Oleanna
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Movie Reviews of Oleanna
Movie Review: unappealing to me
Summary: 2 Stars
A storyline such as the one featured in Oleanna is *definitely* an acquired taste. There's no other way to look at it.
What you have is a college professor and his female student CONSTANTLY arguing with each other in dark and dreary college rooms throughout the entire movie. What are they arguing about, you ask? Several things.
One of them being the fact the female student is having a ton of trouble understanding and grasping the teachers lecture, and as a result, the girl believes her college course feels like a big waste of time.
She apparently takes it VERY personally that she doesn't seem to understand a single word that the teacher is saying during class time, which is what seemingly made her so upset that she felt the need to confront the teacher about it at the end of the day.
After a while (like over an hour of painfully overbearing bickering) the discussion finally turns to sexual harrassment and what the female student believes the professor did to her personally on one occasion (which prompted the girl to run out of the room screaming with people in the hallways hearing about what supposedly just took place). Talk about *extremely* awkward how the storyline went in *this* direction out of left field.
However, I'm glad it DID go in this direction. Now that a sexual harrassment case enters into the mix, the arguments that take place between the female student and her teacher are more heated and interesting.
I don't feel the storyline is nearly as clever or interesting as many viewers do. Other awkward moments took place such as the professors wife constantly calling him up on the phone because the two of them are planning to buy a house and are having some problems, and therefore interrupting the many, many discussions taking place between the professor and his female student. It got REALLY annoying when an hour later the frequent phone calls were *still* happening.
Sure, the ending is good (and a bit surprising) but it's not enough to save the film. Expect a lot of boredom over the course of its running time, but who knows- maybe you'll get something more worthwhile out of it than I did.
Movie Review: Verbal Jackhammer
Summary: 2 Stars
Sadly, I've not seen the stage production this film is based upon, but at this point I'd appreciate nothing more than to witness Mamet's script presented properly. To clarify: The writing in "Oleanna" is phenomenal and in few other pieces of media can a person discover a cleverer illustration of a power struggle and eventual role reversal between two characters. William H. Macy, as usual, played his character professionally and flawlessly. I don't have a problem with the content here, but with its FORM.
Having not seen "Oleanna" (the play), I'd wager anyway that it casts only a few players speaking dialogue either very similar or identical to what we hear in the film, making it a "translation" rather than an "adaptation", at least as far as presentation is concerned.
As it happens, it's a hell of a grind to watch William H. Macy and Debra Eisenstadt exchange esoteric dialogue for 89 minutes. It's painful after the first few times to hear him speak in stutters and spurts to his wife about his home purchase on the telephone. I began by the mid-way point to feel trapped in the four walls of John's office.
Really, if I'd desired to see the play I would have bought tickets and went to the theater. Sooner than that, I'd have picked up the book. I recommend watching or buying this film only if you're a fan of the other, earlier versions of this story or you've masochistic taste in cinema.
Movie Review: DEBRA EISENSTADT IS WRETCHEDLY BAD
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm not going to add my voice to the conversation about what Mamet wanted to convey, one way or the other. I just wanted to make very clear my very strong opinion--Debra Eisenstadt is an ATROCIOUS actress. I know Mamet directed the movie (and I love THINGS CHANGE and HOUSE OF GAMES) but why he cast Eisenstadt is a bigger mystery than the one at the center of THE SPANISH PRISONER. She is so inept, devoid of any kind of ability to be natural--which is how Mamet writes; naturalistically. STYLISHLY naturalistic, but still--it's supposed to flow like real speech. And she is stiff and has no sense of the rhythm of the dialogue. She is flat and affectless...simply put, she SUCKS. By the end of the movie, no matter what side of the argument you fall on, you want to beat the SH-T out of her just because she CAN'T ACT.Movie Review: Worst acting ever!
Summary: 1 Stars
I turned this movie on one morning and was glued to it for 30 mins because I just knew it was a joke! WHM spoke as if he were on an infomercial, and the actress who played the student was no better.Knowing now that it was based on a play makes perfect sence. Plays hardly ever translate to good films! The acting in a play is just totally different, overly dramatic, not believable.
Sorry, I hate to write a review based on 30 mins in the middle of a movie, but I purposely researched the title of this one so I could warn others off. No, actually, DO watch it! I want you to see for yourself how awful it is!
and I like W.H. Macy!