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Reviews
Septem8er Tapes (2004)
If you like video games, you might like this misguided, vile, fake bad idea!
Remember Wolfenstein? Remember the mindless fun of running helter skelter through a NAZI castle shooting everything that moved? Well here's a "documentary" using tragically real Afghanistan and the live suffering of long-manipulated/abused poor people as backdrop to someone's war-porn fantasy!
Does the camera stray from the clenched "journalist's" jaw to discover anything about this culture, who these people are, why they do what they do?
It's the real Afghanistan they're using, but we don't have time to waste on that, we've got to stick with the narrow story of an idiot who ignores everyone's advice and then feels real bad getting his new friends killed. Does the "journalist" ask a single probing question? Ahh, but he is the mystery man who asks no questions, only "moves forward" with grim determination. Yes, we slowly learn, the real people who are glimpsed interacting with our actor, like much of our real-world "intervention" over there, are but real-suffering cardboard props for cowboy bravado and sick little egos working out life's problems by killing folks -- just like the terrorists!
This film might be a good example of why the world hates America. Hell, I hate America after coming out of this lame-brained clueless turkey, so maybe it has its own genius, in a boring, shockingly manipulative, sacriligous sort of way (using Afghanistan's misery AND 9-11 victims as story gimmicks. Hmmm. Gutsy!)
At least I had the satisfaction of thinking that maybe the "hero" of this story got his just desserts, though I grew tired of waiting the two hours for him to recklessly run into more incoming fire and just die already. What is more clear is that every brown-skinned "buddy" around him dies for his unknown cause ("Dr. Jones, no -- eeeeyyyyiiii!"). Now, why did they swear their lives to follow the reckless Fratboy to the ends of the earth? And just what the hell was this shades/smokin' Rambo-wannabe after? Ahh, the grand justification for this stupidity is revealed at the very end, and I wouldn't spoil that for you. It justifies EVERYTHING. Well, actually, no. It just shows how egotistically pathetic the "message" is.
Play Wolfenstein instead and consider actually HELPING the poor, not just killing them. Anyone who actually experienced or knew 9-11 victims will absolutely want these guy's heads on a pike.
Tattoo, a Love Story (2002)
Pretty charming indie: glad it's out on DVD
I actually stumbled on this little gem when it was playing in theaters here and couldn't say enough for friends to see it; now I can buy it and show them what they missed!
I have never been in a movie where the audience consistently laughed throughout the ENTIRE movie (well, there was "Anchorman"...). It's an odd little masterpiece: the leading man is an overweight biker, the leading woman is stunning (but not yet famous in other films) somewhat unsure school teacher, a typical setting is a sushi bar in downtown Boise, Idaho -- and it charms and gets you laughing 'til you don't want it to end.
It's also a gentle film: you can show your parents this and they'll be laughing too, even though it's about tattoos and sex and rebellion... and rated "R". This is a world where the "Extra" who's rowing past in boat says "hi"; and the leads' friends keep popping up and had the theater roaring. Very original, quirky, surprising fun... glad my fav. little film is finally out to show others what I was talking about.
So now I can put it on my shelf now: a sweet little romantic comedy that's smart in its humor -- that nobody can say "I've seen that already."
You'll be loaning it to friends.
Christopher Lock Los Angeles
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
Radio-Theater Dream of a 1940's boy
Simply brilliant. This is the sepia-toned perfect visualization of what must have gone on in adolescent minds of the 1930's and 40's. It's like seeing one of those radio adventures that must have run through their imaginations, murky and romantic, terrifying and wonderful.. often ridiculously inconsistent ("is he punching out giant metal robots with his fists??) (how can they fly all the way to Tibet?) which makes you love it even more. The gentleness and humor of this world show up the harsh brutality of our own, and if I had to pick between the two, slower, sillier and perhaps less thrilling, I'll take Sky Captain's World of tomorrow hands down.