transoptical Reviews

The Menu (2022)

6' Deep Plot Holes

[1/10 · 15 January 2023]

Felt like the script was banged out over a weekend with plot holes big enough to drive a freight train through. Zero character development; the players were flatter than a tortilla with a printed picture. The further along we went, the more kludged the story line; I ran out of disbelief to suspend. People simply don't do the things the characters pretended to do. The drowning angel segment was like a wart on the production. This was a circus of emotional manipulation. I guess the moral of the story was - the ho' is proletariat, the ho' gets to live.

The fake Coast Guard guy was predictable from a mile away, just another of a series of disjointed and manipulative plot subdivisions. Knowing they were all slated to die, not one of them concluded that going berserk on the staff might have been a saving strategy, reinforcing the people-are-sheep canard. The chef's mother may as well have been a cardboard cutout. Far more could have been done with the cult aspect of the boot camp servility of the staff. As it was, this critique of chef worship was toothless. The revenge theme barely saw daylight through a mishmash of gratuitous segments. What was the deal on pretending to let the men escape? Just stupid.

7 Splinters in Time (2018)

Absolutely no one needs to see this film

[10/10 · 16 April 2022]

Let's get the matter of influences out of the way immediately.

Jean Luc Alphaville

who is apparently still alive. So never mind any sort of sequential plot logic served on silver. This is cinematic street fighting, an arid melee that drags a dazed Eisenstein out to the alley for a thrashing. Yes brilliant. Camera work, sound track, acting, all brilliant. Film as anti-reality which does not mean fantasy or schizophrenia. It means the destruction of time. If you hold onto time as if it were a life preserver in shark waters, this film will drown you. So don't go for meaning, go for imprint. If the viewer senses themself as a collection of pixels being rearranged, that is a start. If you saw "Sin City" twice with "Memento" sandwiched between, that is a start.

I won't ever see this film again. Simply no need.

Ad Astra (2019)

I Think I Need to Throw Up

[1/10 · 11 October 2019]

Straight out of the Terrence Malik "It's all about the mood" school of filmic psychotherapy. In Ad Astra we are faced with a psychological conundrum - a space program that requires logical functionality needing the services of an astronaut that has father issues. This film should be titled "Weightless With Dr. Freud". The quantities of "suspension of disbelief" this film requires would bacon and egg Andre Bazin's "unalienated experience" film theoretics to the ceiling. The plot holes are big enough to drive a semi rig full of Dr. Phils through. Zero rationale or explanation to the opening space tower scenes, magical flying space suits, an underwater scene on Mars that fits like a mafia godfather at Catholic confession, logic defying Road Warrior Moon bandits, hundred year space voyages reduced to days, utterly impossible use of a nuclear explosion to propel Pitt back to sanity and an ending straight off the New Age recipe for life pulpit...what's not to like about this movie?

As a hard core scifi movie junkie, this film had me crawling to the multiplex toilets on my hands and knees and retching loudly into my rescue commode.

Steak (2007)

Unclassifiable

[2 February 2018]

This is beyond satire and far into an alternate reality where caricature is an existential esthetic, where plasticity stretches actual truth to the point of a laughing death. The acting here is pristine and drowning in situationism. "Steak" kicked my yarbles into orbit.

Certain Women (2016)

This movie kicked my butt down the block and back.

[10/10 · 26 November 2016]

1. Some of the best acting I've seen. An honesty that grabs you without you knowing it. Cinematographic magic. 2. A story flow that defies description- three vignettes that define a time and space that elevates the mundane to aesthetic intensity. 3. Makes you reach down deep and learn what it means to be a human being, to possess empathy, to know quiet conflict. 4. Reached inside me to find places I thought were hidden, places I've tried to forget. 5. This is not hyperbole, the film is a masterpiece of commonplace realism and makes all other films I've seen about relationship, expectation and emptiness seem like child's play. 6. An uncanny sense of situation and direct immersion into the seeming actual lives of others. 7. If you understand the "Dogme 95" film movement, these comments will make more sense to you.

Tallulah (2016)

Homeless anarcho-fugitive from existence clashes with realities of motherhood

[10/10 · 11 November 2016]

This small but gracefully poignant movie knocked me to my knees. It takes a few scenes to get oriented and sense the lurking power behind the acting, the script, the camera work, the direction. The film seems to sort itself into a series of vignettes that each carry the intensity of a looming freight engine, netting you in with magnetic emotional conflict and portent. A toddler is kidnapped from an emotional cripple due to the unwelcome force of empathy impinging upon a street smart runaway young delusional woman whose adopted duty in life is to distance herself from the demands of society. The fate and welfare of the child sets up an anticipatory force field of protective instinct in the viewer that rivets their heart to the precisely unfolding drama.

The pacing of the unwinding plot is genius. We know the story can end only one way- with the kidnapping uncovered. This inevitability is slowly ratcheted up by a series of scenes that, with a script and direction wrenching at the soul of human dysfunction while being as real as any street level Italian neo-realist film, gets to the disturbing tragic core of people trying to keep from drowning in the lives they have made for themselves. Director Sian Heder conjurs a consistency of performance from her actors that is immediate and gritty and profound. Each segment can almost stand alone as a compaction of hope and anxiety and imperfect coping skills meeting their revelation as not sufficient for the tasks of reality.

This film will be taught in film schools one day. The highest comment I can pay is to claim that "Talulah" stands up to the aesthetic rigors of any Dogme 95 offering.

A Bigger Splash (2015)

Pointless Cinema

[6/10 · 14 October 2016]

I'm not certain how movies about life in the media lane can apply to life as lived by the rest of us. There is always the temptation towards a cinematic discourse on inbreeding and the genetic/esthetic anomalies thus generated. Naturally, one wants the protagonist(s) to prevail, their psychological/emotional conundrums resolved happily. But I guess there is a clandestine benefit to watching unbelievable conflicted characters thrash about in an ethical morass about mass approval vs. a meaningful life as judged by the aeons. The benefit is simply that, devoid of a plot imperative, one can always fall back upon analyzing the elements of cinema production- camera moves, acting, editing, etc., and thus de-susupend disbelief and deconstruct the film much as a dispassionate exploded view diagram.

I can only wonder what the motivation of making such a movie, writing such a script, could have been. Fellini's "8 1/2" at least observed the celebrity life as a circus with visual and philosophical hyperbole being a formulaic given. Can we ever suss the need we humans evidence for infinite attention and approval? What can the inner conflicts of a singer temporarily without her voice teach us that a family living at the edge of a garbage dump outside of Lima can't? Yes, wounded humans reach out, and in doing so leave themselves open to reenactments from early life and the need suffused moves of satellite players.

I would rather my heroes wield a sword and be willing to destroy obstacles to the creation of their art. But then, I'll watch and enjoy any movie Tilda Swinton occupies.

Celebrity has the vulnerability of sensing its inherently pathological nature and wanting to look at (and cure) itself which is analytical narcissism, yet narcissism none the less. The archetype of a movie within a movie or the psychological conflicts of fan worship has been baked to carbon. We can only hope that we are rescued by the street level savvy of a "Tangerine" or the wrenching conduct of actual legend as in Lars Von Trier's "Medea".

Crossing Point (2016)

Hip, edgy drug border double-cross

[10/10 · 2 June 2016]

I knew from the first scene that this was going to be worth watching. The cinematography was first class, tasty contrast and saturation, good lens selection. The opening required a bit of deciphering, but once in gear this puppy had me by the yarbles. The story line is somewhat boilerplate even if it is based on actual events, but the realization- art direction and direction were smart and poignant with 2 parallel plot lines. The street scenes, the panorama of Mexican border urban aesthetics, the grittiness, the twists, the humanity; all made for an immersive, reality-based bit of cinema. The Pedro character was worth the price of admission. I'm looking for more movies from this director/writer.

Stealing Cars (2015)

Genius is outlaw on planet Earth

[21 May 2016]

The cinematography is a bit uninspired. However, it's nice to see heroism attached to intelligence rather than revenge for a change. How many films tackle the subject of human genius up against a world of mediocrity? How many films attempt to describe the need for and the requirements for- leadership? Basically humanity is obviously too stupid to solve its problems. That's why they are still with us after 10,000 years. Evidently we are slow learners. Part of the reason for this is that we have damned few cultural/media heroes who possess actual genius. And part of the reason for that state of affairs is Hollywood's reluctance to portray genius as desirable, effective or even romantic. The Dogme 95 film movement created a new standard of honesty in cinema. We now desperately need a film movement that wittingly makes us smarter...a Didactic Cinema. The need is certainly there.

Dixieland (I) (2015)

Knocked Me to the Floor

[10/10 · 19 May 2016]

Without a doubt, one of the subtlest, most real and visceral movies of the century. This film kicked my butt down the block. The dialog is genius, the acting is genius, the cinematography is genius.

A new dimension in cinema realism that echoes the revolutionary Italian neo-realism of the late 1940's. There is no proscenium with this film, no sense of stage. The story line is a baseball bat between the eyes. Meanwhile it sets a new standard, a new aesthetic.

For a "bad boy making good" film, it is low key, but an intense low key. No exploitation of paranoia. No textbook suspense tricks. No sense that the actors are acting. No need to suspend disbelief. The honesty of this film could earn a place at the Dogme 95 end of the spectrum. I'll be looking for Bedford's future work.

Viva Riva! (2010)

An African Film Noir Tour de Force

[20 November 2015]

Someone did their homework in this brilliantly acted existential film; a sexually charged safari into the Kinshasa black market; a world of bandit capitalists looking for the contraband long deal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, creating a new sub genre- African film noir...gritty, real, dark and poignant, where anyone who knows movies beyond the entertainment spectrum is going to find this bit of creative genius to be a damned fine piece of work which evidences an eye for nuance about the human condition as experienced in any 3rd World country where poverty is endemic and the struggle for survival is more than a party game.

Tangerine (2015)

Exaulting the Commonplace with Beauty

[10/10 · 14 November 2015]

What this film does is open the filmmaking medium to anyone with a Smart Phone and the genius to plan and execute a mass distribution narrative about what it is to be human and born with certain socio-economic impediments to fulfillment. With Tangerine you go from one poignant instant to another with little time to recover. This says something about the completeness of vision of the Director. In a street level Mother Theresa kind of dog eat dog urban landscape we see the humanity, the community, the family, the stretching of bonds to the breaking point and then, necessarily, recalibrations of the breaking point, lol! I loved this movie for its uniqueness in vision as well as execution. The acting was mesmerizing, the camera framing was Dutch Renaissance, the near-slapstick situations hilarious, the music wrenching at all the right moments. The moral message comes through like angelic trumpets but as far from a pulpit as you can get. I could go out on a limb and nominate this film for the Citizen Kane Lite award. The only thing lacking was the Dogme 95 connection, LOL!

Blue Valentine (2010)

What can you say about a film that points the way?

[10/10 · 17 February 2014]

I am 2/3 through this film and have to stop to take a break from its emotional intensity to point other film watchers in this direction. If you have never bitten your nails, now is the time to start. This is what happens when humans are unwittingly cruel. This is the human condition. The question then becomes can two people incorporate too much subtlety into a relationship, can they over-interpret and fail to give the benefit of the doubt? Can two aesthetically functional people who had at one time fallen in love because they knew creative beauty as their mother, understand that love must withstand the onslaught of time and observation? Is it that people grow and change in uncharted ways? Or is it that familiarity equates to seeing too much of what we are, as lost entities in a Universe so huge and so impersonal, that the beholding of it kills what we know as children? I dunno, but right now I gotta go finish this masterpiece...

Full Frontal (2002)

This Movie is Freaking Genius

[10/10 · 6 November 2013]

People who didn't suss this movie as an important bit of film making are escapists who simply don't know film as an artistic medium capable of delivering truth. This is an uncomfortably pointy satire laced with dark comedic vasodialators about the Jerry Springer act that we all live 24/7. The layering of the relationships, the fun house magnifying glass turned on Hollywood culture and the often questionable artistic justification of performance were done with a sublime insider's eye for irony and the casual vapidity of the little circuses of circumstance that we find ourselves thrown into on a daily basis. Any savvy movie goer will lap up the seriously fine acting detail, camera work and subtle interplay of partially met expectations motivating the plot structure in every sequence, even the green/red 3-D ones which was pure freaking genius along with the extreme soft focus porn scene. "Full Frontal" is Hollywood on an X-ray dissecting slab in 21st century cultural bedlam. Hitler in an off off-Broadway micro theater, populated by friends of the cast, on a couch rambling on to his shrink about controlling his eccentricities, was the kind of hilarity that sticks with you like an interstate truck stop breakfast. I got nothing but respect for Sonderbergh who has the chops to do a French New Wave Cannes quality film with one hand tied behind his back. If I taught a film class, this one would be in the lineup just behind the Orson Welles ones.

Harodim (2012)

My Dinner With Andre for Conpiracy Buffs

[10/10 · 3 June 2013]

This movie needs to be seen by every human on the planet. Every so often Hollywood gets it canny and right and lets us in on the secret world of manipulation by powerful private factions in global economics and politics. Harodim follows in the footsteps of China Syndrome, Mickey One and Wall Street in showing us how the game is really played.

In spite of the claustrophobic, stage play ambiance, Harodim is as riveting and compelling as any Lars Von Trier stage set piece. Peter Fonda is convincing and the revelatory nature of his role keeps his deadpan world weary character from predictability. Travis Fimmel must have taken time out from his smirking role in Vikings to make this film. His portrayal of slowly dawning enlightenment has its share of clichés, but this is more in the nature of the script than limitations of his craft. Michael Desante portrayal of Osama Bin Laden is authentic and lends the film its motivic rationale without any equivocation.