Never one to mince words, Rex Reed takes a moment to slam a few year-end Cuddle-Me-Elmo movies before he launches into the sort of lavish praise he only reserves for his favorite films of the year.
In a year notable mostly for its profligate tossing-around of overrated bores like Happy-Go-Lucky and pretentious, open-sewer trash like Synecdoche, New York, it comes as an act of real holiday season benevolence to bestow upon us, in rapid succession, The Reader, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Revolutionary Road. Here are three sensational movies that revive my faith in America’s greatest art form.
Unleash Hallelujahs:
An ancient crone on her hospital death bed (another astonishing performance by Cate Blanchett) draws her last breaths sifting through her memories while her daughter (Julia Ormond) reads from the diaries of an old boyfriend named Benjamin Button, who narrates the events of his life like a work of literature. The contents pour out of the pages in a tableau of breathless cinematic adventures, as the story unfolds of a remarkable man who beat the odds against time and biology.
Brilliantly directed and acted, sumptuously photographed and endlessly fascinating, Button runs nearly three hours, and I never glanced at my watch one time. Unlike the exhausting Australia, it’s an epic that sprawls but never meanders. Through the decades, it changes gears as fast as Brad Pitt changes his appearance, each period of time like a new chapter in a novel you never want to end. Trust me. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a monumental achievement—not only one of the best films of the year, but one of the greatest films ever made.
Reed’s admiration for Revolutionary Road is no less ecstatic, after the cut.
Revolutionary Road, under the detailed, sharp-eyed guidance of Sam Mendes, is a flawless, moment-to-moment autopsy of a marriage on the rocks and an indictment of the American Dream gone sour… The question posed in Richard Yates’ groundbreaking 1961 novel and in Justin Haythe’s reverently adapted screenplay is deceptively simple: Once you dig the hole, how do you get out?
…It’s a film about feelings, disappointments, desperation and hollow dreams. You go away asking unavoidable questions about relationships in a changing world, like how do you pretend to enjoy the worst kind of surface happiness without betraying the dormant joy that once lit the best of your inner self? How, in life’s detours, do you stay the best of lovers and yet be the best of friends? The unflinchingly honest Winslet-DiCaprio team illuminates with clarity and precision each mood swing of two people who start out thinking they’ll be special and wonderful until life gets in the way.
…Revolutionary Road, a title that symbolizes the downward slope of American idealism—from the grounded thinking of the 18th-century revolution to the second-rate materialism of 20th-century “progress”—is a profound, intelligent and deeply heartfelt work that raises the bar of filmmaking to exhilarating heights of greatness.
Whew. Could this be the beginning of an 11th hour critical surge? How anyone could still be talking about Best Picture prospects for the drab falsified re-enactment of Frost/Nixon over the depth and finesse of Revolutionary Road is a mystery I hope becomes moot over the next few weeks.
16 Responses for "Rex Reed wild about Rev Road & Benji Button"
of course ben button and revolutionary road were praised by rex reed….the 2 of them will be praised by critics anonymously..2 great achievements at years end..to end the dark knight talk..
best pics
benjamin button
revolutionary road
milk
slumdog millionaire
frost/ nixon
winner will be either the magnificent ben button or the sneak attack slumdog…those are the 2 best choices for the academy!!!
it is a terrific year for films
also rans
doubt
the reader
rachel getting married
i’ve loved you so long
the dark knight
the wrestler
frozen river
vicky cristina barcelona
appaloosa
changeling
gran torino
wendy and lucy
nothing but the truth
the visitor
I’ve seen Benjamin Button and Australia. Benjamin Button is a better film, but Australia didn’t feel as long as Benjamin Button did. And they are the same length.
Rex Reed has been gushing and raging since I was a child — man, he must be ancient — and I take his reviews with a grain of salt, even when I agree with them.
Rex Reed is the guy who considered Batman Begins to be the worst of all Batman films, and thought The Dark Knight was a sequel to the previous series by Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher. *shakes head*
Anyway, he fits the stereotype of the snobby critic.
Rex Reed is the worst film critic I have ever seen. Yes, even worse than Victoria Alexander.
man, he must be ancient — and I take his reviews with a grain of salt, even when I agree with them.
Haha! Paul. I thought that too.
Rex just rages on and on in an entertainingly perverse way. Wasn’t he an extra in Jezebel? (Kidding.)
Call me skeptical about Revolutionary Road. Although I can get into what I understand are its themes, I’ve yet to see proof they’ve been well executed. I promise to keep an open mind.
Thanks for the post, Ryan. You served up some quotable quotes — and got to say “ravishing praise.” But even in the middle of Rex’s gushfest over Benjamin Button, he couldn’t resist calling Australia exhausting.
oh hell, did I really say “ravishing praise”? ha!
I’m so frazzled. I guess I meant “lavish praise”
But I can’t really say for sure what I meant.
Glad to see somebody else trashing Synecdoche. Eternal Sunshine made me love Kaufman. Synecdoche made me hate him (as a writer).
More to the point, I don’t fully understand the Benjamin Button craze. Yes, the movie is involving, and beautiful, and a technical achievement. But then…it completely flakes out, gives the title character the easy way out, and arrives at nothing. What are we supposed to take away from it?
Ryan, I see you liked very much the Benji thing. Give me the credit man hahaha
I stopped reading here: “overrated bores like Happy-Go-Lucky”
rex reed’s praise for button and road make me skeptical about button and road.
Found these Reed gems on IMDb:
On The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974): “The most disturbing movie I have ever seen.”
On Vanilla Sky (2001): “A good example of what self-destructive cinematic havoc can be wrought by handing over millions of dollars to movie stars to produce their own ego trips.”
On Never Again (2001): “I don’t think the proper alternative to bad movies about teenagers trying to get laid is more bad movies about middle-aged people trying to get laid.”
On Mulholland Drive (2001): “A load of moronic and incoherent garbage.”
On Seabiscuit (2003): “If you don’t go away entertained, informed and sated with satisfaction, you need your pulse checked to see if you still have one.”
On Dogville (2003): “Dogville is like climbing the Matterhorn with a cement block tied to your back.”
On Van Helsing (2004): “This moronic abomination is not a movie. It’s just a noisy, nasty and repulsive video game/theme-park haunted-house ride designed to appeal to the offspring of warlocks and trolls.”
On De-Lovely (2004): “It is my sad duty to tell you that it is wooden, artificial, contrived, infuriating and as phony as an invitation to bring along a tape recorder to dinner with J.D. Salinger.”
On The Good German (2006): “The Good German is as slow as a 90-year-old with gout who has misplaced his walking stick.”
On The Good Shepherd (2006): “In the time it takes Mr Damon’s character to find out who the spy is, you could read a book, call your mother, finish your crossword puzzle, do all of your Christmas shopping and pay the first installment on next year’s estimated income tax.”
On A Prairie Home Companion (2006): “A Prairie Home Companion is about as charming as waking up with a dead animal in your bed.”
On Lady in the Water (2006): “Hollywood cannot pollute the ozone with anything more idiotic, contrived, amateurish or sub-mental than Lady in the Water. This piece of pretentious, paralyzing twaddle is the latest in a series of head-scratchers by the incompetent, self-delusional M. Night Shyamalan. Lady in the Water is described by Mr Shyamalan as a ‘bedtime story’ he told to his kids. Do not even think of repeating it to yours unless you plan to turn them into runaways, orphans or worse.”
On The Prestige (2006): “The Prestige is the biggest pile of incomprehensible gibberish to hit the screen since M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water.”
On The Fountain (2006): “I don’t care what a movie is about, but I have one rule that never changes: It has to make sense. This hopeless head trip doesn’t make one lick of sense, and it doesn’t seem to be about much of anything at all.”
On Spider-Man 3 (2007): “Bloated and stupid, this movie is so bad you can’t even review it. Over-produced, over-publicized, over-designed, over-computerised and just plain over the moon, it’s so preposterously overwrought there’s no entry point for criticism. You just stare at it, as you might a great big exploding pile of cow manure.”
On Youth Without Youth (2007): “You know a movie is doomed when the only star in it is Tim Roth. You know it’s pretentious when the ads print the logo backward and upside down. Not one word of this bilge makes one lick of sense, and it is two hours and six minutes long. The only way to survive Youth Without Youth is dead drunk. The least Mr Coppola could do is provide free Cabernet Sauvignon from his own vineyards. One bottle going in, another bottle staggering out.”
On Speed Racer (2008): Speed Racer makes you want to never see a movie again as long as you live.
On Marlon Brando: “Most of the time he sounds like he has a mouth full of wet toilet paper.”
On Barbra Streisand: “To know her is not necessarily to love her.”
if only i was a total moron like mr. reed, i would take the world of film criticism by storm!
I think I like Mr. Reed.
Revolutionary Road is Brilliant.
Winslet and DiCaprio Deserve top awards.
Mendes strokes are as heavy and nuanced as a van Gogh.
An intense, gripping drama with unforgetable performances.
Brava!
My film professor Stu Beach once said, “I’m not sure that Rex Reed knows what a good movie is!”
Reed: “You know a movie is doomed when the only star in it is Tim Roth.” What the hell is that supposed to mean?
If you like Reed’s negative reviews, check out Ebert’s…
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