Whiplash (2014) is a cracking movie, eh. I would say … draining. It promotes a bit of an American Dream fallacy, though, namely that hard work = success. Nonsense. I could work like a sheep dog for 19 hours a day for seven years trying to fathom how the Tim Robbins character managed to escape Shawshank State Penitentiary yet perfectly place the poster (from the assembly point of the tunnel he dug) back on the cell wall … and still have no answers.
It makes no sense.
This was verily an impressive motion picture, and it starts with the cast, even though the highly irritating, 100% talentless ‘lad’ from ghastly ’90s British TV series Men Behaving Badly is somehow in it.
The music is pure Vangelis and it suits the story and locales surprisingly well; one wouldn’t expect Blade Runner (1982) stuff to work in this setting. The attention to detail (life on a ship) is necessary, the toils a clear element in the breakdown of the crew, most of them toothless goons who appear to have been press-ganged. You can see the temptation to mutiny. It’s the late 1700s and you’re presented with Tahiti when all you’ve got upon return to Great Britain is living in a cesspool.
The weirdo Anthony Hopkins does his best weirdo Anthony Hopkins, which is just the right amount of weird.
The Robert Bolt screenplay is a tad disappointing. After the craftily put together exposition, he resorts to homoerotic undertones to explain Bligh’s reaction to Christian’s shagging, which is just lazy writing. And there’s not enough drama on display, which sounds nuts considering the scenes. Not enough characterisation, no scenes exploring a character doing anything outwith the collective, not enough style that grabs; you’re in the hands of a most journeyman director.
But it works despite of its bad handler.
This was pathetic from the very first second, the opening a superhero movie-style newspaper headlines montage to make up for the lack of a well-written exposition.
It’s so dull, the script going like this:
Character one: “Something is happening.”
Character two: “What is happening?”
Character one proceeds to explain what is happening and then reeling off a line with a time and date of an event in order to segue to the next scene.
What else? No one in it appears to be affected by anything that happens to them in a case of ordinarily excellent actors phoning it in. It is so badly edited, cut to the max in desperation yet still dull. Framing is without purpose. Music is better suited to a two-hour sequence shot of a pigeon napping. This movie is an abomination.
Watch Manhunter (1986) instead.
I must confess, I loved this.
It is unabashed glossy trash of the highest order, with Douglas at his peak of sleaze. It’s how I image Gordon Gekko would be in his private affairs. I didn’t care much for the machinations of the plot, but merely for the level of smug on display, though David Suchet’s detective seems to think it’s an actual Cannes-worthy art piece he’s in.
I’ve never seen the Hitchcock one. A new quest.
And it’s not even good, not a smidgen of “timeless classic” going on, another nostalgia viewing regret.
I don’t understand the point of any of it, or why they are even trying to find the body (the “we’ll be heroes” motivation makes no sense). The voice over is entirely unnecessary, each schematic vignette increasingly dull, and the direction heavy handed and tepid.
I simply wasn’t buying it, my annoyance at the characters’ antics only matched by the disappointment I had in myself for watching their needy antics despite being bored shitless.
Coming-of-age rubbish.
The take-home image is of Bobby De Niro and his cool-as-milk beard. And his cool hat.
It’s not exactly a funny movie (not a single laugh was had) but more of a witty satire that stays just on the right side of absurd because you can genuinely see this stuff happening for it sort of has happened.
Politicians and their helpers are mostly reptiles and will do anything to win power – history tell us this, and Wag the Dog (1997) exposes the techniques spin doctors use and the cynicism of distraction, PR in its essence, if you will. It also draws our attention to the collusion between the media and the political class. More films should do this.
Denis Leary is highly annoying, though. He doesn’t seem sincere. His persona is a grating act and I don’t get his appeal or why he is in films.
But he’s not in this much.
Thank fuck.
I never thought much for John Grisham with his seemingly bottomless supply of the same sledgehammer page-turners for the courtroom lay person. But this is Hackman and Hoffman in their only film together, the “least likely to succeed” still chewing up the scenery.
This is glossy and decent enough as expected but with an intriguing premise offering something quite different from the usual going-through-the-motions drama. Jury selection/packing/tampering/whatever is the focus, and it’s quite the line-up: Cliff Curtis, Luis Guzmán, and, somehow, Uncle Frank with no eyesight.
And it doesn’t skirt around an issue, guns, that is still an … issue. Because it’s never not going to be.
Worth a watch.
And I didn’t even know it until I heard ‘Strange Overtones’ on the radio and somehow connected the dots. This album just made Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) a hell of a lot better; talk about being suited to a film. And as a stand-alone album, oh yes.
It’s time to reavulate the sequel to Gekko. For the second time.
One of the many sequels I saw before the original, like my viewings of Aliens (1986) and The Godfather Part II (1974), both films alluded to in the life-imitating-art film class scene in the hugely impressive horror Scream 2 (1997).
The truly annoying-as-hell Jerry O’Connell aside, this movie is fabulous, with frighteningly tense scenes, a tight script, witty dialogue, and a rather gnarly soundtrack. There’s also a genuine romance (Dewey and Gale) and David Warner managing to be creepy merely by being there. And as self-reflexive as it is, its postmodern obsessions doesn’t stop it being up there in the vanguard of the slasher movie.
Wes Craven was the best. And poor Randy Meeks, eh. Pray for Randy.
Tell you what, this wasn’t bad at all and I usually can’t stand Depp.
He is on a short leash here, and Frank Langella gives perhaps the best creepy phone performance (mostly) ever.
It’s got this low-key, slow-burning atmosphere that is bizarrely twinned, somehow to effect, with intentional comedy deriving from awkward social and professional interactions, and I know all about those for they happen every hour. Despite the supernatural elements, they are cloaked in a story that works as a basic thriller.
And the score by Wojciech Kilar. Listen to this and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) for a double bill.
Further reading:
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 