Comment Archives: Stories: Film
Re: “An English coming of age tale in Fish Tank”
Hi Johni: I'm not sure I did either of those things. The first "surprise," if we're thinking about the same thing, is obvious to anyone who watches the trailer and also becomes obvious very quickly to the viewer of the movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg1yMOdjyp0
As for "telling the ending"... well, I do mention two events that happen toward the end of the film, but in both cases, I took care not to reveal anything about the context of those moments, and I don't see where I revealed how the film ended for the characters.
Still, I clearly gave you more information than you wanted. I hope it didn't stop you from enjoying the film.
Re: “An English coming of age tale in Fish Tank”
Way to tell your audience the ending to a movie, David. Again. And spoil one of the surprises. Again.
Jesus, man -- learn how to write a movie review. You don't spoil major plot points, you don't touch the ending. Period. How old are you, seriously?
Re: “Matt Damon attempts to redo the Iraq War in Green Zone”
Let me guess, Neil Morris voted for Bush.
Re: “Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland has flair to burn, but its heroine is a cipher”
If this reviewer (Mr. Morris) is a volunteer.....good job.
If not and this is a paid position....put down the thesaurus tool in Word for the love of all things! It is Alice in Wonderland....a movie for young adults and children. Relax and watch the freaking movie and then give us your opinion without searching for some greater meaning. It is Tim Burton....its going to be weird and sort of pointless in the end...but will it entertain the kiddies for an hour?
Re: “An ambitious slate of comic films closes N.C. Comedy Arts Festival”
Thanks for the AWESOME film coverage. We are ALL incredibly excited for the films that are screening at The Varsity this weekend. #NCCAF 2010 FTW!
Re: “Tim Tyson's celebrated memoir comes to the big screen”
Ebert likes the film, too:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100217/REVIEWS/100219977
Re: “Tim Tyson's celebrated memoir comes to the big screen”
johni: Its not clear what your point is. For starters, nowhere do you indicate whether youve even seen Blood Done Sign My Name and thus have reason to wonder if Neil Morris review was written in bad faith.
I was going to defend Morris from your baseless accusation of racism anyway but then I noticed your careful qualification that you wouldn't go as far as to call his reviews racist. Still, youve put that old dog out to hunt. Good work!
*Morris criticism of Precious concerned what he saw as an ugly, exploitative treatment of its lead character, an African-American woman.
*His criticisms of The Blind Side included its exaltation of a white woman as the savior of a young black manan old-fashioned paternalism that he took pains to praise Blood Done Sign My Name for avoiding.
*Invictus and District 9 do not have African-American themes; they are both set in South Africa. District 9 is also a sci-fi film and, in any event, Morris put it in his Top Ten list for 2009.
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A408190Re: “Tim Tyson's celebrated memoir comes to the big screen”
Am I the only person who's noticed that Neil Morris consistently dislikes any African-American-focused films? I've noticed his name perched atop reviews of this sort in the past. Precious, The Blind Side, and now this. Even movies like Invictus and District 9 that deal less head-on with race get some thinly veiled race-related digs from Morris. I was actually surprised that any such film I looked up in his list of reviews at the Indy seemed to express at least some distaste with race-related movies. I wouldn't go as far as to call his reviews racist, but I am at least convinced that he'd generally prefer not to have to watch any racially challenging movies if he could help it.
Re: “Tim Tyson's celebrated memoir comes to the big screen”
What a mean-spirited and ill-informed review!
I've seen the film twice now(lucky me) and will attest that it's an excellent adaptation of the book, following each of the families -- Tyson, Teer, Morrow, and Chavis -- as the narrative warrants.
I can count on one hand the Hollywood films that accurately depict the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in their complexity, and BDSMN is to be celebrated as the newest and arguably the best so far of that select group. Please, folks, see the film for yourself and draw your own conclusions, or at least read Godfrey Cheshire's recent piece in the New York Times for another perspective on the film.
Sorry, Indy, you blew it this time.
Re: “The war comes home in another fine film, The Messenger”
I am looking forward to seeing this at the Rialto in the near future.
Re: “Cucalorus and Carrboro film festivals”
Awesome. Both Trust Us and Americatown are featured on Thursday February 25th for the NC Comedy Arts Festival FILM Week.
http://www.nccomedyarts.com/film/schedule/Re: “A decade of wonder and tumult”
That is amazing and so is Avatar. This Avatar fansite is cool too. www.Naviblue.com
Re: “Avatar packs a groundbreaking visual wallop, but the story is old-school cheese”
but here in DC, at one of the Magic Johnson Theaters, roughly 4 dozen black people stood up and clapped at the end of the movie. That obviously means that it was a good flick. Black people don't normally clap at movies about humanoids.
Can you explain this? And can you also explain why we never get the pleasure to see Zoe Saldana in a movie starring Zoe Saldana.
Re: “Grim postapocalypse in The Road”
It's true that this film is grim - but it's not nearly so grim as the book, and I think this is because we are not consistently confronted by human faces in the book. There are few things that communicate hope so much as the human face - even the broken, disheartened, lost human face. The actors cannot avoid making hopeful gestures in the film that are totally absent from the pages of the novel. Yes, the movie is great - indeed, I think it's the best movie that could have been made from such a devastating book, but if you really want grim and thought provoking, read the novel!
Read my review of The Road at http://themothchase.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/the-road-if-he-is-not-the-word-of-god-then-god-never-spoke/
Re: “Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant isn't a remake; it's a freak-out and masterpiece of anti-cinema”
I haven't seen the movie yet, but the description of Cage's character sounds like an accurate description of the Orleans Parish Police Department.
Re: “Avatar packs a groundbreaking visual wallop, but the story is old-school cheese”
Good thing the real world doesn't give two shakes about what this person thinks a good movie. It's obvious that its just a simple story with a lot of action and adventure.
Re: “A squalid wallow in Precious”
When I watched the movie, I guess I was coming from a different perspective - I have seen Precious" walk through the halls of high schools in the past 18 years that I have been an educator. I have talked to mothers, who could have been Mary, and I have heard of their fathers - though none of them were HIV positive to my knowledge (but then that's just not something you blurt out in public). One of the most uncaring teachers I know is light, bright and damn near white, yet the most caring is the color of Blu - and then there are all the others who care of various "hues." In my mind, it is Neil Morris who is fueling the fire of intra-racism, not Lee Daniels. As an educator in a urban public school, I found the film up-llifting in that through all of Precious' trials and tribulations she survived - she garnered hope and courage and angry and strength - and she survived. And for the most part, she did it on her own. Those who assisted her did little more than say they cared - and most times, that's all it takes. And if a child is saved, do we really care who played the part. Just my opinion from a different perspective.
Re: “The world ends again in Roland Emmerich's 2012”
Boycott "2012": http://yesbuthowever.com/islam-rules-hollywood-8136237/
Re: “A New Kind of Listening powerfully advocates for people with disabilities”
Mr. Maximov was given one of the most unenviable journalistic assignments I can imagine with this piece: reviewing a documentary whose central subject matter is the disabled and an arts group advocating for them. How on earth does one give an honest critique of such of a film without risking being called insensitive to the theater group, the cause, the disabled population, or all of the above? Well, I guess you better hedge your bets on loving the film start to finish, so you can go to sleep feeling like a good guy, with your journalistic principles intact to boot.
The backlash of letters in response to Mr. Maximov's review more than makes my point. In this 30+ sentence article, about 5 sentences are devoted to discussion about the FC controvery. The rest of the article from the first sentence to the last, reinforces the work of the theater group and the need for the disabled to be able to express themselves. No journalist writing anything about FC should leave out reference to the well-documented controversy surrounding the subject - it's called balanced reporting. And I find it hard to believe that anyone involved with the theater group, the film, or the practice of FC itself is ignorant to the questions surrounding the legitimacy of FC. But those involved with this film have been so quick to criticize Mr. Maximov's raising of perfectly legitimate issues while largely ignoring the complimentary tone of 80% of his article that one has to question why they are so defensive. If FC should be cleared of all controversy, then simply point to the facts that show it. There would be no need to be so defensive if the overwhelming bulk of evidence supported the claims of FC's proponents.
Incidentally, my only criticism of Mr. Maximov's article is that it is diplomatic to a fault. His praise of the film is so careful and measured that I get the sense that this is not so much a review as it is a nod to a local filmmaker. As a film goer, I'm glad to know there are people making films on these topics, but I also want to know whether the reviewer thought it was a quality film - and I don't really get a clear sense of that in this review. Perhaps Mr. Maximov was, understandably, concerned about criticizing a film covering this subject matter. Ironically, those involved with the film have no problem criticizing him.
Re: “The prodigal father”
In other words, Zvyagintsev's project--very much like Sokurov's, and both deriving from Tarkovsky--involves the complete and utter rejection of the Communist past, in order to recover the culture it effaced.>>
This is, undoubtedly, very comforting and welcome statement. But how much should we trust Mr. Sulkin's conclusions? And what exactly has been "recovered" from that glorious culture of the past by Mr. Zvyiagintsev's film?