Reviews

Let's start with the Bottom Line: if you make a movie about the relationship between 2 people and one of the 2 people was a "mature, developed" person when the relationship began, then a) you have to explain who that person was, b) subsequent events cannot all be incongruous, & c) you cannot focus only on the relationship and completely ignore that one of the 2 people seems to have some life outside of the relationship.

Lousy character development, lousy character motivation, and lousy editing (though maybe some of you would call that plot development, I don't know).

Lousy character development: a) Eva was supposed to be a world-traveler who later (when? Not sure, but much later since her daughter was no longer a toddler. Why? Not sure of that either.) wrote a book about traveling the world (I guess that was the topic. We are not given any insight.). OK. We're shown nothing of this except a visit to a tomato festival in Spain and her desire to personalize her room by wallpapering it with maps. b) We're also clued in that she loves living "in the city", NYC to be exact, but we are also shown none of this. c) She then marries a chubby buffoon (Why? WTF knows or even seems to care.) who forces her to move to the burbs, and not just any burbs. These are likely the burbs of NYC, perhaps the most depressing burbs in the world.

All this happens but we're given no reason to believe in any of it. It just happens. She just does it. It may as well be a Nike commercial. She is like a sphinx or a deer-in-headlights.

Lousy character motivation: a) So, after Eva's non-existent character development, she's living with a devil-child in the deadly boring burbs. Great. Boy, to put up with this, she must really love that guy. Not. We're shown no spark or even a connection between the "happily" married couple. b) Well, maybe something else in the burbs fulfills her. Uh, no. For some # of years, she seems to be a stay-at-home housewife. But she is SO BUSY that she seems to make little attempt to have her devil-child properly assessed by the proper professionals, No Matter How Bad Things Get. c) She seems to get a job at some point. What is it? Who knows. Who cares. d) So, her life is about the exact opposite of what she would have probably envisioned, and there is no sign of offsetting, positive factor. So, what does she do? She sticks around and HAS A SECOND KID! Good one. e) Well, having a 2nd kid didn't improve the home-dynamic any, and now her loving 2nd kid is being terrorized by the devil-child. So, does she do anything about it? Snooooooooooooooooooore. Dems duh breaks lil girl.

Lousy Editing: a) What was this book supposed to be? The film is about the character EVA. We are shown almost nothing to understand her. Then, the 2nd most notable thing she does in her life is writing this book. (#1 being raising a psycho-killer and warning nobody about him) The film treats it like a throwaway. b) What was that job she was at when she heard about trouble at the high school? What? How long did she work there? Did they have a nanny? Huh? What? Here's one of the screwed-up things, she knew he was a devil-child, the husband wouldn't believe it, so one obvious thing to do is GET ANOTHER WITNESS. Hire a nanny, get out of the house, let the nanny deal with him, then get the nanny to back you up. c) When she is coming out of court, the lawyer says "You'll lose your business." Huh? WHAT BUSINESS!??! Huh?

And this is all before the "climax". What happens after the climax, just pathetic. WTF did she stay? WTF did she stay prior to having a 2nd child? WTF did she stay and keep the 2nd child exposed to such danger, exposed to such malignance and cruelty? WTF did she stay prior to the climax? And, most obviously, WTF did she stay after the climax? Perhaps she was a different sort of psychpath, or just ridiculously weak.

The truest words spoken in Akira are when Kaneda screams (Kaneda does nothing but scream) "Where the hell am I friggin going?". By that time this thing has gone off the deep end. I have to give it a few points for the fine animation and for having influenced other, future, better movies. But, beyond that, geeeeez. This thing consists of violence, screaming, violence, swearing, violence, some Blade Runneresque neighborhoods, violence, and more screaming. When the lead characters are punks with inferiority complexes who ride around trying to smack people on the head with lead pipes, well, who gives a ($*@$*#($!! It really does need some kind of theoretical physical framework, because all systems are definitely not nominal in Akira.

Likable but surprisingly weak. Yes, of course, the basic concept is comic, and there are many funny scenes, but it really does jump back and forth between comedy and drama, and that isn't usually a problem, except that here, it is done poorly in many ways. A big part of the problem is editing I'd say. First, the initial romancing of Lara is way too long. SOme people think the movie itself is too long, but I find that hard to say, since I think there were things that needed to be added ... and other things that needed to be removed ... and a lot of things that needed to be one or the other. In general, the latter part of the movie was full of dubious choices and sloppy editing. Why was the father reintroduced into the scene? To show us that the mom is a moron? Great. There was NO reason to bring him back. Maybe it added the concept that families were torn apart by the wall, but DUH! The result was a deep dive back into drama from the shallow end of comedy. Then, why did the daughter run from the father after she had read his letters and knew the truth. It makes no sense, and is totally unexplored. Next, we see Lara tell the mother something about the border being gone. But the mother never asks her son what the $@#^$* his gal is talking about, and then when they show her the wall coming down on the fake news that night, the mother doesn't ask "Gee, how did Lara know that before it happened." Very weak all around. But there is more. Next we see Berlin's fireworks display to celebrate the anniversary. But, just a few minutes before, the son tore pages off the calendar and said they were holding their anniversary party on the 2nd, not the 7th. So, if this family was celebrating on a day other than the actual anniversary, why is there a city fireworks display on that night. Very weak.

I love these Guest/Levy put-ons, and Willard is always great. So is O'hara in this. But come on, this is not in the same league as their others. It isn't even nearly as good as Drop Dead Gorgeous. I know that is by a different troupe, but it is a great comparable. The part leading up to the show is good. The show is interminable. It kills the movie. After the show ends, things get better again, but that huge dead-spot in the middle makes it impossible to give this more than a five. Once again, the people who give these mediocre movies a "10" seem to be missing an oar. Take this comment: "the character of Corky ... at first glance he can seem like an annoying gay stereotype. But good ol' Christopher Guest has a trick up his sleeve...listen VERY carefully and you'll hear him mention his wife (just once in the whole movie). I don't actually think for a minute Corky is homosexual, he just acts exceedingly camp. ... We should realise that Christopher Guest is one step ahead of us!" Hello!?!? Guest is two steps ahead of this guy I'd say. Corky CLAIMS to have a wife. Somebody else in the flick, maybe it is Mrs. Pearl, says nobody has ever seen her. Hello!? That is the joke. Get it now?

The daughter says "Sho-ga-nai wane" when she is making the bed for her drunk ota-san. I don't think anyone says the more formal and more despairing "Shikata-ganai". That says a lot, and it means that the reviews that take Tokyo Story as damnation of the ungrateful devils in the younger generation or as damnation of a "western society" (as one reviewer fantasizes) are off base. "Sho-ga-nai wane" simply means "that's the way it is". My wife says it fairly often. "Shikata-ganai" seem to be more like "life sux and then you die". My wife doesn't say that and nobody says that in Tokyo Story. This movie is a dilemma, sort of like the dilemma discussed while they're drinking ... how it is tough to live with your kid but tough for them to be gone. This movie? As oka-san says about her kids "certainly better than average". And in Lake IMDBgone, average is about a 6.5, so I give this an 8. The problem? Tokyo Story is both literally and figuratively BLACK & WHITE. It is a simple movie. Even the dialogue is simple. How simple? I speak Japanese worse than kindergarten level, but I could understand most of what the older generation said. They talked slowly. They used simple grammar, polite forms, and simple words. So, I empathize with the commentator who panned it. Yeah, I also knew everything that would happen after 20 minutes of viewing. If I hadn't spent a lot of time in Japan and have Japanese in-laws, i.e. If I had little to no interest in Japan, I might feel similar and not even have watched the whole thing. (In this way, it is almost like Lost in Translation.) I mean, if you have little to no interest in Japan, it is neither very entertaining nor very revealing. Come on, you have to be pretty baka to not understand generational gaps and the damage done to family life by modern society. Well, duh! Having said all that, the message is well-done, it is universal, and who knows, maybe seeing it in a different time and place will add something for you even if all you know about Japan is Sony and Toyota. If it weren't set in Japan, I'd probably give it a 6.

Sanjuro is good, but not even close to Yojimbo's league. Sanjuro probably isn't even one of his top 6 movies. Mifune and Nakadai are fine, but the women are irritating (in a way and to a degree that perhaps Japanese women have perfected, speaking as someone who knows Japanese women). There just really isn't that much to this. I believe those who say he was forced to make this movie and made it as a bit of a joke. It is that far below his standard of excellence. I've seen Yojimbo 3x. This once. I'd watch Yojimbo again before this. My question is; can some film school dropout explain the supposed point of the fountain of blood in the final scene?

So, it has come to this. In the top-rated comment on this flick, somebody says "Nishi is an honorable man". Really? This is a guy who mainly kills and maims people in the movie. He takes a short break to rob a bank. Honorable? How would you like your kids to go to school with the kids of someone who calls that honorable? Wait, there's more! The person also says "we can tell he's constantly thinking." How can we do that? Well, do you know that joke "How can you tell when a CEO/politician/lawyer is lying?" ... "His/her lips move." Well, Nishi's lips never move, so I guess that means he is thinking.

Of course, this is existentialism to warm the hearts of the cult of victimization. Existentalism supposedly stresses that an individual take responsibility for the consequences of one's acts. Not Nishi. Borrow money from the yakuza. What, they want it back? Kill them. The cops find out. Kill yourself and your wife.

Really honorable.

Too full of the current fashion: flash-backs, flash-forwards, twists, and turns. The main point of them in this case seems to be to confuse people. Well, guess what, I was confused, but that didn't stop me from figuring out the BIG SURPRISE that Borden had a twin about halfway thru the movie. here's an example of those giving it a "10": "Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman give out powerful performances. I can imagine no other actors to portray these characters." Whenever someone says that about actors in a movie, you know they cannot think outside the cranium, never mind outside the box. And here is more "The film also features a solid performance of David Bowie, playing an expert in electricity." Whoa. This film expert never even heard of Nikola Tesla. Hey film school dropout, he is a real person. Whether he built the first transporter/cloner/whatever, well, we'll leave you to think about that. What? Don't they offer "Physics for Dumbies" in film school?

I wasn't surprised when it won. The "oh, he/she has never won, so we've got to give it to he/she" has been VERY busy the last few years. Plus, I hadn't seen it. I was really looking forward to it. WOW!! This was bad in a number of ways, but mainly because this has to be the worst screenplay EVER to win any Oscar, never mind a best pic. How else was it bad? Casting Nicholson as a tough guy that would scare everyone else has always been a laugh. Nicholson is a little pisant. He wouldn't last a year in South Boston, never mind decades. Nicholson's games with hookers were pointless and just distracting. The woman shrink, whatever her name was, sleeping with both Damon and DiCaprio was ridiculous. Wahlberg (was that him? I hadn't known he was in the pic, and for a few minutes I thought Damon was playing two characters.), looked and sounded like a local village idiot in Charlestown. Truly, the entire police force, local, state and FBI couldn't have lit a 100 watt bulb. The idea that Nicholson's character wouldn't have fingered and killed DiCaprio's character quickly is also ridiculous. Let's see. Nicholson has, oh, a half-dozen henchmen, all of whom have been with him for YEARS, all of whom have KILLED for him. Then DiCaprio shows up. He is an EX-COP! Hicholson takes him in. About a year later, it becomes clear there is a rat in the group. Gee, who do we suspect?

Now here is one that gets a little tricky. I noticed the guy told DiCaprio to go to #314 instead of #344. The guy noticed that DiCaprio still showed up at #344. Now, we aren't sure if that guy was an undercover cop or not. The TV said he was. Nicholson doubted it. If the guy wasn't a rat, why didn't he tell his cohorts that DiCaprio was, ahem, suspicious. Gee you think?

Another reason it is so ridiculous he hadn't killed DiCaprio by then. When the TV fingers one of his guys as a rat, Nicholson won't believe it, though he knows there is one. This is like a "which one doesn't belong in this group" game for a 2 year old, but Nicholson failed it!

There were a few more crazy plot holes and foolish setups. It was hard to keep up with them. As for the almost everybody-gets-shot-in-the-head ending, don't get me started. There are too many inanities there to begin. At least Wahlberg's village idiot knows how to put on foot covers. Was that to hide the fact that he didn't know how to tie his shoes?

All in all, I understand why MS got the Oscar. The direction and acting was pretty good. But, giving this a Best Pic or voting it anything over a 6 is ridiculous.