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Reviews
Try Seventeen (2002)
A seventeen year old virgin with a quirky imagination!
What a delightful film! Elijah Wood does a wonderful job portraying Jones, a seventeen-year-old virgin who has never met his father. Jones writes letters to his missing dad and has witty discourse with his flamboyant Texan tart of a mother portrayed by Elizabeth Perkins.
Jones' imagination is a sparkling as his gigantic blue eyes. He deals with social awkwardness by utilizing his creativity in ways that few of us have the ability to. His vulnerability does not stop him from being determined to live life on his own terms. Upon arriving at college, Jones decides that there is no way that he can live in the dorm. He immediately finds an apartment off campus. His fellow tenants become like a dysfunctional family to him.
Jones is a like a sponge in many ways, picking up the attitudes and habits of those around him. He smokes because his crush, Jane, smokes. He drinks wine because Lisa across the hall drinks wine. He initially begins a friendship with Lisa, but eventually finds her to be a shallow person. It is Jane that he really falls for, with her dark ways and sultry accent. Will Jones ever be regarded as more than just a friend to Jane? Will his age ever stop being a barrier? Well, that's for you to find out.
Spun (2002)
A generation that is terrified of reality.
Crystal Meth. I've never understood the fascination for a drug that turns you into a raving, sleep deprived, fiend. Those of you who have tried meth, or know someone who is a regular user, know that Meth heads are the sketchiest of the sketch. Jonas Akerlund successfully captures the anxiety of the drug, and the resulting distortion of reality and priorities. Jason Schwartzman finally busts out of his nerdy teen typecast and proves himself as an accomplished actor. He reminds me of a young Judd Nelson. I can't believe that Mena Suvari is in a film where she is hideous, and that Brittany Murphy finally gets to act.
The plot tells a story that goes nowhere but sums up a generation that is afraid of reality. With people dying all over the world of Alzheimer's and other memory affecting diseases, why is it that some people spend their entire lives trying to obliterate their memories?
Akerlund uses quirky camera movements and a unique visual style to depict the wasteland that is addiction. My only complaint is that the film may be presented as too much of a rock video. This is not surprising taking into account that Akerlund is responsible for such videos as Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up and Madonna's Ray of Light. The dosing scenes are very reminiscent of Requiem For a Dream. Some originality would have been nice. Debby Harry makes a great butch.
Heaven (2002)
A love story that doesn't quite make it.
Cate Blanchett is beautiful. After watching her on screen, I leave the theatre exuding some of her seductive power. This happened with Elizabeth and has happened once again with Heaven. Tykwer, who brought us such accomplished films as The Winter Sleepers and Run Lola Run, presents us with a love story that just doesn't work for me despite the excellent acting of Blanchett and Ribisi. Blanchett plays a schoolteacher with a vendetta against a drug lord who is trafficking drugs through her elementary school. It is exposed that Blanchett's character also has personal links to the drug lord, although these links are never made fully clear.
Blanchett's character, Phillipa botches an assassination attempt on the drug dealer and is then captured. Ribisi plays a guard who falls in love with the waifish martyr. I could not lose the feeling that Phillipa is not all that she seems. I feel that she uses her young lover to escape. Perhaps somewhere along the line she genuinely falls in love with him, but I never truly feel the love. I feel her feeding Ribisi's love. I felt that there was a deeper under plot that I was missing. The ending is non-intentionally comical. I felt badly for the director who must have cringed at the waves of laughter.
City of Ghosts (2002)
Directorial masturbation at it's best.
This film is directorial masturbation at its best. Matt Dillon may be a good director, and he definitely is an excellent actor, but he shouldn't try to be both at once. We were taught this in the first week of film school. It is next to impossible to objectively direct a film if you are staring in it. As an actor, you develop too personal of a relationship with the character. This relationship conflicts with the director's role. The director is meant to chisel the character into a sharper version of the acted model. This is where Matt Dillon fails.
You can tell that he has fallen in love with his own scenes. This film could have easily been 30 minutes shorter than it was. The repetition in some scenes was unbearable. Let's also talk about the contrived love scene that was thrown in just so that the lead character could get some action. I think that the goal was to have a 'The Usual Suspects' type of plot- a plot that is full of questions and expectations. This might have worked except for the fact that the film is so long winded that it is easy to forget your question by the time the answer arrives.
The plot is basically that of a New York insurance broker who flies to Cambodia to escape a scandal that is rocking North America. In Cambodia, Dillon's character, Jimmy, tries to find his former business partner, and insinuated father portrayed by James Caan. I don't really know what the plot of this film is or what the main theme was intended to be. This is not a good sign. I know that there are a lot of corpses shown. I know that the story was not developed in the proper areas to exact an emotional response from the audience.
Lack of focus is the main weakness of this film. There are too many sub plots. There's the insurance scam, the father-son controversy, the love story, the Russians, the traitor, the archeologists, the casino. The list goes on and on. How are we to enjoy a film with so many events going on?
Perhaps the greatest strength of this film is the relationship built between Jimmy and his Cambodian friend. Although I liked this relationship, it seems to me that this trend of 'white man befriending local man to succeed' is getting overused.