 |
|
|
|
Thu. Feb. 15, 2001
|
|
|
Art & Culture > Movie &Theatre > Archive
|
|
|
|
|
|
Movie Review: The Million Dollar Hotel
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Million Dollar Hotel, directed by Wim Wenders, attempts to clear the line between abstract taste and tasteless ambiguity, but falls short, with annoying characters and a slow, boring story line that doesn't do much to viewers' emotions. It should, in fact, be considered a social experiment rather than a source of entertainment; during the film, I felt like I was at a party.
The movie was like an odd, eccentric friend who doesn't know proper etiquette, but is a good storyteller. Unfortunately, skills that are a bit hard to pinpoint - the rest of the audience, about seven people, walked out after 30 minutes.
The film is centered around Tom Tom (Jeremy Davies), a seemingly mentally challenged young man, whose narrative leaves us doubting whether he actually is mentally retarded or just extremely eccentric. Suspecting a possible homicide case, FBI agent Skinner (Mel Gibson) interrogates all of the people residing in the Million Dollar Hotel when Izzy (Tim Roth), a resident himself, plunges off the roof of the hotel. Izzy's rich father, who owns a major television station, attracts the attention of a rival station in covering the story.
Skinner focuses his investigation on Izzy's best friend, Tom Tom, who appears to be hiding something. As tension builds, Skinner takes advantage of Tom Tom's crush on the hotel's abstract and metaphysical prostitute, Eloise (Milla Jovovich), to get information. A bizarre love-story unfolds amidst the unraveling of the murder mystery.
Watching the dark figures of the seven other people in the theater leaving, I realized I was the only one who could see past all of the movie's annoying comments, trivial scenes, and corny accents. I seemed to be able to grasp onto some insightful messages about life and beauty. Poor folk, I thought. They must have forgotten their foresight at home. They must have left their candles, making it too dark for them to read between the boring lines, swerve by the bad acting, dodge the ball of slow pace, and ignore all their senses that were telling them that this is a bad movie, so that they could capture the abstract meaning behind the events taking place in Wender's movie.
So I had a stomachache or two trying to digest this film, which was like eating a sandwich filled with great tasting halal meat, but the lettuce around it was old, the tomatoes were soggy, and the bread was stale.
Still, it had something to offer my mind. I had to think about it. I had to filter out the silly parts; I had to sift the river water, rocks, and silt with my pan in order to find the small pieces of gold here and there.
Maybe, however, that isn't the point of watching movies, but then what is the point and who defines it? Perhaps move-watching isn't like reading a book where one needs patience.
Is it so unbelievable that a movie with bad acting and an unrealistic story line can actually make one think? Substance can be hidden beneath veils of unattractiveness and bad acting, can it not?
|
|
|
 |
what is this?
This widget will help you to store, organize, search, and manage your favorite online content through a range of social bookmarking services. These services permit users to save links to websites that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, but can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, or shared only inside certain networks. Authorized people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or through a search engine. Most social bookmarking services also permit their users to vote and rank public bookmarks to determine which are the best ones according to the number of votes they get.
|
 Send
content to your friend |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Contact Art & Culture
|
|
|
|
|
IslamOnline.net is not responsible for the content of external linked Web sites.
|
|
|
|
|
