perfect 10 in the world of crap

Rating: 1/10 (5 May 2008)

students of mass hysteria take note: a critical mass of positive commentary has tipped the bucket of critical opinion over into a pool of blind, fervent, admiration.
This movie is a disaster. On so many levels.
1. acting: The award winning portrayal is one note, badly played. Yul Brenner in Westworld except he's not supposed to be a robot. The voice (I didn't rcognize it for John Huston's- but it is clearly) does not fit, does not modulate, and is as substantial and iritating as a sheet of wax-paper obscuring our view of the character. Just as well, the character doesn't move.
2. staging: It doesn't look like California. Nothing like it (except for the beach at pt conception). I assumed we were in Texas until the idiot characters started dropping names like Bakersfield. When they were talking Signal Hill, early on, I wondered "Is there a Signal Hill in Texas too?" Jeeze.
3. score: artless, weird and obnoxious.
4. story: No story, really.
5. dialogue: Unreal and out of period with jarring modern references.
6. camera-work: weird, arty nonsensical flourishes. Blurry stuff in the foreground obscuring your view. Also, keeping out of the frame the thing you want to look at, etc..
The mine accidents remind me of the "mousetrap" death scenes in that movie about the people who cheat death, and then have to pay... you know, it catches up with them in improbable ways. It takes some kind of genius to make a mine accident look improbable, got to give them credit for that.
Also, I didn't know mines and miners were so colorful--- the mine scenes I've seen before at Disneyland.
One of the worst "films" I have ever sat through.