ryancarroll88

Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut is an sprawling look at the paradox of translating introversion into expression, and this is by no means an original notion - just look at 8 1/2, Adaptation (written by Kaufman), Barton Fink, Inland Empire etc. etc. (hell, it might as well be its own genre...) Naturally, the product being a jumbled mess just comes with the territory, but I feel that 'Synecdoche' especially lacks the cohesiveness to convey anything more than abstraction - and least of all does it try for profundity. Unfortunately, Kaufman's writing is completely to blame because everything else here is pitch perfect - the casting/acting, the set, the sound editing all complement the ideas and mood throughout the film. What Kaufman needs to learn is that not all ideas are good, and to stick so many of them all so heedlessly into a movie and try to legitimize doing so with the title 'Synecdoche' is an insult to the viewers. I'll just stick with 8 1/2, thank you.

Initially billing itself as a horror movie and then consequently received by critics as a metaphorical Eastern satire, Joon-ho Bong's "The Host" is more than anything a silly farce. The idea of a modern monster movie with goofy Shaolin Soccer-style writing is intriguing, but the movie sits in the imperfect middle ground where it's neither serious nor fun enough as it's trying to be. The writers create a bit of shallow melodrama, vague settings and unbelievable characters and then suddenly create a mutant monster to attack all the inhabitants of the city. The acting is all over the place - take one instance when the family is mourning over the loss of the little girl (the hinging factor of the movie), and all of the actors transition instantly from mourning to just plain silliness, making the entire sequence ineffective. The monster itself, as awesome as it looks, doesn't even feel like a threat most of the time, which is a result of both bad writing and bad sound editing - bad writing because the entire city doesn't seem to worry about a colossal river creature eating and stealing humans, and bad sound editing because every time an action sequence begins the volume of the soundtrack and effects drop significantly, which really kills the intensity of those moments. Basically the movie is not over-the-top enough to laugh at nor serious enough to be greatly considered.