Change Your Image
smartygirl
Reviews
Hail, Caesar! (2016)
If you love old movies, you're be disappointed by this
Hail, Caesar! fails to deliver on its promise of a send-up of the filmic confections of Hollywood's golden age. There are two fundamental problems: pacing and performance.
For an homage to rise above pastiche, the actors need to believe in their roles. They can't mock, they need to be who they are mocking. Most of the actors here seemed to be phoning it in. "I can do a pretty good Gene Kelly impression." "You want '40s dame, I can give you '40s dame." Impressions don't work in a movie. No one cares about an impressionist. And here's the thing: if you're doing Gene Kelly in "On the Town," you need a better dancer. At least the chorus should have been better dancers. No shame having the background outshine the leads in a big musical number, in fact it's a grand old tradition (see John Brascia in "White Christmas" - since Donald O'Connor was too busy and his role went to Danny Kaye, there was no male lead of Vera-Ellen's calibre for the dance numbers). If you watch the actual movies from this era, you'll notice that every dancer is *on*. Every last member of the chorus is giving it 110% every minute that they're on screen. Not a single sailor in Channing Tatum's big dance scene - including Channing Tatum - seems to be enjoying himself. They all look like they're worried about putting a foot wrong. Periodically flashing a smile on cue, but generally a bit serious and glum.
One could argue that Tatum's character seemed distracted because he was actually embroiled in a communist plot, but in that era, no minor or major crisis would stop you from giving it all on screen and smiling regardless. Just ask Judy Garland. George Clooney got it; he bought his character. What he did in the crucifixion scene is what they should have been trying to do the whole film - the performer buying it whole hog and giving a million percent, despite his own apathetic and mercenary feelings about the whole business. And sweeping everyone up in that magic.
And the dames. Tilda Swinton didn't even try. And where was wardrobe? Her clothing could have been amazing if it fit properly, or was at least properly steamed and pressed - especially since the "lesser" twin looked more put together. Why was Scarlett Johansson's Deeanna character even in the film? As yet another crisis to make Eddie's day worse? She didn't seem interested enough to care, or make anyone else care. You have to wonder if there was more to this story, if it was initially connected in some way to the plot, but was cut because the story was dragging.
And it was dragging. Oh how it dragged. At some point around the two-hour mark (or so it felt) it occurred to me, all of this is happening in one day. Why doesn't it feel manic? Why is there no pace to this film? It's as though everyone took a Valium on their way to the set. This was especially glaring in the un-snappy '40s dame dialogue - didn't they make the actresses sit down and watch a few Barbara Stanwyck movies for research? They should have. Or, they should have gotten the amped-up court drummer from Danny Kaye's knighthood scene in The Court Jester to come in and get everyone to just speed things up a whole lot. Yea verily yea! If they had picked up the pace, given it that manic sense that was totally lacking, fleshed out the Deeanna story a bit so it was relevant (and fast-paced), that would have also allowed for more contrast with the slower parts of the film - Eddie going to confession, Eddie at home with his family. As it was, it all dragged on with the same lumbering gait.
There were other little annoyances. The makeup wasn't too period (I guess none of the actresses wanted their eyebrows messed with?) although that is certainly also true of period films of '40s and '50s. The ill-fitting wardrobe was pure carelessness on behalf of the filmmakers. The Roman soldiers couldn't march in step. All of these little details seem petty to complain about, but each one takes the viewer a little farther away from the picture.
And there were good moments, too. Heather Goldenhersh as the secretary, and most especially Alden Ehrenreich as cowboy crooner Hobie was brilliant. He looked the part, he acted the part, he believed what he was doing. And apparently he really did learn how to make a lasso out of spaghetti.
Overall, it felt like a series of set pieces. Let's do an Esther Williams number. Let's do On the Town. I swear, every single character seemed lifted from somewhere else - even the cabal of communist writers seemed like a pale echo of Billy Wilder's gang of academics in Ball of Fire.
If you love the old movies, this will leave you feeling let down. Skip it and re-watch Singin' in the Rain instead.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)
Worst movie I have seen in a long time
I had some vague memories of hearing that this film was better than you'd think from the title, so when my husband cued it up, I thought sure, I could use a laugh.
The dialogue was cringingly awkward. There's nothing worse than uber-phony awkward-it's-our-first-date-and-I-said-'sex'-five-times-ha-ha dialogue. And there's nothing funny about it. My husband predicted just about every dumb line and dumb scene before the actors stumbled half-heartedly through them. "Oh hi, I work at an art gallery where we have awkwardly sexual statues, wanna come see?" We sat there stunned, my husband said "How did this get green-lit?" Awful. The sex scenes - one dumb joke, poorly played. One would think neither Thurman nor Wilson has had sex before in their lives, although I'm pretty sure that's not the case.
Now, I will admit we fast-forwarded through a lot of it because we just couldn't stand it. But the ending? The ending?! Made me livid.
The big finale has G-Girl reconcile with her arch-nemesis, Bedlam, who has spent years trying to kill her, in his job as the Evil Villain. So, they hook up. Seriously, being an obsessive psycho who keeps a shrine to a girl in his bedroom is considered "romantic" by whom? Was that supposed to be satire that totally misfired by being completely unfunny? Because no, a woman should not run to the arms of a man that tried repeatedly to kill her. And the excuse that he only tried to kill her because he loves her? Yeah, I've known people in relationships like that. And the guy belongs in jail. I had been willing to overlook the whole even-a-woman-with-superpowers-is-hopeless-without-a-man plot to this film until that point, but that put it over the edge. Shame on everyone involved in this piece of garbage. Blecch.
Question: were they trying to make a "so bad it's good" sleeper hit? Because, they failed at that too. Ugh.
Wanted (2008)
oh, dear
No one really expects action films to believable, right? Of course not. They're meant to be fast-paced and make the audience say "whoa" and holler in excitement while watching.
So why do they so often insist on attempting to be deep? Especially when they do so poorly at it? Lo, Fate! Take Control of Your Destiny! Did you catch all the Greek mythology references? Lachesis, Atropos, and Clotho, spinning, weaving, and snipping the thread of Life? Good for you, you can now feel proud of yourself for being as Deep as the creators of this dreck. And, just for an extra dose of adolescent pretension, lots of swear words delivered in a deadly serious manner, from the opening humdrum introduction to humdrum Wesley, through endless ridiculous plot-twists and special effects, to his final "philosophical" pronouncement: "This is me taking control of my life. What the (eff) have you done with your life lately?" Honestly, was this written by a 14-year-old?
Paradise (2007)
stop-motion animation so amazing you'll think it's real
this animated short comments on free will in modern society through the creation of an intricate machine-operated world in which the characters - impeccable re-creations of antique tin wind-up toys - are pulled along predetermined tracks.
no computer-generated gimmickry here. the puppets created for "paradise" are incredible - created using the same process that was used to make tin toys in the 1950s. 5 main puppets were built, each hand-painted with its own distinct character and hinged at key joints to allow movement. as well there are cars, bicycles, and an entire environment consisting of home, office, and suburban outdoors. the technical achievement here is amazing.
while the visual style is very different, the themes explored here are similar to rosensweet's earlier film "the stone of folly," which premiered at the cannes festival and screened at festivals around the world and is also well worth watching. both are must-sees for any fan of stop-motion animation.
Bon Cop, Bad Cop (2006)
awesome!!
just came home from seeing this... it was great! the cop/buddy flick is nothing new, but this movie brought a couple of new twists to the genre, and colm feore and patrick huard make a great odd couple - the hooligan with the muscle car and the "gay accountant." the laughs started right at the beginning, and the effects looked great - i was a-feared that it would have some of the usual Canadian poor-production values and embarrassing dialogue that we seem to suffer too often, but no! it was hilarious, sometimes gruesomely hilarious, and had everyone in the theatre laughing. the evil mastermind could have been eviler, and i would have liked to know more about what made him evil, but still, a great way to spend a couple of hours.
High Society (1956)
a disappointing remake
Seeing High Society and The Philadelphia Story back-to-back really shows up the shortcomings of the former.
The best dialogue (and a few important plot points) are stripped away not just to make room for the musical numbers, but to make the film a wee bit less thought-provoking for a fifties audience. For example, when Mr. Lord is justifying his "affair" with a dancer, he adds in a line about their relationship being "innocent." Easier for them clean-cut types to handle, I guess. There is much dumbing down throughout the film, and Grace Kelly just isn't as sharp as Katherine Hepburn.
Watch the original instead!
Natural Born Killers (1994)
a cheesey remake of "sugarland express"
stone could at least have had the good grace to give credit to steven spielberg, whose debut feature "sugarland express" tells the same story (it's based on fact), with less gratuitous violence, more character development, and good direction as opposed to a show-offy bag of silly tricks.
if stone had at least *mentioned* sugarland express, he could have passed it off as homage rather than theft. but greedy ollie thought he'd hog the credit. with this turkey, though, he's just hogging the blame.