Post by bladestarr on Feb 20, 2008 9:58:14 GMT -5
Well, I've been a reader of the site for quite some time, let me see if I can trace it back to one particular moment.
Ah yes, it was Justin's review of Unbreakable. I was looking to see what everyone else thought of it, and during one of my standard AltaVista searches (this was before Google RULED THE WORLD), I came across the Mutants purely by chance. But then again, I think most people that have found this site can state EXACTLY the same story over and over again. I didn't agree with his review (we'll save that for my review of the film) but I loved the site and it's attitude/style.
Once I saw this sub forum open up, it was what I had been waiting for the whole time, a chance to "be a mutant" without actually BEING one. Being me, I decided to "reserve my spot", well that didn't work out as planned, but it DID get a new rule added to the forum, so I can't say that it was a total loss.
So here I am now, rambling about something that has nothing to do with the movie that I'm supposed to review. I just thought that you all would appreciate my "mutant origins" and where I have come from on "the interwebz". Something that I should warn you of, is that I intend my reviews to be a serious analysis of the films that I'm reviewing. I will TRY to throw a joke in here and there, but honestly, I'm not that funny of a guy.
I will try to seperate my reviews into two sections: Before and After. Before is what you can read before you see the movie, After will contain spoilers that may or may not ruin your first viewing of the movie if you read it first.
So, onto Bulworth.
BEFORE
Bulworth begins with some "explanation text". A lot of people don't like explanation text, they feel it take you "out of the film", but here, at the beginning, I think it works and is appropriate. The time is 1996. President Clinton is running for his re-election, but the movie almost never talks about this. No, this movie is all about one man: Senator Jay Billington Bulworth (Warren Beatty). This man is a DC "fat cat", who for years has been a Washington insider, making back room deals with the scummiest people on earth (life insurance salesmen, movie producers.... and I'm NOT making this up folks, these are the people explicitly stated in the film). He began his career as many Democrats do, as an idealist, and ended up moving more and more towards the center and away from those ideals. When we first see him, he's in his office blandly channel surfing on his TV. He hasn't slept or eaten in three days. He is a dried out husk of a man.
Then the aforementioned Life Insurance salesman comes in and reminds him of the policy that he's taken out on himself, 10 mil to his daughter when he dies, just for keeping a bill that would regulate that industry stuck in committee. The salesman exits, only to be quickly replaced by a "John". No, not THAT kind of John, not the kind that can get you some fun for a little bit of cash, but the kind of John that can get rid of someone that you don't want to have around anymore. That kind of John. And who does he want to "off"? The John is surprised to discover that Bulworth wants to be unchained from the anchor of life; he's hiring the John to get an assassin to off himself. The John accepts the offer, giving Jay Billington Bulworth two days to live.
At that point he basically "snaps". Everything looks the same on the outside, but inside, he just doesn't care anymore. What does that mean for an incumbent senator supposedly going for re-election? It means he feels free to say anything he DAMN well pleases, in front of ANYONE. This right here is the heart and soul of the story; this aspect is what makes the story work. We ALL love to see someone "telling truth to power", but this has got to be the only movie I've seen where the "power" tells the truth to the "people". He sits in front of a black congregation and tells them all that the government simply "forgot" about them after they got their votes, he tells the aforementioned group of movie producers that since 2/3rds of them are Jewish he will give them platitudes about how Louis Farrakhan is a joke. There is just nothing better or more satisfying than hearing the truth coming out of someone that really, really KNOWS it. This is really the part of the movie that I remember from when I saw it so many years ago, and the part that really stuck with me.
Later on in the film when he meets Nina (Halle Berry) he starts "going afro" and learns more about black culture. Here is where the movie starts to go south with me.
There is nothing sadder than a crusty, dry, frankensteinian white man trying to "act black". I'm sure it's supposed to be funny, but I just found it painful and offensive to watch. Warren Beatty doesn't look "funny" acting black, he looks RIGID and uncomfortable and just frankly sad. When he starts to rap about the problems with Washington I frankly wished that he would just speak in a normal voice because I honestly wanted to hear the content of the "rap-speeches" without the rap part, because there really is good content in there.
And that would probably be what my main opinion of the whole movie is, it falls flat on itself not due to CONTENT, but to DELIVERY. The subplot about him trying to avoid his assassin when he finally starts to give a damn about his own life was simply not funny, not tense, and not exciting, it just distracted from the content that WAS interesting, and that was the political dissections. Fall on the floor the first time after a loud bang... kind of funny. Do it the third time... eh, not so much.
On a final note, I've seen a lot of movies with Halle Berry in them, and I never saw the appeal. I gotta say, after watching this movie, and after watching her dance... rawr! ;D
Watch it once, get what you can out of the political message, and then never watch it again, that's my suggestion.
AFTER
Beatty is a very good writer, and a decent actor, but apparently he directed this as well, and it really doesn't work. He needs to stay out of the director's chair and do something else. If I have to see one more purple or orange neon-lit scene this month I will puke. There is just too much of the strange lighting and it really distracts from enjoying the movie. The rap soundtrack is appropriate and nice, but you REALLY don't need a loud thumping rap song playing when there is a "tense" chase-and-hide scene happening.
And as far as the "supposed assassin" ending up being just paparazzi, I saw no real reason for that either. It made tension in a comedy. The movie tried to be three things at once: political satire, comedy, and a "tense" assassin-based drama. That's too many directions to stretch to try to pull them all off, and as a result, I think the movie fails in all directions. If they had done two of the three, no matter which two, it would have worked. But that third direction just pulls too much power out of the other two and makes all three weak.
At the end, when he's shot, you don't know if he died or not, and that bugs me. If there was a REASON for the obscured information, I could understand, but I see no purpose story-wise in leaving his state of life at the end unknown. It just seemed pointless. The fact that he was killed by the Life Insurance agent DOES mean something however, and I am glad that they choose to do that, but that part of the script would honestly work whether Bulworth was alive or dead, so there was no real reason for not knowing his health status.
Ah yes, it was Justin's review of Unbreakable. I was looking to see what everyone else thought of it, and during one of my standard AltaVista searches (this was before Google RULED THE WORLD), I came across the Mutants purely by chance. But then again, I think most people that have found this site can state EXACTLY the same story over and over again. I didn't agree with his review (we'll save that for my review of the film) but I loved the site and it's attitude/style.
Once I saw this sub forum open up, it was what I had been waiting for the whole time, a chance to "be a mutant" without actually BEING one. Being me, I decided to "reserve my spot", well that didn't work out as planned, but it DID get a new rule added to the forum, so I can't say that it was a total loss.
So here I am now, rambling about something that has nothing to do with the movie that I'm supposed to review. I just thought that you all would appreciate my "mutant origins" and where I have come from on "the interwebz". Something that I should warn you of, is that I intend my reviews to be a serious analysis of the films that I'm reviewing. I will TRY to throw a joke in here and there, but honestly, I'm not that funny of a guy.
I will try to seperate my reviews into two sections: Before and After. Before is what you can read before you see the movie, After will contain spoilers that may or may not ruin your first viewing of the movie if you read it first.
So, onto Bulworth.
BEFORE
Bulworth begins with some "explanation text". A lot of people don't like explanation text, they feel it take you "out of the film", but here, at the beginning, I think it works and is appropriate. The time is 1996. President Clinton is running for his re-election, but the movie almost never talks about this. No, this movie is all about one man: Senator Jay Billington Bulworth (Warren Beatty). This man is a DC "fat cat", who for years has been a Washington insider, making back room deals with the scummiest people on earth (life insurance salesmen, movie producers.... and I'm NOT making this up folks, these are the people explicitly stated in the film). He began his career as many Democrats do, as an idealist, and ended up moving more and more towards the center and away from those ideals. When we first see him, he's in his office blandly channel surfing on his TV. He hasn't slept or eaten in three days. He is a dried out husk of a man.
Then the aforementioned Life Insurance salesman comes in and reminds him of the policy that he's taken out on himself, 10 mil to his daughter when he dies, just for keeping a bill that would regulate that industry stuck in committee. The salesman exits, only to be quickly replaced by a "John". No, not THAT kind of John, not the kind that can get you some fun for a little bit of cash, but the kind of John that can get rid of someone that you don't want to have around anymore. That kind of John. And who does he want to "off"? The John is surprised to discover that Bulworth wants to be unchained from the anchor of life; he's hiring the John to get an assassin to off himself. The John accepts the offer, giving Jay Billington Bulworth two days to live.
At that point he basically "snaps". Everything looks the same on the outside, but inside, he just doesn't care anymore. What does that mean for an incumbent senator supposedly going for re-election? It means he feels free to say anything he DAMN well pleases, in front of ANYONE. This right here is the heart and soul of the story; this aspect is what makes the story work. We ALL love to see someone "telling truth to power", but this has got to be the only movie I've seen where the "power" tells the truth to the "people". He sits in front of a black congregation and tells them all that the government simply "forgot" about them after they got their votes, he tells the aforementioned group of movie producers that since 2/3rds of them are Jewish he will give them platitudes about how Louis Farrakhan is a joke. There is just nothing better or more satisfying than hearing the truth coming out of someone that really, really KNOWS it. This is really the part of the movie that I remember from when I saw it so many years ago, and the part that really stuck with me.
Later on in the film when he meets Nina (Halle Berry) he starts "going afro" and learns more about black culture. Here is where the movie starts to go south with me.
There is nothing sadder than a crusty, dry, frankensteinian white man trying to "act black". I'm sure it's supposed to be funny, but I just found it painful and offensive to watch. Warren Beatty doesn't look "funny" acting black, he looks RIGID and uncomfortable and just frankly sad. When he starts to rap about the problems with Washington I frankly wished that he would just speak in a normal voice because I honestly wanted to hear the content of the "rap-speeches" without the rap part, because there really is good content in there.
And that would probably be what my main opinion of the whole movie is, it falls flat on itself not due to CONTENT, but to DELIVERY. The subplot about him trying to avoid his assassin when he finally starts to give a damn about his own life was simply not funny, not tense, and not exciting, it just distracted from the content that WAS interesting, and that was the political dissections. Fall on the floor the first time after a loud bang... kind of funny. Do it the third time... eh, not so much.
On a final note, I've seen a lot of movies with Halle Berry in them, and I never saw the appeal. I gotta say, after watching this movie, and after watching her dance... rawr! ;D
Watch it once, get what you can out of the political message, and then never watch it again, that's my suggestion.
AFTER
Beatty is a very good writer, and a decent actor, but apparently he directed this as well, and it really doesn't work. He needs to stay out of the director's chair and do something else. If I have to see one more purple or orange neon-lit scene this month I will puke. There is just too much of the strange lighting and it really distracts from enjoying the movie. The rap soundtrack is appropriate and nice, but you REALLY don't need a loud thumping rap song playing when there is a "tense" chase-and-hide scene happening.
And as far as the "supposed assassin" ending up being just paparazzi, I saw no real reason for that either. It made tension in a comedy. The movie tried to be three things at once: political satire, comedy, and a "tense" assassin-based drama. That's too many directions to stretch to try to pull them all off, and as a result, I think the movie fails in all directions. If they had done two of the three, no matter which two, it would have worked. But that third direction just pulls too much power out of the other two and makes all three weak.
At the end, when he's shot, you don't know if he died or not, and that bugs me. If there was a REASON for the obscured information, I could understand, but I see no purpose story-wise in leaving his state of life at the end unknown. It just seemed pointless. The fact that he was killed by the Life Insurance agent DOES mean something however, and I am glad that they choose to do that, but that part of the script would honestly work whether Bulworth was alive or dead, so there was no real reason for not knowing his health status.
