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Reviews
Lockout (2012)
Needlessly bad sci-fi action flick. Tolerable if you disengage your brain though.
Luc Besson's projects are hit (Fifth Element, Leon the Professional, La Femme Nikita, Taken) or miss (too many to list). This project is a dud and the thing that is frustrating is, it didn't have to be. If they hired someone to tune up the train wreck of a script, it could have been a decent film.
Problems (of the non-scrip variety): Atrociously bad computerized special effects in the beginning. The scene could have been cut altogether, so the decision to include SciFy Channel quality special effects is somewhat baffling.
Problems in the scrip: The hero's dialog is almost completely composed of sarcastic one-liners. It didn't matter if he was talking to superiors he hated, superiors he liked, evil bad guys, or innocent victims. He reacted to everyone the same way and didn't actually SAY anything meaningful. It is just one generic sarcastic comment after another. No actor could go through an entire movie uttering nothing but sarcastic wisecracks and carry the movie.
Additionally, every single plot development in the film was utter nonsense. Give me a good film, and I am willing to suspend disbelief a bit, but every single thing that happens is stupid in this one. Closing doors in the future causes nitrogen buildup and swift death. Why? How? Answer: because we needed a reason for the hero to rush. A decent screen writer could have written in a sensible reason for the hero to rush, but no. They decided to have him rush because of magic nitrogen. 500 convicts are on the station, they have one goal: capture the girl. They have nothing else to do except twiddle their thumbs. So what do they do? They stand around and twiddle their thumbs and leave our hero to wander about the space prison as if it is vacant. The space station is doomed to fall out of the sky and kill all aboard. What do do? Send in a space fleet (with heavy casualties) to kill them all before nature takes it course. Why would anyone do this? That may not sound too bad, but every plot develop is packaged with a plot hole. I listed 3, but in fact, the movie provides a a stupid plot element coupled with a plot hole at least every 5 minutes.
There are MANY better movies you should spend your time watching instead of this one.
CQ (2001)
I have seen many movies that irritate me. This is one of them.
First off, I LOVE Italian genre pictures from the 60s and 70s. I love the look, the plot, the acting, the music, the sets, the fashions. The entire thing.
This movie had so much promise, but flushed it all down the toilet. For me the fatal flaw was the main character, Paul. He was not likable. In the least. I could see no reason that he should have any friends, or a girlfriend, or a job. He is a self-absorbed schmuck. In every scene, he has the ability to make his life better (or at least push the plot in a direction that would be mildly interesting). He COULD say or do something to improve his relationship with his girlfriend. He COULD say or do something to make the woman he is attracted to like him. He COULD say or do something to make his boss excited about his potential. Alas. Paul does almost nothing, and what little he does is irritating and/or cringe-inducing. He squints. He furrows his eyebrows. He stares. A lot. He utters the minimum amount of dialogue necessary to interact with the other characters. His utterances are all awkward and and painful to experience. Note that this appears to be the goal of the writer, director and actor. I give them credit in that they achieved their goal. I simply do not appreciate what they have achieved.
Paul is not the only fictional character to be a man of inaction. Alvy in Annie Hall. Or Hamlet. However, Paul is certainly no Hamlet and he isn't even an Alvy. Hamlet frustrates us with his inaction and digressions. However, our frustration with Hamlet is ultimately relieved. We are left with a sense of satisfaction once Hamlet finally becomes a man of action. Also, let us not forget that Hamlet is a victim. So even when he frustrates us, he has our sympathy. Paul's life is pretty crappy because he is a man of inaction, not because of some external forces operating on him. His failure to say or do anything meaningful is the cause of his crappy life, not the result of a crappy life.
A movie homage to Italo genre films should have some zip, some pizazz. This has none. The movie does have great music, great fashion, great shots. But it is all for naught because at the core of this rotten apple, is an unlikable character who is too lazy to irritate us by his actions. The best he can do is irritate us with his lack of action.
The American (2010)
This movie is not what it seems
**Spoilers** The following is my humble, but astonishingly correct, opinion.
The main character is not a spy or an assassin or a builder of weapons for assassins. He does not work for an intelligence agency or black ops. He does not kill a woman in Sweden, and does not kill anyone in Italy. The Clooney character is a machinist (or some related profession). He is past middle age, single, lonely and not happy with his job or life. He is very good at his job, but does not like it. He wants to reinvent himself. He hopes that if he changes his career he will find love, happiness and contentment. HOWEVER, he has major anxieties about change. He KNOWS machines. He is used to the world he wishes to leave and fears he could not adjust to the life or career he wishes to move into. The entire movie is a dream of this machinist. The start of the movie is the start of the dream, and the death at the end of the movie marks the point at which the machinist wakes up.
The movie itself is a fantasy that expresses the anxieties of the sleeping machinist. Kinda Hitchcockian I think. The slumbering machinist is comfortable with machines but wishes to switch careers. Hence the "I hate machines" and "I am not good with machines" lines as well as his skilled machine work. His anxiety with switching careers is expressed in dream logic through his fear that if he finds love (which would require him to switch careers apparently) he will be killed. He comes close to expressing his conscious thoughts when with the priest. At those points, you get a slight intrusion of near-conscious thought into the subconscious symbolism of the assassin-dream.
Why am I so right??? The movie is pure fantasy. At face value he either works for U.S. intelligence or black ops. Rather than move one of their own to the US so that he would be protected against angry Swedes, they have him hang out in Italy? Right. Oh, wait. They need him in Italy because without him they will be unable to build a gun (that could be purchased instead of built)and silencer-thingy (no way black ops could make that w/out the super talents of Clooney amiright?). So that is all very silly. What is the purpose of the organization Clooney works for? Apparently the organization solely exists to have its members assassinate other members. The movie tries to make you think the assassin woman originally needed the gun to kill a VIP. Did you see the town Clooney was in? One hundred years could go by and no VIPs worth killing would pass through that village. Did they really need two 007-caliber assassins and a super-duper gun to kill the local baker or cable guy? Perhaps there was a REALLY irritating clerk working at the local DMV?
The little mountain village has several top shelf prostitutes in a nice bordello. I live in a town with a population larger than the one shown in this film. In a town that size, there are a few toothless, meth-using whores that will bang you for money, but that is about it for the world's oldest profession.
So, are we supposed to believe that Clooney works for a U.S. black ops unit that is based in Italy, not the USA. That this organization goes to great lengths to kill its own agents, but engages in no other activities. That this organization doesn't know how to buy guns from gun catalogs, and needs Clooney to manufacture guns for them? That the first step in the organization's best plan for killing Clooney involved Clooney building the weapon needed to kill himself? Was there no time prior to the building of the gun that the brunette woman couldn't have killed him with a hand gun?
All of this is so silly, because it is the product of dream logic. Also, think about the lack of background information. No context, no history. Why was he in Sweden? What did he do? What is the name of the organization he works for? None of this was included in the movie, because in dreams, all the background stuff is not included. In dreams, you just end up in the dream situation and deal with it. You don't stop the dream to get a detailed back story.
Conclusion: The American is about a machinist who may do a bit of traveling. Perhaps he is a consultant and trains technicians or machinists or something. Constant traveling means no relationship. If he gets a different job, he have love and a woman. But he is afraid to quit the job he is good at. He fears he may fail and that the change might be disastrous.
The last thing he does in the dream is die after having chosen companionship over career. Once he wakes up (the ascending butterfly at the end symbolized his ascent into wakefulness) he may make the same decision in real life that he made in the dream, or he may chicken out. I await the sequel breathlessly in the hopes of finding out how things go.
Under the Cherry Moon (1986)
A very bad movie, even if you love Prince
Aside from a couple of low budget genre films, this has to be about the worst movie I have ever seen. Here is the breakdown:
Directing = F Prince does not know what to do with a camera. Possibly George Lucas might have been able to do a worse job directing this.
Cinematography= B There are a number of sweet shots in this film.
Costumes = A I want to own every outfit I saw Prince wearing this film!
Script = F Dumb, dumb dumb. Wrecka Stow? I wouldn't have laughed at that when i was in grade school (and yes, I get it. Who could not get it?). I am just absolutely baffled by that scene. The rest is not much better. The script kills the film's ability to be funny, and its ability to draw you into the romance.
Chemistry = B & F Prince and his sidekick have a chemistry that really works well. Given funny material, they could have really made some movie magic. A bad script pretty much sinks them, however. The chemistry between Prince and the women in the movie is nearly non-existent. The phone conversation scene was good, but that is just about it. Other than that, the romantic connection seemed awkward and forced. so B for Prince's chemistry with the male co-star, and an F for his chemistry with the 2 females.
Acting = B Not bad acting really. All the main characters (except the older woman prince wants for her money at the beginning) do a good job.
conclusion: Atrocious script and terrible directing sink this flick. Good acting, chemistry, and soundtrack cannot save it.
The X Files: I Want to Believe (2008)
What were they thinking?
I was not an obsessed fan of the TV show, but I certainly was a fan. The show was spooky, funny (dry humor but humor none the less) and had wonderful chemistry between the leads.
Problems with this film The biggest problem: the characters in this film say and do things with no respect to the nature of their characters. One day Scully pushes and manipulates Mulder to take on this case. He resists, but Scully is hell bent on convincing him to take the case. OK, fine. This leads me to believe that the Scully character wants Mulder to take the case. Then, 48 hours later, she decides that Mulder is obsessed with the case (he is working more than a 9-5 in order to solve it) and she tells him that he must drop the case or she will leave him forever (I think they are married, or at least the next best thing). Huh? One day she feels strongly that he take the case, 48 hours later she is willing to nix her entire marriage to him because he has been working overtime for the last 2 days? What does this tell us about Scully? That random motivations flit through her mind with no rhyme or reason and that she acts on them impulsively? If that is what she is, how can the audience sympathize with her? How could Mulder deal with her as a wife? How could there be screen chemistry between a man and a random motivation generating machine? The thing is, any random 10th grader would not have made this mistake if they were hired to write this script.
Problem #2: The cinematography was what you would expect from a moderate budget TV show, not a movie. It had the look and feel of a normal TV episode and yet was worse than nearly all the episodes of year 1-7.
Burn After Reading (2008)
Are the Coen's misogynist s?
First let me say that the movie was not the best comedy the Coens have created, but it is one of the best comedies of the year. The main issue I would like to address is a comment I have seen in many reviews: specifically that the Coens never create likable characters and that they are misogynists. It is true that the Coens do not create many knights in shining armor. Each and every one of their characters does seem to be flawed in one way or another. However, I for one find something to either like or admire in most of their characters. Does a character need to be perfect to earn our love and sympathy?
Francis McDormand's character is not smart and she has low self esteem, but she has motivation and drive to spare. Sure she has her flaws but A) I find it possible to love people with an IQ below 100 and B) why should we hate her just because she has bought the media's message that you must look like a runway model? If I looked down on every woman I knew that was overly influenced by societal beauty norms, I would have to look down on some wonderful human beings.
The Pitt character just likes to keep fit and listen to fun music. He isn't smart but his goals in life are simple (fitness & fun music) and having goals like that doesn't really harm anyone. I think he would be very surprised to learn that other people look down on him for his low aspirations in life. Is it not possible to be sympathetic towards a guy who just wants to have fun? I would rather have an unreflective fun-seeking friend than an always serious stick-in-the-mud friend any day. I see plenty of people who know how to work, eat, sleep, & talk about their stock portfolios but forgot how to have fun back when they graduated from college. I like these people, but they are no better or worse than Pitt's Chad. Both types have their good and bad points.
What about the Clooney character? He is a bit less lovable than some of the other characters. However, I think he truly loves his wife (unfortunately he is such a nympho that he also feels the need to get some on the side as well). He has charisma, and he has a child-like quality about him (note the strange way he unveiled his "project" in the basement. A 6-year-old would have revealed their newly built birdhouse to a parent in the same way). He can make people laugh and though his actions of necessity will cause the women around him pain, he seems like the kind of guy who really doesn't want to cause anyone pain (not that this is enough to keep him from his destructive path). Clooney's character may not be easy to love, but I don't think he is a villain and I don't feel that the viewer must hate him.
I will not waste anymore time evaluating the rest of the imperfect Coen characters. I certainly don't feel the need to hate or look down on most Coen characters and I don't feel that the Coens themselves feel that their characters are horrible individuals. Perhaps the misogyny is not in the Coens but in the critics who feel compelled to hate the characters that the Coens create.
The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)
by-the-numbers fantasy adventure for kids
This movie is enjoyable but when it is all over you realize that it was empty calories and no substance. The movie can't help but be enjoyable to watch as they obviously used data culled by a team of researchers to make the film. Past research determined how much time would elapse before the magic elements showed up, the time between edits, the type of music that would work best at each juncture, and the balance of action, humor, and character development. Probably some researcher determined that rabid Martin short fans had almost no overlap with rabid Nick Nolte fans. Thus by casting these particular two actors, you get a box office bonus that is not squandered by overlapping fan populations. The film makers learned from a host of better films how to do kids fantasy and followed the formula. No risks were taken here at all.
Of course, movies pitched towards kids generally are not known for taking risks. So, while this movie may rate a 5 for adults, it may be an 8 or 9 for 14-year-old boys & girls.
One thing I will add is that following the Harry Potter trend, the violence is pitched for the older kids and is likely to be too much for 6-year-old children.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Why I think this movie is fantastic
Of course the acting, directing, cinematography are great. It is a Coen brothers film so you expect that. What really clinches this for me as one of their best films, is the sneaky way that they use Jones as Sheriff Bell. He bookends the movie and he has a lot of screen time, but the Coens deliberately keep him out of what you would normally consider the main plot by the film. The movie is about Sheriff Bell and his self identity based on his crooked actions and the values he wears like a cheep mask. Just how does he merge those two aspects into a coherent view of his own self? The Coens do a good job in making this movie seem like a tense violent drama when in fact, it is a character study (Sheriff Bell). How many movies do you see that don't even include the main character/protagonist in the action that surrounds the main plot arc? The main plot arc in this film is fine, but nothing special. It has elements of Blood Simple and a number of non-Coen shoot-em-ups. As peripheral as the Anton vs. Llewelyn stuff is to the main goals of the movie, it is the part that the casual movie-goer is going to eat up.
Since I haven't seen a lot of critics mentioning the critical "evil" side of Sheriff Bell, let me clarify my P.O.V. Sheriff Bell was involved with the drug deal and either runs (my guess) the drug running Mexican or is just middle management type in their organization. Why do I think this? *Bell sees one of his own underlings (criminal, not law enforcement) driving a pick-up truck with some dead bodies in the back and he pulls the guy over and makes him strap the bodies down better so that it isn't so obvious. *Bell constantly avoids interacting with other law enforcement involved in the case (or drug crimes in general). I can imagine that he doesn't cherish time spent with DEA agents. *Bell doesn't need to look at the crime scenes because A) in some cases, he knew the details of the crime before it happened and B) he knows full well that if a crime is committed by the Mexican drug ring, he damn sure isn't going to find and capture the guilty parties. *As soon as Carla Jean tells Bell where her husband is, Bell has his Mexican drug goons wack him. Bell of course shows up just as they leave (with the hope that he can retrieve the $$ before the cops have a chance to make it to the scene of the crime). *Bell chooses to retire because he knows that Anton will track him down and kill him because he was part of that whole drug operation gone wrong. He kinda hopes that going low profile will help him, but you can see the anxiety, desperation, and fatalism in Bell as the movie closes.
What is quite nice is that the ending leaves us hanging from a number of different perspectives. (The Llewelyn/Anton thing gets wrapped up, but that was just a distraction from the real issue of Bell's inner demons anyway.) We don't know if Anton will actually come after Bell because we don't know if he will recover from his accident. We do know that if he does recover, that Bell will die (Bell is clearly knows he is out gunned). We don't know, however, if Bell will ever get his old morality back (at what age was he when last he had it?). If Anton dies of his car wreck wounds, will Bell eventually come out of retirement and return to the drug business? Will he live a life of quite desperation, always wondering if a bloody death is around the corner? Will he accept the fact that he deserves the death that Anton would bring him and meet his end with peace in his heart? Will he take steps to save his wife from dying by Anton's hands? (He could only do that by admitting to her what part he has really been playing in local crime for the past 30 years though.)
I rank this 10/10 because of subterfuge. The Coens created a character study that very cleverly pretends to be a tense crime drama. Just like Sheriff bell pretends to be a folksy, down-to-earth, family values kind of guy when in fact he is an altogether different kind of beast.
Michael Clayton (2007)
Great movie but protagonist is bad from start to finish
My only complaint is that a number of reviewers have claimed that the protagonist chose to do a good deed at the end because it is the right thing. Some have claimed that with his friend's death, the evidence he found, and the fact that he had hit rock bottom in his selfish, amoral universe, that he had a change of heart. My take on this is different. Clayton does not get morality or a conscience at any time. When his car is trashed, his heart skips a beat, his pragmatic brain whirs into overdrive and he realizes that there IS ONLY ONE POSSIBLE ACTION he can take in order to better his own life. He faces felony charges and social exclusion because of his break in, U-North wants him dead, & his own boss admitted that the death of Arthur was (in a very real way) a relief (we can infer from this that his employer would NOT be sympathetic to him if he knew that U-North wanted him dead).
At the time that Clayton's car blows up he can A) blackmail U-North B) run to his employer with the news that he just survived a murder attempt by U-North C) hide out in a shack somewhere for a month or D) follow the course shown in the film.
If he chose option A then he would immediately lose his job and possibly any shot at continued employment in his field. Before he gets the cash he may again risk being killed. He may also risk being killed after he gets the pay-off because they may not trust his word that once he got the pay-off he would not go public or they may worry that he would ask for more blackmail money in the future.
Option B, turning to his boss is a huge mess. He is wanted dead by the people who can either pay his boss tens of millions of dollars for legal fees or sue his boss for legal malpractice. I am not sure what would happen in the movie universe if he had taken this route, but the results would be iffy for Clayton at best. Legally they certainly couldn't take direct or indirect action against their own client, U-North.
Option C would jeopardize his employment with his firm. If he had hidden rather than going to the police ASAP, then he could not have gotten the police to fake the death report. Without that faked report, he would continue to be a target of U-North while at the same time he would be in serious crap with his employer. Look at it from the firm's standpoint: the guy knows way too much, they just gave him $80k and w/in a day he disappears and refuses to answer his phone. They would assume the worst.
Now to option D. The police can protect his life. That is a plus. His recent breaking and entering has severed important social ties he had to friends and relatives in law enforcement. By agreeing to participate in a sting of U-North he gets to survive the short term, eliminate the long term threat of murder, put himself in good standing with law enforcement in general and his brother in particular. On the down side, he is clearly going to be bounced completely out of corporate law. Given the high profile sting of an "evil" corp like U-North and the fact that the company that he betrayed tried to kill him, would he loose his right to practice law? Perhaps not. If not, then who would employ him? He could get a job prosecuting criminals in the DAs office (his old career).
OK, what of the critical evidence? He didn't destroy all the reports that were stored at the copy place. Doesn't this indicate that he knew what was right and wanted to do good? No. The receipt he found clearly read "C.O.D." Did he have the money for 26 boxes of reports, could he get 26 boxes into his car and get them to a paper shredder? No. So, he runs off and leaves them there indefinitely. He may need them for leverage if things go sour or he can swing by in a few days with a U-Haul and some friends from the firm and destroy them then.
OK, he didn't "fix" Arthur when he went rogue. Doesn't that prove that Clayton was having an episode of morals? Partially. He is friends with Arthur and this seems to somewhat inhibit his normal efficiency at cleaning up problems. However, Clayton is always looking out for himself and he knows that taking extreme measures to stop Arthur is not in his best interest. He also knows that aside from extreme measures there is very little he can do to the man.
What about his trip to see the girl in the hotel room? You can interpret this as evidence that he is gathering evidence he needs to do the right thing and nail U-North. However, another explanation is that he was friends with Arthur and given evidence that his friend was killed (people don't generally commit suicide minutes before highly anticipated meetings) he felt compelled to check it out. Note that his initially questioning of her, he tried to lead her to say that she had said or done something that would have lead Arther to commit suicide. He didn't want to believe that U-North killed his friend. Note that he sleeps on the information he gets from the girl.
To sum up, Clayton is a self-serving guy from beginning to end. The attempted murder made his best course of action hitting U-North. Without that attempted murder, it would have been business as usual for Clayton. He would have gone back to work, destroyed all the reports at the copy place and just kept up his normal routine.