Change Your Image
songwarrior52
Reviews
Up in the Air (2009)
Over-hyped, manipulative and predictable
So glad the producer (Ivan Reitman) has such faith in the director (his own son, Jason) and his "creative vision." What were the odds? LOL. Whatever skills Jason has as a technician, the philosophical thrust of this movie is as phony as a $3 bill. Wow, disconnectedness? Wow, everybody needs somebody to love? Wow, having casual sex is ultimately disappointing? This is glib commercialism at Hollywood's typical worst, disguised as a movie with meaning and now being hyped as Oscar material on all fronts. The audience for this flick would presumably be comfy white folks earning six-figure salaries, who can relate to all the emptiness that its lead character is striving to overcome. So who do we pity more--the director who thinks this message needs transmitting, or the dumb saps who will watch it and think it's really meaningful? (The latter, actually, because the director's getting rich off the movie, and the saps are giving him their money.) A manipulative piece of nonsense, which, at its core, is as naive as they come about real human issues. If you've paid to see this one, you've already been duped.
Monterey Pop (1968)
You know what? It's not that good...
D.A. Pennebaker may have "captured the spirit of the '60s" and all that, but the fact is that the original "Monterey Pop" has big problems, which the passing years have not rectified. Now, one can buy a deluxe Criterion Collection DVD set that has extra discs that include all the outtakes from the original footage plus extras upon extras. But the film as originally released, for all its legendary status, all 79 minutes of it, is often a flat-out bore. The single- disc original version I checked out of the library today also has some extras, including a conversation with producer Lou Adler and filmmaker Pennebaker. That only seems to reveal that Pennebaker was somewhat clueless in his approach to putting the final cut together. This is especially true in the decision-making regarding which acts to include. I mean, the guy left out Laura Nyro, Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds from the original flick, choosing instead to include people like Country Joe and the Fish (boring), Hugh Masakela (meandering) and at least one group that didn't seem to be identified and whose music was mediocre. The filmmaker also seems to think he made a brilliant move leaving out the Paul Butterfield Blues Band from the final cut, but it's hard to trust him given who's onstage instead. Also according to Pennabaker, Mama Cass Elliott wanted him to cut the Ravi Shankar performance. It seems to rouse the audience here, and it's used as the climactic performance of the concert, but few people want to listen to extended rave-ups on a sitar. (I fast-forwarded through it, only to find that the film was now over.) There are other problems, for example, Janis Joplin is clearly performing at night, yet through her performance, the camera cuts to Elliott in the crowd, supposedly gushing about Joplin's talent, onlydoh!Elliott's in broad daylight, and it's obviously an insert from another part of the footage. Cheesy. And stupid. Did Pennebaker think no one would notice? Other bad things: A ton of boring footage of hippies being hip (a little goes a long way); camera work that focuses on Grace Slick mouthing the lyrics to "Today" while Mary Balin is singing the opening verse, which makes it look like his voice is coming out of Grace's mouth; and when we finally get the great Hendrix, what is he singing? The godawful "Wild Thing," which is about the last song anyone wants to see him play, even if he does set his guitar on fire and dry-hump the amps. Pennebaker supervised about 6 cameramen, plenty enough to get a lot of cool footage. Too bad the final results look ofttimes amateurish. Meanwhile, the synching and cutting are okay but not great. The Mamas and the Papas come off pretty good. Ditto The Who. And Joplin. Simon and Garfunkel sound good, but they're singing "Feelin' Groovy," not exactly cutting edge. Otis Redding is okay, but a mite tiresome. There's some saving grace with the film crew getting a lot of footage of California girls in all their hippie-dippy glory, but that gets tiresome too. "Monterey Pop," at this late date, looks mostly like a big experiment with lesser results. For maximum effect, keep your finger near the fast-forward button.
Semi-Pro (2008)
...and to think the writers weren't on strike when this crap was "written"
Pointless to get into the story details here. Yet another totally awful Ferrell comedy. If you can last past 10 minutes, then you're either a masochist or absolutely devoid of taste or you've fallen asleep. Comedies driven by unbridled ego are always lame, but this thoughtless, stupid, unfunny waste of time is particularly bad. Big clue for the world: Ferrell is NOT funny. Unless you are under the age of 12. (Okay, maybe 14.) What's amazing is how he himself doesn't tire of dragging out his shtick time and again. It's gotta be soul-sucking to do that, but making the money and "being somebody" must suffice. Then there's the low-talent supporting cast membersKoechner, Richter (I mean, really, they are mediocrity defined, latching on to Ferrell's descending star). What's really weird is that actual talent like Kristen Wiig and Jason Sudeikis are relegated to bits, but maybe they haven't yet worked their way up high enough in the ex-SNL pecking order, which probably says a ton about the good-ol'-boy mindset that put this drivel into motion. Do not spend a penny of your money on this waste of a movie. If you need to check it out, do so for free at quicksilverscreen.com. Do not work hard at your job and take your money and give it to the schlockers that made this film. You've been warned.
Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)
As Bad As It Gets
This movie was broadcast this evening on a local "Christian" channel. I feel it's a public service to inform readers that this might possibly be among the worst movies ever made. Don't listen to the "opinions" on Amazon.com or other sites. While there may have been a serious budget for this film, the directorial inspiration is no deeper than that of a movie made by Ed Wood. The director was Delmer Daves, and he's as plodding as they come. He only uses medium and long shots, and this is guaranteed to drive the viewer mad. You never get a close-upof anybody! He plops the camera in front of an ornate "ancient" setabout 50 feet awaythen just keeps rolling, while the actors stiltedly declaim the most wooden dialogue ever written. Then there's the acting: Victor Mature, just horrible; Susan Hayward, a decent actress who only makes things worse trying; some fool named Jay Robinson, who minces through his lines like a pre-menopausal Boston fishwife. Then, of all people, Ernest Borgnine, traipses through the set dressed as a Roman tribune or such. What's most amazing is that all of these things never let up. Daves never tries a different camera angle: he moves to the next set, plunks down the camera, cries "Action!' and the actors perform each scene as if in a play, while the camera never moves...not anywhere. The continuity is nonexistent, to boot. The movie's highest redeeming factor is only that it could be used in a college unit on how NOT to make a movie. And it's not just that it's badit's that it keeps getting worse with every passing moment. In fact, the preposterous plot and the historical inaccuracies actually look good compared to the production values. It's Hollywood at its nadir, in a film that was later "sold" to the public as a piece of valuable religious history. Avoid this movie at all costs, unless you are on an LSD trip, in which case you might be able to follow the story and can get a lot of comic entertainment value out of the performances. Yet another bit of evidence that Hollywood is not a meritocracy; it is, instead, a "luckocracy"anyone lucky enough to cash in is who gets opportunity. A vile film. Watch at your own risk.
Alone in the Wilderness (2004)
Weird show for weird people
This show has come on PBS a lot in the recent era. It's no surprise that lots of people write glowing comments about it. Mainly because it feeds into the mostly bogus desire of folks to "rough it," to "chuck it all" and move into a cabin in the wilderness. Yeah, right, as if most people really want to do that. Supposedly we're watching this Proenneke guy do everything all alone from scratchbuild a house, make his eating utensils, catch his meals, grow his garden, endure the brutal Alaskan winter, etc.except for the fact that there is a camera there watching him do it. The whole thing looks as stage-y as can be, a fact that is trumped only by Proenneke's cornball narration and completely cheesy camera-work. Was there a crew there filming him "roughing it"? Are we supposed to believe that he filmed it himself, in which case he would've had to have continually set up the camera time and again in order to set the stage for his next staged feat. Supposedly this entire thing is spontaneously filmed, but common sense tells the viewer that it's completely phony. I like to watch this show and laugh at its absurdly contrived conceit. It's supposed to make city slickers and suburbanites who own nice homes and drive SUVs and go to the mall think that their lives are humdrum and "inauthentic," when actually you wouldn't give those things up at all to do what this guy is (supposedly) doing. Gee, I wonder if Proenneke would have a cell phone up there if he were doing it these days. A very weird and oddball show which eventually has the effect of fingernails on a blackboard.
Edge of Doom (1950)
A very personal view of EOD
My dad wrote the book that EOD is based on. It is interesting to me that a film that was declared a resounding failure still elicits some interesting commentary. The view that it is possibly the most depressing noir-type film around sounds like a huge compliment to me, given what noir is always striving to do, and indeed it IS a dark film (which makes the above comment about the Stradling cinematography kind of puzzling). Also, the IMDb trivia statement that the film has never been shown on TV can't possibly be true, since I remember seeing it on TV when I was a teen.
The novel Edge of Doom used a Crime and Punishment narrative style to tell a contemporary murder story revolving around poverty in a large American citythe template was Philadelphiaand to raise issues about how devotion to church alone can not solve the ills of a modern society. The subject matter is indeed bleak, and indeed ahead of its time. It's certainly a brooding tale, but the novel as literature was considered significant in its day. How Goldwyn came to produce it as a film is a story unto itself, but there can be no doubting that if the film's creative team had stuck to their noir-ish guns, and focused more artfully on the message, it would have been a much better film, not to mention a film that might've actually raised noir above its melodramatic station. (Noir is great, of course, and it's fun to view its style, but a lot of the entries in the genre are tough to watch nowadays, simply because the dialogue is so corny.) Bookending the movie with the corny priest scenes ruined the film's chance to actually probe the poverty theme with seriousness. By soft-pedaling its style, Mark Robson and Philip Yordan failed to capture what was important about the novel. Here was yet another example of Hollywood so afraid of box-office impact that they made a difficult situation worse, when what they might've had was a critically well-received work that would have also failed at the box office but at least might've been counted as art.
I can't say I agree with the above post that hails the work of Farley Granger. Granger has been publicly vitriolic about the movie, but in my view he did nothing to help it. He's wooden and self-conscious, and, let's face it, he was never a good actor even when Hitchcock directed him. However, I am also open to the possibility that, had Robson had any conceptual idea about how to best tell this tale, Granger might've made for an interesting screen subject. The Yordan screenplay tweaks trivialized the message and shortchanged the potential for a visual style. Even then, if Robson had brought a creative approach to things, even the screenplay issues might've been overcome.
EOD the film remains a historical curiosity, but it's mostly an example of what happens when unsympathetic, apparently clueless, filmmakers are hired to tackle a subject of seriousness, which they can only reduce to cinematic hackwork. It could have been, it SHOULD have been, a much better movie.
Once Upon a Texas Train (1988)
Pretty bad, pretty sad
Okay, Willie Nelson has to be one of the worst actors that ever opened his mouth in front of a camera. Can you say "self-conscious"??? How about also "stilted" (as in his delivery), "awkward" (as in his gestures), and "stiff as a board" (as in his demeanor). There's nothing nostalgic here either, just a bunch of old actors (and Willie, who is NOT an actor) trying' to make a buck, as far as I can see. Then there's Shaun Cassidy, who looks like his mother, Shirley Jones, with a cowboy hat on. Can you say, "out of his league"? If he attended the Willie Nelson School of Acting, he might actually be better than he is here. You can get about 5 minutes out of watching this film, then even an infomercial looks like a better option. Fuggedaboutit!
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
Nice wrapping paper, lousy gift
Is it any surprise that tons of the positive responses to this film are posted from the UK? For some reason, Brits always think they are God's gift to comedy. Apparently they laughed their arses off at "Hitchhiker's." Like I guess they laughed their arses off at "Are You Being Served," the moldy Brit sitcom that PBS keeps showing over and over. That ain't funny, and for the most part, neither is "Hitchhiker's." Think of "Spaceballs" meeting "Harry Potter," if you can, and that's what this overblown mess is. There are a few funny moments, and in fact there are some marvelous intergalactic vistas, but to get to the latter you have to make sure the middle of the film hasn't put you into too deep a sleep. It's tedious. Sam Rockwell is annoying as hell. Mos Def is good, but he falls into the pit of ennui as well. Martin Freeman does that "veddy British" thing, which is funny for about two minutes. Zoey Deschanel is cute but that wears off quickly as well. The Jim Henson creatures are ugly, like Fraggle Rock puppets on tainted steroids. John Malkovich must've needed some quick cash to show up for his cameo. And, in general, the whole wacky subliminal message is stupid. It's supposed to be capturing some kind of self-conscious cheesiness--the opening dolphin sequence makes that clear--and that's probably what the Brits think is so funny. In fact, the whole concept is passe. It's a loud, bombastic, stupid film masquerading as "meaningful, with a wink." I couldn't wait for it to end. And listen up, Chaunceys: American humor is edgier, more sarcastic and hence funnier than that tired old British "Aren't we being dry?" stuff. Monty Python was 30 years ago, Cedric, and it was only kind of funny back then anyway. "Hitchhiker's" is a tired conceptual piece with a little bit of CGI razzmatazz. Don't waste a farthing on it, Yanks.
A Very Brady Christmas (1988)
Incredibly bad--how can anyone like this?
This is just awful crap, and it's a testament to the last 30 years of the decline in American artistic taste that people have actually written in to say how much they like it and want to buy it on DVD. God, this thing is dripping in so much schmaltz and rotten jokes it defies the law of averages. But the awful writing is outpaced by the acting. Leading the pack is Jerry Houser, who just might be the worst actor God ever put on the face of the earth. He's simply execrable. His performance makes my teeth grind involuntarily. Or how about when Alice returns and says that her butcher hubby Sam left her for another woman, and it happened after he volunteered to "come over and check her rump roast." Ye Gods!! The usual awful Brady stuff is in place, and Cindy Olsen dodged a huge bullet with this one. Somebody posted a comment that she wasn't in the show because she was getting married in real life. I thought it was because they wouldn't offer her enough money. I'm sure if she'd wanted to be in this terrible film, they would have adjusted the schedule ever so slightly if she was getting hitched. Maybe Cindy wanted more money, but a million dollars wouldn't have been enough to warrant doing it. The guy playing Jan's husband is a real loser too. And how about the scene when Dr. Greg Brady and his nurse-wife go all gooey on each other, making stupid medical (bad) double entendres. I think you can see Robert Reed's AIDS starting to affect him, too, which is really sad. Watching any Brady show is like watching a train wreck, and in that this made-for-TV film surely measures up. People always laughed and said the creators did it this way on purpose: well, that ain't anything to be proud of. Can we somehow destroy all the prints of this embarrassment?
Fire Birds (1990)
A comic delight
The fact of the matter is that this film is so bad, it actually has merit as a comedy. The film has a slick arrogance to it, and top-flight stars in Nicholas Cage, Tommy Lee Jones, and Sean Young. It's got characters in it named "Breaker" (laugh), a lot of macho, cool-guy tech-talk about helicopters (guffaw), and Cage gives just possibly one of the absolutely worst performances ever, spouting inane dialogue like he actually means it (howl). Somehow, the cast manages to take their mission seriously, which must rank up there with the miracles at Lourdes. How Tommy Lee Jones performs his role as the 40-year-old flight instructor who wants to get back into action with the 20something young Turks--against the advice of the commanding officer, of course--we'll never know. He's just a professional, we can only assume. But as I said, the movie compels because it's so darn awful. I chuckled out loud several times. Sometimes, watching a train wreck--and a glossy one at that--can be mesmerizing.
The Package (1989)
Halfway decent
A halfway decent "dry run" for the Andrew Davis repertory company that later surfaced in the same director's "The Fugitive' starring Harrison Ford. The story about "patsy" soldiers and an international assassination conspiracy is actually pretty good, until the usual string of preposterous occurrences help to bail protagonist Gene Hackman out of an impossible bind. Credibility is strained, then lost altogether when seriously wounded Chicago cop--played by Dennis Franz (who else?)--emerges from his hospital bed to help Hackman foil the bad guys. You know, if they thought about the endings with the attention to detail that they lavish on the big shootouts, they might actually have a chance to complete a good film.
Kevin Crowley is good in a major/minor role, preparing the way for his bit parts in "The Fugitive" and "Major League."
RoboCop (1987)
...and a memorable catchphrase
The perfect role for the young Leeza Gibbons: a completely superficial and insensitive TV news reader. For her, the movie was a foreshadowing.
Miguel Ferrer sets the tone for his desultory career as the infamous Bob Morton.
Who can forget the geeky bad guy who gets obliterated by the car after being dipped in toxic waste? Ka-blew-ie!!! Ewwwwwwwww!!
And last but certainly not least: "I'll buy THAT for a dollar!!"