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Reviews
The Oxford Murders (2008)
I Wish It Was Better, Yet I've Watched It Multiple Times
There's so much wrong here, but so much right (especially the cast) that I find this film a tragedy, an example of what could have been. I'm more inclined to be complimentary to Elijah Wood and Leonor Watling (who I think is excellent) than are other reviewers, and of course I agree John Hurt is the real reason to see this film.
But that's what's wrong. The real reason to see this film should have been the same reason that made the novel so excellent: the tie of logical series to serial murders, truly a novel idea. The novel does a good job of explaining complicated theories (Pythagorean mysticism, Goedel's Theorem, Wittgenstein's and Kant's assertions, etc.). The essential point is, ANY logical series is possible and therefore impossible to be deduced given the right explanation. And in crime fighting, that's backwards.
It's wonderful that a book did succeed, and later a film tried to establish, a logical/mathematical reason to disguise what turns out to be a crime of passion. However, there is something profoundly wrong with the film. Probably it's the pacing - too frenetic, with explanations shouted instead of shown - mathematics and logic should have been made characters in this film. I could follow it all, even the Pythagorean mysticism thrown in toward the end, but the general public needs to be gradually introduced to these complex ideas in dribs and drabs throughout, not pounded over the head with it near the end.
And yet - there are emotional, touching, and tragic moments. The cast is excellent (yes, even Wood) and they do their best. But the histrionic tone, with Wood tripping over his own feet, running into people and knocking over their books, etc., the film becomes a hyperventilating bore. Even a trip to a restaurant turns into a collision! It's as if the director was afraid the audience would go to sleep if there wasn't a conniption from one of the characters every ten minutes.
Yet the ending was, and remains, very emotional for me. The loss of so many lives - yet while I understand the point being made, the director does not connect all the dots for the audience. And it isn't as if audiences cannot absorb complex intellectual ideas. "Silence of the Lambs" spoke of "first principles" and the writings of Marcus Aurelius without losing anyone, because those concepts were central and practical to the plots. I wish the movie had treated its own worthy philosophical, mathematical, and logical concepts in the same way, and risked being longer and taking more time to develop its concepts, as Darren Aronofsky's Pi did.
Casey Anthony: Where the Truth Lies (2022)
Misinformation, Child Exploitation and Insulting to Everyone's Intelligence
Talking over maudlin piano music derivative of "Moonlight Sonata," Casey Anthony contradicts herself all over the place and contradicts earlier statements she has made ("I sleep pretty well at night."). No abuse survivor, no matter how alleged mistreated, can use "trauma" as an excuse for behavior that, even if Casey is telling the truth (which she is obviously not), describes a criminally neglectful mother at best.
She blames her father, of course, yet stops short of actually accusing him. She is suspiciously blank and vague about "what happened" yet gets specific and enraged about HER suffering, HER treatment by the press, HER inability to presumably go clubbing again without being recognized.
Her parents, from which she is estranged, have another grandchild (by her brother). Why didn't she tell the police about the "danger" to this child?
She claims her attorney Jose Baez used the defense he did - which contradicts her latest story - due to her mother's suggestion. THIS IS ACTUALLY ILLEGAL, so why didn't Casey notify the judge? She's throwing Baez under the bus now, too.
Casey Anthony whines that she cannot sleep and has nightmares. (It's really odd that she is more specific and detailed about her dreams and her being sleepy than actual events.) Yet she earlier claimed that she slept well at night and presented this as evidence of her innocence.
"I did what I was told," she claims, like a good German. So her father told her to lie about Zanny the nanny and her phony job at Universal Studios? Yeah, I don't think so.
How did Casey, still in prison, know about the details of the crime scene (withheld from the public) where Caylee's body was dumped in the seconds after she was informed Caylee had been found?
This is "we never went to the moon" nonsense. Shame on Peacock for pushing this outright misinformation, and shame on anyone who believes this narcissistic sociopath! It's disgusting that anyone would help Casey earn money on her child's death, let alone profit themselves (one member of the crew also worked on the O. J. interview as well). One can only hope Casey's father sues his daughter and this decrepit streaming "network."
Abducted (1986)
Does Not Fulfill Its Potential, But Sticks With You
This is an uneven film that is definitely worth seeing. In expressing women's secret fears and fantasies it goes farther than others and is quite frank about the villain's (King-Phillips) sexual frustration. Any woman watching this film is going to ask herself, as I did, what she would do in the same situation, and perhaps imagine differing scenarios. The irony is that the physically adorable but repulsively abusive Vern picks an insipid snob, one he constantly criticizes ("You wouldn't last out here alone," "City people are soft," etc.) despite seething with passion for her.
As Renee, Weiss is perfectly cast and gives an understated performance that may not seem like acting, since she is playing a an ordinary college student, incurious about the wilderness and unskilled at both survival and ingratiating herself to her captor. Being tone-deaf in her dealings with him ("My family has money,") her character is not very sympathetic either. Her attitude toward the lifestyle of both Vern and his father (Haggerty) literally wrenched a gasp from my throat. Her character reminded me of girls I had gone to college with - knowing only society's straight line, not interested in true freedom or the discovery of being desperately wanted by a man, even if he is not her dreamboat.
Unfortunately, the film shies away from the natural consequences of the intriguing situation it has set up, and veers into cliché and sensation. The ending is simultaneously absurd and hilarious, due to a bravura performance by King-Phillips, while Weiss and Haggerty fall into their steps as stock characters. The depth built up in the male characters is lost in the film's rush to its ending, and feels like a betrayal.
King-Phillip's portrayal of Vern apparently has a cult following, and it is justified. It's just too bad that some of the scenarios that I imagined between Vern and Renee (or me) were not expressed for me in this film.
Left Behind (2000)
All Aboard the Snail-Pace Train with Your One-Way Ticket for a Sleeper Car to Preachville!
Do you know what a mistake is? A mistake is watching this movie again because the first time that I rented it, I afterward could not remember one thing that happened! Well, the second time, I saw that it's because practically nothing does happen. Oh sure, lots of people suddenly disappear, apparently headed to God's Clothing-Optional Camp, leaving the same cheap, car-salesman suits behind - along with their dogs, who don't go to heaven. And yes, there are lots of beseeching and long pleading stares (and running up and down stairs) and throwing a baseball at a cross, but otherwise never before have I seen a movie constructed almost solely out of bathroom-break moments.
Yes, I certainly remembered wondering if I could give this a negative number of stars - especially when the revival tent is up and the tambourines come out. Did you know that everyone else went to heaven because God's so wonderful? Well yes, but Chloe, this is not about hell (but it sure is about not getting into heaven). We should have all known better, Mom had the answers, why didn't I know that all I needed was my family - oh, please! And can we feed the world's poor with this Israeli quadrotriticale, oh gee what's that in the sky, an attack by Russian planes or a great swarm of Tribbles? Wonderful special effects, people. (What is the game-boy version written with - Atari?) The world is "starving" and the U.S. is under martial law, but everyone still looks well-fed and beautiful. Ever seen the inside of a dog? That's this film. (Well, we know by now where dog films end up, and it's not heaven. No cats in this film, though - hey, I just realized, there are no cats! They must all be working as translators at the evil United Nations, now run by the Anti-Christ with this outrageous French accent, you silly King Jesus.)
Anyway, all the kids are gone - so what about all the little snowflake children in their test-tubes at the fertility clinic? Did they also get taken by the Rapture? There's only one way to find out. At least I don't ask you to do anything that I haven't already done myself, soldier. Onward Christian soldiers, marching so as to bore.
Primer (2004)
Interesting premise, amateurish execution, and not that "deep"
How I wanted to enjoy this movie. This movie "makes you think"? Maybe if you're a twentysomething, sick of the Hollywood crap out there, but not really educated enough in classic science fiction to recognize when someone is recycling old paradoxes, and not mature enough to require character development from the figures on the screen. For the rest of us, it does not matter how much the filmmaker supposedly "captures the atmosphere" of engineers who speak in monotone. As Sontag said, the audience should not be called upon to react as if what is happening in fiction is actually happening in real life. (If I make a boring film in which people really go to the bathroom, is that brilliant as well?) The cinema verite style here does not work and is not appropriate, and despite the barrage of early 10-star reviews - obviously planted by cheerleaders connected with this project - that signals a failure by the filmmaker to engage his audience, which is, yes, his job. Smugness about how people "don't get it" is not film criticism - at any rate, we do get it, because the story is paper-thin. Show, don't tell - give us action (and I do not mean superficial action as in "Independence Day"), not relentless unemotional dialog that appeals to young, largely male, geeks. (All of the important male characters here are married, with kids - what irony!) Film, like any other art, is communication, and while this film has potential, that makes the inept execution of it all the more disappointing. Actually, I would recommend that people see it, with the caveats that I've given above, because it is an example of a good idea; however, in no way does this film deserve such effusive, histronic praise. Oh, and incidentally - electrical current is measured in amperes, not in "volts." (Volts measure voltage, duh.) So much for the snobbish techno-wow jargon by these so-called engineers at the beginning!