BomageMinimart

This is bad. Mediocre at best. It has all the emotional depth of The Greatest American Hero with none of the fun. The 2 action sequences I saw were both poorly planned and put together. Most of the cast looks like they're glad for the paycheck but that's about it. Oh, and the sound design is terrible.

I doubt I'll ever watch any more of this; there's just no reason to.

Amazing film. Willy T. Ribbs totally rocks! Seriously, I'd really like to meet him; he seems like a great guy. Astonishing story and achievements. Much respect and love for his total commitment to his goals.

This movie is slow-paced so I kept thinking "man, nothing really happening here; I'll just switch it off" but somehow I always wanted to see what happened next. The story is decent enough, the premise is goofy but embraced whole-heartedly, and there's almost zero action going on. So why keep watching?

The acting. And the characters. Absolutely solid acting from Andrew Roth, Laurel Schroeder, Eric Bryant and Chad Eric Smith. And the characters they get to inhabit, especially Roth as Squid Man, are the exact opposite of most superhero movies: they have depth.

I can't get all my thoughts together on this one just yet (I finished watching it less than 10 minutes ago), but it is right up there with 1997's Spaceman and 2001's The American Astronaut as far I'm concerned: low budget doesn't have to mean poorly made or cheap or camp. It just means you do more with what you have. In this one, director Charlie Cline, his production crew (the sound and cinematography are excellent) and his cast absolutely nailed it.

I know I will watch this movie again.

I'd give the movie a solid 8.5/10. Good story, good acting, amazing CGI/"look", great action scenes, etc. I agree that the love story was the worst part of the movie but I don't think it was bad. Agree that it was kind of disappointing to end the way it did, but also understandable (as long as the inevitable sequel kicks major butt).

The 3D was well done and often added quite a bit to the shot. The D-Box motion seats were fun as hell.

Next time I see it tho, I want to see it in regular IMAX so I can better focus on some of the details in the shots.

I liked the movie. The TV show is not the movie, but both share the same creator/writer. IMO that makes the changes okay: different mediums require different drafts of the same story.

The acting is different, especially in the case of portraying Hanna, but it's fine because: different actors working in a different medium with different scripts/stories. The acting is good, even very good and IMO viewers should not worry about the differences and focus on what is presented.*

What is presented is very, very good. Good script, good narrative structure, good direction, good editing, good musical direction, good acting and good cinematography add up to much more than the sum of it's parts.

There are some potential plot holes, mostly having to do with recent and rapid technological advances, but S1E1 was both enjoyable and intriguing.

*The main difference people will notice is in how in the movie, Hanna was characterized as somewhat other-worldly and aloof, due to her upbringing and, as we find out, possibly due to her real origins. In this show, Hanna is different, and the only problem I had was that she came across too much like a regular teenager, which she is not. I suspect that aspect will become moot as she moves thru society, since part of her upbringing includes being able to blend in. Based on that, I just tried to ignore my annoyance and focus on the positive aspects of the portrayal as I watched.

Fantastic interviews, freaking amazing people being interviewed and an excellent focus on the subject matter.

I knew a lot of those names going in to this, but there were more that I didn't know. I thought that was great, getting to "meet" new people. I found out a lot about some people I had heard of, too, for instance: I knew who Jason Hook was because I've been listening to 5FDP since they started; but I didn't know his history, so it was cool seeing how he's a regular blue-collar guy at heart.

In fact, that was the coolest takeaway for me, I think, was seeing how all these guys, despite their incredible and somewhat arcane skills, really are blue-collar-"working for a living" folks just like me.

My favorite takeaway tho, is that Liberty Devitto is clearly one of the coolest mofoss on the planet in addition to being a kick-ass drummer. I wanna hang out with him, buy him a beer or something. If I thought he'd get any money from it, I'd go buy Billy Joel's entire catalog right now (relax; I know he wouldn't).

Truly worthwhile, IMO, if you are a musician or just love music. Again, 10/10 rating from me.

This is a mostly expository film, so if you don't like people yammering, you're prolly not gonna like it.

I agree with many others that the film breaks some good rules such as:

Complete lack of sympathetic characters. The ostensible protagonist is a jerk. His main business rival is a smarmy clown, like a real life Sideshow Bob ffs. The two burglars are ciphers until the very end and then the main one just comes across as a pathetic idiot.

And the end is the worst part. All this build up and then there's no release, no cathartic moment, no resolution at all.

The film does contain an interesting take on the potential upsides and downsides to widespread genetic testing, but it fails as a film.

I don't regret watching it, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone not already interested in the debate within. And I certainly will never watch it again.

Saw it.

I give it 8/10 stars. I thought it was very faithful to the original film. I thought the biggest problem it has is the overly obvious and ham-fisted dialogue at the beginning letting us know what themes are going to be explored. It's a problem with the original too, tho, so not unexpected.

I thought Scarlett Johannson was okay in the role, but just okay. I didn't realize she was so tiny before this. I thought Pilou Asbæk did a great job as Batou, as did Takeshi Kitano as Aramaki. The rest of the cast was adequate.

The bad spot in the film was the terrible CGI work done during the spider tank battle, specifically the part where Major runs up falling concrete slabs. The sequence shows us the superhuman effort only she is capable of making, but the CGI is terribly done: it looks like a bad video game sequence and is reminiscent of the terrible work done in both The Matrix Reloaded and Blade 2. It's necessary footage but I'm sure the director will regret to the end of his days paying the people who did the work and having to include it in his final cut.

Other than that, I thought this was a solid translation of the subject matter. They nailed the look perfectly and I thought the story was told well enough that it may interest people who don't know much other than "Scarlett Johannson movie" that they will see more worth in the viewing and find things to talk about and so return to it again. I don't think there's much for a fan to be disappointed in with this live action movie; I know I'm not.

This was awful. Truly awful.

The first act is 45 minutes long and is paced slower than coal turning into diamonds. None of the characters are believable at all, though some of the actors do give typically decent performances, particularly Harvey Keitel. Every character, in addition to not being believable, is loathsome. I didn't care about anyone and actively hated a few that I was supposed to sympathetic to.

The second act was painful to watch. The animated parts weren't even interesting. For one, the concept of an "animated zone" was unbelievably stupid. Why would anyone do that in the first place, set something up where you've essentially taken LSD but somehow have to function as if you have not? The first scene where she's driving her car and the desert turns into an ocean and she finally goes over a cliff, for instance, was ludicrous; people would be dead. Then, she's already seeing herself and everything around her as a cartoon, but for some reason the tap water contains ANOTHER hallucinogenic drug??? It was also inexplicable to me why they mostly stuck with a pastiche of classic 1930s-50s style cartoon art, and even that wasn't done well.

The third act and the ending were beyond terrible. I spent 2 hours watching this and at the end had no resolution whatsoever beyond the real world being a terrible place, terrible people getting what they want at everyone else's expense, and our protagonist being significantly worse off than she was when the movie started.

I couldn't even tell you what themes they were trying to explore. There was no examination of the nature of reality, no look at what it means to be human, no exploration of how we trust our senses... nothing at all.

A better movie with a similar subject (the digitizing of actors) was made way back in 1981. Looker is a flawed and dated film, but it is at least engaging: there is conflict, the characters have real motivations. And not least, there is a resolution to the story beyond the story just ending.

If you and your wife were 2 of 13,000 that saw this film, I'd guess that you were 2 of 13,000 that enjoyed the experience; The Congress was execrable IMO. In fact, it was so bad that I consider it a public service to warn people away from it.

DO NOT WATCH!

Zero stars; zero thumbs up.

I finally had a chance to watch Phantasm: Ravager the other night. I went ahead and got the HD streaming thru Amazon.

The movie looked great. It still retained quite a B-movie look as far as camera angles, sets & settings, etc., but it also had a modern-ish sheen to it. I was reminded of the way that the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse movies were given a '70s schlock veneer in post because Ravager was clearly shot with the intent to evoke late '70s/early '80s B-list horror movies. The gore was well done and was true to the previous Phantasm movies.

There was plenty of stilted semi-ridiculous and banal dialogue, most of which was delivered with the appropriate amount of ham-fistedness that the franchise and the genre require.

The acting was good; the best ever for a Phantasm movie, IMO. Angus Scrim once again delivers an iconic performance; a fitting swan song for a pretty cool life and lifetime's works. RIP, Mr. Guy.

The second best thing about all the Phantasm movies isn't the movies themselves, it's the story they tell. It's an incredibly rich and complex story that starts with a young boy who's mental image of "life" is constantly disrupted, first by the death of his parents and then by his discovery of The Tall Man. This is the central theme of the Phantasm story: the way you think things are is not the way things are. Ravager continues to explore and exploit this premise, to the point that even we can't be sure if what we're seeing is happening, has happened, will happen or never happened at all. We share in Reggie's confusion, his frustration at how unlikely it is he will win out and can admire his unwillingness to stop trying to restore order to his life and ultimately to reality.

Those moments of lucidity within each sequence where Reggie is trying to make sense of things without knowing if he is able to make sense, where he realizes that he may be delusional and just ranting crazy stuff, are excellently realized and for me elevated this film far above the action sequences. I loved all the instances of the silver spheres flying around and killing and especially liked the huge and menacing spheres, don't get me wrong, but the best parts of this movie aren't those parts.

The best thing about Ravager (and all the Phantasm movies, IMO) is the way that the story engages our imagination and how we fill in the gaps and order the story for ourselves. Instead of everything being explained for us or being familiar enough that we allow our expectations to explain things for us, the way Ravager's narrative is constructed, we are forced to discard preconceptions and have to process and evaluate the information we are being given on screen, which seems to constantly contradict itself. The film goes to great pains to show footage from the previous films, as if to underscore that even those reference points may not be valid anchors to what is currently happening.

And that's the genius of the Phantasm story is that it actively engages people's heads, which allows each of us to have a lot invested in the story. We are actively writing part of the story in our heads all the time. It doesn't matter if something later contradicts what we had imagined; the story encourages us to simply take the new information into account and proceed from there, just like the characters on screen, which reinforces that mental investment. It's a terrific passive/active feedback loop.

And so everyone can stop wondering: the 'Cuda is freaking awesome! It totally freaking rocks!

Overall, I'm giving this movie a 7/10. If you aren't a fan of schlocky 70s/80s horror movies, the purposely-lower-than-Hollywood-blockbuster production values may turn you off.

I can't say much more than the title of this review already says: the movie is stupid as hell, but the production value is high. If you can ignore physics and just like watching Tom Cruise, you'll prolly like this movie.

I did not like this movie.

Tepid performances from everyone, including Mr. Cruise, coupled with a really insipid story and a pace that makes watching paint dry seem like a fireworks display happening above a street brawl made this an overly-long crapfest. Not one of the best SF films ever made, not even one of the best from 2013.

Decent acting from the supporting cast, an interesting story that is thankfully absent any clichés, and a lack of any "gotcha" in the story certainly help this movie stand out. But really it's the pacing that made it for me. Things happen FAST. They happen logically, and reasonably (well, reasonably given the nature of the story) but they happen quickly. The movie does not have any periods of introspection for our main characters. It suggests that they are having those moments, but doesn't linger on them or play them up at all; they are just facts, like everything else that happens in the movie (fights, deaths, kidnappings, etc.).

The story is complicated, involving at least 5 separately motivated factions, but at no time was it confusing (so there was no need for an "aha!" moment).

The fight scenes were all exceedingly well choreographed and fit the story so well that there was never a time when 2 people were facing off just so we could see them fight; I really appreciated that.

All in all, a very satisfying film: lots of action, lots of very good acting, and lots of attention to detail (it really looked like it was the early 1980s).

I was going to give this a 7/10, but as I was writing and thinking about it, I upped it to 8/10.

Terrible, preachy movie that's poorly executed and a "surprise" ending that isn't even close to believable. The only miracle here is that this POS ever got made at all. Everyone involved can do better and should be embarrassed by this.

BTW, I didn't reveal what the surprise ending is, but I flagged it for spoilers just so I wouldn't run afoul of the IMDb rules. I mean, I did mention that there is a "surprise" at the end, eh. A craptacular, stupid, ridiculous "surprise" that pretty much contradicts what you've just spent an hour and forty-five minutes seeing, but I bet M. Night Shamalamadingdong would be proud of it. Yep, that's how stupid it is.

/rolleyes

Paul Pena was a truly gifted and amazing man, and this story of his journey to far-off Tuva to participate in the 1995 Throatsinging Symposium is an utterly fantastic thing to behold. Despite being shot on cheap video/film and having what by rights can only be called sub-par production standards, this is one of the best documentary films I've ever seen.

Unbelievably moving and undeniably sincere, it kept me firmly locked in my seat and when it was over and left me wishing I had known Mr. Pena personally. I cannot overstate how much I enjoyed this film. 10 out 10. 11 out of 10 if it was possible to rate it that way. Outstanding!

I had heard a lot of good things about this movie, and finally picked up a copy this week. All that I had heard failed to do justice to this movie. It's fan-freaking-tastic!

I loved the homages to old heist movies. The most obvious is Dog Day Afternoon, of course. I mean, at that first scene in the post office hostage room, I even went "OMFG it's Sal!" The casting director did an excellent job!

The script was tight, the acting was tight, the camera work was terrific. And without spoiling anything, I loved the ending. That's how I like my movies to end: realistically.

But best of all: Jean-Claude Van Damme! Holy $#!^! Who knew he could actually act? I mean, I watched a ton of his flicks from back in the '80s and early '90s, and while he was passable for an action movie star, he was never somebody that was gonna be up for an Academy award. But damn if he wasn't awesome in this. His monologue alone was worth the cost of the BR, as far as I'm concerned.

I really don't know what else to write. I want to watch the whole thing over again right away, to see what I might have missed the first time around.

I gave this 10 stars, and would highly recommend it.

***SPOILERS***

Terrible CGI. Terrible acting. Terrible script. Terrible storytelling. Others have already written details on why it was so bad, but count me as another one who felt duped into giving up my cash and 2 hours of my life to watch this un-suspenseful, non-campy piece of crap.

The box contains a "review" that compares it to Jaws, but there is no comparison except that sometimes water is involved and the monster may be part fish. Part fish and part gymnast, judging by it's preferred method of locomotion. All of the characters continually do stupid things and then do them poorly. In the end, one guy actually mis-throws his last Molotov cocktail during the "climactic" end fight, dropping it behind himself. The hero of the fight is a nameless bum who is only on screen for about 40 seconds of the entire movie. Stupid stupid stupid movie. Don't waste your time or your money. Don't waste the bandwidth to stream it from Netflix. Move along; nothing (worth seeing) to see here.

**** SPOILERS ****Let me get this straight: you want me to suspend my disbelief enough to buy into 2 junkies, both on the verge of going under from their addictions, having a clean, well-adjusted, polite, literate daughter?

Then you want me to suspend my disbelief further, and assume she's too dumb or has no nerves in her skin and so can't tell that her father is dead when she cuddles with his corpse?

Then I have to suspend it more for.... NO.

You've already wasted an hour of my time here. That's all you get with this ill-conceived film, Mr. Gilliam (what on earth made you think this would be anything anyone would want to watch? And then you pre-emptively criticize people... Wow. Are you off meds or something?). Maybe we'll both fare better with your Imaginarium flick.

I gave this 1 star out of 10, not because the story sucks or anything, but because this was a completely unnecessary waste of time and effort.

Here's the idea: take one of the greatest animes ever produced and re-draw certain shots with new CGI. Then intercut them with the original animation.

The new CGI is very well done; unfortunately, it doesn't match the original artwork at all, and tends to distract from the overall film. It's like having someone slap you every few seconds.

One other reviewer mentioned that this seemed like something George Lucas would do, and if you saw the "new" Star Wars films that came out in the 1990s with added scenes and (crappily done) CGI, you've had a taste of what was done with GITS 2.0. But imagine if the original was in B&W and the new scenes were not just in color, but completely CGI. That's how jarring GITS 2.0 is.

If the creators wanted to do something with the new CGI technology that exists, they should have come up with a new idea, not tried to re-hash an old movie. They aren't even "re- imagining" it, they are just doing it over again. It's as if an artist working with charcoal discovered watercolors, and then tried to paint over all his old works. This was a terrible idea.

My advice is to forget that this movie exists, and just watch the original.

I've watched this movie about a dozen times now, and finally decided to give it a rating here on IMDb: 10/10.

The movie is so close to flawless, so brilliant in it's depiction of real people, so well put together that I find myself just dumbfounded every time I watch it. Like another reviewer, I find myself moved to tears by the poignancy of the struggles these people have to make something special and beautiful out of literally nothing. Life is hard for most of the people on this planet, and the continuous beatdowns take their toll, yet somehow, people find the courage, the will, to keep on keeping on and trying to create order out of the chaos. The depiction of this situation in this movie is inspiring.

The characters are the lowest of the low, stuck in horrible lives, in terrible conditions, and cognizant of it. Yet they find inspiration in their desperation, find the strength to keep struggling, even when it seems that every turn is a dead end. Like Sisyphus, they never give up, never let the boulder force them back down the mountain, and it is this indomitable characteristic in all the main players that keeps you watching, keeps you interested, keeps you caring about them and what will happen to them.

Amazing performances from all involved, great direction, great script, AWESOME music and a realistic feel that really hasn't much existed since the great films of the 1970s; this movie is one of very few that I will ever call flawless.

I'd like to start out by saying that the artwork and animation in this film are gorgeous. Truly beautiful art, stunningly realistic animations. My only complaints about the art are pretty typical anime complaints: everyone's hair looks like leaves from some kind of weird plant growth on their head, and there is no detail in anyone's face, so everyone pretty much looks alike, except for having different colored leaves on their heads. This is truest of the 2 female lead characters, who are virtually indistinguishable looking.

Where the movie fails is in the story, the characters, character reactions, the science, the sociology, and nearly everything else that doesn't have to do with the visual aspect of the film.

The movie contradicts it's own internal logic over and over again. It ignores basic physics, biology and sociology. Here's some examples:

1. People in huge metal exo-suits are able to "sneak" around. They can smash thru house walls, but when they infiltrate a house, they move like a commando team, as if no one can hear the incredible racket that half a dozen 8 foot tall "robots" would make. Somehow the exo-suited people are able to climb stairs that could in no way hold their weight.

2. People in exos are surprised by a group of RPG launching soldiers. Why wouldn't these exos have radar, or other "bio signature" reading capabilities?

3. The mission they are on requires a device to be active for 3 minutes. Why is the exfil for their mission 72 hours after insertion? Makes no sense.

4. When the last ditch effort to crush Daiwa happens, it is foiled because the tunnels are a greater distance from the facility than thought. One of the bad guys opines "jags aren't much for jumping" as an explanation for why the facility is safe. WTF? We just spent like 20 minutes watching these things swim thru dirt and leap hundreds of feet into the air, covering hundreds of lateral feet per jump.

5. People react all wrong to emotional triggers. Vexille cries out in aguish at Maria's death. WTF? She just met Maria, and Maria isn't even human. Vexille is upset that Maria shot Takeshi after he "turned". Why? She just met Takeshi, and she knows he isn't human anymore. Vexille is also perturbed by many small horrors, all of which are not realistic depictions, IMO, of this character. She's a freaking special ops commando, one of the most elite of elite, yet she's bothered by little things even more than a 1950s sitcom mom would have been.

6. There's just too much more in the film that isn't believable, isn't at all true to real life, and which violates the conventions set up in the film. If a film's own internal logic isn't consistent, it's difficult if not impossible to understand and empathize with what's happening, and that's what happens in this film. (It's understandable, if complete nonsense, but there's no way to empathize or feel anything for anyone in this film.)

7. Which leads to this point: there is no real attempt to give us any characters with any depth whatsoever. Everyone in the film is so flat that they are aren't just two dimensional, they are nearly one-dimensional.

The few early attempts to humanize even the humans in film are too short (Vexille talking to a fellow commando asks him if he heard from his wife/girlfriend and he says "not since she left" and that's it.

One quick shot of Vexille and Leon together at home, to establish their relationship; a reluctant embrace after a confrontation about Leon's past, and that's it. Other than that, everyone in the movie is a prop, including Vexille.

8. It's fine to play loose with science in science fiction, but visually its hard to watch enormous heavy things flying on rockets that can turn on a dime, as if they had no inertia of their own. Weight, mass, inertia are all absent from the world this film inhabits.

9. I just wanted to point out, since others have made comments about Paul Oakenfold's involvement, that Paul Oakenfold is a DJ. He did not write the music for this film, he simply selected songs for it. Mr. Oakenfold is very good at what he does, and for the most part the music fit the scenes it was paired with, but to credit him with "the music" is wrong. He just picked the songs, he didn't write and record them.

***

Much of the film was maddening to watch, since it was so ridiculous, yet I've watched this 3 times now and will likely watch it more. Why? It's amazing to look at. The visual style, the colors, the lighting, the camera-work (yes, the camera-work!) are all stunning, and they are so overwhelmingly awesome that they make the movie watchable.

If we could just get a story from a manga writer that wasn't a) completely incomprehensible, b)hackneyed beyond belief, and c) filled with crappy pseudo-philosophical undertones (I'm looking at you, Ghost In The Shell... and Akira... and Appleseed... and nearly every other anime that isn't Dragonball Z) there is no doubt in my mind that mainstream audiences would be excited about the format and turn out in droves to see it.

Overall, if you like anime already, I'd be surprised if you didn't like this film. If you're new to anime, you'll probably like this film. If you think that The Matrix Revolutions and Reloaded were the best thing to happen to movies EVAH, you'll prolly like this.

If you thought that Phantom Menace was crap, if you didn't bother with anything Star Trek since they added psychics, if you hold out on seeing a movie because Ben Affleck is in it without Kevin Smith directing... you may want to just rent this one, or even better, get a friend to rent it.

This film is an absolutely stupendous achievement. Every aspect of this production is perfect. Brilliantly photographed, keenly written & directed, and filled with stellar performances led by Bruno Ganz, Der Untergang piqued my curiosity and made my skin crawl.

I was aghast at the insanity and the horror that was the final days of the Third Reich. And leading the crazed was the Fuhrer himself, a miserable, twisted, twitching wretch of a man. Bruno Ganz is amazing as he lets us see all aspects of the man's personality, from kindly father to deranged psychopath. We see Hitler as a polite, well-mannered diner. We see Hitler as a screaming lunatic, ordering his generals to marshal forces which no longer exist. We see him as a devoted dog lover and vegetarian. We see him as a man who has no mercy for the brother of his longtime mistress (and soon-to-be wife). Mr. Ganz is worth 10 stars alone, even if you saw & heard nothing else in this film.

I would be remiss were I not to also sing the praises of Alexandra Maria Lara, who portrays Traudl Junge, one of Hitler's secretaries. The film is told primarily from her point of view, and Ms. Lara's performance was compelling. I have no idea how you prepare for a role like this; portraying the hopelessness of being trapped with lunatics while bombs destroy everything except your locale cannot be easy, but Ms. Lara made me feel it every time she was on the screen. (It doesn't hurt that she is breathtakingly beautiful, either.)

The script (by producer Bernd Eichinger) is excellent, covering a lot of ground succintly and elegantly. The direction is top-notch, providing us with the grit of real battles and the surreal atmosphere of Hitler's bunker. Locations, costumes, lighting, sets... every technical aspect of this film is perfect. It is as if they were able to somehow film the past.

The horrors of Nazi Germany are well documented and publicized, as we strive to prevent that particular piece of history from repeating itself. Der Untergang's greatest achievement is that it is able to so perfectly place us in the middle of 10 of the worst days in the lives of some of the worst people ever to walk the planet. To see them as human beings, and not caricatures, is amazing. I tell you, I was unable to stop myself at times from simply muttering "that's crazy! Madness!" How can human's become so twisted, so deranged?

Film is an inherently powerful medium, bombarding our senses like no other form of entertainment. As such, viewing this film in the larger context of the desirability of promulgating and maintaining a warlike culture may have a lasting impact on the viewer.

A masterful achievement. All involved should be proud.

I won't bother to rehash the plot; that's been done enough times here (although few get it exactly right, the gist is there).

What I will say is that this is as close to perfect as a film gets: everything is presented with such love, such respect, such (pardon my hyperbole) TRUTH that when the film ended, I was drained emotionally but so happy and hopeful that I was ready to watch the whole thing over again. Beautiful to look at, inspiring to see... everyone involved should be proud to have been a part of this.

This film is worth the time and money, folks. Do yourself a favor and watch it.

Slayer is Slayer; the greatest metal band of all time and they are in top form with Dave Lombardo back behind the drums. This is an amazing, over-the-top performance, and belongs in any true metalheads collection.

Compare the intensity and drive and precision these guys exhibit to the lame crap that passes for 99% of all other bands output, and then remember that when they recorded this, they were all over 40 years old and had been playing together for more than 20 years. Then remember how other so-called thrash/metal bands slowed down and began cranking out ballads and pop $417.

Still loud, fast, and angry... just the way it should be!

This came as part of a package with the DVD for Zatoichi, also by Takeshi, and at first I thought I had scored a really good deal. Then I watched Sonatine. Now I know that the only reason this is included with Zatoichi is because few would willingly shell out money to watch this piece of crap.

***SPOILERS***

"Slow moving" doesn't begin to describe it. Pointless scene after scene of a bunch of gangsters hiding out in a beach house comprise the bulk of the film. Most scenes appear to have been made up on the spot, with no writing or rehearsal. This goes on for nearly an hour, with excruciatingly long shots of people walking, cars driving, etc. used for transition; some of these shots last as long as 40 seconds. A complete lack of facial expressions on a 30 second close up of Takeshi's face is utterly boring, and seen 10 or 12 times it becomes ridiculous. I actually ended up fast-forwarding thru a lot of the walking/driving/close ups because I got so bored; I just wanted to see the end of the film.

This proved to be anti-climatic, as after a terribly written "revenge" scene, the protagonist, who has nothing to fear anymore (he killed everyone) blows his own brains out within shouting distance of a woman who has recently come into his life and who stands waiting for his return. Bittersweet? More like bit o' crap.

A complete waste of time.

I first discovered Jandek last fall. I stumbled across something on a website that led me to something else that led me to something else... and eventually I tripped over Jandek.

His story intrigued me enough to find some of his music, which intrigued me even more. Like so many others I couldn't stop thinking "who IS this guy and what the hell is he all about?" The enigma factor definitely puts a different type of spin on his music, and after listening to quite a bit of it, I decided I was a fan.

Here's why: Jandek's music is not all bad, some of it is quite good, and there are occasional random moments of transcendence that are SO good, it's worth putting up with everything else. It's a lot like life.

And that's the heart of it, right there. Jandek's music is almost unbelievably expressive. Because of a distinct lack of context, tho, it's not always clear what he is expressing or why. This allows each listener to make very personal, unique interpretations and thus the music becomes memorable.

This film's success lies in the filmmakers understanding their subject matter and having the good sense to explore this nuance not just about the music, but about the man who makes it.

Through interviews with aficionados, popular music scholars and a small number of people who have actually spoken with Jandek, this film tells us what is known about him and what is thought about him. Eventually we get a clear picture of what Jandek has done, and we form a hazy picture of who Jandek might be. I thought it was great that they made no attempt to get Jandek on camera. It showed a lot of respect for the subject, over and above respect for the subject matter.

There is also a ton of Jandek's music in the film and in the bonus material on the DVD. The DVD packaging is very stylish. The special features material offers an unexpurgated, uncut version of 1 of Jandek's 2 interviews (with John Trubee, no less).

I highly recommend this film.

To Chad Friedrichs & Paul Fehler: great job, guys.