jon-510
Lifetime Total
1+
IMDb Member
19 years
Reviews
Klepto (2003)
This film fails and its a shame
This film ultimately fails, and its really a shame. About halfway through the scriptwriters appear to just walk off and leave and the rest of the film falls flat on its face.
As a movie in its own right, Klepto is a disaster, however as a directorial debut (is it??) it is actually not bad - some of the use of music and the editing reminded me of the film Primer.
If the plot and script clumsinesses could have been resolved, this would be a film I could recommend to others. As it was (I bought it cheap), I kept the blank translucent box spare but threw the cover insert and the disc in the rubbish bin.
To the actors, director and writer(?) - please don't give up, you failed this time but you showed enormous potential.
As a movie in its own right, Klepto is a disaster, however as a directorial debut (is it??) it is actually not bad - some of the use of music and the editing reminded me of the film Primer.
If the plot and script clumsinesses could have been resolved, this would be a film I could recommend to others. As it was (I bought it cheap), I kept the blank translucent box spare but threw the cover insert and the disc in the rubbish bin.
To the actors, director and writer(?) - please don't give up, you failed this time but you showed enormous potential.
Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made (1994)
Beautiful and funny little tale
I somewhat agree with the comments about the scripted components, but I don't think they really do any damage to the film.
This docco has a lot of range, its tear jerkingly poignant in places, downright hilarious in others, and just astounding in others. The chief witchdoctors doing their elaborate ritual, fainly chanting 'Hollywood... Hollywood...' is a really transporting moment.
The film definitely causes one to wonder about the future of the natives, whether they will go on as they have in their idyllic little universe.
Strange thing is - I'm not actually that much of a Jim Jarmusch fan (yes I know he didn't direct this film but he would have had a lot of input), except for Dead Man which is a masterpiece. But this is a little gem.
I recommend this film, its cute and beautiful.
This docco has a lot of range, its tear jerkingly poignant in places, downright hilarious in others, and just astounding in others. The chief witchdoctors doing their elaborate ritual, fainly chanting 'Hollywood... Hollywood...' is a really transporting moment.
The film definitely causes one to wonder about the future of the natives, whether they will go on as they have in their idyllic little universe.
Strange thing is - I'm not actually that much of a Jim Jarmusch fan (yes I know he didn't direct this film but he would have had a lot of input), except for Dead Man which is a masterpiece. But this is a little gem.
I recommend this film, its cute and beautiful.
Cube 2: Hypercube (2002)
So Frustratingly Disappointing !!!
Cube 2 is one thing, Frustrating. It's frustrating because it has so many elements that are available to build something brilliant with ... and it just lets them go. Its like watching a child playing with a puzzle that is 2 year levels below its capabilities, and going "Come on, that piece goes there...yeeees, no! no! THAT piece goes there! Oh come onnnnnnn....". Were the director and writers both suffering strokes, or in some other way severely retarded ??
SPOILERS WARNING (applies to both films!)
Really Nice Elements:
* The ghostly clean white rooms and sexy doors.
* The 'stalactite'-like qualities (and sound) of the traps and the idea that they were some kind of 'quantum effect' rather than physical.
* That heart-pump moment when the nutty woman looks through the floor door and we at first think she is looking into a mirror - THAT was the point where I sat up and thought "Wow, this movie might end up being really good!" - More Fool Me.
* The music, which was _perfect_.
* The time effects.
* The idea that it is some kind of quantum construct, and therefore the background thought that perhaps they could just _damage_ their way out of it was out of the question (I really think that in the real world the first Cube would have lasted about 24 hours tops, before the crew bashed their way out of the bottom of it ripping off bits of system and trap to help them build tools - but of course thats not the POINT of the first story!).
* The idea that it was generated from this vast pool of water somehow - it was beautiful, like it really was a 'place' of some kind, just 'offset' from this world.
Things That Wrecked It Utterly:
* The appallingly disgustingly crap ending. YOU DO NOT just kill off a major character right at the end!! Go ask any crime writer. You CANNOT do it and get away with it. It will guarantee that nobody will buy your next book - they will borrow it off a friend just to find out of that character really is dead or not and if that character IS dead, goodbye writing career its been nice knowing you. After the revelation of the water pool, after that beautiful display of the 'wainscoting' of the world, a view behind the scenes, and just before that the great sequence of the cube collapsing, SUDDENLY there is this pathetic X Files lets get depressing because we can bit - RIGHT AT THE END !!!!! Shoot director. Shoot writers. Destroy film. Start again. Just on that point alone.
* The traps. What is going on here ??? And they're _intelligent_ now ??? GIVE ME A BREAK. The whole premise in the first cube is that the traps were blind, but completely unforgiving, and diabolically, ingeniously different so you never knew what to look for. The second cube's traps are pathetic. They look gorgeous, but you can outrun them!! And that spinning cube thing.
Give it up guys, save the money, it didn't save the film, in fact it did the opposite - it was arbitrary, stupid and pointless, which was such a shame because the way it formed and dissolved was rather beautiful. Idiot kid with puzzle frustration abounds here.
* The fact this cube could not be solved. Yes OK the joke was that all you had to do was wait in the first room that you were safe in (a reference to the first film), in fact any room would do, but ... arg! sorry its just not ENOUGH. There needed to be something that they had to solve, some deeper structure that had to be unravelled. There had to be some outside chance that they could compromise the thing, or fight back, that ever present glimmer of hope that is one of the most disturbing things about the first film.
* The hypercube pseudo-maths. Yes OK they explained a hypercube/tesseract. Big deal, it had pretty much NOTHING to do with the structure of the Cube. The repeating room in different time lines idea was very nice, but it had nothing to do with hypercubes unfortunately. This really disappointed me, when your realize that a film that seems to be hard headed is actually full of techno waffle it pretty much destroys it.
* The total lack of character development. The characters, including the cube itself, _were_ the first film. When you only have one set, ie. you have a stage play basically, you have to develop the characters, the widgets and wadgets aren't enough.
* The nutty professor - I wanted her to die horribly in about the first minute she turned up. By the time she did she had already battered me into appallingly bad acting numbness.
* The 'nice guy' - ditto.
* The fact that nobody just KO'd simon in the back of the head rather than put up with his crap (actually this annoyed me with respect to Quentin - who was MUCH better played incidentally! - in the first film, though Worth finally takes action)
* The fact that the plot stopped halfway before the end. Its the idiot child with the puzzle thing again.
In Short - go back and try again kiddies. You made a very nice palette but then you painted a finger-painting with it, and since you were trying to honour a modernist, minimalist masterpiece (the first film), this is simply Not Good Enough. 2 out of 10.
SPOILERS WARNING (applies to both films!)
Really Nice Elements:
* The ghostly clean white rooms and sexy doors.
* The 'stalactite'-like qualities (and sound) of the traps and the idea that they were some kind of 'quantum effect' rather than physical.
* That heart-pump moment when the nutty woman looks through the floor door and we at first think she is looking into a mirror - THAT was the point where I sat up and thought "Wow, this movie might end up being really good!" - More Fool Me.
* The music, which was _perfect_.
* The time effects.
* The idea that it is some kind of quantum construct, and therefore the background thought that perhaps they could just _damage_ their way out of it was out of the question (I really think that in the real world the first Cube would have lasted about 24 hours tops, before the crew bashed their way out of the bottom of it ripping off bits of system and trap to help them build tools - but of course thats not the POINT of the first story!).
* The idea that it was generated from this vast pool of water somehow - it was beautiful, like it really was a 'place' of some kind, just 'offset' from this world.
Things That Wrecked It Utterly:
* The appallingly disgustingly crap ending. YOU DO NOT just kill off a major character right at the end!! Go ask any crime writer. You CANNOT do it and get away with it. It will guarantee that nobody will buy your next book - they will borrow it off a friend just to find out of that character really is dead or not and if that character IS dead, goodbye writing career its been nice knowing you. After the revelation of the water pool, after that beautiful display of the 'wainscoting' of the world, a view behind the scenes, and just before that the great sequence of the cube collapsing, SUDDENLY there is this pathetic X Files lets get depressing because we can bit - RIGHT AT THE END !!!!! Shoot director. Shoot writers. Destroy film. Start again. Just on that point alone.
* The traps. What is going on here ??? And they're _intelligent_ now ??? GIVE ME A BREAK. The whole premise in the first cube is that the traps were blind, but completely unforgiving, and diabolically, ingeniously different so you never knew what to look for. The second cube's traps are pathetic. They look gorgeous, but you can outrun them!! And that spinning cube thing.
Give it up guys, save the money, it didn't save the film, in fact it did the opposite - it was arbitrary, stupid and pointless, which was such a shame because the way it formed and dissolved was rather beautiful. Idiot kid with puzzle frustration abounds here.
* The fact this cube could not be solved. Yes OK the joke was that all you had to do was wait in the first room that you were safe in (a reference to the first film), in fact any room would do, but ... arg! sorry its just not ENOUGH. There needed to be something that they had to solve, some deeper structure that had to be unravelled. There had to be some outside chance that they could compromise the thing, or fight back, that ever present glimmer of hope that is one of the most disturbing things about the first film.
* The hypercube pseudo-maths. Yes OK they explained a hypercube/tesseract. Big deal, it had pretty much NOTHING to do with the structure of the Cube. The repeating room in different time lines idea was very nice, but it had nothing to do with hypercubes unfortunately. This really disappointed me, when your realize that a film that seems to be hard headed is actually full of techno waffle it pretty much destroys it.
* The total lack of character development. The characters, including the cube itself, _were_ the first film. When you only have one set, ie. you have a stage play basically, you have to develop the characters, the widgets and wadgets aren't enough.
* The nutty professor - I wanted her to die horribly in about the first minute she turned up. By the time she did she had already battered me into appallingly bad acting numbness.
* The 'nice guy' - ditto.
* The fact that nobody just KO'd simon in the back of the head rather than put up with his crap (actually this annoyed me with respect to Quentin - who was MUCH better played incidentally! - in the first film, though Worth finally takes action)
* The fact that the plot stopped halfway before the end. Its the idiot child with the puzzle thing again.
In Short - go back and try again kiddies. You made a very nice palette but then you painted a finger-painting with it, and since you were trying to honour a modernist, minimalist masterpiece (the first film), this is simply Not Good Enough. 2 out of 10.