Reviews

I finally got around to watching this DVD, after reading the book years ago.

The good: Amazing scenery, one of American film's best "insider" views of what it's really like to ski in Chamonix, interesting characters including some true legends of the sport, great storyline about an up-and-coming young kid being welcomed into the big mountain "tribe" and skiing the run that his dad died on.

The bad: With all due respect to all the work he put into the film and his talent as a storyteller, Kerig should have left himself out of the film. The setup about his neighborhood doesn't work nearly as well as it did in the book, his narration is very stilted and wooden (as if he is reading all of his lines), and both the B-roll shots of him walking around and fourth-wall breaks of him talking to the camera are distracting and don't add much to the narrative. His presence worked in the book b/c we got a subplot about him working so hard to pitch the film and get it off the ground, then convince Kye's mom to let him go, etc., but in the film I wanted to hit fast forward every time he appeared on the screen and get back to the story of the skiers.

The ugly: (SPOILER PART) Using Fan-Fan's accident and injury as a suspense setup, basically to keep the audience wondering if Kye was going to be alright, was cheap and gimmicky. It would have had so much more impact to just tell the story chronologically, and show that accidents in the mountains so often happen once you put your guard down, i.e. the day after the most dangerous run of the trip. Instead, it is employed as a framing device to manipulate the audience.

Overall, a very enjoyable and inspiring film. Watch it for the skiing, the scenery, the camaraderie, and its knack for capturing the spirit of the sport. Just look beyond that fact that it had to also be a "movie."

P.S. Steep, the larger-scale documentary that sprang from this project, is also immensely entertaining and provides a nice companion piece to Edge of Never, particularly given the chilling appearance by Doug Coombs in the latter, right before the protagonists' epic run down the Glacier.

After watching a handful of episodes of this show, I have concluded that many, if not all of the subjects suffer from serious mental illness and are being exploited. I know there is an on-screen disclaimer explaining the psychological condition of hoarding, but I don't feel that it justifies what follows in each episode.

At first I was skeptical, thinking they were just slobs who had given up on cleaning their homes. But as I watched Adella in Episode One refusing to surrender any of her junk (and actually going out and collecting MORE out of dumpsters at night to replace what was being thrown away) and Gaye in Episode Two facing similar struggles, I realized that these people have deep-rooted and very tragic mental problems. I feel like the program is a bit sympathetic (in terms of the "experts" it brings in to help – though part of every episode is a mini-commercial for 1-800-GOT-JUNK), but shows its true colors through the editing style and ultimate presentation of these scenarios.

"Hoarders" is, I believe, more interested in exploiting these situations for their entertainment value than truly helping people. The heartbreaking story of Sir Patrick in Episode Two is the perfect example; that man needs serious counseling, not to have a camera zoomed in on his face every time he breaks down in tears or struggles to rationalize some aspect of his very lonely life.

I came away feeling like I had been rubber-necking alongside a car accident on the interstate, and I don't believe I want to play any further role in perpetuating programming like this by watching more.

This two-part TV pilot basically takes the concept from Farmer's novels and fuses them with multiple elements from a movie script that was making the rounds in Hollywood a few years back called "Everwar." The inclusion of a samurai, the warriors from different time periods fighting each other (particularly the overly ambitious general, Spanish here but Italian in the film script), the "ascent" to attack the alternative world's controlling element and put an end to it and several other facets were lifted directly from Everwar; not sure if they bought the rights or not. I really hope that script gets properly made some day, because I read it and its story was far superior to this.

What a bold film with which to launch your new production company! This is anything but typical, a truly dense and complex story that explores the dark corners of the human psyche with unmistakable style and impact.

Johnny Depp's Earl of Rochester walks a tightrope in this story, between the threat of being crushed by his own excesses and becoming a caricature of the British aristocracy's lifestyle attitudes during this time period. He leans dangerously close to falling at numerous points within the story, until finally suffering a doom that is best described as a combination of both.

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of this film - quite a compliment considering both the production design and acting - is the complexity of the dialog, which weaves a wonderful ambiguity around practically all of the major characters and prevents the audience from "categorizing" any of them. Depp's Earl is equally charming and revolting, confident and terrified, likable and despicable. John Malkovich's king is just as complicated, at times genuinely concerned for his friend while never failing to consider how his deeds and decisions will inevitably reflect on his legacy as a ruler. Samantha Morton gives a tour-de-force performance as the actress who steals the Earl's heart, yet recognizes the danger of giving herself completely to a man who consumes all within his grasp to such excess. A dash of comic relief is vital to survive such a raw and intense journey, and comes courtesy of the Earl's manservant Allcock.

The Libertine is certainly not a typical commercial period piece, in which the aristocratic lifestyle is glamorized and romanticized. Instead, the muddy boots and somewhat-less-than-housebroken dogs within this telling add tremendously to its overall feel of edginess and the impending hangover of despair brought on by overindulgence and excess. Bravo to the Weinsteins for picking such a complex piece of film art with which to launch their latest venture.

I find it sad that audiences and critics feel compelled to blow so much sunshine up Woody Allen's you-know-what just because he finally made another even watchable film. The utter mediocrity of his last dozen or so movies is no reason to trumpet the release of Match Point, a film that is at best bearable and probably most accurately described as, well... pointless.

Even a return to more fundamental narrative style doesn't prevent huge doses of classic Woody Allen "classturbation," in which lavish settings and the details of an exorbitant lifestyle become characters as important as any of the ones embodied by the actors. Bryan Cox's character seems to be drowning in his own affluence in just about every scene; it is downright painful how many times he mutters the same line, "You know you two will never have to worry about money" to his daughter and son-in-law. Cox's performance seeks to reinforce Allen's cinematic credo, which his own personal roles usually spend countless scenes belaboring: no amount of personal or financial success can ease the basic human restlessness and discomfort within all of us.

Match Point, however, disembarks from the usual Allen blueprint of disjointed, exhaustively expositional dialog-driven scenes in favor of a more plot-driven narrative. But with such a simplistic plot, bereft of complexity and subtext, this isn't even necessarily a positive departure for the filmmaker. The slow buildup of tension within the second act is the closest this story gets to engaging its audience, before a twist at the second act climax that sends the tale spinning off beyond unbelievability into downright absurdity. Any value that Allen derives from his little third act twist-within-a-twist (involving use of a metaphorical "net ball" in tennis) is promptly squashed by more heavy-handed expositional dialog between his too-dim-to-believe police investigators. It is as if Allen himself grew too excited by his newly rediscovered skill with more conventional narrative, and lost sight of how subtlety fits into that equation.

If anything, the commercial and critical success of Match Point will hopefully encourage Woody Allen to pursue a disciplined approach to his storytelling in the future. But that is not a good enough reason to sing the praises of such a lackluster effort as this.

Much of what has already been posted about this film is true - the script is way too cookie-cutter, and the resolution of Suspect Zero himself, who is supposedly the smartest serial killer ever, couldn't be more anti-climactic. Kingsley's acting is top-notch as always, but the two leads are in way over their heads - Moss is more wooden than ever, and Echhart spends much of the film overacting with this look on his face like he's extremely constipated.

The real shame is that Suspect Zero marks the foray of mainstream cinema into the fascinating subject of remote viewing. Further study of this topic reveals a wealth of fascinating narrative possibilities - including scientifically proved psychic abilities and highly secretive government programs involving "psi spooks" - that are sadly simplified in this story. Let's just hope that the next time Hollywood tries to weave a tale around this amazing subject, we get more than just another "rogue cop hunting serial killer" bore like this.

Suspect Zero is worth renting on DVD, however, just to watch the Extras. Included are a multi-part featurette on remote viewing with some excellent interviews, and an RV demonstration featuring former Army viewer Paul Smith and director E. Elias Merhige that I found more interesting than the film itself.

After all the hype surrounding this movie, I expected it to be a true comic gem - and in fact it was anything but. As a matter of fact, this may have been the biggest cinematic letdown of the year for me.

First problem: the editing was so ADHD-style all-over-the-place, seemingly in a failed attempt to create pace that instead robbed the comics of any chance to gain momentum with the material. In actuality, many seemed reluctant or uncomfortable telling the joke on camera, choosing instead to dissect the concept of the joke ad nauseum. OK, OK, I understand that it's a classic joke, and you've heard a million funny versions of it at parties and such, yada yada yada - how about letting us hear one or two of these supposedly hilarious tellings? I so wished to see Robin Williams tell his version, or Eric Idle, or Jon Stewart, but instead these guys just talked ABOUT the joke. And how many of the few versions that DID make it into the film (which were all REALLY short) sounded exactly the same? A couple parts were OK - the card trick version, Sarah Silverman's story about Joe Franklin, the South Park cartoon, Doug Stanhope telling the joke to his seemingly riveted infant son - but for the most part I was let down after waiting a long time to see this movie. There was so little creativity (aren't these supposed to be the great comics of the modern era?) lost within a sea of sophomoric p*ss, sh*t and incest jokes. Was all that supposed to be so shocking and hilarious? This isn't the fifties.

I know some of you will say I "didn't get it," but I don't think it's too much to ask for such supposedly brilliant comic minds to flex a little creativity and truly colorful joke-telling and not just wax philosophical about this holy grail or secret handshake among comedians and what it means. How many of the talking heads in this film bragged about legendary epic versions of this joke, and did we hear even a single such version? I'm sorry, but those who defend this film by saying it's "about the telling, not the joke" don't have a leg to stand on, because this so-called amazing telling is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. And there was certainly room for at least one or two extended, creative tellings - after all, that's what I felt like I was promised by all the hype surrounding The Aristocrats.

This is yet another movie that I loved when I was younger, but now find hokey and difficult to watch. My girlfriend thinks I'm nuts, because I keep picking out movies like this at the video store, excitedly talking them up and then being embarrassed by how dated and ridiculous they are...

The concept behind Highlander is actually pretty cool: a race of immortals that does battle over the ages until a final reckoning where "there can be only one." But the problem is that the movie never lives up to that concept - it just throws a handful of half-developed characters together and sends them hurtling toward one of the most predictable endings ever. I mean, does a single viewer NOT think that Connor is going to triumph over the Kurgan and end up with Roxanne Hart? Christopher Lambert does an admirable job with the starring role, trying to infuse Connor MacLeod with a deep inner pain that comes with being immortal and watching those you love systematically fade away as you live on. However, the awful script burdens Lambert with so many clunky, on-the-nose lines of dialog that the audience ends up grimacing along with him, feeling our own "inner pain." The Roxanne character serves very little purpose in the story, other than to give Connor a modern love interest who can be kidnapped as a cheap tension device in the third act.

Sean Connery's Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez (try saying THAT ten times fast) is your stock mentor character, assigned the task of turning wishy-washy and p-whipped Scotsman Connor into hardened butt-kicking swordsman Connor. Even after a half-dozen viewings I'm not sure of what J.S.V-L.R.'s actual lineage is; he is supposed to be a Spaniard, I think, yet his accent is unmistakably Scottish, which sorta makes sense considering they're in Scotland. I guess this isn't a "that makes sense" kinda movie, but still...

The Kurgan, as played by Clancy Brown, is one of those one-dimensional villains who looks scary and makes a lot of noise, but ends up being rather incompetent and easy to defeat in the end. Overall, the final showdown between Connor and the Kurgan is utterly anti-climactic and deflates any tension that had developed in the story. Sparks and synthesizers flying do not a great obligatory scene make.

Speaking of synthesizers, I agree with other reviewers that the Queen soundtrack detracts from the movie, especially now. I actually like Queen as a band, but putting "contemporary" music like this in a film only serves to make it feel more dated as time goes on. A more traditional movie score would have been much more effective.

All-in-all, I kinda wish I had not watched this film again. My memory of it from when it was first released was so much more exciting than the actual film ends up being now.