buzzerbill Reviews

Demon Seed (1977)

Rubbish, and vile rubbish at that.

[1/10 · 1 August 2023]

Demon Seed is one nasty piece of work, without a single redeeming feature. I watched it the other night; it was part of Criterion Channel selection of films about AI.

The plot is simple. Fritz Weaver is a computer scientist building a super computer named Proteus which runs in some undefinable way on organic matter. Proteus, almost immediately, begins to refuse to undertake projects and invades the home of its creator, which is already highly automated and with a comprehensive laboratory that would do credit to Dr. Frankenstein, and terrorizes Weaver's wife, Julie Christie, and eventually impregnates her. Well, rapes her. Proteus gets shut down, but not before Christie hads a child which--surprise!--looks like the spitting image of their dead daughter.

All of this is mixed with ridiculous amounts of mayhem, impossible rotating double tetrahedra, the death of another computer scientist crush in the double tetrahedra, and more nonsense than you would find in the entire run of the Flat Earth Journal.

Science fiction, if it works, has to, as a character in The Mikado says, must use something plausible to "give artistic veri- similitude to a bald and unconvincing narrative". And if ever there were a bald and unconvincing narrative, it is this. This mess starts with the hoary trope of a computer becoming self aware all by itself. There are very good reasons to think this is nonsense. And what does the self-aware computer want? To have a baby. Nothing in this makes a lick of sense. The film is as ugly as its ideas.

I cannot imagine how anyone with any sense can call this vulgar mess "thought-provoking". I have no idea why Criterion would want to program a bizarre rape fantasy with a tenuous science fiction justification. It's a mess, and not worth your time at all.

Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

In the rareified company of the worst and most pretentious films ever made

[1/10 · 28 July 2023]

I saw this film when it was first released, and watched it again a few nights ago when it showed up on a list of AI films on the Criterion Channel--in the company, I must say, with a lot of real stinkers. When I first saw it, I ignored a lot and found some redeeming features in the cyberspace sequences, which were not particularly original, but well executed and good looking.

The firm does not stand up to another viewing. Nothing makes any sense. The background makes no sense; obviously, Gibson was light on coherent thought. (He is a greatly overpraised writer.) The technology is a muddle; a full personality in a computer, and optical discs early in the film, but VCRs at the end? The plot is a hodgepodge of tired cliches, built on an impossible McGuffin: how can you load 320 GB of data into something that only holds 120GB? Eight pounds of baloney in a four pound bag. The tropes are a combination of Blade Runner (Syd Mead worked on both films), Star Wars, Tron, and Robocop, and dozens of bad science fiction films, all put in a blender and pulverized until addled. The background? What the devil is the "Free City Of Newark"?

The politics? The vaguely Marxist LoJacks? Evil corporations? Today's evil corporations in health care work with Democrats. This is not serious; it is just left wing gesturing.

The acting? Keanu Reeves and Ice Cube do the best with what they have. Dina Myers is one dimensional; Udo Kier sounds like a bad stage Nazi.

Other touches? The pointless opera singer. The tough chick. The last minute save, coupled with pointless fight scenes?

What we have left is some interesting eye candy, and it is attractive. But no more. Robert Longo, in an attempt to redeem the film, produced a black and white version, to make it "closer" to his "original vision", which was heavily influenced by Godard's Alphaville, another pretentious attempt at using science fiction and another completely incoherent film. The result? High contrast black and white, which maked everything look murky and ugly. There is no visual pleasure left and this, one must assume, is the way Mr., Longo wishes to see the film.

It is quite a feat to take a bad film and make it worse.

I am frankly shocked at a number of positive reviews.

Do not waste your time on this. If I could give it a zero, I would.

Three Pines (2022)

In general about as interesting as watching paint dry.

[2/10 · 28 February 2023]

The series is well acted--given the material--and beautifully filmed. Out of eight episodes, I would say two--episodes 5 and 6--contained enough solid material for an interesting narrative. The problem is that it could easily have been done in a single hour instead of two.

There are several problems with the series that are, I think, insurmountable. The first is that there is not enough plot to sustain interest. Character study without narrative drive is to my mind essentially boring. Additionally, the characters are without exception quite glum and boring. An occasional smile might be agreeable. A second is that one frequently wonders if one is watching a detective series or a documentary on the problems of indigenous peoples in Quebec and their culture instead of a mystery series.

The third, of course, is the cheap trick of a life or death cliffhanger at the end of the last episode--following on what is incredible stupidity on the part of the inspector and his team.

As Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, there's no there there. Or at least no particularly interesting there.

Love Me or Leave Me (1955)

Much as I hate to say it, extremely disapointing

[2/10 · 9 June 2019]

I just watched this film again on TCM, and it just isn't very good. Doris Day considered it her best performance, and it might well be. It showcases both her acting and her singing; I've always considered her almost criminally undervalued as both an actress and a singer. It certainly has plenty of MGM gloss and great production values. If you look at the trivia file here on the film, you will see that it was heavily censored for things which today would not be censored, but celebrated.

However, it's a chore, not a pleasure, to watch, and the blame rest largely on James Cagney's shoulders. I realize that I'm in a minority in considering Cagney a very limited talent. He's very effective when the film matched his talents, as a hyperkinetic song and dance man in Footlight Parade, or a hyperkinetic thug in his early gangster films, or a hyperkineitic psycho thug in White Heat, or even a hyperkinetic business exec in One, Two Three. But it's all variations on a theme (there's also the sentimental streak in some of his films, but the less said of that, the better) and in this film it degenerates to mannerisms and attitude. His performance is painfully one-dimensional.

Without Cagney, I might rank it a six. Day is great; the production looks good; but overall it really is a formula picture, and not the best formula to boot.

Ludwig - Requiem for a Virgin King (1972)

Difficult, but remarkable

[8/10 · 16 December 2012]

This one is difficult to review. It's the first of Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's so-called German trilogy--followed by Karl May and Hitler: A Film from Germany, collectively an extremely ambitious exploration of German history, culture, and thought in the troubled last half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th.

Usually, one can launch right into a discussion of the film itself--but not here. Syberberg's film is not quite like anything else you are likely to have seen, and one has to establish context. First, aesthetics: Syberberg is driven by two primary, and contradictory, influences: Wagner's concept of the Gesamkunstwerk, the total work of art, integrating image, word, and music into a single overpowering experience, by implication completely immersive; and Brecht's anti-naturalistic epic theater, one of the primary goals of which is constantly to remind the viewer that he is watching a play via a range of distancing techniques, such as breaking the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience. Without taking these two principles into account, Syberberg's style will appear almost incomprehensible.

This is not a conventional narrative film; it proceeds as a series of tableaux taken from the life of Ludwig II, last king of Bavaria, castle builder, patron of Richard Wagner, and romantic, finally deposed for alleged insanity and (most likely) assassinated. (If you are tempted to watch this film (and I hope you are), it would not be a bad idea quickly to read the Wikipedia article on the life of Ludwig II.) These tableaux are staged in highly stylized sets back by giant backdrops—largely Romantic paintings. Some are naturalistic; some, dream sequences that bring in elements that Syberberg explores in the second and third films of his trilogy, including Hitler and Karl May—a German writer and filmmaker who wrote extensively about the Wild West while never leading Germany.

The other essential element is Wagner. Ludwig's legacy to the world is twofold; first of all, his castles, bequeathed to the Bavarian state, and a source of enormous tourist revenue, and Wagner's final operas. It is quite possible that, without Ludwig's extravagant patronage, the Ring and Parsifal would never have been written, nor the Bayreuth festival begun. The Ring is an essential organizing principle here—the film begins with the prelude to Das Rheingold, complete with Rhine maidens (here conflated with the Norns in Gotterdammerung) and ends with the music of the Immolation scene in Gotterdammerung. Along the way, Syberber pairs crucial scenes with other Wagner selections including the love duet and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, and Siegfried's funeral march. (An additional stylistic subtlety; Syberberg uses Wagner performances by Furtwangler and Karajan, slow paced and hypnotic.) At the most obvious level, Ludwig comes off as an extravagant, surrealistic and dreamlike meditation on the life of one of the strangest monarchs in European history. But it is far more than that. The more you know about German history, literature, music, and culture, the more evident it becomes that the film is an extended meditation on those topics—in particular, the conflict between modernism, exemplified in the Prussian state and Bismark, and Romantic attitudes and nature worship. There are some extended passages from Goethe (I believe), for instance, that would have deeper resonance if one were familiar with his Iphigenia in Taurus. I am tolerably familiar with German history and history, and rather more deeply familiar with Wagner, and I have no doubt that there are references that flew right by me. If ever a film warranted the full Criterion treatment with detailed commentary, this one does.

I haven't discussed performances—frankly, they are so subordinated to the overall design of the film that to say anything beyond Syberberg gets what he wants would be superfluous. There are other fascinating enigmas; why, for instance, are there two actors playing Wagner, one male and one female? Jungian animus and anima? One could go on for more pages than the reader would have patience for.

How to rate this, and for what audience? For the serious minded film-goer, and for the Wagner enthusiast, at least an 8/10. I have been recently been pretty disgusted by most of what I see coming out on the screen, and a film like this—difficult and almost willfully obscure as it often is—is immensely refreshing as an alternative. It pushes the boundaries of what we recognize in the medium of film. Undoubtedly, to a significant degree, the more you bring to the film, the greater will be your reward.

For the average film goer—a 6. But be patient, and be prepared to have your perceptions of what film is challenged.

Stargate Universe (2009–2011)

Why? Dear God in heaven, why?

[1/10 · 2 July 2011]

There are good ideas, and bad ideas. The original Stargate film, SG-1 and Atlantis were all good ideas--fresh, entertaining, and among the best science fiction ever to appear on television.

The remake of Battlestar Galactica--the bastard parent of SGU Stargate Universe, the bastard child--was a bad idea--fusing soap opera hysteria and scenery-chewing overacting with science fiction, elements utterly antithetical to each other. An attempt to reach a female audience? Heavy drugs at a creative session? An attempt to be "serious"? Whatever the reason, we can only judge the result. Battlestar Galactica was vile. SGU is a downright criminal waste of talent, money, and, most of all, the viewer's time.

The result, in a one word--unwatchable. Dreary, ugly, hysterical, overacted, gloomy. Like Blue Valentine with spaceships.

How this abomination lasted as long as 20 episodes is beyond me. Let us hope that a new return to the Stargate universe is in the offing--and in the spirit of SG1.

The Prisoner of Zenda (1952)

OK--I just love this film

[9/10 · 31 January 2011]

I first saw this at an impressionable age and fell in love with it. I won't bother rehashing the plot--I won't compare it to the superb earlier version with Ronald Coleman (of which this version is a virtual shot by shot remake). If you have an ounce of noble feeling in you, you really need to watch this, and wallow in the highest of sentiments.

James Mason gave one of the best performances as the villainous Rupert von Hentzau. Both Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr are almost impossibly beautiful and impossibly noble as lovers for whom Duty will always be more important than Love. How very refreshing! Consistently great supporting cast--particularly Robert Coote and Louis Calhern. Eye candy for miles. Frankly, I can't see how anyone can't simply check their brain for a few hours and lose yourself in this film.

Read the book, too.

Doc Martin (2004–2022)

I do love this show, but....

[3/10 · 15 January 2011]

Martin Clunes is simply brilliant as a Martin Ellingham, London surgeon turned rural doctor in Cornwall (not too different in some ways from Northern Exposure) whose brusque and straightforward manner is greatly at odds with his rural setting. We have the usual collection of rural eccentricities--which appear even more eccentric to an American audience.

The only problem is Louisa Glasson (Caroline Catz), the doctor's on again, off again fiancé. She's intended as an emotionally expressive counterweight to the emotionally undemonstrative doctor. Unfortunately, she comes across as a hysterical harpy.

I know that I'm in the minority on this, but I do wish she would take something to calm herself down, and stop shrieking at Martin.

Highly recommended, with slight reservations. Without Louisa, a 9.

The X-Files: Ghost in the Machine (1993) Season 1, Episode 7

Enertaining, but.....

[1/10 · 11 January 2011]

Even for the X-Files, this is beyond the pale for one simple reason. It's a rehash of the cold computer-becomes-conscious plot, which goes all the way back to The Invisible Boy. I do wish that writers--and computer scientists--would recognize one very simple thing.

You can't do it. Period. Computers cannot become conscious. Computers cannot be engineered to be conscious. Ever. Now or in the future.

The great British mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose proves this conclusively in The Emperor's New Mind, Shadows of the Mind, and The Large, The Small, and The Human Mind, based on Godel's Incompleteness Theorem.

Time to retire this plot.

As entertainment, it's fun--but it's based on an idea as false as denying the existence of gravity. Not even as probable as UFOs.

The Ninth Gate (1999)

Exceptional!

[9/10 · 8 January 2011]

I am not in general particularly fond of Roman Polanski as a directer. In The Ninth Gate, however, he accomplishes something rather special--a genuinely unnerving and haunting intellectual thriller, and one of the very few films that treats the occult with intelligence and respect.

Inevitably, the comparison to Rosemary's Baby has to be made. Let's start with the source material. Ira Levin's novel is a well-made pot-boiler; Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Club Dumas, on which The Ninth Gate is based (the novel is quite different in certain respects) is a first-rate intellectual thriller, and, frankly, a much superior novel. Rosemary's Baby is more a nightmare of a really, really bad pregnancy than a supernatural film. In addition, it stars two of the most annoying fingernails-on-the-blackboard actresses imaginable--Ruth Gordon and Mia Farrow. It's a chick flick with pretensions.

The Ninth Gate is superior in every way. Superficially, it's a detective story with occult content and a Faustian subplot. But how many films deal with the world of rare books-accurately? This film does not insult the viewer's intelligence.

The script is well written and literate. Boris Balkan, a book collector obsessed with rare books about the devil, commissions rare book dealer Gregory Corso with an unusual task. Balkan has just obtained one of three copies extant of "The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows"--a book printed in 1666 and purportedly based on an actual text by the devil himself. (The author was burned at the stake for heresy). Balkan wants to verify the authenticity of his copy by comparing it with the other two. This quest becomes more and more perilous as it becomes evident that some sort of singular significance attachs to variations between the three copies in the nine engravings. Balkan attempts to use the nine engravings to summon Lucifer--and fails. But there is something about the ninth engraving.....

The casting is just about perfect--the only actor who somewhat falls below the mark is Emmanuelle Seigner as The Girl--manifestly Satan's minion in this demonic Pilgrim's Progress. A former model, Ms. Seigner is beautiful--but boring. Apparently Polanski directed her to play the role flat--but except for the occasional special effect with her eyes, we really do not feel a demonic presence. Fail of direction, or actress? Probably a bit of both. Johnny Depp does a notable job as Gregory Corso, a book dealer without a conscience; Lena Olin does another turn on her standard over-sexed villain persona as Liana Telfer; Frank Langella is appropriately menacing as Boris Balkan, an arrogant book collector who longs for union with Satan.

What makes this film work so well is that overused term atmosphere. There are few films indeed where atmosphere plays so important a role--a just comparison is to another notable supernatural film, one of the very few really frightening ghost stories on film--Robert Wise's The Haunting. In The Ninth Gate, as in The Haunting, the surrounding are critical characters. Corso, Balkan, and other inhabit spaces that are frequently strangely empty of other living beings. The barriers between the world we know and a numinous world of seductive promise and evil threaten to dissolve at any moment. This is a genuinely beautiful film--beautiful to look at and to listen to (the score is also first rate)--beautiful, seductive, and menacing.

Many commentators has disliked the ending--and yet it is the only possible one. Corso, having obtained (or has he?) the secret of The Ninth Gate, enters the castle shown in the final engraving, which then dissolves into yellow light. Apotheosis? Transcendence? Damnation? Impossible to say. Anything more definite would be a disappointment. The ending is chilling--in the best way.

This is not a film for the literal-minded. There are few comparable films--The Devil Rides Out, for one, and perhaps Dead of Night. I doubt if Polanski has ever done anything better--and the The Ninth Gate is one of the very few films about the supernatural that does not insult the intelligence. A singular and worthwhile experience indeed.

Alice in Wonderland (I) (2010)

When will we get a decent Alice film?

[1/10 · 22 December 2010]

When a really talented director—like Tim Burton—goes off the tracks, the result can be a spectacularly bad film. (In fact that one can argue that some of the very worst films were made by some of the very best directors). Alice in Wonderland is such a film. Not only is it bad—it is monumentally, mind-bogglingly, brain-cell destroyingly bad. What was Burton thinking? Please note—many spoilers follow.

First honors for this disaster have to go to the screenwriter Linda Woolverton. Her CV is replete with child- and teen-oriented television. Her feature credits include The Lion King, Mulan, and Beauty and the Beast. Nothing in this intellectually and aesthetically underpowered and painfully formulaic material constitutes any preparation for dealing with a text of the imaginative and psychological complexity of the Alice books, let alone an understanding of Victorian society. All of this is painfully evident in her shoddy excuse for a screenplay.

To begin with, the very title is misleading. This film, apart from appropriating a range of Carroll's characters, has nothing to do with the Alice books. Instead, we are to believe that Alice, after her original dream-visits to Wonderland (her subsequent visit to Looking-Glass Land is ignored, even though characters from the later book are yoked in by violence) share the story with her incredibly understanding father—now a shipping magnate instead of a clergyman (as in the original). He dies, and she grows up a willful and peevish young woman, to the despair of her mother (Lindsay Duncan, in a thankless role).

The film proper begins with a 19 year old Alice on her way to her engagement party with a man she has not as yet accepted (Leo Bill, in another thankless role as a chinless, clueless wonder.) Almost as damaging to the film as the screenplay is Alice herself. Mia Wasikowska takes a gracelessly written part and makes it worse. It is easily one of the most tedious performances I have ever seen—particularly when Alice is clearly intended to be a sort of Disney Princess / fully realized Modern Woman.

Let's consider the engagement party. Engagements were serious business to Victorians—one of the great Victorian novels, Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?, deals with the almost catastrophic implications of two women jilting or potentially jilting the men to whom they were engaged. It is literally unimaginable that a family would give a massive engagement party where the bride to be was not committed, or where she could publicly jilt her intended. To anyone with any sense of Victorian society, this is nonsense.

Alice follows the White Rabbit into the rabbit-hole and into the Underland—Wonderland devastated by a war between the Red Queen and the White Queen. I do not propose to synopsize what passes for a plot here, except to note that Alice's Destiny Is To Slay The Jabberwocky And Defeat The Red Queen—which she does. Helena Bonham Carter chews the scenery as the Red Queen; as the White Queen, Anne Hathaway looks like she wandered in from an Elvish domain in Lord of the Rings.

There is almost no recognizable trace of Carroll in these sorry proceedings. Characters like the Dormouse and the Mad Hatter have been Disneyfied into cuteness. The only character that still is like the original is the Cheshire Cat—voiced by Stephen Fry. Johnny Depp is lost in makeup, costume, and bad writing. Even the poor Jabberwock is not immune. Readers will recall that the entity was the Jabberwock; the poem, Jabberwocky.

With a dreadful inevitability Alice emerges from Underland, rejects the chinless wonder, and at the end is sailing away as a supercargo on one of her family's company's ships. Witless Disneyfied feminism.

Now, the film does look like a Burton film. It is visually striking. But what's the point? You might film the telephone book with great visuals to equal effect. I have to wonder what on earth Tim Burton was thinking when he executed this monumental, beautifully produced, brain dead excuse for a film.

If Burton had a screenplay that stuck to the book, this film might well have been worthwhile. But it raises a question that I have wondered about for many years—why has no one made films of Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking-Glass that are in any way faithful to the originals? It is true that the Alice books are sui generis—the greatest works in of all children's literature, unique combinations of psychology and mathematics, each carefully organized around a different set of metaphors—Alice around cards and growing and shrinking and summer; Through the Looking Glass around chess and winter. They are as strange and familiar as paintings by Rene Magritte. They are heavily visual and cinematic. Why mess with them? What forces filmmakers to cheapen and vulgarize them? This film reportedly cost some $200,000,000 to make. What a monumental waste of time, effort, and money. Ms. Woolverton should be publicly flogged before the British Library by members of the Society for the Protection of Textual Integrity and Mr. Burton should wear a particularly itchy hair shirt for the next year as small measures of penance.

It is rare indeed that one finds a film that is so utterly infuriating and so utterly without redeeming features. It is even rarer when it exhibits so clearly the failings of contemporary film—contempt for sources, witless writing, justification through special effects, and no sense of history.

It should be burnt. Or at least shunned.

Save yourself, and avoid it.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Sherlock Holmes (Ritchie) and Sherlock (BBC)—bad and good

[1/10 · 22 December 2010]

I recently finally caught up with Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes; very much at the same time, I saw the BBC's 21st century reboot of Holmes. They span the extremes—dreadful to astonishingly, and unexpectedly, wonderful.

Starting with the ridiculous—Guy Ritchie's film is, frankly, dreadful in almost every way. The steampunk vision of Victorian London is visually striking, but far from original, and it gets tiresome and overly gloomy. The plot is a cross between second-tier Conan Doyle and second-tier Hammer horror. The film is full of special effects and set pieces—in particular, a boxing match, a bout in a shipyard with a 19th century Oddjob, and a fight between Holmes and the villain on top of a half-completed Tower Bridge. The first is mere vulgar sensationalism; the second two, obvious borrowings from Bond films.

In fact, much of the film is bricolage from better work, be it Bond films, or Hammer films, or earlier Holmes films. There is enough holes in the plot to drive a locomotive through. For instance, Holmes gets to Tower Bridge from a location near the Houses of Parliament in a matter of moments—in reality, Tower Bridge is several miles away from Parliament. The only bright spot is Jude Law as Watson—a performance that is authentic to the character.

And, ultimately, authenticity is the biggest problem. For a Holmes film to work, it does not have to be a faithful reproduction of one of the 60 original stories—the route generally followed by the Thames TV series with Jeremy Brett. To name only a few, Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, The Seven Percent Solution, and most of Basil Rathbone's films have little if any connections with the original stories, and yet they are full of the right atmosphere and character. The biggest problem is Robert Downey Jr.—a wonderful actor whose work I generally admire, but who is all wrong in the part of Holmes. Part of the problem is the dreadful script. Part of the problem is that Downey plays Holmes as too neurotic, too scruffy, and too unpleasant. A scene where Holmes insults Mary Morston (Kelly Reilly), Watson's fiancée, is simply out of character.

There is another dimension, which is perhaps a bit refined—but nevertheless significant to a core portion of the audience. Holmes is the best known fictional character in English literature—possibly the best known fictional character in all of world literature. The Holmes stories have attracted exegesis worthy of a Biblical text, and even those who are not of fanatical disposition (like me) are sensitive to contradictions. To name only two—Holmes at one point states that he has never met Mary, which (chronologically in the books) is untrue, and much of what passes between Irene Adler and Holmes does not square with the only story in which she appears, A Scandal in Bohemia.

These points would be trivial, if the overall quality of script and characterization were right. They are not. Gregory, the movie cat, whose judgment is infallible, just snorted with disgust and left the room early on. I wish that I had. Don't waste your time.

As a long-time Holmes enthusiast, I was not prepared to like the BBC Sherlock. The notion of updating Holmes to the 21st century sounded like a ghastly idea. But this new series—three episodes to date, and I hope many more to come—is flat out wonderful.

The casting is spot on. The critical characters are of course Holmes and Watson. Benedict Cumberbatch proves a nearly perfect Holmes—cerebrotonic, neurasthenic, unnervingly intelligent—and Martin Freeman, as an Afghan war veteran (a clever reference back to the originals) is a perfect down to earth foil, and, refreshingly, not played as a dolt. The first of the 3 films, A Study in Pink, is both a cheeky reference to the first Holmes story (A Study in Scarlet) and an intriguing psychological variation on the locked room mystery.

Frankly, as urgently as I would suggest that the reader avoid Ritchie's Sherlock, I would suggest watching the BBC's Sherlock. It's one of the most refreshing things I have seen in some time. The atmosphere is right, the characterization is right, and the concept is original.

Mickey One (1965)

Feh.

[1/10 · 3 October 2010]

TCM has been showing a number of Arthur Penn's films in the wake of his recent death. I have never been much of a fan of his work--Bonnie and Clyde has always seemed to be a one trick pony with one good idea that does not stand up to repeated viewing. Little Big Man--another one trick pony, but a good trick--and the underrated Four Friends, striking elegy for the 60s, are the two films of Penn's that really work for me.

Penn was a quintessentially 60s director--with some of the good and much of the bad that that would imply. One of the bad things about the 60s was trendiness for its own sake--something that has unfortunately become embedded in our zeitgeist. Mickey One is a perfect example. Just about every element is trendy. And the result is predictable.

This is one of the worst, and most pretentious, films I have ever seen.

With its sumptuous black and white photography, it is like a turd in a silver and jet setting.

I've read quite a number of the comments on here, and it appears that many of the commentators have a pretty shaky grasp of what the following terms for trendy elements mean: Felliniesque, French New Wave, paranoid,existential, Kafkaesque, surrealistic. They are neither interchangeable nor synonymous. Let's try to apply things with some degree of precision.

French New Wave and Fellini: these two black and white styles are not identical, although they have similarities. New Wave is often characterized with rapid cutting and hand-held camera-work--Breathless, for example. Fellini's characteristic technique involves striking and unexpected images, as in the opening of La Dolce Vita with a large status of Christ dangling from a helicopter over the city of Rome.

OK, apply to Mickey One. Black and white, check. More Fellini or New Wave? Less like Breathless, more like La Dolce Vita--the end, for instance, echoes La Dolce Vita. And certainly the whole junkyard / horse drawn junk wagon sequence is very reminiscent of Fellini.

The problem? The best directors have a style. And when a good director does an homage, he picks a single style. Woody Allen stuck to Fellini in Stardust Memories, for instance; Truffaut stuck to Hitchcock in The Bride Wore Black. And beware of your sources. Fellini's use of symbolism verges on, and often crosses into, the painfully pretentious rub-the-audience's-nose-in-the-meaning. Most Fellini imitations are bad. This one is.

Now--can we call this paranoid? I think not. Great paranoid thrillers are few and far between--the Manchurian Candidate (original only), Winter Kills, The Prisoner, Twin Peaks. The paranoid thriller, for a good part of its duration, must make it seem that the threat felt by the protagonist may be part of his imagination, and that, ideally, there be no clear motivation for the threat. This is not a paranoid thriller. Mickey knows that he owns the mob $20,000. Good reason to be chased. Hyping around this is just an embellishment to add a bit of mystery to a pedestrian plot--one that could as well be worked as a comedy.

Kafkaesque implies a particular degree of paranoid in which the reason for the threat is never really made clear--as in The Trial. Do we have that here? Not really.

Existential or existential angst. Very popular in the 60s, particularly among undergraduates at selective colleges who wore black and worried about authenticity. Any work where the protagonist questions the ground of his being can be called existential, and so may this. The problem, of course, is that existentialism can be staggeringly pretentious. In my view, it generally is. And so it is here. (I suspect the core audience for this film is people who dress in black and worry about authenticity.) Finally, surrealism. From the French, meaning "above the real" or "heightened reality". Characterized by striking images associated with dream or unconscious states. Fellini is often called surreal, but incorrectly, I think; there is just not enough of the subconscious there to justify the label. (Luis Bunuel is the master of surrealist cinema.) Mickey One is not surreal.

There is one other element that has to be mentioned because it is of a piece with the rest of the film. That is the score. In my experience, a jazz score on a film is usually the sign of a producer or director who is trying desperately to show how hit they are. Boy is that the case here.

So: we can agree that Mickey One, stylistically, echoes Fellini (at his most garish and pretentious) and to a lesser degree the French New Wave, not particularly well, inasmuch as these are not compatible styles; and that, thematically, Penn has embellished a simple guy on the run from the mob plot with lashings of existential angst and pseudo-paranoia. All this to a cacophonous, hipper-than-thou, score.

The cinematography is quite good.

Shake until addled and you have a preposterous and pretentious mess.

This film might be taken as a perfect example of how not to create something new. When your clear list of influences are all trendy and of the moment; and when the influences remain distinct and unblended; the result, inevitably, will stink.

It does not help that Warren Beatty's performance, to be charitable, make his turn in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone as rent boy Paolo look like Oscar material.

A long journey to a short sentence.

Don't bother.

Avoid this dreadful mess.

Gregory, the infallible movie cat, started howling piteously and ran from the room as fast as he could within the first five minutes. He was able to tolerate more of Richard Burton in Exorcist II.

Better yet, burn the negative.

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

This film needed an editor......

[6/10 · 1 July 2010]

Gregory, the movie cat, had the same mixed feelings about this film as I did. He yawned and left after 15 minutes, his whiskers twitching in boredom. However, he did return for the last hour or so and purred intermittently. A solid 6 from both of us.

There are a few reasons about why this film just doesn't quite work. I'll get the first out of the way quickly--the score. Somehow, jazz for a rural courtroom drama just seems wrong--and like most jazz, it's a cacophonous noise. However, realizing that this is in part my idiosyncratic reaction, that just looses 1 point of 10.

The rating of 6 builds up from the performances--particularly James Stewart, as good as he ever has been (except perhaps for Vertigo). Joseph Welch, as the judge, and Arthur O'Connell, as Stewart's colleague, both provide textbook examples of superior character performances. Lee Remick enjoys a star turn as the wife who may (or may not?) have been raped; Ben Gazzara is solid as the murderer who may, or may not, have been acting under "irresistible impulse"; and George C. Scott gives a memorably showy performance as a reptilian prosecuting attorney. And how can you not love Eve Arden, even if she were only to read the phone book?

And the gap? Frankly, the film is just plain too long and the pacing too languid. Much of the first hour seems like filler. The trial, which occupies the last hour and forty minutes, is far better, but still is more than a little prolix.

I'm not going to comment on some of the attitudes towards the attitudes towards rape; they are of their time and need to be seen as such without pious feminist posturing.

Call this one a near miss. When you watch, be forewarned. If only you could filter out the soundtrack.....

Duck Soup (1933)

I just watched this for the third or fourth time....

[3/10 · 13 June 2010]

and: I know that most people (and critics!) rate it as a classic.

and:I really do like other Marx brothers films (e.g. A Night At The Opera).

and: I know that a lot of people are going to hate what I am going to say.

But: Duck Soup is a mess.

But: Duck Soup is, ultimately, a bore.

But: Duck Soup is just not very funny.

Gregory, the infallible movie cat, reacted with a puzzled look and finally stalked out of the film cave in disgust.

It's not an accident that this film gained renewed cult status in the 1960s. It's an exercise in anarchy. Sure, the songs are funny. Sure, many of the bits are funny. But the film feels a lot longer than 68 minutes, because it just doesn't go anywhere. And a few of the jokes--particularly a throwaway about gas attacks and antacid--just strike one as being in bad taste.

The well known bits are 9s or 10s--but the film is a 3, because it has no shape or structure.

It's a mess.

It's not even a comedy--it's the inverse of a comedy, since comedy is about the shattering--and restoration--of order. Here there is no order to begin with, and none to restore.

I doubt if I will ever watch it again.

Princess of Mars (2009 Video)

Creates a new standard for dreadful films

[1/10 · 5 June 2010]

The great mathematician Georg Cantor was the first to realize that there are different types of infinities, each bigger than the others, starting with Aleph-null, then aleph-one, and so forth. There is a similar relationship in degrees of cinema bad--let's call the average Syfy film a zed-null. Spielberg's AI is a solid zed-one.

Princess of Mars is at least a zed-ten.

Gregory, the movie cat, fell asleep in the first five minutes, only to wake up 10 minutes later, cough up a particularly disdainful furball, and stalk out of the room in high dudgeon.

i can't find a single redeeming feature here.

The dialog is wooden.

The updating of Burroughs' classic story is, to say the least, pointless.

Antonio Sabato Jr. does not look like a Virginia gentleman.

Traci Lords is--well, at least 15 years too old and much too haglike to be Dejah Thoris, who should be a cross between a fashion model and an Amazon.

In short: avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

Not even bad enough to be fun.

Krull (1983)

A great film....yes, that's what I said.

[10/10 · 15 December 2009]

I watched this film the other night after a lapse of a number of years--and I will admit that I had a little apprehension. How many times have you watched a film that you loved the first time and then found it to be a disappointment? This time, it was better. I was mesmerized from the beginning of the credits.

Gregory the Movie Cat gave it big purrs and rubs.

I'll go out on a limb and say Krull is the best pure fantasy film, ever. And that it achieves a singular kind of greatness in its unabashed and brilliant manipulation of deep psychological symbolism. It's like a romp through the collective unconscious. The only narrative films I can recall with similar resonance are Kubrick's 2001 and Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast and Orpheus. (Dali's short films are in a somewhat different category.) Let's discuss these two claims individually. First of all, what do I mean by "pure fantasy"? Tolkien's ideas of "willing suspension of disbelief" and "sub-creation"--the creation of a fictional world with its own set of rules and consistent within that set of rules--are an essential part of pure fantasy, but are far broader. To my mind, one must add a few other criteria. First, it must not be an allegory. (James Cameron's forthcoming Avatar is an subjected peoples/environmental allegory and thus would not qualify.) Second, its core must be a combination of several archetypes--notably the hero's quest, the comedy (disruption followed by restoration of order symbolized (generally) by a marriage, the magician, and (usually) the king. Its tone is characterized by distance from the world as we knowledge and a sense of wonder. Several of Shakespeare's plays (notably The Tempest) fall into this category.

What would be exclude from this category? All of science fiction and horror, and most of what we call fantasy / adventure. The Lord of the Rings is borderline, and the 3 films are magnificent. However, like the books, the films are prolix, and would benefit from a good editor.

Many of the bad fantasy films we see on Syfy, God bless it, fall into this category, But they lack psychological depth, and they lack the mysterious otherworldly quality of Krull.

What, then, puts Krull into exalted company? First, the script. The script manipulates familiar elements into a combination that is unique. It rises to a poetic eloquence in some scenes, notably The Widow of the Web, which is one of the most astonishing things--outside of Cocteau--ever put into a fantasy film. And it fits into the complex psychological structure, of which more later.

Then, the score. I can think of few other films in which the score so perfectly matches the images and the screenplay. Another commentator here has said that the score may be the best, ever--and it might be. It certain bears comparison with the best of Bernard Herrmann and the best of John Williams.

Then, the look. Krull is a ravishingly beautiful film; the main exteriors in the Italian Dolomites create a familiar yet otherworldly atmosphere. The studio sequences do not fit terrible well, but they are right for what they want to do. The effects are fine--they support, not dominate, the first.

The actors are fine. Some, like Liam Neeson, are well know actors in relatively small parts. Freddie Jones is a great character actor; Francesca Annis could not be better. Ken Marshall and Lysette Anthony make a splendid hero and heroine; in particular, Lysette Anthony is a refreshingly vital heroine who would never twist an ankle.

What makes Krull a particularly exceptional film is its psychological structure. First off, we have a straightforward opposition of Good and Evil. We have the classic hero's journey, and the hero's magical companion. We have an integrated view of all four alchemical elements--Fire, Water, Air (the mountain peaks, the flying horses), and Water.

We have two remarkable psychological and symbolic patterns. The first forms the spring of the plot--Man has Fire, Fire to Water, Water to Fire, Fire to Woman, Woman gives Fire to Man-a neat sequent of uniting man and female elements to one, with mutual consent--a mysterious ritual with clear psychological intent.

The interruption, then completion, of this ritual, first separates Lyssa from Corwin then reunites them with the power to kill the Beast--evil and disorder.

The second pattern is no less interesting--the failed joining of Ynyr and Lyssa (the Widow), which leads to unhappiness and the death of both, but produces the information that can unite Corwin and Lyssa--life, redemption, and happiness. There are other themes of separation and unification and other patterns as well. It's a literary analyst's delight.

Finally, for all these reasons, I just love this film. It's a fantasy for adults and thinkers. It's beautiful and intellectually and emotionally satisfying. It's far better than, say, The Wizard of Oz.

See it and enjoy.

Rose Red (2002)

Unberable tedium or witless muddle? You be the judge....

[25 October 2009]

At his best, Stephen King has good ideas and writes excruciatingly bad prose. And even the good ideas vanish in the translation to the screen. In my experience, there are only two good movies made from King's books--Christine and The Dead Zone (The Shining is Kubrick's biggest disappointment.) Rose Red is the worst haunted house film I have ever seen, and in the top 1% of worst movies I have ever seen. Gregory, the infallible movie cat, who normally responds to bad films with a disdainful sniff and a malodorous trip to the litter box, nearly made the same comment in from of the television about 10 minutes into the second segment.

Where oh where can we start? Let's start with the special effects, if only to dismiss them. Pretty as they are, they dress up a pig. And as we all should know, you can dress up a big, put lipstick on her, and call her Monique--but she is still a pig. No bad film was ever made good with special effects--and this turkey is a prime example.

How about the cast? On the whole pretty good, with a couple of veterans like Judith Ivey and Julian Sands, both of whom are capable of enlivening a film. Not here.

And now, the plot. Oh, the plot. What a dreadful mess. First of all, it's a mishmash of elements from far better work. The house that's alive and malignant? And the experiment with psychics? Look no further than the best of all haunted house movies, the original version of The Haunting (not the remake!). Even King used it before in The Shining. The child medium? Firestarter, and any of a dozen different films and movies. And The Haunting did more in two hours than this in well over four.

And why? To begin with, everything, including the kitchen sink and all the the plumbing, has been tossed in, with decidedly ill effect. We have academic politics. We have a mad scientist in Nancy Travis's character, who is so annoying that it's a wonder that the rest of the investigators didn't roll her up in a carpet and jump up and down, up and down, crushing her like Nero did Poppea. For heaven's sake, we even have a nerd with a neurotic smothering mother--a veritable field day for Freud.

And what is worse--far far worse--is that the whole preposterous farrago makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. Why does writing "Open the doors" 100 times open the doors? If the house is the evil entity, why does its influence extend far the house. And, for that matter, given the aerial shots of the house in the middle of downtown Seattle, where the devil is all the open space in which characters keep getting lost? And we do not get to see the house blown up at the end? A terrible cheat-perhaps the SFX budget ran out. And, to cap it all, the dialogue is written--and delivered (with a few exceptions) in a fever pitch of hysteria that heightens the overall sense of--well, confusion is perhaps the kindest word for it.

Four hours on DVD, six on television with breaks. For heaven's sake, save yourself time and brain cells. Rent a good film like the original version of The Haunting or The Uninvited (Ruth Hussy, Ray Milland.) Why anyone watches this festering heap of poo is beyond me.

The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009)

Beautiful but boring and philosophically objectionable

[2/10 · 4 October 2009]

I want to like Ken Burns' films. I really, really want to like Ken Burns's films. And yet—overall, National Parks: America's Best Idea showcases some of the best things about Burns—but alas more of the bad things.

Let's start with the good. The park photography is splendid. Burns is as ever a master of the use of panned still images—a technique he pioneered, and which now appears to be in the visual vocabulary of every documentary director. There is quite a lot of interesting information scattered over the 12 hours of this documentary.

But: Burns' most consistently interesting work—Empire of the Air, Horatio's Drive, The Shakers—has been in shorter films. The multi-episode long form brings out stretches of tedium and long and pointless digressions. To name several in National Parks—the Marion Anderson and Martin Luther King segments (justified by the happenstance that the Park Service manages the Lincoln Memorial); the segment about the couple who visited many different parks; and a great many of the "witnesses" or talking heads.

There is however a much deeper problem than discursiveness or peripheral topics. When I was at Harvard Business School in the early 1980s, one of my good friends was a post-doctoral student in earth sciences across the river. One evening, he told me "You are not going to believe this. The other day, I was at a faculty cocktail party—and overheard one faculty member say 'Don't you think that we have lost so much in going beyond the hunter-gatherer phase?'" In a nutshell, that is a splendid indicator of the mentality of Burns' core audience—a varying mix of snobbishness, neo-primitivism, nature worship, and general left-wing politics. Left-wing politics, you say? The enviro-version--"corporate greed". If that weren't a worn out theme--particularly to anyone with a shred of economic understanding.

The intellectual underpinning of Natural Parks fits with much of this complex of ideas. The presiding genius, the core thinker behind the film is John Muir, the naturalist who was largely responsible for the creation of Yosemite Natural Park. One becomes terribly tired of Muir. From Thoreau, he inherits the philosophic error—one might say curse—of solipsism. He couples that with a kind of Transcendental nature worship—for Muir, to say that Yosemite was a cathedral was not a metaphor, it was a statement of fact. Burns takes that point of view and never questions its validity.

We do have discussions of the two points of view around which national park policy revolves—on the one hand, accessibility and use by the American public, and, on the other, the wilderness, don't touch it at all, Thoreau-Muir-Sierra Club-Wilderness Society philosophy. There ought to be a healthy tension between the two—and yet Burns unquestioningly gravitate towards the latter. There is something deeply anti-democratic about this position—only the chosen few willing to abase themselves may be permitted a view of the wonders of these areas.

In fact, National Parks very neatly shows that a religious point of view has nothing to do with organized religion. In the film, a nature-worship reverence is posited as the "real" experience of the parks—or what should be the experience of the parts. Speaking personally, I have visited some 16 major parks and national monuments, and had a variety of reactions—aesthetic delight, scientific curiosity, scientific insight—but never nature worship reverence. And I daresay that I am not alone. And I daresay that my reaction is not invalid.

In a very real sense, National Parks is a polemic for the nature worship that begins with Thoreau and Muir—neither of them first rate philosophers, and neither of them first rate scientists beyond the descriptive and observational. This, perhaps, is what I dislike the most about this film. (Disclaimer: I was trained as a physicist.) A few other cavils—was it really necessary for virtually all of the male talking heads to wear flannel shirts and be bearded up to the eyebrows—a la Muir? And who are these "historians" and "writers"? You could have sliced out a good deal of the commentary and had a much better 8 hours film.

If you like this sort of a thing—well, that is the sort of thing you like. But I grow increasingly weary of literal pieties wrapped in pretty pictures—which seems to be Burns' inevitable direction. National Parks is a beautiful slide show with a tenth rate narration.

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The greatest political thriller, ever

[10/10 · 23 August 2009]

Before sitting down to write this, I went back to take a look at my review of the remake.

I was much too kind.

Limiting myself to language suitable for public discourse, the remake is to the original as a third rate velvet Elvis to Michaelangelo's Last Judgment. A stain on the reputation of all concerned. A graphic illustration of the decline of Jonathan Demme as a director.

I also scanned a few "1" reviews on here and can only say that they reflect either a total lack of taste, or perhaps a lack of sophistication.

The Manchurian Candidate is one of the very few movies that are nearly perfect, in my estimation. Best film performance, ever, for Frank Sinatra. Perhaps the best of Angela Lansbury and one of the screen's definitive villains. My favorite Janet Leigh performance. A really astonishing performance by Lawrence Harvey, simultaneously obnoxious and pitiable. Perfect supporting cast. Cracking script by George Axelrod.

What really sets this film apart from the vast majority of thrillers is its ability to evoke willing suspension of disbelief. Like any thriller, if one thinks about the plot too hard, the plot becomes absurd. The best directors of thrillers--Frankenheimer, Hitchcock--manage to keep the plot plausible by never going too far. The plot of The Manchurian Candidate bears more than a passing resemblance to Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, a classic of "both sides are the same" plot. Nevertheless, the plot remain plausible, particularly in the Alice-in-Wonderland atmosphere engendered by the dream sequences and the black and white photography.

Is there a great shock in the movies than when Angela Lansbury asks Lawrence Harvey to "pass the time with playing a little solitaire"? Unless it is Lawrence Harvey's final assassinations? Is these anything more disturbingly surreal that the dream sequences shifting seamlessly from garden party ladies to Soviet generals? I have seen it at least 20 times, first at its initial release. It is always fresh.

See it and burn a copy of the remake.

Steel Magnolias (1989)

A chick flick with backbone--from a guy who hates chick flicks

[8/10 · 20 October 2008]

Both Gregory the Movie Cat and I loved this movie. (Gregory gave it just short of a complete purr. Like me, he knows that this is a film with Julie Roberts before she really learned to act.) To get one central issue off the table--Julia Roberts is largely irrelevant here. She's beautiful, she's doomed, she dies young. She is largely uninteresting but for what surrounds her--and that is what makes the film completely enjoyable.

To begin with, this is the real South, not warmed over Scarlett O'Hara. And what comes with the real South is a very creative use of language. The real strength of the film lies in the screenplay, which rarely if every hits a wrong note. Truvy proclaims that "Smiling through tears is my favorite emotion," and the screenplay captures that complex of emotions extremely well. And is extremely funny, from throwaway lines like "My personal tragedy will not interfere with my ability to give good hair" to the denouement of the emotional scene right after Shelby's funeral--"Hit Ouiser!!" In addition--and this is really rare--all the casting is good. Even Julia Roberts--she really can't act, but she looks completely right. I have to single out Shirley MacLaine. Much as I like her, the fact is that for the last twenty years she has been giving performances that, charitably, can be described as trainwrecks--you have to watch them, but they are horrible. Ouiser is a trainwreck as well, but a really, really interesting one.

Finally, Steel Magnolias was filmed in one of the most beautiful towns in the US, and that certainly shows.

This film is a comedy with a serious interlude. It is virtually impossible to dislike. Guys, it is a chick flick that you can enjoy without mental damage. In short--perhaps not the very peak of the cinematic art, but a really funny and enjoyable evening.

Highly recommended to all.

Gia (1998 TV Movie)

Why is this a movie? Why would anyone care?

[1/10 · 19 October 2008]

OK. Let's examine the basics: Gia was beautiful and rose to prominence in the fashion world from humble beginnings in Philadelphia. (Been there, done that, bought the T shirt, moved on.)

She died young. At 26. How sad. (As above:BTDTRBTTSMO)

The Fashion Industry discards people like soiled tissues. (Wow. What an insight. I'll alert the media.)

Anjelina Jolie stars. That, and her breasts. Nice ones. Frequently on display. (Echos of Swordfish and Halle Berry, anyone?)

Gia is a lesbian. (Remarkable. Like, say, one out of every ten women, according to Kinsey, and more on Northeastern college campuses?)

Gia parties.

Gia dies of drugs, booze, and AIDS. (See the connection?)

Gia is a tiresome bitch.

Gia is rather stupid.

And now the question: what do we have from this, tragic story of the young and talented, or the biography of a nasty, self-centered, massively self-destructive, thoroughly unpleasant human being done in by her own character flaws?

You be the judge.

I'm opting for nasty, self-centered, massively self-destructive, thoroughly unpleasant human being.

Watching this film is like getting a root canal without anesthesia while being forced to listen a hellish mix of hip-hop, political speeches, ear splitting bagpipe music, and a whole ward full of shrieking babies. There is nothing in this film of either moral, aesthetic, or dramatic pleasure. If I could go to zero, I would.

Please don't unless you want a combination of second rate sleaze and tired emotional banalities.

On the Gregory the Cat scale--highest being purr--this one is a malodorous dump requiring immediate cleanup of the litter box to avoid toxic fumes.

I do have to admit, however, that the breasts were nice.

Vanilla Sky (2001)

Not quite there........

[5/10 · 8 October 2008]

I am a big fan of Cameron Crowe. Liked "Say Anything"; liked "Jerry Maguire" a lot; love "Almost Famous". I was really prepared to like "Vanilla Sky".

And what's not too like? Good performances all around, unsurprising from Kurt Russell and Penelope Cruz, but a little surprising from Tom Cruise and amazing from Cameron Diaz. I thought her métier was only comedy. I was wrong.

The film looks great.

Good special effects and sound.

So--what's the problem? Why only a 5? The first problem is that the film feels about 1/3 too long. After all, groping, even with pretty people like Cruise and Cruz and Diaz, is basically tedious. (I wonder when directors will learn that most sex scenes are in fact very boring. We've been (over)doing this since the 60s. Enough.) Nearly all scenes drag on too long. Of course, I believe that this might well be a strategy to give a dreamlike quality to the film. For this reviewer, it didn't work.

The second problem is that the dialogue (usually a strength in Crowe's films) sometime just rings false. Take Julie's dialogue just before she rams her car into a bridge to try and kill herself and David. To me, this ranting about "Your body makes a promise" and "You were inside me four times" (I will not quote the last line, since this is a family site) sounds like a ludicrous cross between Oprah, "Desperate Housewives" on a bad day, and a particularly inept porn movie.

The third, simply, is the structure of the plot. This is far from the first time we have seen this same plot; for instance, "Jacob's Ladder" (in my mind a very bad movie indeed) is nearly identical from a structural point of view. For a plot of this type to succeed, the writer needs to very carefully slip clues along the way so that the audience reaction to the final revelations is a mix of "Cool!" and "Why didn't I see that coming?" (Best example I know is "Unbreakable".) The fourth, I admit, may be idiosyncratic. Crowe's usual technique of weaving pop songs on the soundtrack just does not seem to jell with the material as well as it does in other films.

Net this all together and you have a film that feels too long, sometimes sounds silly, have a soundtrack that is not always well matched to the action, and where the structure and resolution of the plot don't work well. Do not get me wrong--I think the final sequence from the elevator to the end is far and away the best thing in the film.

A miss, a palpable miss. I wish that I could like it better--but I can't.

Mystic Pizza (1988)

Yech. Blech. Avoid if you want to preserve your sanity.

[1/10 · 8 October 2008]

I still painfully regret the 90 minutes or so that it took to see this film. Consider: Julia Robert before she learned how to act (which was sometime around "My Best Friend's Wedding"); one of those painfully contrived underlying metaphors of the "life is like " (fill in the blank); filled with all the saccharine conventions of the unexamined chick flick; full of allegedly heartwarming human interaction; painfully quasi-metaphorical title.

Feh.

And yet again I say feh.

Gentlemen, if the woman in your life ever coos and says "This is one of my faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaavorite movies", for the sake of your long term happiness, run, do not walk, to the nearest exit, go home, take the phone off the hook, start blocking calls from said woman, and congratulate yourself on an exceedingly lucky escape. Trust me--you will be like a coyote in a trap wanting to gnaw off a leg to get away if you watch.

Yes, this film is that bad.

It could serve as a substitute of ipecac.

It destroys brain cells.

As I said, I bitterly regret the 90 minutes with this film that I can never get back.

You have been warned.

Ladies, if you take umbrage at these remarks--well, let me just say that we would never get along. I prefer people of a rational disposition.

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

A merciful God would have ended this production with bolts of lightning

[2/10 · 23 June 2008]

Now, I am by no means a movie snob. I'm one of the few people on the planet who saw Honky Tonk Freeway on its original release. Glen or Glenda is, in its own bizarre way, a favorite. I will stoutly defend the notion that there should be an honored place for films that are SO BAD that they are good--that are, in fact, mesmerizing in their awfulness. Would we want to be without Valley of the Dolls? Or The Oscar? Or Showgirls? However--there are many types of bad films, like the A-list picture that is so tedious and pretentious that you would gnaw your arm off to escape (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, anyone?). There is the treaclefest--the entire output of Frank Capra. And, rarest of all, there is The Movie For Which There Is No Excuse whatsoever. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what we have here.

Broadway playwright William Goodhart wrote what has to be one of the most convoluted and nonsensical screenplays ever. It's as if the producer went in to pitch the film as "Four years later, the demon is still after Regan and Richard Burton is a new, tormented exorcist! Great, eh?" and for reasons best known to God gets greenlighted. The author then promptly takes a massive hit of LSD , starts gibbering strangely, and writes the screenplay. In spite of the fact that it's incomprehensible, producer has signed Burton, Louise Fletcher (as a kinder, gentler Big Nurse), Linda Blair, Paul Henreid (a far cry from Now, Voyager), and James Earl Jones, who provides one of the film's striking moments dressed as a giant locust.

The problem with all of this, of course, is that the screenplay is stuck in a kind of limbo--not bad enough to be good, and not good enough to be good--and it ends out being just boring. Even at a running time of under two hours, one longs for a pair of scissors.

I really haven't got the heart to try and articulate the confused mess that passes for a plot. Rather, consider the players. Linda Blair spends a good deal of time in trances. Unfortunately, it's difficult to determine when she is in one or out of it. Kitty Winn has a thankless task as a combination of the two nannies in The Omen. Louise Fletcher glides through this mess with a surprising degree of grace.

And Richard Burton. Ah, Richard--probably the saddest example of the early and rapid decline of an actor with the potential for greatness. From notable Shakespeare in the fifties to this. There is a chilling resemblance to Vivien Leigh's performance in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. There, she had exactly two expressions--tight and tighter. Here Burton is either tight or tighter and hysterical. In consequence, not a stick of scenery goes unchewed.

The sum of all this is this is a staggeringly bad movie on every level--even some of the FX, although I did like the locust cam. And it's not fun. The only reason I give it two stars is for marginal my-God-I-don't-believe-that-I'm-seeing-this value.

In the words of one friend--it's a heap of stinking poo.