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Reviews
CenterStage (2002)
One of the best and most insightful interview shows ever conceived
One could say I'm exaggerating but can you name a show other than this generic but sports oriented version of "Inside the Actor's Studio" that has a better format that allows for the incredible amount of insight into media-persons in a straightforward and perfectly questioned biographical interview, while also having the always fantastic host and interviewist, Michael Kay.
I love Michael Kay from hearing him do play by play commentary on the games for the YES network, and I simply cannot imagine a better man to do all of this. What we have is what seems to be a stream of questions, but they are more than that. They are interviewing that doesn't just try to give you a summary of a man's life, but they are questions that try to give you an essay of a man's life. It's simply the bomb.
The Sopranos (1999)
This isn't the greatest show on television
I'm from the North Jersey area, so a lot of the fun of the Sopranoes is relating it to the things I see and do in my daily life, though despite this, I didn't really have HBO and never really watched the Sopranoes, when it had premiered on television. Except with the 6 season, I saw the whole show on DVD. It was not the first television show I experienced through DVD, and if you've done that before, very well, you could know how incredible it is, and I have to say that while I greatly enjoyed a lot of what the Sopranoes had to offer, in the end, I was disappointed by how the show had been done and what direction it moved to. Judging the show as a whole, what made the show great was practically absent come parts of season 4, and the over-arching brilliance wasn't there anymore with the third season.
The Positive Aspects:
-The 1st, 2nd, and parts of the 3rd seasons are as great as any domestic/mob drama worthy of the praise its been getting. The characters are sublime and the themes and story lines are great art as well as television at top-notch. -The acting of the main characters is exquisite and enormously realized with AJ, the son, being the only exception. -Even, when it's off, it's still compelling
The Negative Aspects: -The show tapers after the 2nd season into weaker story lines and uneven characterization and ceases to make its over-arching thematic points effectively, every season already being progressively worse from the get-go now entering into the territory of non-great television. - The seasons are short, and the cast is huge, making a lot of plot-threads and maybe more than half the cast that deserves better set-up and/or development seem rushed, both under and overplayed, or too easily disposed of, at times egregiously, the tolerability of this coinciding with the show's decline. -The acting of the minor characters is very inconsistent, leaning more of the time in the worse direction, much more than what you could find on certain shows off paycable.
The finale, which is greatly talked of, really doesn't matter, because the show thematically shot itself in the foot even before its halfway point. Each season got progressively worse starting with the first one. The second one was still incredible, and if the show ended at the end of the second season it could have gone down as the amazing show it should be. Instead we get a mess of a television program that wants to say something but cluttered itself way to much to. Check the show out because it contains certain aspects so touching and so grand that they shall stay with you, being profoundly artistic and exceedingly relevant to modern society, television at its pinnacle of art/entertainment. But if it starts running out of gas, that's when you should stop watching, because it'll never get it back.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
A sequence of brilliance that clocks in under an hour surrounded by garbage
I can understand why some love 2001 A Space Oddessy. It contains some of the best filmaking I've seen by Kubrick or any other director. It contains haunting and perfectly rendered sequences of science fiction beauty that is as great as any film called a masterpiece or anything done by Kubrick. Some may argue that it is the best work Kubrick has done. It's intense and captivating, and it's less than 1/3 of the running length. This is a structurally odd film. We are treated to a number of sequences that seem almost self-contained and then the film ends almost inexplicable with a scene of grace and beauty but only in a complete non-substantial sense. Basically, the majority of the film, which encapsulates on both ends the segment, is extremely pretty and amazingly conceived sequences of music and imagery without meaning or purpose that fail to captivate beyond their own visual and auditory beauty. There must have been some higher intention on the part of Kubrick and his writer here, but I think that it was just lazy filmaking on their part.
Anyone with a knack for photography and arrangement can do what they did. It's incorporating that with a compelling something that makes movie-making on par with that beauty, and they do that, in the one sequence, while the remainder is simply a waste. Rent the movie and watch the whole thing, because it is worth experiencing, but I bet that there'll be only one part that really felt worthy of its craft.
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Funny not too funny and legitimately offensive and not in a good way
I laughed a number of times during Borat, which was a funny film. A number of scenes are inspired, and I dig the whole clueless foreigner shtick. The film, done in a semi-documentary style, where the people don't know it's a movie, is about Borat, a Kazak newsreporter that comes to the United States to make a documentary only to have chaos ensue. Being based off a character on the Ali G show, I always thought that the character, Ali G had more funny scenes on that show, and this one disappointingly recycles gags from the show, but overall the gags remain new and enticing the way through. However, the biggest creative problem is that the character of Borat, himself, is one joke, and that joke starts to become thin. In fact, he is so one-dimensional that it kind of brings down the movie by making it too one-note in that department, but the strength of the supporting material keeps it afloat. It's a sure 7 out of 10.
I must also say that while I do not mind the cruelest of humor in fictional settings, the fact that this deals with real people, who are speaking without knowledge of the joke, adds an unnaceptable edge to some of the humor. The things they do to some of these real people are simply mean and disrespectful. I always felt that in the television show, there was always an element of warmness to various fake interviews and sketches, but I only got that in a few of the bits here. This doesn't affect whether it's a good movie or not, but I just want to say that I don't approve of humor that hurts real people, without their knowledge.
Barry Lyndon (1975)
I used to love it, but now I realize it's mediocre
I used to love the movie, but now, I realize that while it has amazing cinematography, the film itself is boring. It's put together in a brilliant way, but the story is just not compelling. Not to say that there aren't sequences of beauty and brilliance, but I realize now that my love was for the cinematography and craft of Stanley Kubrick not the entertainment value of the film, which just wasn't very watchable. If you wanna see Kubrick at his most artful, well that's Barry Lyndon, but A Clockwork Orange is a close second, and what I really wish is that Kubrick could have put all the brilliance he put into Barry Lyndon into a good film. I also wonder, if the film had originally been as sexually explicit as the original version before it was edited down to PG, would it have been better.
Muppets from Space (1999)
Unbearably touching, almost to a fault
This is probably the saddest movie that I have ever seen. It deals in themes of identity and loneliness with more beautied and wrenching sincerity than I've ever seen in any other piece. The fact they are muppets make it all the more touching, because the muppets are so charmingly real. It's about Gonzo coming to terms with his place in the world, and Gonzo was always my favorite character and the one I identified with most, especially, this film just got me. Maybe it isn't the single greatest puppet film, but it is the most dramatic and emotional. Times, it was almost too much and watching the film was such a devastatingly sad experience. In fact, at times it almost seems like there is too much overarching poignancy and emotional core but it's probably just that it's so well-done that it's strikes chords so large. This isdefinitely different in tone than the other ones, but it's a fine andpowerful experience and a superb entry in Muppet Movie-dom.
The ½ Hour News Hour (2007)
Fun and good for few laughs- Very comparable to The Daily Show and The Colbert Reprot
This is a mildly entertaining fake news that's fun and good for a nice number of laughs, especially if you already are very familiar with the news. Unlike perhaps the Daily Show or Colbert Report, an above average knowing of the news events and things they talk about is probably much more of a requirement towards getting all of the humor, as there are many references that you need to have deeper familiarity with the news and punditry to catch. In fact, this show will probably appeal most to those, who are already fans of Fox News because a lot of it's content reflects items that already are made points on the channel.
In terms of how good it is, I'd say 1/3 of the jokes are good, 1/3 of the jokes are okay-mediocre, and 1/3 of the jokes are bad. Okay, I admit, the comedy is slightly worse than that found on the Daily Show and Colbert Report but really not by much. So, it's a fun show, so if you want to see a yes, right-wing fake show, I recommend this one.
Hulk (2003)
The producers must have been so disappointed at the screening.
Possible conversation between producer and a screenwriter: Producer: Where's the story in this? All you have is an unpleasant character drama. Why, there's about 20 pages of stuff happening that's not only stupid. What's wrong with you? Screenwriter: It's artistic. It's about his inner-conflict and his going about life.
Producer: It's a *beep* action picutre. People went to the Hulk to see Hulk smashing stuff, and they want a reason for him to smash stuff. You make it like Hulk's the bad guy.
Screenwriter: There are no good or bad guys. It's morally gray.
Producer: Dammit, this film is not fun at all and it's a boring one at that. Maybe some fancy shmanzy critics will like it, but the audiences will despise it in droves. I just wanted you to make an action picture.
Screenwriters: It has action.
Producer: And the rest is emotional baggage! This has to be re-written.
Screenwriters: But it's already been made into a film.
Producer: Oh...
Mortal Kombat (1995)
Cheesy trash but fun
What can I say? The plot is stupid, the dialouge is ridiculous, and the acting is wooden, but if you combine those with a delightful amount of cheesiness and camp, they all work together to become a film that is entertaining. It's not particularly good entertainment, but there's stuff to be had here.
Standout elements: The score, which is simply fantastic techno with fun voiceovers Christopher's Lambert's atrocious performance, which is so bad it's good The women character for self-explanatory reasons The special effects, which even despite outdated are still pretty cool
It's not good, but it's not bad enough to be bad.
House of the Dead (2003)
True to the spirit of the source material
I first just wanna say the standards people had for this movie amaze me considering the source material. The House of the Dead games are widely considered having of the worst acting found in any video game series period. The House of the Dead games were rail-gun shooters, where you would shoot lot's of zombies with bits of plot about. They were amazing, but their story bits were also shamelessly (intentionally?) poorly done.
This film is actually pretty entetaining as a weirdo horror film goes. The acting is bad, but that's okay because it's campy, and the action is over-the-top but well-shot. The story is cheesy, but that's on par with the source material.
Just look at this way. If they made a truly good film based off the House of the Dead games, it would be a bad adaptation. Go on Youtube.com and look up video-footage of House of the Dead 2. I swear that the actors are foreigners reading transliterations!
La meglio gioventù (2003)
It's not a masterpiece, but it's very good for a television movie
This work is epic, but I wouldn't call it sweeping. It's very ethnocentric to Italy, and it's a tragically presented and works very much as a type of document of life. It follows two brothers, who both take different paths, following the progression of Italy through the later half of the 20th centuary. You feel the passage of time as well as a type of detached character development, but I wouldn't say that we really get inside the character's heads. We meet a lot of great supporting characters, but the film is mainly jumping around from key points in people's lives. It's all very good stuff.
But the biggest complaints to voice would be the lack of general thematic focus, and the fact that the majority of the better material in the story is told in the first half and the second, while still good, really doesn't work as compelling stuff. It's still good, but you feel like the better years have passed.
This isn't the grand story of life, but it is the story of some people in Italy, and it's not the definitive story but it's definitely worth your time, if you be interested in the subject matter.
The Snake Pit (1948)
A memorable and affecting, if at times conventionally structured mental hospital movie
It might be unfair to call what I believe to be the first major asylum movie of conventional structure with detrimnetal connotations, but really, by today's standards this movie is mental hospital cliché/formula 101 as it follows a very pretty and harmlessly insane woman on her journey of self-discovery and through the levels of a mental hospital. The basic premise that we meet a women, who is highly disoriented and lacking of memory and then see her as she comes to see more and more about what parts of her life are about as well as what it's like to be a mental patient.
The strength is the characterization, which is both wonderfully inhabited and deflty viewed, and the novelty of the situation, being a pre-1950s sensibility of a the mental hospital that takes a fascinatingly positive (and very non-sinister) outlook.
The weakness is the structure, which is terribly clichéd, following a very familiar pattern of a women's triumphs and setbacks, realizations and descents, only leading to where you'd expect. Even if it weren't clichéd, because it was the first one to do it, it doesn't expand the material as a story-telling device anyway, for it keeps the occurrences within a very singular frame. It isn't that this so much directly hurts the Snake Pit as it prevents it from going beyond a certain level. In addition it isn't helped as well by the film's awkward 1940s direction and certain messy plot lines.
To its credit, it has a lot of elements that didn't last into the modern era (the sympathetic pyschiatrist with a pipe, psychological rather than biological reasons for the "illness"), but the strength of its situation and acting feels trapt by the conventions of the genre. If you be into these movies, definitely check this one out also to see because despite as much as I criticize it, it is a very good film that definitely brings a lot of worthwhile things to the table. This is a fine piece in the mental health genre.
Another note is that this film is extremely similar to "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden", an inferior film but with similar elements, benefitting perhaps only from the allowed content and viscerality that could be shown from the time period it was made in.
Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982)
Putting the album to imagery, lends the music a whole new depth and conduit for enjoyment
I'm sure before seeing this movie I've listened to the whole album of The Wall. It's kind of incoherent and boring. Granted, it's filled with a whole bunch of great and beautiful songs, but there's too much filler and the story is given no chance at really being told, seeing as the lyircs as ridiculously metaphorical and internalized. The movie, however, puts images and words to the music and what it is that they were trying to say not only makes sense but is enhanced and you really get to see the power and raw emotion in this terribly yet beautifully tragic story about internal descent. The story behind the movie is: Our protagonist is a rock star, whose tragic life and personal excess has been getting to him, eventually leading to a reflection of his memories, eventually leading to him imagining himself as a fascist dictator. The "Wall" refers to a wall he figuratively built around himself to psychologically protect himself. With obsession over parental figures and the horrors of war, you'd have to imagine that this movie would be perfect for psychological education.
The format of the film is a series of either painfully realistic or surreal or both sequences shown with the song that that would represent it in the album. The production values are at times inconsistent, but the power of the film as a whole is amazing. This really is an piece art at its best. The album is the soundtrack to the movie.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
I wouldn't call say it's my favorite film in the genre, but I would say it's a film fit to be a classic
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest has a wonderful message, an amazing villain, and one of the most trouble-making protagonists in the most root-worthy of senses I have ever seen in moviedom. R.P. McMurphey is put in a mental hospital, where he must rebel against the evil establishment. A classic story of will versus the meanies. Essentially a tragicomedy, we get a film that works in both exposition and exploration of the mental hospital concept as it relates to the free-spirited protagonist, newly inserted as a patient, as well as the other patients, who are men, bought down by the wo"man".
This is the stuff classics are made out of, though I do not think it's the definitive piece in the asylum genre. The film really doesn't operate on the same level that a lot of other piefces in that genre, do, focusing more on on stuff more about the soul than the "psyche". I think that's what lends the film it's whole flavor, but if you be looking in the genre, this is satisfying in a different (more life-affirming way). I wouldn't call it a personal favorite, but I would call it superb work.
It's also anti-psychiatry, like myself, and I gotta give it that. Comparing other mental hospital films to this is unfair, however. Besides the setting, I cannot recall a single mental hospital film out there with the guts to be like this film. This film totally is a different animal from something like say "Girl, Interrupted" or "The Snake Pit" or many other films which have bits like that. The film is about the affirmation of the human spirit against a seething institution. I'd say that this movie has more in common with prison movies.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977)
Ultimately, the setting becomes oversatured and the characters explored but not understood
But there is still a very interesting movie in here with a number of memorable sequences.
The movie is about our protagonist, who to our understanding, is a teenaged girl, who apparently either hallucinates about some bizarre fantasy world (and not in a fun Terry Gilliam way but a seriously bizarre "why would she even consider this superior way?") or merely is in fantasy about it in escaping from reality, it's not explained. It begins as she goes to a mental hospital in the countryside it looks and almost immediately our main character inexplicably stabs herself and gets thrown in a disturbed section as opposed to the initial summer camp section. It is here, where our story follows the rest of the film, a series of up and down spirals and looks at her interactions with the other patients.
The thing about all of this is we never actually get to understand the characters at all. We are never told what they're about, why they feel this way, what their backgrounds are, and why they do what they what they do. They just are, and throughout the whole piece the audience feels like with any of the characters, it never surpasses the point of acquaintment because even, if the characters be developed, they were never characterized in the first place, so it's irrelevant. At the same time, though the movie certainly to its benefit explores the setting and situation in a very visceral way, by the movie's end, everything feels oversaturated, because it feels as though we have spent such time in this setting watching similar things with people that don't really mean much for so long that it just starts to wear thin. When the film end, we aren't really sure why the events have turned out as they did, because we aren't really sure why they were the other way in the first place. It just feels like a breath of fresh air to get a new sense of scenery.
The thing is, though, despite that, the movie is still successful probably because the happenings themselves are rather interesting, the unflinching portrayal has the power to captivate, and there is claustrophobic intensity to the asylum as well as a general heterosexual male (being the viewer) to recessive female women appeal, which really adds a type of close-knit feel with the characters.
So, it's not the most satisfying nor the most well-devised film of its genre out there, but if you be a fan of asylum films, this is definitely worth checking out. I also must note that out of all the mental hospital films out there, this is probably the most intense. This movie is 100% serious and very frightening and unsettling. There's no comedy nor light-heart in this movie. The tone is closer to a horror film (despite that it is a pure dramatic realism) than it is to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. From that perspective this film is actually very unique.
The Yakuza (1974)
A building 70s thriller. Very thoughtful and dramatic yet also punctuated by ACTION!
Your not likely to see a more somber and serious gangster film. I find myself hardpressed to find another film like this with the exception of In Cold Blood that approaches the world of crime in such a somber manner that takes into account all the facets with tone that is 100% not a comedy. This film takes itself extremely seriously. This isn't any Scareface, Goodfellas, or even The Godfather. This is crime told in the same manner as a European character drama. Only the body count suggest the films actiony and possibly exploitative intentions.
The film follows our main character revisiting his old-WW2 roots in Japan, half revisiting loved ones and half going on a mission to rescue his old friend's daughter, who was kidnapped by a Yakuza crime lord. So, we get reconciliation and ponderings about their life in addition to a thickening plot filled with violent set pieces. The characters are extremely thoughtful, and much of the film is based around the choices people choose to make as pertaining to what they see to be their duty and debts.
We also get a very interesting look at Japanese culture and a sizable amount of gore. But still, though, even with today's inhibition about showing violence and fascination with Japan, they wouldn't make mob movies like this anymore.
If you enjoy action with slow-paced character-drama, this is definitely for you.
Boys Don't Cry (1999)
Midwest= Desolation
This is the type of movie that looks at bits of Americana and sees the tragedy lurking within the everyday lives of an amount of working and lower-middle classes. As the highways of the midwest are supplanted in speeded film with a starry night (a touching effect), the main character's lives are just like them. Moving too fast but not going anywhere, but it sure is beautiful but in an emotionally devestating way. Of the movies I have viewn none has been as touchingly romantic yet also so engrossingly about "life" as this one.
Our protagonist is Brandon Teena or Teena Brandon, a midwestern Transsexual but that not being his/her defining trait. Teena is the product of a lonesome, deliquint and relatively stationary childhood, admitting that she/he never has left the Lincoln area let alone Nebraska. We meet Teena just after she has gone on a date and is skimping out on a court date. Soon she heads to a town so small that it is not on the map and becomes ingratiated with a family, involving ex-cons and falls in love but in a way that is so viscerally desperate yet unadulterdly emotional that truly it is one of the most realistically powerful romances ever felt on screen. I do not exaggerate when I saw it captures the real emotion of that type of love unlike any other film out there.
What happens is inevitable, considering its based on an actual story, yet the romance is so beautiful and so true, it almost feels as if the film enters into a realm beneath the material. It's still amazing, but a part of me thinks that the story may have been better suited had it opted to coda in a different way. It almost feels as though a film that is American "slice-of-life" in the greatest of ways moves into a different genre and though it is still superb filmaking, I could have imagined it as something that in style fit more with what had come before it.
Girl, Interrupted (1999)
I feel very guilty about loving this movie: A Subjective Review
Fine, I admit, despite the fact that I am anti-psychiatry in a way that would even put Tom Cruise to shame, I adore the idea of the mental hospital and related concepts within a fiction realm. Despite the fact I would probably kill myself, if I were committed in real life, if I had a holodeck from Star Trek, you could only guess the scenarios I'd be creating for myself. Okay, so I am biased. Mental Hospitals give me great me pleasures, even when I just think of them. It's something about a person being considered non-accountable and not of sound psyche as well as being worthy of confinement for just their demeanor and attitudes that I think with me really just strikes bunches of chords.
So, upon seeing a movie that did not only meet that but heterosexually fascination of women I immediately sought it out. However, such a non-sexual fetish as this is not something you would want to make public, so I naturally was very discrete in both how I reacted to this film and how I sought it out. I can't watch the movie without yelling at the characters, and I'm always afraid that someone at the library will wonder what a male like me is doing renting a movie like that with the amount of times I do.
So, what is the movie itself? Well, it's a women's late 1960s half melodrama/half "life passing as we adventure and experience the world" drama. It's very well-acted but the material is at time's cringe-worthy. What really makes the film is just how effectively it emobdies its setting and attitudes of the characters. As for the former we really feel like we're in a mental hospital. This isn't raving lunatics and great horrors. It's a locked summer camp for sane young adults, who were bought down by the man. This is the type of place I would find myself lying on my couch imagining I was in. In terms of the latter, you could never accuse the film of not developing its characters, because one of the things it does amazingly masterpiece level way is make clear the way that all the characters view their lives and situations. We really understand why they all do what they do and feel what they feel as well why they are in the positions they are in. It's tragic and it sucks you into the story like few other films have by crafting a portrait of people who seem real, for they might as well be real people (whom they were based off) because our understanding of them is great. Even, though I can objectively say that One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a better film, the characters don't have anything on this movie.
This film has a lot that goes for it, but then again, it's just eaten up by me. There are so many ingredients for transcendent cinema here, and although I experience that because it is almost like a film made for me, I wouldn't know about that with other people. The thing is I couldn't possibly judge how a normal person would see this film. It's terribly manipulative and the ending is totally untrue. This is what they movies that are favorites but not best ofs.
Actually, when I think of it, if it weren't for that untrue ending and manipulation, this could have been a experience I could truly consider to be great. The vibrancy of the characters had a ridiculous amount going for them, and I could only (and do in my spare time) imagine how great it really could have been had the characters stayed truer to their nature. I really should write a fanfiction.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997)
Season and Show Overview
I viewed this entire show on DVD, and it is a personal favorite to me, and it's one of the most awesome experiencing I have been through. T'was so beautiful and so epic that it really made me depressed, when it was over. If the show at all interests you, buy the first season on DVD. This is one of the greatest television experiences you'll encounter. This is television=wow. However, there are a few warnings before you experience it, and that is what I shall tell you in a specific spoiler-free critique of each of the show's seasons.
Season 1- Being the truncated early season this one worked really well. It had in my opinion one of the best villains and perhaps the most traditional of the seasons story lines, but what really makes this season great is a number of great episodes. Pretty much every episode is this season stands very well on its own, with the exception of only a small number. Season 1 is Buffy the Vampire Slayer at its core conception, and what a wonderful conception that was.
Season 2- Introducing a more complex character-driven storyline in addition to the epic effects that a full-season would have this season really is just a thing that is spectacular and special. In addition to a slew of fantastic individual episodes, we get an emotionally charged atmopshere and great villains. It is sublime with a lot of great things about it.
Season 3- This season had a lot of classic standalone episodes, but the overall season itself suffered from a number things, including heavy-handed character developments, overuse of setting, and weak lingering plot lines. It still was a very good season, and it has a lot to offer, but this one is not one I revisit often, except for its number of stand-outs.
Season 4- Taking a very non-traditional approach, considering, this one maybe has the least consistent episode quality out of all the seasons, sans 7, but it still offers a ton of great episodes, great overall plots, and great character development. This season also has a very distinctive style and setting. Yes, there's some mediocre episodes among there, but this is really a unique season, and it's also really good.
Season 5- This one is my favorite. It just ups the stakes and intensity, creating a season that is largely flawless and perhaps having of the strongest and most developed over-arching plot. It's beautiful, and it's of such a core and depth of characters. Maybe, it doesn't have the most classic of episodes, but when everything comes together, this one is the bomb.
1-5 Seasons I also must say that if the show were to end at this point, it would be worth 10.
Season 6- This season abandons the plotting of the earlier seasons in exchange for a much more character-driven season of a consistently awesome quality, filled with a huge ratio of fantastic episodes and strong emotional resonance. On its own, this is probably the best season. The problem is that the show should have ended at season 5, and by continuing onward, the entire show is ruined and character motifs are extended from their best codas.
Season 7- There was a great quality of characterization and individual episodes for the first bit, but the quality and the main plot both fell horribly apart by the end of the season. The ending was so horrible in comparison to other season finales, the show as a whole is destroyed in all its poetry, theme, and greater characterization.
So, the show is incredible, but just don't watch past 5. Season 6 is great, but you don't need to see it. I also would not not recommend watching 1-5, considering that the show, and enjoying the amazement of season 6 a "what-if" scenario.
Jackie Brown (1997)
Ultimately, a bit boring, don't you think?
This film has a great start and a very memorable opening sequence. Our main character is on an airport track and is going forward on a conveyor belt set to a great tune. Fantastic use of the camera and a great song to go along with it, but then once you get to the movie, beyond the stylized and interesting opening, the film starts to slow down and goes on for 2 1/2 it didn't need to.
The thing that defines the film from Tarantino's other work is that is not his own creation (or his own ripoff of someone else's creation) but a legitimate adaption of a novel. Tarantino's style was never that conventional and when you see him working within conventional cofines, which is sort of what this is, despite being a vibrant-feeling piece, his whole style just doesn't work and he can't acomodate proper pacing. Tarantino's style is suited to fast-pased thrillers or just things told of out of sequence. When he tells a character-driven crime story in a rather linear matter, his very superfluous direction and writing ends up chugging the whole thing down, when it should be either speeding the thing up or directing more so its focus. The opening is more in line with his type of films, but once it gets into relationships and more complex elements of story and character, the thing just kind of drags.
It's got so much good in it, with great acting and great dialouge, but Tarantino just doesn't pace it right cause he can't handle a story of this type and the movie ends up feeling a bit boring, by the time you're finished. Still, though, it's got so much good in it, that it's not necessarily a bad way to spend an afternoon but maybe there'll be a point, where you wish it were it over, when there's probably still a good amount to go.
Crash (2004)
Message: Racism is a complex issue...
I can't say that upon viewing Crash I was of a completely open mind. I had read criticism, both positive and negative with it, and the movie had won the Oscar for Best Picture. I can say, though, that I was ready to expect it to either be very good, good, or not so good. It was not so good, but with elements that were both good and very good.
Crash is the kind of idea that can go sour or work. It is a Magnolia-esquire series of interplaying vignettes, of which the primary focus and theme is racism. It can work, if the director chose to, while focusing on racism, allow a human story to be the main focus and transcending feature. Honestly, racism isn't that interesting on its own, as a constant focus.
However, the movie makes the cardinal flaw of keeping to racism a constant focus with the human story in the background, at least in terms of the way it feels. The characters talk, and they show affection but with a few exceptions (which make up some of the most memorable quiet scenes), their words almost always are about racism in some direct or indirect way. Such as, most blatantly, the articulate gangbanger, who can't help but always philosophize on racial issues. This however was interesting, purely in a pop-conversation way, with the real problem being that the vast majority of the other characters, talk about race in a similar way (based on their context) only not in a Tarantino-like jaunt. The movie is filmed like a character drama of true human context, and so we don't want to see race being the purpose of every conversation, particularly those of more human characters like a Black TV Writer and Assistant DA, who just talk about a singular issue in virtually every single situation they are in.
This is the greatest flaw of the film, but it is not the only significant one. The film is too short, and characters, especially interesting ones like the complex and bigoted cop or the caring father of a locksmith (the one major character who almost completely avoids the issue of race and thus has the best scenes), come off as either underdeveloped or under-seen because we love them so much. This is expounded because the movie relies on coda scenes to wrap up the stories, and a few them, simply do not work. The characters are too underdeveloped for these to have an impact. The final third of the movie also seems to comprised entirely of this, so it gets tiresome, when it feels like the movie just had an "end movie on this note" scene literally 10 times prior to the current scene that also feels like an "end movie on this note" scene.
However, there is good in the movie. The film, although it can be tiresome and its structural flaws are apparent, never really becomes painful or devoid of entertainment. There are enough interesting elements and good scenes to make the movie a decent viewing experience, however not a particularly worthwhile, satisfying, or greatly entertaining one.
Raising Arizona (1987)
Good not great and a movie ultimately held down by its most unique elements
When I first saw this film, I only saw the end. I thought the film was pretty good but a rather minor work. I had figured I hadn't missed much. However, when I saw the film from start to finish, I realize the best of the bits were at the start. Unfortunately, the best bits at the part didn't change the whole film, leaving me with the same conclusion as I'd before, only maybe a little more demonstrated of the films strengths. Raising Arizona follows a couple of an ex-con and an ex-cop, who decide to steal a baby after finding out that they cannot conceive one of their own. They talk in a creatively awkward regional accent/manner, shared by pretty everyone in the film, and they rarely express emotion, using their face, shared by many people in the film. They develop moral justifications using wisdom consistent with their regionality, and they get into many types of troubles throughout the film, descending through all manners of the realistic and bizarre. These troubles are funny, and they are also in a way self-aware. The problem is that the whole film is perhaps a bit too self-aware. The manner by which the characters speak feels as if that's how every character speaks, and it starts to feel a bit through the film that the joke was overdone and more effort should have been made to differentiate the characters. On the same token, the way the film goes about is a bit too of for lack of better phrasing "opposite of melodramatic", and by the 9th time, you've seen the female cop character staring blankly at the camera, you wonder if the whole bit was just way too stylized. The whole thing feels overly scripted for an indy-style comedy, and to boot, there's a mediocre climax and plot over and under emphasis. The thing is that the film works well enough in the spite of such things. The self-awareness is charming for what it is, and a lot of fun jokes, especially those of nice old men, are found. The lines are cute, and even if all many of the story aspects don't completely work, they still have enough worthy elements to justify their inclusion. The film is not a bad way to spend an afternoon at all, and it is certainly one you'll remember. After all, this is still a pretty unique way of doing a film through and through, and any unique success is likely to be remembered.
It's the type of movie that is bound to have a cult following. It's also a type of film that could easily be commercially successful. It's a time of film that combines an offbeat sensibility with a very onbeat type of concept, and it is ultimately this that most defines the film in addition to perhaps serving its detriment at times. It's a good film, but its sensibilities and structure ultimately are what prevent it from reaching a level higher than "good".