Reviews

Why are people gushing over this? It is nothing but a barely competent collection of the clichés that people think of when they think of a "silent movie" but really are ones that mark third-rate commercial entertainment, which this is. It's thin, it's badly acted, and it's *wrongly* shot. If you're going to ape your betters (which in this case would include Pabst, von Stroheim, Murnau, Lubitsch, and Chaplin), then you should have the decency to study what they do and try to imitate their style.

This is crap. I'd like to believe the acclaim for it is a joke, but I fear it's not. I guess people don't watch things like "City Lights" any more and don't recognize this for the pandering garbage it is. And it *is* pandering; never for one frame do you get the feeling that these people don't think they're archly "slumming" and being "edgy" by shooting without sound despite the fact that their vision is utterly pedestrian and probably wouldn't have made it off the second bill in 1928.

Oh, and they use "Pennies from Heaven" with no awareness whatsoever of its resonance. I hope Dennis Potter comes back from the great beyond and smacks them on the head.

On the one hand, the skiing sequences are spectacularly performed and shot. It is easy to see the genesis of some of Riefenstahl's set-ups for "Olympia" in the slow-motion and low angle camera work ("Skicam!"). On the other hand, as a film this is just laughable, with Riefenstahl mugging her way through a plot that must have taken all of a minute to think up. It's hard to believe that this is anything other than Arnold Fanck collecting the producer Harry Sokal's money, yelling to his cast and crew, "Come on, we're going skiing!," and then tossing something together in the editing room once everyone had thawed out and sobered up. No wonder Riefenstahl (reportedly) insisted on G. W. Pabst being hired as the "co-director" of "The White Hell of Pitz Palu;" when given full control over the dramatics of the film as he is here, Fanck makes Mack Sennett look like Herik Ibsen.

In Hollywood movies the troubled romantic couple is brightly and cheerily filmed in nice surroundings. In this German film the couple is ugly and the surroundings squalid. Does that mean it's art? No, it just means it thinks making one-dimensional characters ugly makes them real. They're still just clichés, only now they're pretentious clichés.

This is the kind of film that forgets what it had the characters do five minutes before. The drunken bum is a widower. He says his wife's name and looks at her pictures. And then all of the other characters forget about it, he forgets about it, and we forget about it. It didn't really matter - it was just a formula.

This is garbage unrelieved by any style (unless you think jump cuts are innovative), layered with loud but uninteresting music, and devoid of any point. The acting is impossible to judge, since the characters are so badly drawn, it's static in all the worst ways, and it's ugly to boot. Want to see a film about a strange romance of strangers in German society? See "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul" instead. It's got soul, and heart, and intelligence. This just has hype.

We actually watched this twice in the theater because we could not believe how bad it was the first time. Maybe we'd missed something... nope, what's missing was missed from the beginning of preproduction. I actually went back to Robbin's novel to see if I could find the problem, and I discovered that what I thought was funny and exciting back in the day is now just so much disconnected and fuzzy-headed junk.

So, the initial problem with the film was deciding to do it at all, and the rest of the train wreck progressed from there. Absolutely nothing works - not a blessed thing. Some beautiful exterior photography gets steamrolled by random camera placement in interior shots. All of the actors look at least uncomfortable - Angie Dickenson looks positively mortified - except for Rain Phoenix, who gives the impression that she is too unaware to realize how awful her performance really is. The dialog is one, long, unwavering cringe. Scenes don't make sense from second to second, and the connections between them are nonexistent. And yet, the movie stumbles blindly on, convinced that it is saying something profound.

This is too bad to even be funny; it is simply excruciating. Gus Van Zant has done other good-to-great movies which I encourage you to see, and I'm happy he survived (and appears to have learned from) this mess.

Well, I think I said in my review of TTT that I was afraid that Jackson and company wouldn't be able to fit in all that was left. Now, though I have not seen the extended cut (longer than the cut of _Napoleon_, I believe!), it looks like they added much of it back there.

As a Tolkien geek of 30+ years I was greatly impressed by these films even though I miss much of the subtlety of the book itself. However, that subtlety is not entirely lost; instead, it is often taken up in the acting. Bernard Hill and Miranda Otto actually make *more* of their characters than the books do. All of the Hobbits are fine, Andy Serkis is better than fine, and Ian Holm, bless him, gives all the young ones lessons in sly scene stealing. Ian McKellen is a bit too subdued at times, but when he hits the mark he's very powerful. Elves are basically impossible to play, but all of the actors in those roles do well even if Orlando Bloom is a bit callow.

The revelation throughout all three films, though, is Viggo Mortensen. I hated him immediately upon his entrance in the first film, then quickly started to reassess as the film moved on. I quickly realized that he managed to hit every single one of even the deepest notes of the character, a man who is not only skilled beyond his first appearance but whose nature as a hero and a king is based in millennia of history and inheritance. It is an amazing performance, one of the best I have ever seen, and so strong that even though the end of the film was naturally without him I missed his character, just as I do every time I read the book.

So, enjoy the CGI. But watch the acting - that's where you'll get the depth of the tale.

Just what did Franco (if he did invite Bunuel back to make a film in Spain as the legend goes) expect? Who knows, but we're the richer for it.

It's easy to read _Viridiana_ as an allegory for Spain, with Fernando Rey as the corrupt old regime, Francisco Rabal as the "progressive" but ineffectual and cowardly Franco, and Silvia Pinal as the aloof, kind-hearted but muddle-headed church who the others lust after. But even if you don't buy that, there's still some of the best cinematography of any of Bunuel's films, great acting, more phallic symbols than you can shake a stick at (hehehehe) and one of the most consciously blasphemous - and funniest - scenes in any film as one of the beggar women takes a picture "with the camera Daddy gave me." The Vatican condemned it, and Franco's government seized and burned every print they could find. I guess some people just don't have a sense of humor.

Don't let the comments scare you into thinking that this will be "art" and therefore some nasty tasting pill of high-minded pretension. It is art, but like all of Bunuel's films it's art that never fails to be wickedly, bitterly funny, with a clear eye, a fully human sense of outrage at cruelty and pomposity, and a healthy dose of smuttiness. And, unlike some of his movies, this one presents the story in a more-or-less straightforward manner, though that's mainly Bunuel's sly way of lulling you into thinking you know what's going to happen so that he can pull the rug out from under you.

If this sounds in the least interesting, then give _Viridiana_ a try.

This is a failure so complete as to make me angry.

All of the subtlety and structure of Reggio's early films is gone, leaving nothing but a hash of digitally smeared images whose sole purpose seems to be Whining About Bad Things Humans Do. Just how do Star Trek-like wormhole graphics, slo-mo colorized seascapes, mutiplicities of obviously fake computer icons, and shots of athletic competition that, incidentally, show that no one has ever been able to top (or even match) Leni Riefenstahl for filming bodies in motion, edited together with an overlay of video colorization that a 1980s "Dr. Who" producer would have rejected as "too cheesy," add up to a polemic against "civilized violence"? There is no intellectual, emotional, or visceral connection between these images as assembled and mutated by Reggio and way too many digital effects artistes, and the cautionary tale I assume he wanted to produce. With all of the "dramaturgical consultants" involved, no one seems to have pulled his head out the his own feeling of Saying Something Important and considered that they might all be failing to say something new.

Only people who watch too much television could make such a film and believe that it's meaningful; this is kindergarten Stan Brakhage, and ultimately gutless in its relentless obviousness. The only irony and tension evident here (unlike in "Koyaanisqatsi" where the relentless beauty and strangeness of time-altered ordinary images forced you to consider their meaning) was when the DVD I was watching jammed and skipped. This is MTV for the Noam Chomsky crowd, based on reflex rather than reflection and signifying nothing. Two stars for the music, which is in Glass's best pomo-Cesar Franck style and features some passionate cello from Yo-Yo Ma. (I hope for his sake that he didn't have to record his parts to a playback of the film; there are some things you shouldn't have to do even for a paycheck.)

Maximillian (Helmut Grier) says at one point in the film that Sally Bowles (Liza Minelli) is like a charming child, but he "is always relieved when she is taking her nap." That nicely sums up my reaction on seeing _Cabaret_ again after 30 years. Minelli's performance is incredible but overpowering, and I'm relieved when she's off screen. The affair between Brian and Sally is a bit of a strain as well, but only because it is frustrating and slightly unbelievable. Minelli, to her credit, makes her character's ambivalence obvious, but York, though a good actor, plays it too straight, showing neither the reasonable doubt nor the required level of intentional denial (especially for a character who, for a bookish Cambridge student, is both remarkably perceptive of Sally's playacting and bold in his contempt of Nazism) necessary to make us believe that he's as caught up in this faux romance as the script requires him to be.

There are other flaws as well. The music strains believability, as it is obviously scored for and played by a much larger ensemble than the one shown on screen. Unlike most others, I found the "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" sequence to be beautifully shot and edited but embarrassingly obvious. It's as if someone thought that the film had better make it clear to the densest of viewers that Nazis Are A Bad Thing. Finally, the VHS I saw was cropped, worn, and badly transfered; DVD viewing seems mandatory.

Little of this matters in the end, though, as _Cabaret_ is so bold, well-structured, well-performed, and arresting that the flaws fade quickly from memory. Even on the awful print I saw the lighting is incredible and the editing exciting, and Minelli's over-the-top musical performance beats doubts into submission faster than a bunch of Brown Shirts after a night of elbow-bending. Fosse is equally overpowering: never a subtle director (which is usually to his credit), but always a subtle choreographer. The image of the blank faced "Cabaret Girls", swinging their out-thrust pelvises back and forth in doubletime while staring dead-eyed at the audience, sets the chill of the movie in the first five minutes, and that chill never leaves. Joel Grey, as the evil MC, threatens that the girls may take off their clothes; if they did, it would be like a striptease of corpses

See it on DVD, and don't turn off your brain. It's worth all of the criticism and the praise it has received.

Never before have I seen a film with such grossly mismatched reverse angle shots - these clowns can't even handle a dialogue scene competently. Combine that with a level of implausibility that overwhelms within the first 20 minutes (gee, we not only don't evacuate the President with alien spaceships overhead and *leave his daughter to wander unsupervised around the White House*, but everyone and his dog can wander around Area 51 at will!), an oblivious disregard for it's own script (stealth bombers flying over an "evaucated" city that conveniently left all of its lights on), and what appears to be a total lack of geographic knowledge, and this is one huge, stinking, stupid mess. How anyone can like or recommend this is beyond me. Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith do get a few points for their improvisational throwaways, though those stand out as they are the only lines in the film that sound like they were spoken by human beings. (And I've since found out that at least one joke in their "spaceship sequence" was lifted from an old Warner Brothers Daffy Duck cartoon, which is probably why it stands out as good.)

My other favorite Bunuel films, _The Exterminating Angel_ and _The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie_, are in some ways social satires surrealistically told. _Belle de Jour_, however, is much more of a purely surreal work, which is appropriate since it is about two of the most surreal of subjects: power, and sex. Don't watch it expecting psychedelic camera tricks and Freudian dream sequences - Bunuel is much too controlled for trickery, and much too tricky to allow you to calmly map out what is real and what is not. And don't expect to know exactly what has happened at the end or even to remember the film clearly later. Each time I see it again I discovered that that the film has somehow reassembled itself in my memory, so each viewing is fresh and surprising. Even if you don't give a tinker's melted watch about surrealism, and don't care to puzzle out reality from fantasy, there's still much to like here: frequent droll humor, a little bit of titillation, and a good performance from an incredibly beautiful young Catherine Deneuve. Watch it with someone you love.

... and possibly my favorite for that. Given the greed of the 80's and 90's (which had only begun in 1983), even "Permanent Crimson Assurance" takes on a

disturbing air. It is certainly their most cinematic and elaborate film, though I agree with some who say that the humor suffers (or, more correctly, changes)

because of that. I regret that they did not do another just to see how far they could push. I recognize that much of it is deliberately offensive, but anyone who likes their comedy with a does of bitters should enjoy it.

Also, to correct an earlier reviewer - Graham Chapman died of cancer that had metastasized from his throat (he was a heavy pipe smoker much of his life) to his liver (he drank heavily as well, as the comments on "Holy Grail" note.) Gay men do die for reasons other than AIDS.

I'm afraid that "A Clockwork Orange" doesn't hold up as well for me now, nearly 10 years after I last saw it. It's very talky (not dialogue but narration, which rarely works), the compositions are overly formal and static, and Malcom McDowell's

performance is not nearly as impressive now that I've see "O Lucky Man!".

Worse, Burgess's language sounds much too stilted, and his story is simplistic. While the film still makes it as a black comedy, it's simply not as funny as "Dr. Strangelove"; I get the feeling that Kubrick had no sympathy for the material's moralistic tone.

Of course, that criticism is made in light of Kubrick's early masterpieces and his later, mature works. I am convinced that "Strangelove," "2001," and, yes (and especially), "Eyes Wide Shut" are masterpieces, and I think that Kubrick's

formalism and abstraction matured into a powerful narrative and intellectual

force after this film. "A Clockwork Orange," though, is neither as deep nor as evocative as I remembered; maybe it's just not as timeless as those others.