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andrewcrouch
Reviews
A Ghost Story (2017)
Cut Yourself a Slice of Pie and Have a Watch
Midway through the film, a suspender-wearing hipster caricature pontificates on the nature of humanity's legacy as he chugs cheap beer. All of our vaunted achievements will crumble to dust in the long run, so why try at all? Considering it's by far the most dialogue-laden scene, these words are presumably meant to reverberate through the rest of the film, but they really don't. Observing this speechifying is Casey Affleck's eponymous ghost, a former occupant of the house killed in a car accident, now a roving bedsheet with two holes cut out. Outfitting the protagonist in a bedsheet for 90% of the run time is a bold choice in a film filled with them. Many of the choices actually work. As the years pass by the ghost seems to become more and more detached from human existence and even linear time, cycling back and forth to the dazzling future and rugged frontier past. But he's rooted to the same plot of earth, woven into the fabric of the place. There may be no higher compliment to pay to a movie than to say it made me think, and "A Ghost Story" certainly did that. Ultimately I thought the lesson the ghost learns is about evolving beyond the comfortable and convenient, taking the leap of faith required to explore new worlds. It's a lovely film to look at and to listen to. I had no problems with the scenes that lingered longer than they needed to because I think the writer/director was showing how fractured time has become to the ghost. But the minimalist performances failed to draw me in emotionally. And there were some bafflingly wrong-headed scenes, such as the moment when the ghost throws a Poltergeist-style tantrum, trashing the kitchen. There's no need for the ghost to be that demonstrative and it's distracting.
The Fly (1986)
well-acted but repellent and unremittingly depressing
This is an example of a decent movie that is nearly impossible to enjoy. Paradoxically the special effects are much, much too good at what they do, sucking the entertainment value out of the experience.
Actually, labeling this a decent movie is probably being generous. Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum (until he's buried beneath pounds of make-up) give performances that are both credible and interesting, and I've always liked Howard Shore's operatic score, but those are the highlights. The pseudo-metaphorical science is ludicrous, and far too much time and effort is spent trying to convince the audience that it's not. I respect that there was some restraint shown on Cronenberg's part as far as that goes, but when gene splicing science is the premise of your movie, there's got to be something credible in the explanation of what goes on.
Where there is not the same restraint is in the panoply of special effects detailing Brundle's transformation from man to Brundlefly. Is there a reason for those meticulously crafted (and justifiably famous/infamous) scenes where we learn how Brundlefly eats, or what body parts have become obsolete and have fallen off, other than just to shock and titillate? It strikes me that a more streamlined and less repugnant alternative would have been a Phantom of the Opera-esquire reveal of Brundlefly closer to the end of both his transformation and the storyline, with a building sense of foreboding, a la the original '50s Fly.
This is not the same kind of bad film that "The Fly II" is - this film does most, if not all, things better than its sequel. What sinks this picture (and leaves #2 untouched) is the ambition with which it was made. "The Fly" falls too far short of its own expectations.
The Shining (1980)
A nearly unmitigated disaster
I think this film has a very vocal and loyal following that explains the overwhelmingly positive nature of the IMDb comments, but speaking as a huge fan of both the King novel and Kubrick the director, this film is a butcher job. The countless changes, both trivial and consequential, that Kubrick and Johnson made to King's story were timid, superficial attempts to add "zing" to a story that needs nothing if handled by a subtle, canny genre movie-maker.
Consider the change from roque mallet to axe as Jack's weapon of choice. Ostensibly the axe might be more viscerally frightening with a higher damage-per-swing ratio, but the mallet offers a much slower, more measured punishment, a more appropriate dosing out of Jack's "medicine". Or the pivotal scene in which first Danny and then Jack confront the long-dead menace in Rm. 217 (237 in the movie). This is the key scene in the novel, when the hotel's power crosses the threshold from merely unnerving to physically threatening, and Jack's psychological separation from his wife and son becomes complete. However with Kubrick's calculated disconnection of any and all overtly supernatural elements in the story, the vignette merely becomes another ambiguous manifestation of the shared psychosis between Jack and Danny. Or does it? Kubrick spends the entire movie seemingly wanting to have his cake and eat it too, almost entirely eliminating the power of the hotel's supernatural consciousness, but never quite crossing the line that would have made the story entirely about Jack's mental breakdown. This might have been a more credible and coherent story, but instead we are left with scenes such as Wendy's witness to the ghostly sexual encounter or the elevator full of blood, scenes that make no sense unless there is something happening in the hotel outside of the three living people inside it.
Of course the story is not the only problem with the film. The acting is uniformly awful, with the woodenness of Duvall and Lloyd in no way compensated for by Jack Nicholson's wildly over-the-top (and utterly wrong-headed) characterization of Jack Torrance. I suspect Nicholson sensed early on the awkward, lethargic dynamic he was going to get from his co-stars and director and believed that flaming out was going to be the best thing for the picture, and to his credit, his performance is the most interesting thing about a mostly dull experience, but give me Steven Weber's Jack 24/7/365, thank you very much. There are any examples of Kubrick's legendary inability to elicit warm, involving performances from even the most accomplished acting talent, but this is one of the few examples where such performances were absolutely needed to tell the story correctly.
Kubrick did not comprehend what made the King novel a subtle masterpiece. He only understood that it was a hot commodity at the time, and in his zeal to add a horror movie to his oeuvre, he grabbed for it.