Comment troubles & other stuff

Something's going on with the comments... I'm not getting emails when I receive a comment anymore. So, to all who have commented since the There Will Be Blood review, I just saw them for the first time! Most importantly, I was asked if I will take requests on films to review and the answer is yes.

1900 was fun to live blog. I think it pretty well documents how I watch movies. I am extremely generous and excited as I begin to watch most films. With 1900, I had reservations, but was "with" the movie for an hour and a half and then slowly began to feel the piece unravel. But even though it lost me, I was still willing to stick with it and find the pearls that it had to give. This is how I watch movies. It's also an embarrassing document of how easily I lose track of who's who in films. It took me several viewings to fully understand the relationships in the Godfather films.

1900 Live Blog

12:02 PM - Snacks? Check. Water? Check. Computer? Check. DVDs? Check. T-minus 28 minutes and counting.

12:25 PM - Checking Bernardo Bertolucci's IMDB page, I find I have seen only Last Tango in Paris of his body of work. I enjoyed Last Tango quite a bit, though not as much as Pauline Kael.

12:30 PM - Here we go!

12:33 - I'm a sucker for opening credit sequences. I'm trying to guess who did this music.

12:34 - I knew it. Morricone, you great god.

12:40 - Often in Italian films of this period, I experience a brief, but trying amount of time while I struggle to keep in mind that the unsynchronized dialogue is a result of the traditional Italian production process, not necessarily a reflection of the quality of the film. This is going on right now.

12:40 - Donald Sutherland vaguely resembles Paul Giamatti in his first apperance in this film.

12:43 - De Niro totally snuck in under my radar. I didn't realize it was him.

12:48 - Nice flowing shots that introduce several characters. Two women give birth, one a bastard of a peasant woman, the other the inheritor of vast wealth. Cues indicate that the wealthy child is De Niro later on.

12:53 - These opening scenes can't help but remind one of The Rules of the Game with the upstairs/downstairs conflicts and wonderful, lush cinematography that sort-of glides along as things happen. Right now: an auditory delight as several workers clean their scythes in unison.

12:57 - Precursor to the famed Hay Zombies of Zombi 3, several children emerge from the hay and chase the young wealthy boy. The bastard child collects frogs and puts them on his hat. He tries to force a young girl to eat a frog. Is this the young Depardieu? If so, the "frog" aspect is somewhat amusing.

1:02 - We've got a Prince/Pauper friendship developing. The young Wealthy fellow is not as a brave, looks up to the more earthy bastard. The earthy one lays down on the railroad track and lets a train pass over him while the wealthy kid can't take the pressure. We will no doubt see a call back to this as they age.

1:05 - A Hunchback fool introduces the concept of Unionizing the estate workers to the peasants that work the wealthy fellow's land. I'm also a sucker for union films. This is going to be good. For so many hours. I love this kind of movie.

1:10 - And on the heels of that: The frog boy's father instructs this bastard son to learn to read, write, join the army, and attain success, but still remember he's the son of peasants. As he speaks, the kid walks across several tables and the camera tracks his legs as he approaches. It's a beautiful thing, but the first moment that truly rings false... bending the reality of the film as previously established for the sake of creating aesthetic beauty. Pushes too many buttons. Sterling Hayden (I believe) is the father and he is as commanding as ever, but he can't save this moment from some of the emptiness that has crept in.

1:11 - PAUSE. TIME FOR A BREAK.

1:20 - Bladder and nicotine levels back to optimum standards. What I'm saying is that that moment was affecting, but rather arch and the movie did not build to that archness. RESUME!!!

1:22 - Future reference: Alfredo is the name of the wealthy son and Olmo the name of the bastard/frog kid. Discussion that both young men will be going into the army.

1:24 - A gun is introduced. Chekhov's rule in effect.

1:37 - I have trouble keeping up with characters in these sweeping epics, I'll admit. There is an uncle Ottavio who, I believe is the brother of a nun. He is dying and seems to be suffering from dementia. He and Alfredo play at shooting members of the family with unloaded guns. Alfredo gets in trouble for this. I had to REWIND to try and understand the relationships. I'm not entirely sure I've gotten it accurate here, but can't spend any more time trying to get it with the length of the film being what it is. What's important is that Alfredo identifies with the notion that he doesn't belong with his family, that he is an outsider among the wealthy noble class and wishes to live with uncle Ottavio.

1:40 - A general trend in the film's aesthetic seems to be to mythologize Olmo's story, to tell it in elevated tones with passionate music.

1:41 - speaking of music, a wonderful sequence of peasants playing rustic instruments, starts out diagetic then transitions to a fun little oomp-pah-pah tune clearly coming from the soundtrack.

1:46 - I'm unmoored. Not sure where/when the movie is. Alfredo and Olmo were going to run away. Now there's an elderly man who looks glancingly familiar asking a young girl (who is not used to wearing shoes) to follow him. The live blogging is no doubt interfering with my comprehension at this point.

1:52 - Dark cue by Morricone, powerful, as Sterling Hayden discovers the body of the elderly man who's hung himself in a barn full of cows. This is the grandfather of Alfredo, I've just figured out. (sorry!)

1:56 - demonstration of early television as a child is entertained by a shadow of a boat on a wall.

1:58 - Ottavio has shown up. He's a rakish sort, tattoos, worldly, completely charming in just his first scene.

2:00 - just as a conflict was brewing between Alfredo and Olmo where Alfredo demonstrated he had power over Olmo due to his class, there was a goddamned scratch on the disc. The DVD player jumped backwards ten minutes. CURSE YOU PREVIOUS NETFLIX CUSTOMERS AND ALSO THE QUALITY CONTROL PEOPLE AT NETFLIX!!! I haven't even made it 1 hour into this film due to some rewinding, one break, and so-forth, and it's already been 1.5 hours in REAL TIME. Now the disc jumps back TEN MINUTES??? I'VE GOT TO GET MY TAXES DONE AND YOU PUT ME THROUGH THIS???

2:00 - PAUSE FOR BREAK TIME AND CLEANING THE DISC.

2:10 - Okay, I'm back. I've attempted to clean the disc. Luckily this is not a David Lynch film, so I can use handy chapter stops to get back to the point I left off at.

2:11 - By the way, the elderly fellow had a little girl touch his wiener before he hanged himself. Classy way to go out.

2:17 - I believe this scene was cut from the American release. Alfredo and Olmo compare their penises. In addition, Alfredo lords his class over Olmo and there's a brief discussion of socialism, class, and religion.

2:20 - I relize that I am falling into the trap of describing what is going on a little too much. I will labor to stop describing the events of the film and more describe my reactions.

2:25 - The disc just skipped backwards again.

2:28 - I've switched players to see if it will do any good.

2:29 - Not much better here. There's still this one moment that simply won't play.

2:30 - While I'm stopped up, I want to note that there's a bit of an irritating sentimentality that runs through a lot of this movie, particularly with regard to the peasants and their struggles. It is rather cloying.

2:34 - Okay, well, I'm going to have to skip across a bit of the film. Annoying. There appears to be a scratch running the length of this disc, which means that this will probably keep popping up throughout this disc. I'll have to do what I can with these paola stoppas and surge on through. It makes one long for the simplicity of streaming video.

2:45 - Sterling Hayden's death is a truly earned moment of sentimentality. Each time I make a comment about this film, there's a moment that comes along immediately and refutes what I've said. Great moment, great acting. He just fades from existence. Also, he is not Olmo's father, but his grandfather. I am not so sharp about such things, very often.

2:45 - GOD DAMMIT.

2:55 - I would like to propose that Netflix adopt the following slogan in their offices: Don't be a jerk. Make sure the disc works!

2:58 - Real time spent: 2.5 Hours. Amount of movie watched: one hour 25 minutes.

3:00 - The disc is working... but for how long?

3:02 - The use of diagetic music in this film is awesome. There have been several scenes of people playing music and following them as they play. It's really compelling to just watch people play.

3:05 - Time jumps are always tricky. The movie's just jumped ahead in time to the end of World War I and Olmo is now Depardieu. I don't believe I've seen Mr. Depardieu in a film before, oddly enough. Anyway, it's a pretty big jump, but not awkward. Gracefully done. Similar to the Godfather Part II, prior to the jump, we're on a train, after the jump, we're back on a train, both times with Olmo.

3:10 - The hour and a half spent on the estate at the beginning is well worth it. Depardieu's homecoming from the war feels genuine, I was happy to see these people again, somewhat older, like Olmo. I knew them and what Olmo meant to them and vice-versa.

3:14 - De Niro's acting as the older Alfredo is out of place, feels too American.

3:16 - Sutherland doing better acting than De Niro? It's happening in front of me right now!

3:19 - This movie may be Donald Sutherland's finest hour. He's vibrant, honest, genuine... confident.

3:22 - Morricone's score veers from amazing to too sentimental and back again. Sometimes within seconds.

3:28 - Payoff, of sorts, to the musicians onscreen when a group of socialists begin singing at a group of (fascist?) soldiers in order to protest their being rousted. This scene is quite effective, the singing a representation of socialism brotherhood and solidarity.

3:45 - The measure of a man is how he handles an epileptic prostitute going into a seizure while you and your childhood friend are about to have relations with her.

3:52 - Back from another quick break. I'm settling into De Niro's performance here. His character is obnoxious, one-note. He hasn't grown one bit from the child he was earlier.

4:00 - Well, the movie seems to have read my mind again and given De Niro a love interest who is twice as obnoxious as he is, a pouty woman who screams like a spoiled six year old when she doesn't get what she wants.

4:13 - My hackles are being raised. This movie has begun to piss me off... There's a lot of movement, but not a lot of tension. There's no momentum developing, no sense of progression. I'm getting the sense of the early overwrought moments beginning to dominate, take charge. This woman who pretends to be blind is dragging the movie down like a pair of concrete shoes.

4:14 - Her name is Ada. Her voice is like someone blended Isabella Rosselini and Kathleen Turner. And the sound of the blender is still audible. It's atrocious.

4:26 - A fire at the socialist meeting place results in the death of several older members of the party. Their charred bodies are paraded down the streets by Olmo and his not-wife, in order to inspire the masses. The parade is rather involving, but still, I'm waiting for this movie to find its traction. Everything is bits and pieces. The last time this movie felt like it was coming together was when Olmo came home from the war and I don't know how fucking long ago that was. More footage of people playing music as the parade continues. Rather good music too. Don't know if it's traditional or Morricone, but it's great. Now a parade of marchers wearing dark mourning clothes, but red neckerchiefs strolls by. Meanwhile soldiers watch, eyeing the proceedings suspiciously. Really cool, visually... Historically. It matters to Olmo, and that's nice since our sympathies are with him as the underdog.

4:27 - Sutherland has just officially stopped acting, and is now just pretending to be a crazy evil fellow. He's left the land of praise and is now in the land of obviousness.

4:28 - It's not entirely his fault, the script just required him to kill a cat for no reason, other than to demonstrate how totally evil he is.

4:30 - The end of disc 1! Two hours and forty-two minutes. PAUSE FOR SLIGHTLY LONGER AS I MAKE SURE DISC 2 ISN'T SO STUPID! See you at 4:50 or so!

4:44 - So the hilarious thing is that disc 1 was really banged up and stuff, but disc 2 looks almost like new. I wonder if most people stopped at disc 1. I can't say that this movie makes a great case to continue, but I shall press on in five minutes.

4:50 - Okay, disc 2 begins!

4:53 - Typical of the movie, Alfredo and Ada run up a staircase with no apparent reason other than to give the camera an excuse to have a bird's eye view of an elaborate hotel lobby.

5:00 - Another fit and start--Alfredo has to return home to visit his sick father. Affecting, in that Alfredo has run away from his father's ever-growing fascism to pursue a life of hedonism like his uncle Ottavio. But we're straying further from anything resembling a spine to the film.

5:03 - In fact, the film resembles a soap opera at this point. Nothing is happening between the cuts. Everything is onscreen and labored over.

5:05 - That's not entirely true, Alfredo's dad died without a long slow death scene or anything. A lot of time passes in between the cuts. But things are labored over to the point of overkill.

5:08 - The marriage of Alfredo and Ada gurantees that this reprehensible character will continue to pollute this film.

5:10 - ARM WRESTLING CONTEST!

5:15 - Sutherland is making me want to go and edit out that "finest hour" comment. This is Nolte in Hulk unhinged.

5:21 - Regina, a character that I haven't mentioned yet, is jealous of the marriage. She's putting the film into train-wreck territory. The actress scowls, schemes, and glowers. She's begun stomping about, growling like a Disney villainess. And cackling. There's no temperance to this. It's all over the place, like people playing the same song in different keys.

5:23 - 33 minutes into the second disc, Sutherland runs sporadically, suddenly, comically. I doubt he was going for laughs, but he's getting them.

5:25 - Now Ada, on a horse, has run into Olmo's net. He has a net strung up between 2 trees for some reason and entreats her not to rip the net. I am describing the plot again, because it has completely jumped the tracks. "What is this net doing here?" "It's a trap, to trap a bride." This is getting ludicrous.

5:28 - Sutherland and Regina are having sex in front of/with a child. This is evidence that fascism totally SUCKS. Also: Sutherland just smashed the child against a wall. CURSE YOU MUSSOLINI!

5:33 - 42 minutes in: most unconvincing reaction to being spit on I've ever seen. Olmo is accused of murdering the child. By Sutherland. OOOOH I HATES FASCISTS!

5:35 - Depardieu is beaten almost to death while De Niro watches, unable to act and retain his status. This is the best wedding day ever. I can't imagine what they can do on their wedding night to top this!

5:36 - De Niro has called off the reception on account of it raining dead children. The pageantry in the film is weighing the film down more than ever. After he tells everyone to go home, the camera, inexplicably, tracks with all the attendants walking off.

5:39 - I hate it when I have to watch animals get really killed onscreen. But I eat meat. So I deserve it.

5:42 - The movie is really, really off the rails at this point. I really have no feeling for any of the characters whatsoever. Good moments here and there, but I have no confidence that the movie can recover from what it's done. As always, I retain hope that I will see things or experience something transcendent despite the movie crashing so hard.

5:51 - Olmo's daughter is taught by Alfredo's wife, Ada. He admonishes her to leave the kid alone. This results in screaming. Screaming that is outlandish. Then De Niro sighs and says, "Ooohhh... November is the cruelest month of the year." I cannot describe the overacting.

5:54 - Okay, so there was a nice, lived in feeling at the beginning of this film. Soft, gentle, innocent. It was too sweet, but nice. Now here we are with Ada reaching for bottles of wine that are locked away, Regina, now crazy, dangles the key before her. They fight, a bottle of wine is retrieved, and Ada pours this wine on Regina. All this screaming and just... what the fuck.

5:57 - A nice scene between Ada and Olmo with that lived-in sweetness. But all gone like wisps of cotton candy as soon as they start talking politics. Then the intensity, the misplaced, unmodulated intensity takes over. And then we're back to the villains who are hammy, crazed, and laughably unconvincing.

6:06 - Another jump in time, perhaps this sequence will work better than the last one.

6:13 - PAUSE.


6:21 - A well-played scene between the very dissatisfied, alcoholic Ada and Alfredo in a bar on Christmas Eve. Ends with a gorgeous shot of the two of them, highlighting their separation from each other, but also their closeness. Too little, too late, but nice.

6:21 - RESUME.

6:30 - The movie seems to have come back down to planet Earth. It's still incredibly sloppy, but at least the behaviors are recognizable and not nearly so outlandish. Sutherland and Regina have calmed down a little, despite their murdering a woman and covering their tracks. They have stopped cacklling, at the very least.

6:32 - I'm stopping at 7:00 for about an hour and a half. Will resume at 8:30 or so.

6:35 - Depardieu seems to have inherited Donald Sutherland's crazy acting disease in this section of the film. De Niro, playing an older man, is much more tempered. Though not particularly nuanced. He at least seems to have lived and learned a bit.

6:39 - Giamatti Sutherland in da house. With kids now. Time jump! WWII is going on and going crazy.

6:42 - UH OH! Crazy Sutherland is back!!! Overacting, eating scenery, and fucking shit up.

6:43 - Crazy Sutherland and Crazy Depardieu are in an overacting contest! WHO WILL WIN??? (any Depardieu "by a nose" jokes will result in execution)

6:44 - I wonder if this piece of music scoring peasants throwing horse manure at Sutherland (including a man waiting at the tail end of a horse and grabbing fresh poop with his hands as it comes out of the horse) is known as "The Manure March".

6:46 - Train wrecks are train wrecks because it is what makes them good that also makes them terrible. A nice farewell scene for Olmo as he rides off on a bicycle has the same tracking shot problem as the dismissal of the wedding attendants, but it works here as the camera tracks with a chorus of well-wishers.

6:50 - Bertolucci plays coy with a lesbian kiss for some reason. But then fascists tear apart Olmo's home. For all the manure they threw at Sutherland.

6:53 - This is probably one of the most overplayed, overacted movies of all time.

7:00 - Back where we started, the execution of Sutherland and Regina. Just in time for me to call it for the next 90 minutes. I need a significant break, my back is aching.

7:51 - OK, ahead of schedule here. I think I have 30 minutes to go and I'm making applesauce, so while it cooks down, I'm going to try and finish this sumbitch.

7:57 - OK, officially, here we go.

8:00 - The people have Sutherland. He's been a complete asshole, so it's frightening to think of what I'm about to watch them do to him. Surely he's in for some serious torture!

8:00 - Uh oh. A shot of a pig. The last time I saw a pig, I saw the pig killed and chopped up. Donald Sutherland- this is your future.

8:00 - A touching socialist meetup. The local pinkos meet up with some mountain pinkos and they hug and the music swells and it's just too awful for words. Not because they're communists, but because it's so fucking schmaltzy.

8:09 - Sutherland is executed for crimes against Stanislavski. And whaddya know, Olmo returns. The band plays on. Regina is quite sad. This sort of sad villain depiction always gets to me, when people realize, too late, that they've gone too far and there is no redemption. But whatever. This movie has painted him and her as such ugly cartoons that they may as well just have killed a beetle.

8:10 - Old De Niro, meet Old Depardieu.

8:10 - The question here is, will Old Depardieu save Old De Niro like Young De Niro once protected Young Depardieu from the fascists? Will Depardieu allow De Niro to be beaten as De Niro allowed Depardieu to be beaten? This is the question.

8:12 - Alfredo on trial. This is fine, the drama is between the two men, as noted above. It works.

8:15 - ...aaaand then it doesn't! Suddenly, there is no trial anymore and we get a bunch of dancing Bolsheviks holding up a giant red quilt. For SOME reason that I cannot quite comprehend, the trial is not being held because it is revealed that De Niro surrendered to a child at gun point.

8:17 - Few things are as funny as an old lady accusing Robert De Niro of having all his teeth and screaming, "NUM NUM! NUM NUM!" over and over.

8:20 - Depardieu addresses the camera!!! He delivers a quick sum-up of the Communist Manifesto and then a bunch of rabble agree with him. It's told directly to the audience, how fascists spring up. The fourth wall disintegrates and suddenly, YOU, the viewer, are complicit in the film's tragic downturn.

8:22 - That was one of the most misguided film moments I've ever seen. "We've all had a lot of fun here, but really, people are suffering out there."

8:25 - Fuck it, this whole sequence is completely awful. Just fucking badness oozing out of every pore of the screen. There are some good music performances, but there is no drama. It's just a bunch of people celebrating a political victory. And then there are a few more addresses to the camera... sigh. It's interesting in a... they don't make 'em like this anymore, kind-of way.

8:28 - Depardieu convinces the rabble to turn over their arms. And we watch everyone turn over their arms. Everyone. For at least 20 seconds.

8:30 - The conflict between Olmo and Alfredo comes to a head and the two fight in an extreme wide shot while dogs bark and a child watches. The shot widens and widens and widens. Pans over to reveal... The giant red flag being carried away by the mob. A nice shot.

8:31 - Oh my. Now super old De Niro and super old Depardieu are still fighting. This conflict will never be resolved. Not really. If only they'd fucked that hooker together and ejaculated at the same time, they might have found some peace.

8:33 - AND HERE IT IS! The call back! Super Old De Niro lies on the railroad track, but this time, across it... so he's sure to be killed. For some reason a mole climbs up out of the ground. Depardieu watches his "friend" die. FIN.

8:40 - That is the end. The end of 1900. Certainly a mess of a film if I've ever seen one. I'd say, ultimately, it's a great movie searching for a reason to exist. The production was great, the acting all over the place, the tone inconsistent, the script was extremely thin for five hours of time. But, as with many trainwrecks, it's neat to watch. It just falls apart. And quickly. Once Sutherland goes crazy, he takes the rest of the film with him.

I don't hate movies like this, I love them. They try so very hard to do something more than just entertain an audience. And when they fail, they are more entertaining than if they succeed. But it's a rather didactic piece, rather lumpy, poorly paced, and has nothing interesting to say about the two characters that make up its core. A flop, a dud, and a fascinating watch. I have no more words.

1900 live blog - Getting my ass ready

I will be starting the 1900 live blog at 12:30, pacific time.

There will be smoke breaks. This will probably take me 6 hours+ total. In addition, I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to do this, what I'm going to write about as the movie progresses. We shall all figure it out together and make mistakes and be happy about our mistakes and then have candied apples to munch on.

Candied apples are the perfect workshop food.

There's Nothing in the Rule Book That Says a Monkey Can't Play Basketball

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.
- Alfred Hitchcock

Nothing's more boring than a blog post apologizing for the lack of blog posts (particularly when the title of the site contains an explicit promise as to the author's commitment). So, knowing I still owe a second review from the week before last as well as the review for the 20th of March, I propose these 2 special events as recompense:

The first special event will be occurring this Thursday, the 27th,... a live-blogged review of the 5 and 1/2 hour cut of 1900. I will be writing as I watch and then summarizing the whole experience in more typical review format afterwards.

The 2nd special event is a compiled instant message chat with my partner, Tara, on the subject of the recent remake of Funny Games, either the original or the remake are films that should be seen yet feared by all. This is TBD, we've seen the film, but finding the hours or so to chat about it is a bit tricky.

And then look for me to publicly flagellate myself for letting my 2 faithful readers down in the month of March. I favor the flail.

Celebrity Ice Capades - Part Two

Bullet in the Head

John Woo's films (particularly his early Hong Kong works) owe more than a little to the films of Sergio Leone. Like Leone's, they tend to center on tough, violent loners who've lost the ability to relate to other humans but through violence and, many of his films deal with the wolfish, masculine camaraderie that develops between two or more characters with these qualities. Further, all of these films subvert this machismo a bit, paying lip service to the emotional emptiness of lives lived without trust or compassion. But despite this superimposed complexity, Woo and Leone's films are really reveling in the simplicity of their characters' outlook on the world. The hardest moral choice facing these characters is whether or not they should shoot a man that they've sort-of, kind-of come to like.

Bullet in the Head is only a little different in that it takes a stab at something a little less arch. The film is set during the Vietnam War and features three Chinese buddies traveling to the war-torn region in order to make some money out of the chaos. The three are quite naive in thinking they can catch this particular tiger by the tail, and soon they're in trouble with both the North Vietnamese army and a powerful gangster in the region. As they attempt to flee back to Hong Kong with their lives, their friendship begins to splinter and they are forced to face the ugliness within themselves.

I have a weakness in me for movies dealing with the burgeoning or fracturing friendships between tough, angry men, quality be damned (to wit: I actually found the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin genuinely involving in Star Wars: Episode 3, despite it being part of a truly risible film), so it's hard to not like these aspects of this movie. But overall, it's a ludicrous film, particularly when asking the viewer to take the effects of bullets seriously. All through the movie, the characters leap about with guns blazing, but there's absolutely no sense that these things actually fire bullets. Rather, they seem to emit a generalized swath of destruction that explodes windows, drywall, and t-shirts. There's nothing wrong with this; indeed, the hyper-reality is a large part of what's appealing about Woo's work. Bullet in the Head, though, is hilariously inconsistent. It tries to give us the fun of shoot-outs where people empty clips at one another, but then asks us to contemplate how horrible various war crimes are. About as horrible as being shot by a man leaping at you in slow-motion, I'd wager.

At the shootouts and the tough guy archetypes, Woo is aces. His style of staging action scenes has been labeled "balletic" ad nausea, but it's as true now as it ever was, even after the years of Hollywood folk borrowing his technique for their own shallow purposes. Watching these sequences is very much like viewing the oft-coveted, too-rarely-seen dance-off and one wonders when Woo will let his characters put down the guns and pick up the ballet shoes.

But, at least in Bullet in the Head, Woo fails at just about everything else. The first half hour or so when Woo sets up the characters is confusing and overedited. In these opening moments, every shot feels too short, and every scene too long. It's like the movie is hiding behind the editing, trying to hide its character development or make the dialogue scenes as exciting or thrilling as the gun play. It isn't until the violence kicks in that one gets a sense as to who these people are, and even then they're pretty much reduced to one character trait apiece. There are some actresses in this film that should be ashamed for agreeing to appear as such weak-willed fantasy objects. And in the movie's final act, the characters brood endlessly over their suffering with nary a hint that they bear any responsibility for it. Like the guns, they bear no resemblance to anything from our world. But rather than using that to achieve a larger-than-life mythos for any of these characters as sometimes results from similar endeavors (see: Plissken, Snake), it serves to make them seem like the half-formed fantasy characters created by breathless children playing guns. And then we're supposed to care about their suffering and feel pleased when one of them takes revenge in the final, interminable scene? Please.

It's been some years since I've seen Woo's major Hong Kong works, Hard Boiled or The Killer, and so can't account for the quality of either excepting the voice of myself as a delighted sixteen-year-old (who also, it should be noted, totally, completely, without any reservation dug Woo's Jean-Claude Van Damme starring American debut, Hard Target, and would probably have had trouble seeing how absolutely shitty the Star Wars prequels were). While watching Bullet in the Head, though, I began to wonder if my previous affinity for these John Woo films was not solely due to my aforementioned weakness for the cry of the lonely, afflicted men that populated them. Aside from the opening, the film works in individual scenes, but they feel pulled out of different films. When glorying in the movement of excessive violence, Bullet in the Head soars. When trying to show serious consequences to this violence, it shoots itself in the foot.

Celebrity Ice Capades

Chudsploitation

I just had to give a link to this...

Devin Faraci, a great writer working for CHUD, has started a new online column called "Chudsploitation." The focus is on weird, lesser-known, grimy, exploitation films, exploring his (our) fascination with them, and the like. He's kicked it off with an incredible write-up of a movie named Addio Zio Tom, and from this insightful, articulate, and funny article it sounds like it's one of those appalling-yet-too-fascinating-to-dismiss movie watching experiences. Kudos to Mr. Faraci for his work here; it is both a good review and good reportage. It's great to see a piece like this in the morass of movie-related websites (this site included) that feels worthwhile and necessary.

Read it here.

No Review

Am having an insane week. No time for love.

2 reviews next week as punishment.