If you are outside the streaming services entrapments, watch 'We Are The World: The Story Behind the Song' (1985) on Youtube, the original 50 minutes documentary on this event which this new Netflix documentary fails to expand besides adding present day interviews. Thankfully there is no editorial political angle here and it restricts itself to just tell the events. Somehow this 97 min documentary has LESS archive footage than the 1985 one. The restrictive present day streaming format can't beat the 2004 2-Disc DVD which has the original documentary and plenty of extras. This documentary just shows how much of the bloated catalog of Netflix originals are pointless remakes of existing media.
Reviews
14 Reviews
The Nutty Professor
(1963)
Lewis is just not that good
1 June 2024
Jerry here stretched himself beyond his talents. The rather ambitious idea for the movie calls for some depth but the whole thing is clumsily assembled by a very weak script and direction. In the comedic half, the pacing is very slow when compared to the breakneck speed from his earlier movies and his other 1960s offerings in general. Lewis really takes his time dragging this story maybe in an attempt to have some grandiose build up to the Mr. Hyde transformation, but it takes too long in face of very shallow characterizations and settings. Buddy Love was designed to be disliked by the audience but the character is just poorly realized by Jerry (if he he is indeed acting) by being too pushy and lacking the 'suave' type of attitude. The way he constantly fiddles with his cigarette is also weird, like an unresolved tick. So Jerry really lacks the dramatic storytelling chops to realize a more complex vision even for a simple script like this. Maybe that is why The Day the Clown Cried was shelved.
Hardly Working
(1980)
Amateurish affair
29 May 2024
The first half-hour of this movie is one of the most embarrassing pieces of filmmaking I have ever seen from a major Hollywood player. It is just a series of badly edited and assembled sequences of tired slapstick comedy routines (the worst being the very first one). After this, the movie almost picks up, but there is still a dated (for 1980) unnecessary sequence that interrupts the main plot. The film then becomes watchable with some semblance of a plot involving another random job. It includes the usual Lewis repertoire of physical comedy and even some wild, absurd sequences reminiscent of the Zucker Brothers' "Airplane!" from the same year. However, Lewis is too old to be so incompetent at everything he does, and it is a bit discomforting to pursue a much younger love interest. Lewis wrote young man antics not for current day Jerry. The ending is convoluted and messy. Jerry tried every trick in his writer-director sleeve, but everything feels too outdated for the start of the new decade. Bad and rather amateurish in spots but It is not as terrible as "Slapstick of Another Kind (1982)."
Slapstick of Another Kind
(1982)
What a strange movie.
29 May 2024
I have never seen a film so strange and off-putting. Maybe only Werner Herzog's "Even Dwarfs Started Small" (1970), among his other 1970s offerings, is comparable to this. While the German director was known for his rogue, madman approach to dubious arthouse movies, "Slapstick" is a strange Hollywood-backed effort with big names and a significant budget attached to it. Despite the professional production, the absolutely bonkers plot and grotesque creative choices leave you wondering how this project was greenlit in the first place and how nobody could see how unpleasant and especially unfunny the final result would be. The laughs are expensive for this one.
Baby Reindeer
(2024)
Superficial self-loathing diary
27 May 2024
People have been accusing Donny of being a unsympathetic loser protagonist, but in the 1970s this type of character was featured in many movies and made the careers of Jack Nicholson in the brilliant Five Easy Pieces (1970) and Robert De Niro's in Taxi Driver (1976). It's just as painful to watch them making odd choices that makes their lives miserable. De Niro also played a loser type dreaming to be a comedian in The King of Comedy (1982).
What was supposed to be character study comparable to Taxi Driver, on which De Niro's character Travis Bickle is also a vehicle of its author's personal memories, here Donny is just a dump of painful memories of Richard Gaad. You may have the facts on your screen but you have poor storytelling. The dialogues are not extraordinary and the voiceover is very annoying. The overbearing monologue was added as a shortcut to advance the plot or more annoyingly to describe just what is on screen. It's that kind of 'fish memory' narration.
It's surely provocative content but lacks depth. Just because you are dealing with strong themes it does not mean that the material itself is strong.
What was supposed to be character study comparable to Taxi Driver, on which De Niro's character Travis Bickle is also a vehicle of its author's personal memories, here Donny is just a dump of painful memories of Richard Gaad. You may have the facts on your screen but you have poor storytelling. The dialogues are not extraordinary and the voiceover is very annoying. The overbearing monologue was added as a shortcut to advance the plot or more annoyingly to describe just what is on screen. It's that kind of 'fish memory' narration.
It's surely provocative content but lacks depth. Just because you are dealing with strong themes it does not mean that the material itself is strong.
Tokyo Story
(1953)
Godzilla was created in response to this movie
12 May 2024
Okay, maybe not. But surely the accusations of an being uneventful, plodding movie are right, and that's a bit unfair. Japan at the time had a weird genre of realistic slow moving dramas so by design the movie is paced like this. To give the benefit of doubt to Ozu, he mastered this type movie, but in other hand, it seems that he was stuck in his old ways of filmmaking. It's hard to judge this movie out of its historical context, it's a successful movie on its own time and place. But having watched Late Spring (1949) an equally placid but more rewarding movie, Tokyo Story fails in comparison by trying to juggle too many characters for even less storytelling. Even Setsuko Hara is barely on screen despite being Ozu's muse and main draw for audiences. Not recommended.
Shall We Dance?
(2004)
Feel-bad remake of a feel-good movie
8 May 2024
I avoided this movie for 20 years. I was familiar with the 1996 original, that aged gracefully and is still a bliss to watch. This spineless remake shows that the problematic adaptation of the original movie setting to Western culture can't be solved by just throwing Hollywood money into it. The movie is so broken compared to the original that you can only resort to lament how memorable key scenes from the original were mishandled. The spastic direction, clumsy dialogue, dubious acting and poor casting was not part of the original. Susan Sarandon is the only one left with some dignity and real energy on this but the independent wife type is a key plot element misplaced here. The original movie is themed around insecurity but here everyone is acting cool for the camera. Maybe she should be the one dancing. Richard Gere is too charming in both real life and this movie. In the original the salaryman is well put together but is unsure about his looks himself. Lisa Ann Walter is just annoying and rude while the original character is blunt but loveable. Stanley Tucci clearly did not see the original movie and lost a golden opportunity for slapstick comedy. Jennifer Lopez is totally miscast here not because of her acting as her counterpart in the original was also not an actress. In the original the lady in the window is a sophisticated, delicate, cold and high status world professional competitive dancer. She is something unattainable for most men. Lopez is a sexualized version of this idea so the stakes are lower here. I tortured myself out of curiosity and I regret the time wasted. Long live Shall We Dansu!
Surrealistic Seinfeld
25 April 2024
A movie about nothing. That's the pitch. If you are familiar with the television sitcom series you will find some common elements but that's about it. Obviously the movie is not an empty vessel for gags but for Luis Bunuel usual jabs at his favorite targets in society: the bourgeoisie and the Church. Bunuel trademarked surrealistic gimmicks are here and cranked up to maximum. Several times the rug is pulled under the viewers, but unfortunately at their expense by the masterful troll director. If you are willing to play along Bunuel's inside jokes this movie is quite fun and entertaining otherwise it's a clumsy experiment in narrative from a tired director.
Forbidden Films
(2014)
Documentary with zero original research
21 April 2024
The premise here is that there are a couple of dangerous German WW2 of movies securely locked in vaults and modern day (for 2014) reactions to them and the justification for their censorship. That's the "documentary". A lot of present day discussion with academic people and students but no historical analysis in either political sense or biographic details. Those movies just "exist". Perhaps the more entertaining part is the collective hysteria regarding the movies shown and praise for how powerful and entertaining they are despite they coming from a distant past. Well, fast-forward to present day big entertainment and corporate news washes out the population with ideological and state-sponsored propaganda.
Shin Godzilla
(2016)
Cut. Line. Cut. Line. Cut. Line
16 April 2024
That's the pace of editing and acting for a huge chunk of this movie. The bureaucrats are just shouting nonsense just as they appear on camera, constantly. There is no reaction, acting or rhythm to the scenes and it is totally designed like this by its troll director. An strong but awkward statement about a cold and machine-like government response but bad movie making. The actual action parts are stylish and well executed so be prepared for both extremes of excitement. The rate of this movie in this score system is five stars out of ten. That's my review at the time of this writing. Godzilla forever.
Bobby Deerfield
(1977)
Infuriating, clumsy movie
14 March 2024
Part of Hollywood was in love with European cinema, so they did their best to bring the style overseas: by making a shallow copy. This time the went to the lengths of filming on location, that's a bonus. The film looks gorgeous but it's the only good thing going because the movie is deadlocked on two awkward characters that do not reveal much of themselves.
Pacino is a write-off on this movie. Trying to be both the 1970's anti-hero archetype and the European man wandering from scene to scene, he is a very unsympathetic, uninteresting and boring protagonist.
Marthe Keller's character, Lillian, is a character that tries to be interesting but ends up being just annoying. My guess is that she originally was supposed to be some blunt teenage girl (the type of pairing that European directors love), but here passes just an immature confusing woman. Not good but is still better than Maria Schneider on The Passenger (1975), another dubious crossover of European and Hollywood cinema.
The direction is clumsy, lacking in subtlety so it's obvious when the director is forcing some setting or situation. Almost borderline parody of arthouse movies of the time.
Pacino is a write-off on this movie. Trying to be both the 1970's anti-hero archetype and the European man wandering from scene to scene, he is a very unsympathetic, uninteresting and boring protagonist.
Marthe Keller's character, Lillian, is a character that tries to be interesting but ends up being just annoying. My guess is that she originally was supposed to be some blunt teenage girl (the type of pairing that European directors love), but here passes just an immature confusing woman. Not good but is still better than Maria Schneider on The Passenger (1975), another dubious crossover of European and Hollywood cinema.
The direction is clumsy, lacking in subtlety so it's obvious when the director is forcing some setting or situation. Almost borderline parody of arthouse movies of the time.
The Real Charlie Chaplin
(2021)
Unwatchable
10 December 2023
One of those documentaries which the style and attempt of sophistication is so overbearing that detracts from the subject and becomes very annoying. It comes as bad as Joy Division (2007).
The narration is atrocious. The sparse short sentences are alike Tik Tok automated voices. The 2020s marked de death of attention span and this is leaking to general entertainment after the reality TV era.
The writing is also not great in any means. I think the most meandering of those pretentious Youtube essayists could come up with more concise information.
The art direction while trying to mimic the silent-film era, tries to blend too much with real artifacts causing confusion.
Watch the old documentary "Unknown Chaplin" (1983) instead.
The narration is atrocious. The sparse short sentences are alike Tik Tok automated voices. The 2020s marked de death of attention span and this is leaking to general entertainment after the reality TV era.
The writing is also not great in any means. I think the most meandering of those pretentious Youtube essayists could come up with more concise information.
The art direction while trying to mimic the silent-film era, tries to blend too much with real artifacts causing confusion.
Watch the old documentary "Unknown Chaplin" (1983) instead.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes
(2022)
Too close to reality
3 December 2023
I became very puzzled by this documentary. Having just watched the 2019 series, it's ridiculous the similarities in structure and storytelling. Obviously it's the same event being covered but specific choices make either the drama or the documentary to look like a lesser effort given which one you watch first. They are too similar.
The impressive real colored footage covered in Lost Tapes would shape the series visuals anyway. But the case of the firefighter and the pregnant wife is too much of a coincidence for a dramatic element to be present on both. My wild guess is that this documentary was ready long before 2022 and the fillmakers just built upon it and it kinda spoils the brilliance of both productions.
This documentary should have been reedited to take a different approach from the series.
The impressive real colored footage covered in Lost Tapes would shape the series visuals anyway. But the case of the firefighter and the pregnant wife is too much of a coincidence for a dramatic element to be present on both. My wild guess is that this documentary was ready long before 2022 and the fillmakers just built upon it and it kinda spoils the brilliance of both productions.
This documentary should have been reedited to take a different approach from the series.
The Wind Rises
(2013)
I wanted to see a masterpiece
9 October 2023
What I got was a rehash of old Ghibli ideas mushed together. It's formulaic Ghibli as performed by the master himself. It shows that even veteran animators can lose their sense of timing.
This movie pales compared to Porco Rosso (1992), largely the same movie but better paced more clever and fun. Porco is so much interesting character than real-life Jiro that Miyazaki out of thin air created a non-biographical romantic pairing to have anything at stake.
But Miyazaki script is so unimaginative that the non-existent Jiro's wife has a life threatening sickness just like the mother in Totoro (1989). In both movies this is the tension point for a largely uneventful movie.
Finally Jiro is chasing his creator's dream while dreaming weird stuff just like Whisper of The Heart (1995). Another already tried idea.
The movie is pretty as any other Ghibli movie. The character design is akin to early 90s Ghibli instead of the ugly designs of the late-90s (Chihiro is so ugly). But God this movie is boring.
The traditional jerky animation is there. Ghibli uses TV animation pacing in all their movies for whatever creative reason. It's not detrimental but after the groundbreaking Akira (1989) this particular studio is stuck in old ways. Even the jarring 3D shots mismatched in frames per second from Princess Mononoke (1997) are here. At least the machines are still hand-draw.
This movie is a sure misfire because Miyazaki did not take any risks beyond its controversial setting. Jiro's sin is not being a hero or a villain but terribly boring.
This movie pales compared to Porco Rosso (1992), largely the same movie but better paced more clever and fun. Porco is so much interesting character than real-life Jiro that Miyazaki out of thin air created a non-biographical romantic pairing to have anything at stake.
But Miyazaki script is so unimaginative that the non-existent Jiro's wife has a life threatening sickness just like the mother in Totoro (1989). In both movies this is the tension point for a largely uneventful movie.
Finally Jiro is chasing his creator's dream while dreaming weird stuff just like Whisper of The Heart (1995). Another already tried idea.
The movie is pretty as any other Ghibli movie. The character design is akin to early 90s Ghibli instead of the ugly designs of the late-90s (Chihiro is so ugly). But God this movie is boring.
The traditional jerky animation is there. Ghibli uses TV animation pacing in all their movies for whatever creative reason. It's not detrimental but after the groundbreaking Akira (1989) this particular studio is stuck in old ways. Even the jarring 3D shots mismatched in frames per second from Princess Mononoke (1997) are here. At least the machines are still hand-draw.
This movie is a sure misfire because Miyazaki did not take any risks beyond its controversial setting. Jiro's sin is not being a hero or a villain but terribly boring.
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