dolce's Official Reviews: (All Reviews Have Been Deleted)
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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 http://www.worldofkj.com/dolcevita-ControlRoom.php
Control Room
Quote: ...Jehane Noujaim’s exploration of the individuals delivering news throughout Arabic speaking communities. Al-Jazeera, a radio and television news agency now well known throughout the world has been in existence for only the past eight years but has already risen to the coveted number one most watched news channel in several middle eastern countries. Control room is not the story of Al-Jazeera’s rise in prominence, and it is not an exploration of subtle media tactics. Control Room documents the personal stories and unique insights offered by reporters and military personnel since the United States publicly announced its intentions to enter Iraq. In a long list of recent films documenting the political bias of American and International media, Control Room distances itself from the rest of the pack in the ambiguity of all the interviewee’s positions, Noujaim’s intentions for documenting those opinions, and the hazy reception of Al-Jazeera by political authorities. Al-Jazeera has been condemned for inciting opposition not just against the U.S. government but against Arab officials as well. So which is it? Is the station’s agenda pro or against whom?...
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| Tue Jan 04, 2005 11:26 am |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Here are the newest two, enjoy:
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
http://www.worldofkj.com/Dolcevita-LifeAquatic.php
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...While not quite on par with his previous multi-character story, The Royal Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic still manages to relay a similar story line of an older man realizing everything he does and does not have in his life. The character arcs and personal exchanges in Life Aquatic are far more choppy and less developed than its predecessor, and the oceanscape and situations Zissou and his crew face are also much more far-fetched. This new treat then is far easier to palate but is also successfully bittersweet in its resolution and conclusions.
...What Life Aquatic lacks in polish it compensates for with the inherent sentimentalism that underlies the crew’s comic feats. At one point, dressed in full diving gear they run around an abandoned island hotel searching for a missing member. It is just outright hilarious, and mildly ridiculous seeing the Aquatic members in action, but it is fundamentally quite touching. They are, after all trying very seriously to rescue a fellow crewmember regardless of how incredibly silly they look...
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...Truly one of the strongest elements in the film, and finally the key character it rightly deserves to be in a road trip film, is the landscape and interiors the two young men become part of and that becomes, however unconsciously, an integral part of them. At one point Guevara writes in his diary while overlooking the ruins of Machu Picchu. He asks himself how he could possibly feel such an affinity and homecoming to a history and space he never knew. He wonders how he could miss what he never had but that seemed to haunt the niches of the crumbling walls of these indigenous dwellings...
...Still a remarkable movie for its strength in cinematography and the use of that very strength to move along the story of shared experiences. Motorcycle Diaries is an interesting biography for its attention to its source literature and its choice of exploring a different moment in the lives of two men who would remain faithful to each others ideals for years to come.
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| Thu Jan 06, 2005 2:03 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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The First flat out A I have given to a movie this year, everyone who can should go check this one out.
Bad Education
http://worldofkj.com/Dolcevita-BadEducation.php
Quote:
In all noir films there is always a scene during which a solitary woman with something to hide enters the office of a lonely detective. But the contemporary landscape of Almodovar’s Bad Education is not before the war, it is 1980, so instead a solitary man with something to hide, cigarette and all, enters the office of a director...
...We are presented rather with Ignazio, a young man who has written a semi-autobiographical story in which he writes about himself garbed in drag as the dazzling Zahara. He then begs to play the part of Zahara in the production. Almodovar has always been unique in the way in which his characters gender identities are undefined and their characters fluctuate; his most recent work continues in the light of this tradition. In telling form, only a director such as he would cast the femme fatale as both a man and woman wrapped into one...
...Truly one of the greatest films of 2004, Bad Education is anything but so in demonstrating how to procure a refreshingly new thriller.
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| Fri Jan 07, 2005 3:59 pm |
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zingy
College Boy Z
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2004 8:40 pm
Posts: 36662
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I heard about Bad Education. I may have to check it out when it comes on DVD.
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| Fri Jan 07, 2005 4:11 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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You and Torri alike. Its NC17. Here, we discussed the content in this thread if you are interested? http://www.worldofkj.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=887
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| Fri Jan 07, 2005 4:19 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-TakingPatty.php
Quote:
...The incorporation of extremely large amounts of raw footage in Guerilla is very telling. Many such scenes speak for themselves, and the small comments provided by ex-SLA members, contemporaneous reporters, and historic biographers fill in a few of the gaps. Stone has a little too much faith in the footage and assumes the raw power of watching well dressed youths calmly hold up a bank at gun point, or watching a frenzied shoot-out between several of the members and the L.A.P.D will make the documentary good enough. He’s right, but it doesn’t make the documentary as wealthy as such a topic could potentially be. Several of the comments by journalists are deeply telling of the media frenzy that brought the Symbionese Liberation Army to national renowned glamour. They became the Robin Hoods of incarcerated minorities and the disillusioned classes long after their focus had collapsed in on itself...
Last edited by dolcevita on Tue Jan 25, 2005 8:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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| Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:49 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Meet the Fockers
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-MeetFockers.php
Quote:
...What is initially entertaining humor still feels a bit too contrived, and more importantly, unaware of its incredibly predictable choice of subject matter. The fact that the Focker’s religious identity and their vocations and choice of community are further merged into one massive string of Yiddish quips does little to redeem the deeper problems of what happens when a man such as Jack Byrnes has sex only once a year on his anniversary but is suddenly faced with the chutzpa of a middle aged couple that still role play and use whipped cream in bed. Fockers just shoves more characters, more over the top situations, and less depth into its now six-member cast. Six characters desperately in search of a mildly more insightful author...
Meet the Fockers will entertain, and it might even provide a quaint nice happy ending. The humorous situations demand well-timed laughs and are blunt in their humor, but the theatre was laughing quite robustly throughout its length. Its unconscious sub-theme, however, should have either been moved to the forefront in order to be treated with more sincerity or should have been abandoned altogether for a safer form of in-laws interaction.
Quote:
Alexander Payne’s directorial style is certainly getting attention as of late, and his most recent work, Sideways, is no exception. A worthy and secure film about two men’s week-long getaway into California wine country before one of them is to wed has humane characters and all the wealth of a well told story. What Sideways does lack however is any particular events that do not turn out as expected, or extraneous experiences that do not somehow fit nicely into the larger and slightly conservative tale of relationships and marriage. Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti) and his freshman college roommate Jack (Thomas Haden Church) head out on their path with half their lives having already passed them by. Dante fans everywhere approve. But the beast ahead is not nearly so allegorical; it is in fact quite easy to comprehend. Jack wants sex during his final bachelor week, and Miles is a nervous wreck whose career and past marriage have failed to produce anything other than a gut, his set of neurotic habits, his obsession with wine, and an intense inability to just relax for a couple of days and party with Jack...
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| Wed Jan 12, 2005 6:22 am |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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A Very Long Engagement
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-VeryLongEng.php
Quote:
...Jeunet’s typical visual tangents are incorporated in much more adept fashions for Engagement. The snips of narrative serve as the revisited visions Mathilde creates of the past, and they work to break the film’s sense of time. They same night’s events change but unfold in present time while as well being woven into Mathilde’s search for answers, past flashbacks to her meetings with Manech before the war, and Tina’s thirst for revenge. Had the film stopped here it would have been excellent. Jeunet, unfortunately, never realizes that Mathilde has enough personality without needing frivolous extra quirks...
Ultimately, A Very Long Engagement is a quality film but lacks the suspense to be truly riveting. Mathilde’s quest still remains a goal oriented quest rather than a process oriented journey, and so the focus of an end point still plays too heavy a hand in what could have otherwise been a film truly about time and maturity. One cannot help but notice that the end is too important for the complexities of a film that is not supposed to be exactly linear. Less expository and more creative than most dramas of such a nature, but still crisp and palatable, A Very Long Engagement is a strong movie if not an exceptional one.
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| Sat Jan 22, 2005 1:19 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Mississippi Burning
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-missBurning.php
Quote:
It is duly noted that the actual screen time assigned to black Mississippians is minimal in this 1988 production, but that’s probably, if not painfully, a more accurate representation of the times than we care to admit. At one point agents Anderson (Hackman) and Ward (Dafoe) are asked if their presence would even be warranted had not the two Jewish New Yorkers disappeared. Probably not, Anderson acknowledges.
And so with under this self-critical tone begins Parker’s exploration of the complex nature of the Civil Rights movement. There is no crime without national attention, and no national attention without a crime. From the onset Anderson and Ward have conflicting interests. Anderson is himself an ex-Sheriff of a similar small town, and disagrees with Ward’s attention seeking tactics. Ward is well aware that crimes against the local population happen regularly, and that unless he draws attention to the situation under broader discussions of race violence, this particular case will be swept under the carpet just as all previous ones had...
...Dafoe plays moral outrage straightforward, but any peachiness is held in check by Hackman’s more angry yet subtle actions, McDormand’s hesitations, and the simple fact that all three of them are dependant on each other to see the situation to an end. There can be no crime without national outrage, no national outrage without a crime, and no crime without the support and testimony of a local white person...
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| Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:25 am |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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I'm building a series of reviews for films I see from this Senegalese director. There is an entire thread were i am feeding info and reviews on him here: http://www.worldofkj.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2852
He is the 81 year old director of the current film Moolaade, and i will be building the above thread until I see his new film. Feel free to peek in and enjoy.
Mandabi (The Money Order)
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-Mandabi.php
Quote:
Ousmane Sembene is considered one of the founding fathers of Senegalese film, and most likely the most warmly received African cinema director internationally. Mandabi (The Money Order) is his 1968 feature-length exploration of Dakar class stratification, illiteracy, and individual character. The film follows Ibrahim Dieng (Makhouredia Gueye) and his two wives through the events following the reception of a money order in the mail from a hard working nephew in Paris. Dieng experiences one obstacle after another in trying to get the money order cashed, and throughout the film his actions continue to allow for a nostalgic and hopeful interpretation of his character. His wives are strong willed but caring, and the three of them are suddenly thrown into chaotic and comic situations involving their perceived new found wealth....
Sembene has one more critical aspect to Dieng’s personal story that renders the entire family story allegorical in nature. He introduces the local mail carrier as an integral part of the story. The carrier is the man who first delivers the money order and comes by daily to inform the family that the order is still at the post office. The carrier’s identity is a bit to direct a metaphor for “the bringer of good messages,†but the parallel is still a strong one. When all is lost and seems to be in disarray, “we†the carrier informs Dieng and his wives, will be the good people that start the revolution. Not through violence or wealth but through communal identity and kind-heartedness. Sembene abstains from being too condescending however, as while the mailman speaks an infinite amount of beggars line up to demand help from the ever poorer Dieng, and the audience is left to wonder which route he and his family will actually choose to take in the future.
B+
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| Wed Jan 26, 2005 11:42 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Million Dollar Baby
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-MDB.php
Quote:
Clint Eastwood is a master storyteller. His newest directorial effort, Million Dollar Baby, is by no means transcendental, scathing, or even all that surprising, what it is however is a personal and very humane treatment of individuals building relationships and finding comfort in dreams and actions. Many a film have touched upon the “makeshift family†theme but Eastwood just handles the emotional significance of such encounters that much better. Million Dollar Baby is the story of a man who finds a second chance at guiding the daughter he never could and a young woman who receives from and gives love and support to a father she wished she had. It is beautifully simple and under Eastwood's typically paced and heavy hand, the theme also avoids crossing over into the realm of cliché...
A story of melodramatic love gained and lost could easily descend into prescribed sentimentality, but Eastwood never allows Million Dollar Baby to feel formulaic. One cannot help but support and hope in Maggie's vision, just as Frankie is swept away by her energy. One cannot help but find Eddie the most weathered and intelligent failed fighter to have graced the screen...Never the less, all of their revealing moments and habits are woven together into one unassuming personal experience of an educator and his pupil, though its anyone's guess who ultimately is doing the learning and who is providing the lessons.
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| Fri Jan 28, 2005 8:51 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-Moolaade.php
Moolaade
Quote: In his most recent film, 81 year old Senegalese veteran director Ousmane Sembene produces a scathingly simple criticism on the subject of female circumcision, and through its lens explores the opportunities for cultural exchange between the West and sub-Saharan cultures. The pleasant metamorphosis of film and indigenous African identity is fully apparent in Moolaade where Sembene allows for the camera and content to explore internal cultural structures rather than exonerate them. Sembene has often argued for cinema’s space in cultural identity, and has expounded on its importance as a source of information in the face of illiteracy and differing consumption habits...
Moolaade opens with four young girls begging for support from Colle Gallo, the second wife of a villager who refused to have her own daughter, Amasatou, cut and sown seven years earlier. Colle has developed a reputation for denouncing the act and grants the children “Moolaade,†a form of sanctuary that carries religious implications. The children are not to cross a rope tied across the entrance to the living quarters of the family, and the villagers demanding the girls be handed over cannot enter either. What ensues is a lengthy dispute involving several fractions of the community including the women who perform the ceremonies, the religious men of the village, Colle, and Hadjatou, a fellow elder wife (1st wife) who supports Colle’s endeavors in her own style...
After two escaped young girls are found drowned in a well, the male villagers begin to question why the tradition of purification is becoming increasingly challenged. All the women have radios and listen to Western talk, the radios must be confiscated. Sembene makes a point of filming the ever growing pile of radios simultaneously to the female outcry for a return of the goods they worked for and purchased...
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| Sun Jan 30, 2005 11:40 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Another one for the Fellini Archives \:D/ :
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-8%BD.php
8½
Quote: ... The story is about a film director who can’t overcome creativity-block in order to
produce his next movie. Sound familiar? Fellini had previously filmed eight full-length feature films and
one film short, hence the “half†as well as the disturbingly hilarious malaise of the most memorable victim
of writers-block, Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastoianni)....What does Guido do? Nothing
actually, he just slips into fantasies about women and suicide and his youthful indiscretions...
Ultimately what makes 8 ½ so exceptional is Fellini’s constant and indistinguishable fluctuation between the
first and third person narrative vision...Often, Guido appears to be viewed from outside of
himself, and as he dreams his habit of placing himself within the memory landscape rather than experiencing
the memory through his own eyes leads to a clean and unnoticeable transition between reality and dreamland....
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| Wed Feb 02, 2005 2:33 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Vera Drake
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-VeraDrake.php
Quote: Mike Leigh’s newest film about an elderly abortionist in post-WWII England is necessary but lacks ambition. Leigh’s propensity towards filming tears is evident, and his humanist heroine is sympathetic to the point of over-simplification. Vera Drake often drags and fails to transcend Leigh’s visuals and expository message, but the message is an important one, and his desire to approach it must be applauded. The film follows Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton) through her daily life and optimistic habits as an energetic, compassionate woman... She has but one secret, for years she has helped women in need on Fridays at five o’clock...
Vera Drake’s character is just too sympathetic and clean to really anchor the entire film. While her movements and smaller sub-plots throughout the first half of the movie keep the narrative engaging, her later arrest followed by length upon length of tears and inaudible words begins to bore. Its clear that while the law considers her illegal, she considers herself simply a woman doing her duty to help desperate women as she once was. She emphasizes her cleanliness and respect for each woman, and often reiterates that she is just helping them between episodes of tears. Staunton’s portrayal of Drake is noteworthy, and the role is very demanding, but Leigh’s construction of the character is fairly flat. She is a nice, generous and loving old lady that is just being nice and generous to other ladies. She is shocked and traumatized by her incrimination, and she has a break down. Her family, which had no idea, collapses in on itself momentarily, but rallies around its loving matriarch despite her son’s heavily conflicting opinion about the subject...
Last edited by dolcevita on Tue Feb 15, 2005 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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| Sat Feb 05, 2005 11:35 am |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Ray
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-Ray.php
Quote: Don’t be fooled by the breakthrough performance of the year, Taylor Hackford’s homage piece to the life and music of the late great Ray Charles is formulaic, reinforces some racial stereotypes, and lacks in creativity and insight. Hackford’s Ray is a biography in the strictest sense and never takes flight either in its use of the film medium or through exploration of a musician that rose to notoriety over decades of recording and performance. The movie traces Ray Charles’ (Jamie Foxx) first decade as a performer but fails to take into consideration the music industry, American history, or the processes of creative inspiration. Hackford could have used the assistance of a couple interns doing a bit more research, but instead touches upon only the most well known facts in Charles’ life: his drugs, some women, and songs that rose up the ranks in the music charts. While Hackford does make an attempt to touch upon Charles’ childhood traumas, he really doesn’t even explore how music fit into young Ray’s landscape of poverty, Jim Crow, and blindness...
...The strength of the film and its inherent watch-ability come from the undemanding storyline and from the long string of songs by Ray himself that riddle every scene. Hackford deserves credit for not forgetting that Charles’ music is his fundamental claim to fame, and tune after tune is easily recognizable and enjoyable. The industry that produced them goes unmentioned outside of dramatic interludes within the recording studio, and what could have been rich grounds to explore the incorporation of R&B, Gospel, Jazz, Blues, and Black Musicians into the pop mainstream of the 50’s goes completely un-addressed other than one news paper clipping that happens to mention Charles’ first cross-over song into white consumer culture...
Last edited by dolcevita on Mon Feb 14, 2005 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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| Wed Feb 09, 2005 2:50 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Closer
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-Closer.php
Quote: Mike Nichol’s new exploration of angst, sex and pettiness is irritating but insightful. While not up to par with his other exploration of utterly failed relationships, Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf, Nichols recent directorial outing, Closer, touches upon many similar questions of failed relationships, bitterness, and naiveté. Closer follows the interactions between four individuals who after chance encounters in London begin trading sentimentality and partners through a loose network of coincidences and manipulations....
Unfortunately, while Closer’s exploration of the human condition is abundant, Nichols fails to use the film medium in any way that supports his questions. In the past he has often resorted to subtly manipulating typical clichés in order to produce insightful commentary, but he takes his characters too seriously to allow for a similar build this time around. Sadly this inability actually lessens their uniqueness rather than building it. In the past his characters were not inherently worthy of attention, they had to demand it...
...The heavy-handed flatness of their responses may also allude to profundity without actually being as insightful as one would have hoped. The last minute of the movie redefines everything that preceded it, and while I welcome the new shedding of scathing critical light on love-at-first-sight, the moment may be a bit late in the narrative, and still cinemagraphic experience of Closer may not be for everyone.
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| Mon Feb 14, 2005 5:01 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Faces of Women (Visages de femmes)
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-Facesofwomen.php
Quote: “In the end the festival becomes a refuge.†And so begins Desire Ecare’s conclusion to the cyclic narrative of Ivorian women’s experiences in Faces of Women. Ecare weaves two stories in several time frames through the chanting and singing of festival songs. N’Guessan (Albertine N’Guessan) is a young wife in an Ivory Coast village who slowly comes to realize her position set against the landscape and metaphor of Ivorian independence, and Mrs. Congas runs a fish business in Abidjan while supporting her families appetite and modern lifestyle. These two heroines constantly navigate modern and traditional obstacles as representatives of their entire gender. “In the beginning was the festival,†and men and women dance energetically in Ecare’s opening ten minute sequence and homage to movement and musicals...
Karate, sex, business ventures, singing and dancing, everything is within the woman’s necessity and potential. Ecare does not necessarily project these women’s actions into the future, nor does she dwell on condemning Africa’s cultural past. Rather, Faces of Women is a gendered exploration that transcends time and addresses the questions of African identity through the lens of those questions. It is most fitting that in Ecare’s expertly woven narrative the final scene is simply an extension of its opening festivities, and that the entire cycle of the film is not grounded in linear time just as her heroines’ issues and psychologies persist in many an era and locality.
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| Wed Feb 16, 2005 11:04 am |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Maria Full of Grace
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-Maria.php
Quote: Maria Full of grace is Joshua Marston’s refreshingly new interpretation of the American dream that has little to do with money and everything to do with mobility. Not one tear is shed throughout the entire length of a story that ambitiously addresses depressing subject matter without resorting to an outpouring of salt water, sniffles, and nervous breakdowns. Instead, we are presented with Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino Moreno), a frustrated headstrong seventeen year old humiliated in her job as a flower wrapper in a factory...
She quits her job and quits her boyfriend before proceeding to set off to the big city, look for work, and move on in her life. When she is offered more money than she can imagine if she serves as a “mule†digesting packets of heroin and carrying them across the American border, not only does she accept the task, she lies about her age in order to ensure the offer remains, she befriends a fellow mule, Lucy (Guilied Lopez), and prepares herself for the experience as best she can...
By making Maria a criminal and placing her in the foreign States, Marston demands the attention of the viewer through lack of explicit dialogue and responses. Since Maria never states her feelings outright, she demands a more insightful interpretation of character and situation.
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| Thu Feb 17, 2005 1:48 am |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Hitch
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-Hitch.php
Quote:
Hitch, Andy Tennant’s new foray into the ever-so-painful romcom is most likely one step better than its predecessors, but Tennant sure does his best to impede any insight the Date Doctor might prescribe. Alex Hitchens (Hitch) has a nice wealthy little career for himself helping men “get through the door.â€Â
He also meets Sara Melas (Eva Mendes), a gossip columnist. The story starts to feel a bit Mr. Smith-ish with a demanding female reporter dieing for a good story and everything. The unfortunate scenarios that are their dating experiences range from pleasant faux-pas to painfully contrived slap-stick sentimentalism. Yet the ongoing weaving of their dating, Brennaman’s ugly duckling tale, and Hitch’s narratives, hold their own well into the tale of love, sex, and the city. Then Hitch’s material gets colder feet than couples nearing their wedding day. It flees with not a remnant of its previous sense of charm, polish, misguided but hopeful attempts, and sense of insightful storyline. The conclusion drifts through painfully overdramatic scenes that conflict too outright with the previous tonal setting. The prospect of exploring the date doctor’s placebo actions is instead supplanted by melodramatic dramedy lines of one-true-love and opportunities lost...
...In such a rich space for commentary, it’s truly a shame that Hitch aims for the Big Apple but then settles for peanuts...
B-
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| Thu Feb 24, 2005 2:59 am |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Inside Deep Throat
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-InsideDeepThroat.php
Quote:
Gerard Damiano was a ladies’ hairdresser for years. He felt like he had a connection with his weekly visitors who often discussed their unfulfilling marital experiences. Gerard Damiano was also a “film maker,†as he likes to put it, in the early seventies. He swapped his hairdryer for a movie camera, and with $25,000 dollars he directed the most lucrative film in history, Deep Throat. Inside Deep Throat is the frenetic documentary that tries to explore everything and anything having to do with the pornography film’s rise in popular culture...
The new documentary also includes dozens of criticisms and commentary from contemporary scholars and celebrities ranging from John Waters to Gore Vidal. The inclusion of such commentary provides a wide range of insight, snide remarks, defiant arguments, and odd nostalgia focusing on the most famous blow-job in film history. Almost every interviewee has seen the “rocket†orgasm and wouldn’t have it any other way. An aside, viewers who haven’t seen the Deep Throat climax, no pun intended, will have personally experienced the grande event by the time this documentary wraps up its hour and a half of musings...
Last edited by dolcevita on Sat Mar 05, 2005 9:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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| Sun Feb 27, 2005 3:05 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Memories of Underdevelopment (Memorias del Subdesarrollo)
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-MemoriesUnder.php
Quote:
Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s Memories of Underdevelopment explores a fledgling new Cuba unable to shake its dilapidated abused past. Produced under the hand of Fidel Castro’s Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematograficos (ICAIC), Memories had the full support of Cuban government and has since become one the darlings of Latin American cinema in the international market. Initial resistance to its message is difficult to perceive, as Memories has quite a brooding critique of Cuban identity, and Memories achieved such levels of recognition in light of its lethargic observations of the bored and disillusioned Cuban elite. Sergio Carmona Mendoyo (Sergio Corrieri) wanders about the streets of Havana and reflects on his own life coupled with Cuba’s inability to flourish. The women, and there are several, are allegorical figures for Cuba’s damaged past, and Sergio’s bitterness plays out on their skin, eyes, and style. He harbors little respect for any of them...
He gazes from binoculars on his patio one morning and comments on the stagnation all around him. But, that morning is different, and so begins Memories of Underdevelopment. An entire film shot in Sergio’s memory following the morning of first change. Advance under the guiding government’s hand is the hopeful message that banned its presence on American soil for quite some time. Alea’s discussion is subtle and an equal mixing of propagandistic messages embracing a hopeful future and scathingly bitter critique.
A-
Last edited by dolcevita on Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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| Wed Mar 02, 2005 3:38 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Miradas (Glance/The Gaze)
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-Miradas.php
Quote:
...Miradas has the trappings of an insightful movie but fails to really explore anything except for one afternoon and evening of pettiness. This movie could be about an opportunity to leave Cuba, it could be about desire through the lens of technology, and it could be about a thirty-something year old’s early-life crisis, or a mysterious past, or the boredom of never-changing environmental decay. But alas, this movie suggests all such content in nothing more than a desperate reach for an illusion of profundity, and Miradas is basically about nothing...
Miradas follows several characters as they dabble with each other’s sentiments more intricately yet superficially than the film’s Latin television counterpart, the true soap opera. Miradas, in fact, feel an awful lot like a daytime two hour soap, complete with jealous girlfriends, sex, tears, duplicitous characters, and generally self-inflated personalities. Miradas harbors a lack of involving visual narratives and is uninvolved with its own content, proving that any well established film production machine produces its fair share of misses with the hits...
Last edited by dolcevita on Sun Mar 13, 2005 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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| Sat Mar 05, 2005 1:15 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Be Cool
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-BeCool.php
Quote:
Chili Palmer is back for his round two bout with the entertainment industry in F. Gary Gray’s Be Cool. He’s still got the cold detached gaze, and he still can’t quite shake his lone-shark past as he transitions from making movies to making music. Only in Be Cool’s match lineup, Chili is up against some pretty weak “bad guys.†Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel) has a tight fist on a five-year contract with next big thing singer Linda Moon (Christina Milian), and Carr’s wannabe Black sidekick, Raji (Vince Vaughn)...
The premise of Be Cool is a decent adventure in musicland, and is best not associated with its predecessor Get Shorty. Still, even when taken in as a stand-alone flick, Be Cool fails to impress. Chili and Edie have no match in Nick and Raji, and the bland character of Linda Moon gets far too much screen time for being the least complex and charismatic of the lot....
The colorful cast of characters includes several cameos and smaller roles that flesh out the dry plot and poorly scripted main exchanges. The dialogue never quite meshes as every character’s tone is inconsistent. Be Cool feels a bit like the cast was busy, filmed separately, and had some editors splice their pieces together...
Lets hope Chili makes enough money off of Linda’s voice to retire in comfort and not get any bright ideas about trying his hand at theatre, ballet, or a Vegas show.
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| Mon Mar 07, 2005 11:04 pm |
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dolcevita
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:24 pm
Posts: 16061
Location: The Damage Control Table
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Bride and Prejudice
http://www.worldofkj.com/Galia-BridePrejudice.php
Quote:
Fully equipped with the most famous lines and multiple marriage ending, Gurinder Chadha’s contemporary interpretation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice adds Bollywood dance sequences to the mix if little else. Chadha’s Bride exchanges the original author’s class and gender critique for one of culture clash between the colonized and the Anglo, but fails to really explore the new context in depth. Chadha’s heroine Lalita Bakshi (Aishwarya Rai) tries to navigate her Indian heritage and her encounter with American hotel heir Will Darcy (Martin Henderson). Chadha has mentioned that Bride and Prejudice is a bit “subversive†in the two star-crossed lovers’ cross-cultural encounter, but Lalita’s experience is about as subversive as My Big Fat Greek Wedding. She’ll marry whomever she damn well pleases. This statement may well have been a groundbreaker in the 1950’s but it’s a bit dated in 2004. Furthermore, if Chadha’s ultimate ambition had been to criticize Indian marital traditions or the once lightly mentioned dowry system, one wonders why the film was made for an international audience in English, rather than for domestic viewing in Hindi?...
The retelling softens the effect of the commentary and turns Bride and Prejudice into a love story with obstacles rather than an obstacle-ridden story that happens to culminate in love. The light pace, campy dancing (one sequence even involves cross-dressing civilians) and recognizable banter make for a fluffy viewing experience. Bride and Prejudice is actually less heavy-handed than the archetypal BBC Austen version, but it is also somewhat less fulfilling.
Last edited by dolcevita on Tue Mar 29, 2005 2:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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| Wed Mar 09, 2005 2:14 am |
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zingy
College Boy Z
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2004 8:40 pm
Posts: 36662
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My mom's been dying to see Bride and Prejudice for some odd reason.
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| Wed Mar 09, 2005 7:26 am |
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