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deadmanjones
Reviews
Zatôichi (2003)
fun film with a fair bit of blood letting
I'm no expert on Beat Takeshi (yes, he of "'s Castle" fame) or Japanese Samurai films, so I've got nothing to compare against. Nevertheless this is an extremely fun film with a fair bit of blood letting, a certain amount of slapstick, a good helping of drama and a small bit of Stomp/Bollywoodesque dancing. Whether this is what you usually get with Takeshi/Samurai/Zatoichi films I dunno, but they all help towards making a very enjoyable and expertly directed/photographed flick; the mix is certainly something you wouldn't expect from a Western movie. The sword play has computer enhancements to ensure an almost anime level of gore, which seems unnecessary, and the mixture does waylay the narrative you want to hear. Compare it to Kurosawa and you'll be disappointed; compare against Hollywood action and you'll be delighted.
Der Himmel über Berlin (1987)
over wordy wander through a fog of vague notions
Fellow film snobs prepare to barf - I have a soft spot for City of Angels. I know, I know, it's dreadful movie schmaltz and it's not that good, but it's quirky, well meaning and kinda beautiful. That said, Wings of Desire has little to do with the Hollywood remake. On paper maybe the story lines look similar, but the pseudo-intellectual whispering of Wim Wenders' original has little to do with the supernatural romance of the Nic Cage and Meg Ryan film. This is an over wordy wander through a fog of vague notions that are purposefully never crystallised. That's the point of the film, so if you expect to like that you will. I didn't.
Willard (2003)
Why this film bombed is a mystery
Why this film bombed is a mystery that can only be answered by the audiences who singularly failed to go see it. From Crispin Glover's affecting performance to Glen Morgan's superlative direction, there is not a single nuance of the finished product that is not perfect, horrifying, enthralling or hilarious. Indeed frequently it is somehow all four. Its Tim Burton directing Psycho style (and with many more homages in between) makes it as fantastical as it is thrilling as it is gruesome. This is already a cult classic that is never likely to leave our midnight-movie conscience. It has many lines and moments you will long remember.
Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (2002)
And by God you'll wish he had
And by God you'll wish he had. Well received within indie circuits this is invariably described as humorous and subtle with great characterisations. God knows where people get this view from. The script contains no subtlety or finesse, giving us the bare bones of what passes for key moments in the story, and features dialogue that makes you presume it was written in a foreign language and then translated using Google. Apparently a story of teaching those who have given up on life to reclaim it, it left us with a feeling that those who reclaimed didn't deserve it and should have been left to die in the opening scene.
Waking Life (2001)
disparate philosophical ramblings from every branch, knot and sodden hole of academia
An hour and a half of constant, disparate philosophical ramblings from every branch, knot and sodden hole of academia doesn't sound like a barrel of laughs. For the first twenty minutes you'll probably find yourself thinking you're watching a student's naval gazing graduation piece, or some god awful Sixties 'trip'. But once the faint hints of a story start drifting in through the swaying animation of the dreamscape, you start to get in on the joke. The film scoffs as much as it expounds; which of the many views you laugh at, which you nod in agreement to and which you blink confused at will depend on you. A lot of the talk is intentionally too deep to make much sense of; other times it's too simple to take seriously. The main draw of this movie is unquestionably it's shimmering, unique and (presumably) painstaking animation, but the style is necessitated by the content. This is a wonderful drunken conversation of a film.
Tillsammans (2000)
enormously enjoyable and endearing
Catching Lukas Moodysson's first feature, F**king Amal (aka Show Me Love), on whichever of the BBC digital channels is the posh one, I was quietly entertained by the charming and humorous tale of teens finding their own path in life. Together is even more wonderful and even more comical and even more emotional. The tale of a 70s commune being deconstructed by new arrivals would no doubt have become a grandiose 'ensemble piece' in the hands of a US or UK director (say PT Anderson or Lawrence Kasdan). Moodysson though is able to direct with great subtlety, making a film as funny as it is poignant and passionate; he just doesn't know how to over egg the pudding. Any film that can use Abba's SOS with heartbreaking effect during the opening scenes, then use the same song (unchanged) as a joyous anthem at the end deserves 5 stars. This is an enormously enjoyable and endearing film.
The Ladykillers (2004)
throw away the good bits, add some worse bits
If the Coen brothers had, as I seem to recall they claimed, wanted to take the original set up for the 5 star classic original Ladykillers and devise their own spin on it, then they should have removed the iconic imagery and devised a new delightful heist scenario. Sadly what they've done here is include all the iconic imagery and diminish the heist to a few scant moments of tunnel digging. The things they've changed have changed in a way that makes them nonsense (the old lady is now streetwise, the body drop off point is a car drive away...). As a result the things that remain unchanged (the Professor's arrival, the body disposals) are constant reminders of precisely what the Coen's have failed to re-achieve. Above all, the Coen's display a surprising lack of comedy acumen in the writing and direction of this hopefully forgettable remake, which no amount of Coen visual flare can make amends for.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
this review is not a review, but don't panic
For once I am bereft of an opinion. Or at least of the desire to give one. I grew up with a Hitch Hikers that was amoral, sarcastic, satirical and unenlightening, and I loved it. Come to think of it, given my sobriquet and my limited social circle, it probably shaped my entire dour demeanour. The movie has all the same lines, much of the same plot, but adds love, adds an alternative for 42, adds emotion and adds an orchestra heavy in violins. I should hate it, and I think I do, but everyone else in the cinema really enjoyed it. So let me put it this way. If you have grown up with the radio series and memorised the albums, this film may be disconcerting, and may well fill you with bile and hatred. If you haven't, you may be about to hear some very funny, if heavily edited, jokes. But the plot isn't going to make a damn bit of sense.
The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
fun
I always get Kevin Reynolds and Kevin Connor mixed up, cos Kevin Reynolds' adventure yarns have always looked like poor spoof versions of Connor's Doug McClure classics (you may remember him from such films as The Land That Time Forgot). This time though, he's hit the nail on the head, and directed a thoroughly entertaining adventure yarn. Let us all pray he never ever works with Kevin Costner again.
The cast are all brilliant. Guy Pearce as always is fantastic, though he has little to do except play a pantomime English villain (who's French, natch). Luis Guzman' role is woefully underwritten though, and it's a bit weird watching him do almost nothing for most of the film. Michael Wincott is seen briefly and is UTTERLY evil.
Go watch it, it's damn fun.
Sullivan's Travels (1941)
interminable first hour
There are many well known fans of the increasingly better-known-than-he-used to be Preston Sturges, not least the Coens. The appeal and influence of his fast paced, light then dark infusion is more or less obvious, but what inspired the Coens has since been perfected by them, and others, and Sullivan's Travels suffers in comparison. The first hour is a series of repetitive toing and froing that leave you presuming this is exactly the light comedy the brilliant opening scene railed against. The next 20 minutes though seemed to have been undertaken by a different director; one capable of crafting a scene with wit, compassion and realism. Then he buggers off again and the first director starts in again. It's a film which seems to have been directed ad hoc then written in the editing room. I know little of the film's history, but you're left presuming there was studio pressure similar to that suffered by Sullivan bearing down on Sturges; that's the only excuse I can find for the almost interminable first hour of knockabout nonsense.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
a fan-boys wet dream
Sam Jackson delivering kick ass lines then kicking ass. Ewan McGregor truly perfecting his Alec Guinness impression. The comedy double act of Artoo and Threepio reunited to great effect at last. Natalie Portman in some extremely fetching outfits. Hayden Christiensen in some of perhaps the only truly (convincing) emotional scenes of the entire saga thus far...
...and Yoda, swinging his light sabre and whirling round the screen like a Tazmanian Devil.
This is a fan-boys wet dream.
Unlike (it's claimed) many, I liked Phantom Menace, and I like this too. But whereas Phantom Menace stuck very rigidly to the structure and directing style the first trilogy had, this treads new ground. The war scenes are now actual war scenes, bordering on a documentary style at times. And the explosive last act no longer has the multiple story arcs we've come to expect (Empire, Jedi and Phantom Menace) but instead a single linear strand (A New Hope).
Lucas' reaction to all the criticism that Phantom was all politics and chatter? He's put in even more politics and chatter - this has the most complex plot yet, which makes it something special indeed. A lot of things become clearer, a lot of things become yet more mysterious (The brilliantly Machiavellian double, triple and quadruple dealings of Darth Sidious / Palpatine beg for a triumphantly evil gloat of a monologue from him somewhere in episode three).
Everyone said Phantom held the promise of a kick ass episode two. Episode two is kick ass, but it in turn holds the promise of a fantastically kick ass episode three. Glory be.
Spider-Man (2002)
basically a very nice remake by Raimi of his film Darkman
I don't want to sound like a movie geek (heaven forbid), but this is basically a very nice remake by Raimi of his film Darkman.
The script is uninspiringly blunt at times, particularly in the preamble, and there's honestly not a lot of action when all's said and done (like X-Men, it feels like a promo for a series). There's quite a bit of post Sept 11th New Yorker flag waving too (nothing wrong with that). On the other hand Kirsten Dunst looks FANTASTIC, and all three main leads have always been brilliant actors (and the Bruce Campbell cameo is hilarious).
Entertaining; it would be churlish not to enjoy this stylish comic book hokum.
Lola rennt (1998)
should float the boat of anyone with half a brain
With its overt stylishness and slick, frenetic pacing this German film could bring back bad memories of numerous wacky, quirky and utterly terrible Brit Flicks that sprang from Danny Boyle's dust trail. Where this differs though is in its witty and precise exploration of an original idea cleanly and very entertainingly. In it's brief running time it also doesn't over write the joke. To go into too much detail would spoil the exposition, but numerous touches (such as a recurring animated sequence and the notion of following future events in the lives of briefly glimpsed extras via "And Then" headed rapid fire Polaroid montages) should float the boat of anyone with half a brain. Also made me think about the minute differences that cause us to be in a bad or good mood, though we always rationalise such moods to ourselves as the inevitable consequence of large scale circumstance. Or something
Road to Perdition (2002)
s much a gangster film as The Shining is a horror film
Reviewers who say this is the best gangster flick since The Godfather are presupposing it is a gangster film; this is as much a gangster film as The Shining is a horror film. Road to Perdition is no mere genre movie.
Tom Hanks is as great and as versatile as ever; Paul Newman gives a heart felt and memorable performance that truly convinces; Jude Law and Stanley Tucci enjoy themselves in their gangster roles immensely. On the other hand, why Jennifer Jason Leigh wanted to take a role where she is a silent housewife for five minutes before vanishing from the film completely is anyones guess.
This is a beautifully shot and entertainingly told morality epic. Best since The Godfather? I never liked The Godfather - but this is easily the best since Once Upon a Time In America. That makes Road to Perdition the second best 'gangster' flick ever made.
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
didactic hollering
I've checked on the internet before writing this review, partly to check there wasn't some joke I was missing out on and partly to see if there weren't plenty of negative reviews to counter the adulatory ones I'd read already. No such luck. This film is universally respected and adored for it's portrayal of drug addiction. Personally I found it to be the most jaw droppingly risible, ham fisted load of old cobblers since Reefer Madness.
Mother, son, friend and girlfriend all descend into their own hell over the space of three seasons. It begins with giggling and dieting and, within 9 months, ends in amputation, dementia, electro shock therapy, imprisonment (black boy in a Southern white boy jail) and the insertion of double ended dildos anally in a lesbo gang bang for a bag of smack. The novel (by Last Exit to Brooklyn scribe Hubert Selby Jr) was written in 1978, and maybe in those far off distant dark ages the events of this film could happen. I dare say they could today. But the combination of all these tales within a 98 minute/9 month span (and a fast edited final ten minutes showcasing the simultaneous final consequences for all participants) makes this a laughable, monotonous and ludicrous film whose audacious visual style only serves to make you feel even more patronised by its didactic hollering.
Abre los ojos (1997)
foolish to criticise an original, but...
It's difficult to review any alternate version of something you love with an open mind, and it seems foolish to criticise an original. But to my Vanilla Sky tainted eyes, the original makes everything just a tad more obvious; dialogue and narrative conspire to signpost the twist and generally make the atmosphere of the film's landscape less dreamic. This is a psychological thriller whereas Cameron's remake is an exploration of memory. Would it have seemed so obvious if I didn't know the twist? I guess I'd be more than flattering myself if I claimed I'd still see it coming. Nevertheless, this is a conspiracy theory rather than a nightmare, and I preferred the nightmare. More to the point, Penelope Cruz is a BITCH in this version.
Max (2002)
Supremely directed and well acted
Supremely directed and well acted, like Nic Roeg's Insignificance before it this toys with history and consequence using a big brush flecked with realism. It only occasionally skirts the shores of being ham fisted. The story underplays the social to suggest Hitler's main thrust was aesthetic That his rhetoric was some form of punk performance art playing to the galleries. This is probably not something we can agree with the film makers on. But that they indulge in a dialogue with us at all instead of barracking us, and that that dialogue is so intelligent and thought provoking, means the film is to be greatly applauded.
Minority Report (2002)
Spielberg experiments
Admit it. After Amistad you thought Spielberg was on the wane. After AI you thought he was finished and over the hill. I did. Turns out we were wrong. Turns out he was just honing his skills, experimenting with style and trying to drag himself away from the populist popcorn maker he'd turned himself into.
Minority Report is brilliant, brilliant film making. Some have said its Gilliamesque, but that's just the Philip K Dick element - this film has a style, grace, pace and vibrancy all of its own and it's a style we've not seen from Spielberg before. None of his tried and tested trademark shots, but a whole new slew of cinematic nuances that we may well come to view as the trademark shots of his brilliant rebirth. Exciting, thrilling, thought provoking, passionate and emotional - this film is everything AI wasn't. God bless Spielberg.
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
anticlimactic but the only logical conclusion
When you see the screen filled with a trillion sentinels amidst a golden hail of bullets your jaw WILL drop I promise you. The film's opening needs thirty or so dull minutes to tie up loose ends from the previous film. Once it gets going, it's business as usual. The pointless, passionless annoying love story continues. The dialogue within the Matrix remains magnificently stilted; the dialogue outside of the Matrix remains appallingly stilted. Minor characters are used effectively, if a little cheesily. The finale is inevitably anticlimactic, as anyone who has worked out the reality of rewriting the source code will probably expect. But whilst it's a whimper rather than a bang, it's the only logical conclusion possible to this geek fantasy of the Hacker Messiah. But it could so easily have been one film instead of two
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Fixes the flaws of the first film and makes a damn sight more sense
I didn't like the Matrix. It was entertaining and loud and visually brilliant, but it's plot was meaningless. It seemed vacuous in its reliance on 'fate' and 'destiny'. All the reviewers loved it though. They decided all that fate and destiny was intelligent.
The Matrix Reloaded I LOVE. Adore. Worship. It is genius. We see Morpheus not as the Obi-Wan po-faced mystic as in the first film, but Morpheus the blinkered, egocentric new-ager unable to see reality. Elements of the Matrix itself that were seen as unexplainable mysticism in the first (because the first film is filtered through Morpheus) are now explained and the concept suddenly seems intelligent to me where it didn't before.
But I'm an IT geek; a nerd with a toehold on the subject that the Wachowski's here provide brilliant and entertaining metaphor for. The plethora of negative reviews for this film complain it is MORE mystical and up its arse than the first; that there is far LESS plot than the first. Such fat, balding middle aged cretins should not be allowed to review this film, because they are unable to see that it has far MORE plot than the first; the subtleties of the IT characterisations here made the geek in me laugh out loud. Negative reviewers listen too closely to Morpheus - yes he spouts gibberish mysticism, THAT'S THE POINT DULLARDS. He's a mad man.
There is plenty to entertain here. The action sequences truly are like nothing seen before, even if the larger fight sequences are a little too 'animated'. The film could well do without the ridiculous post watershed music video sequence in Zion (you'll know it when you see it), but you'll have forgotten that by the time you reach the end and the final twist in the machine humanity battle leaves you eager to learn what new evolution this series will lead to. The first film was gamers. The second film is hackers. The geek army can't wait for what the third will bring.
Lost in Translation (2003)
Very funny, never Hollywood romantic
If you're surprised by the subtleties of Bill Murray's acting here, then you can blame your surprise on most of his previous directors, who always had it available to them but rarely chose to showcase it. Sofia Coppola's direction dips its toe in a documentary style that compliments well her script, which never verbalises what doesn't need to be. With this approach, Murray and Scarlett Johansson are left to show us a hesitant relationship whose only foundation is a shared feeling of being lost in life's choices; of having no direction and no one else around to understand them. This is a film that captures boredom, that explores companionship, and that recognises the need for a special moment being left as just a moment. Very funny, never Hollywood romantic and almost constantly affecting, once this arrives on DVD it could well be a film to wallow in on the sofa.
Lost in La Mancha (2002)
eagerly await the sequel, Found in La Mancha
One of the participants of this documentary (line producer? I can't remember) sums two facts up perfectly:
a) If you tried to think of things that could go wrong on a film set, you still wouldn't come near to what actually happened. The flash flood is SPECTACULAR; watching a desert turn to a wall of water upon which props and film equipment float away is unbelievable. b) Gilliam tried to scale down what couldn't be scaled down. He was too desperate to put his vision on screen.
Ultimately the film finishes as unsatisfyingly as its subject; there is no ending, and the conclusion to the events is in equal measures inevitable and unexciting (how could watching the insurance men be anything but).
We eagerly await the sequel, Found in La Mancha, in which our heroes make the film and win every award on the planet for it.
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
The Legend Continues.
Hitchcockian noir bids us welcome and 70s Kung Fu provides a wonderfully welcome aside, but above all this film wears its Leone / Ford Fan Club badge with even more prominence than the first instalment. Wondering whether it's as good as Volume 1 is fairly pointless, because this truly is one film in two volumes. Maybe the second film isn't as energetic as the first, but that's to be expected from a conclusion, and the film never really disappoints. It still manages to cram in a scene more horrifying than the hospital bed scene from volume one, & it still manages to have a fight scene even more brutal and cold. If you have no soul you could, at a pinch, say it is less fun than the first. But it's an operatic climax that is deserved and needed and which you'll applaud. Bloke in front of us did anyway.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
intense, exciting, moving, operatic
Postmodern is a daft concept used by pseudo intellectuals when describing dull films by other pseudo intellectuals. Kill Bill is not post modern. Its few filmic jokes are there because they work not because they reference something. Its obvious hyper reality is coupled with some intensely emotional moments, that work because of the brilliance of the actress Tarantino has employed to star in this violent opera, and because of whichever brilliant anime artist he got to direct the superb animated sequence of the film. It is clear that, irrespective of Kill Bill's Hong Kong / Anime / Karate Film subject and action, this film owes it's greatest debt to Sergio Leone. And it is high praise indeed when I say that this film not only captures the stylish extremes and beauties of Once Upon a Time in the West, it may even surpass them. As with previous films Tarantino subverts linearity; this is once again in order to fabricate a Hollywood narrative NOT to be arty or postmodern or pseudo intellectual. It's done cos we dumb audiences like an emotional beginning, middle and end. So reviewers for God's sake take note; Tarantino chapters his film cos it's cool not cos its arty; he moves backwards and forwards in time cos it's cool and he needs to not cos it's arty; he references other films cos it's cool and it works not cos it's arty. This film works; it's cool and it's an intense, exciting, moving, operatic, finely crafted masterpiece.
Insomnia (2002)
the concept of crime
Al Pacino, for all his greatness, has ostensibly played two characters for most of his career - mainly the cocksure, occasionally the desperate. Here though, he plays a character who projects both but is neither; for the first time he plays ambiguity, uncertainty and confusion with a subtlety we knew was there but never got much evidence for. His career best performance as the pulp novel cop travelling a Heart of Darkness narrative (with a little bit of Macbeth thrown in for good measure) is equally matched by the direction of Chris Nolan, and by the actor playing the killer (convincingly played lest you should hear different elsewhere). Memento's memory loss mcguffin is here presented as film noir cliché, since Insomnia presents us with the real world; memories of crimes are not the issue, the issue here is the concept of 'crime' itself.