At this point in the series the X-Files started really to play with the ideas about government conspiracies. Of course it had all been there right from the start but this is where the show’s so-called “mythology arc” really gets into gear.This will reach great heights towards season 3 (arguably one of the best season not just of the X-Files but to any TV series) and unfortunately it will get itself a bit too tangled up towards the later seasons. It also introduces the shadowy idea that the X-Files could be shut down any moment (and as fans know, this is going to happened more than once) as well as the character Max Fennig, who will come back later on and play a crucial role in season 3. The X-Files is still trying to find the right formula to all these elements which it’s exploring, but even if a lot of this episode is rather unmemorable (in fact it’s as if I was watching it for the first time), a lot of what will make the show great can be seen here, even if in small doses.
This is often regarded as the lowest point of the entire 10 year series and I can see why: I complete honesty I cannot find a single redeemable feature in it, from the uninspiring intro all the way to the terrible speeches at the end and everything that was in between.For a start it’s really boring, and that’s its greatest sin: it feels like a 10 minutes story stretched over 40-something. An untrusting story, with bland character and in which Mulder and Scully are basically left to do pretty much nothing but watch other people looking at screens: they bring nothing to the table, neither their experience, not their charm. The actual idea of dealing with real space exploration could have been quite a refreshing change from aliens but its execution is so lame (mixing stock shots of shuttles with a cheap-looking NASA station) that they should have dropped it. I gave this one enough time already, so enough talking about it.The only good thing about watching it today is that to erase it from my memory as quick as possible I can watch another one straight away without having to wait a week.
This very competently made documentary talks the fight to remove “homosexuality” as a mental disorder from the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual (it stood right next to “Pedophilia”)
It starts off with a very grabby pre-title, which is probably slightly in-your-face but very still very effective and which sets the tone for some of shocking things one is reminded off in the rest of the film. In a not too distant past, only a few decades ago, gay and lesbian people were sent to be “cure” with shock treatments, lobotomies and even castration. In some instances their memories were erased “It was like removing a chink of their”, “Like a horror movie” somebody says at some point. Needless to say, some of the archive mages from the film are hard to watch, but the stories are told with great warmth by some incredibly likeable people, most of whom lived through those times and are now the kind of grandpa or grandma one would like to have. It’s a fairly straight forward documentary, with beautiful evocative archive, talking heads and lots of graphics in the form of old photos and newspaper articles. It won’t set the world on fire, it probably runs out of steam in a few places feeling slightly repetitive but it’s still a real eye opener: an important documentary, especially when one thinks conversion centres still exists in America and in many places homosexuality is still outlawed.
A potentially interesting idea gets wasted in a film that loses its way and forgets what should have been about more than once.
The story is inspired by a series of protests in a Rumania and particularly one in a bucharest cinema where a screening of a high profile lesbian film got essentially highjacked by a group of religious protesters. The film re-imagines the event placing a closeted policeman at the centre of the story, having to control the situation on one hand while at the same time dealing with his own ghosts.
The whole situation get trickier when one of the people in the cinema recognises the policeman as one of his past lovers.
With the backdrop of one of the most backwards country when it comes to recognising and accepting LGBT’s communities, this could have been a a really interesting story.
Instead the director seems to run out of steam and ideas in a film that’s already pretty short. His insistence to film everything on long continuous takes while on one hand makes the sequence when we first meet the protesters very real, on the other hand doesn’t allow the the editor to pace it or to control its dialogue, hence we are left with very long extraneous sequences (like one when 2 policemen are talking about a dog being abandoned) and the film loses its focus.
Instead the director seems to run out of steam and ideas in a film that’s already pretty short. His insistence to film everything on long continuous takes while on one hand makes the sequence when we first meet the protesters very real, on the other hand doesn’t allow the the editor to pace the film or to control its dialogue, hence we are left with very long extraneous sequences (like one when 2 policemen are talking about a dog being abandoned) and the film loses its focus.
Not a complete waste: some good performances and sporadic goo moments but I think the fact that such film comes out of Romania is more interesting than the film itself.
First things first: I have never seen the original “Justice League” and to be honest after seeing everybody’s reaction to this director’s cut, saying that this is an improvement of the previous version, I don’t think I ever want to see it. So basically I’m giving you my thoughts on the basis of what I have just seen (almost 4 hours of my life I’ll never get back) and not on what they fixed improved or changed from the theatrical cut. First of all I should say that NO film should be 4 hours long.
This was an ill-conceived project to start with, whatever version you’re watching and to say that this version serves better storylines and characters because it has more time to do so, is just not enough of a good reason.
As it is this film feels like a compilation or a cut-down of an entire TV season about DC superheroes squeezed in 4 hours. With no beginning and no ending.It starts with a messy recap of a bad film I had tried to forget (Batman vs Superman) and after almost 4 hours it still managed to leave us with cliffhangers, unresolved plots and open ends: what an utter deflating experience.
In the middle of all that, a whole lot of GCI mess and then here and there some clumsy backstories for some of the characters which felt slightly crowbarred and tagged on. Let’s face it, no film should ever do so much weight lifting and introducing so many new characters in one go.
So let’s talk about its length really: did it need to be so long? Absolutely NOT. Speaking here as a (pretentious and presumptuous) film editor with almost 30 years of professional experience in cutting things down, I do honestly believe there is a better film (not a perfect one, mind you) to be made out there with some serious tightening, as I have said I have not see Weadon’s version, but I’m told that wasn’t the one.I thought the first hour or so was almost entirely expandable (and so were the last 20 minutes, which really belong to another film… or actually 2 other films).
So many scenes felt superfluous, while few others were pointless fan service, (including a pointless twist which actually ruins a potentially decent and poignant scene between Lois Lane and Clark Kent’s mother), but more crucially the internal pacing of most sequences seemed indulgent to say the least. A lot of that has to do with Snyder’s style of film-making, with those constant agonising slow-motion shots, often adding very little in my view (in fact they could have shaped off at least 40 minutes by running those at normal speed). But hey, once again, that’s Zack Snyder for you: self-serious, ponderous, downbeat, very few smiles, murky-toned-down-colours and lot of slow-motion. If you like that kind of stuff, this might as well be your thing. I just wanted to reach our to the remote control and make it go at least twice as fast (something very funny actually happened at one point: as I stretched my leg on my couch I accidentally hit the remote and shut off my tv just during one of those end-less slomo shot. It took me about 15/20 seconds to turn it on again, and guess what? It was still on the same slomo shot… haha).
I also have to say (and I know I might sound like an old man talking) all those dark grays and blacks in the film didn’t help much when it came to work out who’s doing what to whom an where… There’s a scene about half way through underground where I had some real problems trying to figure out what the hell was going on in terms of who was hitting whom? Not that it matter much. At the end of the day, it’s all the same stuff: people hitting each other and nobody ever getting hurt. In fact I thought one could play a nice drinking game every times a superhero (or a baddie) get thrown up in the air and against a brick wall.
The film is so over-stylised and CGI-heavy that ends up having the opposite effect of those Nolan’s Batman movies and feels artificial and removed from any reality. I rarely cared about anything that was happening on the screen. Not once I laughed or got moved or even went wow. Nothing. No emotion whatsoever, except at the very end when the credits came up, at which point I finally felt relived and said about “thank F**k for that”.
It doesn’t get the 1 star treatment because actually all the actors do the best they can with what they’re given ( I particularly liked Ezra Miller as the Flash), but as a film it’s an over-blown mess which should never have been made as a one-film. And that’s from somebody who’s grown up reading Superman and Batman comics. Potentially I was the perfect audience for this.
I don’t understand how can this film be possibly among the top 120 favourite film on imdb. Please enlighten me! Leave me a message and let me know.
MovieGeekBlog 