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Avatar (2009)
A silly colonialist wet dream wrongly marketed as an anti-war film
An anti-war film would hardly restrict its range of viewpoints to "good" versus "bad" soldiers because intelligent filmmakers understand that the purpose of being a soldier is morally tainted to begin with. There are notable exceptions to this, e.g. revisionist westerns such as "Soldier Blue" (1970) but generally speaking, in the 21st century, a film that wants to be labelled antibellicist would feature victims' and civilians' viewpoints at least as much as those of the actual military. Or at least (and I should say most importantly) it would clarify that there can hardly be such thing as a good soldier in modern warfare.
And the reader needs to ask themselves an honest question: does the villain die like a true villain would nine times out of ten in real life, i.e. like a psychopath or a sleazy coward, or does he die like a hero, fighting until the end? Obviously the latter. Watching Stephen Lang's character engaging the main characters in such epic single-handed fight, neither fleeing nor surrendering, made me think that the people behind this film don't dislike the character at all--they just regret the choices he happens to make. Almost as though he ended up in the wrong side of morality by chance or mistake. And that's why this is not an anti-war film.
Other than that, there's some funny blue people living in trees and some utterly implausible and obviously computer-animated imagery. Overall, I have to call this silly. No better adjective comes to mind.
Imperium (2016)
Surprisingly mediocre
This film deals with a very pertinent and rabidly current subject matter, at a time when populist nationalism appears to be in vogue in American politics like never before. It features good actors, has an interesting soundtrack and a reasonable budget.
And yet, in spite of these promising prospects, the result could not be more disappointing.
Daniel Radcliffe seems like a fish out of water, awkwardly struggling with what should be easy acting material and proving that casting him was not an interesting, if unorthodox choice, but a mistake altogether. Not only does he look like the unlikeliest of skinheads, or FBI agents for that matter (with his small, fragile frame and his nervous demeanor), but his acting is insecure and lazy, and his chemistry with Toni Colette is next to nonexistent.
The handling of the subject itself is half-baked, simplistic and full of clichés. It ticks all the requisite boxes that it deems necessary, but it does so with disciplined half-heartedness, almost as if it were a moral obligation and little else. A minority of white supremacists are intelligent enough to have a higher education and (partly) blend in with a "civilized" mainstream? Check. Fascism is fueled to a large extent by inferiority complex? Check. Radio hosts, preachers, soapbox populists and other manufacturers of consent are usually media-savvy narcissists who don't truly believe their own hogwash? Check. Nothing new.
Character development is haphazard and leads to awkward situations. A few characters are (rightly) suspicious of the protagonist's motives, only to discard said suspicions with equal celerity, for no apparent reason. Said protagonist's unexpected friendship with one of the supporting characters could be an interesting plot development in theory, but its treatment in practice is wholly inadequate, overdeveloped and at times, strangely, borderline homoerotic--which is not good or bad in itself, but is probably far removed from the screenwriter's original intention.
This is not a good film. It lacks intelligence and cynicism and it barks without a bite. Absolutely uninspired from every point of view. A film with this subject matter can never have a happy ending and expect to be taken seriously.
Perros callejeros II (1979)
Mediocre
I only bother reviewing this film because it contains one of the most disturbing revenge scenes ever shown in Spanish cinema, near the end of the movie. It temporarily suspends the condescension usually shown by these films, wherein poverty and delinquency are usually either uniformly excusable, or solely the output of institutional discrimination. And it proves that this is not a simple battle between good and evil, but a very miserable human landscape on both sides of the law, where brutalized prison inmates and marginalized "quinquis" and gypsies can at times be every bit as psychopathic, sadistic and perverted as the fascistic cops they take revenge on.
Other than that the film alternates trashy music, shoddy editing, unfocused and even dirty-lensed camera-work, awkward dialogue, unintentionally funny erotic scenes, zany humor, acting talents that would be deemed amateurish in a porn film and the aforementioned knee-jerk, pseudo-Fabian patronizing attitude towards delinquency, and is as much of a train wreck as the rest of its director's filmography.
Utopia (2013)
Nothing special, definitely nothing original
There is not a single shred of originality in this production.
The aesthetics are a mix of Asian surreal slapstick full of saturated colors à la Survival Style 5, and the recent trends in quiet, detached and nihilistic violence set by films such as "Let the right one in". Kitano meets Nordic drama. Nothing original at all.
The plot is a blatant mix of V for Vendetta, 12 Monkeys, Children of Men, The Usual Suspects (with its own epic narration of legendary criminal pursuits that turns out to be a veiled confession), the Stieg Larsson trilogy (it even has its own dimestore Lisbeth Salander who is just a tattoo away from a bad copy of the original one, I mean she even knows how to hack computers for crying out loud) and well-known conspiracy theories such as those involving Monsanto, MK-ULTRA, the death of Andreas Faber-Kaiser and the Mae Brussell broadcasts.
And when it comes to visual syntax and editing, it almost looks like a British series trying to imitate the style of an American series, which is absurd considering the UK has absolutely nothing to envy anybody else when it comes to TV productions. It is the Americans who should be finding ways of recreating Brits' success in explaining a lot in barely 30 minutes and keeping the audience interested without cheap cliffhangers.
All of this is fine if all we want is to have a nice, entertaining, slightly pretentious and very glossy-looking 50 minutes. But if this is supposed to be some groundbreaking tour de force I think we should all set our benchmarks a bit higher.
Sinister (2012)
Garbage
Everything in this film reeks of intellectual laziness. Everything is copied from somewhere else without the slightest effort to disguise the sources.
I'm puzzled by the fact that Mesopotamian devils seem to be a staple in horror films (such as The Exorcist, Fallen, Ghostbusters, and probably a long etcetera) whenever screenwriters need to conjure some abstract, horribly foreign menace. I'm sure there is a reason why such plot device occupies such a preponderant place in Hollywood imagery or subconsciousness, but I any theory at this point would be speculative.
Other than that, this is a mix of pretty much everything we've seen in horror for the last forty years, especially films such as The Ring. I only give it a mark above zero because the Super 8 footage and the soundtrack accompanying it are reasonably disturbing.
Tyrannosaur (2011)
Didn't believe it
There is this tendency of phony naturalism in the so-called "social realism" sub-genre of British drama, namely based on combining gritty and even disturbing atmospheres and plot devices with feel-good conclusions and happy endings; and in some cases, redemption for characters whose actions would be considered unredeemable in real life. It is as if the screenwriters decided, after 90 minutes of depressing reality, that the subject matter was just too much for them to hold and they decided to open the door to optimism and faith in mankind. Which is obviously respectable in and of itself, but definitely does not belong here -- neither aesthetically, nor thematically.
This incongruous combination of depressing development and uplifting conclusion is not at all a separate incident. I can see this in Jobson's redemption at the end of "Red Riding", in Juliet Aubrey marrying Robert Carlyle at the end of "Go now" (probably the most ridiculously implausible happy ending I have ever seen in a serious film), and even true crime cases painstakingly faithful to documented facts, such as "Appropriate adult", feel the need to give their conclusion some sort of an upbeat tinge.
The man portrayed in this film kick-starts the plot, quite literally, by killing his own dog, admits he battered his wife and he would probably keep on doing it if she still were alive, and takes long -- too long -- to sum up the courage to stand up to the two male characters who do deserve his rage, with quite pathetic results by the way. The film even makes the effort to be realistic in its psychological portrayal of the character as a first-class scumbag: his cowardly methods of physical confrontation at the bar, or the fact that he only approaches the female lead after sniffing her low self-esteem and her vulnerability like a scent dog would. All of this against the backdrop of an ugly, unpleasant, boring and ultimately destructive lumpen suburban setting. So far, so good as far as realism goes.
Then all of a sudden, there seems to be a hint of redemption and hope somewhere in the horizon, and it turns out the guy isn't a bad chap after all (and is even capable of acts of mature dignity), and life isn't all that miserable for these characters. Pardon me, but with all this set of premises, there is something that simply doesn't work in the film. Either the premises built up for over an hour don't work, or the film's character development and resolution do not work.
Maybe it is just me, but if you want to film idyllic scenes of bucolic happiness with a tinge of melancholy, perhaps you'd better stick to Ealing Studios, or perhaps even better, to remaking Bambi.
No habrá paz para los malvados (2011)
To Live and Die in Lavapiés
This film transits common places without having anything new to say except that it urgently wants to up the grittiness ante -- which, much to my annoyance, it seldom succeeded in doing. This is a film that desperately wants to pull all stops in bleakness and wholesale desperation, and in filmmaking the last thing you should do is having the audience notice your intentions beforehand. A project of this sort demanded a director with more guts and nothing to lose and Urbizu doesn't seem to be the man.
Coronado's job is excellent but it cannot rescue this film on its own from a comfortable zone of correct mediocrity. His fatalistic mien, coupled with a devil-may-care nihilism and a teeming rage which his character makes little effort in choking back, makes him altogether a train wreck waiting to happen.
And happen it does, but the rest of the film falls short of his performance. Urbizu's style still needs a lot of polishing. Dialogues still seem forced and theatrical to the point of haphazard, totally at odds with the naturalistic tone his protagonists demand. Supporting characters are either poorly developed or handed out to the wrong actors: Juanjo Artero just switches the automatic pilot on his TV police procedural role, and Helena Miquel may be a very good singer but is totally out of place in a "serious" film project such as this.
The film's middle part is protracted to the point of boredom. It ends up leaving more things unexplained than it should care to, and eventually sacrifices whatever interest the audience might have for the characters in the altar of narrative sparsity. It does throw the barbs at institutional incompetence we would expect considering its subject matter, but the tameness with which it does betrays the overall bitterness deliberately pursued by the project.
The terrorist subplot is omnipresent though not overbearing; it is, however, ostensibly calculated to give the film the extra mileage worth of "cinema vérité" bleakness and tragic tone which character development alone seemed unable to achieve. In that respect, it seems aimed at boosting the film's appeal to the audience, and as such it verges on the exploitative. From the artistic point of view, Urbizu didn't need such a cheap ancillary plot device, but I understand it will pay off for him commercially.
The Social Network (2010)
Why?
The film itself is excellently filmed and acted but I wonder why did they have to choose this particular story. For all I know,
- not only was the idea (Facebook) not brilliant, but the real surprise is why no one came up with something similar to it back in the mid-90s when the internet just started.
- plus, the software itself posed no challenge at all from the algorithmic or programming point of view. In this respect, the story behind Google or Napster would have been even more interesting.
- real characters are rewritten in ways which I'm sure only retain a portion of the truth, and a not-so-subtle commentary on social mobility and glass ceilings is made which in fact is not pertinent at all here.
If Fincher wanted to make a film about stupidity and its different forms, and about the mediocrity and the moral desert his society lives in, he succeeded. If he wanted to make a movie about truly brilliant people doing truly innovative things, however, he should have chosen other base material. Fincher should be aware of how his films are understood by mainstream critics and audiences, and if this film was meant to be ironic, then the irony is too thin to be understood by most people, let alone make a point; you just have to read the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic to realize this.
Match Point (2005)
So disappointing it made me angry
This movie is nothing but a "Crimes and misdemeanors" rip-off, lacking both the (relative) novelty and the fortunate casting of its precedent. If the decades of experience packed by Allen have to amount to this heap of trash, I think we better think twice before we raise and keep filmmakers in some arbitrary Olympus of cinema history. Good wine, as a notorious film character put it, may indeed age into vinegar. And vice versa: for one thing, Adrian Lyne, Richard Gere and Diane Lane have been epitomes of mediocrity for most of their careers, and yet, in all its modesty, "Unfaithful" is a fine example of correct, unpretentious film-making. Compared to this, the downward spiral of someone like Allen should motivate a revisionist and probably destructive study of most of the film industry of the 60s and 70s -- a study devoid of any sentimentalism or partisan considerations. Audiences were impressionable back then: granted. But they shouldn't be now. Especially since the mere idea of replacing Martin Landau, Jerry Orbach, Anjelica Huston, Alan Alda or Claire Bloom with such shallow and hardly engaging brats is a stupidity all its own.
Several questions come to mind:
1. Can't anyone realize, once and for all, that Woody Allen's pen ran out of ink a long time ago?
2. Can't anyone realize, once and for all, that Scarlett Johansson is neither a good actress nor the closest thing to a natural candidate for a "sex symbol"?
3. Can't anyone realize, once and for all, that Rhys-Meyers only stands as failure n. 23273 in the long list of failed attempts at occupying Stamp's or Caine's place?
4. Can't anyone realize, once and for all, that recycling past material "per se", with unreliable prime matter and haphazard attempts at renewal, is an empty ride and an exercise in futility?
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
A festivity of moral decay
This is a flawed movie, but with an appeal transcending the obvious quality of its actors and the proficiency shown in most of its scenes; actually, its true flaws, namely its dated soundtrack and its 80s "cool" macho dialogs and mannerisms, may even play in its favor looking at the whole in perspective. And, as happens with violence or sex in movies by Takashi Miike, for instance, this surface probably serves as a screen protecting the viewer from a far darker underbelly.
Specifically, the quality that sets this film beyond all others of its kind (and by the way makes Michael Mann's suit so inadequate) and makes it so admirable, is its total lack of hope in the existence of a moral grounding. Beyond the obvious, on-your-face nihilism present in the ending, there is also a subtle undercurrent of deep cynicism all through the movie, as if Friedkin had to make it clear to us, both at a conscious and at a subconscious level, that he simply has no hope neither for the characters he describes nor for the very archetypes they represent. This is no hipster cynicism à la Tarantino we're speaking about; this is something very genuine and very fundamental, as if the filmmakers responsible for this had lost all possible hope in justice, good will and redemption. Every single human being depicted in some detail in this movie is selfish, unbalanced, ruthless and at times (as is the case of Chance) even self-destructive. Every action performed here is led by self-interest, greed and even psychotic pulsions and, most interestingly, the latter are not only present in the villain: they are also present in the hero. Indeed, Petersen and Friedkin have managed to coin a new form of antihero, endowing him with a total lack of regard of ethical AND moral values and actually making him no better than the villain he pursues. He blackmails a girl on parole in exchange for information and occasional sexual relief, irresponsibly throws his own partner into the same near-suicidal car-chase he is in, shows no other feelings for the FBI agent killed much to his own fault than the fear of being caught, and makes it clear from the beginning that he is not intending to arrest Masters, no matter how many ethical and even legal barriers he has to trespass. And yet, surprisingly, there is something special in him or in the whole ambiance that makes us still wish for his success, even if we probably have more objective reasons to sympathize with Masters than we have to root for him. The central car chase and the feelings it arouses on the viewer exemplify this in a diaphanous manner. And, keeping with the bleak tone of the whole film, Chance's untimely death is anything but epic; in an unusual display of realism, Friedkin disposes of his hero in a brutal and at the same time casual manner, like an animal run over by a car in the highway-- there is no climactic prelude to his death and there is no token moral epilogue to his uglily ordinary death: he was simply slower than the shooter, as may happen in real life.
An intelligent movie, indeed. No wonder why it has become a cult classic over the years... and no wonder why it was not a box-office hit when it first came out.
Gladiator (2000)
A phenomenal disappointment
At the time of its release, "Gladiator" promised far more than it delivered; part of the audience still had some hope "G.I. Jane" and "White squall" were the exception to Scott's career (other "exceptions" such as "Thelma & Louise" and "Black rain" were too far behind to be remembered) and Crowe had recently hit the big screen with "L.A. Confidential" and "The insider", making us believe he was indeed a versatile actor.
But when the moment of truth came, it all came down to a formulaic, even boring revisiting of "peplum" with a penchant for vengeance and codes of honor, some sort of Spaghetti Western on sandals. Worst of all, it is extremely inaccurate in its depiction of Ancient Rome, and there is something in its inaccuracy that makes me think it was intentional; for instance, the only main character with a Mediterranean phenotype is Joaquin Phoenix, albeit the rest of the main cast (Crowe, Harris, Nielsen, Jacobi, Reed, ...), although apparently Roman patricians and "equites", would be far more adequate playing Celts or Germans. And moreover, the true Germans were shown for a couple of minutes as furtive, dirty, easily disposable barbarian thugs who hid behind the trees making guttural noises and looked anything but Nordic. Furthermore, a grandiloquence is attributed to Roman architecture, urbanism and daily life which is highly unlikely to be even similar to the real Rome of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Even some of the weapons shown at the beginning of the film are extremely unlikely to have existed. In other words: this is not a reconstruction of Rome, but a projection, a deformed mirror from which a certain country of our days looks at itself. This happens to a certain point in "Alexander", too, and makes me think the current vogue of historical cinema is more directed at redefining the position of the United States as a summit of "enlightened power" in the midst of an uncivilized world than at maintaining accuracy and resemblance to the true facts.
The truth is Ridley Scott has only given us two good movies in all his career: "Alien" and "Blade runner". The rest of his work could have been directed by Spielberg, Cameron or even his own brother. Instead of wondering why his filmography is so mediocre nowadays, we should wonder how could he direct those two masterpieces. Maybe the essence of artistic excellence is heavily dependent on having the right collaborators rather than on personal genius, especially since the latter is not so frequent, after all. This would explain, for example, why Schoedsack and Cooper delivered one piece of Art in 1933 and never came even close to doing it again.
Tuno negro (2001)
We should renew some lists
Whenever we speak about the "Worst movies ever made", we must include this gem; preposterous situations, laughable dialog, imbecile characters, a simply puerile conclusion and some of the worst acting I've seen; we're speaking of BAD acting, even for a Spanish movie. And when the only character you enjoy is a strabic psychopathic cop who shoots everything he sees, you know the filmmakers are in DEEP trouble. Jorge Sanz keeps mumbling as he has always been doing, Silke holds to her incompetence disguised as intended "feline" stoicism and Eusebio Poncela doesn't know what he's doing in each scene and in the movie altogether, and every female character, save for one, serves no other purpose than ending up as good-old sex & violence fodder. Most of this seems filmed and written by a teenager consumed with acne and strict dependence on cheap pornography: sexist, childish, and ultimately comical, especially when it pretends to be taken seriously. If they pretended the audience to burst with laughter, they achieved their goal; I'm just not sure that was their aim. And even if it were, the Art of film-making has somehow been outrageously offended all through the process.
That's the kind of trash this movie is.