chrisjcollins777's Reviews

Eight Below (2006)

9/10

3 July 2006

It really teaches respect for animals in a non-preachy way. I liked virtually everything about this movie. It was beautifully shot (gorgeous Antarctic vistas), the acting was solid (including the always reliable Bruce Greenwood), the score wasn't heavy-handed, the DVD commentary was very enlightening, and it was very moving overall. It's a Disney (i.e., "family") film, so the dialog isn't as gritty as it would really be in this situation, but it was refreshing to sit through a movie without wall to wall profanity for a change.

If one thing bugged me slightly, it would be the casting of Moon Bloodgood as an Antarctic pilot. Her performance was fine, but she's extremely drop-dead gorgeous, and it just reeked of typical Hollywood casting (the hero's love interest has to be a gorgeous hottie). Somehow, I doubt that there are tons of delicious babes working at remote research posts in the Antarctic.

This is the best animal film I've ever seen.

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Mad Love (2001)

7/10

A handsomely executed costume drama.

2 September 2002

I haven't enjoyed many films from Spain, but "Juana La Loca" (curiously translated by the distributors as "Mad Love" instead of the more appropriate "Joan The Mad") now tops my list of Spanish language films. It may not be an accurate portrayal of historical events (it's pretty safe to say many liberties were taken in that regard), but it's still worth seeing. Think of it as a play loosely based on historical persons as opposed to a bio-pic presentation of their lives.

This is a big, handsome costume drama that evokes Renaissance Spain with gusto, although there's a certain movieness to the look of things: almost everyone is abnormally good looking and everyone's clothes are remarkably clean (Philip, Juana's betrothed, sports a physique that smacks of modern day gyms; it's doubtful that a monarch who doesn't lift a finger would be so chiseled). By contrast, "Shakespeare In Love" captured some of the grubbiness of life during the Renaissance.

The soundtrack is also a bit heavy-handed, with music that occasionally gets a bit obvious.

But overall, this movie attacks its subject matter with relish and intellect. Instead of obligatory sword fights and battle sequences, "Juana La Loca" opts for dialogue that oozes with machinations and intrigue, and a pace that keeps things moving along and the viewer interested.

I give it 7 on a scale of 10.

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Full Frontal (2002)

8/10

I really enjoyed it.

17 August 2002

A lot of people have beefs with Full Frontal, but I liked it. It's taken some hard hits from professional film critics, so I wanted to chime in with a positive review.

The main gripe about its "lack of continuity" is, to me, unfounded. The movie in no way purports to be linear storytelling. I see it as something of a cinematic experiment using a vignette format involving several storylines which at times intersect. In a culture whose favorite forms of entertainment are a guy on steroids cocking his eyebrow and talking about smackdowns, and action movies with roman numerals after the title, this film obviously contains too many arrows for some people's quivers to hold. So be it. I respect Mr. Soderbergh and his cast for taking some risks.

Each storyline in the film stands on its own as an interesting tale. The movie isn't so much a straight story as it is a look at our perceptions of reality and an insightful look at human behavior. I don't want to assign it any particular "meaning", however, because I think it can be interpreted on several levels (not the least of which is how the movies warp our perceptions of reality).

All of the acting was superb and the dialogue very naturalistic.

This is one of the most innovative movies you'll ever see. 8 on a scale of 10.

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Lovely & Amazing (2001)

8/10

A good film.

7 July 2002

I initially hesitated to see this film, fearing it would be just another chick flick, a la Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood (I'm male). Not so.

I really enjoyed this movie. I liked its intelligence, the realism of the relationships between the characters, and its true-to-life dialogue. The director coaxed very understated performances from all the actors, giving the film the feel of a humorous episode of Law And Order.

Go out and see this movie if you have not yet done so.

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The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)

7/10

Better than the critics have said.

30 May 2002

A lot of film critics have called this movie mediocre, but I disagree. I enjoyed it.

A big beef with most of them seems to be that Mr. Parker has (gasp!) put his own spin on the source material. He's included things like daydream sequences, Dixieland Jazz, and a tattoo scene that aren't in the original, and the critics contend that Oscar Wilde must therefore be spinning in his grave.

I liked all the "modern" additions. They made the movie more enjoyable and accessible than it would've been otherwise (I certainly liked it better than Mr. Parker's other foray into Wilde, "An Ideal Husband"). Most "drawing room" plays written for the stage by stodgy 19th century playwrights (Wilde, Chekhov, Ibsen, etc.) are about as interesting as watching grass grow. Mr. Parker was wise to liven things up a bit with some modernism. Wilde's wit remains intact and the actors deliver their lines impeccably; the audience I saw this movie with did lots of laughing.

It's also beautifully shot; the period costumes and grand country estates are wonderful to look at.

And Reese Witherspoon does a great job at being "English".

If you like intelligent romantic comedies, "The Importance of Being Earnest" is worth seeing.

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Enter the Dragon (1973)

5/10

Enter The Reality: this film is mediocre.

21 April 2002

Enter The Dragon is widely regarded as the best martial art flick of all time (my personal choice is Drunken Master II starring Jackie Chan). I'm here to give you a little taste of reality: Enter The Dragon is a mediocre film with excellent fight sequences, and great fights do not a great movie make.

The film's main achilles heel is its acting. In short, it sucks. The only credible performances are given by John Saxon as Roper, Geoffrey Weeks as Braithwaite, and Betty Chung as Lee's undercover contact on Han's island.

Shih Kien (Han) was so unintelligible that Keye Luke of the old Charlie Chan films had to dub all of Kien's lines; every time Jim Kelly (Williams) and Peter Archer (Parsons, the Aussie bully on the boat) open their mouths, you have to fight with yourself to keep from laughing. Bolo grunts inarticulately a couple of times, and Bob Wall (O'Hara) who has only one line in the entire movie ("You must attend the morning ritual in uniform") doesn't deliver it convincingly. And even the Great One Himself comes off sounding pretty weak. At times his Chinese accent is so thick, he's difficult to understand, and he gives the movie's most famous line ("Boards...don't hit back.") a truly bizarre reading. This is the price that martial art movies continually pay for casting fighters instead of actors in prominent roles. Jim Kelly is no more capable of giving a decent acting performance than Tom Hanks is capable of acquitting himself respectably in a kickboxing match.

The fight choreography is entertaining for the most part, although the basement sequence and the final fight with Han both drag on longer than they need to. There are also inconsistencies: whenever he fights Han's guards (typical lame, cannon-fodder action-movie henchmen), Lee knocks out each man with a single blow, but all that one-punch knockout power mysteriously vanishes when he fights Han and O'Hara.

The best grade I can give Enter The Dragon is 5 out of 10.

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And Your Mother Too (2001)

3/10

A gratuitous sex and urination gross out.

11 April 2002

Warning: Spoilers

This review contains mild spoilers.

I'm no prude; I have no problem with movies that deal with sex in a frank manner FOR A PURPOSE (e.g., The Piano Teacher, which I happened to enjoy) but Y Tu Mama Tambien might as well be called a soft porn road flick instead of independent cinema.

The fundamental premise, that the beautiful, intelligent and considerably older Luisa agrees to accompany teenage knuckleheads Julio and Tenoch on a sojourn to an unknown beach, is totally unbelievable. Luisa is married to Tenoch's adult cousin and she hasn't seen Tenoch in about a decade, and she's never laid eyes on Julio before. In the scene where the three of them meet, the guys come off as completely silly and juvenile, i.e., not the kind of boys most women like Luisa would go on a long jaunt with. Basically they ask her like this:

"Hey, um, wanna drop everything in your life right now and go for a real long multi-day drive with us to a beach?"

"Okay."

Um, right.

The director also employs a strange device in the form of frequent voice-over narration to convey information, during which all other sound oddly ceases.

And if gratuitous sex scenes, frontal nudity and bodily excretions are your idea of a good ol' time at the movies, then run right out and see this film. Within the first hour we get to watch: a flatulence duel; each guy graphically boink his girlfriend; each guy take a leak (in the most graphic depictions I've ever seen, and both times it has nothing to do with the plot); our heroes appraise each other's penises (with some frontal nudity so we GET THE POINT); our heroine squat to relieve herself in an open field; and a sort of masturbation duel that is unrealistic to the point of ridiculousness and culminates in a gross- out denouement that had people in the audience I saw it with groaning.

Mr. Cuaron seems to have stumbled upon a brand new style of filmmaking which we could dub "toiletism". Most directors have enough faith in us to assume we possess sufficient common sense to know that the characters relieve themselves at some point, but Mr. Cuaron wants to make ABSOLUTELY SURE that we know the characters in his movie pee and fart. Hence, he shows us. If this guy had made The Maltese Falcon, we'd have to watch Sam Spade piss a few times just to make sure we remember he has a bladder.

If tastelessness is your gig, then by all means see this movie. If, like me, that isn't your cup of tea, give it a miss.

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The Piano Teacher (2001)

7/10

A tough, unflinching look at sexual perversity.

4 April 2002

This review contains no spoilers.

The Piano Teacher is, in many ways, a difficult film to watch. It is disturbing, and intentionally so. We squirm in our seats as we watch the bizarre sexual machinations of Erika, played with extraordinary virtuosity by Isabelle Huppert. She is sadistic (psychologically and physically), masochistic (psychologically and physically), and emotionally dependent; she is also, quite frankly, a monster, but is made three dimensional and even somewhat sympathetic by Ms. Huppert's highly nuanced performance.

This film is NOT for everyone, and people should be warned that there are several very graphic scenes involving sex, sexual violence and other things some will find legitimately offensive. None of this is gratuitous, however, or simply for titillation's sake as is often the case in Hollywood fare. The French once again demonstrate their cinematic maturity with realistic portrayals of romantic relationships, and their frequent use of ambiguous endings.

The Piano Teacher is a well crafted portrait of deviance run amok, and something of a cautionary tale on the possible consequences of deviant sexual behavior.

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Festival in Cannes (2001)

9/10

This is a very smart and witty film.

21 March 2002

I really enjoyed this movie.

It simultaneously captures the feel of a glitzy French film festival and the deal making that go into getting a movie made.

The entire cast is superb, and Mr. Jaglom's technique of allowing the actors to do a lot of improvising makes for scenes that feel like real interaction between people, as opposed to a couple of actors reciting lines from a screenplay. The French pop ditties within the score was also a nice touch.

Do yourself a favor and see this film.

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