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Ok, listen. There's like four people who read this thing in the first place. So when one of them bitches constantly about the fact that I haven't posted in ten days, knowing full well that I've taken ill during said period, it's not unlike being kicked when you're down.
You may think you redeemed yourself with this link, but it doesn't make me hate you any less. - Death Star
LEGEND (1985) - d. Ridley Scott
Eh.. Yes and no.
I'd never seen this movie. When I was young, the pictures of Darkness on the box and posters scared me away. When I got older, Tom Cruise did the trick. If I'd watched it when, I might've been a little creeped out, but I think mostly it would be my favorite movie ever. Of the 80s fantasy genre - 'Labryinth,' 'Willow,' 'Neverending Story,' 'Dark Crystal,' etc. - this one probably has the most going for it. I should also mention that I watched the director's cut, not the version from the original US release.
'Legend' features an awesome Tim Curry performance as 'Darkness,' the evil lord/son of the devil whose goal is to destroy the waking hours. Every second of Darkness' screen time made me happy happy happy. The only thing that made me happier was Mia Sara. Her little goth queen episode - excepting the dance sequence - was an act of extreme kindness on Mr. Scott's part.
The story is all over the place and references everything: Tolkien, Barrie, Lewis, Baum, Arthurian legend, Celtic myth, Greek myth, Norse myth, and on and on.. In fact, the references that make up the bulk of 'Legend' are laid on so thick that a game of spot-the-antecedent eventually starts to detract from the movie. There's also slack plotting in the film's second half to blame for distraction, but the majority of the film is fun, interesting, and as beautiful to look at - cherry DVD transfer - as anything Scott's ever done. I definitely regret waiting on it for all these years.
I'm storing this one away with 'Escape from New York,' in the department of movies I should've watched when I was a lot younger which don't resonate quite as well once you actually start talking to girls (or at least have the option to).
EQUILIBRIUM (2002) - d. Kurt Wimmer
So wrong in so many ways, it's impossible to even begin. Gun Kata? Who are you kidding? I saw that movie, it starred Anthony Edwards and it was shitloads better than this.
Puppy saver.
Every once in a while, an ambitious sci-fi film comes along which sets a precedent for doing the future on a tight budget ('Gattaca' comes to mind); this one doesn't manage to get anything right. Costumes and sets are particularly at fault, but 'Equilibrium' is so totally uninspired (and criminally under-financed?) that it's hard to imagine why Dimension didn't pull the plug after the second day of dailies. I mean, other than the fact that it's Dimension.
It's rare that a film involves so many actors in need of better agents to such stunningly crappy effect. Everyone here needs to fire someone close to them. No paycheck is worth being associated with this disaster. Have to send a shout-out to Dion Beebe, the DP here. M. Beebe, you've done some decent work on other projects, but this looks about as bad as a studio film ever gets to look.
With that said, it kind of works as camp; you'd never imagine that a warmed-over reading of 'Fahrenheit 451' could be so exquisitely dumb. And I'm excited, because Wimmer's next gig, Ultraviolet, is destined for still-greater suckiness.
I STAND ALONE (1999) - d. Gaspar Noé
This is a movie I like more and more. Everything about it is audacious and evil but, unlike 'Irréversible,' it feels organic and real. The important difference between the two films is that 'Irréversible' smacks of calculated immorality; 'I Stand' feels like an amber cast of a terrible life. Philippe Nahon is brilliant.
CLOCKSTOPPERS (2003) - d. Jonathan Frakes
This is as close as a storyline gets to the 80s heyday of adolescent action films. It's a game effort at bringing some energy back into 'Safe for Kids' movies, but you could drive a semi through most of the logic gaps and the product placements are too hot and heavy. French Stewart needed to be put down years ago. Jesse Bradford may look like a young Bruce Campbell and have starred in Soderbergh's 'King of the Hill,' but he's so fucking smug that I want to go shopping for steel toes. And, no, I'm not embarrassed about watching it.
GINGER AND CINNAMON (2002) - d. Daniele Luchetti
The current mini-renaissance of the Italian film industry is hard to get a grasp on. That's because the only films which seem to be making it stateside feel like pilot-episodes to Italian versions of 'Thirtysomething.' Like so many other rich world countries, Italy is aging dramatically as couples opt to make smaller families later in life. Italy's populace is second oldest to Japan's, with the average age hovering just below the 42 point. For reference, the US, a country with aging issues of its own, clocks in at 36 years old. On balance, 42 is older than hell and nearing crisis levels.
The ill-gotten and unsubstantiated point of this census excursion is that Italians, on the whole, are prone to acting like babies well into adulthood, and issues that people in other countries have worked out by the time they're 20 can sometimes hang around well into one's thirties. This, I think, goes a ways towards explaining why so many Italian comedies involve full-grown adults in plots lifted from American teen movies.
I'm being too harsh here, about both Italy and Italian comedies, but I saw 'The Last Kiss' recently, and now this, and there's clearly something going on. 'Ginger and Cinnamon' is about a 14 year old named Meggy who desperately wants to lose her virginity, and somehow talks her aunt, Stefy, into taking her to the Greek party island of Ios right after said aunt (age 30) has ended an eight year relationship with a man she didn't think was responsible enough for her. There's lots of plot twists and some interesting nuance, and the film is well-acted and beautifully shot, but the two female leads are both too harsh, Meggy's side of things gets too much screen time, and the movie actually concedes its ending too quickly (a complaint I never make). In the end, this is a film which is a whole lot more appealing if you're Italian and a woman; being neither, it wasn't a waste, but it wasn't far off.
If anyone feels like translating the original title of the film - 'Dillo con parole mie' - for me, I would be much obliged. Babelfish gets hung up on the word 'dillo'. And yes, I'm aware that, in terms of writing quality/logic, this is one shitty review.
THE LONG GOODBYE (1972) - d. Robert Altman
I want to see someone grow some balls and give Elliot Gould another part like this. As highly-rated as it is, this is the Altman film which most deserves more due. It's the bestest.
ESTONIA DREAMS OF EUROVISION! (2002) - d. Marina Zenovich
The story behind this BBC documentary is so quirky and 'other' that it should've made a much better film. 'Eurovision' is an annual pop-song contest that, for some insane reason, appeals to many many Europeans. It's where Abba was originally discovered (and probably one or two other major artists), but it's basically an excuse to churn out ungodly crap which will spend the summer blasting out of tacky discos across the European continent. If Shania Twain was from the Old World, for sure she'd have competed at least once in her life.
In 2001, an Estonian entrant, after almost a decade of independence from the U.S.S.R. and subsequent economic hardship, finally won the big prize with a stupid little ditty called 'Everybody,' sung by Estonian pseudo-celebs Dave Benton and Tanél Padar. Benton and Padar were hired hands, a common practice in the world of Eurovision entrants, and this film is both an exposé of their uniquely crash-and-burn moment of fame and an examination of the build-up to the next Eurovision festival, which is to be held in Tallinn, the tiny country's capitol.
It doesn't sound like much, and unfortunately it isn't, because the director, an American working for the BBC, doesn't have what it takes to turn material gold into substantial viewing. From the looks of things, she had less than a week in Estonia to shoot her film, and that's a clear handicap, but she ends up interviewing the right people and asks most of the right questions. But she also puts herself front-and-center, Nick Broomfield-style, and as bad as Broomfield is, he's nowhere near as annoying as Ms. Zenovich. I'll cut her some slack and assume that the film was made to be shown on BBC in the weeks before the 2002 Eurovision contest, but for the sake of the home video/post-Eurovision 2002/overseas audience, I can't understand why there isn't some tacked on 'And Then This Happened...' card at the film's end to explain some of the crucial open questions we're left with. Boo.
THE PINK PANTHER (1963) - d. Blake Edwards
I saw a bunch of the 'Pink Panther' movies when I was a kid, but never the original. What a great movie. The world of big-budget comedy is fraught with cautionary tales, but Sellers is a genius and Edwards are both pretty much geniuses, and this movie is somehow both glossy and funny. Yay.
EXPERIMENT IN TERROR (1962) - d. Blake Edwards
This is the only thriller Blake Edwards ever directed. Strong performances all around, excellent use of the San Francisco which doesn't show up in postcards, and great photography. Not a must-see, mostly because it apes Hitchcock, but I thought it was fun. The film's 'heroine' lives in the community of Twin Peaks. I know Twin Peaks really exists, but I'm still wondering if Lynch wasn't making a reference to this movie, though it seems like a stretch.
EUROTRIP (2004) - d. Jeff Schaffer
Heinous. I didn't expect it to be good, but I did expect a few laughs. Instead, it's another 'every kid in high school is fucking rich and we're useless as filmmakers' affairs. Even the nudity isn't worth anyone's time (especially in the unrated version, which seems to be an excuse to put a lot of penis on-screen). I can only hope that the kids who enjoy this movie are inspired to go to Europe themselves and further propagate anti-American hatreds. For shame, Ivan Reitman. For shame.
SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004) - d. Sam Raimi
This is exactly what the first one should've been. Huge upgrade. I'm really worried that the Hobgoblin's going to wear the stupid-assed Green Goblin suit that ruined the first one, though. It looks like he's going to be the main bad guy in '3,' and that's a bummer, since Spidey's got the best rogues gallery of any comic book hero. The digital Spidey is still poor as all get out, but there's so few missteps in this installment that it confirms my theory that David Koepp is a shitty writer and mostly responsible for the fact that the first film wasn't very good. Also loved the extended Ted Raimi cameo.
THEY (2002) - d. Robert Harmon
aka 'Wes Craven Presents They'
Better than 'Darkness Falls.' Worse than everything else. Who casts an anorexic horse as their lead? How am I supposed to sympathize with an anorexic horse?
I think we're long-overdue for a federal ban on horror movies with opening scenes involving kids who don't want to sleep by themselves.
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