J.D. Hansel

2004

Phantom of the Opera (2004) Review

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Since my last review was of a movie from 2004, it’s only natural that I would follow it with another film from 2004 that has absolutely nothing in common with it whatsoever.  How’s that for a segue?  Terrible, I know, but I have no other explanation for how I ended up watching (and reviewing) such a ridiculous movie.  The stage musical, as far as I’m concerned, is fine, in spite of its issues, but I can see how adapting such a strange production into a film would be challenging.  Joel Schumacher took on this challenge with a bit too much confidence it seems, because he clearly took a lot of creative chances, trying out whatever would seem most interesting.  Sometimes this worked okay, but for the most part, the result was a rather awkward movie.  Not terrible – it’s still interesting and the music and visuals are often impressive – but focusing on the portrayal of the main characters alone is enough to make one wonder, “How on earth could this be what they were aiming for?”

I have nothing much else to say, except that it seems rather needless.  Just see the stage show.  Or, cut to the chase and by the title song from the soundtrack, listen to that a bunch of times with the synth sound blasting through a sub-woofer, and then I’d say the key part of the Phantom experience is covered.  On the other hand, there is a movie musical that adapts the same story in a way that also takes several big, strange, creative chances, and it works quite well.  I’ll save all that for my next review, but for now, let us all remember Schumacher’s Phantom the only way we can: by making a confused face and shrugging in unison.

All together now.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

111 The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

Moolaadé Review

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Warning – this movie is about topics of a highly sensitive nature, and potential triggers may appear in this review.  Proceed with caution.

I feel as though it wouldn’t be right for me to review a film like this one – foreign to me both in terms of geography and experience – without prefacing my commentary with the concession that I am uncultured swine with virtually no knowledge of that which lies outside of my happy little bubble of interests.  This means that I lack a proper understanding of the context of the final film of famed director Ousmane Sembène, Moolaadé, which concerns the matter of Africa’s traditions of female genital mutilation.  While I do know a little bit about Islam, most of the context I have to help me better understand the film is knowledge of one of this director’s earlier works, Black Girl, which gives me a different perspective than other viewers might have.  While there is obviously much in Moolaadé I feel I cannot comment on objectively, the subjective experience of how the movie made me feel is something that I, like all other viewers, am perfectly qualified to express.  This will have to be my focus.

I must say that I was not much of a fan of his film Black Girl, and I was so unmoved by it that I never bothered to write a review, fearing I wouldn’t have enough to say.  Moolaadé, by contrast, is a very gripping, moving film.  Due to the bad subtitles that accompanied the copy of the film I was watching, I struggled to keep track of what was going on, which made it an experience that was not very enjoyable, but I still really appreciated the movie.  I was still invested in some of the characters, amused by some of the humor, intrigued by some of the commentary, and very curious about how the story would end, which is enough to make it a good movie.  When one then considers the reality and importance of the subject matter, and the way that it’s handled with drama, creativity, and empowering themes of liberation, it’s clear that this film is a special one.  It may not be exactly my cup of tea, but I’d still recommend it, because any master of film like Sembène is considered to be would have to be proud to have this fine work of cinema as the finale to his filmography.

110 Moolaade

The Motorcycle Diaries Review

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I debated about whether or not I would review this film.  Keep in mind, I do not (at this time) review documentaries, mostly because I think approaching something that tries to accurately capture real history – or accurately capture a real person’s perspective on his/her history – is perhaps too great a task for me.  Assessing historical accuracy has never been my forte, and I I’m not sure how to review a story if that story is an unchangeable matter of fact.  Still, this movie is clearly not a documentary – it’s a fascinating “what if” movie that shows what a young, idealistic, quickly-evolving Che Guevara might have been like on his road trip through South America.  When viewed as such, it’s really quite fascinating.

This film breaks one of the rules of storytelling in a way, which polarizes the audience in terms of strength, effect, and maybe even aesthetic distance depending on what knowledge of Che the viewer has at the onset.  Generally, movies are very focused on set-ups and pay-offs, always making sure that every moment the audience sees will make the following scenes (and/or the previous scenes) more meaningful.  This film, however, is designed as a sort of prologue or prequel to the infamy of Che Guevara, so the set-ups for the irony, and arguably for the importance of each scene, are in all in the knowledge that the viewer supposedly has of what Che would become.  Fortunately, because I saw this movie in a film class, I was informed of Che’s legacy, controversy, and infamy, so I really enjoyed the movie.  However, had I not known who Che is, I would not have been able to enjoy the movie nearly as much – perhaps I would have hated it.  While I do think that this is a fun story that succeeds at opening up one’s mind to new ways of looking at history and the world, I must withhold my praise to some extent because the movie works best as a supplement to a separate story that the audience is left to figure out for themselves.

Still, after a tiny bit of research, this is a really different kind of road trip comedy that can be really enjoyable.

94 The Motorcycle Diaries

Mean Girls Review

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First order of business: low pass filter.  Maybe it was just the version of the film I happened to be watching – I watched it on Netflix – but there was a very high-pitch ringing sound that would appear in a few shots, seemingly from background noise that was not edited out by the sound editors.  It became an annoyance because it was one of the very few things keeping me from really enjoying the film, and I suspect it probably could have been solved with a basic low pass filter.  (The fact that my number one issue with the film is so minuscule and irrelevant is a good indicator that this is a good movie.)  I think the sound is actually the worst part of the film, if sound includes the soundtrack, which does have some ugly tracks and some pathetic soundtrack clichés.

In fact, clichés are the film’s second-biggest problem, and even they are generally rather tame.  It is clear that Mean Girls is trying to be smarter than the average high school girl movie, and with Tina Fey’s writing, it succeeds at doing so, but some of the same old scenes we’ve seen before in every other movie in the genre still find their way in throughout.  Since I know I just wrote this in my Divergent review, I hate to repeat it so soon, but it is very relevant: a great film is not one that is without imperfections, but one that overcomes them with strong characters and stories that give the audience a good time.  For me, between the cleverness of the story, the perfection of the cast, and the third point that I can’t think of but has to be included anyway because of the rule of threes, I had a good time.

76 Mean Girls

Harry Potter 3 & 4 Review(s)

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I’m lumping together my reviews of the third and fourth Potter films because these two are so similar, despite having different directors.  Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is clearly where the film series changes course and becomes a series for teens, not children.  The filters, colors, lighting, and overall tone of the film is changed to accommodate this, and its sequel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is about the same way in terms of tone and mood.  As pointed out by Cinema Sins, Goblet of Fire starts with a shot of skulls in order to make the movie seem less child-oriented.  This sadly takes away the childlike wonder that the first two films captured so well, and I think that the tone of the series did not need to change to the degree that it did.  Perhaps it was Azkaban director Alfonso Cuarón who decided to make the change, or perhaps it was the producers and the studio, but I do wish Goblet director Mike Newell had tried to bring the spirit of the first two films back.

Alfonso Cuarón is known as a good filmmaker from a technical standpoint, and I can see why since his movies do look cool and have impressive cinematography.  However, I don’t think he was really quite right for making Potter films.  The movie is slow, and it doesn’t get all that interesting until the end, at which point the plot gets so complicated that the movie makes a number of errors in an attempt to express it well (and the aforementioned Cinema Sins video shows this well).  Mike Newell made the series even darker, and made a film that has the most whiny-teenager drama I’ve seen in a Potter film so far.  He brought on board a new score composer to replace John Williams, so a little more of the charm was lost.  It is really rather strange though that I thought they were directed by the same person, until I looked it up, because their styles seemed pretty similar.

Both of the films introduce interesting new characters, such as Professor Lupin – a very likable character that is played perfectly, as is Sirius Black.  Sybill Trelawney and Peter Pettigrew are each annoying in all the ways they should be for the sake of the story.  Alastor Moody is done brilliantly, particularly from a writing standpoint, but also in terms of acting.  Sadly, journalist Rita Skeeter did not get horribly murdered slowly and painfully as I had hoped she would, but in my opinion, she’s worse than Voldemort.  The depression of seeing the performer of Twilight’s Edward as a significant actor in a Potter film is balanced out by the joy of seeing David Tennant in a wonderfully evil role.  However, all of the new characters means that time is taken away from important characters like Hermione, whom I find more interesting as a character than Harry or Ron at this point.  This is probably because I find her more relatable since she seemed to have feelings of inadequacy as a child that she handled by becoming more knowledgeable about magic than everyone else.

Still, I really want to see the rest of the series, so I guess they must have done a lot right after all.

10 Harry Potter 3 & 4