radiogerbil Blog

I just saw "Ratatouille" tonight, and I'm baffled as to why it's receiving such rave reviews.  It's not bad, but it's not that good either.  It just...is.  It's as forgettable as "Ghost Rider."  Hardly anything stands out.  The story is stale, there's very little humor (unless you enjoy endless slapstick), and the characters are shrug-inducing.  The animation is very good though.  It's impressive to see how far Pixar has come technically.  I just wish that the story was better executed.  There's only so much humor you can get out of a kid being controlled by a rat.

Ironically, most of the humor came from identifying which Disney movie stories were almost outright copied in the script.  There is, of course, the very obvious nod to "The Little Mermaid" when the father rat warns his naive son to "stay away from humans, they're dangerous" among other similarities.  And there's the "American Tail" reference with him being separated from his family, drifting through the sewers, and finally running into them in the big city.  And then there's the very odd similarity between the head chef and Gollum.  Many of his facial expressions nearly had me yelping out, "Gollum!  Gollum!" or "My Precioussssssss!" as he leaps for the papers the rat steals. 

A friend called this film delicious.  To me it tasted like stale graham crackers.  It's fine in a pinch, but it's not all that great.

Overall, it's not bad or great.  It's just ok.

(By the way, I felt the same about "Monsters, Inc." and "Finding Nemo."  So now you know if you can heed my review.  If you loved those movies, you'll enjoy this.  If not, then heed me...heeeeeed meeeee!)

I always feel better about myself after watching a movie like “Closer” because the characters are so messed up that they make me look angelic.  Rife with graphic sexual dialogue and nudity, the film isn’t for everyone, but it’s a well-done and raw film that strips mankind down to its basest instincts and lays its feelings bare for all to see.  I liked it for its honesty and powerful dialogue.  I would even watch it again, but, like “Sin City,” it left me feeling a little dirty after the credits rolled.

Clive Owen is as masterful as ever, and Natalie Portman does very well also.  Jude Law is so good at being detestable, and he’s very detestable in this film.  Julia Roberts said in an interview that she hated her character in this movie because she’s so disgusting, and she is.  Damien Rice has two songs in the movie (“The Blower’s Daughter” & “Cold Water”) which adds a lot of depth and meaning to the movie because the characters, for all their selfishness, still cannot take their eyes off of each other.  This has disastrous results for some but delivers hope to others.  Ultimately, it’s about forgiveness and being able to see past the filth to see the person you love and stick with them through their follies.

Neo-Noir is an odd beast.  It encompasses everything from “L.A. Confidential” to “The Usual Suspects” to “Pulp Fiction.”  One of the latest additions to this genre is the satirical “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.”

Whereas most neo-noir films take themselves and their content seriously, KKBB makes fun of the genre while also remaining true to its finer points.  Like other neo-noir films, nothing is as it seems and plot twists fly around as fast and plentiful as bullets.  This film's difference is that the lead character knows he’s in a movie and pokes fun at the narrator device as well as miraculous survivals and how-did-I-not-think-of-that plot twists.

The story begins with our lead man running away from cops after trying to boost some toys.  In his haste, he accidentally runs into a movie audition and manages to land the part.  He’s then flown out to Hollywood where a private detective starts giving him lessons on how to be a convincing detective on screen.  On his first night of training, they accidentally witness a murder that embroils both of them in a convoluted murder mystery/thriller. 

Throughout it all, our unassuming lead man hooks up with his high school crush (who is, of course, somehow embroiled in it as well) and wittily slices up L.A. life in a sharp script that would make Joss Whedon proud. 

The film’s greatest assets are its sharp, sarcastic dialogue and bizarre plot twists.  Despite its rambling, obtuse ending, the film is very enjoyable and highly recommended.

In keeping with my Criterion binge, I watched the original, full-length version of "Beauty and the Beast," and it’s very different from the Disney reincarnation.

In this 1946 French film, Belle is the youngest of four children of a recently impoverished merchant. Her two older sisters spend all their day pretending they are still rich and try to get into fancy parties while they make Belle slave away at home doing the chores. It was very similar to Cinderella in that regard except there were no benign mice singing her name. Besides the previous notes, the major differences between the original and the Disney version are as follows:

- She has an older brother whose best friend tries to woo Belle.

- Her brother’s gambling debts impoverish the family.

- Her father isn’t an inventor.

- Her father gets lost in the forest on his way back from the port, and the beast only attacks him when he tries to take a rose back for Belle.

- The Beast lets the father return home only if one of his children is willing to be punished in his stead.

- The Beast isn’t ferocious at all to Belle and instead humbles himself before her whenever possible. He’s more of a lapdog than a beast.

- There aren’t any talking dishes, no dancing cutlery, no magical dressers, and no musical numbers.

- The roses are just one of four elements in the Beast’s magical kingdom.

- Spirits turned him into a beast in order to take revenge on his parents who didn’t believe in magic.

- When Belle breaks the spell by looking kindly on the Beast, he turns into a more handsome version of her brother’s best friend.

- Instead of the dark castle turning into a kingdom of light, the Beast / now prince takes Belle in his arms and together they fly away to a magical kingdom.

The gerbil’s verdict: 3 dancing teapots out of 5. I prefer the Disney version.

It's easy to say you're a pacifist, but how does one live it when they are truly put to the test?  In this film, Dustin Hoffman's character is a mild-mannered mathematician who moves to a small English town with his wife to escape from the rampant violence in America.  Ironically, violence and degradation are all that meets him in his new home.

Immediately after he moves in, he and his wife are constantly harassed and abused by his neighbors which culminates in a brutal violation of his wife by a couple local men.  No wonder it was banned in Great Britain.

Though he never discovers the violation, his idealism is put to the ultimate test when a group of drunken locals try to storm his house to kill a man he is caring for.  The ensuing violence is so strong that it is still disturbing though the film is over thirty years old.  The last half hour of the movie is what "Home Alone" would have been like had Alfred Hitchcock directed it.  Tense, graphically violent and poignant, Hoffman has to choose between living in his theoretical ideology or living in the real world.  A must for anyone interested in psychology, sociology or any other -ology.  Man, this is a powerful movie.

Spike Lee’s explosive race drama, "Do the Right Thing," is what "Crash" should have been. Whereas "Crash" had too many vignettes to fully develop into impacting stories, "Do the Right Thing" tightens the focus to the racial tensions between African Americans, Italians, Koreans and Mexicans all living together in one city block in NYC. Set all during one day in the middle of a vicious heat wave, the film uses the heat to set the characters on edge and disorient the audience. 

The center of this volatile drama is "Sal’s Pizzaria" - the neighborhood pizza shop. Run by Sal and his sons for 30 years, the place is a fixture. He knows everyone, and everyone knows him. All is well until one radical black man becomes furious that Sal only has pictures of Italian-Americans on the wall. Sal kicks him out for disruption, and so the guy sulks around the neighborhood, trying to rally a boycott of the pizzaria. He only succeeds in recruiting one guy, but it proves to be enough. The simmering tension finally explodes when both the black radicals and Sal react irrationally and get into a fight which snowballs into a huge disaster for all parties.

Strangely, most of the film is quite humorous. Though there is a growing palpable tension simmering just below the surface, the humor seems to promise a peaceful conclusion to this race drama, but this is Spike Lee. One character constantly blares the rap song, "Fight the Power," over his boombox wherever he goes which would suggest that Lee is encouraging violence. It would seem that way except for his raw portrayal of the blacks’ own foolishness and mob mentality. While the tension simmers, a black radio jockey constantly appeals for peace and understanding. It’s as if Lee doesn’t know whether or not violence or peace is the best path to helping his people. Early in the film, a retarded man holds up a picture of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. together and consistently badgers the neighbors to buy the pictures. At the end of the film, Lee quotes King’s stance against race violence and X’s stance for race violence. I think the film tries to depict the consequences of both peaceful and violent race resolutions.

This film is much stronger than "Crash" because it intensely focuses on a few, tightly-interwoven conflicts in a claustrophobic setting. "Crash" instead gave a broad overview on race relations in L.A., and while that was insightful, with the exception of one vignette, it didn’t impact me.

My only complaints with Lee's film are its weak ending and that several scenes lose their dramatic tension due to the film’s annoying upbeat jazz soundtrack.

Johnny Depp is one of our finest actors, but even he has some duds.  Case in point, "Dead Man."  The premise sounds promising when it tells us that Depp plays a mild-mannered accountant who gets accused of murders he didn't commit and has to go on the run to evade the bounty hunters.  It sounds like a thrilling adventure, but it's not.  The pace is very lethargic, and Depp spends most of the film looking bewildered.  The strong points of the film are the random bizarre characters and killer soundtrack.  I should have known it would be weird  when the credits named Indie filmmaker icon Jim Jarmusch as its writer and director.  If you're looking for a rousing movie, keep searching the aisles, but if you're in the mood for a very offbeat and weird film, check it out.  If nothing else, its awesome soundtrack and black-and-white cinematography will leave you feeling smarter than all those mainstream viewers.