Schindler's List

If there is one film that shouldn't be viewed by little kids, anybody with a weak stomach or survivors of the Holocaust, it's Schindler's List. This film had a powerful impact on me during my high school days and was one of the first films I reviewed for my school newspaper. I remember watching this movie in my History class and coming out of there in tears knowing that so many innocent people were killed all because of they were Jewish or just because they were different. It wasn't just the story that did it for me, it was everything in the movie from the directing (brilliantly done by Steven Spielberg) to the music (composed beautifully by John Williams who also did the music for the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies) and the acting (again brilliantly done by Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes). So that you would know what I mean by that, let's begin this review with a little background information on both the film and the events that it's based on.

Schindler's List is based on the novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally which in turn was based on the real life story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman and member of the Nazi party, who saved close to 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust and World War II. In the beginning of the war, Schindler started out as an opportunistic businessman who, like many other people at the time, was seeking to profit from the September 1, 1939 invasion of Poland by the Nazis. What started as just an opportunity to make a large fortune using cheap Jewish labour turned into a mission to save lives after Schindler witnessed the 1943 raid on the Krakow Ghetto in which many of the workers in his enamelware factory were killed while the rest were shipped off to concentration camps. It was those events that caused Schindler to have a change of heart and throughout the rest of the war, he dedicated himself to saving as many lives as possible by bribing SS officers and caring for his workers using the fortune he made for himself as well as other resources. Upon his death in 1974, he was given the honorific "Righteous among the Nations" by the country of Israel (where he is laid to rest in the Catholic Franciscans Cemetery on Mount Zion and is the only member of the Nazis to be honored in such a manner) for his actions towards the end of the war. At the time of the film's release, there were less than 4,000 Jews left alive in Poland where most of the film takes place and more than 6,000 descendants of the Schindler Jews (or Schindlerjuden) living in the United States, Europe and Israel.

At first, Spielberg wouldn't do the movie because he felt that he wouldn't be mature enough to do a film on the Holocaust and tried to pass the project to three directors, Roman Polanski (he turned it down because of his own personal experiences in the Holocaust and would later go on to direct his own Holocaust in 2002 called The Pianist starring Adrien Brody), Sydney Pollock and Martin Scorsese (who directed the 1991 remake of Cape Fear instead of this movie) but then he turned around and decided to do the film after hearing of the genocide in Bosnia. He was also worried that people were becoming too accepting of intolerance and wanted to send a message that it's not okay to judge people based on religion, race, sexual orientation or ethnicity. A message that to this day is still not being heard and is being rung loud and clear in this film. Schindler's List would go down in cinema history as one of the most powerful films to ever hit the big screen and to give some reasons as to why this film is powerful and amazing, let's talk about the three things that made it so good; the story, the music and the cast.

Steven Zaillian (who would go on to write screenplays for other films like Gangs of New York and American Gangster) did an amazing job adapting Schindler's Ark for the big screen. The way that the script was written it almost feels like that you're reading a scripted version of the book. Every time I read the book, I can't help but translate it into script mode in my head and it would match exactly what Zaillian wrote in his screenplay. While there are a few scenes in the movie that didn't happen according to the book and various sources including testimonials from the Schindler Jews, it is still well written and beautifully adapted for the big screen. There are no plot holes or underdeveloped characters and the story is every easy to follow due to the historical accuracies in the film with the exception of one scene towards the end. I have nothing much else to say except that Zaillian deserved the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar he won for this movie and if anyone who says otherwise needs to get their head examined.

The music for this film is just beautiful and to this day, I get very emotional every time I hear the musical score for Schindler's List. I consider this to be John Williams' best work out of any of the films he composed music for (even better than the music for the Star Wars movies). The best part about this is that the violin music done for this film is performed by violinist and conductor Itzhak Perlman who did an amazing job with that part of the score (he would go on to play violin music for another film, 2005's Memoirs of a Geisha.) If anybody else did the music for this movie, I don't think it would have had the same effect on me as it does. Don't get me wrong, there are film composers who have incredible film scores that can get me emotional. For example, Hans Zimmer did the score for the 1994 Disney film The Lion King which can get me just as emotional as the score for this film. But still, as great of a job that Zimmer did with the score for The Lion King, I don't think he would have done as great for the score for Schindler's List as Williams did.

And finally the acting performances from the entire cast of Schindler's List are phenomenal and awesome. Liam Neeson's portrayal of Oskar Schindler was pure Oscar gold (in my opinion he should have won instead of Tom Hanks) and flawless in every shape or form. Every time I see Neeson on screen in the movie, I actually see him as Oskar Schindler and not someone dressing up as him or pretending to be him. My favorite scene in the movie is the one where Schindler has to flee from the Red Army and he tearfully contemplates how he could have saved more lives. That scene had me in tears the first time I saw it and to this day, I still get very emotional whenever I see it. Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes were amazing too as Schindler's business partner Itzhak Stern and S.S officer Amon Goth respectively. But out of the two performances that both supporting actors gave for the film, I liked Fiennes' performances the best. I mean, I thought that he was just chilling as Amon Goth and in my book, if your performance is enough to earn you an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a spot on the American Film Institute's Top 100 Heroes and Villains list then obviously you did something right. As for the female cast members like Caroline Goodall (who played Robin Williams' wife in the 1991 film Hook) and Embeth Davidz, their performances as Emillie Schindler (Oskar's wife) and Helen Hirsch are great as well despite the lack of screen time they had in between them. The rest of the supporting cast did an amazing job portraying the real life people who were saved by Schindler during humanity's darkest chapters of history and lived to pass on the story of Oskar Schindler.

Overall, Schindler's List is one of my all-time favorite films and one of the best Steven Spielberg films I've ever seen (another one being Saving Private Ryan). As I mentioned at the beginning of the review, Spielberg did an excellent job directing this film and was deserving of the Best Director Oscar he won for the movie. While I am disappointed that Neeson and Fiennes didn't win Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for their performance as Schindler and Goth, I consider them winners for pushing themselves beyond their limits and giving the movie-going crowd performances of a lifetime and something to remember. The music is unforgettable and it would be difficult to get out of your head after watching this film because of the haunting sounds of the violin and of the images that come with the music while listening to it. Schindler's List is a film that would forever immortalize the six million Jewish lives that were taken away all because of hate and a man who risked everything to save 1,200 Jews from the death camps despite the danger to him. Something that more than 6,000 descendants of the Schindler Jews are forever grateful for.

This is RaeAngel signing out. Until the next review.

Dragon Ball Evolution

Dragon Ball Evolution. What can I say about this horrible excuse of a movie other than say how much of a piece of shit it is? I mean, look at the poster!! Does it even look like it could be any good? Maybe but still, if you take one look of the poster of this movie and say "this looks awesome", there's something wrong with you. Even the trailer to this movie failed to impress and reel audiences in whether they were fans of the anime that the movie was based on or not. To properly give a glimpse of just how horrible this movie is, let's start with a little background history into the anime that the movie is based on.

Dragon Ball Evolution is based on the anime series Dragon Ball which started out as a manga that was published in a nine year period starting in 1984 and ending in 1995. It was inspired by a Chinese folk novel called Journey into the West and follows the adventures of a young boy with a tail named Goku who trains in martial arts and explores the world searching for seven mythical objects known as the Dragon Balls. When gathered together in one spot, the Dragon Balls summons a dragon that can grant wishes which makes them prime targets for villains in both the manga and the anime who want to use the Dragon Balls for their own evil purposes. With the help of friends and allies, Goku battles against evil to defend the Earth against evil while searching for the Dragon Balls (despite being a complete doofus in scenes in the anime when he doesn't fight).

Since its release in 1984, Dragon Ball has become one of the most popular manga and anime series of its time both in Japan and North America (second being Naruto) with over 150 million copies sold in Japan and 300 million in North America. With seventeen animated feature films and three TV specials, it's no wonder that 20^th Century Fox wanted to try their hand on making a film adaptation of Dragon Ball. The only problem is that they failed miserably in every single aspect of film-making from the writing to the acting. How did this movie manage to suck so hard? Well, there were two factors; the story and the casting.

Just to describe just how stupid the story is, let me give you; dear reader, a brief summary of the plot. On his 18^th birthday (although he was a little kid at the beginning of the fucking anime and manga), Goku is given the 4 Star Dragon Ball by his grandfather and what started as a night of fun turns to tragedy when he returns home from a party to find his house destroyed and his grandfather nearly dead in the aftermath of a failed attempt by Piccolo to steal the 4 Star Dragon Ball. After his grandfather dies, Goku goes out on a journey to collect the Dragon Balls and stop Piccolo from putting his plans of world destruction into action. Sounds like the makings of a great movie, right? Well, it would have been a great movie if it hadn't felt like that the script was being written as it was being filmed or that it was written by a group of five year olds. Also, you know what the sad part about this is? The movie was directed by James Wong. That's right, the guy who directed multiple episodes of The X Files and movies like the 2003 remake of Willard, Final Destination and Black Christmas. How the fuck did someone like him sink so low? I mean, he showed a lot of promise during his stint on The X Files and then he just let that talent go to crap by making one shitty movie after another especially this one. Of course, it could have been worse, he could have ruined another franchise like the Highlander film series or even the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

For those of you who are fans of The Spoony One (also known as Spoony) from That Guy With The Glasses, do you remember his review of Wing Commander? Do you remember how he raged about the casting of the main characters in the movie (which was based on a video game series of the same name)? Well, it's the same thing with this movie only instead of Freddie Prinze Jr, Matthew Lillard and Saffron Burrows, this movie gets Justin Chatwin, Emmy Rossum and Chow Yun-Fat (all which are horrible choices for the roles they played as Goku, Master Roshi and Bulma respectively). Then of course, there's James Marsters (Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel) as the main antagonist Piccolo and while I like James Marsters as an actor, I couldn't stand him in Dragon Ball Evolution. His performance as Piccolo was embarrassingly terrible and the make-up job that was done to transform Marsters into Piccolo is just shit. When I saw Marsters for the first time in the movie, I didn't see him as Piccolo; I saw him as a guy dressed up as the character for a Halloween party. It's the same thing with the rest of the cast, I didn't see either of the cast members as the characters they were portraying, I saw them as kids either in a costume party or at a school play. I mean, I've seen stage plays and movies that put on better performances than this. Am I wrong here?

Bottom line: this movie is one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life and I hate it with the intensity of a million bonfires. The story is bullshit and has nothing to do with the anime that it's based on. The characters are horribly miscast and the acting is terrible with no effort in the actors' part to make their performances believable. It's no wonder that fans of the Dragon Ball franchise and critics hated this movie or why it tanked so badly at the box office. At the time when the movie first came out, I was vaguely aware of the anime and had watched only one episode of Dragon Ball Z and now a year and hundreds of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z episodes later, I understand why this movie was considered a buttfuck to a great franchise. I heard there is going to be a sequel to Dragon Ball Evolution, I hope there isn't but if, by any chance, the rumour is true and they are going to make a sequel to this movie; there is one thing that they should do to make a better movie. Get another director and change the cast to people who can act and make an effort to make their performances believable (actors like Patrick Wilson and Jackie Chan just to suggest a few). So if you're a fan of Dragon Ball, and are looking to see a great movie based on this franchise, watch any of the seventeen movies attached to the series and steer clear from Dragon Ball Evolution. Believe me, you'll be doing yourself a favor and you'll have your sanity in check.

This is RaeAngel signing out. Until the next review!!!