Reviews

Entertaining and completely overblown gangster flick with a powerhouse central performance by Christopher Walken. Actually all the performances are good, they just pale compared to Walken's freaky frightening intensity.

At times it seems to be put together with a somewhat sloppy hand (stuff like jumping the eye line or wobbly camera work), at other times it seems like it may just be because of practical/budgetary reasons. Generally it's rather nicely put together though, with a few really blistering set pieces, especially an extended indoor shootout set to house music and shot through a blue haze, is impressive and gripping, and when it continues out on the rainy streets, in cars, it doesn't loose a beat.

The writing is uneven, often nuanced and intelligent, equally often over the top, on the nose and rather silly, still, the actors make it work for the most part. Ferrara isn't subtle, and he's not afraid to use some cheap tricks (utterly pointless nudity and violence), but taken in the right spirit, not too seriously, it's certainly never boring, even when it's going over the top.

Did I mention that Walken is excellent?

Aaron Estes debut is a beautiful and haunting tale, that despite its simplicity and some flaws, manages to both be a gripping piece of entertainment/storytelling and also a fairly complex analysis of hate, guilt, loneliness and all the many other human emotions that are especially hard to cope with when you're a teen.

Estes has wisely chosen to keep the plot fairly simple, this gives him room to delve into the mindset and feelings of these very different yet also very alike kids, and he really grabs that opportunity, constantly conveying new back story and exposition, but always in an unobtrusive way and without ever loosing sight of the central conflict that drives the plot along.

Along with DP Sharone Meir the director also creates an intriguing world, the strikingly photogenic setting is milked for all it's worth, and despite some minor indulgences, especially noticeable in one central scene set at a riverbank, the choice to mix hard hand-held images with poetic Mallick like images generally comes of as an inspired and strong choice that puts you right in there with the characters and their predicaments.

The characters are all fleshed out (though some do of course get more time then others) and the actors all seem to relish the chance to play something much closer to real human beings then the cyphers that normally occupy youth-movies. These people are complex and flawed, no one is really good, nor is anyone really bad, which must be said to be something of a brave move, since it's easy to alienate every audience member out there, keep people floating in a moral vacuum where they don't know what to think and so they turn on the film because they feel insulted and abandoned... but I don't think that happens here, I think Estes brilliant writing and the sympathetic recognizably human performances makes it complex and emotionally draining in a way that is viscerally entertaining and yet never pandering. Some might react very differently though (there is one character whom it is very easy to hate if you fell so inclined, the film most certainly doesn't try to paint him as some sort of martyr), and I guess that may be a flaw from a commercial standpoint, but it certainly doesn't make the film any worse.

Rory Culkin and Josh Peck are probably the standouts in the cast, but it really is an ensemble film, and everybody more then delivers. Even if there was no other reason to see it, it would still be worth it for the magnificent performances (luckily there's plenty of other reasons, including a great score).

Structurally the film is flawed, but through no real fault of its own, it's just so that the scene everything revolves around is so powerful that only by throwing explosions or car chases in there could it ever be topped, and since Estes doesn't feel like throwing superficial drama in to make the ending more satisfying, that is not the kind of film he's making here, there's no way around the fact that the last part of the film is a little bit less gripping then the rest.

A good movie, well worth seeing, and it doesn't really matter if you're young or old, it will still resonate I believe.

Very much a Michael Bay flick... but as such, not bad.

The camera is thrown around flamboyantly as it tries to keep up with our two leads who're running through a bright colorful slick future filled with vehicles just waiting to explode and clones that mostly look way better then average human beings.

The editing is fast and furious and the actors of course almost all drown in all the pretty blue sets and glowing suns... and despite the somewhat intriguing setup/plot, it's this that really interests Bay; kinetic energy, stuff that moves fast, things that explode, and his main goal is to throw it at the audience with such fury that they won't notice much ells. Except for the blatant product-placement that is, he always makes sure we'll notice that.

Towards the end it all becomes wearisome, but for the most part it's fun in an undemanding superficial way.

And speaking of superficial... Scarlett running around is definitely a joy to behold.

Winona Ryder and Christian Slater are in top form, especially Slater is a lot of fun, chewing the scenery, spitting out rebellious bad boy lines left and right while doing his best Nicholson filtered through a cartoon ("This is Ohio. If you don't have a brewski in your hand you might as well be wearing a dress." "Football season is over, Veronica. Kurt and Ram had nothing left to offer the school except for date rapes and AIDS jokes.") It's a brilliant showy entertaining performance that makes it obvious why many thought he would go on to become a superstar. Ryder is less 'out there', she doesn't have as much to play with, but that's the name of the game when you're the "sympathetic" protagonist, and she does and excellent job with what she's got.

Those two essentially has to carry the film through the periodic problems it runs into, and it sure runs into some of those; a dream sequence disrupts the narrative completely, and comes of as the cheat it is, that problem segues right into the final act of the film which is a complete mess of morals and ideas from the entire spectrum tearing each other apart (I think some producers may very well have had some input there), and on top of that there's a certain "loose" quality to the visual style Lehman has chosen, a striking difference between scenes and sequences that aught to feel as part of the same whole (in other words, he's not quite sure what he's doing), that gives the film a wobbly unfocused feel. The attempt to make it a classical story about a hero against villains fails since the film also wants to make the lead an immoral self-absorbed teenager, it wants to be amoral and cold, meaningful and profound, all at the same time, eat its cake and have it, and that doesn't quite work... But it doesn't really matter that much, 'cause this film is gutsy, funny, original and clever enough to get away with problems, heck, it doesn't really seem to care if it's somewhat badly structured, Lehman & Co just throw on another swipe at teachers, teenagers, the media, parents, social hierarchy, or whatever tickles their fancy, and it's of and running again.

I very much enjoy Lehman's use of background action to deliver small insignificant non sequiturs, which despite their lack of direct meaning nonetheless broadens the films universe, and more importantly, makes me smile. The kid who for some reason is sleeping in the middle of the cafeteria through the entire school intro scene, the girl who keeps chewing gum through a funeral etc...

Undoubtedly outdated in some ways, but mainly it's still a fresh and funny look at teen angst and all that jazz.

Stallone hasn't had it easy. As soon as the eighties ended he was pretty much an obsolete joke, the occasional decent film (Cliffhanger, Copland) hasn't changed that one bit. Here he is in a remake of the British Caine classic I've never seen, trying to be both a cool mofo and an involving character at the same time; neither is a success.

The entire film has this skizo vibe going, jumping from attempts at introspective thoughtful dialogue, to moody scenes of rainy imagery (tone poems in a Stallone action-thriller for crying out loud), and then to Stallone suddenly being the smirking one-liner spewing action star... it's confusing, just like the direction by Stephen Kay. Kay's intentions are obvious right from the get go, he wants to really funk everything up, Aronofsky style. He wants to do a very expressionistic film where the style is guided by the leads inner turmoil. But it doesn't work. Not that some it doesn't look smashing, of course it does, there's neat stuff here and there (Jerry Greenberg of French Connection fame edited it), but it never ever gels, either it's just a distracting nuisance, or when it works, a minor diamond in a turd sea.

The character of Carter as played by an action star going all soft and mushy and non-violent is an interesting idea I guess, but they don't ever follow through on it, instead they just sort of play around with the idea until they are really afraid the core audience has left... and then they throw in an unmotivated action scene of some sort. None of the parts does ever become satisfying in their own right. The acting isn't bad, Miranda Richardson, Michael Caine, Alan Cumming, John C McGinley and the likes pop up and does their thing, it's professional work. There's some cool lines here and there (the coolest ones are definitely from the original, I could tell even though I've never seen it), but mostly the dialogue is weak and doesn't have much point except to pad out the running time and deliver exposition. One or two punch ups aren't all bad (a neat one set in an elevator to muzak was kinda fun), but the car chases are about as exciting a three week old candy bar you found on the floor.

There's some unintentional laughs, mostly when "Sly" is trying to deliver a corny/bad line with the deepest seriousness, I kinda enjoyed those, and it wasn't ever really boring (unlike a travesty like Collateral Damage for instance), that's certainly a big plus, but when all is said and done, this is not a good film by any definition of the word.

A few years ago I stumbled across this book by Steve Szilagyi (quite a name he got himself there), I read it a couple of times, thought it was an entertaining story with some interesting themes... and then I pretty much forgot all about it. Until now, where I stumbled across it on DVD, didn't even know it was made as a film, and so I gave it a shot yesterday, not hoping for much (tiny British films aren't always the epitome of excitement).

A positive surprise. The film is about a British photographer who's specialized in trick photography after he came home from WW1. He's a rational man, to the point where he's almost dead inside (the very opposite of Arthur Conan Doyle who also shows up in the tale, played by the guy who played Watson in the TV show btw) but that changes when a woman brings him some photos she claims show her daughters playing in their garden with a bunch of... you guessed it, fairies.

This is essentially a fantasy film, but it's not quite like most other fantasy films; questions about belief is the central theme, but it's stretched and played around with so it's constantly intriguing, even for a cynical agnostic (atheist if you're Christian) like me. Is heaven a state of mind, and if so, does that make it less worth? How do you find truth in life, and is it ever better to lie about the truth for the sake of those you love? Thematically they've incorporated many of the more "out there" ideas from the book in rather clever ways; drugs, sex, violence, are also themes in Szilagyi's innocently looking book, and the filmmakers have tried to stay true to this. This isn't some film about small creatures with crowns on their heads who smiles a lot, nor is it a funny Spielbergian flick, it's an exploration of grief and obsession and how those things can affect our beliefs, shake us to the very core. Yeah, it doesn't sound very jolly, which I guess it isn't, but it's interesting.

The cast is excellent, the music and photography far better then I had expected (same goes for the limited fx). Going by the cover and BBC's name on it somewhere, I actually thought it was maybe a TV movie. Really brilliant use of slow motion, not just for kicks, as a gimmick, even though it looks ravishing as well, but actually done in a meaningful way with regards to the plot (though that's easier to see if you've read the book).

The writers have changed a lot with regards to the plot; shuffled around, condensed, introduced new scenes/characters, and so on, but that's like it should be. Any attempt to take the book directly from the page would've failed miserably. They've even introduced a completely new intro & ending as well. It works like a charm, though some might find it a bit too convenient.

I did have some problems with it though... the lead is deliberately almost always kept at arms length, which is okay in some ways, but leads to detachment. I ended up finding his destiny more stimulating and interesting then gripping. There is also the inherent problem a book like this one poses when turned into a movie; how do you visualize ideas and thoughts. How do you visualize symbols? Film is a literal medium, and so it can't hide things the way language can, this film proofs that by coming up short in some of the books most magnificent sequences (but it improves on others); this isn't a fault from the filmmakers, what can they do after all, but it is a problem when they've chosen a story that is essentially more about mystical/spiritual question (going all new age here) then it is about the literal discovery of fairies.

Anyway, despite my few complaints, and despite the fact that this is not a mind blowing, life altering, hyper super fantastic religious experience of a film, I still highly recommend it. It's a rather unique and different attempt to play in the fantasy pen, and that is to be applauded I think. It's also pretty entertaining... if your idea of a good time is a bunch of Brits running around in gardens searching for fairies that is.

Intense film with Philip Seymor Hoffmann as the introspective banker with a gambling problem... A pretty big one. The presence of Hoffman and cards made me think of Hard Eight/Sydney, but this is a very different film from that one; the direction is never flashy or showy in any way, doesn't mean it's bland though, it doesn't seem interested in breaking any new ground, being revolutionary, it just wants to tell this sad story about a man who may be a decent dude, even though he's never exactly sympathetic, but who just can't control himself and his impulse to gamble. Not a lot of messing about, just straight to the point. It actually makes for fairly uncomfortable viewing, since the waiting can be almost unbearable. When is he going to loose? Why won't he stop while he's ahead? When are they going to discover his fraud? And why the devil do I care so much? Constantly interesting and intriguing, at least for anybody who's ever done something even though they probably knew the shouldn't, and Hoffmann is superb in the lead. Mumbling, fumbling, sweating, it's a real Hoffmann performance, but a great one of those.

Some script problems, things are introduced on account of plot progression and such, but they aren't really interesting in their own right, and the low-key style may get to some, but other then that a very good film

This film starts out great. We're shown the everyday life of our lead character, the depressive despair an illegal immigrant lives in, and it's done with flair and flow. Frears & photographer Menges deliver a colorful yet bleak view of London. Maybe it's because it's too colorful it feels so bleak, it's almost oppressive with all those garish colors hammering at us, and our poor insomniac lead. Then the first turn in the script comes, it's quite a kicker, and it carries the film for a long time, but in the end, it can't disguise how conflicted and problematic the film is, despite all the good intentions. It's an honorable goal to try and make movies that are about the "invisible people", about the complexities of the human existence, but it doesn't necessarily make for good drama. I mean, Darth Vader doesn't say anything about humanity, but he sure as hell is a great villain. This film also have a Darth Vader, except that he's supposed to resemble reality, he's supposed to be complex, but that of course wouldn't work with the thriller aspect, so... they try to have their cake and eat it as well. Doesn't work. You can't on one side go behind the headlines, seek real life and use it for fiction, while on the other hand, you're trying to make a fairly simple Hollywood formula thriller with a hero, some helpers, obstacles, and a bad guy. The two goals tear each other apart in my opinion. Maybe it can be done, but Frears doesn't succeed.

All the actors deliver good, or even very good, performances, yet for a guy like Benedict Wong it's a thankless task he's been given. All his attempts at making his character real and fleshed out, are fruitless when he's saddled with only lame explanation & exposition lines. He's only there as a help for our lead, as a cheap way of bringing us up to speed, and we aren't allowed to forget it for a second. Tautou is miscast, they probably chose her because she's fairly well known, and going by this one, He loves Me... He loves Me Not, and Amelie, she doesn't exactly define the word range. She's okay though, once you get used to her in the part, she can be quite affecting.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is magnetic in the lead, with small gestures and minimal dialogue, he can seemingly convey more then most actors can with monologues the length of an ocean... but his character is pretty empty. Essentially he's just the hero guy, the guy who can't be bribed, who doesn't shy away from problems, the helpful fella, the clever and sweet dude etc etc etc. It's a bit like the Tintin formula; an almost completely empty holier-then-thou lead character, which will hopefully lead to much identification, and then you surround him with all kinds of weird and grotesque people, hopefully no one will notice how out there they are as long as we got our low key lead. It may work in some cases, but in a film with some obvious political agendas, with important issues on its mind, it does seem a bit silly. I kept expecting the evil badguy to twirl his mustache.

I make it sound like I hated it, which I didn't; It was extremely well-made, with delicious photography (which works better in the beginning when there's only one character, the more fractured the script becomes, shorter scenes, crosscutting, the more does the camera-work call attention to itself), Frear's certainly know his way around actors and the central slightly gimmicky idea packs a wallop.

If only they had given the script one more spin in the typewriter; weeded out the worst lines (some surprisingly terrible ones pop up here and there), gotten rid of the most obvious points where the writer is talking to the audience in a didactic annoying manner, like we're four year olds, and maybe they could even have brought some of their complex views of life into the characterization of the people who aren't all good.

Anyway, it was a somewhat good film... just terribly terribly flawed.

Fascinating beautiful animated film that really shows what animation is capable of; creating worlds and people unlike any seen in the real world, and then give them life. Practically no dialogue is uttered, but the wonderful character animation does that it's never missed. Fantastic design work (weird bending people made of lines with swung in them that makes the Genie seem all conservative, and equally funny and weird angular people), great use of sounds and music, and a constantly surprising, touching and hilarious story (which resembled Spirited Away in it's dreamy progression and sudden jumps)... can't think of anything bad to say? They even integrated CGI and hand drawn animation beautifully.

I wasn't expecting much at all, but it couldn't even live up to that. Essentially its' a by-the-numbers American thriller that just happens to take place in a small English town. Maybe I would've been more forgiving if it was Hollywood-glossy, extremely violent and had a sense of humor about it's own lack of originality (if it in other words had more of a postmodern vibe and was shamelessly attempting never to be boring)... but instead it's visually low-key in that European TV kinda way, I constantly expected Inspector Morse or Dalgliesh to come through the door, utterly sure of its own cleverness and complexity (which is a bit silly since there's no surprises worth talking about and it's about as deep as Models Inc.) and completely devoid of scares. Not even the cheap scares work (with one notable exception I won't get into here), nor does it deliver as a drama, since the plot demands that the central character stay pretty empty (the good ol' trick amnesia is dragged out) and none of the other characters does much of anything but spout heavy handed exposition. The film just doesn't deliver in any kinda way. Ricci is excellent, dressed in tight jeans and tight tops she's quite the visual spectacle as well, and the acting by the mainly British cast isn't bad either, but none of that can turn the script and the lackluster direction ("from the director of Not Without my Daughter comes a haunting horror movie") into a good film.

Annoying characters, doing annoying stupid things, can be kinda hard to relate to, and they certainly where in this film. It's comedy classic to have stupid people doing stupid things, but if the creators also want the audience to be involved in the ups & downs of these characters they got to give us some kind of reason, any reason... they didn't here. Steve Zahn is likable and charmingly goofy, I guess they just hoped that would be enough...

I was fairly entertained anyway though, not because of the lazy faux-Tarantino time shifts, or the I-can't-really-be-bothered direction ("lowkey", if one wants to be charitable), but because most of the truckload of stars they had wheeled in has at least one or two amusing tricks they always can rely on if everything ells fails; I rarely laughed at the obvious "witty" lines or comedy set piece bits, but several times I snickered and giggled at some funny little look or tilt with the head.

The plot was just the usual losers & crooks doing stuff on account of some McGuffin; I thought those went out of style back when Two Days in the Valley was released, but it seems like I was wrong. Still, seeing Elijah Wood as a 17 year old hit-man who smashes chair on people's heads was at least something different, and Salam Hayek in her underwear is always nice, so despite the fact that I can't really claim this is a good movie per se, I would still recommend it for anyone looking for a very undemanding time killer.

Obvious symbolism and blatant catering to a disgruntled teenage audience shouldn't make for a good film, but this one wasn't bad.

It's slow plot wise, but the horrific opening image, and the constant inter cutting of the doll, made the film feel like one of those silences before the storm people always go on about. When the storm finally is unleashed, the film didn't disappoint or pulled the arty card ("we're aren't gonna show you anything"), the matter of fact style gore, and the long build up made these scenes very successful; grotesque, funny and scary.

The lone-freaky-outsider-out-for-revenge that is used in other horror/thriller films as well (Willard), actually have more in common with the revenge-fantasy picture then classical horror if you ask me, even if the whole traumatic-repressed-emotions-and-sexuality & the cold-and-uncaring-mother angle is very Psycho... doesn't really have anything to do with anything though, just something that came to mind. Anyway... the performances are okay, sometimes a bit rough around the edges, but it works, the use of indie rock wasn't always successful, but the score itself was good, and the lead character and the plot devices to get her on her journey was interesting enough to carry a feature.

Flawed, but pretty good.

Very entertaining riff on Little Red Riding Hood.

Filled with ink black humor, grotesque violence and anchored by a magnificent performance by Witherspoon, this film is never once boring.

Even when director Bright just lets the camera rest on the actors it's compelling; Kiefer Sutherland's initial conversation with Witherspoon is intense as hell because of the set up, because we know some things and so we read a lot into any little thing, not really because what's going on in the scene itself (wow, he touched her shoulder)... quite an impressive directorial trick.

Doesn't really lead to any great revelations, nor does it ever seem to be as interested in saying something important as it is in saying something naughty... but who cares when the ride rocks as much as it does?

Highly recommended if you like films filled with blood and rocking Danny Elfman music.