Change Your Image
eric.hermans
Reviews
Glastonbury (2006)
A Mess
The annoying thing about this film is that it doesn't satisfy the lovers of the concert footage or a documentary about Britain's main music festival. Temple seems to be totally in awe of people dressed up in funny/silly costumes and these are repeated over and over again. The scene with the puppet player dressed as a hobo is for instance repeated twice. Why? Meanwhile we often hear interesting music in the background wondering who is playing and hoping to see some proper concert footage. No chance!
The final nail in this coffin of a "rockumentary" is seeing Kate Moss a number of times, what has she got to do with a film about Glastonbury.
Brick (2005)
The film noir deserves a better homage
The first half-an-hour of this movie is passable as all the pieces still have to fall together and as usual with a film-noir a lot of the plot often doesn't make sense. However as the dialogue becomes more and more obscure one starts to give up as the plot lurches from one poor homage to the next so-what scene. After a while I wished that they would all just start killing each other but every time the director manages to prolong the agony. The end scenes are particularly over extended with absolutely no sense of doom as often is the case with a true film noir. The femme fatale is a joke, there is no menace as she often disappears for long parts of the movie re-appearing as the director suddenly remembers oh yes there is supposed to be an ambiguous woman. A film by numbers connected with a broken pencil.
Gangs of New York (2002)
Bloody Scorsese
What has happened with Scorsese? After Goodfellas it's all gone downhill. He still gets a lot of attention because of the great movies he made in the Seventies and Eighties but it's about time the current movies are judged on their merit.
Let's take Gangs of New York: - Leonardo DiCaprio is a such bad actor and he cannot deal with a big role, he's just too uninteresting. Why choose him?
- Daniel Day Lewis plays well but in the end gets carried away. Where was the director?
- Cameron Diaz proves that she cannot act dramatic roles, first she has that constant smirk as if life was a party - yeah it was if you consider the area she lives in. Towards the end she just looks so saaaad. Oh but wait a minute there is redemption, life in sunny California.
After the first epic battle one is impressed but after 3 more of them one gets a bit fed up and after another 3 one begins to wonder. OK Scorsese can direct a big scene but do we have to have them non-stop in a 3 hour long picture.
The last big scene was a typical example, lets have a big clash but lets make it even bigger by dragging in a large revolt against the draft. I was even expecting Indians to start attacking New York and a cholera epidemic striking at the same time.
By the by Daniel Day Lewis kills every character immediately, except of course for Leonardo, he stabs him in the stomach, but Leonardo is walking around the next day without the smallest twitch, that's what I call great acting!
Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Typical British Feelgood movie
The last couple of years there has only been one successful formula for British movies:
The underdog who survives triumphantly even though there are many obstacles on the way. Some of the typical events are:
- hostile environment, here religion and culture;
- misunderstandings, often a crisis with their best friend, supporter;
- a relative who actually understands the problems of the main character;
- an ending where all problems melt away;
- a soundtrack of some oldies which accompanies the filler scenes, here the football practice action; etc, etc
Other examples of this movie category are Billy Elliott, Full Monty, Brassed Off.
They usually pass the time but afterwards one feels ripped off as the formula is so utterly predictable.
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Style over substance
After 2 minutes into this movie we know we will have to totally suspend our belief, ignore the actors and just let the cameraman and editor get on with it. However after 5 minutes just like after eating a big fat cream pie we've had enough and we wish that there will be period whereby the story will take over just like in any good musical.
No such luck we're dealing with a director who is very keen in showing us how much references he can squeeze into one movie. The actors don't help very much either. Whispering Nicole Kidman can't avoid looking like a porcelain doll, Ewan McGregor again doesn't seem to care very much (has he ever performed well in a big budget movie?) and the Toulouse Lautrec character might as well be a prop in a porn movie.
The love message is hammered into our heads towards the end, as if we shouldn't complain, it's a love story after all, shucks. The last half hour is one long wait for Nicole to die. Let's hope there isn't a Moulin Rouge 2 where her daughter shows up in a fake New York with moody clouds, a token Andy Warhol and a struggling poet who can compose hip-hop songs.
The Tailor of Panama (2001)
A movie ahead of its time
Most reviewers comment about the thriller or spy qualities of the movie. However it is very obvious that the moral of the story is about how the secret service of a country needs a story to keep itself going. In this case the British and American secret services are more than keen to believe they have a reason to restore ownership of the Panama Canal.
Of course this story echoes the current state of affairs where the secret services of the same countries made up a story of weapons of mass destruction to please their paymasters. In both cases very dubious sources are used, amounts of money are increased as the story reaches the top, trigger happy military men are ready to finish the job they couldn't complete years earlier, etc etc.
One scene in the movie says it all the British Secret Service will do anything to please their American Masters.
Island of Love (1963)
Missed Opportunity
Great cast but the story is just stupid. Robert Preston is too old for his role and Tony Randall is wasted. Walter Matthau's accent is all over the place and he seems uncomfortable playing some idiot gangster. The movie is interesting as it is filmed on location in Greece before it was spoilt by mass tourism.
Billy Elliot (2000)
Film by numbers
It seems to be a trend nowadays that British movies must take place in some Northern English location to give it a bit of social meaning (see Full Monty, Brassed Off). Unfortunately these films end up being full of cliches. There just isn't anything surprising in the story of Billy Elliot. Of course everybody is sursprised/angry by the choice of Billy to become a ballet dancer but then everybody rallies behind him for the feelgood ending. The best bits are the dialogues between Julie Walters (the ballet teacher) and Billy and the scenes at the teachers house.
Promise at Dawn (1970)
Mercouri hams it up
This movie should have been called An overbearing mother. Not very enjoyable as Melina Mercouri just kills every scene with her overacting.
Filmed in different styles (sometimes like a silent movie) in which it tries to reproduce the Twenties setting. The music by the usual dependable Delerue is also a disappointment.
10:30 P.M. Summer (1966)
Unknown movie by Dassin shot in Spain.
I would say it is a typical movie of its time showing a rift in a marriage while the couple travel in a strange country (see the Italian movies of the early sixties). Romy Schneider looks radiant, this is a couple of years before her breakthrough as a French movie star in the Seventies. The movie is in b/w and colour.
A Walk in the Clouds (1995)
Utter tosh
Some spoilers
The first half of this movie is actually quite enjoyable with Keanu Reeves getting involved in a situation which ideally suits his 'where am I' expression.
I've never seen a movie with so many camera filters and after a while one wonders if this is supposed to be some kind of fable with Keanu Reeves waking up at the end as Dorothy does in the Wizard of Oz. Apparently the original Italian movie has much more depressing (realistic) end
Unfortunately the movie becomes very laughable towards the end which some people interpret as romantic. The fire scene is unbelievable - did they drench the vines with gas/petrol? A good tip for arsonists use vines and the place will burn within seconds. This also contradicts the earlier scene when they try to save the grapes from the frost with lots of fires burning!?
Anthony Quinn is not bad in a role he's done over and over again and the lush music fits the visuals pretty well.
Crash (1996)
Hypnotic
This movie tries to make one feel totally remote about car crashes and sex scenes. In this world of tabloid headline overkill one doesn't care about the next car crash down the road. In fact for some people it has become part of their (sexual) lives.
Cronenburg films all the action with some bemused detachment making Crash a bit of a dead movie. The characters seem to act in a kind of daze, doing things as if by impulse. We are not told anything about the characters backgrounds, why they have become interested in extreme forms of sex.
Yes we have become de-humanized in today's world but this movie could have been more engaging instead of showing us a number of unrelated scenes.