Problem: positive
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Answer: This highly underrated film is (to me) what good writing in a movie should be all about. Kasdan takes the search for meaning in our lives and lays it out for all to see and wonder at. The movie is about the divides people create to insulate themselves from the violence and hatred and bigotry of everyday life.

Along the way we are asked question after question about life. Davis (Steve Martin with a great beard) asks himself 'Is my making a violent movie (and by extension our enjoyment of it) causing the violence in society?' Claire asks "What kind of world throws away something as precious as a human life?' Mack is not immune as he asks 'Is it possible to pass beyond the bounds of race and (an even harder step) finance? These are of course not quoted from the film, but generalities. Others ask their questions too, and to be honest it raises more than it answers.

But that is the nature of life. We strive all our lives to find answers to questions we will never totally answer, and in certain cases have to make answers fit to our own needs and desires. As humans we thrive on questions we cannot answer. Some answers are real. Claire and Mack come to realize that even though they could take the easy road and let the state take the baby, their finding it placed the responsibility for her life in their hands. Some answers are not. Davis 'Sees the Light' and decides not to make violent films, but the next day turns around and dismisses his epiphany as subordinate to his art.

We all seek answers. This movie does not answer them for; it simply reminds you to keep looking for the answers.

Problem: negative
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Answer: It is a real shame that nearly no one under 30 knows the "over the top" writing of Michael O'Donoghugh- magazine articles and SNL skits that were genius for the time...and so it is a true shame that anyone who may take the opportunity to research his work will no doubt take the easy way out and watch videos- thus leading them to MR MIKES MONDO VIDEO.

This movie has clever elements that never fully connect to the funny bone. The viewer experiences such things as cat diving/swimming with the man who thinks he's found feline happiness by hurling these kittens into a pool which the camera follows in slow motion and montage sequence. Then we are taken to an island to where all past fads are retired (hula hops, pet rocks, rainbow dread wigs etc.) Then we enter the music world (punk was a new variety of music at the time of this film) where "D" rate bar performer Rootboy Slim performs "boogie till you puke" in his own lazy style of dirt and eclectic sleaze. Now the real beauty of all this is the back ground music. In many different styles with many different instruments the sound of TELSTAR plays and replays- for those who don't understand Telstar was the first American Satellite launched into space and the theme was created to celebrate mans genius and triumph. MR MIKES seems to have been meant as a signal of societal decay ridiculous wastes. Now one thing the theater offered that the video release does not was a live performance of Sid Vicious (ex sex pistol not the wrestler) singing MY WAY. His version is very different than Sinatras as one might imagine but frankly I feel it is very much worth the listen...it's good! That is the sad part- in the VHS release Paul Anka refuses the rights of his song and the viewer is forced to experience 3 1/2 minutes of silence with an explanation rolling across the image of the singing dead sex pistol.

I would give the theater release a 5 or 6 the video is closer to a 4 and now that so much is passe I can see where many people would give it a 3 or 2.5. If you want to see a good O'Donoghugh script watch SCROOGED...it is a better tribute to the mans insight and talent.

Problem: positive
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Answer:
I had heard this film was a study of a landscape photographer's art by presenting the beauty in man's deconstructing the natural landscape. It certainly showed the laborious activities to find locations, setup shots, and capture stark images whose final destinations were art studios worldwide. Put together in moving pictures it is truly a horror show.

This film oozes by you supplanting the shock of ghastly images with gentle waves of a wonderful industrial soundtrack that guides you like on slow moving river. Each sequence stands on its own, but in combination you get deeper and deeper into the feeling of overwhelming inevitability. There are few words, this allowing the grandeur in what is shown to preach in its own way. An awful, massive factory filled with human automata who live in hopelessly lifeless dormitories. Individuals dying early while rummaging for recyclable scraps in mountains of our E-waste. The birthing of gigantic ships and their destruction by hand in giant graveyards. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam, the largest industrial project in human history and likely for all time. The time lapse as a city dies and is simultaneously reborn into a replica of modernity that purposefully destroys all relics of the culture that was.

The most terrifying image for me was a dam engineer explaining that the most important function of the dam was flood control. The shot shifts to the orchard behind the spokesperson where you witness the level of the last flood by the toxic water having eaten the bark from the trees, demonstrating that nothing but the most hideous vermin could be living in the waters.

The obvious not being stated is far more powerful than your normal preachy Save the Earth documentaries. The artist Edward Burtynsky explains the method wonderfully. 'By not saying what you should see many people today sit in an uncomfortable spot where you don't necessarily want to give up what we have but we realize what we're doing is creating problems that run deep. It is not a simple right or wrong. It needs a whole new way of thinking'. The subtlety of this descends into an either/or proposition, but the film images scream that the decision has very much been made in favor of the dark side.

Though never stated directly in any way, as the waves of what you witness wash away from your awareness and you contemplate, there is only one conclusion possible we are doomed. The progress of mankind that is inexorable from our natures leaves behind carnage that this artist finds terrifying beauty in. What he is actually capturing are the tracks of we the lemmings rushing unconsciously toward our own demise. Unlike most films with environmental themes, this one ends with no call to arms. It argues basically what's the point, but makes certain you place the blame properly on all of us equally.