kjs99 Reviews

Friends with Money (2006)

Aniston can't find a date and scrubs toilets for a living - Right.

[4/10 · 30 August 2006]

There is some great stuff here - characters say things and do things that have the feel of real life, and then there's Aniston's character. Look, I can suspend disbelief with the best of em - I love Sci-fi!- but it really does spoil the whole thing when a movie asks me to believe that a woman that looks as great as Aniston does here is reduced to toilet scrubbing and going out with any schlub who asks. Somehow I really find it hard to empathize with a character whose situation is so out of whack with reality. With all these rich hipster watersiders as friends you just know she'd be setup with one millionaire after another. She might be just as miserable as she is here but she would not be on toilet duty. Oh, one more thing. Isn't it great that the movie tries to wrap the whole thing up by suggesting that - shock of all shocks - a great looking woman might find happiness with a fat guy? I mean, of all the things that might make you an untouchable in Los Angeles carrying around a few extra lbs is it. Don't we all heave a sigh of relief when we find out that the unkempt, unhygenic fat guy ends up having loads of dough?

Shopgirl (2005)

Slightly disgusting

[5/10 · 9 November 2005]

There is something disgusting about the way this film makes middle class life look really unbearable. All the fine wine, the Armani, the cool elegance of a tasteful existence - life just isn't worth living unless you've got money. We're told in Martin's pretentious and totally unnecessary narration that Mirabelle deserved to be singled out, to be noticed - So wonderful of the rich guy to give a helping hand to the lowly "shopgirl". Danes' Mirabelle is smart and capable but this film makes her the captive of two men - its one or the other. Her trip back to her American Gothic Vermont home shows her to be someone with very few options. I wanted to like this film, but after the second or third long and luxurious shot of Martin and his champagne zooming over the rest of us in his private jet I realized this film does think that money is the answer. How can we fault the goldiggers when regular life is so damn awful?

Elizabethtown (2005)

The whole thing is off more than just a little bit...

[6/10 · 24 October 2005]

OK Crowe is no master filmmaker - his films just make you feel good and, as bad as I think this one is, it does as well. That feeling however wore off pretty fast and I'm now thinking about how disappointing I found everything but the music. Music is very important in Crowe's films but here the music does all the heavy lifting. The performances are awfulish but the actors get a pass because the writing is worse. None of the usual great lines found in films like Jerry Maguire, instead there are bits where you can feel Crowe trying to come up with something funny and romantic but none of it clicks - that is until a great song starts up and saves the whole thing and tells us how to feel. The best moments in the film are those in which there is no dialogue and we can simply enjoy the beautiful pictures and music. The whole thing feels disjointed and full of loose ends - especially the drummer guy and his dad and kid - there must have been something cut from the film. Finally, am I crazy or is this Jerry Maguire 2? The large company with the open work floors and celebrations, the guy at loose ends, the girl who teaches the guy how to live again, the classic bitch ex ... buy the soundtrack and see the film on DVD.

Rome (2005–2007)

Rome for the First Time

[29 August 2005]

Great. Loving classical literature and history, and the sometimes ridiculous film genre known as Sword and Sandal, I was thrilled by the first episode - I really feel like I'm getting something very like the grit and feel of the place and the politics for the first time. I've read some stupid comments here that somehow the series is less than authentic because these Romans speak English - and most absurd - that the actors are all too old because the average male died in his 40's. That figure - If true - is skewed tremendously by the fact that many died of childhood maladies that are easily treated today. Many men lived in to their 70's and 80's, especially in the aristocracy. Pompey - one of the oldest in the series - died at something like 58, and his death was anything but natural. Look, some suspension of disbelief is required every time you turn the TV on. I think they've done a great job with this series and I look forward to future episodes.

Alexander (2004)

Deserved Better Fate/Reviews but...

[7/10 · 10 August 2005]

I waited for the DVD to come out because of the overwhelmingly bad reviews - the reviews disappointed me so much that I just didn't want to think about the film. Of course, its always a mistake not to see a film on this scale in a theatre and I will never make that mistake again. I liked the film very much - loved the way that Stone mostly followed Lane's account, loved the presentation of Babylon but I did have the following problems: 1. Structure was a mess should have simply opened with Phillip's assassination. 2. Way too much Angelina Jolie. I didn't think that possible but man, that bad accent - didn't it seem like some kind of Russian, Boris and Natacha accent? 3. My biggest problem is that we never, ever get a real sense why Alexander was followed and is called Alexander the Great. Stone should have included his being made a god in Egypt and found a way to get in the idea that he might have even inspired Christianity. The couple of speeches in front of the troops seemed like bad ripoffs of Shakespeare or Braveheart. Stone gives us the guy in the flesh but we should have gotten some idea of the guys incredible personal appeal.

My Architect (2003)

What a self indulgent bore

[2/10 · 22 February 2005]

I love documentaries. The Andy Goldsworthy doc was great.I looked forward to this one - but was very disappointed. I knew of Kahn and was intrigued by the idea of his lonely death in a Penn Station men's room. There must be a story here, I mistakenly believed.The only story here is of sadly deluded women who had affairs with an ugly little famous married man. In the absence of anything like an explanation for this guy's horrible behavior, we're given endlessly repeated clips of Kahn walking around and painfully long - supposedly contemplative - shots of his soulless buildings.Actually, some of the buildings are interesting but the thrust of the film asks us to think about the guy himself. The overwrought soundtrack references an emotional tug that is entirely absent from the film. Kahn's apparent gifts do not excuse his behavior or martyr his mistresses. This film seems to want to give Kahn the great artiste's free pass and thus make the director and his mother sympathetic figures - I don't buy it.

Super Size Me (2004)

Evil Vegan Snobbery

[30 September 2004]

this "documentary" is a self-serving load of ap-cray. Most of what makes it awful has been said here but I just wanted to pile on with the observation that there is nothing, even a super-sized drum of Coke, that disgusts me more than a vegan looking down his/her nose. Did you catch the girlfriend writhe in agony when considering the prospect of sitting next to the "documentarian" while he ate his fast food? Many of us who eat meat have had encounters with this kind of person who feels it necessary to register some kind of physical repulsion at the sight of your entree. And on the eve of the great sacrifice the "documentarian" is served a vegan meal which was accompanied by the very predictable swooning vegans also feel the need to do when presenting their dishes - " Oh and here is some wonderful and fresh organic endive salad, and some really yummy soy bean rugola with wheat grass tapinade." These people just can't help themselves - they know better than you, you are just uneducated and if you only knew what was healthy then you too would know what tastes good. Of course we are shoveling fast food down at an alarming rate, the reasons for that could make for a good documentary - what this thing is is a sort of elitist meat-hating snobfest.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

OK already, the guy is clever but...

[6/10 · 23 March 2004]

I too can appreciate Kaufman's originality but there has to be more than "wow,that's really clever". I thought there were some nearly romantic moments in this film - moments that hinted at some emotional truth - but those evaporated just like the car. The problem here is that everything is so destabilized that what might pass for truth is undermined by the sense that this too will be a trick - and it usually is. Kaufman's films have a million inventive bits that stretch the medium but all this hey-look-at-me stuff pales next to one human moment. Just to make the 10 line minimum - the baby scene was really painful and serves as an example of a writer, director, and actor so caught up and giddy with their own schtick that the film goes off the tracks for 10 minutes.