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Reviews
The Way Way Back (2013)
charming light-hearted story with an ideal cast member for every part
Sweet little hundred minutes of light humor in a coming of age story. It's easy to empathize with Duncan but this doesn't have the agonizing pain and awkwardness of real life and most movies revolving around teens+tweens. Cute indie soundtrack rounds it out well. It's no Juno or Little Miss Sunshine in lasting power and rewatchability-I'll probably never have the urge to pop it in again-but it's perfect for a light couple of hours enjoying their sunny backdrop contrast with the gloomy unhappiness and seeing the predictable unusual places where happiness gets found.
Summary: Yes, it is quite predictable. Yes, it is formulaic. Yes, despite those tired traits, it is worth seeing as they paired good writing with good actors for each part and great music and cinematography... There's one deleted scene called Do You Wanna Get Wizzed that I highly recommend watching. I wish it had been in the film!
The Pillars of the Earth (2010)
Truly fantastic filmmaking!
My summary and high star rating make my overall assessment of this miniseries obvious overall, but I at least want to chime in on a couple of things I constantly see and hear in reference to this along with most other book-to-film adaptations.
As with ALL film adaptations, this will NOT-and in fact CAN NOT-be identical to the book, and if that is what you expect or even desire, let me paraphrase author John Green regarding his book The Fault In Our Stars becoming a movie (when mostly young readers freak over the blue-eyed main male character being changed to a guy with brown eyes or the actress playing the main protagonist, who in that book happens to have cancer, being "too pretty" as if nobody with cancer can be attractive-granted the readers ARE mostly teenage girls--anyway, back to what he expressed several places to varying degrees of detail and all that): Of COURSE the movie will differ from the book-one consists of scribbles on paper and the other of moving pictures and sound! More importantly in my estimation is the arrogance of MANY readers. Arrogance? Yes, I DO believe it arrogant to presume YOUR way (when saying you/your, I refer to the person doing the fussing) of reading and interpreting a book and indeed the motion picture YOU envision while reading-the on the fly movie of your mind-is somehow more "correct" (I think there are as many correct interpretations as there are readers/viewers/listeners/consumers of whatever medium) or true-to-the-author's-vision or other self-righteous nonsense we all manage to find some time for when we could be volunteering to clean up the streets or teach or mentor youth whatever we're good at/knowledgeable about etc! I guess my key criticism is far less pertinent to the film than the people griping about it-something to be aware of in nitpicking is that what YOU find very important and worth emphasis is NOT going to be identical to what other readers do or what brush strokes-the broad swipes and the minutiae alike-were truly indispensable and/or moving/crucial to the plot's advancement or a character's portrayal/even all that memorable to the author and all the editors and friends whose input contributed to its making. I hope my little moment on a case of Dr. Bronners didn't waste every reader's time entirely. It's GREAT to be passionate about books-how rare and foreign (and ironically disconnected) we often feel in this tech age! Just remember that as critical as the book absolutely is to the movie or television program bearing its name, our brains filter and process scribbles, sounds (non-word ones in particular), and pictures differently-even stills and moving pictures are handled differently, as in they light up the brain differently when we're scanned.
With that very long bit of feedback issued, my assessment is actually rather simple. The sets and the stunts are SO awe-inspiring that you could almost pair them with awful character development and still give it okay marks! The story, though, is SO well-acted, engrossing, and rich, carefully pieced together with impeccable timing and interactions you can almost feel the love, anger, jealousy, and utter turmoil from an absolutely GREAT cast--HUGE props for SUCH powerful older figures and especially for NOT making it a film of only overly pretty people! It is WELL WORTH watching in a long happy marathon or across two nights of grim weather. I believe it is much easier to stay with the story and appreciate how incredibly complex and nuanced it is, what an ambitious endeavor with a beautiful result they've brought to us. I also recommend you watch the special features making of pillars bit-it's about half an hour and you'll leave wanting to fist pump the air seeing this fantastic work come to life from a few different perspectives and a dozen different (camera) angles. Anyone wanting to get into film or at all intrigued by the process should really applaud this as they truly somehow organized something utterly MASSIVE in scale and right down to makeup and a good hundred animals to work with, they made it work AND HOW... Sure it isn't true to history, only based ON it. There's no way they could logically follow the book to the page-too much not only had to be cut or rearranged but also ADDED, pieces we fill in where books leave big gaps movies cannot-but at the end of the day this is marvelous and does a great deal of honor to the books, making details about building a cathedral just as beautiful and gripping to watch unfold as to imagine while following paper-staining scribbles.
Before Midnight (2013)
I appear to be in the minority, but stick to the flawed but endearing Sunrise and the rich, brilliant Sunset then go to bed early, so to speak.
After loving the first two (and being the same age w/similar life events so not suffering from any adolescence-caused naivety/boredom by a couple decades' shot), two words struck me over and over watching this... 1) TEDIOUS and 2) VAPID. You can have the greatest actors on earth and generic, dreary and forced dialogue won't be suddenly brilliant, insightful, and touching.
Great films DO exist where the characters are meandering and where little but dialogue-even strained dialogue as they find themselves having-is there to carry a story. I love clever chatter and waited too long for too little-of 109 minutes less than 15 scattered about were worth keeping in the film! Were it not in a beautiful place, it would have NO worth apart from the younger couple being a bit of a refreshing break from Hawke&Delpy and the brief but brilliant(half-star-rating-improving) scene in the hotel&outside at its restaurant... It felt like they were stroking their egos with zero concern for anyone who might discern quality writing from a few merely "authentic" but still overly trite, contrived and flat out boring scenes full of drivel.
Personally, I do not watch films to hear conversations legitimately less interesting than talking about laundry. NONE of it was insightful and they both look ragged and washed out INDIVIDUALLY-like he's been in and out of rehab for hard drugs for a decade and she's simply lost both her charm and any acting chops that perhaps were never even there-and I think both CAN act but seemed exhausted by the unoriginal garbage they had to make us believe&give two number of care about-do I want to watch a couple of potential neighbors be washed out, unclever, and unhappy in their marriage or do I want to see them actually problem solve and fire each other up without resorting to what is no better than faking orgasms for a decade-it doesn't actually make you happy so don't, and for goodness' sake don't try to get ten bucks from me so I can watch what felt like "Before Counseling!" The only thing I found cute or funny was a moment of "bimbo" talk that would be fine if not used to show off how much she hates perceived traits about him to others-which is just pathetic...
The other problem is that everything they're discussing is far nearer to what couples in their late 20s go through&as a result it all feels fake and poorly cast, a bit like if you cast Clint Eastwood as a traditional father to a toddler and fifth grader without it being odd ie him trying to pull off 32. They say&look their ages but act like a couple of 28 year olds. Nothing meshes. It is tired, tedious and annoying. Don't waste the nearly two hours this requires-well, unless you want solace for a bad relationship and it'll get you role playing as them or pretending it's you in Greece. There are SO SO MANY better films out there. It should simply have never been produced, not with THIS script. I can't believe Linklater was at all involved let alone in charge-maybe HE needed to be in serious rehab when this was being storyboarded. Such a fabulous producer-I can only guess money trouble equaled pressure for a quick sale. Sad. I'm so glad I checked it out from a library since I'd be legitimately upset if I put my money directly into this when I'd get WAY more satisfaction buying a dozen homeless people a cheap meal or soap&toothpaste etc.
Après mai (2012)
Like walking through a mile of flower-covered neck-high mud&about as exhausting
I was excited for this film as it started. I could genuinely feel the angst and tension as they rioted and was eager to learn why and root for them or at least watch them engage in something passion-driven. Long story short, despite this being the least clear/focused/pointed film I've seen in a decade, how&why I forced myself to finish it is the only real mystery. It felt longer than most six hour trilogies, than twelve hour miniseries all watched in one marathon take, than reading War and Peace which while grueling at least had meaning and moved me. Save yourself. If you feel it slipping, not gripping you, don't waste your time. Once it starts losing focus it never comes back. I even rewound it a few times to be sure I hadn't missed anything as my mind inevitably felt like I was on opiates, not the film's experimental lost souls.
Before the first thirty minutes were over, I was feeling TIRED. How I went from energetic and engaged to feeling like someone was looping a distorted electric guitar note as people walked, sat, stared blankly, showed each other random "art" for praise, discussed anarchy in the most tedious, passion-void way imaginable, and drilled more dull monotonous drivel into my ears than I ever should have accepted-I had thirty other choices on hand AND the web for thirty thousand more, yet I devoted two criminally slow hours to it and left entirely unfulfilled-annoyed that this director took beautiful scenery and great filters to NOTHING meaningful, inspiring, or insightful. I felt a sheer void-like they'd tossed a year of brain-slowing medication in me and caused my own neurons to feel slurred in moving signals across synapses. I felt mentally drunk as if I'd just given the brain devotion I'd expect solid art to deserve-concentration similar to when I perform music or use higher mathematics to solve complex problems or even the level to assess and respond to social input and inquiry with reverence for others and ideally some depth--only to have drab and dreary versions of Teletubbies fed to me. Maybe there is some point beyond how trite, confident, undeservedly self-assured and ultimately stupid we tend to be, especially as teenagers. Maybe I wasted two hours watching them ultimately jack off to their own egos which only affirms the bad traits of humanity without granting an ounce of resolve that great films usually have or at least PRODUCE (the characters can find no resolve but still be meaningful to the audience, but these were just wealthy bratty white French youth spoiled and too like entitled Americans I cringe at too often--nothing in this film I can't find browsing deviantart and reading comments on Ron Paul related videos-was THAT why I chose it, to put a pretty set of faces on apathetic rich kids without any real hardship and with no real conviction either, to see another set of conformists who rebel together to fit in?) I guess my real issue is that in highlighting the morally decrepit youth here, this film never bothers to show distress beyond knowing what career path or what girl or guy to sleep wit-poor babies. So many films out there genuinely move me-from all places and mindsets and languages come brilliant works. Clearly the guy can shoot something very pretty. I wish he'd make a greater effort to share something very rich, evocative, conflict-bearing, etc. As is I cannot stand the idea of more pretty nothings with bland speech and bland vague jump-around story lines that never give me what an issue of Conde Nast Traveler magazine can't provide.
(I put the disclaimer in case someone may be frustrated at anything I've included about what I got from it or more aptly did not get, but I don't think this film can exactly be spoiled unless you totally feel it is wrecked when someone tells you generic dude is with a blah girl them follows other generic dude to Italy and shacks up with blah girl two because other blah girl left him for older generic dude in London-it lacks a story so what's to spoil besides your hope of it being enchanting?)