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