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Reviews
Starship Troopers (1997)
Verhoeven's most twisted film since "ROBOCOP"
Who else besides Paul Verhoeven gets two major studios to cough up $105 million on an adaptation of Robert Heinlein's classic novel and have it straddle the fence as a Swiftian commentary on fascism and human bloodlust, and a gleeful celebration of fascism and human bloodlust? Where other directors go out their way to soften the edges on this material and make as MOR as possible, Verhoeven eschews any Brechtian distance from the material, by throwing in Melrose Place/90120 clones as Hitlerjurgen and Spielbergian movie mechanics to run us full throttle into a world which is an endless cycle of war and mass destruction
Caligola (1979)
Cinematic excrement
This has to rank as the most reprehensible, most repellent piece of excrement ever assembled on film. What was intended as a look into the life of the most debauched of Roman Emperors comes off as endless and pointless parade of violence and graphic sexual content. I have no problem with sex or violence in any film, provided it's motivated by the narrative and character development. When it's dredged on the screen just because the producers had the money to do it. When this is the case, then I'm left with a couple of basic thoughts: if this is to be about Caligula and I leave this film with no better insight into his nature as a ruler or the atmosphere he functioned in, then it doesn't function as drama. Secondly, if I were to sit the multitude of graphic sex scenes only to be repelled and mystified by their presence in the film, then it barely functions as good porn.
In short, CALIGULA has provided me with two and one-half hours of cinema (if you wish to call it that) that I would never wish on anyone.