Alexander (2004, U.S.)

Despite featuring one of my all time favorite actresses (Jolie), it took me six years to see this historical drama (one of my favorite genres) because I'd heard such awful things about it.

Let me tell you—they were right. It was like a historical documentary forced into fiction form, therefore combining the dullness that most people (though not I!) associate with history and the inaccuracy of fiction.

Let's see. A very human drama was told with a total lack of human emotion. I was able to infer that Alexander had a very troubled, complex, almost passionate relationship with his mother, yet it falls flat. The best example of a real, passionate relationship is Alexander's almost romantic friendship with Hepastian (one of his warriors) and even it is dull. The dialoge and physical blocking always seemed to stop right when you were about to grasp something important. In the same vein, you never get a clear idea as to character motivations. Why do these men do what they do?

As I hinted before, this is supposed to be an epic film, it should be an epic film, but it's just not. The music, however, if very epic. Which just reinforces the lack of epic-ness. To further reinforce this debacle, there is what I call "the red scene." I cannot even begin to describe. The whole film has been relatively slow and vaguely historically realistic, and suddenly there is a battle in India that turns into a massacre, and everything is awash in red. Not in an "oh it's bloody" sense, but in a "we used the filmmaker's equivalent of MS Paint and splashed red all over our film!" Utterly ridiculous.

For an epic, war-filled film, that was about the most exciting thing that happened—and I even saw the director's cut, "newly inspired, faster paced, more action packed!" What exactly was this inspired by? If this is faster paced, I hate to see how slow the original was. And action? There were essentially two big battle scenes, one of which was the red one.

I've always thought pretty well of Oliver, Stone, but I have to say I lost a bit of respect for him. He thought his film failed because audiences didn't like the very faint homoerotic undercurrents. Stone, admit that it was because your film was awful!

What did I learn about history? Alexander is supposed to be so Great, but from what I can tell from this film, he didn't even make it home from his conquering expedition, didn't actually rule Macedon (at least in person), and he didn't really "conquer" all the East (instead returning rule to local rulers). So is this historically inaccurate or is he remembered for the size of his dreams rather than his accomplishments? I don't know. I do know that the film Alexander will be remembered for the size of its director's vision rather than his actual accomplishment!

Rating: 2.0

Legends of the Fall (1994, U.S.)

There just aren't enough movies made about World War I. It's a good thing that the ones that are made are quite good. Legends of the Fall is a bit melodramatic, but it is still a wonderful story. It mixes pieces of war movies, classic westerns, family sagas, and romances. If it comes off a bit melodramatic and times, that's okay. After all, it is a very ambitious film.

They used several very interesting narrative devices. To begin with, I liked that the narrator was a character who was only on the margins of the plot, rather than one of the primary players. To supplement this narration, they also used letters written to and from various characters, which was quite effective. They also used something I would call a flashback, for lack of a better term. To give an example, Tristan gets noticeably upset and frustrated when he tries to free a cow trapped in barb wire. Even though they never show the scene again, it is clearly meant to remind the viewer of the scene where his brother is trapped in barbed wire during the war. These scenes are very well done.

I've always found Aidan Quinn to be a competent but unremarkable actor, and most of the other actors fell into this same category as well. Then there's Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt. They steal the scene from anyone they ever work with. Hopkins is an imposing patriarch, and Pitt completely embodies the magnetic, troubled middle brother. Even if the film was awful (as it could have been if the rest was the same as the cheesy final scene), they'd redeem it. Wow.

Rating: 3.5

The Human Stain (2003, U.S.)

I saw this movie on TV a couple of years ago and had an overall good impression of it, but I didn't see the whole thing from the beginning. So I decided to watch it again. (Also, I needed a bit of a Wentworth fix before Prison Break stated back on Monday... but that's a post for another day.)

To begin with, The Human Stain has a stellar cast—Sir Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Wentworth Miller, Gary Sinise. Even Ed Harris, who I normally could live without, is quite good in this film. Add to that a wonderful score by Rachel Portman, who's one of my favorites. (Little surprise here—Portman has been nominated for two Oscars and has won a third... the first woman to do so.) So all in all, the film just couldn't be bad.

And the plot is also quite great. Coleman Silk, a seemingly white man born of black parents, living his life as a Jewish classics professor, is accused of making a racist remark, which costs him his wife and his career. Nobody knows about his heritage, but the viewer discovers it through flashbacks of his young adulthood. (Enter Wentworth Miller, who was great in this role. Interestingly, Miller's father is supposedly black, though you may not know it to look at him. I bet this role was strange for him.) At this point, other people start coming into Silk's life. A white-trash woman (Kidman) with an abusive ex-husband (Harris) and a closet full of skeletons. A novelist (Sinise) suffering from writer's block and hiding out from the world.

Through his interactions with these people and the accompanying flashbacks, Silk's history slowly unfolds. It's about racial idenity and living a lie and how it changes a person and his life. It was really well crafted, yet I found myself wanting more. I felt like I was having to make to many connections / analyze too much myself. It just could have had more... something. I feel like I need to read the book to get the whole story now. In fact, I think I will.

So I liked it, but I could have liked it more.

Rating: 3.5

Meet Joe Black (1998, U.S.)

Clearly this is not the first time I've seen this movie, but I just watched it again, and I have to gush about it, on the record. I love this film. So much that it gets the highest rating. So much that I call it a "film" and not a "movie." So much that listening to the score makes my heart want to burst into a million pieces. It is a masterpiece. It's definitely one of two films that I am certain would be in my top five... If I could ever settle them all in. (The other, of course, is Amélie.)

The story is beautiful. It's about life and death, love and purpose. The score by Thomas Newman remains my favorite film score of all time. (He's composed tons of great ones... Look him up on imdb, and I'll guarantee you've seen at least one of the films he has composed for—I myself have seen about a dozen.) It is incredibly powerful in a very soft sort of way. If that makes any sense. Maybe it would be clearer to say it just reaches in, grabs you by the heart, and won't let go.

Anthony Hopkins is a great actor. He deserves that "Sir" in front of his name. And as for Brad Pitt, I would say this is one of the best, if not the best, performance of his career. He essentially plays two different characters, and he plays them so differently that you can tell they're different before he even speaks or moves his body much—a movement of the eyes is enough to do it. Now that is acting. His portrayal of "Young Man in Coffee Shop" is exactly the kind of guy a girl would want to fall in love with. His portrayal of Joe Black touches the exact right notes of that sublime power mixed with uncertainty and hesitance as he first experiences the human condition. His performance is nothing short of moving. And by the end, I can't help but loving life, feeling hopeful, and feeling emotional every time I see fireworks.

And yet Pitt is supposedly embarrassed by this film, or so he was quoted as saying in October 2007. You can find this on imdb: "Brad Pitt was so embarrassed by his performance in movies Cutting Class, Meet Joe Black, and Seven Years In Tibet, he's apologized to film critics. He admits some of his roles in the late 1980s and 1990s were not his strongest - and agrees with movie critics who claim his earlier work is not his best. But Pitt insists the experience has made him a much better actor. He says, 'I believe I'm quite capable and we, as people, can learn to do anything, and that's proof of it! And my education is on film, on record! Now I can take on anything that comes my way and find truth in it an do a pretty good job.'"

I find this unbelievable. I've never seen Cutting Class, but I'll admit it doesn't look so good. But Meet Joe Black and Seven Years in Tibet are both magnificent films. How can you go back and say that Seven Years in Tibet, a film that moved people (and offended the Chinese so much that it got Pitt banned from China), is an embarrassment? Obviously it was a big deal. And maybe Meet Joe Black was a huge financial flop in 1998, but people love it now. (And hey—my mom paid the $4.50 for me to see it in 1998!) So who cares if it made money? It's beautiful. Beautiful. And the acting was not bad. In fact, I can't think of one thing I've ever seen Pitt in, whether the movie was good or bad, in which his acting was bad. He's just brilliant, and that's all there is to it.

And this movie is brilliant as well. If you haven't seen it, you MUST. "Sooner or later, everyone does," as the tagline said....

Rating: 5.0