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Reviews
1899 (2022)
A Trip To Nowhere
What starts out with some interesting characters and ideas slowly dwindles into pointless repetition, abandoning its own conceits along the way, and ends up being no more than a "it was all a dream" cliché. Like too many TV series, things are stretched out to meet the required 8 or 10 episodes, and going through all of them ends up being quite a slog, without giving the viewer any reasonable reward for having stuck through the entire production. The main problem with series such as this one is a lack of coherent development and structure, and an abundance of poor writing. Whatever you're looking for in a good mystery, horror, or adventure series, you won't find it here. If, however, you enjoy unfulfilled expectations and fuzzy logic ending in exasperation, then this is the show for you.
A Wilderness of Error (2020)
Interminable Documentary
This is a painfully slow and tedious trip in endless circles, going nowhere. It does make you hope that you'll never get seriously involved with the US justice system.
Pig (2021)
10 for the pig
10 for the pig (a Kunekune).
8 for Nicolas Cage.
2 for the script, direction, and editing.
The story doesn't justify the length of the film, and it's too drawn out to keep your attention through the entire production. But it is one of the better portrayals that Cage has done in a while.
Nine Days (2020)
Pretentiousness Isn't Profound
After about 10 minutes, you know this film is going nowhere. It wants to be deep, meaningful, clever, and heartfelt, yet it is none of those things. Whatever it's going for metaphorically doesn't come together. The whole is less than the sum of it's parts, most of which are repetitive and boring. Many of the actors are good, but what they're given to say and do is, in the final analysis, just silly. Ending with a recitation of part of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" is neither brilliant nor clever; it's a failed attempt to work the film out of a self-imposed cage. That so many critics think this is brilliant is sad and demonstrates that being gimmicky is sufficient to impress people who should know better.
Ojing-eo geim (2021)
Great set design, but not much else
I would give the set design for this series a "10." The rest of the show is not very good.
Too much of the "plot" is obvious. You know the antihero main character will be the one to survive from the very beginning. You know the old man is behind everything because he's an anomaly and, unlike everyone else, has no reason to be in the game. Also, he's number 001, a real giveaway. You know there's some sort of relationship between the "head man" and the cop. You know the last game will be the "squid game." There are also other obvious things that come out in the first two episodes.
The first episode is overlong; there's way more than the needed exposition to set up the plot to move on. The second through seventh episodes are the best, but there aren't many real surprises aside from the excellent set designs. The last two episodes are truly awful and boring. When the indefatigable cop "disappears" into the sea, you know that there will be a second season. But the final ending where the main character turns back from boarding the plane is really embarrassing; he might as well have held up a sign saying "Be sure to watch Season 2."
All of the characters have the depth of comic book personae, especially the "evil" ones. The fact that none of them are believable characters wouldn't be a problem if the writers didn't try to create melodramatic moments when we're supposed to actually care about them and believe in their plights. No one in their right mind would leave hell and then let circumstances change their mind and therefore decide to re-enter a situation that leads to certain death.
"Squid Game" reveals many of the problems that plague most of Netflix's movies and series: They are bloated, overlong, and stretched-out in order to fill up a required amount of time. Even the very best of ideas can't sustain themselves indefinitely, and "Squid Game" is the umpteenth repetition of "The Most Dangerous Game" (1924) by Richard Connell. Combine this with Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" (1939) and you have the bases for many of the horror and adventure stories and films of the last 80 years. "Squid Game" doesn't add much that's new, besides some great set designs.
Tenet (2020)
Watch At Your Own Peril
"Tenet" is neither complicated nor clever. It's an implausible action/espionage story with ridiculous time travel nonsense thrown in. It's sort of a very bad combination of the "Mission Impossible" films, the "Terminator" films, and "12 Monkeys." The characters are trite, and, in some cases, the actors are poorly cast for roles; I can't imagine any audience member actually caring about any of these cardboard cutouts. The script is often laughable in its attempt to be mysterious, exciting, and deep, none of which it achieves. Much of the dialogue, in trying to be impressive, is actually comical. While it has a lot of action scenes, they are often drawn out and tedious. And the idea of reversing the film to demonstrate reversing time is a cliché as old as film itself. The music is truly abominable, imitating old simple-minded analog electronic shtick from the 1970s or, mixing electronics and instrumental samples, pounding out a few crass themes over and over until you almost want to scream. And when I say pounding, I mean it, as the volume of the music and sound design are insufferably loud, sometimes drowning out the dialog.. Maybe the ear-shattering levels at which old rockers used to play as they went deaf influenced Nolan's preferences for final soundtrack mixes. Perhaps worst of all, the film is terribly bloated: an hour could have been cut from this film without giving up anything central to the paltry plot, and it still would have been too long. At 150 minutes, the film seems interminable. All of these problems lie at Nolan's feet, and he, alone, is responsible for this mess. While a lot of people seem to like this film, I know that many are impressed by quantity over quality, and allow themselves to be mesmerized by fast-paced action and cutting, all of which are derivative and lack any cinematic interest. It's the kitchen sink approach.
In my opinion, Nolan has done four good films: "Following," "Momento," "The Prestige," and "Inception." It seems that the more money he gets to make a film, the worse it is. I don't think I'll bother to see any of his work in the future. I do think whatever talent he had earlier in his career has dissipated in direct inverse proportion to the budgets of the films he writes and directs. Perhaps he could access reversed entropy to improve his future work.
Tut (2015)
An Historical Disaster
The number of historical errors in the first 10 minutes of this "drama" were so numerous, that I couldn't watch any more. The film begins with Akhenaten dying in Memphis. He died in Armana. Tutankaton (his original name) didn't leave Armana until the third year after Akhenaten's death. Eqyptians at this time eschewed facial hair, in fact they removed all hair from their heads, faces, and bodies. To show Akhenaten with a real beard is preposterous; he would have had an Osird, a false beard. To show some of his underlings with facial hair is also wrong. Akhenaten never allowed himself to touch the ground in Arnana; he was carried from place to place. As he only worshiped one god, Aton, the paintings of other gods in the beginning scene of the film is nonsense. And where did they get the idea that Akhenaten was poisoned? Akhenaten's remains (KV55} are little more than bones with no soft tissues to provide clues to his death. I could go on, but this should be enough to show you how little regard this potboiler paid to historical accuracy. Hollywood seems incapable of making a decent, realistic film about ancient Egypt. Perhaps, someday, someone will achieve this, but "Tut" is so far removed from historical reality as to be laughable.
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
The Emperor's not-so-new clothes.
This is one of the worst films I've ever seen. It's too bad that the IMDB rating scale only has `1' as the lowest possible rating. `Moulin Rouge' is a textbook case for much of what is wrong with some contemporary popular films. It substitutes technical tricks for style, and frenetic cutting in place of meaningful development. The story is the epitome of triteness, creating a soap opera melange out of Camille, Orpheus, and the old Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney movies where they decide `let's put on a show.' As a deconstructive musical, it depends on send-ups of popular songs to fill out most of its excruciating two-plus hours (there is some undistinguished new material), and this is interspersed with bits and pieces imitating scenes from a wide variety of films of the past, most notably the works of The Three Stooges. The dialogue is extremely lame, often painfully mistaking popular song lyrics for great poetry, and it certainly lives down to the level of the story. The overall attitude of this film, is that if you take the kitchen sink approach and throw in as much stuff at as fast a pace as possible, many people will be tricked into thinking that there's substance here, rather than just the frantic hyperactivity of a desperate mind with a vague notion and a lot of money to spend on bringing it to the screen. This becomes quickly apparent after the same gimmicks are used over and over even in the very beginning of the film. By the end of the film you've seen the same devices so many times that a nauseating numbing effect results. While, like a cinematic junkyard, it is truly crammed with great numbers of things (cuts, costumes, camera moves, set pieces, computer effects, etc.), there is no overriding sense of purpose or vision, just the effects of juxtapositions of elements, and this quickly creates a tedious and irritating result. Nevertheless, many will be fooled into mistaking quantity for quality, and will believe that they saw something of merit. It might also be appreciated by younger people who have been weaned on music videos. `Moulin Rogue' may be the first commercial film created expressly for the ADD crowd.
Babe: Pig in the City (1998)
Babe 2: Superb!
Babe 2 is an incredible film, certainly one of the best
films I've ever seen. It's totally different from the first
one (the original world of Babe is only present at the
beginning and end of the film), and, I think, this is one
of the reasons that Babe 2 might not be a commercial
success. Most people are expecting a sweet, bucolic
children's story, and Babe 2 is anything but that. It's
surreal and wildly imaginative, and full of danger and
darkness in the way old fairy tales and myths were before
they were ruinously sanitized for modern consumption. Given
the average American's fear of originality and creativity,
along with the fact that Babe 2 is competing with several
real pabulum-type children's movies, I think that it will
have problems at the box office, just like The Wizard of Oz
did when it was first released. This is sad, because it once
again demonstrates that many Americans lack the
sophistication and cultural awareness to appreciate
something special and different. Perhaps Babe 2 will do
better in Europe; Im certain it will be greatly appreciated
in the future. Anyway, I highly recommend it. Just seeing
all of the animals run through their paces, the special
effects, and terrific visual creations is worth the price
of admission. It's also full of cinematic, literary, and
musical allusions that will delight those who recognize
them.