uhchilly Reviews

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

Typical teen story, clunky writing

[4/10 · 2 February 2013]

As a few other reviewers have said, this film has the typical storyline of the outcast teen with misfit friends going through high school. My biggest problems with it is the writing. The dialogue is really clunky and comes off totally inauthentic. The characters don't develop any real chemistry except for Patrick and Charlie, as the rest of them seem very cardboard - like all they are is a character synopsis.

Both Lerman and Watson were ineffectual in their roles adding nothing to the decidedly poor material they were given. Her delivery was deliberate and forced and the entire time I couldn't help but feel there was an over-instructive director guiding her every move. I think that is reflected in most of the performances - forced and limited at the same time. This goes for everyone and it seems to back to the writing again and again.

Much more reflective of made-for-TV writing, at least when it comes to the characters and their words.

Lastly the music. Even though I like the music (I grew up with it), it was completely wrong for the movie and only added to the inauthentic feel. This movie takes place, presumably, in the 2010s but the music they all listen to is from 20-30 years ago. The music is masquerading as the current play-list for this generation. It isn't background music, it is actually a big part of the movie with mixed tapes being exchanged etc. Yet I think it does a complete disservice to the characters to presume that they would identify so strongly with music that their parents would have listened too instead of something more contemporary. It just doesn't ring true.

I'm hearing these characters gush about the Smiths when none of them were even born when the band broke up; it just makes no sense (XTC,Cocteau Twins on their OMG I LOVE them! list????). I think the characters deserved more and the film's plausibility really suffers for it .

Rust and Bone (2012)

Great movie that keeps you curious about what makes people tick

[7/10 · 2 January 2013]

Really enjoyed this movie.

So many of the characters in the movie are very insulated or protected from interacting with others in the world around them. The main character is quite content going through life without much of a conscience and seems blissfully ignorant. He is not without a base level of human decency (very base) but you do sense something in him that is caring, in some of his interactions with his son and the female lead. Yet he remains "normal" as far as his commitment to greater things such as love and family, which for him is very limited.

I found the characters of his sister and her husband very interesting as they seem to be an example of a couple doing what they can to be together, modestly, albeit without mass displays of emotion but they do have a commitment and concern as is evidenced by her husbands drawing of a shotgun on Alain when he gets angry with her. No messing around, with his loved one. These two are somewhat of a base or foundation for the movie as they take care of Alain's son and provide for him. His sister Louise is beaten down by life and wears a dour face for nearly the entire film but the hardship she's been through hasn't removed her decency toward her brother, until he goes too far (because he wasn't thinking, as usual).

Stephanie has a horrific accident interrupt her life but only after the initial horror do you see her feeling helpless and without hope. Her period of adjustment is long but Alain's attitude seems to be just the right medicine for her without becoming to heavy. Just live. For Alain, when his crisis occurs the period of adjustment is abrupt, desperate and short. Visceral, just like he is.

The two main characters manage to gain strength from each other without any overbearing storytelling and you are always curious where it is going to go. Even though the characters are strong and well drawn they are also very fragile at times and you can't be sure what they might decide to to.

Strong supporting cast really filled out the movie. Very good.

Take Shelter (2011)

Slow paced, great performances, wouldn't recommend

[6/10 · 2 January 2013]

The movie works for 90 percent of its running time, depicting a family enduring terrible emotional hardship because of the isolated and peculiar behaviour of the father figure. For most of the film those hardships are well displayed, filled with dread and uncertainty over the main character's strange behaviour, triggered by his apocalyptic visions and dreams. The pace is almost too slow but it seems to be just enough to maintain that level of tension where you almost can't stand it and in the climactic bunker scene, it worked to a "T".

Unfortunately all the depth and intricacies of emotion that evolved over the course of the film are flushed down the toilet by an ending that betrays all of the emotional investment that we made into all the characters and their struggles. I've tried to work it out in my head that his wife is only "seeing" the storm as some sort of reflection of her desire to keep her family together and thus bypassing the treatment that he needs, but if that was the case then none of the other metaphors or even simple story elements (her not hearing the storm outside the bunker, no one else seeing or hearing anything he sees, the dream elements that were exclusive to him etc. etc.), none of those thing make sense then either, except as some elaborate trick where the meaning of these element isn't really established at all. It all just seems like some whim to pull off an "AHA" ending. Either that or its just a poorly executed ending.

The big problem with the ending is that the whole movie is about this man and woman trying to keep their family together, staying together through struggle (with his hallucinations and the subsequent chaos they cause), raising a child and then after the bunker scene it stops being about the family and turns into 2012.

The intricate struggles of dealing with mental illness, its effect on family, friends, and workplace are all wonderfully displayed and I don't think I'm alone in thinking that that was the intent of the first 7/8 of the film. To have it all become a "see you were wrong" thing is cheap and crappy.

Terri (2011)

Life sucks and its boring too.

[14 November 2011]

Like other reviewers here I found the characters very poorly written, each one beginning and ending as an non-evolving caricature. The main character is someone who is seems content with his life as it is and has settled in to the role of caregiver to his uncle and apathetically likable outcast in his school.

The films approach seems to be one of turning Terri's life experiences into utter banality in order to cope with the weight of their drama.

Every character, especially Terri, has a shoulder-shrugged look at everything that goes on in the film. It's as though everyone is interacting with each other as though they have been desensitized to the point where even the most obnoxious behaviour is carried out with the the vigour of a sloth crawling along a tree branch to get to a leaf. That is this films ENORMOUS problem: in the end everything that occurs is treated with such a dull, tedious, and bored outlook that even the message of acceptance of who you are becomes a resignation more than a inspiration. Watching the last half of this movie was one of the most excruciating exercises in misplaced hopefulness I have ever experienced.

Black Swan (2010)

Character study without character

[5/10 · 30 December 2010]

I went into this movie with no expectations other than knowing some Aronovsky films and liking them. I didn't see any trailers so I was really happy to jump into a film without any serious preconceived notions.

I do have some spoilers in here to stop now if you don't want to know anything!

I have to say that I really enjoyed the acting and the story both - the problem I had was the way it was told. The lines of the story are already laid out in the title of the movie and it doesn't deviate an inch from what your initial, most obvious conclusion would be. That in itself wouldn't be a big deal if, through this journey elements of the character are revealed, illuminated somehow but again, nothing seems to expand on the initial character we see in the first several minutes. Instead all I saw was variant portrayals of her particular psychosis each more dramatic and vulgar than the last but providing no different perspective. Like watching a slide show of anonymous personal injuries. These moments just upset us and then move along leaving an empty feeling.

After a while the "watch-out-behind-you"or "see-you-imagined-it" scenes get really tiresome and are better left to the Final Destinations and Grudge's of moviedom. What starts out with genuine tension and disturbing curiosity as to what exactly is going on (her rash, the hallucinations of herself) seems to just continually repeat itself without any purpose other than to shock. I like shock just not when its trying so hard to be meaningful (or seeming to).

So you have over-use of shock value (she hallucinates and then wonders - did that happen? REPEATEDLY AGAIN AND AGAIN OK. we get it.) Pile that on with the obvious metaphor of the production of the Black Swan which in and of itself is groovy, the two stories paralleling each other but when you couple the horror shock aspect with the uber-dramatized story within a story of the Black Swan coupled with seriously dramatic music (great music but so much overkill for an abundantly dramatic story and story-telling style) it all just becomes too much wherein some points I felt became unintentionally funny because I was just hit too many times in the head with the shock-hammer. Part of this was likely do to poor shot choice eg.(pivotal scene in Nina's dressing room between Acts) - it was just plain silly, like watching some monster movie - off-camera monster drags off its kill.

I think had any one of these elements been played with a bit more subtlety, perhaps the soundtrack, a reduced amount of repetitive hallucinations and/or shocking grossness (and I love gory movies but even the gore-masters know when and how to do it) or play down the actual parallels a bit more so we are not constantly reminded of how she is just like the Black Swan, then this could have been a good movie.

It just seemed like a director who became too enamoured with his ideas and decided to let them all loose in one film and it unfortunately become a ham-fisted disappointment albeit with great acting.

I would actually give it a 6.5 but I feel it deserves a lower rating simply because my expectations went from positive to very positive as I was watching it only for me to helplessly watch the movie circle the drain along with its main character. Bummer.

Watchmen (2009)

Alan Moore was right...

[5/10 · 8 March 2009]

One way reading (books or graphic novels) differ from movies is that they don't rely on motion. Continuous motion. With books you can digest the words and pictures and absorb their meaning at a pace that permits you to develop your own understanding at your OWN pace. Its how really complicated stories get told very well. Watchmen as a graphic novel is second to none and both in its original monthly format and in its compiled form, lets you go back, re-read, examine the art, embrace the connections and the meaning. Movies can achieve a similar feeling but because they are slave to time (unlike Dr. Manhattan) the information is ALWAYS coming at you, never giving you any time to really appreciate the gravity of any particular scene. I have to agree with the folk who couldn't stand it, even though I think it was very well made, sadly it fails completely in providing the gravitas that the graphic novel does because its creators fail to realize that you cannot just translate these things shot for shot. It just doesn't work. Neither does this movie. (and the violence was just pointless and groan inducing, way too much and it totally detracted from the high-brow story.) Bleh.

Into the Wild (2007)

definition of a bad movie

[2/10 · 11 March 2008]

This movie is it. It was very difficult to separate my own personal taste from objective review but after a day or two of simmering I think I can encapsulate my thoughts on this truly disappointing movie.

Basic things like expository narration. This is a movie not a radio play. Having the redundant narration of his sister (which was very poorly done) sounding like an actor reading through lines in a coffee shop rehearsal lacked authenticity and constantly removed you from the ability to make your own conclusions about the emotional state of the characters.

The choice to have on multiple occasions Chris stare directly at the camera utterly baffled me. Moments like that (say at the ending of Magnolia) should generally be reserved for situations where character and audience through the weight and momentum of the story are drawn to some mutual realization (not exclusively but you get my drift). Once is maybe OK but, again, as with the narration, the self-centred direction is encouraging us to accept the movie's supposed profundity by continually doing this amateurish nonsense rather than having the confidence to let the story stand on its own merit. Very, very lame direction there.

The dialogue was utterly unbelievable and preachy. Now I can take a story with a moral focus or political slant as much as the next guy but it seems like a case of a writer not having a clue what a screenplay is supposed to be. Actions should be more important than words or at least on equal footing but in this movie, words are not parts of conversations between the characters or even thoughtful narration but rather some sermon directed AT the audience. The movie was like its own good review.."Look at how sublime I am! Look at how profound I am!"

The acting by everyone except Hirsch was good. Hirsch was a single note playing for two and half hours. Zero empathy was derived from his monochrome performance. The character begins self-centred and dies self-centred. It could be argued that his "call it by its real name" blathering was monumental change in his character that was the culmination of this journey but it was sabotaged by an actor with no range and a director with no confidence in either the story or its performers. Instead we are left with everything being spelled out for us ..yet again.. about how seeing the world through Chris' eyes is the only way to see the world.

The only reason I didn't give I a single star was because it looked great.

This movie was a pretty big insult I think, since attempts to spiritualize a character or more correctly, spiritualize his "experiences", without ever giving the audience a chance to empathize. Instead we get sermonized.

This DVD is only good as a coaster for my drink.

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

pretending to be a good movie

[3/10 · 19 September 2007]

I was so wanting to love this movie but the extremely tedious pace and poorly written Wade character, who so obviously should have been written better, destroyed this movie. I'm all for subtlety and a certain degree of ambiguity in characterizations and I prefer it in fact to blunt exposition but this film managed to do blunt exposition that revealed little of interest about his character. It did all this while appearing to subtly reveal a strange kinship between the two that never really materialized in any satisfying fashion. The main characters spent their time grimacing a lot trying to look like they were undergoing some profound exchange but it was just fluff. The acting was terrific but even the great Prince character became dull. No consistency in the characters (specifically Wade and Prince accepted) and a what I thought was the films obvious sense of its own importance overshadowing good storytelling. Terrible leaps of logic expected of the audience in the end when the first part of the film is so pedantically realistic it felt like I was watching the stuff that DIDN'T make it into the most boring reality TV.

A real, REAL disappointment. And worst of all, not entertaining. Even some really terrible pics are at least that.