Ignatious J Fathead Reviews

Slums of Beverly Hills (1998)

Underrated, Very Funny

[8/10 · 5 March 2004]

"Slums" is one of the more underrated films of the 1990s. It seems to rub some people the wrong way for unclear reasons, but I found it to be touching and hilarious from start to finish. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for Alan Arkin, whom I've always liked, and see on screen all to infrequently. More likely I was impressed by the witty script, deft direction and solid cast. I especially appreciated the spot-on portrayal of Southern California during the mid-70s, which just happens to be the era when I migrated from "back East" to Los Angeles. Fortunately, we weren't as hapless as the Abramowitz family, who throughout this film are trying desperately to hang onto the ragged edge of the good life.

This is one "coming of age" story that you don't need to be a teenage girl to enjoy.

Quiz Show (1994)

A Personal Favorite

[13 June 2001]

This film gained some critical and popular attention when it was released, but nearly not enough, in my opinion. It is preachy, to be sure -- but pedantry isn't necessarily a bad thing, provided the filmmaker has something worthwhile to preach about, and carries it off with commitment and insight.

Robert Redford did have something to bring to our attention in this film, and it was not as many have suggested, the corruption of TV executives. It was also not fundamentally about dishonesty or fraud. The film's real purpose was to mark that place in time in American culture when TV became more important then reality, when it began to stand in for many of our higher values.

Watch the film with this idea in mind, and it will take on a great deal more depth. Observe the relationship between Charlie Van Doren and his father -- the two standing ultimately on different sides of the cultural divide that was opening in American at that time. The side onto which Charlie Van Doren stepped, seduced by money and easy fame, is the one on which we live on today. Our culture was not always thus, is Redford's subtle message -- and here is when it changed. Bravo.

Redford is also to be commended for the performances he drew from his cast. The stand-outs are obvious, but what's important overall is Redford's attention to character development and realism. This is something the current crop of hot-shot directors (Soderburg, Cameron, Spielberg, Scott, to name but a few) cannot seem to manage, so instead they give us visual spectacle, shallow characters and few ideas. Perhaps it takes a senior member of the acting community rescue us from these vapid directors.

"Quiz Show" is one of the few movies of recent years to be a film about something important, and it was executed with an unusual degree of wit, style and attention to detail. This film will always reside near the top of my personal favorites list. I rate it nine out of ten.

Traffic (2000)

An overblown muddle of a movie

[2/10 · 11 June 2001]

Could this one of the most overrated movies of the past few years? Yes, not since "Titanic" have so many words been wasted on so little.

"Traffic" manages to be self-important without being important -- the film is in fact a trivialization of subject it pretends to care about. Worst of all, the plot line of the original German-British TV series was butchered almost beyond recognition.

One of the critical elements of the series, both dramatically and in terms of the fundamental telling of the tale, was omitted entirely, and arbitrarily. Without the storyline of the opium farmer, this telling is incomplete.

What is left is told without passion or commitment. The characters are detached, shallow and uninteresting. They seem nearly as bored with the movie as we are.

And what can be said of Soderberg's art-school direction? Smug? Distracting? Gimmicky? He insultingly assumes we cannot distinguish one locale from another without using that laughably awful color-scheme. Well, if that's the case, it's a problem introduced by the director himself -- jiggling the camera around until the audience is claustrophobic and nauseous.

Anyone who is tempted to think this a good film, let alone a great one, owes it to themselves to sit down with the original series (entitled "Traffik") the next time it appears on PBS. They will see much the same story told with clarity, punch and realism -- not to mention performances you will not soon forget.