Yes, we have some updates over at the Main Page for you to surf on over to and click around on. We've debuted with some Chart Predictions for this year's Oscars. We have new reviews for you to look at as well, including my take on The Hurt Locker to go with the previous raves by Clay and Keith (mine is a rave too, found at the bottom of the article...the film is brilliant, trust me), Keith's review of Public Enemies (with mine to come soon), Myles and myself tackling Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Myles is nicer to it than I am), and my reviews of Year One and Whatever Works.
-Check them out and let us know what you think!
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I think that Keith, like a lot of critics, kind of missed the boat on Public Enemies. I personally found it thoroughly engaging, and utterly brilliant. It seems sometimes in observing the reception of this film that everyone is split right down the middle and it seems almost as if we all saw a different film.
ReplyDeleteI think that part of the reception may simply be that people were wanting some romanticized take on a legendary historical figure, but what they got was the true story. Anyone who has seen a Michael Mann film knows that he is not interested in romanticized, indulgent portrayals of the subject matter in his films. He is going to tell the real story, whether you like it or not. It's as if people were expecting The Godfather or Goodfellas. This isn't really a gangster film. In fact, it's much closer to something like The Assassination of Jesse James. In ways, the film plays out as one long elegy, a long death, if you will. You know form the get go that Dillinger won't survive the events, and to some extent, it seems that Dillinger himself is aware of his own death advancing upon him. Looking at it that way, the whole film, in my opinion, makes more sense.
It seems as though the people who liked it loved it, and those who didn't hated it. Perhaps everyone has been caught off guard by the transition form brainless juvenile blockbusters like Wolverine, Terminator, and Transformers (though I actually did thoroughly enjoy Transformers for what it was), and all the sudden we have a movie that require thought and attention. Scary, huh?
Ultimately, I don't get the lukewarm reception and felt the film was incredibly compelling and engaging throughout. Maybe if you guys weren't so busy championing The Hurt Locker to death :P lol you would make room to like another movie this year lol. I kid, but you get my point.
fair point
ReplyDeletemore specifically, I think that while my upcoming review of the film is more positive than Keith's, we share many of the same opinions on it...I felt that in short, it was a great movie stuffed within the body of a mediocre script, pushed forward by good direction and some great performances...but I'll talk more about that in my review, which should go up within the week or so...and on The Hurt Locker, when you see a real Oscar caliber film before the snow starts, it gets you excited and you want to champion it...such is the case with The Hurt Locker
ReplyDeleteHaha no worries, I was just making a fun jab at your epic pimping of Bigelow's film since a few months ago. :P
ReplyDeleteI think the detractors of Public Enemies have valid points, but I think it's a film like The Assassination of Jesse Jame in that it will have a core audience that loves it and aside form that, everyone else will either dislike it or be somewhat indifferent. In all honesty, it was Mann's most art-house film yet, and felt like it posessed elements of the blockbuster aspects of Heat, as well as the experimental nature of Collateral. Bottom line, it's a return to less commercial appeal and more cinematic art. Miami Vice was a dubious stab at commercial appeal, and Collateral was a largely experimental film for Mann to test out his HD camera style, and while an extremely poignant story with powerful writing and performances, the end chase did feel a little tacked on, but that was forgiven by Vincent's last words "Man gets on the MTA in LA...dies...think anyone will notice?"
Bottom line, Public Enemies is a return to cinematic art rather than blockbusters for Mann, and I welcome it with wide open arms. :)
I know what you mean...
ReplyDeleteNot to keep pimping The Hurt Locker, but I've seen it twice now and it holds up, and too few films these days hold up on a second viewing.
Public Enemies is a film im having a little trouble finishing off a review for just because it has so much going for it, but little things nag at me about it, so I haven't found a perspective for it yet, if that makes sense, but I will soon...
And randomly...I must be the only film critic out there to not really care for Heat at all...give me Collateral or The Insider instead....I liked Public Enemies better than Heat as well.
There were actually a number of critics who were not impressed with Heat. For being called Mann's masterpiece, it didn't even receive so much as a Golden Globe nomination or any critics circles nominations. My dad watched with me a year or two ago, an said he would have enjoyed it more had it been shorter, and that he felt it kinda just didn't know when to end.
ReplyDelete@ neo,
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading my review. I understand your points, but I don't think you fairly characterize my criticism. I wasn't expecting them to romanticize or falsify any thing from his story. However, I had a problem with what they decided to focus on. I call it the "American Gangster" problem. AG would've been a better movie if they re-focused their attention of Frank Lucas, and spent last time on Crowe's character. It's more of an issue with editing. Though visually the movie was perfect, it failed to tell an interesting story (and Dillinger's life was rather interesting).
I did not dislike the movie. I originally gave it 2 and 9/10ths of a star because I thought it was closer to 3 stars.
Thanks again.
Keith....completely agree on the American Gangster front...I think (and I'll address this in my review) that Crowe slowed the movie down to a crawl when he came on the screen, and Public Enemies walks the line of having the same problem...Bale is more dynamic, but the script so underwrites his character that he's barely human (despite having a lot of humanity in the part)
ReplyDeleteI thought Bale was fantastic in the role, and it was nice to see him in a more quiet, subtle role than his intense leading man roles he gets typecast in these days. The role was definitely underwritten, but it was an effective and necessary character. My main problem with American Gangster was that it lacked any kind of real climax. Public Enemies had one hell of a climax at the end in front of the biograph theatre, whereas American Gangster kind of just fizzled out once the coffee shop moment happened between Washinton and Crowe once Lucas was arrested. "Oh, you're gonna be a rat and sell out the other mobsters, so now we're buddies! Yay!"
ReplyDeletePublic Enemies didn't sell out the way American Gangster did. Like I said, it will have it's core following and that's fine. I feel that it's destined to be a cult classic rather than any kind of immediate instant classic. Give it time, watch it again later, and I think you will appreciate it more :)
we shall definitely see
ReplyDelete