Milo Jerome Reviews

Fight Club (1999)

Underrated and perfect.

[10/10 · 6 April 2000]

It seems silly to take the time to write one more awed review of this movie months and months after it's died a commercial death, but the more I think about it the more appalled I am that there are so many people out there who would love Fight Club as much as I do and who have no intention of seeing it, ever. I want to hire a bus and ferry all my friends to and from screenings so they don't miss out on the biggest cinematic experience of the 90s.

All concerned give the best work of their careers to this movie and even with its cargo of irreverence and disgust at our society, it has as much intelligence and class as 1999's best: American Beauty, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Election etc. David Fincher is a genius. Fight Club is 1999's Blade Runner and in ten years time everyone will be claiming to have known it was a masterpiece first time round. Go see it.

Brainstorm (1983)

Original, thought-provoking, but less than a sum of its parts....

[26 February 1999]

Brainstorm has many things to recommend it. It is original, thought-provoking and refreshingly off-kilter in its concerns but somehow it ends up being less than a sum of its parts. It is worth bearing in mind that the version that exists was 'rescued' after the death of Natalie Wood and so is not exactly the film that its makers set out to make. It has a feeling of being unfinished, its climax seems hurried and inconclusive. The parts however are fairly impressive....

It's curious that Louise Fletcher's performance didn't win her at least a nomination as Best Supporting Actress; she is hair-raisingly good. The music and design are both spot-on and the opening titles especially is aesthetically one of the most amazing special effects sequences I've ever seen. It's a shame the film to follow doesn't quite live up to its promise.

Sleepwalkers (1992)

A shame, but it's rather shameful.

[9 February 1999]

This isn't a very good movie. I remember watching it on the big screen in '92 and being satisfied back then. I watched it on video recently and thought it rather embarrassing. It's main points of interest are the recurring Enya track and the incredibly committed Alice Krige whose intense presence I suspect was the reason this film came to be made at all. She's far too classy for this, her performance is from a movie for grown-ups while everybody else plays pantomime. Interesting for completists who have an urge to see for themselves cameo appearances by the likes of Stephen King and Clive Barker but in 1999 these things merely add to the embarrassment. Alice Krige 10/10, Sleepwalkers 3/10.

Anaconda (1997)

You'll believe a wide-bodied snake can make an Atlantic crossing in less than four hours....

[6 February 1999]

In the age of the wearisome 'postmodern' (God, I hate that word) it was such a relief to see a corny monster movie that didn't pretend to be anything it wasn't. John Voight does his lo-rent version of Robert Shaw's Quint, Jennifer Lopez plays it straight and looks great and this incredibly heavy reptile moves faster than a Japanese bullet train. Did I feel insulted? Disgusted? Did I want my money back? I loved every minute. I was hoping we'd see more like this one but I think it isn't to be. More 'Scream' anyone?

Scream (1996)

This isn't horror, but it certainly is horrible.

[3/10 · 6 February 1999]

Lame. That's how I sum this up. Facile, dumbed-down to the nth degree. First of all, this isn't a horror movie and neither are the 'classic' 'horror' movies it thinks it's taking the p*** out of. They're teenagers' date movies and with one or two exceptions they aren't scary at all. None of this film's supposedly original spin seemed at all new to me. Why? Because these films have been taking the p*** out of themselves (and their audiences) for decades. 'Scream' is like a slasher-movie version of Trivial Pursuit captured on film. This is the sort of movie applauded by people who think that horror films are beneath them, who couldn't possibly enjoy something that wasn't sufficiently 'postmodern.' They watch films like 'Scream' because critics who should know better called it 'clever,' 'intelligent,' 'witty.' These critics don't get out enough do they? Personally I'd rather watch the decidedly un-postmodern 'Anaconda' fifty times than sit through a trailer for this thing again. And for those of you who think that Wes Craven is suddenly 'postmodern' and sophisticated enough for you to claim to like his movies, remember this is the man who made 'Shocker.' Shocking, more like.

Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream That One Calls Human Life (1995)

A unique experience, a work of exceeding beauty

[10/10 · 27 January 1999]

Institute Benjamenta is an oddity. Let me say that first, get it out of the way. Part of me hesitates from revealing here that it is one of my favourite films of all time because I know I'll make some people reading this mini-review approach it from the wrong angle. A film like this should never become required viewing. You should stumble across it at a repertory cinema somewhere or be beguiled by the video-box art showing the striking visage of Alice Krige as she paces before her blackboard, deerfoot staff in hand. You should find one evening that its the only thing that sounds interesting on TV, or peer at a still alongside a mention in your TV guide and wonder what on earth the picture is supposed to depict. Contained between main and end credits here is a world so visually ravishing and technically abstruse that you are only in the film while you are watching; the rules of the outside do not apply. You peer into the dreamy, foggy black-and-white and what you can't identify for certain your imagination fills out. These are the most special special effects because you wonder 'what' and 'why' by never 'how.' The Institute of the title is a school for servants, the lessons they are taught bizarre and repetitive to the point of making 'deja-vu' a permanent state of being. Is the repetition the point of it all or has the teacher lost the plot? If she has, how come we care? None of this is vaguely like real life. None of it, that is, bar the characters emotions. Or is the whole thing like real life, like Life with a capital 'L?' In the end does this sort of pondering make for a good movie? I won't answer that because I'm terribly biased. Remember the title and look it up sometime. It's the cinematic equivalent of a stunning old-fashioned magician's trick. A monochrome bouquet, a sad smile. There are images, scenes that may make the hairs on the back of your neck think they're a cornfield with a twister on the way. I tried to warn you as quietly as I could.

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

I'd be lynched for saying it, but that's why I have to say it....

[27 January 1999]

If a lot of people I consider close friends knew that I wrote this I'd be flayed alive and boiled in Tauntaun fat. I'm so relieved to find other IMDb user comments along the same lines, to find I'm not the only one!....My name is August 4 and I am a Star Wars dissident! Is this SW thing some kind of contagious delusion, mass-hysteria or pseudo-religious fervour? Why do I feel as if I'm some kind of heretic? I love fantasy movies and became a cine-junkie back in the mid-seventies when the new breed of blockbuster was born. Sure I saw Star Wars, sure I enjoyed it. I even preferred The Empire Strikes Back (though Jedi is at best a rehash of the first two movies for the under-fives.) I think I've gone a little way towards qualifying my stance. I like the movies, really, I do! But can someone explain this madness to me? I'm so far past this obsession it brings me down to see the stuff everywhere, always, without respite, EVER. The toys, the gadgets, the books, the re-released soundtrack sets, the re-released video sets, the bed linen, the computer games.... On top of this, people around me greeting these things with enthusiasm, even excitement. PLEASE, SOMEBODY HELP ME! For me, the films have always lacked a certain something; passion perhaps, a deep emotional involvement. Star Wars never hit me in that place that makes a movie something personal and enduring. The Dykstra / ILM special effects leave no space for imagination. It's all about technology, never beauty. That opening shot of the Imperial Star Destroyer going overhead has always left me unmoved, (this blasphemy alone would be enough for certain buddies to kick that chair out from under me!) even at the age of 10 when I saw it the first time round. These days I've moved onto movies with a bit more of an emotional kick. I'm still a dreamer, but I prefer characters to be defined a bit more clearly and the technology to be a bit more blurred. Beguiling as the trailer for The Phantom Menace looks, I think the SW franchise is on the brink of being devoured by SFX. I hope it's brilliant, but even if it isn't, prepare for it to be around FOREVER.

Godzilla (I) (1998)

Godzilla is so far from being quarter-decent that my sense of wonder was finally only inspired by the ineptitude of its makers.

[2/10 · 23 January 1999]

Surely the spectacle of a movie like 'Godzilla' is its raison d'etre? Even if it's unevenly cast, badly scored and overlong you should leave the cinema with its set pieces etched into your brain. 'Godzilla' is so far from being even a quarter-decent B-movie that my sense of wonder was finally only inspired by the ineptitude of its makers. For anyone who thinks that making a brainless, fun, monster movie with a big budget is easy, look how badly it can all go wrong! I felt as if I were watching a first,lazy, REALLY lazy cut with all the flab and the extraneous dialogue and needless subplots and cutaways left intact. The effects are nowhere near good enough to stand up to close scrutiny: (check out the scenes of Godzilla v. submarine and see if there is ANY sense of scale conveyed whatsoever.) The pacing is the worst I have ever seen in a mainstream Hollywood movie, and I've seen plenty of ropey movies in my time. But beyond all of this, the greatest sense of the movie I was left with was one of sadness and sympathy for the tragically brilliant Hank Azaria who acts as if he thinks he's in a movie 700% better than the one he's actually appearing in, for Maria Pitillo and her thankless wet lettuce role, unfairly savaged half to death in most of the reviews I read at the time of release, and Jean Reno for bringing his brand of dignity to a film that in no way deserved it.

The Exorcist III (1990)

Flawed though it is, I have a soft spot for this film for its intelligent, non-ironic journey into darkness.

[8/10 · 23 January 1999]

William Peter Blatty can really write. Prose and dialogue. No argument. But can he direct a movie? On the strength of 'Exorcist III,' yes he can. This isn't to say that the film doesn't have its problems. On the contrary, its biggest problem, the out-of-character 'crowd-pleasing' SFX climax stops it from being one of the greats. So why do I have a soft spot for this film? If, like me, you appreciate horror films that are both scary and made for grown-ups, 'Exorcist III' is refreshing and memorable for its intelligent, non-ironic journey into darkness and for its refusal (bar that ending) to dumb down for the kids. If 'Scream' is your idea of a great horror movie, this isn't one for you! The cast is not nearly young and attractive enough, there are nowhere near enough gags (though Blatty's dry, sardonic wit is happily in evidence) and the film has no pretensions at being an autopsy of the genre, therefore somehow lifting it above the films it purports to comment on. 'Exorcist III' is literary beyond 'Scream's' self-referential trivia-chasing (I would love to hear Detective Kinderman critiquing that movie!) Read 'Legion' and you'll have an idea of how good the film should have been. Flaws acknowledged and accepted, don't miss out on Brad Dourif's best performance since 'Cuckoo's Nest,' scene-stealing turns by Ed Flanders and Nancy Fish, or the superlative production design, photography and sound. More than anything else, it's the atmosphere of the film that stays with me. I can recall very few films that have a better sense of the power of stillness and silence. So much of the violence is communicated only in dialogue; your mind reluctantly does the rest.