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The Best Man (2005)
Not a complete waste of time, but almost...
It's a bit like Stefan Schwarz's earlier effort Shooting Fish, only this one's got Seth Green and a somewhat raunchier sense of humor. The sweetness of the romantic plot sits uncomfortably with Green's antics, and the script is just a mess. Olly's literary ambitions are proclaimed loudly at the beginning, but they don't show up again for ages. In fact, the beginning is just reams of exposition with nowhere to go. And there's only so much comedy to be squeezed out of a: an apartment in the red light district, b: a yuppie acting like a jerk, and c: a romantic lead who's a lovable klutz.
A few of the jokes are good, though, but apart from that, the only redeeming feature of this film is its puzzling choice of occupation for its romantic heroine: She's one of those people that hands out questionnaires at the end of test screenings to gage audience reactions and see if they wouldn't want a cheeky orangutan added to the cast or whatever. One can't help wondering why this career was chosen for her: was it an attempt to get out of the preview process, a result of the preview process, an attempt to look good in comparison with the even more asinine film-within-the-film, or what?
Ögat (1998)
Hopelessly inept
Supposedly part of a series about the seven deadly sins, this sorry excuse for a thriller mistakes mental illness for immoral behaviour. Every single note rings false, making this movie an illustration of the fact that a heart, a vision or even a mind (though the mind evident here is obviously a very slow one) is nothing without the scriptwriting, shooting and editing skills to go with it. See this only if you want to know what happens when someone who knows nothing about movies or life tries to make a movie about life. Abysmal.
Bonus spoilers: For someone who fakes his death to determine the strength of his supposed widow's love for him, Fredrik sure picks a stupid place to hide: Their basement! Or even under their kitchen table! And for someone obsessively taping his supposed widow with a digital video camera, he sure has a large collection of surveillance tape on VHS!
Modigliani (2004)
Portrait of the artist as a collection of clichés
This more or less completely useless film is hopelessly stuck in a romantic (as in 19th century) view of the artist as a lonely, struggling genius. The film (if not its subject's life) is a catalogue of clichés: The miserable childhood, the penniless adulthood, the difficult love life, the threat of insanity, the critical incomprehension, the refusal to 'sell out' (possibly the most long-lived of romantic clichés, it's still thought to be relevant in the world of rock and roll) and the god-damned post mortem vindication are all present and accounted for. Add to this lookalikes of the usual suspects of Paris between world wars - Cocteau, Picasso, Gertrude Stein etcetera - and an audience with the godlike Auguste Renoir (courtesy of Picasso) and you get this: Two hours of rehashed ideas trying to convince the viewer of an artist's originality by equating him with every stereotyped image of the troubled genius. This extreme conventionalism is hardly suited to the memory of an unconventional artist like Modigliani, is it?
Salto, salmiakk og kaffe (2004)
Infuriating
This grating, pompous film suffers from so many flaws that it is as difficult to compile a complete list as it is to identify the fatal one.
For starters, the script stinks. It's got too many characters in it, too many strands of action covering too many different moods. It simply doesn't know if it wants to be gritty realist drama about nihilist kids, lonely old people, workaholics and alcoholics, a warm human comedy, a love story, another love story, a message film or a Robert Altman-style ensemble piece. As a consequence, it doesn't work as either of the above.
One notices very quickly that most of the actors aren't good enough to play around their characters' being underdeveloped, underwritten cardboard cutouts. Neither do they seem to have had much in the line of direction. Thus, bad dialogue is delivered badly, making the viewer want to hide under his seat most of the time.
It's also badly shot. In the director's previous film, 'Når nettene blir lange', the impossibility of actually seeing what went on was due to the questionable choice of shooting a dogme film (in which no artificial lighting is allowed, you remember) in a pitch-black cabin in the mountains in the dead of winter. In this film, the impossibility of seeing what is actually going on is due to the restless, shaky (handheld?) camera, the cramped closeups and the incessant cutting. In the rare instances that the film manages something like an establishing shot, the colours and scenery are actually rather pretty, making the viewer wonder why the director doesn't want to show it to us.
Materials surrounding the film claim that its aim is to show a class of humans, namely 'regular, everyday people', going about their everyday business. At some point, someone must have realized that this makes for boring stories, and so melodrama was added, both in terms of action and emotion. Sadly, the melodrama doesn't help. It's this in particular that gives the impression of a filmmaker desperate to shake up the cinematic world of make-believe without knowing the first thing about neither make-believe nor drama. Do not waste 100 minutes of your life on this film unless you want to learn how NOT to make a movie.
Wag the Dog (1997)
smug and hamfisted
It's not that I necessarily disagree with the politics, it's more that Levinson's film is proof that satirical films should be left to people on the fringes of the film industry. Don't even get me started on Hoffman and DeNiro's performances. Hoffman especially radiates an unbecoming smugness only rivalled by the director's own.
The Second Civil War (1997)
Uneven satire with moments of greatness
While this TV-movie is by no means as good as Dante's later effort 'Small Soldiers', it is without question far superior to Barry Levinson's embarrasing (not to mention godawful and hamfisted) 'Wag the Dog'. It goes a bit over the top in preachiness at times, particularly in the James Earl Jones character's voice-over. This character's exchanges with techie Godfrey also tend towards the cloying. The good parts include Denis Leary's war-zone reporter, Ron Perlman's liberal arguing with a conservative colleague and Elizabet Peña's character's fight with the governor. As always with Dante, however, greatness is in the small things (Remember The cathedral of Saint Eva Marie?). The satire lies in the assumptions about the state of the world a few years from now. The scenes from LA, Rhode Island and the House of Representatives completely make up for any weaknesses in the film. Dig that meeting of the commanding officers of the opposing military forces! The supporting cast is littered with great names and great cameos, among them Dick Miller and Roger Corman.
Wandafuru raifu (1998)
everything i´d hoped (possible spoiler?)
The moment I first heard about this film three or four years ago, my expectations started forming, and they were very high indeed. I finally got an opportunity to see it in a theatre, and am happy to say that those high expectations were more than fulfilled. Other commentators have provided adequate descriptions of the content of the film, i´ll just say that the moment i´ll bring with me from it, is the realization that the gates to eternity is within a movie theatre.
Volga - Volga (1938)
talent? in this dump?
Even those of us with some sort of education in the field of cinema rarely get to see other Soviet films than those of Eisenstein, Tarkovskij and maybe Pudovkin. It´s easy for every western film fan to become as prejudiced as the bureaucrat Byvalov in Volga-Volga: "Talent? in this dump?" My point being, of course, that it would be unfair to world cinema as well as to oneself if one were to deny oneself the pleasures of at least once in a while seeing a Feuillade serial, a German mountain film or a Soviet musical. Volga-Volga is an excellent choice for the curious cinephile. As everyone points out, it has the distinction of reportedly being Stalin´s favourite film, it has stars in it is well as great music, I could go on and on. The main reason for seeing Volga-Volga is of course that it´s great fun. It had me in stitches more than once.
A comment on polart´s vhs edition of Volga-Volga: Granted, the subtitles are yellow and eminently readable, but they are also quite often badly timed and frequently seem insufficient. Also, the framing seems to be slightly off, something i´m hesitant in blaming comrades Alexandrov and Petrov for.
Gustave est médium (1921)
a great idea well executed
The great idea not being waking up with telekinetic powers, but having someone wake up with telekinetic powers quickly realizing that a great career as a mover (and shaker) of furniture may lie ahead of him. The furniture animation is hilarious and quite good. This is something entirely different from feuillade´s more famous crime serials, and hopefully everyone in the world will someday be able to see this. In the meantime, let´s hope for more furniture animation in today´s cinema.