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Fenris-5
Reviews
Helter Skelter (2004)
It doesn't explain why Manson was able to manipulate people
The is a quite good remake of the 1976 movie, but Jeremy Davies is not as believable in the main role as Steve Railsback was, and he fails in showing the viewer Manson's magnetic personality which made him able to manipulate people around him into conducting these horrible crimes.
To quote one of prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's lines in the film: "How do these kids end up stabbing people with knives and forks 169 times?" The film does not succeed in explaining this, and as such it is a failure.
Apart from that, it offers a different angle to what happened than the 1976 film, and shows more of the likely motivation Manson might have had for ordering the murders; the lack of progress in his musical career, and his connection to Beach Boy Dennis Wilson.
Reindeer Games (2000)
Funny, but not the way intended
Seeing this film made me think the producers wanted to benefit from the interest in stories about incompetent criminals generated by Fargo. This film, just like Fargo, opens with falling snow flakes, and a lot of the narrative drive consists of people being subject to misunderstandings or bad luck.
The main character Rudy Duncan (Ben Affleck) is released from prison just before Christmas, but due to chance (and questionable morals) he is involved in a hopelessly ill-conceived and badly planned robbery masterminded by Gabriel (Gary Sinise), a long-haired Spinal Tap version of the hero from Apollo 13. Sinise is really funny, but seeing it I wasn't sure he was funny the way intended. His character is constantly undermined by ironic comments from his assistants, and some of the humor arises from him being so controlled and "uptight", not entirely mastering the bad guy look while reloading his sawed-off shotgun.
In spite of several tattoos and convict jargon, Affleck does in my view not escape his tendency to look like mother-in-law's favorite son. It's the same as if Hugh Grant should try to play ex-convict: it just wouldn't work.
The film being of the Christmas variety, it seems the producers were almost as badly in need of money as the film's Gabriel, since they went ahead and released it in February, instead of waiting. (4/10)
The Straight Story (1999)
Lynch plays it straight, with remarkable result
I find The Straight Story to be, contrary to what many have said, a very Lynchian film. But I haven't been witness to a more melancholic Lynch since The Elephant Man. One central thread in Straight Story is, just like in the black-and-white Anthony Hopkins drama, repressed emotions and people who are misunderstood because of their appearance or behavior. It seems Lynch has picked up the thread from then, and placed it within the context of the mythological rural American framework he has spent the last ten years developing. Considering his devotion to strong visual ingredients, at first it would seem inappropriate for Disney to put its hallmark on the result, but it's not. For the most part, Lynch plays it cool; only a few times giving in to the temptation to develop the bizarre aspect of the situation ("the owls are not what they seem").
The main character, Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), bears a striking resemblance to those furrowed old men often turning up in the work of Donald Duck cartoonist Carl Barks. The film starts off with Straight receiving word from his brother, who lives a few states further east. Having had no contact the last then years, the two have resorted to denial of each other's existence. Straight is haunted by thoughts about the past and an unfinished feud with his brother, and decides to drive and visit him. Neither in possession of a driver's license nor a car, he chooses his only means of transport: A lawn mower.
Multiple technical problems break up the journey, which for us results in a lot of beautiful scenes from rural America each time Alvin stops to receive help from friendly locals (unlikely, at times). Judging only by the landscape scenes the film is quickly placed within the road movie genre, but taking into account the story, it lacks the eruptive quality of most such films, in stead harboring a concentrated quiet, like in Paris, Texas. Straight's trip echoes his past, which was spent partly traveling around.
Richard Farnsworth is charmingly clumsy in his portrayal of Straight. Coming across as a self-consciously old man with all the right answers that indicates that he has surrendered to the inevitable biological decay. Essential enough, though, Farnsworth reveals a youthful aspect in some of his expressions that clearly marks him off from the other elderly people he meets. It is as if Lynch wants to tell us that Straight is not fixed, has not surrendered, but is still in motion with an intention to continue shaping his life. That way it feels like a double warning to "seize the day": Both in Straight's personal mission, and in the contrast to the other elderly, who shake their heads in disbelief over the weird ideas from a person they regard as "nuts". Farnsworth grins and chews with wandering, intense eyes, working his way through elaborate reflections over life in general, sitting around countless camp fires and at bars and other situations that simply invite to getting philosophical. Lynch is remarkably economical with the moral statements such situations easily could be fitted with, making Farnsworth's part in it subtle, and the metaphors about family and aging seem like slips of the tongue.
Recommended (7/10).
Instinct (1999)
Read the book instead
I agree with those who say it's superficial, bordering on Disney-sweet, in its treatment of the theme, but the theme is just too important to be reduced by a mediocre dramatization. The book that it's based on is _Ishmael_ by Daniel Quinn (you'll find it in any library), and is original and thought-provoking. In the book it is a gorilla that talks to a young woman, replaced by Hopkins and Gooding in the movie. The book is formed mainly as a series of questions and answers, that try to get deeper in to the theme of how (and when) humans became opposed and separated from rest of nature. Quinn is former anthropologist (as Hopkins in the film), and the fundamental theme of his investigation is cultural predispositions: where do all these ideas come from that make us see ourselves as separate from nature, and superior?
Don't waste money on the film, buy the book instead.