Movies in 2015:

Review: Schindler's List (1993)

In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was January 27th, I finally saw what is often hailed as Spielberg's ultimate magnum opus: Schindler's List.

And it deserves that title with no question.

This film is an incredibly emotive, reverent and sobering look at the Holocaust with no rose tinted glasses or kid gloves tone. It's shown for the complete, demonic and stark horror that it was, as humanity turned on itself in an incomprehensibly savage and systematic way, setting aside millions of human beings as nothing more then mere animals to be slaughtered. The most disturbing part is that this systematic mass murder and butchering of millions of human beings wasn't perpetrated by some sort of alien warrior race or some other non-earth bound source. No, this was committed by otherwise normal human beings, who simply decided, while dressed in pressed suits and posh military uniforms, that an entire race of people should die for no reason other then merely existing.

Spielberg knew this, and therefore directs the film with an immediacy and poignancy to perfectly highlight that. This was the first time he used this much hand held camera work, with his camera following after characters and staggering through the increasingly frightening and hellish world that the Jewish people inhabit (as most effectively shown in the 20 minute tour de force of the Liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto), before wildly contrasting it with the pristine, finely crafted direction that shows the world of the upper crust Nazi's, who all sing and drink while millions are being butchered outside. Spielberg also is able to give every scene a sense of weight and purpose, without feeling cloying or over dramatic. Simply some of the best direction I've ever seen.

The acting in this film also universally amazing and incredibly naturalistic. Liam Neeson plays Oskar Schindler with a perfect mix of pride and soberness. It is by no means a flashy performance, but it's a hyper naturalistic one. Neeson inhabits Schindler with the comfort in which Schindler wears a fancy suit, and he uses his charm to help us connect with the flawed man who does one of the greatest acts of kindness ever chronicled in modern history.

Ben Kingsley is also amazing as Schindler's accountant/friend Itzhak Stern, who duitfully helps him craft the list, while also providing Schindler with a conscience throughout. Again, not a flashy performance, but an unfailingly strong one.

Ralph Fiennes' performance as the demonic Amon Goeth is utterly bone chilling. His mannerisms and dialogue is always a tight, almost fragile style of burning menace, which is only highlighted with his complete disregard for all human morality. He randomly shoots people for no particular reason, and carries with him an oppressive cloud of death over him. Simply one of the greatest performances I've seen.

The cinematography by Janusz Kaminski is simply beautiful. The black and white gives the film a somber tone in a way that color could never have pulled off. The use of shadow and light is simply awe inspiring, and intensely evocative of the starkness and coldness of the Polish winters. Coupled with Spielberg's direction, it's some of the best cinematography ever.

The score by John Williams is possibly his greatest. A masterpiece of sorrow and heartbreak, it perfectly and poignantly embodies the tragic horror of the Holocaust, and when coupled with Itzhak Perlman's intense and heartrending violin solos, is certainly one of the greatest film scores of the past 20 years, if not the 20th century.

The film's relevance is eternal, especially as the Holocaust fades into history and further from our collective consciousness and is forgotten. The film is vital viewing, both as a work of cinematic art, and a chronicle of the events of 70 years before. Go see it, experience it. And never forget what happened there.

I give it five stars.

Review: Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)

So I saw Exodus: Gods and Kings on a rather passable quality CamRip because I wasn't about to go spend 8 bucks to go see this movie.

Glad to know it was a waste of my time.

The direction by Ridley Scott is okay I suppose, but he really doesn't do much visually or emotionally with the material, beyond spewing enough CGI effects onto the screen to make George Lucas curl into a fetal position and beg it to stop. I mean, damn, Scott, this stuff is everywhere. I literally thought the actors were about to fall and trip over the CGI in this movie. Maybe because it was a CamRip, and therefore the visual quality is far below what I would normally see, but I'm pretty sure if I saw Jurassic Park or Gravity on a CamRip, I'd still be impressed by how well integrated the VFX were. No such thing here.

On top of that, he doesn't exactly get good performances out of any of his actors, and the tone of the film is one of boring exhaustion, with you checking your watch over and over again wondering how much more of this you'll have to endure until freedom arrives with the dedication to the late Tony Scott, Ridley's brother.

The plagues come across in a tacky horror movie kind of way, with gross, disquieting shots of rotting fish crawling with maggots in the Nile or blood pouring from the noses of various livestock and horses (who are FAR too big and strapping to be the lithe horses that we know the real Egyptians used). On top of that, the naturalistic explanation for the plagues becomes harder and harder to buy as the plagues get bigger and bigger, and it doesn't help that the guy proposing this theory on screen is a weird, foppish fellow who looks like he stepped out of a Mel Brooks film. The parting of the Red Sea is shown as a tsunami that moves idiotically slowly, and trust me when I say that Moses' surviving that wave crashing down on him is completely ridiculous and impossible in every way.

God in this film isn't God. It's a strange, creepy little child who haunts Moses and shouts and rants like a five year old who got his favorite toy taken from them and now vows revenge. I'm sorry Ridley, but God didn't have that tone at all in the original source material, which I'm going to assume you read and had knowledge of when you made this movie. It just comes off as completely ridiculous and stupid when you see a skinny seven year old ranting about bringing nations to their knees. You're half expecting Moses to go over and give him a good slap across the face and make him shut up. Doesn't help that ALL of this kids scenes carry an almost intentional vibe of creepiness. Maybe it's just that the kid is acting more like an adult, or maybe it's just his idiotic dialogue, but this kid reminded me more of Damien from The Omen (the 1976 one mind you), then of God's messenger. Maybe it's because I'm a religious person myself, so maybe I'm not objective enough, but honestly, it's still silly from a purely cinematic standpoint to see a grown-ass man, beard and all, trading badly written verbal spars with a seven year old who looks like The Devil.

Christian Bale's performance overall seems to carry a general vibe of not really caring. He's not terrible mind you, but he's not exactly giving an Oscar worthy performance here. His Moses starts as a vague agnostic, before shifting into a bearded hobo whose accent gets thicker and thicker by the second until you can't understand a word he's saying. Moses doesn't come across as delusional or anything, but he doesn't exactly come across as a great leader either, so you're just left wondering why 400,000 people would follow this dude with 70s rocker hair into the desert.

Joel Edgerton feels completely at a loss as to what to do with Ramesses, and he just kinda wanders through the film in a daze, waving his hands and inflecting like a Kabuki performer, desperately clawing and scraping to find what is the core of Ramesses. There's no nobility like in The Prince of Egypt or even ominous evil like in The Ten Commandments. Here we get a man child. It's sorely disappointing, because I know Edgerton is capable of great work, such as Zero Dark Thirty, and he was about the only person in The Great Gatsby I didn't want to punch for some reason or other. here, he's completely inept.

On the subject of the infamous whitewashing that this film was accused of, I have to admit, that it's very glaring and frustrating to see a much of OBVIOUSLY ethnic actors and actresses all over the place in this movie as extras, and yet whenever a major character is needed, magically a WASP person shows up. Since the film isn't good enough or grand enough to make you forget that, you end up noticing it again and again and again, and it really takes you out of the film.

I have no idea what Aaron Paul and Ben Kingsley are doing here in this movie. I seriously wonder if Ben Kingsley was supposed to play God here, but then Ridley changed his mind because he might have felt God was too noble, and really, don't we all just LOVE the idea of a god whose nothing more then a psychopathic man-child? Sorry to still be harping on that, but really...

Anyways, Aaron Paul and Ben Kingsley don't really do much in this film. Ben Kingsley fulfills his plot divulging status as Mr. Expositor, by telling Moses about his origin (which, might I add, Moses already knew from the beginning in the original scriptures), and then he fades away from the narrative, popping up every so often to look all mentory or Jewish for a second before the camera goes back to whomever it happens to be focusing on. Aaron Paul just kinda hovers in the background of shots, beard overgrown like a wild-eyed hobo, and says MAYBE a grand total of six or seven lines of dialogue. He literally has no reason to be in this film, and it's a horrible waste of his incredible talent.

Zipporah isn't good at all, and it's a shame since the actress is pleasing to the eyes. But she's a terrible actress, and delivers all her lines in a stiff manner, and has little to no chemistry with Christian Bale (who, I forgot to mention, has zero character development that I could see).

Why are Sigourney Weaver and John Turturro in this film? I will say that Turturro is suitably noble as Seti, mostly because he's one of the best character actors out there, but Weaver just looks like a Lady Gaga music video hovering around in the background, and having...what, one? scene where she speaks with Joel.

The screenplay also happens to rip off Gladiator an awful lot, including the 'he sleeps because he knows he is loved' line WORD FOR WORD, which is just lazy. On top of that, for all the time we see Ramesses' son (who is played by one AWFULLY unphotogenic little troll of a child), we never really FEEL his death. It doesn't help that the mummy of the child we see (and I might add that that was INSANELY fast to properly embalm and wrap up that boy, since the Egyptians usually took close to three months to do the process) looks like a giant cabbage patch doll wrapped in toilet paper. It really took me out of the film completely, and just made me think that Ramesses was one hardcore fan of Cabbage Patch Kids, and that his favorite doll just got chewed up by the family dog or something and now he's giving it a burial.

The score by Alberto Iglesias is generic, which is a shame since Iglesias is a very good and underrated composer. But here, his work is generic, and lacking in a real emotional impact. Might just be because the visuals of the film are so generic and boring, and henceforth the score comes across as boring. Real shame.

In the end, Exodus: God and Kings is a vastly overblown and horrifically boring film, with a HIGHLY questionable depiction of God, a uninspired Moses, and a confused Ramesses.

Even if you're with a bunch of your friends, and totally smashed drunk, it'll probably bore you, and if you're a traditionalist when it comes to your Biblical epics (like me), it'll make you angry, and if you're a revisionist, it doesn't change or reinterpret the story enough to warrant it's existence. Just go watch The Prince of Egypt or The Ten Commandments if you really need your Exodus story fix.

It's a half star for me.

The Mandarin, Iron Man 3 trailer.