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Chowdah
Reviews
Ark II (1976)
Fun Post-apocalyptic 70s Filmed Saturday Morning Fare
I loved this show when I was a kid. Basically the premise was a group of scientists were driving around in the land rover vehicle from "Damnation Alley"(repainted white). They fended off bad guys and post apocalyptic disasters while helping people rebuild after a nuclear holocaust (at least I think it was nuclear).
This show had to have been the inspiration for the Role Playing Game "The Morrow Project", which basically used the same premise.
Filmation Trivia: This was one of many live action Saturday Morning TV shows put out by Filmation in the late 70s. Filmation made a name for itself by making both filmed and animated kid shows. Some of their more famous filmed shows included: Captain Marvel, Isis, Run Joe Run, Space Academy (whose spiffy Star Trek the Motion Picture like costumes were recycled from Ark II) and its spinoff, Jason of Star Command. Filmation is probably most famous for their He-Man & the Masters of the Universe cartoon from the 80s.
Enemy at the Gates (2001)
Soap Opera in Stalingrad
**SPOILERS**Enemy at the Gates is a film with a lot of potential. The production design is spectacular. The sets and costumes are terrific. While watching it, I really felt like I was seeing the hell-on-earth that Stalingrad must have been during the epic siege of 1942-3. Mr. Annaud definitely got his 80 million dollars worth. I was particularly impressed that they bought some actual Mk III panzer tanks and Soviet t-34s--a nice touch. However, no amount of money or production artistry can save a movie with a lame story, and Enemy at the Gates suffers in this regard.
As I sat in the theater, I was struck with puzzlement. How could anyone take an event as inherently dramatic as the epic struggle for Stalingrad and make it boring? It's simple: for starters, shoot your battle scenes from the sidelines as confused jumbles that don't evoke much emotion or add much to the plot. There are individual shots that work well, but they just seem thrown together, and only end up hammering home that war is brutal with a capital B and tragic with a capital T without gelling the film together into something more meaningful.
Another thing that should of worked, but didn't, was the duel between the snipers. The filmmakers meant to show their personal fight as a kind of battle in microcosm. An epic duel happening in tandem with the duel of nations in the city. But there's no suspense! They telegraph *every* dueling scene before it happens. It would have been cool to have Jude Law walk into a ruined factory and get shot at. Then, along with him, we could try to find out where the evil Ed Harris is hiding along with Jude Law. Never once do they do this in the movie! We always see where Ed Harris is hiding before Jude Law steps into a trap...and vice versa. Always-always-always! Boring boring boring!!!
Half the time, we know where the snipers are going to be because they tell someone that there's going to be a trap 10 minutes before the scene even happens! "I'll surprise Vasily at the perfect spot in the train station," Ed Harris tells his way-too-cute Russian boy informant. And then he does. The only thing suprising here is that in a Sniper movie, they give all the surprises away.
Even worse, the characters aren't well developed, and poor Ed Harris is forced to sit around looking cold and sinister, drinking champagne and smoking evil gold tipped cigarettes, which he leaves as his "calling card" for Jude Law to find. Harris' Major Konig is just another cold calculating movie villain, without much real depth. He's like sho kosugi the ninja in "The Octagon" or something. For a better "clash of the titans" see the duel at the end of "Predator". At least Awnold emotes in that one.
WARNING - SPOILER AHEAD Finally, You'd think two people falling in love in a place like Stalingrad would be gripping and tragic, because sooner or later one of them is going to get killed. There is no better example of finding love at the wrong place and the wrong time. So how does this movie screw up it's love story? By making it a phony soap opera love triangle between the lovers (the handsome farmboy Vasily and lovely tough intellectual Tanya), and the standard jealous intellectual (Danilov). This has been done a million times before in a million pretentious art films, and it's been done better. It's phony and contrived when it didn't have to be. Not even James Horner's relentlessly "You-are-watching-something-tragically-Russian-kind-of-like-Dr-Zhivago-but-n ot-as-good" love theme could rescue this sappy love story from it's contrived, manipulative trappings.
The plot is riddled with lots more holes because the script here is just poorly written. Usually this plays out by having battles or explosions occur just in time to let characters escape being killed, or by having characters stuck in a huge ruined city just happen to bump into each other to convieniently overhear each other talking, or other such lame manipulative tricks. Enough said. This could have been a good movie, but too bad about the lame plot.
Coyote Ugly (2000)
Flashdance+Cocktail+Breaking Away=trashy, mildly entertaining, $$$ generating, bellybutton ring fluff
I just saw Coyote Ugly, and much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed it. That's not to say it's a good movie. But, God help me for saying this, it's still enjoyable.
It's basically a remake of the Tom Cruise movie "Cocktail" mixed with "Flashdance", the exploitation flick that put Bruckheimer on the map. There's scenes showing the heroine taking care of her loveable Dad, and their relationship is reminscient of a really good coming-of-age movie from the 70s, "Breaking Away".
The movie has a cookie cutter plot. The characters are all pretty cliched, and you've seen them a hundred times before. There's the perky heroine who dreams of following in her mothers' footsteps by making it big. John Goodman plays her loveable concerned father. There's a teary-eyed, supportive best friend who hugs our heroine a lot. There's a worldly older woman mentor/boss, and the ubiquitous cute boyfriend with a "mysterious past".
The people and places of New York are squalid, but made palatable and picturesque by the Bruckheimer Dream Factory(tm). There's lots of incidental stereotypical characters (the horny hollering female executives, the bear-like skinhead bouncer, the snooty William Morris Agency male receptionist, etc etc.). And of course, as much beer-soaked T&A (masquerading as feminism) as a PG-13 rating will allow.
This definitely ain't Shakespeare folks. It's more like Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey staged at a wet T-shirt contest, with our hero dressed in a shiny tank top and cowboy boots. Our hero's mighty challenges amount to learning how to sing like Leanne Rimes while twirling Jim Beam bottles and line dancing on a bar.
So what makes this movie worth a look?
1) Energy. It moves along at a good clip. The story arc is pretty standard stuff, with each plot point introduced and tidily resolved in all the ways they suggest in those "How to Write A Screenplay" textbooks. It was done well enough that I didn't mind being manipulated by the movie. It's a well worn formula, but when they do it right, it still works.
2) Slick production values. Everything here is very competently put together. It's well directed, well produced, and especially well edited. The sets are full of expensive eye candy that distracts you from how dumb the movie really is. There's lots of cool stuff, toe-tapping music, and pretty colors to look at. And lots of T&A for the guys. Oh yeah, and a cute guy who does a strip tease for the girls (at one point, his "package" is only barely covered by a bedsheet). And middle aged women bid for him, so Mom won't feel left out either. In fact, there's a stock character for everyone at the mall to sympathize with, and enough humor to disguise the fact that this is basically an exploitation movie.
3) Decent casting/acting. Piper Perabo is a woman from New Jersey in her early twenties, trying to make it in the entertainment biz. She plays a woman from New Jersey in her early twenties, trying to make it in the entertainment biz. And she's cute and sweet and innocent looking too. It's a perfect casting. Everybody else is well cast, and all the performances are good. You get the feeling watching the movie that they all knew this was dumb material, and just had fun with it on the set. That fun shows on the screen, and I found myself enjoying the movie because the cast was enjoying it. I even found myself sympathizing with poor Piper Perabo, when she freaked out upon entering the rowdy Coyote Ugly bar for the first time. It was just like Mark Hamill entering the Alien Bar in Star Wars. (You know, Piper kind of reminds me of a female Mark Hamill...) The cast and crew overcame the limitations of the material, and made lil' ole' jaded me actually care about the characters. Even though it's just a bunch of predictable and manipulative trickery, it worked for me, and I had fun.
4) It was better made than The Patriot. The Patriot stank. At least this movie knew what it was trying to be, and was a well executed production. And there were no stupid Tricorne hats in it. Nary a one. Thank God for small favors.
The verdict: it's worth a look. It's a bit of fluff that you shouldn't pay full price for at the theatre. You'll probably like it a little, but feel guilty because you should know better. Rent Breaking Away to make yourself feel better. It's a better movie, anyway.
The Patriot (2000)
Devolves from a good start, into dumb action, then finally insulting your intelligence
I had high hopes for the Patriot coming into the film, but was disappointed after the first 30 minutes. The movie starts with an intriguing premise. Mel is a guy who doesn't want to fight because he has personal demons from the past, and is a single parent raising a large family. Obviously, at some point the British push him too far, and he gets Revolutionary on their red-coated behinds. There is a very well done, hair-raising rescue/ambush scene which kind of sets up that the movie won't just be a simple revenge melodrama, but that Mel's war will really be one about overcoming personal demons, and holding his family together.
But just as quickly, they toss all this good setup out the window. It becomes a simple revenge melodrama. They tick off Mel, and he grabs his monogrammed tomahawk and turns into the terminator. Now I like these kind of movies too, so I was prepared to shrug my shoulders, relax and see a dumb summer action movie.
But then they don't do this right either. The movie devolves into a series of extremely violent but hokey situations, fakey relationships, cliches galore, and trite attempts at tying up all the plot's loose ends. The worst thing about this, is that it's all done in the name of "historical accuracy".
The film, IHMO, is *not* historically accurate at all. And I'm not saying that as a stickler for getting a proper history lesson at the expense of seeing a good movie. I like dumb action movies as much as the next guy. But the story is so cliched and manipulative that the what little historical accuracy is achieved on the part of the Smithsonian-advised production designers/costumers (etc) is wasted on situations that are totally implausible.
For example, Mel's slaves are "conveniently" freedmen working for wages. Joely Richardson's plantation slaves are very accurately costumed, but seemingly happy (yes happy!), and only exist in the film so the British can blow them away (to alert the main characters that they're in danger, kind of like the pack-bearers in a Tarzan movie who get killed off so the main characters know to duck).
Finally, Mel's family escapes to a real place, Gullah island, populated by escaped slaves (real-life historical reenactors who sing Gullah-dialect songs and practice traditional Gullah crafts). All this "historical accuracy" is a bust, because when Mel's family arrives, none of the islanders even asks what a bunch of white slaveowners are doing in their village, or who the heck they are! All they do is provide happy, singing local color, and imply that America was racially harmonius and united against the British. But mostly, Gullah island is just like the Ewok village in Return of the Jedi. I kid you not!
And how come the movie takes place over 7 years time, but at the end, Mel's kids haven't aged a day? How come a bunch of swamp-based guerilla fighters always seem dressed immaculately? Especially Mel in his suit and starched collar? And why do battles always take place at dawn or dusk, and the sun always backlights everyone? And how come after he totally alienates his kids, they all suddenly love him because it's convenient to the plot?
And the cliches! The British are the usual bunch of stereotypical effeminate jerks. There are three scenes in which British leaders are told bad news while being dressed or shaved. Then they have a tantrum. The evil villain has no depth. All he does is kill stuff evilly. If there were baby seals to club and whales to harpoon, he'd do it in each scene.
SPOILER ALERT:
he even gets shot, and while seemingly dead, suddenly springs back to life to kill a major character. Is this cliche? Just rent Halloween 1,2,3,4; Friday the 13th 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 & 8; and all the Freddy Kruger movies to find out! Oh yeah, and Mel pulls the same move later on. Twice in one movie. Yecch.
ANOTHER MINOR SPOILER ALERT:
And the worst thing that happens in the Patriot, is that LOTS of people die (probably a higher body count than the actual war). Mel loses half his family. A guy loses his wife and child so he blows his brains out. An entire church full of the guerilla fighters' loved ones is burned to death. Yet at the end, everyone is way too happy, AS IF NONE OF IT EVER HAPPENED! Un-freakin-believable. And the attitude of the film makers is "see, you're seeing something really profound and moving". No I'm not! I'm just seeing a blah action movie with characters who use Freddy Kruger-Fu in lieu of intelligence or a good plot.
There are so many more problems like this, they are beyond counting. There are so many, no matter how much I wanted to like the Patriot, I couldn't ignore them. After 2 hours and 40 minutes of trying to like the Patriot, all it did was make me want to grab a monogrammed tomahawk and exact vengeance on the film makers.