T-Rex-2001 Reviews

Borat (2006)

Borat ... funny

[7/10 · 26 February 2007]

I saw this movie on DVD. All I can say is that it was very funny. Sacha Baron Cohen deserves some sort of acting award, because many of the scenes were done live, no rehearsal, no script, and Cohen stays perfectly in character throughout. His sense of comedy and timing is very good. I won't divulge many details because that might lessen the fun.

Yes, it is a little mean-spirited at times. The insulting of a pastor's wife is discomfiting. But most of the time what we are watching is Borat the boob and the hilariously incorrect things that he does. It reminded me of "National Lampoon's Vacation," with Chevy Chase. Borat is the same kind of clown, who always manages to say the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong people. There are a lot of decent laughs in the movie and a few for which Borat should be spanked.

I would recommend buying the DVD if you've got some money to spare.

The Black Dahlia (2006)

An achievement in dullness

[1/10 · 26 February 2007]

Although this movie is advertised as a thriller, it most definitely IS NOT a thriller. It is NOT a detective story, NOT a horror film. It is instead a romantic melodrama about two cops and the girl they both, if not love, at least are buddy-buddy with. The only scary moment occurs about an hour in when you look at your watch and realize the film is only half over.

I went in thinking this was a detective story and a horror thriller and was quite disappointed. I could have been satisfied with a good romantic melodrama, but even that doesn't come off.

The movie starts off with boring exposition, then slowly descends into a bottomless abyss of tedium. Oh yes, the infamous murder of the Black Dahlia occurs, well into the film, but it's as drained of suspense and mystery as the Dahlia's corpse was drained of blood.

What seems to have gone wrong is that the filmmakers became so intoxicated with the superficial embellishments of hard-boiled detective fiction and 1940s-Hollywood glamor that they lost sight of the characters and the story. The dialog is rapid-fire and filled with lines like "she was hotter than the atom bomb" and "Great, now we got the entire armed services as a suspect." As hyper as the dialog is, the visuals are soporifically slow and excessively stylized. Nothing looks real, especially the actors' performances. Near wall-to-wall music also sabotages any sense of realness. There is even an autopsy scene staged almost like a musical number, with the medical examiner sounding like Zero Mostel when he says something to the effect, "Her intestines were removed all the way up to the um-BIL-icus." The end result resembles a bad Broadway musical with an autopsy in it.

One feels compelled at this point to mention that some of the people involved in the movie, like director Brian De Palma, have actually made good films ("Sisters," "Carrie," "The Fury"). That is, before one is compelled to warn other thriller-lovers to stay away from this movie. Don't order it on pay-per-view, as I did. Don't buy it on DVD. Don't buy it if you see it at a garage sale for $1. Run the other way.