Just the Ticket #1: Somewhere
Following a 144-issue revival on Blogger that spans everything from MySpace and Today.com to its origins in Yahoo! Groups, SW@ Ticket is finally growing up and catching up to today's media by dropping the SW@! Of course, I will still be sharing Piece Offerings and looking through the Sniperscope from time to time, and would not be a man of my word if I didn't deliver a review of the Dark Tower Saga or continue with the Dead Parade as promised. But for now I begin anew with a review that's Just the Ticket:
FROM April 25,2011: Somewhere, starring Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning (a dead-ringer for her sister at that age), is a mostly uneventful indie film about a washed-up action star whose pointless life is disrupted for the better when his abandoned daughter comes to live with him and his chummy roommate (Jackass's Chris Pontius).
The viewer is first annoyed by long stretches of footage (a Ferrari endlessly circling a dirt track, strippers pole-dancing while Dorff lies unconscious on his bed), then severely bored and mildly interested in turn for the rest of the movie's approximately 1:30 running time, until the absence of Fanning's character causes Dorff's to seriously reevaluate the emptiness of his life.
Save for a few bright moments and subtle sight gags, Somewhere is seriously lacking in entertainment value. But where it fails to entertain, Somewhere succeeds in using art to imitate life. Wasted film is a reflection of the wasted pre-Fanning days of his life, and a lack of character development enhances our understanding of Dorff's celebrity-induced disconnection from the rest of the world. We feel for him whether we like it or not, and we realize--long before he does--that money cannot buy happiness or replace the richness our lives get from being with friends and family.
B-
FROM April 25,2011: Somewhere, starring Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning (a dead-ringer for her sister at that age), is a mostly uneventful indie film about a washed-up action star whose pointless life is disrupted for the better when his abandoned daughter comes to live with him and his chummy roommate (Jackass's Chris Pontius).The viewer is first annoyed by long stretches of footage (a Ferrari endlessly circling a dirt track, strippers pole-dancing while Dorff lies unconscious on his bed), then severely bored and mildly interested in turn for the rest of the movie's approximately 1:30 running time, until the absence of Fanning's character causes Dorff's to seriously reevaluate the emptiness of his life.
Save for a few bright moments and subtle sight gags, Somewhere is seriously lacking in entertainment value. But where it fails to entertain, Somewhere succeeds in using art to imitate life. Wasted film is a reflection of the wasted pre-Fanning days of his life, and a lack of character development enhances our understanding of Dorff's celebrity-induced disconnection from the rest of the world. We feel for him whether we like it or not, and we realize--long before he does--that money cannot buy happiness or replace the richness our lives get from being with friends and family.
B-
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