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Reviews
I Was a Teenage Faust (2002)
quite possibly the worst made for tv movie ever made (and THAT'S something)
i'm not sure why i watched this movie. something about Morgan Fairchild and Gregory Hines as a comic duo should have told me right away that this was disastrous, but it was worth watching for one reason and one reason alone. it is without a doubt the worst made for tv movie ever made. and you can bet your ass that that's saying something. and i know what you're thinking. this asshole hasn't seen every mftvm ever made, how does he know it's the worst. WELL, you jerk, i'll tell you why. i have a theory that made for tv movies were invented for the sole purpose of spreading propaganda. there's no art here. HBO might be the only example of "attempted" art, but the only mftvm's you'll see outside of home box office are cheesey, tear-jerkers. like a 2 hour version of "lifestories: families in crisis" except about abortion and drugs and crazy boyfriends who club your daughters with chopping blocks. if anyone is familiar with the story of Faust, you'll know that it's very dark and gothic. the story is so bad it's almost a parody. first of all, to even watch this film without gagging you have to consider it possible for a goofy-looking, short, shrimpy nerd can attain popularity and schoolyard supremacy by simply slicking up his hair and losing the glasses. yeah, i know what you're thinking, but bear with me here. that presents the least of my problems with the film. the real problem here is that none of these characters are real! the mother constantly sobbing when she realizes that the actor Joe Mantegna is married and therefore her son can't sell his soul to the devil is funny for about three billionths of a second. when she doesn't stop you start to wonder. hey...i'd like to f*** nicole kidman. but i never will. why am i crying?!!?! it makes no goddamn sense. and the ending is actually a rip off of shrek. the boy who tried to hard to earn some girl named Twyla's approval discovers that she sold her soul to the devil for the same reason. all of a sudden everybody's selling their soul to the devil. did i mention that gregory hines is one of the worst actors of all time. no? he is. he makes morgan fairchild look like meryl streep. this review is sort of running out of steam. in closing i take solace in the fact that there isn't a studio in the world that would fund this project. thank you and have a wonderful day.
Road to Perdition (2002)
ghastly overrated
The hype for this movie was so incredible that I thought I was about to witness The Godfather Part IV. Instead, I literally witnessed The Godfather Part IV, Miller's Crossing 2: The Return of Casper and Conrad L. Hall: The Movie all in one setting. The first (and biggest) problem with this movie is the screenplay. It might as well have been written by a nineteen year-old gangster film buff. It reads like it was written by someone who learned everything they know about the mafia through watching movies...and doing a poor job at even THAT. The family business and Sullivan's relationship with the Paul Newman character is only assessed in a brief spatter of dialogue in which Hanks explains the family business to his son. One of the principle characters, Al Capone, (whose iron will results in the murder of the only female star in the film less than twenty minutes into the first act and Sullivan's youngest, forcing him and his oldest son to go on the run) is never even seen! Instead we see one of his underlings played an extremely miscast and unusually subpar Stanley Tucci, in what could have been a bit part. The subplot of the hitman searching for Sullivan feels so tacked on, it's almost as if the producers included the Jude Law character in a last ditch effort to ensure that at least ONE teenage girl would go to see the masculine dominated piece of shite. This is in no way a gangster movie like The Godfather (to which it has been compared by a small collected of narrow minded imbeciles who probably can't even tell me which movie "leave the gun, take the canoli" comes from) nor is it in any way a family movie. The Godfather defined two genres. The gangster film and the family film. If films were people Road to Perdition isn't worthy enough to kiss the Godfather's ass. There are two female characters in the entire movie [sic] (both of which could have been bit parts) so how the hell could this be considered a family movie. I can't believe feminists haven't taken an interest in what could be considered a male chauvanist movie solely because there are no female character for the entire 2nd act, and the better part of the 1st and 3rd. This is a shrewd, pointless, cliched story about fathers and their sons and "bringin' home the bacon" and as if the ONE scene in which we see Sullivan do his dirty work wasn't irritating enough, there's a tacked on voice over of a grown Michael sullivan Jr. talking about how after the day his father died "he never picked up a gun again." There's nothing this film has accomplished that even the worst "life in the hood" movies have. The visual structure is a different story alltogether. I won't be surprised if Mendes scores another oscar for direction (despite the fact that he really, truly deserved the award for American Beauty) and I'll be outraged if Conrad L. Hall doesn't win the oscar for cinematography. he's a seasoned veteran and the BEST at what he does. his contribution to this hackneyed metaphorical 20-car pile up is so audacious yet beautiful at the same time it almost makes this film worth seeing. but in my opinion...steer clear. this was just an accident waiting to happen. i'm also quite surprised at Mendes, who proved himself to be a consumate director with Beauty. the scenes are poorly composed and generally boring to look at. watch this one with the mute button on. hanks has never been worst and newman proves that he's too old to act anymore.
Donnie Darko (2001)
good...very good.
an auspicious, debut from the man who is the independent scene's latest wunderkind, Donnie Darko feels like the work of a seasoned veteran. it's rhythm and plotline are occasionally interrupted by the use of story cards describing the amount of days left to a mysterious occurance, but the real treasure here is the screenplay and the direction, both by Kelly. while some films are ruined by directors who wear their influences on their sleeves, Kelly takes the teen movie and breathes new life into it. with equal influence from John Hughes, robert redford and martin scorsese, Kelly's film is dark, cynical and clever. it's sad story is about a schizophrenic teen (played by Jake Gylenhaal in a competent performance) with haunting visions of a demonic rabbit. and this bunny is no Harvey. he's a sinister spectre, who forces the boy to commit horrible acts. there a lot of concepts floating around here, such as parents living vicariously through their children, parents misunderstanding their children, children misunderstanding children, time travel, death, life, religion, religion...more religion. an overall decent effort, but no classic.
Adaptation. (2002)
close but no cigar
Contains Spoilers Adaptation is a lot like a tomato. On the outside it seems delicious and nurturing. It's aroma and appearance and ingredients are all inticing, and there's an excellent performance scattered here or there. But the inside (the infrastructure of the film) is a different story altogether. Full of disgusting mucous and seeds (in other words, the makings of a great film), that's all we're presented with. There's no debating that Spike Jonze is a competent director. He tries his hardest to give Adaptation a stunning, cutting age look but his shocking oft overbearing "in yo face" style (which made music videos like the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" and Fatboy Slim's "Praise You" the revered masterpieces of short form music video they are) is out of place. The first problem i have with this film is the fact that Charlie Kaufman, is too pretentious for his own good. As we watch the fictional Charlie Kaufman character and his imaginary twin feverishly attempt to discover the meaning of life using a big budget film adaptation of Susan Orlean "The Orchid Thief" (a non-fiction study of orchid poachers) the viewer is led on. One thinks that Kaufman's introspective discovery might help explain the meaning of his own existence, let alone life itself, but it doesn't even do that. I enjoyed the flashback scenes, but merely for their visual splendor, and their relevance to what could be considered a sub plot, the history of the orchid theif. The film's final act is the epitome of arrogance. Kaufman (remember I''m talking about the screenwriter, and not the character who the movie is about) is trying to tell us that there's no place in the hollywood community for ethereal, introspective drama. Which is complete and utter bullshit. Doesn't this remind you of Barton Fink a tad bit? An anti-social "fish out of water" screenwriter whose commisioned by a big production company to churn out droning bullshit, but he wastes all his time feeling sorry for himself and pounding away at his keyboard, pontificating and spewing inane dramatic points. The Coen brothers have already cut their teeth in this business, and maybe in the 30s it was difficult to get a screenplay produced if there's a lack of substance and an abundance of depressing images piecing together the neurotic nature of the man writing it, but in this day and age Adaptation has no place. There IS a place in the hollywood community of philosophical films, but they have to relate to already established philosophical concepts, not the babbling, punk rock idiosyncracies of an up and coming screenwriter whose forte in this business has already been established. He's the guy who go to for a "weird" screenplay. Not an intellectual, inspirational, spiritual, philosophical, psychological concept-fest. When a person is commisioned to adapt a novel, and it's not exciting it's the author's fault. Kaufman is trying to say in the 3rd act that the only way to give a film a "hollywood ending" is to crush whatever meager character development has been brewing, and completely divert the plotline in the interest of gunplay and chase sequences. Maybe the image of Charlie singing the Turtles' "Happy Together" to his brother as he bleeds to death is cliched, but it works. If Kaufman (both the character and the screenwriter) wasn't so intent on distinguishing between what he believes is a good film and what he believes is a bad film you'd never know that the final act was a coda. They might as well have called it Being John Malkovich 2.
Gangs of New York (2002)
if it's too big, it can be bigger
For the first time in my life i feel as though I've been tricked into seeing a movie. After reading Herbert Asbury's GANGS OF NEW YORK, i couldn't imagine that in a million years a film could be made. There's so much information pertaining to the early gangs and the beginnings of organized crime in New York City, but there's no real story. Jay Cocks, the ghostwriter behind the oscar sweeping Titanic (1997), has not used many of the events in the book, but only one as a platform to spin a cliched, boring Titanic-like tale. So basically, Gangs of New York is historical fiction, although some of the characters are based on real people. Martin Scorsese's, America's greatest living director, has gone out of his way to make sure to give Gangs of New York a cutting age look, but there's nothing new here. The battle sequences are too reminiscent of Braveheart, and the tacky love subplot feels tacked on (going to california, bull***t), as it bears no connection to the Dead Rabbits battle with the natives, as the Dead Rabbits battle with the natives has nothing to do with draft riots. A film about the draft riots could have been much better and shorter but who wan ts to see two hours of blood and guts. Duh...EVERYBODY!