matt43-2 Reviews

Underground (1995)

starts out great, but turns into an exercise in endurance

[4/10 · 11 April 2001]

I had high hopes for this film, and for a while it looked like I was going to love it. The first third of the movie or so is very entertaining, on several levels. I called my brother about 45 minutes into it and told him "you gotta rent this movie!!" Then it just petered out, but still dragged on (and on and on) for two more hours. When the movie ended I called my brother again and said "nevermind."

I felt like those guys in Swingers on their drive to Vegas.

If you're in the mood for a GREAT non-US movie about a family dealing with the effects of war and political upheaval on their lives through the decades, skip this one and check out the Chinese "To Live" with Li Gong. That's also a relatively long movie, but you'll find yourself completely wrapped up in it & entertained (as opposed to thinking "HOW MUCH LONGER CAN THIS DRAG ON???" like I was during "Underground")

Titus (1999)

pretentious garbage

[1/10 · 28 December 2000]

I rented Titus last night. I figured a Shakespeare movie starring Anthony Hopkins - hey, it can't be all bad.

Oh boy was I wrong.

Like Leo Dicaprio's Romeo & Juliet, the movie retained the original Shakespeare dialog but was set in a modern time. Well, kind of. It was a cross between ancient rome and the 1940's, with some more modern items thrown in here & there. Some people were dressed like roman legions fighting with swords, others wearing 40's style clothes & riding 40's style motorcycles, etc.

When I first realized this, I told myself to keep an open mind, that maybe they'll do something interesting with it. Although my usual thoughts on that whole subject are that, dammit, movies based on Shakespeare plays should be set when & where the play was set - don't dumb everything down so that the public can "relate". Or, even worse, for the sake of "Art"

Well, they didn't do anything interesting with it. The anachronistic setting nonsense only added to the gargantuan suckage of this movie. But that wasn't the precise reason why the movie sucked - It sucked because it was pretentious, unwatchable wannabe-artistic crap. (Containing, of course, the requisite amount of homoerotic overtones for pretentious, unwatchable wannabe-artistic crap. As if you couldn't guess that.)

I can just see the idiots behind this whole thing - "Ooh, we'll mix up the ancient Roman setting with modern elements! That will SHOCK everyone! People won't know what to do! What Artists we are! And we'll make everything ultra-graphic! That will SHOCK everyone! People won't know what to do! What Artists we are! And we'll make everyone seem gay! That will SHOCK everyone! People won't know what to do! What Artists we are! And we'll use insultingly obvious symbolism - because that's what Artists do! Aren't we clever to do that in a Shakespeare movie! What Artists we are! The rabble out there will hate this movie because we're so avant-garde! People won't know what to do! Hooray for us! Take that, Mister Establishment!"

Damn what a piece of crap. I want my money back.