Smooth_J Blog

Above-par family friendly flick

Smooth_J — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:26:45 GMT

The Spiderwick Chronicles rises above most family fare in that it boasts a truly interesting and provocative fantasy premise without taking itself too seriously. Yes, there are the customary family issues that set the backdrop for almost every family box-office smash, but this film actually incorporates them into the meaning of the story as a whole. The main character, Jared (played by the always remarkable Freddie Highmore), is much closer with his father who has recently separated from his stressed-out and seemingly depressed mother. And, while most films of this type would take this story line to cliched heights of ridiculous magnitude, Jared's loyalty for his father is instead tested and stressed based on what is actually happening in the main plot of the story, not thrown in to exploit the emotions of the patriarchal audience. And the sub-plot of Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn? YES!) and his neglect for his daughter because of his obsessive research in the "fantastical world around him" seems in fact symbolic of any of the characters' neglect of the realities of the world and what they have to face as human beings.

And, looking at the film as compared to any other film, and not just in contrast with other family films, there is one very noticable high point that I found very interesting. The villain, the first unloveable ogre put on the screen since the original Shrek, is not completely big and bad. It is in actuality one of the most vulnerable creatures (including the humans) on the screen. His undying fixation on getting the Field Guide (of the magical realm?) is an ultimate weakness, shown deliberately by the film-makers, most prominently during the final stand-off between him and Jared. During this struggle, the ogre is both seemingly invincible yet strangely pathetic in his attempts, heightened by a clever cameo of Jared's father (it's predictable, but effective--watch the film and see what I mean).

And the ending, both incredibly ironic and abrubtly hilarious, just goes to show what's great about this movie: it can be very, very out there without being at all pretentious. It is strictly fantasy, and not once does it try to be anything other than escapist fun.

Gosh-darn small-town melodrama...

Smooth_J — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:34:09 GMT

Fire in the Sky was a frustrating film in that it had such promise and wasted about 3/4 of its runtime on an uninteresting and poorly acted/scripted human story. The story really is amazing...I've never been a sceptic of these things, and if there's a convincing case presented, I'll be the first to defend its better aspects. This movie definitely presented some kick-ass evidence and a really cool story.

However, it was difficult to sit through and downright laughable during its drawn out interrogation and small-town angst sequences. There is nothing interesting about small-town ethics and stigma. And yet it continues to ruin promising movies, and it's making me sick. I first noticed this with the equally interesting yet stupidly crafted October Sky, and also the not-half-bad Rudy. It ran rampant in this movie, and I'm coming to the conclusion that this sort of tediousness in movies was really just a stamp of 90s cinema, and going back and watching all of my childhood favorites is proving to be a horrible and dream-crushing experience...

Lastly, let me just say that the sci-fi and terror sequences of this movie DID in fact kick-ass. The scene in the space-ship was genuinely terrifying in every sense of the word, and the way in which the flash-backs are created really are great. During these few yet powerfully engulfing scenes, I found myself wishing that the entire movie had revolved around them. I wished that they had completely skipped the whole back-woods investigation and terribly over-acted characters that made up almost the entire movie.

Neo-noir, blaxploitation gangster flick

Smooth_J — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:55:00 GMT

Jackie Brown is really an overall strange movie, not in subject matter but in style and content. It's an obvious Tarantino movie, with the ghetto conversations about seemingly superfluous topics and the long, meandering narrative with plenty of plot-twists and episodes, some labeled on-screen as such. It's really enjoyable despite its 2 1/2 hour run time, which actually seems to fly by without so much as a stutter in plotting.

This movie really made me realize just how great Tarantino is with story structure. Even his critics can't say that the man has such a distinctive and confident poise behind the camera, and such a grasp on the intricacies of typical story structure. He seems to be having so much fun with this movie, and effortlessly makes the story glide from plot-twist to plot-twist. It would be so funny to see what a convoluted mess this movie may have been in the hands of most other directors--but Tarantino doesn't even let you think about how extensive the plot is, he just keeps it moving.

All of the players are outstanding, the stand-outs being Pam Grier as a seductive and powerful Jackie Brown and Robert Forster as the lonely and quietly tortured Max Cherry. This is perhaps the best performance of the film, as he brings the coolness of a typical noir hero while hiding the sadness and longing behind his weathered eyes. Samuel L. Jackson is the epitome of cool, as usual, and perfectly demonstrates his outstanding charisma even when the role almost seems to cool for its own good. Even so, he's a very effective "baddie." Robert DeNiro is gives a nicely understated performance as an ex-con and now stoner who has trouble remembering where his car is during a sting (in a very, very funny, very Tarantino scene). Michael Keaton gives a convincing performance as an ATF agent trying to nail Samuel L. Jackson's character.

Something interesting I found about this film is how it mixed so many genres of movies while still having a distinctive Tarantino tone. Though it's seemingly advertised as a blaxploitation homage, it is more distinctively neo-noir. There are the very obvious blaxploitation elements, however, that keeps you from thinking that it is completely noir. And, obviously, it is a gangster "sting" flick. It is sort of fun to tweak conventions as to who would be the set hero of the film: Basic noir conventions would say that Max Cherry is the hero, being a weathered and collected old soul and trying to romance a mysterious and bad-ass woman. However, you might also say that Jackie would be the noir hero, in that she's definitely the main character, and is just as weathered and calm as Max Cherry, and is always smoking a cigarette. In terms of blaxploitation, Jackie is definitely the hero, with Samuel L. Jackson's Ordell being the trademark bad-guy. It's interesting that Tarantino made Ordell such a main character in the actual film, since you know him as much as you know anyone else in the story, and he is quite obviously a villain.

All in all, this may be remembered as Tarantino's weakest film of the 90s, though it is still excellent. His characteristic sequences are what make the film great, such as the scene in which Chris Tucker makes a cameo. It is such a quietly hysterical scene, with its seemingly pointless discussion and debate of a random topic followed by a quick and brutal piece of gangsterdom. It's Tarantino having fun with the style that he created in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and it's really a blast to watch.

Frequent Dry Spells

Smooth_J — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:43:49 GMT

Semi-Pro could have been an extremely funny movie. There are moments of absolute hilarity that had me rolling over in my seat, and several scenes during which I was shaking with uncontrollable mirth through several jokes. However, there were also times when I almost turned the movie off because it was so bad...that's something I've never done during a Will Ferrell movie.

Will Ferrell tends to keep the jokes coming at an alarming rate, no matter how cheap or stupid the gags are. Even last year's Blades of Glory was funny throughout, and it was probably one of the shallowest comedies I'd ever seen. The thing with Semi-Pro is that it often shies away from things that could've been VERY funny, or just mentions them in passing and only allows for a few chuckles. Half the jokes even feel recycled from Anchorman, such as Jackie Moon's (thankfully underdeveloped) obsession with his hair. Also, the fact that Jackie hasn't even had sex with his smokin' hot wife while hundreds of other do so all time is very funny, but the film often shies away from the aspects of this situation that could've been hysterical.

And what the f*ck (!!!!) was Woody Harrelson doing in this movie? He had no funny parts, and was generally, in Jackie's words, just "a bummer." The sub-plot of him and his wife only slowed the movie down. If he had been giving a role that he could've had fun with, maybe he would have been a nice addition to the movie. But he was just such a buzz-kill.

If you can tolerate Ferrell, you will tolerate this movie. If you are a Ferrell fan, you will laugh but still feel disappointed. But if you can't stand Ferrell, which is becoming a larger and larger population, do not bother. It's the type of movie that would seem great while intoxicated, but not great enough to even have any sort of recollection of watching it. And then once you think about it, it's probably not even worth watching straight, save for a few moments of absolute gut-busting hilarity.

A strange comparison

Smooth_J — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:39:11 GMT

I recently saw Eraserhead, after months of waiting for it come back into stock on Amazon.com, and I loved it. It was, without a doubt, the strangest film I've ever seen, surpassing anything I've seen as of yet by far. I watched it with my sister, and she was actually disturbed for several days after watching it and I felt really bad...especially since I found it so amazing.

Throughout the film, I kept thinking whether or not it was good that I saw the extremely similar Pi before I had seen Eraserhead. Pi is a very obvious tribute to this movie in more ways than one, and in more ways than the extremely obvious black and white (15mm?) film and the general surreal, bizarre tones. Both films are centered around a misfit, probably early 20s, disillusioned male in worlds and societies that neither of them can really even begin to understand. They both live in small, secluded inner-city apartments with very sexy neighbors that they are obviously very attracted to but are too scared to pursue. These are the basic similarities, but there are also some very strange (maybe not even intentional) tributes/similarities: Both films contain an electric drill to the head; in both, at some point, when a certain object is poked, a crescendo of sounds occurs until it is not being touched anymore; and both have a fascination of strange objects of paranoia, such as a computer screen and a disembodied brain (Pi), and a radiator and a mutant baby (Eraserhead).

The point of the matter is, these films are incredibly similar, yet extremely different at the same time. Their respective auters, David Lynch and Darren Aronofsky, are both revolutionary film-makers. Lynch is a legend, and Aronofsky is definitely soon to be one (especially after Requiem for a Dream, which is already considered a classic). But, the strange thing about Pi and Eraserhead being so similar lays in the fact that their styles are so inexplicably different.

Lynch's films are all slow-paced, brooding, dream-like odysseys into unknown psychological territory. He explores the dark sides of human conciousness by making incredibly weird occurrences seem like commonplace in all of his films, and despicable and often annoying characters that seem demonic yet unreal at the same time; unreal, of course, being the operative term for any work that Lynch has ever done (with the exceptions apparently being The Straight Story and The Elephant Man).

Aronofsky, however, makes his films fast-paced, emotionally draining assaults on the senses. Requiem was probably one of the saddest movies I have ever seen. It is a complete and total downer, but it is not by any means slow; it pushes forward towards its devastating climax at a breakneck, non-stop pace, all the while shocking and assaulting the viewer with images and scenes both beautiful and disgusting. Pi was just as fast paced; so much was crammed into the ninety-something minute runtime that you were left wanting so much more, for the film to go on forever. The quick edits, the strange sounds and phenomena associated with taking drugs (also VERY apparent in Requiem), and the brutally catchy techno soundtrack all make the viewer on the edge of their seat, in an entranced adrenaline rush unlike anything else. These same techniques are also used in the not-so-emotional (in fact, it's quite lifeless) The Fountain. I really hope that was just a hiccup in Aronofsky's career...not that it was bad, I just feel it 4 years too late and 10 million dollars underdone. (The story of his attempts to make the film are actually more upsetting than the film itself.)

Now, there's the issue in my theory that Lynch's films are also assaults on the senses, more "experience" films than anything else; that's true, but the styles of these two directors are so different that it's just sort of irrelevent to discuss.

Eraserhead and Pi were Lynch's and Aronofsky's (respectively) first feature films, which is an interesting comparison. The most effective explanation for this is that both films were very possible to make on a shoe-string budget, and would not have even worked if too much money had been spent. It would have given a too refined feel to the productions, instead of the achingly personal feel that they ended up with. Both films almost feel as if the main character is in fact an incarnation of their directors, written to express their inner-anguish and apparent paranoias towards the world.

The final point I would like to make pertains to the directions both directors went in their careers. At first glance, it seems like they took complete polar opposites in terms of film choices--however, after examining their filmographies, their choices are actually remarkably similar. Both followed a critically acclaimed (or at least critically noticed) low-budget debut with an emotional film that garnered world-wide and popular attention (The Elephant Man for Lynch, and Requiem for Aronofsky). Both films received Oscar nominations (Lynch's first directing nod) and other awards attention. And then (this is the most noticable correlation) both made bigger-budget, high-brow, studio sci-fi films that divided audiences and critics. Lynch made Dune, a classic wrong-move in his career, and he battled to get it made the way he wanted. The studio cuts literally destroyed the film. Aronofsky made The Fountain, which was also a commercial failure, and started its downfall years before with fights with the studio over budget and script issues.

And then, this is where Aronofsky's career cuts off; he has several upcoming movies that I am not quite familiar with, but I'm hoping will be returns to form for him. Lynch's next film after Dune certainly was--he went on to make Blue Velvet, which garnered him worldwide acclaim and yet another Oscar nomination (I have got to see that movie...). Lynch went on to have a long, illustrious career, and is still making movies and being an overall weirdo to this day. Hopefully, Aronofsky will take another page from Lynch's book and do the same.

And now back to a question that I find reoccurring on every movie site I go to: Which is better, Pi or Eraserhead? Personally, I connected more to Eraserhead's bizarre symbolism and dream-like tone. However, I definitely found myself to be more enraptured overall by Pi's fast-paced, crank-like hallucinations. Overall concensus?

Who cares? (Hah)

I tried to enjoy it...

Smooth_J — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:50:45 GMT

It should be duly mentioned that I have a very deep respect for the intentions of this film. Africa needs to get out of the gutter and start cooperating with each other, and stop thinking that they are helpless and need western support. It is a perfectly relevant message, and the film gets it across pretty well...I just didn't like the movie.

As a film, it cannot seem to decide what it is. It attempts to be a tribute to Bob Marley. It attempts to document how important Ethiopia is for the Rastafarian faith. It nobly tries to be a humanitarian doc worthy of a social studies class in trying to portray very U.N., very P.C. ideas towards the ultimate benefits of the unification of Africa. But unfortunately, it doesn't really deliver fully on any of these fronts, making it difficult to really respect the film. There are some powerful ideas present, and some very cool ideas put forth by the students shown for only about half of the film. But the fact that the students are really only present and shown in half of the film really demonstrates how indecisive the movie really is; it needs to at least stick with a topic long enough to make the viewer care about it if they are not already a bleeding-heart African activist.

The film does have a lot of interests to keep in mind: it needs to please the people who will buy the film simply for the fact that it has Bob Marley footage, it needs to please humanitarian activists in presenting it's "Africa Unite" ideas, and it needs to provide at least basic information on the Rasta religion that every idea in the film is so deeply rooted in. The film achieves its greatest successes when chronicling the history and importance of the Rastafarian religion in showing a 70 year-old Jamaican man and his pilgrimage to Ethiopia to see the concert. This man, a strong looking old man with long, gray, fuzzy dreadlocks, gets the most sympathy and important screen time of anyone exemplified in the entire movie. It is especially touching when he comes to the church of his religion, and cries whilst reciting a psalm that they say back in Jamaica.

As for the actual film-making, it is an extremely sloppy movie. For some reason, director Stephanie Black feels the need to use some sort of slow-shutter or slow-motion on the camera for about 50% of the film. It is almost agonizingly frustrating, since it doesn't even heighten the "cool" effect of ANY of the sequences, it just makes the film look like a crappy home movie. Also, many of the discussions and debates between the young kids are cut very short, not providing enough time to really see the insight and passion that is so clearly present in each and every one of them. Even the interviews with Damien and Ziggy are cut tragically short, and you really don't see much of them personally throughout the movie--most of their screen time is just in their musical performances.

The presence of the very graceful Danny Glover is welcomed in a few infuriatingly short scenes; however, I do realize that his overall presence would take a lot away from the film as a whole. The musical performances are outstanding, even if you're not a huge fan of reggae music, but even they are cut short at the worst times, making the movie very hard to actually get into, since you feel as though it would be so much more interesting just to watch the concert footage.

In summation, I would like to mention the one scene in the film that I found to be quite beautiful and very memorable, and it comes towards the end. It consists of black-and-white archival footage of Bob Marley sitting on a rock in some seemingly remote spring, with various shots of a small cascading waterfall. Bob seems to just be reflecting, taking the world in, and then smiles and runs over to the camera. Narration about his legacy is played the entire time, as Bob sits on a rock and (FINALLY) is shown smoking a joint. It is a potent, evocative sequence, the one scene in the film that I found to truly demonstrate his undying legacy. Too bad most of the film was squeamish and uninteresting.

Very "original!"

Smooth_J — Mon, 26 May 2008 02:10:54 GMT

The title of this review is not necessarily true...a lot of the film feels taken from some of Terry Gilliam's abandoned sketches and crazed idea chains. However, it is an extremely good film, and a very enjoyable escape into an irrational and horrifying alternate world.

Films about dreams tend to really get me...the depths of the imagination are completely interesting to me, and seeing them put onto film is just a magical experience. This film, with the outstanding direction of Jeunet and Caro, achieves this feeling seamlessly. The movie feels alternately like a bad dream and the type of dream you have after eating something weird right before you go to sleep--not necessarily a nightmare, but it certainly isn't happy, and you just sort of drift through it, taking in the bizarre scenery and the ever changing array of characters.

The difference between one of these dreams and this film is merely that you actually care what happens to these characters, and it is well-plotted. Somehow, it manages to garner both feelings...and it makes for a really great movie.

Ron Perlman seems out of place for a while, but he soon meshes famously with the film as a whole, bringing a good deal of emotion to "One" without overdoing the cheese-factor that could have been eminent with the relationship between him and Miette. Daniel Emilfork is completely perfect, playing a sort of Frankenstein's monster with the most selfish of intentions for his evils--he wishes for the ability to dream. This is a strange concept, but it's really interesting to see how they make it play out so well. Dominique Pinon is also very good, bringing the comic relief of the role of the various clones in the lab. He is also successfully insane as the "original" scientist of the operation.

My final concesus is that this is a brilliant film, but I'm also a sucker for anything surreal and abstract. It's definitely a bizarre, futuristic fairy tale, but it really has a heart somewhere beneath it's outer illusory layers.

Zombies...sh*t.

Smooth_J — Sun, 18 May 2008 16:51:37 GMT

This is one of those movies that is worth watching purely for the enjoyment of watching terrible actors do terrible things in a terribly plotted horror film. It was probably one of the funniest films I've seen in a while, simply because of the twisted enjoyment you get out of a film that is this awfully bad. However, it is respectable because at no point does it pretend to want to be taken seriously. Everybody in the film (except maybe a select few) and obviously everybody working on the film knew that it was God-awful, giving it a sense of irony and hilarity seldom achieved.

The hard-ass lines uttered by the members of an elite zombie fighting squad are especially awesome, as is the premise that the government is releasing a zombie virus upon its citizens. It's kind of obnoxious when it attempts to actually be a legit political commentary, but it's really, really funny when it's simply making fun of the premise and how stupid it is.

This was one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen in a long time. However, go into it with a sense of humor. I honestly didn't stop laughing the whole movie.

Decently intriguing film

Smooth_J — Sat, 17 May 2008 02:23:20 GMT

I noticed no one has said anything about this movie, so I figured I would be the first to say that it is a pretty good film. It is all in all a commentary on the 1980s Nicaraguan conflict, exploiting the story of a forgotten American "hero" during the time of Manifest Destiny. What it is really trying to say is that the idea of Manifest Destiny and ultra-patriotism still existed in the United States, especially during the 1970s-80s, when we just couldn't seem to keep our noses out of Central American affairs. It succeeds on that level, but not too many others.

The acting is at times pretty corny...Ed Harris successfully portrays William Walker and his many undeveloped personality traits, but even he slips up at times as his performance slips into camp. Peter Boyle makes a pretty funny cameo as millionaire Cornelius Vanderbilt, the man who funds Walker's campaign in Nicaragua and ultimately sets him up as dictator.

Some of the scenes are actually really cool, such a scene where Walker walks right down the middle of an apparent massacre in a village, telling his men to press on even though it seems all is lost. A man asks him what he is doing, to which he replies, "The only thing I know how to do...advance." A scene in which they burn the town of their dictatorships residence at the end is a little bit drawn out, with probably around 4-6 minutes of burning buildings and depravity of Walker's soldiers (called "Walker's Immortals"). It's one of many scenes that seems forced and just doesn't work...however, for each of these scenes, there is a few that do, which makes the movie an overall accomplishment.

The film's infamous anachronisms that appear as Walker's dictatorship begins to fall apart actually seem relatively in place in terms of the story. It is hilarious in most cases, and just puzzling in others. My personal favorite is the cover of Newsweek, where one of the smaller stories listed on the cover is something about gay priests. The main cover, however, shows Walker's face, claiming him as an American hero. This was really just to show the celebrity status someone gains when they conquer and exploit in the name of America.

While it certainly would not be recommended for the most cynical of human beings, it is an entertaining experiment in politcal satire. While it often delves into the realm of the hallucinatory and the bizarre, it mostly stays on its main topic, though it is very good at doing both. Especially in the final sequence, which I thought was the most impressive part of the entire film.

Look upon me! I'll show you the life of the mind!

Smooth_J — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:51:17 GMT

This is one of my new favorites of the Coen Brothers’ films. Which isn’t really saying much, considering I’ve loved every single one of them that I’ve seen (I have yet to see The Hudsucker Proxy, and Intolerable Cruelty/Ladykillers—not in much of a rush for those). I found this to delve just as deep into the mind of a writer as Naked Lunch, which also was greatly successful in that aspect. There are a good amount of similarities to each one—most noticeably the insanity and bizarrity brought about by the writing process, but something that I really noticed was the fact that Judy Davis was in both of them. And, even more curious, the fact that her characters’ deaths in both films bring about a new life into the writers minds, and helps them to finish their respective pieces.

The film is really meant to be a satire on the process of getting a script approved in Hollywood, though the theme of a writer’s torture is just as apparent. Michael Lerner’s studio boss is especially hilarious, and his blatant dishonesty and obnoxiousness provide some of the highlights of the film. Tony Shaloub is characteristically annoying as a producer who is stuck with Fink, trying to his script finished, but that just heightens the effect that the Coens are trying to put forth: That Hollywood sucks, especially for the lowly writers.

The signature Coen’s motifs and symbolism run rampant in this film—the shoes, the hallway, the bible, and most importantly the reference to the writing process as being a hell on earth for any writer. I found the most interesting performance of the film to be John Mahoney as the alcoholic writer that Barton looks up to, then envies and pities. His performance is a small one, but I found it to leave a large impact on me even after his scenes were over. I was sort of hoping he would have more scenes, but his absence was made up for by several other outstanding performances in the film.

The ending sequence in the hotel is especially great. John Goodman’s satanic character brings everything into that scene, and yet you still have a huge amount of sympathy for this “common man” who’s “not mad at anyone.” Though you realize that he is really a sort-of anti-Christ, there is no denying the sympathy towards him that you inadvertently feel. It is a disturbing scene, but very, very powerful…and as Barton leaves this literal Hell, everything about the film comes together; he has now finished his screenplay, and is leaving that God-forsaken place.

I’m still trying to sort out the meaning of the woman in the painting, whom he meets at the end. My guess is that it just means that he is now free, in the haven that he dreamed of the entire time he was writing. However, it could be something much simpler that I’m just missing…

Barton Fink, as with Naked Lunch, is an excellent portal into the mind of a writer, and the sufferings they are put through; even though we really shouldn’t have anything to complain about.