An humanist comedy, crafted by the expert hands of Alexander Payne and that gentle spokesman for middle America, Adam Sandler. This movie is funny and intelligent, kid you not. "Brockeback Mountain" alienated scores of straight men with its promises of warm homosexual kisses, and when the moment came, it was glacial and timid, but still hurt to watch it: I never believed for a second that those people loved each other. "INPYCaL" attacked the problem head-on, giving you Jessica Biel in panties, corageous firefighters and even Tila Tequila. But there is a catch, see? Chuck and Larry, despite being straight, really love each other, and they don´t need to kiss to be the gayest couple in the mainstream cinema of the 21st Century. Chuck and Larry learn what it means to be gay in the United States, not exactlty the paradise that the guardians of Political Correctness want you to believe. They equally joke about gays, fat men, ugly women, blacks and straight whites, but they know when enough is enough, explaining that some despicable words in the English language are equally insulting (nigger = faggot = kike). "The Kids Are Allright" tried to make lesbians acceptable by making them almost heterosexual, "INPYCaL" instead tells you that gays are not like you at all, and it should not matter. Differently from "Brokeback...", Chuck and Larry earned their kiss, and I would not think less of them if they don´t do it in front of the audience (3+/5).
Pablo Podhorzer ("white" & straight).
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762107/
Armond White (black & gay) review: http://www.nypress.com/article-16861-bosom-buddies.html
Nathan Lee (Village Voice, also gay): http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-07-10/film/queer-as-folk/
This film has a meagre 14% of positive reviews according to the Rottentomatoes aggregate engine, proving that consensus sometimes is downright wrong.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
"Exit Through the Gift Sop", Banksy (2010)
Banksy is a real artist. Instead of reading my comments, please link to his website and be amazed: http://www.banksy.co.uk
Ok, now the movie:
It works as an introduction to street art, and it works as social commentary about the commoditization of art in general. Also speaks lots about real art (profound) and a pale imitation of it (pseudo-profound). Armond White should like this film, because it addresses exactly the kind of problem that White is speaking about when he rambles against Fincher, Nolan and Arronofsky. The mainstream perceives the movies of those directors as being art, but they are more aking to Mr. Brainwash work than Banksy´s ouvres. "Exit..." is funny, swift and poignant, probably the best of last year with "Scott Pilgrim". If connections had been made with other arts, it could have been perfect (4+/5).
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1587707/
Ok, now the movie:
It works as an introduction to street art, and it works as social commentary about the commoditization of art in general. Also speaks lots about real art (profound) and a pale imitation of it (pseudo-profound). Armond White should like this film, because it addresses exactly the kind of problem that White is speaking about when he rambles against Fincher, Nolan and Arronofsky. The mainstream perceives the movies of those directors as being art, but they are more aking to Mr. Brainwash work than Banksy´s ouvres. "Exit..." is funny, swift and poignant, probably the best of last year with "Scott Pilgrim". If connections had been made with other arts, it could have been perfect (4+/5).
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1587707/
"Tron: Legacy", Joseph Kosinski (2010)
In the next five mimutes I will think of a better storyline for TRON´s world that the one in the movie. Imagine that the son of the Dude needs to connect the old computer to the intranet of his company for some arbitrary reason, so you see the shoot of him putting the telephone cable into the thing. Then he gets sucked into the machine. Everything is as we remember from the 1980s, but then CLU finds that now he can extend his reign utilizing more resources thorugh the intranet, so the CGI becomes 21st Century. Then in the real world the managers put a new series of games online, and the games we see inside the machine would be justified. Dude´s son light-cycle could be controlled by Users, and we can crosscut from a frat-house of college boys playing online to the "reality" of the game in the machine. CLU attempts to invade the Internet as a whole like a virus, to impose "order" against peer-sharing and whatnot, and we see how something really bad happens in the real world (mmm, an airport going crazy, etc) and after meeting several characters (the Searcher Algoritm, always working for Google) that help the Dude´s Son, CLU is defeated, and as a bonus an OS composed of the best friendly programs is now freely available and the Net thrives. It took five minutes. I am a genious.
So, the movie itself is not worth of your precious time, but if you can fast-forward you can watch three sequences with some interest: Disc Wars, the light-cycles, and its airborne version at the end. The rest is suppossed profundity, and an attempt to generate a serious mitology where there is none. Well, if the trick worked for "Inception" why would not work here? The commitee doing this movie should have gone full-Nolan and put half an hour more of exposition and vacuous philosophy, maybe then the fanboys would consider it to be worthy of the herd.
One question: why Dude´s son is bleeding in the movie when he was converted into digital format by the laser? Another one: how can I use the spellchek function in Blogger? Enjoy my typos..
So, the movie itself is not worth of your precious time, but if you can fast-forward you can watch three sequences with some interest: Disc Wars, the light-cycles, and its airborne version at the end. The rest is suppossed profundity, and an attempt to generate a serious mitology where there is none. Well, if the trick worked for "Inception" why would not work here? The commitee doing this movie should have gone full-Nolan and put half an hour more of exposition and vacuous philosophy, maybe then the fanboys would consider it to be worthy of the herd.
One question: why Dude´s son is bleeding in the movie when he was converted into digital format by the laser? Another one: how can I use the spellchek function in Blogger? Enjoy my typos..
"Tangled", Nathan Greno, Byron Howard (2010)
Disney´s "Rapunzel" fails miserably to update that staple of the company: the teenager princess musical. The CGI animation is pretty good, but you can see all of the strings trying to pull you to feel something at the right moments. It does not work, we have seen this done better countless times.
The anachronistic dialogue is tuned to attract the pre-pubescent girlie crowd, but it is so obvious that takes the viewer outside the film. Dialogue can be snappy, but doesn´t need to be at odds with the surrounding world of the characters. It is marketing at its worst, thinking that the audience is so stupid that cannot understand classic dialogue without modern references on it. The musical part is mostly innocuous, a disservice to all great Disney musicals.
This Disney villain is not overtly evil, and the sudden ending to her predicament is not at all warranted. Lets see: an old woman, presented as a witch but that doesn´t have powers kidnaps a baby (Rapunzel) that has magical hair, that can make the old woman live forever young. So the baby grows up thinking about this woman as her mother. What this woman did is terrible, yet it is clear that Rapunzel cannot dismiss her as quickly as it happens here, and a half second shot of a futile attempt at salvation is not enough to clear Rapunzel morally. If the old lady did not try to kill one character, Rapunzel would be put in a very interesting spot: let her die or to maintain her young forever? The step-mother is not wrong, if Rapunzel gets out there everybody will want a piece of her hair, so she will be forever doomed to sing her days away.
In the end, is another Disney story about an American teenager fighting with her parents about going out to have fun, hardly classic material. It is fun as it is disposable, and for a movie so many years in the making, it is a shame and a travesty. (3/5).
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398286/
Armond White: http://www.nypress.com/article-21903-twisted-tale.html
AW sustains that this movie is a gimmick-machine. American cinema has his roots in vaudeville and the medium as a bag of tricks, and lately is the only clear aspect of lauded mainstream films. Movies as circus, but not even as moving, only the cheap magician, not even the clowns.
The anachronistic dialogue is tuned to attract the pre-pubescent girlie crowd, but it is so obvious that takes the viewer outside the film. Dialogue can be snappy, but doesn´t need to be at odds with the surrounding world of the characters. It is marketing at its worst, thinking that the audience is so stupid that cannot understand classic dialogue without modern references on it. The musical part is mostly innocuous, a disservice to all great Disney musicals.
This Disney villain is not overtly evil, and the sudden ending to her predicament is not at all warranted. Lets see: an old woman, presented as a witch but that doesn´t have powers kidnaps a baby (Rapunzel) that has magical hair, that can make the old woman live forever young. So the baby grows up thinking about this woman as her mother. What this woman did is terrible, yet it is clear that Rapunzel cannot dismiss her as quickly as it happens here, and a half second shot of a futile attempt at salvation is not enough to clear Rapunzel morally. If the old lady did not try to kill one character, Rapunzel would be put in a very interesting spot: let her die or to maintain her young forever? The step-mother is not wrong, if Rapunzel gets out there everybody will want a piece of her hair, so she will be forever doomed to sing her days away.
In the end, is another Disney story about an American teenager fighting with her parents about going out to have fun, hardly classic material. It is fun as it is disposable, and for a movie so many years in the making, it is a shame and a travesty. (3/5).
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398286/
Armond White: http://www.nypress.com/article-21903-twisted-tale.html
AW sustains that this movie is a gimmick-machine. American cinema has his roots in vaudeville and the medium as a bag of tricks, and lately is the only clear aspect of lauded mainstream films. Movies as circus, but not even as moving, only the cheap magician, not even the clowns.
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