John N. Reviews

Contempt (1963)

I liked 'M' better.

[13 September 1999]

As Fritz Lang says in the movie, "I liked 'M' better". What was this movie about anyway? These characters, while unpredictable and erratic, are also very two-dimensional. Yes, Jack Palance reads a few good lines from his black book, and yes Bridget Bardot is cruel and beautiful with the shifting wind, and yes maybe Penelope really did despise Homer.

So what?

This movie is filled with incessant whining and dirty looks. At least the audience gets to witness another trademark Godard death scene (and Bardot's ass). I have a suggestion to speed this movie up. How about this: Stay the hell home if you don't want to go to Capri! Damn!

A colossal headache! Odysseus would have steered clear of this torture.

The Wild Child (1970)

Highly recommended

[23 August 1999]

If it weren't for several other strong works from Truffaut, this one would be my favorite. And it somes ways it is my favorite. The interaction between Victor and Dr. Itard was splendidly done. It was a joy simply to watch Truffaut on- screen directing the boy's progress, much like he must have done off-screen to get some very human reactions. At no point during this film did I think a scene was overdone or unnatural. It just seemed to flow from one small triumph to the next. My only complaint was that the whole experiment ended abrubtly, and so too did the movie. We are told by Dr. Itard that Victor is a extraordinary boy, but he has much training left to master. There were many points along the way where doubt lingered as to whether the wild child could be fully trained at all until the final scene. There we learn that Victor has a new home.

This movie was based on a true event which took place in the late 1700s. Unfortunately for the audience, the most pressing question of what became of Victor in his adult life is left unanswered. But fans of Francois Truffaut will find him even more engaging than in his role of Claude Lacombe in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". The roles are similar in many ways. If Lacombe could have taken home the child-like aliens to instruct, I'm sure he would have been much like Dr. Itard.

Killer's Kiss (1955)

A touch of inspiration but a very hollow ending

[28 July 1999]

With all the recent Eyes Wide Shut hype, I went back to take a look at this early Kubrick work. Yes, you can see some touches of inspiration in this period piece, but I think it really fell short. For its day, the boxing sequence was pretty good, though I was more impressed by straight ahead camera angles in Requiem for a Heavyweight. Kubrick's gladiators didn't even seem like they were taking hard shots at each other -- not nearly as hard as the sound effects would have you believe.

Anyway, I thought Irene Cane did a fine job playing a wayward girl looking for some purpose in life. She latches onto whatever lifts her spirit for the moment and then can so easily turn it away with a casual look. So near the end of the film when she's pleading for her life with her offer to leave her new lover to marry the thug she had seemed to take pleasure in spurning, we just aren't sure whether she is simply acting desperate or if she really can recant her affection so easily. And the main character, Davy Gordon, openly considers this too as he dashes through the window to save his own neck.

If the film just ended right there, with those threds left unresolved, it would have been a much better movie. Davy could have boarded his train to the West never knowing what became of his two-day girlfriend or the thug she tried to appease. And wouldn't it have been ironic if she were forced to marry that man -- like her sister was forced to marry someone she didn't love? That would have been a cruel twist of fate indeed!

Yet what we got was neither cruel or unusual or even mysterious. No, we got the standard Hollywood ending to a film which had done a good job of breaking a standard Hollywood mold to that point. If it wasn't Kubrick making this film, making that woman run down the stairs into her lover's waiting arms as the big music came up to signal the Happy Ending(TM), I would have just clicked off the TV and forgot all about it. But this is Stanley Kubrick!!!!!! Boy was I disappointed! The only thing I can hope for was that the movie studio forced him to edit his true ending and Kubrick wasn't in a position to reject them at that early stage in his career.

Oh well. See this movie if you're a Kubrick fan, but don't say I didn't warn you that the ending is completely Hollywood.

Gummo (1997)

Original, but in a familiar sort of way

[20 June 1999]

Well...

I spent a small part of my childhood not too far away from Xenia, Ohio and a large part of it in the South. I can't say I ever found myself in such a screwed up place as this one, but I know one thing -- if I did I would certainly want to go back and document it! Then I'd be perfectly happy if another tornado came by and leveled the whole place.

Watching this movie was like looking at those years through some really distorted mirror and finding recognizeable nuances of personality in it. And I can't say much of that was appealing. Neither was this movie, which is not to say the characters weren't compelling, because some of them certainly were. Give me an impenetrable glass bubble and a camera and I'll take my place in this grotesque circus. I like to watch, but I don't want to get dirty. Everyone in this movie was dirty...

That spaghetti scene and "I want a moustache dammit!" were worth the price of admission. I do have one suggestion, however -- it either should have been more contemporary or more distant. At first it wasn't clear if the action was taking place shortly after the tornado or long after it. But when the albino woman mentioned Pamela Anderson, that nailed down a time period for me. It would have been more effective as a period piece (sometime in the 70s) where the audience looks back on a really messed up town; or it could have been filled with more contemporary references which places a really messed up town not too far away from where you and I live.

Alphaville (1965)

Something to look back on

[30 May 1999]

Not a great film by any means. I didn't find much in watching this Godard landscape that hasn't been pieced together in some episode of the Outer Limits or Twilight Zone. There is a quirkiness to the film which does have its enticements. For instance, the Alpha 60 is perhaps the most philosopher-king-like computer of any on the screen; it sure goes far beyond the HAL 9000. Yet, there's not much eerie here and there's not much suspense to keep the viewer very interested in what's going on. The ending is fairly predictable and anti-climatic. In between all the characters are an odd jumble of movements and thoughts, which says something about the future of mankind, but not enough to make me care either way.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

The Phantom Minus

[6/10 · 24 May 1999]

Have we not learned anything?

How long has George Lucas had to make this movie? And this is the best he could come up with?

I keep reading rave after rave about the special effects. Is this what people really think other worlds might look like? It was all a hodgepodge of plastic/metallic gimmickery whizzing by at untraceable speeds. We never stayed anywhere long enough to appreciate the world we just left. It was a video game world, pure and simple. I'm not even going to comment on that Jar-Jar whatchamacallit.

Contrast this smoke and computer show with the pondering, methodical effects of 2001. That movie came out in 1968 and still has the most realistic other-worldly feeling of any movie in existence. We *feel* that world slowly pushing us in directions as we sweep over terra luna or dock in space station. And call me crazy, but the dark mystery of the Monolith combined with the erie sounds of Zarathustra are far far more menacing than anything George Lucas and John Williams have come up with.

Speaking of menacing, what a menace this movie was! Shouldn't the Jedis be even *more* worried about enslaved cultures than trade border disputes? Lame plot. Lame character development. And worst of all, who the hell is with this Darth Maul freak? Darth Vader he is not! A word or two of dialogue might be nice. I half-expected the guy to break character and ask where he can find tickets to a Bronco's game. When Vader first appeared on the screen, you knew in your gut this presence was no one to mess with. While the saber-scenes were impressive, and while I'll grant Darth Maul would have turned Bruce Lee into shish-kebab, he didn't even frighten a 15yr old girl/queen! Mike Tyson is more menacing than Darth Maul!

Finally, I pray Mr. Lucas isn't going to turn young Skywalker into the tempted Christ who fell from Grace type of character. Conceived by the Force and betrayed by some member of the Jedi Council (were there 12 of them anybody?) and led down the path to the Dark Side.

"All too easy", as Vader might say.

"Say it ain't so", might be our reply.