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itchyfriend9
Reviews
Easier with Practice (2009)
Disappointing, but shows promise
Walking out of this movie, I felt much the same as Davy, the protagonist, did at the end of the film. Just like him, I felt betrayed by something fraudulent, only in my case it was the movie itself I felt betrayed by. I actually thought this compelling drama was going somewhere. The director and his cinematographer have a surprisingly strong visual sense for a low-budget independent movie, especially in the opening scenes; and while some of the acting and dialogue felt a bit strained and "film schooly" now and then, there were some great moments and, for the most part, it was smart and sophisticated, with a genuinely winsome and sympathetic protagonist. I was wholly engaged and very interested in seeing where it would all lead.
The answer, unfortunately, was: nowhere. In the end, the film turned out to be merely another indie exercise in "wouldn't this story make a great movie?" screen writing. Except there is no story there, nor is there really an ending. It's all build-up with no payoff, and it ends up feeling like little more than an anecdote (and in fact the screenplay was apparently based upon a true story, so it really was just an anecdote). And the big reveal at the end was just a big cheat, completely and unapologetically phony and disingenuous. I felt snookered by this movie.
Still, the director definitely has talent, and so I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do with (hopefully) a better script.
Dah (2002)
Make. It. Stop!
After sitting there watching a little boy yelling at his mother for fifteen minutes in a circuitous, repetitive argument that sounds like the actors are straining for material to fill up time, I knew I was in trouble. Unfortunately, the movie didn't improve. The centerpiece is a scene in which we watch a woman picking at a sore on her face for five minutes. And worst of all, that obnoxious boy keeps coming back for more yelling!
What is it with movies this year? First we got Gerry, which seemed like one long joke at the expense of the audience, and now 10, which qualifies as neither art nor entertainment, but more like something the director whipped out in a couple of hours in order to meet a deadline. This is just bad cinema. To call it boring is too kind. The Taste of Cherry was boring. 10 is just pathetic.
The Shape of Things (2003)
Wasted opportunity
It's pretty sad that, since his incredible debut film, In the Company of Men, Neil Labute's films seem to get steadily worse and worse. This is his first truly bad movie, though. Possession was somewhat better, but it wasn't as good as Nurse Betty, which wasn't as good as Your Friends & Neighbors, which wasn't as good as In the Company of Men.
I don't know what he was thinking with this film, except maybe to combine his first two films into one film and give it a college setting (with actors who are way too old to be college students). I guess the actors are just as much to blame for this film's failures, for they are almost uniformly bad. The exception is Rachel Weisz, who was quite good, (ironically, considering her horrible performance in The Mummy), and incredibly sexy, which I never thought I would say about her (especially since I'm gay.) The two male actors were especially awful, almost as if they hated the director and were acting badly on purpose. The twist ending falls completely flat, Labute having completely failed to develop the characters or the themes adequately enough to make it work. It's a shame, too, because I can see what he was trying to do, and there could have been a great movie made from this material. This is precisely the sort of movie someone should remake, because it has so much potential, but he blew it.
All the Real Girls (2003)
Pretentious crap
I can't believe I sat through this self-indulgent piece of fluff. What was the filmmaker thinking? It's like he was trying to make some sort of elliptical, Faulkner-esque "art" piece, but really all he was doing was recycling the same old cliches and trying to make them look new by photographing them with bad lighting and making his actors talk as if they're mildly retarded. The tone of the film is all over the map, often jumping from old-fashioned melodrama to social satire and back with sudden and disconcerting abruptness. I honestly couldn't tell if I was supposed to sympathize with these characters or feel contempt for them (although it was mostly the latter). It also says absolutely nothing new about love or young people. The acting is uneven, but I blame the director more than the actors. I can't believe this guy is younger than I am and people let him make movies.
Bamboozled (2000)
amateur hour
Spike Lee's latest had some amusing moments, but, like most of his movies, it was so over-the-top that it seemed to lose sight of what it was trying to say. Watching black actors in black-fake making extreme black stereotypes, i was unsure of both how i felt and how i was supposed to feel. In fact, i didn't really feel anything at all, and it certainly didn't make me think about racial issues. All it made me think about was how much more interesting it would have been if it was about black actors in white-face making white stereotypes.
The biggest problem i had with the movie was the miscasting of Damon Wayans in the lead role. This has got to be the worst performance by a major actor i have ever seen. I was actually embarrassed for him. Everything about the performance is completely misguided and misdirected. His character is supposed to be a phony, but he just comes off as a phony phony, and he seems entirely uncomfortable in the role. That, combined with the obvious fact that the film was shot on video, made me feel like i was watching an amateur movie by a high school student. The only noteworthy performance is by Savion Glover, who is a very appealing and attractive actor with a real screen presence that i was unprepared for.