Friday, October 16, 2009

Gigantic. 0 Money Trains

The following is a guest review from my friend, Stephen Beckett.

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As a guest reviewer of money train quality films I was honored to be invited to review a film I would love to describe a truly awful but can't bring myself to as it was a strangely watchable and endearing film. The film in question is 'Gigantic'.

The film's basic premise is, well this is the starting point of the problem, its not clear to define what it is. It's certainly a boy meets girl movies as there is a boy. He meets a girl. And as is the norm in such situations they fall in love etc so this might possibly be the main story line.

However, our boy is a young mattress sales man who longs to adopt a baby. But he doesn't just want to adopt any baby, a Chinese baby (no I wasn't on acid when I watched this film) and you might think Hallmark Channel would rub their hands with glee at the prospect of the heart wrenching trials and tribulations of trying to go through such an adoption. But no, in this case the adoption thing is more of a side theme bordering on a non-theme. It’s more just something that is used to demonstrate the oddballness of the main character.

Then there's the love interest, and it quite possible this is why I kept watching as it came in the form of Zooey Deschanel. She plays a girl called Happy who comes into the mattress shop to collect a mattress bought by her father and promptly falls asleep on the bed in the middle of the shop. No explanation why, no questions asked she just does, and our hero waits for her to wake up and love grows from there.

And what seems to be the common theme through all of the characters is that quality that many Woody Allen films seem to have in my mind. And this is that the characters seem to exist in their own right. They are not part of a film that needs to develop them, they are not trying to live up to a sterotype that their existence and purpose in the plot requires you to realize and buy in to. In fact it is almost as if the characters fundamental aloofness to the film and what might be realistic in the real world is the only purpose in them being there. They don't seem like the actors are struggling with a crap script or story-line that they are hoping will pick up. Instead you feel that the characters have already been fully developed somewhere else off set and then just left to mumble their way through an hour and a half to see if anything good comes out of it.

So what is the main theme of the film? What is its message? Why was it made? At by the end of the film I can't answer that. There were threads of stories in here, there were things that sort of catch the attention and imagination. But at the end of the day I found myself watching it until the end more to see which of these viens of interest might become the conclusion (and for the lovely Zooey Deschannel). And in the end it was none of them, but nor was there a twist in the tail to wow you. It just kind of ended.

Money train rating. I say it is on a par with Money Train. Watchable but ultimately you are left wondering why you watched it.

Inglourious Basterds. -3.0 Money Trains

That's right. Minus three. Inglourious Basterds is a big pile of steaming poo that left me feeling angry that I had wasted 2 and a half hours of my life, and angry that I didn't think to say to Sarah that I was going window shopping in the mall and she could call me when it was over.

So, what's the problem? Well, the German-hating thing is getting a bit old. Back in the 50s and 60s when WWII was still fresh in the mind and veterans were going to the movies, the all-German-soldiers-are-evil-Jew-hating-killing-machines stereotype had its place. But WWII kicked of 70 years ago. And honestly, (and this is going to be controversial), isn't it time the Jews moved on, especially considering their own track record in Palestine?

Right, that's the underlying politics dealt with. How about the plot? It was thin, to say the least. A bit like A Dirty Dozen, but carried off with less panache and skill. In fact, the plot was kind of hard to follow at times because of the dragging scenes where nothing much happened. Like the scene in the tavern that went for about 40 minutes (or it seemed that long), where everyone just gets killed. And so a character introduced the scene before is eliminated without achieving anything, either for his mission or the film.

Now the characters were caricatures, one and all, and I don't mind that at all, as it was intentional. But even a cast of caricature should surely having you rooting for at least one character. Even Collateral had you backing the taxi driver a little bit. But one dimensional characters are the least of this film's problems.

How about the humour? People in the cinema were laughing, and I honestly have no idea why. Was someone passing notes? Were they watching a different film? Or are they just so low on the evolutionary tree of life that violence gets them giggling? God, there one joke in the whole thing (the Basterds working out who spoke the best foreign language) and the rest was either obscene levels of violence or overly long conversations about nothing in particular where Tarrantino was obviously trying to build suspense and failing spectacularly (eg, the scene with the chick and the strudel).

Right, I'm about done here. But I have to say this: 4 people vanished. Or maybe I fell asleep.

It starts off with 8 Basterds and 1 leader - 9. They pick up the German guy - 10. They pick up the Pom - 11. Then the 2 German Basterds and the Pom buy the farm in the tavern - back to 8. Two more go down in the cinema - 6. Two are left in the final scene - 4. What happened to the others?

Actually, I don't give a crap. This film was just woeful. Give me Money Train any day of the week. Oh, and as for Tarrantino - he loves cinema, he loves paying homage to other films, everyone says he's a master craftsman. And yes, Pulp Fiction was good. Reservoir Dogs was great. But then he went down this in-joke, pay homage to everything avenue and the results have been pretentious and ultimately really boring. -3.0 MT