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Reviews
Road to Perdition (2002)
Not Bad, But Predictable, Routine, and Rather Dull.
I thought The Road to Perdition was just okay. I didn't seem very
deep; like the characters weren't very well drawn or even went
through any changes.
Oh, yeah, this "review" contains "spoilers" which means don't read
this if you haven't seen the movie, because I may be giving away
important plot details.
Note: *Spoilers* ahead.
Anyway, I mean the kid's like, "some say my paw was an evil man,
and some say there was some good in him and I say he was just
my paw." Well, the script may have had the kid say that in his
voice-over, but Hanks was kind of like the mobster with the heart of
gold.
We've seen it before. He only killed people in the mob. It wasn't
like he had to choose, geez should I save my son? The more I
think about it, the more I didn't care for the film. No surprises.
More and more often these days I think of that Radiohead song
"No Surprises" when I'm sitting through another movie.
You saw the preview and you knew who the characters were from
that and then when you saw the whole two hours, it didn't seem to
expand on that. So as a simple action tale it was too slow, and as
a character driven drama it was too empty and routine. We've
seen all the period gangster stuff before, and anything interesting
in Perdition had already been done much better in the 1990
masterpiece, Miller's Crossing.
I didn't think it was bad, I thought Hanks and Jude Law were good.
I love Jennifer Jason Leigh, but she hardly had any lines and then
they killed her. Stanley Tucci was good as Frank Nitti.
Newman was fine, but this was a pretty easy role for him; he'd
done it before. All he really did was get out of bed in the morning,
kiss Joanne goodbye and go to work where he said the lines he
had memorized. I don't fault Newman, just the callow script.
I thought Tyler Hoechlin was fine as the young Michael Sullivan Jr,
but nothing special. Also, I think the voice over should have been
done by an older actor; as this character grown up. Because he's
talking from the future. But that's a technical flaw.
By the way, at the end, I suppose since he went back to live with
the couple on the farm (what a surprise) that that meant that his
aunt had been killed by Jude Law at her sweet house on the
beach. There seems to have been some question.
It was also a disappointment as the follow up film from director
Sam Mendes, who directed a really fresh and original film (unlike
Perdition), American Beauty (1999).
What is also totally lame -- at least, as of this writing -- the user
review headlining the imdb entry of Road to Perdition says
"arguably the best gangster movie ever made." That is laughable.
The only thing ARGUABLE, is whether Paul Newman will make
any more films.
Of course there's dozens of better gangster films. And there's no
ARGUING about this film vs., say, The Godfather, or Le Samourai.
Be careful using the old "arguably the best..." Some people seem
to think that gives them carte blanche to make any outrageous
statement they want. Road to Perdition is arguably better than
Newman's last two films. Road to Perdition is arguably better than
Hanks' last two films.
Here's a short list of better gangster films:
The Godfather I, II -- and even Godfather III, Pulp Fiction, Miller's
Crossing, The Hit, The Limey, Bonnie and Clyde, Jackie Brown,
The Usual Suspects, The Untouchables, Goodfellas, White Heat,
Once Upon A Time In America, Get Carter, Sexy Beast, The
Roaring Twenties, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, A bout
de souffle/Breathless, All Through the Night, Another Day In
Paradise, The Asphalt Jungle, The Big Heat, Bob le flambeur, The
Friends of Eddie Coyle, The Getaway (1972), Ghost Dog: The Way
of the Samurai, The Glass Key (1942), Heat, The Killing, Out of the
Past, The Killers (1963), The French Connection, The Killers
(1946), Killing Zoe, La Femme Nikita, The Lineup (1958),
Performance (1970), Point Blank, The Racket (1951), Rififi, Robin
and the Seven Hoods, Le Samourai, The Sting, Things Change,
This Gun for Hire, The Way of the Gun.
Emmanuelle (1974)
Best of Its Kind
Hello! I gave this film a 10, not because it stands up to Citizen Kane, The Godfather or Mulholland Drive, but because for this genre (soft core porn/erotica) it's the best. Emmanuelle 2 (1975) is just about as good. The rest in the series have their merits and faults, but for the most part get steadily worse. But I am not just comparing Emmanuelle and Emmanuelle 2 to the other Emmanuelle films -- I am comparing them to all the films in this genre/subgenre -- all those films that you saw on Cinemax After Dark.
Also, I would like to point out that Sylvia Kristel (b. September 28, 1952, Utrecht, Netherlands) is the best that you can do in this type of film. It's embarrassing to see her in (barely) legit films like The Nude Bomb (1980), The Fifth Musketeer (1979) or The Concorde: Airport '79 (1979). She seems so ill at ease. But in her best work -- Emmanuelle, Emmanuelle 2, Borowczyk's La Marge (1976); moments from: some of the other Emmanuelle pictures, Curtis Harrington's Mata Hari (1985), Jaeckin's Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981), and Vadim's Game of Seduction (1976) -- she's as mesmerizing as Garbo was in Camille (1937), Anna Karenina (1935) and... Mata Hari (1931).
The Lost World (1998)
This Movie Is Awful
Awful dialogue. Bad acting, worse special effects. This is low budget poo. Tacky. Appears to have been shot on video tape, rather than film, and that lends to it's overall cheap tackiness. Lame. I'm watching it on HBO right now. It's ending. The music and credits and much of the film appears to have been done on a computer. There's some spectacularly bad rear projection stuff too
The Professionals (1966)
This Movie is Kick Ass (Can I Say Ass?)
Lee Marvin is about as cool as he ever got in this movie. And as cool as Lee got was as cool as anybody got. This film boasts a great supporting cast for Lee, including Robert Ryan, Woody Strode, Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Jack Palance and Ralph Bellamy. Rent or buy this baby asap. Some seriously great lines in it too.