tjlarson_ Reviews

Atlas Shrugged: Part I (2011)

Like a bad TV movie

[2/10 · 13 April 2011]

Got free tickets to see this. Even with very low expectations I came away sorely disappointed.

I'm not a fan of the book, but it's at least popular enough to warrant a legitimate adaptation. Instead, this is a clearly rushed (the producer started production just days before he lost the rights to the book) hack job with no-name actors delivering soap opera performances in a story they've muddled despite only covering roughly a third of the ground of the novel. Updating it to modern times, but keeping the industry as railroads and steel feels weirdly anachronistic and is explained via a rather absurd backstory. The stakes are low, the suspense about Galt is practically nonexistent despite the frequent interjections intended to remind the audience "Hey, there's something mysterious and important going on!" and the constant, blatant preaching of the dialogue which seemed egregious on the page seems doubly so when read aloud in the context of a "drama." No one talks like that ever and it comes across as really stilted, unnatural, and force feeding an audience the anti-humanist message.

The production values are equivalent to what you get in a SyFy original movie like Sharkotpus with terrible set design, CGI that looks like it was done in MS Paint, and lazy, static camera-work. The director's previous work was on One Tree Hill and the screenwriter's background is working on straight-to-DVD horror movies about mutant monsters with names like "Evilution" and "Cemetery Gates." That should tell you everything you need to know about the level of quality on display here.

For people who didn't like, were mixed, or are unfamiliar with the book I think it'll be a colossal failure. For most fans of the book, it will be a terrible bastardization. Only the hardest core ideologues of the story's objectivist message desperate to see it popularized in the mainstream can I imagine championing this. Whatever else it may be, this is by no means a quality or even competent movie.

Blue Valentine (2010)

You will not see better performances this year

[9/10 · 27 October 2010]

No matter what else is yet to be released, you will not see two better performances this year than Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.

It's almost impossible to imagine anyone in anything coming close. In the defensive, aggressive way he turns every line of dialogue around on the speaker as a hidden affront to his insecurities, Gosling reminded me of no less than De Niro in Raging Bull as the older Dean. Playing the younger version, he channels the charm, romanticism, and recklessness of a 1960s Paul Newman.

Williams, who has emerged as the best American actress 30 and under, pulls off a performance that recalls Gena Rowlands' work with Cassavettes. Which is not to say either is an imitation, they aren't "doing method" or aping the authenticity of previous greats. They're 100% the real deal, so good you can only compare them to the best, and they fully embody these characters in every frame. They made me believe, they made me care, they broke my heart.

The story is a familiar one because it's the most common source of drama in life and art but avoids cliché and instead handles the subject with uncommon insight and grace. The lack of context scene-to-scene keeps the audience engaged and on their feet, filling in the intentional holes with their own experience and lending the film a universal relatability. In good times and bad, we can recognize our own triumphs and failures in love. It captures the joyous highs and devastating lows of relationships better than anything I can recall. Gosling singing while Williams tap dances, what she reveals to Gosling on the bridge and how he reacts, the scene in the doctor's office towards the end... they achieve that sense of cinematic transcendence so rare these days. They simply don't craft scenes like this or give actors roles this fully realized in Hollywood anymore.

It's clear this was a labor of love for all involved and it paid off in spades. This is the best American film I've seen this year.

Silný kafe (2004)

Amateurish snoozefest

[1/10 · 9 February 2008]

This first-time effort reeks of a poorly made student project. Every character is infantile and not remotely human or realistic and the writer/director seems to think that arguing at the top of your lungs constantly is the same thing as interesting dialogue and complaining incessantly passes for character development. This relatively short feature feels like a 5 hour ordeal as all we are treated to throughout the entirety of its runtime is 5 nasty, annoying 20-something adolescents bickering at one another and occasionally having make-up sex. A consistently dull, horribly written, and ineptly made waste of time. It's amazing that this was shown at any festival, FAMU must have bribed someone handsomely. Avoid at all costs.