Broken Embraces (2009)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

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Basically, a film about sexual jealousy, treachery and fatality shot through with observations on filmmaking and getting movies made the way the artist truly desires.

The characterization is flat and the actors do little more than read their lines as opposed to acting them out dramatically. The color scheme is also distracting with reds predominating to no emotional effect.

This film is too long for its thin content and, for no particular reason, the time-scheme flits around without adding anything to the drama; leaving us with a movie playing backwards. A film as unfinished and unpolished as the movie-within-a-movie we see being made and, yet, one of the themes here is not leaving things unfinished.

Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Zombieland (2009)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://www.rottentomatoes.com)

Film-making Zombies

Essentially a video game of a movie set in a funfair, this is not storytelling but meretriciousness masquerading as comedy. This work is about outsiders who always knew that other people were zombies - even before they actually became zombies. However, the filmmakers are the real zombies here since the basic themes of trust and having nothing left to lose remain completely unexplored.

Other movies are referenced in the hope that this might jazz things up a bit: For a Few Dollars More, Deliverance & Ghostbusters, for example. Nevertheless, the present film looks worse by comparison with those other, much better, tales.

The typical horror movie nonsense about viruses spreading like wildfire - even though viruses do not work in that way - never deters the makers of this kind of film from positing viruses spreading like wildfire. Yet, viral infections quickly run out of steam once the survivors successfully separate themselves from the infectees.

Moreover, despite the collapse of United States' civilization, the power supply works just fine - there being enough electricity to keep a funfair fully operational. And this lack of credibility is not compensated for by humor, suspense, compelling drama or emotionally involving characters. Even a mediocre film like Shaun of the Dead was more affectively involving than this.

This movie is wish fulfillment for cultural misfits and a cultural survival skills primer for paranoiacs, rather than the usual zombie metaphor of an empty and materialistic Western culture. The emptiness is inside the moviemakers, not the culture.

Silly, but not very funny.

Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Serious Man (2009)

80%

Difficult for a goy to fully grasp the meaning of this drama because it is so Jew identified. And yet the very Jewishness of the work is precisely its appeal. The Hebrew terms in the screenplay are explained in the DVDs' special features which is invaluable because they directly relate to the significance of the piece.

This one is essentially about the meaning of life for the individual and what Hashem wants from us in living a good and serious life. That the central characters do not really know how to do this is where much of the dark comedy derives since most simply accept their inability to know God's mind. The many confusions here spring from the essentially cyclic nature of existence - one minute you are up; the next minute you are down. This leads to the characteristic Jewish tendency of being philosophical and laughing off the vicissitudes of life (with seemingly meaningless fairy tales & shaggy dog stories) while celebrating the highpoints as much as possible.

Anti-Semitism explains the tight knit community on show here exemplified by fears of unsociable White supremacist neighbors with rifles shooting Jews during hunting season. And yet the running joke throughout is that Jews are losing some of their culture through assimilation with gentiles, since so many of the characters do not understand what others are saying when they use Hebrew words. Even the younger rabbi is confused in this regard. Here the tension between the closeness of the community and the age of its values, and the wider goy community's mores is usefully explored - especially as regard illegal drugs and adultery.

Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

All That Jazz (1979)

80%

Incredibly honest and self recycling autobiography that is funny about major and universal themes. A musical-comedy about death, dying and sex is unusual, as is its take on what we make of our own lives.

Despite the essential awfulness of the central character, he is very talented indeed and women do really, really like him - despite themselves. A much more personal film than his earlier Cabaret but none the worse for that. The style is very reminiscent of the later BBC tv series The Singing Detective - only better and more believable.

The dance numbers are impeccable and imaginative throughout - as one would expect from director and choreographer Bob FOSSE - while the performances and the cynical humor ring very true. It is a little too long and the pace sometimes sluggish, but these are relatively minor complaints amid all the technical brilliance on show here.

Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)

60%

(http://andywinward-reviews.blogspot.co.uk)

Ghost in the Machine

A good idea rather blandly executed. The alleged duality of man and self hauntings have been done better before – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Point Blank, Revolver, Jacob's Ladder, Ghost, et al. And Roger Moore simply is not a good enough actor to make this as compelling as it could have been – although he does better than one has come to expect of him. He is expected to play two riles and cannot find it in himself to provide sufficient character differentiation between them to make this completely convincing.

The other problem with this movie is that it cannot decide if it is a ghost story, a thriller, a morality tale or a psycho drama and so falls between each of these stools. This lack of focus enervates the fascinating subject matter.

Yet this film is well written, well acted and has an intriguing plot. It possesses a somewhat satisfying ending redolent of the emotional repression of those who refuse to face whom they are for fear of unleashing some unnameable beast.

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Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.