mgxootr-rs Reviews

The Quiet Earth (1985)

Could have been so much better, but...

[2/10 · 26 October 2021]

SPOILER ALERT:

I really wanted to like this film. But... Oh, come on...

1- SCIENCE? How could any experimental disturbance of Earth's tiny atmosphere possibly affect the sun (330,000 times larger? Or the galaxy (more than 300 billion times larger)? Or the universe (incalculable)?

2- ALSO? How can blowing up a small radio telescope dish make any difference to the outcome?

3- PLAUSIBILITY? At the outset, everyone doesn't just die, their bodies completely disappear. Why? Then later bodies of dead people are found. Why? None of this makes any sense, and isn't explained.

4- WHAAA? At the end, the guy who just died gets up -- apparently on one of Saturn's moons -- to stare at ordinary, Earth-like cumulous clouds.

In fairness to fans of this film, I must admit that I also found the bizarre ending of "2001: A Space Odyssey" just as inscrutable and unsatisfying. So vote me down if you want. I just had to voice my concerns about this film, which could have been much better, but wasn't.

Gardens of Stone (1987)

Dialogue straight from Roget's Dictionary of Cliches

[5/10 · 3 September 2020]

This film has some good attributes, but originality isn't one of them. Tough old sergeant befriends rebellious young recruit because he knew the kid's dad. Sound familiar?

Plot is so predictable you can turn the sound off, supply your own dialogue, and guess the outcome with 95% accuracy. Watch only if you enjoy seeing James Caan & James Earl Jones try to keep straight faces while reciting tired cliches.

The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972)

A paen to pointlessness

[2/10 · 3 September 2020]

Even a friend who LOVES Werner Fassbinder films warned me against this one. He was right. A paen to pointlessness that moves as slowly as a garbage truck in first gear.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)

Hedwig and the Angry Viewer

[1/10 · 3 September 2020]

Critics raved, but I bailed out halfway through. Screeching, off-key noise meant to resemble music, punctuated by an occasional line of dialogue to support a plot about as plausible as the classic 1964 film "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians." This film is 95 minutes long. Based on what I saw, I'd guess the entire script is about 8 pages.

Windtalkers (2002)

How do you say "Preposterous Twaddle" in Navajo?

[3/10 · 3 September 2020]

Pick any war-buddy film from the 1950s, replace 60% of the dialogue with overly loud special effects, and toss in a few Navajo "wind talkers" to pal around with Nicolas Cage. If I were Navajo, I'd be very annoyed with this thing. I imagine Nicolas Cage is, too.

King of Beggars (1992)

Please to rewrite subtitles in English!

[6/10 · 3 September 2020]

Could have been SO much fun if the translation was in English! Even pig latin would've been more comprehensible. But except for one or two lines ("Pee! Everybody pee!" when a fire breaks out) translations have the enigmatic quality of early Sony instruction manuals.

(Excerpt: "Watch out. He make to yesterday thing in something now.") It seems to be a fun film, but you'd have to learn Cantonese to fully appreciate it. After 4 days of language study, you could write better subtitles yourself.

Happy Times (2000)

Two different films spliced together?

[4/10 · 3 September 2020]

Great directors deftly interlace humor with drama to create poignancy. Apparently not capable of this, Yimou Zhang does them sequentially. Result is a comedy that has some fine moments at first, but suddenly turns inexpressibly bleak and depressing toward the end. A very distasteful experience. Spare yourself.

Italian for Beginners (2000)

Sorry, we are not amused

[2/10 · 3 September 2020]

Critics praised this "comedy" film for being made on video. I wouldn't care if it were made with an 1892 pinhole camera if it were funny, or even mildly interesting. It's neither; just boring characters stumbling through their dull suburban lives. It's about as funny as a PBS documentary on ear wax. And the plot seems to require at least two astonishing coincidences per page of dialogue to keep the hopelessly implausible story lumbering along. This thing looks like it was written on Friday night and shot over the weekend by people who wisely decided not to quit their day jobs.

Shooter (I) (2007)

7 stars for action fun. Zero for plausibility.

[4/10 · 3 September 2020]

Did I miss something? This guy is an ex-marine turned pacifist, who lives like a hermit in the wilderness, subsisting on home-grown carrots. Then he travels all over the country, buying truckloads of munitions sophisticated enough to kill hundreds of highly trained troops? This guy has got to be growing growing something else out there besides carrots, to subsidize that.

And, speaking of wildly implausible plots: This guy kills about 600 U.S. troops, a few local police officers, a few high-ranking FBI officials, and a U.S. Senator, then blithely drives away with his new girlfriend as music swells in the end? Where are they going? To a safe house on one of the moons of Jupiter?