irocz78 Reviews

The Master of Disguise (2002)

Painful and awkward aren't funny

[2/10 · 1 March 2006]

I've always been a Dana Carvey fan. He was funny on Saturday Night Live, funny in Wayne's World, and funny everywhere else that he wasn't bearing the full weight of a movie with the strength of his comedic ability.

His big test came in Master of Disguise, and with it he flunked out of film school.

Don't believe that just because you're a "comedy fan" (as one reviewer put it) that you'll somehow be rolling in the aisles at this. You won't. If you were in the theater, you'd probably walk out. Since you'll probably watch this at home, expect to walk out of your house, because the whole thing will be poisoned.

The first poorly acted scene with legendary starlet Bo Derek was just a harbinger of things to come. Flailing confusion followed for the next 75 minutes, which seemed a stretched out version of a 45 minute script.

The acting never convinced you of anything but the effect of weak directing. It was as if director Perry Blake was too afraid to tell his actors what to do. Few of them turned in a scene that didn't seem like a first take. The cameras just kept rolling anyway, perhaps trying to save money on film by not re-shooting anything.

The costume-based jokes all fall flat in seconds. When a character is more creepy and awkward than funny, there's a problem. On a scale of 1 to 10, one being amusing and ten being creepy, the "Turtle Guy" scene was the proverbial 11. Note to all involved: A guy saying "turtle" in a weird sheepish voice isn't funny, and it certainly isn't funny when you've had him repeat it 20 times within five minutes as the only attempted joke in the entire scene.

If the only comic relief next to the performance of confused, awkward "straight man" Jennifer Esposito is a guy repeating the same line over and over again, you're scraping the wood off the bottom of the laugh barrel. There's just nothing there to find remotely amusing. All the audience feels is pity for everyone involved in the movie, including themselves.

That type of unnerving awkwardness repeats over and over again throughout the movie, halted only briefly by comedic gems left completely unexplored like the "Classmates.com" profile in which the evil villain (played by Brent Spiner, who once again had nothing to work with) gives away his entire plan.

What you get is an unfunny, unbearable view of Dana Carvey and many of his cast mates committing career suicide right in front of you. If you want to watch a movie that makes you feel joy, laughter, intrigue, and other positive feelings, watch something else. If you want to ride a roller-coaster of unrequited emotion as you hope over and over again that Dana Carvey is funny for his own sake, only to be let down over and over again until you push the stop button, this one's for you. It's not funny; it's sad.

The Village (2004)

Brilliantly nuanced, subtle, smart, and expertly played

[1 August 2004]

It's not what you think it is. It's not horrific. It's not gory. It is however a very well written and played thriller drama, with a fantastic love story woven into it to keep it from getting overbearing.

I've seen the 6th Sense and thought it was fantastic, and passed on Signs because I'd already been sick of alien movies by then, though it looks like I should see it.

I went into this film without preconceptions about M. Night Shyamalan or his previous work. I wanted to see a good scary movie. Good it was. Scary it was less. Don't go into it expecting to get horrified, and you won't leave the movie upset about it.

I liked this movie a lot, largely because it caught me by surprise at many points. It's too easy to spoil the movie if I mention why though, so I'll just say you have to see it for yourself.

The acting, particularly by Bryce Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, and William Hurt, was played well with the right subtlety and nuance to make the characters believable.

Howard's role as the smart, emotionally strong tomboy who also happens to be blind was played with an understanding you don't often see in a period role. She was Ivy, and she was living in the late 19th century. She showed an innocence that she could only have gotten away with in this character, and she played it like the time was hers.

There was no doubt of who she was. She conveyed the strength (both her real strength and that which she exuded with a feminine machismo) of her character very well, but never pushing it over the top. She never shouted an emotion; she whispered it, but it was loud and clear. When she spoke about love and fear, you felt it. When she cried she wasn't hamming it up; she exuded grief from eyes, face, and body. She was brilliant, and I can't wait to see her on screen again. She also happens to be incredibly beautiful. Did that cloud my judgment? Go see the movie.

Phoenix continues to upstage his previous roles in every movie I've seen him in. His expressions are classic. The theater laughed more from his modest look of confusion in one scene than I've heard at the last 3 comedies I've watched. He was being more serious than ever, but the comedy of his emotions, however brief, was transmitted perfectly through his stone cold face, only barely showing what he felt inside, but saying everything. Throughout the movie, he was quiet, thoughtful, brave, and pure of spirit, and he said it all in so few words. When he spoke of emotion, it had a power that gripped me. The lines he delivered, though incredibly well written, were meant for him.

Shyamalan's dialogue helped, in that it was rarely obtrusive when spoken by these actors.

About the story: It twists in ways few could imagine. That makes it a bit upsetting. Expect to be let down a little. If you're not looking for gory horror, then you might just love it. When it's not changing directions though it's fantastic in it's subtleties. I can't avoid that word because it applies well to how Shyamalan put this together.

I don't buy many movies, but I will be purchasing this when it comes out on DVD.

Trainspotting (1996)

Brilliantly written and played, incredible dialogue, not for morons

[13 November 2003]

There's a good reason why the imdb recommendations guide, which lists movies that those who liked Trainspotting should also like, lists some of the greatest, most critically acclaimed movies ever made. It's because this is one of them, and rightfully so. It won critical acclaim across the globe for its gritty portrayal of the unfortunate existence of a hapless group of losers and drug addicts, living the low life in Edinburgh, Scotland.

It is a dialogue driven movie, though, so if you don't get the lines, and don't understand the humor, which is very dry at times, and never comes in the form of a 'joke', you'll unknowingly call this movie "slow" or "depressing" or "bad." In a delightfully madcap exchange when Renton announces he's through with heroin, the lines "...he's lacking in moral fiber" "He knows a lot about Sean Connery." "Thats hardly a substitute!" sums up the writing quite well. It only works in the context of the scene itself, but the way it's played and the scene it's set in make it beyond hilarious.

It's one of the most powerfully written and played movies I've ever seen. Renton (Ewan McGregor), the main character, undergoes pseudo metamorphases to illustrate his own attempts at regaining his sanity. His friends, who enter the movie with static roles, illustrate their own inability to change by remaining undeveloped, only sinking deeper into their self-created abysses.

Tommy (Kevin McKidd), who falls victim to heroin addiction and dies from it after entering the movie as the epitome of clean, healthy living, undergoes a downward spiral which we flash into occasionally to see how he's being rapidly destroyed by drugs about which he professed "I'm an adult, I can find out for myself."

Though Renton's character is the only one which is fully explored, all of Renton's "so called friends" are cleanly written, well summarized, and do their part to create the air of hostility and pressure which Renton faces in his battle to rid himself of heroin.

Begbie, played with powerful energy by Robert Carlyle, adds much needed comic relief with his hilarious and sometimes disturbing violent outbursts, while exposing the ironic nature of his legal addiction to alcohol when played in the background of a heroin movie.

Diane, his love interest, simply adds to the pressure of life, using him for sex and echoing the chorus from his non-drug user friends and family members that he's destroying his life, "poisoning [his] body with that sh!te."

It gets depressing at times, as it should, to properly illustrate the horror and depravity that comes with the lifestyle. The "carpet" scene couldn't have been more brilliantly imagined to portray the feeling of emptiness and detachment as Renton nears death from an overdose.

Overall, it gets a 10. This movie can't lose when played to an audience with the intelligence, wit, and sense of humor to understand it.

The Replacements (2000)

Johnny Utah takes more acting skill suppressant pills and then puts on a football helmet

[9 December 2002]

In this film, Keanu Reeves reprises his role as an anthropomorphic park bench, a role he's made famous in such films as 'Point Break', 'The Devil's Advocate', and 'The Matrix'. This time, that loveable bench straps on a football uniform, and gives his woodiest performance yet.

It's not hard to believe that women would want to see the hot stupid popular actor play the role of the stereotypical hot stupid popular guy on film, and I'll admit that seeing stripper/cheerleaders had to be a huge draw for the guys as well. What's confusing about this phenomenally bad film is that people not only could stomach the entirety of it, but that they've actually praised it in public without fear of retribution.

Once the true horror of this film's inevitable, clichemobile plot became obvious to me, I could only manage to occupy myself by guessing successfully what the next scene would bring. It was like a choose your own adventure book on the silver screen, only I kept making all the wrong choices, and the movie kept going along with them anyway. Imagine being a NFL cheerleader and saying this to motivate your colleagues: "Hey girls, those football players are striking. I say we go with them! Sure they make millions, and we make $10 an hour, and there are hundreds of thousands of high school seniors who would be glad to take our place, but if we strike, it'll make for much more interesting professional stripper replacements when the owners of the team find it strangely impossible to find any new cheerleaders!" I'll note that the run-on quote I wrote up there delineates basically what happened in the movie, and, you got it, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Speaking of choices, should actors be given BAC tests before they're allowed to sign up for a movie? Gene Hackman must have been near comatose when he signed his career away with this masterpiece. He may have gone for a rip as a copy of the great Bear Bryant in his role as the motivational speaker/football coach, but this wasn't the movie to do it in. Gene Hackman is a good actor. He knows character, he knows expression, and he knows a good film when he sees one. I'm guessing somebody did this to him for revenge or something.

Lets go back to Keanu "Benchy" Reeves for a second because he's so disturbing. Did anybody else notice that despite playing a character who was down in the dumps, gets the shot of his life, finds love, rallies his team to the championship, and learns to have confidence in himself, his face has the same expression during the entirety of the film? Holy line-reading mannequins, Batman! I've got it! He really died after Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and was embalmed and allowed to posthumously continue horrifying us on film!

What this basically all means is, if you really like movies which skillfully tread that tightrope between being funny or being meaningful in any way, then you're going to likely refer to this as the greatest movie you've ever seen. Were such attributes actually seen as positive in the film business, then this might actually be the greatest movie we've ever seen.

The fact is, football players dancing and singing, Keanu Reeves accidentally playing his most serious role ever (ironically during a comedy film), a guy repeatedly dropping a football, and a hot cheerleader making out with a park bench that's draped in a football jersey aren't funny at all. Just because a movie has a motivational soundtrack doesn't mean you're supposed to feel for this group of cops, felons, and eccentrics. I liked Rudy. I liked Major League. This movie was just atrocious.

Oh BTW if you said "This movie was great!" I highly recommend 'Down Periscope'. It'll knock your socks off.