Problem: This review is like what?

Review:...is the only way to describe this movie about subjects that should be surefire: scandal, sex, celebrity, power. Kirsten Dunst grins her way through her role as silent movie star Marion Davies like she thinks she's in "Legally Blonde." The guy who plays William Randolph Hearst overacts to the point where you want to reach into the screen and slap him. Eddie Izzard is pretty good, except that he's playing Charlie Chaplin, and is about, oh, 125 lbs too heavy for the part? Hard to believe this hamfisted, uneven wreck was directed by Peter Bogdanovich, but then again, he hasn't made a watchable movie in, what? 30 years? Sometimes, there's just no coming back.
+++++++++
A: negative

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:"Painting is seeing, then remembering better than you saw." So says Dick Heldar (Ronald Colman), the painter in The Light That Failed.The movie is in the grand old Hollywood style, starring Ronald Colman and a bravura supporting cast that includes Ida Lupino in her first important role, dependable character actor Dudley Digges (who also co-starred with Colman in Condemned.),and a solid performance by the wonderful actor Walter Huston.

The title and opening sequences of the film pretty much give away the fact that Dick will lose his sight. He's blinded by gun powder discharge as he and childhood sweetheart Maisie (Muriel Angelus) are playing with a pistol. Later a wound while fighting in the Sudan is the catalyst for his blindness. He becomes a famous painter, but he's already blinded by ambition, and doesn't really reach his full potential until the point that his sight is leaving him. Enter bad girl Bessie (Ida Lupino), and his self destruction is set in motion. Lupino is very powerful in this role and plays off Colman very well. Her evil tart reminds me of Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage.

Well acted and well directed, this is one of my favorite Colman melodramas.
+++++++++
A: positive

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:Drawing Restraint 9. dir: Matthew Barney.

How do you know when you're in the middle of a pretentious art film? Is it that there is only 8 lines of dialogue in 140 minutes of film? Is it when Bjork is wearing what looks like a giant furry pita on her head in a pseudo-Asian ritual? Maybe when mammoth turds and spinal columns are used in a whale blubber experiment. Or, when you're about ready to kill the composer for making a minimal, and still annoying, version of a Philip Glass score? In any case, Drawing Restraint 9 is among the most pretentious of the modern art movies. At 135 minutes, it adds to its pretension by being boring to boot. I would call the use of color stunning, and the opening sequence interesting, but the rest of the movie looked like it was filmed for a Discovery Channel documentary. That is until it looks like they were trying to film their version of P-ss Christ, but that will be coming up later.

Actually, the documentary-esquire portions were the best parts of it. The surface plot is about a whaling ship, and then there is a ritual about making whale fat. Then, there are the guests in the form of Bjork and Matthew Barney who are welcomed on the ship by being put through a ritual of humiliation which includes passed-out head shaving (think frat boy pranks), nicotine patches, and giant furry pita hats. Then there is mutual evisceration, cannibalism, and lets not forget the giant turd.

Matthew Barney has written that this is about "the relationship between self-imposed resistance and creativity." That's almost like saying, "if you don't get it, then you're not creative in your interpretation, so sod off because I'm an artist." Oh, wait, that's the POST-modern interpretation of that sentence and what the movie would be about if it was POST-modern. But, its supposed to be Modern art. Which is about the art itself.

So, let's start this whole interpretation bit, shall we? The following lines are only 3/4 serious and should not be taken as any realistic attempt to interpret the movie.

The first half-hour concerns pearl divers and the construction of a giant ramp. Obviously, the ramp is symbolic of the need for self-elevation to whatever standards you hold dear, and the pearl divers are looking for pearls of wisdom. Then, on a whaling ship, they build a crate that looks like it is in the crude shape of a whale. Obviously a crude element of foreshadowing.

On the ship, they make whale fat inside the shape of the whale, and take out the fins portion. They replace this with a spinal column and later a giant turd. These are supposed to be the states of the movie itself. When its fat, its entertaining but bad for you. When it is the spinal column, its the "important" parts of the movie, or the backbone so to speak. Then, the giant turd is the bowels of the movie, or when the movie is crap.

Bjork and Matthew Barney the arrive on separate ships, are put into strange humiliating outfits which AREN'T EVEN WELL MADE OR SYMMETRICAL, one suspects that they ran out of money and Barney was trying to quit smoking. SO, they put patches on his head. They go through a ritual and learn about the ship from a Japanese wise man, who tells them that the ship is scarred from when another ship hit it; a crash or intersection, if you will. This inspires Bjork and Barney, who are different on the outside, to start cutting each other's legs off and eat them so they could turn into whales themselves and be the same person. They intersect. Oh, did I forget to mention that this has been done in a Robbie Williams video? Then, the pearl divers come back with their mouths full of pearls of knowledge which they let fall to make a stupid Venn Diagram. Barney made it through 8th grade geometry, obviously. Or, maybe at least some social studies.

Oh, and did I forget Bjork's ear-gouging I-want-to-kill-her score? At times it is hypnotic, but at others you just want to assassinate her.

Art film is one thing, but when you just throw up all sorts of symbolism in the hopes of getting a reaction out of people, it becomes a self-destructive joke. When do you cross the line between becoming a joke in terms of art? Dali and Bunuel frequently made surreal pieces of nonsense but were more coherent and/or entertaining than this piece of trash. Un Chien Andalou had the sensibility to cram as much symbolism as it could into less than half an hour.

So, can I recommend this? Only if you like dull HIGH ART films with lots of symbolism and flat imagery.

D+
+++++++++
A:
negative