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Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Nonsense, but not in a good way
What a load of tedious rubbish. A ridiculous film with a stupid plot that made no sense.
I had heard it was bad, but thought, given all the Oscars, it must have something going for it. Looking at what it won, I'll agree with the editing award and Jamie Lee Curtis's supporting actress award (although Shephanie Hsu was also very deserving). But best film? Definitely not. Best director? Not so much. Best actor for Michelle Yeoh (who I really like, but she's been in far better films than this)? Best supporting actor for Ke Huy Quan? No, sorry, I don't get it at all, it was just a solid performance, nothing outstanding.
All Quiet on the Western Front was, in pretty much every way, a far superior film. Plus, it made sense.
So anyway, I started watching it and was vaguely intrigued. But then it got stupid and I soon lost interest, eventually willing it to finish. Yes, some of the fight sequences were quite good, I suppose, but given that none of the characters was believable, I didn't really care about the outcome. In the end, it was like, oh no, not another fight sequence; I'm just not interested anymore.
I accept a lot of effort clearly went into the film, but it is, I fear, misplaced effort. The costumes and props were comical, but again, not in a good way, and not in a way that made the film more believable or endearing. And the bagel and the hot dogs... What were they about?! Were they supposed to be funny? Stupid is not the same as funny.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
My mistake
I do apologise: I'd somehow got it into my head that comedies are supposed to be funny. Then I remembered our greatest playwright's comedies and assumed that must be what Mr Kubrick was going for with this 'comedy'.
I suppose he started off on the right track, getting Peter Sellers involved, but sadly (for a modern comedy at least) you tend to need a funny script rather than just a funny actor, and the script was certainly not funny. I'm sorry to say that Sellers' Dr. Strangelove came across as over-the-top and self-indulgent. He did as well as could be expected with the President character, given the mediocre script. I quite liked his English airman though: suitably snooty without being offensive.
Many of the other actors (notably excluding James Earl Jones) were fairly rubbish, I thought; lots of overacting, presumably under the mistaken impression that this is what makes a good comedic performance.
The story was original enough, although it basically fizzled out at the end, not knowing quite where to go and instead just stopping. It could have reached the end much more quickly too, if it hadn't been so flabbily edited; many was the scene I thought yeah, I get the point, let's move on...
I'm trying to work out why I gave it as much as 4/10 now. It's "of its time" I suppose, so I shouldn't judge too harshly now.
I realised, on reaching the end of the film, that I vaguely remember seeing it before at some point, but I suspect the vagueness of my recollection simply underlines what a forgettable film it is.
I accept that far more people seem to like it than don't; I just can't work out why. But then I also can't work out why people think Kubrick is anything more than a below-average director. Sorry, Kubrick fans, but I'd have to recommend giving this one a wide berth.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
Excellent special effects, rubbish movie
Not much to say other than that, really. It was FAR TOO LONG though: an hour before the end I was bored out of my brain, thinking it should finish soon but looked at my watch and realised there was loads more to go.
The first movie had a great story and script and I loved it. The second and third clearly had much too much money thrown at them in the hopes that special effects could distract from the lack of a plot. I don't know why studios think that more money makes a better film: often, less money makes filmmakers more inventive and imaginative, and almost always more money makes them completely the opposite as this film proves.
At least the first one was something fantastic happening in the context of something vaguely real-world. This movie just seemed to make up its own rules in order not to have to bother making sense in any vaguely real-world context.
As I've said the special effects were, as always, brilliant. All four of my points are for them. If you liked the original Pirates but were disappointed with the second, don't bother with this one. If you like a film with a story, don't bother with this one. If you don't care about plot and just want loads of special effects, you'll love this one!
C'era una volta il West (1968)
Nicely shot (no pun intended) at times but surprisingly dull
Really not my kind of film. I thought my tastes were quite broad, but apparently not broad enough to encompass this one. The best writers and directors can make a point quickly and effectively without seeming to hurry. Sergio Leone, it seems, can't do that - at least, not in this movie. He takes his time over every scene, whether it has a point to make or not.
It takes ages to get started (whatever happened to grabbing the attention of the audience to make them want to find out more?!) and ages for anything to actually happen once it has started. The word "lean" cannot be applied here; I suppose the best phrase I can offer is "elegantly lumbering".
I saw the director's edition rather than the theatrical release, and as far as I could tell, the long scenes didn't achieve anything that ones half or even a tenth of the duration could have achieved (boredom aside).
Yes, there were some "pretty" camera angles. Yes, there were one or two clever lines of dialogue. But the impression I came away with was, I'm sorry to say, that the director put his self-indulgence firmly above the audience's entertainment. The music was noticeably repetitive; the sound-effects intrusive beyond the point of distraction; and the dialogue invariably too quiet.
I suppose I must be missing something given the absurdly high (IMHO) position of this film in the top 250. I really can't imagine what that might be!
25th Hour (2002)
Well acted, but distractingly and confusedly made!
Having read through some of the reviews on this site, I was astounded by how many people actually thought this was a good movie!
I saw it yesterday at a preview (it's not out here in the UK for a few weeks) and even allowing for the fact that we didn't know what we were going to see until we were sitting in the cinema, I was surprised that 26 people left before the end: some after half an hour; some shortly before the end! I didn't leave though, as I wanted to fill in my comment card!
I'll start with the good points: the acting was excellent for the most part. That's about all the pluses, actually. The story was, to say the least, confused. I have no idea how for example, apparently in the same day, someone can get raided by the DEA, have an interview in which he indicates the approach he'll take with the judge, and then (apparently without actually having a trial) get ready to go to jail.
It is slowly paced for no apparent reason other than self-indulgence and is confusingly shot and edited. For example, fractions of a second of "action" are sometimes repeated immediately after they happen - don't ask me why - it's not clever or cool, that's for sure. And there are some glaring (and I can only hope) intentional continuity errors when quickly changing camera angle. It also has a sometimes distracting soundtrack, like in the club where the scratching keeps swapping from left side to right but has little bearing to the rest of the music.
One of the biggest surprises for me reading other reviews was how much people liked the I-hate-everybody-or-maybe-it's-just-my-fault bathroom mirror scene, which was appallingly out-of-place both in style and in (or out of!) character, then was immediately self-dismissive at the end of the scene. Well spoken "monologue", yes, but served no purpose at all.
The only three adjectives I could honestly tick on the preview comments card were violent, slow, and disappointing. 4/10 (and that's mostly for the acting). (Did somebody say Spike Lee was a great director? All evidence to the contrary.)
Solaris (2002)
Technically excellent, but oh so dull
I was expecting great things after reading a review of this. It started off well enough, with a lot of slow or static shots rarely focussed on the person talking, making you think about the consequences of what was being said for the person in shot - mmm, arty, I thought! After that, this artiness got a little tiresome, with continued use of very slow pans and lingering shots of nothing happening.
It wasn't long before I realised Solaris was a would-be "2001: A Space Odyssey": the lingering shots, nothing much happening, even the style of music. I was never a fan of 2001 because of that slowness (yet how did Alien manage to go slow but keep the audience engaged?), so Solaris trying to mimic that wasn't endearing. I sat and tried to work out what kind of a movie it was. Exciting? No way. Tense? Nope. Thrilling? Funny? Humourous? No. Emotional? Surprisingly, no. Interesting? No, sorry, not at all.
Having watched plenty of other films (and TV series like Star Trek!) make the same kind of story much more engaging, I found I really didn't care what happened. They even tried a couple of twists, but these just came off as "let's-add-a-twist."
I suppose the acting was okay given the limited material, but in the end the movie just seemed rather pointless, contrived, dull (which I may have mentioned already), and unbelievable. There was the promise of much, with exciting possibilities set up, but the promise wasn't delivered, unfortunately.
(As a slight aside, it never looks good when people are sitting in the cinema with their eyes closed, and worse still when people walk out 15 minutes from the end; both of these happened when I saw Solaris.)
24 Hour Party People (2002)
The new champion!
Try as I might, I couldn't think of a single movie to beat this one, and believe me, there's very little else to do during 24 Hour Party People. It is quite comfortably the worst movie I have ever seen! I don't know how long it was, but it seemed to go on forever. It appears that the writer thought you could get away with what boils down to no plot if you distract people with lots of scenes of people dancing to good music - and perhaps he is right, but there was no good music in this film whatsoever. There should be a warning saying only to watch it if you don't mind having the Sex Pistols shout at you for long periods. None of the characters was likable, which is concerning since it is apparently based upon a real story, and I could find nothing interesting that made me want to carry on watching. The absence of humour was covered with excessive and pointless swearing, as if that by itself was funny, including the highest use of the 'C' word of any film I've seen. I don't believe I've ever seen so many people leave during the film: some after about 20 minutes (by which time I was well ready to leave, but thought I would give it a chance), and even some after about an hour (by which time I was considering suicide). If you like punk music, by all means see the film - it'll probably mean more to you than it did to me. If not, and you have a sense of humour that doesn't include killing pigeons, I really wouldn't bother. This movie makes Bowfinger look like an exciting, original, and funny movie. (Yeah, I didn't like that either, but for very different reasons - at least I didn't want to die whilst watching it.)
Wo hu cang long (2000)
Disappointingly Silly
Considering that at the moment IMDb users' rating of this movie is 12th best of all time, I was expecting a lot; I've rarely gone into a film with so positive an attitude. Yes, the fight scenes are easily the best I've ever seen, but there really wasn't much more to it than that. I was willing the story to do something unexpected, or to be different from that which seems so standard for this kind of film - the master who wants to stop fighting his enemy, the apprentice who won't listen, etc. All pretty cliched really, but that's not necessarily a negative point! Because nothing happened that surprised me, it struggled to hold my interest; but thank goodness for those fight scenes!! Some of the cinematography is quite beautiful, and the action direction is splendid, but unfortunately the emotional bits (like a "good" character dying) often just came off as funny. And what is that flying stuff all about?! That pushes a story attempting to be at least slightly serious over the edge into downright silly! (It did look quite cool though.)
Overall, fairly good fun, quite amusing (both intentionally and unintentionally), a little slow in places, and a lot silly. Definitely not the 12th best film of all time, though - sorry. 6/10.
American Beauty (1999)
Very good, but I'd never want to see it again!
Yes, this is a very good film. It's very funny in places, intelligent, and brilliantly written. However, despite being a "good" film (in the quality and skill of film making sense), I don't think I'd ever see it again. I can certainly understand people liking this film, but (in my opinion, of course) *NO WAY* is it a better film than things like Schindler's List and The Shawshank Redemption - I doubt whether this would even make it into my own top 100! So my vote: as a piece of film making, probably 9 out of 10, but overall a 7 I think. See it, but don't expect the best film ever!
Bowfinger (1999)
Less funny than the trailer...
...and on reflection I didn't think the trailer was that funny! It looked promising, though, but as is too often the case, most of the best bits were in the trailer. The basic premise, making a movie without the main star knowing he was in it, is pretty sound. Bowfinger was that but, unfortunately, only that. In fact, it was really the same bit - a scene being filmed - over and over again. The vast majority of the jokes, such as they were, fell quite flat - some because you'd already seen them in the trailer, some because they weren't well implemented, and many just because they weren't funny! I definitely laughed at least twice, and other people laughed slightly more than me, but that part of the audience seemed mainly to be kids. This is definitely a film where you smile - not laugh - at the funny bits.
We saw The Runaway Bride straight after Bowfinger, and that was much better!