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Saratoga (1937)
What a disappointment
I thought I was going to entertain my wife with a gentle Hollywood romance of days gone by. What a brutal wake-up.
I'm not going to comment on the casual racism inherent to the period, there's no point there, I knew the time period I had chosen. The big fat black woman happy to clean up after white privilege goes with the territory. If you're already railing after Gone With The Wind, don't come here.
But, if you think that this film is of any interest at all, you're wrong. It's the story of a shyster who gets the girl. The story of white privilege that gets it's way. Gable's character has no redeeming qualities, he's a liar and a cheat through and through.
Jean Harlow is there to be the Hollywood Blond, and to fall for the main character. It doesn't matter that the film shows more interesting men in her immediate surroundings, she will end up going for the cheater.
Honestly, even if you are a Clark Gable fan (and not using a walker to get around), there are several other films where he is in a much better light. For all the hoopla around Gone With The Wind, the fact that that film is, arguably, a documentary on the society of the time, matters less here than fact that the reply "Honestly, my dear, I don't give a damn" paints Rhett Butler as a much more progressive character than this Duke Bradly.
Don't waste your time here.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Has not aged well
I'm sorry, but I started this movie expecting to be entertained, and all I got was a drug-filled rave of two lunatics.
The fact that they get away with it all is purely plot armor. I'd like to see you try to stiff a high-class Las vegas restaurant by wining and dining today and just walking out. Won't happen.
Everything is made for the characters to just glide through crazy situations they are responsible for, but suffer no consequences from.
I watched it for about thirty minutes, and gave up.
This film was probably a hit among all the hippies, but in 2023, it just feels dated.
Plus, I couldn't stop thinking of Rango.
All of the car sequences I watched thinking about that lizard and his adventures.
Rango is funnier.
Unthinkable (2010)
One hard film, one hard question
Okay, so you are warned : spoilers.
And I'm going to spoil it hard, because this film is, in my opinion, exceptional.
This film is the obvious consequence of Abu Grahib, and puts a very fine question on the use of torture to extract useful information.
Except that, the "terrorist" just happens to be an ex-Special Forces soldier, expert in explosives - and particularly nuclear ones, and he has planned everything and is willing to sacrifice everything - including his wife and children.
Because yes, he sacrifices everything. And, in the end, the question that remains is the one that Carrie-Anne Moss's character brilliantly shouts (paraphrased) : "We are human beings ! We can't do this ! Let twelve million people die ! We are not this !".
So I understand why Samuel L Jackson agreed to do this film. And, at one point, he's doing the same thing than in that Columbo episode with the electric chair torture, where Columbo confronts the scientist and states how barbaric this is, only for the scientist to reply "Yes, and you only reacted at stage 20."
A chilling realization.
Carrie-Anne Moss's character replicates that of the viewer, and of the majority of the military personnel - they draw the line at torturing children. Torturing a terrorist when more than twenty million lives are at stake ? They grow into it. Children ? No way.
And yet, the film ends on a very bleak note, because, as stated, the ex-Special Forces soldier-turned-terrorist knew that, and planned for it. So it just so happens that, with only 3 hours to go before the bombs explode, he lets go the location of the three bombs he professed to have made. But Jackson's character is not duped, he knows that there's enough plutonium to make four bombs. And he tries to get the location of the fourth. But Carrie-Anne Moss's character stops him with her righteous indignation, and Jackson's character capitulates, freeing the terrorist.
What follows is the obvious foul-up of the top CIA man in charge who ends up giving a gun to the terrorist, who promptly uses it to blow his brains out in order to not reveal the location of the fourth bomb.
The end of the film is on rails : the soldiers disarm the three known bombs, but the fourth one explodes. Why is this important ? Because the plutonium used is from Soviet source.
For those of you who do not understand the importance of this detail, know that NORAD is still operational and is in charge of the surveillance of all launches and nuclear explosions on US territory (and determining those that happen abroad). Also, you need to understand that plutonium is specific to a given nuclear reactor, and it is more than likely that every plutonium signature is known.
Therefor, when the bomb goes off (the film is over at this point), NORAD is going to detect a nuclear explosion on US territory and, more importantly, is going to quickly determine that the bomb is from Soviet Russia.
What do you think is going to happen ?
Well, let's be clear : there are two possible solutions. A : the US launches a retaliatory strike on the Soviet Union, which detects and responds in kind, and Humanity is doomed to nuclear winter. B : someone has the balls to notice that no ICBM has been launched, and stands down until further data can be gathered, and somehow global nuclear armaggedon is avoided.
It wouldn't be the first time, but that is a slim chance to count on.
So I commend this film without reserve on the Columbo principle : where do you draw the line ?
At the same time, I have one problem with the plan of the terrorist : he knew that his entire plan, for the so-called glory of Allah and his prophet Mohammed, was to induce a nuclear war that would erase Humanity from the face of the Earth.
Somehow, I do not see that as compatible in any way, shape or form, with the teachings of Mohammed.
But hey, it makes for a great film.
Proxima (2019)
Typical French introspection
This is not sci-fi, this is certainly not Apollo 13, this is not even action.
This film asks you to spend almost 2 hours of your life looking at fictional characters in their boring, everyday lives.
If that is your trip, then you're in for a treat, but if you were expecting anything sciency, or even anything remotely related to adrenalin, you'd better not waste your time on this.
I was highly surprised to see Eva Green in this. Waste of talent.
Art of Deception (2019)
Boring and bad acting
An actor has to start somewhere, and every one of the actors in this film started here.
The scenario could be passable with a better director, but here the situations are as cheesy as the dialog. The acting is stilted and the "action", as little as there is, feels like they filmed the repetitions and not the actual scenes.
Don't waste your time here.
Snowpiercer (2013)
A Sorry Mess
Let me get one thing out of the way right now : this film is a logical mess. An ideological excuse for hamfisting one's way from beginning to end.
Oh, there will be nothing but spoilers ahead. You are warned.
First, about the train itself. This train rambles along like a freight train, but is supposed to go at high speed. The cars sway from side to side, but no motion is visible when inside the train. Almost like inside is filmed in an immobile studio set. Also, the train can smash through tons of ice without any problem. Must be made of unobtanium. And today's high speed trains have cars that sway a lot less than this one.
The rails are a problem as well. It is so cold outside that one scene shows us the bodies of people who escaped from the train. They died barely a hundred yards away. That means temperatures at best in the range of Siberian winter, i.e. -70°C. At that temperature metal obviously freezes. Several thousand tons of freight dashing over it at high speed may work for a year or two, but at some point a rail WILL break, and that is the end for everyone. We are told that the train is magical all through the film. The entire rail system must be just as magical.
Second, the train composition. In the best shot we have, at around 1:16:42, we get to see the whole train almost at once. I counted about 40 wagons. Throughout the film we see a few technical sections, a few sleeping quarters of varying quality, a dentist cabinet, a beauty parlor, a nightclub, a school, a library, a sushi bar with an aquarium, a deep freeze car to preserve meat and poultry. there is also a restaurant and a lounge. The head of the train is the engine section, which we more or less see. We are told there is a water car, but we see no water storage apart from the aquarium. We see dead poultry, but no live ones. Nor do we see cows. If you have livestock, you need a place to put them, and something that generates food for them. We are repeatedly told that the train is self-sustaining. Apart from that being impossible due to the laws of physics, there should be a recycling car somewhere. We don't see it. Neither do we see the bug car where all the bugs must be bred before being turned into the protein bars.
The recycling issue is just as important as the water issue. Control either, and you control the whole. Control of the water is touched upon briefly, then ignored for the remainder of the film.
Third, the population. We see the poor at the rear, the rich at the front. The poor have nothing to do but wait for food and not litter. They are dirty and wash once a year apparently, but there is no litter nor sickness to be seen. There is old and weak, but no germs that would thrive in such squalor and kill them all off within a month, let alone the 17 years they are supposed to have been locked up like that. No windows and nothing to do for 17 years ? They should all be screaming hysterically like raving lunatics, not having reasoned conversations.
The rich are, of course, living luxuriously, but apart from eating, dancing and getting high, they aren't doing anything either. Their existence is just sitting in a train, watching the frozen landscape go by. Every single person on this train should be stark, raving mad.
On the other hand, the pregnant schoolteacher doesn't hesitate to use a sub-machine gun and kill (poor) people in front of children, so maybe they actually are mad.
Finally, we have The Plot, which is to elevate the hero to the position of Train Master, replacing the current one. The last 30 minutes of this ridiculous film is the revelation that all revolts on the train were piloted from both ends of the train to ensure that the balance of population stays within what the train can handle. We are specifically told that, should people be allowed to breed without restraint, the train's capacity would be overwhelmed and everyone would die.
That argument is actually valid and understandable. Why the poor cannot benefit from the same living conditions as the rich is not. It may well be that bugs are a requirement for protein, but even if the train can only supply one cow a month, everyone can benefit from it. Share the bugs and share the cow, and for God's sake bathe regularly. Everything is supposed to be recycled, so there is no good reason only half the train population should be clean.
At the end, the Hero takes the place of the current Train Master and is supposed to continue the same regime while said Master retires. Retires ? To do what exactly ? Apart from cooking his own food and plotting tortuous ways to get people killed, appears to already be in retirement from his job of creating the whole train/railway system - which must have been quite a task indeed.
In this dystopian future, we are led to believe that a train that can never stop holds humanity's last remnant of max 2000 people, half of which must apparently live in Nazi prison camp conditions and be content with eating protein bars made from bugs and doing nothing else, while the other half apparently don't do much more than dance, eat nice food we never see grow and groom themselves.
If that is the future of humanity then somebody please blow the train up.
Jet Stream (2013)
Watchable when drunk
Where to start ?
Let's just say that the actors in this movie are well aware that their performance here is not going to land them even a janitor position in the same frame as an A-list actor. The actors are either bland, or prone to confuse hysteria with passion. Then again, the script gives nothing to be passionate about, so maybe hysteria was the best bet.
Memorable quote : "She's going to call the telephone company and put a trace on this call. You don't want that to happen !" says the hero to his jailer. What ? His girlfriend can call the telephone company and have the call traced ? Sorry, I must have missed the part where it was mentioned that she was FBI, Secret Service or had even the most tenuous connection to some person of authority who could actually have that put in place for her. Whatever the love interest's job is, it has nothing near the clout needed to pull that off.
Then we have the entire premise of the film : that a weatherman has modeled climate on his laptop to be able to predict extreme weather conditions. No offense to weathermen, I happen to know that their job actually requires level of mathematics way beyond my own, but this guy is no weatherman, he's just the TV announcer. The day we have a genius TV announcer who happens to hold a PhD in thermodynamics and is content with smiling on camera while pointing to fluffy white clouds on a blue screen, call me and I will revise my opinion of this film.
If you're stone drunk or high as a kite, this might be viewed as passable entertainment. Otherwise, stay clear.
The Smell of Success (2009)
Unbelievable
If you like realism, pass this one. If you like explosions, likewise. If your favorite film is Notting Hill, forget it. But if you like the unexpected, if you like being surprised by well-known actors in improbable roles, if you appreciate the second and third degrees of humor and things going a bit strange, this is definitely a film to see. Do not expect sanity or anything to do with down-to-earth. This is Delicatessen in Kansas, it's the Wizard of Oz without wizards and just one monkey. It's insane, it's incredible, and it is simply delicious. A review is supposed to be ten lines long, but that is an arbitrary limit imposed by functionaries that cannot comprehend that sometimes art cannot be described in a predetermined format.
Two Tigers (2007)
Bland and confused
Frankly put, I spent half the film wondering if it was a porno or not. Gratuitous skin scenes that bring nothing neither to the plot nor to the action make for a drawn-out movie that drastically dilutes whatever "action" was supposed to be there. As has already been noted, the fight scenes are nothing to phone home about, although I did find that the dojo scene was slightly better thought-out than the rest of the film. For the rest, the action is quite lacking. No planning before hand, no surprise in execution, no problem with the getaway, and a very lame showing of local mafia add up to nothing to get excited about. Add to that the school-level camera angles, bad pronunciation all around and a total absence of any sort of anticipation and what you get is a porno film - without the hardcore sex. The single redeeming feature of this mess is Mrs. Osvart's body. Fine though it is, it's hardly enough to carry a film.