Reviews

Like a few other Australian entries from 1999, 'Strange Planet' is gorgeously filmed but appallingly scripted and acted. The story sees two sets of three friends (three girls and three guys) who stumble to and from bad relationships. In a nutshell, that's basically the plot. Spanning a year, the film certainly covers a lot of time. And neatly too. Each new month is visually introduced by some stunning time-lapse sequences of Syndey. However, once plot and character development come into swing, then the movie just falls flat on its face. Dialogue feels too sparse and wanna-be offbeat, not to mention being so predictable and underdeveloped that it feels more like a synopsis than dialogue. The 'witty' nihilist-turned-romantic banter about relationships is anything but. The plot likewise feels all too familiar, and the ending comes paradoxically unsurprising and undeveloped, so undeveloped that the last shot (an overhead of the six eating breakfast) feels like an insulting attempt at gratifying the audience. Yet another sad triumph of of style over substance. Try 'The Big Night Out' for similar results.

2/5

Although initially difficult to watch, with a blur of confusing plot turns and twists, The Big Lebowski is a movie that really rewards repeat viewings. Things become clear. The Coen brothers' quirky sense does wonderful things. Donnie becomes the true hero of the film. It's a great movie, one of the funniest I've seen in the last few years, with some truely humorous visuals. 4/5

Against my better knowledge I went and saw Mission: Impossible 2 shortly after it premiered, armed with what turned out to be a suitably a cautious mindset. I didn't really like the original Mission: Impossible (not that these two have anything whatsoever in common, apart from Cruise and the title music) though I do respect that it was a stylish and expertly crafted film. John Woo's sequel is unfortunately not. Yes, it does have a checklist of action clichés (explosions, bikes, guns, cleavage, etc), but the delivery is just so frustratingly plain.

The plot revolves around Cruise and Co finding a vial of deadly virus, though the plot is far from the strongest point in the film. My big complaint was that M:I-2 just didn't come together well. It shuddered and jolted through predictable set pieces. Visually each piece was shot well, though there was no linking continuity. Sydney looked nice (think Water Rats + multimillion dollar budget), though perhaps The Matrix portrayed it better.

There were a few nice touches: the scene inside the research building in particular with the glass and neon lighting. However, every good point is countered by several bad ones, such as the tragically masculine 'courting' car chase, the slightly heavy-handed white dove symbolism, the final showdown between Cruise and the archetypal South African villain that dragged on and on, and so on.

In conclusion, I found M:I-2 a predictably bad action, virtually devoid of inspired filmmaking. Please don't go see this one, it's already raked in enough profit. Try Gladiators if you're in the mood for some epic action.

Two Stars (from 5). To throw around that amount of cash the end result has to be darn good (or marketable).

Riding high on the wings of the acclaimed Godfather series, Apocalypse Now and the lesser known The Outsiders, Francis Ford Coppola released the highly expressionistic Rumble Fish. Based upon the novel by S.E. Hinton, Rumble Fish follows the misadventures of the dim-witted Rusty James (Matt Dillon), younger brother to the legendary Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke). Dillon stumbles through adolescent life an aggressive ball of teen delinquency and energy, forever trying to live up to his brother's reputation as 'a very cool dude', a role he is destined to eternally fall short of. Dillon isn't necessarily a bad character, he is just none too intelligent. Meanwhile Rourke's return to his hometown attracts the unwanted attention of the ever-watching town sheriff. The remainder of the film follows Dillon as he stumbles after Rourke in a final desperate attempt to hang on to his idol.

Rumble Fish is a brave move for Coppola, and Zeotrope Studios. The heavily stylised visuals and audio, reminiscent of the long gone golden days of cinematic expression, can do little but frighten the mainstream audience. Indeed, Rumble Fish is as far from The Outsiders as, for example, Apocalypse Now was from The Dirty Dozen. The result, for those not intimidated by the unconventional black and white film stock and the at times noir settings, is immensely rewarding. Atmospheric mis-en-scene and haunting use of shadows and time-lapse photography combine with eerie sound tracks and effects to produce a movie that is shear filmmaking brilliance.

Five Stars (from 5)

Slacker is the first feature-length offering from indie filmmaker Richard Linklater (of later Dazed and Confused fame). After touring American film festivals with great success, Slacker was blow up to 35mm print and released on the commercial market. The film itself is extremely difficult to categorise, being devoid of conventional plot and major characters. Instead, individuals or groups of characters are followed around for several minutes each, until the camera is distracted by a passer-by. The end result is that close to a hundred characters are met, each linked only in eccentricity, all loosely categorised as 'slackers': students, the under- and unemployed, petty criminals, artists, musicians, conspiracy theorists.

Slacker is an interesting experiment. However, the transitory nature of the script is fairly intensive upon the audience. Some characters work, some don't. Some may seem familiar to current or former students and slackers out there. Of particular praise is the final scene, featuring a group of young people playing with 8mm cameras, which would have to be about the most joyful scene in film history. Overall, Slacker is an interesting experiment and is well worth a look at.

Three and a half stars (from five)

Directed by Martin Brest, of Beverly Hills Cop and Scent of a Woman fame, this overlong and typically Hollywood remake of the 1930's classic, Death Takes A Holiday, casts Brad Pitt as a boyish Death wishing to experience life as humans do. He 'takes' the body of a charming young man whom charmed Claire Forlani (Hopkins doctor daughter) in a coffee shop. He then calls upon billionaire media mongol Anthony Hopkins, a paradoxically wise, kind, old-fashioned elderly man whose 'time is almost up' and makes a deal with him: Hopkins is to show him the world as humans see and experience it, and Pitt will extend Hopkins life. All that follow is predictable: Pitt and Forlani fall for each other all over again, and Hopkins teaches Pitt a thing or two about life.

Disappointing is perhaps one way to sum up Meet Joe Black. The story offers a great deal of potential and the director was clearly given more than enough resources to bring it to life. Despite this, the film feels static and overlong (the last hour in particular would have to be one of the most agonisingly frustrating and predictable pieces of cinema in history). You can literally see the dust floating past the characters in several scenes. Also, whatever message the film is trying to present (assuming that it is trying to present one at all) is so strongly diluted by contradictory statements. Messages of pro-euthanasia are nestled amongst those of patriarchy. Also, Pitt announces that 'Money can't buy you happiness', though it certainly appears that for Hopkins it did. Meet Joe Black is not all failure, production-wise the movie is scrumptious. In the end, however, Meet Joe Black proves even to itself that it is mere Hollywood candy: all style and no substance, leaving the audience teased and uninspired.

First off, let me say that I couldn't care less how realic or unrealistic this movie is. 'The Doors' has received plenty of criticism over its historical accuracy, and from what I've read the criticism is probably due, but I regard the movie as simply that, a movie. Oliver Stone's historical track record (JFK, Platoon, Salvador) makes it clear that his movies are heavily steeped in history, but diverge, aiming for message and visuals rather than accuracy.

That said, I thought 'The Doors' was a brilliant movie. I am a child of the 1990's, I was born long after Jim died, so I guess I look more for impressions and statements in movies, rather than linear narrative. And 'The Doors' gave me much cause for excitement. I saw the movies several months after seeing Stone's 'Natural Born Killers' (which I found even more brilliant), and the stylistic parallels between the two were uncanny. I believe the real strength in 'The Doors' lies in its visual style: the strong red visuals running the movies length, effective and stunning use of timelapse photography, surreal editing, not to mention the Indian theme (which also appears in 'NBK').

I agree that Jim was portrayed in a bad light. The first forty minutes of the movie were narratively wonderful, the remaining ninety minutes portrayed Jim going off the 'deep end'. However, Stone did redeem his character in the closing two scenes, though perhaps a little too neatly.

The four or five concerts in the movie were mindblowingly staged, shot and edited (particularly the last two), with the strong hallucenagenic theme running through them and the everpresent Indian. Jim's character (played to perfection by Kilmar) for me represeted someone who, as was stated in the movie, pushed the limits: a true electric poet in the fashion of romantics like Keats. If seen in the right light, 'The Doors' can be an inspirational movie. It does have its faults, like the bland and cringeworthy Thanksgiving scene, but on the whole it is one incredible visual trip, in a way the more convoluted younger brother of 'Natural Born Killers'. 5/5.

I saw 'Fight Club' with no preconceptions of what I was going to be in for, except maybe that it was going to be violent. As all of you who have seen and enjoyed the movie will understand, I ended up enjoying 'Fight Club' immensely.

It is dark, small sections are violent, though in no way manipulatively (ie. Woo films), but it is uplifting. And no, Hitler wouldn't have loved it, he would have hated it.

You see, the way I saw it 'Fight Club' was a movie with a progressive liberal stance. In fact, I'd go as far as saying it was socialist (and I'd appreciate it if the neo-McCarthyism could be stowed where it belongs, in the 50's). The tale was one of two (one?) guys who were disillusioned about the American Way of Life, one knew this to start off with, one learnt it along the way. They had had enough of material possessions replacing substance. They did something about it and it would seem that a large part of working-class (proletariat) American followed. The climactic conclusion of 'Fight Club' was their answer to corporate control of every single aspect of everyone's lives (what car you drive, what job you take, what you watch, read, hear, speak, think, etc etc). True, there was a strong anarchistic element in there too, but on the whole it was an act of empowerment for the proletariat. So in that way it is truly a Christian movie. Jesus condemned those that placed material pursuits above being individuals (ie. all of us).

'Fight Club', and in a similar way 'American Beauty', gave me hope for a better Australia. Things aren't too bad here now, but they could be a whole heap better. Oh, and by the way, the movie is fantastic.

'Natural Born Killers' is very possibly the finest movie to emerge from the 1990's, epitomising all that is wrong with American, and indeed Western, society. In that sense it is a scathing social commentary. The style is big, bold and very intense, making it the perfect representative of 1990's cinema.

The plot, which at times resembles a wild bucking horse, is driven forwards by the two lead characters, Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis), as they blaze across the desert of southern USA (on 'Highway 666') leaving a trail of bodies behind them. Their motivation is never fully explored, though it is revealed that both were traumatically abused by their parents as children. Perhaps they are seeking revenge against a world that has long tortured them, or maybe the demons which were created within them are merely being released. Whatever the motivation, the result is 50 dead ('52, but I'm not counting').

The tale of Micky and Mallory Knox is adopted and hyped into a frenzy by the media, primarily narcissistic TV presenter Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jnr), star of American Maniacs, itself a sick parody of the plague of television series' that cash in on the 'morbidity/human suffering factor'. It is here that Stone lays the weight of his message, that the media brought the exploits of the Knox couple to national attention and to an extent made their actions allowable. Public response to the Knox's polarises into those that want Mickey and Mallory fried and those that want to actually BE the killers. Eventually the couple are captured by police in one of the most spectacular scenes I have ever seen, climaxing in a dramatic parallel to the King beating.

As the story continues Stone expounds upon a further theme during the live interview between Wayne and Mickey, that of 'pre-destination' (for want of a better word), though Mickey does not elaborate upon this. To do so would slow the pace down too greatly. Stone does return to this second theme throughout the prison riot chapter but the lightening pace of things leaves the audience with little time to fully comprehend it.

Watching 'NBK' is a audio-visual treat, simply like none other I have ever seen (though 'Wild At Heart' would come the closest). Stone uses pretty well all possible types of film stock available from 35mm through to Camcorder and even animated comics. It was a dangerous gamble, but the 11 month period it took to edit the footage has resulted in a flawless visual and audio masterpiece. There is not one cut that I would change at all in 'NBK', from the menacing opening titles to the closing rolling credits. On top of the visual eyecandy (filters, digital effects, etc) are the credited 50-or-so song audio soundtrack. Music constantly accompanies the visuals, flicking from song to song as the pace demands. The two minute intro credit scene alone contains about a dozen song tracks. Many have described 'NBK' as boring and tedious. I am a little unsure what to make of these criticisms as I barely blinked in the first hour (and I KNOW I didn't blink at all in the second). The pace is rollercoaster fast and the visuals kept my eyes glued to the screen at all times. If people got nothing from the message the least 'NBK' gave them was one hell of a ride. In short, the visuals are impeccable, the shots never held for more than a few seconds (in fact, come the live interview, shots that are held for a line seem eternal), and the music brilliantly accompanies the action and pace.

I feel it necessary to comment on the violence in the movie, as there have been many comments directed to the excessive amount of it. I beg to differ. There is very little gore in 'NBK' (well, the standard release anyway). There is violence ever-present throughout the movie, though usually it involves one of the characters shooting a victim off-screen. Occasionally there are flickers of gore, for example as Mickey and Mallory drive past a barn a photo of a badly damaged head is superimposed over the barn wall for perhaps a second. Yes, this is quite disturbing and I sure would rather not see it, but it has to be said that there are a plethora commercially released movies with more graphic on-screen violence, such as the face-transplant scene in 'Face/Off'. Maybe one of the reasons why 'NBK' caused so much stir over the violent content (despite the R rating) was that it didn't glorify violence. For example in 'NBK' a dead human was not a symbol of freedom ('Braveheart', 'Saving Private Ryan') or someone who suffered a slapstick death ('Commando', even complete with comedy line: 'let off some steam'), instead a dead human was merely that: a carcass, devoid of life or emotion. We are so used to seeing violence portrayed in a humorous (ie. 'Home Alone 1, 2 & 3', 'Denace the Menace') or vengenceful (ie. 'The Rock', 'Falling Down') manner that a movie that portrays violence with truth is found shocking and controversial. The violence in 'NBK' is a commentary of the state of modern USA, not a cheap attraction to win over audiences (which is far more noble than most other movies can boast).

I personally think it all works. At the end of the movie I was left stunned at what I had seen. I showed the movie to my father and we sat and talked about it for some time. 'NBK' is not a satire, comedy, thriller, action or a piece of trash, it is a social commentary. It is a critical observation of modern American society. The story is exaggerated, but not beyond plausibility, and that's the terrifying part. To describe 'NBK' as pretentious is a little absurd, as I've yet to see anything that outdoes it. Not for traditionalists or the conservative-minded.

I purchased this video quite cheaply ex-rental, thinking that the cover looked quite nice. And it was nice, but the movie is trash. I can handle B-grade, I sometimes even enjoy a good B romp (ie. 'Surf Nazis Must Die' is a classic example of how entertaining the genre can be), but this was just bland bland bland. Incredibly dull scenes were broken up too sparsely by good wholesome cheap porn and entertaining dream horror sequences. This movie has very little to offer.

'American Beauty' is one of the finer moments in cinema. A day after seeing it my mind is still ticking over. I went in expecting something like David Lynch's 'Blue Velvet', you know, something bitter and black, and although 'American Beauty' is a little of that, the focus was somewhere altogether different.

I found the parallels between 'American Beauty' and 'Fight Club' scarily similar, though from different angles. Both preached a flavour of existentialist anarchism (anti-conformity, if you like) but in 'Fight Club' the message was painted with bleakness and masculinity, whereas in 'American Beauty' a rose was used to highlight the point.

Briefly though, I've seen very few movies that touched something within me and reassured me that my stance and ideas were worth living for. 'Dazed and Confused', 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'Fight Club' are about the only other really notable movies that have had a similar effect on me. Maybe being an impressionable teenager has a little to do with this, but regardless of who you are I doubt you'll leave the cinema without having been given something from 'American Beauty'.

This movie is a fantastic celebration of youth and existentialism and spontenaity and pot, all of which deserve celebration. And it works really well too. See it and if it doesn't move you then you're past the point of no return.

Perhaps having viewed this film at the cinema a couple of weeks after its debut tainted my expectations about 'Saving Private Ryan'. Perhaps the immense amount of hype precluding and following its release built the movie up just a little too much. Whatever the reason, I must admit that I found 'Saving Private Ryan' just a little tedious and pretentious. Don't get me wrong here, there's no genre of movie that I enjoy more than the good old [anti]war. 'Platoon', 'Apocalypse Now', 'Full Metal Jacket', 'All Quiet on the Western Front', '1918: Westfront', 'Stalingrad' and 'Das Boot' (all German productions) are among my all time favorite movies. I like a good, harsh, realistic war movie. And being a product of the electronic generation I can even sit through 'A Clockwork Orange' without even flinching, so the 'realistic' first 25 minutes of 'Saving Private Ryan' was just like water off a ducks back, to use the cliche.

What really got to me about this movie was the element of compromise that marred 'Saving Private Ryan'. The introductory shot displaying that oh so wonderful 'stars and stripes' waving in the breeze. Perhaps it was national pride that caused the Second World War? Unforgivable. The return of this shot at the as yet far away conclusion of the film did little to appease my growing sense of ridicule at the film.

However, on a positive note that famous first 25 minutes was a fairly fine piece of cinema. Fast, well coordinated, well coloured (not that I really know what I'm talking about here). But after such a fine beginning Speilburg simply cannot stop the movie slipping downhill from here. I got the impression that 'Saving Private Ryan' was two hours of relative nothing buffered by 20 minutes of pro-Yankee violence at each end. And, I'm sad to say, that is how the war came across. The Germans were still faceless, nameless enemies. Nazi's. The German film 'Stalingrad' (which I believe does the whole war thing far better than this effort) gives an excellent insight into the German side of things.

So, in brief:

* Far too patriotic for a modern day war film

* Emptiness in between introduction and conclusion (totaling 2 hours)

Still was above average though. But 'Saving Private Ryan' is by no means the greatest war film ever. There are many films which do the whole war thing much more sensitively, poetically, chaotically, brutally, realistically, bluntly, subtly. The greatest criticism I have for 'Saving Private Ryan' is that I didn't leave the cinema hating humanity for what it put all those involved in the war through, and showing what humanity was capable of. Which other movies do. It would appear that Spielberg decided against this perhaps for fear of diminishing his American audience, who might not have flocked to his movie in mainstream numbers if it were to put forward any message that suggested that ALL involved in wars are victims, not just the Americans.