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frankylamouche
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New Rose Hotel (1998)
Bad Vibe
What more could Abel Ferrara ask for: acerbic Christopher Walken, inscrutable Willem Defoe, hot Asia Argento channeling Cat Power, Schoolly D laying beats. Dynamite. Unfortunately, Abe couldn't find the fuse. A dud.
The opening credits, in three different languages like a DSLR instruction manual (German, Chinese, and English), are accompanied by Schoolly D's great soundtrack, the best part of the movie.
Asia, the heroine, is of the kinky persuasion, a denizen of dark underground group gropes. Shades of Jack Smith and Andy Warhol.
The dialog is nonsense like an uninteresting Little Steven's Underground Garage. Someone needs to tell Abel that gangsters spouting philosophy doesn't work. Godard tried and bored us to tears. Like Jean-Luc, Ferrara stretches his scenes interminably with dialog that made its point after the first two lines but for reasons that can only relate to stretching to meet a budget goes on forever. Gangster films are about, as Sam Fuller famously said, emotion and violence, not long interludes of one thief pitching a caper to another.
Abel is a consummate hustler, his packages find big money, but wind up garbage. It's not as if the movie ran out of ideas early on and the director had to pad it to deliver the requisite hour and a half to meet his business commitment, the movie has no ideas. "New Rose Hotel" serves only one purpose, as an investment loss to a tax write off. The last 20 minutes rehash scenes already shot, as if the director had run out of production money and had to make up the time in post-production. Thus the movie is in two parts: the first part bad, the second part, a rehash of the first, worse.
A low brow effort with high brow pretensions clearly beyond the director's capabilities. Abel, stick to street punks.
In summary, the best part Schoolly D. (See the extra on Schoolly D from the DVD of "The King of New York." It's better than the feature.)
Killer Joe (2011)
So So
William Friedkin makes good use of sound at the beginning of "Killer Joe." The introductory heraldic company titles are rendered over silence, forgoing fanfare, making the first montage of concrete audio all the more striking. Completed with a white on black, bold but neutral, Killer Joe title over twanging guitar. The movie confirms Friedkin's mastery of inside space, the single wide in "Killer Joe"'s case. These trailers are given a bad rap due to their association with lowlifes, trash talkers and makers. The truth is most 55+ communities outside of large cities are made up of these boxes and one is prosecuted if one doesn't pick up after one's dog.
A door decorated as "DOTTIE DREAM." A portal to a child's room, a grown up little girl, a virgin in hillbilly Sodom & Gomorrah. See the role's originator Carroll Baker as "Baby Doll" (http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3065156096/tt0048973).
It gets real hillbilly real fast and we just go along for the ride, never expecting a family comedy which, unfortunately, turns very sour very fast. Over money of course. I saw nothing Gothic. To begin with, hillbilly ain't the south, it's pretty much the country with West Virginia its epicenter. As a modern movie, "Killer Joe" portrays the normal dysfunctional family. When Matthew joins the circle, pedophilia lights a fuse to disaster.
A beautiful set up for the dark knight, Matt McConaughey, Killer Joe. Unfortunately, the classical "Scorpio Rising" approach to our first sighting of the demon is undercut by the absence of music to make it memorable. From then on the movie loses its comic crazy character and becomes cold and detached. The pit bull barks at everyone but Killer Joe.
The end of the final scene followed by the song under the credit role are beyond stupid, beyond evil, in a realm indeterminate, meaningless.
In summary, a so so movie with no social redeeming value. As you can tell, I'm a William Friedkin fan, so I stuck with it. A failure compared to his masterful "To Live and Die in LA." Matthew McConaughey gives William Petersen a run for his money, but Emile Hirsh can't hold a candle to Willem Dafoe. Wasn't he great as Max Schreck in "Shadow of the Vampire."
A humble viewer, Franky Lamouche.
Inception (2010)
Big Budget Loser
A terrible movie starring a bad actor, Lenny DiCaprio, that goes on far too long and gives the first justification for divorce I have ever heard on screen:
---- I miss you more than I can bear...
---- but we had our time together.
---- And I have to let you go.
---- I have to let you go.
The heroes taunt each other with an uplifting tagline:
---- I'm an old man.
---- Filled with regret.
---- Waiting to die alone.
So what did you expect from a divorce?
But not to worry, our character is young and returns home to his children. His dying alone will have to be postponed until they graduate from high school.