Trajanc Reviews

Game of Thrones (2011–2019)

Beautiful, well acted and ridiculous.

[3/10 · 12 April 2013]

Game of Thrones does for medieval fantasy what Deadwood did for westerns. And like Deadwood Game of Thrones amps up the viciousness but this time to a ridiculous degree. The acting is terrific. The set design (cgi or not), costumes, directing, editing and sound are all top notch. The dialogue can be cutting and clever but also arch and melodramatic. The desperate and menacing and oh so important conversations frankly started to blur together in my head. Just when your attention might wander breasts or a new extreme in atrocities is served to remind you how cool and hardcore this world is. After a while I started to wonder how anyone is still alive in this world. Where does all this fodder come from? But for sure thousands of lives will be readily available for extinguishing next time the audience might be getting bored or needs to be reminded how nasty somebody is.

Shuttle (2008)

Beyond stupid.

[1/10 · 25 October 2010]

There are dumb movies, really dumb movies, movies that are so dumb they are funny and at the height or depths, not sure which, of dumbness there is Shuttle. Without giving too much away take your standard evil psycho vs woman in danger clichés and repeat them over and over with a lot of ridiculously unrealistic circumstances and you have this movie. The directing is tepid. The acting is very uneven but mostly just average. The story is idiotic. There's no suspense or horror here. Just irritation at how dumb it all is. A little bit of humor might have saved this mess but the film makers obviously decided to follow the modern suspense/horror trope of opting for unrelenting bleakness over of any real substance.

Mean Creek (2004)

Haunting and superb.

[9/10 · 21 February 2006]

Mean Creek is an amazing accomplishment. This film reminded me that movies about kids don't have to be as supremely stupid as most such films are. Everything about this movie is executed just brilliantly, from the natural and effective acting and dialog to the focused and evocative directing, cinematography and editing. The movie is heartbreakingly sad but still rich with tenderness and compassion for all it's characters. Despite the tragic ending I think the film delivers a very humanistic message that suggests the value of human life and the worth of exploring other peoples character. Excellent film.

The Devil's Rejects (2005)

Decent editing, OK camera-work, dumb movie.

[2/10 · 24 July 2005]

Whiny bullet resistant morons kill people, hide and then have it out with the law. It's like Faces of Death meets,,, ?? The Cannonball Run with a long layover at a Motel 6. After seeing all the ways it has been done in movies I for one am just frankly getting tired of seeing people getting gacked and having murder being passed off as story points.

Earnestly, too earnestly, offensive, occasionally funny tho well shot. Rob Zombie said he didn't want people to cheer for these villains? Bull@#$%. Sad that he doesn't have the balls to admit what an exploitation film is really about.

And I am not the smartest guy on my block. Far from it and my practical experience with gunplay is from computer games but even I could have managed the arrest or elimination of these bozos. The cops rivaled the badguys for dumbest team but I guess really that title has to go to the writers.

Point Break (1991)

Tragic story about the homoerotic relationship between an FBI agent and a surfer in LA.

[4/10 · 23 September 2004]

Good directing and crisp editing can't save this mindless overwrought film. Keanu Reeves is his reliably wooden self as an FBI agent who maybe likes Patrick Swayze's bank robber/surfer character a little too much. I love Reeves line to Swayze near the end, 'You crossed the line. People trusted you and they died.' (sic) I'd add: 'And oh yeah, you broke the law a lot, terrorized a lot of innocent people, murdered a cop, kidnapped and almost had my girl killed and you've been generally an insufferable, pompous megalomaniac.' Then I'd have shot him in the knee and arrested him. But that's just me. Reeves lets him surf off into oblivion because the movie is really about the love/hate relationship between these two space cases.

All that aside, the story and dialogue is all nonsense and the acting ranges from adequate to bad tho Busey almost succeeds in making a character you could give a damn about. A nice film to look at but not to listen to.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

So good it makes me feel like a whore for liking anything less.

[10/10 · 18 August 2004]

Literally.

Imagine a movie devoid of every commercial aspect of modern film making and you have this movie. It is slow paced, completely lacking in name celebs, contains almost no violence, absolutely no sex and no profanity, no witless teaser oriented banter but instead boasts long passages with no dialogue what so ever and it tells a story that is incomprehensible to most casual viewers.

And yet it is a faultless masterpiece. The directing, cinematography, editing, special effects, set design, acting, script and story are all near perfect. The movie tells a story of such grand sweep and vision that it is unlike any other. It delivers scene after scene in such a precise yet unforced fashion that it leaves no room for pandering. From the astoundingly natural sounding dialogue to a dead on rendering of the (imagined) realities of space travel, 2001 is a movie incapable of a false move.

I might sound like some deranged fanboy but that is only because this is my favorite movie of all time.

Cape Fear (1991)

Painfully dumb and overwrought.

[1/10 · 7 August 2004]

Jessica Lange and Nick Nolte are necessarily dim witted, but to be interesting they throw in neurotic and at times near spastic. Robert DeNiro effectively plays a cartoon character; indestructible, omni-present and talks like a clown. Juliette Lewis delivers a decent performance but her character contributes so little to the story until right at the end that she ends up being marginalized but maybe that was the film makers intent. The director shows off a lot of tricks and succeeds in showing that he knows a lot of tricks. The music, the acting, the editing, the level of violence, are all amped up to the highest degree to showcase successively sillier and sillier goings on. I won't go into the details of the story and for anyone who has not seen the movie I recommend the Simpson's spoof; you'll get the gist of it, it's more entertaining and will save you some time.

Hidalgo (2004)

An enjoyable adventure.

[7/10 · 7 March 2004]

Hidalgo benefits from not aiming too high and mostly hitting all it's marks. Viggo Mortensen is fine as his usual laconic self and most importantly shows genuine riding skills in some fairly spectacular race sequences. Omar Sharif and the rest of the cast do a well enough job and the desert itself lends fine support as a lovely but potentially lethal character. You do feel some of the pain riders in a race like this would endure but on top of that is a swashbuckling style as Viggo and mount have all sorts of adventures somewhat peripheral to the actual race itself. This movie has been described as a throwback and that it is. Good thing is it's a fairly competently made throwback that stops just short of fawning political correctness or boorish exploitation. A pretty good movie overall.

Oh and kudos to jake-179 for writing one of the dumbest and most offensive reviews I've read here about any movie. Hint: look at the map of the race course or better study some geography and you'll know how the base camp-folks stayed ahead of the riders.

The Passion of the Christ (2004)

A guy getting his ass kicked for 2 hours.

[3/10 · 29 February 2004]

You will likely never see a better movie about a guy getting his ass kicked for 2 hours. Seriously. This is the best shot, best acted sustained whupping you are ever gonna see. That being said, I guess it is effective in a very over the top way in saying something about Jesus. It actually reminded me of Blackhawk Down in a way; both are all about the action and light on characterization or dialogue. The Roman soldiers are pretty much cartoon characters and the few really interesting characters like Christ's mother are given too little to say or do. Pilate hints at having some depth but it's all shunted aside to get to the beatings, whippings etc. Cavaziel does an ok job as Jesus; he's finely stoic but that's it. He's not given many directions to go in I guess so we don't really get too much depth or range from him but what he does show is fine. Overall this movie is mainly an oddity. Take away the Christian context and a similar film would be judged unwatcheable by most people.

War Zone (1998)

Self-indulgent posturing over shadows a legitimate message.

[31 October 2003]

This film starts off with an interesting idea, challenging men on the streets who harass women, but it soon devolves into a series of Jerry Springer-like confrontations. Not much is analysed or discovered about anyone's behaviour. The film maker does get some shots in at the men she challenges but like another reviewer noted, many of them seem mentally handicapped or drug or alcohol addicted. That's not an excuse for their behaviour but putting them on the other side of a dialogue is not likely to produce anything really worth while.

This film is really a sort of power trip that may be long over due but in it's execution it is potentially embarassing to watch for both sexes. Not really a documentary and not a study, War Zone is at best a guilty pleasure. It produces the same sort of result that an Israeli might get from walking up to a Palestinian and shouting at him, and vice versa.

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

A sense of humour and energetic directing save this movie.

[3/10 · 21 August 2003]

Coming from two series that have produced some of the worst films of all time, it's surprising that this movie doesn't completely suck. The directing and editing are good and infuse the goings on with a level of energy that none of the cast or the script can quite catch up with. There are many funny parts and it's the film's twisted sense of humour that makes it enjoyable. Without that it would just be a grim, pointless chronicle of murders and who would want to watch that?

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

A watchable film

[6/10 · 13 July 2003]

PotC is a beautifully shot and well directed film. Almost every scene is breathtaking for it's natural beauty, immaculate set design and costuming or terrific special effects. The acting is all decent enough, though Orlando Bloom fails to develop his character into the sort of hero the film needs. Depp plays Swann with a variety of eccentric quirks and once you get used to it he is quite funny and engaging. Rush chews the scenery just enough to make his undead pirate captain a larger than (after) life monster who still oozes a nasty charm. The movie is too long and in some key scenes it fails to generate tension. Still it's an enjoyable and very well shot romp.

The Brown Bunny (2003)

Outstandingly bad.

[1/10 · 4 June 2003]

Already a mild sensation for being maybe one of the worst received films in the history of Cannes, The Brown Bunny lives up to the hype; it is one excruciatingly bad film. Pointless, self-indulgent, inconsistent, misdirected and awesomely dull. A meandering, poorly shot and pointless road trip set to a totally inappropriate score, monomaniacally centered on a character who has nothing to offer. It even manages to make fellatio look boring. I saw this on a tape where a little bit of the edges of the picture were cropped but I don't think that made any difference. One of the worst films I have seen in a long time. Unfortunately, it's not even entertainingly bad.

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Visually stunning, intentionally confusing, lacking in real drama.

[5/10 · 15 May 2003]

Reloaded boasts lots of spectacularly well choreographed kung fu fighting, gun fights and chases. The film is beautiful to look at and offers up a convoluted plot that after some initial dragging (including an embarrassingly out of place extended dance sequence) takes off at an accelerated pace. It introduces some interesting characters and puts all the players through a physical and mental wringer. After Morpheus makes all his dour pronouncements and a new character, the Architect gives an amazingly incomprehensible speech, the audience is left to wonder just what the @#$% is actually going on. That might be fun for some, for others not, but regardless the movie somehow failed to create any imperative in me to figure all this out. I never really feared for any of the principles and as one crisis after another was announced then knocked down I noted that the tension level, least for me, didn't really change. I did enjoy looking at the movie.

Identity (2003)

A well acted, tight and intelligent thriller.

[7/10 · 27 April 2003]

Cusack is a standout in this extremely well crafted thriller. His solid performance anchors a film that throws the viewer one curveball after another. The final 5 seconds may be a bit silly but everything else here is good. An enjoyably unsettling horror/suspense film.

A Man Apart (2003)

A misfire in every way.

[4/10 · 9 April 2003]

Ok performances, adequate to poor directing, a frequently nonsensical script, inconsistent cinematography, and ambitions that far outreach the filmmakers grasp. This film is passable entertainment for the hardcore action crowd but it offers nothing new and nothing that is really good. The promise that Vin Diesel showed in Boiler Room and other earlier pictures is being wasted in unremarkable films like this.

Dreamcatcher (2003)

Fine start, awful end.

[3/10 · 23 March 2003]

Like many have said, Dreamcatcher starts out really well, with some interesting characters and intriguing scenes. Then, after about 40 minutes or so, it descends into implausibility, imcomprensibility and unintentional hilarity. A huge mis-step for everyone involved. I haven't read the book but I get the impression from the film that they are pole vaulting through it. The movie makes some leaps and like so many movies based on books, it presents scenes that might have worked in a book where you hear the inner monologue but on the screen they are just absurd. 3/10.

Dark Journey (1937)

A wacky trip.

[11 March 2003]

I watched this movie late late late one night and it really caught me off guard. I missed the opening credits and at first thought it was some early Hitchcock movie that for some reason I had never heard of. It has some Hitchcock-esque bits from the snappy dialogue in tense situations, a rich supporting cast, bits in a music hall etc but of course it's not Hitchcock. It's Vivien Leigh, who is massively hot as usual, playing a double spy and falling in love with some creepy German guy. I kept expecting a vaguely handsome, stalwart American hero type to nab her but she actually fell for the German, who was ostensibly a bad guy. I guess 3 years later it would have been impossible to make this film but in 1937 it was ok.

As I said, great supporting cast, solid turn by the leads, nice script and tight directing. unfortunately the love story is not as well rendered as it could have been (their exchanges are a bit too arch for my taste), the suspense never really builds to a crescendo and the effects in the end naval engagement certainly do not hold up well but overall it's still a pretty good film.

Tears of the Sun (2003)

A passable action film, though some may dislike its politics.

[6/10 · 8 March 2003]

This movie boasts solid directing, editing and cinematography. The performances are good enough considering the rather limited depth offered by the screenplay. The movie starts out looking like it might offer some serious and maybe interesting character clashes but in the end it all comes down to bullets, bullets and more bullets. That's not entirely bad since the gunfights are staged fairly well. I initially thought some of the tactics used by the SEALs (like walking quickly forward while shooting into an enemy position) were unrealistic but I checked and that's actually a bona fide method of assault in certain circumstances. Oh well.

Some folks might object to this film and other American-produced African war movies chronic depiction of white people shooting loads of black people. If you are really pc that might be an issue for ya. Also the movie does seem to be a strong supporter of both the US military and a perceived need for the US to intervene in the affairs of other nations for the good of all. That might cause ya to choke but that's up to individual ideology. Others might get off on it's lauding of US soldiers. I go with the idea that you judge how well made a film is and what you think of it's politics completely seperately if you can. In that regard Tears of the Sun is an ok action/suspense film. 6/10

The Four Feathers (2002)

One of the worst films I saw in 2002.

[3/10 · 18 February 2003]

I almost walked out on this movie. I've heard people say that the conventions and social mores of the period don't translate well for modern audiences. I'd have to say that that is true for me. I thought most of the characters were either stupid or cowards or both. I wanted to see someone, anyone stand up and rebel against the codes of conduct that seemed to be choking them.

However it is not that type of movie. So that aside, I still didn't like it. None of the performances are particularly outstanding. Hudson is surprisingly bad here. Heath Ledger delivers a competent performance. The story is incredibly racist. Why oh why do we have another non-white person who for no good reason decides to devote himself to serving the white protagonist? The directing is fair but even though there are some large battles none of it is very memorable. The over use of slow motion during many parts is particularly weak.

On the plus side, the set design and some of the cinematography is very good. The time period is faithfully recreated in detail. Sadly all that effort can not make up for the film's too many shortcomings.

Rio Bravo (1959)

A fun and endearing western.

[9/10 · 6 February 2003]

This movie is very character driven, and if you don't like the characters, you won't like the film. It is slow paced, but I relish every moment you get to spend with these people. John Wayne is John Wayne, for better or worse. Dean Martin does a fine job as a rummy who gets a second chance. Walter Brennan is a hoot. Angie Dickinson and Ricky Nelson do well enough in their roles. Their various exchanges come out of a script that isn't in a hurry to get anywhere but just flows along nicely. The shootouts add some punch and in the end everything comes out all right. A fine, classic western.

Black Hawk Down (2001)

A peerless technical exercise with a barely noticeable script.

[9/10 · 27 January 2003]

Black Hawk Down boasts outstanding directing, editing, cinematography, sound effects and sound editing,,, and almost no character development or memorable dialogue of any kind. This is a war movie that is about the process of fighting and nothing more. The action does suggest the fallacy of assumed superiority and while it is clearly portraying the mission as misguided, it does work at portraying the individual soldiers as heroes. This may or may not be acceptable to you depending on your personal ideology but that's where the movies heart is at. I read Bowden's book and the works of others on the subject. The film seems to stick closely to reality except for the manufactured scene of Aidid's men shooting people at the food distribution center and the made up character of the captured arms dealer. It would have been interesting to learn more about some of the soldiers and to maybe hear of the mis-steps the Americans had made that provoked such anger from the Somali people. A more critical reviewer might say that the films setup is a lie, but I don't think the film really has a setup. It's all about the action and the action is superbly rendered. The performances are all good enough for what the cast is asked to do, with Eric Bana being a standout as the consummate professional soldier. Strongly recommended.

The Matrix (1999)

Stunning but a lil silly.

[7/10 · 27 January 2003]

The Matrix is an exciting, stylish, thrill ride that unfortunately ultimately goes nowhere. It has one of the best openings and first half that you are ever likely to see. And then it all comes down to gun fights and fist fights. Mind you they are spectacularly well staged and shot gun fights and fist fights, but that's as much as the movie can offer as any sort of conclusion. The premise sets up so many wonderful ideas and possibilities it's too bad the script makes no attempt to explore them in any substantial way. We are introduced to The Matrix. We see The Matrix as a kind of playground, then as a kind of battle ground. And then that's it. Questions like if you were rebels fighting against an evil enemy that had enslaved mankind, why would your method of attack be the equivalent of going to their house and playing Nintendo against them? Ahh, well, The Matrix is born waiting for a sequel and not one but two are in the offing. Hopefully they can bring a more rounded experience to what is, in The Matrix alone, essentially a very stylish, action packed piece of fluff.

Year of the Dragon (1985)

Hard hitting but flawed epic.

[7/10 · 27 January 2003]

Mickey Rourke shines in this brutal account of a New York police captain's mono-maniacal quest to bring down a Chinese gangster. His intense performance as a man who is willing to risk his life and the lives of everyone around him to achieve his ends anchors a film that was almost truly great. Cimino's direction is stylish but at times the editing betrays him. Added to this is the awful performance of Ariane as Tracy Tzu, a script that brings in more ideas than it knows what to do with and an erratic musical score. It's maybe a kind of triumph for Cimino that in spite of those faults the film is still gripping. His stunning set pieces, the excellent supporting turns by John Lone and the frequently under rated Raymond J. Barry and the films own uncompromisingly tough attitude work hand in hand with Rourke's bravura turn. Definitely recommended.

Adrenalin: Fear the Rush (1996)

Ok performances lost in a nasty and dumb movie

[4/10 · 25 January 2003]

I'm not really concerned with whether or not this was a low or big budget movie. A good film can be made with few or lots of $. Unfortunately, this one is a stinker. The overall idea of cops chasing a viiolent plague victim is interesting, but the execution is poor. There are so many illogical and outright silly goings on that it's hard to get involved with the film. Not helping things is the slew of cliched tricks and devices thrown in from the constant amplified panting of all the characters to flashlights that go out at all the right, or wrong times. The film has a few overtly gratuitous and pointlessly nasty scenes. The ending is just flat out incoherent. On the plus side, Lambert and Henstridge don't suck. They are not given much to do acting wise in the picture, but with what they have to work with they do a passable job. There are a few moments of suspense but mostly the film alternates between being repellent and insulting.