Change Your Image
pl333
Reviews
The Iron Giant (1999)
A profound art film for kids and a cartoon for intellectuals
Big time spoilers!
Most any Hollywood film can be reduced to a one-sentance description of it's essence. While the deceptively simple ingredients that made "the Iron Giant" could easily have made a typical formula product, such as "a really cool movie with lots of explosions about a kid who makes friends with a misfit giant robot," this film is something profoundly more unique. The sentance that director Brad Bird used to describe the essence of this film was "a gun that learns to love."
When the Giant falls from the sky into the life of Hogarth Hughes, it brings with it chaos, war, fear, greed and exploitation. It is the objectification of the base animal instincts of humanity, posessing unlimited power for technological destruction, but innocent of good or evil like a child. Nobody knows where it comes from- was it made by the Russians, or god? Hogarth wants to keep it for himself- Dean, his friend the existentialist beatnik artist, wants to hide it and pretend it doesn't exist- the government wants it destroyed- and Kent Mansley, the main antagonist, has such a competitive lust to conquer it, he'll wreck families, whole towns, and even himself to do it.
The conflict climaxes at the point of an impending nuclear strike. But the Giant, programmed as a weapon to destroy what attacks it regardless of any other consequences, has discovered it has a heart, and it chooses to step aside from it's destiny, and sacrifice itself to save from death the people it loves. It's a jesus-like sacrifice, but instead of serving god's will, this is a choice of free will, a humanist message that's open to interpretation but wonderfully sincere.
Where other great films use many of these ingredients- deep psychological insight, mythic-poetic archetypes, socio-political allegory (the cold war), great humor and entertainment (squirrels in the pants)- they might end up being insubstantial if they lack the biggest ingredient in "the Iron Giant", heart. It makes me cry every time I hear the Iron Giant's last words. Besides those things, it has universal appeal. As a "family oriented cartoon" film with lots of jokes and pop culture references, which was a commecial failure due to executive mismanagement, this film proves that the value of creative expression is independant from terms like "low art" and the value measurements of commerce. It's a work of art first and a commercial product second. Compared to the current wave of dissatisfyingly hollow, ideologically self-reflexive, corporate-mythmaking computer-generated blockbusters about living toys and dream factories run by friendly monsters, this film should be the standard to judge all future animated features by.
Flick (2000)
Good try
Flick is obviously a labor of love. Shot digitally, the look is rough, but the shooting and editing are reasonably fluid for being made with limited resources, and the acting is passable. The story is cobbled together from a stew of Hollywood/independant film cliches such as Kevin Smith films, and it's the weakest part. It's a self-reflexive movie-within-a-movie that seems like an excuse for Flick to exist, with lots of irrelevant romance and mystery side-plots, and there is no main conflict to drive the film.
One big example of lack of conflict is the 2 main characters' backgrounds. They are college roommates- but not majoring in film, just something else I forgot because it's irrelevant- yet they decide to make a feature film with no motivation, while balancing a telemarketing job at the same time as classes. Further complicating the question of motivation is their lack of material wants- (they have a large house, tons of gadgets like laptop computers, film equipment, etc.)- these are students?
Some of the attempts at humor work. The audience responded and laughed a few times at the premiere, especially at the porno guy who gets called randomly during telemarketing. Other jokes are just bad. The roommate's relationship is one thing that came off as creepy instead of funny- guys just don't share a toilet. The jokes that paid tribute to Hollywood, referring to Star Wars and Ghostbusters, seemed just a little too smarmy, like they were aimed at the filmmakers own clique of film fans.
If you're interested in independant filmmaking, you can learn alot from this film- it's impressive simply for the fact that they made a feature cheaper than cheap and got their first effort out in front of an audience. Good luck to the filmmakers, and I'm sure they had a good learning experience so we can expect good things from them in the future.
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
don't watch this if you like big titty, explosion, bloody killer stuff
(careful of them there spoilers!)
Rosemary's Baby is a standout in the genre of gothic psychological thrillers. Hitchcock's Rebecca is the only other film I know at the top of that category, and of all Horror films only a handful can compete with it for "best ever."
Polanski's direction is simply amazing. A good common description in a lot of these reviews would be "hallucinatory paranoia." The film creates a sense of dislocation, through the juxtaposition of occult imagery with a modern urban setting, and a subtle sense of building tension, through devices such as the deadline of the baby's expectancy date vs. the conspiracy being woven around Rosemary. These devices enhance her vulnerability and sympathetic quality, and make every hinted threat feel like a threat to you the viewer. This is a movie that you piece together with your mind but also experience with gut emotion.
What sets this film apart from standard crappy blood and guts horror, besides its subtlety, is its metaphoric themes. The "Faustian bargain" made by Rosemary's husband, to further his acting career by selling his fatherhood, reflects on the nature of acts of creation within the entertainment industry and traditional values within organized religion. I would go so far as to say that this film is intended to criticize bourgeois values within capitalism, through allegory (if I knew more about Polanski's films.)