the rambling thoughts of a young filmmaker and the discoveries he makes through film, life, and everything in-between...
Showing posts with label Sharon Stone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sharon Stone. Show all posts
Friday, September 19, 2014
2056 - Total Recall (original)
That's better! Despite it's datedness, this film still stands up - the sci-fi isn't as corny as you'd expect it to be because it's got such a distinct style. There's something mildly trashy about it with three-breasted hookers and hooker dwarves with machine guns and a young mutant Dean Norris. But the thing that makes this miles ahead better is that the story is simple - the poor people are being screwed over by the rich - smothered by the lack of air that the rich are keeping, and can easily provide for them. In this film it makes sense why Quaid was kept alive - I'm not entirely sure that it was in the remake. The reason this also works is because we see physical evidence of what Arnold is fighting for - to let people breath and live - we keep cutting back to them to get a sense of the importance of his mission. It means something for us and therefore we root for him... this film is fun and entertaining. Both versions are on Netflix if you want to do a comparison - though I strongly suggest just spending time with this one - the remake is mostly's meh - though I quite liked how they better integrated Kate Beckinsale's character - a small victory in that non-film....
Sunday, September 15, 2013
1910 - Fading Gigolo
When I was first looking into this year's TIFF line-up this quickly became a must-see for me. The premise alone had me sold: Woody Allen decides to become a pimp for John Turturro to help them out of a financial drought. I'm in!
I wasn't expecting it to be a mad comical romp, by any means, but I have to say that the tone of the film was a lot more sentimental and slow than I would have imagined. In the end, while I still enjoyed this film, I didn't love it as I was really hoping to. There was a lot going on that didn't quite make sense to me, including a sub-plot with the always-fantastic Liev Schreiber that had Woody Allen going off to Jewish Court for reasons that were not all together clear.
The ending left a lot to be desired as I'm not quite sure what the film was getting at with it, what the point of it was, really. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the current state of high-stakes story-telling, but the film lacked a sense of urgency and purpose that I think would have made all the difference.
By all means it's still worth checking out, it's very sweet, I think I was just hoping for something different with it.
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