This film won 5 Oscars in 1999 including best picture. It's a bizarre dramatic tale about what is supposed to be typical suburbia. If this is typical suburbia, then I want to move to Canada. Basically, you follow two people in their screwed up marriage and their screwed up daughter (who is probably more normal than the parents are). Dad is quite the pervert going for his daughter's little friend (and nearly having sex with her), and mom is quite the adulteress. Now, I understand their marriage is down the tubes, but they are still married. The daughter follows the parents' leads and hooks up with the weird camera-toting drug dealer next door flashing him and then sleeping with him.
Despite the weirdness of the storyline, the writing was actually good, the characters were well rounded, and the actions the characters took (no matter how strange they are in my world) made sense within their characters. It progressed nicely throughout with a good pace, and overall, it's easy to see why this was a good movie. The plot, though, is just messed up...
Showing posts with label 1999. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1999. Show all posts
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The Green Mile -- 1999 -- R
This bizarre tale from the mind of Stephen King was based on his serial novellas, The Green Mile. The title came from a death row prison block with a green floor. Death row is generally called "The Mile," but with their green floor, it became "The Green Mile."
This movie is almost 100% character. There are some shocking moments made more poignant by knowing these characters and their relationships with each other. Since this is death row, we see men sent to the electric chair and how that entire process is carried out. We also get a conflict between a guard and a prisoner. A very shocking (d'oh! pun!) death comes at 90 minutes through the 3 hour flick, and the chords of it strike much, much deeper due to the character development leading up to it. If this had been done after 15 minutes, it would not have meant anything and not have been memorable at all.
On a first watching and taking in everything throughout the film, I found it to be very good. A great exercise is suspense, plot, and development from one end to the other. It also had a solid twist and amusing consequences for one of the nastier characters.
The ending was inevitable and heartbreaking. Through the time we spent getting to know everyone, and then what they had to endure at the end made this movie a very solid viewing and one to stick in the mind if you have the three hours to commit to it.
And as an added bonus, it even has Sesame Street's "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle" as Mr. Delacroix...not that the kids are watching...he doesn't come to a good end.
This movie is almost 100% character. There are some shocking moments made more poignant by knowing these characters and their relationships with each other. Since this is death row, we see men sent to the electric chair and how that entire process is carried out. We also get a conflict between a guard and a prisoner. A very shocking (d'oh! pun!) death comes at 90 minutes through the 3 hour flick, and the chords of it strike much, much deeper due to the character development leading up to it. If this had been done after 15 minutes, it would not have meant anything and not have been memorable at all.
On a first watching and taking in everything throughout the film, I found it to be very good. A great exercise is suspense, plot, and development from one end to the other. It also had a solid twist and amusing consequences for one of the nastier characters.
The ending was inevitable and heartbreaking. Through the time we spent getting to know everyone, and then what they had to endure at the end made this movie a very solid viewing and one to stick in the mind if you have the three hours to commit to it.
And as an added bonus, it even has Sesame Street's "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle" as Mr. Delacroix...not that the kids are watching...he doesn't come to a good end.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Ringu 2 -- 1999 -- NR
After the dismal failure of Rasen, the filmmakers regrouped to have a second go at creating a sequel to Ringu. What they came up with was a movie that has some scary points to it, but is fouled by a ton of rehashing of the first movie and some bizarre and ot always positive character moments.
We begin with Tai Makano, Ryuji's assistant/girlfriend wanting to figure out what happened to Ryuji and searching for Reiko as a result. Well, Reiko has disappeared, and no one, not even the guy who is working on the cursed tape story at her news station, knows where she is. So now these two set out to figure out what happened causing a huge recap section of the movie that could and should have been avoided. Like the American version, new stuff happens related to Sadako and the video where for some reason, people who never saw the tape have Sadako in their head and weird stuff happens around those people as a result. Of course, Reiko's son, Yoichi, is subject to these things even though he was "cured" of the cursed tape by it being shown to Reiko's father. The plot continues to thicken as we move along including throwing in some bizarre moves one might call twists.
One of the strangest has to do with Mai taking care of Reiko's son after something happens to Reiko. This is only strange in that Mai would have no attachment to her late boyfriend's son because she never met him. This is where The Ring Two has a leg up because Yoichi's American equivalent is protected by his mother as opposed to a complete stranger. The movie eventually follows the path of the original, and while the scares are more plentiful in this one, the victory for Mai and Yoichi is just weird and we're left open in the end for another sequel.
Overall, it is a decent horror flick, but still not on par with its big brother Ringu or its American cousin The Ring. It does have a glimmer, though, of the direction The Ring Two took, and the director of Ringu 2 did direct The Ring Two as well. A bit of trivia there for you.
We begin with Tai Makano, Ryuji's assistant/girlfriend wanting to figure out what happened to Ryuji and searching for Reiko as a result. Well, Reiko has disappeared, and no one, not even the guy who is working on the cursed tape story at her news station, knows where she is. So now these two set out to figure out what happened causing a huge recap section of the movie that could and should have been avoided. Like the American version, new stuff happens related to Sadako and the video where for some reason, people who never saw the tape have Sadako in their head and weird stuff happens around those people as a result. Of course, Reiko's son, Yoichi, is subject to these things even though he was "cured" of the cursed tape by it being shown to Reiko's father. The plot continues to thicken as we move along including throwing in some bizarre moves one might call twists.
One of the strangest has to do with Mai taking care of Reiko's son after something happens to Reiko. This is only strange in that Mai would have no attachment to her late boyfriend's son because she never met him. This is where The Ring Two has a leg up because Yoichi's American equivalent is protected by his mother as opposed to a complete stranger. The movie eventually follows the path of the original, and while the scares are more plentiful in this one, the victory for Mai and Yoichi is just weird and we're left open in the end for another sequel.
Overall, it is a decent horror flick, but still not on par with its big brother Ringu or its American cousin The Ring. It does have a glimmer, though, of the direction The Ring Two took, and the director of Ringu 2 did direct The Ring Two as well. A bit of trivia there for you.
The Ring Virus -- 1999 -- NR
This is the Korean version of the Ring story, and it has its own positives to bring to the tale. With these positives, it also brings its negatives as well.
First, like Ringu, it lacks the terror element of the American version of impending doom. You have seven days to live, sure, but at the same time you have nothing happening to you that reinforces that idea. You just have to believe it. Like Ringu, the only thing that keeps them going is their distorted face in the photographs. My question is always, Is that enough to drive someone that hard to learn the truth?
I do like the way the story unfolds from sctratch. Unlike the Japanese and American versions, we don't begin with a conversation about the video. We begin with the same opening scene, but it is with a lone girl. We don't know anything about her, or why she would have died. From there the movie unfolds very investigatively. The reporter has to discover the reason the girl died on her own, which is done very logically. In this version, the tape contains the details we need to understand the tape, including the cure...which is unfortunately taped over.
You can always tell which parts of the movie are likely parts of the novel, as the tedious and pointless well-emptying scene that took up time in Ringu was in this version as well. The Ring thankfully found another way to pass the time. The ending remained the same as well.
I think the movie lost a little something by not having the reporter in some measure of a relationship with her partner, but at the same time, the child played almost no role in this version either. Many of the investigative scenes ran slowly and tediously throughout the middle. There was no explanation why they would believe retreiving our psycho friend's body from the bottom of the well would work. In fact, in light of there being instructions on the video, it makes very little sense. Imagine reading, "In order to live, you must retrieve my body from the well and lay me to rest." Right.
This one omitted the time frame and made Eun-suh's (Samara/Sadako) a very recent event...a change that makes little sense in light of a hotel being erected on that very spot. It also gave her a bizarre trait, and had some very strange gender-bending overtones that added nothing beyond a reason for her to die...from a very disturbing relationship, I might add.
Overall, this version had enough positives to make it worth a viewing, but in my opinion, enough negatives to make it a third overall of the three versions I've seen. The investigative part at the beginning was a HUGE plus, and it was refreshing not to have everything handed over psychically, but it got slow and the bit regarding Eun-suh's "secret" was way too disturbing.
As a side note, this video has an English dub, so I set it for English. I noticed that the English subtitles were defaulted to on, and I almost turned them off before I discovered that the subtitles were telling some different info than what was being spoken. Maybe I marred my enjoyment of the film by this amusement, but I couldn't bring myself to turn off the subtitles. The first bizarre change between the dub and the subtitles was this: on the phone in the teaser, there is a guy in the dub, but a girl in the subtitles (don't learn this till much later in the film and it made things really confusing for a bit). The subtitles have really bad dialogue and gags, while the dub is much more crisp and better constructed. The subtitles contain exposition the dub doesn't. The subtitles have interjections that the dub doesn't. I think the movie is complete both ways, but it was amusing...
First, like Ringu, it lacks the terror element of the American version of impending doom. You have seven days to live, sure, but at the same time you have nothing happening to you that reinforces that idea. You just have to believe it. Like Ringu, the only thing that keeps them going is their distorted face in the photographs. My question is always, Is that enough to drive someone that hard to learn the truth?
I do like the way the story unfolds from sctratch. Unlike the Japanese and American versions, we don't begin with a conversation about the video. We begin with the same opening scene, but it is with a lone girl. We don't know anything about her, or why she would have died. From there the movie unfolds very investigatively. The reporter has to discover the reason the girl died on her own, which is done very logically. In this version, the tape contains the details we need to understand the tape, including the cure...which is unfortunately taped over.
You can always tell which parts of the movie are likely parts of the novel, as the tedious and pointless well-emptying scene that took up time in Ringu was in this version as well. The Ring thankfully found another way to pass the time. The ending remained the same as well.
I think the movie lost a little something by not having the reporter in some measure of a relationship with her partner, but at the same time, the child played almost no role in this version either. Many of the investigative scenes ran slowly and tediously throughout the middle. There was no explanation why they would believe retreiving our psycho friend's body from the bottom of the well would work. In fact, in light of there being instructions on the video, it makes very little sense. Imagine reading, "In order to live, you must retrieve my body from the well and lay me to rest." Right.
This one omitted the time frame and made Eun-suh's (Samara/Sadako) a very recent event...a change that makes little sense in light of a hotel being erected on that very spot. It also gave her a bizarre trait, and had some very strange gender-bending overtones that added nothing beyond a reason for her to die...from a very disturbing relationship, I might add.
Overall, this version had enough positives to make it worth a viewing, but in my opinion, enough negatives to make it a third overall of the three versions I've seen. The investigative part at the beginning was a HUGE plus, and it was refreshing not to have everything handed over psychically, but it got slow and the bit regarding Eun-suh's "secret" was way too disturbing.
As a side note, this video has an English dub, so I set it for English. I noticed that the English subtitles were defaulted to on, and I almost turned them off before I discovered that the subtitles were telling some different info than what was being spoken. Maybe I marred my enjoyment of the film by this amusement, but I couldn't bring myself to turn off the subtitles. The first bizarre change between the dub and the subtitles was this: on the phone in the teaser, there is a guy in the dub, but a girl in the subtitles (don't learn this till much later in the film and it made things really confusing for a bit). The subtitles have really bad dialogue and gags, while the dub is much more crisp and better constructed. The subtitles contain exposition the dub doesn't. The subtitles have interjections that the dub doesn't. I think the movie is complete both ways, but it was amusing...
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Iron Giant -- 1999 -- PG
This was an easy going, kid flick kind of movie, though it has some violent points that point it towards the older child crowd. It follows a boy who discovers a large metal man in the forest and befriends it. From there, we get the cliche "government-wants-to-destroy-it" plot while the boy tries to protect it and discover where it came from and teach it how to communicate.
The weakest part of this story comes at the beginning with two back-to-back contrivances. If one accepts that this is a kid movie, then you can overlook these things since everything else works fairly well on a first viewing.
1) The kid sees something outside, and so he takes his BB gun, his helmet, and a flashlight to check it out. He walks into a dark forest in the middle of the night to find out what's there. Um, yeah...no. Kids don't walk into scary places at night. Besides, the way that flashlight was strapped to the BB gun, any shots he fired would have clocked him in the head.
2) He saves the robot by pulling down a large on/off switch on the side of a power plant. Ok, first, while powerplants might have an on/off switch, they would not be so accessible, and if they were, there would be a big lock on it to stop passers-by from just turning it off like that. That was almost harder to buy than the kid walking into the forest at night.
After these two hiccups, the movie flowed just fine. Kid hides metal-eating robot in scrapyard, makes friends with owner, government tries to destroy robot, robot fights back and saves day when government guy does something stupid. The end.
It's a cute little movie with a feel good ending once you get to it. This one has been called overlooked and underrated, and I tend to agree.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Fight Club -- 1999 -- R
Another winner here as we get a load of a guy who is an insomniac that invades a series of support groups just to cry. After awhile, he runs across a guy who sells soap and they become friends. Such good friends after awhile that they start a group called Fight Club. The first (and second) rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. This club grows and grows until it has many members meeting on several nights of the week. Our hero's work ethic declines as a result, but he doesn't get fired, exactly. He does discover that Fight Club turns into something called Project Mayhem, something that his friend left him completely out of the loop on and he has no idea what is going on. Well, a little after this, we get the big twist and what a twist it is. It runs a little contrived, but explained so well that it works perfectly.
Our main characters are fairly well rounded, the lead being the center of the whole movie. He know him and are interested in what is going on. Like some movies that start slow, we start at the end before flashing back to the beginning, thereby making us wonder what the heck got them to that point.
All in all, I don't have a lot of bad thigs to say about it. It's a very clever movie with a solid premise, a clear message, and some clever characters. Definitely a top notch film.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Being John Malkovich -- 1999 -- R
I've wanted to see this one forever. First, it was written by Charlie Kaufman. Second, it's about getting into someone's head. How can you go wrong, right? Well, I wasn't disappointed.
The plot involves a puppeteer who begrudgingly consents to take a job as a filer in an office on the 7 1/2 floor of an office building. This floor sits literally between the 7th and 8th floors requring the elevator rider to stop the car between those floors and opening the doors with a crowbar to get out. It's a low overhead floor (groan).
Anyway, he accidentally discovers this doorway that leads into John Malkovich's head, and after 15 minutes, he is dumped onto the side of the New Jersey Turnpike. This launches the plan of selling trips into Malkovich's head for $200 for those precious 15 minutes.
What revolves around all this? Well the puppet guy is married to a woman who owns an animal shop and has an array of critters around the house. He meetsa woman on the 7 1/2 floor and falls head over heels for her, and she's the one who comes up with the head trip idea. Well, once the wife gets a taste of Malkovich getting a taste of the office girl, the jealousy starts to rage and that's where the fun really begins.
The characters here are all unique and clever. They are believable and fun to watch, and we even get Malkovich himself playing a role in this weird fantasy going on where he's the unwilling star. The puppeteering is very impressive throughout, making you wonder what you've been missing in the world of marionettes, since these were incredibly lifelike and very well performed.
It's a great film and very comedic, especially in the beginning.When the drama kicks in, we're ready for it, and it gives us a good mix of zany versus serious. Definitely worth watching. And if you're worried about it being too Kaufman, not to worry. It's odd, but it's one of his tamer works.
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