dtketterer
Lifetime Total
1+
IMDb Member
19 years
Reviews
Be Cool (2005)
Falls shorty
The essential opening credits fade on and off the screen. Then, with a cinematic shrug, the movie dives right into matters with a slick, bass-boosted soundtrack and a shot of John Travolta driving a magnificent little car. This first shot exacts the movie's spirit - big names driving nice cars and being... well, Cool.
The cast is something to wonder at. The casting director borrows both from established talent - John Travolta, Uma Thurman, and Harvey Keitel (Tarantino references narrowly avoided) - and pop names, employing Outkast's André3000, Cedric the Entertainer, the Rock and a cameo scene with Stephen Tyler. Any number of other appearances are there if you're looking for them, if that's enough interest to you.
The movie is about everything Hollywood. Even though the premise puts us in the middle of the music industry, the spirit is unmistakably an incarnation of the glitz, the money, the CARS of the rich and famous. The icons we as a culture worship. It might be funny if it were done right, which it isn't: the movie is never downplayed enough to be taken seriously and never contrived enough to be self-conscious (something which Kevin Smith made work in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). What the director (The Italian Job's F. Gary Gray) may have wanted was a sort of inside joke that everyone gets; big stars trying to make it in an industry which everyone knows they currently define. This works occasionally: in one scene, Stephen Tyler underhandedly states that he's "not the kind of rock star to appear in a movie." For the most part, though, the self-consciousness is too embarrassed to (pardon the phrase) be cool.
Travolta's and Thurman's performances certainly take the helm the movie's apparent discomfort. The pop stars have some fun, but they're still not sure enough of themselves to sell it. The Rock's role as a gay bodyguard would be hilarious if it were believable. Stephen Tyler might be funnier if he'd known he was actually being filmed. Vince Vaughn, playing a wigger, does sell it, but by the end of the movie it's oversold.
Amidst all the chaos, Cedric the Entertainer comes out as the movie's high point. His performance is the most self-assured, most comfortable of anyone else's. The funny lines don't belong to him, but his portrayal of a family man/ rap mogul makes the most of what could have been an extraordinarily weak part. His defining moment comes at the beginning, when, confronted with a victim kidnapped by his thugs, he coerces the poor slob with a spatula (despite the fact that there's a gun in his other hand).
But "Be Cool" is ultimately gutless. No one has the moxy to get shot, except for a few faceless members of the Russian Mafia. F. Gary Gray shied too much from a vision that requires the shamelessness of a Guy Ritchie film, and the result is soup of star-power without beginning or conclusion. See this movie only if you don't have to pay for it.
The cast is something to wonder at. The casting director borrows both from established talent - John Travolta, Uma Thurman, and Harvey Keitel (Tarantino references narrowly avoided) - and pop names, employing Outkast's André3000, Cedric the Entertainer, the Rock and a cameo scene with Stephen Tyler. Any number of other appearances are there if you're looking for them, if that's enough interest to you.
The movie is about everything Hollywood. Even though the premise puts us in the middle of the music industry, the spirit is unmistakably an incarnation of the glitz, the money, the CARS of the rich and famous. The icons we as a culture worship. It might be funny if it were done right, which it isn't: the movie is never downplayed enough to be taken seriously and never contrived enough to be self-conscious (something which Kevin Smith made work in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). What the director (The Italian Job's F. Gary Gray) may have wanted was a sort of inside joke that everyone gets; big stars trying to make it in an industry which everyone knows they currently define. This works occasionally: in one scene, Stephen Tyler underhandedly states that he's "not the kind of rock star to appear in a movie." For the most part, though, the self-consciousness is too embarrassed to (pardon the phrase) be cool.
Travolta's and Thurman's performances certainly take the helm the movie's apparent discomfort. The pop stars have some fun, but they're still not sure enough of themselves to sell it. The Rock's role as a gay bodyguard would be hilarious if it were believable. Stephen Tyler might be funnier if he'd known he was actually being filmed. Vince Vaughn, playing a wigger, does sell it, but by the end of the movie it's oversold.
Amidst all the chaos, Cedric the Entertainer comes out as the movie's high point. His performance is the most self-assured, most comfortable of anyone else's. The funny lines don't belong to him, but his portrayal of a family man/ rap mogul makes the most of what could have been an extraordinarily weak part. His defining moment comes at the beginning, when, confronted with a victim kidnapped by his thugs, he coerces the poor slob with a spatula (despite the fact that there's a gun in his other hand).
But "Be Cool" is ultimately gutless. No one has the moxy to get shot, except for a few faceless members of the Russian Mafia. F. Gary Gray shied too much from a vision that requires the shamelessness of a Guy Ritchie film, and the result is soup of star-power without beginning or conclusion. See this movie only if you don't have to pay for it.
The Aviator (2004)
Well executed, but poorly told
Unlike Oliver Stone and Taylor Hackford, the directors, respectively, of "Alexander" and "Ray," Martin Scorcese didn't have the convenience of using a household name on which to base his own epic biopic. Concluding 2004's unusual run of biographies on the screen is Leo DiCaprio's portrayal of Howard Hughes, an airline magnate and occasional Hollywood director.
At the start of "The Aviator," DiCaprio's Hughes is something of a stock character. The single-minded, failure-free nature of the young Hughes is something movie-goers have been seeing since Citizen Kane (1941), but the type is so endearing that it's hard not to fall in love with the guy. Then Cate Blanchett enters in a startlingly fun portrayal of Katherine Hepburn, and the movie is off. It's inevitable enough, without knowing beforehand Hughes' personal history, that the two will fall in love, and it's even more obvious that Hughes will bungle it. When Katherine does move out, though, she takes not just her baggage and Hughes' heart, but the life of the film as well.
It's hard to tell if this departure is the cause for the chaos that ensues - business failure, unscrupulous political pressure, and delirium intensify for Hughes as the movie goes on. Once Blanchett's bounciness leaves, the film gets darker and more obsessive by the minute, something that is executed with absolute technical precision. Scorcese doesn't give in, as Hackford did in "Ray," to literal hallucinations; reality just gets sharper - louder, brighter, closer up.
Regardless, it doesn't really add up by the end. The difficulty of the biopic is the filmmaker's obligation to the truth, which is something that never exists in favorable narrative patterns. Scorcese and screenwriter John Logan carefully choose what parts of Hughes' life are screen worthy, and do their best to make art out of it. They're only successful on occasion; the picture, while never lacking conviction, lacks form. There isn't really anything they can do about it, and one gets the impression that Scorcese was constantly convincing himself that climaxes existed in places where they never did. His vision for the epic is strong, but the problem is that it doesn't conform to the real thing. It's hard to imagine what Hughes might have thought of his film - particularly since one leaves the theater without a genuine impression of who he was.
At the start of "The Aviator," DiCaprio's Hughes is something of a stock character. The single-minded, failure-free nature of the young Hughes is something movie-goers have been seeing since Citizen Kane (1941), but the type is so endearing that it's hard not to fall in love with the guy. Then Cate Blanchett enters in a startlingly fun portrayal of Katherine Hepburn, and the movie is off. It's inevitable enough, without knowing beforehand Hughes' personal history, that the two will fall in love, and it's even more obvious that Hughes will bungle it. When Katherine does move out, though, she takes not just her baggage and Hughes' heart, but the life of the film as well.
It's hard to tell if this departure is the cause for the chaos that ensues - business failure, unscrupulous political pressure, and delirium intensify for Hughes as the movie goes on. Once Blanchett's bounciness leaves, the film gets darker and more obsessive by the minute, something that is executed with absolute technical precision. Scorcese doesn't give in, as Hackford did in "Ray," to literal hallucinations; reality just gets sharper - louder, brighter, closer up.
Regardless, it doesn't really add up by the end. The difficulty of the biopic is the filmmaker's obligation to the truth, which is something that never exists in favorable narrative patterns. Scorcese and screenwriter John Logan carefully choose what parts of Hughes' life are screen worthy, and do their best to make art out of it. They're only successful on occasion; the picture, while never lacking conviction, lacks form. There isn't really anything they can do about it, and one gets the impression that Scorcese was constantly convincing himself that climaxes existed in places where they never did. His vision for the epic is strong, but the problem is that it doesn't conform to the real thing. It's hard to imagine what Hughes might have thought of his film - particularly since one leaves the theater without a genuine impression of who he was.
Crime Spree (2003)
A failure
If the director of this movie (whose obscurity to me is such that, seeing it two minutes ago, I've already forgotten his name) has ever seen a Guy Ritchie movie, he is trying to mimic it. The problem is that he had neither the budget, nor the quality script, nor the finesse to manage the style that Ritchie indulges in.
The technical flaws are evidence of a careless crew; Ritchie's style is so impeccable that there can be no failure of transition, no awkward cuts or slow moments. I can only assume that budgetary constraints were a limit here, because any self-respecting director would re-shoot the flawed scenes if he had the capacity to do so.
The characters have no originality or dimension - you have the dumb robber, the dumb hired brute, the cocky (and dumb) American crimelord, and the dumb, loose woman. Redundant, you think? Stupidity is only funny if some hapless character with intelligence is submerged in it, not when a mass of idiots fumbles its idiot way through the plot. The lack of substance to the characters is not only appalling of itself, the dialogue can't begin go any farther than the personalities reciting it.
And if this weren't enough, the director himself doesn't know what he's doing. The scene construction is ridiculous: one thing happens, concludes (maybe), then another thing happens, with no purpose of transition or changeover. During the second thing, the world of the first thing (usually in the same room) is put on total standby until the director feels it is time for the next purposeless changeover.
I didn't have the stomach for more than forty minutes of "Crime Spree." The ineptitude demonstrated on virtually all levels of production (a talented cast doing what it can with so little is perhaps the only exception) makes this movie a total failure.
The technical flaws are evidence of a careless crew; Ritchie's style is so impeccable that there can be no failure of transition, no awkward cuts or slow moments. I can only assume that budgetary constraints were a limit here, because any self-respecting director would re-shoot the flawed scenes if he had the capacity to do so.
The characters have no originality or dimension - you have the dumb robber, the dumb hired brute, the cocky (and dumb) American crimelord, and the dumb, loose woman. Redundant, you think? Stupidity is only funny if some hapless character with intelligence is submerged in it, not when a mass of idiots fumbles its idiot way through the plot. The lack of substance to the characters is not only appalling of itself, the dialogue can't begin go any farther than the personalities reciting it.
And if this weren't enough, the director himself doesn't know what he's doing. The scene construction is ridiculous: one thing happens, concludes (maybe), then another thing happens, with no purpose of transition or changeover. During the second thing, the world of the first thing (usually in the same room) is put on total standby until the director feels it is time for the next purposeless changeover.
I didn't have the stomach for more than forty minutes of "Crime Spree." The ineptitude demonstrated on virtually all levels of production (a talented cast doing what it can with so little is perhaps the only exception) makes this movie a total failure.