Change Your Image
lphelan
Reviews
Edge of Seventeen (1998)
Teeming with bathos.
It is films like these that discourage directors from attempting pathic moments. This film relies on the audience to be so starved of 'positive' representations of queer that they will accept any product, no matter how inferior. Still, some of the boys are hot, and they show a bit more skin than in mainstream narrative cinema. So, if you can choke down or ignore the sticky sweet sentimentality it's not an unamusing way to kill however long it is.
Dead Poets Society (1989)
Spoiler, venom.
Warning, spoiler...
If ever o ever a strawman there was the Dead Poets Society is one because because because of the never ending cavalcade of unblinking cliches that constitutes it's "plot". Raised only by the ultimate expression of entitled teen angst, the ineptly over played suicide of "the sensitive boy", this movie comes across like a verbose sixth graders attempt at drama. One dimensional characters bounce around the screen, avoiding any semblance of complexity or depth. Highly overrated, obvious and insipid.
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Excellent, Incredible
This is not the greatest movie I have ever seen. But I could not tell you why. I have a friend who explains it as "It has everything I have ever liked ever in it." This is certainly true. This movie is one of the smartest, funniest, best, exceptional, outstanding films I have ever seen. I have seen a lot of films. It is difficult to explain, it has so much, monkeys, John Cusack, puppets, visions of hell, visions of heaven, swimming, the New Jersey Turnpike, Brad Pitt, oh yeah, and that crazy amazing genius brilliant wacky guy John Malkovich. He's in it a bit. I loved him in that jewel-thief movie. See this movie. See it now. If you've seen it, see it again, I will be there, with my John Malkovich mask and nametag that says "Hello My name is John Malkovich". I swear I don't usually obsess about movies this way. This one is special.
Shooting Elizabeth (1992)
Absurd Goldblum Shines
Jeff Goldblum in the role he was born to play: Howard Pigeon. Scheming to escape from his unhappy marriage and talking animatedly to himself, Goldblum's delivery of stuttering gesticulation is perfect, eerily resonant of Mamet's use of repetition and rhythmic logic. Pigeon is blissfully unaware of his impending doom as he plots and seethes. Mimi Rodgers is brilliant as his wife and foil Elizabeth Pigeon. The film is strangely set in Spain, with much of it shot along the Spanish coast and in the mountains. Well much of the film follows the finest abusurdist traditions, the ending brings a surprising amount of emotional weight. Worth seeing for Goldblum's performance alone (a strange idea indeed).
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997)
Best show on TV
Unquestionably the best show currently on television. Consistently interesting and engaging plot lines and conflicts creatively drawn from culturally relevant topics. The thinly veiled commentary the series makes: high school is hell, most adults are clueless (except for the evil ones), only you can help save the world, etc. should resonate with anyone who remembers compulsory education for what it was/is. This is the most self-aware and best-conceptualized show of our time, and probably the closest thing to true film noir in prime time.