Kat's Film Reviews: February 2004

Kat's Film Reviews

Thursday, February 05, 2004

Holes

Apparently, this film is an endorsement of author Louis Sachar, who writes children's books and is widely beloved for the eponymous book. It's cute and somewhat intriguing and definitely glossily produced, there's no doubt about that, but the jokes aren't sophisticated enough for an adult audience and the plot seemed too twisty for children. A boy is wrongly sent to a desert detention camp where he ends up digging 5x5 ft holes for some unknown reason. There are lethal lizards and tasty onions in the mix, as well as an outlaw who kisses her victims before shooting them to death. A little strange, yeah. The supposedly brutal desert digging sequences didn't seem that brutal to me. The famous star is Sigourney Weaver as the detention camp manageress, which it seems she took on to make her kids happy. Henry Winkler has a tasty little role as the boy's dad, and the camp kids are all pert and funny. Yet for me, the material was just too stale to make it enjoyable.

year: 2003
length: 117 min.
rating: 2.5
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311289/combined

¶ 18:21 0 comments

Identity

How sad. A promising thriller with an interesting twist that proves that a good director is worth his weight in (box office) gold. In other words, while this film did okay at the theater, with someone's grand vision at the helm it would have outgrossed...oh...Panic Room (a film with just the opposite, too much style). The setting: Psycho, i.e., a motel in the middle of nowhere, dark and dreary, with an odd manager. The roles: every personality type you can think of stuck together at the motel and getting killed off (as fast as possible). The major star: John Cusack, who should be getting plum roles, but seems to have a crappy agent. Up-and-coming starlet: Amanda Peet, who was starting to scare me every time she opened her mouth to scream, and not because her scream was particularly scary but because it was becoming obvious how malnourished she is. The final denouement: obvious, if you pay even the tiniest bit of attention. With a little bit of style and vision, we would still have known what was going to occur, but at least it would have been an eye-opening ride. Instead, this ends up only slightly more pleasing than a Michael Bay / Jerry Bruckheimer film.

year: 2003
length: 90 min.
rating: 2.5
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309698/combined

¶ 15:16 0 comments

Conspiracy

Another film that gets high marks for its content. It differs from And The Band Played On by being a very engaging film. HBO Films is fast becoming an obvious place to go for quality films that might not be made for theaters (I'm looking forward to Angels in America coming out on DVD since I've heard it's super). The film tells the story of the Wannsee Conference -- the meeting in which Nazi officials decided the fate of the Jews in Germany and its occupied countries. And, yes, it is basically the meeting on film, which sounds almost too boring for words. As you watch, though, you realize that you're looking at a meeting that could be happening in your own offices, in that it feels so normal...except for the horrific fact that they're discussing the extermination of an entire race. There was only one account that survived of this meeting and you have to believe that the personalities around the table, the jokes made, and the utter sincerity of these insane men is for real. But your mind wants to shy away from believing that people like this actually existed. You get a short description at the end of what happened to each man. Surprisingly, most of them died shortly after the Nuremberg Trials of fairly normal causes, but pay attention to what happened to Adolf Eichmann. If that's not karmic justice, I don't know what is.

year: 2001
length: 96 min.
rating: 3.5
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266425/combined

¶ 13:51 0 comments

The Great Dictator

Yet another film about Hitler. But so different from any you've seen before. Not quite serious and not quite funny. And in deadly earnest in places you wouldn't expect. I wish I'd seen this on the big screen for the riveting scenes, in particular the dance with the blow-up globe, shaving the man in time to Brahms, and of course, the final speech. At first, I thought I was going to be distracted by the fact that sound was coming out of Charlie Chaplin's mouth, but I quickly forgot that and was wowed by his genius. I didn't think it was possible to make a film that is knee-slappingly funny in parts and so poignant in others that tears well up. I can't think of a recent film that's done that to me. It is ridiculous to me that some critics call this "a film that seems an indictment of the Nazi regime." Seems? Even in hindsight I don't think it's possible not to see this as a blistering attack on right-wing politics and the treatment of Jews, at the very least. It's no wonder he had to escape the US for his left-leaning tendencies not meshing with McCarthy politics. But what a pity that we didn't get 20 more years of good film out of him.

year: 1940
length: 124 min.
rating: 3.5
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032553/combined

¶ 11:34 0 comments