I've long thought that Michael Shannon was an interesting actor and have wanted to see him in a lead role, also that Jessica Chastain is intriguing and surprisingly omnipresent all of a sudden, so I thought I'd watch this movie. Having seen it now I'm surprised at the extent of its critical praise, it just didn't quite come together for me. The apocalyptic overtones in addition to the cast drew me, but I felt the film never quite settled on what it wanted to be. This is at least partially appropriate in that Shannon's character is never quite sure what he is experiencing, is it mental illness, prophetic intimations of impending disaster, or just a big metaphor about wanting to protect his family? At little of each? I often like slow films, as well as movies that don't spell everything out for you so you must draw your own conclusions, but this one was just not quite satisfying, it never gave you quite enough, it felt like they were almost there, but never quite made it to the promised land. The performances here are better then the material. Fair
The Usual Suspects
My first memories relating to this film go back to 1995. My grandfather was visiting us for a time that summer and was to sleep in my room, as a consequence I was to sleep in a roll away bed in my brothers room. It was the first or second night and while my brother feel asleep easily I did not, and ended up spending most of the night listing to the audio for the local ABC affiliate that was then available over the radio (I think I finally feel asleep during Agribusiness Weekly). I must have heard the World New Now review for The Usual Suspects three times, and was quite intrigued, much more intrigued then I was about the other film reviewed that night, The Babysitters Club. It's a bit of a surprise that I didn't see this movie until now, though I'd had a couple of opportunities. This is a signature piece of 90's crime and paranoia cinema, with a great cast, and an intriguing conceit. Gabriel Byrne is ever a woundedly noble presence, and Kevin Spacey in ever a showy part. Not Seven, but I'll still round it to Great.
| H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds For nearly two decades I've thought that they should do a movie of H.G. Well's The War of the Worlds in its original Victorian England setting. That's what I thought this movie would be, and it was not. Instead its yet another contemporary adaptation, and while structurally more faithful to the original narrative then the Spielberg version that came out that same year, it is in every way an inferior production. The budget very minimal, the special effects 90's Sci-Fi Channel quality, the acting, consistently very, even amature bad. The prolonged theological musings and faith crises of the distressed (and for some reason Australian) minister are not interesting, I guess their suppose to be deep or a commentary on Evangelicalism, or something, but they're junk. The movie is overfull of badly realized coincidences, lead C. Thomas Howell's a blank slate, and this alien corpse at the end is so bad, it's just foam padding from a child's gym and some string, I half expected the movies characters to recognize it as such. Just awful. Poor I just learned that another adaption released under the same name and in the same year was actually set in the 1890's, but apparently that movie is quite poor as well. |
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