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jkdrummond
Reviews
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
What a God Awful Film
My room mates asked me last night if I wanted to watch this on their home theatre system and, though I hadn't seen The Attack of the Clones, I said yes, and was actually looking forward to it -- for about 20 minutes. Had I gone to a theatre to see this, I would have been royally ticked off; indeed, I might have stormed to the box office and, under the new policies, demanded my money back.
The production values are, as always, fantastic. Likewise the special effects and CGI work, etc., etc., usw. Ian McDiarmid does an incredible job, given the circumstances, as does McGregor and Portman. The less said about Christianson the better. Unfortunately, you don't have a good script, you don't have a movie. Period. Full Stop. End of story.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the end of the story. I had no emotional engagement whatever with anything happening to anyone because there is simply no heart to this film. *It's funny; in its way, the central conflict in this film -- indeed in the entire epic -- is precisely the same as that in LORD OF THE RINGS, the inevitable corruption of power; timely AND timeless, one would think. But this miserable excuse for a script, unlike even the cobbled-together script for LOTR, is about as shallow as it gets, with absolutely nothing lending any depth whatever to what is NOT a shallow subject. It's film-making by the numbers with the only colours available black and white with a few not very subtle shades of grey in between.* I watched the whole thing and had acute physical AND mental dyspepsia by the end, something that happens to me when I've seen a truly, truly dreadful movie, and, when it was over and one of my roomies said AOTC was even worse, I could only sigh with relief I missed it.
Hilariously enough, my other roomie, who collects films, was actually sighing with regret when asked if he was going to buy it. "Yes," he said, "but only for the sake of completeness of the collection." Me? I'd take the entire collection of STAR WARS films he has and put 'em up for sale on eBay, because, now we know what Lucas considers an appropriate ending, I don't care anymore at all -- and in 1977, I walked out of the theatre three feet off the ground. How times do change. . . .
O Fantasma (2000)
Idiotic Bad Porn
Dreadful. Just awful. And for all kinds of reasons. I was going to watch the film with the director's comments, but the film is so bad, I didn't CARE why the director put this piece of self-indulgent twaddle together. The pace is horrendously slow because there's no sense to virtually all of it; this is NOT character driven, because we haven't got a clue about what the hell is motivating this dude or anyone else, for that matter. The tag line about no one can live without love or whatever the hell it was is as pointless as anything else: *All we see is some really screwed up dude, who's not dealing too well (apparently) with his urges, wallowing in scene after scene of filth and degradation. The transitions make no sense whatever, and the sex, such as it is, is just B-O-R-I-N-G!*
I had this on 2X and even 3X speed and it was STILL deadly; when you have time to formulate sneering remarks while the film is actually playing, you know you're watching some self-styled director's weird masturbatory fantasies in which no one who actually likes films (as opposed to a reasonably competent psychotherapist) could possibly be interested!
I sympathize with the other reviewer who wished he could give it big fat zero -- only we can't. DON'T BUY THIS FILM! And save yourself the rental fee; it just ain't worth it. . . .
Feardotcom (2002)
What a Piece of Rubbish!
I picked this up this evening for no other reason than the cast. Oh, sure, now and then I do enjoy a good horror flick (this isn't one) and was in the mood to watch some mindless goop. Well, FEARDOTCOM is certainly mindless; indeed, I muttered out loud when the credits were running, "Oh my God! They actually had a writer!" Could have fooled me -- I was literally expecting one of those "Script by Committee" acknowledgments; whoever Josephine Coyle is I sure hope she doesn't quit her day job (her only other credit listed at IMDb is as a "production coordinator" for PRESENCE OF MIND in 1999).
And, largely because of that miserable excuse for a script, it winds up being not a good ANY kind of film: When the bloody hell are film makers going to realize the rather elementary truth (as in Kindergarten level) that if you don't have a good script, you don't have a film? Period! Never mind good production values (and I hate to admit it but they ain't bad), good direction (this definitely has none of that - Lord! The number of bloopers is just astonishing SPOILER**Just as a for instance: When McElhone rushes into the psychiatric ward of the hospital to talk to Dorff (with no explanation WHY he's in a psychiatric unit), is directed to his room "first door on the left," she is instantly there, finds him having a full-on seizure (with no medical people in attendance, mind you), and suddenly -- when she, oh, so frightfully conveniently gets a phone call -- NOW she's got to go out the door onto a stair landing and through yet another doorway before she's back in the same corridor! Really good continuity there, folks!) END SPOILER.
I have admired Stephen Dorff in many films **but this was just, well, a grunting quasi-Neanderthal that pretty much embodied every tired cliché there is for a world weary cop since sometime in the 1930s**! (**Oh yeah! And somebody really should point out to this generally admirable young actor that if you have a story in which the primary character doesn't "solve" the main problem, but instead winds up a clueless bystander, you just don't have a viable story.**) I adored Natasha McElhone in MRS DALLOWAY (and -- even GIVEN the weaknesses of the character in the script -- in THE TRUMAN SHOW), and have been an admirer of Stephen Rea ever since THE CRYING GAME, too -- but I can't figure out why they agreed to do this one; did they all need some quick-and-dirty money or something. . . .
Usually one can at least learn something from a genuinely bad movie (which this is) but with this one, for the very first time, I wanted to go back to my film rental store and demand my $3.50 back on general principles.
I'm glad I didn't follow my first impulse to shut the show down at the end of the "first reel" 20 minute period, because I can quite honestly report about this disaster of a movie: Dreadful! Just dreadful on every level except, as I said above, production values. Big deal!
Xi yan (1993)
A Minority Opinion: Deeply Flawed Film!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the production values, much less the acting in the film. And, to a degree, the inter-cultural difficulties that move the plot are sometimes - though, in my opinion, not very often - rather droll. What it lacks utterly is a believable script.
First of all, by way of explanation - perhaps - I haven't liked a single film by Ang Lee that I've seen so far (4 now), with the single exception of SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, and that had a great deal more to do with Emma Thompson's Oscar-winning screenplay than Lee's direction.
I don't know what the "issues" Lee has with homosexuality, as such, might be, but there is simply no question in my mind and experience that the psychology of THE WEDDING BANQUET is flawed right down to the ground. THE central incident that drives the plot forward -- (SPOILER: **i.e., Winston Chao's acquiescing to May Chin's extremely importunate eliciting of a physical relationship** -- ES) -- could only have been written and directed by someone who doesn't have clue one about how virtually any gay man caught up in that kind of situation is going to react. Therefore, I do not think it unfair to opine that the ENTIRE plot is based -- apart from a few cultural quiddities about gay men in a traditional and/or homophobic society coming out -- on a false presumption; accordingly, the whole film becomes an exercise in mere twaddle: If your main plot reversal/complication is based on a psychologically invalid director's "I want it this way," then you have a tremendous flaw right at the heart of the script and -- old but true words -- you don't have a script, no matter how good everything else is, you just don't have a good film! And how can anyone think some gay person, male or female, knuckling under to cultural and tribal traditions and shibboleths is the stuff of comedy??? Literally millions of gay people have been and continue to be forced to compromise their lives and hearts and desires to fit into their cultures; this is scarcely funny; it, far more often, eventuates in emotional exile, mental illness, violence and, not infrequently, great tragedy.
EDITORIAL COMMENT/POSSIBLE SPOILER: *This film is THE film that has made me dread Lee's directing BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (not yet released), the short story by Pulitzer winner Annie Proulx. With his clearly demonstrated lack of understanding and/or issues with "gay" sensibilities, I dread it.*
Proteus (2003)
Strange and Wonderful
I had seen this in the cinema some 7 or 8 months ago and when I saw it on sale on DVD, I snatched it up immediately; this is a film I will definitely watch many times before it's exhausted its fascination.
This is unquestionably one of the strangest films ever made, and one of the most intriguing and even beautiful. Slight spoiler: *It does NOT have a happy ending, but it IS, nevertheless, a tremendously positive ending.* The love story involved is complex and clearly developed with an eye firmly fixed on the morality, ideas, and misinformation endemic to the early 18th century, when the "real life story" took place. Nevertheless, the film is chockablock full of some very strange anachronisms. Nevertheless, both the buddy I saw it with and I were able, very early on in the film, to adapt easily to that. Subsequently, I DID find out that, as I had expected, Greyson, the director, and Lewis, the writer along with Greyson, did those wild anachronisms deliberately in order to underscore, so to speak, the fact that racism, homophobia and class differences are as alive and well in the 21st century as they were in the 18th.
The main focus is on the two lovers, but the Scottish botanist -- Spoiler: *present more as observer and sympathizer as anything else, though he is a major plot element* -- helps to open the story out to a much wider impact than a "mere" prison romance could allow for.
Beautifully acted (particularly Rouxnet Brown, Neil Sandilands (the lovers) and Shaun Smyth (the Scots botanist, though ALL really do a splendid job with difficult material), for a film that was made on the merest wisp of funding fantastic production values, and, IMHO, great heart.
A Canadian/South African Film Treaty movie, it pleased me enormously to learn that some of that micro-funding actually came from the government of SA! My major criticism of the film is the somewhat confused subtitling: There are, apparently, some four languages used in the film, Afrikans, Dutch, English and the click tongue of the Bushmen. *Once or twice the language on screen was subtitled in a non-English language.* A bit frustrating but scarcely off-putting.
Enjoy!
Extreme Ops (2002)
Nowhere Near That Bad
I saw this film twice in the theatre (there were MAYBE 10 people both times); bought it on DVD and just picked up a used VHS for a friend, who asked for it. This film is not good. Okay. It's predictable, and the whole setup more than a little silly. NEVERTHLESS, it's one helluva lot better than XXX, for instance, and for several reasons. For one thing, though God knows they haven't much in the way of a script, the ACTORS are all of them willing to do precisely the unself-conscious job actors are supposed to do no matter how weak the material. (Bridgett Wilson is the only one who kinds of limps along, but since she's playing your basic bimba principessa, it doesn't matter very much.) There are also several bits that are fall on your keester funny. Rufus Sewell's mating problems, Rupert Graves's hilarious sendup of THE SELF CONSEQUENT AMERICAN PRODUCER - for two distinguished British actors, they throw themselves into the nonsense with gusto. The kids, particularly Joe Absolom (with an amazingly good American accent -- in fact, Rupert Graves could take lessons from him in that regard) turn in steady and amusing performances.
As to the extreme sports: I loved them. All four or five times I've seen this flick. They are SO much better than ANYTHING in TRIPLE X; it is true, if you're not into extreme sports, then, sure, this flick is going to bore the hell out of you. I hate to put it this way, but it may just very well be a "guy" thing; I have a good friend who thought THE HOURS was the greatest flick of the year, and I thought it was the biggest bore I'd ever sat through, and SHE hated Extreme Ops. Yet, both my room mates like EO -- none of us LOVE it -- but for us, it's been one of those fun flicks to watch in an idle moment, precisely because of the excellent stunts and the couple of seriously good laughs in it.
Keith Drummond San Francisco, California
Bedrooms and Hallways (1998)
Seriously Deranged
Totally apart from the straight guys playing gay, there is one serious fault with this film that makes it SERIOUSLY bad: *Spoiler* Sexual identity can be, often is, a fluid and somewhat "iffy" business -- lots of "chance attractions" go on all the time: The film takes it to a perfectly ludicrous and totally unbelievable height. And I LIKE all the actors in it. But this is one script that seriously s***ks. Many years ago, when Merchant-Ivory approached the great novelist Ruth Prawar Jhabvala (who won the Oscar for her screenplay of ROOM WITH A VIEW -- and didn't do so bad on HOWARDS END, either! LOL), to do the screenplay for MAURICE, she wouldn't do it, because of the tremendous psychological flaw that sticks out a gazillion miles in the novel. The screenwriters tried, sort of, to correct it with that "Oscar Wilde" nonsense and that it was that that scared Durham back into his closet, but the fact remains it was just a plain old stupid mistake that (and I'm a Forster nutcase) really couldn't be solved. And now, along comes this THING! in which people are plunging about all over the place sexually and making NO SENSE WHATEVER. Dismal. 10 for acting. By all means. Minus 10 for screenplay!
Puccini (1984)
Strange But Fascinating Experiment
This film is actually three films in one: The story of a rather terrible trial that came upon the Puccini family, and a VERY stagey setup for the third aspect of the film which is *possible spoiler here* a production of Puccini's last opera TURANDOT being put together by the Scottish National Opera. *Another possible spoiler*: The story of the opera, to a degree, matches the unfortunate problem the Puccini family had to face.
The actual "film" aspect of this is quite well done indeed. The always remarkable Robert Stephens plays Puccini with all the verve and larger-than-life personality that is wonderfully like that of the composer, and when he has to "take stage" in the "theatrical" bits to segue to the preparations for the opera, he handles it with aplomb and complete believability. The preparation of the Scottish National Opera for their production may fascinate some, and bore others into the ground.
I've only been able to give this 7 out of 10, because, by and large, the production values are rather wanting in this, and, though I think the actors, all of them, and the people involved in the rehearsals for the actual opera, are doing their level best, the camera work sometimes isn't very clear at all, there is more than a little confusion of direction (in the sense of mise-en-scene) and occasionally everyone looks, well, rather sloppy: There is a distinct possibility that they were trying to communicate some of the more squalid aspects of life in early 20th century times, but, for this viewer at least, it didn't work.
A final note of "historical" interest: The role of Tonio, Puccini's son, is played by a very young Rupert Graves a year or so BEFORE Merchant Ivory picked him up to play Freddy in A ROOM WITH A VIEW. He is only in something like three scenes but in one of them, he delivers an astonishing performance in one so young!
If you like opera, and are fascinated (as I am) by production work and behind-the-scenes goings-on, I think you'll find this fascinating. If not, you'd probably best give it a miss.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Novels/Films
I just re-viewed Fellowship of the Ring last night and was struck all over again at how good I think the film is. But there's been enough of that. I also have read the novels probably a dozen times over nearly a 40 year period. It took me a hard slog at first to get into them; The Lord of the Rings is, essentially, a Victorian 3-volume novel. I just wanted to observe, rather idiotically, I suppose, that a novel and a book are two separate and distinct entities. Of COURSE I was disappointed that certain aspects of the novel weren't included in either of the two films -- or other aspects added. But I've been through this with half a dozen other much beloved books and I have only this to finish with: Does the film stand on its own? Regardless of the "source?" If yes, then what's the problem? Something For Everyone (@ 1970) has nothing whatever to do with the novel it purported to be based upon (it's much funnier -- and wicked). There were QUITE a number of changes to, well, just about ALL the films made from E.M. Forster's wonderful novels. Yet, as films, they all stand quite wonderfully on their own merits. (With the single exception, IMHO, of HOWARD'S END.)
The Fellowship of the Ring is a film I can and do watch at least once a week and have done so for about three weeks since I purchased it. It will pass. But right now, it has me enthralled! Completely. And I just re-read the whole trilogy less than a year ago!
Simple, really. Fine Book. Fine Film.
As to the acting, I'm given to understand Sean Astin and Viggo Mortenson were replacements for the originals; I think they both deliver fantastic performances! As for the rest of the cast, kudos, indeed! The sheer physical beauty of the film, too, never ceases to amaze me!