buystuff-1 Reviews

Poseidon (2006)

Characters? What characters?

[4/10 · 15 May 2006]

"Poseidon" struck me as rough draft of a script someone snatched and spent $160 million in special effects on. We get maybe five-ten minutes of setup, then the disaster starts with someone on the bridge going "Can you feel that? Something's wrong!" Who was that guy? A super professional sailor who knew the sea, or just the most convenient way to show the ominous and impeding Rogue Wave of Doom? Next we have a captain in the upturned lounge who somehow knows they were hit by a rogue wave even though the ship's alarms went off right before it capsized. There was a very tiny bit of explanation behind all the characters, enough to feel like there's something more, then nothing. Josh Lucas seems very intent to escape and knows an awful lot about the ship and how it operates, but that's never developed.

Kurt Russell is the former mayor of New York and a an ex-firefighter for, well, nothing. The firefighting comes in handy, but why make him anything other than a generic rich guy? Richard Dreyfus is a gay man hoping for a phone call from his ex-lover, which means---anything? Lastly, Kevin Dillon for some reason doesn't like the ex-mayor, but before he gets to that he's crushed by a falling generator.

As other reviewers have noted, there's not a single other survivor they run into, and the movie breaks down into a series of obstacles and death-defying underwater swims that would put a pearl diver to shame. Some of the predicaments would be more emotional if you knew or even cared anything about the characters.

In the end, do what most people do with these re-makes (or "re-imaginings" as they usually toss everything out) and go out and watch the original. The special effects aren't as good, but they have better plots, more humor, actual drama, real characters, and remind you of a time before Hollywood became a sequel spewing machine that only counted the numbers.

Alexander (2004)

A muddled story of what could have been an epic

[5/10 · 8 January 2006]

Alexander is one of those movies that people either love or hate, and while I see a few glimmers of what could have been a great epic, in summary it's a mess. I could write a small book about the issues I had with the movie, but here's the highlights:

Alexander's motivation- Why did he want to conquer? In Stone's view it was his mother pushing him, to be accepted after death by his father, to avenge his father, to reach the end of the earth and conquer anyone in his way, and to unite Asia and Greece. Any of these would have sufficed, instead we have too many to see a strong influence. Of them all, the uniting of Greece and Asia was perhaps the most profound and the one he most likely was unaware of in real life. A lot of the audience probably didn't know that Babylon was in modern Iraq, and Bactria was in Afghanistan. If they had truly been united in one empire, the world would be a very different place.

Alexander and Hephaestion's relationship- Depending on who's talking they were either lovers or the truest of friends. I won't step into the argument over which version was most likely true, just that you never really see the two being friends or particularly close until a scene where they start professing their undying....very-good-friendship to each other. Hephaestion is instead one of many lovers Alexander takes, male and female, and it was hard to see any real bond between them.

Historical trimming- Alexander did an awful lot in a short time, still Stone left out some parts that were essential, such as the untying of the Gordian Knot. Bagoas was a manipulator in Darius's court, and a power behind the throne. He was also the only person named as a beloved of Alexander and was eventually suspected of being involved in Philip's murder. Instead, Stone presents Bagoas as another pretty face lounging in the harem.

General inaccuracies/stupidity- In Stone's view of the ancient world, Greeks spoke with Irish accents, assassins would always stand before their victims and give long and guilty looks, and Macedonian kings would casually toss servant boys at their wedding over the table and rape them. I've usually heard that Alexander was dark haired, but if Stone wanted to make him blonde, why a color that looks deliberately dyed?

Who are you supposed to like?- True, the ancient world was another place, where views on sexuality and the male use of eyeliner were seen differently. Stone revels in trying to push these differences in our face (many of which are debatable) but never gives us characters we identify with or root for. Gladiator took even more liberties with history, yet the character of Maximus was very sympathetic. Alexander is presented by Stone as amoral, destructive, and more than a little weird.

Even more ironic is that the story arc of Alexander is, despite the trappings, incredibly conventional. Boy is born seeming destined for greatness, rises high, falters, loses friends, and ends in tragedy. That pretty much describes most of the hero epics out there. If all of us who don't like the persona of Alexander Stone presented just "don't get it" or aren't open minded enough, that's more Stone's failure as a director than our lack of appreciation for his work.

Far Cry (2004 Video Game)

One of the best FPS games in the past five years.

[23 July 2005]

Farcry has got it all, monsters, mayhem, and personality. Unlike the usual mute superhero Jack Carver talks, and has plenty of sarcasm to dish out. But what makes this game stand out from the others is the setting. Most FPS games are either based on real life warfare or grim and gloomy sci fi. A case in point is Doom III, where you get to spend 12 hours wandering around dark corridors. Farcry is set on a series of tropical islands, and it's amazing simply how beautiful it all is, brightly colored and radiant, except that people are shooting at you. Later on you get the dark and scary stuff, but it doesn't take up the entire game.

Farcry also mixes very well military combat with monsters. The mercenaries are only slightly predictable, usually when a scene stretches on too and long and they start looping voice commands or actions, and the trigens are downright scary to face off against. This was also I think the first game to introduce a realistic looking water, which now is a requirement for every new game.

Playing the game will take up the better part of a week, and that's before you start tinkering. There's a few different rendering modes to use, and Nvidia 68X0 series cards can enable a primitive form of HDR lighting, which makes things substantially different. It may not be obvious at first, but most levels have a few different ways they can be played, whether you prefer stealth, sniping, or up-front and personal combat.

The only flaw Farcry has to me is it's already starting to age. Half-Life 2 brought us synchronized lips and facial expressions, and some things like twisted metal pipes look very blocky, being made out of low-poly count shapes. Still, I can't wait for a sequel.

Half-Life 2 (2004 Video Game)

Amazing

[23 July 2005]

HL2 wasn't quite worth six years of waiting, but it came close. I think it probably has the best overall gaming engine out there, as it's capable of working on even older computers, has a wonderful physics engine, and the synchronized lips/facial movements of the characters. By comparison Farcry comes close, and Doom isn't even in the same league. Everything in Doom is metal looking, and many of the textures are very low res and blocky.

The story to HL2 leaves more questions than it answers, but it gave people what they wanted, expanding the storyline with a "feel" as good as or better than the original. My only gripe is the whole thing had such a bleak overtone, it seemed as if the characters and everybody in it was doomed from the start. This was offset by the good job Valve did with the characters, making everyone seem a living and individual person, unlike the original Half Life where the same three scientists and Barney kept reappearing over and over.

The fighting/action is excellent, pretty much giving everyone a bit of what they like, although the airboat section was very long. The upper levels of fighting in the city were some of the most intense gaming combat I've ever played.

The only dark stain on HL2's gameplay is the much despised Steam software. Having to log in an authenticate is a real pain, and even though it does let you play "off-line" once you've registered, it's another thing loading in your system tray and wanting to pop you messages. I think it's part of the gradual move of everything to some form of product activation, and I didn't like it one bit. Aside from that, HL2 was a great game.

Angels in America (2003)

Should have kept the subtitle

[3/10 · 20 June 2005]

This series (or movie since I saw it in one awful setting) was based on a play that had the subtitle "a gay fantasia on national themes," which is a more fitting if less marketable title. About the only way to enjoy this movie is if you're gay or extremely pro-gay, most anyone else will change the channel. Well, die-hard Pacino fans may sit through it also.

AIA is at best some spirited acting, at worst a preposterous and overblown series of endless monologues. Look at the general set-up, and I quote from IMDb's page:"God has abandoned Heaven. It's 1985: the Reagans are in the White House and Death swings the scythe of AIDS." What? Did God actually leave Heaven because a Republican was in the White House? And AIDS is the result? There was also a Cold War still going on, and people dying from other things...but let's stick to religion for a second.

"Change" is a central theme of this movie, although one can't help but feel whatever change may come is what the writer saw fit. In one scene a woman talks to a pioneer mannequin who comes alive and tells her how change is akin to being disemboweled and having your insides stuffed back. Aside from that rather gory image there's the obvious symbolism of a "pioneer" to tell us change is coming.

Change also comes up in Prior being selected as the "prophet," to preach a doctrine of us not-changing. But why him? And if God is gone, then why does he need to preach God's will? Late in the movie Prior makes it to heaven, a place that looks a lot like San Francisco and features nude male statuary, to confront the angels and his role as prophet. His summary, the core of this movie, is that for some reason he can't explain he wants to live out a short and painful life on earth, and for God's absence we should sue him. Yes, that's right, take him to court. Aside from how you can actually sue the Almighty, this is also a writer trying to type his way out of a corner he can't figure out.

Angels also have sex with people at the drop of a hat, (the scenes of the angel are hopelessly bizarre rather than funny) and apparently they had a very lively thing going on until God put a stop to it. So is God the villain by his presence or his absence? I never figured out for sure what we're supposed to see.

We also have Roy Cohn (a historical character) and Joe Pitt (I assume fictional) who are both gay yet nominally in the closet. Cohn dies, and Pitt lives a life of shame. Yet the thing that really bothered me about the presence of these two characters is the implication their real problem was disavowing their sexuality. If Roy had suddenly declared he was gay on his death bed, would he have been seen better? Roy Cohn by any measure was a horrible human being, and I think it's time we realize that someone's sexuality isn't all they are, nor a barometer of how good OR bad they may be. Sadly, that won't be seen here.

Lastly, history. The movie is set in 1985--I assume for showing how much things have changed, yet I remember 1985 very differently from the way this movie portrays it. One was a running commentary in the media about when Reagan would publicly acknowledge or mention AIDS. Then there was Rock Hudson's admission he had AIDS, which was what really brought it into the mainstream. There was also in the following years efforts to show how ordinary and straight people could get it, to reduce the stigma associated with it. You don't hear about people like that very much today.

Dying from any type of illness or condition is scary, no matter who you are. I was close to someone who died of cancer, and know three people with chronic life threatening conditions who will likely not live to old age. I met many more in the five years I worked in a hospital. Their lives are no less valuable than yours or mine. But a movie such as this, that says God has left heaven and the plague of AIDS was left upon us, disgusts me with it's arrogance and self-indulgence.

The only reason I didn't rate this movie a 1 is the character of Belize, who played the "straight man" to some of the other characters, was also the only personage not involved in a well of self-absorption, and had compassion and empathy for the people around him, friend or enemy. Unfortunately one insightful character cannot save a mess of a movie.

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

A total failure

[1/10 · 1 May 2005]

Fahrenheit 9/11....where do I start at? Probably at the need for such a movie. Does the current situation in the government need questioning? Of course it does. With as many fundamental changes in the past four years (Not only 9/11 but the Department of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act) an assessment is needed. Are we winning in the war on terror? Is this the way our country should be going? What really is happening beyond the nightly news? The trouble is an assessment would be just that, and it would also require objectivity, such as seeing President Bush as being something other than Satan, and critiquing the intelligence and diplomatic failures of Clinton, Reagan, and further on back. I have no doubt in fifty or a hundred years the events of this time will be seen in a completely different light than now.

And is F9/11 that needed assessment? Not in any way shape or form. An intelligent and thoughtful movie could have been constructed around the Patriot Act alone, which would also have been boring and required the audience to think.

F9/11 is little more than a Bush/Right Wing basher's dream movie, and Michael Moore goes beyond trying to make any sort of documentary into the realm of bringing every conspiracy theory of the past thirty years to life. In the world he presents, there is NO terrorist threat, everything is an Orwellian conspiracy to make phony wars for money, and Bush/Halliburton/Cheney are somehow behind it all.

Much of the movie has been debunked on web sites and talk shows, yet what really bothered me is many fans of this movie realized it was full of distortions and falsehoods, yet accepted it anyways. Like the debacle with CBS and the National Guard memos, the evidence may be false but the message is true.

Three things really stood out in my mind and bothered me about this movie. The first was arguably is the movie's main talking point, about how the Bin Laden family was allegedly moved out of the US before the airspace had opened after 9/11. (Again debunked, but play along.) With his usual snideness Moore says that one of the first people to talk to after someone commits a crime is the family. But he ignores two key points:

1. The Bin Laden family is huge, Mohammed Bin Laden had over twenty children, and many of them have not seen Osama Bin Laden since 1981.

2. Nowhere has Michael Moore or any left wing conspiracy theorist come up with proof or evidence that any of the people on those planes did know something, or could provide any sort of intelligence.

Indeed, the better people to talk to would have been Osama's associates since he's been playing revolutionary for two decades in places like Afghanistan and Sudan, not hobnobbing with his family. However, for Moore and his audience, simply raising the allegation is good enough.

The second thing that bothered me is when Moore goes traipsing around to several congressman trying to get them to sign up their children to join the military. Completely forgotten is that to join the military a person must be 18 and therefore an adult, the parents legally CAN'T sign their own children up. Did this somehow escape Moore's vaunted three-tier fact-checking system? The last thing is the now infamous scenes of a Iraq before the war started. Moore can say whatever he wants, but the impression put on people in the theater, and on me, was that he was saying Iraq was a peaceful and happy place we just started bombing. We get a vague showing of Rumsfeld next to Saddam and the implication of more military industrial conspiracies as we supported Saddam in the eighties, but that's about it. Not mentioned is our relation to Iran at that time and the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988. Or the First Gulf War. Or the Kurdish rebellion. Or of Saddam's role as a torturer at the Palace of the End. There was plenty of blame to go around for everyone.

I fully believe Moore knew much of his movie was bogus, and instead intended it to play into what the audience wanted to hear. Certainly a lot of gullible people were buying it up when it came out. The Democrats and the thinking Left didn't outrightly endorse the movie, but instead were more than glad to let it ride as long as it was helping them out.

And therein lies the ultimate failure of Moore's "opinion piece" documentary. Judging from some of the remarks he was posting on his website last summer, he seemed surprised that the movie ran it's course and left the theaters. I really think he was expecting F9/11 to spark a revolution. But the only people who bought the message were already converted. A movie such as this, so blatantly out to destroy Bush, if anything had a backlash. Many people, including me, were motivated to go out and vote against Kerry. This cost the Democrats a lot of power, and I think Moore lost a good portion of his clout.

Indeed, I believe this movie will be the high water mark of his career. Too many people now know his style and approach, and aren't willing to be featured in his movies. And I don't think anybody at this point is still believing his "common man with a camera" image. In ten years, I really think nobody will even know who Michael Moore is. Or was.

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

Communism lite or just a road trip?

[8/10 · 12 April 2005]

Separate yourself from any political overtones, which this movie itself does for the most part, and it's a well made road movie about two friends trying to tour South America. Most people in the US don't know much about South America other than the Amazon is down there and people speak Spanish, so it was truly refreshing to see the wide variety of landscape, people, and culture.

But more than that, the movie didn't deliberately try to date itself. Most period movies in the US go overboard to fix themselves in time and place--the time period music, clothes, and general style are aped at every turn. A movie such as this, which draws nothing from American pop culture, doesn't have the same type of artificial fixing. True, the cars and clothes are from another era, but the early part of the movie transported me back to 1952 and made it seem like *now*, when all the future events and what we read from them weren't fixed, and the possibilities were endless. That perhaps is the movie's best achievement.

If the movie had been about someone other than "Che Guevara," (Ever notice how these guys always change their names when they hit it big?) it would be a quirky and original story about Ernesto and Alberto, and might have ended with Alberto becoming a doctor and Ernesto reaching a turning point in his life--leaving Chihchina to help the poor, writing a book, whatever. In a sense it does, but then this is Che we're talking about....

***Obligatory Rant*****

To most people in the world Che is the guy on the T-shirt, and doppelganger wannabes buy "Che" brand to become politically enlightened, without having a clue. At the end of the movie we are told briefly that Ernesto, now "Che," had become a Commandante-or-ever in Cuba, helped Alberto out with a job, and then "fought for his beliefs" in the Congo and Bolivia before being assassinated by the CIA. (Actually it was a CIA trained Ranger battalion and the Bolivian army in a long running guerrilla fight, but never mind, it sounds more sinister the other way.) Imagine if this movie had NOT been about Che, but about a young medical student on a trip, and you would suddenly feel like a whole heck of a lot was unexplained. And it is.

Not mentioned is Che's fall from grace in Cuba, or how he had wrecked the economy in three years, or even better why a guy from Venezuela who had talked about making a united South America was carrying the fight to a small country in the Caribbean. Then at the end you see that Robert Redford was the executive producer and it's like a smack in the forehead--I do wonder why people who admire Castro so much don't have much of a problem continuing to benefit from a capitalist society.

But back on topic, maybe the reason why this movie is more of a background piece rather than a genuine biography is because Che has become like a latter day Jim Morrison, an iconic merchandising figure rather than a real person.