tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post115472533644791328..comments2023-11-05T02:01:53.847-06:00Comments on Antagony & Ecstasy: I AM DEEPLY CONFUSEDTimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-1154967689899128622006-08-07T11:21:00.000-05:002006-08-07T11:21:00.000-05:00He is, though for a moment I read it more as an im...He is, though for a moment I read it more as an implication that <I>Cahiers</I> was an alt-weekly, an idea that I rather like. I think I'd rather be living in that alternate reality.<BR/><BR/>WillWillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14009675510377729941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-1154924875628652382006-08-06T23:27:00.000-05:002006-08-06T23:27:00.000-05:00Re: Will's comment:I certainly didn't mean to qual...Re: Will's comment:<BR/><BR/>I certainly didn't mean to qualify my praise for Dion Beebe, although I can see how it reads that way. I don't think I'm likelier to see any better cinematography all year.<BR/><BR/>But to the rest of your points, while I'm glad you enjoyed the film and I don't seek to convince you that you didn't, I don't agree with you. I treated it like an object because there didn't seem to be any other way to understand it. As the plot rolled along, it seemed more like a series of moments rather than a chain of events. To me.<BR/><BR/>(It was better than <I>Bad Boys</I>, I'm not such a fool as to argue that an uncentered plot is better than an inane one).<BR/><BR/>Also, I think someone is suggesting that we start a film magazine.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-1154876598280353522006-08-06T10:03:00.000-05:002006-08-06T10:03:00.000-05:00Thank GOD for Will. I'd been hiding under my cove...Thank GOD for Will. I'd been hiding under my covers ever since Tim's original, numberless (and therefore incoherent) review!<BR/><BR/>Seriously, though, between this and reading everybody's previous postings on Tim's best-of lists, can't you ALL be weekly critics? It was good enough for Truffaut, after all.Pat Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10361474867794450313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-1154862328298793362006-08-06T06:05:00.000-05:002006-08-06T06:05:00.000-05:00Now I'm certain that you should be writing for an ...Now I'm certain that you should be writing for an alternative weekly... this review reads exactly like a Rosenbaum review of a popular mainstream film... you establish up front that you had no reason to expect that you'd like the film, you distance yourself from it and discuss it as an object, you praise-while-critique its technical prowess, and you cop out of giving a final judgement of it. Which is fine and good. It isn't a bad review. I just feel like you missed the point entirely.<BR/><BR/>Granted, I didn't think that the film was perfect, but I certainly enjoyed the Hell out of it. In the end, Mann is trying to make another <I>Heat</I> here, and in that regard he fell short, mostly because the romantic subplot that was so central to the ending of this film was so flat throughout. "What we had was too good to last..."? Bullshit. Still, I like the aims of this film, and I think it achieved its goals reasonably well.<BR/><BR/>The film's story (spoiler free, in case you've not seen it) is straight out of the regular summer blockbuster fun action movie textbook. Cops go undercover to take down the bad guys, find themselves in bigger plot, one falls in love with someone on the other side, this love queers the relationship of the partners.... etc. The plot also fits with what <I>Miami Vice</I> has always been. But it ends there... at the plot.<BR/><BR/>The same plot could easily have been directed by Michael Bay with mirth and high-fives and witty one-liners. With the exception of a few choice lines, it doesn't go that way at all. The film is wholly joyless, much like the subject matter it depicts. While I'd stop short of calling the film realistic, it's certain more grounded than, say, <I>Bad Boys</I>, a film that, on the surface, it has plenty in common with.<BR/><BR/>Mann's finest moment, many feel and I'd agree, was <I>Heat</I>. That film succeeds as an action movie but shines as an exploration of masculinity and the toll that crime and crime-fighting takes on the personal lives of those involved. <I>Miami Vice</I> attempts to do many of the same things, but falls short of "exploration" and remains safely within the realm of "depiction." This is no great sin in and of itself, but it prevents the film from having any dominant "meaning" when the credits start to roll.<BR/><BR/>Still, as a gritty depiction of international undercover policework, the film does a pretty good job, and were it to spend a little more time with its characters "off the job" (at least in Foxx's case... Farrell's time simply needed to be better spent), one might have left the theater with a better understanding of something. Taking its gritty aims at face value, however, it is impossible to fault Beebe's work here. Sure it is full of whizbangery and flash, but also a healthy amount of grit, and every shot seems to compound that sense of messy reality. The final action sequence is almost brilliant in the way it is shot... less like an action movie and more like battlefront coverage of Iraq or on-the-scene footage from the area around the World Trade Center. <BR/><BR/>Ultimately, the film falls short of its lofty aspirations, but I'd hardly call it bad. Since you declined, I'll give it a 7/10. That help you out, Pat?Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14009675510377729941noreply@blogger.com