FilmRoar

The Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winning documentary Why We Fight (2005) tries to shed light on the American drive to constantly be at war. At the heart of the analysis is president Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation warning of the rise of the Military-industrial complex. The superb speech by a sharp mind with a clear understanding of both government and military gives a direct and succinct warning to dependency on a military economy. It is really too bad that Why We Fight could not emulate the clarity of message or purpose.

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King Arthur (2004) is a fantasy made for role playing geeks and lovers of Keira Knightley’s midriff. [insert fog] However it makes the mistake of thinking that the fans don’t watch enough movies to tell a good one from a crappy one and will settle for big fights and crappy dialog of honor and deeds. Even worse [insert more fog here], it assumes the viewers know so little of history to put suspension of disbelief aside through loads of historical mistakes, a folly that would have been easier to accept had the movie not opened with a title card claiming inspiration from historical record [change fog to dramatic smoke]. The movie is beautifully photographed but has a plot like over-aged Swiss cheese: Rank, cheesy and full of holes.

Throughout the movie it is hard to tell whether Clive Owen’s flat expression is his signature stoicism or pure boredom with the lines he has to deliver. It is amusing to Owen (Arthur) ‘falling in love’ with Knightley (Guinevere), I think I may have even noticed him raise an eyebrow at one point but that could have been a trick of the light. The rest of his knights are all appropriately ruggedly-handsome but also seem to suffer from the understanding that the movie is bad enough that it does not deserve any acting effort [now mix dramatic fog and dramatic smoke to the point where you cannot make anything out]. They try, but what can you do when a dramatic rise in the score following a big camera sweep toward a waving flag take precedence over story. I mean it almost feels like a Jerry Bruckheimer popcorn flick… oh wait, it is a Bruckheimer flick. Well from the man that brought you Armageddon (1998), Coyote Ugly (2000), Pearl Harbor (2001) and Kangaroo Jack (2003), if your brain is addled enough to have thought those good movies then you might just enjoy King Arthur, otherwise just give this one a skip.

A DJ’s work is never done in the beautiful short movie SPIN.

As any regular visit has probably noticed the FilmRoar and GeekRoar (previously called The Lion’s Den) web sites have both gotten a new look. I am still playing around with the styles and presentation but am pretty happy with the look and function of both sites. The new pages load with different URLs (except for the home pages) so if you have any links you might want to update them. I left the old pages behind for the sake of not breaking old links but they will not allow comments any more. If you want to leave a comment just search for the same page on the new site.