The Tillman Story (2010)
VERDICT:
10/10 Lives Redacted
Easily the most important movie of the year, might be the best movie of the year, too.
The Tillman Story is a documentary about Pat Tillman, the late Arizona Cardinals safety who turned down a multi-million dollar contract to serve a with the Army Rangers in Afghanistan a year after 9/11. A year-and-a-half into his tour of duty, Tillman was tragically killed by friendly fire and the truth behind his death was covered up by the highest-ranking officials in the US military and government so that Tillman’s bravery could be used as a propaganda tool for their own devices.
Going into this, I knew only so much about Pat Tillman, his death and everything that came after. I knew full-well that it was a tragedy and I knew that there was a cover-up, but I really had no idea of the depth of the atrocities behind it all that continue to go unpunished and unanswered. But whether this is all news to you or you think you’ve heard it all, do not hesitate to see this movie because it is a story that you and everyone else needs to hear. I don’t care how badly you want to see Devil this weekend, that can wait. Consider this your homework.
First off, someone should immediately give director Amir Bar-Lev an award for making this movie in the first place and giving a real voice to a family that needed to be heard. One of this situations where you can’t help but go, “Thank GOD. It’s about damn time.” He’s not trying to bend the truth or manipulate emotions, Bar-Lev just seems to be a guy who knows how to put together a compelling documentary and makes the smart call of letting the Tillmans take care of the rest. And, man, the military sure picked the wrong family to screw over, because every last one of them has fought Goliath from day one and gone to measures that would make most people just give up and accept the futility of the situation. On the one hand, it’s beyond me how the military would think that any family wouldn’t try to put the puzzle together when no one will tell them how their son died, but considering the lengths that the military took to stop them in their tracks, it’s still unbelievable what they managed to uncover.
In many ways they’re just as inspiring as Pat himself and they get you invested from the moment they start speaking. They’ve cried all their tears, they just want what they should have gotten from the very beginning, and there is no way in hell you won’t sympathize or, God forbid, empathize with what they’re going through to the point where you want it all just as bad.
And as if it even needs to be said, this is a movie that’ll make you angry, and rightfully so because this is the kind of stuff that should never be kept from the public eye, let alone grieving families. There are a lot of thing about this story that’ll bring you to the point of experiencing true fury, but it all really comes to a head during a Congressional hearing where Donald Rumsfeld and three other high-ranking generals are questioned about when they were informed of how Tillman died based on a government-wide memo that was sent out to everyone up to former President Bush himself. And it’s an utterly infuriating and appalling scene to sit through as these untouchable scumbags answer every pathetic question thrown their way with, “I don’t remember ever getting the memo,” with shit-eating grins plastered across their faces like decorated versions of Al Capone. And making the scene that much worse are the equally despicable individuals holding the hearing who are supposed to be spearheading the cross-examination, getting some answers and bringing these liars of the highest order to justice, but are instead patting them on the back and saying, “There, there, guys. We understand, we won’t ask you any more questions. Hey, whaddaya say we forget about this whole thing and go get some ice cream?” as the Tillman’s watch on.
I really feel like using harsher language than I already have for these low-lifes, but Tillman’s father couldn’t have put it better in his letter to the military staff in charge of investigating his son’s death: “Fuck you and yours.”
Because it is fucked up – royally fucked up – and if it weren’t for this film and the unfaltering conviction of Tillman’s amazing family who refused to eat the bullshit they were being fed (and continue to be fed), this whole immoral atrocity masterminded by the people who we entrusted to run our country and not treat us like statistics to further their own agendas probably would have stayed under the rug where they swept it. The whole time I watched this movie and witnessed in shocked astonishment the depths that some of people are willing to go to hide a truth that is at least owed to Tillman’s own family, I couldn’t help but wonder if they’ve just gotten comfortable with the circle of Hell they’ll inevitably be crashing in. Makes me long for another Daniel Ellsburg to blow up the scene and the show the world what’s really been going on behind closed doors all these years.
But aside from the politics of the situation, it’s really just a story about right and wrong. As human beings, everyone involved in this cover-up must have known this was terrible, that it shouldn’t have to be Rumsfeld’s kid to die tragically on the battlefield to get some straight answers. I’m no soldier and I may not ever be one, but even a child knows that if someone puts their life on the line by putting themselves in front of a firing squad for three years so that so many of us can stay at home with our families and not have to, you owe them the fucking world.
But as much as this story is about what happened after Tillman’s death, it’s also an incredible insight into the person Pat really was. Yes, he was absolutely a hero and that will never be up for debate, but thanks to the way he’s been portrayed by those who never knew him, it seemed to fall by the wayside that he was also a freaking awesome guy. Pat was hilarious, he was a family man, he told it like it was, he was wise beyond his years, he was as humble and kind as they come, he was a born leader and naturally embodied a lot of genuinely human qualities that I for one strive for on a daily basis.
And that in particular seems to be what his parents really want everyone to understand more than anything. He never wanted to be turned into a poster boy, he never wanted people to see him as anything but what he was – an average guy who enjoyed life, went to war for his own reasons and never asked for anything in return – and even though I didn’t know much about him beforehand, it makes me extremely happy to now know who he was.
As of now, it doesn’t seem like The Tillman Story is going to get a proper wide release any time soon, and that’s a damn shame because it deserves an audience the size of Avatar. See it because it’s more important than you know, see it because we all deserve to be in the loop on this one, see it because there deserves to be consequences when criminals are allowed a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, and, most importantly, see it for Pat. I could go on, but I’ll let you continue the discussion when you see it for yourself (get ready for a long one). Just know that this is as riveting as any movie you’ll see all year and you’ll be so damn glad you spent the money. This is why I go to the movies.
Hunger (2008)
VERDICT:
8/10 Shitty Situations
Hard to handle and hard to forget.
Hunger is based on the true story of late IRA member Bobby Sands who in 1981, alongside fellow IRA prisoners, fought to regain his political status in a notorious British-run Northern Ireland prison by taking part in a no-wash protest and ultimately leading a monumental hunger strike that would take his own life.
The final days of Bobby Sands is one hell of a harrowing story on a lot of fronts and it makes me wish I knew more about the history of the times in Ireland so I could both have more to say on the matter and fully understand the depth behind his motivations. But whether or not you know a thing about Sands, The Troubles or why you shouldn’t wear Fighting Irish paraphernalia in Northern Ireland, this is a movie that’ll stick with you.
It’s the debut effort from one Steve McQueen (no relation, but talk about lucking out from birth), and this is a guy who’s clearly doing his own thing and doing it well. The story here might sound straightforward enough, but this is not your usual moviegoing experience. We’re only introduced to Sands at the start of Act Two as the first half-hour features a newly imprisoned IRA youth as one of the main individuals who quickly wises up to his new way of life behind bars. And by the time we meet Sands, we hardly even see the kid again, but at that point you just kinda have to go with it.
On top of that, there are maybe ten sentences spoken throughout the entire first hour or so, only to be broken up by an uncut, single-shot, maybe 15-minute-long scene of straight dailogue where Sands tries to justify his actions to a priest, and then it goes back to being – at least what many would consider by today’s standards – a silent film until the end credits roll. As odd as this approach might sound, it actually works because so much of what makes this movie stand out are McQueen’s striking visuals that speak far louder than words.
If you’re like me and have never staged a no-wash protest let alone refused to eat your veggies for fear of missing out on ice cream, the central gist is that every part of your body is weapon. You need to crap? You smear that junk on the cell walls until you can’t even see the paint. You need to piss? You save that mess up in a dish and then pour it out into the hallway at the same time everyone else does. They try to make you shower or shave? You let them drag you out and fight like mad until they knock you unconscious. (Don’t) rinse, (don’t) wash, repeat.
As you can imagine, a lot of what goes on inside The Maze is awfully hairy and McQueen is not a fan of shying away from all the grimy, brutal details. But since it’s so in-your-face, since it’s so tight-lipped and since it’s such altogether different approach to storytelling, it’s in turn that much more memorable. The said scene of lengthy dialogue between Sands and his priest is particularly memorable not only because it’s so well-written and acted, but because it stands as such a sharp, captivating contrast to the rest of what the script and visuals have to offer.
It’s actually quite brilliant and it’s amazing how otherwise lengthy, monotous scenes like watching a janitor mop up a piss-filled hallway from one end to the other manage to find themselves tattooed in my brain even more so than the endless beatings and dudes pooping in their hands. Like a breath of fresh air to see a director who appreciates the sounds of silence.
And even though he’s only around for two-thirds of the movie, Michael Fassbender is a freakin’ powerhouse as Sands. Absolutely outstanding actor who’s doing a damn fine job of bolstering his résumé along with his turns in Fish Tank and Inglorious Basterds. Has a real quiet strength and is great at just being himself. No idea why he got involved with Jonah Hex, but it’s no surprise that he won a handful of awards for his painfully demanding and subdued performance here.
I’ve never really seen anything quite like Hunger before, and a lot of that goes back to McQueen’s treatment of the story, but you kinda have to be in the right mood for it, too. It’s a great story, it’s very much worth a watch and it’s absolutely no joke, just don’t be an idiot and boot this baby up on date night. Trust me, it will not set the mood, unless you’re into that kind of thing…
…weirdo.
Lights, Camera, STUTTER!
So the super cool folks over at Lehman College in NY recently asked me to be their new resident film critic on Bronxnet’s public access show “OPEN”. Swayze! Been a long time since I’ve found myself in a TV studio and I still need to work on shaking out those nerves/not running to the bathroom to pee 20 times before showtime, but I’m having a blast and I’ll keep on doing it as long as they keep asking me back. Anywho, feel free to click on the link below to see me shuffle in my boots while crapping on the new Resident Evil fiasco and hyping up The Tillman Story. I’ll keep adding updates and such on the front page here and backlogging ’em on the new “Video Reviews” section up there at the top, but until next time, that about does it.
Strange days, people. Strange days. Must be doing something right, I guess.
– SEPTEMBER 13, 2010: Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D & The Tillman Story (@ 13:15 mark)
The A-Team (2010)
VERDICT:
7/10 Fools Pitied
Can’t believe I liked it either.
The A-Team is about a ragtag group of highly unorthodox Army Rangers who pull off a near-impossible mission in Iraq, head on back to the good ol’ US-of-A and find themselves framed for murdering their commanding officer. Since apparently it’s frowned upon to kill high-ranking members of the military, they spend the next 6 months doing their best not to drop the soap in a federal penitential before busting out in true crazy bastard fashion and start hunting down the mofos who set them up so that they can clear their good names and go back to waxing foreign dictators and the like.
So I’ve never seen the show, never had any real interest in seeing this from the second I heard about its existence, but then again, there’s only so much one can do to keep themselves occupied on a six-hour flight. Sure as shit wasn’t gonna watch Dear John.
All the same, color me shocked.
I guess the big reason this movie works at all is because it’s all effing ridiculous and everyone one board is very much in the know. From the moment we’re introduced to Hannibal, Face, B.A. and Murdock, you can tell that this is a group of guys who know how to have fun. They’re all smiles all the time, they’re the kind of dudes who take “insane” as a compliment, and they make their jobs seem like the best damn thing you could do for a living next to Chief Roller Coaster Tester. From “flying” a tank by unloading its cannon rounds in freefall to catching a guy in a parachute with the leg of a helicopter, there’s really no limit to what this crew pulls off like it’s nobody’s business. lthough I realize that in theory, this all sounds pretty stupid, and in most practices, it probably would be.
But it’s all about tone here, the tone being “you know it’s crazy, we know it’s crazy, so let’s all take this with a grain of salt and have ourselves a fuckin’ time”, and you don’t really get a lot of that in action movies nowadays. If it were trying to take itself seriously, this baby would have crashed and burned real early on, but since this is. It does get a little too serious/absurd for its own good thanks to B.A.’s ethical struggle over whether Gandhi would approve of him powerbombing someone to death and a final action scene in a shipyard that should have killed off the entire cast within the first minute, but the pros tend to outweigh the cons.
Liam Neeson continues to further his new found total badass reputation as Col. Hannibal Smith, Bradley Cooper is actually quite enjoyable as Lt. “Faceman” Peck, Sharlto Copley ain’t bad as Capt. “Howlin’ Mad” Murdock, and while he’s no T., I can’t knock Quinton “Rampage” Jackson for doing a pretty swell job of transitioning from nutcase MMA fighter to B.A. Baracus. They’re all good on their own, but it’s when they’re all together and talking like guys at a bar instead of mercenaries on the run that it really comes together. Also nice to see Patrick Wilson as a genuine asshole instead of his usual everybody’s-All-American shtick, he needs to keep that up. And Jessica Biel does her thing.
Some of it might have had to do with my spending the other four hours of the trip suffering through Prince of Persia and Robin Hood, maybe I’d just gotten to that point of sheer exhaustion and sleep deprivation where everything seems funny for no reason, but whatever the explanation, I was pretty damn close to giving this an 8. I can see how folks might shit all over this and the final action scene that comes this close to jumping the shark, but The A-Team was kind of a blast. Consistently funny dialogue, pretty sharp direction by Joe Carnahan that keeps a good balance between “laid back” and “adrenaline rush”, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to take this review as a full-out recommendation, it’s definitely one of the better guilty pleasures I’ve come across in recent memory.
Strange how all these strengths would normally come up as weaknesses in most action movies. All about the attitude, I suppose.
Breaker Morant (1980)
VERDICT:
10/10 Paths of Glory
One of the greatest war dramas you’ll ever see about the blurry line between right and wrong.
Breaker Morant is the true story of three soldiers in the British army who were court-martialed by their superiors for executing enemy prisoners during the Second Boer War in South Africa at the start of the 1900’s. What begins as a one-sided sham trial set up to make examples of the convicted soldiers in the hopes of forming a peace treaty quickly develops into a heated debate of facts and falsifications that if played wrong by their lawyer on his debut case could find them placed at the wrong end of a firing squad.
It’d been a good six years or so since I’d last seen this, and while I remembered loving it back then, it wasn’t until I caught wind of Wynter Tyson recently tagging it as one of his “Films You Didn’t Know You Needed To See” over at The List that I finally wised up and gave myself a refresher course. Needless to say, time has been mighty kind to this little gem from down under and the best part about it all is that I don’t see it being dated any time soon either.
So, I never paid much attention in history class, and as a result I didn’t exactly know there was a Boer War let alone a sequel war up until my twenty-third year of living. Apparently one viewing in my youth was not enough to ingrain this into my brain, but I doubt I’ll be forgetting it again. Granted, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a whole lot of Americans who can give you a rundown on Australian involvement in the British Army during the early 20th Century without including a sentence about Bloomin’ Onions and baby-eating dingoes, but the general impression I got from this movie is that the Boer War sure seemed awfully similar to the US involvement in Vietnam.
I’ll leave the details up to Wikipedia, but the bare facts worth knowing about the Second Boer War was that it was an ugly, useless mess in South Africa between the British Empire and the Dutch colonials that more or less led to a complete standstill and achieved nothing as the body count continued to rise with no end in sight. It was a war where ethics went out the window, where everyone from soldiers to priests could be waiting in ambush at every turn, and where throwing up a white flag in surrender was often greeted with a bullet to the brain.
And while it may sound like I’m rambling and trying to make up for all those Western Civ. classes I skipped, it’s the insane nature of the Boer War that makes so much of this movie memorable. Despite how horribly one-sided the court trial against our protagonists is from both a legal and moral standpoint, it’s almost hard to even call the defendants “protagonists” to begin with. After all, it’s hard to define who’s “good” or “bad” in a scenario where men carry out acts of unfathomable brutality on both sides of the battlefield without raising an eyebrow, but where are responsibility and blame placed when the said person is acting under orders?
And while there are a lot of elements about Breaker Morant that make it work so well, this whole meditation on the ambiguity of war crimes in a setting where everyone’s hands are stained with blood sends the message home in a whole new way. But like I said, there are a lot of elements that make it work.
The script, for one, is effing phenomenal. Written by Kenneth G. Ross and director Bruce Beresford, this is a true exercise in badassery filled with unforgettable characters that are all awfully well versed in the art of refusing to accept bullshit from anyone, choosing their words so that every last syllable directed at their accusers relays as a metaphoric “Fuck You” of the highest order, and then sending it home like no other even in the most dire of circumstances when most would just clam up and take it like a chump. I kid you not, every single one of these court room scenes will make you want to stand up and cheer or punch the nearest wall, and while the actors do an unbelievable job in their own rights, a lot of this raw emotion is rooted in the text and the unbelievable story it’s conveying.
As for the three soldiers, Edward Woodward is one outrageously hard mother effer as “Breaker” Morant himself, Lewis Fitz-Gerald is fine as Lt. George Witton, and Bryan Brown is the mother effing man with all the best one-liners and insults you could come up with in a life-or-death situation as Lt. Peter Handcock (dude sports a bitchin’ power ‘stache, too). With the exception of F/X (which I hear is good) it’s a shame that Brown isn’t a more mainstream actor these days after his performance here because he flat-out rocks it. But the real scene-stealer here is Jack Thompson as the soldiers’ attorney, Maj. J. F. Thomas. The guy hasn’t done a whole lot since, but he’s the real powerhouse of the bunch and it’s ’cause of him that these court proceedings manage to be as intense and riling as a freakin’ boxing match.
Man, Bruce Beresford put together one hell of a doozy with Breaker Morant. The issues and complexities it raises are still as pertinent as ever, it moves along an absolutely riveting pace (especially the court room scenes), some of the scenery is simply gorgeous and it’s unfortunately become one of those forgotten stories about the horrors of war despite its deserving of first-name recognition. If you’ve never heard of it, if you’ve never heard of the Boer War, if you think you could care less, check your hesitations at the door, mate, and revel in this timeless Australian masterpiece.
Amazing how history repeats itself.
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
VERDICT:
2/10 Parts of the Problem
One of those movies that the studio should probably be paying us to go see.
Now, I haven’t exactly been keeping tabs on this series since the first one came out, but something tells me the story hasn’t exactly evolved a whole lot over the years. Resident Evil: Afterlife is about a chick named Alice who’s traveling the globe with her endless supply of uzis to take down the evil Umbrella Corporation after they unleashed a worldwide epidemic that turned everyone and their dogs into super zombies. She finds some survivors, they try to survive, they shoot some zombies in the brain, some people get eaten, yada, yada, yada.
Sounds familiar?
It’s directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, the guy responsible for such American classics as Soldier, Death Race, Alien vs. Predator, and the first Resident Evil among others. A resume that speaks for itself, yet somehow, some way, he’s still allowed to make movies. You know, if I was part of the staff responsible for funding this disgrace, I don’t think I’d be all too cool handing the reigns over to a guy who decrees that every single action scene has to be filmed in slow-mo because his mission statement probably reads something along the lines of “I like The Matrix. Guns are cool”. It’s just so rare and unfortunate to come across a movie that’s so poor on every front. His script, his directing, the endlessly weak gimmicks he uses to justify filming this in 3D and the fact that this is, like, his seventh movie just makes me feel bad for the guy more than anything else.
But I think the real killer for this movie is that’s it’s actually boring as all hell. There is a lot of downtime between action scenes here that more or less boil down to Milla Jovovich recording one-woman video journals to apparently explain the many depths to her character and how there’s zombies everywhere (you know, in case we forgot). While it doesn’t help to have crappy shootouts to break up the monotony, the monotony really does feel like an eternity. Awfully strange for a video game series that’s notorious for being as monotonous as a rave during an earthquake.
And with the exception of Wentworth Miller who’s not quite horrible as Chris Redfield (even though his biceps need to be, oh, 30 times larger), the acting here absolutely blows. Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, this guy Boris Kodjoe who’s freaking everywhere these days, and some dude named Shawn Roberts who’s painfully bad as the final boss, Albert Wesker – yeah, they’re all garbage. Granted, they’ve got nothing to work with from the moment the lame-ass opening credits start up, but I like to think they at least knew what they were getting into here. I sure did.
It doesn’t work as a horror movie, it doesn’t work as an action movie and it doesn’t work as an apocalypse movie, but it does continue to diminish any and all chances that video games have of ever be taken seriously by mankind.
Folks, if you’ve seen one Resident Evil, you’ve seen ‘em all. It’s beyond me how they’ve managed to squeeze three sequels out of this shit and it’s terribly unfortunate how much money it’s probably going to make this weekend thanks to it being the only new wide release, but don’t be a sucker, don’t support this movie. The only saving grace to Resident Evil: Afterlife is that you know it’s gonna be horrendous going in so that it’s practically impossible to be disappointed as a result, and that’s about the only “compliment” I can come up with. So save those 17 bucks, go to Gamestop, pick up Resident Evil 4 and appreciate why this series even got started in the first place.
In short, fuck this movie. Can’t believe I even wrote this much.
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
VERDICT:
5/10 Love Songs
This must be what it feels like when a drag queen takes acid.
Moulin Rouge! is about a hopelessly romantic poet who moves to Paris in the pursuit of true love, somehow winds up as the lead writer of a bohemian musical that’s set to be the biggest thing to hit France since that guy in the Red Light District started cooking snails, and along the way falls head-over-heels in love with the star courtesan of the biggest night club in town. So he starts to woo her, shows her that true love exists, she falls for him right back, but then the head financier of the musical steps into the picture and tries to steal her away with his money and sinister mustache. So a secret affair is sparked between this lowly writer and his high-class escort and it’s up to them to keep it that way or else it could all be taken away with the pull of a trigger.
Of all the unwatched movies that have been collecting dust on my shelf for the past year-and-a-half, this one has without a doubt been the most highly touted amongst my fellow bloggers, colleagues and close circle of friends/drifters as the one I need to see. Up until this flood of adoration started coming my way, I never though much about giving it a shot and the only pang of guilt came in the fact that I lent it out six months ago from a co-worker who I no longer work with (I’ll get it back to her, I promise). But since I’ve clogged up my Netflix queue with obscure Asian films and my DVD collection consisting of even more obscure Asian films isn’t exactly up my good buddy Fred’s alley, we finally gave this a shot and quickly wondered what we had gotten ourselves into.
Before the movie even started, I asked Fred what he remembered about this movie since he’d seen it in High School, to which he replied, “It was weird.” Then the movie started, it wasn’t long before my eyeballs began to hurt from trying to focus on who or what to look at, nothing was said between us, the silence spoke volumes, and then I couldn’t help but nod in agreement when my good buddy Fred finally piped up with, “I don’t remember it being this weird.”
And that kinda sums up the whole movie. Actually, it’s more like a double-edged sword.
This whole thing is over-the-top and proudly eccentric like you wouldn’t believe, which can be a pro or con depending on how you look at it. I felt like I was touring the Wonka Factory and the tour boat got stuck in the middle of that nightmare tunnel with no chance of an Oompa-Loompa technician squad to get me out for another two hours. I kid you not, about 90% of the shots in this movie don’t last half a second before they cut to something else in the room, and while I’m all for artistic vision, it was awfully exhausting trying to keep up. And that’s just the camerawork, that’s not even the half of it.
The characters here are all totally effing bonkers, some more so than others, but bonkers nonetheless. Ewan McGregor is fine as our star-crossed scribe, Christian, even though his voice leaves something to be desired; Nicole Kidman isn’t bad as our showgirl with dreams of walking down the red carpet, Satine, and her voice is pretty good; Jim Broadbent gets better with time as Harold Zidler – Satine’s boss and owner of the Moulin Rouge; John Leguizamo and his awful fake lisp are utterly intolerable as Toulouse – one of the minds behind the musical (never been a big Leguizamo fan anyway); and Richard Roxburgh is also annoying as hell with his fake high-pitched lisp as The Duke – the evil bastard who’s trying to buy out Satine from under Christian’s nose.
As you can see, it’s kinda 50/50 with the cast, but it’s also kind of hard to fault any of them because they’re all playing very odd and specific character types to begin with. The thing is, this isn’t about the actors at all, this is about Baz Luhrman and by the end of it all it will be his name you’ll walk away remembering more than anyone else.
His story is nothing special, we’ve heard it all before, the same can be said for his dialogue, but when it comes to music and visuals, he’s definitely onto something new. The whole idea behind the soundtrack is that, while the story is set in the early 1900’s, all the songs are contemporary hits that range from “Like a Virgin” and “Roxanne” – which don’t really work out just because they’re bizarre or sung poorly – to absolute stunners like “Your Song” and “Heroes” (the Bowie version, not that Wallflowers crap). And it’s hard to describe all the lavishly beautiful set pieces and imagery that runs rampant from one scene to the next without seeing it for yourself, but this is the one aspect that really has no drawback, this is wild from the get go.
I remember one my dad’s co-workers saying that he cheered out loud in the theater when he first saw this, and something tells me that doesn’t seem to be an all too uncommon reaction either. There are some wonderful scenes, there are also some not so wonderful scenes, and while I didn’t exactly like Moulin Rouge! and never quite connected with it, there is still so much here to admire and appreciate in terms of ambition, originality and vision that I can understand how some people would go effing nuts for it. To me, it felt more like watching a play than watching a movie, like something I would have liked more if I had been a part of Drama Club in High School, but the rating I’ve given it doesn’t take away from the fact that this a movie worth seeing even if you don’t end up digging it in the long run.
If I didn’t have a movie blog, I probably would have turned this off after ten minutes and booted up Memories of Murder instead, but in the end, I’m glad I stuck it out. I’ve never seen anything quite like Moulin Rouge! before, and while many of the things that people probably love about it ended up being the very things that turned me off, there’s something to be said for a movie that dares to be different.
Did like the ending though. Good note to finish on.
Scream (1996)
VERDICT:
7/10 Ghostface Killahs
Still a great concept and still pretty groundbreaking, but also kinda dated nearly 15 years and several viewings later.
Scream is about a High School girl who finds herself the target of a serial killer/horror movie junkie on the one-year anniversary of her mother’s murder. As the body count rises, so do the suspects and before you know it, our scream queen of the hour winds up answering horror trivia to save her own life.
If there’s one thing to be said about writer/director/blood orgy enthusiast Wes Craven is that the guy’s got some damn good ideas. Freddy (who is treated to an awesome cameo here) may very well be the most inspired slasher villain that’s ever been, and in ’94 Craven started breaking down that fourth wall in a big ol’ way with his New Nightmare (where Freddy starts killing the actors from the Nightmare on Elm Street series) and I think it’s safe to say that the Scream franchise is exactly why he’s synonymous with the genre. It’s part-tribute, part-game-changer and while some aspects don’t quite work as well as others, there’s still no other movie quite like it.
It’s like a horror movie made by a true horror aficionado who took everything we got bored with in the genre and turned it on its head so it seemed new. The weird thing is that when push comes to shove, this isn’t a whole lot different from a lot of stuff that put Craven on the map to begin with, but it’s the first time that a horror movie actually felt like it was set in the real world. On the outset, the victims may seem like every stupid teen that’s ever visited Camp Crystal Lake or managed to die on prom night, but the difference this time around is that they’ve actually seen Halloween and know not to say, “I’ll be right back,” when there’s a killer on the loose. It’s amazing how the moment Craven lets his characters in on the rules of surviving a horror movie so that they’re the ones yelling “TURN AROUND YOU FREAKIN’ IDIOT!” instead of us and then still manage to scare the audience on top of it, that’s pretty damn impressive. Feels like one of those things that everyone was begging for and Wes was the first one to answer the call. Too bad that more film makers haven’t tried to follow in his footsteps in this regard.
And the script for the most part is awfully solid, but too much of the dialogue is far too corny for its own good. While I can dig that a lot of it is there to capture that “classic Craven” feel of teens who are just waiting to be killed, they’re too damn smart and too damn realistic to be calling someone a “fuckrag”. It does hurt the overall package in terms of getting us to connect to these youngsters and keeping that authenticity going, but since they’re also more often than not saying everything that’s on our mind in terms of what’s going down around them, it makes it a bit less noticeable in the long run.
But the acting here does leave something to be desired. Actually, the cast isn’t half-bad, it’s just that whole dialogue thing that screws it up. Courteney Cox and David Arquette are the best of the bunch, Neve Campbell just keeps on making all those squinty Neve Cambell faces, Rose McGowan‘s there for sex appeal, I’m still not sure if Jamie Kennedy is annoying or not, Skeet Ulrich is actually pretty good despite his ridiculous haircut, and then there’s Matthew Lillard.
Geez. Matthew Lillard. Fuck that guy. Has watching this guy act ever not been on the same level as brushing your teeth with a powerdrill? Every moment he’s on-screen is a moment we all have to suffer and I don’t know how Wes could have allowed a jackass performance like this to sully his movie. Awful, just awful.
Although it never hurts to have The Fonz around. He makes the pain all better.
If you’ve never seen it before, Scream is the bomb, it’ll make you want to watch horror movies. But once that’s over, you may be better off just moving on and relishing in the memories since this ain’t all that scary once you know what’s waiting around the corner. Almost interested to see what Scre4m is gonna bring to the table, but it’s sure gonna have a hard time topping the original.
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
VERDICT:
9/10 Innocents Lost
The one movie that will change everything you’ve ever thought about anime.
Grave of the Fireflies is about a teenage boy and his little sister who find themselves orphaned and living on the streets after their Japanese town is firebombed towards the end of World War II. With hardly anything but the clothes on their back to account for and only a distant relative to turn to, they set out across their war-torn and destitute country in the hope of finding a way to survive from one day to the next.
So writing about anime movies is about as tricky as finding time to watch anime movies without my good buddy Fred rolling his eyes at me while wondering why he keeps spending so much time with this kid who has clearly forgotten that he longer lives in his mother’s basement. And I don’t blame him, because as good as some anime is and deserves to be taken seriously, it’s pretty ridiculous how much of what gets put out contains tentacles, pocket monsters, card battles or all of the above. The preconceived notions are justified and they can be pretty-spot on when they’re not generalized, but if you’re at all interested in being convinced otherwise, this is where you start, this is the turning point.
What sets Grave of the Fireflies apart from arguably every other anime movie out there is that it’s an entirely human experience. No ninjas, no demons, no androids, and strangely enough, it’s not even much of a war film since it’s entirely focused on the aftermath rather than the battles and bombings that defined the period. But that’s the point: this is about the casualties of war, the ones who never had anything to do with it yet nonetheless met the same end as those on the frontlines. It’s not the story that typically gets told and since it lacks so much of what we’ve all come to expect from anime, it stands out that much more as a result.
In a nutshell, it’s just about a boy named Seita and a girl named Setsuko struggling to fend for themselves and trying to find some semblance of happiness and hope in a world overrun with plight. There’s really not a whole lot else to it than that, and by the time it wraps up, you won’t likely forget them.
The great thing about these two characters is that they come across as ordinary, honest and surprisingly real, about as real as any animated individual can feel. From the opening scene we’re tipped off that neither of them end up surviving their ordeal, at which point they’re nothing more than a tragic statistic, but the fact that you’ll probably be bawling your eyes out by the time this unfortunate fact comes full circle says a great deal about the kind of weight this story carries. I’m not so sure that anything would be taken away from the experience had it been filmed with real-life actors, but I’ve seen first-hand that this movie can make a believer out of anyone and shake ’em to the core. One of those movies that reminds you how, victory or defeat, wars are such lose-lose situations on every side.
From a visual standpoint, the animation is gorgeous in terms of the landscapes, but as a whole it’s by no means jaw-dropping, and that’s fine. If this were a Miyazaki picture, then that’d a be a whole ‘nother story, but for director Isao Takahata, simplicity is his strong suit and it’s amazing how he manages to make some of the most humdrum images stick out like a sore thumb just by the way they makes his characters come to life. Beautiful score, too.
Man, I wish I knew what else to say about this one, because part of me feels like I should be able to crank out a dissertation on such an astoundingly affecting movie as this, but I’m finding it pretty hard to convey why this may very well be the greatest anime movie ever made. I can imagine it’d be a bit odd as an animator to have a blank canvas in front of you and find yourself creating a world that actually exists rather than one that you can invent and manipulate at your disposal, but it’s a damn shame that more anime doesn’t strive to connect with its audience and take a step forward by taking a step back as this does. I don’t know if I’m getting this across sufficiently or if I’ve managed to sway anyone towards giving this a shot, but trust me, it’s so worth and you will be so surprised by what you find.
Grave of the Fireflies is not only one of the most resoundlingly powerful anti-war movies you’re likely to ever see, but that it comes in the form of a medium that has unfortunately become synonymous with big-eyed, big-breasted, wildly misproportioned women and more TV shows about giant robots than you can wrap your head around is the real accomplishment. The kids can keep all that Yu-Gi-Oh! crap for all I care; mom, dad and everyone else with an open mind and an eye for quality, this one’s for you.
Get ready to cry.
And the best movie ever made is…
THE GODFATHER!
While severely lacking in the cow udder-sucking department, I think you’d be hard-pressed to beat out the Corleone’s on this one.
Quite the interesting little experiment which provided us with some awfully interesting answers, because apparently not enough retro porn flicks have gotten their proper due and there is very much a movement to fix that. Anywho, will probably be returning to this topic again next Summer vacation, but until then, good voting, folks.
RESULTS:
– The Godfather: 14 votes
– Freddy Got Fingered: 3 votes (you three just made Tom Green’s year)
– Debbie Does Dallas: 1 vote (gettin’ classy now)
– Memento: 2 votes
– Billy Madison: 1 vote
– Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: 1 vote
– Secretary: 1 vote (you cheeky monkey, you)
– Balls and Tits: 1 vote (somehow I missed that one)
– Days of Heaven: 1 vote (still need to see this)
– The Devil’s Rejects: 1 vote
– The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: 1 vote
So much better than Part II.
Cut The Crap Movie Reviews 
