Change Your Image
greenman_99
Reviews
Bean (1997)
One of my favorite TV characters crashed and burned.
I just don't see how anyone was able to take a character as funny as Mr. Bean, nor an actor as funny as Rowan Atkinson, and make such a terrible, terrible movie.
Mistake number one: serious, tear-jerker subplots. Not only were they hokey, they were completely counter to the free, unfettered, occasionally mean humor that Mr. Bean usually represents.
Mistake number two: Peter MacNicol. This guy has always been one of the worst actors I've ever seen. Name a movie where he was funny... I bet you can't.
A good Mr. Bean movie would have been a Jacques Tati-like flick, with little dialogue and faith in the character's visual humor. This movie apparently made huge money in Asia, where (I'm guessing) the TV series never played. I'm sad to think how many people in the world think they know Mr. Bean, but all they know is this pale imitation of one of the funniest characters ever to appear on television.
28 Days Later... (2002)
Freaked me out
I just saw "28 Days Later", and I admit I was pre-disposed to like this movie, because I am a Danny Boyle fan (I loved "Trainspotting" and liked "A Life Less Ordinary") but holy crap... this movie freaked me out.
The zombies were so fast and spastic, they were like the bad guys that chase you in your dreams. The digital video made everything strobe-y and immediate and was a brilliant choice, IMO. This is a grim, ugly story that ends up being beautiful because the filmmakers decided to give humanity a break... but it doesn't feel forced or saccharine like Hollywood would have done it.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Unexpected
I am not really a fan of science fiction, nor of Spielberg. I saw this movie only because I like Stanley Kubrick, and because I found myself stuck in another city with an evening to kill.
I walked out of this movie emotionally shattered. I expected some Spielberg button-pushing... cute kid, parent issues, peril, John Williams score, etc... but my cynicism was upended. I have always hated Spielberg's movies, as a rule, but I have to admit this one knocked me on my ass.
The John Williams score was there, but instead of cinematic syrup, this film was actually ABOUT things... abstract things like hope, need, hate, and corniest of all, love. From the promos, I knew the film was about parents with a robo-kid. How cynical, I thought (before I saw it), to make a film that punches such a primordial, emotional button. I didn't realize the film would take an obvious starting point and then carry it eons beyond what the audience expected.
This movie contains beautiful, scary, confusing images. The moon chases terrified victims through the woods... a teddy bear acts like a gentle, senile family member... a screaming mother shakes off a clinging, pleading child in the middle of the woods.
The ending of the movie is cerebral, not visceral. The viewer must dream into the future, not expect a literal, physical ending to the story. Near the end, the movie promises one ending after another, but then the story keeps going, just as David does... the little boy who will always be a little boy, right up until the end of the world.
Lifeboat (1944)
A brilliant and harsh ride
Before today, all I really knew of Hitchcock was his murder mysteries (I consider myself a huge fan of those). Now I see why he is more often described as a master of SUSPENSE. You would think: how much suspense can there be within the confines of a 12 or 15 foot long lifeboat?
There is plenty- from a shellshocked woman tied to a chair after her baby is buried at sea, to an amputation performed by a Nazi during a rising storm, to the experience of being in a leaky boat caught between two ships that are shelling each other- this movie was a much harsher ride than I expected, and makes me respect the genius of Hitchcock even more than I already did. I watched it alone on VHS in broad daylight, and I STILL felt rattled by the experience... I can only imagine what it must have felt like to see this on the silver screen in a darkened theater back in the day.
The brilliance of this movie is how it portrays good and evil in little glimpses instead of broad strokes. Every character is morally ambiguous to some point, acting nobly one moment, brutally the next. Despite the presence of a black man, an affluent woman, a (probably Nazi) German, a blue-collar sailor, and so on, there are no stereotypes aboard this lifeboat by the end. Each has surprised you, possibly disappointed you, and definitely made sure that you will REMEMBER them as a person, not as a "type," long after the movie is over.
The Quick and the Dead (1995)
Exaggerated, intense, beautiful, silly
Like all of Sam Raimi's movies, this flick was a cartoon. That's not an insult- his works with the Coen brothers on movies like The Hudsucker Proxy are some of my favorites, with their insanely "zoomed-in" quality. This movie was a spaghetti western, it was ABOUT spaghetti westerns, and it was also a weird, wonderful nightmare where your options are limited, you're a superhero, and your enemy is all-powerful. That's adolescent, silly, and totally compelling.
Raimi has always done brilliant visuals; I don't know his history, but I suspect he read a lot of pulp comics as a kid. The early scene where Stone gets up (after playing dead) and you see her shadow putting her hat back on, with the obvious bullet hole in the brim, is sheer visual brilliance.
Gene Hackman is, of course, great (MST3K line: "He's good in everything!"). Sharon Stone has gotten a lot of static for doing what Clint Eastwood built a legend on: bad acting, done intensely. (And in Stone's case in this flick, I think, purposefully.) Leonardo D. is well-cast as a cocky, yet needy, "bad-a** in his own mind" type. Russell Crowe (who nobody knew at the time, especially me) is great in his role as a survivor of a 12-step program to help fight a dependence on violence, complete with backsliding moments.
Do not look to this movie expecting anything like realism, believability, or moderation. This is pulp fiction, eye candy, nightmare surrealism, wanton entertainment. It's trash culture saluting trash culture, and if you can appreciate that, it's a hell of a great ride.