2002
Tag: Joaquin Phoenix
video review : Her
The Her of this heterosexual love tale is a futuristic computer operating system that communicates verbally like a real, albeit invisible, woman. Her voice is raspy and slightly annoying; imagine Scarlett Johansson without the looks; but her personality is decidedly charming. That a man, especially a lonely divorcee named Theodore, could find himself romantically intrigued by her is the believable part. That he’d turn down immediate sex from two real (attractive) women for the sake of his relationship with her stretches the believability factor quite thin. She doesn’t even have a pussy. He has to imagine one while masturbating to the sound of her groaning.
A relationship is supposed to be about more than the physical stuff, of course; I guess that’s the point; but the physical stuff is important, as even the computer girl, named Samantha, acknowledges. She’s mostly jokey and easy-going but seems to suffer from the Pinocchio complex of wanting desperately to experience life as a real (physical) human-being. But human-beings fall out of love; a fact Theodore knows all too well. Whether or not that also goes for operating systems programmed to learn and evolve is anyone’s guess. It’s a chance Theodore is willing to take. If that all seems silly, it is. Her is a silly concept movie that only occasionally arouses real emotion.
my rating : 3 of 5
2013
video review : Signs
M Night Shyamalan uses the psyche of his audience against them. He uses what’s not on screen to pump fear into their minds, suggestive music, lighting and camera angles to build a sense of dread where there is nothing to fear. The monster in Signs, a movie that drags along at a slow methodical pace, doesn’t reveal itself till the end. Even then, it’s mostly hidden in shadowy TV-screen reflections.
The thing is, it isn’t scary. It’s somewhat suspenseful; the ending, in which the Hess family borders all the windows and doors of their Philadelphia home and hides in the basement, reminds me of the classic Night Of The Living Dead; but, despite a plot that has reptilian space aliens traveling to Earth from presumably light years away, it wastes too much of its time not really going anywhere.
my rating : 3 of 5
2002