- ALPHA DOG Review:
This is one of the first movies I've seen in a while that I really actively disliked. But, even though I had a pretty low opinion of it, I have to admit I was pretty entertained throughout, simply because the ironic entertainment value of some of the more over-the-top scenes and ridiculous dialogue was enough to keep me laughing and smiling for much of the film. Scarily enough though, the movie - about a group of wannabe thug drug-dealers who get in over their heads when they kidnap the younger brother of a guy who owes them money ... it's based on a true story, one in which the trial is actually ongoing right now. That to me is really depressing, because just about every character in this movie comes off as pretty braindead. It's not just that the gang's kidnapping plot is utterly ludicrous and essentially pointless - practically guaranteed to end up with them doing jailtime - but it's just the way these characters are portrayed, as brainless, bigoted, ignorant idiots, that makes this movie so off-putting.
The first thing that I really hated about this movie was the writing and dialogue. Basically, every line reeks of lazy, wannabe-badass amateur hour. Most of the dialogue consists of some mix of obscenities, slurs, and misogynist crap that alternates between offensive and unintentionally hilarious. Look, profanity-laced dialogue can be written in an amazing, artful way. Look at The Big Lebowski, Glengary Glenn Ross, Pulp Fiction, Hustle and Flow ... writers like the Cohens and Mamet know how to make obscenity into art. Alpha Dog's attempt to capture how these overprivileged criminals talk just made me shudder. I know that somewhere, somehow, there are probably some moronic kids who actually talk like the people in this movie, but everything just comes off as over the top and ineffective. Profanity has never been more boring and bland than in this movie.
And the weakness of the script is a shame, because there's actually a lot of talent in the young cast. Before seeing Alpha Dog, people like Emil Hirsch, Olivia Wilde, Amanda Seyfried, and even Justin Timberlake stuck out as some of the most promising young talents in Hollywood. After seeing Alpha Dog, I feel like these guys are going to have to work hard to overcome the B-movie stain that this movie now puts on their resumes. On the other hand, it's a credit to those guys that their talent and charisma shines through despite everything else, and its on these actors' shoulders that the movie is basically carried. Which is slightly surprising, as some big names like Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone show up as well. Willis is basically a waste here, playing a strung-out drug-dealing dad to Hirsch's Johnny Trulove, and Stone ... all I can say is: yikes! I don't know what happened here, but Stone is just a trainwreck, in one scene yelling at her troubled stepson Jake while oddly pinching his face over and over again, in another scene she is done up in fat makeup, sobbing and gesticulating wildly, looking like a reject monster from Universal's horror vaults.
Similarly, the movie is just ALL OVER THE PLACE. One bar-fight scene inexplicably turns into a kung-fu fight out of Enter the Dragon. Every charater in the movie is tattooed from head to toe, sporting all kinds of weird body-art, including Jake, who is supposedly Jewish despite looking like a neo-nazi (and constantly derided as "kike" by Johnny and his gang), who sports an array of Hebrew tattoos in addition to of all things a swastika! Whaaaat? At times, the director attempts pseudo-artsy shots that come off as totally hack-ish as well. When Johnny feels like the walls are closing in around him, we get a none too subtle shot of ... the walls closing in around him.
In the end, I semi-enjoyed this movie as a piece of B-movie trash, but the more I thought about it the more it annoyed me. The movie never really succeeds at making any kind of point, and in the end almost glamorized the lifestyle of its reprehensible main characters. I mean, they kidnap a kid, sure, but they give him drugs and hook him up with two teenaged bombshells for some coed naked Marco Polo action. It just pains me to think that some stupid teenagers might see this movie and pattern themselves on the characters in it, since for all its overt over-the-topness, the movie is obviously trying to be "real," but failing miserably.
I'd avoid this movie, unless it's one of those late-at-night, let's-get-some-friends-together-and-laugh-at-its-hilarious-awfulness type of situations (don't get me wrong, there is plenty of comedic value here). Or, if you're just a really big Amanda Seyfried or Olivia Wilde fan, in which case I'd still recommend waiting for the DVD.
My Grade: D
CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER Review
- Ya gotta love Zhang Yimou, the action-movie wunderkind behind movies like Hero and House of Flying Daggers. No other director is so adept at creating visually striking sets and scenes that just seem to bleed off the screen with color and intensity. That, and the guy can stage one heck of a fight scene.
Golden Flower is just as visually amazing as Daggers and Hero, if not more so. The color gold permeates every inch of the movie - a symbolic representaiton of the overflowing wealth and decadence of the Chinese empire that is portrayed. With flair and style, Yimou presents a Shakespearian family drama, with plenty of melodramatic conflict, betrayal, and political maneuvering. While the tale can lag at times, as the action reall doesn't pick up until the end, the movie is held together by the iconic presences of Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li - two of Asia's best and most reliable stars. Chow in this movie is just badass - he is an Emperor who can go from ethereally calm to sadistically violent at the flip of a switch - who is in many ways wicked yet somehow garners our sympathies as his carefully preserved family begins to self-destruct around him. Similarly, Gong Li is a very difficult character top pinpoint - an Empress who is clearly the victim in many ways, but also a cunning manipulator with dangerous ambition. The two veteran actors make even the slow portions of the film eminantly watchable. Still though, the movie does tend to veer off into a number of side plots that don't seem to get a full explanation, and things do often seem to get confusing to the point of being hard to follow (on second thought, part of that may be due to the particularly, um, chatty crowd I watched the movie with ...). Despite its visuals, plot-wise, I don't think this stacks up to House of Flying Daggers and especially to Hero.
But hey, it's amazing to look at, features some epic battles, NINJAS~!, and a lot of other, um, visual treats (Gong Li fans, this is your movie ...). Definitely worth checking out on the biggest screen possible and getting caught up in a world of warring emperors, golden decadence, and classic, epic Asian melodrama that you just know is gonna end with at least a few poor souls deciding that a swift sword-shot through the heart is the only way to end their unbearable earthly suffering, Kabuki-style. Not the masterpiece that Hero is, but another credit to Zhang Yimou's ability to dazzle.
My Grade: B+
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