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tblewis
Reviews
The Human Body (2001)
Stomach turning, but not in a good way
This film differentiates itself from the run-of-the-mill "wonder of the human body" documentaries by bravely, if bizarrely, opting to elicit disgust in the viewer. In one scene, the camera closes in on a gigantic 50-foot zit as a teenager squeezes pus and fluid out of it. In another, the camera is semisubmerged in a swamp of half digested food and stomach acid as parts of a pasta salad drop in from the esophagus and plop into the goo. In a final tour de force, the camera takes the viewer on a harrowing ride through a forest of...teenage armpit hair. Unfortunately, I'm not making any of this up. See this film if you must, but: bring your vomit bag, and don't have pasta salad beforehand.
Batman Begins (2005)
Doesn't totally suck like the last Batman, but not great by any means
Nolan gets a lot of credit for snatching the Batman franchise back from the abyss of crappiness that Joel Schumacher plunged it into, but let's face it -- the action scenes in Batman Begins are horribly shot. They're dark, chaotic, and you can't tell what the hell is going on in any of them. Also, Christian Bale is awful in this film -- he's the emotional equivalent of soundproofing material. Whenever a real person with some emotionality appears -- Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman -- the screen lights up briefly, but then Bale drags it back down with his inertness. Also, I can't be the only person to point out that the plot makes absolutely no sense. Bruce Wayne balks at killing an anonymous murderer in his rite-of-passage, but 2 seconds later has no apparent qualms about killing 50 of his buddies instead. Liam Neeson's mission is saving the world from criminals, but he's got no qualms about killing everybody in an entire city because there's too much graffitti on the subways. Katie Holmes is terribly miscast the world's least convincing ADA. Overall, I'd have to say this is one mediocre movie, and only the spectacular crappiness of the last Batman gives this one any shine at all.
The Girl in the Café (2005)
Sermon masquerading as film
If you've always harbored the fond hope that piously upbraiding world leaders in person and delivering sanctimonious lectures will magically save the world, then this movie is for you. I find it remarkable that the character we're meant to identify as the brave, selfless woman concerned about the welfare of others has absolutely no concern for the one person in this movie whom she actually knows -- although she's supposed to love him, she evidences no scruples about trampling all over his job, his feelings, his future, and his autonomy, in pursuit of her urgent quest to use her acquaintance with him to launch a few condescending and petulant snipes at politicians. What is truly unbelievable is that the filmmakers expect the audience to applaud her colossal, self-righteous egotism as the seed of change that the world desperately needs. If this is really what love is all about, then God help the world, because it looks like the cure is a lot worse than the disease. And watching this film is a lot worse than doing almost anything else.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Spielberg is good. The film is not.
(++++Spoilers) Can anybody answer these 4 questions about A.I. for me:
One, is there a single scene in this movie that doesn't go on way too long? Two, is it true that a movie's in trouble when it suddenly sprouts an omniscient narrator in the last ten minutes, just to make sure it overstates whatever point the preceding 2 ½ hours failed to drive home? Three, how'd we go from global warming to Ice Age in just two thousand years? Four, I get it that the omnipotent liquid-metallic aliens could clone the weird android kid's mother from her hair -- despite the fact that it was cut hair, and you need the hair root to clone from, because it's the scalp cells that contain DNA, not the protein fibers of human hair. But the liquid mind-reading aliens aren't bothered by that technicality, and they clone her anyway. And somehow the aliens got all her memories back into her brain, including her recent memories of the freaky android kid, because the aliens evidently have discovered that human beings encode memories in their hair. (Is that just scalp hair, by the way, or is it body hair as well?) So the liquid omnipotent psychic benevolent post-Ice-Age anorexic aliens clone the android kid's mother from the cut hair fragments that Teddy had in his pocket for two thousand years, the hairs that somehow didn't rot, but then the loveable well-meaning aliens ran afoul of this metaphysical barrier dictating that cloned mothers can only last for a day, because the space-time currents have decreed that once a space-time pathway is used, it can never be used again -- or least it *can* be used, OK, but just for 24 hours because metaphysical barriers are flexible that way, and it's more of a guideline, really, than a rule. Now this guideline, flexible as it is, really befuddles the elegant long-limbed super-badass-cloning alien guys, the ultra-smart and so-very-nice aliens who can clone the mom from acellular cut hair just as they could probably clone her from her exhaled breath but this super-restrictive space-line continuum 24-hour-maternal-expiration-date problem they just can't get around. My question is this: wouldn't it just be better if Spielberg himself stuck his head in the frame of the movie at this point in the film and said, "Look -- OK -- I've got a point I want to make, and the plot I've got running here won't really accomodate my point. Could I just say it to you straight out, and then I could avoid all these corny plot contrivances? Would that be OK? Great. Here goes: Kids, once you leave home, your moms will never love you again, even if you run into these super-omnipotent cool biotech alien guys, OK? NEVER. Not even then. Thanks. You've been super. Let's roll the credits." Would that not in fact be a more enjoyable movie-going experience?
My Life So Far (1999)
One long, lovely, Scottish fizzle
A wonderful example of what happens when a movie has been infused with a drastically insufficient supply of dramatic tension. The characters wander with apparent aimlessness through most of this visually lovely film, commenting on nothing in particular that we care about. None of the actors gives the slightest indication of being involved in the non-existent story; the child actors are particularly bland and read their lines as if from a cue card. Events transpire, but because of the dearth of tension, the film leaves the overwhelming impression that *nothing has happened.* And, indeed, nothing of importance has.
The Haunting (1999)
Not much scarier than a Hardy Boys book
The terrifying and soul-shattering mystery at the heart of this film is how Liam Neeson, surely one of the finest actors of our age, got himself tangled up in this dreadful B-minus haunted house flick. Like the house itself, the plot is full of long passages leading nowhere in particular. When the evil spirit behind the malefic mansion manifests itself, it turns out to be curiously impotent -- its scary antics are limited to slamming a few doors and producing a vaporous spectre that growls unconvincingly. Not exactly the stuff of nail-biting fear, but the film is good for a few laughs if you can't find a good comedy to rent.
Hurlyburly (1998)
Kindly phrased, this movie is pointless drivel.
A stellar cast whines incessantly about their existentialist woes in a movie so bad it boggles the mind. If you have a choice between 2 hours of root canal surgery or watching this movie, it's a no-brainer: head for the dentist.