Review – Chronos (2006)

I seriously thought about not reviewing this one. After all, it’s only 40 minutes or so long, and usually I don’t write a “movie” review for anything under 60. But I felt badly deceived by a couple of elements of the info Netflix supplied that prompted its inclusion in my queue. First, the description said that it was longer. This can only be if the special features behind-the-scenes documentaries are included in the running time (and I don’t include such items when calculating length). But second and far more important, this is by no means the groundbreaking work of innovative genius that the description made it sound like. The strong implication was that this picture does something that Koyaanisqatsi did not. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, aside from the shorter length and the even-more-annoying soundtrack, little distinguishes this one from its predecessor. Further, the “special features” swiftly make clear that at least some of the crew for this entry worked on the original. That isn’t to say that this is a bad production. Some of it is a lot of fun to watch. I was especially fond of the time lapse footage of the tide coming in around Mont St. Michel. However, I think it’s dishonest to state or imply that this sort of thing has never been done before. Mildly amusing

Review – A Night in Casablanca

Whoa, way too much plot here. When the Marx Brothers are turned loose to do their tried-and-true shtick, this is as good as any other Marx movie. Indeed, some of the routines bear more than a passing resemblance to bits from earlier productions. But trouble creeps in when someone (without any real evidence, I suspect the studio) decides to throw in a ton of dramatic plot elements closely paralleling the movie that shares the last word of this one’s title. The nicest thing I have to say about that move is that it was completely unnecessary. Other than the unwanted intrusion of a semi-serious story line, the only really disappointing thing about this is that by 1946 the guys were looking old and at least a little sick of the same old same old. But hey, who can blame them? Mildly amusing

Review – Ed Wood

John Waters once made a side-hand remark about making a biopic about Edward D. Wood Jr., suggesting the title “Look Back in Angora.” Frankly, it sounded more promising than the Tim Burton version turns out to be. The subject just needed Waters’ eye for camp rather than Burton’s talent with quirk. Martin Landau does a brilliant job as Bela Lugosi; not only does he do the accent flawlessly, but he brings a touching, human quality to the dying actor’s final movies. Johnny Depp’s treatment of the title role comes across as largely borrowed from the Jon Lovitz school of smirking line mutilation, but the rest of the cast bears up fairly well. Beyond that the story sort of tells itself. Ed Wood was one of the worst, weirdest movie directors ever, so his tale naturally makes a good movie. Mildly amusing

Review - The Final Cut

This is one of the few times I’ve ever seen a movie’s high concept actually manage to keep driving the plot right to the end. Here the idea is that people get implants that allow them to record their entire lives. Then after they die, editors – called “Cutters” – reduce the recordings down to movie length so they can be shown at funeral services called “remembries.” The rippling effect this has on society supplies enough twists and turns for an hour and a half of fairly interesting movie. I didn’t even mind Robin Williams all that much. Here he finally seems to give the understated performance he’s been trying to pull off ever since he first began his attempts to shed his reputation for being a jittery clown. The production values are also good, especially for an indie. Worth seeing

Review – Deliver Us from Evil

And the trend continues. Once again a director takes a potentially fascinating story and turns it into a mess of a documentary. The story of clergy sexual abuse of children needs to be told. And here we’ve got some good story-tellers: a serial abuser and a handful of his now-adult victims (and their families). However, the thrust of the production swiftly turns from how the abuse could have been allowed to take place to begin with to how the Roman Catholic Church failed to deal effectively with the situation. Even that might have been okay; official church complicity is a serious part of the problem. But alas, the potential impact of this movie is undone by the almost complete lack of story-telling. Interviews are cut together in an almost random sequence, with little attention to chronology or other organizational scheme that might allow the audience to absorb what we’re being given. Then at the end it goes completely Michael Moore when a couple of the victims try to get into the Vatican to present a letter about their plight. Apparently we’re supposed to take something away from the fact that the security guards wouldn’t let them in. That kind of thing might be good for a few laughs in a different context, but here it makes a disappointing ending to a disorganized tale that really deserved a better break. Mildly amusing

Review – Apocalypto

Mel Gibson wastes a couple of hours proving that action movies aren’t made substantially more interesting just by shooting them in another language. The story is straightforward enough: the lives of simple villagers are destroyed by the Aztec, who enslave them and cart them off to be sacrificed in a really gory ceremony. And that’s only half the movie. I wanted to extend at least some praise based on the absence of Euro-American characters in the production, but even that didn’t work out in the end. The direction is weak (in particular, some of the subplots are awkwardly integrated into the story flow), but the technical quality is good. Mildly amusing

Review – Coma

Okay, the weird scene with the bodies hanging from wires is kinda cool. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie appears to be designed to inspire just what the title promises. Genevieve Bujold stars as a courageous young doctor who discovers that the hospital for which she works makes a practice of deliberately poisoning patients during surgical anesthesia so the victims’ comatose quasi-corpses can be shipped to an organ-harvesting facility. Boring plot twists ensue. Michel Douglas co-stars as our heroine’s love interest, a man torn between affection and repeated assurances that his significant other’s paranoid obsessions will ruin her career and take him down with her. Now you know everything you need to about the story, so feel free to fast-forward to the body-suspension room (and stop watching afterward if you’re so inclined). Mildly amusing

Review – Spider-Man 3

So now it’s only a matter of time before movies (or at least movies like this) and video games become a single medium. Honestly, the only things stopping this from being its own Xbox 360 release are the absence of joysticks in the theater and the protagonists’ personal problems taking up just a little too much screen time to count as cut scenes. Oh, and the action in video games tends to be a little easier to follow. Venom came along a little after I stopped reading Spider-Man comics, so maybe my lack of familiarity made this villain seem a bit more interesting. On the other hand, maybe it was just the teeth. Otherwise this is strictly third verse same as the first. Mildly amusing

Review – Skeleton Man

Does whatever a skeleton can. Which apparently is mostly just sucking. Honestly, this is one of the most inept productions I’ve ever seen. It’s bad even by Sci Fi Channel standards (assuming the channel can in fact be said to have any standards). I’m genuinely astonished that anyone – producers, backers, even actors such as Casper Van Dien with established records for having no taste in roles – ever looked at this script and said, “wow, we should really make this into a movie.” Half the stuff that happens in this thing doesn’t make a lick of sense. For example, one of our Army commando heroes attempts to kill the bad guy by stealing a tractor-trailer rig and trying to run him over. I can only assume that this departure from the Predator-rip-off plot was prompted by the gullible financiers’ decision to pay for a truck explosion apropos of nothing. Still, even in such an astounding festival of awfulness one element has to take the prize as worst thing in the movie. And that element is the villain. The title character is a blade-wielding guy on horseback who seems to show up more or less at random to hack the supporting cast to bits. He would have been a lot easier – well okay, maybe at least a little easier – to take seriously if he’d been dressed in anything other than a “grim reaper” outfit that looked like it came from the Halloween costume aisle at Party Warehouse. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Limbo

Nice to know that even after all these years we can still count on John Sayles to produce a well-written movie. This is exactly the sort of low-key, character-intensive production that Sayles has made his specialty for decades. To be sure, those seeking the historical weight of Matewan or Eight Men Out should seek elsewhere. This starts out as a semi-melodrama along the lines of Return of the Secaucus Seven or Liana, then turns into a crime drama somewhere past the midway point. I suppose the ending will ultimately be the movie’s claim to fame (about which I can’t say more without ruining it), but the subtle touches leading up to it are what make such a conclusion satisfying. Worth seeing

Review – The 3 Worlds of Gulliver

When one watches a Ray Harryhausen movie, one expects the special effects to vastly outshine the acting, script, and other elements of the production. But boy, is this one ever not an exception to the rule. The Dynamation is minimal, the “highlight” coming when Gulliver and his bride are attacked by a giant animated squirrel (which for some reason makes noises that sound like a broken vacuum cleaner). Most of the rest of the effects work is devoted to making our hero look either way bigger or way smaller than he is, according to the dictates of Swift’s story. Divorced from its context, the plot loses a lot of its social importance. Still, it’s entertaining in a 1960 special effects vehicle sort of way. Mildly amusing

Review – Girl with a Pearl Earring

I guess if you’re going to make a movie about Vermeer, you just naturally have to turn the entire production over to the cinematographer. And on the beautiful-lighting front, mission accomplished. This is a very pretty movie. It’s also a very dull movie. Not for the first time, we’re being treated to the tale of a brilliant man told from the perspective of one of his maids. Of course her life sucks. And of course the two develop an ambiguously sexual relationship. In other words, this is Mary Reilly with more painter and less monster. Mildly amusing

Review – Elizabeth

I can’t remember the last time I watched such an ineptly-directed movie. And that’s a real shame, because with the subject at hand (the early reign of Elizabeth I, which of course featured some crucial moments in European history) and the cast on board (particularly Cate Blanchett) a better movie could have been made. Sadly, Shekhar Kapur is not up to the task. Action, shot composition and editing are consistently weak, sometimes to the point of genuine error (such as the “blinking corpse” scene). Even the credits are mishandled, which of course ensures that the picture both starts and ends on sour notes. Though English history isn’t necessarily my favorite way to pass a couple of hours, I feel I could have gotten more out of this tale if it had been more skillfully told. Mildly amusing

Review – Tales from the Crypt: Ritual

I’ll bet Val Lewton made I Walked with a Zombie for less than it cost to shoot the model-intensive Crypt Keeper intro sequence for this stinker. I guess it isn’t as terrible as the previous two Tales-TV-series-based movies I’ve seen (not that being better than Bordello of Blood is much of a distinction). Although it manages for the most part to avoid actively offending, it still spends a considerable percentage of its running time meandering aimlessly. Jennifer Grey (who in the years since Dirty Dancing appears to have acquired a new nose and a taste for see-through tops) stars as a doctor who loses her license and ends up working in Jamaica as a nursemaid for a plantation co-owner suffering from voodoo. Perhaps if they’d just stuck with the zombie stuff and avoided the mystery angle, they might have been able to focus the story a bit more and come up with a better movie. As it is, this seems to lack even the cheap sex and gore that one expects from a TftC movie. Sure, there’s some violence and an egregious skin shot or two. But for the most part the sex is confined to some never-developed lesbian overtones between Grey and one of the supporting characters. It’s just not the trash exploitation one expects from entries in the series. Really, that isn’t a “hooray” or a “boo.” It’s more of just an “eh.” See if desperate

Review – The Plague of the Zombies

Needs more zombies, especially if they’re going to claim to have an entire plague of them. As it is, the walking dead don’t show up in force until the final half hour. And though they’re kinda cool-looking, they don’t really do much. The rest is an especially murky Hammer horror mystery. And when the mystery is solved, it turns out to be one of the most spectacularly uninteresting uses to which zombies have ever been put. Only a double-feature with Dracula: Prince of Darkness could possibly transform this into an evening of worthwhile movie-watching. Mildly amusing

Review – The Queen

I’m not sure why they made this movie. Is it really worth this much screen time to show audiences how out of touch the English royal family has become with the whole rest of the planet? That literally seems to be the only point here, aside from showcasing Helen Mirren’s ability to make Elizabeth II look even more lifelike than the real thing. And really, just about anything would have been more interesting. Take an idea from Eddie Izzard and treat us to a few minutes of the Queen using a brick-filled purse to fend off crazy dogs. Hire Oliver Stone to explore hints that MI6 was involved in Princess Diana’s death. Or better yet, cut straight to the heart of the matter and offer some explanation for why anyone in her or his right mind would give two pence about Diana’s former in-laws. Oh, and as long as I’ve already mentioned Izzard, I’ll add that just about every word that comes out of the mouths of Prince Charles and his father (played by James Cromwell, who has done much better work elsewhere) sounds just like, “So you’re a plumber. What on earth is that?” Mildly amusing

Review – Damn the Defiant

This “heart of oak” action movie stands in sharp contrast to Ustinov’s version of Billy Budd, which came out the same year. While the Melville-inspired story at least tries to say something profound about the human condition, this one comes across as a big box full of sailing ship mutiny clichés wrapped up and sealed with an exclamation point. Despite the simple-minded storytelling, the movie does feature an interesting facet or two. Though it’s set on a British warship sailing the Mediterranean, the backdrop is the famous Spithead mutiny. Though this allows the introduction of at least some of the social issues surrounding shipboard misery, the focus nonetheless remains on the tried-and-true battle between cruel officers and hapless seamen. The plot twists a bit with the locus of the problem: the cruel officer in this case is a lieutenant, an aristocrat with “connections” who makes life miserable not only for the lower decks but also for his long-suffering captain (ably played by Alec Guinness). Overall this isn’t the worst sailing ship movie I’ve ever seen, but most of the pleasures to be found here lie in the small details of shipboard life rather than in the broad strokes of the story and the characters. Mildly amusing

Review – Billy Budd (1962)

Melville’s classic comes to the silver screen with Terrence Stamp in the title role. Yes, Stamp was actually young enough to play a youthful, idealistic sailor at one point. Peter Ustinov co-stars and directs, which helps to give this the earnest feel endemic to obsessive “vanity” projects. Nonetheless it turns out to be a fairly good movie. The allegory about good and evil is just as heavy-handed here as it is in the source story. Some of the plot twists remain implausible. But that’s okay. The audience needn’t demand strict realism from a picture like this. And the production designers’ attention to detail lends an air of authenticity that provides a pleasing contrast to the somewhat artificial story. Overall this is a must-see for fans of “heart of oak” tales and a rewarding experience even for viewers who aren’t devoted to the sub-genre. Worth seeing

Review – Bewitched

I know I spend a lot of time griping about bad writing. But wow, is this movie ever not an exception to the trend. Indeed, this is a rarity among even Hollywood productions: a picture that was completely undone almost exclusively by its own script. A straight TV-to-movie adaptation of the “Bewitched” series probably wouldn’t have won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, but it could nonetheless have been an entertaining little picture. Nicole Kidman should have had little trouble stepping into the Elizabeth Montgomery role, and Will Ferrell is, well, Will Ferrell. Supporting cast members Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine were well enough suited to their parts. Director Nora Ephron has done funny stuff in the past. So why on earth did they decide to get “fancy” with the story? A nice, conservative retooling would have been just fine, but instead we’re treated to a pseudo-reflexive twist that throws the whole thing off. Our protagonists aren’t a human-witch married couple. They’re a pair of actors manipulating each other behind the scenes in a 21st century TV series based on the original. That she happens to be an actual witch – in addition to playing one on TV – does little to redeem this half-baked excuse for a plot. When “just a simple reheat of ‘Bewitched’ would have been better” is the nicest thing I have to say about a movie, you can bet what they actually made turned out to be pretty bad. See if desperate

Review – The Three Musketeers

Dumas gets the Young Guns treatment in this early-90s adaptation starring Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Oliver Platt and Chris O’Donnell. As terrible as the leads are, the supporting cast is at least as awkward. In particular, Tim Curry (despite his great talent) is impossible to buy as the wicked, womanizing Cardinal Richelieu. Even the small details are awkward and embarrassing, especially Platt’s bizarre, spangled do-rags. Overall this is an attempt to bake a chocolate chiffon pie using a recipe for walnut brownies. The young-hunks-in-a-western formula wasn’t all that great to begin with, and it certainly doesn’t work with a swashbuckling period piece. See if desperate

Review – Shortbus

On the surface this comes across as what one might imagine if Robert Altman had directed hard-core pornography. However, that general description sells the experience short a bit. Director John Cameron Mitchell does a better job here than he did with the exasperating Rocky Horror wannabe Hedwig and the Angry Inch. And I do want to support the idea of integrating explicit sex into dramatic narrative productions. Graphic violence has been okay with Hollywood for decades. So why is graphic sex such a no-no? This movie helps blaze that trail, and for that we should all be grateful. Now we need another group of gutsy film-makers to come along and make a movie with the Shortbus aesthetic but a better script. A movie about New Yorkers with relationship problems just isn’t all that interesting no matter how kinky it is. Mildly amusing

Review – 300

Though I expect this is intended to be a stand-alone production, I’d like to see Hollywood turn this into a franchise. The next episode could be 300 Part 2: Themistocles, the tale of how the “boy lovers” of Athens soundly defeated the dreaded Persian onslaught at Salamis. And if that one works out, they could make 300 Part 3: The Peloponnesian War. Fast forward 60 years or so and let audiences feast on the sight of the “noble” Spartans accepting financial assistance from the Persians in a 20-year struggle with Athens. Of course we won’t be able to get Frank Miller to work on any of that. Such plot lines lack the fascist simplicity of the story of Thermopylae. Plot aside, however, the visuals are genuinely impressive. The look and feel is heavily stylized without being as distractingly comic-bookish as Sin City. Now if such imagery could just be used to tell a more worthwhile tale. Mildly amusing