There's a scene midway through Chuck Russell's 1994 comedy The Mask that stands out as an absolute comic masterstroke—zero CGI cartoon antics required. Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) squirms under the magnifying glass of Lt. Mitch Kellaway (Peter Riegert), the detective sizing up the lowly bank clerk in his dinky apartment.
- 7/29/2024
- by Jarrod Jones
- avclub.com
By Doug Oswald
James Woods plays a down on his luck con artist who teams up with retired fighter Louis Gossett, Jr. to score a huge win against a local mob boss in a high stakes boxing match in “Diggstown,” now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Michael Ritchie directs an impressive cast in this entertaining 1992 comedy. However, the MGM release never found its audience and underperformed at the box office upon its release.
The movie opens in Winfield Prison, Olivair County Georgia, where a fight is taking place in the common area with the full knowledge of the prison guards and Warden Bates (Marshall Bell). Wolf Forrester (Randall “Tex” Cobb) is fighting Minoso Torres (Alex Garcia) as Gabriel Caine (Woods) helps an inmate escape. Wolf ends up in the prison hospital after losing the fight and he and Gabe discuss their plans as fighter and promoter after they’re released.
James Woods plays a down on his luck con artist who teams up with retired fighter Louis Gossett, Jr. to score a huge win against a local mob boss in a high stakes boxing match in “Diggstown,” now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Michael Ritchie directs an impressive cast in this entertaining 1992 comedy. However, the MGM release never found its audience and underperformed at the box office upon its release.
The movie opens in Winfield Prison, Olivair County Georgia, where a fight is taking place in the common area with the full knowledge of the prison guards and Warden Bates (Marshall Bell). Wolf Forrester (Randall “Tex” Cobb) is fighting Minoso Torres (Alex Garcia) as Gabriel Caine (Woods) helps an inmate escape. Wolf ends up in the prison hospital after losing the fight and he and Gabe discuss their plans as fighter and promoter after they’re released.
- 5/1/2016
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Film review: 'Bitter Sugar'
Filmmaker Leon Ichaso ("Crossover Dreams", "El Super") gets political with "Bitter Sugar", a deeply personal portrait of a family being torn apart in volatile, present-day Cuba.
Inspired by several actual incidents, the beautifully photographed and acted piece -- the center of which is a bittersweet love story -- should drum up solid art-house business.
The Spanish-language film could have been dubbed "A Tale of Two Siblings", with its focus on two very different brothers living in Havana. Good son Gustavo (Rene Lavan) is an idealistic honor student and an ardent adherent of the Castro regime.
His teenage brother Bobby (Larry Villanueva) is a "rockero," whose protest songs reflect the growing frustration and disillusionment of Cuban youth. After being jailed for taking part in a public demonstration, Bobby, following the lead of dozens of other rockeros who have taken the "Socialismo o Muerte" (Socialism or Death) credo literally, injects himself with HIV-infected blood. (The actual phenomenon was first reported in 1989.)
In the interim, Gustavo has fallen in love with Yolanda (Mayte Vilan), a dancer whose mother doesn't approve of Gustavo's pro-Castro politics. Meanwhile, the brothers' father (Miguel Guitierrez) -- a psychiatrist who has long ago become disenchanted with the socialist lifestyle -- leaves his poor-paying profession to take a job as a piano player at a tourist hotel for tips in American dollars.
With his promising future caving in all around him, Gustavo plunges into the depths of an irreversible despair and a heavy-handed denouement that puts this otherwise rhetorically restrained story over the top.
Aside from the overdone ending, "Bitter Sugar" boasts a finely woven script by Ichaso and Orestes Matacena, based on a story concocted by Ichaso and Pelayo Garcia. The performances are uniformly impressive, and Ichaso's passionate direction is gritty and lyrical -- one particular sequence in which Yolanda joins her family on a raft departing for Miami is at once vividly moving and hauntingly surreal.
That visual credit can be shared by director of photography Claudio Chea, who is responsible for some truly exquisite black-and-white photography.
BITTER SUGAR
First Look
Director Leon Ichaso
Screewriters Leon Ichaso, Orestes Matacena
Story Leon Ichaso, Pelayo Garcia
Executive producer Pelayo Garcia
Producers Leon Ichaso, Jaime Pina
Director of photography Claudio Chea
Production designer Liliana Soto
Editor Yvette Pineyro
Music Manuel Tejada
Black and white/stereo
Cast:
Gustavo Rene Lavan
Yolanda Mayte Vilan
Dr. Tomas Valdez Miguel Guitierrez
Bobby Larry Villanueva
Mr. Garcia Luis Celeiro
Belkis Teresa Maria Rojas
Running time -- 104 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Inspired by several actual incidents, the beautifully photographed and acted piece -- the center of which is a bittersweet love story -- should drum up solid art-house business.
The Spanish-language film could have been dubbed "A Tale of Two Siblings", with its focus on two very different brothers living in Havana. Good son Gustavo (Rene Lavan) is an idealistic honor student and an ardent adherent of the Castro regime.
His teenage brother Bobby (Larry Villanueva) is a "rockero," whose protest songs reflect the growing frustration and disillusionment of Cuban youth. After being jailed for taking part in a public demonstration, Bobby, following the lead of dozens of other rockeros who have taken the "Socialismo o Muerte" (Socialism or Death) credo literally, injects himself with HIV-infected blood. (The actual phenomenon was first reported in 1989.)
In the interim, Gustavo has fallen in love with Yolanda (Mayte Vilan), a dancer whose mother doesn't approve of Gustavo's pro-Castro politics. Meanwhile, the brothers' father (Miguel Guitierrez) -- a psychiatrist who has long ago become disenchanted with the socialist lifestyle -- leaves his poor-paying profession to take a job as a piano player at a tourist hotel for tips in American dollars.
With his promising future caving in all around him, Gustavo plunges into the depths of an irreversible despair and a heavy-handed denouement that puts this otherwise rhetorically restrained story over the top.
Aside from the overdone ending, "Bitter Sugar" boasts a finely woven script by Ichaso and Orestes Matacena, based on a story concocted by Ichaso and Pelayo Garcia. The performances are uniformly impressive, and Ichaso's passionate direction is gritty and lyrical -- one particular sequence in which Yolanda joins her family on a raft departing for Miami is at once vividly moving and hauntingly surreal.
That visual credit can be shared by director of photography Claudio Chea, who is responsible for some truly exquisite black-and-white photography.
BITTER SUGAR
First Look
Director Leon Ichaso
Screewriters Leon Ichaso, Orestes Matacena
Story Leon Ichaso, Pelayo Garcia
Executive producer Pelayo Garcia
Producers Leon Ichaso, Jaime Pina
Director of photography Claudio Chea
Production designer Liliana Soto
Editor Yvette Pineyro
Music Manuel Tejada
Black and white/stereo
Cast:
Gustavo Rene Lavan
Yolanda Mayte Vilan
Dr. Tomas Valdez Miguel Guitierrez
Bobby Larry Villanueva
Mr. Garcia Luis Celeiro
Belkis Teresa Maria Rojas
Running time -- 104 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 11/21/1996
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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