ghica Reviews

Funny Games (1997)

Nothing

[1/10 · 31 December 2006]

This is a slow and clumsy exercise in pointless violence. Think the rape scene in Clockwork Orange, but decontextualised and extended to feature length. Think poor acting, awkward dialogue and gauche 'metacinematic' features such as characters winking at the camera, referring to the audience and even rewinding the movie for an alternative take.

I read some of the positive reviews but I cannot see any of the redeeming virtues pointed out. The 'analysis of violence' excuse for indulging in carnage is perhaps the most overused in the history of recent cinema. Even if we buy this excuse, it is a poor movie. It is an analysis that doesn't say anything that hasn't been said before. The media angle has been exploited a lot better in movies such as Man Bites Dog (or even its poor rip-off Natural Born Killers).

More bad news: There is a Hollywood remake of this starring Naomi Wats about to be released. Same director.

Fata Morgana (1971)

You got to be kidding me

[1/10 · 25 August 2006]

This is not a movie. This is a collection of random shots taken in a fascinating part of the world, dubbed over with some random text. The footage is not that great and the text is not that great either. The end product is excruciatingly dull.

On the DVD, turning the commentary on can provide some entertainment value, as the director makes a rather deranged argument that this is a sci-fi movie. It's also fascinating to read about the extraordinary risks and hardship that the crew endured to collect this footage. Too bad it's rubbish. But I think "The Making of Fata Morgana" would be a fascinating film, sort-of like 'Ed Wood" was.

War of the Worlds (2005)

The Global War on Aliens

[6/10 · 31 July 2005]

This is typical Spielberg fare: an enjoyable but ultimately unsatisfying ride. Spielberg is the opposite of the "flawed genius". He is the perfect mediocrity.

This movie, like most of his previous, is one brilliantly shot and directed scene after another. Unfortunately, that's all that is: one scene after another. Something cool happens, then something scary happens, then something emotional happens. In the end it adds up to nothing. It's disappointing because the individual perfection of each scene tricks you into expecting something Big to happen at the end, which never does. Some kind of Message, some kind of Point, some kind of Thesis that each brilliant scene eloquently argued for. But then, when it ends it just does. And even that, it's not some brilliant meta-message of When It Ends It Just Does, nothing like it. You almost expect Spielberg to pop up after the The End and say "That's all folks, I hope you enjoyed the ride. Stay tuned for more in a year or so." It's dispiritingly vacuous. It's not art, it's circus masquerading as art. I think I may prefer movies such as "Independence Day", more honest about being just circus.

At one point a character says, referring to the alien invaders, "This occupation cannot work, we lived here all our lives, our forefathers lived here, etc" and my years pricked because it's the kind of topical clumsy and transparent metaphor that Hollywood does. Star Wars tried to pack some metaphorical punch, so why not WOTW? I now believe even this was accidental. There was no follow up on.

Dreamcatcher (2003)

What is Morgan Freeman doing in this movie?

[19 December 2003]

I'd say 'spoilers ahead' but there isn't much to spoil about this movie, really. It falls neatly into the 'it makes no sense' category. Ridiculing it is a facile and pointless excercise. Just recapitulating the story is enough. Here it goes.

An alien race, advanced enough to master interplanetary space-travel, is poised to invade our planet. Their ultimate goal is to destroy humans by infecting them with a parasite which multiplies either by eggs or by spores. For reasons left unexplained, the aliens choose not to carry out the plan in an obvious way, for example by dumping the infectious spores over a populous city. Instead, they land the mothership in the remotest corner of Maine and infect forest animals and the few inhabitants of the area. Alas, they also alert a special paramilitary force who almost successfully rounds up all infected people in a camp and wipes out the landed alien party using helicopter gunships.

Only one alien, camouflaged inside the body of a human he posseses, escapes the area. He is lucky enough to be picked up on some highway, in the middle of the night, by a truck carrying both dead infected animals and a live dog. He feeds the dead animals to the dog to obtain a mature parasite. Then he heads for Boston's water reservoir to dump the parasite there. He is stopped, at the last second, by a group of three people: a rebelious officer of the paramilitary force, a friend of the possessed with psychic powers, and another friend with even bigger psychic powers who is both retarded and suffering of terminal leukemia. The retarded friend turns out to be also actually an alien. In the supposedly climactic scene, the bad alien and the good alien leave their avatars and fight to mutual destruction using only their teeth, claws and spiky tails. The parasite is killed using a machine gun, and a little toad it gives birth to as it dies is squished just as it's about to jump into the water reservoir.

Showgirls (1995)

Post-ironic masterpiece

[5 August 2003]

You can only understand and appreciate this movie in the entire context of Verhoeven's work. I think his mission is to take the formula of the Hollywood blockbuster, which he understands perfectly (Robocop) and push it (Total recall) and push it some more (Basic instinct) until it explodes (Showgirls). What makes Verhoeven truly admirable is that he keeps pushing (Star troopers) until the movie becomes a pastiche of itself and of the genre. [Note: I haven't seen Hollow Man and I am quite curious whether it still fits the equation.]

On this continuum, as I said, all movies fit the blockbuster formula very well: very polished cinematography, great production values, ridiculous plot developments, sex&violence, vacuous acting, etc. Up to 'Showgirls' the formula has the expected effect on the movie-watching crowds; after it (i.e. 'Troopers') the very simple-minded movie-goer funnily enough still likes it on that wham-bang level, but most people perceive it as a satire of sorts.

This leaves 'Showgirls' the odd movie out. The ingredients are the same as, but the dosage is different: it's too much to take but not enough to be truly over the top. The movie hovers in a very precarious region around the top making the viewer very uncomfortable. As most of the reviews will testify, many feel guilty about watching it; many criticize it without giving motives ("the worst movie **EVER**!!"); many give motives that are absurd (plot holes? you need to take a movie quite seriously to dig for plot holes.) or incorrect (poor cinematography? quite the contrary.) or at best questionable (poor acting? not worse than anything with Tom Cruise in it and, besides, a certain mannerism of acting is part of what I call 'the Hollywood formula'.)

The greatness of this movie, or rather of Verhoeven's work as a whole, lies in what it says about the person who watches the film. I wouldn't call Verhoeven an artistic genius, because he might simply work mechanically, increasing the dosage of the ingredients with scientifical precision. He might do it out of curiosity, or maybe he even foolishly thinks the more the better. Alghough I strongly doubt he is a fool. The fact that he accepted the Razzie award for 'Showgirls' in person tells me he's in on the joke.

Anyway, kudos to him for keeping this grand experiment going all the way and not being phased by the critics, the public or the studios. If not a genius, at least Verhoeven is a director of great integrity.

K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

I expected the worst

[6 November 2002]

Watching movies on planes is an interesting experience, because often they are the kind of movies I would never watch otherwise. K-19 is exactly the kind of movie I would not watch, even if it were broadcast on network TV. The movie is about Harrison Ford facing difficult moral dilemmas--this premise leaves little room for surprise.

Indeed, there is very little surprise about the plot of the movie, but there are, usually pleasant, surprises in other places.

The first one is a rather successful take on moral ambiguity, moral dillemmas and even the inevitable tragedy coming out of that. Because the protagonists are not American the movie does not have to patriotically and unambiguously identify the good guys and the bad guys, exalt the former and demonize the latter. Also, it is not the case that the good guys must prevail. This leaves room for some interesting character development, especially the sacked Cpt Polenin (Neeson) and the terrified junior officer in charge of the reactor. Cpt Vostrikov (Ford) is also an interesting enough character, retaining his moral ambiguity until the very end. We never know what his real motives are, and we never know if he is for real.

The attempt of making a character-driven blockbuster movie is brave and I appreciate it. It is doubtful that it can work though. The explosions are not big enough to excite the crowd who goes for the blockbuster part, and the ambiguity of the movie is perhaps confusing. The character development, on the other hand, is still rather simplistic and it will not impress the more discerning viewer.

On the negative side, I thought the Russian-ness of the movie did not work very well at all. The crew had the stiff and caricatural demeanor usually associated to Russians by typical cold war movies. I just can't buy that that's the way the Russian sailor acts.

But I want to end on a positive, because I did like the movie, warts and all. There is some genuine high drama in the movie, especially the ritual of sailors preparing to walk into the reactor room to fix the leak, to certain horrendous death. There is also some genuine insight in Capt. Vostrikov comment in the conclusion of the movie.

Not bad for a plane movie at all.

The Legend of 1900 (1998)

A more general observation

[8/10 · 16 July 2002]

It is quite inexplicable to me why many North-American critics and viewers have a visceral negative reaction to sentimental Italian movies. By Italian I don't mean necessarily the language but a certain easily identifiable directorial style. So this category contains movies such as _Il Postino_, _Cinema Paradiso_, _Malena_, but also English language films such as _Stealing Beauty_ and _The Legend of 1900_.

What they all have in common, besides beautiful cinematography, is that they try, quietly and modestly but nevertheless ambitiously, to investigate some aspects of the very essence of the human soul. The emotion used by many such movies, especially the ones directed by Tornatore, is nostalgia: by understanding the pain of irrecoverable loss we are supposed to understand what we truly needed. These movies express perfectly HL Mencken's definition of the artist as "one who observes the eternal tragedy of man with full sympathy and understanding, and yet with a touch of god-like remoteness."

However, for reasons I fail to understand, the unavoidable sentimentality of these movies bothers many critics and casual viewers to no end. It's true that sentimental art exposes itself the most to irony and cynicism, but it is nevertheless disappointing to see many critics taking advantage of its vulnerability and indulging in hitting hard and hitting low against such movies. No wonder that art in general, not only movies, is nowadays almost devoid of sentimentality. Artists choose to clad themselves in critic-proof armors of irony and sophistication. Honesty has long become a dangerous no-win proposition.

So I say 'Bravo!' to Tornatore for having the courage to give us some bullshit-free insight into ourselves by showing us what moves us and why. I also say 'Boo!' to the critics who don't get it, and who mistake their expectations and biases for some kind of objective artistic standard.

Coyote Ugly (2000)

Perfunctory entertainment

[26 November 2001]

I wonder why many serious film critics go to the trouble of explaining in lengthy and clever reviews why "Coyote Ugly" is not a good film. What did they expect? What do they expect in general of mass-produced teen-targeted entertainment? To challenge, illuminate and move? To elevate the audience to a new esthetic climax? Are them critics familiar with with teens' tastes? I find such criticism superfluous, even self-indulgent. "Coyote Ugly" is simply an instance, undistinguished, of a vast and serious cultural issue. One can address the issue itself and use this movie as an illustration, but taking it at face value and analyzing it out of context is inappropriate. Movies like "Coyote Ugly" do not set out to deliver artistic or original or educational content; so it is unfair to reproach them the fact that they do not deliver such values.

"Coyote Ugly" is a successful movie both commercially and in that it seems to hit all the targets it aims at. This is the standard we should judge it by. Teen-targeted "dramas" could be judged, I propose, by technical merit alone: is the tempo of the movie high enough so that not to bore but low enough so that not to exhaust? are the actors beautiful and charismatic? are the characters simple enough not to create moral ambiguity but complex enough to be believable? is the story predictable enough so that not to challenge but reassure? Smashing soundtrack? Criteria such as these are more suitable. And I think "Coyote Ugly" delivers from this point of view. If there was, and I wonder why it isn't, an Academy Award category for perfunctory entertainment this movie would be a contender.

Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows (1998 TV Movie)

The real story of a make-believe hero

[9/10 · 31 January 2000]

My obligatory blurb: "The most emotional sports documentary since "Hoop Dreams".

In the WWF the line between reality and fiction is more often than not blurry. Brett `the Hitman' Hart lived in this twilight zone all his life, and played his character with so much skill and devotion that he ended up being that character. He also ended up in an impossible conflict with the owner and script-master of the WWF, Vince McMahon, a conflict which brings Brett's career to a cathartic conclusion.

In addition to a great story, the documentary provides incredible insight into the surreal and shady world of professional wrestling and its fans. Except for a rather slow beginning and a somewhat spooky and incongruous portrayal of the Hart family, especially the patriarch Stu, the movie is great entertainment, ranging from the hilarious to the moving to the shocking.

Wedding in Galilee (1987)

a bitter-sweet story of coping with powerlessness

[3 March 1999]

The movie seems more like a National Geographic documentary than like a fiction feature, which is understandable given the background of the director. Although at time painfully slow to develop and rather episodical and disjointed, the movie makes up for it in sensitivity, cinematography and subtlety. More than a story, the movie is a fresco of Palestinian rural society, split along ethnic, generational, political and gender faults. The strongest portrayal is of the Palestinian man: proud but powerless, ashamed and angry. Powerless to keep the Israelis away from their wedding, incompetent in planning and carrying out an attack against the Israeli soldiers, and ultimately downright impotent. Palestinian women by contrast are sensitive, sensual, peaceful and generally much better adjusted. Not the greatest movie ever, but a great way to understand the more subtle nuances of the Palestinian psyche.