Three Brief Movie Reviews

"Open Your Eyes" (Abre los Ojos) was the original Spanish film that was later re-made as "Vanilla Sky" starring Tom Cruise. Having the choice between the two, I opted for the original, which is almost always better. As it turns out, I'd actually seen more of "Vanilla Sky" on TV one day than I'd realized and can say that there's actually little difference between the versions. The remake had an obviously bigger budget and gets the edge on acting from what I'd seen, but the difference in results was so marginal that I was just as happy watching the original. While the ultimate twist wasn't really that much of a surprise, it was executed well enough. Recommended if you like your brain bent on occasion.



The musical version of "The Producers", on the other hand, was bad enough that I didn't even get through the whole thing. I was a big fan of the original non-musical version, and the acting in the original was so much better that the difference was startling. The songs were forgettable except for "Springtime for Hitler", which was in the original version anyway. I love most of Mel Brooks' work, but this one fell entirely flat for me.



I also had to turn off "Forbidden Zone" after little more than the first 10-15 minutes. I actually enjoy the right kind of bad movie, but this was definitely not the right kind. I rented it on the basis of Danny Elfman's involvement and reviews describing it as the "Citizen Kane" of bad movies. The best way I can describe it is that they did a live action version of a Betty Boop era cartoon, dropping vulgarities into the mix as quickly as they could think of them. It might be fun to watch with a room full of ripping drunk buddies hooting at it, but I doubt it even then. It's almost worth renting for the amazing awfulness of it all if you have Netflix and all it's going to cost you is time, but whatever you do, don't spend money to see it.



I've probably turned off fewer than five movies ever once I started watching them, and now I've done it with two within a week. I might have to be a little less experimental for a while.