Reviews

This film exceeded my already high expectations. The director and screenwriter have delivered an amazingly acute study of high school dialogue and interaction, while simultaneously exploring the polarizing landscape of evangelical Christianity in America and still delivering consistent laughs from start to finish.

The acting is superb. Martin Donovan (who routinely shines in Hal Hartley's films) here nimbly deconstruct his familiar grim sociopath persona to depict one of the most nuanced anti-heroes ever seen in a teen film. Jena Malone continues and deepens her fine work from Donnie Darko, creating one of the most moving teen heroines in memory. Eva Amurri is an inspired bit of casting as the multi-faceted school rebel who's full of surprises. And... it's true, Macaulay Culkin can act-- and even carries more than one scene with his understated comic timing

The storyline itself often leans on contrivance, but the situations presented ring true with an emotional depth rarely granted to pre-adult characters, and none of the events will seem off the wall to anyone familiar with modern adolescence or this particular religious subculture.

The film is blisteringly funny, unusually sharp in its look at different types of people and their individual frailties, and sweet-- possibly even, despite what else you may have read elsewhere, too sweet. The ending is the softest spot in the movie, but draws effectively on the hard-won empathy for each character to float to a graceful (ahem, pun intended) stop.

To be perfectly honest, as a reviewer who grew up in a very similar environment, I have to say that if the filmmakers could be accused of any distortion of the truth, it is in making their 'villains' *too* sympathetic, too keenly aware of their own flaws, and, in the end, too readily aware of a larger world around them to accurately reflect the worst elements of this belief system. All of the less-sympathetic characters in this film could be drawn from a documentary (yes, even Hilary Faye!)... if, that is, the documentary chose to edit out their least savory moments.

Of course, there are many good-hearted, well-meaning evangelicals in the world, and they are ably represented by characters such as Mary's mother, who makes mistakes, but who thinks more with her heart than her dogma. But the indignant critics who are so intent on finding a mote in the director's eye, because he dares to show how twisted some of their fellow believers might be, might stop for a minute to wave a hand in front of their own face, or their neighbor's, where they may just find a log they've been trying to ignore.

If you watch this movie expecting a 'first-time' documentary, I think you will be very pleasantly surprised. The graphics are very modern and hip, the humor is realistic but finely honed, and the research and interviewing outside the main subject (the director's 30-day McDiet) are really outstanding.

The segments on the corporatization and downgrading of school lunch programs in America are especially well-done. While I walked into this movie simply hoping for an entertaining confirmation of what I already knew about fast food and processed food, I learned a lot about sliding nutrition and exercise standards for school children, the way corporate money keeps a headlock on the officials responsible for public health and safety, and medical ignorance on the consequences of such a diet.

As for those who doubt what they are shown, I can only say, you can lead a horse to water...

Throughout this long, relentless contest of wills with his audience, Quentin still displays flashes of skill.

But it feels like he's been out of the game so long he isn't even going to try to compete with the edgy movies of the last few years, and retreats headlong into the 70s ethos he knows so well instead.

As a Hong-Kong splatter flick, it's too long and emotional, with a few good scenes stranded in otherwise lackluster writing and directorial choices, coming up well short of the genre's best. As a witty Tarantino neo-noir, it's *too* gory to be chilling or effective, too straightforward to be really clever or engaging, too monotonous to impress an audience with Matrixes and Ring-quests fresh in their minds.

Simply put, 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction' (and even 'Jackie Brown') *resembled* classic noirish gangster movies, but were actually *much better* than the source movies that inspired them.

Sadly, Quentin may now be far gone enough to want to pay such loving tribute to the 70sploitation era that he will completely hide his talent to create a *true* b-movie, one that hits every note so (im)perfectly it's just as forgettable, meaningless, and poorly assembled, as the movies to which he's paying homage.

I'll reserve final judgment until Vol. 2 comes out, but until then, I'd only recommend this one to indiscriminate fans of action movies and bad, really bad, 70s fare.

Saucy, ambitious, inventive and whimsical-- this movie is *the* perfect antidote for all the insipid archaic-dress versions of Hamlet you may have seen (Mel Gibson anyone?).

Granted, Baz Luhrman was there first with his 'Romeo & Juliet.'

But this Hamlet is the Twin Peaks answer to Luhrman's gaudy, sloppy prime-time soap opera.

Each actor (whatever their respective strengths) turns in one of their most solid performances in recent memory.

Reading some of the negative reviews, I have to wonder what movie these folks were watching, and what they were expecting...? If you like your Shakespeare done 'straight' (bo-ring), then why bother picking this film up?

It's worth mentioning that despite the complaints, almost two-thirds of those who voted on this movie here gave it a '7' or better... this film's average rating would be much higher if not for the votes of humorless whiners who want to punish this film for presenting up-level ironies and creative visual translations that will-- gasp-- require even those familiar with the story to pay attention to what's on the screen from start to finish.

The flavor and nuance of this version just gets better with repeated viewings-- from the leather-jacketed, motorcycling Horatio (Karl Geary, perfectly cast) to Bill Murray's spineless, blindly cynical Polonious, to yes, the infamous video store scene-- which is, by the way, meant to be ironic.

If you like your films to take chances, and want to see a talented cast throw themselves with wit and passion into a director's hip and edgy take on *the* archtypal tale of existential despair, you owe it to yourself to check out this version of Hamlet.

How can it be that the same director that got subtle, nuanced human interactions in 'american graffiti' cannot now direct a love scene to save his life (or his series)?

And do the amazing (and they *are* amazing-- the final Yoda scene alone will redeem this film for star wars fans) special effects and plot innovations counterbalance the urge you'll have to laugh (or worse) during those times Anakin and Amidala are stuck on-screen together alone?

These are questions which just might be worth a viewing or two to answer, but expect some unintentional snickers among the cheers.

like having brain surgery with rusty implements.

like watching someone (okay, four someones) skin themselves.

like finding out what 'catharsis' *really* means, the (very) hard way.

the editing is absolutely state of the art.

the soundtrack is an achievement in its own right.

the acting is some of the best each actor has ever done.

and the storytelling, characterization and camerawork are a quantum leap forward from the already harrowingly impressive 'pi'.

there is no way our current ratings system can quantify this movie. I would rather-- however awful the images this movie contains-- a high school student saw this NC-17 movie unedited than an R-rated brainless actioner with a sky-high body count.

to call this film 'anti-drug' is too simple. what this movie really opposes is everything that erodes the capacity for self-determination, from television brainwashing to unethical doctors to racist ganglords.

this is-- there is no question about it-- one of the most disturbing films you may ever see. but like its characters, this movie loves even life's awful dark dreary twisted moments too intensely to look away.

Hardly any frame in this beautifully shot black and white picture-- a masterpiece of pacing and characterization-- is wasted.

This film gets referenced in everything from the book 'alan mendelsohn, the boy from mars' to the comic 'usagi yojimbo.' See why.

By turns brutal & chilling and warm & humorous, this is one of my favorite Kurasawa pictures.

This is one of the most violently intense, intricately beautiful and deeply affecting films I've ever seen.

At seventeen, when I saw it for the first time, I was amazed that adults more than twice my age could walk out on a stunning work of art, unable to see that beneath the revolting scenes waited an elegant and warm vision of human courage, richly imagined and perfectly detailed.

As you probably know by now, almost everyone who sees this film either thinks it's brilliant or despises it.

It's perhaps easy when fed on mainstream pabulum to assume that any character portrayed on the screen is meant to be seen as a protagonist, a stand-in for the director and the director's worldview. From this naive point of view, the film would be insufferable, as all the negative comments make clear.

But Spica, the thief, is not the heart of this film.

To borrow the gastronomic allegory of the movie, he is its bile, its rotten liver, its perpetual indigestion.

The achievement of this film is to show, beneath their bruises and understandable trembling, the amazing strength of the cook, the wife and the lover (not to mention the boy) in circumstances that are shown to overwhelm even hardened gangsters. Their acting, down to the smallest gesture or facial expression, especially Helen Mirren's (in a masterpiece performance as the wife, Georgina), is pitch-perfect throughout.

When Richard, the cook, slowly describes his recollections of his parents' love affair to the despairing Georgina, the slow hypnotic whipping of the kitchen fan is the only motion onscreen, yet the cook's voice alone is enough to convey the quixotic persistence of human belief, creativity and compassion in the face of all that is dense, ugly and despicable (pun very much intended) in the world.

The art direction, cinematography and costuming are some of the very finest ever filmed. The soundscape comprised of the haunting soundtrack and ingeniously captured sound-effects is nothing short of magical.

It takes great psychological insight to capture the fiendishly controlling persona of Spica accurately, but even greater insight to convincingly portray how wit and gentleness can endure that obscene childishness and retain the strength to resist.