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MarkAdler
Reviews
Saw III (2006)
Glorified Snuff...Very Dangerous Territory
Hollywood has been walking a very fine line recently to try to scare the crap out of us. The problem, some directors feel, is that we are so desensitized to what we have seen in recent horror films that we must up the violence, gore, and grotesque to limits never before seen in cinema.
With the exception of a wonderful scene in the beginning with Donnie Wahlberg, there is no artistic value to anything shown in the movie "Saw III" and I feel like a worse person after seeing it. There is no reason to see it unless you are a sadist, or feel the need to impress yourself for how much you can take.
This movie is an excersise in physical tolerance, not mental. Instead of covering your eyes in fear, you will turn away in disgust. It is nothing but a snuff movie with a budget filmed by people who used to get arrested for charging people to see it.
I have nothing against horror movies or gore or violence or the grotesque. I do, however, when it is done without any artistic reason whatsoever. The gore in this movie is not done to scare. What Tobe Hooper knew when he directed the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is that no matter what you show, no matter how violent you can make a film, nothing is scarier than the imagination.
There is a very scary scene in "Saw III" with a naked woman hanging from a hook by a rope tied around her hands. She is in a giant freezer and water eventually sprays at her, freezing her body. It is a brilliant, creative and horrifying method of death but the problem is the way it is shot. The movie has absolutely no problem showing this woman's naked body in the full, hanging, screaming, and being sprayed with ice water as she pleads for help.
What have we come to? Why must we see her privates? There is nothing artistic or erotic in this scene and it made me more afraid of what the director does behind private doors than of the main villain, "Jigsaw."
Less Than Zero (1987)
A good movie, but disappointing in that a more faithful adaptation will never be made.
One of my favorite episodes of the Twilight Zone focuses on a gangster who has just died and been greeted by an angel. The angel guides the man into an eden paradise of booze, women, and constant winnings at a casino. After some time, he becomes bored of winning all the time. The women are too easy to get and the thrill of gambling is gone. It's no fun when he can't lose. When he tells the angel he can't take it anymore and he is ready for "the other place," the angel replies, "What do you mean? This is the other place!"
Apart from Downey's stellar performance, a reason "Less Than Zero" is good is because it is based on wonderful material. It is all about Bret Easton Ellis' portrayal of the suburban hell. Too many kids who are too rich and spend too much time and money on booze, parties, and cocaine. With all their good fortune of being brought up in a society where they can choose to do anything, they do nothing.
Where setting has both faithfully and successfully been adapted from Ellis' original material, two key elements have been changed which hold the movie back. Though McCarthy plays his role very well, the trouble is in the writing. Clay's subdued yet conscious driven character is written for the screen as a vehicle to guide us through this weird world of endless excess. He is there so we can have someone to sympathize with while we try to absorb everything around us.
This is a grave miscalculation.
Rarely do I critique movies on how they were changed from their original work, but the screenwriters have done the novel an injustice. Clay, as he was written in the novel, should be just as disaffected as his friends. He is no better or worse, he is just alive enough to notice what is going on around him after coming home from three months abroad. He also has a terrible cocaine problem of his own. The brilliance in the novel is, just like Nick in the Great Gatsby, Clay is an unreliable narrator. He is able to live as a real character, have good and bad things happen to him, and still have no control of the outcome in the story. He is powerless because he is completely indifferent. Things only change in his perceptions of how they actually happen. This is almost vital to the story in that it opens with the premise that things can't possibly get worse, yet by the end, they don't get any better. Sure, a reliable storytelling method works for the movie. It is an easy way out though, and Ellis' critically objective "think for yourself" method turns into a preachy sympathy play where morals are instructed rather than figured out with attention to style and detail.
The second change, one that must have stirred up much controversy, is the rampant moral righteousness, even in material as seemingly morally depraved as this. Again, these are not simple, "I wish they had done this" gripes, they are critiques on events that truly deter from the message of the original material. As for the latent amount of sexual ambiguity that is missing from the movie, I believe it was viewed as too "delicate" of a subject. A reason the novel is so shocking is because it was published in a time when drugs and homosexuality were not discussed in terms of adolescents who could "do it and get away with it." However, It is important to note that the characters should not be viewed as "bisexual," but rather sexually indifferent. The children were never taught the difference between right and wrong. They have no sense of moral decency and no concept of sensitivity or the meaning of love.
They do whatever gives them instant pleasure.
We realize early on that Clay cannot save Julian. However, it is all the more powerful and dreadful for Julian to be left alive in his human hell hole with Clay indifferent as he is in the end of the novel than to have Julian die in the car with Clay hugging Blair. At the time, these subjects must have been of some concern to the producers. They obviously wanted viewers to take the film seriously and not as satirical as the book is presented. Still, while Julian's death is a sad scene, nothing can be worse than being stuck in this moral wasteland.
While the film focuses on having everything and losing it all, the brilliance of the novel is being unable to lose any of it. That's real hell.
Jury Duty (1995)
Ain't nothing' sweeter than a catfish doing a backstroke at the shallow end of the kiddie pool.
There is a scene early on in "Jury Duty" when Pauly Shore stands on a bus and imitates a town tour guide. It is obvious that this scene was written to showcase Pauly Shore's comedic talents, however, he makes noises and is loud and generally obnoxious and unfunny.
"Jury Duty" is the point where Pauly Shore officially abused his stay in movies. After this movie, he would forever be sanctioned to the lunch table in the corner with the smelly kid, Carrot Top and the Noid from the Dominoes commercials. But not until he showed the world his versatility in Bio-Dome.
Jury Duty is bad. Not bad like "In the Army Now," but close. There is little originality to the script, no amusing characters and about four funny lines. I did enjoy the scene where the witnesses from restaurants give testimonies in their respective fast food uniforms. There isn't much else here. It just isn't funny.
Shore also lacks the wit his idiotic leading men contemporaries like Adam Sandler and Chris Farley showed in the 90s. These were all, more or less, bad versions of Steve Martin's wonderful "Jerk" character. All Shore shows in this movie is that he has the talent to bug you.
Of course, not all the blame can be put on his shoulders. He has no script to work with. Nothing. I don't know why Stanley Tucci thought this movie would be good for him and or how the studio blackmailed him into being in it.
I remembered both "Encino Man" and "Son in Law" were kind of funny in a stupid way. "Jury Duty " on the other hand is stupid in a very unfunny way.