Change Your Image
Dicktar
Reviews
Amphetamine (2003)
A tired, pointless day at the QT recycling bin
I caught this film yesterday at the St. Louis International Film Festival.
Excitement for this no-budget, local St. Louis independent film was considerable after it first played this past August, so expectations were high. I'd like to cut the home team a break and say I was expecting too much, but the truth is "Amphetamine" stinks. This film could be made by any media/communications undergraduate in the country--and is. Or, at least, was five years ago. I thought brain-dead "Pulp Fiction" remakes were passé by now, but given the enthusiasm from the festival gatekeepers at Cinema St. Louis for this bit of tripe, I guess some things never go out of style.
The film chronicles the attempts of some poorly dressed and loquacious criminals to pull off a big drug heist. If you're not bored yet, you haven't seen a movie in the past 10 years. Some style or creativity could have overcome the tired plot, but the film adds nothing to the standard `blah, blah, blah BANG!' crime comedy formula of the mid-1990's, and if anything the movie seems pretty enthusiastic about its own pointlessness. I suppose writer/director Chris Grega can't be blamed for the fact that all of his tough guy hit men look like they just ended a shift at Vintage Vinyl--college kids work with what they have--but he can be blamed for the fact that the characters speak in bits of dialogue cobbled together from parts of "True Romance" and "Reservoir Dogs," even using the same speech cadences and inflections. (Two different actors were openly doing Tarantino impressions, and if you're going to imitate anything about the man, for God's sake not his acting!)
Grega demonstrates some rudimentary technical skills, and the fact that this movie is completed and packaged shows he is a capable producer. I only hope his first act as director/producer on his next film is to hire a writer, because in 90 minutes of "Amphetamine," I didn't see a single original moment.
Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997)
A film by Errol Morris about Errol Morris
I think I'd actually find a documentary on topiaries, mole rats, lion-taming, and/or robots quite interesting. Instead, we have a self-indulgent attempt by Morris to inflict some sort of metaphysical narrative on his non-fiction subjects. This begs the question of why he's bothering to make non-fiction film in the first place if he's going to show so little interest in his subject matter per se. How the heck does somebody go from the Air Force to taming lions for a living? In what ways are the societies of mole rats more like ants than borrowing mammals? Morris doesn't really care, he wants to talk about truth and reality and blah blah blah. If he'd shut up a second, maybe we'd learn something about his subjects; instead, all I learned is that Morris should try making a fiction film and stop pretending he cares one little bit about anything but developing his own cinematic style.
Things Behind the Sun (2001)
"My body betrayed me..."!!!???
While I agree that this film is at times an honest and shattering portrayal of the aftermath of rape, as a man I strongly object to the proposition that a boy in young Owen's position could be forced to rape young Sherry. "My body betrayed me" is the kind of ridiculous dialogue uttered in cheap romance novels by women with ripped bodices; young Owen is sobbing and apoplectic one second, but after a little tough talk from his brother he's ready for sex? Portraying men as mechanically aroused by any sight of sexual opportunity is just as offensive and inaccurate as the portrayal of raped women as secretly enjoying the violation.