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jamalashley
Reviews
Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (2011)
But this one is not as good as the first. The fight scenes are perfunctory. Even the sex scenes are not as hot. And worse,story lines are all rehashed from the first season.
I'm glad that the producers proceeded with a new season (or half a season?) of Spartacus even with the absence of the main protagonist, Spartacus played by Andy Whitfield.
But this one is not as good as the first. The fight scenes are perfunctory. Even the sex scenes are not as hot. And worse,story lines are all rehashed from the first season.
Instead of a hero, John Hannah as Batiatus, who was the first season's arch villain, became the lead star. So we now have an anti-hero. But there's nothing new in the antics of this anti-hero and his wife, well played by Lucy Lawless.
I've seen only the first 3 episodes. The only lesson one can learn from this new season is that "history repeats itself" as the prequel merely repeated the sequel.
I suppose the producers are hoping for the return of Whitfield. But if he doesn't return, I hope the producers will just create a new gladiator series with a different title or take the subtitles instead like Blood and Sand or Gods of the Arena. And this time, let the stories revolve around the gladiators and not on the scheming owners and petty Roman officials.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010)
Hermione and Ron are back in center stage. Yates created another tight movie, faithful to the book and intelligible to even non-Potter fans or Potter newbies.
David Yates is definitely the savior of the Harry Potter films. He brought magic back to Harry Potter in The Order of the Phoenix. The Half-Blood Prince was also very well done although it included only half of the book. It was obvious that at least from the third book, each book needed two films each.
In all the books, while Harry Potter is the title role, there are three lead characters - Harry, Ron and Hermione. But from the third film, the Ron and Hermione characters increasingly faded into the background. The directors really had no choice. They had to choose only a certain plot and subplots. They also have to accommodate the other characters, especially the stars who agreed to be part of the film.
The presence of established actors in a film also attract moviegoers. I probably wouldn't have gone to see the first Potter film if all the actors were unknown. The presence of Richard Harris, Dame Maggie Smith, Kenneth Branagh, Julie Walters and others convinced me that it must be a credible film to watch. The addition of good actors like David Thewliss, Helena Bonham Carter, Gary Oldman, Emma Thompson and Ralph Fiennes made the subsequent Potter films more interesting to watch. Unfortunately, by the fifth film, no established actors were added and those that remained were given hardly any screen time. Evidently, the producers felt that they didn't need any new movie-goers. The Potters fans are enough to make the films blockbusters.
Finally accepting the fact that the later Potter books need a 4-hour film or a 2-part film, the producers decided to make The Deathly Hallows a 2-part film. Thank Heavens!
With enough screen time on hand, Yates was able to bring back Hermione and Ron into center stage, as what Rowling intended to in the first place. Unfortunately, the others were merely glimpsed upon. (Why was John Hurt there?)
But I must say, Yates need not add more to the book. Snapes (Alan Rickman) was shown walking through closed gates. I didn't know he could walk through steel gates or walls. Only the ghosts of Hogwarts could do that. Besides, he was given such a great entrance yet totally forgotten in the rest of the film.
I found the film a bit low key. There was not much action; or if there were, they were so abrupt. There were times when the director seemed to be such in a hurry - not giving enough time for the actors to react or the scene to coagulate, as it were. Yet there were times when there was really nothing going on. For the first time in the series, there were moments that I thought the film dragged. I suppose Yates is keeping all his guns for Deathly Hallows Part 2, the very last of the Harry Potter saga.
Yates created another tight movie, faithful to the book and intelligible to even non-Potter fans or Potter newbies.
Kinatay (2009)
A low budget film that takes viewers on a walking and vehicle tour guide of the Manila slums and roadside. Has a horror-movie musical score and shocking climax
I knew that sooner or later, a Filipino indie film would win awards in international film festivals. As I kept on telling friends, it is very easy to satisfy European festival judges. Just give them a good dose of poverty, a dash of culture and some nudity. And if you really want to win, add some scenes denigrating Filipino customs, politics, bureaucracy or society.
As usual with Mendoza's films, the setting is the slum area. This, of course, can only score big points from European viewers. Then comes the long scenes with characters walking along the slum neighborhood and the streets of Manila. The Western viewers are suckers for these scenes. It makes them feel vicariously how it is to live in such squalid places. For some academics or critics, this is their "research" into the social practice in these foreign parts.
The main couple (Peping and Cecille) act as the tourist guides for the foreign viewers. They walk along the alleys of their slum neighborhood and drops off their child with a neighbor. With more walking, the viewers-cum-tourists-cum-researchers get to take a glimpse at everyday life in a Manila ghetto. The couple then take a tricycle ride before taking a Philippine jitney ride to go to the municipal hall. Wow, the foreign viewers just had a triple whammy — walking along the alleys of the ghetto, then taking a tricycle ride and then a jitney ride. Most of these foreigners probably have not even seen a tricycle or a Philippine jitney in their lives. The viewers-cum-tourists get to see more of Manila from the vantage point of someone in a tricycle and a jitney. It must be exciting for them just as I am excited seeing people ride elephants or camels or land speeder (like Luke Skywalker) for everyday purpose.
In order to have more scenes for the "tourist" foreign viewers, the relatives of the couple went the city hall separately, even though they most probably live in the same house or are neighbors. And so the relatives (an old lady and two kids) take the viewers on a tour of the city hall and its vicinity — passing by a flag ceremony and a mass wedding, among others.
Maybe in Mendoza's social circle, people go to their own weddings as if they are just going to see a movie. The couple wore everyday clothes. In fact, the groom was just wearing his college uniform. The couple take jitney or tricycle rides instead of a taxi cab or a friend's car. (Oh, they did ride aboard a friend's van after the wedding). The parents of both sides appear to be absent but there is a grandmother around. After the wedding, they go eat at a restaurant. After lunch, they go their separate ways. The groom proceeds to his school and attends classes -- on his wedding day! After school, the groom goes to his job collecting money from bookies who are also ambulant vendors in the street by the bay.
The film then takes the viewers on a night tour of Manila, this time along the main highway, EDSA. Peping rides in the van with his boss, a police captain, and colleagues. Along the way, the boss picks up a prostitute named Madonna from a strip joint. In the strip joint, Mendoza titillated his tourist-viewers by showing a couple of ugly topless dancers. Inside the van, without giving any reason, the boss's right hand man, another police officer, starts punching the hooker and duck tapes her mouth. He continues hitting her until she is unconscious. But Mendoza did not show the actress being hit. It was all sound effects with the camera focusing mainly on Peping. It's cheaper for the producers and easier for the actors that way.
To tell the audience that something really bad is going to happen, a horror-movie musical score accompanies Peping and the road trip. The musical score is supposed to scare the viewers. To cap the film, there was the "rape" scenes juxtaposed with other scenes. There was no struggle in the rape scenes. The woman was not even tied up. She was sitting with her back against the head board, baring her full body except the face with a fully naked man, with his back on the camera, forcing himself on her mouth. This is not supposed to arouse prurient interests.
The climax of the movie is what the title is all about. Kinatay means butchered. But with all the butchering going on, there wasn't much blood shown. There was no blood on the walls nor even on the head board. There wasn't much blood on the men either. The twist in the end reminded me of the short stories I used to write in high school. I was imitating Hitchcock. I wanted endings that would surprise, even shock, the readers. Kinatay is such a film – very sophomoric, nay, juvenile.
Mendoza won the Best Direction Award. It is the 3rd most prestigious award of the festival. I don't know what were in the minds of Isabelle Huppert and company. I've seen Antichrist, Inglorious Basterds, A Prophet, and Taking Woodstock. They were all immensely better than Kinatay. "A Prophet" won the Grand Prix. I haven't seen the Palm D'or winner "The White Ribbon" by Michael Haneke. Even the film Dogtooth, which was in the Un Certain Regard section, is a much better film than Kinatay.
As a Filipino, I am very glad that Mendoza won the Best Director Award. But as a film buff, a Film Studies scholar and a film critic, I am very sad that his film is so mediocre. Cannes 2009′s Jury President Isabelle Huppert and Brillante Mendoza are planning to make a film together in the Philippines next year. Mendoza would be the perfect tourist guide for her. I suppose she was intrigued by the Manila slums and the EDSA roadside.
Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
It is a beautifully crafted film that stuck to the basics of great film-making
The timing (2005) of the movie is near-perfect. Americans have surrendered some of their freedoms in the name of President Bush's War on Terror through the Patriot Act. Good Night and Good Luck is a beautifully crafted film that stuck to the basics of great film-making – a good, tight story, great visual composition, marvelous performances by the actors and coherent direction. No frills, no state of the art computer graphics, no multimillion dollar superstars. But the genius of the director – George Clooney –lies in his use of TV film footage of Senator Joseph McCarthy in lieu of a live actor. And because the film is in Black and White (it was actually shot in color but converted to gray scale), the old McCarthy footage fell right in place.
Veteran actor David Strathairn played Edward Murrow with stoic intensity reminiscent of Gary Cooper. George Clooney's nonchalant under-acting complemented Strathairn's stark portrayal of the man who helped rid America of the junior senator from Wisconsin, who fanned the anti-communist hysteria and led the witch-hunt that destroyed the lives of many intelligent, freedom-loving Americans.
The film is not about the life of the popular and pioneering broadcast journalist Edward Murrow but rather on broadcast journalism itself. In the speech that bookends the film, Murrow emphasized that television, used strictly for entertainment rather than education, is nothing more than wires and lights in a box. The movie showed how free and responsible journalism can fight the enemies of Freedom just as Murrow and company fought the Terror known as McCarthyism or the Red Scare that gripped America in the early 1950s.
Although the film did not mention it, Senator McCarthy did not do it all alone. The road had been paved for him by Truman, Nixon, etc. He also had help from the country's foremost anti-Communist, J. Edgar Hoover, who was America's lifetime FBI director. Ironically, one of McCarthy's allies was Jack Anderson, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 and is now considered as one of the fathers of modern investigative journalism. McCarthy certainly was not alone. He was simply the eager spokesman / henchman.
Mass media perform four functions: to entertain, to inform, to influence and to earn money. Most films nowadays limit themselves to the first and the last. Good Night and Good Luck is almost a documentary. It is based on true events and verifiable facts. It is a great film on Journalism, especially Broadcast Journalism as well as on the Bill of Rights, its supporters and opponents.
The magic of cinema can influence more people than say, a novel. In this case, it will do the world a great service if this film can influence people, especially in places where the people need to be reminded of the precious concept called Freedom, particularly freedom from fear. Writer/Actor/Director George Clooney expressed the hope that the film might give some kids "some understanding of what and how dangerous a democracy can be if fear is used as a weapon." Since 9/11, George W. Bush and Tony Blair in their War against Terror fanned a Climate of Fear unmatched since perhaps the Reign of Terror in France in the 1790s.
In a representative democracy, the government is supposed to be "of the people, by the people and for the people." The leaders are elected by the people. If the leaders do their job well, they get re-elected and if not, they lose. The only way for the people to know if the leaders are doing their job well or not is through the mass media. Mass media's role, therefore, is very crucial in representative democracies. Thus, the US Constitution's First Amendment prohibits any laws "abridging the freedom of the press." Constitutions of other countries have similar provisions.
In the 1950s, McCarthy instilled fear among Americans by claiming he had a list that contained the names of American communists. Murrow argued that the line between investigation and persecution is a fine one and McCarthy crossed that line. Murrow and his fellow journalists decided to fight, whatever the consequences, the "situations of fear" that confronted America then.
Plato envisioned the ideal Republic to be ruled by philosopher-kings. But in today's political reality, leaders of republics may turn out to be intelligence-challenged clowns or megalomaniac queens. Political arenas are filled with demagogues, ex-military and ex-police generals, actors, basketball players and newscasters. Today's republics would be hard put to find a philosopher - king/queen.
However, a Scandinavian proverb says: "In each of us there is a king. Speak to him and he will come forth." Murrow and his colleagues sought out the kings/queens in themselves and helped bring back the ideals of the American Republic as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson and company.