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- Jan 2, 2007
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Chie & Kadath's odd film reviews
Basically, Chie & I have been wanting to do reviews of all the strange movies we come across for awhile. We'd love to share our reviews with people, and we'd also love to see people recommend films they think we should see. Occasionally we may do what we call a 'Vs.' review. Obviously we don't share the same opinions, but Vs. reviews are essentially on films that one considers brilliance and the other thinks is the worst thing they've ever seen.
Color Key
Chie's comments are in BLUE
Kadath's Comments are in RED
Our first review is on the film
The City of Lost Children.
Year: 1995
Language/Country of Origin: French
Starring
Ron Perlman as One
Daniel Emilfork as Krank
Judith Vittet as Miette
Jean-Claude Dreyfus as Marcello
Directed by
Marc Caro
&
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Written by
Gilles Adrien
&
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Content advisory:
Language: 3 instances of low-key (PG level) language.
Crude Humor: One instance of toilet humor (According to Chie, 4).
Sexuality: A brief (millesecond long) shot of 5 topless women, as well as some crude sexual jokes involving animals and another involving flirtation with a woman in fairly racy clothing.
Violence: Fairly tame, but there is some offscreen death and one scene with a fair amount of blood.
Other 'objectionable' content: The theme and style of the movie is VERY dark and would have scenes that are likely to scare young children. Although Chie & I agree that it could've goten away with a PG-13, we know people are probably going to say the nudity warrants it an R but if anything warrants it an R, it's the extremely dark and sometimes disturbing world and theme of the movie.
Chie's rating: 9.5/10
Kadath's Rating: 10/10
Overall rating: 9.8 (Nearly Perfect)
Brief Summary: In a surrealistic future, a scientist attempts to immortalize himself by creating copies. Each one is increasingly flawed; he creates a woman who is only 'knee high to a grasshoper.' 4 clones in his image have a sleeping illness. To keep himself company, he recovered a nearly dead brain and preserved it in a tank, but it is cynical and often ridden with migraines giving it a bitter tone. As he worked on his final, and most important piece. He created a human being who was smarter than any current living being, but his flaw was that he couldn't dream. Driven mad and old (Yes, old, he aged further than the other clones because of this.) from this lack, the bitter 'Krank' creates a machine to steal dreams from children, but each Child he has kidnapped has only given him a nightmare due to their fear of him. When he finally finds the right kid, a kid who is not afraid of him, he becomes entagled with the kids older brother, the slow witted but lucky and strong 'One'. One himself ends up becoming involved and even falling in love with the young orphan Miette who steals jewelery for her corrupted headmistresses (who happen to be conjoined twins) from the orphanage. The film is filled with dark humor, surreal themes, and several unique characters and ideas.
THE REVIEW
[Wow. I am stunned, really. I will admit I wasn't expecting much from the title or really what I read about this movie.
I'd say the same thing, although I had believed the good reviews I read, which is one of the main reasons I went out of my way to see it. I'm glad to see the positive views on this movie, it definitely deserves it. The first thing that really stood out about this film as it began was the overall.. Gilliam-esque feel. While it definitely has it's own unique style, it seems like it would easily have been a film that Gilliam would have made. I'd like to see what he thought of this film.
I felt that throughout the later portion of the film, but not really the first. In fact I'd say the first 5 minutes gave me a bad impression. I wasn't impressed by the room full of ugly Santa Clauses, a pooping raindeer, and then nearly 2 minutes of 6 french people screaming at the top of their lungs.
You kind of have a point there... I'm not going to dock the movie for that.
I think I will dock some points for that. Unfortunately there are other parts of this movie that repeat this offense, although thankfully only in much more minor doses. The movie picks up from there though, I think as soon as I saw 'Uncle Irvin' I started to see hope for this film after the abysmal opening. Uncle Irvin is going on my top 10 'weird not-so-evil-bad-guys list. I've seen disembodied brains in jars, but this one makes the idea kind of fresh again. Every thing seems weird about him, but at the same time understandable. He sees through an old frame by frame camera, how his 'voice' is projected over old phonograph speakers, etc. Kind of made methink of something from thegood ol' days of sci-fi.
Definitely. It's really sort of hard to explain this film, it's one of those 'needs to be seen' films. Some of the readers here might think we are speaking gibberish.
I think it can be explained in the right hands, the story itself is a bit of a dark fairy tale (Uncle Irvin even tells the story of their creation and flaws through the form of a fairy tale.) it's really the visuals and overall.. feeling of the film that is a bit hard to explain.
Could you maybe explain in what way you think the film repeated the 'offense' of the first scene?
A lot of the humor. While the film certainly has some very offbeat but funny scenes, some attempts seem crude at best. I mean, did we really need 2 more animal dung jokes and a scene of dogs humping?
I don't remember any more animal poop jokes, though I think the humor of the dogs humping comes from the setup. It's kind of a parody of how things that normally take time seem to happen so quickly. That scene was a bit odd anyways. The only way I could describe the setup was it was basically a butterfuly effect that was started by a tear. Y'see, the headmistresses of the orphanage weren't too happy with Miette running off with One, nor keeping their jewelery. They have a friend who controls a highly powerful drug that has a bit of a psychosis effect. Once some organ grinder music is played, the person under the influence becomes highly violent. One is a professional strongman, as established early in the movie and is quite big (As Ron Perlman himself is.). The headmistress wants revenge, so she gets Miette to return the jewels before playing the music. The whole domino/butterfly effect begins when Miette sheds a tear, which somehow gets flung halfway across town. It lands in a spider web, and creates enough noise to alert a nearby parrot who wakes up a dog. The dog starts barking, and annoys its owner. The yelling of the dog and the owner startles a nearby rat, who runs off. The flea, which is used to spread the drug by carrying a needle with the drug on it's snout, inserting the drug into the victims scalp and then scampering off without the slightest possibility of alerting the victim, lands on another nearby dog. The rat alerts a cat, and the rat becomes even more urgent. The rat runs into what one would presume (by the brief millesecond shot of nude women) was a strip club, scares the women who come running out who startle the dog. The flea in some weird way controls the dog to take him/her back to their original owner. The flea somehow alerts the.. okay, i forgot the rest. It was funny though.
You failed to explain how the dogs humping added to the humor. I admit it was a funny, if not silly scene. Definitely one of the better domino effect scenes. There is really only one other negative thing I could say about this film.
And that is...?
For the main character, at least the top bill, One is really quite two dimensional and a bit uninteresting in this otherwise rich world.
While I think he definitely wasn't the most interesting character, I liked him. He had some fun moments, even if he didn't quite jump outside the stereotype for the 'loveable, slow, but lucky oaf' character. Honestly, this is one of the few movies in a good maybe 4 or 5 years I would give a perfect score. I doubt even Naked Lunch would take a perfect rating.
Oh gawd, not Naked Lunch. Please don't bring up Naked Lunch. Seriuosly folks, this guy will rant on about naked lunch for hours.
I smell a good candidate for our first 'Vs.' review.
NO! you are not making me sit through that trash again, also I don't want to hear you rant on about how deep it is again. Let's just stick with this movie, please...
*chuckles* I'm not going to make you watch it again, but I still think we should do the review.
*Censored. Seriously, what she said here was enough to offend the unoffendable me, so it's definitely not suitable for eGO.*
Okay, let's just stick with this movie for now.
Overall? It's a great surreal film worth your buck. It's got an interesting and unique plot, great visuals (With the exception of a few dated CG effects. The practical effects have a serious fakeness to them, but they actually fit with the surreal feel of the whole movie), and just about everything else you'd expect from a good film. Humor, intrigue, excitement (Although it's not as far removed from an 'action' flick as possible, with the exception of the explosion at the end, there are a few scenes that add some fun 'exciting' scenes.) and an ending that doesn't feel tacked on. All flaws are minor and will be forgiven in the end. 10/10
I can say some flaws are a tad too annoying to forgive, but otherwise it nearly got a perfect score. If it had less dog sex, poop, and screaming french people, it would take a perfect score from me as well. Thankfully these problems are 'minor' enough that they don't detract from the movie as a whole, they are all things I dislike to see in a film such as this. They are just too out of place. The rest of the film is excellent though, and highly recommended. It earns the Chie seal of approval. (No blank/10 scores. I hate them)
*Removes seal of approval, replaces with 9.5/10* Next time, 'Naked Lunch' folks
.
I hate you. I hate you so ****** much. I really want to kill you right now, seriously. Why did I marry you?
*Chuckles.* So, are you going to murder me by chihuahua like you've been threatening for a year or so now?
*Gives Kadath a nosebleed VIA telephone.*
Mmyep, all in all Check out this movie. No questions asked. Leave comments on the review, any opinions from those who have seen the movie as well, and of course as I stated above, if you would like to see us review a movie you like (or hate to the core) let us know.
Basically, Chie & I have been wanting to do reviews of all the strange movies we come across for awhile. We'd love to share our reviews with people, and we'd also love to see people recommend films they think we should see. Occasionally we may do what we call a 'Vs.' review. Obviously we don't share the same opinions, but Vs. reviews are essentially on films that one considers brilliance and the other thinks is the worst thing they've ever seen.
Color Key
Chie's comments are in BLUE
Kadath's Comments are in RED
Our first review is on the film
The City of Lost Children.
Year: 1995
Language/Country of Origin: French
Starring
Ron Perlman as One
Daniel Emilfork as Krank
Judith Vittet as Miette
Jean-Claude Dreyfus as Marcello
Directed by
Marc Caro
&
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Written by
Gilles Adrien
&
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Content advisory:
Language: 3 instances of low-key (PG level) language.
Crude Humor: One instance of toilet humor (According to Chie, 4).
Sexuality: A brief (millesecond long) shot of 5 topless women, as well as some crude sexual jokes involving animals and another involving flirtation with a woman in fairly racy clothing.
Violence: Fairly tame, but there is some offscreen death and one scene with a fair amount of blood.
Other 'objectionable' content: The theme and style of the movie is VERY dark and would have scenes that are likely to scare young children. Although Chie & I agree that it could've goten away with a PG-13, we know people are probably going to say the nudity warrants it an R but if anything warrants it an R, it's the extremely dark and sometimes disturbing world and theme of the movie.
Chie's rating: 9.5/10
Kadath's Rating: 10/10
Overall rating: 9.8 (Nearly Perfect)
Brief Summary: In a surrealistic future, a scientist attempts to immortalize himself by creating copies. Each one is increasingly flawed; he creates a woman who is only 'knee high to a grasshoper.' 4 clones in his image have a sleeping illness. To keep himself company, he recovered a nearly dead brain and preserved it in a tank, but it is cynical and often ridden with migraines giving it a bitter tone. As he worked on his final, and most important piece. He created a human being who was smarter than any current living being, but his flaw was that he couldn't dream. Driven mad and old (Yes, old, he aged further than the other clones because of this.) from this lack, the bitter 'Krank' creates a machine to steal dreams from children, but each Child he has kidnapped has only given him a nightmare due to their fear of him. When he finally finds the right kid, a kid who is not afraid of him, he becomes entagled with the kids older brother, the slow witted but lucky and strong 'One'. One himself ends up becoming involved and even falling in love with the young orphan Miette who steals jewelery for her corrupted headmistresses (who happen to be conjoined twins) from the orphanage. The film is filled with dark humor, surreal themes, and several unique characters and ideas.
THE REVIEW
[Wow. I am stunned, really. I will admit I wasn't expecting much from the title or really what I read about this movie.
I'd say the same thing, although I had believed the good reviews I read, which is one of the main reasons I went out of my way to see it. I'm glad to see the positive views on this movie, it definitely deserves it. The first thing that really stood out about this film as it began was the overall.. Gilliam-esque feel. While it definitely has it's own unique style, it seems like it would easily have been a film that Gilliam would have made. I'd like to see what he thought of this film.
I felt that throughout the later portion of the film, but not really the first. In fact I'd say the first 5 minutes gave me a bad impression. I wasn't impressed by the room full of ugly Santa Clauses, a pooping raindeer, and then nearly 2 minutes of 6 french people screaming at the top of their lungs.
You kind of have a point there... I'm not going to dock the movie for that.
I think I will dock some points for that. Unfortunately there are other parts of this movie that repeat this offense, although thankfully only in much more minor doses. The movie picks up from there though, I think as soon as I saw 'Uncle Irvin' I started to see hope for this film after the abysmal opening. Uncle Irvin is going on my top 10 'weird not-so-evil-bad-guys list. I've seen disembodied brains in jars, but this one makes the idea kind of fresh again. Every thing seems weird about him, but at the same time understandable. He sees through an old frame by frame camera, how his 'voice' is projected over old phonograph speakers, etc. Kind of made methink of something from thegood ol' days of sci-fi.
Definitely. It's really sort of hard to explain this film, it's one of those 'needs to be seen' films. Some of the readers here might think we are speaking gibberish.
I think it can be explained in the right hands, the story itself is a bit of a dark fairy tale (Uncle Irvin even tells the story of their creation and flaws through the form of a fairy tale.) it's really the visuals and overall.. feeling of the film that is a bit hard to explain.
Could you maybe explain in what way you think the film repeated the 'offense' of the first scene?
A lot of the humor. While the film certainly has some very offbeat but funny scenes, some attempts seem crude at best. I mean, did we really need 2 more animal dung jokes and a scene of dogs humping?
I don't remember any more animal poop jokes, though I think the humor of the dogs humping comes from the setup. It's kind of a parody of how things that normally take time seem to happen so quickly. That scene was a bit odd anyways. The only way I could describe the setup was it was basically a butterfuly effect that was started by a tear. Y'see, the headmistresses of the orphanage weren't too happy with Miette running off with One, nor keeping their jewelery. They have a friend who controls a highly powerful drug that has a bit of a psychosis effect. Once some organ grinder music is played, the person under the influence becomes highly violent. One is a professional strongman, as established early in the movie and is quite big (As Ron Perlman himself is.). The headmistress wants revenge, so she gets Miette to return the jewels before playing the music. The whole domino/butterfly effect begins when Miette sheds a tear, which somehow gets flung halfway across town. It lands in a spider web, and creates enough noise to alert a nearby parrot who wakes up a dog. The dog starts barking, and annoys its owner. The yelling of the dog and the owner startles a nearby rat, who runs off. The flea, which is used to spread the drug by carrying a needle with the drug on it's snout, inserting the drug into the victims scalp and then scampering off without the slightest possibility of alerting the victim, lands on another nearby dog. The rat alerts a cat, and the rat becomes even more urgent. The rat runs into what one would presume (by the brief millesecond shot of nude women) was a strip club, scares the women who come running out who startle the dog. The flea in some weird way controls the dog to take him/her back to their original owner. The flea somehow alerts the.. okay, i forgot the rest. It was funny though.
You failed to explain how the dogs humping added to the humor. I admit it was a funny, if not silly scene. Definitely one of the better domino effect scenes. There is really only one other negative thing I could say about this film.
And that is...?
For the main character, at least the top bill, One is really quite two dimensional and a bit uninteresting in this otherwise rich world.
While I think he definitely wasn't the most interesting character, I liked him. He had some fun moments, even if he didn't quite jump outside the stereotype for the 'loveable, slow, but lucky oaf' character. Honestly, this is one of the few movies in a good maybe 4 or 5 years I would give a perfect score. I doubt even Naked Lunch would take a perfect rating.
Oh gawd, not Naked Lunch. Please don't bring up Naked Lunch. Seriuosly folks, this guy will rant on about naked lunch for hours.
I smell a good candidate for our first 'Vs.' review.
NO! you are not making me sit through that trash again, also I don't want to hear you rant on about how deep it is again. Let's just stick with this movie, please...
*chuckles* I'm not going to make you watch it again, but I still think we should do the review.
*Censored. Seriously, what she said here was enough to offend the unoffendable me, so it's definitely not suitable for eGO.*
Okay, let's just stick with this movie for now.
Overall? It's a great surreal film worth your buck. It's got an interesting and unique plot, great visuals (With the exception of a few dated CG effects. The practical effects have a serious fakeness to them, but they actually fit with the surreal feel of the whole movie), and just about everything else you'd expect from a good film. Humor, intrigue, excitement (Although it's not as far removed from an 'action' flick as possible, with the exception of the explosion at the end, there are a few scenes that add some fun 'exciting' scenes.) and an ending that doesn't feel tacked on. All flaws are minor and will be forgiven in the end. 10/10
I can say some flaws are a tad too annoying to forgive, but otherwise it nearly got a perfect score. If it had less dog sex, poop, and screaming french people, it would take a perfect score from me as well. Thankfully these problems are 'minor' enough that they don't detract from the movie as a whole, they are all things I dislike to see in a film such as this. They are just too out of place. The rest of the film is excellent though, and highly recommended. It earns the Chie seal of approval. (No blank/10 scores. I hate them)
*Removes seal of approval, replaces with 9.5/10* Next time, 'Naked Lunch' folks
.I hate you. I hate you so ****** much. I really want to kill you right now, seriously. Why did I marry you?
*Chuckles.* So, are you going to murder me by chihuahua like you've been threatening for a year or so now?
*Gives Kadath a nosebleed VIA telephone.*
Mmyep, all in all Check out this movie. No questions asked. Leave comments on the review, any opinions from those who have seen the movie as well, and of course as I stated above, if you would like to see us review a movie you like (or hate to the core) let us know.
