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bishopdante
Reviews
Terminator Salvation (2009)
A very brief and lacklustre effort
The first terminator was dipped in fantastic tension: Sarah Connor is a normal everyman with simple issues in life.
She is presented through an epic film-length chase sequence a destiny. She is given a knight in shining armour. But still, she does not believe, she doesn't know who or what to trust, but nonetheless, the ever present danger moves her and the plot swiftly along.
My problem with terminator salvation is that the poetry of the first film isn't there.
I wanted to see a whole film of the apocalyptic world shown in the first terminator, all blue, neon and electric, a time of permanent night.
I wanted to see the day that skynet took over. That could have been the first act. John Connor arguing with the brass, himself doubtful that his crazy momma raised him in good faith.
This film just drifted way off track. The cybernetic hero is a total cop-out. The soundtrack was heavy and orchestral, rather than glitched and electronic.
The overall feel of the film did not set a global scene, it felt more like it was shot in the backyard. There were no vistas, no landscapes.
This is more Indiana Jones on the cheap than terminator. The machines were impotent and clanking, throwing people around. They didn't seem cunning or lethal.
The menace of the first terminator, a super-intelligent, painless and ruthless hunter on a mission, virtually unstoppable is not present in skynet's character. The machines do not come across as anything other than a skittle to be bowled at.
Skynet in the first terminator is an omnipotent and ruthless mechanism, a network of mechanised destruction, symbolic of man's industrialised and unmitigated horrors of the late 20th century.
I get the feeling that there is no true passion or intention behind this film. There is no deeper intention to inform or explore. Get 'em through the box office gate. One more for the money.
Oh well. I'd have hoped they'd return the canon to form. The post-apocalyptic terminator... shot in urban locations from around the world, made with special effects from the likes of chris cunningham and portraying a losing battle against skynet, the massacre of mankind... this was the film I wanted. This is a film I would buy on DVD.
As it is, one watch, and I was finished before the first act was concluded.
This film felt shorter than it actually was, in my memory it's under 20 minutes.
A good film feels like more time than it is, but does not bore you, it stretches moments and keeps you on the edge of your seat, a word in itself.
Terminator 1 I remember as a week.
Westworld (1973)
The nugget of poetry.
The thing about a machine is that it'll carry on doing what it does, even if you decide you don't want it to. This is the problem with mechanisms with insufficient human feedback.
This film is actually a critique of passive entertainment. The idea is that people visit without interaction, and they get entertained.
However, the machine doesn't really care what you want, it just does what it does, and it's got a gun. This then becomes a bit of a problem.
It's a typical writer's film. He doesn't want to read, he wants to write. He in many ways resents the passivity of the audience, and wants to warn them of the dangers of this approach. This film is early postmodernism. It's a modern consumer utopia being revealed to be a disturbing dystopia. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
A note to other forumisers : Forget the myopic nerdery. It's a film, not a computer game with 'glitches'. Don't troubleshoot it like it's a Quake forum. Same as you can have a few weeks of boring waiting deleted from a film using a changing date on the bottom of the screen, Yul is allowed to reload off camera. Or not reload at all. He's an indiscriminate killing hunting wild west robot. That's it. Great character. There are no holes to pick, other than : It's fiction.
Actually, the idolised character of a violent self reliant cowboy, a law unto himself, as portrayed in Leone's films is the antithesis of Westworld. The tourists have lost the ability to fight, and are the victims of a mechanical cowboy incabable of decision making. It highlights America's cultural transformation from gun toting anarchy to consumerism, and the possible risks of such a transformation. It's reverse Leone, but still with the same message. It's just about victims, not heros. Yul's the invincible antihero.
Sweetie (1989)
Saw this film a long time ago, but remember it like it was yesterday
This film left a lasting impression on me from when I saw it aged about 15. Upon many years of reflection I suspect that the two female leads are two opposed elements of the writer's psyche. One, the super-ego and the other the id. The super-ego is fraught with a sense of place in the world, and trying to make the best of the values it finds directly around it, and the id is a tangle of senses and memories, caught up in the deepest recesses of childhood. That's what I found most striking about this film. It's so ego-less. That is what gives it it's fractured, purposeless other-worldly quality. I did not 'enjoy' this film. It is not a fun film. I also remember the light. What amazing glaring, evil sunlight. I must get a copy and watch it again, to see if it's like I remember it. I thought that the acting, editing, dialogue and general sense of timing were totally bewitching. For a week after watching this film I still felt as though I had returned home from a strange, alien world. I had been immersed, albeit temporarily in an extraordinary place, complete and tactile. Amazing.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Criticism, might have to criticise.
When I watched the Phantom menace, I was driven into a crazed state. I went mad. I started behaving like an animal. I was pacing the room, angry, irked to the point of psychosis. I started winding people up like a twelve year old kid, poking and punching them. I had a well of annoyance inside me. I had become emotionally ruined by the experience. Maybe it was the plot, maybe it was annikin, maybe it was Jar Jar Binks's voice and stuck-on wibble wobble gait. Maybe it was the thought that this film cost more to make than your average third world country's GDP. But I saw red. I've rarely been more fired up by a movie than by the Phantom menace. I had a similar experience with Revenge of the Sith.
Jaw dropping graphics. Beautiful, just beautiful. Operatic action sequences, epic backdrops, superb jetsons style vehicles. But it had moments of the lowest form of bathos. Truly below the belt schlock. Annikin's been seen killing 'younglings.' Younglings?! I thought that the Jedi were supposed to be vaguely hard. How could they use a word like that? It's like something out of Barney the dinosaur. YoungLINGS deserve to die! They're clearly letting the side down! It would be like going to war armed with a feather duster. Couldn't they have been called trainees, or maybe disciples? Or what about cutie-cuties? Or the ickle-wickle ones? And the moment when the chancellor is transformed into the ugly old emperor? I laughed myself sick. Samuel L Jackson is shamed! Shamed beyond belief! And to cap it off the newly transformed Darth Vader strides out of the machine like a cerebral palsy victim, only to shout 'Nooooooooo!' Again I laughed my twits off. My nipples were rolling about in the aisle like bits of over-sweetened un-popped corn. That was some truly spastic bombastic film making.
Read the script on paper (if they'll let you have it, it's classified as "hazardous material" under the Geneva Convention). And weep. It's probably only 20 pages in length if you strip it down to just basic action and dialogue.
"no, this is a happy moment" Just in case you didn't get it.
And Yoda's stilted Latin syntax? "This a lame film truly is."
So much art direction talent couldn't save it. This is poetry as in postcard. Get well soon, Mr Lucas. Remember, your father was a stationer. And his primary ambition was to become a drag racing driver. No corners=no twists. Geddit? And maybe he copied those hideous wipe transitions from American sports programmes. What's wrong with a straight cut?
On a positive note, I thought that John Williams's score was sublime in places. The guy is a master. All of the emotional momentum came from the music. Only to be rapidly and solidly shattered by some ultimately botched bad-news childish scriptwriting that doesn't even make the grade for a He-Man cartoon.
And Jar Jar binks shows up for the very end, but at least he doesn't gurgle in mournful sorrow. They spared us that oh-so-special sound effect. Thank the lord. I would have started throwing limited edition merchandise at the screen.
I know what the problem is. Lucas has no sense of humour. Watch THX-1152, and it's all made clear. He takes it all sooo sooo seriously that it becomes a total joke. Absolutely bombastic spastic.
Maybe that's what he was angling for, the sort of self-conscious humour of the early star-trek episodes? Maybe it's meant to be funny. But I don't think so. But I had to laugh anyway. No class at all. This is some seriously hick film making. Power rangers are Go! Or as Yoda would say : Power rangers Go Are.
The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971)
what a wonderful piece of kitch
I've seen this film a few times, usually late night on terrestrial TV while trying to go to sleep. It's best watched on a genuine 1970s TV with really dodgy colour and bulging screen. It occupies legendary status in my eyes. There are no explosions, no witty one-liners, and no fast cars. The film stinks of peat and cheap makeup. It has absolutely no regard for what you might think of it, and is not out to impress. It feels like being asleep in a junk shop, and is one of the funniest attempts to offend Victorian style prudes that I have ever experienced. If you want to laugh constantly, watch this film. The ending is totally outlandish. Whoever came up with the idea should be given a medal (plaster of Paris with worn-off imitation gold leaf). Horrified? You must be joking. Chilled? Of course not! It's all so wonderfully quaint. And the accents, oh my, the accents. People just don't talk like that anymore. More's the pity.
Repo Man (1984)
Another little addendum.
Repo man is a blatant rites of passage film. Otto grows from being a nihilistic, selfish, dismissive punk, into a happy nuclear-powered joyrider. Along the way he meets many people who make mistakes constantly, and are looking for happiness or approval from external sources, often him. Everybody's looking for something, and they're almost certainly not getting it. The Chevy is one device that represents unfulfillable desire. Yet Otto finds it in the end. He fulfils his heart's desire. That's what this film is about for me. Learning to love life for all it's warts and vanities. I would compare it to Terry Gilliam's Brazil, or even at a stretch American Beauty. Never, ever Fight Club.
PS: The film was written by a guy who went to my school. Oohyeah baby. Other alumni include Dennis Pennis and Will Self.
Taxi Driver (1976)
Travis is psychotic? I'm not so sure
Travis is certainly alienated. He has no power in his role as a cabbie. All he can do is interact as a subordinate with all of the characters he meets along the way. He listens to them, and is stunned by their mealy-mouthed excuses for why they don't use the power they have in life. This is particularly well illustrated by Scorsese's own role as the jilted husband, and Travis's reaction is that of well hidden disgust. This guy is going to travel in a cab to watch the window and not do anything? It's pathetic. Actually he's there to talk to the cabbie, to stand on the shoulders of a subordinate to bolster his injured ego. The politician near the end is another example of all talk and no action, ego gratification. Travis sees so much vanity and evil on his travels that he finally decides that he's going to do something about it. He's not psychotic, and he isn't insane. He's just reached the breaking point of passivity. He's been lumbered with the passivity of others, and has had passivity enforced upon him by his job. He commits mutiny in order to choose good. He breaks the law in order to become the law. He reflects upon his position (the mirror scene) and is willing to sacrifice himself for the welfare of others, something no other character in the film is prepared to do. The rescue scene at the end is virtually a fairy tale setting, the rescue of an imprisoned princess from the evil pretender to the throne (the pimp). I believe that Travis is indeed a hero, not a man descending into psychosis. He triumphs over the neurosis handed to him on a daily basis by his superiors (employers) and becomes a man capable of choice. It's all about free will, and the ability to choose good, even though the path to good may involve fighting evil with violence. This film is about the weakness and sickness of a falsehood : "pacifism is the moral high-ground". It is not. One must commit to one's beliefs. Another fantastic thing is that at the end he's broken the law, and committed murder, but the system is so passive that they uphold him as a hero in the newspaper. Yet Travis is still just a cabbie, and he doesn't take it seriously. He doesn't need the approval of others. He's realised that he doesn't need anything from anybody, and is no longer alone, he's self-sufficient.