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Spring Breakers (2012)
Sprraaang Brreeeeaaakkk Yaaaa'lll
What on earth can be said of this movie? Well, it was easily one of the worst, most hilarious movies I've seen - and to explain how that can be, I'll have to adopt the discontinuous narrative of the movie's storyline to get it straight. Oh boy!
The beginning begun without beginning. No character development / satire of the mindless orgy that is spring break. Suddenly we find ourselves in Florida and before a storyline even begins we hit a strange climax: 4 jailbirds taken off with the milieu of an ending rather than a beginning. People in the theatre looked around at each other, curious.
This was a mosaic, a mesh of different movies, or so it felt. Everything was an interlude - loud and fast or slow and repetitive - nothing accomplished: the party life is always just about to start living, always in the process, hung up in an intermission. It never begins. Brilliant.
But Gomez's inexperience shone through, her sudden departure was a relief. It seemed the director/writer instantly forgot about her from then on, but don't worry, the audience does too - whatever happened / whoever cares? The other three? Poor acting all around, culminating in the tragedy of a hit me baby one more time. We were embarrassed for each of them, deeply. Franco did what he could, sometimes successful, most often not. The cringeworthy dialogue, which permeated the entire movie almost unbearably, was simply a feat he couldn't master. Could anyone?
The highest point of satire throughout was the caricature of the woman's mouth as toilet - a potent enough image, but it shouldn't be the highest. The satire failed because it was poorly handled. It was never distinguished from any other aspect of the film - if we took only portions of it to be satirical we were never sure which ones were and weren't, if we took it all to be then we're severely disappointed at its shortcomings. Without the sharp edge the satire flew in its own face, ending up in the deepthroat piano sequences which, so ridiculously handled, made us feel that this was trying to be pulled off seriously, resulting in the funniest 15 minutes I've ever seen on film: funny for all the wrong reasons. That is, not for the reasons Korine intended. I was crying, convulsing. It ended up satirizing itself.
And all but a hazy drunken memory, nothing more. The film mimicked the experience of the dazed and confused lifestyle so well it imposed it on the audience: several times throughout, and especially at the ending, I noticed it was very difficult to remember what had previously occurred. The movie itself was a drunken binge; one escapes it murky, hungover. Bravo, well done.
The writing? Terrible. Trash. Almost every phrase was repeated over and over and over and ... OVER. 'Spring break' had to have been said 80 times or more: might dethrone Roxanne as the mother of drinking games. No plot, no cohesiveness, we don't even have a movie here. What was it? I still don't know. A pasteboard of inspiration buried in trash. But a cult classic in the making, give it some years, the 15 minutes parenthesis will kill you - watch it just for that. That scene should go down in history as the most hilarious mistake put on film. I recommend it just for that, and that's what deserves all the cult status. James Franco will need a few movies to recover from this one. If I were him I'd be embarrassed to venture outside. Painful...just painful.
Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film (2002)
Inspiring, beautiful, insightful
It was three years when I, a naive adolescent with a burgeoning love of film and photography, was lying on a mattress beside the fire place at 1 o'clock in the morning, trying desperately to fall asleep. I had the television on, hoping the colours and sounds would lull me to sleep when I grew tired of whatever was on and started flipping through the channels.
"Ansel Adams": the words beamed out at me from the TV guide; immediately I was reminded of a spectacular photograph hanging in the doctor's office I would often stare at as I waited for my name to be called. In the lower right hand of that photo was the name Ansel Adams. I've never forgot that.
I quickly changed the channel to TVO - the last great Canadian television channel - and watched, and watched, and watched.... Whatever promise there was of getting to sleep was suddenly no more. I was glued to the television as one magnificent photo after another was presented, in-between some very interesting facts and commentaries on the legend himself.
By the time 1:30 rolled around it was safe to say photography was now a passion of mine, even if I had very little experience. It's been three years and I've been trying to track down this documentary whenever I am reminded of it, and until yesterday I thought the quest was hopeless. But when I found this IMDb page and subsequently the torrent file, I discovered this was the same PBS documentary that captivated me three years ago.
I'll admit, the second time around I was not as enthused, but it is still a remarkable documentary. There are breathtaking photographs and some very insightful/interesting dialogue, especially the stuff by Ansel himself. I'm not so sure why it didn't make the same impression on me the second viewing, but I assume it had more to do with the perfect atmosphere in which I first saw it: my naiveté; my burgeoning interest; the fire; the stillness and remoteness of the night hours; and the larger-than-life persona whom I connected to the nostalgic memory of sitting in the doctor's office, wondering the story behind this amazing print.
Nevertheless, I cannot recommend it enough to anyone with an appreciation for art and/or photography.
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)
A Perfect Guideline
I was immediately drawn to this movie because of its premise: life within a dark, purgatorial world inhabited solely by individuals who had committed suicide during their time on Earth. The potential that this idea could have had, not only for an interesting storyline, but also for dark humour, is undeniable. So my friends, I was distressed as I could hear the credits about the roll, reflecting on what a poor job had been done handling this movie.
It failed for multiple reasons, both big and small. The most obvious reason was laziness. It seemed as if the people behind this movie, after coming up with the brilliant idea of a suicide after-world, just figured the movie would write itself. This sort of storyline, so far removed from the mundane, requires creativity more than anything to drive it. What kills this movie is that the audience comes into it excited (presuming they know the basic idea) and expects the movie to deliver something very fresh and innovative, and I'll admit, some of the first dialogue we hear just sounds so poetic we really believe we're in for something special here. But we're not. And slowly the film unwinds and loses its magic.
More sympathy was needed to evoke what the director wanted out of Mikal. We didn't get it. Zia was interesting at first, but soon became overshadowed in every scene he was next to Eugene, who, unfortunately, mumbled most of his lines. The plot, which could have gone in many, many unexpected directions, did the expected! It turned into an adventure-esque story about a boy looking for his love. The result is some bizarre Wizard of Oz type storyline with the introduction of a metaphysical cult leader who signified, by the sheer fact he was put into this film, that Dukic lost complete control of the story he was trying to develop. The film slowly spirals from fresh and interesting to lame and predictable, and it really is a pain for those of us who can envision what this movie might have been.
There was mention early on in the film concerning what might happen to an inhabitant of this world if they were to commit suicide again. It was to the audience's great dissatisfaction, especially since there was opportunity to explore this question, that it was never even slightly answered.
Of course, the movie wasn't all bad. There were some excellent scenes. There were some very funny parts, like the black hole underneath the seat and a handful of scenes featuring Shea Whigham's character. It was a great addition to the suicide-world that people couldn't physically smile, and that there weren't any stars in the sky, however, more similar additions were badly lacking. The ending was as cliché as they come; very unfortunate seeing as this movie should have done everything it could have to ward clichés off.
I would recommend the movie because I feel the whole idea of a suicide after-world is worth seeing. And I also hope, after some have seen this film, that a generation of filmmakers might want to tackle this very idea and give it the justice it deserves. It is a big let down, for sure, but not by any means unbearable. All in all, it's a Perfect Guideline for how not to make this movie - let's hope someone takes a second stab at it, or two, the possibilities are well worth it.
Martyrs (2008)
A pretty good "lonely Wednesday" horror flick
Is Martyrs a masterpiece? No. Let's clear the air right away.
But it is intriguing, it starts off in something of a hurry and quells down in its latter half to a much slower pace. However, given that the theme of the second half of the movie is that of monotonous, slow, unbearable pain, the film made a wise style choice to parallel it by the viewing experience at that stage. You shouldn't feel bored, but you will notice the formulaic filming of this half, its slowness, and its unbearableness.
Is it really so unbearable though? That depends on how you watch your films. If you keep an active mind about you, if you let yourself become immersed in the pain then it will have an effect on you - one itself close to sickness. But if you watch your films from a distance, in that curious self-numbing way the average horror-goer seems to take in his films, then you might be disappointed. There are no scenes here that are designed to make you shout and talk about how f'ed up it is; no superfluous show of violence for the sake of violence.
If you consider yourself an intellectual or enjoy movies with deep plot lines then you will undoubtedly be disappointed, precisely because this film - in the latter half anyway - tries to turn itself on its heels and pull off something profound. When time comes to reveal what really is so profound we find ourselves watching a confession: being told candidly by the film itself that it had no idea how to wrap up, that it really did not contain that bit of profundity it boasted only a half hour earlier that indeed it did have. We watch whatever it is that is so profound as a whisper, one character telling another character everything we have been waiting to hear, and the entire dialogue is muted, never to be told to us.
If you can get past this last aspect of Martyrs you might still find a good little horror movie wrapped up inside. I would be inclined to give this a 7 out of 10 (a rather high rating for horrors in general) if it were not for this anticlimactic ending. That was a mistake that should have been avoided, especially if the movie itself knew it had nothing to offer and decided anyway to pretend like it did. For that reason I give it 6 of 10.
Not perfect. Not wholly disappointing. A movie for one of those boring nights, or get-togethers where all parties do not have great expectations.