KubrickCube Reviews

Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame (2007)

Courageous in many ways

[10/10 · 22 September 2008]

To tell a story without telling the audience what they should and shouldn't feel is courageous in any age; in this age of zealotry and cynicism, and especially in the film makers' own region, it is almost messianic...siddhartic even.

And of course, what better way to cut through the bu11shit and get to the facts than to lay them out from a child's perspective? The innocent child who still has a free will shows us how the world might be if conditions were better; the innocent children who have been indoctrinated, thereby mirroring the adult world, show us how the sorry world of today really is.

Children represent the truth, but not for long: the battle for their souls is the battle for the future.

Death Proof (2007)

A word of explanation to people who say the dialogue is boring...

[10/10 · 24 November 2007]

A word of explanation to the many reviewers who say there's too much dialogue in this film and that it's boring or irrelevant: it's called subtext.

With subtext, what the characters mean is hidden just below the surface of the crap they talk, just like in real life. The writer doesn't tell you how to think or feel. The characters reveal themselves slowly. It's subtle. You have to listen carefully.

Watch the film again and pay attention this time. You might learn something.

Alternatively, rent a Bruckheimer and stop burdening the world with your opinions about this fantastically entertaining film, full of subtlety, humour, eroticism, thrills and spills.

Crumb (1994)

Close to the bone

[10/10 · 23 March 2007]

It's amazing to read the negative critiques for 'Crumb'-- the venom poured onto it by reviewers with little explanation as to why they reacted so strongly. Just like the negative critics in the film itself, the critics here take everything Crumb produces at face value and lash out blindly with declamations of misanthropy, misogyny, racism and whatever other damning indictments they can lay their hands on. It seems the more emotionally honest and direct a film is (or a cartoon strip for that matter), the more people will hate it.

I suppose if you hold a mirror up to someone's ugly face, you shouldn't expect him to be grateful for being given the chance to see the way he really looks, even if this is the way we all really look.

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)

Why is Fritz Lang above criticism?

[4/10 · 23 February 2007]

The man could do no wrong, it seems. He could make a two-hour film from a story that could have been told in fifteen minutes, full of dead ends, boring, irrelevant fluff to make up the time, dull action scenes and shameless pretentiousness, and yet still the public lavishes him with unconditional love.

I loved Metropolis, but Metropolis was everything this film wasn't: a coherent story with balls that knew what it was trying to say.

I could go on for a good while yet, mentioning for example the 'influences' from other films that verge on plagiarism (the madness scene in the asylum looked as though it was lifted straight out of the 1930 'Dracula'), or what indeed that whole scene had to do with anything, but what would be the point? I would only get lynched by an angry mob of acolytes from the Cult of Fritz Lang.

Don't waste 7000 precious seconds of your life watching this film as I did. You won't get them back. If you want some good German expressionism, that's entertaining as well as intelligent, treat yourself and watch Metropolis, The Golem or Faust instead.