Reviews written by registered user
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8 reviews in total |
The Wachowskis don't have a lot of explaining to do, they have a story to
tell and they are telling it. That it may have some "pseudophilosophical"
content is not the point. They are telling an existential story and this
piece was a necessary transition furthering that story. Animatrix was to the
same purpose, plus adding some flesh to the bones of that
story.
We stand at the turn of a man-made milepost-- the millenium-- witnessing the
death, finally, of some very old man-made explanations of Why We Are Here.
Can anyone doubt that the time for religion as a model of the universe is
past (save the diehards who seek either the control or the succor that
religion provides) Can anyone doubt that a new future is before us and we
don't *really* understand where it is taking us? Can anyone doubt that we
humans are *still* asking the same questions: Why... What *purpose*? Even
hardcore athiests and pure reductionists are uncertain. (Witness, even Carl
Sagan, who never saw a God he much cared for, laid more questions than
answers at our feet.) No scientist worthy of the appellation can ever claim
that mankind, at least in our current state, can understand What Is Going
On.
We now have six billion people on this planet. We are doing Very Bad Things
to one another. Old systems are beginning to fail. We, as humans, need to
evolve a bit if we expect this all not to end VERY badly. Maybe the
Wachowskis are just trying to tell a story about that uncertainty and fear
and need to understand that many humans are feeling very deeply just about
now.
And, to my mind, they are doing a pretty damned good job of marrying good
story telling with amazing movie technology to do that. I'm looking forward
to their conclusion.
Lots of dissing for both Alicia and Benicio but it seems disingenuous. This is not a profound film but it IS a fun one. Nice photography, a plot that has a good rhythm and tempo, engaging characters that are well acted and clever film devices (for one, the conflict regarding her smoking that set up the plot complication in the first place). Walken is great as usual as a character both scary AND endearing. Spark a blunt, open a beer and enjoy this silly but fun little flick.
You just KNEW it wasn't gonna be a tidy ending after such an involved
story-telling. Never mind the lingering questions (How DID the sniper get
all that
information on him? Just by bugging the phone booth?) the film was a great
ride.
Sutherland, like his father, has such a wonderful and menacing voice and
appearance. He was perfect. I didn't know he was in the film and throughout
the
thing I was wondering where they got the great voice talent... I didn't
recognize
him. Colin Farrell did a great job of taking his character from a
thoroughly
unlikable lout to a truly sympathetic character. I'm still thinking about
the use of
the last phone booth in a world of cell phone ubiquity as a vehicle to force
the
confessions of a man who exemplifies the duplicity and mendacity that the
modern world takes for granted.
What an excellent example of overall, complete, unabashed bad film making.
I was so amazed at the awfulness of the film I HAD to keep watching.
(Although,
the girls were cute, gun or not, and the movie was almost FUN in it's
badness.) If I
were the writer/director Christina Peters and the editor, Elias Chalhub,
(first time
in their respective top spot for each) I'd do anything I could to bury this
freak. That
is, if I wanted to work in ShoBiz again.
The best part of the movie was trying to read the graffiti in the girls'
rooms.
It's DEFINITELY not "horrible", 21 December 2001
If you have read the story, perhaps 2 or 3 or 4 times, you knew, going in,
that it
could NOT be a fully faithful retelling of the book itself. Nope. Can't
doit. Nuh-uh.
Hell, even if you haven't actually read the books you've seen those
ubiquitous
6-inch-thick gift-paks and you know it.
So then the problem is how do you keep that feel and that familiarity and
that pull
of the story in the 2.5 - 3 hours you got to tell it. And feel like you
wouldn't have
p***ed off Professor Tolkien.
Well, you do it like like this. Jackson has left in the same feel that the
book gives
although it is a decidedly 21st century telling. At the end of the movie I
still felt I
had been through one surprise, struggle, dismay, hope, disappointment after
another until finally, at the end, I was left hanging with uncertainty and
a
ravenous need for the next book.
When' s Two Towers coming out? Can ya buy your tickets
yet?
I know it's fashionable to trash successful movies but at least be honest
about the trashing... Pvt. Ryan was fiction but it was pretty good
HISTORICAL fiction. The details were well thought out and based on reality.
There was nothing stupid about the portrayal of the German army... Rommel
DID blunder in his placement of force, The high command DID think Calais was
going to be the invasion spot, not Normandy. Hitler didn't wake up until
noon on that day and his aides were afraid to wake him. The Rangers did come
in right behind the first wave and did take a beach exit by sheer will to
get the hell off the beach. The bluffs were the scene of heavy close
fighting. The german defenders were mostly Eastern European conscripts from
defeated areas. (note that the 2 men that tried to surrender were NOT
speaking German). There WAS a young man rescued from interior Normandy after
his brothers were all killed. He WAS an airborne trooper (the difference was
that he was found by a chaplain and was removed from the front.)
The battles inside Normandy were small actions town to town, street to
street, house to house. Small actions like taking the radar station
happened. Small actions like a handful of men defending a river bridge
against odds happened. Small squads of men, formed out of the misdrops
banded together ad hoc to fight. There were all enlisted groups and all
officer groups. A General did die in the glider assault. FUBAR aptly
described much of what happened that day.
And there were only Americans in the movie because the Brits and Canadians
were many klicks away in a different area... this was Omaha beach. The story
was an American one. And Monty DID bog down the advance and everyone knew
it. And as for "American Stereotypes"... well those pretty much define
America: my college roomie was a wise-ass New York Jew. My best friend was a
second generation east coast Sicilian. My college girlfriend was a third
generation German. My first wife was French and English. I'm Irish, my boss
is Norwegian and I work with a Navaho... you get the point?
So much for it being bad history. It was in fact an excellent way to let a
jaded and somewhat ignorant-of-their-past generation *feel* something of
what their grandparents (LIVING grandparents) went through. It is perhaps
less important that the details be exact as the feel be right. Even now the
details are not fully known or knowable about that campaign... it was too
big, too complex and too chaotic to be knowable. There is not even an
accurate casualty count of D-Day itself.
Now as to the depth of characters. What I saw there was the extraordinary
circumstances into which ordinary people were thrown and what happened to
them. I saw the things that would mark a generation (I have heard in my
elderly male patients sentiments similar to what Cpt. Miller was expressing
when he announced his ordinariness) I saw the dehumanization that occurs
with war and its mitigation moment to moment, man to man... Cpt. Miller
didn't know anything about Ryan and he didn't care... until Ryan revealed
his humanity to him with his story of his brothers. Pvt. Reiban was ready to
walk out of the situation until he discoverd his captains ordinariness and
his humanity. Then he began to look to him almost as a father. Pvt. Mellish
rightfully delights in his revenge for all the times he's had to take it
because he was Jewish by telling German captives he's "Juden!" Nerdish Cpl.
Upham can stand alongside his bigger, stronger, braver Ranger compatriots
and describe the poetry and melancholy of Edith Piaf's song... then face his
cowardice, turn around and stand up in the face of danger and finally
demonstrate the dehumanization of the enterprise he was enmeshed in by
executing Steamboat Willie... even though Willie had no more choice about
being there than Upham did and in other circumstances would have made a
friend.
I could go on and on with this but enough already. OK, perhaps it is not The
Best Movie Ever Made but it is still a good movie. And if one will take the
blinders of fashionable negativism off they will see it. Finally, this is
not a patriotic story... if anything it is an acknowledgement and thank you
to all those old men still out there that did so much for us. To them I say
a deep and sincere thank you.
And a very funny one, too! I agree with the PoliSci prof... Lighten up,
this is FUNNY.
I do agree that it is probably better for those of us that lived through
it
and for whom it was all VERY serious at the time. And if you wanna
lionize
Dick Nixon, go ahead... but this is great for everyone that remembers
that
time, remembers the importance of the events, and STILL has a sense of
humor
about it all. Rent it. Relax. Eat some Hello Dollys. Laugh.
The dark, nightmarish L.A. of 2019 is the perfect context for this story
about the nature of life and the consequences of presuming to create.
Being, as we are, on the threshold of Petit God-ness - able to create life
yet with out the wisdom to protect life that already exists - the film
could
be considered a warning against the conceit inherent in that pursuit.
Rutger Hauer's Roy was no villain in returning to "meet one's maker" he
merely came to get an answer to his plea: "I want more life!" His only
crime was wanting not to die and to be freed from a life which he had no
say
in becoming, was doomed to a designer's termination program because his
makers feared him and in which he was fully aware of his creation, his
capabilities,his status and his fate. He just wanted more life.
It's been a hallmark of the technological age that humans have given little
thought to consequences with often tragic results. We should be well
warned
that in aspiring to "godliness" we may face the most tragic consequenses
yet.