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mjurado
Reviews
Wo hu cang long (2000)
Visually stunning, a timeless fantasy tale
Mild spoilers.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a martial arts fantasy tale set in China in the feudal period. It is the story of the legendary warrior Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat) and his quest to retrieve his powerful sword from a thief. That provides the setting for a number of subplots, including Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) and their forbidden love; the Jade Fox, killer of Li's master and to whom Li owes a debt of revenge; and of course the betrothed but rebellious young noblewoman Jen Yu. Part Shakespearean tragedy and a part fairy tale, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a martial arts fantasy film on an epic scale.
The story is a tragic one, in the sense that the plot revolves around the characters' being without what they desire, and tragically seeking it. For example, Li's desire to leave the warrior life and live a peaceful existence. Li and Shu Lien's love is forbidden (and similarly, that between Jen and Lo), because Shu Lien was engaged to Li's master before he was murdered. Li's desire to avenge his master by killing his killer. Jen's (the stunning Zhang Ziyi) desire to live an adventurous life as Shu Lien has.
The story is told as it might have evolved as it was passed down through generations, a fantasy tale of sorts about an invincible sword and powerful warriors with a supernatural edge. Some may be put off by the jumping abilities of the especially skilled fighters in the film, but it is important to keep in mind that Crouching Tiger is much like a sort of fairy tale. I felt it lent a quiet elegance to the ancient heroes and reinforced in the viewer the idea of how exalted the warrior caste was in the world of the time.
The masterful storytelling aside, it would be impossible to summarize the film without praising the action sequences. The choreography is nothing short of amazing. From the first action sequence, a night battle in a city square and across rooftops, to the best in the film, a confrontation in a dojo between Jen and Shu Lien (with plenty of weapons at hand), the action scenes grab hold of you and don't let go.
The symbolic meaning of the sword is also an interesting latent theme in the film. The Green Destiny, Li Mu Bai's powerful green sword, could be a symbol of the characters' own destinies. Li tries to give the sword away as he leaves the life of the warrior, but is unable to avoid its influence. Jen attempts to sieze control of her own destiny through the sword, and Jade Fox is unable to avoid her destiny, which is the sword in a more literal sense. At a first viewing, the sword seems little more than a prop, but each subsequent viewing brings the viewer to appreciate more the role of the sword in the story and what it might be made to represent.
A triumph of the genre and an instant classic that blossoms more each time I see it. Definitely in my top 5 films, if not my favorite.
Titanic (1997)
Great effects, but not enough to save Titanic from mediocrity.
By now everyone has seen this film, so there's no need to give details. You've heard all the pre-teen girls and middle-aged housewives rave about it. Now, here are thoughts on this film from a male. I don't have a vendetta against this film. Except being dragged to it twice and being forced to see it again on video. Oh, the humanity. OK, maybe I do have a small vendetta.
Titanic is visually impressive. SFX are impressive as well. It's really sort of neat to see the whole incident re-created on film.
As for the story, Titanic is at the same time a self-important and impossibly simplistic film. Characterization in Titanic seems to be done with a very large club; the dialogue in the same fashion. Don't expect any subtleties here. What you hear from the characters is exactly what is going on. It's pretty much a paint-by-number love/tragedy, and unless you're especially sappy, the dialogue is likely to range from flat and predictable to downright appalling. It reminded me of watching a couple at a junior high dance call each other "pooky" or something.
The old woman at the start and finish of the film is a bunch of boring nonsense. Why waste the viewers' time seeing the heroine as an elderly invalid? No one came to the theatre to see that. They could have at least made her accent match Winslet's.
You know the drill, the princess falls in love with the pauper. I'm not totally opposed to the romance picture if it's done well, but this one simply is not. They call each other by name in every sentence. Very annoying. A romance film is only as good as the dialogue and the scenes where you see it all come together. Sorry, but teaching a girl to spit before having her pose nude for pictures isn't really my idea of romance.
It's also very clear what Cameron wants you to think. Except for Jack and Rose, every poor person has a heart of gold, and every rich person on the boat is evil and deserves to be, well, drowned like a rat. The passengers are stereotyped so badly the "rich people being snobs" scenes will likely leave you rolling your eyes. OK, they are bad rich people, and poor people are basically good. We GET it already.
I find it puzzling that so much time was obviously spent on the effects, (which were, to be fair, excellent) and yet we get such a basic script that this basically becomes a thinly-disguised, well-targeted effects movie. Effects are great, but can't salvage a poor, eccentric script and below-average performances from its actors.
Not much was made about the length of this picture, but I found it to be excruciating. It boggles the mind how Cameron could write the most simplistic script ever, and stretch it out to be so long that you start hoping the !@* damn !@(&$& boat would just sink already!
Ahem.
Cameron is great - at directing a visual picture. But don't expect him to write a masterpiece. Effects are great, but this film is far, far too long for a script with all the complexity of a coloring book. Visually stunning, Titanic is; no doubt about that. But when it comes to substance, Titanic is all wet.
Say It Isn't So (2001)
Chris Klein has less talent than Keanu Reeves
And that's a bold statement.
Actually, more accurate would be if I said that Chris Klein has less talent than Keanu Reeves, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Brandon Frasier have in their toenail clippings. This guy has got to be the worst actor in the era of modern film.
IMDB lists the bottom 100 rated movies, but I think we need to have a rating system for actors and actresses. Chris Klein would come in at the #1 worst actor of the modern movie age (and only because Steven Seagal could kick his ass.)
No movie, even with the delicious Heather Graham, is worth watching if this curse upon humanity appears in it. Chris Klein needs to be drawn and quartered.
Battlefield Earth (2000)
This movie will lower your IQ 30 points
This is truly a horrid movie. But (maybe..) worth watching once because it's an instant, modern camp classic.
Now, if you notice, I only submit bad reviews to this site, but that's because bad movies are a hobby of sorts for me. I'm one who thinks you can learn more about film from bad movies than good ones, and if there is any thuth to that, every film student's thesis should be written about Battlefield Earth.
You don't just wonder what they were thinking. You're amazed that so many people had to be so incompetent for this movie to get released. It defies comprehension. They had the budget, some (well, ok.. ) 'capable' (servicable might be a better term) actors.. so how could any outfit fail so miseraby?
It's an amazing film in all the ways that it sucks. It combines all the elements of a horrid film - employs characters which don't develop in any way, that you don't care about (or even root against), who act in very irrational or excessively stupid ways for the purpose of lengthening the film or serving the plot. The very worst part of all (and how you can do this I've no idea) is that the movie is boring and abrasive at the same time. It's like repeatedly being stabbed while still being in that place between sleep and awake where you don't really care about anything.
The crawl at the beginning, as well as the constant screen wipes, are a complete rip-off of Star Wars. I hesitate to even mention that film in this review. Worse yet, the script spends about a third of the film playing out things that you already know from the crawl! That aliens or whatever took over earth and killed most of the humans, the ones who still live are living in mostly tribal cultures. But, you're still subjected to quite a lot of them 'discovering' what is going on... which you were told before the movie even started. Why waste my time like that?
Immediately, the cheese in this movie starts to get thick. You get the Hero (tm) riding a white horse, his love interest, the crotchety old tribal elder, the Hero knowing the truth though no one believes him... blah blah blah.
Soon you start to notice that the screenplay is completely offensive to watch. In an effort to be 'cutting-eduge', a lot of the film is short from these tilted camera angles, what you would see if you tilted your head 45 degrees to one side. When it's not giving you a neck cramp from the camera angles, ripping off Star Wars with screen wipes, ripping off John Woo (poorly) with rapidly changing camera angles during combat scenes, you are treated (ahem) to gratutious use of slow-motion. Yes, there is more slow-motion here than in a whole season's worth of Monday Night Football. It's all part of a directorial scheme that really seems very patronizing to the viewer.
Details in virtually ever scene evoke that "yeah, right" reflex from the viewer. Such as, in the shopping mall where the glass is still relatively clean (after 1,000 years), characters using 20th century phrases such as "the grass is greener on the other side" or "piece of cake", which have apparently survived 1,000 years worth of dialect evolution and humanity's near extinction. Or, when Ker doesn't notice the "hidden" camera (obviously in view of anyone with half a brain, and on top of that, it makes loud noises when it zooms!). But, good thing Travolta just-so-happens to have placed these cameras in the city sewers (we all know how much excitement there is down there), or he never would have seen our hero escaping. Other intelligence-insulting garbage occurs, such as when the cave-people learn to pilot fighter jets in a week, nuclear warheads are found in still-working order 1,000 years in the future,
The alien costumes are pretty retarded, but I can't really complain because that fits the aliens, who have to be the stupidest race ever to conquer a planet and enslave a race. For example, the aliens are very intersted in gold, but didn't seem to locate Fort Knox. Or worse yet, when the enslaved humans are sent to mine gold (which, in this movie, is found in big chunks in the ground), and they come back with gold bars, the aliens think nothing of it. huh? The slang the Psychlos use is puzzling too. They call humans "man-animals", but just call dogs "dogs". They refer to air as "breath-gas", and the hidden cameras not as cameras, but "picto-cameras". Oooh! How high tech that sounds!
You get the idea. Picture a movie that tried to be Star Wars. Now, subtract any sort of compelling storyline, any well-done action scenes at all, any characters that you care about their survival. Make the hero(s) stupid and the villians even more stupid. And still, the whole comes out to be less than the sum of its parts.
Run - don't walk - away from this piece of crap. And if you like bad movies - don't bother. You can't laugh at this. It's just unwatchable. To borrow a phrase, this smacks of the Yiddish theatre in space.
To be accurate with my overall rating, I might have to use negative scientific notation. But, I'll just leave it at 0/10. I could actually feel myself becoming stupider with each passing minute.
Not Another Teen Movie (2001)
Bleh
This film is long, boring, and not funny. It is one of the unfunny, uncreative, one dimensional, movies I can remember, and it's just generally.. well.. boring.
Of course it's a parody of "American Pie", etc., and thus requires basic familiarity with those films in order to get most of the.. ahem.. "jokes".
Right from the start, the shameless and unfunny toilet humor beings. We see a girl caught using a vibrator, a roomfull of kids get splattered with feces, a cheerleader with a case of.. er.. irregularity. Die hard fans of these teen movies will get the jokes but still not laugh... others may require medical attention. It's not really a movie, more like awful sketch comedy. Think of a poorly written, unfunny, boring parody of saturday night live.
By the way, there is some quality nudity, though not enough to make this worth watching.
This is another film, not unlike the horrid 'Freddy Got Fingered', that only dishes out one toilet humor or gross-out joke after another.
I can't stress this enough. It's really, really not funny. (John Hughes High?) What do you know, there is a jock (who can't act, like the original) who makes a bet to transform the nerd into a prom queen. the nerd who's in love with the popular girl; the slut who tries to get her brother in the sack; the foursome of cliches wanting to lose their virginity; and the foreign exchange student who is only in attendance to walk around naked.
Like many awful movies, the soundtrack is much better than the film itself. 'Not Another Teen Movie' plays out like an elementary-school re-enactment of American Pie, (with some more poo-poo thrown in).
Some parental guidance should have been suggested for the filmmakers.
Freddy Got Fingered (2001)
Revolting and un-funny
As I've said many times before in comments on this site, I'm a fan of bad movies. Sort of a sick hobby I have. So, if I hear really, really awful things about a movie chances are I'm going to rent it. That was the case with "Freddy Got Fingered"
I've seen many terrible films. There are many different ways to screw up a movie, from the obvious crime mystery film, to the not-scary horror movie. I think all the very worst films are genre films that fail at that genre's defining quality, and Freddy Got Fingered fits that bill - perhaps the worst type of film there is, a comedy that isn't funny.
I admit, I was one of those who for a month or two enjoyed the Tom Green Show fad on MTV. However, as we all knew deep inside, staying power wasn't an attribute that this poor-man's Jim Carrey possessed. (could anything be worse than being called a poor-man's Jim Carrey?)
Anyways. Road Trip was nothing special, but funny and inventive at times. Tom Green has always been one who thrived on pushing the limits of decency as a way of getting you to laugh. Freddy Got Fingered (written and directed by Green if I recall) certainly attempts this, and there were quite a few times where I questioned whether the R rating was severe enough. So, preface this review with the general idea that Freddy Got Fingered is a push-the-limits comedy that isn't funny.
Basically, half of the film (and indeed Tom Green's career) revolves around this comic premise: First, Green touches, does, or places in his mouth something revolting. Second, he repeats some jibberish over and over. Third, he continues repeating the jibberish louder, while making faces a 3 year old would be jealous of, while running around the scene flapping his arms or rolling on the ground.
The other half of the scenes are built around this joke: Green does something stupid. His father swears at him like a drunken sailor. Green swears back. Not funny the first time, let alone the 20th time.
There, basically I have summed up the plot. Oh, there is some bit about his dream to be a famous animator and having his own cartoon about a cat with x-ray vision, or centaur-looking zebra things, but if you remember that after seeing green masturbate a horse, chew through an umbilical cord, suck on the bone protruding from a compound fracture, gut a road-killed deer to wear its corpse like a fur coat, or beat a paraplegic senseless, then you are a much hardier moviegoer than I am.
These things are supposed to make you laugh, but after several episodes of his TV show, and his first movie, seeing him lick something gross and scrunch up his face while babbling incoherently just doesn't do it for me anymore. I laughed one time during this movie, when Green is getting off a plane and someone in the awaiting crowd held up a sign that said "when is this movie going to end?" or something to that effect. It was almost a cop-out, as if to say the makers of this film threw that in hoping people would think they meant the movie to be this bad.
There are no redeeming qualities to this film. There are no reasons to see it at all, because (A) it's not funny, (B) it will probably make you sick, and (C) no one needs to spend money on this type of crap, because it only encourages hollywood to generate more.
0 out of 5 stars, with a rude gesture to those responsible.
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
Horrible - A disservice to so many years of comic genious
Horrid.
This movie is completely vile in every way. Basically, the plot (as it were) is a preachy, left-wing rant about nuclear disarmament that features Superman swooping in, in dictatorly fashion, to disarm the whole world unilaterally.
There are many, many stupid aspects of this movie that don't even deserve my regurgitation. For example:
-since Supe can erase Lois' memory with a kiss - why doesn't he just kiss Lex Luthor, the president (clearly meant to bash the president of the time) and everyone else causing all this great evil? -if letter-writing little kids are so smart, why aren't they running the country? -why does superman's cape flap around in space? -how could the blue-screen scenes in any one movie suck so bad? -why should we be scared of such an unintelligent and oafishly portrayed Lex Luthor? -Does Superman have DNA? He's an alien! -Why does the flying with Lois scene seem to last for half an hour? -Who the hell wrote this script, anyway?
Stay away. Stay far, far away. This is not a funny bad movie, it's unwatchable. A preachy, contrived, eliteist rant from a long defunct political ideology.
I rate it 0 out of 5 stars, and subtract 1 star from Superman 3 to make up for this abomination's damage to the series.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Biggest disappointment of my moviegoing life
After the greatness of the original trilogy, this movie was one of the most severe letdowns I have ever seen. To summarize:
Darth Maul, who appeared on every piece of merchandise put out for this film, is only in it for about 15 minutes. Granted, his scenes are the best of the movie (the sabre duels), but couldn't we get more out of our villian?
Jar-Jar Binks. What can I say that hasn't already been said. He's a cartoon-looking annoyance with no purpose in the film but to act like a moron. He was kicked out of his home for being clumsy, and goes on to be clumy through the entire rest of the film, doing nothing to add to the story or plot, meanwhile being the most annoying character any film has ever produced. A cheap ploy to sell toys.
Anakin Skywalker basically does nothing but drive around in speeders and say "yippee!" Boring, hollow, and flat the whole way through, while doing unrealistic things the highly-trained adult pilots of the movie can't do. Poorly acted, and a boring character.
All in all, the script is awful, the acting (with the exception of Obi-wan) is horrid, and often the movie is so boring you may need medical attention. I swear, during the scene at the underwater city I was clinically dead for 2 minutes.
This movie is a curse. I just saw Episode 2, and it was excellent - so why was this one so terrible?
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Fun and adventurous - welcome back, George!
**No real spoilers in this review**
'Attack of the Clones', basically, is the next series of events in the life of Anakin Skywalker, set against an unfolding chain of events which will become known as the clone wars, and the start of the dark side of the force's coup both on the republic, and on the mind of Anakin Skywalker.
As the movie begins, Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi are sent to protect Senator Amidala from assassination. The story progresses as the Jedi council uncovers a coming war, as Anakin and Amidala begin to fall in love, and Anakin begins to look more evil and more open to seduction by the dark side of the force.
Obi-Wan Kenobi and Annakin are portrayed here as sort of uneasy allies. By this I mean, Kenobi being the wiser, more disciplined one and Anakin being the reckless, often irresponsible protege, not unlike Obi-wan's future relationship with Luke Skywalker. Mace Windu returns from Episode I, and takes on a much more active role; he's a fun character to watch this time around, and a more active participant in the storyline. Jimmy Smits is here too, but his is a bit part no larger than that of Jar Jar Binks. Never fear, Jar Jar haters - he's only in the movie a little bit at a time, but it actually would have been ok to see a little more of him, because unlike Episode I, he's not annoying the crap out of you. New to the saga is Count Dooku, a formidable Jedi master who has already turned to the dark side, and also Jango Fett, whose son (Boba Fett) is still a child at this point.
The landscapes are excellent and engrossing; such contrast exists between the peaceful countryside of Naboo to the busy-busy cityscapes. All are well-done. Unlike Episode I, the special effects here are not overdone, and blend in well with the 'real' stuff. I won't give away any details, but the final sequences are absolutely amazing and more than worthy of any of the previous four films. The cilmax is a little bit James Bond, a little bit of a complex war movie, but all action.
For the first time since Return of the Jedi, you sit in your seat in real suspense, and with a tangible anxiety as tense situations unfold on the screen. There is a real sense of adventure here, something noticably absent from Episode I. With the exception of the fabulous portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi by Ewan MacGregor, the acting here is serviceable, but not going to knock you off your feet. The plot is interesting, and keeps you guessing about what might come next. The script generates characters that you honestly care about, and some very emotional sequences, especially one painful and even shocking one involving Anakin's fury on those who have wronged him. There are points in this film where Anakin is not a likeable character, where it's almost like Obi-wan is fighting Anakin's recklessness as much as he is the enemy, it's one of the most interesting aspects of the film.
All in all, if you're a fan of the series, you will enjoy this one thoroughly. If you're not a Star Wars buff, but liked the rest of the series, this one isn't going to disappoint you. All I can say, is that it's good to have Star Wars back.
Spider-Man (2002)
Entertaining.
I was one of those kids who grew up in the 80's watching the spider-man cartoon show and reading the comic books. I guess you could call me a 'fanboy'. Anyway, here's what I think of the film.
The movie covers the origin of Spidey, fairly faithfully to the comic books. It was a little odd in some places, to see computers and other high-tech equipment in the scenery for things that happened in the comics in the 1960's. So, the film is set in the present day, presumably to hold the interest of a decidely younger audience.
*mild spoilers*
The story is the classic Spider-man tale. The lonely high school student, a little brainy for his own good and with a hopeless crush on the prettiest girl in school, is bitten by a radioactive spider. As a result, he is endowed with superhuman powers, the ability to climb walls, the proportionate strength and angility of a spider, and the trademark web-shooting. (in the comics, the web-shooters were a batman-esque tool he wore around his wrists, and har to be refilled with web cartriges sometimes; the web didn't just shoot out of his arm as it does in the film.) Even relatively minor characters, such as J. Jonah Jamison, the newspaper magnate who creates his own news, are faithfully represented and bring a familiar smile to the face of fans of the original books.
The story is the tried and true comic book concept. The hero has a nemesis, whom he endeavors to protect the innocent from, and in the end he conquers his for and saves the girl.
The film is entertaining, if a bit predictable and campy at times. The effects are nice, though occasionaly look too 'animated'. But, obviously this is a fantasy film, and one needs to suspend reality a bit. Overall, it's entertaining, and if you think you would enjoy the film I'll wager that you will. It's entertaining, very clean by today's standards, and has a couple of good laughs. Nothing really new or inventive, but a good time. 7 out of 10 stars.
The Deep End (2001)
Avoid.
Contains Spoilers!!! The short version: Poorly written, poorly performed.
I would like to say this movie is horrible. But it's not the kind of horrible where you get up thinking "well, they tried really hard to write a good script, just too ambitious." It's the kind of horrible where you think "man, they really weren't trying."
Tilda Swinton is poorly cast and not convincing at all as the mother. The film seems to need to overstate things to the audience, such as when Swinton disposes of the body in broad daylight, the screenplay felt the need to show a helicopter-shot panoramic view of the area, to quell the "yeah, right, like she could do that in broad daylight" feelings you're having. The film also insults your intelligence in other ways, such as dressing Swinton in black and handing her a cigarette in the scene where you find out her sinister intentions. The story is decent, but it seems like the cinematic devices used in the screenplay are straight out of the 1930's.
The characters in the film behave in excessively stupid ways. For example, why did she wait until the morning to dispose of the body? Why did she not question her son about the incident before disturbing the crime scene? Police are a non-factor, in fact no authority speaks to a member of the cast until 3/4 of the way through, when the sheriff's officer asks Swinton about the anchor. She says their boat doesn't have an anchor, and he simply accepts it and the police never enter the plot again; apparently not having looked around the houses at the lake at all to discover the broken board, as well as the blood the body would have certainly left in the boat.
Earlier in the film, after Swinton drives the dead man's Corvette to another location, (how did the keyless entry still work after the car keys had been submerged for some length of time?), she wipes the steering wheel 'clean' of her prints - neglecting other obvious places like the door handle, the shifter, the radio buttons which she adjusts, and other things she would have certainly touched on the interior of the vehicle.
These are just a few examples; there aren't really any gaping holes in the plot, just a small number of examples where the characters behaved in excessively careless or irrational ways, but frequently enough to interrupt your acceptance of the rest of the plot. The story itself is not awful, the acting is serviceable but not at all above average, but the script sank this one from the beginning.
Dude, Where's My Car? (2000)
In my top 5 worst films ever made
This movie is awful, no matter what your 13 year old neighbor tells you. There are NO laughs at all. The most laughable cast of stock characters in recent memory (closely rivaled by the fast and the furious).
Avoid this film at all costs. I would have walked out of it in the theatre but I felt as though I was witnessing a historic failure of filmmaking I couldn't possibly ignore. This movie is a gut-check for American cinema and proof positive that society is on the brink of collapse. The next flood can't be too far away. Give me 'battlefield earth' any day over this pathetic piece of crap.