The Good: While swimming in bouts of unbridled goofiness, Into the Wild is forgiven for its remaining moments of truth. While it's been done endless times, mostly by male media makers, it doesn't seem to get tired - ever. It's Kerouac's On the Road and Hopper's Easy Rider all over again, but from a 23 year-old's perspective circa 1992. Yes, always cliche - but this one is sweet and silly and sincere. While you want to kick the kid - "Alexander Supertramp" - in the head at times throughout the film, once in a while - if you're honest with yourself - you see a bit of you in him and his reckless, selfish actions. If you don't, you're a big liar. Either that or you simply wasted your youth. For all the bad "I'm the King of the World" scenes, there are almost as many wonderful ones. Moments where Alex is utterly alone in the Alaskan wilderness, witnessing immense beauty, but unable to share his joy with anyone else. The Bad: After seeing Vincent Gallo cut off our bus in LA with his GTO, I just had to give this film of his a chance. I was one of the few fans of Buffalo 66, so I recently rented Brown Bunny (oddly, a "long wait" on NetFlix). Yeah, yeah - I heard all the hype surrounding the BJ scene. No, no - I didn't rent it because of the BJ scene. It was actually the worst part of the film, sadly where it all finally came totally, unforgivably unraveled. While it was really a bland, uninspired movie, Gallo does have an eye for the beauty of everyday stuff: driving alone on the highway, people's ordinary features, mediocre American architecture, bad decisions, etc. Plus, I like that he ignores entertainment timing altogether. I'll give him that. The Ugly: I've already mentioned it, but the prize goes - claws down - to D-War. I still can't bring myself to illustrate its ugliness in any detail... but maybe in 10 years it will be funny. Maybe. (Did I mention its publicity budget matched the entire production and post budget combined: $30M?)
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Il buono, il brutto & il cattivo (Movie Review #5)
The Good: While swimming in bouts of unbridled goofiness, Into the Wild is forgiven for its remaining moments of truth. While it's been done endless times, mostly by male media makers, it doesn't seem to get tired - ever. It's Kerouac's On the Road and Hopper's Easy Rider all over again, but from a 23 year-old's perspective circa 1992. Yes, always cliche - but this one is sweet and silly and sincere. While you want to kick the kid - "Alexander Supertramp" - in the head at times throughout the film, once in a while - if you're honest with yourself - you see a bit of you in him and his reckless, selfish actions. If you don't, you're a big liar. Either that or you simply wasted your youth. For all the bad "I'm the King of the World" scenes, there are almost as many wonderful ones. Moments where Alex is utterly alone in the Alaskan wilderness, witnessing immense beauty, but unable to share his joy with anyone else. The Bad: After seeing Vincent Gallo cut off our bus in LA with his GTO, I just had to give this film of his a chance. I was one of the few fans of Buffalo 66, so I recently rented Brown Bunny (oddly, a "long wait" on NetFlix). Yeah, yeah - I heard all the hype surrounding the BJ scene. No, no - I didn't rent it because of the BJ scene. It was actually the worst part of the film, sadly where it all finally came totally, unforgivably unraveled. While it was really a bland, uninspired movie, Gallo does have an eye for the beauty of everyday stuff: driving alone on the highway, people's ordinary features, mediocre American architecture, bad decisions, etc. Plus, I like that he ignores entertainment timing altogether. I'll give him that. The Ugly: I've already mentioned it, but the prize goes - claws down - to D-War. I still can't bring myself to illustrate its ugliness in any detail... but maybe in 10 years it will be funny. Maybe. (Did I mention its publicity budget matched the entire production and post budget combined: $30M?)
2 comments:
I liked Into the Wild,though also cringed at those "I'm on top of the world" moments.
I think even more intrusive and bothersome, though, was the music. Shouldn't we hearing what the character is hearing? The sounds of the wild, that is, and not Eddie Vedder's voice?
Yes... Totally forgot about the Pearl Jammy soundtrack - yikes! You'd think he would've learned after "Dead Man Walking" that Eddie only detracts from an otherwise good story. Oiy!
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