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Aussiesmurf
Reviews
The Contender (2000)
Great acting, but could have been better
I really, really wanted to love 'The Contender'. It contained many of my favourite actors of today, particularly the always amazing Joan Allen.
The plot is comparatively simple. The Vice-President of the United States passes away, and the President (Jeff Bridges), nearing the end of his second term, decides to appoint a woman as his 'legacy'. This decision is complicated by the fact that a popular Governor, another possible candidate, has recently been portrayed as hero in the press for attempting to rescue a drowning car crash victim.
Naturally, many conservatives are appalled by what they see as 'affirmative action' gone rampant, and unearth tales of a sexual escapade in college to discredit the nominee.
First the good - all the lead roles are well filled, Joan Allen is dignified and mature, Jeff Bridges is fantastic, Gary Oldman hissable, and Christian Slater is finally learning how to portray a grown-up. The script is comparatively intelligent, as doesnt resort to a particularly graphic depiction of the events in college.
The not-so-good - the twists in the last third of the movie could be spotted a country mile off and were very clearly telegraphed. Also, while I personally agree with most of the politics of Joan Allen's character, we were meant to believe that she had moved from the Republican party to the Democrats. This is despite the fact that she was pro-choice, an atheist, favoured the banning of guns, had married a divorcee and so forth. In what alternate universe would ANYONE be elected to Congress as a Republican with that pedigree?
The direction and cinematography is fairly unobtrusive. Some symbolic shots (such as Allen in a white jogging suit surrounded by white tombstones) is fairly heavy-handed. The conclusion is fairly trite, and is in some senses a cop-out of the issues the film raised.
But hey, its better than 'Tomcats'....
A Few Good Men (1992)
Good, But only the Men
A very, very well done courtroom drama, that moves beyond, but is still somewhat constricted by, its theatrical origins.
The story is fairly simple and straightforward. Two marines in Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, internally and physically discipline a wayward marine, who then dies. The marines are then tried for murder as the COlonel in charge of the base heads a conspiracy to deny that the junior marines were acting under orders from their superior officers. What has occurred is very clearly spelled out in several introductory scenes, so the main suspense is whether the truth will come to light.
The main star is Aaron Sorkin's screenplay which, as is his style, positively crackles with many memorable exchanges and witty banter. The only shortcoming is mentioned below. Tom Cruise is fairly good as the junior lawyer who everyone expected to plea-bargain the case, and Jack Nicholson is brilliant in only four scenes as the iron-willed Colonel who reserves the right to order soldiers in his own way. The supporting roles are the best of almost any movie of the last 20 years : Kevin Pollack, J.T. Walsh, Noah Wyle, Cuba Gooding Jr., Christopher Guest, Xander Berkeley. Kevin Bacon is very underrated as the prosecutor with a conscience and radiates a powerful magnetism in a negotiation with Cruise outside a basketball game.
All of which brings me to the single but glaring shortcoming of the movie - Demi Moore's character. For starters, Demi Moore simply cannot act very well. I have not liked a single movie that she has ever been in with the exception of this one. However, the blame for her role must be placed at the feet of Mr Sorkin. Moore's character is one of the most disappointing female leads in recent memory. She is portrayed as overly emotional, unconfident, as having 'passion but no street-smarts'. Through the course of the movie she is clearly shown to make two major blunders through the course of the trial. This would all be forgiven if it was part of a major character arc, but her character does not change at all throughout the movie. At the end, she simply gazes adoringly at Cruise, presumably because he rescued her from her own incompetence. I suppose she was meant to provide some sort of moral compass for Cruise's character, but it escapes me why passion must so obviously be married with incompetence.
Still, an extremely good, well-written and well-acted film.
8/10
The Chocolate War (1988)
Adaptation that captures the book's spirit
An extremely low budget adaptation of Robert Cormier's coming-of-age novel hits most of the marks with accuracy.
For the uninitiated, the plot concerns Jerry Renault, a freshman at a religious private school. He is drifting in an emotional vacuum since the death of his mother particularly due to the resulting emotional gulf between he and his father.
At Jerry's school a secret society known as The Vigils plan various pranks and psychological games, known as assignments and given to various nervous freshmen such as Jerry. When a school chocolate sale becomes the focus of the Vigils and the staff, Jerry takes a seemingly futile stand against conformity that sets off many ramifications...
The main things to praise about the adaptation are the acting by the various (mostly quite young) participants, and the tight script, which maintains a remarkable fidelity to the structure of Cormier's novel.
MAJOR SPOILER!!!
There has been much controversy concerning the ending to the movie, which is of the surface quite different from the novel. It is true that in the novel the villians go 'unpunished', while that is not the case in the movie. However, I would argue that the fate of Jerry, the protagonist is roughly the same. The point being that even if Jerry 'wins' the climactic fight, he has still really lost, because he has doomed himself by being a participant in a contest not of his making.
Worth a look, but if you're studying the book at school, you'll need to read it as well.
American Flyers (1985)
Fantastic in patches
This movie is like a problem child - at times inspired, but all too often frustrating. Two brothers compete in a gruelling cross-country bike race, while at the same time re-forging the brotherly love that had been fractured earlier. Great idea, fantastic bike racing scenes and a hissable villain (racing for another team.
However, the whole movie is dragged down by a number of concurrent story-lines that don't really bring much to the table - the coach and his son, the relationship between one brother and a hitch-hiker, and most of all, the cringe worthy Complicated Hollywood Disease That Invariably Proves Fatal that one of the brothers may be suffering from.
If this movie was an album, I'd keep skipping to the scenes tracks that shine through the remainder - the 'torture test', the race with 'Eddie' and all of the final race scenes.
Overall, worth a look, and it will also give your girlfriend something to cry about.
Tomcats (2001)
Absolutely appalling
This movie, quite literally, does not have one redeeming feature. The characters are one-dimensional, cliched, incredibly misogynistic and stupid. The script looks as if it was cobbled together from 100 other movies, the acting is horrible, and some of the 'gross-out' humour made me feel nauseous.
Shame on you, Gregory Poirier, for thinking ANY of this would be funny or interesting!
The worst movie I've seen in several years.
Red Dragon (2002)
Impressive pedigree, but only 'above average'
The collected talent involved in this movie is a movie critic's wet dream - Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel, Emily Watson, Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman and of course, Anthony Hopkins reprising his Academy Award role of Hannibal Lecter.
Most people will come to this movie after reading / seeing Silence of the Lambs, which was written (and set) after the novel on which this movie is based. It can be seen that this novel really provided the template for the superior sequel which followed.
The plot follows a very similiar structure to 'Silence...'. An FBI agent plays mind games with Hannibal Lecter in an attempt to obtain clues that are needed in order to capture another serial killer who is active 'on the outside'. I think Edward Norton is the fines actor of his age in the world, but the script and Brett Ratner's direction doesn't really give him much room to manouevre. Ralph Fiennes' maniac gravitates between schizophrenia and a quasi-Norman Bates grandmother complex.
But the real killer about this movie is that, for a suspense movie, there is a real lack of suspense. Particularly with Lecter, we know roughly how the characters will end up to be in 'position' for Silence of the Lambs. This removes a great deal of menace from the scenes with Hopkins, which is not the fault of any of the participants.
SPOILER ALERT!!
Some good work all round, but all the actors in the film have much better performances to their credit, in the end the climax is surprisingly formulaic, and the final scene is only successful at provoking a wry smile with its reference to much superior 1991 movie.
America's Sweethearts (2001)
Insipid comedy
I have the feeling that this movie amused the makers much more than the audiences. The plot (about a feuding movie star couple trying to keep it together during a film junket) obviously provided great scope for Hollywood inside jokes that didn't seem to get picked up elsewhere.
One of the basic plot point (snooty movie star overshadows dowdy sister) falls flat on its face when the 'dowdy' sister is played by a not-dressed-down Julia Roberts, who, regardless of my personal opinion, is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful actresses in the world.
John Cusack is, as always, fairly dependable in his role, but the script doesn't give him much to work with. Catherine Zeta-Jones is believably bitchy, Billy Crystal in this movie makes a great Academy Awards host, and Christopher Walken chews the scenery as required.
Not actively bad, but there were no stand-out lines or performances, particularly for the Hollywood forces involved with the movie.
Pass.
Devil in the Flesh (1998)
Not only bad, but boring
Extremely standard story (high school girl has un-reciprocated crush on teacher, turns psycho, ruins his life) and average acting and scripting do not a quality movie make.
The only point of interest in these stories is whether or not the teacher actually sleeps with the student prior to the 'psycho' phase of the movie. Here he does not, so his 'flaw' is limited to a couple of leering glances.
Rose McGowan does look pretty good in her halter top / shorts combo, but not enough to justify this movie.
Pass.
Pleasantville (1998)
Interesting concept but flawed execution
Pleasantville is a fabulous idea that tries to cram a heck of a lot of high concept into its running time.
Modern teenagers are transported by a convenient remote control into an apparent utopia within the small town setting of a 1950s television show.
Fairly innocent conflicts regarding 'geography' and sexual mores give way to a more serious agenda concerning small-minded prejudice, bigotry and the value of individualism. There is much use of symbolism, particularly the gradual depiction of characters and objects in colour rather than black and white.
The acting is of a high quality, with seasoned performers such as Joan Allen, Jeff Daniels and William Macy providing a solid background to (relative) newcomers Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon.
However, some of the messages and symbolism is alternatively muddled (the timing of the transformations to colour) and heavy-handed (the signs that start to spring up saying 'no coloureds'.
Having said that, there is a lot to like about 'Pleasantville', even if the loftiness of its ambitions is only partially met by its success.
Worth a look.
Armageddon (1998)
Laughable
This movie is pretty bad, particularly for the amount of money that was positively thrown at the screen. The plot about space shuttles being sent to space to blow up and asteroid is ridiculous (the idea being that it is easier to teach oil drillers to be astronauts than it is to teach astronauts to drill a hole), and the romantic sub-plot including Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler frankly nauseating.
At a pinch, the performances of Billy Bob Thornton and Steve Buscemi aren't bad, and a sub-plot involving a divorced father and his estranged child has a smidgen of emotional resonance, but overall, its your classic Jerry Bruckheimer pic, and you should know what you're getting when you play your video rental fee.
Chasing Amy (1997)
One of the few truly successful comedy / dramas
Most films that are billed as a 'comedy / drama' are a comedy with a single dramatic sequence or a drama with one or two wry one-liners.
This movie succeeds incredibly at walking the line between uproarious laughter and emotional drama, often almost simultaneously.
Keven Smith manages to craft a tale that many 20-somethings can completely identify with - dating the woman who makes you feel inadequate. Ignore the advertising about 'dating a lesbian' - this movie is about insecurity and relationships.
With Ben Affleck in his career-best performance, the always wonderful Jason Lee and the (squeaky-voiced) Joey Lauren Adams. the true star of this movie is the script and direction by Kevin Smith.
Other points of note : the wonderful music (never released as a commercial soundtrack), the fantastic supporting role played by Dwight Ewell, the fantastic ending, and above all, the mesmerising monologue by Kevin Smith / Silent Bob that lays the whole foundation for the movie, and provides its most memorable moment.
Highest recommendation.
Casablanca (1942)
The best ever
Not much can be said about one of the most glorious accidental triumphs in movie history. The right stars, the right supporting cast, the right director and particularly the right script came together magically for the best movie in Hollywood history.
I often say that this movie is like Stairway to Heaven - it has been ripped off so many times, that to watch it now for the first time can make it seem full of cliches - as long as you were aware that it was this creation that started all the cliches.
Briefly, the plot concerns the coming together of half-a-dozen main players in Casablanca during the middle of the second World War. Humphrey Bogart is the archetypical softie with the hard, cynical shell, Paul Heinreid is a wonderfully noble leader of men, Ingrid Bergman truly makes you believe that a man could obsess about her for years. Claude Rains is wonderfully devillish as the corrupt prefect of police, Sidney Greenstreet positively Machiavellian as a business rival and Peter Lorre incredible as a cheap hood.
Watch this movie, and for the love of all that's holy, make sure it is in the original black and white!
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Brilliant
My friend and I have agreed that any man between the ages of 20-40 will have one or more of the following as being in their top 3 movies of all time : Star Wars, Blade Runner, Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption.
A fantastic source novella, skilful direction, career performances by Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman....the list goes on.
The plot can't be summarised easily - suffice to say that there are no car chases, no gunfights, and no actors from Dawson's Creek.
This movie is one of only three I can recall where I specifically noticed EVERY person leaving the cinema with a HUGE smile on their face.
Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)
Simply brilliant
What can I say? Anyone who is a parent or has been a child should see this movie. Based on a true story, it is superficially about a child who is a prodigy at chess.
However, the real story is about the uncertainty and wonder that all parents have when faced with the abilities of a child. Funny, sad, touching, this movie has it all, and I am very difficult to please.
Particularly brilliant is : Ben Kingsley's performance, James Horner's soundtrack, along with the photography and cinematography.
Highest recommendation.
The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Childhood favourite...
Hmmm - so hard to be objective.
SPOILER****
My brothers and I would rent this movie on a WEEKLY basis for a period of around two years and would literally know it off by heart. I well remember that when we first saw Optimus Prime pass on that my little brother had to leave the room, he was sobbing so hard...
THE GOOD : The back and forth between some of the characters - especially Kup and Hot Rod; the soundtrack ('Dare' and 'The Touch' were MADE to be in movies like this); Orson Welles, in his last screen role; the guts to show kids that in real life heroes get hurt and die;
THE BAD : Well, Wheelie gets REALLY annoying, REALLY quickly; there are plotholes that even an 8-year-old (ie. a younger me) could drive a truck through; losing everyone's favourite sneaky henchman in Starscream.
Really, this review is moderately pointless - if you weren't a child of that era, you won't be hunting down bargain bins for this movie. If it provokes a warm glow in you, like it does me, more power to you!