Totally overrated. Lacking the “Matrix” type shenanigans of the first and second movies. See ya… All I have to say is “the franchise is over… the franchise is over!!!!!”.
(*1/2 out of 5)
Film Reviews: November 2003 Archives
In this feature there were two shorts presented. The first was an animated short about a series of characters who, whilst they believed they were only participating at a distant level to the conflict were actually helping to propagate the feeling of hatred and prejudice that is so prevalent in Israel today. In some ways I thought this should have been the main feature as its artistic merit outweighed the feature which followed.
The main short was a semi-documentary to do with an Israeli and Palestinian cameraman who’s work was based on the conflict in the area. What surprised me more than anything was the colossal prejudice which seemed to engulf both the subjects. Certainly the Israeli cameraman (Alon Bernstein) seemed to be much more taught in his beliefs than his counterpart (Jimmy Michael – who later threatened to immigrate to Canada). As it happened Alon was to entertain us with a brief Q and A whereas Mr Michael had disappeared.
The whole film was very interesting, charting the build up of tensions between the sides, with the cameramen caught in the middle, with the result being an escalation in violence – and prejudice – between both sides. I might indulge in more arguments but I have to confess a relative ignorance in an argument which – to my mind – has been raging for almost two-thousand years. Ultimately the two subjects of the film made up their differences, but I thought the whole affair was slightly staged for our benefit!
(No rating)
Here's a good example of how to make yourself look pretty thick on film. The filming is not very good, but the audio is quite amusing - you could probably overlay Beavis and Butthead over the audio and it would be pretty convincing.
So watch these two trying to scare cows with bangers, and losing.
As a self professed fan of Tarantino’s previous films I relished the prospect of this the “fourth film” by the man himself. I was interested in how “Kill Bill” had been touted as the fourth film, because to my reckoning this is not entirely true. Let us not forget that he had directed one of the rooms in the collection known as “Four Rooms”, something that I suspect passed by without too much notice during the 1990s. Tarantino was also the writer of “Natural Born Killers” and “True Romance”, both of which are regarded as being decent works.
Let us get back to the relish or tomato ketchup! As we all know “Kill Bill” is about an ex-assassin (played by Uma Thurman) who, after attempting to leave ‘the life’, is attacked and left for dead on her wedding day by her old colleagues. Naturally she is not dead, she is tougher than she looks, and she returns after four years in a coma to wreak havoc on the people and organisation behind the attempt on her life!
Most people who have seen Tarantino’s previous efforts will be more than aware that what traditionally sets his films apart from most contemporary pieces is the character dialogue. Usually all the roles, even the minor ones tend to have very intelligent things to say to the audience. So the big shock for “Kill Bill” was, where is the intelligent dialogue? It’s disappeared. Maybe Tarantino has run out of words and phrases, or hopefully, he is saving it all for volume 2. Either way, it was a big disappointment to see our cast so muted by this script. There were one or two good moments of dialogue, my favourite was the first part of the scene in the back street fish bar, but for the most part it was limited and dull.
The film was very stylish in many ways, the traditional mixing up of the timeline is present, and there was a long scene of Japanese anime, which was a very trendy thing to do. However, for an action film it lost points in being slightly improperly done. If the intention was to produce an over the top version of a 60s or 70s martial arts film then it succeeded, but audiences these days are used the “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” style fight choreography, this did not match up.
The pacing of the film is uneven as well. Miramax apparently persuaded Tarantino to turn the original concept into the two-parter we see here. Sadly some of the scenes do seem to be played to length rather than quality, and the whole film seemed rather long for something well short of the magic two-hour mark. I think this is another case of moneymaking schemes coming into play!
In summary, the acting and direction are both fine, as you would expect. The writing is weak and some of the stunts look rushed. The whole film is over the top, not a problem, but I suspect that this will not work with most audiences who are more accustomed to gritty realism. I can imagine many people not bothering with volume 2 when it arrives. Tarantino has truly made an exploitation movie, this time with fewer saving graces than before!
(**1/2 out of 5)
Intolerable Cruelty is a star-studded offering by Joel Coen and did not put a foot wrong. I suspect most moviegoers who relish Coen brothers’ films may be disappointed by the reduced dosage of flair and extreme peculiarity that usually is present in their work. I suspected well in advance of seeing this film that it was a case of this movie being intended to pay the bills, and hopefully fund more amusing projects in the future. Certainly this film must need to gross well in order to pay the fees of the two stars, George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Douglas-Jones!
The film revolves around the ‘affairs’ of expert divorce attorney Miles Massey (Clooney) and the equally extreme Marilyn Rexroth (Zeta-Jones) who is seeking financial independence by serially marrying, then divorcing, affluent gentlemen. Of course this being a Coen bros. film almost all the characters in attendance have equal strangeness and depth. After their first encounter where Massey successfully navigates his client into a settlement where Marilyn receives nothing for her part of the divorce the battle lines are drawn and a love-hate duelling game proceeds.
In many ways this film reminded me of a mixture of “Bedtime Story” (or rather the “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” remake), mixed with War of the Roses and possibly Blood Simple. Definitely enjoyable entertainment without needing any intellect to follow whatsoever, there were many hilarious set pieces – my favourites being the scenes with the main partner of the law firm and also those scenes with “Wheezy Joe” (who looked remarkably like Richard Kiel – who I am sure is deceased). The whole film shifted back and forth between the sublime and the ridiculous repeatedly making you wonder quite how far the whole escapade would go. At times it did seem that the cast were “doing it for the money” but generally speaking the whole film was just great fun. A good film to watch when you need some undemanding laughs! Of course the whole thing was adeptly made as well…
**** (out of 5)
Set in an unspecified country and time this film depicts a quiet apocalypse concentrating on a mother and her two young children attempting to cope with the problems surrounding the (unknown) events of the world. This film was the last film of the 2003 Cambridge Film Festival; at the time I was slightly worried that in not seeing it I had missed a great movie. After I got the chance to watch it a few weeks ago I regretted spending my money.
After a very promising start involving a surprise confrontation in the family country cabin the film rapidly degenerated into a fairly dull story of people struggling against the odds. The pacing was probably the worst aspect of this film, at just seven minutes short of two hours this could have been better made as a half-hour short. There were attempts at character development and plot devices to intrigue the audience but for me at least I found the whole episode dull in the extreme. The best bit of the film was the unexpected slaughter of a horse! This upset an entire group of female A-Level students who were watching as part of a school outing.
The film was quite well shot, and there were a few very good scenes where there would be a shift in attention from the foreground of the shot to the extreme background. Unfortunately the main suspenseful aspect of the film – the end of the world – just did not seem plausible. In fact most of the issues of the film seemed to stem from the characters’ desire to get involved with large, dysfunctional, groups of people. In some ways the character of the solitary wandering boy was much more interesting to me. As far as Michael Haneke’s work is concerned I will read the reviews of new films by him much more carefully before parting with my money.
* (out of 5)
