Reviews

There are many that will talk about how bad the previous two STAR WARS prequels were, as if there was absolutely no process of thought involved in either of them. Now, with REVENGE OF THE SITH, they are jumping up and down with acclaim.

I agree with this acclaim because SITH is the darkest, most violent and the most disturbing STAR WARS period. To say that it makes THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK come across like Disney cartoon would be an understatement.

Which brings me back to THE PHANTOM MENACE and ATTACK OF THE CLONES.

With all three films, we find ourselves wondering how could the cherubic, selfless child from THE PHANTOM MENACE turn into the reactive, borderline psychotic teenager with fascist leanings in ATTACK OF THE CLONES, to a genocidal brownshirt in REVENGE OF THE SITH.

I think that was best summed up by Hannah Arendt when she coined the word 'the banality of evil'.

In the guise of a science fiction fantasy, Lucas, with his prequels, has created an interesting meditation on fascism and the path to evil.

I hope that people will take the time to think about what he was created...

What can I say about this film?

Well, it has to be first Nixon doctrine spaghetti western with a frustrated general complaining about the rules of engagement that prevent him launching a search-and-destroy mission on an Apache stronghold in Mexico (Hmmmm...substitute Apaches for the Vietcong and Mexico for Vietnam...) It even has a buckskin Rambo, that being Captain Kaleb, who wants to take out the entire Apache nation after his wife is murdered.

Well, this gets me to the movie. It is one of those movie that used to get made in the Sixties and Early Seventies where scores of actors are assembled in various stock roles, with a screenplay that has recycled every action movie convention without much spark or imagination. And then there's Bekim Fehmiu. I've seen more vivid performances from driftwood.

In short, it's one of those movies you watch on a Saturday afternoon, when nothing else is on and pay very little attention to it.

The only exception I would have to make it for Piero Piccioni's score. It's got that cheezy late sixties jazz thing going on (apologies to Dennis Miller..)

Other than that, it is nothing terribly memorable...

I have many chances to catch this 'film' on cable. I have had many times where I tried to sit through the entire film. In all of my attempts to watch this, I have to say this: this is positively the worst film that I have ever laid my eyes on. Considering that I've seen PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE, GLEN OR GLENDA, and Bob Guccione's CALIGULA--that's saying a lot.

There are many vignettes in FREDDIE GOT FINGERED that I'm still trying to flush out of my head. The most odious is when Gordo births a baby, bites through the umbilical cord and whirls it around the hospital woman.

From all of the things that went on during the production and during the time when some studio exec green-lighted the movie, I wonder about one thing: did anybody think that this was funny?

You know---I'm not being entirely truthful. There was one moment that amused me. It was when the studio exec played by Anthony Michael Hall commented to Goldo about his drawings: "You see what I mean...Doesn't make any sense....pretty f**king stupid..."

Why?

Because it summed up the entire film....

Going into this film, I really expected to despise it.

I expected it to be the typical over-produced Jerry Bruckheimer tripe like TOP GUN (yeah....if Leni Riefenstahl make music videos...), but the end product proved to be one of the most emotionally overwhelming and spiritually uplifting films I have seen to date.

Sure if you look at all of the bits in the film as discrete units, sometimes, things don't add up. But as a whole, it clicks. I've read reviews complaining about how the film was edited, but if it was not editing in the manner it was, it would have been interminable experience to sit through. (It was a two and one-half hour movie. It did not feel like a two and one-half hour movie. That is a sign of...GOOD EDITING..)

Let's look at some of the bits in the film: you have a bunch of roughneck oil drillers who have commissioned to save the world. To take it a step further,you have the realm of society that people would call losers that world has ask jump into the void and redeem the world from darkness.

I could be wrong, but this kind of sounds like something from The Good Book....(actually, many Good Books...)

You know, despite of the ZA-ZOOM comic book surface, Director Michael Bay is doing some fairly deep stuff that is worthy of William Blake. I won't spoil how this winds up, but someone does something in this film that can be best expressed in one word: messianic.

I have seen this film multiple times since its release and each time, I find getting weepy each time. Why? I think because it goes beyond its surfaces and ask you something: what you do in the face of the end?

Well....?

I have had over a year and a half since I first saw ATTACK OF THE CLONES to process my reaction and try to understand most of the rancor directed toward it.

Firstly, I can understand why everyone loves TWO TOWERS over ATTACK OF THE CLONES. In TWO TOWERS, the landscape of the battle between Good and Evil is in black and white. In CLONES, it is a perfect shade of gray.

You have the military/industrial complex (that is, the Trade Federation) attempting to assassinate Senator Amadala because she is the main and most significant opponent to the Military Creation act. You have Greys manufacturing human beings for warfare. You have a duplicitous head of state manufacturing unrest for seizure of power. Most of all, you have the possibility that organization (that being the Jedi council) served to protecting the Republic's interests may be behind the creation of the army.

Hmmmm...except for the Grey manufacturing human beings for warfare, doesn't sound like something going on now?

It has the first time that I watched a STAR WARS installment and wondered if Oliver Stone have a hand in it.

Also, there is something interesting about Annakin Skywalker's descent to hell. The only other movie that comes to mind is AMERICAN HISTORY X, particularly the scene when Eric Vinyard (Edward Norton) kills the black gang-banger. It would be an understatement to say that Annakin's head was in the same place.

That's what's disturbing about Annakin: he looks like a Backstreet Boy, but his action scream Hitler Youth.

Also, I loved the immediacy Lucas gave the Battle of Geonosis, with swish pans and zooms into the action. The only thing it was missing was imbedded reporters.

In short, CLONES excels and it is better written and acted than its detractors have given it credit. It just happens to deal with some things that people don't want to think about: the banality of evil.

From the stark opening, director Giulio Petroni lets us know that he is going to take us on an interesting ride. The sequence for which we watch through Bill's eyes as his family is brutalized and murdered is one of the most disturbing ten minutes ever put on film.

Even more stunning is the sequence for which there is jump cut from Bill as a child after the carnage to Bill as an adult, as a living killing machine. It plays like a version of THE TERMINATOR if it was set in the 19th Century American West.

What progresses from there is a very interesting revenge film, loosely patterned like POINT BLANK (1967) where Bill is the wild card in the middle of Ryan's quest for vengeance.(Watch both films....Van Cleef and Marvin's characters function the same way...."All I want is $15,000...nothing more, nothing less...)

What I found the most interesting is the way Petroni chose to photograph the three sections of the film. They are all visually distinct and this change seems to map the character's journey through out the film, that being Bill's progression from a traumatized child to a hate-filled adult on the road to hell.

My only complaint is the quality of the prints.

I hope MGM manages to track down a decent negative and have this film restored.

It deserves it.

There are several things wrong with the remake.

First of all, I kind of get this feeling that no one who was involved in the production ever saw the original film by Robert Wise. The 1963 film was a marvel of suspense and one could look at that film as being the spiritual cousin of Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING. If they did, they would have know that they had to work toward something.

Let me tell you why the 1963 film worked: it was its subltety and the way it allowed you to fill in the blanks. (Is she imagining all of this? Is the house trying to control her?) From this, this is main reason this version fails miserably.

When we come to the Crane Mansion in this film, there is nothing to wonder. It screams BIG SCARY MOVIE SET. All of the apparitions jump at us in their computer-generated glory. Above all, the climax of the film......I felt my brains oozing from my ears.

In short, in order to make a decent horror film with subtlety requires thought and intelligence from the screenwriters. That, for this film, was in short supply....

Something happened very interesting to Spielberg in 1993.

I think he realized that he was a technically accomplished director and good at manipulating audiences, but he needed to make cinema.

Then, he made SCHINDLER'S LIST. From that, he proved he could walk with giants of cinema.

After that, he made SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. From that, he proved that he could take cinema into visceral realms that would have had Sam Peckinpah shaking in his boots.

Then, Stanley Kubrick bequeathed a project to him. That project was AI, and it seemed that Spielberg, after approaching Kubrickian detachment with SCHINDLER'S LIST and parts of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, decided to regress to the "Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink" school of Moviemaking that many have shunned him for. I have to say this: the results are quite disappointing.

I will not fault the film technically, for on that realm, it is superb. It is Spielberg's execution of scenes that in the hands of Kubrick would have been chilling (ie., Dave's murder of his robotic twin) and intriguing (i.e, The Flesh Fair), turn out to be turgid and banal.

I have just one hope for Spielberg long term: forget about the audience. Let them find their own clues and responses. Then, you will make more cinema, and not silly little ridefilms....