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Tideland (2005)
Snatched from the Jaws of Life
There's no way for me to talk about this film without making it personal. I can recall the age of eight, wandering around the square desert of my parents' backyard, action figures in hand, thinking up stories, doing voices. Tideland plays to that sort of nostalgia, but it balances it with a darkness visible on the horizon that cancels out whatever baser desires such nostalgia plays to. I imagine when I see the film's landscape (and the house)how wonderful the setting would have been to that sort of play, how much such play could benefit from that setting, and how lost one could get in it all. Permanently lost. The fields transforming into a sea is a great metaphor for that.
Tideland is a tragedy. We, the audience, know or suspect that Jeliza-Rose isn't going to turn out well after this movie's over, that her imagination may be keeping her alive and marginally sane, but it's out of desperation (and it's clear that she understands much more of what's going on than is explicitly stated - observe her knowing looks, as in the scene where Dickens leaves her alone), that the little girl is going through so much for relatively little. In a way this film is about what many viewers incorrectly believe Gilliam's Brazil to be about: the triumph of the imagination. But, if anything, in Brazil Sam Lowry's imagination is what causes the trouble to begin with, and in the end is his last resort. In Tideland, imagination is defeated. In the end it's like one of those horror films where the heroine survives all, only to be shown walking away with the monster/killer still behind her/in her house/in the backseat of the car/etc. But there's an emotional resonance here that can't be found in, say, Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street because Jeliza-Rose has no literal fate, has no death but life. She returns to the real world. And I suppose that's the tragedy.
This is Gilliam's most complete film since Brazil; it has an emotional quality, an imaginative quality, and a GENUINE quality that no other Gilliam film has, and which few other films, period, have these days (cinema as it is now being so choked with irony). With Brazil we may be tempted to cry at the end if we are quick to tears, but with Tideland we may be tempted to develop tears anywhere. It reminds me of Forbidden Games, of Spirit of the Beehive, of Truffaut's Small Change, of Renoir's The River, of The Wizard of Oz, of Curse of the Cat People, and in some ways of Ford's How Green Was My Valley. It has pedigree.
Ferland's performance is nothing short of supernatural. She carries the film when it wanders or when it becomes flat out strange. She is that human voice in the wilderness.
Not that there aren't some problems. The accents are fairly ridiculous all of the time and all the supporting characters are Gothic caricatures with performances to match, but then this is a child's world and a child's field of vision, and so I can accept these. The point is that reality doesn't much enter into it. There isn't much plot to speak of and this turns up in a few draggy sections. But this film has an absorbing quality too, and I find that if I turn it on I am compelled to watch all of it.
I keep thinking of Pan's Labyrinth, which was so critically lauded while Tideland was so despised. PL's an okay movie, but it's a cynical adult tale of childhood, detached in its understanding and sort of heartless and cruel. The problem is that there is such an obvious disconnect between reality and the imaginary world. They exist separately. Of course, the Spanish Civil War setting is really no more real that Ofelia's own world, no less cartoonish than the world of Tideland. But it tries so hard to be harsh and gritty. It is just so difficult for me to *buy* Pan's Labyrinth, to take it seriously OR to NOT take it seriously. Tideland is a story about a real person living in a believable (or at least buyable)world. And I suspect that this is why Pan's Labyrinth is so critically lauded while Tideland is so critically despised - because it is unwilling to offend. Also, where PL is unfathomably ugly, Tideland is quite beautiful.
Overall, this may the only film of last year I can honestly say I liked, that made me feel anything for it. So it's good.
Transformers (2007)
Plan 10 from Outer Space
(This comment was deleted by IMDb based on an abuse report filed by another user, so I'm guessing it was pretty abusive; maybe it spoiled some aspect of "the plot," if you can call it that, for some poor soul)
I think it was about four or five words into the opening narration when we burst into laughter. "Before time began..." Ouch. When a film can't go 5 seconds without a cliché, it doesn't deserve to be watched, at least not with a straight face.
Michael Bay's Transformers is hilariously awful, a sub-Ed Wood affair all the way through, a camp classic in the making. If Bay is the new Edward D. Wood, Jr. then Transformers may be the new Plan 9 from Outer Space. Let me count the ways:
1. Incoherent narration/ incoherent plot? Check.
2. Laughably bad dialogue? Check.
3. Pompous aliens with inexplicable plan to conquer Earth? Check.
4. Day turns to night in an instant? Check.
5. Copious use of military stock footage? Check.
6. Epic numbers of continuity errors? Check.
7. Dramatic confrontations solved via fistfights? Check.
8. Dramatic scenes that fly straight out of left field? Check. ("I'm so glad I got in the car with you.")
9. Formerly respectable older star sinks to a new low? Check. (Poor, poor Jon Voight)
10. Incredible overacting that is obviously encouraged by the director? Check.
11.Character who cannot speak for no apparent reason? Check.
12. Rampant stereotyping (not just the racial ones but stuff like cops acting dumb, doing a lot of shouting, and eating doughnuts, and military officials being all secretive one minute and spilling said secrets the next)? Check.
13. Characters with a lot of face time who end up playing no important role in the "story?" Check. (What useful purpose did Duhamel and the troops in Qatar serve after the first ten minutes?)
14. Heavy handed social/political commentary/references? Check. (eBay, eBay, eBay;imagine how much trouble could have been avoided if they'd just BOUGHT THE DAMN GLASSES OFF OF EBAY!)
15. A flying saucer catches on fire then crashes? Check.
16. Sudden flashes of light appear from nowhere and knock characters over? Check.
17. The action in some shots is hopelessly muddled? Check.
18. A character's hilarious death scene is matched only by his hilarious eulogy? Check.
19. The action halts suddenly so that someone can explain the back-story? Check.
20. Random bursts of laughter fill theater during screening? Check.
21. Gaps in dialogue perfect for Mystery Science Theater 3000-esque commentary? Check.
22. Inevitable cult following? Check.
Only these three things are missing, keeping it from true Ed Wood greatness:
1. No giant octopus. (Though Scorponok comes pretty close.)
2. No transvestites. (It has the prefix "trans-" in the title, though.)
3. No ludicrously campy speech made by the main villain. (Just " I AM MEGATRON!!!", which is plenty campy but not much of a speech.)
Maybe these'll be in the director's cut.
Except, of course, Ed Wood's movies had heart; even at their worst they feel like more than exercises in feature-length product placement. Bay doesn't have anything even remotely resembling a heart in his chest - that's why he's not even in Wood's league as a bad director, no matter how many laughs his terrible films get. And at least Wood's films didn't cost $150 million to make.
I'm a Transformers fan from way back. I've got an Optimus Prime and a Megatron atop one of my bookshelves. I have ancient videotapes of the fondly remembered cartoon series and a copy of the 20th anniversary movie DVD. I had worried that this film would damage my childhood memories beyond repair, like Star Wars Episode I did. But the film is just TOO bad and TOO stupid to have any real effect on me. The old animated movie, bad as it is, mops the floor with this one. If anything, it is a more mature(!) and entertaining work. The music in the old movie is terrible, but it fits. The music here is just terrible.
There are good points, but none anywhere near enough. John Turturro is the only actor who escapes this mess unscathed - his great over-the-top performance suggests that he actually understands how Z-grade the script he was given was. He's a lot of fun to watch, even as he's quickly reduced to a non-entity by the plot mechanics. Turturro is a great actor and this part only serves to elevate his status in my eyes. I hope he got a serious paycheck.
I can't stand CGI as a rule, but the special effects here are moderately convincing, at least in those rare moments when the camera isn't performing idiotic cartwheels to obscure them. I honestly like the models for the new TFs (the Autobots, anyway - I can barely tell the Decepticons apart), but the fact that they have little personality isn't so endearing.
Maybe the sequel will be up to the lofty standards of Ed Wood's Night of the Ghouls. But I doubt it.