Category: re:View

re:View – Dark Angel, or: How to kill a perfectly good TV show

A friend got me hooked on Dark Angel recently. It’s a show I’d always wanted to watch, but back in the days, when I was still in Germany and still watching TV, its airtime clashed with X Files, so of course Dark Angel never stood a chance. But when my friend recommended the show, along with an offer to lend me her season one DVD set, I immediately hit “pause” on my current J.A.G. DVD marathon and jumped headfirst into a post-apocalyptic Seattle in the year 2019.

And, having finished watching the first season, I can honestly say, what a freaking fabulous show!

It’s got a kick-ass heroine, a ridiculously handsome male sidekick, a story that is thoroughly interesting (and stays interesting), an amibiguous super rogue, ambiguous good guys, a range of minor characters you’d totally want as friends, settings created with a loving eye for detail, a rocking soundtrack, it’s dead funny at times and makes you cry at other times.

So why did I not head off to buy the second season as soon as the credits on the last episode rolled?

Because, for all that’s great about it, Dark Angel has one big, fat, annoying flaw. And even without having seen the second (and final) season, it’s easy to see how this flaw became its downfall.

Continue reading →

re:View – Nine (reasons why this much-anticipated film is one big, sad missed chance)

  1. Nine stars Sophia Loren, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Kate Hudson, Marion Cotillard, Fergie and Daniel Day-Lewis. That’s about as many grand names as you can fit on a movie poster. (With exception of the upcoming Valentine’s Day, maybe.) And that exactly is its curse, too. Packed with so much fame and talent, it has to be amazing. Otherwise it will just be “hmm, well, bit disapointing, don’t you think?” The missed chance here? Well, let me just say it wasn’t amazing.
     
  2. Despite the high density of talent, charisma and glamour on the screen, this film manages to be exceptionally bland. And “bland” is by no means a lazy writer’s comment. I’ve tried for the last two hours to come up with an adjective that describes the experience. Nine is definitely not amazing, great, cool, good, decent. But the thing is, it’s so…well, bland, that I can’t even call it bad. It’s just sort of neutral. Like the colours of the iconic Italy it’s trying to bring to life (not very successfully so).
     
  3. It suffers from a distinct lack of plot. I know, I know – that’s the point. The Maestro doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing when trying to make his new film. But we would also get that without the film itself demonstrating that it doesn’t have a clue as to what it is doing either.
     
  4. In a way following on from 3., the film is of course based on a musical. And musicals tend to get away with being a bit light on the storyline side, mainly because they’ve got all that singing and dancing and being glamorous and stuff. But there are also things that musicals aren’t very good at, one of them being the subtler notes and the more intimate acting. When a musical gets transformed into film, you’d kind of expect them to make use of the chances offered by the medium (as Chicago and Phantom , for example, have done rather impressively.) Nine just sort or randomly puts people into costumes and makes them burst out into song right in the middle of what otherwise could have been nicely done non-musical scenes.
     
  5. The characters are exceptionally lifeless. Except for the Maestro (Day-Lewis) maybe, but even in his case you get bored of all the eccentricity and torturedness after the first hour. And the women are basically just assorted puppets:
    • The loving, faithful, silently suffering little wife (Cotillard) loving and suffering so faithfully and silently that it just makes you wanna be sick.
    • The hyper-sexy, naive mistress (Cruz) being so over-the-top pouty and clingy that she’s almost comical – sadly without being the least bit funny.
    • The whore (Fergie) who was apparently the Maestro’s first temptation (and brings us the only really impressive musical number) but somehow remains shockingly unattractive in all her aggressive sexuality and completely loses out on the temptation bit.
    • The muse (Kidman) who’s sort of elusive in a trademark Kidman-esque way, but the film fails to turn that elusiveness into her character’s significance – which means she’s basically just irrelevant.
    • The maternal best friend (Dench) who’s mainly babbling good advice in a maternal best friend sort of style and therefore loses most of the impact she could have had.
    • The late mother, whose absence apparently accounts for the Maestro’s tortured soul and screwed-up love life – but since the film somehow forgets to tell us how and why, she also becomes pretty much irrelevant.
    • And the slutty fashion journalist who’s entirely irrelevant from the start and probably serves the sole purpose of suggesting that fashion journalists generally flash their hold-ups at/hand their hotel keys over to anyone remotely famous.

    (They all look hot in their song and dance outfits though.)

  6. Even though being some of Hollywood’s most worshiped beauties, the women appear flawed. Penelope is a bit wrinkly, Kate looks like her mum, and Fergie’s got some horrendously bad skin and seems to be missing a neck. Now don’t get this wrong. I’m all for real women and a revival of un-Photoshopped magazine covers and stuff. But this is a musical, and in musicals people just have to be shiny and beautiful and perfect and a bit unreal. That’s just, ya know, unwritten musical law. Musicals just aren’t the place for harsh reality and the scolding finger of ethics.
     
  7. The singing ranges between moderate and awful. Even Fergie’s song (Be Italian), although choreographed and shot beautifully, occasionally wanders along the edge of borderline painful.
     
  8. Kate Hudson kind of looks like Goldie Hawn. Which is kind of distracting. (Okay, so I was short of one reason for my list.)
     
  9. And then there’s Sophia Loren. Which, in principle, is tremendous, amazing, wonderful. Except that she’s somehow not really there. And I don’t mean because she’s playing the Maestro’s late mother. It just seems as if they weren’t really sure what to do with her in the film, so she just makes a few random appearances. It’s kind of like they cut out a photo of Sophia Loren and stuck it onto some of the scenes. Which is not only a total waste of Sophia Loren, but also quite a big disappointment when you’ve been looking forward to seeing her in a film for months.

Verdict: Does make you wanna sing and dance though. In your underwear.

re:View – The Spirit (of a greater movie, half-heartedly revived)

So, I finally got round to watching The Spirit – which I was totally dying to see from the moment it was announced, and then totally missed in cinemas (along with pretty much every film that was released during my MA Year from Hell). Well, looks like I haven’t missed out, at least on this one. It’s kind of…bland. (And that’s not even a pun on the signature Frank Miller colour scheme.) I’m not even sure what it’s trying to be. It’s too clichéd to be meant seriously, and not clichéd enough to work as a spoof. And not funny enough, either.

Same for the characters. Sure those superhero movies need their ensemble of stereotypical Good Guys and Bad Guys and In-Between Guys, and Nice Girls and Evil Girls and the staple Batshit Crazy Girl… And in my humble understanding of the genre, the more extreme the opposites (and personality disorders), the better. But The Spirit‘s characters aren’t even evil or crazy enough to actually make you care which side they’re on. No development. No twists. They might fool us for a scene or two – especially the ones with an affinity to the Bad camp – with a little eccentric flair brought on by some stunning, absolutely fabulous costume design. But in the long run it all feels more like some weirdo fashion designer’s latest showcase than anything else. The costume changes are just a bit too random and incoherent to do anything for the characters, who stay rather lifeless behind all the paint and goth fluff.

The film does have some really pretty noir visuals, though. I mean, of course it does. It’s Frank Miller after all. But even the imagery gets a bit stale with déjà vu as you keep going, ‘Oh yeah, seen that before.’ The graphic novel sequences? The token colour objects? The white blood on black? It was original in Sin City. And now it’s just so Sin City. Or more like, so trying to be Sin City.

The Spirit‘s many women are probably the best thing about the film. They’re gorgeous. Really, really beautifully designed – although, again, designed as in nicely styled pictures, not as in carefully carved-out characters. Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, Sarah Paulson and Stana Katic play them brilliantly – within the narrow space the plot allows them. But they could have more of an edge, a little more darkness. I mean, seriously. The Femme Fatale isn’t even bloody fatale. AT ALL. Also, none of them is quite a skinny little Nancy Callahan. But then this is not Sin City either…

Anyway, if there’s one reason for watching the film – apart from being a fan of Frank Miller’s, film noir or the colours black, white and red – this is it:

Verdict: Eva Mendes. Dressed in…diamonds. Does anything else matter, really?

re:View – How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (even without wearing Prada)

So, I mainly watched this one because it’s got Gillian Anderson and she gets to be a gorgeous, glamorous, total bitch. But by the time her character popped up on screen, I was already so thoroughly entertained by the UK’s answer to The Devil Wears Prada that I had nearly forgotten I was waiting for her appearance.

The story is, uhm, let’s say, charmingly predictable. Sidney, a young, talented British journo with a whole bunch of ideals and an even bigger ego, who specialises in pissing everybody off (hence the title), somehow gets himself hired by American’s most famous celebrity magazine. Roll on the cheesy, painfully over-used establishing shots of N-Y-C. The glitzy world of celebrity journalism, of course, isn’t at all what Sidney expected and he duly falls flat on his face. Multiply. His collection of Shoulda Known Betta experiences include pissing off all his superiors, pissing off his only well-meaning colleague (and true love-to-be), pissing off the city’s most powerful publicist, and pissing off all the celebrities. Oh, and making a complete fool of himself believing Megan Fox would actually let him get anywhere near her pants. However, in due course, he sells his soul for a trip all the way to the top (and a little closer to Ms Fox’s pants.) But just as he’s about to have it all, of course, he becomes disgusted with himself and turns his back on the corrupt world of glamour magazines in favour of his great ideals and (yawn!) true love.

So, the story certainly doesn’t win a prize (at least I hope it didn’t, or I’m gonna look really dumb), and you totally keep waiting for Miranda Priestly to come marching into the office and start ripping up throats any second. Sidney is pretty much a male version of The Devil Wears Prada‘s wide-eyed Andy, but while Anne Hathaway’s Nice Journalist Girl faded a little next to Meryl Streep’s all-eclipsing evilness, Simon Pegg’s underdog charm and hilarious comic timing allow his character to take absolute command of the the somewhat lame plot.

From the remaining repertoire of adorably stereotypical characters, Megan Fox stands out with an altogether fabulous parody of herself, and Gillian Anderson almost fills Meryl Streep’s Prada heels as the ‘Queen of New York’ – the über-dominating publicist who decides which of her clients the magazines will ‘want’ to put on their next cover.

Gillian Anderson in How to Lose Friends And Alienate People
BTW: Gillian Anderson with a red pen, editing copy. Cue major obsession.

So, yeah, it’s another of those Virtuous Journalist vs The Rotten Magazine Industry films, and it’s another one based on a journalist’s memoir (Toby Young’s, in this case). But this one’s fun, fun, fun from the first minute until the credits roll, and it doesn’t make you hate yourself for still wanting to be part of that infamous magazines world by the end of it.

Verdict: It’s got all you need for 110 minutes of marvellous, lighthearted entertainment. And it’s got Gillian Anderson. And she does the Scully Eyebrow™. What more could you want?

Totally Worthless Comment: If you google Scully Eyebrow, the image search turns up two pictures from my The X Files: I Want to Believe re:View. Win!

re:View – Lions to Lambs, or: Meryl Streep saves yet another film

Okay, so maybe I was biased from the second the DVD started spinning. For one, because it’s a film by and with Robert Redford, whom I don’t particularly like as an actor or director. And then, because it’s another of those films holding up the scolding finger of morality against America going to war in Afghanistan/Irak/anywhere. Like we haven’t had enough of those already (and they generally tend to be more coherent and to the point than Mr Redford’s two cents). And while seeing the same sort of cinematic criticism flicker across the screen over and over again certainly doesn’t make it less true, or justified, at also doesn’t necessarily automatically make it a good film. Good as in entertaining. Or, maybe more appropriately for a film about war, good as in moving. Both of which Lions to Lambs isn’t.

So we watch, for one hour in the film’s timeline, as some sleek-as-hell senator (Tom Cruise, of course) tries to spoon-feed a journalist with a bit of a faith crisis (a fabulous Meryl Streep) the government’s latest military strategy to speed up things/end the war in Afghanistan. At the same time, some aging college professor looking the teeniest bit bitter about his life (yep, that would be Redford, then), waffles for an hour to get his point across to a not too bothered but, as we are repeatedly assured, gifted student. The point being that said student should do something with his life. Like, change the world. Also within the same hour, two young soldiers – who were once talked into doing something with their lives by guess which professor – are injured behind enemy lines in Afghanistan and lie in the snow for an hour before getting themselves totally pointlessly shot to pieces.

And before you know it the end credits roll, with none of the plot strands actually resolved. Maybe we’re supposed to draw our own conclusions. Like, that America will never change its views on war, however much their tactics may fail. Or that, as long as America doesn’t change its views, those gifted kids don’t stand a chance, however much they try to make something of their lives. But maybe, at this point, we can’t even be bothered to draw our own conclusions any more.

The only reason why I still consider these 92 minutes well spent is, as you may have guessed, Meryl Streep’s performance. Shining brighter even than in Prada glitter, she flawlessly portrays Janine, the wary journalist trying to save her instincts from being crushed under the commercial regime of her news organisation. At once unyielding and fragile while bombarded with publicity catchphrases by a politician she helped up the ladder, Janine’s self-righteous surface finally cracks as her superior tries to pressure her into publishing unverified government propaganda against her better judgement – and her ethincs. And, just like that, a 2-minute nervous breakdown saves a 92-minute film from fading (like those artsy icons of American life in the end credits) into a half-hearted WTF? the minute you zap off your TV screen.

Verdict: Meryl Streep is a fucking genius.

re:View – The X Files: I Want to Believe (that this is not the film I’ve waited for for six years!)

The story
Some FBI agent goes missing. Some psychic creep goes all psychic about it. Let’s call Agent Mulder. Much stalking through the snow sans plot ensues. Oh, and there’s some dodgy Modern-Day-Dr-Frankenstein-Thing going on. And dog tranquilizer. For the sake of this re:View, however, we’ll focus on the aspects of the film you’ll actually (possibly) be bothered about.

Act One
No-Longer-Special-Agent Dr Scully works in a Catholic hospital and has a bit of a faith crisis because The Church Folks won’t let her do some Really Totally Radical Risky Brain Surgery to save a little boy’s life. Xzibit Special Agent Mosley Drummy shows up, somewhat inappropriately, asking for Mulder.

Scully tells him to go screw himself cause, ya know, they’re no longer FBI and all. She also kind of annoyingly stresses the point, throughout the film, that she’s a DOCTOR now.

Also, The Creator tries to shock us for a sec by making Scully talk about Mulder like he’s History. But then she totally goes home to convince Mulder to get on the case. With the F-B-I. And the audience goes

“I’m happy as a clam hiding away from the world and cutting out newspaper articles all day”-Mulder says the FBI can go screw themselves. Also, he’s got a beard. Well, not any kind of beard. Maximum eeew!-level kind of beard. He tries an eyebrow wiggle that used to be sexy in pre-beard times on Scully–

and they both go all awkward and you can tell they’re WAY beyond frustrated. And just in case we still don’t get that point, there’s THE PENCILS™!

The audience goes

(The Pencils™ = Universal X Files Symbolism for Frustrated!Mulder – and consequently Frustrated!Scully – since February 8, 1998.)

But somehow The Pencils™ work their magic and Mulder agrees to be airlifted to DC.

Continue reading →

re:View – Lesbian Vampire Killers (It never happened. It never happened. It never happened.)

So, I knew it would be bad. I walked into the cinema fully prepared to see a bad film. But this one completely blew my wildest expectations. And not in a good way.

Lesbian Vampire Killers works by a simple formula. Take two average/loser-type blokes trying to be comedians (James Corden and Mathew Horne, bless yer hearts), some girls flaunting hot pants and fake Swedish accents (“Jaaa.”), a blonde virgin, a swearing vicar, oh and, of course, a bunch of trash-glam vampires sans personality. Lesbian vampires, even. Hence the title.

From there it all goes pretty much as you’d expect. The fake Swedish hot pants models are turned into fake Swedish lesbian vampire hot pants models (“Jaaa.”). Average/loser-type bloke number one turns out to be the Chosen One. Chosen to kill the soon-to-be-resurrected lesbian vampire queen, that is. Said lesbian vampire queen is resurrected, the process involving, in some way, the blonde virgin (by now, of course, the love object of our loser-turned-hero).

Some graveyard-posing, licking, nibbling and punching later, the lesbian vampire queen meets her untimely end by way of a phallus. (Don’t ask. The implications are too traumatic. My mind has already gone into denial. It didn’t happen. It never happened. La laaa. What never happened?) The heroes go on to become lesbian vampire killers, on a mission to eliminate all evil looming all across the world. (Er… Vampires? Lesbians?) And that’s pretty much it.

Never mind the stereotyping. Or the misogyny. That was to be expected. It’s supposed to be what supposedly makes this film funny. (Hint: doesn’t work.) Oh well, if it were only that. The lesbian vampires, when staked/beheaded/exposed to holy water etc., don’t make their exit as you’d expect – ya know, like explode, fall to ashes, go up in flames or whatever method is the fashion among the undead these days. No. Not the lesbian vampires. They turn to spunk. Well, not officially. But there’s an awful lot of squirting of spunk-alike substance going on. Kinda hard to miss that one, really. And about as traumatic as the phallus-induced demise of the queen.

One little ray of (blood-red moon-)light, however, at the end: Upon the queen’s defeat, the remaining lesbian vampires are “cured” from being vampires. But, believe it or not, they’re still lesbians. Thank goddess.

Verdict: Repeat after me: It never happened. It never happened. It never happened. It… – what?

re:View – Vicky Cristina Barcelona, or: Two outta three ain’t bad

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a film about three women who end up in the bed of (or otherwise under/on top of) a hairy, full-of-himself macho named Juan Antonio:

1.) A boobs-parading superficial? dumb? …uhm, artsy blonde searching for meaning in her boredom-plagued (love) life, aptly portrayed in a dumb, one-dimensional manner by Scarlett Johansson.

2.) Her complete opposite and totally-settled-in-life BFF (Rebecca Hall) who has some remotely comic moments but talks so much you get distracted trying to figure out the cruellest way to kill her circa seven minutes into the film and at any moment thereafter.

3.) The beau’s suicidal/homicidal genius painter (read: maniac) ex-wife, in the stunning form of a completely out-of-control Penelope Cruz. (Who, in all her screaming/sulky gorgeousness, is also pretty much the only thing that makes you want to sit this film out to the end.)

The latter, after much shouting and vicous eyeing of the competition, not so spectacularly snogs the blonde. And then they all randomly, and in varying line-ups, sleep with the macho (who is, frankly speaking, not that irresistible).

As you may have guessed from the title, all this happens in and around a sickeningly postcard-picturesque Barcelona.

The only thing that kind of saves the film is its narrator. His comments, intentionally ill-timed and superfluous, are so painfully clichéd they very nearly gain a poetic beauty (that will grow on you once you’ve moved on from the cringeing stage, promise.)

The ending, I vaguely remember, was a bit of a WTF-experience. Although I have to admit that I don’t remember what exactly the end was. And that’s only 10 days after seeing the film.

Verdict: Two outta three ain’t bad, eh?