Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I've heard from people that liked WHERE IN THE WORLD IS OSAMA BIN LADEN? but even they seemed to half-like it. I don't like Spurlock's personality and it seems like every single problem I had with SUPERSIZE ME (Spurlock's giant ego, the interesting documentary a 4 minute side bar, in that case the segment about the school lunches, etc) are multiplied in this movie. I don't regret passing up my chance to see this here. I tried to get a ticket for a later showing when it wouldn't conflict with anything, but that never materialized. And TOWELHEAD is great. I think Shinebox and me will probably see eye to eye in regards to these two movies. Enjoy the reviews!
Hello fellas, I caught two more Sundance pictures and thought I'd send in the reviews.... So, here you go: Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden is a film with an identity crisis. It doesn't know if it wants to be a comedy (at which it fails), it doesn't know if it wants to be a hard hitting informative piece that challenges stereotypes of the middle-east (at which it fails) and it doesn't know if it wants to be a shitty video game (at which is succeeds). Morgan Spurlock made this film under three false assumptions and the film is damaged completely by it: 1) That he's funny. 2) No one knows anything about the "war on terror" and 3) People think cheesy gimmicks make a good movie. Each of these assumptions is false. Spurlock uses un-funny humour to try to prop up his point, but there are times that he betrays it completely. For example, the film actually works hard to dispel stereotypes about Muslims and middle-eastern people as a whole. But he's quick to betray all of the work he's done in that regard with flippant remarks. A Muslim guy at one point asks Spurlock where his car asks and Spurlock responds, "Why? Do you want to blow it up?" Sure, it might have been a clever thing to say, but reinforcing the same stereotypes you're trying to dispel is just bad for business and bad for the film as a whole. Then each of the history lessons he uses in the film (set to really bad animation or rap music videos) are rehashes of information we've seen in pretty much every documentary about the war that's come out since Fahrenheit 9/11. The sort of people that are going to see this film aren't idiots and Spurlock just isn't respecting his audience. And then, the cheesy gimmicks. Jesus Christ. From the CG Osama's breaking to "Can't Touch This" to the video game animation comparing Spurlock to Woody Allen and George Lucas, the film looks like it was designed by a 14 year old. And then other stupid gimmicks, like looking up every bin Laden in the phone book in Saudi Arabia to laying in Artoo Detoo sounds over a conversation he "has" with a bomb-squad robot in Tel Aviv. And then there's every single wink and a nod to Supersize Me that makes you want to vomit. This film seemed designed for hardcore fans of Supersize Me and I just don't think there are any. He's got sequences where Osama is flipping burgers and he has a sequence where he's at a McDonalds in Saudi Arabia. And then, at the end of the film, at the end of the "video game" he decides he needs a John McClane style catch phrase when he beats video Osama and he says, honest to God, "Supersize this mother-fucker." And he organizes the film around the idea (and this is what he says) "If I've learned anything from action movies, it's that one crazy guy can make a difference and take down the badguy before the credits roll." But then he doesn't even try to look for Osama. And then, to justify it at the end, he says that finding Osama won't make a difference. He's probably right, but he filmed the movie as though he were working under the assumption that he knew he wouldn't find Osama, but cut the movie to make the audience think he might. Which just sets up needless expectations. The biggest problem I had with this movie, though, was how good pieces of it were. When Spurlock took his medication and calmed down and asked real and interesting people hard hitting questions, it took balls. (Like the Imam that actually preaches the destruction of America and the Goatherders who talk about how he needs to pay his kids to keep them from joining the terrorists, etc.) But there just isn't enough of that because Spurlock needed to cut it all the meat to make way for the clutter. That's why Spurlock needs a co-writer/producer that has the balls to tell him, "That's really fucking stupid, man." Next up: Towelhead: I scored tickets to Towelhead and knew absolutely nothing about it. Consulting the IMDb on the way in, I found that it was written and directed by the guy who wrote American Beauty. So, I instantly expected it to be a film that told me exactly how to feel. I would argue that this film is exactly the opposite and a lot better than American Beauty. (I didn't much like American Beauty, so that's not as high praise as it would be coming from others.) But Towelhead follows a 13 year-old Lebanese girl who comes to her sexual awakening in a hypocritical culture. She's bombarded by media messages of sexuality (advertising, Married With Children, porno mags, etc.) but lives in an environment where no one discusses sexuality at all. It's the worst kind of abstinence only education. Overall, I think the film was pretty good. I don't think I liked it as much as the people I was with, but I did like it. My problems with it stem mainly from the length and pacing, I thought the pacing and editing of the first half hour of the film were paced well, but the cutting didn't match the tone the film needed. It was just out of place. And the film was just over two hours and was at least 10 minutes too long. Having said that, I think the best thing about the film is the relationship between the girl, Summer Bishil, and her much, much older neighbor, played by Aaron Eckhart. He's completely in love with her and her age doesn't seem to enter into his mind. At all. He's not a pedophile in the normal regard, he's actually interested in her. In fact, the best moment in the film is when he apologizes to her and tells her that it isn't her fault, and then turns and runs back into the house. But the film never tells you how you should feel about any of the sexuality going on in the film. Even when Aaron Eckhart and Summer Bishil have sex, there is no moral judging done on behalf of the filmmakers. It really just opens a window and shows it to you, but that's it. The only thing you're forced to do, is empathize with everyone, no matter how despicable they are. It's like Todd Solondz Happiness, but you actually like all of the characters. I don't think this film will fly very well at the boxoffice, but I don't think it's because of a lack of quality. Between the title and the content, though, I can't see it being able to go wider than an arthouse release at best. Which is a shame, since crap like "In the Name of King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" can come out on like 2,500 screens. ShineBox (as in "go home and get your fuckin...")
