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dougk-5
Reviews
Sexy Beast (2000)
Some of these reviewers are missing the point.
I think the people giving this movie a bad review are missing the point of the film. It's not a crime or gangster movie and the comedy is meted out sparingly -as in real life. If you were expecting high jinx comedy or a "planning the perfect crime" type film, then stay away from "Perfect Beast" . Also, if your command of cockney English is not quite up to par, I suggest you watch "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" a few more times to brush up because, as many previous viewers have mentioned, the dialogue is fast, furious, and VERY cockney and if you blink, you may miss something. That being said, what the film IS about is the battle of wills between sociopath Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) and retired criminal Gal (Ray Winstone). It's a psychological film, not an action thriller. Imagine "My Dinner with Andre" if Andre was a psychopathic killer.
The cast is small, as is the location. Most of it takes place in Gal's villa in southern Spain -intensifying the feeling of invasion perpetrated by this unwelcome guest. Everyone's performance is admirable, but they are all dwarfed by Kinsley's Logan. Kingsley gives, by far, one of the most studied performances in psychotic behavior I've yet seen on screen. Don't let anyone else's review fool you. Don Logan is DEEP. This is a character you get the feeling would've been been admitted to psychiatric care as a child if his parents had been better off. Instead, he's carried his childhood neuroses with him and used them to his best advantage in the criminal world. Every aspect of his persona, from the obvious discomfort with one-on-one communication (unless of course he's bullying), to the autistic machine gun speech repetitions, to the downright schizophrenic bathroom mirror conversation screams "Institutionalize me!" Instead, he's given free reign to terrorize the people around him.
Case in point -his speech is peppered with cockney swear words, strung together with such creativity as to make a hungarian taxidriver blush, but when mentioning intimate body parts in real terms (as opposed to colorful epithets), he uses "bum" and "front bottom". And you can almost see him blush as he says it!
Specifically answering the charge that the dialogue is "tautological and blocky"; Hey, that's the way people talk! Especially people who don't talk much. People have gotten so used to tarentino's criminal monologues that they think hitmen actually give bible speeches before whacking their victims. Fine and good if you want goofy entertainment, but realism is just as valid in a crime film.
I know people like the characters in this film (to the point that, in the theatre, we were actually calling out "holy smokes -that's so-and- so" and "that's exactly so-and-so" -even the Logan character) and these performances were more true to life than any Tarantino
The Green Slime (1968)
The campiest sci-fi I've ever seen
Goofy effects. Cardboard characters. One dimensional plot. All around GREAT film! Watch this while after seeing something like "Aliens" or "Independence day" to lighten the mood. Best watched with a group of friends or girlfriend