Category: ho hum

Dreary.

If anything can be said to be somewhat redeeming about it, it’s that Romero still wants to infuse his zombie movies with some sort of social commentary.

But here, we have three groups; the haves (represented by Dennis Hopper and his black valet who was almost as sterotypically offensive as Bob Hope’s black valet in The Ghostbreakers (now there’s a movie.), the have-nots, represented by Asia Argento, the whore with the heart-of-gold, some shmuck who was supposed to be the star, and John Leguizamo, whose character was charmingly named “Cholo.” (Why not Spic? Or Beaner?) Continue reading Land of the Dead

I was very curious to see this film about a twelve-year-old American superstar who goes AWOL on the set of an absurdly over-the-top action flick being shot in Toronto (the boy plays the incorrigible son of the US President who must save America after his father is captured by terrorists), but it’s fairly derivative. I’m thinking Don McKellar hoped to make a satiric, cinematic indictment of a culture obsessed with erotic innocence (think Paddy Chayefsky filtered through James Kincaid), but such plans are tricky. How can you capture such a subject without falling pray to the very impulses you hope to critique? Indeed, though Taylor Brandon Burns is a petulant, spoiled brat—spurned on by a mother always looking for a bigger paycheck—what he really wants to be is a normal boy (what that exactly means is up for grabs). I guess the film never felt dangerous enough. Sure, the kid is an ugly American who—chastely—loses his virginity to a quasi-prostitute (on the set in a replica of the Oval Office), but McKellar and co-writer Michael Goldbach offer up little more than a pastiche of coming-of-age clichés masquerading as a character. And McKellar’s character—a former film studies professor now indie filmmaker who drives the rich and famous to work to put food on the table—is also problematic. Is he the voice of reason/father figure Taylor’s been looking for or is he simply looking for a star to hitch himself to (or does he just want to fuck Taylor’s mom)? Anyway . . . Dave Foley is a lot of fun. Kincaid acolytes will be sad to learn there are no bottoms on display, but there is a running joke concerning a Hollywood rumor involving goldfish and the boy’s ass, so I guess that will suffice.

Not bad. Not good. Too long. At least occasionally witty and reasonably well-edited and shot. But too often assumes that lots and lots of shooting equals rip-roaring fun. (There’s one fine fight sequence between the two ridiculously-sculpted stars that’s kind of fun–at least compared to Cinderella Man, but then the film ends with a bloated half-hour gun battle, and if you’re not John Woo and Chow-Yun Fat and Tony Leung, don’t bother.)

Can say this: made me want to see Fight Club and Made again. Jolie’s never been in a good movie, has she? She’s got pluck, though–hang in there, kid! The pictures are a tough business!

so, in preparation for the upcoming instalment of in the “star wars” saga i’ve been re-viewing all its predecessors. i have come to the conclusion that it is only nostalgia that makes us think that the original trilogy was very much better than “the phantom menace” or “attack of the clones”. yes, “the empire strikes back” is better than the others but only in the way that stepping on a dog turd is better than falling into a giant vat of cow feces. all of them have lame stories, all of them have excruciatingly crap acting–though a special place must be given to “the return of the jedi”, which must be up there on the “bad acting in a high-profile movie” scale; an edited montage of harrison ford’s performance, in particular, should be placed in a time capsule.

i am forced to agree with roger ebert in his review of “the phantom menace”, where he notes that the only thing any of these movies have going for them is visual effects and imagination and that in that sense there is no difference between “the phantom menace” and anything in the first trilogy (though he does note in his review of “clones” that the dialog in that movie is particularly bad and drags everything else down). nevertheless, i’ll be in line on the first day to see the final piece of tedious shit in this series.

watched this last night. mike, tell me again why i’m supposed to love it. i thought it was okay but if i’d fallen asleep or if the dvd had jammed i don’t know if i would have cared. in fact, sunhee did fall asleep and doesn’t want to finish it today.

what i liked a lot: matt damon so happily playing third fiddle, and a putz at that; elliott gould–did ocean’s eleven get him any more work? that’s about it–the heist stuff was uninvolving, the script not particularly witty, and it featured catherine zeta-jones (whose appeal continues to elude me). and i would like to point out that the theatrical trailer is NOT a “special” feature. unless that was a joke–if so, it might explain why i didn’t think the movie was a hoot.

watched this last night. the first 20 minutes are just dazzling. it captures the feel of a comic book much better than any movie in its genre, even if on a small’ish tv it probably doesn’t look as good as it did in the theaters. however, the story and so forth aren’t very much better than another recent installment in this genre, “the league of extraordinary gentlemen”, though this is wittier. giovanni ribisi, who i like a lot, does a serviceable supporting turn but the appeal of angelina jolie and gwyneth paltrow continues to baffle me. and is there nobody other than jolie who can play englishwomen in action films?

technical stuff: on the one hand we have something like “terminator 3” in which computer generated monsters and machines interact with the world of humans; in this we have humans being digitized and inserted into a world of computer generated machines, animals and sets. both kinds cost many, many millions to make (i believe this was $70 million)–but neither is as much fun as “raiders of the lost ark”. i thought i had a point when i started that last sentence but i see it might resemble one of roger ebert’s so i’m just going to back away from it.

I expected great things from this (watched it the other night), as normally I like movies in which people talk at length in French and not much really happens. I think this movie attempts to address big questions about life–how to live it to its fullest (be a professorial old bore and have lots of mistresses, or be a professorial old bore’s mistress), and how to deal with approaching death (heroin’s your best option) and other invading barbarians (such as terrorists and people who prefer video games to books). But I couldn’t entirely get past the sense that it was really about how crap a national health service is, and how great it is to have lots of money (or a son with lots of money).

On the other hand I still mildly enjoyed it, for its, erm, unhurried pace, and its various small deceptions and complexities, such as the students being paid to tell the teacher they missed him, and the attraction between the risk management professional and the heroin addict. But is this like admitting to having enjoyed The Big Chill?

we watched silver city some nights ago. it was interesting enough but pitched almost entirely like a lecture meets low-key agit-prop. sayles still writes interesting dialog but his films are growing increasingly tedious. it is almost like he doesn’t trust his audience to connect the dots anymore. and the principal casting is seriously off in this film. whatever happened to the man who wrote and directed passion fish, matewan, lone star and men with guns? even the flawed limbo was much better than this–actually i quite liked that movie.

does anyone know how he finances his films? i think it might have been the much maligned roger ebert who once noted that sayles’ career, quietly, regularly making interesting movies for 20 years now, makes you look askance at scorcese and lee’s complaints about hollywood not allowing room for interesting films.