munitzs Reviews

In My Country (2004)

A very disappointing adaptation of a superb book

[4/10 · 29 January 2007]

This is one of the worst examples of the Hollywood dumb-down syndrome.

Made on a shoestring budget and in what looks like about 3 months from inception to release, it is a cheap and cynical film.

The book by Antjie Krog is a must-read: A deeply moving relating of the TRUE experiences related to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Ms Krog's very personal reactions to it. It's not fiction.

But by mixing silly fictional stories (such as midnight investigation of torture cells, carjackings, etc) with the genuine tragedies, the real stories have been cheapened and one wonders which is real and which is made up. This is a gross dismissal of the real pain of the victims and their families, and the real evil of the perpetrators.

The problems with this movie are never ending, and include:

1. Script - very badly written. Storyline was dumbed down with the inclusion of fictional issues, dialogue is atrocious.

2. Direction - probably the worst of Boorman's career.

3. Lighting - looks like they could only afford 1 klieg and used it all the time to get maximum value.

4. Acting - Binoche's accent kept slipping (why they couldn't use a South African for the role is a puzzle), support actors were in the main poor, Jackson was just OK.

6. Sound - not even up to the standard of a first-year film school project.

8. Editing - bits and pieces picked up off the editing room floor and glued together. It looks like a first cut, and it probably was.

7. Production - the producers must ultimately take the blame for this abortion. They took a deeply moving, thoughtful and true book and turned it into a bad b-movie without the car chases and explosions.

READ THE BOOK, and avoid the movie.

Blind Horizon (2003)

Why illicit drugs are bad

[4/10 · 26 February 2006]

A cold, greasy, scrambled egg. That's the gastronomic equivalent of this movie.

The editing chops backwards and forwards, across time and space. The direction relied on meaningful looks and clichéd camera angles.

Acting? Kilmer was more convincing when he was comatose. Faye Dunawaye gives the performance of her career - the WORST. As for the others, who knows and who cares.

OK, the actors had to deal with a really bad script. But let's be fair, how does anyone make a decent script from a stupid hackneyed story? Even the "twists" are predictable Spoilers: Kilmer is shot and thrown off a 30 foot cliff. He's in hospital without any obvious injuries and is released two days later absolutely fine! Then he gets seriously beaten up a day or two later, and again, a visit to the hospital and he's 100%.

All can be explained if they were all on drugs - and if this was the case this shows why illicit drugs are bad.

Paparazzi (2004)

What a yawn.

[4/10 · 14 August 2005]

Takes a lively subject and turns it into a one-sided bad guys vs good guys, but without the good chop-socky bits.

The lack of gratuitous strippers, bare breasts or car chases has cost this flick some valuable points and have made it a pointless exercise.

Dennis Farina gives possibly the worst performance of his career. He clearly modelled his detective on Peter Falk's Columbo, even down to the 'goodbye, walk away, turn back and "just one more question" '. And the meaningful looks! Just awful.

Fer crying out loud, if you're bothered by paparazzi and intruders, get a bodyguard!!! And an alarm system!!! And while you're at it, how about moving to a new house so they won't take pics of you while you're fornicating by the pool!!! Damn, these filmstars are stoooopid.

Closer (I) (2004)

A flawed musical beds - but what does it mean?

[5/10 · 14 August 2005]

Closer is trying to say something profound, but who knows what. It's a case of style over substance - a "much ado about nothing".

An anti-feminist movie, with two thoroughly unlikeable men, one silly woman (Roberts), and an OK, but naive(?) fourth (Portman). The women are just chess-pieces being played by the men, and seem quite content reacting to their manipulated status. No empowerment, insight or intelligence. Maybe this is real life, where women just cannot help themselves, poor things.

Quite a tedious movie about a pointless subject, lots of talking about pointless subjects and debating about pointless subjects, meaningful looks, bed-hopping, lying, deceit. There is very little character sympathy developed - as each character is completely indulgent and fails to exercise restraint or discipline.

This mediocre picture is not helped by gratuitous attempts to give the characters some vague backgrounds: Roberts is a (mediocre) photographer, who seems to live by the rule that a crap picture is better if its enlarged, Portman is a stripper (now that's worth the rental fee!) and Owen is a doctor of some sort. Most contrived, Law is an obituary writer. Maybe he could write an obituary about his nearly dead career, having been in turkey after turkey recently.

On the plus side, it's good to see Julia Roberts in an understated "Adult" role, and she shows that she can excel in a good dramatic role. Portman isn't too bad, and Jude Law and Clive Owen just go through the motions. Well, the male characters did OK, given the weakness in their scripts.

Ablaze (2001)

A complete and utter load of worthless rubbish

[2/10 · 5 August 2005]

It could be a very lame poor parody of fire disaster films, but has not a jot of wit or intelligence.

Poor camera work - some of it lifted from stock footage or other movies.

Acting is incredibly lame.

Scripting abysmal.

Direction atrocious.

Everything about this movie sucks big time.

Whoever participated should be ashamed, and should be banned from movies for ever! One of the worst - no redeeming features.

2 stars for some interesting pictures of 1960s fire engines.

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

Unwatchable - for fans only?

[3/10 · 31 July 2005]

I am an "outsider" in that I have not read the books, so my comments apply to this as a stand-alone movie.

To be fair, the DVD cover did warn that this is an unpleasant movie. And they were not exaggerating. What a miserable story - someone trying to kill three children so he can get his hands on their money.

Carrey can be absolutely brilliant, but in this case he is completely overwhelming, and quite frankly once one has seen 10 minutes of his performance, the prospect of having to face another hour or so was more than I could bear.

The movie was unrelentingly depressing and heavy, with nothing to lighten it with no whimsy. The children were (realistically) passive participants in their circumstances, in counterpoint to Carrey's overacted but single-dimensional character. Coming from a country in which child abuse, domestic violence, murder and poverty are horribly present, I felt that this movie treated crimes against children too lightly by making the perpetrator to be an object of fiction, instead of the very ordinary (but sick) people they are.

On the positive side, the sets, camera work and costumes were exceptionally good.

War of the Worlds (2005)

Do yourself a favour and leave before the end

[7/10 · 18 July 2005]

A great rollicking, shocking thriller. And then the wheels fall off.

The start is brilliant - vintage Spielberg a la ET, complete with precocious little girl. Tom Cruise is a believable everyman, and when confronted by mind-blowing disaster he handles it like any one of use might.

Then the directors forget they're making a credible sci-fi and start making Independence Day meets Mission Impossible.

Worse yet, the end is unforgivably bad.

Do yourself a favour and walk out about 10 minutes before the end, as the conclusion is so painful, it casts a pall on the entire exercise.

Spoiler: The whole of the US and world is trashed by the "machines". The entire world that is, except for a corner of Boston, which is forever USA. They stupid directors even have Tom caress a weed-covered statue of the Patriots show us the point, that this is where we (America / Mankind) gained our Freedom and will regain it for evermore. This dubious assertion is made with the elegance of a giant pile of elephant turd on the carpeted floor of a Victoria's Secret...

Spoiler: A filthy, (smelly?) Tom and Dakota arrive at the only untouched block in the World, and the power still works, and everyone's clean, and the streets are shiny and polished. Granma and Granpa and pregnant Mom (and Mom's husband) all come out to the front door to see what the fuss was all about. "There were monsters!" "MONSTERS??" "They killed people with laser beams" "LASER BEAMS??" etc. "Why don't you come inside and have a nice piece of freshly baked apple pie and tell us all about it".

Spoiler: When Tom arrives at the Boston in Apartment his son is there as well - but while everyone in the apartment is good and clean and fresh the son is filthy. Fer heaven's sakes: Just because he fought aliens doesn't mean he can't take the odd shower now and again. BTW, if all the infrastructure was trashed, how do they have electricity and water?

Main moral of the movie: When the aliens invade, if you a working class slob, your world WILL be trashed. But if you're a rich Lexus-driving Bostonian Democrat, nothing to worry about. You may not get your newspaper for a few days, and fresh bok choi might be unavailable for a little while, but the real s--t only happens to the working class.

Fight Club (1999)

Watch this movie!

[8/10 · 7 May 2005]

I've had the DVD lying around for years, and am I sorry I didn't watch it earlier!

What a movie! Some exciting camera work early on, excellent direction, solid acting. Norton is superb, as is Pitt. Helena Bonham-Carter delivers a realistic performance - she has come a long way since "A room with a view".

The story is intriguing and draws one in from the beginning, with never a dull moment. Scripting is competent and never seems contrived.

The photography has several surprising and original moments that help to reinforce the dislocation of the central character's mental state.

But while it's a brilliant watch, it's not perfect: The most glaring deficiency is the ending. Do yourself a favour and stop watching about 2 minutes before the end. It's lame, a serious let-down. Typically Hollywood and really goes against the grain of the entire movie.

There are more than a few inconsistencies in the story - which become highlighted when the "twist" is revealed. Far from answering questions, the plot surprise raises them - you'll see for yourself, they are obvious.

Also disappointing is the fact that after the fights, the bruises and scars seem to disappear quickly - one day he's black and blue, the next day he's completely unmarked. I recently had a black eye and it took weeks to clear. You'd also expect a few broken bones and some serious dental problems from the continual blows delivered to the mandibles. Not to mention the concussion effects from repeated head injuries.

These quibbles aside, WATCH THIS MOVIE!

Ocean's Twelve (2004)

Dislocated + patchy + confusing = boring

[4/10 · 22 April 2005]

Highly recommended if you need to find something to put you to sleep. Editing was fractured, probably trying to give it an edgy, fast feeling, but succeeded only in confusing.

No character development, interactions were completely superficial and about 8 of the 12 were completely incidental - just there to make up the numbers and had nothing to do with the plot.

The inconvenient matter of loopholes and "how did that happen" was dealt with in the expedient manner of just jumping to the next scene when all is fine as if there never was a problem.

Total result was disinterest and boredom. Couldn't care less about heroes or bad guys. And surely "Europol" have better things to do than devoting mega resources to tracking down people who steal some stuff from obscenely rich guys? Clever moment with Julia Roberts in a Robert Altman kind of thing, but not carried through with the same depth or class.

Soundtrack was the best thing about the whole exercise - polished, inventive new music.

Miss this movie.

The United States of Leland (2003)

Tedious, boring, irritating yawn

[3/10 · 10 April 2005]

Weird mumbling guy kills autistic kid. Some strange flash-backs or were they flash forwards or were they flash nothings?

Who knows. Who cares?

Too confusing, messy direction, bad script, no character development, no story, wooden acting.

Why am I watching this when I could be watching a rerun of an infomercial for Billy-Bob kicking thing, or that trampoline thing?

We couldn't even watch the first half, and tuned out after 30 minutes. Maybe we missed the good stuff. Maybe this was the good stuff.

Why 3/10? OK, 2/10.

Miss this movie.