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Reviews
True Grit (2010)
True Gritʻs secret revealed
I am happy to say that I was finally persuaded to watch this movie by all the good reviews posted here. I was not disappointed. Among many other things, I found the use of language and the featured thespiansʻ mastery of the acting arts more than sufficient to justify the high score I have awarded it here. So fascinating was this work that I conducted my own investigation to determine the various principles or "rules" that lent such a peculiar yet distinctive air to it. It did not take me long to discover these principles for I have a talent in this direction in the way some people have for summing and spelling. But I do not boast of my own gifts in this direction, for movie analysis is not everything.
In the first place, the language used was not one to take kindly to the use of contraction. Nary a single apostrophe was used in place of a letter throughout the entire epic regardless of the speakerʻs station or virtue. We do not have to assume that this dramaʻs makers believe that people of the era and location did not use contractions in their every day speech. Instead the actress Hailee Steinfeld gives the secret away in her own capable portrayal of the 14-year-old Mattie Ross. Not only have 14-year-olds always used contractions in their speech, they have also always had a tendency to move about when speaking, or when engaged in any activity during their waking hours. But Steinfeldʻs Mattie Ross calmly remains still as a middle aged spinster when delivering her demands and pronouncements.
And that is it exactly. The novel True Grit was expertly written by Charles Portis in the first person from Mattie Rossʻs point of view. Not the 14-year-old Mattie Ross, but the middle aged Mattie Ross; the very proper, very strong, Mattie Ross, survivor and possessor of true grit. And in fact, every one in this memoir speaks out of Mattieʻs mouth. So we have a tale populated by characters speaking and acting in varying degrees like middle aged Mattie Rossʻs and that stunt may as well have been invented by the Coen brothers such is their gift for strange stunts.
Anyway, that is the secret to the style of the movie, and revealing it is my contribution here. I did not think it necessary to present a synopsis of the story since it is available in various degrees of accuracy and skill in the other reviews here.
Avatar (2009)
Gorgeous to see but...
My thumbnail review: Gorgeous to see in 3D even with the funky glasses, and an engaging narrative as long as you know how to hit the "off" switch on your critical thinking. I'm okay with the "green" theme, and the scenario which shows corporations in control of planetary exploitation and politics. It's seemingly indigenous-friendly, but in a Disney Pocahantas way.
The indigenous people have no technology or deep cognitive abilities; they have songs and "legends" that have been handed down to them but are not shown in any act of invention, strategy, or creation -- and they are SAVED from without by a white Earthman invader (not even settler) who manages a complete transformation to native (or Kanaka Maoli, as we would say here) in a few weeks.
But it is openly a fantasy, and the fascination and appreciation of the flick may be in what it reveals about the zeitgeist of our era: The love and fascination with imperial military domination and its sexy, expensive weaponry, along with a contradictory desire to return to an imagined pastoral/feudalistic existence where one doesn't have to think, just follow the rules that have been handed down.
So why did I give it any stars at all? I actually know how to hit that off switch in my brain. Ooo, pretty colors and swirly flying flowers so pretty! Stuff blowing up all over the place, and that Na'vi babe very attractive when scantily clad which is all the time -- planet has excellent climate control!
Look, you're going to have to see it anyway, right? Just remember to hit the "on" switch on your brain when you walk out of the place.
Apocalypto (2006)
Great flick (and a defense to charges of racism)
I watched the DVD knowing only vaguely that there are controversies regarding this film, but didn't know any of the particulars aside from the fact that it was gory. Well, it's a Mel Gibson movie after all, so that's a given.
In short, Apocalypto is a beautiful, deeply moving presentation of a world that existed before Western contact, and was destroyed by it. After I watched the movie, I was dismayed to read reviews that charged it with being racist, that it depicted only the blood-thirsty brutality of Mayan savagery. But this is clearly not the case. The protagonist and his people demonstrate all the virtues that allow them to wear the "white hats:" they are intelligent, brave, loyal, and strong. They abide in a loving community and show great care and love of family and children. They're also a good looking bunch.
The "Black Hats" are a dirty dozen if there ever were one -- the leader of the group reminded me of the Jack Palance character in Shane, but with a lot of human bone accouterments jangling about. And if you think this guy is bad, wait till you get to the big city and see what they're up to.
But I digress. I'm trying to defend the film against the charge of racism. Okay. One characteristic of racism in films in that the depiction of the targeted race tends to be one- dimensional. Apocalypto is generously peopled with characters of great individual distinction, not cut-out characters. Another characteristic is that in a racist film is that it is we are to regard the targeted race with such disdain that we are not allowed to empathize with the villains or wear the villain's skin. But in Apocalypto we are as deeply engaged in Jaguar Paw's heroic quest as we are William Wallace's in Braveheart.
Some reviewers have mistaken the arrival of the Spanish galleons as Gibson's intention to signify rescue and redemption from wanton bloodletting by Western "civilization" and Christianity, but this is getting things upside down. Don't we know by now that Cortes' arrival was the beginning of the brutal end of so many people and civilizations in America? If the ships were to signify rescue and redemption, Jaguar Paw would only have had to have been rescued right there on the beach. Great scene for a beach-side conversion, no? No. The film presents these dark ships as the foreboding vehicles of a continent-wide apocalypse.
Okay, I do concede that if Apocalypto is primarily a movie "about" the Mayans, it fails because it is historically inaccurate. (The Mayans were gone long before Cortes' arrival -- it was the Aztecs that he managed to destroy.) But if it is, as I interpret it to be, about the many peoples, societies, and civilizations that were destroyed, that suffered an apocalyptic end on Western contact, then it puts faces in our historical picture where there have been only caricatures before.
Update of 12/27/09: I was just reading through my reviews and have to update the fact that it took me a few days after posting the original for it to strike me that the film, while not racist, was sexist as heck. The women are not shown participating in any decision-making or the production or distribution of food or anything else. Their only real value is to serve as incubators for more Mayans. I apologize to my sisters for my blindness in this but ask them to take into consideration that I came back to correct myself without prompting or threats.
The Jacket (2005)
Engaging, mysterious, suspenseful, wonderful
This was a surprisingly engaging, good looking, wonderfully cast, well acted flick. I say "surprisingly" because my girlfriend pulled it off the shelf at Blockbuster without knowing anything about it. When we got home, I pulled up the IMDb.com rating and uh oh, it was a 6.2. I was prepared for a loser movie, but since I had picked the last movie and it was really a loser, I had to be willing to watch anything she picked without complaint.
When a movie gets a low rating here, and it turns out much better, I feel obligated to enter my own rating.
No need for another synopsis here, but I will say that this work is a harmonious confluence of elements -- casting, acting, the "look" and the sound of the movie. A bit like Memento and Butterfly Effect in tone, but with much heart and feeling for people. Although the story is based on a structural "gadget", it was my sympathy for the characters and their situation that drew me in.
Der Untergang (2004)
Not Das Boot
I know it's dangerous going to a movie with expectations, but not knowing very much about "Downfall" except for its excellent reviews here at IMDb.com I was anticipating something like "Das Boot" with brown dirt for green water.
As a film this drama's execution is quite superb. The audience seems transported into Hitler's bunker during those last days of the war. The city above is a wreck, and so is Hitler. Boys and girls and the elderly must take up futile positions against the advancing Soviet troops. No need for another plot synopsis here -- it's been well covered by the previous posts here.
Somewhere into this long and very engaging movie a chill set in. Yes, these Germans were real people, not monstrous demons, and this movie wasn't portraying their days here as heroic, but... Then something very odd struck me: during the scenes where the solitary Hitler contemplates his inevitable end, a poignant music plays in the background. It sounds familiar and my mind reaches back to my music school days to place it. It's from Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in b-minor, specifically, the Crucifixus. Here in the film score, it appears sans words and chorus, but the music is distinct and powerful. Originally intended to evoke the tragedy and sacrifice of Jesus Christ ("he was crucified for us, made to suffer and was entombed...") here it is an offense. Is this the real point of view of the film, is this its purpose? To portray Hitler as a grand person who suffered persecution and betrayal?
Or am I reading too much into what is only an element of the drama? Well, Albert Speer is portrayed as a dapper (an architect in a suit rather than a minister in a uniform), intelligent, urbane, and compassionate man. He and Hitler have a conversation about their lost future over Speer's model of the Berlin that was to be. Yet wasn't Speer beloved of Hitler out of a compatible grandiosity? Wasn't that Berlin-to-be dominated by a palace with a dome a thousand feet high? Didn't this cultured architect become Hitler's Minister of Weapons and Armaments and ruthlessly use slave labor in the service of the Third Reich? In this film, he is a rather unfortunate artist caught up in the whirlwind of the times. No way.
No doubt the Germans were real people. How did they get talked into this grand, barbaric, and murderous scheme? Yes, they were like us. So could this happen to us too? Don't see this movie, don't shed tears for Hitler, and don't even entertain the notion suggested in this movie that he was a persecuted and betrayed savior. Don't participate in the rehabilitation of Nazism.
The Forgotten (2004)
Contemporary Outer Limits vibe!
I almost didn't see this movie because of the crappy ratings right here at IMDb.com, but I'm very glad I did see it after all. No need for me to add another plot synopsis, right? And yes, to each his own, but for those who have fond memories of the incredibly eerie vibe of the best Outer Limits and Twilight Zones, let me recommend this flick.
At first, it resembled an update of "Bunny Lake is Missing" -- is this really happening or is the woman just deranged? But as the plot unfolds, "Whoa, that's really weird!" The effects are novel and superbly placed -- enough to have me yelp "whoohah!" in my seat a number of times. And amazingly, no nudity or sex (even between the distraught yet strangely attractive mom and the former hockey guy), or gratuitous evisceration of any human, animal, alien, robot, or anything else. A couple of cars do get bashed up a bit, but I'd expect them to end up with suspiciously low price-stickers in the used car lot after a day in the cut-rate body and fender joint. But the crash itself is truly a "whoohah!" moment.
Maybe the reason for the low overall rating here is that the vibe it strives so successfully to produce -- the aforementioned eeirie, weird, and shocking -- is not very common in contemporary films. (Although hmmm...Sixth Sense, Ring...) But remember Outer Limits "Duplicate Man", or that Twilight Zone with the manikins, or the Body Snatchers? Yeah. Here in the Twilight Zone there's a signpost up ahead. It says, "Go see this movie!"
Levity (2003)
Not light as in levity, light as in luminous
This is a gorgeous and thoughtful movie, outwardly somber, inwardly illuminated, of slow and deliberate pace, about messed up people who hit bottom and become whole instead of shattering. No need for me to reiterate the synopsis in my little paragraph, but I do repeat the warning advising the childish that this not an action movie -- nothing blows up, not a single country is obliterated or saved, and the protagonist is neither a Bond nor a James. After seeing this movie, I sat out on my lanai looking at the full moon, and a line from the Dhammapada came to mind: "The one who covers his evil deeds with good illuminates the world like a full moon unobstructed by clouds."