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Reviews
Three Kings (1999)
Already-A Great Film of the Gulf War
This movie is a classic. It is an almost perfect exercise in great moviemaking. It is a daring political comment that is incredibly entertaining. When the film isn't hilarious, it's shows a level of importance and focus that never lets up. From the concept and symbolic storyline comes action and comedy that are not directionless. The wild carefree air of the film comes from the Americans and it makes as a provokative contradiction to the graphic horror and serious nature of the Iraqi and Kwuati people who must fight with the reality the US ignores. This film is an Apocalypse Now for a new generation, yet with an optimism that shows hope instead of despair because a difference can still be made. It is yet another great American film that calls into question the ideals of the United States. This film basically shows how the political aspect of war in the twilight of the 20th century is greed, but compassion and the need to do good has not diminished. It's an excellent film that will emotionally and intellectually involve its audience. One must also not forget that it's also a hilarious movie that is incredibly artful and daring, not only in concept but in execution. Definitely one of the best films of the last year of the 20th century. Entertaining and involving, satirical and emotional, perfect cast, it hits every note perfectly while making up some of its own. See it, you won't be sorry.
JFK (1991)
A Very Important Piece of Film
Oliver Stone is the first director of the post 70's generation of autuers to have his own distinct style. That style has never been more effective. His message has never been more important of contraversial. That message hits us at America's quietly descending core, a piece of what this country stands for. Oliver Stone literally looks us in the face and tells us that this country is what we make of it, and if we step back and let power and greed run the country for us, that power will be abused. And it has. And it was. Stone combines all the most plausable theories into one massive opus that makes a powerful movie. Although specifics are distorted and some "facts" may have been omitted, the truth lies within what he shows and embellishes. The constant jump cut and total scattering of ideas and theories in this film lend the past a frustrated feeling of distance. The film is three hours, but the pacing is so fast and relentless, it just glides by like a slide show at a million miles a minute. You have to watch it twice to catch it all. I must also add, whatever is not true in this film, and that's a lot less than many may be led to believe, this movie is not a documentary. It uses the past and creates a conflicting myth to the one that is official, in school text books, but only believed by 30% of the nation. This time period was so ill handled and miss documented, that an alterior myth is something special and daring. It just may inspire people to look up what's official and what's not, what's real, or fictional. And this applies to both the Warren Report and Oliver Stones' Collage. It may even get a few people to demand the truth, to vote, to take part in a government that revolves around that very action. This is a noble film that never demands the audience believe what it sees. It show a completely opposite perspective that 70% of us have thought possible since that fateful day. It's a great film achievement in every sense of the phrase. It is Oliver Stone's best.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Powerful visceral effect but...
The movie is an artistic masterpiece that works best as a monument to those who fought for the 'Good Guys' during WWII. The argument that the Germans during the war were not on the bad side is wrong. That they, on a grunt level, were also just kids stuck in a war is true. Spielberg does not show this for a reason, he's honoring the sacrifice and victory of our fallen Americans in the war. The battle scenes are incredible pieces of gut wrenching artistry and the chaotic slaughter of the first 20 minutes means something to the story, but that story fails at achieving its more provocative, yet slightly out of focus ideas. The ideas are there, and they can be reached through the important viel of the film's realism. But Spielberg, for all his visual brilliance does not make it work. In fact, it seems like he is constantly trying to cloud over our thoughts that may come out of the film with a scene that is meant to close out a story that should not be ended so easily. The men fought and died and lived through that hell for the world we live in today, but instead of letting us contemplate the worth of that sacrifice and allowing those moments of horror to manifest themselves in our minds along side the lives we, as the generations born into that infant world which have taken advantage of this age, Speilberg (and or the screenwriter) has ended the story of that sacrifice. Ryan works as a metaphor for the men who lived to go home and rebuild, or build lives. But that metaphor has a serious flaw when the character is shown finalizing his internal conflict. Well, with that, it seems less of a thanks to a generation. Tom hanks, on the other hand, gives one of his best performances, so does Tom Sizemore (with what little he had to work with). Everyone else overacts. No kidding. The dialogue is very bland and repetitive. Spielberg and Hanks lend them power, but that doesn't hide the awkwardness. I enjoyed the interested paradox of having an incredibly violent war film be patriot. It shows us the horror and nobility, both right next to each other, hand in hand. It shows men facing their own deaths as individuals as a greater good stands in the shadows, but almost completely out of site. That is important, this is one of the first films to do that. But there's a better way of characterizing the men than giving them each a monologue in the minutes before the final battle, or simple stereotype characteristics. Yet this was not what I was thinking when I first saw the film. As an experience the film works, and like a great film, it stays with you. But the more I thought about it, the more its moral and metaphorical problems came to the surface. It's definitely worth seeing, maybe even twice, but it will never provoke its ideas on a deeper level than the logistic banter of the men. It's almost too visceral. For more ideas, see The Thin Red Line. the too films both try to say the same thing (one with a flag, the other with the Earth we fight over), but one succeeds where the other comes just within reach, but not artistically gutsey enough to grab hold and run. They are both about Human dignity in the face of the inhumane. One encompasses the WWII generation, the other encompasses the entire human race. We've seen violence, and if we're not trying to survive it, we should be thinking about why it is. Only then can we overcome it. It's a noble gesture, but impossible. It's bleak, but then again, we're only human.
Hamburger Hill (1987)
Ambitious in the face of classics...
This movie, from the first scene, reveals itself to be a gut-wrenching tour de force of war's tendency to tear young men to shreds. It's realism is as unnerving as Saving Private Ryan, but with a budget that wouldn't have paid for SPR's catering. Although this lends a "cheap horror slasher movie" look to the impending gore, it does not lose is effect. The audience is not spared the violence. It is, as a film, a bit conventional, but it tries hard to mean something, and that counts for a lot. It is a great companion piece to the other Vietnam film: Platoon was about descision of good and evil in the face of horror. Apocalypse Now was too, but focused on the chaos, both mentally and physically, and on the moral dilema the war was. The Deer Hunter was the subsequent lose of the American Dream through the war. Full Metal Jacket was about the manufacturing of our youth into killers and raining them down on the world in a hail storm for ideals. Hamburger Hill succeeds in being the first successful film depiction of Battle in Vietnam. All the others where either nonstrategic fights or too surreal to show the world what went on there. Hamburger Hill does that and at the same time tries to create a dramatic feel through very well contained yet amatuerish monologues and scenes of the men waiting for death to surround then once again. The film expresses the true feeling of men in Vietnam in the latter end of the war. Born on the fourth of July did this, but only through drastically changing a gung ho patriot into an anti war activist. This film is for all the others who saw the world step out from behind them, yet still had to push forward up the bloody hill of Vietnam. It was a waste, the film keeps that as its focus, and that makes it the most true film on the subject. It may not be all that accurate, but that particular battle is well remembered and the metaphor of the hill as the war itself, with the reporters standing at the bottom, waiting for the men to come down, the enemy dug in all over, and the hail of fire from the jets in the sky, is important. Some moments stick with you, but the ending does not. It tries to be final, the soldier looking down at the wasted lives below him, but it lacks the built up feeling it maybe should have. Then again, the lack of epiphany as the battle climaxes has a chillingly anticlimatic feel that is true to war, or life. My only regret for the film: The musical score almost ruins it. The acting ranges from bad to excellent, to a bit overdone. Racial tensions in the film are very noteworthy and provocative. They actually mean something. All in all, an honest film that succeeds at doing well what others had done, but also succeeds at being an expression of ideas that still needed to be wrung out of the war after Cimino, Coppola, Kubrick, and Stone.
The Thin Red Line (1964)
Jones' ideas, kind of.
The first interpretation of James Jones' novel is an OK movie. Nothing really stuck with me, though. It condenses about five characters each into the two lead characters in order to make a well rounded film that fairly expresses Jones' ideas on men in war. It is an interesting psychological study on men, not under stress, but facing death, either from a distance, or up close. There are some great moments in this, and the acting is superb. I did think, though, that the sexual feelings of the novel did not translate so well into the early 60's film. The battle are also utterly unconvincing. Death is still portrayed as a somewhat painless event (with the near exception of one great scene), it leans more to the earlier gung ho war movies than, say, Paths of Glory or All Quiet on the Western Front. The battle scenes are ultimately silly and cartoonish. Two men climb a cliff because the valley below is mined. One knocks over a big rock that causes a chain reaction and all the rocks fall into the valley and clear the mine field. This kind scene is not meant to be surreal, so it loses on the realism scale. This is not the way Jones wanted war depicted. The kind of silly inventiveness of the battle scenes does not exist in all out combat. But, I must say, it does succeed in some scenes, and the performances are all great. I must also say that the end is extremely powerful. It made all the cheesey set pieces and battle scenes disappear from my mind. That last shot is the tone of Jones' novels, a tone From Here to Eternity got right all the way through, and Terrence Malick's Thin Red Line also successfully portrayed (But stepped away to alow contemplation, not to experience.) That last scene makes it a good movie, but it couldn've been done better. Actually, it was done better. I still recommend it. It has its ideas in the right place, but its execution is a bit showy and not realistic enough.
The Thin Red Line (1998)
One of the best
Simply put, the most beautiful movie ever made. Every shot and thought and character has multiple layers of subtlety and meaning. Truly a great film, reminiscent of 2001 and the novel Grapes of Wrath. An absolutely extraordinary experience in a darkened theater. The score is superb, the dialogue and acting perfect. The narration may seem awkward at first, but you need to listen to what's being said to understand the movie. Like Pvt. Ryan, the movie deals with decency in the face of death and the beauties and horrors of life, just minus the hokey jokes and rather inappropriate reassuring flag waving of Speilberg's monument. The film is under appreciated for it's length and daring. It transcends all typical narrative and structure of storytelling, but it NEEDS to be listened to. Those who claim its philosophies are BS need to listen to it. What it says is true and part of what we are as human beings. The movie illustrates beautifully what heaven and earth mean to us all. As for the overuse of eastern philosophy-there isn't any. Death and what it means and possibly begats is one of the film's many themes, and all bases are covered. There is even a Christ-like character, much like Jim Casey and Tom Joad in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. The movie doesn't shock us the way 'Ryan did, but that's not what it wants to do. Terrence Malick want's us to think about what warfare does, what we are between 'heaven' and earth, and what death means to men facing it. This is a film maker's art, his expression. You don't need to like it, but you need to respect it. Me- I love it more than any other film, and it deserves more than its gotten. It is well paced, its characters well rounded, it execution beautiful, its ideas lovingly expressed, its editing crisp and rather provokative, and its narrative is different, original and ultimately rewarding. It deals with eternal themes in a new way, and it enthrawled me. Combat was shown frankly violent and gut wrenching. There is love, there is hate, fear, anger, greed, insanity, power, ideas (rare these days), and ultimate beauty. Terrence Malick is a brilliant artist, making HIS films in HIS own unique style, a style that is fresh and ultimately his own. Film is artwork. Malick is the truest artist I have seen working in this medium. This movie is a milestone in film making.