Review – War of the Worlds (2005)

I’ve seen a lot of bad movies in my life. Heck, I’ve seen a lot of bad movies this year. But this is the first bad movie in awhile that I’d actually classify as a disappointment. Though Wells’ novel wasn’t an eternal work of staggering genius, it could nonetheless have been turned into an entertaining – maybe even interesting – movie. Certainly this monster-budget picture had all the technical quality needed to pull it off. But then Tom Cruise gets cast in the lead role. His charmless charm and witless smirking may have made him ideal for roles in movies such as Top Gun, but two decades later it just doesn’t work anymore. I also suspect Cruise’s presence may have been in some way connected to the Scientology elements that appear to have crept into the story. But oddly enough, the direction is far worse than the acting. I’ve never been the world’s biggest Spielberg fan, but in the past I’ve at least been impressed by his ability to pace a production. But no longer, or at least not here. The story moves relentlessly from one peril to the next with almost no gaps in between for plot or character development. The result is a two-hour movie-going experience roughly akin to the interminable chase sequence in Texas Chainsaw Massacre only with Martians instead of a guy with a chainsaw and the entire human race rather than a teenage girl. The combination of Wells, 9/11 and a lot of expensive effects could have been used to make a much better movie. See if desperate

Review – L.I.E.

Brian Cox plays a chicken hawk. He’s the hero (or at least the only sympathetic character in the protagonist’s life). You can pretty much draw your own conclusions from there. Perhaps if I’d ever been a gay teenager coming to grips with my sexuality amid the chaotic ennui of the Long Island burbs, I might have had a little more sympathy for this picture. As things stand, however, I mostly thought it was boring, predictable and more than a little too morally ambiguous, particularly on the topic of child molestation. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Piano Teacher

She’s a very kinky girl, the kind you don’t take home to mother. Except in this case she already lives with mother, at one point even attempting to rape the old lady. That should provide a sample of the flavor here. This is basically Alt.sex.bondage The Motion Picture. The protagonist is a piano teacher (hence the title) leading a repressed little life of Schubert and masturbatory kink. Along comes an attractive young student who wants a normal – or at least normal by comparison – relationship with her. The two wrangle back and forth in an exceptionally boring manner. In a more interesting movie some of the bizarre sex might have struck me as innovative, but here it’s just the creepy icing on an annoying cake. See if desperate

Review – Good Night, and Good Luck

This was a good movie, which is unfortunate because in more skillful hands this could have been a great movie. Murrow’s battle against McCarthy was a fascinating and most film-worthy tale. David Straithairn does an excellent job in the lead, backed by a solid supporting cast. However, the script (when not quoting Murrow’s broadcasts directly) and the direction are weak. It wasn’t all bad. For example, I appreciated the decision to include some dry humor here and there. It was just so ham-handed. For example, try playing a drinking game in which you do a shot every time a group of characters is sitting around having a conversation when suddenly someone enters the scene to solemnly announce the next major plot development. You’ll be plastered (if not dead from alcohol poisoning) by the end of the movie. Further, those not old enough to remember McCarthyism directly (a good-sized chunk of the audience by now) might have been better served by at least some indication of the depths of the menace of the HUAC (Guilty By Suspicion did a better job with this). Without the full sense of paranoia, Murrow appears to be crusading based solely on principle rather than out of a desperate need to rid the country of a great wrong. All that aside, however, this is an hour and a half of solid, inspirational entertainment. Worth seeing

Review – Cinemania

I didn’t think this was nearly as funny as it was supposed to be. The blurb on Netflix made this sound like a documentary along the lines of Trekkies only about movie buffs rather than Star Trek fans. But the five people trailed during the production of this movie aren’t fans. They’re mentally ill people with obsessive fixations on movies. Though one might argue that fandom in general is a mild form of neurosis, these folks are well past the mild stages. In particular, Roberta is so far gone that she appears to sit on the verge of the “danger to self or others” standard for involuntary commitment. Even her more functional compatriots left jobs, friends, family and any other semblance of normalcy behind long ago in favor of trying to see as many movies as possible. Mocking Star Trek nerds is bad enough, but making fun of sick people sinks to a whole new level. See if desperate

Review – The Fog (2005)

Ever see a movie in which a character – a real, historical figure for example – is played by a bad actor who makes a mess of the role? This is like that, only it’s a whole movie pretending to be an earlier production. Some of the effects are bush leagues fun, but overall this is a muddled, messy version of the original. Even the casting is odd, with no big-name stars (at least the first one had Janet Leigh) and Selma Blair playing Stevie Wayne despite the fact that she doesn’t look anywhere near old enough to be the mother of a tween-ager. If Carpenter and Bottin had access to some of the digital effects used in this effort, they could have made a movie good enough to render a remake completely pointless. As it was, there didn’t turn out to be that much point to it anyway. See if desperate

Review – Doom

The cut scenes from the game had a better plot. Or at the very least, the plot in the game was clearer and more engaging. Here character motivations are frequently so poorly constructed that it’s hard to believe anyone is doing what they’re doing. Toward the beginning the already-more-or-less-interchangeable Marines get shuffled around so frequently that it’s impossible to keep track of who’s doing what. This problem resolves itself when the monsters start whittling the cast down a bit, but by then it’s already more than a little hard to care about any of the remaining characters. By the end the production breaks down into an extended sequence of first-person-shooter framing followed by that great dark spot endemic to the action movie: the extended hand-to-hand combat sequence. The final result falls well short of the entertainment value of the games (even the old, motion-sickness-inducing versions), and given that the only audience for the movie is probably the game’s fans, I wasn’t exactly surprised to find myself completely alone in the theater just a week or two after the movie’s release. See if desperate