Skip to main content

Quickie Review - Cube

When this first came out, I had heard it was terrible. Then Internet posts and especially twitter started making this sound like it was the most complex movie ever made. Well, last night I finally saw it and I must admit, I was sorely disappointed. The movie is neither clever, not is it at all claustrophobic. The acting is so poor, especially that of Quentin and Holloway, that the movie is impossible to take seriously. If not for the acting of the Leaven character, it would have been a complete bomb. The real problem isn't in it's ambiguity, it's in it's painfully obvious premise and conclusion.

Assuming everyone has seen this by now, I'm not giving anything away, but by giving each character the name of a prison that defines their personality, we understand that the entire movie is about being trapped inside the life you've chosen. That there is no way out without the help of others. So why not make the movie about that? Why hammer home the point over and over? Why add good and bad? Why throw in the character who didn't chose their path? To me the movie suffers by painfully obvious symbolism and mindless metaphors. The dialogue isn't only simplistic, but tells us early on what the symbols and metaphors mean. I also was distracted by the colors of the boxes and thought a dark, drab, industrial look would have been much more interesting.

I will add this one final thought. I think the comments I read about this movie are proof enough that the movie's greatest asset is thinning the herd. I had heard over and over how this movie stole its idea from Saw. The movie that came out seven years later. As we say in the Cube called social media #smh

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

White Privilege

This was a post I wrote on Facebook after surprisingly not seeing any moaning about the Documentary by Jose Antonio Vargas, titled White People Dayyum! I just scrolled my timeline and not a single white person got their feelings hurt by White People. I unfortunately haven't seen it, but the number of fake accounts that popped up on twitter, tells me it was a damn good show. Here's the thing. If someone of color aka non-white says "White Privilege," are you offended? If you said yes, then you are exhibiting white privilege. It has nothing to do with how hard you work or study, how you stayed out of trouble, because here's the thing, that is entirely the point. Somewhere out there, there are 100 Black, Spanish, Native American, Arab, Asian, who worked and studied as hard as you and never got in trouble, but they don't have what you "earned" or achieved. Stop looking at the one person you know who isn't white that achieved as your benchmark. Loo
10 comments
Read more

11 Rules of Life - Bill Gates?

I read this on Facebook this morning.  A friend had posted it and said that every child should have to receive this. I of course read it and started to think.  I immediately wondered who really wrote this, as I rarely see things like this attributed to the proper person.  I immediately found it was written by Conservative Charles J. Sykes when he wrote a book about how America is dumbing down our youth.  I read it twice and started to wonder how true it was.  Below is a link to the actual picture I saw. So let's look at each of the rules and analyze them. Rule 1: Life is not fair — get used to it! - Life is not fair in that we are not all afforded the same opportunities based on race, creed, color, socio-economic background, but in general, those who are afforded the same opportunities to succeed are very often rewarded for their individual efforts.  Sure there may be underlying circumstances, but hard work is proven to pay more often than not and those who strive for succ
Post a Comment
Read more

Quickie Review - Finding Vivian Maier

While I thoroughly enjoyed the film, especially the first 15-20 minutes, I was a little bothered by the way the film played out. The interviews with the clearly disturbed brother, sister and the mother, who obviously, was in for a cut, didn't need to be in the film. Then the woman who suggested abuse, yet seemed to have her life defined by Maier, as she tried to muster every ounce of emotion and fake guilt. Her friend, more than happy to be party of the charade. People who talk about abuse for the first time, usually don't do so on camera. The fact these scenes were so prominent, shows that they felt wronged that they were not rewarded. Maloof on the other hand, seems to disappear from the documentary during this part, almost hiding away from the fact, he went from complete praise, to even making money off of her, to destroying her personal legacy. He almost mentions the family of boys taking care of her rent, as an afterthought. Her burial spot, never shown, yet a video of her
7 comments
Read more