9 years ago
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Gladiator
Gladiator, 2000, Russell Crowe, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Roman general Russell Crowe slaughters some Picts and Celts, gets named heir-apparent by the dying Ceasar, which pisses off Ceasar's son, Joaquin Phoenix. Son orders Crowe executed, along with his family. Crowe improbably dodges the Grim Reaper but ends up enslaved and sold into the gladiator biz, where he totally hauls ass. Date with destiny awaits. Won a sh!tload of hardware, including Best Picture - though not a quarter the move Traffic was , and approximately half the movie Erin Brokovich was - and for some reason Best Actor for Crowe.
Of Note: Oliver Reed died with three weeks left in shooting. He was engaged in a hardcore drinking game with some sailors on shore leave, suffered a massive heart attack, fell off his bar stool and died. That. Is Awesome.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Cartoon violence-porn features SF/X swordplay but no real humans were involved in the making of this movie. If you want gladiators you care about, watch Spartacus. If you want Roman politics, watch the silent-screen or Technicolor epic versions of Ben Hur.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Reds
Reds, 1981, starring Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, et al.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Restless American progressive wants to write about important stuff. Ends up in revolutionary Russia. There's some suggestion that neither Americans nor Ruskies would understand freedom (of speech, particularly) if it bit them in the ass. And a mediocre love story. And some dubious reminiscing by people who knew Reed. Beatty won a golden trinket as Best Director, but the film lost to Chariots of Fire as Best Picture.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: A wannabe epic with pretenses of Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia and, hell, every David Lean movie ever made, written by, directed by, and starring a big-time Hollywood star who had the clout to get a movie made about a glorified labour organizer who got tangled up with the Bolsheviks.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The Departed
The Departed: 2006 Crime Drama directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Leo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Marky Mark, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, and Anthony Anderson.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Leo goes undercover for the cops. Damon goes undercover for the Irish mob. A bunch of guys in horrible Boston accents yell insults at each other for being from various sides of the track. Nicholson runs the mob; he smells a rat. Mayhem ensues, with plenty of double-crosses along the way.
Like No Country for Old Men, it's slick, pointlessly violent and empty. But Hollywood ate it up, awarding Scorsese the Best Picture Oscar more or less as a lifetime Achievement Award in case he drops dead before he makes another worthy film and as an apology for stiffing him for genuine works of genius such as The King of Comedy.
By the time you get to the "surprise" ending you're exhausted and don't care.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: The Departed should have stayed away.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Leo goes undercover for the cops. Damon goes undercover for the Irish mob. A bunch of guys in horrible Boston accents yell insults at each other for being from various sides of the track. Nicholson runs the mob; he smells a rat. Mayhem ensues, with plenty of double-crosses along the way.
Like No Country for Old Men, it's slick, pointlessly violent and empty. But Hollywood ate it up, awarding Scorsese the Best Picture Oscar more or less as a lifetime Achievement Award in case he drops dead before he makes another worthy film and as an apology for stiffing him for genuine works of genius such as The King of Comedy.
By the time you get to the "surprise" ending you're exhausted and don't care.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: The Departed should have stayed away.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The Way We Were
The Way We Were: 1973 Romantic Drama starring Robert Redford, Barbara Streisand. Directed by Sidney Pollack.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: A good-looking, popular, athletic Yalie falls in love with an ugly, humorless, Commie sympathizer who tries to rally her fellow students to the Kremlin's efforts in Civil War Spain.
He's a pragmatic WASP with friends named "Muffy" and "Charles Emerson Winchester III." She's an idealistic Jewish political agitator whose only friend is fellow Trotskyite James Woods. Implausibly, Redford's drawn to her. Even more implausibly, his friends don't organize an intervention.
Years go by. Redford's in the Navy. Streisand irons her hair straight (honest, they make a big deal out of it). They run into each other at a pish-posh party and make an accidental hook-up. She becomes desperately clingy. He fails to get a restraining order.
Another chance encounter on the street months later leads to romance. This time he stays around despite the fact that she is incapable of getting along with other humans. They move to Hollywood so Redford can pursue his writing career. He wants to make movies; Streisand wants him to write novels. He compromises to get his movie made; she marches off to Washington to defend her First Amendment rights at the HUAC hearings. Still, he stands by her.
The only thing the characters even superficially address is their cultural differences. She says her mother insists that the baby be named after her grandmother, "Shlemackel" or something. He laughs and they both fall to the sandy beach. Aaaah.
After all that, he bolts because - I dunno - because Hollywood producers in the 70s wanted a tear-jerker ending.
Money Quote:
Streisand: "Is it because I'm not attractive?"
Redford: (blank stare)
Re-write: "In a word: 'Yes.' "
Political Incorrect Movie Review: Streisand strains to prove her Marxist bona fides, but brings Redford along for box-office ballast.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: A good-looking, popular, athletic Yalie falls in love with an ugly, humorless, Commie sympathizer who tries to rally her fellow students to the Kremlin's efforts in Civil War Spain.
He's a pragmatic WASP with friends named "Muffy" and "Charles Emerson Winchester III." She's an idealistic Jewish political agitator whose only friend is fellow Trotskyite James Woods. Implausibly, Redford's drawn to her. Even more implausibly, his friends don't organize an intervention.
Years go by. Redford's in the Navy. Streisand irons her hair straight (honest, they make a big deal out of it). They run into each other at a pish-posh party and make an accidental hook-up. She becomes desperately clingy. He fails to get a restraining order.
Another chance encounter on the street months later leads to romance. This time he stays around despite the fact that she is incapable of getting along with other humans. They move to Hollywood so Redford can pursue his writing career. He wants to make movies; Streisand wants him to write novels. He compromises to get his movie made; she marches off to Washington to defend her First Amendment rights at the HUAC hearings. Still, he stands by her.
The only thing the characters even superficially address is their cultural differences. She says her mother insists that the baby be named after her grandmother, "Shlemackel" or something. He laughs and they both fall to the sandy beach. Aaaah.
After all that, he bolts because - I dunno - because Hollywood producers in the 70s wanted a tear-jerker ending.
Money Quote:
Streisand: "Is it because I'm not attractive?"
Redford: (blank stare)
Re-write: "In a word: 'Yes.' "
Political Incorrect Movie Review: Streisand strains to prove her Marxist bona fides, but brings Redford along for box-office ballast.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Gone With the Wind
Gone With the Wind: 1939 Drama starring Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Howard and a cast of thousands.
Marc Horton plot synopsis: Scarlett (Leigh) loves, coincidentally, The Scarlett Pimpernel (Howard) but Ashley (as his character is actually named) marries Melanie (de Havilland). Scarlett then gets swept off her feet by Rhett Butler (Gable), who later goes on to hit .300 for the hometown Braves and co-star in the ensemble drama ER.
Scarlett cries. A lot. She cries when the war starts. She cries when Ashley goes off to war. She cries when Melanie has a baby. She cries when the Union Army burns down Atlanta. She cries when she goes back to the plantation, which has been reduced to ashes.
After the house slave informs Scarlett the only thing left to eat are last year's radishes, Scarlett goes into the garden and eats an un-ripe root vegetable and cries some more. She vows to rebuild.
Intermission.
Scarlett cries on Ashley's shoulder. She cries on Rhett's shoulder. She cries and cries some more. All beautifully filmed in glorious colour and all so bloody pointless. After a while it's just a long blur of tears, mercifully concluding after nearly four painful hours with Butler telling Scarlett, "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
The hype: Based on a monumentally successful door-stopper that centres on, if Her Indoors is to be believed, a no-nonsense heroine who doesn't take no shit from no body. The producers spent a widely publicized year casting for Scarlett. It was like "American Idol: In Search of the Next Luke Skywalker."
The film made enough money to float the entire 1939 issue of War Bonds. Adjusted for inflation, it works out to $4.3 trillion.
Won a truckload of Oscars: Picture, Director, Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography (I'll go along with that one), Actress (Leigh), Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel). Ranks 4th on the AFI Top 100 (1988).
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Scarlett cries so much you'll hope she dies in the fire.
Marc Horton plot synopsis: Scarlett (Leigh) loves, coincidentally, The Scarlett Pimpernel (Howard) but Ashley (as his character is actually named) marries Melanie (de Havilland). Scarlett then gets swept off her feet by Rhett Butler (Gable), who later goes on to hit .300 for the hometown Braves and co-star in the ensemble drama ER.
Scarlett cries. A lot. She cries when the war starts. She cries when Ashley goes off to war. She cries when Melanie has a baby. She cries when the Union Army burns down Atlanta. She cries when she goes back to the plantation, which has been reduced to ashes.
After the house slave informs Scarlett the only thing left to eat are last year's radishes, Scarlett goes into the garden and eats an un-ripe root vegetable and cries some more. She vows to rebuild.
Intermission.
Scarlett cries on Ashley's shoulder. She cries on Rhett's shoulder. She cries and cries some more. All beautifully filmed in glorious colour and all so bloody pointless. After a while it's just a long blur of tears, mercifully concluding after nearly four painful hours with Butler telling Scarlett, "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
The hype: Based on a monumentally successful door-stopper that centres on, if Her Indoors is to be believed, a no-nonsense heroine who doesn't take no shit from no body. The producers spent a widely publicized year casting for Scarlett. It was like "American Idol: In Search of the Next Luke Skywalker."
The film made enough money to float the entire 1939 issue of War Bonds. Adjusted for inflation, it works out to $4.3 trillion.
Won a truckload of Oscars: Picture, Director, Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography (I'll go along with that one), Actress (Leigh), Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel). Ranks 4th on the AFI Top 100 (1988).
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Scarlett cries so much you'll hope she dies in the fire.
From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity: 1953 Drama, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, Montgomery Clift. Directed by Fred Zinnerman.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Army misfits in Hawaii just before Pearl Harbour. One's a trouble-making pisani (Sinatra), another's a reluctant boxer (Clift); both have a habit of leaving the base without a pass. They get drunk and fight a lot. Then you've got your career sergeant (Lancaster) and the repressed wife (Kerr) of the unit's captain; they have an affair. The Japanese attack. Another guy meets with a bad end. The end.
The hype: Won a bagful of Oscars in '53, including Picture, Director and Supporting Actor (Sinatra). The scene on the beach where Lancaster and Kerr make out is one of the most famous scenes in Hollywood history. If you believe The Godfather, a washed-up Sinatra got the role because the mob made the Bigshot Hollywood Producer "an offer he couldn't refuse."
The reality: Turgid army soap opera. That beach scene goes by faster than a dog chasing a frisbee. Sinatra gives a Neil Diamond-level performance and Clift is at his Method peak. Kerr is frostier than an Alaskan weather station and Lancaster is stuck interpreting the sorriest character in his illustrious film career.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: It only feels like an Eternity.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Army misfits in Hawaii just before Pearl Harbour. One's a trouble-making pisani (Sinatra), another's a reluctant boxer (Clift); both have a habit of leaving the base without a pass. They get drunk and fight a lot. Then you've got your career sergeant (Lancaster) and the repressed wife (Kerr) of the unit's captain; they have an affair. The Japanese attack. Another guy meets with a bad end. The end.
The hype: Won a bagful of Oscars in '53, including Picture, Director and Supporting Actor (Sinatra). The scene on the beach where Lancaster and Kerr make out is one of the most famous scenes in Hollywood history. If you believe The Godfather, a washed-up Sinatra got the role because the mob made the Bigshot Hollywood Producer "an offer he couldn't refuse."
The reality: Turgid army soap opera. That beach scene goes by faster than a dog chasing a frisbee. Sinatra gives a Neil Diamond-level performance and Clift is at his Method peak. Kerr is frostier than an Alaskan weather station and Lancaster is stuck interpreting the sorriest character in his illustrious film career.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: It only feels like an Eternity.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane: 1941 drama, Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, among others.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Here's a real silver-screen heavyweight — and I'm not just talking about Orson Welles. He plays media heavyweight Charles Foster Kane, who treats everyone in his family and his newspaper as a servant and exiles anyone who doesn't play the toady. In that way, it's very much a 21st-century tale. Anyway, he croaks in the beginning, gasps Rosebud, and the hapless reporters are sent about the country to find the missing piece of the puzzle.
Early in the film, he's a happy-go-lucky billionaire happy to blow his fortune on a crappy rag. He turns it into an empire, natch, marries a socialite, dances, sings and runs for governor. But politics isn't any good without some action on the side, just ask these guys, strikes up an affair with some half-assed singer and loses the election. Kane ditches the old lady, marries the singer, and moves into Xanadu — where the film loses its vitality and becomes a bore — kinda like Kane himself. The singer's bored, the servants are bored, his old toadies at the paper are long gone, probably bored to tears, so is his ex-wife and eventually the second wife decides to pack it in and get the hell out. At the end, Kane croaks and the reporters, sans Wikipedia, are still no closer to the Rosebud mystery than they were at the beginning. Only in the final sequence does the viewer find out the missing Rosebud link, kicking off decades of joyful symbolizing merriment and hours of inside-of-eyelids-gazing pleasure at Film Studies courses around the land.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: It has its moments, the first half of the movie is fast-paced, but then it drags. The greatest film of all time? You can toss those opinions in the same furnace as Rosebud.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Here's a real silver-screen heavyweight — and I'm not just talking about Orson Welles. He plays media heavyweight Charles Foster Kane, who treats everyone in his family and his newspaper as a servant and exiles anyone who doesn't play the toady. In that way, it's very much a 21st-century tale. Anyway, he croaks in the beginning, gasps Rosebud, and the hapless reporters are sent about the country to find the missing piece of the puzzle.
Early in the film, he's a happy-go-lucky billionaire happy to blow his fortune on a crappy rag. He turns it into an empire, natch, marries a socialite, dances, sings and runs for governor. But politics isn't any good without some action on the side, just ask these guys, strikes up an affair with some half-assed singer and loses the election. Kane ditches the old lady, marries the singer, and moves into Xanadu — where the film loses its vitality and becomes a bore — kinda like Kane himself. The singer's bored, the servants are bored, his old toadies at the paper are long gone, probably bored to tears, so is his ex-wife and eventually the second wife decides to pack it in and get the hell out. At the end, Kane croaks and the reporters, sans Wikipedia, are still no closer to the Rosebud mystery than they were at the beginning. Only in the final sequence does the viewer find out the missing Rosebud link, kicking off decades of joyful symbolizing merriment and hours of inside-of-eyelids-gazing pleasure at Film Studies courses around the land.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: It has its moments, the first half of the movie is fast-paced, but then it drags. The greatest film of all time? You can toss those opinions in the same furnace as Rosebud.
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