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Reviews
The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)
Written well, shot in a Hush and rush B-movie way.
The movie was not scoring any points for me until it hit stride midway through. Perhaps it's because the first half introduces the situation and the characters. The second half shows what they do. So hang in there.
The characters are so tightly written that at first blush, their actions seem contrived or unbelievable. However, if you really think about "What would so and so do?" You'll find the action and motivation makes sense.
For example, the gullible lead female is willing to believe not only the sailors but the person who lured her across country for a fake job. The low ranking sea man from the 1940's has problems suddenly coping with the 1980s. The angry veteran toward the end, obviously coping with PTSD, blows off his old friend.
Commentors above said, for example, the taciturn, unfriendly reaction of the old Vet in his 60s was unrealistic. But I've known some WW2 vets, including My own father... And they are exactly like that. They don't talk about anything traumatic.
SO the writing is excellent. It handles a subject that can get a little crazy just enough to make sense.
The movie's pitfall is the 'hush and rush' direction and cinematography that is not very cohesive.
This movie had 15 different styles of photography and 3/4 of the way through, you are screaming "Just pick a style already!"
The directing is poor in that it does not set the actors up for success in a linear scene acting format. For example, in one scene the hero's friend disappears into thin air and in the next scene, he's watching Abbot and Costello. So the emotional continuity from scene to scene was mangled throughout the picture.
Does it warrant a remake? Not at all. It just makes it to good enough as it is. It does what a movie is supposed to do. Anything added would just be eye-candy.
The Wrestler (2008)
Tightest movie about family ever
The punch line, if you get it, is what makes this a clean, tight story. Rourke and Tomei, or, Tomei and Rourke, have proved their abilities to pick and deliver a pivotal last word in a cinematic tale.
I was overcome when I realized this was a movie about family. I found absolutely no flaws in the logic of the character's actions. I was brought into a world I knew existed, but never experienced. The POV (point of view) brought me right into the lives of the protagonists. The clichés about happiness were eschewed in the world of this setting. This movie helps us accept that happy endings are simply a matter of POV. But the point of the movie is simply that fairy tales can be nightmares, and nightmares can be fairy tales.
This is a beautiful, and perfect, moment in story telling.
Starship Troopers (1997)
Great movies must be poignant to deliver a message. This fails.
The movie is certainly a critique on the emotional propaganda that is used to recruit people for a war.
OK. So, now why should I care? The movie certainly compares war like humans to 'bugs', or an insect survival mentality that eschews reason and the value of human life for the sake of humanity's domination over all life forms.
That's a message; and I appreciate anyone who tries to deliver a message.
But enjoyment of movies is not solely predicated on the value of the message.
You cannot argue that bad writing can be excused because the message of the narrative is so grand and important.
The idea behind the movie is fine, and the political message is delivered clearly: Those who join the army are mindless, and the hierarchy of military institutions are simply opportunists who happened to be at the right place at the right time. OK. There is nothing wrong with a message in a work of art.
The challenge of any kind of art is to find a message, and then make it relevant to an audience. All artists should ask themselves why their audience should care about the art they perform.
Let me share some points of view: The hero in the movie is unrealistically elevated from no rank to high rank based purely on his acts of heroism (which are diminished by the movie's end) and his timing.
The audience's belief in the hero's ability to think is continuously diminished by his pithy can-do remarks which he hijacks from his superiors.
The hero is presented as a strong jawed, good-looking guy who adopts leadership phrases from his deceased predecessors.
Where the plot fails is in its mockery of the hero. The audience is left, at the end, wondering, "who is the hero?" because the story mocks the hero.
The graphics and music, the 'mis-en-scene' which any literature graduate is supposed to ignore, are the best parts of the movie. That means that the development of the hero, falls second place to the mis-en-scene. That's basically not good.
Shakespeare made a folly of his hero Macbeth, but in the narrative, the audience still felt empathy for the hero.
Empathy means you care about the character's fortunes.
A story is only good, no matter how noble the message, if you feel empathy for the characters.
So, however cool the message is, if you don't give a darn about the hero, why should you care about the message.
I appreciate all the comments about how great this movie is for its message, but, when you want to tell me a story, you better make sure I care.
Present me with heroes I care about, and then I will listen to the 'message' in the story.
But if you don't give me heroes I care about, don't waste my time.
This movie, which has great effects, somewhat decent music, and a basically pathetic script, did not move me enough to care about its message. For all its noble intentions, the movie was a waste of time.
But: for all you who are not convinced: Just look at the continuity at the end. The end of the movie is twenty minutes of suspense that have nothing to do with the resolution of the plot, which is concluded and explained in 30 seconds, 'Deus ex machina' fashion. All you budding story tellers would do well to understand 'Deus ex machina' and why it is the biggest indicator of bad story telling around. Look it up.
For those who are looking to find truly awful art, this movie is it. For those who seek an enormous waste of time and effort, this movie is for you.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Every Series of Stories must Have One One Puzzling Chapter
"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" is the second movie in a series of movies about the life of a teen aged wizard. It follows the first movie "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone".
The second movie in any trilogy is generally disliked. Why? Well, simply because it doesn't leverage the rags to riches, nerd to hero story lines that succeeded in the first volume of the trilogy.
When George Lucas made "the Empire Strikes Back", he knew that the deal to make a third movie "Return of the Jedi" was already sealed. In "the Empire Strikes Back", Mr. Lucas had the luxury to put his characters to the test, knowing he needed no happy ending. He knew the happy ending would come in the third movie.
Clever trilogy story tellers will establish a hero in the first volume, make the audience doubt the hero in the second volume, and reaffirm the hero in the third volume.
Thus, the second volume is always the frankest exploration of a hero's development.
This film supplies a necessary episode in a series of stories. It helps make the other stories make sense.
Fantastic Four (2005)
Clichés strung together
I believe in formulas. I don't know why, but some story structures just work and others don't. Mozart used formulas, Dickens and Hitchcock and Shakespeare all used formulas. The artistry and uniqueness of a work of art comes from the interpretation or expression of the formula. A cliché is an overused interpretation or expression of a formula, it has nothing to do with structure. As a filmmaker, you can make a terrible mistake by trying to win your audience over by stringing clichés together, thinking you are doing formula. It's like a human body with no skeleton. By all appearances, it should seem normal and acceptable, but there is no internal structure that gives it function and form. It flops into a giant mess. Unfortunately, this movie is all clichés, and no internal structure, or formula that gives the clichés structure. Since clichés are fundamentally overused tactics, this movie scores low on originality. With no structure, it scores low on fundamental story. So I give it a 3 out of ten. But I bump it up to a 5 or 6 for the music and cinematography, but then take out 1 point for adding the mid life crisis angle all the heroes experience, simply because it is just too Big Chill, baby boomer navel reflection for my taste. Four to Five. Big ups to the actors, who all get 8 and 9s for making something watchable out of this clatter of narcissistic baby boomer clichés.
Alexander (2004)
Great acting, great photo, really bad executive direction
I am a part of the East Coast Film community here in the United States... I don't make 'films', When people ask what I do I say: "I point cameras" and "great, that got out in six hours!" but: I do crank out more watchable hours per week than an average unemployed film maker snob cranks out in 15 years. I'm a really bad film maker. I know it. It takes one to know one so here goes: I don't think Oliver Stone actually watched the entire movie after the edits were made.
Here's the scoop: Script is brainy, camera work is great, lighting horrible, music good and bad at the same time, overall executive management of film was present like it should have been.
Everything about this film is great except for three people: One: THe lighting designer (who thinks that relentless day-glow pink is a great substitute for bonfire lights in bacchanalian revel shots)Two: The director- someone who did 'shots for hire', saw the dailies, took the 15 minutes of great photography and slowed it 5fps so it would stretch out to 25 minutes of an otherwise horribly executively-directed movie then didn't actually watch the entire movie (EVER), and three: the hair stylist, who... uh... who? All the actors did an incredible job... All of them, so the casting was fine.
Oliver Stone's hubris really shone through on this. It shone through so much that the 'editor's cut' edition of the movie had some of the most pathetic editing ever... and as an audience member, I was actually wondering: "Did Stone and the producers really think I didn't notice that Angelina's lips weren't moving while she delivered that line in a close up face shot?" Don't believe me? Watch the director's cut. You will actually see a 25 second scene, halfway through, where you hear Angelina talking, see her head-shot on screen, but her lips are actually not moving.
She's talking... but the lips aren't moving.
OK... double check Yes... Major Hollywood director's cut and a main high Cost actor's words are clearly and audibly spoken, but the lips on the head shot ain't moving.
Oliver Stone did not actually watch the entire movie through after the edits were made.
If he did, and let all the slip-ups through that happened, he needs intervention.
Was that some 'Art-haus' thing? Strange that it only happened once in the movie. I don't have to go on about this. Not worth it. My NYU film student intern editors won't even let that garbage happen.
This is poor production management through and through, and the investors in this film should find a lawyer as soon as possible.
This movie has a great script and great actors: But the writers and actors are made to look like fools by slack producers, executives and directors.
My advice to the talent who put their heart and soul into this film.... well... I have too much class to say it.
You know what I think.
As for the investors in this film; I would seriously examine your options on recouping.
Cabin Boy (1994)
Movie Makes fun of overeducated, pampered snobby critics
Critics hate this film because they see so much of themselves in the protagonist: A character who spends his whole overeducated, over-pampered life sneering at every one and every thing else, the self-appointed know it all who mocks everything but produces nothing.
The protagonist is a critic, and the story makes fun of the protagonist.
It was interesting and satisfying to see the protagonist's fate... and I laughed the whole way through.
Summary: Unfortunately, people can't make a movie that trashes your run of the mill critic, and still hope for a good review.
If you are a critic know it all, you'll hate "Cabin Boy". If you have an actual sense of humor you'll love it.
Happiness guaranteed: That's what cabin boy is to me.
War of the Worlds (2005)
Shaggy Dog plus Deux Ex Machina plus Narration equals Bad Movie
The Good: Character interaction very believable. The Bad: Wacky ending. The Ugly: The overall story telling.
In this movie, Spielberg made three major and common film making mistakes. Shaggy Dog, Deus ex Machina, and the use of a Narrator.
The film is a shaggy dog story. A shaggy Dog story builds, and builds, and builds to a climax, but the climax has nothing to do with how the story (protagonist vs. antagonist) ultimately resolves, nor does it inspire any visible change in the protagonist. For example, the protagonist does something monumentally spectacular toward the end, but afterwards, doesn't seem impacted by the climax at all.
The second problem is Deus ex machina. The term refers to an ancient literary tactic. When the characters and plot don't resolve, a 'god' character... (in this case, nature) appears on the stage out of nowhere to resolve the plot. So, if the characters and their story had nothing to do with how the plot resolves, why did we have to sit through a story about the characters?
Finally, Narration. The movie starts and ends with narration. A film maker can use plot, characters, audio, video to tell a story. If the film maker must resort to using a narrator to 'explain' the story to the audience, that's bad film making.
So the movie makes three major story telling blunders: A useless build up, a plot resolution that comes out of nowhere, and a voice over. That's really bad. No one should ever think this is a good movie, except in one case: It should be the perfect movie to test out your new wide screen panel monitor and surround sound system... but that's about it.
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
It will be Ten Years before you see a Movie this Good again.
Could it be? Is everyone in this movie a protagonist? It's a character driven movie. But let's give a big ups to the amazing crew who worked on this. The cinematography narrates. The unprecedented sound engineering transports the audience to a different world. The editing raw and dirty and inventive. The blocking of the actors is totally limited to the movement of their eyes. The costuming elicits a strange empathy and conflict between the labels of cool and nerd while not letting the 'bystanders' interfere with the character focus. The entire cast and crew, moving in the set of a real town, plays together like a well tuned jazz ensemble. But if you don't give a darn about all that, well, The movie is a character essay. You will need to relate to one of the characters in order to really like the movie. You may vaguely relate to the plot. Technical analysis aside, let's talk about you. If you don't relate to the character, or the plot, I guess your world ends and begins at the tip of your nose, just like every other Hollywood snoot who pans this film and fondles their collector's edition of million dollar baby. This movie is explicitly and in every dimension about the human need to try and do something, anything, to find the place where their dreams and quirks can cooperate. Same for million dollar baby and Gladiator. However, This movie doesn't have the sweeping majesty of the protagonist becoming the greatest on earth, (which is a required character trait for a best actor nomination these days) the movie has the sweeping majesty of a protagonist trying to become the greatest person to themselves. Yes, every tummy-tucked nose jobbed Academy voter thinks they are the greatest in the World, so they won't like this movie because the The movie is about trying to like yourself. If you are trying to like yourself, join your buddies in Napoleon Dynamite: The characters, the crew, the volunteers, and the town that participated. You'll be less lonely that way. It's a wonderful picture I can watch and watch and watch again and again.