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hickyankee
Reviews
Traffic (2000)
Feature length after school special.
Anyone from the 1980s remember Halen Hunt jumping out a window in an anti drugs 1980s after school special? This movie is like that, just bad, like so amazingly bad you keep watching because you figure there is no way such amazing actors can be in such a bad, well reviewed movie. Maybe it's the fact that when the film was made in 2000 there wasn't a lot of hard hitting push back that the War on Drugs was an utter failure never meant to be a success. But it also feels like a R rated version of some garbage Nancy and Ronnie Reagan may have thought up. The cinematography is supposed to be somehow realistic and gritty, using horrible filters for different places and characters, washed our reddish orange for Mexico, almost nauseating blue for Georgetown and grainy, shaky, horrible everywhere else. This film is not like Requiem for a Dream (amazing film) or Blow or American Gangster or any of number of interesting gripping drug films. It is flat, with flat characters, an equally flat or non-existent sound track and flat uninspired direction and cinematography. I can find something good about anything (even movies as bleak as Eraserhead) but this somehow is nihilistic without intending to be. I rarely write reviews since IMDB got rid of it's user forums (this may be the first) but I felt insulted and revolted by how incredibly bad this movie is, as if Hollywood was trying to tell us we had to like it and everyone just went along with that. So many better movies out there. Just say NO to this movie.
Puff the Magic Dragon (1978)
Like the song, this film has infinite meaning to a generation
This is one of those films that for maybe only a sliver of time was iconic and absolutely unforgettable. It came out when I was four years old, my mother loved the song, as so many people did. This film was the very essence of my childhood imagination and joy, also my sorrows, as this was the generation where many kids experienced the relatively new increase in divorce and fractured families, as my family did. This film deals with change and growing up - and I for one was greatly enriched and strengthened all my life because of it. It is beautifully done and still stands up fairly well, especially as a snapshot in time and history with ideas and lessons that are timeless for any child or adult. Some others like this (if you can find it) The Electric Grandmother, based on the story I Sing The Body Electric by Ray Bradbury (also a Twilight Zone episode), The Velveteen Rabbit etc were of a time when it seemed such shorts were created to inspire and educate, to bring beauty and music and imagination to kids. We have great films like this today, of course, but it seems these were more rare to find in the days before VCRs, Cable, the Internet etc.
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Overrated garbage
I'm a huge fan of the 70s horror genre and every time I've seen this movie I've tried to appreciate it as absurdist horror, or humor or whatever else I love about that era. I find something to love about almost film I watch. I always come to the same conclusion about Rosemary's Baby - it is the absolute worst not just of what I call The Great Catholic Horror films (aka Exorcist, Amityville Horror, Omen) but of almost any major film of that era or any era. Polanski had every resource with which to make a great film (as he has many times) but any time I watch it I always end up saying to myself, "Why the hell do people act like Rosemary's Baby is great?" And I empathize with the protagonist - the movie and her acting is so horrible, the whole movie I end up thinking, in unintended horror, "This is not a dream! This is really happening!"