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A Beautiful Mind (2001)
A Life of Many Twists and Turns
Although this movie is purportedly about Nash, the genius who received a Nobel Prize for his work in mathematics which has lead to better understanding of economics in the world, it is really a very human story which anyone could relate to.
The concept of no man being an island in and of himself is true no matter what your intellectual capacity. At its heart, this movie is about how human contact is more powerful than any other factor in a person's life and love conquers all.
Though I personally consider Apollo 13 to be Ron Howard's greatest work, this movie, driven by Russell Crowe's exceptional performance, deserves all the accolades it has received.
Girlfight (2000)
Packs a wallop, but not a K.O.
I'm a real film buff and travel around to as many film festivals as I can each year. I saw this at Sundance and thought it was one of the best at the fest.
And yet, I'm not as in love with this movie as a lot of other independent film lovers. The reason is simple. I think the movie is a little bit over the top. From a political standpoint, it hits all the right notes. However, it stretches credibility at the end and also gets a little smarmy.
This is girl is SO tough, by the end you would think the filmmakers could set up a fight with Mike Tyson and he would have to resort to cannibalism to keep her at bay.
Overall, it's impressive, and you won't be disappointed. Just keep in mind that the movie is trying so hard to say something positive about individuality, personal strength, and feminism, (commendable as that is), that it sometimes loses sight of where reality might come in, and in that regard undercuts itself with the viewers it most wants to win over.
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
David Lynch is out to get you...
David Lynch is one of those crazy/brilliant filmmakers who simply WILL NOT bend to the standard Hollywood mode of movie making. This movie starts out conventionally enough, but quickly transforms into something nearly impossible to explain.
The great achievement of this movie is that it really doesn't matter. It's convoluted, sometimes maddening, perverse and yet also sharp, insightful, sexy and thought-provoking. Both of the women in this movie are beautiful and inhabit the screen like dream begotten fantasies.
Ostensibly, this movie is about Hollywood itself (which the real Molholland Dr. winds through), and much of the storyline is devoted to the workaday realities of making movies. Naomi Watts is a wannabee actress and the lead male in the movie is a director. Time and time again, however, the consciousness level of a dream state is where everything inevitably turns, so that the movie is as much about what goes on in an imaginative director's mind (such as that of Lynch) as much as anything else...possibly more so.
A great love of mine is to be completely taken away by the "world" of a movie and this one succeeds in that for certain. Yet I can tell you that I saw this movie with a friend and my friend grew impatient with it. What some might enjoy as dreamlike and engaging, others will find random, tedious and possibly pretentious. Not me. I saw it for everything that I believe Mr. Lynch intended and am not at all surprised that it has generated great admiration in addition to controversy.
Serpico (1973)
Possibly the greatest cop movie ever made...
SERPICO stands out as a classic in the genre of cop films. Al Pacino is outstanding in the title role and captures the essence of the man who REALLY did turn the NYPD on its head and expose all of the corruption hidden below the surface.
Depressing as a reminder of how many institutions are undoubtedly full of people on the take and others willing to look the other way, this movie is also a great story of what one person can do to make a difference in the world.
Maybe one of the most charming aspects of this movie is the way it was made, kind of a throwback to substance over style. Sometimes it almost feels like a documentary, so gritty and realistic are the scenes which appear to have been shot almost completely on location in New York.
You don't see very many movies like this anymore. These days, it seems like filmmakers are always in a rush to move to the next thing with quick cuts before the split second attention span conditioned audience has a chance to lose interest and switch the channel or get up to grab a snack. Serpico is told with a slower, more deliberate pace, more concerned with character development and nuance than with moving quickly on to the NEXT THING. There's no razzmatazz. Only truth and depth.
North by Northwest (1959)
Another Hitchcock Masterpiece
Very few movies have reached the level of sophistication found in Hitchcock's masterpiece North By Northwest. Many critics believe, myself included, that the entire James Bond series owes a debt to North by Northwest for showing the way to make a spy themed story with a bit of the tongue in cheek. However, no Bond film comes close to North by Northwest for brilliance and sheer thrills.
This movie is epic in scope and you can feel it the second the opening titles begin. It starts at a kinetic pace and never lets up. Many before me have described the plot outline so without rehashing, let me just say that believability is not the movie's strong suit. In fact, it is about as ridiculous a storyline as you can imagine. That's not the point. The experience, the rollercoaster of an adventure it takes you on -- as so many great Hitchcock pictures -- is the point. If you haven't seen this picture, you are in for a real treat. Don't miss it.
Soultaker (1990)
Worth seeing for hard core fans of the genre
Worth seeing as the instigator of several movies of its kind and experiencing on a dreamlike level...
As stated in previous reviews here, this movie received the Saturn Award for best video in 1991 from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. Then it was sold to the Sci Fi Channel who proudly presented it as a "Planetary Premiere." I know for a fact that most genre fans initially loved it, including me. In fact, I was a member of the SFFH Academy and voted for it in 1991 -- as did the late Dr. Donald Reed who ran that wonderful and eclectic organization until his death late last year. The cast and director were invited to the screening and were all quite amiable and unassuming, UNLIKE so many you run across in the business. I really can understand why they might balk at the strange, passionate feelings people have somehow brewed up over this movie.
I had my own personal copy of this little sleeper of a movie long before the MST3K crew got ahold of the rights, cut it mercilessly and lambasted it to great effect! As usual, they skewered everything in sight and the result was big laughs. Sorry, director, producer, cast, et al. MST3K is nothing if not funny. That's just how it is and that's why they have such hardcore fans.
Nevertheless, I will be the first to chime in that the movie actually has some good moments in its own right. Some nice cinematography, a good score, and some creepy, surreal scenes.
Consider this fact. As far as I can tell, SOULTAKER is the ONLY movie with the dubious distinction of being "proudly presented" by the Sci Fi Channel in its initial release along with several re-runs, win praise from critics including VARIETY (not bad) along with a Saturn Award, then subsequently be cut and roasted on MST3K. For that reason alone, I think the movie merits a second look if you've only seen it roasted. If you're NOT a real fan of the genre, don't bother. Those of you who ARE, you know who you are.
However, there are other aspects of this movie which I find original and even hypnotic if one allows oneself to suspend one's disbelief and overlook certain low budget or "rough edges" which inevitably take a bit of the sheen off such movies.
The opening of SOULTAKER alone is unusual and original. The SOULTAKER is introduced as a menacing figure in a dark black trench coat. This concept was later copied by many higher budget movies -- especially the big budget (and more disappointing in my opinion) CITY OF ANGELS starring Nick Cage and Meg Ryan. The producers of CITY OF ANGELS should have paid a royalty to the filmmakers behind SOULTAKER for stealing their idea! However, the real point is that a certain eerie, rhythmic presence is established by the concept of introducing the SOULTAKER by not showing him at first, except for his heavily heeled feet as they strike the surface of a hospital floor as he approaches his newest "victim" or dying subject. The casual viewer might make fun of this introduction because he hasn't seen anything like it before, or perhaps a bigger fx budget would have allowed the filmmakers to more gradually reveal the feet on each beat of the steps so that it would be less of a visual "pop", but the concept is cinematic and throws the viewer into an immediate sense of entering a different plane -- without the usual expensive digital effects! I find this rather ingenious!
The next set of shots in this opening sequence are well composed and editorially rhythmic on the same order of the unusual opening! The content itself I have not seen before, that of an angel of death literally sucking the life force or the "soul" out of a dying hospital patient. I seriously doubt this really happens when someone dies, but that is not the point!!! To me, it is a metaphorical representation of death which is far more optimistic and maybe even comforting over what I imagine death is REALLY like. What's wrong with that? I have seen people die in hospitals. People that I knew. And it can feel empty and horrible and depressing. I like the idea of the metaphor much better and hope it is closer to the truth than the cold, unseen, unknown and starkly final aspect of REAL death.
Given, I personally doubt the writer of this movie, Vivian Schilling, who also stars as the lead, considered on a conscious level the deeper metaphorical aspects of this opening scene, but I AM saying that I FELT them, possibly because I am the perfect movie goer, one willing to wholly and completely suspend disbelief, to enter into another world and experience something as completely and fully as possible. Not for the filmmakers' collective benefit, but for my OWN benefit. To find meaning where any artist has conjured up something different for the viewer to experience.
Death is an enormous and universal subject. The greatest subject of all besides love. One which the greatest movies of all time, along with love, have revisited over and over again. How it is dealt with varies depending on the audience, the artist's intentions and the seriousness of the material. SOULTAKER could clearly be construed as part of "pop culture" and therefore I imagine the filmmakers did not take it so seriously as to be unaware themselves of the inherent silliness of angels in trenchcoats going around taking people's souls.
Nevertheless, there is something more to this picture than you will observe on a purely contemptuous, ridiculing viewing, the kind you get from concentrating on things like bad makeup or continuity flaws.
To be sure, SOULTAKER has flaws. So do dreams. And that is very much my point. As the content in this movie can hardly be described by any rational human being as being "realistic", I did not view it in a realistic mode, but in a dreamlike mode and within the realm of metaphorical realities. In that realm, it succeeds and succeeds well, never mind the rough edges and budgetary pitfalls.
I would NOT watch SOULTAKER during the day or with friends chattering away reciting lines from MST3K to make fun of it. Doing so turns this movie into a circus sideshow akin to the ELEPHANT MAN. To use my own metaphor, like the ELEPHANT MAN - the real person -- or like any freak featured in circuses past, SOULTAKER can be made fun of and poked and prodded for laughs. I have seen this movie late at night, quietly, by myself, with no distractions whatsoever. You could say I "submitted" myself to its sometimes crude, but more often times -- from my standpoint anyway -- hypnotic vision. I allowed it to wash over me like an absurd dream, an impossible dream, a lunatic dream of a parallel reality which admittedly must have an infinitesimal likelihood of approaching the true nature of death. So what? The metaphor itself is delicious.
You want a classic scene? They're here in spades as some other reviewers have pointed out. Take Brad, the alcoholic driver (friend to Zach the male lead) who is clearly jealous of his friend's bond with an upper class sophisticated young woman, the daughter of the mayor. His jealousy is established with brief, but cinematic shorthand with rapid flashback cuts as part of the buildup to the pivotal car crash which sets the story in motion.
Later, we learn that Brad has become a SOULTAKER himself, at the very lowest echelons of the underworld, presumably as partial payment for his rage and irresponsibility leading to his own death and the deaths of his friends. Brad's speech towards the end of the picture can be written off as silliness by the cavalier and contemptuous, and HAS been. "There is no stairway to heaven" he says, remarking that Led Zeppelin was wrong. This is wit on the order of Steven King at his best and strikes a familiar cord while reaching for an explanation of the unexplainable. Brad goes on to remark that he "doesn't even know if there IS a heaven." He complains that "they keep him in the dark." And so part of his personal hell is that the NOT KNOWING, the aspect of human life we all find so maddening in our personal experiences as mortals, may CONTINUE! Even after death! Now that IS horrifying! From a thematic standpoint, these kind of moments are gems, and like diamonds in the rough, they CAN be appreciated. The idea "mine" of this movie is full of them in my opinion, though admittedly there are rocks along the way. That's half the fun! Although finding these gems, or ALLOWING YOURSELF TO FIND THEM, may take more work perhaps than a carefree shopping spree visit to your local jeweler.
On a purely cinematic level, the movie features even more diamonds in the rough. Take for example the shot, worthy of Hitchcock (IMHO), in which the paramedics arrive at the scene of the accident and the police discuss the nature of the wreck. The lines are bad, but the shot is astonishing. It's ONE TAKE and ends with a REVEAL of the SOULTAKER as he is watching the proceedings. It's like a ballet of action and all can be understood with the sound turned down. In fact, as a testament to the skill level behind the visuals in this movie, the whole MOVIE can be understood with the sound turned down! Try that with your favorite TV show! Talking heads permeate our viewing experience as boob tube addicts. SOULTAKER offers something much more mesmerizing. Visual design. Editorial experimentation such as the kind described concerning the opening. Whether it hypnotizes you I believe has quite a bit less to do with the hypnotist than the subject to be hypnotized. Is the subject willing to go under? That's the real question for a movie that operates in a purely dream-state reality.
Most viewers out for a quick entertainment for their buck will find this movie low on violence and the pace can be slow at times, like a dream where events happen in slow motion. Yet on a level of purely superficial experience, it's charms have worked on others besides me.
Critic Joe Bob Briggs of the Famous "Joe Bob's Drive In Movie Reviews" gave this movie his highest rating. And as a "Drive In" experience, discounting the more fulfilling aspect to me of viewing this movie alone in the dead of night, it still works.
Having read Rissi's director's notes on this which I think were interesting mostly as background info if nothing else, I doubt (like the writer Ms. Schilling) he consciously considered everything I've mentioned. By all accounts, it sounds as if he had his hands full simply COMPLETING this movie -- which is almost funnier to me that what MST3K did to it! However, there's definitely some good stuff in there. Really. And despite comments to the contrary, including the roasting, I still feel the way I did about it the first time I saw it on the big screen at the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films back in 1990 where it was received very well by a packed house of enthusiastic, genre fans.
Jaws (1975)
Possibly Greatest Man vs. Nature Flick
This movie is possibly the greatest man vs. nature movie ever made. Spielberg is at his cinematic best without falling into the sentimental overkill which occasionally hurts his pictures.
The visual design is outstanding, which is not at all unusual for Spielberg, but he actually OUT HITCHCOCKS Hitchcock! This is a much better movie than THE BIRDS, which many have rightfully compared it to. For one thing, it's much more believable. But on every other level, it also is superior to the Hitchcock pic -- namely, the acting, story structure and consistently varied and appropriate stylistic design.
Up Against Amanda (2000)
Suspenseful and fun
I saw this movie when it first came out. It was an official selection for the Temecula Valley International Film Festival and I voted for it for best picture.
Justine Priestley is hot as the psychotic, but complex Amanda. This is not your ordinary psycho movie. Lots of interesting and original slants on the genre. Sort of a "Fatal Attraction" for the younger set with some great blues music mixed in as the object of Amanda's affection is married to an up and coming blues singer who has less time for her husband as her career takes off.