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Reviews
Starstruck (1982)
Edited from original release, but still fun
The director of "My Brilliant Career", the Production Designer of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", a choreographer working without trained dancers, several script writers and many composers bring a low-budget post-punk vitality to Sydney Australia.
As the commentary on the DVD mentions, the prints of Starstruck seem to have been severely cut in different releases, and this print has at least one song hacked out of the release I saw in 1982. Still, the bouncy energy survives. Teenage lust and ambition are tempered with working class family values. The homage to Richard Lester and gay Busby Berkeley routine are still hilarious, and the finale will have your toes a-tapping.
The Persuaders! (1971)
Loads of fun!
Tony Curtis plays Tony Curtis and Roger Moore plays Roger Moore, and the best moments are when they squabble. Moore's style is derived from The Saint (hint: "Sinclair" is an old family associated with the Templars), Curtis gets into his "brash fast talking Brooklyn kid who made it" character with zeal (hint: "Danny Wilde"), and The Avengers contribute various writers, directors and producers. The plots are secondary but click along nicely. The women are eye candy with brains and guts. The music is great: theme by John Barry (many James Bond moves, "Born Free" amid a long career) , Music Supervision by Don Kirshner and the production values are solid. Few extras but the two commentaries, made 30 years later for the DVD, are okay. The Persuaders is a buddy crime show, like I Spy or It Takes A Thief, and it works for you if you like the characters. It works for me. (Too bad it didn't work for Curtis and Moore, who are reputed to hate working with each other, hence the cancellation.)
The Medicine Man (1930)
Poor example of early talkie
The Medicine Man is a poor example of an early talkie. Slow and dumb, with a rustic cast of German-American characters DW Griffith would gag on. Jack Benny's presence makes it historically interesting, but that's about it. Benny gets off the only good line, "The New York critics have proclaimed this show the greatest amalgamation of merry making mirth provokers since Shakespeare was barred from Avon." And he mispronounces "Avon." The plot is more-or-less the same as The Music Man but without any of the music, acting or dialog. For Benny completists only.
Scarlet Diva (2000)
Syd and Nancy from Nancy's POV
Self indulgent and occasionally sexy... and those are the good points. Asia Argento is trying to make La Dolce Vita and winds up making Syd and Nancy from Nancy's point of view... if Nancy were Scary Spice. Okay... okay... that's unfair. But not by much. Flashes of a good movie are few and far between, but they're there. Not recommended except for fans.
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Ken Nordine lives!
QUICK NOTE: Stay until after the credits to see a preview of the
third installment.
Short review: The good parts were very good, the bad parts were
pretty bad and most of it was fair to middlin' and tended to go by
quick.
The good parts: The action sequences. They went on waaaay too
long, but the producers knew that they were the only thing people
would take away from the movie, so they put in a lot of them.
Most of the other special effects are okay (notably the ships) but
there's nothing really clever about any of them, and they go out of
their way to avoid any really impressive, world-building, effects.
For example, the way the transitions between the doors is handled
is awkward and doesn't add to the world. Zion is okay, in a Mobius
sort of way, but the curves and lack of right angles doesn't really
contrast with the Matrix... because you never see the Matrix. The
comic relief works, mostly.
The plot doesn't hold together as yet, but this is the middle of a
trilogy, remember? The acting is horrible. I mean, really really bad
for too many of the secondary characters. Keanu, Fishburne and
co. do okay, but not really better than that. There are a couple of
exceptions: Mergovingian and Persephone not only have the best
names (which will tell you what happens to them, if you're
following the theme) but make their characters believable. The
Keymaker overcomes an inconsistently written role. But mostly it's
Helmut Bakaitis as the Architect. I could have sworn that was Ken
Nordine. He was great. The only really good bit of acting in the
whole picture, and it comes near the end to save the day.
By himself, Bakaitis raises Matrix Reloaded at least one star, and
maybe two.
Ah well. Maybe I'll change my mind when I see all three episodes
together, but I didn't think this was such a great movie. Loads of
pulse-pounding action, pseudo-philosophy and the occasional
good line of dialog, but I don't feel particularly excited about seeing
the third one.
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Poor science fiction, great sci-fi
I'm getting really tired of feared warriors who can't hit the broad
side of a barn, space-faring technologies that haven't invented the
circuit breaker and plots that make no sense. Star Trek: Nemesis
simply doesn't hold up.
On the other hand, it's a great B-movie skiffy adventure, one of the
better entries in the disappointing Star Trek movie series. Favorite
characters from ST:TNG are back, updated, and they get to reprise
their roles with relish. The script, co-written by Brent Spiner, has
lots of great lines and the actors get great bits of business.
They've finally figured out what Lucas figured out for Episode II
(more Yoda, less Jar-Jar) and given the biggest roles to the best
actors: Spiner and Patrick Stewart. Wil Wheaton has no lines!
The special effects are good and seamless. The "new" Enterprise
NCC-1701-E, looks sharp. The Romulans and the new Remans
are sufficiently alien. Nemesis has the best battle in space I've
seen in a long time; one of the few that doesn't recreate
submarine warfare (as in Wrath of Khan).
If only the plot worked, and if only the final twist was handled better,
I would have rated this higher than a 7. Still, for Star Trek fans, this
is one to see. Where some of the Next Gen movies have been
little more than expanded tv episodes, this was actually a movie,
and a good one... if you ignore a lot of the dumb stuff and just let it
wash over you.
The Prime Gig (2000)
Nothing to recommend this movie
No great lines, no memorable scenes (okay, maybe one with the
old lady near the end), no interesting twists of fate, no comments
on the human condition. A downer of movie, with unrelentingly
unpleasant people being unrelentingly unpleasant. You never get
to know any of the people or find out their motivations; just as well.
If you're going to rip off David Mamet, you should at least have a
real nude scene, not just some steamy pillow talk.
Some decent acting (notably Ed Harris) and okay cinematography
saved The Prime Gig from oblivion, but I could give it no higher
than a 2.
Die Another Day (2002)
One of the better recent Bond flicks, but that's not saying much.
The good stuff is good, but the bad stuff is bad. The plot makes no
sense, the characters don't seem to have much motivation and the
one-liners are horrible. They don't understand hovercraft or lasers.
The rest of the world seems non-existent. Oh yeah, the Madonna
song is pretty poor too.
Still, the gagdets are nifty, Halle Barry is only okay overall but has
the best Bond girl moment since Ursula Andress walked out of the
sea, John Cleese has fun tying in the rest of the Bond series to
this movie, and we finally find out why someone would want to
Pierce Brosnan.
The film is nicely directed and takes several stabs at coherence.
Lots of parallels and the script is constructed well. But if you stop
to think about what's going on... well, don't. Just let the warmth of
Cuba or the cold of Iceland wash over you.
Die Another Day is one of the better Bond movies since Connery
and will appeal to fans, but that's a bit disappointing. The Bond
franchise has been riding the memory of Sean Connery for
decades, and this won't make you forget him.
I gave it a 7 out of 10, which is either too generous or an
underrating depending on just what you're willing to put up with.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Better than the first movie; better than the book
Chamber of Secrets starts off with the feel of the first movie: An
adaptation of a successful book. But about a third of the way
through, director Chris Columbus seems to have read the reviews
of his initial offering and decided to change the tone. A very wise
move. It's a very dark movie, not for quite young kids; if they can't
read, they'll need a translator. Kids in general will like it for the
magic, for the friendship, for the gross and icky scenes, and for the
spectacle. The movie makes the right omissions from the book:
The opening is pared back, the ending is shortened, the plot is
exposed in a more cinematic fashion. I have two disappointments, one forgivable: A major sub-plot with Nearly
Headless Nick is eliminated. I forgive them, since it would get in
the way of the movie action, but John Cleese as Nick is
underutilized. The one part they get wrong is Gilroy. Kenneth
Brannaugh isn't unctuous enough.
Overall, I give Chamber of Secrets a 9 out of 10. Now, go read the
books.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Awful, with good fight sequence at end
I've been trying to write a review of that avoids the 'a' word, but I
can't. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is, quite simply,
awful. There are a few redeeming features, and fans will probably
want to see it, but overall the movie is pretty bad. I'd say it was
worse than Phantom Menace, though it's hard to compare directly.
Clones does get one thing right: Less Jar-Jar, more Yoda. But
Yoda wrong, they get. Weary 800 year old impatient comebacks,
he avoids. True, Yoda has what is likely the best scene in the
movie, a light saber duel with the main bad guy. Still, there are very
few characters you care about, and if you weren't already
emotionally invested in Yoda or anyone, this movie would give you
no reason to care.
Hayden Christianson is awful. There's no way around that. His
dialog is flat and his acting wooden. The supposed love scenes
between Anikan and Queen Amidala don't work. He's already a
bad Jedi, after a decade of training, and one of the few good
sequences in the movie is where you see him make the final turn
to the dark side when he goes after his mother. The movie doesn't
state it explicitly, but we know what happens later, and there it is.
Attack of the Clones is in three sections each of which is better
than the others, quality-wise: The Blade Runner first section,
which is dark and has awful dialog and terrible acting. The
Indiana Jones second section, where Obi-Wan and Anikan split
up, for some reason, as Obi-Wan goes off in search of a plot and
Anikan disobeys orders, and C3P0 comes on the scene to liven up
the dialog. The Gladiator third section, where the bad guys
desperately want the good guys dead so naturally they just shoot
them and move on... no wait, they give them a fighting chance!
And the bad guys didn't read the script! I won't tell you if the good
guys live to fight later, that would be telling. Then after the nick of
time, during the climactic battle sequence which is most of the last
quarter of the movie, a bunch of Jedi Knights are in a circle, willing
to face the charge of the enemy. While it was nice to see Jedi who
weren't white male humans, the battle made no sense. Throw a
grenade! Break out the gattling gun! Use tear gas! Have two
people shoot the same Jedi at the same time! We're now five
movies into battles with Jedi fighting, sometimes each other. I can
understand the warrior mentality where light saber is met by light
saber in equal combat, but come on guys this is war, has no one
invented a continuous fire weapon or an anti-personnel mine?
Since the last section is the best, some left satisfied. But I'd seen
it all before and a decent climax can't exonerate the rest of the
movie.
Open letter to George Lucas: I will, for free, help you write the
dialog for the next installment. Please, I'm begging you. Let me
help.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Not a faithful adaption, but a loving one.
Lord of the Rings Episode 4: A New Hope... excuse me, The Fellowship of the Ring... is pretty good. Maybe even great. But as a longtime fan of the book, I can't help feeling that it missed a beat. A lot of the changes are forgiveable: The linear storytelling, the additional scenes with Saruman, the emphasis on partial shots of the head to highlight eyes. Some of the changes are hard to understand: Why is Bilbo 111 years old and not 144? Why isn't Gandalf referred to as Gandalf the Grey? It's a major plot point that they just threw away.
At three hours, the movie felt too compact. At some point, they will release a 'director's cut' that adds the deleted scenes. You can tell they filmed more (such as Sam's picking up the horse at Bree, the one he says farewell to at Moria) or Gimli swearing allegiance to Galadriel. Indeed, a more faithful rendition would have seven movies (The Hobbit and the six books of LotR) rather than three. I have a feeling the trilogy will be better than any one movie. The movie jumps around to the action scenes and those of us who read the books probably followed the plot better.
But all this is nitpicking. When the movie works, it works well. The casting is good, perhaps great. Ian Holms makes Bilbo a sympathetic character. Sean Astin does really well with his Andy Richter part of Samwise Gamgee. Aragorn and Boromir do pretty well; Aragorn's big scenes come later. The wizards and the elves and the dwarfs all work. Gimli and Legolas are starting to develop. The women don't come off nearly as well; they seem to frail for adventuring. Still, Galadriel has a great moment. Merry and Pippin provide just the right amount of comic relief. Elijah Wood as Frodo has the pivotal role, and does okay with it. In the first book he doesn't have a lot to do except stand around looking confused and then resolute.
The cinematography is astonishingly good. If the book does better at interior monologues, background and narration, the movie does better at visualization. Saruman's Tower, the Mines of Moria, Rivendell, Galdalf's fireworks, the trolls, the balraug and more are all realized as good or better than the mind's eye in the book.
The people making The Fellowship of the Rings clearly love the book, and pour their heart into making an adaption that justifies bringing it to the large screen. I gave it a rating of 9 mostly because I'm a tough judge and the missing bits detracted.
Highly recommended, but read the books first.
(I hope they make a movie about the appendicis...)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Spielberg can't do Kubrick, no matter how hard he tries
AI Artificial Intelligence, succeeds on so many levels that it's hard to pinpoint just why it ultimately fails. The movie started out life as a Brian Aldiss short story that intrigued Stanley Kubrick, who is given co-writing credit and to whom the movie is dedicated. AI is Steven Spielberg's homage to Kubrick, and that gives the movie a two-toned effect that serves more to muddle the effect than to exemplify the genius of either.
Kubrick is best at the static image and the slow movement that reveals human nature, usually the dark side. Spielberg is best at the moving close-up that reveals an individual's nature, usually the light side. We remember the robot HAL in 2001 and the destruction of civilization in Dr. Strangelove and the sex scenes that aren't erotic in Eyes Wide Shut. We remember the grizzled fisherman of Jaws and the little kid in ET and one unit trying to find one man in Saving Private Ryan. The discord between Kubrick's large-themed movies and Spielberg's small-themed movies is never resolved in AI.
MILD SPOLIERS
The plot in AI concerns the attempt by a maker of robots, played by William Hurt, to built a "mecha", or mechanical being, so that a human will love him. To that end, he builds David (one of the things I appreciated about the movie), who's a cute kid, played brilliantly by Haley Joel Osment, and places him with a family who have a sick child of that age in cryogenic freeze, presumed lost. Without giving too much away, let's just say that things don't work out and David is forced to flee to a world where he's surrounded by robots.
For Kubrick, the story (I'm guessing) was that it's easy for a robot to love: You just program it in. But it's hard for humans to love. Spielberg's career has been built around love stories: Love of a town frightened by a shark, love of an alien, love of family and country, love of your fellow man. Spielberg's Kubrickian photography is gorgeous to look at, but rarely adds to the story. The emotional distance that's required to get into Kubrick films is the exact opposite of the emotional attachment that's required to get into Spielberg films. Instead of Spielberg using his tricks on the human part and using Kubrick's tricks on the robot part, he uses static imagery for the humans and wild movement for the robots. Kubrick may be smiling, but we're not.
Still, AI is too well crafted to avoid seeing. There are lots of visual tricks and thematic overtones. My favorite little trick: At one point, the mother, Monica (played by Frances O'Connor) is having a conversation with David outside in the cold. You can see Monica's breath, but you can't see David's. A small bit of business, but shows attention to detail.
But Spielberg can't do Kubrick, no matter how hard he tries. The framing sequence in Saving Private Ryan elevated this movie above other WWII movies. The added on sequence at the end of AI further muddles the point of the movie and doesn't say anything more. He should have just ended it, and left it a fairy story.
The full title is AI Artificial Intelligence, mirroring the title ET: The Extra Terrestrial. They share some themes and plot. But the best parallel is last year's Bicentennial Man, about a robot striving to be a human. Robin Williams, the star of Bicentennial Man, plays a bit part in AI, which isn't credited until the end but I recognized his voice. The thing is, Bicentennial Man succeed where AI fails. You care about the Bicentennial Man. David tugs at your heartstrings, but you never really love him. The film answers the opening question: No. It is NOT possible to make a robot that humans can love. How Kubrick! How NOT Spielberg.
I give a qualified recommendation to AI. For all fans of Kubrick and Spielberg's careers, this is a must see, just to keep up with them. But if you're looking for the next great movie from the directors of Dr. Strangelove, ET, 2001 and Schindler's list, this isn't it.
Stalag 17 (1953)
50 years later there have been grittier war films, but few better
The dialog is terse, the acting exceptional, the humor gallows. Stalag 17 was made in 1953 and even then talked about other WWII movies. Since then, there have been many more war movies that have explored gritty themes. The mud of Stalag 17 looks tame compared to the blood and guts of Saving Private Ryan and the desperate humor can't match the irony in Full Metal Jacket. But the movie holds up astonishingly well. Maybe it's that there aren't time specific elements like money or armaments. Two cigarettes might get you a shot of bootleg booze in any war. That gives the film a timeless element that could apply to any prisoners, in any war.
It's too bad that the spinoffs from Stalag 17 include Hogan's Heroes (who took some of the characters unchanged) and Alvin and the Chipmunks (as Ross Bagdasarian has an uncredited singing role). While the humor is an important element of the movie, it's the character interaction which lies at its heart.
Stalag 17 is a vintage WWII movie that stands the test of time. Billy Wilder knows what he's doing in any genre.
Hollow Man (2000)
A good start descends into a dumb slasher flick
There were a couple of key moments near the beginning that spelled disaster, and alas the movie lived down to them. Hollow Man starts off with some really nifty special effects, notably a gorilla becoming visible again. But for whatever reason, the writer took a nifty idea and ran it into the ground. A good idea becomes an excuse for a hopelessly unbelievable slasher film. After a while, nobody's motivation (or survival chance) touches reality. The Sci-Fi Channel's The Invisible Man is a much better treatment of a similar idea.
There's Something About Mary (1998)
The outtakes over the closing credits are more interesting than the movie
A pleasant romp with the occasional funny scene that doesn't quite gel into a slapstick comedy. Everyone seems so blase about sex and violence and whatnot. It's not even sophomoric, more like freshmanic. There are enough twists and turns that you should avoid reading the imdb credits before seeing the film, but most of the twists are predictable. Cameron Diaz is cute and perky, the sort of person Markie Post (who plays her mother) grew out of for her role in Night Court. She's alternately too trusting and too quick to believe the worst of people. And she should believe the worst of everyone around her.
There are scenes under the credits at the end that aren't in the movie, which would have made it a far better movie. Oh well.
Titan A.E. (2000)
Open eyes, turn off brain
Warning: At no point in Titan AE do any of the characters do anything that makes sense. The plot is incredibly unbelievable, the dialog insipid, the bad guys are worse shots than Imperial Storm Troopers and the ending doesn't justify the beginning.
Still, if you want to turn off any critical faculties and just watch a very pretty shoot-'em-up-in-space movie, this will get the fake butter boiling. The characters are nicely drawn (literally) and you can actually tell them apart. The locations are interesting and excellently rendered. The battle scenes zip by fast enough that you don't notice how stupid the whole thing is until one of the rare slow scenes gives you time to think.
Titan AE is the flip side to Princess Mononoke, which was an intelligent animated film. This film is Sci-Fi Adventure! and not real science fiction. Still, there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours. Just let the movie wash over you and don't think too hard.
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000)
Movie one step away from great, but that first step is a doozy
The good news is that, like the tv show, the movie isn't really for kids and what goes on in the background is far more important (and more fun) than the plot or the characters. De Niro is wonderful in the small part of Fearless Leader and the narrator is good.
The bad news is that the characters don't work. Rocky is no longer the Plucky Squirrel who glides to the rescue. Now he's a disspirited has been who launches from the ground with contrails. Alexander and Russo don't work as Boris and Natasha, though Alexander at least tries gamely. Bullwinkle is okay, but not better than that.
The trick to enjoying the movie is to watch the stuff that goes on in the background, like the hospital sign for "J" Ward; or the bits that zip by quickly, like Whoopie Goldberg's character being introduced offhandedly as Judge Cameo. The plot of the tv series never made much sense anyway, and this is about average. Some sharp commentary on today's culture is outweighed by how little the characters react to present times; Austin Powers did this much better.
I recommend this movie to anyone who liked the tv show, but go in with low expectations and you'll have a better time.
The World Is Not Enough (1999)
Why isn't Bond deaf?
TWINE is a movie made to formula, but its a time-tested formula and it works. That's the good news. The bad news is that the movie takes no chances and so offers very little that's new to a Bond fan but more of the same. Worse, it seems to have abandoned all the Fun Stuff that is necessary to build to Potential Armageddon. Instead of long suspenseful segments on a train or underwater, we're subjected to explosion after explosion after explosion. Bond movies have always required a certain amount of suspension of disbelief, but its easier to accept that Bond can walk after torture than it is to accept that he can still hear after the big booms constantly around him.
Q Makes a nice exit and Cleese will be a good R, and it was great to see M get in on the action. But the plot made less sense than usual (there are other pipelines, other oil fields) and the final sex jokes were way overdone. Mostly, you're left with the flash and sound of explosions ringing in your eyes are you leave the theater.
In the middle of the Bond pack of movies, but you think they could do a bit better with all the experience they have. The best Bond movies have combined subtlety with the over-the-top heroics. But 'subtle' is not to formula, alas.
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Sadly encumbered by a plot
"Being John Malkovich" just misses being a great movie because it has to resolve too many odd situations. While the film takes you down paths you probably can't predict (and don't want to), the set up is better than the delivery. The parts that are good are very good, and the film will probably seem better in a few years, so I recommend it. Still, the film starts on a roller coaster but ends in teacups. Too bad there turned out to be a plot; its nice that most threads were wrapped up, but not so nice that most of the madness got explained away. Kudos to Malkovich for daring to expose himself in this manner.
Mâdadayo (1993)
Kurosawa's "All That Jazz"
Akira Kurosawa's last film is not an American film. Madadati is slow, episodic and subtitled. It's also hard to take your eyes off the screen, and the characters and situations are vivid. The film tells the true story of a teacher who retires at age 60, when his house is burned by bombers in WWII. His students love him and hold a yearly party, where he continues to insist, "Not Yet", the title of the film, as he keeps death and deprivation at bay. While vastly different movies, Madadayo kept reminding me of Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz", about a filmmaker approaching his death. Both films contain the directors' soul, which is not for everyone. Madadayo received limited distribution in the US; understandably so. If you at all like "Ran" or "Seven Samurai", you will like this film.