Reviews

This is a film that sticks with you. With its beautiful cinematography, the commendable performances from a strong and largely unknown cast, the ingenious touches of humor and flashes of wit, the haunting and brilliant score by the French band Air, this movie continues long after the credits, replaying and changing inside one's head like a memory half forgotten but always there.

I must admit was not looking forward to seeing The Virgin Suicides. There have been quite a few films to deal with the 70's, with the suburban hell hidden behind white picket fences, with loss of innocence and realization of death, and enough stereotypical teen flicks to make any movie-goer weary. Even the good ones boarder on the cliché and worn. And yet there is something very refreshing about Sofia Coppola's approach.

This is the best representation of memory I've ever encountered, Coppola drifts through these unexplainable people's lives much the way P.T. Anderson does in Magnolia. However, Anderson's sense of tense immediacy in replaced with a dream-like recollection, a deliberate ode to loss. Instead of the omnipotent eye of Anderson's camera, we are offered the point of view of a neighbor boy. The viewer in fact becomes the main character. We watch, we view these girl lives, becoming one of the rarely seen boys whose adolescent sexual awakening manifests itself in these girls. A film not so much about the girls, as it is about the our own misunderstanding, obsession, love of these unflawed Odalisques, our own recollection of first love. Reality has no bearing on adolescence, events become mythical Greek tragedies and metaphors for existence. Time becomes timelessness, immortalized in the vacuum of memory.

What strikes the deepest chord is the air of mystery. We, like the boys, don't really understand. Or do at a deeper subconscious level. The outcome of the film is stated in the beginning, the title no less, and yet we are helpless to stop it. This knowledge only makes that moment more powerful, we see only glimpses hidden in the shadows, but we know what happened. In the end we are left with incomplete facts and assumptions. Why? If the answer had been given, the parents being the easiest and most understandable target of attack, then the true sense of tragedy would've been ripped from the story, making everything up to that point useless. We, like the young boys, are left to speculate.

I feel compelled to finally say something about this film. I saw it in the theaters when it first came out, and rented on video. I'll admit it was good, but to call it the greatest war movie ever made is a major overstatement.

First of all, didn't anyone notice how badly Spielberg ripped off Kurosawa? That alone I found rather disappointing.

Second, the blatant and heavy handed symbolism. Come on, we just watched people get blown to bits, do we really need to stare at an American flag? Is the American public so dense they couldn't get it?

Third, okay I realize Private Ryan was a *symbol*, but WWII was real. To say that after filming some very intense, real images of war we need a symbol to understand what all those millions of people died for? Was the military so lax the day after D-Day that they could waste their time tracking down some young kid to make mommy feel better? Why not ship the whole army back home and forget about Europe?

When you get right down to it, SPR is nothing more than a feel good Disney-fied version of war. There are many of fine, outstanding films about war, All Quiet on the Western Front, Platoon, The Thin Red Line, Escape from Sobibor, Ran, Apocalypse Now. Heck, Apocalypse Now was full of symbolism, but it didn't hide behind the pretense of realism.

It's a shame so many people seem not to get this film. It's a shame so many of them need the pedestrian symbolism and manipulative direction of Spielberg to tell them how to feel. It's a shame that at the end of the Twentieth century many people still believe that WWII was fought by John Wayne, rough and tumble cowboys who could kill a whole enemy infantry like they were swatting flies.

To knock a film like The Thin Red Line yet embrace Saving Private Ryan should insult anyone with a conscious, anyone with a family member who fought and/or died in any war. To say that the soldiers were not disillusioned while fighting in WWII is a grave misstatement and an oversimplification. Don't tell me for a second that those who died in the South Pacific or Europe did not regret their decisions. Don't tell me those who died left this world with brave or poetic last words, lauding their God and Country.

The Thin Red Line shows war as continual, frightening, confusing. Saving Private Ryan had its Tom Hanks leading the way to save some anonymous Ryan, oblivious to the fact that there was a war raging all around them and the fate of the world was still up in the air. Remember, D-Day was the turning point, not the victory. The Thin Red Line shows us that little Ryan would've been marched to his death as quick as anyone else, no man was more important than victory.

To call WWII the last good war feeds the propaganda and lies that have survived in our culture since Pearl Harbor. Maybe that's why The Thin Red Line was overlooked by so many. It is an honest contemplative look at war, realistic and not as pedantic as Saving Private Ryan. It does not break the world into Good Guys and Bad Guys. Instead it shows us the haunting similarities between soldiers on both sides. While there is absolutely no question in my mind WWII was necessary, to simplify it to the standards of a Hollywood movie cheapens what was really lost. In war, there is the "us" and "them" mentality, but don't forget that regardless of side, they all died the same.

I've been an Andy Kaufman fan for quite a while now. True, I was around six when Andy died. But somehow this strange man was able to affect both my work and outlook. So needless to say I was looking forward to this film. And I was not disappointed.

Critics complain that while engaging, this film does not let the viewer in on who exactly Kaufman was. It's simple: there was no real Andy Kaufman. He was socially inept, utterly brilliant, and a strange and distant individual. His sense of humor (if he even had one) was not for everyone to understand. THAT WAS THE POINT. So why should a film spoil the mystery? MAN ON THE MOON was as an homage to Andy, NOT an explanation, and far better than those dull, lifeless documentaries on E! or comedy central in which uninteresting comedians try to explain why Andy was brilliant. It's common knowledge that explaining a joke renders it humorous (a notion that Andy toyed with in his Foreign Man routine, remember?)

True, some facts were altered for dramatic purposes (though the truth is just as interesting), or maybe just necessity, but the base story is still pretty accurate. Some of the more humorous moments in Kaufman's career were not mentioned (i.e. his stints on Johnny Carson and David Letterman, his work with performance artist Laurie Anderson, his street corner preaching). But lets face it, everything couldn't and didn't need to be included. The film is capable of capturing the essence of Kaufman's world. If you want to see everything Kaufman did, find a recording of it and watch that.

Carrey is brilliant as Kaufman. Some call it an imitation, though that seems overly simplified and absurd. That was an imitation along the lines of Geoffrey Rush in SHINE, or Hilary Swank in BOYS DON'T CRY, or Richard Farnsworth in THE STRAIGHT STORY. Sure, Carrey observes and uses the many Kaufman quirks without a fault, but his observation goes far beyond what any other actor seems capable of. Carrey is Andy Kaufman. So many seem unwilling to admit that Carrey can act.

Taken on it's own, MAN ON THE MOON is a magical, funny, and wonderful film. Taken with the rest of the sources currently available on Andy Kaufman, this is just another facet to a complex career and an homage to a brilliant man.

Cabaret Balkan should be an excellent film. Unfortunately I found it way too uneven, redundant and emotionally distant to be entirely successful. Surprising to me is that it seems like no critics feel the way I do.

True, there are many moments of haunting brilliance, scenes that should stain the mind with their lasting impressions. The problem lies in the filmmakers overextending themselves and not allowing the madness and pain to play the realm of suggestion as much as it does concrete images. So many of the vignettes stretched on too long. Instead ending on the most powerful note, they lasted five or ten minutes longer, reducing the whole to a rather mundane mixture of hoodlum hijinx and human stupidity. I found my screaming at the screen on quite a few occasions, "CUT-YOU'VE MADE YOUR POINT!"

EX: In Kurosawa's RAN(1985), the most chilling vision was not of massacres, the various characters plotting and backstabbing each other, or the thousands of dying warriors sprawled out in the fields of war. Rather it was the moment when the elderly lord sat down, silent, broken and strangely alien the surrounding violence, to realize what in fact he had caused.I believe this was something near the intent of Cabaret Balkan, unfortunately it was overstated rather than understood. It's easy to illustrate madness, violence, and evil. It's much harder to make us care about it.

And yet, after saying all this, I still WANT to like this movie. I would love to see this film re-edited to play up to the most powerful moments, allowing the characters to act truly irrational and unexplained, to allow the violence to really rub raw nerves. As it stands now, it's too easy to dismiss the actions of the characters.

The replacements killers is not a movie with a message, sensitive acting, good characters, or intricate plot. But damn, it sure is fun to watch! As far as sleek stylish thrillers go, this one is the tops. Sure, Sorvino is annoying and bland, Chow Yung Fat speaks with monotone accent. But who cares? It's mindless action for the film buffs and art house crowd. It's a trance inducing escape, nothing more. Much the same way Lola rennt(Run Lola Run) is, although critics have responded much better to that one. Hmmm, I wonder why?

Never has Kubrick blended the bizarre with human drama so perfectly. This film, while lacking Kubrick's typical satirical edge and emotionally distant characters, overwhelms the senses with beauty and intense abstract activity. This is obviously the product of a director who chersihed this project. I'm willing to stick my neck out and say YES, this is the pinnacle Kubrick's carreer, and there's no telling what could've come next. While many consider such a statement cinematic heresy, for now I'm willing to stand behind them. Only time will tell...