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Reviews
Red State (2011)
Drama killed by plot gone rogue
The first act lived up to the promising premise: visceral terror meets religious fervour in Red State American sociopolitical stew. But then it went off the rails, a train wreck in slow motion of imploding drama. Why? Unbelievable plot development and characterizations. Even the scenery-chewing Michael Parks, with his long hair, goatee, glasses and preppy casual wear, looked more like a hip Marxist-Leninist poli-sci prof than a rabid old-time religion preacher. And his drawl was too much of a mumble. How can you suspend disbelief in a story that becomes more unbelievable - less in touch with credible human behaviour - with every new scene? Too bad. It could have been a cult classic.
Peaceable Kingdom (2004)
If you love animals, you must swallow this bittersweet medicine
Peaceable Kingdom is a one-of-a-kind, good cop/bad cop cinematic work over for people who love animals but still eat them. This independent nonprofit production company - aptly named Tribe of Heart - doesn't just rub viewers' noses in extended footage of the brutality farmed animals typically endure today, it spends most of its time uplifting us with a vision of a peaceable kingdom where those same animals are as dear to people's hearts as any pet dog or cat. That peaceable kingdom is here and now, if only on a small scale, at a large and legendary (in the animal rights and welfare community) rural property and nonprofit organization in upstate New York called Farm Sanctuary.
If the stick of Peaceable Kingdom is the footage of abused farm animals, the carrot is the story of Farm Sanctuary and the people of all ages who visit it every week, celebrating the sacred bond between animal and human. Director Jenny Stein focuses on a few very special visitors who tell their stories to the camera. Particularly moving is the story of a young former animal farmer, former conflicted 4-H kid, who lost his compassion for farm animals growing up and regained it on a visit to Farm Sanctuary.
He no longer farms or eats animals; he advocates for them. If you see this deeply moving film you may too.
Secret Window (2004)
Mort ain't no Shooter - SPOILERS
Secret window is supposed to be a movie about a writer (Depp) whose homicidal jealousy is so psychotically repressed he has to invent and hallucinate a sinister alter-ego to kill his cheating wife. The writer, `Mort,' should have been played as a lovesick, timid man who is as overcompensatingly harmless as he is ticking with signs of repressed rage. That way, when we find out who his imaginary stalker really is and Mort literally becomes him, we would have the satisfaction of a psychologically convincing and shocking payoff. But Depp's performance makes that impossible. He is a relentlessly cute, cuddly and safe antihero from the start. His `eccentricities' are the stuff of a comfy character-driven sitcom or light drama. There's nothing repressed, buried, denied or seething about him. He asserts himself at every turn in a perfectly normal guy kind of way with his phantom stalker (Turturro), with his wife, with his hated rival. He even has a healthy sense of humour another sign that nothing crazy is going on below the surface.
Secret Window could have been a classic if Mort had been played more like a young Robin Williams in One Hour Photo. Mort, as his uncool name suggests, should have been a shy nerd who won a beautiful trophy wife because of his fame as a writer, lost her to a more attractive man and lost his brittle grip on himself because of it.
One Hour Photo (2002)
Plot is instant-photo, not one-hour
Creepy old loner slowly implodes while eavesdropping on `perfect' American family. Audience eavesdrops on loner.
There. Now you don't have to see this monotonously predictable movie - unless you want to watch Robin Williams in a fascinating body and personality makeover (fascinating for about 10 minutes) or Connie Nielsen as the memorably beautiful and vulnerable object of a lonely man's desire.
Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
Addams Family meets Hogan's Heroes
I rented this movie looking forward to high-class creepy horror with an original, "gothomentary" twist ("what if the creepiest vampire in film history really WAS a vampire"). What I got was a silly "Addams Family meets Hogan's Heroes" sitcom in which Willem Dafoe (Uncle Festus) mugs impishly as a cutely grotesque bloodsucker while John Malkovitch (Colonel Klink) throws temper tantrums as a preposterously Faustian auteur lost inside a foppish, "Dieter"-style German accent.
There WAS a stirringly dark and beautiful score. And Dafoe WAS a hoot with his campy, chew-up-the-scenery creepiness. But as a film, Shadow of a Vampire, despite its great premise, is a plodding, suspenseless, and meaningless exercise that casts no reflection.
Un air de famille (1996)
A Compassionate Klieg Light on "Familliar" Dysfunction
I was enthralled by this filmed play of an evening in the life of a family driven to a peak of "dysfunction," but through it all held together by the glue of love, however imperfect (as it always is).
The movie is a comedy in the sense that it makes you laugh at, with, and sometimes in spite of the kaleidoscopic display of personal and interpersonal flaws, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities that it illuminates through its crack cast of closely observed and defined characters. Few if any of them fails to reveal a different side to their personality with each turn of the kaleidoscope. These are complex people - just like the real kind. And the fact that the script, the camera, and the direction simultaneously lay bare their suffering/insufferable humanity (and their unique virtues) while evoking sympathy, fondness, and identification with each one of them is what, to my mind, raises Un Air de Famille from the level of good artistry to that of redeeming social value: art with a heart.
Syd Baumel