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Reviews
The Tree of Life (2011)
This film is excessively long. It tries to say a lot, but fails. It's a 2.5 hr waste of time.
I really like good movies, but when it comes to The Tree Of Life I feel that I MUST warn people away from it. Simply put, the film is weak and overly long. It tries ultra-hard to be profound, but it comes nowhere near achieving that goal.
A rather long portion of the middle of the movie (almost 20 minutes) consists of a sequence of bizarre graphics/interstellar scenes/volcanoes/amoebas/scenes of the sea and jellyfish/dinosaurs that intends to show the history of the universe. The segment reminded me of the portion of 2001 A Space Odyssey where Dave Bowman journeys through space after entering the rectangular Black Monolith. Back in the 1960s that Kubrickian "journey via graphics" was groundbreaking. However in The Tree Of Life the theater audience I saw it with just didn't buy it. It seemed to go on forever ... interminable. The length of the movie is 2 hrs 20 mins and that's _Excessively_Long_.
The overall story in The Tree Of Life wants to say a lot, but never achieves that goal. There's a family with a strict father (Pitt) that has some troubles, but mostly nothing goes on. You see the kids growing up. Other than the long sequence described in the previous paragraph this, largely uneventful, view of the family goes on for about 2 hours. During that time you're supposed to drink in how the family members interact with each other and we also see the faults/foibles of the father. This part of the film is sooo sloooow as to be glacial. I'm not looking for an action film, but please give me fewer preachy atmospherics ... cue low volume choir. No joke - the film is full of choral music. It's like a cross between the lullaby effect of Gabriel Faure's Requiem and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing softly.
In the final 12 minutes of the film we see one of the sons grown up (Penn). As I recall this character has no spoken lines. During most of this segment we see inter-cuts of strange scenes that we can't figure out ... like both the young and old characters of the son walking through the desert together or a field of sunflowers. I swear ... that's the whole friggin' "story" told by this film. IT'S JUST WEAK! It tries to be huge, but the results are puny.
On the other hand, the cinematography in the film is quite superb. In this respect it reminds me just a touch of The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976 with Bowie) which also had nice imagery but, again, the story was confused and didn't readily come across. If you love this film then check out that 1976 film.
In spite of the heavy duty casting the acting is only just OK because there's not enough of a story here to work with to make the acting really resonate. It's not the fault of the actors. It's because the film is 95+ percent atmospherics.
The theater audience I saw this film with was quite disappointed and they were surprisingly vocal about it. This happened in a rather liberal suburb of a large east coast city. That's an audience that is usually pretty easy going and accepting of unusual stuff. How on earth did this film get such a high rating on IMDb? The film wants to say volumes, but the communication here is quite muffled. It doesn't deliver the goods and thus the huge acting talent is squandered. Avoid this film. It's not worth investing time here.
Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001)
If you like documentaries you should see this film.
This is an excellent documentary about the pioneering 1970s Zephyr skate boarding team. They were called the Z Boys and they came from Santa Monica, CA. The team totally revolutionized skate boarding and made it both a true sport and also an art. The film details the origins of the team. It also shows where their moves came from. I certainly agree with the Grammy nomination for best compilation soundtrack. Check out the great clip played during the credits. It sounds like a multi-instrumental homage to one of the great "surf guitarists," but it's not done by a group that you would expect ... you'll see. The film really draws you in. If you like documentaries you should see this film. Besides the Z Boys there is also commentary from Tony Hawk and Henry Rollins. What more could you want?
Miral (2010)
Another good film from Julian Schnabel
With a few caveats "Miral" is a rather good movie. It shows things from the Palestinian perspective and does leave out an important point or two ... but again in general it's pretty good cinematic experience.
The development of a young lady named Miral is the main subject here. The film is based on an autobiographical novel by Rula Jebreal. Miral is Palestinian and she attends a school that some might consider a privileged place for a Palestinian. She is very lucky to get the type of education offered at the school. The school is a boarding school and is also an orphanage. It is run by a wonderful lady.
The author, Rula Jebreal, is a journalist. She attended university in Italy and was a journalist there for over decade. After that she worked for a Cairo TV station.
There is quite a bit of "setup" in the film before the main character Miral appears. You just have to wade through it because it's quite necessary to build the foundation before this particular house can be built.
Even though there are multiple issues of importance to women raised by the film I suspect that creative men will be interested in most all of the film. I'm a guy and I liked it.
The main issue in the film is how Miral's attitude towards and approach to the Israeli/Palestinian struggle will develop. It's a complex subject and the film likewise is complex. Overall the film acquits itself quite well is this area.
OK. Let's get to the controversial stuff. The movie portrays the situation from the Palestinian perspective. Once or twice it leaves out an important point and that omission gives an "advantage" of the Palestinian side of the "argument." However in another case it really should provide a tiny bit more historical info to make the portrayal of the circumstances surrounding the founding of the school/orphanage more credible. Let's tackle that bit first.
The school/orphanage is founded because a wonderful lady finds a group of orphans in the street who say their parents were all killed without reason. The scene just didn't seem believable to me ... until I looked up the Deir Yassin massacre. It really happened and those kids are (part of) the subject matter of this film. Again, it was called the Deir Yassin massacre. Look that one up (try haaretz.com). The film should have mentioned that incident by name in a later scene for increased credibility.
OK. Now the flip side of the coin. The school/orphanage grows greatly because of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War that started the day after Israel declared its independence and sovereignty. Nowhere is it mentioned in the film that in that war the Arab nations were the first to move across national boundaries ("they started it"). More balance is needed on this point.
Another point omitted in the film occurs in an important scene where the Israeli army is tearing down a Palestinian house. I could be wrong about this, but they typically do this when someone has committed a really bad terrorist act. That persons house (or their parents house) is then destroyed. When the house is torn down in the movie no context/reason is given whatsoever. For a film that is trying to balance things this a noticeable omission.
One high circulation newspaper said that the film was a "slanderous and shameful piece of propaganda." That's just totally wrong. To me it is sensitive and complex. Another newspaper review said the movie had a "disdain for details." On the contrary, it gets the details right with the caveats noted above. The Guardian said "Freida Pinto looks uneasy and miscast as Miral herself." Ms. Pinto's acting is quite good. The only problem there is that her skin tone is a 1/2 shade to dark. I REALLY doubt that most folks with white skin will notice that "problem." The Village Voice said it was "at-odds-with-itself" and was a "partisan work." The only sense that the film is "at-odds-with-itself" is that the title character's response to the Israeli/Palestinian struggle changes over time. The work is told from the Palestinian point of view ... that makes it partisan? Give me a break! What crap! On the other hand the use of plaintive violin music is a bit overdone in the film.
Let's get real here. It distinctly appears that the reason that people might typically review this film poorly is that they don't like that a story is being told from the Palestinian point of view.
I understand that this is an incredibly tough problem, but to quote Rodney King "Can't we all get along?" Unfortunately the situation seems quite insoluble.
District 9 (2009)
Absolutely not a typical Sci-Fi flick. For me, totally disappointing.
With the high ratings here on IMDb I thought that this film was a shoe-in. How wrong that expectation turned out to be. The film is more of a sociology study about 2 incompatible societies. The aliens are gross, but in a pathetic sorta way. I guess that that was the intent. The way the plot starts out is just stupid. I'm sure I'll get thousands of "unhelpful" votes for this review, but this movie, for me, was quite the disappointment. The fanboi base must be voting this film up BIG TIME. Take the blacks under apartheid in South Africa and substitute funky aliens and you get this film. I gotta admit that the look of the aliens was well done. The portrayal of the human response to the aliens just was not well done at all. It is the absolute antithesis of how it would be done in a big budget film. The portrayal is amateurish. Humans probably would have the general mindset shown. Again, how the script portrayed the human response was bush league ... and the acting was as good as the script.
Breaking Bad (2008)
Very good character development and acting, highly recommended
*** The spoilers here are minor. *** Breaking Bad is an excellent action TV series. It makes you think, too. That's not all that common of a combination. It has brains and brawn. It also has a good smattering of dark humor. There's lots of excellent character development and acting to be found here. On the other hand potential viewers should be advised that every once in a while there is extreme gore put on the TV screen - body dissolved in acid - detached head of a drug snitch attached to the back of a tortoise - etc. Hey, it's a series about drug dealing. On the other hand it's also a series about relationships between people, their aspirations, tragedies and the hidden dark spots in their lives. What good or evil are the people that you know really capable of? Did Pip in Great Expectations have a clue that his benefactor was the convict he had helped as a child? Sometimes people will do quite unexpected things.