attackers.
Reality is better portrayed when the family crash-lands in pieces on the streets of late 19th-century NYC, though much of the dark imagery remains. Mingled with some saccharine moments, those shadowy scenes seem both out of place and more compelling at the same time.
Of course, reality is slightly twisted, as the Statue of Liberty alternately faces the Narrows, Battery Park and Brooklyn, and New Jersey looks like some sort of magical, foggy stretch of land broken by inlets (I live in Jersey, and it's usually not magical or foggy, and the shoreline up by NYC looks nothing like what the animators show). I also enjoyed the fact that the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (completed in the mid-1960s) looms quite mightily at the base of the Hudson.
The plot's the toughest bit to deal with, though - relying on a series of coincidences, enough forced irony to choke a goat and leaps of incredulity that only a 5-year-old could truly believe.
The greatest problem is reconciling the movie's often-dark images with the overall sentimentality of it all. Perhaps a 5-year-old is better equipped to deal with it; both my girlfriend and I made a few cynical remarks on a recent viewing, and that inherent "why the hell did that happen?" might cloud an adult's viewing. Perhaps had things been better explained (I seem to remember a lot more plot development when I watched this movie in... oh, 1988, when I was 9), the issue of Jews being driven from Russia or any other possible, intelligent courses of action been taken, this would stand as a success.
Unfortunately, it's at best a muddled mess.
Con Air (1997)
Big, loud and not too bright
Con Air follows in the tradition of most Bruckheimer films - it's flashy,oversized and contains more explosions per minute than Dresden in WWII. The ilm contains a number of interesting characters - Cusack's Marshall Larkin and a number of the villains (notably Malkovich as a thoroughly engaging psychopath and Buscemi as - well, an even more engaging wackjob) are especially interesting, but most of the talent in the film is wasted because someone upped the budget on explosives but forgot to include summary raises in intelligence.
Yes, the film's worth seeing once or twice. It's visually entertaining (and often almost ludicrously so) and features some well-choreographed action scenes, but can't stand up to repeated viewing. You quickly realize that most of the movie is boorish and many of the characters - mostly the villains, sadly - are hackneyed and cliche.
Cage's leading role is especially disappointing, though the fault lies in the writing rather than his portrayal. The script makes his Army Ranger out as a soulless creation of the military, a man without any emotion - unless you decide to mess with his family, in which case he gets rather angry. He's shown as devoted to friends and something of a crusading hero, but there's barely enough development to give us an inkling of why he's the way he is. If you want to see convincing Army Rangers, go pick up a copy of Saving Private Ryan and check out actual humans in the military. For some reason, "Con Air"'s writers decided to take more of a "Terminator" approach, but at the same time make us like and identify with Cage's role. I'm not buying it.
Wo hu cang long (2000)
Gorgeous and misunderstood
For those of you who can appreciate poetry, you will enjoy this movie. For those of you who love literature, you will love this movie. For those of you who go to movies not comparing any one film to another, you will find this movie excellent.
However, for those out there who are blind to subtlety, raised on a steady diet of mindless action films, you won't understand this film, nor will you appreciate it for what it is.
As many have said, Crouching Tiger's cinematography is masterful. I'm a photographer and sometimes aid friends on their film projects, and I can say flat-out that Peter Pau's work on this piece is superb. His eye for beauty and subtlety is amazing and I applaud him for his achievements.
The biggest shots at this movie seem to be about a lack of a plot, which are ridiculous and baseless claims. The storylines are simple and require a bit of thought on the part of the moviegoer - and in these days dominated by brainless, bloody action films, that seems to be a problem.
This is not an action flick, though some people seem intent on jamming into the form of a martial-arts action movie. It's not even remotely that. Yes, there are fight scenes, but those scenes are more a dance between the characters than to-the-death battles.
If you're confused by the film, read a little Eastern philosophy - you can't watch it, take the view of a Westerner and expect to understand everything.
Pi (1998)
Indie film puts all the pieces together
Pi is one of the most fascinating intellectual thrillers I've seen. I love the black-and-white, high contrast film it was shot on - it lends an amazingly intensity to a film that's already wound about as tight as you can get. The imagery and cinematography are also excellent, shaping the film around the jagged script. Some people won't understand this film or be able to appreciate the characters through the often bizarre, broken scenes - if you let the movie unfold and try to keep up, it reveals itself as a marvelous independent project.