Change Your Image
debokeystuff
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Ultraviolent (2015)
PHENOMENAL FILM
As a fan of Michael Easton's poetry, I was anxious to see this film, which according to Easton's Web site has won six international film awards. The film is remarkable in numerous ways. First, Easton's direction and editing that feature quick cuts are an homage to Cammell's own work, particularly _Performance_. Making a film in the tradition of the director who is its subject is an artistic choice that adds to the meaning and beauty of the film. The use of reflections from the window are an artful way of making internal dialog and conflict into a visual experience. Similar to Kubrick's work, this film includes nothing that is not carefully considered and chosen for a reason. Easton pays careful attention to every minute detail so that subtle shifts in lighting and even the poster on the wall add shades of meaning than enhance the experience of viewing the film, and it requires several viewings to catch the details of this nuanced work.
In addition, St. John's performance is powerful and moving. The range of emotions he demonstrates in this very short film is impressive, and he conveys as much in a single facial expression as some actors convey in a full-blown soliloquy. While the emotions St. John portrays are powerful, they are also colored with subtle nuance that adds even more depth to the character. It is one of the most powerful, effective, engrossing performances I have seen in quite some time.
Both Easton and St. John are exceptionally gifted, and this brief film displays their talents more eloquently than any review can adequately explain. This movie is film as art in the highest form. I hope to see more work of this caliber from these two talents and hope to see them work together again, perhaps in a longer work or feature film.
This film does include some violence and blood and deals with adult themes, so viewer discretion is advised.
Foxfire (1996)
Foxfire burns and burns and burns
Although Foxfire illustrates once again film's basic inability to truly capture the levels of meaning proffered by the print medium, it is relatively successful in remaining true to the spirit of Joyce Carol Oates's riveting novel. Its presentation of the strength of both the bonds of friendship and of women alternates between abandon and lyricism to underscore the primal joy and moving tenderness that are the Yin and Yang of female freedom. Women, like fire, offer nourishment and warmth, but they can destroy if not shown the proper respect. Legs Sadovsky, the embodiment of the freedom and centeredness than can result from embracing both the nourishing and destructive aspects of women's inner fire, is stunningly portrayed by Angelina Jolie. With a single look, Jolie can and does convey the depth of love and intensity of commitment and strength so necessary to this hero's ability to compel and command. Looking into her eyes and hearing the calm, sure confidence of her voice, viewers understand why Maddy, Rita, Violet, and Goldie see her as the liberating leader she becomes. It is difficult to imagine any other young actress who could play the role as convincingly. She is backed by an excellent performance by Hedy Burress, who portrays the searching uncertainty of Maddy Wirtz, the young girl who is most confused and changed by her encounter with Legs, in a way that reawakens in each of us the aching longing of adolescence. By all means, see the film. But don't neglect to read the novel, one of the best by one of the few writers working today who is destined to become part of the Western literary canon.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)
Although truer to Shelley than most, Frankenstein has a fatal flaw
When adapting a great literary work for the screen, Kenneth Branagh can usually be counted upon to be as true as possible to the spirit, and even the letter, of the original. It is, therefore, no great surprise that his version of _Mary Shelley's Frankenstein_ is much truer to the author's work than any prior rendition. His Creature, portrayed movingly by the great Robert De Niro, is so much closer to Shelley's than Boris Karloff's bolt-necked, green-faced monster that it makes the latter even more of a cartoon than it originally was. Most of the differences between Branagh's film and Shelley's novel are insignificant. However, there is one plot alteration that, while it appears minor on the surface, betrays one of the themes of the first science fiction novel ever written. In the film, when the Creature flees Frankenstein's laboratory, the scientist pursues him with an axe, presumably to kill him. In the novel, it is the scientist who flees his creation, leaving the new life to fend for itself as best it can. The reason this plot alteration is significant is because Shelley wrote the novel, in part, to illustrate what could happen if scientists deny responsibility for their work. It must be recalled that she began the novel during a summer she spent with two great -- but very different -- men. Percy Shelley, whom she would later marry, saw man as being basically good and held great hope for the advances he foresaw as the results of the fledgling sciences. Their companion that summer, George Gordon, Lord Byron, saw man as being, if not wholly evil, at least the greatest source of evil in the universe. Therefore, his prognosis of what could come from man was considerably darker than Percy Shelley's. Mary Shelley's book portrays a scientist who is neither wholly good nor wholly evil. He is a man driven by a true desire to help mankind, as well as by intellectual vanity. But his motives, both altruistic and vain, are rendered meaningless by his actions. When he realizes his Creature lives, he does not stay with it to ensure that its life is used beneficially. Nor does he allow his realization that he has committed a fatal error to guide him to undo his work before it becomes the undoing of everyone close to him. He runs, and by doing so, he actively refuses to take any responsibility for his scientific work. He sets the work in motion and turns his back on it, allowing it to wreak havoc. But Branagh's Frankenstein pursues the Creature with an axe, thereby attempting to take responsibility for his actions. He is unable to find the Creature, but his failure is logistic, not moral. So while Branagh's film is much closer to Shelley's vision than any before had been, it falls short of being completely true to the message -- and the warning -- inherent in the novel: scientists cannot pursue knowledge for knowledge's sake and then loose their discoveries on a world unprepared to assimilate them and use them wisely. Whether they accept it or not, they ARE responsible for their discoveries and creations and for what is made of them.