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Reviews
The Hurt Locker (2008)
Wow pretty disappointing
Well, I ignored this film in theaters.
I just saw it at home, and was excited. I figured it had to be at least pretty good if it won best picture for a war film.
It retained my interest for 20 minutes or so. after that, i kept waiting for something remotely interesting, that would classify this as a truly great film to occur. it just never happened.
Then, I kept waiting for it to end, looking at the time remaining bar, thinking what a bad choice buying this on PPV was.
Let me say first, to defenders who say "it's not supposed to be a documentary" to excuse inaccuracy. True. i have no problems with artistic liberties & creating a story. That is interesting. What bugs people like me, is that it was not historical inaccuracies, it was non-realistic silliness in terms of how soldiers fight etc. I support our US/allied troops, am not political and want them all to come home safe, but seeing them portrayed so irresponsibly is disgraceful.
Happily, there was no "USA #1" jingoism, as that annoys me too. the problem, was the totally unrealistic portrayal of those units in the military. It was like a more serious, better done Top Gun with IED's
It became silly watching the main character flout rules & the chain of command. It was nonsensical watching 3 guys just cruise around Iraq alone, without any type of escort.
Even more annoying, they are all alone somewhere in the desert with no support whatsoever. they see a group of British SAS operators, who are some of the most elite special forces on earth.
A small firefight breaks out, where the SAS team is essentially wiped out, by 3 insurgents from over one half mile away. but the American bomb disposal unit survives totally unscathed. an elite SAS man with sniper training cannot hit a target 850 meters away, but Sgt. Sanborn, with no sniper training takes them all out? including a head shot on a guy running, 850 meters away? With a weapon he has likely never trained on? There is so much of that type of nonsense that it is maddening.
I do not expect rigid adherence to detail or no leeway for artistic interpretation.
But i do expect semi-*realistic* situations in a film that won "best picture" for a war film! Running around alone off base at night? three guys with limited combat training splitting up all alone to "go rogue" in Baghdad at night? Rarely ever staying in touch with command on the radio? It becomes ludicrous.
As for "best original script" - Wow. shocked. I thought it must have been one hell of a script, for it to win over Tarantino for Inglorious Basterds.
I kept waiting for great dialog, some humor, interesting twists & turns, characters, conversations. Any hallmarks of a great script. Some insight, an original idea...anything.
I did not hear one single line of dialog that did not sound regurgitated. No inspiration. Nothing.
And the story was not *THAT* original. Compared to Tarantino's writing this was amateurish. this was the writing of a reporter, not a screenwriter. Just awful.
As for Kathryn Bigelow, well, it is pretty obvious that all the hype was to get her an award, which worked. It was a "time for a woman to win" selection.
She offered *NOTHING* new to the genre. nothing that would qualify her directing as the "best" of the year. Honestly, what did she do? She used shaky cam so much that i thought the camera had epilepsy. Shaky cam once in a while is interesting. It has now been going on for 20 years and has become a crutch for mediocre directors who can only do action/thrillers.
Using a shaky cam, first person approach to combat, has now been done umpteen times, in better, more engaging combat movies.
It is as if she is saying "Shake it more! This is supposed to be intense".
Let's face it...it was a woman, directing a war movie, and that was like manna from heaven for lots of folks in the academy who want to bestow plaudits based on what's "right", not based on what's best.
It is not as if she was some genius overlooked year after year, for amazing films and provocative and searing stuff that was changing cinema, but going sadly unnoticed by ignorant meanies. She's 58 and has directed 7 films in 27 years including such horrible flicks as Blue Steel, Point Break & K19.
Sofia Coppolla did *FAR* better with Lost In Translation.
I voted a 4, cause of decent acting, high production values and being an important subject about the soldier on the front lines. I did not give it a 1. it is not Gigli bad.
It was a war thriller, not much different than "The Kingdom" albeit more serious.
I don't know what the critics who praised this to the moon were thinking. normally i regard the critics overall as being right most of the time with some latitude. i could see calling this a good thriller, but best picture? Something stinks and it is the politics of Oscar season.
as far as war movies go, it is nowhere near The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Platoon or Saving Private Ryan.
For the record, i am not an Avatar lover, i did not see it. I find Cameron's technical nous to be impressive, but his story & characters are not interesting & his writing leaves much to be desired, so my grudge is not Avatar-based. Also I have not yet even seen 7 of the other 10 nominees. I have no ax to grind other then the money i just wasted when i could have seen it on HBO in a few months for free.
Man About Town (2006)
Absolutely Atrocious
Just when you think Affleck can't get any worse, he, and his movie choices do just that...reliably so.
It is hard to believe that someone with an academy award for screen writing (undeserved, boogie nights deserved it)can't select even a halfway decent script when it arrives for him. Or maybe people simply aren't sending him any good scripts because they have realized he cannot act.
Regardless, I cannot in good conscience give a full review of this film, since it was so horrid that i turned it off 40 minutes in to watch Meerkat Manor...because it has better acting and a better story.
chalk up another disaster for Affleck, a man who has dropped more bombs than the air force.
I really do not know what else to say...avoid it if you can...the theaters sure did.
Sling Blade (1996)
A Truly Great Film
I have to say that this is a very special film. It is is both sad and sweet, funny and serious, well written and well directed.
It goes to show that you can spend 100 million dollars on whatever latest explosion/SF movie and predictably wind up with a piece of garbage, and a small thoughtful well written and made film will soar above it every time.
Excellent film. Excellent acting. Excellent writing. Excellent music.
Some of the lines had me laughing out loud,
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and in the end, Karl's speech on the porch to John Ritter's character almost had me in tears.
"That boy lives inside his own heart...that's an awful big place to live."
a truly memorable film that I cannot recommend highly enough
Boyz n the Hood (1991)
Great Film
I was blown away by this film when I first saw it around the time of its release. It was the second film to really portray the "hood" and L.A. gangs to mainstream America, (the first being "colors")but the first to portray it from the point of view of black people living amongst the danger, hope and despair and it spawned dozens of imitators, but none lived up to the original.
It has aged well, and with the exception of the 4 or 5 rather silly, preachy "public service message" type things added in, it still packs quite a punch on many levels.
Ice Cube to me was excellent and Morris Chesnut was good as well. Gooding was very believable and this and his "show me the money" character were the high points in what has become a disappointing career to say the least.
Fishburne was great as was Angela Basset.
*************SPOILERS************** *********************************** ************************************ *********************************** ***********************************
personally, I found so many great scenes in this film, but I found the most powerful to be when young Trey and Furious return from their fishing trip to see Doughboy and Lil Chris being taken away in the patrol car with "ooh child" playing in the background.
that particular scene has really stayed with me all these years and was quite representative of the unfortunate net young black kids growing up in the inner city find themselves caught in from a young age, both from not having a responsible father figure around, to being immediately put "on the books" of the legal system and "branded" for life.
there are too many great lines to recite.
that said, I found the scene with the USC recruiter while touching, to be not very authentic. Obviously, the joy and the promise of the situation for Ricky and his mom are genuine, but they made it seem like the recruiter felt very out of place in the hood and was surprised by the family situation with regards to him having a son and the dangers of South Central (police chopper overhead etc.) I mean not genuine in the fact that USC is pretty much located right in South Central so everyone is familiar with the environs of "the hood" and not to mention, the football recruiters are usually the football coaching staff who are familiar with the kids being recruited in the L.A. area and the hardships they face on a daily basis.
USC has always recruited football players from the inner city areas of L.A. ... Watts, Long Beach, Compton, Carson, Lakewood etc etc. and this was the only scene I found a bit less than genuine...but I am being nit-picky.
all told, a great and important film that i enjoyed and will always watch a part of when it is on the TV
The Song Remains the Same (1976)
Not A Whole Lotta Led
First Off As a complete LedHead bootlegs and all let me say that this is not anywhere near Zep's greatest performances but as with everything else involving Zeppelin....their average performances and even average songs are still light years ahead of 99.9% of what has ever been recorded. At their best nobody is even in the same stratosphere....the fact is you may do a bit of fast forwarding but for anyone that loves the band there is a story behind all the scenes/fantasy sequences etc.which offsets whatever cheesiness abounds. Frankly all you need see is the opening live sequence of "rock n' roll" to realize just how many leagues ahead Zeppelin are of everybody else in terms of live rock. No opening acts, no intermission just the hardest of the hard ...the gods of rock who went at it for close to three hours at a time and outsold every band but the Beatles....mind you the Beatles have released god knows 30 albums and compilations whereas Zep 9 albums plus the recent box set, remasters, one comp and one live collection. My hunch is that Pagey is waiting for the right time to put out the Earls Court Show on VHS from 1975 which will truly show Zep at their apex. All in all any serious Ledhead will enjoy it knowing that it's just nice to see them considering the rarity of Zeppelin Live....an average fan probably won't get that much out of it...other than seeing the four best musicians of their time in the greatest rock band that ever was or ever will be. The ULTIMATE Rock guitarist Page, The consummate and ORIGINAL rock frontman Plant...the best drummer of the time Bonham and the master of the hard rock bassline Jones. You cannot go wrong watching Page pre heroin..and he was still the coolest even when he began heavily on it in later tours and getting to watch Plant before cigarettes completely destroyed that Klaxon alarm voice is a total bonus.......there are lots of better clips of Zep in the Vaults and you can see many on fansites around the web Negatives aside still a must have for LedHeads......or for prospective urologists studying the effects of jeans that are entirely too tight to wear.