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Reviews
Buffalo Soldiers (2001)
If Quentin Tarantino had Directed M*A*S*H
The movie was fairly charming, but ultimately the filmmakers couldn't reconcile the satirical tone of the comedy portions with the more standard drug story tone.
Joaquin Phoenix is at his best when he isn't speaking, but lots of his lines were flat or inaudible. Anna Paquin was just plain weird, I can't explain it. She seemed like she was trying to be very intense but she wasn't particularly good. It almost seemed like she was on cocaine or something.
Ed Harris and Scott Glenn were both very good. It was fun to see Ed Harris in this type of comic role.
I ended up feeling like this material probably worked well in the book (haven't read it) because novels seem to be more amenable to having comedy side-by-side with action. Movies are fine for blending the two, but when they don't synthesize the disparate tones they just seem like they don't know what they want to be when they grow up.
All in all it's more interesting than a lot of movies, but it misses the mark.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Let's send a robot back in time to prevent them from making this movie
There is absolutely nothing interesting in this movie. It is a lazily assembled amalgam of plot points from T2 and lines from The Terminator. It's as though they were too lazy to think up anything interesting and instead defaulted to trying to lamely remind you of bits you liked from the first two.
Yeah, there's lots of destruction in this one, but who cares? The filmmakers completely fail to create any suspense. There's no character development, there's no plot, so there's nothing to invite the audience into giving a crap about any of the "characters". Claire Danes's character shows some promise at the beginning of the film, but her character quickly becomes a simp. Even Arnold gives lame line deliveries, as though he learned his lines right before they rolled camera. Not the good kind of Arnold lame that worked so perfectly in the first two movies, it's just authentically poor
***possible mild spoiler ***
The police psychologist who talks to Claire Danes in the graveyard makes reference to having witnessed the Terminator assault on the police station in the original movie. But in that movie, he leaves just as Arnold enters the station. He's not even there when it all goes down! This blunder epitomizes the whole mess that T3 is - they were too lazy to get it right, they were more interested in coming up with a gag than doing anything dramatically interesting.
By the way, in the "flash forward" scenes at the beginning of the movie I thought the guy was the doctor from Star Trek: Deep Space 9. But it's really Nick Stahl.
BTW, Nick Stahl does look like he could be the child of Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton. That's about the only detail of this move that looks like it had any thought given to it. The special effects look fine, but that only matters if they're used in service of a good story. But T3 has never been within two miles of a good story.
Boring! See the first one again instead. I gave this one a 2 out of 10, and that was being generous.
Super Troopers (2001)
Turn your brain off and laugh
Movies like this aren't really my cup of tea, but a friend put it on one afternoon and we watched it. I thought it was pretty consistently funny. The state trooper characters could have come off as annoying, but the Broken Lizard guys just made it all seem like fun.
I never thought I'd watch this movie let alone enjoy it. My enjoyment of this movie is remarkable to me because movies that are intended to make me laugh rarely do (they're too predictable and strident - I usually get my laughs in inappropriate moments of serious movies instead), but the good-natured stupidity of this movie actually cracked me up.
Unbreakable (2000)
Staying Power
While I was watching this movie I got irritated at the slow, ponderous style in which it was shot. I understood that Mr. Shyamalan wanted to take a subject normally rendered in four colors on newsprint and treat its character implications in a more serious manner, but I thought he was overcompensating with the super-slow, long single-take scenes. But I enjoyed the story, and the acting was wonderful so I went with it. When it ended I regarded it as being not terribly good, but having some interesting aspects.
I'm writing this the day after I saw it, and I realize now how affecting the film was. I now see it as a great film with a few minor pacing flaws. If you have the patience for it, the style of the film is hypnotic and it really enhances the emotional connection to the characters. This film has really stuck with me in ways I didn't expect.
Bruce Willis has done a lot of roles where he's cocky and swaggering, and those tend to overshadow his more serious work. I have enjoyed his performances for a long time, and I'll dare to say that he's not merely a movie star, he's one of our time's finest actors. He has great range and is willing to portray vulnerability, the effect of which is heightened by his normally confident smirkiness. He is also willing to take risks in the roles he accepts, balancing the big-budget popcorn movies with nice character work. His portrayal of the stoic, sad lead character in this film is understated and powerful.
Samuel L. Jackson is hit-or-miss for me. I think he's too content to skate by on persona. In some films it seems like he's barely learned his lines (xXx for example). Lately though, I've seen him in some roles that are more challenging (The Caveman's Valentine, The Red Violin) and I'm raising my opinion of him. I really enjoyed his performance in this movie.
Robin Wright Penn is outstanding. That's really no surprise.
If you've avoided seeing this movie because of the reviews it got when it was released, you should consider giving it a chance. Yes, you can expect it to be slow, but if you accept that going into it you may discover that it has some emotional depth and staying power.
Lucía y el sexo (2001)
Director sacrifices character development for gratuitous sex (minor spoilers)
There are two major problems with this movie. One is that a large amount of time is devoted to gratuitous sex scenes between Lucia and Lorenzo. Delightful as they may be, by the time Lucia is walking out on Lorenzo, there has been very little in the film to demonstrate that the bond between them is based on anything besides Lorenzo's acquiescence to Lucia's sexual aggressiveness. Lucia's initial contact with Lorenzo is the result of the fantasies she has about him based on his novel, which implies a delusional state of mind (not to mention her stalker behavior). I have nothing against on-screen sex nor against sexually aggressive women, but there was so little emotional connection between them established in the film that I had trouble buying that they had been together for six months, let alone several years. Besides, who keeps the same bad haircut for six years? Lorenzo, that's who.
The other problem is the swarming mass of coincidence that brings all the players together on the island. The coincidences start early (Pepe's sister somehow knows the mother of Lorenzo's daughter) and Medem keeps piling them on until they're so thick it's ridiculous. It may be argued that this phenomenon is a result of the vague notion that the movie is about the intersection of reality and fiction, but that sounds to me more like a lame rationalization after the fact than a deliberately employed storytelling device. It feels self indulgent, even lazy from a writing standpoint.
Okay, make that three major problems: the assertion that the story has a hole where one can enter at the end and re-emerge in the middle and possibly change the outcome is bogus. If it is to be believed then most of the movie must be regarded as nothing more than a pessimistic fantasy played out in the head of a writer. Remember the infamous season of "Dallas?" Medem declared that he wanted to make this film more uplifting and optimistic than "Lovers of the Arctic Circle." Could he only achieve this through the use of such an artificial deus ex machina? Medem seems to be going for magical realism, but he merely emulates its superficial qualities. A lot of sex, some washed-out photography, quirky characters and a bunch of unbelievable coincidences may add up to a hypnotic fable for some. For me it's all condiment and no entree.
Medem is reputed to have rehearsed this thing for 5 months. In my opinion he should have either spent longer and come up with a more credible script, or he should have made the movie much more quickly. Some sense of spontaneity would have been welcome in this ponderous lack-of-character drama.