In 1942 a crack unit of Japanese troops landed at Gona on the north coast of New Guinea with the aim of marching across the island and taking Port Moresby. This would give them a forward air base for an invasion of Australia, which would most likely have succeeded. But standing in the way was an outnumbered handful of Australian troops who fought along the Kokoda Track and finally stopped the Japanese advance, just 50km or so from Port Moresby. Not that this was considered good enough, mind you. The army commanders, particularly General Douglas "Let's nuke China" MacArthur, didn't understand what the terrain and conditions were like and were so disappointed with the fighting spirit of the Diggers that they demoted the officers and shipped them off to hardship postings as punishment. Here's an example of the fighting spirit considered so lacking:
Keith Norrish was shot four times in the chest and had three broken ribs. "The medic stuffed sulfamide tablets into the holes, wrapped it up and that was that." Any plans to give up and die? "I had no intention to. We had spirit. It never entered our heads that we would fail. Defeat was never an option."
And another:
Charles Metson had his leg shattered by a Japanese machine gun. He refused a stretcher: "It will take eight of you chaps to carry that thing. Throw it away. I'll get along somehow." So he crawled, dragging his leg, with his hands and knees wrapped in bandages to protect them from the stones that lay beneath the mud.
No spirit?
Anyway, this was the first time the Japanese had lost a land battle in WWII and, by stopping the invasion of Australia, was probably even more crucial to the outcome of the war in the Pacific than the Battle of Midway.
Now, with a story like that, you could film it with Star Wars figures in your backyard and still be up for the Palm d'Or at Cannes and a swag of Oscars.
So it's a pity that the creative minds behind Kokoda chose not to tell it. Instead, they tell the story of one particular mission by a bunch of Diggers. I don't know what stage of the whole Kokoda Track battle(s) this came at, as it just isn't clear. Anyway, these blokes go out, not too many return, and you just don't come to appreciate what kind of hell they really had to put up with. (Here's an idea: they wore khaki clothes and flat soled boots, the Japanese wore jungle green and jungle boots. Guess who had the upper hand.) You do get to see just how precipitous the mountains were they were fighting in, and you get an idea of the mud and the rain, but you don't really care. The characters have no depth, the actors (a "who's who" of Australian B-grade TV actors, or is that a "who's that"?) are wooden, and the plot of this one-act film is nearly non-existent.
The film reaks of being made by film school graduates who are generally so earnest that they shut their eyes when they talk, and they get so involved with their little story that they forget that the viewer isn't approaching the film from the same point as they are. But even if you do have some knowledge of the situation, the film adds nothing. I think they were trying to make another Galipoli, but instead they fell flat on their faces in the mud.
2 1/2 Money Trains: Better than Matrix Reloaded, not as good as Cliffhanger.
A quick word on the book I lifted the above quotes from: "More What If", edited by Robert Cowley. This is a collection of essays on what might have been, and the author on the chapter on Kokoda, James Bradley, while writing a great essay, is under the impression that Australia celebrates a national holiday, Kokoda Day, every August 29th. News to me...
Friday, November 24, 2006
Casino Royale (4 out of 5)
Bond is back and has finally moved away from the ridiculous CGI fantasies of recent outings that made Moonraker look like a documentary. Yes, I'm talking about those appalling Pierce Brosnan films that had, mmmmm, let me think, one good stunt between them (bungee jumping on the dam, but even that wasn't shown to its best in the film.)
The new Bond film is Casino Royale, and has Bond as a newly promoted 00 agent who's still a bit green but who actually has a tiny bit of emotion left. This is a character you can just about believe and my only complaint of the film is that it tries to do a bit much. It starts (with a great film noir sequence) when Bond earns his bones, then picks up the rather convoluted plot involving first an evil bomber and then the financier behind him. When you think it's all over and Bond has finally gotten the girl, it continues on like a soap opera in order to explain Bond's total lack of humanity. But this subplot isn't even a subplot, it's an after-plot and is held in place rather clumsily by the issue of missing money.
By the end of the film, you're left feeling like you've watched several episodes of a TV series instead of a stand-alone movie, which is a real shame as Daniel Craig is great as the government hit-man, the Bond girls are stunning as always, and some of the stunts are simply terrifying to contemplate. (No one has yet topped the plane-top fight of Octopussy for mine, though.) The film even includes the great torture scene from the book (but don't ask me what else is from the book, as it's been a long time since I read it, and I've got better things to do than read it again).
All up, this is not a great film, but it is a great Bond film.
The new Bond film is Casino Royale, and has Bond as a newly promoted 00 agent who's still a bit green but who actually has a tiny bit of emotion left. This is a character you can just about believe and my only complaint of the film is that it tries to do a bit much. It starts (with a great film noir sequence) when Bond earns his bones, then picks up the rather convoluted plot involving first an evil bomber and then the financier behind him. When you think it's all over and Bond has finally gotten the girl, it continues on like a soap opera in order to explain Bond's total lack of humanity. But this subplot isn't even a subplot, it's an after-plot and is held in place rather clumsily by the issue of missing money.
By the end of the film, you're left feeling like you've watched several episodes of a TV series instead of a stand-alone movie, which is a real shame as Daniel Craig is great as the government hit-man, the Bond girls are stunning as always, and some of the stunts are simply terrifying to contemplate. (No one has yet topped the plane-top fight of Octopussy for mine, though.) The film even includes the great torture scene from the book (but don't ask me what else is from the book, as it's been a long time since I read it, and I've got better things to do than read it again).
All up, this is not a great film, but it is a great Bond film.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Snakes On A Plane (0 Money Trains)
It's true: you don't need to see this film to know what's going to happen. Deadly snakes get loose on a plane, countless people die, including both pilots, and the audience laughs its arse off, while the heroes think of ways to kill said snakes. And yes, you know that these ways will include fire, fire-extinguishers and plane depressurisation.
But these aren't any old snakes, they're super-deadly, angry snakes that can climb anything and kill people instantly with a single bite. Unless it's a small child that gets bitten, in which case he'll survive long enough to have someone cut the wound and suck out the poison, never mind that that's a guaranteed way to introduce venom, that's almost cerainly in the lymphatic system, into the bloodstream. No one, not a single person, gets a snake wound strapped and immobillised.
And of course it's not your regular plane with four levels of redundancy: oh no, one rogue snake in the electrical switchboard will cut the avionics on this baby and the lights will go out for the duration. And, of course, physics doesn't play a major role: tail winds don't matter if you say they don't, and rapid depressurisation doesn't result in boiling of liquids (eg, blood), freezing condensation in the cabin, or fatal thermal shock.
Snakes On A Plane was directed by David Ellis, who also did Cellular, so that should give you some idea. And if that doesn't, Samuel L Jackson is in it, too.
But why are they even on the plane, you ask? It's an assassination attempt using venomous snakes to top the witness for the prosecution. So why the 20 foot anaconda?
But these aren't any old snakes, they're super-deadly, angry snakes that can climb anything and kill people instantly with a single bite. Unless it's a small child that gets bitten, in which case he'll survive long enough to have someone cut the wound and suck out the poison, never mind that that's a guaranteed way to introduce venom, that's almost cerainly in the lymphatic system, into the bloodstream. No one, not a single person, gets a snake wound strapped and immobillised.
And of course it's not your regular plane with four levels of redundancy: oh no, one rogue snake in the electrical switchboard will cut the avionics on this baby and the lights will go out for the duration. And, of course, physics doesn't play a major role: tail winds don't matter if you say they don't, and rapid depressurisation doesn't result in boiling of liquids (eg, blood), freezing condensation in the cabin, or fatal thermal shock.
Snakes On A Plane was directed by David Ellis, who also did Cellular, so that should give you some idea. And if that doesn't, Samuel L Jackson is in it, too.
But why are they even on the plane, you ask? It's an assassination attempt using venomous snakes to top the witness for the prosecution. So why the 20 foot anaconda?
Into The Blue (3.5 Money Trains)
I watched Into The Blue the other night. My sister picked it up cheap in
If you don’t know, this is about some beautiful people stumbling across some sunken treasure AND a sunken plane-load of cocaine in
The diving scenes are realistic … in a Dangerous Dan of the Truk Stop Hotel kind of way: the main characters can stay submerged and swim around underwater without tanks for several minutes and to insane depths, they can penetrate plane wrecks on that same breath and never suffer shallow water blackout or outright drowning, and when they really need to breath, they even know how to breath directly off a cylinder (“it’s a real confidence builder, I don’t why they don’t teach it anymore” says Dangerous Dan), and a total beach bum with no money and no prospects in a Barbadan backwater gets to go diving (and more) with Jessica Alba. Oh, and it’s similarly realistic in its portrayal of man’s ability to smash the valve out of a cylinder, while holding his breath underwater, using nothing more than a rock.
This film does actually have a bit of a plot which would hold together if you completely ignored physics (and largely ignored logic and common sense) and had never been swimming in your life. Plus it has Jessica Alba in it, so that alone is worth the price, boys. (Especially when she has that sexy French accent.) Interestingly, the guy I pegged as being shark bait at the start survived, although he was one of the few.
I give this one my highest scores ever, at 3.5 Money Trains
Friday, October 06, 2006
Vertical Limit (1.0 Money Train)
I know that in movies the viewer is expected to accept what goes on. And that's fine. So when Peter Parker gets spider powers, I say Fine, I can accept that. (I'd have preferred a radioactive spider from a good-science point of view, but I'll accept none the less). Or when Sean Connery gets the girl in his later films (eg, Entrapment, but CZJ did marry Michael Douglas, so go figure), I can accept that, too. Or when the bus in Speed gets air off a flat bit of road to leap a huge gap, I figure that's okay, too. And in Vertical Limit I support the film makers for all the exciting stuff with hanging off cliffs by an ice-axe, and even an avalanche coming off hardpacked, not steep snow. But then they go too far.
The nitroglycerin is big problem number 1 in this film. I don't mind that they take it in the first place, or that they bang it around with abandon all the way up the mountain. It's sealed in a damped vacuum flask, obviously. Fine. But it suddenly reacts with sunlight, from INSIDE the flask! And the Pakistanis had never noticed before. Well, maybe they're dim. But that doesn't change the fact that it's reacting from INSIDE a VACUUM flask! And only AFTER they're told it reacts. They'd been walking for hours with the flasks in the sun with no effect. Stupid, stupid science.
Of course, no-one needs to bother with nitro in the first place because no real climber would risk all to save someone in that situation. It's not that they'd be callous, it's that the maths doesn't add up. They have 30-odd hours (40?) to get to the girl and save her. Her lungs are full of fluid, she can barely move, she's been above 24,000ft for ages without oxygen. As Wicks says, she's screwed. But they get there in the nick of time, just minutes before she's due to succumb. Great! Climatic ending! Hoorah! It's like disarming the bomb with just 1 second to go. The difference of course, is that, unlike a bomb, they still have to get her back down the hill. A hill that almost killed them coming up, and along a route that involved a massive leap across an even more massive void. (Remember that, when Peter took a running leap off a cliff, despite not being altitude fit, at an alitude where every step is an effort, floated through the air, and buried his ice axes into solid rock?) At least in the film "K2" when they rescued someone, a helicopter showed up suddently to get them down quickly.
On the upside, it has Ben Mendleson and TWO other aussies who play aussies. Still, 1 Money Train for the completely disregard of science and mountain realities.
The nitroglycerin is big problem number 1 in this film. I don't mind that they take it in the first place, or that they bang it around with abandon all the way up the mountain. It's sealed in a damped vacuum flask, obviously. Fine. But it suddenly reacts with sunlight, from INSIDE the flask! And the Pakistanis had never noticed before. Well, maybe they're dim. But that doesn't change the fact that it's reacting from INSIDE a VACUUM flask! And only AFTER they're told it reacts. They'd been walking for hours with the flasks in the sun with no effect. Stupid, stupid science.
Of course, no-one needs to bother with nitro in the first place because no real climber would risk all to save someone in that situation. It's not that they'd be callous, it's that the maths doesn't add up. They have 30-odd hours (40?) to get to the girl and save her. Her lungs are full of fluid, she can barely move, she's been above 24,000ft for ages without oxygen. As Wicks says, she's screwed. But they get there in the nick of time, just minutes before she's due to succumb. Great! Climatic ending! Hoorah! It's like disarming the bomb with just 1 second to go. The difference of course, is that, unlike a bomb, they still have to get her back down the hill. A hill that almost killed them coming up, and along a route that involved a massive leap across an even more massive void. (Remember that, when Peter took a running leap off a cliff, despite not being altitude fit, at an alitude where every step is an effort, floated through the air, and buried his ice axes into solid rock?) At least in the film "K2" when they rescued someone, a helicopter showed up suddently to get them down quickly.
On the upside, it has Ben Mendleson and TWO other aussies who play aussies. Still, 1 Money Train for the completely disregard of science and mountain realities.
Touching The Void (5 out of 5)
Look, I can even review good films!
Touching The Void is a documentary so is absolutely faithful to mountain realities, no matter how unbelievable. It's about Joe Simpson and Simon Yates who were climbing in the Andes in 1985. Joe fell and broke his leg at around 22,000 feet, which alone should have killed him. Other things that should have killed him over four very nasty days include: exposure; being cut loose to fall from a cliff; falling in a crevasse; a dodgy snow bridge; lack of food and water; blood loss; navigating a glacier solo; being left to die. But Joe survived, wrote one of the best books ever (same title), and now helps narrate the only movie ever made that is as good as the book. Basically, when it comes to survival, this guy makes Welshmen who walk around in the middle of winter in just a tee-shirt and not even their nipples go hard look like mincing namby pambies, and he makes that bloke in the States who cut off his own arm look a little soft. See this film. 5/5
Touching The Void is a documentary so is absolutely faithful to mountain realities, no matter how unbelievable. It's about Joe Simpson and Simon Yates who were climbing in the Andes in 1985. Joe fell and broke his leg at around 22,000 feet, which alone should have killed him. Other things that should have killed him over four very nasty days include: exposure; being cut loose to fall from a cliff; falling in a crevasse; a dodgy snow bridge; lack of food and water; blood loss; navigating a glacier solo; being left to die. But Joe survived, wrote one of the best books ever (same title), and now helps narrate the only movie ever made that is as good as the book. Basically, when it comes to survival, this guy makes Welshmen who walk around in the middle of winter in just a tee-shirt and not even their nipples go hard look like mincing namby pambies, and he makes that bloke in the States who cut off his own arm look a little soft. See this film. 5/5
Minority Report
Every now and again an okay film comes along that I don't want to completely tear to shreds, but do want to point out some huge plot holes. Here are two itemised lists of errors from the archives:
Minority Report
Minority Report
1.
In order to access the Pre-Crime HQ, John Anderton must avoid the security system, based on eye scans. He therefore changes eyes. These assist him in getting into, or at least near, the building, presumeably, but when he actually wants to get to the guts of the place, the really high security bit, the bit the authorities want him least, he uses his own eyes. Lucky for him no-one bothered to update the security system once Anderton became a criminal.
2.
When Lamar slots the federal agent in Anderton's apartment he must have planned to get the Fed there when the Precog's weren't working in order to kill him. This is premeditation, which should have been picked up by the precogs before one of them was stolen.
Anderton only really got interested in solving the Who-killed-mummy puzzle once he'd been framed. And he'd only been framed in order to stop him solving the Who-killed-mummy puzzle. Therefore, the act of framing was the only thing that necessitated the act of framing.
Anderton only wound up in the frame (ie, in a room with an actor and lots of photos) because he saw himself there in the future. Surely the chain of events is:
- Pay guy to go to room, with promise of money for family (And this orchestration of murder really makes Lamar the murderer here, which perhaps whould have been flagged by the Precogs)
- Sit back and wait for Anderton to stumble across the room. But why would he? Because of the set-up? Where's the cause and effect?
1.
Spidey's hanging under a bridge (one arm) holding a gondola (2nd arm). Why doesn't the Green Goblin just shoot him? ("Dad, I've got a gun in my room. I'll go and get it. We can shoot him together. C'mon, it'll be fun!" "You just don't get it, do you, Scott?")
2.
Okay, so he's got wee barbs in his hands, and presumeably other bits, too. But he climbs on his fingertips (wouldn't his weight pull off the skin?) and, at an early stage, his sneakers. ie, his whole weight is on his fingertips when e first climbs a wall. He even perches on a pole in his sneakers. Maybe he can smear really well (were they 5-10s?), but surely the foot-barbs weren't several inches long.
3.
Who made the suit? Surely a tailor somewhere in the city would think, when he/she saw newspaper adds for information, "Mmmm, I made a suit like that for a ... let me check the invoices ... Peter Parker." At the least he/she could give a description to the police.
How many suits does he have? Surely he must wear one and wash one. And does he hang it on the line? Or is it dry-clean only? And even if he just washes it at home and bungs it in the drier (not too good for Lycra. It must be cotton. Or wool: it didn't catch fire in the burning building. But then it's dry clean and definitely no driers) he's got to store it somewhere. What happens when the roommate, Green Goblin Jnr, goes to borrow a jacket. ("Shirt. Shirt. Shirt. Pants. Pants. Shirt. Spiderman outfit. Shirt. Pants. Jacket - here we go.")
5.
Does the suit have a gusset or does he have to nude up to go to the gents?
6.
What did Peter Parker ever really do to win over MJ? He says "Yeah, I told Spiderman I'm hot for you") and suddenly she's all over him like a rash. He takes her out once (for a $7.85 cheeseburger) and pisses off whenever she's in danger. She'd seen at school that he could pack a punch, so why didn't he go down that dark alley in the rain and strut his stuff? Then he could have had her based on who he was, rather than screwing around the way he did. And then he just blows her off, despite being madly in love with her. All that crap about "with great power comes great responsibility". So what? Doesn't mean he can't have her. She knows anyway.
7.
Can't change DNA on the run. Dodgy dodgy science. Radioactice spiders giving him powers: fine. But DNA changes? At best, Peter would have had to be turned into a soup and reformed overnight, a la caterpillars. And since he'd kept his pants on, they'd proably fuse to his body. Along with the carpet and blanket. Also, since it's a DNA thing, this means his kids will get half spiderman genes.
It wasn't a freak accident that turned him into Spidey, so anyone could get bitten and turn. (If only he'd stepped on the spider, then knocked over a beaker of acid, destroying the research that had created the little critter.) The arachnid centre where they went on the school trip could become a Spiderperson factory. The (presumeably) evil head of the centre could have an army of Spider-minions. Then everyone would be in on the act. It'd be a fashion accessory. Then Peter would just be a nerd again.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Deep Blue Sea (2.5 Money Trains)
So I was in Carrefour today and saw Deep Blue Sea going cheap and I have to say: great buy.
This is an old school disaster movie that deserves to stand alongside Towering Inferno, and (the original) Poseidon Adventure. Right from the start you know that most of the players are going to die - nothing too original there - but Deep Blue Sea surprises you in its hit list. But what really puts this in the big league of disaster flicks, for my money, is that not only do things go wrong, but everything goes wrong.
Basic plot summary is that a team of scientists researching a sharks-brain-based cure for Altzheimers accidentally make three supersharks in their off-shore converted WWII submarine pen. "We made their brains bigger and as a side-effect they got smarter." A side-effect? I think the word the good doctor was looking for was "result". Of course, they never expected such a thing to occur. Little wonder then that these scientists are incapable of defending themselves from three fish with the intelligence of, perhaps, dogs. Nor will it come as a surprise that their facility has been engineered with zero tolerances and no redundant systems so that harsh weather and a helicopter are able to precipitate its eventual demise. This is classic disaster. Absolute rolling-on-the-floor-wanting-to-vomit-with-laughter-because-it's-so-damned-stupid classic disaster.
Everything else is pretty standard: dramatic music, nonsensical decisions (I need to get that shark's attention, so I'll cut myself and jump in the water) and, like any action film involving water, the laws of physics (particularly Boyle's Law) do not apply. People can hold their breath indefinitely and swim great distances without blacking out, and they can rapidly ascend to the surface without getting bent (for two classic examples of this, watch the Bond films For Your Eyes Only and Tomorrow Never Dies). Also, sea water is always crystal clear and the characters can see underwater without a mask. My only real complaint is that the CGI was a bit clunky.
This is not a film to get you thinking, but it should be one to get you laughing. Eg: Preacher (LL Cool J): "I'm done. Brothers never make it out of situations like this, not ever!"
2.5 Money Trains
This is an old school disaster movie that deserves to stand alongside Towering Inferno, and (the original) Poseidon Adventure. Right from the start you know that most of the players are going to die - nothing too original there - but Deep Blue Sea surprises you in its hit list. But what really puts this in the big league of disaster flicks, for my money, is that not only do things go wrong, but everything goes wrong.
Basic plot summary is that a team of scientists researching a sharks-brain-based cure for Altzheimers accidentally make three supersharks in their off-shore converted WWII submarine pen. "We made their brains bigger and as a side-effect they got smarter." A side-effect? I think the word the good doctor was looking for was "result". Of course, they never expected such a thing to occur. Little wonder then that these scientists are incapable of defending themselves from three fish with the intelligence of, perhaps, dogs. Nor will it come as a surprise that their facility has been engineered with zero tolerances and no redundant systems so that harsh weather and a helicopter are able to precipitate its eventual demise. This is classic disaster. Absolute rolling-on-the-floor-wanting-to-vomit-with-laughter-because-it's-so-damned-stupid classic disaster.
Everything else is pretty standard: dramatic music, nonsensical decisions (I need to get that shark's attention, so I'll cut myself and jump in the water) and, like any action film involving water, the laws of physics (particularly Boyle's Law) do not apply. People can hold their breath indefinitely and swim great distances without blacking out, and they can rapidly ascend to the surface without getting bent (for two classic examples of this, watch the Bond films For Your Eyes Only and Tomorrow Never Dies). Also, sea water is always crystal clear and the characters can see underwater without a mask. My only real complaint is that the CGI was a bit clunky.
This is not a film to get you thinking, but it should be one to get you laughing. Eg: Preacher (LL Cool J): "I'm done. Brothers never make it out of situations like this, not ever!"
2.5 Money Trains
Thursday, August 31, 2006
The Interpreter (-2.0 Money Trains)
It's been a while since I was subjected to this one, and I think I reviewed it at the time but managed to lose the original. So bear with me.
The Interpreter is a political thriller about corruption and murder in a ficticious southern African state, interestingly set in the UN headquarters in New York. It has a great (African) opening that's all grit and realism and excitement and portends a great movie to follow. Maybe because there's wasn't a lot of dialogue in this scene, the director, Sydney Pollack (Three Days of the Condor - now that's a political thriller) had scope to achieve this. But come Scene 2 and the film relocates to New York, the script kicks in, and the "stars" get involved.
These last two points are the real undoing of the film. The plot is contrived like you wouldn't believe. For example, Silvia (the heroine who is an interpreter with the UN, more later) discovers an assassination plot and then becomes a target herself because:
1. Before going for drinks after work, she decides it will be easier to leave her musical instrument in the interpreting room rather than carry it around. Fair call for a tuba or a cello, but a flute?
2. Two plotters are discussing their scheme in the delegation hall of the UN, (which is, of course, covered in microphones), rather than in a hotel room somewhere.
3. They sit in their usual seats in the hall so that Silvia's interpreting room picks up the conversation, and she, of course, hearing something from her headphones, puts them on and uncovers the plot.
4. They see her and she runs rather than pretending nothing happened.
The rest of the plot is pretty poor, as well, but if we didn't see films because of a few schoolboy errors like that, we'd never go to the cinema at all. No, the reason not to see this film under any circumstances is Nicole Kidman.
Let's start with her character: she's meant to be a white southern African from a ficticious and corrupt southern African nation (think Zimbabwe) who speaks a ficticious language that is the lingua franca of southern Africa. That's fine, but you'd think that such a woman might have picked up a bit of a tan from her time in Africa. Or maybe some freckles, even. You'd also think her accent would sound kind of southern African. But it's as if Miss Kidman failed to read the script before filming and didn't do any preparation. This is reinforced when she opens her mouth. Her accent is atrocious and her acting is worse. She could have been (should have been) replaced with a potted ficcus. At least that would have been less wooden.
Nicole Kidman is possibly the worst actress in the world. Take away the admittedly tight body, and the reconstructed face and you will see that she is a talentless bimbo who should be relegated to doing films with the likes of Rob Sneider, Paulie Shore and Will Ferrell (no, I have no intention of seeing Bewitched), not Sean Penn. (For all his leftie mumbo jumbo "I've been to Iraq" crap as if anyone really cares what actors think, the bloke can act.)
With the script this film was lumbered with, it had the potential to be a forgetable, middle-of-the-road piece of cinema that not even afficionados would want to watch again. With Miss Kidman in it, it made it to my list of bad films, and earns -2.0 Money Trains.
The Interpreter is a political thriller about corruption and murder in a ficticious southern African state, interestingly set in the UN headquarters in New York. It has a great (African) opening that's all grit and realism and excitement and portends a great movie to follow. Maybe because there's wasn't a lot of dialogue in this scene, the director, Sydney Pollack (Three Days of the Condor - now that's a political thriller) had scope to achieve this. But come Scene 2 and the film relocates to New York, the script kicks in, and the "stars" get involved.
These last two points are the real undoing of the film. The plot is contrived like you wouldn't believe. For example, Silvia (the heroine who is an interpreter with the UN, more later) discovers an assassination plot and then becomes a target herself because:
1. Before going for drinks after work, she decides it will be easier to leave her musical instrument in the interpreting room rather than carry it around. Fair call for a tuba or a cello, but a flute?
2. Two plotters are discussing their scheme in the delegation hall of the UN, (which is, of course, covered in microphones), rather than in a hotel room somewhere.
3. They sit in their usual seats in the hall so that Silvia's interpreting room picks up the conversation, and she, of course, hearing something from her headphones, puts them on and uncovers the plot.
4. They see her and she runs rather than pretending nothing happened.
The rest of the plot is pretty poor, as well, but if we didn't see films because of a few schoolboy errors like that, we'd never go to the cinema at all. No, the reason not to see this film under any circumstances is Nicole Kidman.
Let's start with her character: she's meant to be a white southern African from a ficticious and corrupt southern African nation (think Zimbabwe) who speaks a ficticious language that is the lingua franca of southern Africa. That's fine, but you'd think that such a woman might have picked up a bit of a tan from her time in Africa. Or maybe some freckles, even. You'd also think her accent would sound kind of southern African. But it's as if Miss Kidman failed to read the script before filming and didn't do any preparation. This is reinforced when she opens her mouth. Her accent is atrocious and her acting is worse. She could have been (should have been) replaced with a potted ficcus. At least that would have been less wooden.
Nicole Kidman is possibly the worst actress in the world. Take away the admittedly tight body, and the reconstructed face and you will see that she is a talentless bimbo who should be relegated to doing films with the likes of Rob Sneider, Paulie Shore and Will Ferrell (no, I have no intention of seeing Bewitched), not Sean Penn. (For all his leftie mumbo jumbo "I've been to Iraq" crap as if anyone really cares what actors think, the bloke can act.)
With the script this film was lumbered with, it had the potential to be a forgetable, middle-of-the-road piece of cinema that not even afficionados would want to watch again. With Miss Kidman in it, it made it to my list of bad films, and earns -2.0 Money Trains.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
U571 (1.0 Money Train)
U571 is a really dumb film. Clearly the director and screenwriter never saw Das Boot or read any history of WWII. I mean:
1. If you take a WWII sub to around 240m, and the pressure gauge red lines at 160m, surely you'll need to hammer some blocks into the leaks that will spring up. (Aside: there was an American nuclear sub that imploded in the sixties. I'm not sure the depth, but it was probably only around 250m.)
2. When they survive these improbably depths the Chief comments "the Germans really know how to make a boat". And yet a German destroyer explodes in a massive fire ball with just one torpedo fired into it. Good German torpedoes, perhaps? Pity the German artillery that hit the sub directly wasn't that good. Maybe only German boats were good, but their ships were crap.
3. And when little Billy is sent into the bilge to stop a leak, he closes off the first, then catches his breath under a grille and talks to the Weapons guy. Now, his air hose isn't long enough. So why not go back to the entry point and re-enter the bilge at the grille where he was talking to the weapons guy. Then he could get enough slack on the air pipe.
4. But the fact remains his arm is shorter than the distance between the valve and the bulkhead (or whatever it was) that stops him. No amount of talking by the captain will change this fact. The only way to close the valve is by:
4a. Sending down someone with longer arms (or perhaps giving Billy a wrench or jemmy),
4b. Or lifting up the floor panels. I mean, why the hell would you have a valve that was impossible to reach except by swimming through the bilge?
4c. Or waiting on the surface getting shot to pieces so the structure fails and little Billy can reach the valve and save the lives of the men that the captain has endangered by sacrificing little Billy in the first place. Basically, the captain should have been court-martialled and Billy given a posthumous VC (hey, they should have been Brits, anyway. The US hadn't even entered the damned war at this point.)
5. Anyway, it was lucky that when they meet the other U-Boat in the storm that the sea only has a half-metre chop. It was so calm they probably could have gotten much closer. And it's also lucky that a US Navy plane finds the life raft (at the end) in the Atlantic when the U-boat action was mainly off the European coasts and so would have been patrolled by the RAF. (Especially considering the Americans hadn't entered the damned war at this point.)
I only saw bits and pieces of this film over two showings, seeing the ending last night, so that's why this dissection is so short. But I did notice they had a technical adviser on the film. At least in the credits. What they needed was:
a. a technical adviser with submarine experience, or b. a five year old.
But speaking of submarine movies, in The World Is Not Enough, Bond has the chance to kill all the bad guys quietly and quickly in the control room of the sub. But instead, he dithers and lets a fight happen, in which he kills them all anyway, making the success of his mission all the more unlikely. What kind of licence to kill has he got? "The bearer of this licence can kill only in self defence and only when hopelessly outnumbered." He's been a good boy and clearly has no conscience. Give him a real licence. "The bearer of this licence can kill anyone at all whenever he feels like it for the security of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." It's like the way George Lucas remastered Star Wars so Han shoots second. Enough of the honourable no-cold-blood-executions crap.
Score: 1 Money Train
1. If you take a WWII sub to around 240m, and the pressure gauge red lines at 160m, surely you'll need to hammer some blocks into the leaks that will spring up. (Aside: there was an American nuclear sub that imploded in the sixties. I'm not sure the depth, but it was probably only around 250m.)
2. When they survive these improbably depths the Chief comments "the Germans really know how to make a boat". And yet a German destroyer explodes in a massive fire ball with just one torpedo fired into it. Good German torpedoes, perhaps? Pity the German artillery that hit the sub directly wasn't that good. Maybe only German boats were good, but their ships were crap.
3. And when little Billy is sent into the bilge to stop a leak, he closes off the first, then catches his breath under a grille and talks to the Weapons guy. Now, his air hose isn't long enough. So why not go back to the entry point and re-enter the bilge at the grille where he was talking to the weapons guy. Then he could get enough slack on the air pipe.
4. But the fact remains his arm is shorter than the distance between the valve and the bulkhead (or whatever it was) that stops him. No amount of talking by the captain will change this fact. The only way to close the valve is by:
4a. Sending down someone with longer arms (or perhaps giving Billy a wrench or jemmy),
4b. Or lifting up the floor panels. I mean, why the hell would you have a valve that was impossible to reach except by swimming through the bilge?
4c. Or waiting on the surface getting shot to pieces so the structure fails and little Billy can reach the valve and save the lives of the men that the captain has endangered by sacrificing little Billy in the first place. Basically, the captain should have been court-martialled and Billy given a posthumous VC (hey, they should have been Brits, anyway. The US hadn't even entered the damned war at this point.)
5. Anyway, it was lucky that when they meet the other U-Boat in the storm that the sea only has a half-metre chop. It was so calm they probably could have gotten much closer. And it's also lucky that a US Navy plane finds the life raft (at the end) in the Atlantic when the U-boat action was mainly off the European coasts and so would have been patrolled by the RAF. (Especially considering the Americans hadn't entered the damned war at this point.)
I only saw bits and pieces of this film over two showings, seeing the ending last night, so that's why this dissection is so short. But I did notice they had a technical adviser on the film. At least in the credits. What they needed was:
a. a technical adviser with submarine experience, or b. a five year old.
But speaking of submarine movies, in The World Is Not Enough, Bond has the chance to kill all the bad guys quietly and quickly in the control room of the sub. But instead, he dithers and lets a fight happen, in which he kills them all anyway, making the success of his mission all the more unlikely. What kind of licence to kill has he got? "The bearer of this licence can kill only in self defence and only when hopelessly outnumbered." He's been a good boy and clearly has no conscience. Give him a real licence. "The bearer of this licence can kill anyone at all whenever he feels like it for the security of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." It's like the way George Lucas remastered Star Wars so Han shoots second. Enough of the honourable no-cold-blood-executions crap.
Score: 1 Money Train
The Matrix Reloaded (2.0 Money Trains)
I hated it.
This was the stupidest film I've seen since the latest James Bond flick. It:
1. Was incoherent 2. Was atrociously acted (Kevin "Wooden Man" Costner would have been right at home in this film) 3. Had a pathetic plot 4. Was, above all, PRETENTIOUS!
All this dribble masquerading as philosophy, trying to be oh-so-smart by dropping in names like Popper (named in "Animatrix", although he appears in "Reloaded") and Persephone and exploring ideas like "necessary evil" as if its ground-breaking and doesn't date back to the ancient Chinese. And ooh! everything's a computer program and isn't that a mind-trip? Yeah, well, that was dealt with in the first movie: is there really any need to harp on about it for so long in this one? Admittedly, the new ideas revolving around the number of incarnations of the Matrix were interesting but not enough to support the entire film.
So now that the "thinking" element has been dispensed with (and that's what made the first one great: the ideas behind all the action), what we're left with is an action movie that relies on endless special effects to disguise the shortcomings mentioned above. Without these the film would have been NOTHING! With them it was just a whole bunch of stuff that had been seen before with the occasional bit of really obvious computer animation that almost looked like Walt Disney had done it (Neo fighting lots of Smiths, Agent jumping on bonnet of speeding car). Final Flight of the Osiris (last episode of Animatix) did the CGI much better.
And as for the constant slow motion "bullet-time" sequences! Come on! It was like watching a Johnny Woo film. All we needed were the birds taking flight heralding something evil. Oh wait, we had that too. How about something new?
Finally, I've heard it said that this is a film that needs to be watched several times in order to come to grips with all the concepts explored in the film. Well, the concepts aren't that difficult. I reckon it is actually a case of the Emporer's New Clothes and that people are just confusing "incoherence" (point 1) with "sophistication".
The Matrix was a great film. It was intended to be a stand-alone film and that's how it should have been left. It is very difficult to make a worthy sequel, judging by the dross Hollywood churns out. The Empire Strikes Back is the only good one that springs to mind.
In summary, Reloaded's opening sequence with Trinity jumping around is good. Then the handbrake gets pulled on - hard - and the film degenerates from there, chucking in a a big fight (Jacky Chan, where are you?), a chase (see "Ronin" if you want to see a good car chase) a couple more fights and some romance. The best thing about the film was the company and the comfy seats.
My score for Reloaded: 2.0 Money Trains.
This was the stupidest film I've seen since the latest James Bond flick. It:
1. Was incoherent 2. Was atrociously acted (Kevin "Wooden Man" Costner would have been right at home in this film) 3. Had a pathetic plot 4. Was, above all, PRETENTIOUS!
All this dribble masquerading as philosophy, trying to be oh-so-smart by dropping in names like Popper (named in "Animatrix", although he appears in "Reloaded") and Persephone and exploring ideas like "necessary evil" as if its ground-breaking and doesn't date back to the ancient Chinese. And ooh! everything's a computer program and isn't that a mind-trip? Yeah, well, that was dealt with in the first movie: is there really any need to harp on about it for so long in this one? Admittedly, the new ideas revolving around the number of incarnations of the Matrix were interesting but not enough to support the entire film.
So now that the "thinking" element has been dispensed with (and that's what made the first one great: the ideas behind all the action), what we're left with is an action movie that relies on endless special effects to disguise the shortcomings mentioned above. Without these the film would have been NOTHING! With them it was just a whole bunch of stuff that had been seen before with the occasional bit of really obvious computer animation that almost looked like Walt Disney had done it (Neo fighting lots of Smiths, Agent jumping on bonnet of speeding car). Final Flight of the Osiris (last episode of Animatix) did the CGI much better.
And as for the constant slow motion "bullet-time" sequences! Come on! It was like watching a Johnny Woo film. All we needed were the birds taking flight heralding something evil. Oh wait, we had that too. How about something new?
Finally, I've heard it said that this is a film that needs to be watched several times in order to come to grips with all the concepts explored in the film. Well, the concepts aren't that difficult. I reckon it is actually a case of the Emporer's New Clothes and that people are just confusing "incoherence" (point 1) with "sophistication".
The Matrix was a great film. It was intended to be a stand-alone film and that's how it should have been left. It is very difficult to make a worthy sequel, judging by the dross Hollywood churns out. The Empire Strikes Back is the only good one that springs to mind.
In summary, Reloaded's opening sequence with Trinity jumping around is good. Then the handbrake gets pulled on - hard - and the film degenerates from there, chucking in a a big fight (Jacky Chan, where are you?), a chase (see "Ronin" if you want to see a good car chase) a couple more fights and some romance. The best thing about the film was the company and the comfy seats.
My score for Reloaded: 2.0 Money Trains.
Ghost Ship (1.5 Money Trains)
Alex Dimitriadis can act. From his early days in Heartbreak High, to that cop show set in Sydney. His is a laidback style and, I think, very believable.
So that definitely rules out "acting" as what Mr Dimitriadis was doing in the 2002 "suspense" Ghost Ship. He wasn't the only one doing anything but acting, however, and the only suspense I felt was in wondering whether the Token Black Guy or the Aussie would be the first of the heroes to be killed. (Not that he sounded Australian. Why can't Aussies keep their accents the way Poms do in films?) Now, this film is proudly touted as being from the same producers as "The Matrix Trilogy" (ie, good start, followed by rapid slide into pretentiousness), "Swordfish" (I think that had John Travolta, and can anyone name a good film he's been in since Pulp Fiction?), "Thir13en Ghosts" (is it me, or is that just not a wo78rd?) and "The House On Haunted Hill" (never saw it, but with a title like that…). So this should give you an idea already.
Basically, it's about a crew of gung-ho maritime salvage experts (is there any other sort?) who agree to salvage a ship which mysteriously vanished after everyone on board was massacred (including a great cheese-wire trick at the start) back in 1962. Naturally, it turns out evil was afoot and still lurking, this time in the guise of the bloke who commissioned the crew in the first place. (This is meant to be the big surprise in the film, but I'm hardly recommending you see this execrable piece of cinema.) To cut a long story short, they get trapped on the ship in the Bering Sea, some ghosts try to help them escape the baddie, everyone dies except the girl, who miraculously survives exposure after floating in the water for more than three minutes.
And do you want to know the dumb thing? It turns out the baddie is a "collector of souls" who kills people on ships, lures more to save them, repeats. And if he fails to make his quota, if the ship sinks, then these souls (all sinners) somehow escape and he has to start over and "management" isn't happy. Confused? Geez, if you're going to bring quasi-spiritual mumbo-jumbo into a film, at least give a bit of background. Is he working for the devil, or the Man upstairs? Is he like Matt Damon's character in Dogma? I'd say I want answers, but I just don't care enough, and neither will you.
Score: 1.5 Money Trains
So that definitely rules out "acting" as what Mr Dimitriadis was doing in the 2002 "suspense" Ghost Ship. He wasn't the only one doing anything but acting, however, and the only suspense I felt was in wondering whether the Token Black Guy or the Aussie would be the first of the heroes to be killed. (Not that he sounded Australian. Why can't Aussies keep their accents the way Poms do in films?) Now, this film is proudly touted as being from the same producers as "The Matrix Trilogy" (ie, good start, followed by rapid slide into pretentiousness), "Swordfish" (I think that had John Travolta, and can anyone name a good film he's been in since Pulp Fiction?), "Thir13en Ghosts" (is it me, or is that just not a wo78rd?) and "The House On Haunted Hill" (never saw it, but with a title like that…). So this should give you an idea already.
Basically, it's about a crew of gung-ho maritime salvage experts (is there any other sort?) who agree to salvage a ship which mysteriously vanished after everyone on board was massacred (including a great cheese-wire trick at the start) back in 1962. Naturally, it turns out evil was afoot and still lurking, this time in the guise of the bloke who commissioned the crew in the first place. (This is meant to be the big surprise in the film, but I'm hardly recommending you see this execrable piece of cinema.) To cut a long story short, they get trapped on the ship in the Bering Sea, some ghosts try to help them escape the baddie, everyone dies except the girl, who miraculously survives exposure after floating in the water for more than three minutes.
And do you want to know the dumb thing? It turns out the baddie is a "collector of souls" who kills people on ships, lures more to save them, repeats. And if he fails to make his quota, if the ship sinks, then these souls (all sinners) somehow escape and he has to start over and "management" isn't happy. Confused? Geez, if you're going to bring quasi-spiritual mumbo-jumbo into a film, at least give a bit of background. Is he working for the devil, or the Man upstairs? Is he like Matt Damon's character in Dogma? I'd say I want answers, but I just don't care enough, and neither will you.
Score: 1.5 Money Trains
Blade (1.0 Money Train)
It's amazing what one will watch on TV in a foreign country. Take last night as an example when I watched Blade. Was it good? Would I buy it on DVD? Like hell! The main problems are the plot and acting. Subtler items such as cinematography, costumes, music, directorial style, etc, are simply not present in this genre of film, so let's get down to the nitpicking.
Okay, obviously it's a story and one has to suspend disbelief, as they say. Fine. But there's no reason to suspend logic. My big gripe relates to Karen's cure for vampirism:
Late onset vampirism is like sickle cell anemia, she says (ok) With pure bloods, it's part of their DNA (ok) So late onset vamps need gene therapy (Hey? You don't catch genetic disorders) And then she injects herself with some fluid and is cured. (Sure she means late onset is more like a virus, in which case injecting herself would work) Remarkably easy, even for someone as far gone on the road to vampirism as herself. Remember, at this time she had around a day to go until it was all over.
Okay, so that's just bad script writing, but the underlying ideas are sound (well, as sound as you get in a vampire flick with Wesley Snipes). The real killer is as follows:
Blade returns to the garage soon after to find Whistler lying around with a gaping neck wound, some bruises, but no other apparent injuries. It's too late for me, he cries, I'm too far gone. Give me your gun.
Too far gone for what? Not only was he an eyewitness of Karen's wonder-cure, but he was sitting beside all the stuff required to administer himself with said cure. Too far gone? Bulldust! He'd only just been bitten and was certainly no further gone than Karen when she cured herself. Other wounds, perhaps? There was none (other than cancer and a limp). And no-one can claim he was delusional from pain and forgot about the cure, because he was completely lucid when talking to Blade. In summary, Whistler was a tool who didn't need to die. Or maybe he did because he was such a tool.
Next, the blood god. If all the people in the world become vampires, what will the vampires eat? Didn't think of that, did you, Frost? Goose.
Finally, the acting was ... something else. It certainly wasn't acting. It was like watching a black Kevin Costner. Geez it was bad!
However, credit where it's due. Despite expectations, no-one in the film ever said "I've been bit!" They always said "bitten". Well done! For that it gets 1/5 on my Money Train scale. Hey, I just realised what both these films have in common, and it isn't Woody Harelson.
Score: 1.0 Money Train
Okay, obviously it's a story and one has to suspend disbelief, as they say. Fine. But there's no reason to suspend logic. My big gripe relates to Karen's cure for vampirism:
Late onset vampirism is like sickle cell anemia, she says (ok) With pure bloods, it's part of their DNA (ok) So late onset vamps need gene therapy (Hey? You don't catch genetic disorders) And then she injects herself with some fluid and is cured. (Sure she means late onset is more like a virus, in which case injecting herself would work) Remarkably easy, even for someone as far gone on the road to vampirism as herself. Remember, at this time she had around a day to go until it was all over.
Okay, so that's just bad script writing, but the underlying ideas are sound (well, as sound as you get in a vampire flick with Wesley Snipes). The real killer is as follows:
Blade returns to the garage soon after to find Whistler lying around with a gaping neck wound, some bruises, but no other apparent injuries. It's too late for me, he cries, I'm too far gone. Give me your gun.
Too far gone for what? Not only was he an eyewitness of Karen's wonder-cure, but he was sitting beside all the stuff required to administer himself with said cure. Too far gone? Bulldust! He'd only just been bitten and was certainly no further gone than Karen when she cured herself. Other wounds, perhaps? There was none (other than cancer and a limp). And no-one can claim he was delusional from pain and forgot about the cure, because he was completely lucid when talking to Blade. In summary, Whistler was a tool who didn't need to die. Or maybe he did because he was such a tool.
Next, the blood god. If all the people in the world become vampires, what will the vampires eat? Didn't think of that, did you, Frost? Goose.
Finally, the acting was ... something else. It certainly wasn't acting. It was like watching a black Kevin Costner. Geez it was bad!
However, credit where it's due. Despite expectations, no-one in the film ever said "I've been bit!" They always said "bitten". Well done! For that it gets 1/5 on my Money Train scale. Hey, I just realised what both these films have in common, and it isn't Woody Harelson.
Score: 1.0 Money Train
Storm (-4.0 Money Trains)
OK, this is REALLY bad. In fact, for those familiar with my Money Train scale for bad films, this sets a new benchmark. This film makes Blade look high brow.
Luke Perry (never a good way to start a review. Even worse than starting with "Matthew Perry") plays a meteorologist who is developing a means of directing storms with a tiny contraption he tows from a Cesna. You're all intelligent people (probably), so I don't even need to criticise this appalling science explicitly. Anyway, he winds up working for the military who manage to drop a bollock and cause a big-arsed hurricane to hit Los Angeles. Naturally, things go from bad to stupid and pretty soon our hero is the only one left who can save the day. Oddly, he doesn't actually do this: the hurricane wastes LA.
There are plot developments along the way that leave your head spinning and a climax so mind blowingly stupid (if something has the power to direct a hurricane, surely it would be dangerous to manhandle) it makes Freaky Friday look like the Nobel Prize award ceremony. In summary, this film features an appalling plot, one dimensional characters (and that dimension is Time) and more clichés than a Matthew Riley novel. In fact, this film would make a great drinking game: scull whenever something unbelievably dumb happens. You'll be off your face inside 20 minutes.
Some films leave you thinking about them for days (eg, In The Cut); others are a good bit of mental chewing gum to enjoy for a few hours and then forget about (eg, Final Destination). But this was like a Passenger 57 - U571 combo. It had Luke Perry in it, for goodness sake! What was I thinking?
Luke Perry (never a good way to start a review. Even worse than starting with "Matthew Perry") plays a meteorologist who is developing a means of directing storms with a tiny contraption he tows from a Cesna. You're all intelligent people (probably), so I don't even need to criticise this appalling science explicitly. Anyway, he winds up working for the military who manage to drop a bollock and cause a big-arsed hurricane to hit Los Angeles. Naturally, things go from bad to stupid and pretty soon our hero is the only one left who can save the day. Oddly, he doesn't actually do this: the hurricane wastes LA.
There are plot developments along the way that leave your head spinning and a climax so mind blowingly stupid (if something has the power to direct a hurricane, surely it would be dangerous to manhandle) it makes Freaky Friday look like the Nobel Prize award ceremony. In summary, this film features an appalling plot, one dimensional characters (and that dimension is Time) and more clichés than a Matthew Riley novel. In fact, this film would make a great drinking game: scull whenever something unbelievably dumb happens. You'll be off your face inside 20 minutes.
Some films leave you thinking about them for days (eg, In The Cut); others are a good bit of mental chewing gum to enjoy for a few hours and then forget about (eg, Final Destination). But this was like a Passenger 57 - U571 combo. It had Luke Perry in it, for goodness sake! What was I thinking?
Celluar (2.5 Money Trains)
Okay, so it's a bad film, I think everyone who's seen it all agrees. There are plot holes you could sail the Queen Mary through, the acting sucks, and it was written by a roomful of monkeys on typewriters.
But c'mon! It was freaking hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing all the way through. eg, not only can the heroine repair a broken phone, but she manages to contact someone with it who's in the same city, not someone on a business trip to Zurich, or something.
Yep, technically the film totally blew, but for anyone with an IQ above 40 it's a great laugh and you can make a drinking game out of it! All you gainsayers should stop taking everything so seriously and smuggle a hip-flask into the cinema.
But c'mon! It was freaking hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing all the way through. eg, not only can the heroine repair a broken phone, but she manages to contact someone with it who's in the same city, not someone on a business trip to Zurich, or something.
Yep, technically the film totally blew, but for anyone with an IQ above 40 it's a great laugh and you can make a drinking game out of it! All you gainsayers should stop taking everything so seriously and smuggle a hip-flask into the cinema.
Brokeback Mountain (3.5 Money Trains)
Directed by Ang Lee (The Ice Storm, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hulk), Brokeback Mountain clocks in at a little over two hours, but it seems longer. The action starts, no wait, the story starts in 1963 with two 19 year old lads, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) landing a summer job guarding sheep. And you know what that makes them? Shepherds. Not cowboys, shepherds. Anyway, one bloke is to spend all day and all night with the sheep on the mountain, while the other has to stay in camp cooking and otherwise being superfluous. With limited conversation, and an accent so bad from Our Heath that the film really needed subtitles, these guys strike up an unlikely friendship that quickly progresses to … something more. But we all knew that, so it's not like I'm giving anything away.
Anyway, this summer job ends and our two heroes meet up every so often for the next twenty years to go "fishing" together up in the hills, but of course it's all very difficult because they're both married with kids. Nonetheless, the summer fling becomes a lifelong love, grounded on scintillating conversation and intellectual brinkmanship. Only joking, I have no idea what either character saw in the other. I certainly didn't feel anything for either of them, or for anyone at all in the film, for that matter. This may be how Mr Lee makes it feel like twenty years of your life have actually passed watching the film, even though none of the actors, men or women, appear to age by more than two.
Around the end of the second act, you're starting to wonder how Mr Lee is going to wrap it up and, if you're as jaded as me, you'll come to the same conclusion about there only being one way out of this miserable situation.
But this isn't a film about neat conclusions and happy endings, it's more a film with a message, and indeed I think this one has several. To wit:
All up, 3½ Money Trains
Anyway, this summer job ends and our two heroes meet up every so often for the next twenty years to go "fishing" together up in the hills, but of course it's all very difficult because they're both married with kids. Nonetheless, the summer fling becomes a lifelong love, grounded on scintillating conversation and intellectual brinkmanship. Only joking, I have no idea what either character saw in the other. I certainly didn't feel anything for either of them, or for anyone at all in the film, for that matter. This may be how Mr Lee makes it feel like twenty years of your life have actually passed watching the film, even though none of the actors, men or women, appear to age by more than two.
Around the end of the second act, you're starting to wonder how Mr Lee is going to wrap it up and, if you're as jaded as me, you'll come to the same conclusion about there only being one way out of this miserable situation.
But this isn't a film about neat conclusions and happy endings, it's more a film with a message, and indeed I think this one has several. To wit:
- You can't chose who you fall in love with (which is a pity because it can really destroy your life), so maybe you shouldn't fight it (which could end up destroying your life); ·
- Or you could rephrase to: follow your heart, not social mores, and to hell with your life getting destroyed; ·
- Don't live in a small country town – they're real shit-holes and will probably destroy your life;
All up, 3½ Money Trains
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