Cecil B Demented

Could Cecil B Demented Cecil B the worst movie ever made? Very quite possibly. Let me tell you something about this movie. This is a bad movie making fun of (what else?) bad movies. It is SO John Waters and I don't know why I bothered. This Comedy Central pile of garbage couldn't even make it to network television. BUT IF by the grace of God, IT DID, as soon as the commercial came on, America would change the channel. And they could turn to the paint-dry channel where you do nothing but watch paint dry 24 hours a day and it would be a compelling masterpiece compared to this pile of garbage.

Obviously, I did get the references. I'm not a cinematic fool. They just weren't funny!!!! I mean, Patti Hearst being the mom of a boy with Stockholm Syndrome. Nice touch. A bad actress regarded as the best actress ever. Kevin Nealon as Forrest Gump.

I'm sure that this movie has some kind of cult following. And I'm sure it's something along the lines of that god-awful Rocky Horror and the people who watch that thing every Halloween at the corner cinema at midnight. But I thought it was horrible.

Every time someone in the movie picked up a gun, I secretly wished that a bullet would come through the TV screen and hit me.

That was the longest 88 minutes of my week. Even the last 88 minutes of the day at work went faster than those. Horrible horrible horrible.

Lord of War

Okay, so I'm not a Nic Cage fan. In fact, I can't think of a single film even in my Top 50 with him in it. (Fast Times doesn't count, because he doesn't even have a line.) And before anyone tries to argue- I thought that Leaving Las Vegas was completely self-indulgent and depressing.

This movie was a pretty good story, but I still don't understand the appeal behind Cage. Perhaps, I never will. Basically I saw him doing the same thing he always does. There's no fantastic stretch in his acting and I rarely see him try to do anything differently. Most of the films he is in only survive because of the supporting cast- like Chris Cooper in Adaptation. This one survived because of Jared Leto, Ethan Hawke, and Oz's Eamonn Walker (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0907708/), who was the best one in this film.

In this movie Leto and Hawke followed Cage's example of using the same character as another film. (Although specifically in Cage's case, it's the same character as EVERY other film he's ever made.) Jared Leto basically reprised his role from Requiem for a Dream, but with half the passion and half the screentime. I guess he has been too focused on his barely-existent singing career. Nevertheless, he's still got those eyes... (Which brings me to something I've been thinking about since seeing that special on VH1 about teen superstars- how about a "My So-Called Life" reunion? Wouldn't that be fantastic???)

Ethan Hawke basically reprised his role from Training Day, which was a fantastic movie, but I guess I expected more from Hawke in this film. I KNOW he's a better actor than Cage. I really like Hawke. He can do romance (Before Sunrise), tragedy (Great Expectations), comedy (Reality Bites), action (Training Day)... you name it- he can do it. I guess his role just wasn't the meat-and-potatoes role that he needed to anchor this movie.

The scene where Hawke and Cage are seated in the desert talking seemed to pay tribute to the scene where Pacino and DeNiro have coffee in Heat... but I'm sorry; Cage is NO DeNiro and Hawke is no Pacino. It was a nice tribute but, ultimately, it fell short.

Even though the acting was mediocre, it was still a good movie and it was interesting to see the arms dealers' struggle throughout different times in history (at least the history that I can remember) like the Cold War, Bosnia, Iraq/Iran, etc. Of course, there was the political agenda again, at the end stating the fact that the US is one of the largest arms dealers in the world. However, I was able to overlook the political cause, because the film itself didn't really speak to me; so why should it's cause?

It was okay; it had good popcorn value. It's not going to make you stand up and want to make a difference. It's a film that will fill your time, but not your heart.

Match Point

Face it friends, Woody Allen has had some stinkers in the past. "Everyone Says I Love You" comes to mind... ugh. And "Melinda, Melinda" just dragged. Match Point, however, is a bright light in an otherwise dark past few years. Once again, Allen shows us that even though you have culture and taste and money, there is no guarantee that you will lead the perfect life.

First of all, I don't know where these people come from in Allen's mind. Even as far back as Annie Hall, he has made the statement that most people who have culture flaunt what little they have, making them seem pretentious. The people who know that they have taste don't feel the need to flaunt it. If they have insecurities, they don't over-compensate by becoming obtuse self centered assholes. However, because the characters in this family don't act like said assholes, their performance becomes flat, dull, and uninspired. Was this done on purpose to make Rhys-Meyers and Johannsen stand out as the only two people in the film who had half a heart? Or was it the acting? I've seen Emily Mortimer act before- she's not horrible- but there were no supporting acting awards to be thrown around in this film. The supporting cast gave us nothing more than extras with lines.

Criticism aside, I thought that the story itself would (at the very least!) make Robert Altman proud. (Anyone who has seen the Player knows what I mean... The Hollywood ending that Tim Robbins's character threw into the writer's vision in The Player is exactly what this film could have turned into had it been conceived by anyone other than Allen.) I was literally shaking by the end of the film because I was so afraid for Chris. His character made SO many mistakes and it was just sheer luck that brought him through it... and at the end, like so many other people, I just sat there saying "I can't believe it."

But it poses the question about relationships (at least in my mind): Are we in our relationships because it's our way of life? Because it's more important to preserve a quality of life than to get what we really think we want? And when and if we do get what we really think we want, how long will it be before we realize that what we already had was more than sufficient? Why must we always look for more? (In the words of Matt Johnson: "Have you ever wanted something so badly that it possessed your body and your soul through the night and through the day until you finally get it... and then you realize that it wasn't what you wanted after all?") Granted, given Woody Allen's private life, I'm sure that he has asked himself these questions more than once, and you can certainly feel his personal life bleeding into the film.

I found it interesting for him to bring the New York feeling to the streets of London. After all, it isn't only in New York where people are so wrapped up in their own lives that someone can get away with murder- where drug crimes become so commonplace that investigations are solved at face value. When we know the real secret- when we know what really happened, we're quick to jump the gun and place blame. But if we were on the other side, would we be able to figure it out?

It was a really good movie that kept me interested, but I can see how some people wouldn't like it. If you're looking for a lot of action, this is not a movie for you. It runs slowly and methodically with a lot of dialogue and opera music, and some of the characters don't go anywhere which could frustrate the typical audience member. You really have to be into dialogue movies like those of Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, or Robert Altman to stick it out. It's a great story if you do, though.

Memoirs of a Geisha

What a work of art. Geisha is by far one of the prettiest movies I've ever seen. The plot was enough to keep me interested, with all of the jealousy and revenge that Sayuri had to go through. I have not read the book, and therefore, cannot comment as to how true to the storyline it stayed, but the script seemed to flow well and the acting was very good. I cannot comment about how they had Chinese actresses play Japanese Geisha, only that the casting was done well because the acting was so beautiful.

The scenery and costumes were more than Oscar-Worthy. Reconstructing a WWII-era Japan in California is no small feat. The dance that Chiyo performs in the snow was a spectacular visual and the viewer could feel the ambition behind her to finally put down her arch-nemesis, Hatsumomo.

Perhaps the best part about the acting in this film was young Chiyo. This 13 year old girl conveys more with her (beautiful!) eyes than most child stars do with their entire bodies. If she plans to do anything else in the future that will be released in the states, Hollywood is going to have to ask Dakota Fanning to stand aside. It was a pleasure to see such wonderful unforced talent come from such an inexperienced actor. Raw talent- this girl is going places.

Ken Watanabe is also wonderful, and it certainly is nice to see him in a film where he's not wielding a sword. We can clearly see what Sayuri sees in the Chairman, even as young Chiyo. It is interesting to see the psychology of a child's mind when she realizes that the only way that she can be with the only man who has ever shown her an ounce of kindness is to make sacrifice after sacrifice.

Overall, the movie was done very well and even the somewhat racy scenes were tasteful (It IS a PG-13 film, after all...) and every detail (even down to the small part played by Ted Levine!) was extraodinary. It wasn't one of those rip-your-heart-out leave the theater bawling kind of movies- it was just a really well done film.

Transamerica

Felicity Huffman did a wonderful job in this film. It's a story about a woman who travels across the country with her son who doesn't know that she's his biological father.

It's a really good movie, not pretentious or in-your face like so many other Oscar contenders of last year. Now, granted, I have not seen Walk the Line or The Constant Gardener or Hustle and Flow yet, but I sincerely appreciate the subtlety of the film. I'm not saying that there was no message of tolerance within the film, but it was a good story to watch.

As far as Felicity Huffman's acting is concerned, I was very impressed. Although there weren't actually times when I had to remind myself that she was a woman, had she been a no-name actress to me, I may have. Since I am such a Magnolia fan, of course I knew who she was- and to be honest, I've known who she was since The Spanish Prisoner. But I can see someone like my mother (who has no earthly clue who Huffman is) asking me who she is and is there really a man in the world named "Felicity."

The costuming in the film was very well done, making certain that even though the character had plastic surgery done to hide the Adam's Apple, she was certainly aware of the fact that this area is a sore spot for transgenders.

The film itself kind of reminds me of Todo Sobre mi Madre, a film about a young boy who dies and his mother who goes to Barcelona to track down the boy's father. As far as transgender goes, the film was probably one of the best I've seen since M Butterfly. There have been others, like The Crying Game and Better Than Chocolate, but this was one of the better ones.

Although the ending was kind of flat, at least it wasn't "Hollywood," even though that was the setting. Overall, the film is definitely worth the watching and I would recommend it as a good alternative to an in-your-face politically charged film any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Date Movie

One of the taglines for this film is "From two of the six writers of Scary Movie." I first have to take issue with this statement- It took 6 people to write that thing? And on top of that... they decided to take 2 of these illustrious 6 to make this shite? Disgusting fart jokes with parodies of "Bridget Jones's Diary", "Meet the Fockers", "King Kong", "Lord of the Rings", "Notting Hill", "The Wedding Planner", "Napoleon Dynamite", "The Wedding Crashers", "Say Anything", "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", "My Best Friend's Wedding", and "When Harry Met Sally."

Ninety minutes of this crap. Completely unnecessary garbage to parody films that everyone knows. I thought it might be good for popcorn value, but I kept sitting on the couch rolling my eyes.