saint999 Reviews

30 Days of Night (2007)

Best in a decade

[8/10 · 15 January 2008]

Went to see this while my car got serviced. The clever idea of vampires taking advantage of the arctic night attracted me but I didn't expect such a good movie.

This is no art-house vampire film, except for the cinematography which deserves a 10. It was well acted and very well directed. They didn't explain the vampires, or tell you that much about the humans, you found out a bit here and there as it went along. Kept it interesting. The gore was appropriately disgusting - no death pornography. The action scenes had actions that fit the characters. I enjoyed it so much I forgave the sentimental ending.

A History of Violence (2005)

Tarantino formula without wit or charm

[5/10 · 16 October 2005]

Tarantino had flashy actors doing Beautiful People doing scumbag stuff with wit and charm. Here fine actors do Pleasantville people doing scumbag stuff with a few glum tears.

Mr Pleasantville turns out to be a reformed scumbag. Why or how he reformed is not explained but he's a nice guy now. Scumbags are lone males who slaughter people for money of for the hell of it. Mr Pleasantville does it for Friends and Family and gets a look like the Suffering Christ afterward. So that's OK. His son is shocked to find out about Dad but after beating the hell out of the bullies at school and blowing a villain away with a shotgun he stops complaining. Mrs Pleasantville is shocked and mad as hell about the deception but the sex is just as good as before. She stands by her man. They sit at the family table with tears in their eyes for Lost Innocence, or whatever.

It's a big, steaming pile. Damn the reviewers who wasted my time and money!

Bad Education (2004)

Gay Noir - unpleasant.

[5/10 · 5 March 2005]

The Almodovar films I've seen before this one always had a lover as one of the main characters. You might feel queasy about the man who got a comatose woman pregnant in'Talk to Her' but he was a lover as well as technically a rapist and it warmed up the film. Bad Education is different.

Spoilers!

It starts out as a gay melodrama. A film director's first love shows up with a script about their affair. Then it flashes back to the characters as boys in a Catholic school with a pedophile priest. The boys and the predator-priest are loving and tortured in typical non-judgmental Almodovar style. Then it returns to what happened when they grew up/grew old. It's a clever exercise in Noir but who cares? A murderer, a thieving doper, a predator and a cold, vain artiste screw each other literally and in other ways. Neil La Bute is much better at this than Almodovar. Almodovar without emotion is just unpleasant.

The Dancer Upstairs (2002)

Didn't know Malkovich is a Romantic

[6 June 2003]

This movie has many faults but don't let them keep you away. It

has flavor, interesting faces and visual effects, it has scenes that

are arresting, uncomfortable, gruesome, romantic. It would have

been a great movie if only the whole were as good as the parts.

Javier Bardem is a just man trying to live a good life in a corrupt

and violent society. He is a policeman investigating a revolutionary

group which is comitting terrorist acts. The government declares

martial law and suspends ........ unfortunately this is just used as

background for a romance which is a lot less interesting. Bardem

and the dance teacher who fascinates him have chemistry and

they are great to look at, and I was amused when the Femme

turns out to have a separate identity and agenda. But that is old hat

even though it was well done. I was much more curious about the

other characters with great faces white, indian and mixed that

came and went so fast. I was much more interested in how you'd

finally understand that incidents of violence all fitted together , were

an undeclared revolution. Why would? who were?

I was frustrated and you will be too.

Gangs of New York (2002)

Terrific & terrible

[23 January 2003]

See it for the spectacle and for Daniel Day -Lewis. Can't think of

another actor who could have burned up the screen with such a

badly written part. It should have been ridiculous but it was riveting.

DiCaprio was like a dead fish. With all the interesting historical

material to choose from Scorsese focused one of the silliest

testosterone sagas I've sat through. Others were disappointed that

Amsterdam didn't wipe out the Butcher in an epic fight. It seems

obvious to me that Scorsese knew it would have been laughable.

In fact I bet he really relished the beating Day-Lewis as the Butcher

gave DiCaprio a few scenes before. DiCaprio was an awful

casting decision he had no one but himself to blame for. But see

it anyway for the spectacle and the Day-Lewis star turn.

Russian Ark (2002)

Dream-state Hermitage tour

[10 January 2003]

Interesting to read the criticism in previous user comments,

particularly the scathing comments by a Russian about the choice

of historical incidents in Russian Ark ("Catherine the Great looking

for a chamber pot is supposed to be significant - oh please!"

approx quote). But if you drift through time in a dream-state what is

the chance of catching historical personages at Significant

Moments in History? The sometimes ridiculous incidents in

Russian Ark make you feel as if you are passing a series of

windows, looking in at random at real people. A lot of what you

see makes no sense, sometimes you are bored, and at other

times frustrated because the person you see is of great interest

but what you see is not (Catherine and the chamber pot search for

example). Sokurov did it on purpose. He wasn't making a film

about the History of Imperial Russia or a Guided Tour of the

Hermitage, he was showing History rushing by in one breath,

gone before you can grasp it, the participants immersed in long

gone moments, the glimpse of the present mixed in reminds you

that it is flying by just as fast and that we are just as oblivious in

our time. At the end the Great Ball is a magnificent spectacle with

music and dancing, and crowds spilling down the marble

staircase but the camera never stops, never stays. The French

Marquis who began by patronizing Russia and mocking it as an

imitation of Europe is captivated and stays but we move on out the

door to the edge of the water and it's all gone. Slow at times,

frustrating at times but in the end melancholy and exhilarating.

I had the feeling that if they'd filmed it five times they'd have got five

different movies.

Heaven (I) (2002)

Mixed Bag

[7/10 · 8 October 2002]

When this film is good it is very, very good but when it is bad it is horrid. Excellent cinematography, some excellent direction (the opening is put together like a jigsaw puzzle and the plot and counterplot during the interrogation of the main character was intricate and amusing), some excellent acting. Unfortunately the motivation of the main character is ridiculous beyond belief. When the Turin Police don't return her calls about a drug dealer she considers responsible for several deaths she decides to do the only possible thing: kill him with a BOMB set off in an office building DURING WORKING HOURS. If the character had gone totally beserk or was simply a homicidal moron or even a terrorist ... but no, this is a loving teacher of young children who faints in horror when she finds out four innocent people got killed. Cate Blanchett should get an Oscar for keeping a straight face. This crud passes for moral complexity but actually it is just a jumble of contrasting stereotypes stuffed into a single character. If you want to see a movie about how good people end up as vigilantes see In the Bedroom.

After messing around with "moral complexity" the movie opts for being a love story and the luscious cinematography serves it well. There are many striking, haunting images. Ribisi is convincing as a strange, sweet young man who falls off a cliff when he falls in love. Blanchett shows no feeling at all. Maybe she is still trying to keep a straight face - the dialogue is awful. Then the cops arrive with assault rifles. But in shoddy movies men with guns can't hit the side of a barn so the lovers are able to steal the police chopper.

Did Tykwer mess up the script or was it just unfinished?

One Hour Photo (2002)

Defanged and declawed thriller

[3 September 2002]

This was a movie that needed to be powered by the paranoia of the Haves about the Have Nots - but the Haves were too blah to be enviable and the Have Not was too pathetic to be threatening. SPOILERS. The Haves were a young and incredibly photogenic Family straight out of an insurance ad. The Have Not was middle aged, poor and plain with a dead end job processing photos. He also had a secret imaginary life as part of the Family, whose film he processes. In this movie people are pared down to the bare plot necessities. Cy is an all purpose stalker. At first he is too attentive to the wife. Then he is determined to make contact with the son. Then he gets hostile with the husband. Ridiculous? Robin Williams saves the day by giving a performance without vanity. He inhabits the Photo Guy and grabs your attention, not for himself but for his character. It's not pleasant because Cy suffers a lot of embarassment and he turns creepy but it is vivid. Williams got an emotional response from me for a character I didn't like but the other actors couldn't do the same hat trick. The Family seemed to have been assembled out of all the most boring parts of bad TV: wife shops all day, complains husband doesn't spend enough time at home. Get a job! Play a musical instrument! Husband has mistress - inevitable. Lack of identification the victims threw the movie off balance. It might have helped if Cy had been frightening rather than creepy. It seemed rather amusing when he terrorized the husband and the mistress with a knife (not a gun) because those two athletic types should have disarmed him easily.

The plot is full of holes. The funniest fantasy was a set of cops ready go the whole nine yards over just a hint of a threat. It's a good Robin Williams vehicle but not a good movie.

Possession (2002)

Enjoyable but flawed

[21 August 2002]

There is a lot to like in this film, it is funny (the academic catfights),

romantic (the Victorians), lovely (the countryside has never been

so beautifully presented) and interesting (the British characters,

especially the old Baileys). Unfortunately, the modern day love

story is so miscast it doesn't take flight. Gwyneth Paltrow is good

as a repressed academic but she is supposed to succumb to

passion. Regret/discomfort is as close as she gets. Aaron Eckhart

is very athletic with an undercurrent of aggression and anger that

make his fist-fight toward the end of the movie and his stealing

letters believable, but he is not at all convincing as a grad student

studying a Victorian poet. He is even less convincing as the

reluctant previously-burned lover required by the script (but might

have been great as a predator who gets caught). No poetry there!

Too bad. I read the book years ago and seem to remember that

victorian poesy triumphed in modern times with modern lovers

against all the odds.

Blue Crush (2002)

Lighten up! It's an xtreme sport thrill ride, not a Film

[16 August 2002]

Surfing is another planet and I loved the visit during Blue Crush. The Blonde in a Bikini wants to win the big surfing competition. She's competitive but inhibited by physical fear after a terrifying accident. She's distracted by family obligations and a Cinderella romance with a football Prince Charming. Will she take the easy out and let her mentor down or will she overcome? It's a heroine instead of a hero so the physical fear and the temptation to be validated by romance instead of accomplishment are culturally acceptable. The mentor is another young woman - probably the most original thing about the film - well played by Rodriguez. The setup is realistic in many ways. The bodacious surfer girls live in a dump and work as maids in a hotel. It is demeaning, tacky labor but so what? Their real life is "laying pipe" in that magnificent surf. The wave scenes are so beautiful and exciting they eclipse all the rest, including the loose ends and schlock humor in the script.

A final tribute: I never imagined living for something so trivial as catching a wave, now I get it.

Tosca (2001)

More involving than most stage performances

[10/10 · 16 July 2002]

Tosca is more involving in this film version than in most stage performances. That is astounding. Usually, close-ups of opera performances spoil the effect of the music. The acting and looks of most singers detract from their musical performance. Also, melodrama is out and out funny when it's filmed realistically. But in this film the three leads are fine actors and look their parts. Gheorghiu is physically a magnificent diva. It helps that the lip-synching stops at times. For example Tosca and Caravadossi embrace and kiss while the singing continues, as if in their thoughts. They look right and it sounds right. Black and white video of the taping is occasionally intercut with the full color performance. This is jarring but adds to the magic of the final performance, which seemss effortless. Instead of filming the opera realistically the scenes are made theatrical and larger than life by using impressionistic backgrounds. It feels like a stage performance - only you can see everything perfectly. Wonderful! The film makes me want to hear the opera again. The sound system at the movie theater was no substitute for the real thing or for a CD. But I know that the images from this movie will flash up next time I listen.

Road to Perdition (2002)

Flawlessly filmed but too predictable.

[13 July 2002]

The Road to Perdition is superbly put together. The look, the style is original and consistent from beginning to end. Some scenes are brilliant. Go see it for the dazzling parts and for the originality. Many directors take a novel and turn it into a comic book. Mendes took a comic book and made a movie about people.

Unfortunately the screenplay is flat-footed. You know what will happen long, long before it happens. The only surprises are in the details. This problem is compounded by severely understated performances from all the leads. Only Jude Law has any flash. SPOILERS. Hanks is stone-faced as the enforcer. He is supposed to be "the Angel of Death" but shows no sign of pride in his skill or craftsmanship or any trace of aggression toward his victims. This actor has no "edge" at all! He spends half the film seeking revenge for the murder of his wife and youngest son without showing a trace of feeling other than dogged persistence. His performance is BORING. (Even his agony at finding his wife and child slaughtered was an offstage howl, you never saw it on his face.) He does a decent job with the father-son part of his role but the assassin part is MIA. Very bad news for the big moral issue in the movie. It is no use to argue that a professional enforcer in real life would be a dull plodding thug because flashy types get caught and men of feeling and imagination find different jobs. This is a movie and if the viewer feels nothing for the character there is no payoff. When Hanks got shot in the end my attention was on Jude Law holding the gun.

It is a brilliant film, but flawed.

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001)

Outstanding!

[10/10 · 3 July 2002]

The Fast Runner was made for the Inuit from their point of view, in their language. It works much, much better than if they had tried to make an Inuit film for the rest of the world. It starts with total immersion. No introduction, subtitled. The Inuit look like potatoes in their bulky clothes, the women are tattooed, the faces are alien, unreadable and unattractive. Then your eye kicks in and you can see who is good-looking and who isn't and you can begin to interpret their expressions and body language. That is exhilarating but there isn't much time to think about it because the unfolding story will keep your attention for the rest of the time. This is a long film that feels short, like time spent in an alternate world.

The story is simple. The way plays out in such a different society is what makes it fascinating. The acting is superb and the entire production is seamless so you are as effectively transported as in the first Star Wars movie. In fact it has the same epic feel, but is much more complex morally.

The Fast Runner is a once-in-a-generation film. It deserves all the prizes heaped on it. Don't pass it by!

In the end credits you see the film makers at work using modern technology. It really strikes you that technology has altered much of the logic of the old ways depicted in the film. For example after Atarnajuat escapes in a spectacular run over the ice his wife and child are dependent on his enemies for food in winter. Women did not hunt seal, perhaps they hadn't the physical strength. Technology, not diamonds, sets females free. But that is another story.

About a Boy (2002)

Contradictory messages

[23 May 2002]

The most interesting thing about this well made, well acted movie

was not the blah story about a shallow man saved by connecting

with a kid. It was the contradiction between pro-family propaganda

and the evidence onscreen. The same smart, warm hearted kid

who effortlessly saved the man had a mother who was suicidal.

She was an idealistic woman who loved her son and was on good

terms with the father. (She was presented as a loser with no

fashion sense but Toni Collete's performance rescued her and

made her far more intriguing than Grant's character.) Goodness

and parenthood didn't make her feel good. Write that one off as

mental illness? There was a group of Single Mothers who were

angry, unsatisfied and unsaved by their devotion to their kids.

Maybe only men can be saved by kids and women can only be

saved by men? Enough of these bromides! People sometimes

save each other, sometimes "hell is other people", as Sartre put it.

Family is not some kind of Botox for the soul.

Grant's character was truly an empty man. Can you imagine having

an education and an independent income and reaching the age of

38 without developing a passion for anybody or anything? That

kind of poverty has no quick fix. In real life some workaholics are

socially deprived and rescued by human contact, which is a

different movie cliche.

This was one of the only depictions of a kid with a kind heart and a

good mind who overcomes his troubles without fist fighting, kick

boxing or any other violence. The young actor was terrific. BRAVO!

Worth the price of admission.

Nine Queens (2000)

Bravo!

[5 May 2002]

Nine Queens starts out slow and easy then piles tricks on tricks on tricks like a Mamet film. But this is better than a Mamet film. It's just as clever but the dialogue is not brittle or artificial and the characters will interest you. Terrific actors, low key but very expressive. The plot is as intricate and as funny as a Rube Goldberg contraption.

I don't like tricksy films but this one is irresistible. See for yourself.

Extreme Measures (1996)

Why did I never hear of this one?

[9 March 2002]

Started watching it on cable because the cast seemed too good

for an unknown "medical thriller". Kept on watching because it is

really good - correction - really well made. The story doesn't hold

up when you think about it but the acting is so naturalistic you

suspend disbelief willingly. Grant gets most of the credit for being

an action hero you worry about. Very smart and very persistent but

in over his head when the violence starts. It really adds to the fear

factor and makes his willingness to fight seem more admirable.

The rest of the cast is also excellent. The hospital setting is

realistic when it should be and creepy when it should be (the

medical examiner's lab). Miracle of miracles, they leave out the

romance subplot. What discipline! Good job!

The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

Old fashioned entertainment - see and forget

[3 February 2002]

An "omit and condense" adaptation of the Dumas adventure story. I remember devouring the book when I was a kid, but this movie had no kick. A swashbuckler should be flashy, a bit over the top. Instead the movie was nice, with good looking scenery and some good looking actors. Caveziel was less languid than usual, plus there was a leading lady with an Ava Gardner face (but dull as a Barbie doll). Pearce stood out because he looked smart and mean and envious - an actor that might toss out the script and do something outrageous. No such luck!

Not that it was a bad movie, it was just flat. I liked it better before I started thinking about it so I'll stop.

The Son's Room (2001)

Grief Observed

[3 February 2002]

An ideal family: the parents love and like eachother, much affection between parents and children, enough money. Everything is under control, in fact the father is a psychoanalyst, a professional at helping people get their lives under control. The control is an illusion, though, shattered by the accidental death of Andrea, the son. They have no philosophy, no religion, no way to deal with the misery and it pushes them in different directions. The father can't continue his work with patients and obsesses about how he might have prevented the accident. There is no resolution, they don't develop or resolve to live more fully or make a contribution to preventing the kind of accident that killed their son. They also don't play the blame game or deny reality. It becomes clear that the grief will eventually lose its intensity and they will come together again as a family.

This movie has an enormous amount of integrity, which I admired. No panaceas, no easy solutions, I felt that someone was taking great pains to get this portrait exactly right and probably did.

Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)

French tribute to Hollywood & Hong Kong

[28 January 2002]

Enjoy the style, don't bother about the content. This is a great looking swashbuckler. Part of the pleasure is that French male actors don't have the Plastic Babe look yet (big eyes, small noses, pouty lips and a bland expression, common in young actors of both sexes, think Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp). Not that there aren't Babes of both sexes: Bellucci and Dacascos are magnifique. It's interesting to be told a story about a legend of the French countryside but the plot holes and muddle tell you they didn't take it too seriously, so why should you? Have fun.

Monster's Ball (2001)

Two movies for the price of one?

[20 January 2002]

Monster's Ball refuses to soften some of the ugliest material on screen this season, then it turns to mush. The actors are outstanding - and they need to be outstanding to carry the film, which has major credibility problems. SPOILERS. It shows us the family from hell. The old man is failing and full of rage. He is a gleeful racist who despises women, especially his "quitter" of a wife who killed herself (Boyle, a great performance). His middle aged son goes along with the mad-dog macho ethic. He uses his fists and unlimited contempt to drum any tendency toward kindness out of his own son. The son and grandson are prison guards, of a real prison plus the prison they inherited. It's over the top, especially the suicide of the grandson. The two older men give the young `pussy' a hasty burial. The father quits his job, but is it remorse or does he feel he lost face? The only hint of remorse is that he can't get it on with his usual whore. You stare at the screen thinking "Am I watching an American movie?" It gets points for ruthlessness. The other family in the film is more comprehensible. A murderer on death row is made to seem more sympathetic than the guards who execute him (not difficult considering what we've seen of them and Sean Coombs does a good job). His artistic son loves him and is eating himself to death. The wife he mistreated is furious and going under financially (Halle Berry gives a multi-dimensional performance). After the execution the poor fat kid is run over by a car and killed instead of undergoing the Hollywood treatment. The middle-aged racist prison guard who stopped his car and took the mother and son to the hospital takes the mother home. They get drunk and desperate and have sex. End of Monster's Ball part one.

What could they do for an encore? Monster's Ball part two is an about face. Suddenly the ex-prison guard is a tender and considerate lover. Enter Love, exit racism! The grandfather is off to a nursing home the minute he gets ugly. They move in together and he names his new business, a gas station, after her. `I just want to take care of you!' She finds out he helped execute her former husband and cries a bit, but Happiness Calls.

The two parts of the movie don't fit together. Sure, people reverse their beliefs, but it isn't simple, easy or painless. I have to confess I was relieved though. If the two halves had fit together he'd have reverted to type and driven her to suicide and their child to a life of crime.

Vanilla Sky (2001)

My dear, I don't give a damn!

[6/10 · 16 December 2001]

Starts out as an intellectual puzzle-thriller but all is explained in excruciating detail. That dumbs it way down because the explanation is funny but not interesting. It also goes all simple-moral at the end (spoiler!) but that doesn't work because Tom Cruise wears a rubber mask for about a fourth of the movie, a rubber disfiguring prosthesis for another fourth and a huge smirk the rest of the time. Lots of energy, but any character development takes place behind the latex where we can't see it. Cameron Diaz does the best work - her huge smirk is quite scary. Penelope Cruz, the Good Woman, is perky rather than manic, sweet but not demanding, and not at all threatening (yawn). The cinematography is flashy and fun. I haven't see the Spanish original but the director, Amenabar, has two pictures playing: The Others and The Devil's Backbone. They both have what Vanilla Sky lacks: feeling.