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PLOT:
A guy
walking around, trying to figure out if he's dreaming or not, and if so,
how to get out of it. In the meantime, he stumbles across many arm-chair
philosophers, who decide to bore him, oops...I mean, relate to him, their
own pontifications on life, etc...
CRITIQUE:
This is not
a movie. It's someone else's dream. And not only is it someone's else
dream, it's someone else's really annoying, boring, long-winded and
overly-preachy dream. And yes, I will go for the easy putdown here and say
that this man's dream, turned into my living nightmare, folks. The last
time that I felt like walking about of a theatre during a movie this much
was with HAPPINESS.
Granted, yes, the visuals are astonishing here, a pretty solid coup for
animation, but who gives a shite when there's no story to drive it?! I
mean, this should have been a 5-minute short documentary or something. And
what's in it, you may ask? Well, it's basically a bunch of talking heads,
people sitting around, blathering on about life, existentialism, Nietche,
matter, Plato, science, Kierkegaard, reincarnation, Albert Schweitzer,
delivering quotes from books, discussing their own lame dreams and
interpretations, and a whole bunch of other esoteric crap. About five
minutes into this thing, I felt like I was watching a bunch of boring
scientists spouting their own egocentric philosophies on life on PBS or
something, and reached for my remote control, but to my sad realization, I
remembered that I had actually paid to see this thing. So I remained in my
seat a little longer, only to be taken back to my agonizing
philosophy/sociology/anthropology college courses, during which some
nitwit would ultimately take to the floor and discuss their so-called
insights into the human condition. Once again, I started to drift off into
my own lala-land, with little or no interest in anything that anyone had
to recite in this movie. "Is this going anywhere," I thought, "or am I
asked to care about these bozos simply because I've paid to sit
here?"
And talk about being clinical! Most of these chatterboxes
wouldn't even shut up or slow down for a second in order for me to even
attempt to grasp their jargon-filled rhetoric about the meaning of life or
the interpretations of dreams, bla-bla-bla. I'm not even sure if anyone is
supposed to be able to keep up with these folks, or take it all to mean
something "deep and insightful", when really it's just a bunch of
psychobabble fluff disguised as pseudo-intellectual wisdom.
Boooooooooooring! All of it, was just plain lame, and boring to me, as an
individual. But did I just not "get it"? Not really. I consider myself to
be a pretty smart cookie and the bottom line with me and this movie is
that it just left me bored out of my skull. If I wanted to watch an
intellectual discussion of meta-physics, existentialism and the meaning of
life, I'd pick up a few expert books, watch some documentaries or
interviews with actual connoisseurs. But watching some flaccid character's
supposed "dreams" filled with wordy quotes and interpretations from
pretentious, overly-aware slackers, is not why I pay to go to the movies.
But even as I say that, I could certainly see a certain niche of the
populace loving this kind of garbage (yes, once again, an overwhelming
amount of "real" movie critics love this film...which always reminds me of
why I started this website in the first place).
To me, it's a
trippy exercise in animation, and in that regard, it succeeds somewhat,
although if you're prone to motion sickness, beware! And would smoking
some heavy weed or dropping some acid bring you closer to the point of
this whole movie? Definitely! In fact, writer/director Linklater himself
was quoted as saying these words before the film's premiere at Sundance:
"How many of you out there are on drugs?" When a number of hands went up,
he added, "Good. This is for you. The rest of you, just bear with me."
(Source: James
Berardinelli) Does that mean that you have to be in an altered state
in order to enjoy this thing? No, but I can definitely see this movie
turning into another "cult classic" for the potheads around the world.
Even I'm guilty of talking shit when I'm drunk off my ass with my buddies,
but I certainly wouldn't make a movie about it or expect others to give a
rat's ass! The theater in which I saw this flick had 10 people in it when
it started, and by the time it was over, only 5 people survived.
Unfortunately, I had to be one of them (since I publish my reviews on the
Net, I think it's only fair that I stay all the way until the end, as
painful as it might be). Actually, I did like the one theory right near
the end of the film by the character playing the pinball machine (which is
apparently Linklater himself), but pretty much everything else in the
movie was poppycock to me. So is this a recommendation or not? Well, to be
honest, I really disliked this film and certainly wouldn't recommend it to
anyone who thinks a lot like me, but if you read my entire review and are
actually interested in sitting around with a ragtag bunch of bohemian
coffee-drinkers who enjoy listening to each other rant on about a certain
philosophy and attempting to decipher the answers to our universe while
watching pretty "moving paintings" shift around before your blood-shot
eyes...well, enjoy the trip, my friends. To everyone else, thank me for
saving you money.
And why am I even giving this movie a 4/10?
Well, to be honest, I always gotta give props to those who attempt to try
something different in film (even if it fails miserably, like this thing)
and I certainly admire Linklater for trying something unique. Also, the
visuals are pretty incredible and I admittedly did find myself dreaming
about a possible re-visiting of the film, but only under the influence of
some massive doses of higher enlightenment. Picasso/Dali, you guys
would've loved this shite!
From www.joblo.com
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