averjee Reviews

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Weakest installment in a terrific trilogy

[6/10 · 6 November 2003]

In THE MATRIX, the Wachovski brothers created a revolutionary action movie that bent the laws of physics and questioned the line between illusion and reality. In the second film - THE MATRIX RELOADED - the action continued to be fresh, with one of the finest car chase sequences ever filmed, and the exposition of the mythology and the dialogue was transcendant.

The final film neither breaks new territory with its action sequences nor matches the story-telling of the first two. The action essentially consists of good guys in war machines firing tremendous amounts of bullets at octopi-like Sentinels; it has netiher theimagination of the first film nor the cat-and-mouse intelligence of the second.



This film also doesn't answer several key questions raised in the first film. For instance, why will the computers maintain an uneasy peace with the humans? What's keepign them from breaking their agreement with Neo? The Architect gives an answer at teh end of the film that suggests that computers - unlike humans - keep their word; yet, computers have evidenced no such moral code in previous movies, and have no compunction about enslaving and murdering humans.

Another nagging question is: if Zion is in the real, physical world, and not in some computer-generated virtual reality (as the finale of the RELOADED sequel suggested), why are the computers attacking the humans in Zion with "conventional" machines? Why not simply drop a nuclear bomb into the dome of Zion?

Finally, the film falls into formulaic patterns of "bad guy shoots at the good guy but can't hit him; bad guy pounds good guy in a climactic martial arts battle sequence, but then good guy finds inner stregth and fights back."

I found no revelations here, no surprises, no answers that i hadn't intuited at teh end of the second film.

All in all, a passable film, though one that disappointed great expectations.

The Terminator (1984)

One of the best fils of the 1980s

[10/10 · 6 July 2003]

Science fiction succeeds when it combines technical achievements with a human dimension. THE TERMINATOR is one of the greatest films ever to hit the big screen, mainly for this reason. The hero is ostensibly John Connor, a man who will later becoem the savior of mankind. But in this story, he isn't even born yet - machines rule the world in 2029, and are fighting a losing battle against human rebels, led by Connor. They hatch a plot to send a killing machine back in time, to kill Sarah Connor, John's mother.

The human rebels manage to send a human hero back (his name is Kyle Reese), to stop the machine known as "The Terminator" - and what follows is a powerful action film, and a poignant love story, as Sarah and her savior fall in love.

***

In the original casting of the film, the hero's role was supposed to go to Arnold Schwarzenegger, while the "Terminator" itself was supposed to be played by Lance Henriksen, an excellent character actor who has appeared in films like ALIEN and THE HUNTED.

The Terminator was originally conceived to be more an "infiltration unit," one that would not stand out in common society. (In fact, reference is made to this in the film itself - Kyle Reese cannot identify the Terminator until it actually attempted to assassinate Sarah.)

Cameron and Schwarzenegger eventually decided to put Arnold int othe role of the Terminator, and Michael Biehn was broguht in to play Reese.

***

Schwarzenegger's greatest successes as a movie star have come in roles where his physical and vocal characteristics are consistent with the character. (Think CONAN, TRUE LIES and TOTAL RECALL.) Here, he is perfectly cast as a brutal, remorseless, emotion-less killing machine - the straight man in a human drama.

Schwarzenegger is chilling as the futuristic cyborg who kills without fear, without love, without mercy, and this roel cemented him as the pre-eminent action star of our time.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Terrific, even for the quasi-cognoscenti

[10/10 · 21 December 2001]

First of all, let me tell you this - I had read these books a *long* time ago, and while I liked the books I was never a die-hard fan of the RINGS saga. I liked the fantasy genre, but was no afficionado of Hobbit lore. So I went in to the films with medium-high expectations, and came out genuinely interested in the characters, with thoughts of reading the next chapter in the series so I don't have to wait for the next film to come out.

Director Peter Jackson - a little-known New Zealand native - has a terrific imagination, and the canvas he paints is spectacular. The way he films the movie - the action sequences, the lighting, the camera work - is all superlative, and his camera dives, plunges into marches armies, scans vast horizons with sweeping moves, and reveals the imaginatively conceived costumery of the villains with deftness and alacrity. The depiction of good and evil is about as pure as it gets - much like STAR WARS - but the characters aren't as straightforward. A courageous warrior named Strider (played well by Viggo Mortensen) was my favorite, but Chris Lee and Sean Bean get to play conflicted characters who struggle with the evil within. All in all, it's an enjoyable, action-packed epic, driven by the beautiful art direction and some solid performances, and guided by Jackson's sure hand.

Memento (2000)

Terrific!!!

[10/10 · 7 May 2001]

Very clever, spooky thriller that is actually run backwards, so that each event that takes place on screen actually unfolded prior to what you just saw. The director- Chris Nolan (INSOMNIA) - uses this device to unwrap a mystery: our protagonist is looking for a killer, but he is afflicted by a strange condition that prevents him from retaining information for mor ethan a few minutes at a time. He can't remember where he's been or what he's just done, so the backwards-plot angle makes the viewer oddly in sync with the protaginist - we don't what he's just done, either. Ambiguous until the end, this is a masterful detective story - every detail is imbued with significance, though we often don't realize it until later. The lead character is played by Guy Pearce, the fiercely honorable and intelligent cop in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL - here, he has the same kind of mission for justice thing going, but he's flying blind here, unable to remember or trust anyone and ultimately unsure even of his own motives. Pearce didn't come across It's a dizzying tale - fractured, repetitive, cryptic, disorienting - just the way that film noir is supposed to be.

Hannibal (2001)

Excellent follow up

[10/10 · 11 February 2001]

Terrific film - in "The Silence of the Lambs," Lecter was trapped, a locus of evil whose mind only was free to roam. Lecter on the loose is also a compelling villain, cunning, escaping from traps and slippery as an eel. A new vllain, Mason Verger (played by Gary Oldman) is a superb joining of skill and diabolical imagination. He is as twisted as Lecter, and even trapped in his palace he is a terrifying foe.

Starling is a weaker character than she was - drier, more cynical, more closed off than the young idealist we met 10 years ago. Much of the story revolves around her, and her problems within the Bureau, but the real fun is the search and chase around Lecter. A Florence detective named Rinaldo Pazzi (played by Giancarlo Giannini) suspects that a local art curator is actually Hannibal Lecter, and decides to shop him to Verger for a $3 million reward. This turns out to be a spectacularly bad idea - in SILENCE, we had fun as we learned about Starling, and here the Pazzi character is just as good.

This is a bold, gruesome film - the brain-eating scene, a man peeling off his face with a broken mirror, wild pigs specially bred to eat a man alive feet first - all of these elements from the Thomas Harris novel survive to the big screen.

RoboCop 2 (1990)

Far cry from the Original

[5/10 · 13 January 2001]

This film lacks the easy mix of dark humor and violence that made the original such a treat. It's clearly a darker and more violent film than the first - more grusesome, with more space between funny lines of dialogue. Interestingly, director Irvin Kershner was accused of doing the same thing in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and that didn't bother me.

What makes this film fail is it's patent unbelievability. For example, after the initial success of the original model, one prototype RoboCop after another self-destructs. They get suicidal, according to scientists in the movie, because they lack a strong sense of duty. Why exactly a strong sense of duty creates a survival instinct is unclear.

The new Robocop is all machine, no humanity - basically, a robot. Which begs the question: why build it on a human frame at all? And why do they decide to turn Cain, the drug dealer, into a robot? This like the mad scientist in FRANKENSTEIN using a diseased brain to anumate his creature, only worse, because he doesn't need a brain at all.

The final sequence begins when they bring an armed Robocop II creature into a room ful of reporters, with no safeguards to shut him down. The concluding passages of the movie expend untold thousands of machine-gun bullets, most of them fired at the bad robot despite the fact that it's manifestly impervious to bullets. And so on.

Finally, we see relatively little of RoboCop in this movie, perhaps because Peter Weller rebelled against the inhuman ordeal of wearing that heavy metal suit any longer than necessary. What we do see are lots of violence and action, lots of dialogue between minor characters that never pays off, and lots of humorous TV ads for the world of the future. That, too, is a problem here - little drives the film or holds it together, and the tender, patient character development of the first film is totally missing.

Amistad (1997)

Solid fact-based legal story

[8/10 · 28 January 2000]

Well-done legal story, using strong performances to tell a compelling story. Not as emotionally gripping or moving as "Schindler's List," but Spielberg does a better job this time of telling the story of the victims - here the slaves - than he did in his Oscar-winning Holocaust epic, which so obscured the identity of the Jews that I couldn't tell them apart (except for the Ben Kingsley character, and maybe the maid).

Here, Spielberg explores the slaves with a ten-minute opening sequence that depicts the bloody 1839 uprising aboard the ironically named Spanish slave ship La Amistad (it means friendship). In addition, the depiction of the "middle crossing" is a great piece of filmmaking: the 15 some-odd minutes, right in the middle of the film, are seen in flashback, and they are pure, gripping cinema. Cinque (played by Djimon Hounsou), the slave who led the uprising, tells the brutal story of his abduction and sale into slavery, and when he speaks passionately of the inhuman conditions onboard the ship that brought him to the New World, he invests the story with a human quality that the more restrained "List" didn't.

Unfortunately, Spielberg's efforts to construct the legal case fail resoundingly. Much of the problem lies in the nature of the raw material. The Amistad rebels want only to return to Africa, but are betrayed by their Spanish navigators and wind up in the U.S. There they're put on trial for murder and thrust into the middle of a thorny political and philosophical debate with far-reaching implications for the already-fragile union between slave-owning and non-slave-owning states.

Somehow, the trial court judge and jury are dismissed by President Van Buren (Nigel Hawthorne) - how this is done is never addressed, and that is a major failing in a film that purports to tell the story of the Amistad as essentially a story of jurisprudence: a textbook illustration of the way the American legal system can, even under inauspicious circumstances, sometimes do exactly what it's meant to do. So just how does the head of the executive branch dismiss a member of an independent judiciary?

Moreover, the case begins - quite rightly - as a property case, but somehow turns into a human rights issue. What happened to the winning property rights arguments along the way is never quite explained.

The Mask of Zorro (1998)

Pale imitation of the real thing

[3/10 · 16 September 1999]

So much is wrong with this film that it's hard to know where to start. It's cliche-ridden, hackneyed, predictable, and the swordfights are full of fast cutting, which generates the energy and excitement of a sword fight but not the dance or the strategy.

Perhaps this film's greatest crime is that it is based on the premise that a broken-down bum can be trained to be a great swordfighter in about five minutes of film time (stretching over maybe a week of the film's plot).

The new version of Zorro is pale in comparison to the Douglas Fairbanks version.

American Pie (1999)

An OK gross-out comedy

[5/10 · 30 July 1999]

The latest in a line of gross-out comedies that rely on outrageous events as opposed to comedic sophistication. But while the brilliant comedy of SOUTH PARK has social relevance and wit, this is just outrageous.

At least the gross-out comedy THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY has a steady drumbeat of humorous events. AMERICAN PIE has an occasionally funny moment followed by long stretches of tedium, revolving around four high-school guys trying to get laid.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Terrifically creative, creepy

[10/10 · 24 July 1999]

Rarely has a movie left so much to the imagination of the viewer, and been content to show the audience so little on screen. The scariest minutes of the film are spent with nothing but darkened, blurry images on the screen, and the audience listening raptly to the noises on the audio: the scrambling of the protagonists, their frightened queries, or the ominous howling and cackling that haunts them.

the minimalist approach is devastatingly effective. The ending is a little weak, lacking the big payoff one expects after such a terrific build-up; nevertheless, this is indeed one of the most suspenseful, chilling and disturbing films you'll see in your lifetime.

A 10 out of 10.

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

Devilishly funny

[10/10 · 15 July 1999]

Movies just don't get much funnier than this. It's a witty send-up of American entertainment, with 14 musical numbers in various musical formats. It's also a vicious, right-on commentary on the MPAA ratings system, on Canada, and on American patriotism.

I have always liked the show on Comedy Central, but it has been a little uneven lately. Nevertheless, this is proof that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are for real.

The TV show has often been the target of cultural worriers - the film answers back with a broadside: it features as much profanity, violence, blasphemy and deliberately offensive behavior as any film I've ever seen, and it presents it's critics as morons who found organizations like Mothers Against Canada and end up inviting the apocalypse.

The boys sneak into an R-rated Canadian movie, starring their heroes Terrence and Philip, and emerge with an obscene vocabulary that sends their parents into a tizzy. The parents then do what parents do best: engage in a fit of blaming other people. They end pointing their finger at Canada - it's about as logical a target as "the culture," "the media" or "the guns" - and start a war.

There is an absolutely hilarious sequence involving the US military operation (the general says something like, "OK, 14th squadron, you're our shield - you're at the vanguard of this operation. Where are you guys?" Every black soldier tentatively raises his hand.)

Cartman is forced to test an anti-obscenity V-chip implanted directly into his brain - the results are predictable, but pretty funny, though it's a bit of a crib from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

Maybe the best scenes involve Kenny, who dies and goes to hell, where Satan and Saddam Hussein are involved in a torrid romance - Saddam is a randy, insensitive lout, and Satan is the insecure, manipulated, oft-abused "female" of the pairing.

Brilliant, twisted and immensely satisfying.

Tarzan (1999)

PC re-telling of Burroughs classic

[7/10 · 6 July 1999]

There is no doubt that this is a very well-made, broad, sweeping epic - the kind of thing that Disney does very well. The animation is lush, utilizing a new technique called "deep canvas" that makes the background look more realistic and three-dimensional than any animated film that has gone before.

Tarzan himself doesn't swing from vine t ovine so much as he surfs the jungle canopy; the visuals of the film are unquestionably first-rate. Energetic and quite violent for a kiddie flick, TARZAN doesn't have a lot of musical numbers for a Disney film.

Yet, it is strangely unimaginative in the way it tells its story. The Burroughs tale had a racist element to it, which made it a fascinating study in multiculturalism. This version simply does away with the natives, to eliminate the thorny modern dilemma of racist subtext. Still, it's hard not to read the film in racial terms - it is ostensibly about figuring out where you belong, and about acceptance and tolerance, and the message is finally one about nurture defeating nurture.

Twister (I) (1996)

Definition of "Mindless Entertainment"

[2/10 · 23 May 1999]

What a silly movie. A bunch of reckless tornado chasers go about trying to catch up to twisters even though they know how dangerous and futile the enterprise is. If there were more the the plot than that, I might accept their derring-do as engaging character flaws - unfortunately, the story really begins and ends right there.

There are, of course, several of the apparently necessary Hollywood cliches. There is a romance between Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt, which is clumsily drawn out, and a kind of side-story involving Cary Elwes as a bad guy (bad mainly because he is a tornado chaser who is financed by a corporation, and therefore he is a reckless idiot for the money, not for the pure motives of our heroes). But a monkey typing randomly on a keyboard labeled with B-movie staples could have strung together a better plot - and probably more interesting characters as well.

Most people thought that the tornado effects were stupendous - indeed the film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects and for Best Sound. OK, they're loud and pretty inventive, but all in all they weren't anything spectacular. THE MATRIX or TITANIC - now that's spectacular. This was spectacle, but not spectacular.

Sneakers (1992)

Almost perfect

[10/10 · 21 May 1999]

A snappy, extremely well-written literate script from the Oscar-nominated writer/director of FIELD OF DREAMS is brought to life by one of the best casts ever assembled. The legendary Robert Redford leads a ragtag bunch of computer jocks, which includes Oscar nominees Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix, and Oscar-winner Mary McDonnell. Maybe the film's best performance, aside from Redford, is by David Strathairn, the only major player who has never been up for an Oscar. And Oscar winner Ben Kingsely is a sublime villain.

Redford is Martin Bishop, the head of a group of computer and security specialist misfits who breach corporate security systems as a way of analyzing their weaknesses and recommending improvements. The group is coerced into a great caper: steal a little black box from a top mathematician, for the US government. Only it isn't just a little black box, it's a codebreaker - actually it's THE codebreaker: a computer formula that can crack any encryption software ever devised.

Oh, and it's not the US government ... it's the mob, which wants the codebreaker to deal with the Russians. SO Bishop and company have to steal the box back from the mob, in one of the greatest capers ever.

Aliens (1986)

Yeah, baby

[10/10 · 21 May 1999]

The sequel to Ridley Scott's successful ALIEN (1979) is a nonstop, high-tech, souped-up war movie - it does for action sci-fi thrillers what the original did for horror-flicks: namely, reinvent and soup up the genre.

This is James Cameron at his very best: wonderfully suspenseful action sequences with our spunky, likable heroes (led by a female - A Cameron staple) taking on a villain that is literally out of this world.

Cameron's villains have included relentless terminators and unstoppable icebergs, but the aliens he creates are something else. Killing machines par excellence, vicious and unremorseful.

Sigourney Weaver returns as Ellen Ripley in an oscar-nominated performance; Ripley is perhaps the most convincing, exciting action heroine anywhere in filmdom.

The rest of the good guys are a squad of hardbitten, foul-mouthed marines, tough and resourceful but fraught with human frailties in a crisis just like any of us. And that's where the fun begins.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

Doesn't fulfill the hyped expectations, but what could?

[7/10 · 19 May 1999]

THE PHANTOM MENACE doesn't come close to matching the original trilogy, which was not just effects-laden but cleverly written and whose powerful, simple story was immensely effective.

Don't get me wrong: all in all this is a pretty good movie. An entertaining junket with some very interesting characters and absolutely stunning effects. A couple of good lightsaber duels, featuring Ray Parks' two-handed grip and balletic moves, and a pod race that is quite exciting to watch. Maybe a 7 out of 10.

But I thought that this was a movie of blown opportunities more than anything. The ending to the original STAR WARS was one of the most suspenseful and exciting sequences in movie history. This one just kind of sneaks up on you. You don't really realize what happened.

The Mummy (1999)

Oh, for Indiana Jones 4

[5/10 · 15 May 1999]

This is a very loose remake of the great horror classic of 1932, which was more of a romance (the mummy was brought to life by his love for his woman) and was aided by a wonderfully poignant performance by Boris Karloff as a long-dead priest who returns to life and falls in love with the modern reincarnation of the woman he died for. The 1932 was slack-paced, and the chills there were the result of the slow reincarnation of the mummy.

Maybe that worked on audiences in 1932, but apparently today's audiences want less romance, more shocks and more special effects. Or maybe, today's filmmakers just lack the vision and imagination to do what filmmakers of yore, like Karl Freund and Alfred Hitchcock, were able to do.

The kid in me loves all-stops-out adventure movies with nifty special effects, especially when there is a treasure at the end of the journey.

Unfortunately, this remake of the 1932 Boris Karloff horror-flick doesn't deliver on it's wonderful premise. There is really nothing to say in favor of this movie: the script is predictable, the characters low-rent and shallow knock-offs of Indiana Jones and his RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK colleagues, and the acting is nothing special.

Only the special effects are notable for their quality, especially the raging sandstorms that take on human features and the flesh-eating scarab beetles which crawl under your flesh and scurry about like demonic hockey pucks.

Spartacus (1960)

One of the great epics

[7/10 · 12 May 1999]

In 1960, "Spartacus" must have been a stunning achievement - it was one of the most magnificent, intellectual, daring epics since "Gone With the Wind" and dealt with important ideas like freedom and independence as well as spectacle. The unconventional ending denies the hero a happy victory, and he has to take solace in the fact that maybe the world will be better for his children as a result of his achievement.

In 1999, it still holds up well, especially the quality of the battle scenes and the subtle dance of sexual motivations. In particular, there is a key, daring scene which has been restored in the new version (it was cut by censors), where Olivier's Senator Crassus and a slave, played by Tony Curtis, share a bath. In that scene, the complex motivations of Crassus are made clear, and they are way ahead of their time - Crassus confesses, "I like both oysters and snails," and essentially reveals that he is a bisexual who sexual desires are a form of conquest and an outgrowth of his possessive nature.

Unfortunately, I also found to be a very restrained film. Writer Dalton Trumbo suffered at the hands of the Hollywood blacklisters (this is his first screen credit since he was blacklisted more than 10 years before), but he avoids any stirring speeches about freedom and revolution. Frankly, it isn't clear to me why the other slaves are so quick to join Spartacus in his largely personal rebellion, or why they follow him as a leader. The audience has to believe that the individual freedom we enjoy in 20th century America was universally and automatically something that the gladiators were willing to readily die for, on Spartacus' say-so.

Director Kubrick's later works (most notably "A Clockwork Orange") would rebel against authoritarian governments with much more passion than this film. In addition, the relationship between Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) and Varinia (Jean Simmons) is tender but restrained; they fall in love in the opening scenes of the movie even though they never speak, barely ever touch each other and never speak more than three words.

All that said, the film is a remarkable achievement. The performances are all superb, especially Ustinov's sly, Oscar-winning comic performance; Olivier's evil dictator; Laughton's wonderful work; and Simmons and Douglas as well.

The battle scene is one of the most spectacular ever filmed, with over 8,000 Spanish soldiers filling out the ranks of the slaves and the Roman army, in sharp contrast to those all-too-common ancient battle scenes in which fast cutting and close shots fail to create the illusion that the couple of dozen men fighting are two clashing armies.

The Karate Kid Part III (1989)

Tired retread of a good film

[2/10 · 9 May 1999]

This is a walking zombie, brain-dead movie. It pretty much ignores the action in Part II, and plucks up the villains and locations of Part I.

If Part I was a knock-off of ROCKY, then this is sort of a knock-off of ROCKY II, but with less heart. John Kreese, the villain from the original whose philosophy was "Mercy is for the Weak," is back, and wants to get even with our heroes. So he solicits the aid of business tycoon and martial-arts expert (Thomas Ian Griffith) - unfortunately, the new villain is a silly, shallow, cartoonish caricature - he pollutes, he's corrupt, he's a rich white guy, he laughs diabolically every few minutes, so you KNOW he's evil.

Gone is the sweet, father-son, vaguely homoerotic relationship between Daniel and Mr. Miyagi. Now the byplay is forced and predictable, and it revolves around bonsai trees - I guess they went for the most boring subject they could find.

There's another tournament, there's more bad people doing things to make Daniel breach his vow of non-violence, and there's another predictable climax. Have fun.

The Matrix (1999)

Ghosts in the machine

[10/10 · 2 May 1999]

One of the best episodes of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATIOn featured an ending where a mad scientist was locked into a holodeck, which gave him the illusion of reality but in fact was his prison.

A similar story is at play here - computers have enslaved humans in virtual prisons, and use their bodies for an energy source, but give the humans a virtual reality to keep them from knowing the truth. But a small band of pale, renegade humans have figured out the truth and are trying to subvert the computer-master's plans.

The Wachowski brothers, Larry and Andy, have created this premise as much more than an excuse to stage some of the finest fightr scenes and effects sequences ever made; the plot works very well on a number of levels. First, it's an intriguing sci-fi thriller with plenty of unexpected twists and turns. Second, it's a dramatic, suspenseful mind-f**k with a through-the-looking-glass plot. But most effectively, it's an allegory - a religious metaphor - with one man ("the One") called upon to harness his gifts in the service of humankind.

A very solid story backed up by wonderful action sequences and special effects, with a great look to it and a sequel on the way.

Strange Days (1995)

Pretty good, up til the end

[6/10 · 7 April 1999]

Highly original concept film - the cyberpunk, dystopian noir feel is pretty standard fare, but the integration of computers is way ahead of its time and concepts like "jacking in" and watching and *feeling* yourself get raped are pretty cool.

James Cameron's script envisions a future where experiential sensation junkies look for their next fix by taking the memories and lives of other people. Lenny Nero is a compelling character, an ex-cop who was kicked off the force for experimenting with the addictive computer memories. As played moistly by Ralph Fiennes, he is sympathetic to the audience, and to a hard-edged limo driver (Angela Bassett).

The plot involves the police killing Jeriko One, a black civil rights leader and rapper, and makes Lenney a reluctant hero, swinging him away from his world of cyberporn and fantasies of Juliette Lewis and putting him on a noir-style quest for truth.

Kathryn Bigelow (POINT BREAK) gives the film some stylish direction, but I really didn;t like the way the ending turned out. I thought it finished with a whimper, not a bang - the racial tumult, the millennium apocalypse, it all gets swept away into a tidy package. There's even a silly fade-out kiss; I thought Fiennes and Bassett worked better as friends rather than lovers.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Visually stunning but not as deep as it pretends

[5/10 · 5 April 1999]

I bet that Stanley Kubrick spent the last thirty years of his life laughing his tuckus off that of all of his works, this one most profoundly affected the cultural consciousness which he consistently satirizes.

Evidence of this abounds: witness the instantly recognizable creations of the computer HAL, and its synthetic voice; the character "Dave" and the line "What are you doing, Dave?"; and the stylized score based on Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra."

There is no doubt that this is a beautiful, confounding picture that says something about the dehumanizing effects of technology. What *else* it says is totally unclear - the screenplay is often quite witty, but feels like it was never thought completely through. Of course, works that are incomprehensible are often deemed to be profound, and Kubrick seems to have understood that; in fact, the emergence of drug culture and middle-class spiritual yearnings during the late 60s allowed him to create something really huge and really vague, and pass it off as something really deep.

The film opens with "The Dawn of Man," where it is implied that man's evolution was directed by either a) an alien life-force, or b) a God-like creature, represented by a huge black monolith.

The former interpretation would be the less mundane, more sci-fi expression, but the relationship between man and alien is never developed. Instead, outer space is a setting - an excuse for an excursion by scientists (who discover a huge monolith on the moon), who end up battling against a computer (HAL - increment the letters by one and you get IBM) that turns on its creators.

What the monolith means, or what is is doing in outer space, is bafflingly unclear, and Kubrick never bothers to explain its presence. In spite of this (or maybe because of it), many viewers have hailed the film as a religious experience; many more time their drug hits in order to be stoned during the psychedelic final scenes.

2001 does have something going for it - its special effects are masterfully done and may be forever unsurpassed in terms of the visual spectacle they produce. (Kubrick garnered his one and only Oscar for this film, for Best Visual Effects.)

Also, this is a lesson in how to tell a story through images and sounds. Though it runs 141 minutes, there are less than 40 minutes of dialogue.

But as a commentary on the nature of humankind and the universe in which we live, it leaves a great deal to be desired.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Standard WWII movie

[7/10 · 28 March 1999]

The initial 30 minutes are groundbreakingly realistic, and probably give a truer sense of what it was like to storm the Normandy beaches than any film that has come before.

Unfortunately, the middle half of the film wanders about aimlessly, as the characters - a checklist of war-types - gather themselves for the finale, which sets the soldiers on a well-worn path. Also, the attitudes of the soldiers reflects the cynical, resentful 1960s generation of war protesters and draft dodgers, not the genuinely heroic generation that actually fought WWII. As a result, I think this film (like almost everything else) pales next to the more authentic THE LONGEST DAY; another good one is THE BIG RED ONE which features a checklist of movie-army-types led into battle by Lee Marvin, and is similar in structure to RYAN but more authentic as well.

That said, the opening scenes and the finale feature some of the best war scenes ever filmed. The movie works on another level as well: we're the ones who were saved by that generation's ultimate sacrifice, and like Ryan we should be asking ourselves, "What have I done to deserve the sacrifices made for _me_?"

Life Is Beautiful (1997)

This movie is a masterpiece

[10/10 · 27 March 1999]

Roberto Benigni gives a wondrous, touching, tragicomic performance that netted him the first Academy Award for Best Actor ever awarded to a foreign-language performance.

While the movie delivers several uproariously funny burlesque moments early on, as Guido (Benigni) meets and falls in love with Nicoletta Braschi, it's real strength is in the second half, which is set in a concentration camp. Benigni creates an inventive and elaborate game of make-believe designed to shield his son from the camp's horrors; in doing so, he also shields the audience from the worst of it.

I take the point to be that while governments do evil things to people, those people are generally pretty resourceful and resilient, and generally find ways to make pretty good lives for themselves regardless. Most WWII movies relentlessly show the nightmarish side to the Holocaust while neglecting the resourcefulness of the victims in carrying on with their lives, a la DIARY OF ANNE FRANK.

Benigni's imperviousness toward real human suffering is a questionable tactic; I would have thought that a lot of people would have found his gags tasteless. But if you realize that the humour is simply a device to lift the tension, then you will see it's real genius - it's statement that life can be beautiful no matter what the situation or the backdrop, that government can never take away from the human spirit.

The movie is genuinely touching, and will you make cry and laugh with equal vigor. I felt it should have won for Best Picture, and I'm certain that it will be remembered for much longer than SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE or SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

More than a simple genre flick

[7/10 · 25 March 1999]

Well-filmed adaptation of May Shelley's novella, with Kenneth Branagh's trademark broad cinematic strokes, vital camera motions and visual flair.

A lot of people didn't appreciate it for what it was - not a campy horror film like previous versions of the book, but a pretty faithful adaptation of it, full of grand philosophizing and romantic idealism.

Robert De Niro is the troubled Creature, and Branagh is the obsessed Dr. Frankenstein who is eventually reviled by his blasphemous creation. Frankly, I didn't understand why Dr. Frankenstein would so quickly turn against the usefulness of the daring scientific method that allows him to achieve a scientific breakthrough of Promoethean propoetions. Part of the problem is that Branagh makes the doctors who object to creating a new life seem like old fuddy-duddies - you can't help but sympathize with Frankenstein's goals. So why Frankenstein tries to wipe out the Creature, rather than fixing its defects, is unclear.

The film is feverish and florid, with more heart than head, but largely succeeds in bringing an engaging visual excitement to the story.