54 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
54 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
* * the following review contains spoilers * *
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" please someone stop joel schumacher before he vomits into a film canister again and tries to pass it off as a movie . "
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-- chuck dowling , the jacksonville film journal
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i wrote the above sentence in my review for 1997's batman and robin .
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apparently , no one heard my words .
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oh , how i wish you had heard them .
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oh how i wish someone had stopped him . . .
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because he's done it again .
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the plot of 8mm is similar to the 1977 paul schrader film hardcore , a surprisingly decent and engrossing tale .
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in fact , it was everything that 8mm is not .
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in the opening minutes of 8mm , we see private detective tom welles ( nicolas cage ) working on a case for a prestigious member of the u . s . government .
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keep this fact in mind , cage is trusted with an important case , which he solves .
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he returns home to his wife and new daughter , and even finds time to rake his yard ( keep that in mind too , it's important as well ) .
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he's hired by a rich elderly woman to solve a mystery .
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after her husband's death she comes across a film in his private safe .
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it appears to be snuff film , a sort of urban legend of the pornography industry in which someone is actually brutally murdered for the camera .
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the woman wants welles to locate the young girl in the film , hopefully to disprove that it is in fact a snuff film .
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so he sets off on a journey into the sordid underworld of sleaze to discover the truth about the film .
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the main problem with 8mm is that the whole film is completely pointless .
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welles is actually selected for the case by the old woman's lawyer ( anthony heald , an actor who always plays the same type of character , that being a bad guy ) .
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when you first see him , your first instinct is that he's behind the whole thing .
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the choice of casting does the film in .
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then , as welles begins his investigation , at times we will see a shadowy figure following him .
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the only person it could possibly be is the lawyer ( or someone sent by the lawyer ) because no one knows welles is even investigating anything yet .
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so your first instinct has now been confirmed .
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then , when it is in fact revealed that the lawyer is a part of the whole thing , he tells welles that he was chosen for the case because he was young and inexperienced ( in one of those ridiculous " since we're going to kill you anyway , why not tell you the whole thing " moments ) .
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but earlier when we see welles being hired for the case he's told that he was hired because he comes highly recommended .
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huh ?
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also , when the lawyer reveals himself to be a part of the whole thing , his main goal is to get the film back .
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so why did he give it up in the first place ? !
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the lawyer had the film the whole time , then gave it away to the private detective thinking that he would just give up on the case and return the film ? !
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it's totally absurd . . .
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and this is the screenwriter of seven ?
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late in the film there's a confrontation between all the main characters , and after a struggle one of the character's guns ends up underneath a car .
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cage , who has been handcuffed to a bed , is rapidly trying to get to his gun , which is on a table .
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james gandolfini's character goes for the gun under the car in what is supposed to be a scene of " suspense " .
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you see , the gun is just slightly out of reach from the side of the car he's trying to reach it from , and so instead of going around the car to the other side ( where he can easily reach it ) he just keeps stretching .
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go around to the other side of the car ! !
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this goes on for minutes .
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then , after cage gets his gun , gandolfini then decides it would be best to go around to the other side of the car .
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boy , schumacher is really really getting on my nerves .
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i think the final straw would be when cage returns home , devastated by everything that he's seen on this case , and then is no longer able to rake his lawn !
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we actually see a shot of him pathetically poking at leaves in his yard .
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other things that bugged me about 8mm : one would be the music , if you can call it that .
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whenever the score starts up , it sounds like techno music , and then this awful indian or middle eastern type music will accompany it .
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awful decision there joel .
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another is cage's performance .
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at this point he's capable of a wide range of performances , either good or bad .
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for 8mm , he delivers a very wooden one , and only shines when he's interacting with joaquin phoenix ( who gives a great performance as a porn shop clerk with a heart of gold who helps cage with his case ) .
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you're capable of much better mr . cage .
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now as for you mr . schumacher . . .
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i'm starting to doubt if you're capable of anything else besides urinating onto the institution of american cinema .
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[r]
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