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KV1204
Reviews
Rear Window (1954)
Seeing the forest for the trees
So I just watched this for the first time in years, and while I don't want to be pedantic, I can't help but take issue with the protagonist's shortsightedness. First, who would spy on their neighbors through large uncovered windows with the lights on, allowing the person being watched to see you in plain sight? You'd think the man would try to be a little more covert, as any rational person would, especially after he suspected a murderer. Then after he's spotted, he doesn't anticipate that the killer would come after him next? The killer expectedly pays him a visit, and instead of the snooper grabbing a blunt object and concealing it behind his back, he foolhardily decides to blind the guy with his camera's flash. It's unlikely that an attacker would stop and go, letting him reload film each time. Imagine it were bullets being loaded. Would you wait for someone to shoot you twice? Any real-life killer would've went straight at him. Moreover, why didn't the photog just take pictures of what he saw? He's already holding a camera. I guess he got so caught up in all of it and wasn't using his head. At the end of the day, I guess you have to waive all these implausible scenarios and give leeway for "artistic vision".
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Too fanciful for its own good
Thomas Crown, an already wealthy businessman, decides to rob a bank. But what does a millionaire need to rob banks for? Apparently he does it for kicks. He doesn't do the job himself, but instead assembles a crew of perfect strangers. Now this seems rather farfetched, as you couldn't trust guys you don't know, let alone never met. And think they could pull the job off without a hitch. However, it could be believable if you're a risk-taker and you want to cover all your tracks. Seeing as these men are strangers to each other, there's no leads if one gets caught. The heist goes successfully, and after the money is taken, the men walk out of the bank one by one still wearing their sunglasses and gloves-carrying large money bags. They put them in the trunk of a getaway stationwagon and walk off. No one appears to notice them. Or if they did, nobody found it at all alarming. This is just one of many implausible scenarios of the film.
After the car is loaded with the cash bags, one of the men drives off and drops the money in a secure location for Crown to pickup. Instead of dividing up the money, he sends each man monthly installments to play it safe. He takes the money to Geneva where he deposits it in a Swiss bank account. He goes there quite a lot to play polo, ride dune buggies, fly airplanes, and do other adventurous things a man of his nature would do.
Thereafter the police got their hands full just trying to come up a trace, a scent, anything. But they keep running dry, until Vicki (Faye Dunaway), shows up. She's a private investigator for the insurance company who intends to get the money back. Vicki uses her extraordinary smarts to crack the case. Everything she declares seems to come from pure intuition. After a bunch of clues and ideas that are miraculously beamed in her head, she winds up selecting Crown from a group of photos. She thinks he's handsome, therefore, he must be the mastermind behind the heist. This woman is so bold, she tracks down one of the accomplices and attempts to get information by kidnapping his kid. She traps him and offers him freedom in exchange for his statement and confession. Another absurd situation.
So Vicki begins to follow Crown and then latches onto him in hope to extract a confession. They have a rather odd relationship for awhile. They're both getting along, having laughs, doing typical things couples do. But there's still no real sense of trust between them. Crown knows she wants him to admit his guilt, but he still keeps a relationship with her anyway. He just uses her like a toy. That being said, you know that she's developing some kind of love for him, and he for her. It has to be. Any other man would have dumped this lady a long time ago once they figured out she was working for the police. But again, Crown knows that. After all, he's quite the daredevil. Eventually you'll see that Crown finally got his hooks in her deep enough, after he executes his last caper.
This film makes use of multiple screen boxes to convey simultaneous or consecutive actions of the men going off to rob the bank. It was highly praised at the time for being so original, but I don't care for it. It makes the film look very dated. I think it would have actually been more interesting if it was shot traditionally. The numerous split-screen boxes make it confusing. Maybe split-screens worked for other films, but in my opinion, it doesn't work well for this one. Mildly entertaining watch. Implausible scenarios. At least it has a cool, albeit dated theme song.
The Driver (1978)
The best thing about The Driver is the car chases
The best thing about The Driver is the car chase scenes. The story is decent, but I felt it could have been livened up a touch with more action and emotion. I suppose it was meant to be rather emotionless, but even more negative emotion like anger would have helped. None of the characters are ever referred to by name, and are even listed in the credits by title, such as The Driver, The Player, Glasses, The Detective, and so on. It's a nameless world the driver lives in. It'd have to be with a man of his impudence. It's hard for a guy like that to like or be liked. Because he's merely a driver, he knows that his accomplices will always handle the dirty work. And he hates to work with such lowlifes. But he really doesn't have much of a choice, so therein lies the catch-22. He has opportunities to get out, but something is always setting him back. Things never go as he plans.
In his cold world, there's no real sense of trust or closeness. The Driver can't trust his partners in crime. The Detective can't trust them. Every "player" in this "game" looks out for themselves. Even at the end, this is reaffirmed as trust is ultimately broken, and The Driver is thrown back into the underworld he can't seem to get out of.
Almost Famous (2000)
What a long, dull trip it's been
"What a long, dull trip it's been" should've been the afterword (That's an old hippie reference in case you didn't know). The story goes wherever the boy goes, and everywhere he goes is the same...a crowd. There isn't much variation for a movie of this length. The film is wholly focused on the characters, though they're not memorable or interesting enough to make me care. Their conversations are mundane. There's the protagonist, the boy (Patrick Fugit). He's a newbie rock journalist trying to get a story. But he's 15-yrs-old. Apparently he can just leave school and hit the road on a bus tour with some band. I guess truancy didn't exist then. This adventurous idea was suggested by his new groupie friend (Kate Hudson), who's pretty much a drifting character. Anyhow, I don't think there's anything wrong with the boy. He's honest, humble, patient, kind-faced...which is why he doesn't fit into that scene, and why I find the character annoying. He's like the little brother you had to drag along with you on a date in high school-a third wheel-or the young sibling at someone's house party. You just want to tell him to go hang out with kids his own age. Maybe when he's a bit older and more forthright, he can stick around. A journalist should to be assertive, especially a budding one. The band he follows around are the cliched rock group...always butting heads. You get tired of their drama.
The kid's hyperbolic mother is annoying too. She calls her son almost every day to make sure he's not doing drugs. Even a narc officer isn't that persistent.
What I don't like most of all about this movie is that characters are stereotypical and dialogue is contrived, as if based on what someone thought the era was like. (I know it's supposedly a true story from the director's life, but maybe he wanted to conventionalize it for the screen). I also cringed when they sang "Tiny Dancer" on the bus. Lester Bangs may have been onto something when he said rock music was on its way out by then.
The Killing (1956)
Overrated
The Bad: Boring plot. Cliched characters and dialogue. Corny narration.
The Good:
Inception (2010)
It's a little "out there".
I've never been a fan of DiCaprio, though he does a convincing job in this film. I don't have a problem with him, but with how farfetched Inception's ideas are. In the film, the gang just falls asleep in proximity with wires connected to one another and wake up in each other's dreams. How does this procedure work? Then there's the notion that a person can have cognizance and causation in a dream, directing its orientation with such clarity and detail, piloting the course and molding the environment at will. This we all know doesn't happen, even in lucid dreaming. There should be some feeling of haziness and inhibition. It would be different if the events took place in a supernatural context without the need for plausibility; then there wouldn't be need for such scrutiny. However, inception is portrayed as possible by a machine/sedative, and the workings of that aren't elucidated, as it ought to be. And there's much else to probe because the film is so convoluted, overwhelmed with bizarre ideas that needed better explaining to mitigate the perplexity. Then again, I wasn't even sold on the primary concept of inception. It's a little "out there". There's too much to ruminate, during the movie and afterward trying to make sense of what you just watched. Still, it's a riveting visual exploration of the surreal.
The Faculty (1998)
One thing they overlooked
Their survival depended upon a scarcity of pencil-sized tubes filled with caffeine powder? Hadn't they contemplated the other opposition to moisture? It's known as fire. I enjoyed the movie overall, suspenseful, but the ending was unbelievable. No way the kid could defeat a monster of that size with two little sticks of powder. They should have just torched the alien.