when respecting a director , you must also respect the fact that they are not perfect .
woody allen has made a couple less - than good films , and he 's my favorite .
even martin scorsese has n't had a perfect track record .
kevin smith , after a smashing debut with the classic " clerks " stooped as low to sell - out and make the dreadful " mallrats .
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i mean , so far the only director who 's made several films , none of which have been bad is richard linklater ( " slacker , " " dazed and confused , " " before sunrise , " and " suburbia " . . .
all which were great ) .
now , i adore quentin tarantino .
his first two films were classic films , the second one being one of the greatest films of all time .
but 1995 just was n't that good of a year for him .
he made way too many tv appearances .
he mispronounced jackie chan 's name on the mtv movie awards .
and he made this film .
( he was also awarded an oscar , so i guess that would be a grand exception ) .
robert rodriguez is also a great director ; not a brilliant one , but a cool one .
i 've never seen an alexandre rockwell or allison anders film , so i ca n't comment on them . but
in this crap ensemble director 's film , all four give pitiful efforts .
pitiful for any director , too .
now in all fairness , ensemble director pieces never really work out .
i 've never seen all of " new york stories , " but have heard the first two films , by scorsese and francis ford coppola are crap ( i saw woody 's one , which was hilarious but not totally up to par ) .
but i will rate each film individually and then report back to you on the overal average score of the film .
exposition : a simple one - a bellhop , ted ( the totally overdone tim roth , who 's a god and all , but not in this one , though he has a couple good moments ) is working on new year 's eve for his first shift ( ! ! ! )
in an old fancy hotel .
he 's the only one there ( again : ! ! ! )
and he only has a couple rooms ( yet again : ! ! ! ) .
the old bellhop ( the seemingly immortal marc lawrence - who hated pulp fiction actually ) hands over his cap to ted and he goes to his job happily .
as the night goes on , he becomes increasingly annoyed and hostile .
yea .
( the short films are presented in order , btw ) :
the missing ingredient writer / director :
allison anders starring : sammi davis , amanda decadenet , valeria golino , madonna , ione skye , lili taylor , alicia witt
this one starts it off horribly with no plot , no intrigue , and crap dialogue .
the situation is so terrible that it 's physically painful to watch .
the plot has something to do with a coven of witches needing sperm to bring back a godess who is ( gasp ! )
stuck inside some object in their hotel room .
the witch that was supposed to bring it ( ione skye ) calls up ted and asks him if she can perform fellatio on him to get it .
yeah ,
that 's what i said .
stupid plot , inane characters who are n't interesting at all , etc , etc , etc .
the only good thing about this is it has a good cast which , in turn , it wastes pitifully .
not even actually funny for a second .
my rating ( out of 5 ) : no stars ! ! ! !
the wrong man writer / director : alexandre rockwell starring : david proval , jennifer beals and laurence bender
another bad little film with another stupid sex thing going on .
ted stumbles into the wrong room or something and gets in the middle of a couple ( david proval and jennifer beals in her attempt at " coming back " ) who are playing sex games .
ted tries to escape and we cheer him on
so it will end soon .
but at least this has a bit of comedy in it , just not that much . and david proval has never overacted as much .
and it 's " pulp fiction " producer laurence bender who gets to puke from a window .
a masterpiece compared to the first one , but still . . .
the misbehavers writer / director : robert rodriguez starring : antonio banderes , tamlyn tomita , lana mckissack , danny verduzco , salma hayek would a robert rodriguez film be the same without salma hayek 's navel ?
nope .
luckily she 's on the tv dancing
so we get to see her .
surprisingly enough , when i read the screenplay ( about a year before actually seeing it ) , this one seemed to have the most potential .
it was fast - paced , funny , and well , funny .
but when i watched it , it seemed anti - climactic and only seemed to gain any momentum towards the end when everything happened at once .
antonio overacts nicely and the two kids ( lana and danny ) are funny .
but , as i said , it moves slowly and in that way , it 's more painful than funny .
but the ending was stupid and funny at the same time .
oh !
the plot : antonio is a supposed gangster ( assumed , really ) who leaves his two troubling kids home while he and his wife ( tomita ) go out to get drunk at a new year 's party .
antonio hires ted for a couple bucks to watch his kids all night long , but things go wrong .
. .
it was okay .
the man from hollywood writer / director : quentin tarantino starring : quentin tarantino , bruce willis , paul calderon and jennifer beals ( again ) ironically , this one could be considered the best for a bad reason : it best represents what quentin has done with this film .
he plays chester , a spoiled brat actor or something who has just had a huge box - office hit on his hands and is living it up by playing an anti - climactic game from a hitchcock tv episode starring steve mcqueen and peter lorre where they gamble to see if one of them can get light from his lighter ten times in a row .
they 're drunk and need sober but nervous ted to hold the cleaver and bring it down if the lighter does n't light .
they also pay him a lot of cash .
this is so much exactly what this little film is about that it 's campy .
tim roth was probably payed a lot of money to do this stupid part in this stupid film made by a bunch of people who are high on themselves 'cause they 've had hits , major or minor .
it took quentin to realize that .
but the thing is , it does n't seem like he realizes that .
if he did , i 'd give this a good 3 stars .
but this sucked .
it was anti - climactic and the dialogue was n't very good
.
he starts off with a very long steadicam shot then goes to flashes .
that makes no sense .
it 's cool for a while , then he makes it uneven .
it 's long and it 's just not very good
.
hopefully quentin never repeats what he did with this one .
conclusion :
what 's the moral here ?
if you 've made celebrated films , do n't do an ensemble piece .
they should have re - watched " new york stories " and then stopped in their tracks . none of these have any point to them
and they 're embarrassing
to not only the writer / directors , but to the actors 'cause they 're working with crap .
but i will forgive everyone involved and i especially look forward to quentin 's next directing job ( even though he and rodriguez jumped back to the top immeadiately with the cool " from dusk till dawn , " which i found exhilerating ) .
i love quentin and i suppose it 's good
he made " the man from hollywood " because it makes him seem more realistic and not some " god of cinema .
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i seem to respect directors if they are n't " gods " and are actually human beings who make mistakes .
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the man from hollywood " is his big mistake and let 's hope he does n't return her continuously .
Output: N