Also, what the hell happened between The Wrong Trousers and this? the former was boring, stilted, juvenile. The voice-over and chapter trappings were a big part of that, but beyond ditching those A Close Shave improves on the previous W+G short in a gigantic way. This one's a wildly entertaining comic thriller.
one of those obligatory comments where I have to note that the other two comments are hugely missing the target, one in being basically a non-comment and one in missing that there are a ton of jokes outside of the direct address.
wanted to throw a comment up here to say this movie's amazing. Mostly to offset the fact that the three comments that show up right now are just terrible in about every feasible way. Not solely for ugly writing like "might of" and "this one, I didn't find to bad" but also for irrational and insufferable ideas about plot holes and such.
Anyway: now the page for this should have two bad comments on it and one substance-less one reaffirming in a long-winded fashion that this is a masterpiece. I've done what I can.
Don't understand how it's worthy of heckling or what in it would cause laughter. Certainly it depicts some very stupid people but that's the point. The perfect storm of false authority and stupidity and deviance can cause havoc. Unsettling in that it'll have you thinking it's possible that, during a lapse in judgment, you might allow some of it to happen. Mostly, though, it places the blame on a few especially idiotic and reprehensible people, causing you to hate that this level of mega-senselessness is possible from other human beings.
Acting is nice from the woman manager and the young girl and Pat Healy, direction is nothing of note, editing is pretty great. Keeps the flick moving.
decently shitty. technically the editing and sound editing are straight-up bad. entirely incongruous documentary-like interview sections talk down to the audience. worse part is the "wisdom" we're being imparted is shallow drivel about how the world has changed so much and kids and parents are bad now and oh no oh no we're screwed. saddest part is Brody trying to bring up this material. his effort is admirable. Oh, the young girl was good too. probably the only even average part of the film, her plot manages to go somewhere halfway interesting and she's a nice actress.
takes everything good about the original trilogy (focus on pure physicality, Damon's charismatic and well-crafted lead, the love interests and government agents actually being characters instead of walking titles), removes it, and amplifies all the bad parts (awful shaky cam and action). takes laughable sci-fi turns, has no characters, and is filmed like a parody of spy films. if the first scene of Damon's return to the Bourne series isn't his character having to kill Aaron Cross, we'll have failed as a culture.
Spectacular. I want to watch this several hundred more times. Every performance is rich and the script is mind-blowing. Captures a dazzling disgustingness that feels so very American.
Holy shit was this hard to find. I don't think Dog Fight has been a title on this for a long time. That should be fixed. (edit Sept. 5: hey it was fixed. Cool stuff.)
Mostly boring but there are sporadic funny bits. That and the length prevent it from grating but it's far too silly and stupid and shallow to have any import.
Its biggest problem is that it can't decide how it wants to diverge from what we've already seen, and sometimes whether or not it wants to diverge at all. On one hand there are a ton of little references in the film to indicate that being a bit repetitive is okay.
The there's only one story anyway stuff, and the "who am I" that ended spider-man 1
were clear nods to the original films. Obviously, the film is trying to convince us that it's okay that it's sort of similar to what we've seen. But in all the scenes it redoes the film is too uncomfortable itself to straight up copy. So instead of a longer form training montage, it's a shorter blurb. Instead of
Uncle Ben's death being focused on very intensely, it happens in the blink of an eye and falls to the background
. What Webb must not have realized is that making the scenes different in worse ways doesn't keep them from also being repetitive, so it's even worse. Give us time to savor
Peter learning about his powers and hiding his identity. It was fun then, it would have been fun now
. Those alterations and other bigger changes scream "look how different I am!" because of how obvious they are. When you come incredibly close to saying a line like
w/great power comes great responsibility and then don't say it, you're only drawing attention to the fact that it's not being said.
The film is simultaneously shouting at the audience "it's okay that I'm the same!" The end result is awkward, stilted and boring.
The narrative problems don't even come close to ending there. Where to start...how about Connors. At the beginning he's shown to be careful and pragmatic, yet hopeful. He wants to help and think that help will be possible soon, but is wary of going too fast. Then he becomes Lizard. After that he's nearly a demon. He's rash, violent, and blind.
Returns to his human state happening in between being the Lizard do not put his fury at bay, and he has to take more of the drug to become the Lizard again. He's still angry and all while he's a human though. But at the end, when he's cured again, he saves Peter? Maybe this round of antidote resulted in a different change than before. It brought back his more human side. Alright. However, he never seemed to be caught in a moral dilemma. He was one way, he changed, and then he was cured. So his turn to saving Peter isn't satisfying at all.
Connors' entire plot is the opposite of compelling.
Despite having a boring villain, the fights could have been tense. Instead we get a handful of fights in quick succession, all with just about the same stakes.
Peter figures out almost instantly that Connors is the Lizard, and Connors figures out Peter is Spidey not too long afterwards. So their relationship is about the same throughout. Beyond that, Connors' goal never changes. He never has multiple objectives, just the one: be the Lizard and spread it to people. It's even edited together and paced so oddly and annoyingly: we go straight from a lizard fight to a maybe 2 minute scene of Gwen and Peter which ends in them swinging through the night, which jarringly cuts to the school as the lizard arrives. The hell?
Thus, instead of a roller coaster of events, you get what's essentially one long drawn-out fight. Tedious.
Even with bad main villain fights, some of the Spidey's other hero activities could have been fun. Nope.
He spends the first section of his time as a hero hunting blonde-haired criminals, stopping somewhere around 3 to 5. Between all 5 of those, maybe 2 of them involved people actually in danger, and all were about stopping simple robbers. That has no impact on us and should have little impact on the city. Then, he encounters the lizard and saves those cars. Now, most of those were empty, but saving the one kid was cool. So that's about 5 people he's actually saved, and one interesting activity. Then the rest of everything...fighting the Lizard.
I've already discussed how boring that was. The rest of his activities were just as bad. And the result of those activities:
cranes join up to help him swing. I fucking lost it laughing at this scene. Like I said, he's saved about 5 people by my count. Even if we want to boost it a bit, that'd be 10 max. And it's not clear at all whether he was truly helping people doing that, he's had only cursory coverage so far. But a gigantic group of crane operators, who are all luckily located on the same street, make a path for him. All because someone they maybe know a little had their son saved by Spidey. This is all in the middle of a panicky city-wide evacuation. A dozen men who, at this point, should have had no huge interest in Spidey risked their lives for this. And the melodrama lent to the scene is laughable. If you have to do a "city loves Spider-Man" scene, don't make it so ridiculous and heavy-handed.
Some wit could have improved that. Peter firing off a few one-liners as he busts muggers? I'm game for that. Again, nope. He has several funny lines in that excellent carjacker scene and some unfunny attempts at wit ADR'd over other scenes. As Spidey he's just absolutely dull.
As Peter he's less dull, but he's still not exactly charming. For me it's not just that he's whiny, it's that he's nothing close to a nerd or any kind of kid that'd be unpopular in high school. He's into photography, he's really smart, he's good-looking, he wears American Apparel, he skates, and he's often awkward but nice. That kid in a high school today has a good group of friends, is decently respected. He's given no reason for being a loner other than "he's whiny." It's practically repellant.
That sucks because Garfield really brings up the material, and with better writing he'd be a truly fantastic Spidey. Emma Stone is much the same with Gwen: she elevates the material a lot, but it's still not enough. Mostly because her character isn't given enough to do. If these two were plopped down into a well-written Spider-Man story, it'd be great. They have amazing chemistry.
How about that first-person swinging? I had someone assuring me that wasn't in the actual film. Wrong! It's there and does not look good. The effects are pretty wonderful everywhere except for there and during the
Stan Lee cameo, where the fight in the background looks to take place in a completely different area. Speaking of this: what the hell at that cameo? Why keep doing these so distractingly? Make him a cab driver or something, not a dumb punchline.
Almost as bad as the ridiculous product placement. It was as bad as Fringe's, but instead of having maybe one close-up of a phone every episode, it was an insane amount of in-focus and visible Vaio and Sony logos and screens over 2 hours. In that dosage it becomes grating even to those experienced with ignoring product placement.
Even with such great effects, the Lizard looks awful. It's simply not a cool creature design. He's a joke. And his mouth while he talks is awful.
That's a lot. Writing about the film made me realize just how much I disliked about it. I didn't feel as badly walking out. But I still didn't feel good. And that's because despite the super strong chemistry and acting, the film doesn't work on a thematic level at all. There are two main threads: 1) what is the risk behind having secrets or behind secrets being uncovered? 2) in so many words, with great power comes great responsibility. The second one is sort of tacked on further into the film, and is developed only okay.
It is established pretty well that Peter's only interested in revenge for a while, and the he shifts to being interested in public good. That's fine, but it happens about halfway through. So it's done by then.
The first of those is left completely open, has only some movement from the beginning.
Richard Parker's secrets put people at risk, but they aren't uncovered. They're impact Peter and have turned him into a superhero, but we get no hint as to what's going on. Peter's secret identity essentially hurts Ben. Richard's equation kills Captain Stacy and puts the entire city at risk. So the idea that secrets in general hurt others is communicated pretty well, but posing them through the enigma that is Richard only to give us zero information on him is not satisfactory. Yes, it's not as bad knowing that the answers will come in sequels. But as a standalone film, it really hurts TASM.
Dissatisfaction defines TASM. I was never a comics person, but I was a huge Spider-Man (1994) and Spider-Man Unlimited fan. And from that I grew to love a snarky Peter who steps up to serious challenges while remaining fun. The Amazing Spider-Man can't do that. It doesn't know how much of a reboot it wants to be, it doesn't know how or when to be humorous, it doesn't understand narrative flow or how to provide satisfying consequences, and it's a general bore. With a different director and writer, the sequel could be stupendous thanks to the brilliant leads. For now, all we get is an empty, uncomfortable and sour film.
I think using 1) the fact that the film has distinct halves and 2) it's admittedly soft depiction of concentration camps as criticisms isn't fair. Those two elements are key facets of the film. The beginning focus on a romantic and comical man, with offhand mentions of brewing unrest, is alongside the heavier concentration camp half in order to illustrate that life is not all bad. One point of the film is that the bad cannot overpower all of the good in life, hence "life is beautiful." As for the almost whimsical concentration camp half: I do get why some are annoyed by it, but you have to remember that
the film is essentially told from Joshua's point of view. His father did everything he could to maintain the illusion that this was just a game in order to keep Joshua ignorant of the horrific events around him. The viewer is supposed to pick up on the obvious signs of mass murder and such, but Joshua's doesn't notice. They're his memories, and he remembers being shielded from terror.
So the point of the second half is basically "ignorance can sometimes be bliss," and whether that's a viewpoint with which you agree or not, I think it's communicated quite well.
All this said: I think the film is just good. Visually it's nothing special. A lot of the acting is overly hammy, especially from the mother. A few scenes in the first half with Guido were badly acted too, but for most of the first half and almost all of the second half his performance was funny, energetic and endearing. On a pure physical comedy level, the film's quite successful. Simple but well-crafted narratively.
Squanders a possibly interesting-enough idea with a yawn-inducing script, alternatingly bland and hammy performances, and some simply weird directing choices. Marky Mark's character is how not to do an anti-hero: he's nothing more than an idiot punk who puts the lives of everyone he claims to love in danger and
Comments 1 - 17 of 17
Toplist comment on Sight & Sound's The Greatest Films of All Time
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so...updating this or nah?Movie comment on Island of Lost Souls
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Currently active here: https://archive.org/details/1932-island-of-lost-soulsMovie comment on Travis
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz_2pJ0yjhYMovie comment on El héroe
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Adolescent "nice guy" female-panic horseshit. artwork's decent.Movie comment on Barbe-bleue
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Movie comment on A Close Shave
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Also, what the hell happened between The Wrong Trousers and this? the former was boring, stilted, juvenile. The voice-over and chapter trappings were a big part of that, but beyond ditching those A Close Shave improves on the previous W+G short in a gigantic way. This one's a wildly entertaining comic thriller.Movie comment on Sans toit ni loi
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one of those obligatory comments where I have to note that the other two comments are hugely missing the target, one in being basically a non-comment and one in missing that there are a ton of jokes outside of the direct address.Movie comment on Halloween
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wanted to throw a comment up here to say this movie's amazing. Mostly to offset the fact that the three comments that show up right now are just terrible in about every feasible way. Not solely for ugly writing like "might of" and "this one, I didn't find to bad" but also for irrational and insufferable ideas about plot holes and such.Anyway: now the page for this should have two bad comments on it and one substance-less one reaffirming in a long-winded fashion that this is a masterpiece. I've done what I can.
Movie comment on Compliance
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Don't understand how it's worthy of heckling or what in it would cause laughter. Certainly it depicts some very stupid people but that's the point. The perfect storm of false authority and stupidity and deviance can cause havoc. Unsettling in that it'll have you thinking it's possible that, during a lapse in judgment, you might allow some of it to happen. Mostly, though, it places the blame on a few especially idiotic and reprehensible people, causing you to hate that this level of mega-senselessness is possible from other human beings.Acting is nice from the woman manager and the young girl and Pat Healy, direction is nothing of note, editing is pretty great. Keeps the flick moving.
Movie comment on Don't Look Now
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The Baxter marriage is brilliantly rendered, as is the depth of their grief. Entire thing is damn mesmerizing. Evocatively shot with a perfect close.Movie comment on Detachment
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decently shitty. technically the editing and sound editing are straight-up bad. entirely incongruous documentary-like interview sections talk down to the audience. worse part is the "wisdom" we're being imparted is shallow drivel about how the world has changed so much and kids and parents are bad now and oh no oh no we're screwed. saddest part is Brody trying to bring up this material. his effort is admirable. Oh, the young girl was good too. probably the only even average part of the film, her plot manages to go somewhere halfway interesting and she's a nice actress.Movie comment on The Bourne Legacy
Big ander
takes everything good about the original trilogy (focus on pure physicality, Damon's charismatic and well-crafted lead, the love interests and government agents actually being characters instead of walking titles), removes it, and amplifies all the bad parts (awful shaky cam and action). takes laughable sci-fi turns, has no characters, and is filmed like a parody of spy films. if the first scene of Damon's return to the Bourne series isn't his character having to kill Aaron Cross, we'll have failed as a culture.Movie comment on Henry Fool
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Spectacular. I want to watch this several hundred more times. Every performance is rich and the script is mind-blowing. Captures a dazzling disgustingness that feels so very American.Movie comment on The Campaign
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Holy shit was this hard to find. I don't think Dog Fight has been a title on this for a long time. That should be fixed. (edit Sept. 5: hey it was fixed. Cool stuff.)Mostly boring but there are sporadic funny bits. That and the length prevent it from grating but it's far too silly and stupid and shallow to have any import.
Movie comment on The Amazing Spider-Man
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Really a very bad film. Which is a shame.Its biggest problem is that it can't decide how it wants to diverge from what we've already seen, and sometimes whether or not it wants to diverge at all. On one hand there are a ton of little references in the film to indicate that being a bit repetitive is okay.
The narrative problems don't even come close to ending there. Where to start...how about Connors. At the beginning he's shown to be careful and pragmatic, yet hopeful. He wants to help and think that help will be possible soon, but is wary of going too fast. Then he becomes Lizard. After that he's nearly a demon. He's rash, violent, and blind.
Despite having a boring villain, the fights could have been tense. Instead we get a handful of fights in quick succession, all with just about the same stakes.
Even with bad main villain fights, some of the Spidey's other hero activities could have been fun. Nope.
Some wit could have improved that. Peter firing off a few one-liners as he busts muggers? I'm game for that. Again, nope. He has several funny lines in that excellent carjacker scene and some unfunny attempts at wit ADR'd over other scenes. As Spidey he's just absolutely dull.
As Peter he's less dull, but he's still not exactly charming. For me it's not just that he's whiny, it's that he's nothing close to a nerd or any kind of kid that'd be unpopular in high school. He's into photography, he's really smart, he's good-looking, he wears American Apparel, he skates, and he's often awkward but nice. That kid in a high school today has a good group of friends, is decently respected. He's given no reason for being a loner other than "he's whiny." It's practically repellant.
That sucks because Garfield really brings up the material, and with better writing he'd be a truly fantastic Spidey. Emma Stone is much the same with Gwen: she elevates the material a lot, but it's still not enough. Mostly because her character isn't given enough to do. If these two were plopped down into a well-written Spider-Man story, it'd be great. They have amazing chemistry.
How about that first-person swinging? I had someone assuring me that wasn't in the actual film. Wrong! It's there and does not look good. The effects are pretty wonderful everywhere except for there and during the
Even with such great effects, the Lizard looks awful. It's simply not a cool creature design. He's a joke. And his mouth while he talks is awful.
That's a lot. Writing about the film made me realize just how much I disliked about it. I didn't feel as badly walking out. But I still didn't feel good. And that's because despite the super strong chemistry and acting, the film doesn't work on a thematic level at all. There are two main threads: 1) what is the risk behind having secrets or behind secrets being uncovered? 2) in so many words, with great power comes great responsibility. The second one is sort of tacked on further into the film, and is developed only okay.
Dissatisfaction defines TASM. I was never a comics person, but I was a huge Spider-Man (1994) and Spider-Man Unlimited fan. And from that I grew to love a snarky Peter who steps up to serious challenges while remaining fun. The Amazing Spider-Man can't do that. It doesn't know how much of a reboot it wants to be, it doesn't know how or when to be humorous, it doesn't understand narrative flow or how to provide satisfying consequences, and it's a general bore. With a different director and writer, the sequel could be stupendous thanks to the brilliant leads. For now, all we get is an empty, uncomfortable and sour film.
Movie comment on La vita è bella
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I think using 1) the fact that the film has distinct halves and 2) it's admittedly soft depiction of concentration camps as criticisms isn't fair. Those two elements are key facets of the film. The beginning focus on a romantic and comical man, with offhand mentions of brewing unrest, is alongside the heavier concentration camp half in order to illustrate that life is not all bad. One point of the film is that the bad cannot overpower all of the good in life, hence "life is beautiful." As for the almost whimsical concentration camp half: I do get why some are annoyed by it, but you have to remember thatAll this said: I think the film is just good. Visually it's nothing special. A lot of the acting is overly hammy, especially from the mother. A few scenes in the first half with Guido were badly acted too, but for most of the first half and almost all of the second half his performance was funny, energetic and endearing. On a pure physical comedy level, the film's quite successful. Simple but well-crafted narratively.
Movie comment on Contraband
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Squanders a possibly interesting-enough idea with a yawn-inducing script, alternatingly bland and hammy performances, and some simply weird directing choices. Marky Mark's character is how not to do an anti-hero: he's nothing more than an idiot punk who puts the lives of everyone he claims to love in danger and