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dnaeye
Reviews
Mononoke-hime (1997)
Truly amazing and inspiring
This film works like clockwork and is spotless as a silicon chip in a vacuum-sealed semiconductor lab. Granted it's not as epic as "Nausicaa", the superb action sequences, the terrific accompanying score by Joe Hisashi, and the gritty harshness of its dramatic themes made "Princess Mononoke" a much tighter package, as well as a more elaborated version of the message put forth in "Nausicaa." I understand that Miramax's distribution and marketing of the film up to this point has been rather low-key, but I hope somehow this film will reach enough people to make a change in the mindset of the American public. A note to parents, this is not "My Neighbor Totoro" or "Kiki's Delivery Service." There is some violence in "Princess Mononoke" which may startle younger audiences.
Slam (1998)
Good intentions, but subtle as a elephant's ass
My friends and I had a bitter dispute about this movie with me against all of them. I had some expectations about this movie that it didn't meet at all. The dialogue and script of this movie was amazingly melodramatic and unbelievable. Maybe in a kid's comic book, but in a supposedly critical film, this movie was just utter boredom and an eyesore for my eyes, taste, mind, and soul. I can't believe that this is the best an intellectual "urban" film can be. None of the characters had any character or soul (except for Muggs or whatever the convict/friend's name is that befriends the main character in jail). The filming was awful and pretentious. It's good if you want to showcase your talent for MTV with all the grainy blitz-and-shake documentary-style footage but it feels too much like a cheap commercial. The symbolism at the end of the "quick" sequences and at the 3 or 4 critical points in the movie were so cheesy I could make fifty double-double hamburgers with it.
Altogether, a pathetic excuse for an independent flick. Watch "Fresh" instead.
Oh yeah, I might be biased 'cuz I hate spoken word nonsense. And I didn't click with the showy references to hip-hop vocabulary. The main character was like a lame English-major freshman in college trying to show how cool he was.
Pi (1998)
Pretentious and not worth renting
Looks like a MTV video which is a minus. I personally cannot stand the pretentiousness which afflicts all modern music videos save a few (Radiohead, Pulp, Aphex Twin) which is like a disease in this movie. Comparing this trash to "Eraserhead" is like comparing a Hershey bar to a Toblerone. Not even close. I hope Mr. Lynch didn't feel too bad when something so pitiful and pathetic was compared to his masterpiece.
The story was a neat idea about the mystery of number systems and how it controls modern civilization but the mathematics used in the movie are so elementary that it looks like a joke. Any literate and publicly educated person who took algebra 1 knows that all the equations used in the movie had nothing to do with anything.
I just hate seeing people misinterpret a movie making it greater than it could ever aspire to be just because of the mass-hype it proliferates and generates.
Titanic (1997)
The name says it all
Anyone that says this "movie" is of any use to human existence is a consumer who has been brainwashed into conformity and an ethic of non-resistance and docility. When James Cameron self-proclaimed himself as the king of cinema, he effectively tied the noose around his neck. When people look upon this movie in ten years or so, they will realize with shame and embarrassment what complete fools the general public were to ever think this movie was anything besides big money.
Some of the numerous bad points about this movie are as follows: special effects - made me think I was watching a computer game, therefore, not good (for a movie); acting - laughable, DiCaprio shows what a whining brat he can be; script - melodrama over a subject hardly reinvented, love between the lowly squire and rich princess?; directing - nothing extraordinary, actually, nothing UNordinary.
But I suppose the masses have the final say with their wallets. I just hope we aren't fooling ourselves to ever think to immortalize Cameron's titanic waste with the likes of the epic "Citizen Kane." There is a difference between a "movie" that sells and a "film" that inspires.