Monday, August 07, 2006

Review of Match Point and 16 Blocks



Here we have a picture of Woody Allen directing his cameraman how to set up this shot. He's saying, "Over there, there might be something interesting, but I need you to focus on the boring crap over here."

Seriously. He would subject us to watching two characters walking down a street talking about something that noone cares about, then one would go into a store to buy some clothes. Woody has us wait outside, waiting. The remaining character waits with us. Minutes go by. "We're still here" we yell from our seats on the couch. Then the other character comes out with some clothes. This is what the entire movie does to us.

Another example. A dude shoots somebody. Do we get to see the shotgunned bloody face? No. We see just the dude aiming and shooting at the person. We have to assume he hit her. Then he sees someone else and shoots them. Again, just the shot of him shooting the gun. If we have to wait so long for something to happen, they could at least let us in on the action.

After the first hour, I had to just fast-forward with the closed-captions on so I could stay awake. Man, I feel sorry for those who watched this without the fast-forward button. Some parts, even the fast-motion would seem like slow-motion. There was an excellent scene made excellent by a freshly-oiled shoulder of Scarlet Johanneson. But that was 2 seconds out of a 5 hour movie.

Woody, time to retire. You deserve the break.



16 Blocks was a film about the cop from Sin City that has to take a convict named Mos Def 16 blocks from the police station to the courthouse, so he can testify against some people. They get shot at and have to run away in between buildings and on top of buildings. At the end they do some heavy smashing with a bus, which was fun to watch. It was ok, and I was appreciative that they let us see some interesting explosions and actual movement and bulleted bodies (unlike Match Point). I forgot to care about Willis and Def, though. I wasn't realy invested in their avoiding the bullets. And the ending sucked. Both the real one and the alternate. But it was a good way to spend a Sunday evening. 2.5 out of 4 units of measurement.

5 comments:

were said...

Do you have to make fun of movies that everybody knows suck? I mean, we all know gosh darn it!

La said...

Mos Def looks like the skinny, black version of my brother in law, Matt.

Montgomery Q said...

Mos Definitely he does.

Pam and Rand said...

I use to love Woody Allen movies...what has happened? Is he too old to understand what entertainment is.

Rand and I saw the new Will Ferrell movie (race car movie). We laughed at alot of it and it wasn't boring - but the humor is too far over the top to where it just isn't funny anymore. I have a hard time with these type of movies as well. The humor is too stupid and crud.

Anonymous said...

Okay, how do you EDIT Pulp Fiction? Are there any non-F-bombs in that movie? After you take out the elicit drug use and gratuituous violence, is there anything left besides John Travolta dancing with Uma?

Also, Talledega Nights (sp.?) caused lengthy strings of snot and popcorn to expel from my nose due to its overabundance of hilarity. See it right now!