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carltonnick
Reviews
A Pin for the Butterfly (1994)
a poetic movie seen tragically by noone
Even though A Pin for the Butterfly boasts a range of very respectable British character actors, as well as a fine plot and a densely layered atmosphere, astonishingly almost noone has seen it or heard about it.
Hugh Laurie, so often a hilarious comedian, plays an unusually serious role and pulls it off quite beautifully, and the film's concentration on the innocent viewpoint of the little girl in the face of war is original and monumentally touching. It is a movie that haunts you and leaves you brooding for a long time afterwards. A magic realism pervades "A Pin..." that allows the viewer to wallow in its charm and wistful romanticism. The reality of the war, when it suddenly invades our consciousness brutally, hits us with a more than usual forceful impact that is liable to leave us stunned and raises our emotive levels.
Please, if anyone ever comes across this movie (it is quite hard to track down), buy it or at least try to watch it. Films like this should not be neglected and thrown in the trash can. They are far too valuable and beautiful for that.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
a perfect blend of Kubrick and Spielberg
I have spoken to quite a few people who have said they are not interested in A.I. because it is yet another movie with great robots and special effects. However, I believe it is a lot more than that. When you get a movie that blends in two of the greatest directors of their generations, you are not going to get any old special effects flick.
I adored A.I. because it blended in Kubrick's philosophical vision of a cold, heartless future and Spielberg's sumptuous fairytale feelgood tendencies. You could see echoes of movies such as 2001, E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind throughout the duration of A.I. I thought Spielberg's use of the children's fairytale Pinocchio was both ingenious and certainly emotive as it reflected the young robot-boy's sad experiences.
Kubrick's bleak vision of a functional, traumatised world is often realised with a cold, impersonal tone in so many of his movies. There is an empty feeling of desolation that haunts them throughout. You only have to see Clockwork Orange, Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket, to understand that. Large, unforgiving spaces that reek of corrupt, unfulfilled humanity.
What is wonderful with Spielberg is that, unlike many contrived Hollywood movies these days, he can inject a warm, happy feelgood aspect into everything he does. He is never cliched or schmaltzy. He knows when to turn on the waterworks, he knows how to make an audience glow with happiness. There aren't many directors who know how to blend fantasy with feelgood joyousness like he does. There is a divine, idealistic, almost naive beauty to his magical view of the world. His enthusisam is certainly infectious and that is why his movies are so popular.
The casting of Haley Joel Osment as the robot-boy was perfect. His sad, drooping eyes certainly came into their own when he was discarded by his mother in the woods. Their baleful desperation was just too much to bear for me and I started to weep. The ending (which I won't give away) was not sadness, just pure beauty and fulfilment. It was filled with dreams and everlasting happiness and I do not think I have wept with such intensity in a long, long time at the movies. In Haley Joel Osment's superb performance, there is such a feeling of idealistic yearning and a desperation for things to turn out right. That yearning should certainly transfer itself to the audience as well. Spielberg's sense of fantasy may stretch the bounds of reality but it is so heartfelt that you cannot help getting caught up in it.
If Kubrick had done A.I. on his own it would have been far more sad and bleak and certainly more philosophical. Spielberg gives it a beautiful edge and really succeeds in tugging at the heartstrings of the audience. it is not as complex as Kubrick would have made it, but it is deeply satisfying nevertheless. Movie viewers these days have to learn to bring their imagination and sense of humanity and idealism to films such as this. They can't afford to be cynical, ironic, realistic, or too analytical about movies like A.I. You go in, glory in Spielberg's life affirming tendencies and go away feeling happy about life and the world we live in. Therein lies the success of A.I.
Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001)
a contemporary Jules et Jim in tone and atmosphere
Amelie's matter-of-fact voice-over, alternating fluid observations with absurd yet simple statements, is so typical of the best French movies. It is a method used in a lot of their best romantic dramas and romantic comedies and creates a breezy, spontaneous flow to the movie. French romances are indebted to classics like Max Ophuls' La Ronde and Francois Truffaut's Jules et Jim for this ingenious device. It then allows the movie to sail forth with uninhibited joy, freshness and surprise.
I believe the French make the best romantic and feelgood movies. Hollywood's artificial, contrived attempts to create films of this type pale in comparison. They could learn a lot by looking at the way the French make these films. The audience is allowed to get more emotive, more involved because they are intrigued to see what will happen next. There is no rigid structure with films like Amelie. They are just allowed to drift blithely and sublimely like a balloon happily floating through the sky. The Americans, by comparison, use helium balloons.
There are also complaints by people saying Amelie was too long. I for one was sad when it ended. I really regretted it when the subtitles came up. I do not know how anyone can get bored of such a riveting, fast-paced, consistently imaginative, life-affirming romantic comedy as Amelie. It leaves you feeling happy and at one with life when you leave the cinema. It makes you appreciate beauty, love, happiness, and the generosity of the human spirit. It just celebrates humanity in its joyous, inimitable French style.
If you love this movie then it is worth going out to get Jules et Jim, a truly sublime yet slightly more serious French romance.
Armageddon (1998)
probably the worst movie of the past 10 years
I used to like some of the Hollywood action blockbusters of the 80s. They had icons such as Arnie and Sly but I think the action movie in the '90s has plummeted to new depths. The worst of these, I believe, was Armageddon.
The plot is shamelessly contrived and pulls off the worst cliches as it seeks to excite viewers. The melodrama is so cringingly saccharine and awful that you actually cannot wait for Bruce Willis to disappear from the screen. Liv Tyler, who had acted admirably in several fine independent features directed by such masters as Bernardo Bertolucci and Robert Altman, regrettably decided to jump onto the commercial bandwagon. This movie symbolises the new Hollywood aesthetic of grand special effects and precious little good dialogue or authentic melodrama. That is the norm these days and I begin to wonder if there is a role in Hollywood for screenwriters. It seems as though they just employ hacks and committees to write the facile scripts. The rest they leave to technology. There is not a single piece of grand, heartfelt human emotion in Armageddon. It just feels empty and bland. I can think of only one good aspect of this movie and that involves Liv Tyler's dad who doesn't even make an appearance in the film. Steven Tyler's band Aerosmith provide a theme song for the movie - a ballad that really soars and at least tugs at the heartstrings a little when the end credits come up.
I weep for Western civilization if people like this predictable, cumbersome movie. It stands for shallowness, lethargy, and a decline in the human intellect. I would even prefer to watch the eighth Friday the 13th.
The Party Animal (1984)
pure nostalgia for 80s teen movie lovers
If you grew up in the 80s and loved partying, then you should look back fondly at that wonderful genre, the "teen movie". The Brat Pack (Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Andrew McCarthy, Molly Ringwald, Robert Downey Jr., Judd Hirsch, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Matthew Broderick, Charlie Sheen, the list is endless) just kicked ass all over the place. Movies such as St. Elmo's Fire and Flashdance set the standards, before the definitive teen movie, The Breakfast Club,came along, a classic of teenage angst and rebellion that harked back to Rebel Without a Cause.
Once the teen movie kicked into motion, it was bliss for my generation. It didn't matter if the movies were rubbish or not. They were pure, cheesy nostalgia. They had idealised human emotions at their heart - beautiful women, fast cars, getting laid, playing practical jokes on oppressive teachers or authority figures and always succeeding. Anything that broke down the walls of Fascism.
Party Animal was so perfect for that era. It also differed slightly from the others because it was so extreme that it reached surreal and absurd proportions. The dildo that represented a cruise missile was an erotic cartoonish fantasy. Pondo reached new levels of madness minute by minute and nothing was too radical for him. I personally thought that Party Animal was visually imaginative with some fairly wacky brains at work - it could almost have been the South Park creators. But 80s hedonism and teenage Utopianism, albeit on a fairly male basis (the teen movies were mostly male fantasies), were summed up in Party Animal. Heightened reality, the inexplicable, and the urge for non-stop partying with no parents around were a way of life both in the movies of this time and for those of us who partied for real.
Movies such as this are regarded in an ironic, laughable way these days but that is because a lot of idealism has left youth culture now. There was innocence and naivety in the 80s and that created an unrealistic, yet joyous feeling of ultimate teenage fulfilment. The world was still there to be explored and challenged whereas now there is nihilism and lethargy is seeping in. There is nothing to look forward to. There is an attitude of "Been there, Done that" - there is no sense of moving forward. Only looking back. With a rather regretful nostalgia. The spirit of movies such as Party Animal needs to come back with a vengeance. It would stop all the sniggering and snide, postmodern in-jokes that are so redundant to progressive culture.
The Deer Hunter (1978)
the most potent drama I have ever seen
To call Deerhunter harrowing is an understatement. The first time I saw this at university in a large lecture hall I was not prepared for the impact it would have on me. I thought that the Russian Roulette scene between the Vietcong and their prisoners was bad enough, but the climax that had Robert de Niro beseeching his best friend Christopher Walken to come back home was almost unbearable.
Deerhunter is such a deceptive movie and that's what gives it its remarkable emotional punch. The first phase of the movie trundles pleasantly along as we observe a pleasant small town in the backwoods of industrial America. There is a great deal of male bonding and general machismo as we see a close-knit bunch of friends doing what boys do best - hunting, fooling around, drinking at the local bar and playing pool. The wedding just emphasizes the joyous innocence of this backwoods idyll.
The viewer is, as a result, reassuringly relaxed, after the opening section of this movie. However, we hardly pause for breath when we are suddenly plunged into the horrors of the Vietnam war. The psychological anguish of the prisoners forced to play Russian Roulette by their captors certainly takes you aback, wrenching you out of your lethargy and dragging you through this world of squalor and despair. I believe that this movie addresses the ultimate human predicament and that is what gives it such force: committing suicide when you are loathe to be dead. I cannot think of any more appalling confrontation. Moments like that inevitably leave scars and so that is what happened to Christopher Walken.
Robert de Niro's heart-rending scene when he tries to drag his best friend away from his nightmare and ultimately fails made me so emotional. I don't think I have ever wept so much in a movie. Just to exacerbate that misery, when all the friends are back in Pennsylvania and mourn over Walken's death there is such an epic pathos that when you leave the cinema your eyes are hardly dry. The first 10 times I watched this remarkable movie left me blubbing at the end and I still get emotional when I watch it now. I don't think there has ever been a drama with more emotional punch than The Deerhunter. It flings you straight into the maelstrom, taking you completely unawares, and never lets up as it puts you and the characters through torment after torment. There is a dignified beauty about the main protagonists and how they are able to deal with such tragedy. The power, brevity and loyalty of de Niro's character is quite simply majestic. When you come out of this movie you feel as though you have experienced a major slice of life and you feel changed in some ways. That is what great art does.