Reviews

A profound idea and Madonna put together sounds like a futile attempt to mix water and oil, but, being a guy who likes both Hutz as an actor and indie film alone should all by itself be testament to my willingness to be open-minded about unusual forms of art and interpretation. So, I watched Filth And Wisdom with no preconceived notions even after reading so many bad reviews.

Now that I've seen it, I'll just say that this film makes no effort to force you to think and ask questions, but simply lays out the overall message up front then just goes through the motions of showing it. There were moments of potential, but at no point did I even remotely wonder how things might turn out for each character in the end. It just didn't occur to me to care enough.

In short, if you're a fan of Hutz's former roles in acting, no less Gogol Bordello, you'll probably enjoy seeing Hutz play himself in this role at most, which features a scene of Gogol Bordello performing at the end. Filth and Wisdom, however, doesn't even come close to what you might have walked away with in Everything Is Illuminated. This film is just Madonna's effort to cash in on a new spotlight that no longer shines on her, in my opinion.

If you have no clue who Eugine Hutz or Gogol Bordello is and can care less, on the other hand, I advise you avoid this movie all together..... unless you're on a drug that can make almost anything interesting.

Either way, don't expect much and you won't be disappointed.

I basically just watch a movie and slap it into 1 of 5 categories:

1) Really good!

2) I liked it.

3) Eh.

4) Horrible.

The 5th category is a very special one. Of the thousands of movies I've seen, I've only put one movie into it: Baby Geniuses. I call it the "I-wish-I-can-actually-sue-someone-for-making-a-movie-this-bad" category. Thanks to Strange Wilderness, I have officially expanded the number of movies in this category to 2.

If you're the type to giggle on for 10 minutes like a 12 year old school girl after someone tells you their name is Dick, you're going to absolutely love this turd.

I'm the furthest thing from a movie snob there is. A plot I've seen a hundred times before can still sway me emotionally. I'll even go a step further than that. I watched a 20 minute Tony Robins seminar just prior to watching this movie. I was primed, in the mood and was ready to be motivated and inspired some more. That's why I picked this one to watch based on the positive reviews here.

Unfortunately, the movie was almost a complete flat-line of emotion all the way through. There was no display of motivational or inspirational growth here at all. This movie was simply a 115 minute display of tolerance for a world that provided no sympathy, followed by 2 minutes of hope and achievement.

I did, however, scramble as quickly as I could to do something cheerful after having watched it. So I suppose it did motivate me, in a way.

This film does not accommodate the thinkers of the crowd, nor is it one for the historians. "300", in all essence, is a man-movie through and through, not just for the alpha mentality of its battle-hardened Spartan men, but also in every other aspect from politics to the context of its sex scenes to the very simplistic, defiant and angry dialog. If there were ever a film that could define Rosie Odonnell's most ill perceived personal hell, this is it. However, it is not without a woman's scorn or influence. In a nutshell, 300 will leave you disgruntled if you demand political correctness, sexual equality, historical accuracy or believability from your movie experiences.

What this movie brings to the table is quite simple: barbaric mutiny displayed in epic proportions. It is full of psychological scare-tactics warriors would use to instill fear in their enemies, from massive walls built with corpses to a messenger that carries with him the crowned skulls of once defiant Kings. Couple that with the visuals and camera work that is nothing short of impressive and awe-inspiring and you'll have many reasons to like this movie.

That said, there are things about this film that will ruin it for you, in my opinion, and will prevent it from making the all-time lists of top movies made for men. There are a few instances where CGI is overdone to the point of cheesy. There are occasions where actors are forced to step out of character to accommodate a dialog that is surprisingly uncharacteristic of the roles they are playing, and it's very noticeable. There's also one scene that the movie had invested time to build up to, intended to be serious and inspiring, but when the scene finally comes the main actor seems to be on the verge of laughing about something that happened on the set, like a botched take.

However, even though there are just a couple of over-the-top acting moments and a few, very weak, two or three line castings, I cannot blame the acting at all. In fact, there's not only some good acting to be found in this film, but some of the most emotionally impactive acting can be found when there is no dialog at all: Testimony to the fact that it's just a horrible script meshed with several careless director oversights.

On a side note, using industrial-type music in the score, even though it's used sparingly, doesn't exactly help the movie either. Once this film becomes dated, it's going to be much worse.

Overall, you should go into this movie expecting nothing more than a lot of grim eye candy, valiant chest-beating and twisted concepts that would make Vlad the Impaler proud.