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sindellemorte
Reviews
Casualties of War (1989)
A powerful social statement
Two words made this movie unforgettable, in my opinion: Sean Penn. Sean Penn's performance as a young and disillusioned army Sergeant in the Viet Nam war is absolutely perfect. He is utterly believable as Sgt. Tony Meserve, basically just a kid who loses the only person he cares about fighting a war he doesn't want to be in and then just doesn't care anymore. As he says, "Sometimes you hate the enemy so badly..." He is angry at the war, he is angry at the enemy, he is angry at the army that sent him there. He is just angry. He decides to fight back and take his own little personal revenge against the enemy, focusing it all on one girl, whom he plans to rape and abuse at their discretion. Surrounded by boys no older than he and far less intelligent and dominant and one man who is obviously unbalanced and violent anyway, Meserve's act is perceived as far larger and more grand than it actually is. The only hold out is Eriksson (played brilliantly by Michael J. Fox), a young family man who has not been "in country" long enough to become so jaded. There is a pivotal scene in the movie where Eriksson believes he has found a kindred spirit in Diaz (played by John Leguizamo), only to find that Diaz is weak and will not stand against the ridicule from the other men.
Eriksson is true to his convictions and does not participate in the rape of the girl and so he is labeled a traitor and not trustworthy by the other men. He is threatened, attacked and abused by the other men but does not deviate from his course. He vows to bring the men to justice for what they have done and for what he allowed to occur, not through his action but through his INaction. There is a very moving monologue by Eriksson in which he makes a statement on whether what you do before you die matters more or less because you could die soon (paraphrase), "...everybody's acting like we can do anything. Because we might be killed at any second, maybe we gotta be extra careful what we do. Because maybe it matters more. Maybe it matters more than we even know." This film is a statement about war, yes. But it is also a hugely profound statement about people and what we can become if we are exposed to a society with no rules for too long. If we are exposed to too much violence for too long. The fact that it is based on a true story only reinforces this statement. It is also a statement on how allowing something to happen makes you just as culpable as those who actually participated. There is, perhaps no such thing as "an innocent bystander." This film also speaks about the apparent futility in righting a wrong sometimes and how it can be quite difficult to be "a good guy" in the middle of a bad business. While not quite on par with social statements such as "Platoon" or "Full Metal Jacket", "Casualties of War" has earned it's place in this genre honestly. Highly recommended.
One of this reviewers all-time favorite movies. 10/10 stars.
Natural Born Killers (1994)
A film that turns us into exactly what it is speaking against
Natural Born Killers received a lot of flak when it came out: it was too violent, too violent, too violent. It glorified violence and murder, they said. Yeah, that was pretty much the point.
Natural Born Killers accomplishes exactly what it claims the media does in our country: it glorifies serial killers. It takes two deplorable characters who deserve no sympathy whatsoever and makes them sympathetic. Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis) Knox are worthless, despicable not-even-human characters and yet... weren't you rooting for them? I certainly was. And not just because I always go for the "anti-hero." Quentin Tarantino knows his audience well and he knows what his film is trying to say.
Natural Born Killers is a film with a serious message to get across and it accomplishes it not only by portraying the media as worse than the serial killers they have elevated to beyond the point of rock stars but also by provoking the same reaction in the audience. Even as you are taken aback by the violence of M & M, you cannot help but root for them. To feel sorry for them. To sympathize with them. Tarantino makes their violent behavior not only palpable but understandable, even forgivable. It is all too easy to forget that these are two people who kill other people for essentially no reason. In fact, the only victims who are killed for any reason at all are Mallory's disgusting, loathsome father (played BRILLIANTLY by Rodney Dangerfield) and her limp dishrag of a mother (played wonderfully by Edie McClurg). No real reason is given for any of the other killings, of which there are over 50. The reason then is that they simply enjoy it. And yet, we forgive this as we watch.
Natural Born Killers never becomes bogged down in violence for violence's sake as do many others in this genre. It is in fact a love story in many regards. Or at least, that is how it is intentionally portrayed. Maybe because love does indeed "beat the demon." It is this exact reason that we are able to sympathize with and root for M & M when they so clearly don't deserve it. It is also because the villain(s) in this movie are so clearly defined as people OTHER than M & M. Mickey and Mallory's characters are fully-developed. We are able to see where they were mistreated, abused and given reason to be "bad." Other characters, such as Wayne Gale (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) are not given this level of development. This is intentional and very well done. We need to understand them as humans if we are going to be able to sympathize and Tarantino accomplishes this well indeed, allowing us sympathy for M & M but none for the media faces and other "villains" in this picture.
The one exception to this is Jack Scagnetti (played by Tom Sizemore), the detective who is M & M's nemesis in Natural Born Killers. We are given some background on Scagnetti and find that he is, in effect no better than Mickey and Mallory, yet he is a celebrated police detective and they are serial killers. This seems to be another attempt by Tarantino to expose the hypocrisy of the media and authority figures, a theme present throughout the entire film.
The characters are developed and realistic, the acting superb. Oliver Stone's cinematography could not be better. The combination of Tarantino and Stone simply exploded on screen in this powerful and enigmatic piece. While the violence may be a bit much for some at first, Natural Born Killers absolutely deserves a watch. And another. And another.
One of this reviewer's all-time favorite films. 10/10 stars.
Scrapbook (2000)
A huge waste of time... even worse acting than a porn movie
Don't believe the hype. This movie is crap. It tries desperately to be "gritty and realistic" but it just isn't. From the opening sequence, we are disappointed: the acting isn't believable at all, the torture scenes aren't believable (is that how a person would REALLY react to being tortured? come on), the "violence" is seriously lame and the overall affect is flat and 2 dimensional. I felt like I was watching a high school film class project reject. It is really, really bad. As one of the previous reviewers said, I too found myself fast-forwarding through a lot of it and it was still too long. It fails to make a point or a statement. It is simply badly-executed, badly-acted pseudo-violence for it's own sake. And unlike many of the "positive reviewers" (who have apparently posted identical reviews on other sites, such as Amazon), I wasn't shocked by the "violence" or offended by it's depiction or worried I'd "burn in hell just for watching it." I found it utterly unrealistic and totally lame. At times it was laughable and pathetic.
Scrapbook is one of those movies whose fans will claim the naysayers just don't "get" when the truth is, it's not that hard to understand or "get". It just isn't very good. In fact, it's terrible. A complete waste of time.
*And by the way, this is not an original idea for a movie. The concept has been utilized in many other areas first, including an episode of Law & Order and most notably, the 1963 novel The Collector by John Fowles. The Collector was a source of inspiration for real-life serial killers Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, who dubbed their master plan "The Miranda Project" (after the main character in The Collector) and also videotaped most of what they did. After having seen some of these particular tapes and also being a devout (and long-time) crime scene photo, video- and audio recording aficionado, I can tell you that Scrapbook is simply an embarrassingly-amateurish attempt at something the director/writer apparently thinks he understands but clearly does not. The "serial killer's" pathology in this "movie" is wrong to the point of ridiculousness.
This "film's" true target audience, people who appreciate the true crime genre like myself, will walk away laughing and seriously disappointed. Horror movie fans will be even more disappointed. This "movie" is a waste of time. Don't bother.