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philosoraptor42Below are my reviews of "Fair Game", "Rango" and "A Screaming Man". Check it out.
Fair Game (2010)
Sean Penn's an odd sort of actor. I admittedly really enjoyed his performance in Milk, but I still reckon that he was upstaged by Dakota Fanning in "I am Sam". Here he's playing alongside Naomi Watts and she is clearly the better actor of the two, but she's never allowed to be the main character. Sean Penn is playing a politician and Naomi Watts is playing an Intelligence Operative. Her job sounds cooler, her performance is better, but for some reason the focus of the story is on the politician. Why? Well, because in the end this film is all about the politics. Basically, if you thought the politics was heavy-handed in "Green Zone", you ain't seen nothing yet.
So now I'll try to be fair. There's nothing wrong with the performances, even if I don't think Sean Penn deserves to be the lead. Naomi Watts is brilliant and I really wish she had a bit more to actually do. A notably effective performance was from David Andrews playing the part of Scooter Libby. He's possibly most well-known for being Catherine Brewster's military commander father in "Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines", though some might also recognise him as the cancer sufferer in "Fight Club" coming to terms with his wife having left him. In the role of Scooter Libby he makes very clear the political pressure being put on the CIA in regards to the Iraq War.
Another positive I should probably mention is that they do actually have something new to say about the Iraq War. There's a very specific case of a suspicion of arms being transported in a particular country which Sean Penn's politician is asked to check out. The problem is that the end result is rather too vague. When they are explaining why the transportation of arms was impossible in the quantities claimed, that is interesting. However, later on they seem to do nothing much other than complain about government lies. It's like they expect us to be shocked. I'm afraid discovering that Bush's government lied about Iraq War is not a big shocking reveal, yet this film spends most of the run time beating me over the head with it, while never having anything new to add.
It turns out that the big payoff is supposed to be some real life footage of the CIA operative that Naomi Watts was playing. (She and Sean Penn -and Scooter Libby, of course- are actually telling the story of actual people.) This would be rather more interesting if the film had spent rather more time letting us know who she was before all this happened. Since the film doesn't take the time build that up and since she doesn't decide to go all Evelyn Salt on their asses after she's betrayed, instead we have a film that has mainly focussed on her politician husband.
In the trailer there's a bit where Sean Penn is saying "if I shout a million times louder than the government, does that make me right?" The problem is that in the actual movie he's shouting all this at his wife and he comes across as a complete dick. Not only does this movie keep trying to hammer home a familiar position as if its a shocking revelation, but it over-sentimentalises it, often in ways which are ineffective or even irritating.
This movie features too much of Sean Penn being self-righteous and not enough of Naomi Watts being conflicted. And no, shifting that emphasis would not be overly fair to the government. And even if the movie makers argue that Sean Penn's story was supposed to be the main focus of the film, I found him remarkably unsympathetic. If you think you might be irritated by a tirade against the Iraq War (and "tirade" is exactly the right term) then skip this one. If, on the other hand, a tirade against the Iraq War sounds right up your alley, watch "Green Zone".
D+ (Not good, but with some good elements)
Rango (2011)
Gore Verbinski's previous directorial work was the first three "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, however he started off in special effects. Perhaps it's not entirely surprising then that he had now chosen to make a computer generated cartoon. The level of detail in the animation is far greater than I had expected from early promotions. (I looked up the website where I originally saw this promotion and unfortunately I can't confirm whether the original promotion had less detailed CGI because youtube has taken that video down.)
The film is absolutely visually stunning. I mean look at the detail on this:
(click here for the image at full size)
So the film begins by introducing us to Rango, a chameleon who appears to be familiar with a range of films. In this opening scene he is trying to arrange his own film production with a bunch of inanimate objects. While this seems random when you first see it, don't worry, it all becomes clear soon enough. However, once that bizarre intro is cleared up, the really genuinely bizarre stuff starts. Rango finds himself wandering through the desert with songs of his imminent demise being sung by a group of mariachi owls.
(full size image)
Before you know it, Rango is in the middle of the typical western setting, only he's surrounded by talking animals. He now has only one strength to draw from in this bizarre new scenario and that's his knowledge of movies. He suddenly launches into this tough guy persona straight out of the "Fistful of Dollars" movies, but seeing as he's winging it, a lot of his lines are plain old weird.
Our chameleon protagonist struggles for acceptance with his storytelling abilities. Meanwhile there's a problem facing the people in this "western with talking animals" setting and that's the massive water shortages.
Rango is especially entertaining because of its unpredictability. However, this is also a major weakness. As the movie throws plenty of randomness into the mix, not all the jokes are funny and not all the randomness works. Still, I can't deny that I was pretty consistently entertained. However, the amount of random stuff thrown in often detracts from the main storyline. The plot resolution isn't that great because the mystery has been built up so much and the actual solution is a little too obvious. I was convinced upon writing this review that the runtime must be around 2 hours, but it's actually 1 hour 47. Still, it just feels too long. To keep the audience's attention for that long, tons of ideas wasn't enough. Those ideas needed to be clearly tied together by the plot and unfortunately the plot seems like mostly an afterthought.
Perhaps I'm contradicting myself now, because I'm going to say that the movie gets a lot of points for being creative and throwing ideas at you. It does this very well and some of the ideas are really REALLY good. If you are a fan of movies like "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" you'll have a tough time not being charmed by "Rango". As much as the plot might not be wholly satisfying and may meander a little too much, I don't think that is a massive criticism. It's major enough, however, to stop this getting an A grade.
Rango is great fun, has a good heart, is stylish and visually gorgeous and will have you in tears of laughter at points. A more consistent plot would have been helpful though.
B+ (Very good, but not excellent.)
A Screaming Man (2010)
I picked this one solely because of the Rotten Tomatoes score. 88% fresh is a pretty impressive rating. Still, I was confused by the vague synopsis. It's about a pool attendant and that seemed to be pretty much the extent of the information. It didn't sound exactly thrilling and, at the start of the film, I worried that it really would be as dull as that sounds.
As it turns out, the man works as a pool attendant in a posh foreign-owned hotel in Chad. The country is plagued by civil war and our protagonist's main passions seem to be his role at the hotel and keeping up to date with the political situation (though the latter may be more a matter of necessity than a personal interest).There's a balance between these two aspects of the scenario. Our protagonist's working life on the one hand and the troubles taking place out of sight.
This is not a war movie. We are not shown the horrors of civil war by following soldiers fighting. Instead the horror is shown from the perspective of those who remain at home, generally far away from the actual bloodshed. This is actually rather effective because we can only imagine what might be happening in the war and the performances of the characters make it clear that the war is horrible even though we don't see it happening (just as they don't).
There's a certain beauty to the film. What is shown to us isn't exactly pretty, but the way it is shot has a certain beauty to it. The emotions of the characters are very real and the character interactions are done well. All this being said, this is quite a slow paced film and you do feel like you are twiddling your thumbs at times waiting for the story to get a move on. Also, the end of the film doesn't quite seem to have the same emotional force as earlier scenes. Eventually we are told the meaning of the title. It's from a poem by Aimé Césaire and the full sentence is "A screaming man is not a dancing bear". The idea seems to be that we shouldn't take entertainment from other people's suffering. That's all very well, but I'm not sure it acts as an excuse for the disappointing resolution to this film or the slow pacing. That said, I don't think the ending ruins the film, but it's a bit abrupt and I think the film could just as easily have ended quite a while earlier (or perhaps the final section could have been a bit shorter).
If you want something arty and emotionally stirring you could do a lot worse. I have been known to dismiss things like this for lacking drama in the past, but I think, by comparison to things like "White Material", "Summer Hours" or "Meek's Cutoff" this actually has plenty to get your teeth into.
B- (Solidly good movie)
Fair Game (2010)
Sean Penn's an odd sort of actor. I admittedly really enjoyed his performance in Milk, but I still reckon that he was upstaged by Dakota Fanning in "I am Sam". Here he's playing alongside Naomi Watts and she is clearly the better actor of the two, but she's never allowed to be the main character. Sean Penn is playing a politician and Naomi Watts is playing an Intelligence Operative. Her job sounds cooler, her performance is better, but for some reason the focus of the story is on the politician. Why? Well, because in the end this film is all about the politics. Basically, if you thought the politics was heavy-handed in "Green Zone", you ain't seen nothing yet.
So now I'll try to be fair. There's nothing wrong with the performances, even if I don't think Sean Penn deserves to be the lead. Naomi Watts is brilliant and I really wish she had a bit more to actually do. A notably effective performance was from David Andrews playing the part of Scooter Libby. He's possibly most well-known for being Catherine Brewster's military commander father in "Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines", though some might also recognise him as the cancer sufferer in "Fight Club" coming to terms with his wife having left him. In the role of Scooter Libby he makes very clear the political pressure being put on the CIA in regards to the Iraq War.
Another positive I should probably mention is that they do actually have something new to say about the Iraq War. There's a very specific case of a suspicion of arms being transported in a particular country which Sean Penn's politician is asked to check out. The problem is that the end result is rather too vague. When they are explaining why the transportation of arms was impossible in the quantities claimed, that is interesting. However, later on they seem to do nothing much other than complain about government lies. It's like they expect us to be shocked. I'm afraid discovering that Bush's government lied about Iraq War is not a big shocking reveal, yet this film spends most of the run time beating me over the head with it, while never having anything new to add.
It turns out that the big payoff is supposed to be some real life footage of the CIA operative that Naomi Watts was playing. (She and Sean Penn -and Scooter Libby, of course- are actually telling the story of actual people.) This would be rather more interesting if the film had spent rather more time letting us know who she was before all this happened. Since the film doesn't take the time build that up and since she doesn't decide to go all Evelyn Salt on their asses after she's betrayed, instead we have a film that has mainly focussed on her politician husband.
In the trailer there's a bit where Sean Penn is saying "if I shout a million times louder than the government, does that make me right?" The problem is that in the actual movie he's shouting all this at his wife and he comes across as a complete dick. Not only does this movie keep trying to hammer home a familiar position as if its a shocking revelation, but it over-sentimentalises it, often in ways which are ineffective or even irritating.
This movie features too much of Sean Penn being self-righteous and not enough of Naomi Watts being conflicted. And no, shifting that emphasis would not be overly fair to the government. And even if the movie makers argue that Sean Penn's story was supposed to be the main focus of the film, I found him remarkably unsympathetic. If you think you might be irritated by a tirade against the Iraq War (and "tirade" is exactly the right term) then skip this one. If, on the other hand, a tirade against the Iraq War sounds right up your alley, watch "Green Zone".
D+ (Not good, but with some good elements)
Rango (2011)
Gore Verbinski's previous directorial work was the first three "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, however he started off in special effects. Perhaps it's not entirely surprising then that he had now chosen to make a computer generated cartoon. The level of detail in the animation is far greater than I had expected from early promotions. (I looked up the website where I originally saw this promotion and unfortunately I can't confirm whether the original promotion had less detailed CGI because youtube has taken that video down.)
The film is absolutely visually stunning. I mean look at the detail on this:
(click here for the image at full size)
So the film begins by introducing us to Rango, a chameleon who appears to be familiar with a range of films. In this opening scene he is trying to arrange his own film production with a bunch of inanimate objects. While this seems random when you first see it, don't worry, it all becomes clear soon enough. However, once that bizarre intro is cleared up, the really genuinely bizarre stuff starts. Rango finds himself wandering through the desert with songs of his imminent demise being sung by a group of mariachi owls.
(full size image)
Before you know it, Rango is in the middle of the typical western setting, only he's surrounded by talking animals. He now has only one strength to draw from in this bizarre new scenario and that's his knowledge of movies. He suddenly launches into this tough guy persona straight out of the "Fistful of Dollars" movies, but seeing as he's winging it, a lot of his lines are plain old weird.
Our chameleon protagonist struggles for acceptance with his storytelling abilities. Meanwhile there's a problem facing the people in this "western with talking animals" setting and that's the massive water shortages.
Rango is especially entertaining because of its unpredictability. However, this is also a major weakness. As the movie throws plenty of randomness into the mix, not all the jokes are funny and not all the randomness works. Still, I can't deny that I was pretty consistently entertained. However, the amount of random stuff thrown in often detracts from the main storyline. The plot resolution isn't that great because the mystery has been built up so much and the actual solution is a little too obvious. I was convinced upon writing this review that the runtime must be around 2 hours, but it's actually 1 hour 47. Still, it just feels too long. To keep the audience's attention for that long, tons of ideas wasn't enough. Those ideas needed to be clearly tied together by the plot and unfortunately the plot seems like mostly an afterthought.
Perhaps I'm contradicting myself now, because I'm going to say that the movie gets a lot of points for being creative and throwing ideas at you. It does this very well and some of the ideas are really REALLY good. If you are a fan of movies like "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" you'll have a tough time not being charmed by "Rango". As much as the plot might not be wholly satisfying and may meander a little too much, I don't think that is a massive criticism. It's major enough, however, to stop this getting an A grade.
Rango is great fun, has a good heart, is stylish and visually gorgeous and will have you in tears of laughter at points. A more consistent plot would have been helpful though.
B+ (Very good, but not excellent.)
A Screaming Man (2010)
I picked this one solely because of the Rotten Tomatoes score. 88% fresh is a pretty impressive rating. Still, I was confused by the vague synopsis. It's about a pool attendant and that seemed to be pretty much the extent of the information. It didn't sound exactly thrilling and, at the start of the film, I worried that it really would be as dull as that sounds.
As it turns out, the man works as a pool attendant in a posh foreign-owned hotel in Chad. The country is plagued by civil war and our protagonist's main passions seem to be his role at the hotel and keeping up to date with the political situation (though the latter may be more a matter of necessity than a personal interest).There's a balance between these two aspects of the scenario. Our protagonist's working life on the one hand and the troubles taking place out of sight.
This is not a war movie. We are not shown the horrors of civil war by following soldiers fighting. Instead the horror is shown from the perspective of those who remain at home, generally far away from the actual bloodshed. This is actually rather effective because we can only imagine what might be happening in the war and the performances of the characters make it clear that the war is horrible even though we don't see it happening (just as they don't).
There's a certain beauty to the film. What is shown to us isn't exactly pretty, but the way it is shot has a certain beauty to it. The emotions of the characters are very real and the character interactions are done well. All this being said, this is quite a slow paced film and you do feel like you are twiddling your thumbs at times waiting for the story to get a move on. Also, the end of the film doesn't quite seem to have the same emotional force as earlier scenes. Eventually we are told the meaning of the title. It's from a poem by Aimé Césaire and the full sentence is "A screaming man is not a dancing bear". The idea seems to be that we shouldn't take entertainment from other people's suffering. That's all very well, but I'm not sure it acts as an excuse for the disappointing resolution to this film or the slow pacing. That said, I don't think the ending ruins the film, but it's a bit abrupt and I think the film could just as easily have ended quite a while earlier (or perhaps the final section could have been a bit shorter).
If you want something arty and emotionally stirring you could do a lot worse. I have been known to dismiss things like this for lacking drama in the past, but I think, by comparison to things like "White Material", "Summer Hours" or "Meek's Cutoff" this actually has plenty to get your teeth into.
B- (Solidly good movie)
