Friday, 9/11/09

Three movies not screened for critics: Whiteout, Sorority Row, and I Can Do Bad All By Myself.

Broken Hill - 1 star

A movie about a kid in Australia who dreams of being a conductor. But guess what? His dad doesn't approve. His dad wants him to stay put and help work on the farm. This is an outline of a movie. Someone forgot to go in and write the thing. Very corny, cliched, and predictable.

9 - didn't see

This is based on a short film, 9 by Shane Acker, which is available on youtube. I recommend you watch the short film (its only about 10 minutes long) before you decide whether to see the new movie.

Adoration - 1 1/2 stars

I'm ok with a movie that makes me pay attention and put the pieces together. I'm ok with a story told out of sequence, as long as it makes sense at the end. But this movie just didn't work.

A kid reads a story to his class. The story is about how his father set his mother up to be a suicide bomber. The bomb didn't go off, or he wouldn't be here today. But wait - the story isn't true. It's an assignment by his teacher. She asks him to read the story as if it were true, as a drama project. But for some reason, he decides to not tell anyone the story isn't true, and it ends up on the internet. There are many scenes of him in a video chatroom watching people debate his story.

His parents really died in a car accident, and he was raised by his uncle. His drama teacher has some kind of connection to his late father, and his grandpa was a racist. There, I just saved you 100 minutes.

Tetro - 2 stars

Tetro is the son of a famous composer. He hates his family and moves to Argentina to get away from them. One day, his younger brother shows up at his door. See, he promised his brother he would come back for him one day, and he never did. His brother wants to reconnect with him, but Tetro wants nothing to do with him.

Tetro is a writer who never publishes anything. He also never finishes anything. When his brother reads a story Tetro wrote, he complains that it doesn't have an ending. Tetro replies that it doesn't need an ending.

Francis Ford Coppola is done making movies like The Godfather, Dracula, or The Rainmaker. Now, he is making small, personal films. That's a noble ambition, but he should still try to make them watchable. Tetro is not a bad movie, but it moves very slow. It felt every bit of its two hour running time.

The movie does look great. It is in black and white, except for the flashbacks, which are in color.