Jessica Nguyen85
Active Member
162 messages
joined Jul 2003
Just go take a look at IMDb.com and read the reviews from people actually visiting the site. Honestly, the stuff you're seeing here feels like it was written by a middle schooler... just amateurish, messy, and incredibly brief. 🙂
Take Piano Teacher , for instance. Here’s the first comment:
First of all, those who are faint at heart should definitely avoid this film. Even those, like me, who are desensitized to most graphically violent and sexual acts in movies should beware. I'm not telling you to steer away from the film, but be aware that what you're about to see is some disturbing material. Definitely not a pleasing film to watch, but nothing is put on screen strictly for shock value. But I must admit, when I watched the film for a second time, I had to skip to the next chapter when the "razor blade scene" came up.
The main character is one of the most unsympathetic characters I can think of, but we start to better realize the humanity of her character later in the film's second act. In one scene, she stuffs broken glass in one of her student's jacket pocket after being dissatisfied with her apparently unsatisfactory performance and getting nervous when in front of a live audience. The student goes into her pocket and cries out with pain as she stares at her blood-stained hand. Next to the razor blade scene, that disturbed me most. The student's mother is not much more sympathetic than she. When she gets word that her daughter won't be able to play, she talks about it like she also got also her hand injured, being one of those spoiled mothers who tries to torture her daughter into becoming an overachiever.
Though the film intrigued me and caught my interest for the most part, I felt more needed to be explained about Isabelle Huppert's character. When a woman is fascinated by sadomasochistic porno movies and engaging in that behavior herself, you want to understand the root of the problem. The movie establishes that she wants desperately to be loved. Then why the hateful attitude towards everyone? Why does she receive sexual pleasure from pain?
The acting is terrific and I liked the glossy, stylized lighting. Altogether, it's not a film I'd recommend if you're in the mood to be entertained, but as I said it's very intriguing. And I'm sure if I watched it a few more times, I'd be able to spot certain subtleties that'll shed more light on aspects of the film I didn't realize initially.
Or look at Minority Report:
Minority Report: Worst Spielberg yet? I think so. I've never turned off or walked out of a Spielberg film until last night. For me, Spielberg has always been a hit or miss director, but his misses have never been so wide as with Minority Report. After a few hours (I watched another, much better film) I returned to where I'd left off in Minority Report and was pleased to see that the film did improve (however slightly) during the latter half.
The first image the audience is handed in watching Minority Report is a robotic lathe that looks like it was designed with some ten-year-old CAD software by a drafter who spent the night binge-drinking. This special effects showcase was off to a bad start, to say the least. In fact, the only special effects worth any credit were the "spiders." The entire production's ability to pivot from muted, sharp cinematography in one frame to air-brushed, soft-focus, and poorly textured CGI in the next was staggering. One minute I'm watching a gritty cop flick... the next I'm watching Blue's Clues as our hero pretends to jump from one moving vehicle to another without drawing undue attention to himself. I kept waiting for him to miss his mark, look right at the camera, and then, upon looking down, fall with the full Looney Tunes orchestral accompaniment. I couldn't suspend my disbelief for a single second. Special effects? 3/10.
One of the biggest sins of this flick was the touchless interface used in the pre-homicide detective's workspace. Sure, it looks cool... but I thought we'd be in for a real treat when the lights dimmed, Cruise lowered his head, raised his arms, and we saw a spectrograph form across the middle of the screen. I figured Spielberg would incorporate some music after creating such an image of a high-tech conductor. No. Instead, we see yard-long hand motions used to perform the same basic functions—selecting, dragging, zooming, focusing—that I can do with my mouse, one hand, and about twelve square inches of desk space. If you're going to invent a futuristic computer interface, at least try to make it more practical than what we have now. A keypad, a mouse, and two jog-wheels would have made the whole thing ten times more productive. The set being filled with Lexan screens that were glued together with ugly, poorly formed seams was a letdown, too. I really thought the future would have something better to offer.
The plot felt incredibly forced, relying on these really surface-level character tropes. It wasn't exactly a mental workout since the story just hands you everything on a silver platter—it totally kills any chance of engaging with it intellectually. If you actually stop to look at the logic behind the twists, the whole thing just falls apart.
So, Anderton goes through maybe twelve to sixteen hours of pure agony just to get his eyes swapped out so he isn't flagged by scanners everywhere... then, in this one totally unnecessary scene, he pulls out his old eyes just so he can scan himself into the Pre-Crime HQ. Thank God he got the new ones... or... well, whatever *shrug*. Then there's the part where Anderton walks straight into the room where he’s destined to commit a murder—weapon ready and everything—just because he acts like a complete idiot. There's zero logical motivation for him to walk in there; it's clearly just to push this messy plot forward.
I didn't even realize Colin Farrell was in this until he walked on screen. If that was his big introduction to the American public, I imagine he'd be happy people caught him in decent movies like Tigerland before judging him... such a lousy role.
The Verdict: A cold, hollow summer blockbuster that doesn't come close to competing with the heavy hitters when it comes to special effects, action, or actual philosophy. Total junk.
p.s. this last one is spot on 😁
