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Reviews
Old MacDonald Had a Farm (1946)
Credits listed above don't match the ones in the movie
Just popped in Cartoon Marathon Vol. 1 and this is the first short on the disc. After watching the short I checked IMDb to see if there was any trivia, reviews, etc. about the short. Something wasn't right. I did not remember seeing the names of either Seymour Kneitel or the legendary Otto Messmer appear during the credits. (This is a faded, non-remastered 16mm print from National Telefilm Associates, Inc.) The year jibes with the title and studio, but the credits as listed on IMDb appear to belong to another cartoon. According to the film's opening credits, the cartoon was directed by I. Sparber. The three animators listed are Myron Waldman, Morey Reden & Nick Tafuri. Story credit is given to Bill Turner and Larry Riley.
Akeelah and the Bee (2006)
Can you spell CONTRIVED?
The independent documentary Spellbound inexplicably garnered middle-class acceptance. ESPN soon began prime time broadcasts of spelling bee championships. (Were there Vegas odds on the kids?) If The Exorcist can spawn Abby and The Godfather beget Disco Godfather, why shouldn't contemporary black filmmakers cash in on a killer bee craze? What's next? A kung-fu spell-off? Inuit Perquackey? The first film to hop on the bandwagon was Bee Season. Why is okay for ultra-gentile Richard Gere to play a Jewish character? Audiences would have rioted had he undertaken Larry Fushburne's role as Akeelah's coach in blackface.
Akkelah's mom tells her to turn off the TV during dinner. Her brother asks Akeelah to flip to ESPN for him to check a score. Wouldn't you know it? Instead of a football game, the spelling bee championships just happen to be on. Don't you hate when an unskilled screenwriter has to rely on cutting to a TV screen at just the right moment to help advance the plot? What about spelling coaches with dead daughters finding students with dead fathers to mutually feed off of? Do you smell that? It's the stench of an ABC Sunday Night Movie burning through the screen. The only trick Atchison missed was having the bee unite Fishburne and Basset in happily-ever-after-hood. They made a much better Ike and Tina Turner.
Starbucks bankrolled the well-intentioned brew. Can you spell VENTI MACCHIATO? I was embarrassed to be holding a cup of their product during the screening. If they dispensed coffee as tepidly as they greenlight film projects, the crappucino would hit the fan.
By now Laurence Fishburne has played this character numerous times. He's good in a role far below his talents. Keke Palmer is the only reason to see this film. The kid is amazing. Through her performance she manages to plaster many of the cracks in the sloppy script.
People who never watch films made before 1990 and/or children under the age of eight will probably find Akeelah refreshingly contrivance-free. The power of Oprah will compel her zombies to dutifully buy tickets. Give me "Stick It's" anti-competitive sports message any day! As for the ludicrous assertion than anyone who doesn't like this film is a racist, I love Triumph of the Will. Does that make me a Nazi?
Bad Reputation (2005)
A Slasher FIlm That's Actually Worth Seeing!
First-time writer/director Jim Hemphill has captured the spirit of Roger Corman's New World Pictures in this very entertaining revenge picture. Anyone who remembers Stephanie Rothman's fine work for the studio should run to check this out. Shot on a shoestring budget, the film looks and feels like a classy 'B' picture. The cast of unfamiliar faces does a great job with this tale of a virgin who suddenly finds herself branded town slut. The dialog is clever and strictly first rate and any film that depicts sports and jocktards in such a negative light is to be devoutly cherished. Arguably the most reviled genre of all, Hemphill has a ball spoofing slasher films. But this isn't simply Wes Craven warmed over - this film has loads of style and a great sense of humor to back it up. For fans of the genre as well as those of us who might normally leapfrog over this on a rental shelf.
The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Anything but Grim
Don't expect the obligatory studio-damning follow-up documentary. For a change, over the top (and frequently over budget) director Terry Gilliam received final cut. His first completed film since 1998's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," Gilliam reportedly tinkered for two years while Miramax repeatedly shuffled opening dates. In wide release at last, "The Brothers Grimm" is a visually dazzling Byzantine blockbuster of a thrill ride aimed at, joy of joys, adult minds. Finally, a contemporary fantasy film that shuns the Hollywood notion that action and adventure must solely be geared for fourteen-year-old boys. Given their similarities and dark underlying preoccupations, Walt Disney is likely to be applauding horizontally in his cryogenic chamber.
There are three types of people in this world: those who do not believe in magic beans, those who do, and the Studio Heads who capitalize on those who do. Not unlike their contemporary Hollywood counterparts, Nineteenth-Century hucksters Wilhelm (Matt Damon) and Jacob Grimm (Heath Ledger) track local villages selling counterfeit action tales (with great advance word of mouth) that climax in a bunch of slick special effects. They weave tales of non-existent monsters then offer to exterminate them for a hefty fee. Business is booming until the curse of a three-hundred-year-old queen (Monica Belucci) turns out to be the real deal.
Not since Warner Bros. animator Tex Avery's screwball classic "Little Red Walking Hood," in which Cinderella telephones Red from the Three Bears' cottage to alert her of the Big Bad Wolf's pending arrival, has a film had so much fun mixing and matching fairy tales. Cindy, Red, Snow White, Rapunzel, you name them and they're in the pages of horror writer Ehren Kruger's ("Arlington Road," the Americanized "The Ring" and it's sequel) gets-better-as-it-progresses screenplay.
Damon and Ledger, with an emphasis on the quirky latter, bring a suitable second-rate thirties comedy team sensibility to the caterwauling siblings. Shemp and Larry minus Moe, but it works. Gilliam regular Jonathan Pryce's nefarious Delatombe deliciously delivers some of the film's funniest line readings. Favoring spectacle, Gilliam wisely tunes down a romantic subplot involving adventuress Lena Headey.
It's Cavaldi, Peter Stormare's larger than life and stronger than dirt braggart that triumphs over all but the art direction. The only redeeming facet of the otherwise unclean "Constantine," Stormare adds another miscreant to a long and impressive list of diverse, hopelessly repugnant supporting characters.
With the exception of a Pillsbury Mudboy, the computer generated effects remain firmly anchored in their fantasy universe. This is especially noteworthy when you consider the film cost a mere $75 million to complete, almost a third of the price tags attached to either "Revenge of the Silt" or "Bore of the World." A master of scenic invention as a means of storytelling, Gilliam along with production designer Guy Dyas flood their Magic Forest with menacing surrealist details including muscular trees with relocating roots. Alternating scenes are designed in accordance to Gilliam's customary flair for wild shifts in tone, light and color.
To hell with spielberg and lucas. This summer's intelligent adventure begins, continues and ends with Terry Gilliam's best film since "Brazil."
Goofy Goofy Gander (1950)
Gander at Little Audrey's Teacher!
Bored to distraction by a classroom lesson in Mother Goose, Little Audrey pulls out a copy of "Phony Funnies" to take the edge off. We follow a few panels of Pinhead and Bird-Brain as they attempt to knock over Fort Knox. When called upon to read by her extremely hot teacher, Audrey hits her with a few lines of comic book noir. Donning a dunce cap, Audrey sits in the corner and daydreams. The differences between Audrey (Famous Studios) and Ralph Phillips (Warner Bros.) are incredible. Ralph daydreams to escape, while Audrey's teacher becomes Mother Goose and acts as her tour guide. Ralph's daydreams are fueled by his own imagination, not some cheap comic book device geared to capitalize on a national craze. The rest of the short finds Audrey and Mother Goose flying above storybook land, the latter singing nursery rhymes as they watch the locals enact lame puns. One amusing moment has a twenty-something Mary dancing to the jewelry store with a seventy-something sugar daddy, complete with shopping cart, in tow. The fact that Audrey knows enough to find this funny is rather telling. Frank Sinatra emerges from behind a broom to croon a chorus of "Let's Get Lost." At the fair grounds, Pinhead and Bird-Brain morph into Audrey's dream. In order to show just how mean this pair is, they roll a somewhat fey piglet for a penny. Stealing from Warners, we find a goose that lays golden eggs to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw." (An egg slicer cuts the hen fruit into coins.) Realizing that the crooks do not belong in this dream, Audrey grabs a trumpet and takes flight on Mother's goose. The highlight is Edward G. Robinson as a "hard berled" Humpty Dumpty the no one can crack up. No sooner does Audrey get her hands on them, she wakes up wrestling a stool in her classroom. Suddenly, Audrey is hep to the jive and spewing jazz lingo. A bird, similar to the one in Bird-Brain's head, pops out from behind Audrey's hair ribbon to sing the finale.
Fever Pitch (2005)
Yellow Fever
Remind to check the IMDb.com specs before subjecting myself to any more "escapist" summer fare. Had I been aware of the combined threat of the Farrelly Bros. and think-free screenwriters extraordinaries Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandell I'd have stayed home and listened to the radio. It was bound to be more visually stimulating.
A die-hard Boston Red Sox (Jimmy Fallon) fan has to choose between his love of the game and that of a beautiful woman (Drew Barrymore). Everything in this dimwitted remake of a British Colin Firth comedy is telegraphed scenes ahead of time. And shades of Ed Wood - these glaucomic dolts even use the same establishing shot twice! I quickly picked up on that nuance, but being an avid professional-sports-are-for-mongoloid-jocks detractor, I was probably the only one in America that didn't know Boston went on to win the World Series. Fortunately for the filmmakers, my ignorance added a bit of suspense to this otherwise snot-filled romantic balloon.
Rated ** strictly for Drew.
Drew Barrymore is nothing short of adorable. She always is. One facial movement conveys more subtle warmth than anything the dopey directors she chooses to work with can muster. Her character has looks, talent and a very promising career, although we are never sure exactly what it is she does for a living. Focusing even a little on her would detract from our man/boy romantic lead. God forbid after several features the Farrelly's might have learned something about character construction and storytelling.
Unfortunately, Ms. Barrymore subscribes to the "eeny-meeny-miney-mo" school of script selection. Why she lends her considerable talents to help bolster the careers of SNL lightweights is a question for the ages. Her character is the most love-worthy cime-women this side of Juliette Lewisin "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" None of her allure comes from the script or direction. Drew's sense of romance is innate. What she sees in a slovenly, tunnel-visioned dweeb is beyond comprehension to both filmmaker and audience alike.
The fact that Fallon's mania fails to surface in the off-season is yet another telling sign of the director's/screenwriters' inabilities to shape a convincing romantic comedy. Before opening day she had ample time to observe Fallon in his natural setting. She even goes so far as likening his apartment to a Red Sox gift shop. What did she think she was getting into? Sorry, but I never turn my love for cinema off. The choice between a weekend in France and missing Oscar night would definitely present a major schedule conflict. However, if it were Drew doing the asking my bags would be packed yesterday.
The Farrelly's approach is as sloppy and maudlin as they come. Cheap sentiment, cuddly cripples, bodily fluid gags and sudden burst of sadistic violence are their stock in trade. Why am I not laughing? I counted four times in the film where a female character takes either a fist or a foul ball to the face. Funny stuff or the Farrelly equivalent to a liet motif? Luckily, this time around the tyke with a leg brace who throws out the first pitch on opening day is quickly dismissed. In the past we have witnessed a parade of handicap-able Farrelly types. Usually the boys goof on them for four reels only to embrace their differences in the end. Aside from playing it both ways, there is no other way for the Farrelly's to frolic. The ability to humanize players through satirical prodding is so far out of their grasp that it frequently becomes their film's funniest component.
If you are in the mood for a soggy, half-baked cupcake, look no further - you have met your mush.
Inside Deep Throat (2005)
Shallow Throat
There's an old maxim about censorship in Hollywood: If you show a naked woman in the act of making love it's filth and should be rated 'X.' However, if you take a chainsaw and disembowel that same woman, it's rated 'R' and the kiddies can attend if mommy and daddy can't afford a babysitter.
As the sniggering title suggests, don't come expecting too much in the way of sexual politics or modified feminist thinking in this soft-core examination of the world of hard-core. This is the work of producer Brian Grazer, Ron Howard's spiky-haired partner and the head of Imagine Entertainment. From the man who bankrolled "Parenthood," "My Girl" and "Kindergarten Cop" comes the first (and hopefully only) feel-good documentary ever made about the porno industry.
With the exception of a handful of exhibitors, the mob and one evangelically enlightened 'actor,' everybody associated with "Deep Throat" hasn't exactly profited from the experience. The first player we meet is director Gerardo Damiano. Only a former hair stylist turned smut peddler would attempt such a hideous salt and pepper (now entirely salt) weave on his head. This, coupled with a pair of hiked-to-the-nipples Sansabelts, gives the impression of a retired furrier, not a revolutionary adult filmmaker. Claims by the director that he was a radical on the front line of the sexual revolutions are nonsense. If ever a guy landed in the right place at the right time, it's Damiano. Judging by the finished product, the director didn't know which end of the camera he was looking through.
Then there's the film's male lead, Harry Reems who signed on as one of the crew and wound up a star. He also came closest to serving hard time but was spared, the film argues, by a new democratic administration. Long before Traci Lords, Reems was the first porn actor that tried to cross-over into mainstream cinema. Producer Alan Carr wanted to give Reems the role that eventually went to Sid Caesar in "Grease." When Paramount studio execs caught wind of of a porn star sullying their retro-teen musical they immediately put the kibosh on the casting. After years of self-medication, Reems not only went straight, he became a minister in Utah.
The reason that "Deep Throat" was such a mainstream hit had little to do with pornographic content. Basements across America were already equipped with portable screens, Super 8 projectors and stag reels. The one major point "Inside Deep Throat" completely overlooks is the fact the Linda Lovelace was the first reasonably attractive woman to appear in pornography. Say what you will about the film's attempt to incorporate a story, its "ground-breaking" sense of humor and the fact that it was shot on 35mm film. This film hit it big because prior to it, all you saw were zaftig maidens servicing plumbers framed in uncomfortable long shots.
There are a few nuggets of gold gossip to be mined along the way. Helen Gurley Brown loves a protein-enriched facial and horror hack Wes Craven got his start in pornos. Why am I not surprised? The only true pornographic artist was the great Russ Meyer, yet even he knew to stay soft core.
The directors keep the interviews moving with loads of cute, flashy bridging shots. Not surprisingly, the film offers up more than a few behind-the-scenes oddballs. Aside from Damiano there's his assistant director, an unhealthy cross between Charlie Callas and Prof. Irwin Corey. who is all too kind when confessing that as a filmmaker Damiano is a safe distance from "Luke Goddard." Then there's location manager Lenny Camp, a cantankerous, stone-deaf octogenarian with his hand permanently cupped to his ear. Not one for revisionist thinking. Lenny"s mantra is simple: "It was s**t then and its s**t now!" Showing Ms. Lovelace doing what she's most famous for was a must, yet I'm still surprised by the film's overall timid depiction of sexually explicit material. There is one quick shot of Linda swallowing. Even though the title explicitly refers to oral sex, the filmmakers' rapid editing approach to the more overt sexual material comes off a bit cowardly.
The film is crammed with witnesses to the time. Norman Mailer, John Waters, Helen Gurley Brown, Dr. Ruth, Erica Jong, Gore Vidal, Larry Flint, Dick Cavett and Camille Paglia, Hugh Hefner all add insight, but alas, the film's major player died in a car crash in the early nineties. Initial interviews with Lovelace show an "actress" proud of her work and notoriety. With the publication of her autobiography "Ordeal," Lovelace changed horses and began riding a feminist bandwagon. A key target in her book is Hugh Hefner, a man who Lovelace claimed like to force Playmates to have sex with dogs while he watched. The only thing more offensive than his calm, fatherly presence here is the filmmaker's refusal to call Hef on the carpet, presumably in exchange for his compliance to appear.
One of the first times we see Lovelace is in a clip from the "Donahue" show where she claims that everyone who saw the film basically watched a rape. By all accounts, husband Chuck Trainor drove Linda almost as hard as Paul Snider pressured Dorothy Stratton. Indeed, at various times in "Deep Throat" one can detect bruises on Lovelace's body. Sadly, her testimony is dubious as several years prior to her death she once again turned to the world of porn, this time doing a spread in ultra-skanky Legshow Magazine.
So if it's not sexual politics or feminist thinking that sparked curiosity about this nostalgic bit of smut, what is it? Before mentioning politics, before we're introduced to the film's motley band of players, even before the opening credits are done rolling, we are hit with the point that I think impressed producer Grazer the most: a film that cost a paltry $25,000 went on to gross over $600 million.
Underclassman (2005)
Cannon Fodder
Whenever the conversation turns to "CSI" or whatever prime time offering is currently in vogue, I quickly flag the waitress for a check. The last network television show I watched with any regularity was a Saturday morning hangover cure called "Save by the Bell." As Fran Liebowitz said, "if you're gonna' watch TV, watch TV." Not that the worst film is better than anything on television, it's just that after watching three movies in one day, the last thing I need in my home is more visual stimulation. The line between commercial film-making and think-free storytelling with commercial interruptions is less conspicuous than ever as studios bait their hooks with product inspired by, derived from and/or best suited for the small screen.
Tracy Stokes (Nick Cannon) is a third generation beat cop assigned bike duty. Only after a stolen goods deal goes bad and a bicyclist-dispersing, empty cardboard box tossing (no fruit cart?) chase ensues does newbie Tracy produce a gun. Youthful enough to pass for a high school student, under-qualified Tracy goes undercover to infiltrate an auto theft ring at a ritzy private academy. Rest assured that no new wrinkles or surprises will brighten this ancient premise. There are well-groomed punks to deal with (Shawn Ashmore & Angelo Spizzirri), a soft-hearted father substitute (Cheech Marin), a gorgeous Spanish teacher to romance (Roselyn Sanchez), and a stock authoritarian figure (Hugh Bonneville) to battle.
Being one of the few visible African-Americans at a predominantly white school, Tracy predictably demonstrates his ability to shoot hoop, and later paintballs and bullets. Brace yourself: "Underclassman's" running time is action-padded with a basketball game, Ski-Doo water chase, paintball contest, even a rugby match! Everyone on board actually bought into this vanity piece. The success of "Drumline" made the 24-year-old Nick Cannon a Miramax Star of Tomorrow. He currently has six films (including the hotly anticipated "Untitled Nick Cannon Project") in various stages of production, all slated for a 2005-6 release. With a name like Nick Cannon you'd half expect a Mickey Spillane dick or a jarhead fighting alongside Sgt. Fury. Instead we have a spindly, baby-faced pup whose first-time story outline is as clownish as his on-screen persona.
Although structurally as lumpy, Siega's first film, "Pretty Persuasion," a dark comedy about a student accusing her drama teacher of sexual harassment. showcases a better cast acting out a darker fantasy. Kudos to the freshman director. At a time when it's difficult for a newcomer to get one movie financed, Siega currently has two films in wide release. Unfortunately, when combined they don't add up to one feature.
Boksuneun naui geot (2002)
Baskin-Robbin's Kidney
Ryu (Shin Ha-kyun), a young deaf mute, is fired from his factory job for spending too much time away caring for a sister fighting kidney failure. A black market cash-for-kidney scheme leaves Ryu without either. Joined by his leftist girlfriend Youngmin (Bae Doona), the two decide to raise organ money by ransoming off the four-year-old daughter of Ryu's former employer. And that's just the first eighteen minutes! There's six more reels of multiple vengeance, murder, torture, suicide, electrocution, and Baskin-Robbins' 32nd flavor, kidney. Stop me if you've heard this one.
Completed a year before 2003's Korean box office sensation "Oldboy," "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" is the second Chan-wook Park film to play San Diego this year. Its welcome arrival shatters the customary end-of-summer blahs. According to the press notes, this was Korea's first "hard-core, hardboiled crime drama." As the title implies, there is a sense of irony at work, but don't expect any tension easing guffaws to dwindle the intensity; no edge-softening or sticky sentiment will act as a monkey wrench in this dark psychological thriller.
German director Fritz Lang noted that in talking pictures you either show a door close or you hear it, never both. Sound plays a crucial role in Park's narrative. Along with this year's delirious "It's All Gone, Pete Tong," "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" continues to explore new ways of filming deafness. Instead of muffled audio every time we adopt Ryu's point-of-view, a favored Hollywood approach, Park amplifies his handicap through heightened ambient noise. Downstairs they fight, upstairs they screw and a sitcom across the hall provides an accompanying laugh track. Spared the annoying din of thin-walled apartment dwelling, Ryu is equally oblivious to his sister's sickbed cries. They don't go unnoticed as four neighbor boys, believing the groans to be of a sexual nature, line up for a circle-jerk.
The film employ's a subtle use of green and orange to shade both story and character. Ryu's green hair meshes with the factory's neon hues making him little more than a part of the environment. Moving from green to orange, Park highlights the father's path to pay the ransom as skillfully as Hansel dispensing breadcrumbs. The relationship between the young hostage, wearing an orange outer-coat, and her kidnapper with a spring-green dye-job are mirrored by a televised fox and frog cartoon.
When a filmmaker chooses to strap on an anamorphic lens, one hopes the decision was premeditated. Even a genius like Wong Kar-wai failed to impress with his pragmatic application of 'Scope in "2046." On the basis of only two films, Park has proved to be a master of widescreen composition. Note the way he composes around a dresser when we first encounter Ryu and Youngmin in bed together. More than arty playfulness, the scene presents a couple separated by something so vast and insurmountable that they barely fit in the small space that life (and the frame) affords them.
Given the current political climate, audiences are reluctant to drop ten dollars on a tale embroidered with despair. "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" has cinematic a vision backing it up. Were that not reason enough, this summer screens were dominated by not-so-super heroes, wretched TV knockoffs, jock comedies, and a band of lovable penguins that somehow migrated from the Discovery Channel to local multiplexes.
Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962)
See the trailer, skip the movie
The hilarious trailer for this amateurish, ultra-low budget blend of comedy and Sci-fi became a cornerstone of my VHS library since USA Network's "Night Flight" first aired it back in the early 80's. "Look at these great big beautiful babes," says the, drooling, over-modulating 60's narrator. A revulsive Leo Gorcey wannabe puts the moves on a cute "galaxy gal" at least a foot taller than he is so his head is always at breast-level. All this and a hand-painted long shot of Cape Canaveral to boot! After ninety-seconds I was sold and had to track down a copy; this looked worse than as bad as they get. Rule of order - whenever a preview narrator feels the need to tell us that, "the laughs come fast and free," bet the opposite.
The script was written by Roger Corman regular Jonathan Haze. It's original title, "Monsters from Nicholson Mesa," was aimed at poking fun at American International honcho James H. Nicholson. Haze, best remembered as Seymour Krelboyne in "Little Shop of Horrors," intended the script as a showcase for he and fellow Corman stalwart Dick Miller. Instead, we get two comics that make Ted Danson and Howie Mandel look like Laurel and Hardy. Frankie Ray (Penn) is all eyebrows, macho Brooklynese and lame one-liners. No one ads an extra syllable to the word "bay-be-ee" quite like Frankie does! His partner Robert Ball (Philbrick) is a nasal, infantile pansy. Get the potential for comedic contrast? Some stock footage and the trailer's narrator set the place at Fort Nicholson, the World's center for atomic research. We hear talk of "the world's greatest scientists working together" and "Our first line of defense" only to cute-cut to a couple of "hand-picked" expert yardbirds that can't even handle a garden hose. If you didn't already take a hint from the (Wow!) placed next to two bimbo's names in the credits, this is the level of humor you can anticipate over the next hour.
The staging is mortifying. Stop the camera, move it 45-degrees to the right and restart the actors from where they left off. You want laughs? Stuck a guy in a garbage can, make sure the "No Smoking" sign blinds the audience, light up a cigar, toss it in the trash after you spot an officer coming and wait for the howls. A pacifist soldier weeps over killing a rattlesnake. Stupefying impressions of Warner Bros.' gangsters. Toy rayguns with dime store funnels jammed in the barrels. Not one original joke or concept and even worse, the filmmakers still can't figure out an acceptable way to present them.
While the duo goldbricks, their platoon explores a cave containing a race of extra-terrestrial tree people; stiff, burlap-clad, button-eyed extras acting scary with outstretched arms. They direct the boys to a spaceship commanded by two Amazon playmates, Prof. Tanga (Gloria Victor, Wow!) and her assistant Dr. Puna (Dolores Reed Wow! Wow!). They hail from the non-existent but real sounding planet Chalar in the Belfar star system. For ten years the galaxy gals have been on earth perfecting a race of Vegemen that they grow in soil brought from their planet. The boys treat their abduction as if it were a first date. These Naugahyde-bikini cuties are out of this world! The looming Dr. Puna begs to be taught the language of love Philbrick-style. (Instead of re- recording Cyrano Penn's romantic play-by-play, you can hear him echoing just off-camera.)
His kiss Wows! the Wow!Wow! and, using a cigarette lighter as a compass (don't ask), they make their escape. Borrowing from a cowboy film, they start a paper-mache boulder avalanche that fails to stop the oncoming "Spacetro Nuts." The "broads" call them off and Capt. Awol, a character I had hoped we were done with, is brought back into play. I suppose the filmmakers thought were playing around with genre when all of a sudden a group of Indians arrive on horseback. This allows room for plenty of "kemosabe" and "peace pipe" jokes to pad the scant running time.
After catching a buzz, the boys return to the ship. Philbrick saves the world by accidentally launching the spaceship. Puna's (Poon?) hots for the earth-man convinces Tanga to, "in the interest of science," kiss Penn. "Stand by for a charge, Bay-bee-ee!" Equating love with slavery, the dames return to earth, become suburban housefraus and wave at stock footage while their beaus are honored. A gypsy violin plays as the foursome drive off in a '57 Thuderbird with "The End" written on the spare.
A couple of short retardates cracking wise with busty babes. This sub-Neanderthal material doesn't even have the makings of a funny Playboy cartoon. It was released a few month's prior to the Kennedy assassination. Oswald not only killed JFK, his timing forever punctured the Rat Pack ethos and put a dent in Hefner's swingin' sixties philosophy. The compositions are even more offensive than the blatant sexism. Even letterboxed there's enough room to park another feature at the top of the frame. At best, a relic from another era.
Eros (2004)
The Great, the Good and the Ungly
The problem with omnibus films, in which several directors contribute a segment to a common cause, is inevitably one outshines the others and you are forced to make a choice. Here are three of today's most prominent directors given thirty to forty minutes to expound on the linking themes of eroticism and desire. It is difficult to absorb the vision of one artist let alone three cinemasters, especially when two are not performing on all cylinders.
The project was initiated by Stephane Tchal Gadjieff, producer of Antonioni's last feature, "Beyond the Clouds." Partially paralyzed from a stroke, the legendary director was still eager to continue making films. Inspired by his devotion, Gadjieff devised a trilogy focusing on the subject of "eros." According to the press notes, "The concept was to have two major young directors, who have been on record to say that they have been influenced by his film-making, accompany him. Each would do a segment on the erotic subject of their choice...Also, we wanted Antonioni to tell us near the end of his life what 'eros' was to him." After considering numerous candidates, Antonioni settled on a pair of diverse talents. His admirers of choice were Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong's master of mood and unrequited romance ("In the Mood for Love," "Days of Being Wild") and Indie-darling-turned Hollywood-heavyweight Steven Soderbergh ("King of the Hill," "Ocean's 12").
When assembling a trilogy film, rule of thumb generally centers the weaker of the three passages while saving the best for last. "Equilibrium" received proper placement. In terms of everything from concept to execution, Soderbergh's segment is far outclassed by his colleagues'. With a patient's back to him, how does a bored shrink pass the fifty minutes? The director took great delight in building a tale of eroticism around Alan Arkin and Robert Downey, Jr., but the yuk stops there. Arkin is very amusing as the scoptophiliac psychiatrist who sneaks peeps in-between Downey's catharses, but it's a one-joke concept that at 27 minutes goes on far too long. Animation guru Tex Avery's paranoid masterpiece "S-h-h-h-h!" made better use of similar material, plus adding a mood paranoia, at one-seventh the length.
Although built around him, for the sake of structure and pacing, the film should have opened with Anotonioni's segment. Co-scripted by lifelong collaborator Tonino Guerra ("L'Avventura," "Blowup"), "The Dangerous Thread of Things" has been described as a "mental adventure." Carlo di Carlo, curator of Italy's Antonioni museum, says, "Antonioni wonders: is a film born first in response to an intimate need of its author or are the images destined to have a value - ontologically - for what they are?" A brilliant notion (would one expect anything less of the director?), but given the allotted time, were it not for Mr. Carlo's guidance, I never would have been aware of this concept.
An American and his Italian wife are so bored with each other that they barely notice the beauty of Antonioni's surrounding landscapes. He doesn't seem to care that she strolls through town in see-through attire. A beautiful young girl enters the picture, the plot vanishes and we spend the rest of the time focusing on textures both man-made and of the flesh.
Wong Kar Wai's opening salvo is so powerful that it dwarfs everything that follows. Inspired by the SARS epidemic, the director fashioned his segment around "the act of 'touch.'" Once again Kar Wai's scorching, rain-soaked summers are painstakingly brought to life through cinematographer Christopher Doyle's unforgettable lensing. Chang Chen plays a nervous tailor's apprentice sent on his first solo fitting. Miss Hua (Gong Li) is a legendary concubine who strips the boy down, gives him hand release and instructs, "Remember this feeling and you'll make beautiful clothes." Years pass and even after countless fittings, the subject of their first encounter is never breached. The shame of listening to Miss Hua's sexual encounters each time he waits for their appointment only adds to his excitement. When sick and sponsor-less, she finally mentions the unmentionable, but her body is no good anymore. "All that's left is this pair of hands. You don't mind, do you?" When it comes to suppressing emotion and establishing mood through style, no one at work today can top Wong Kar Wai.Anyone who saw "In the Mood for Love" knows that these characters don't stand a chance at happiness, but plot is not the point. This is a film where style is not only subject, but substance as well. What he shows you is never as important as how he shows it. His approach is pure cinema, transcending and redeeming even the slightest of stories with the lens of his camera.
"The Hand" - ********* "Equilibrium" - ** "The Dangerous Thread of Things" - ******
Secuestro express (2004)
Just Say No
Were Jack Webb handed a budget to take his sermonic L. A. cop-show "Dragnet" on the road, it might play something like "Secuestro Express." "This is the city, Caracas, Venezuela. Every sixty seconds a person is abducted in Latin America. 70% of them don't survive." The "Dumb-dee-dumb-dumb" that follows would make a suitable overture to the structural contrivances of writer-director Jonathan Jakubowicz's debut feature.
For a man who only cut at the end of sentences and photographed everything at eye-level, the glaucomic digital imagery, jarring freeze frames and Cuisinart edits would surely sicken Webb. He would be equally reviled by the lack of law and order on display. Yet even Sgt. Joe Friday would be envious of Jakubowicz's skill with a hammer. His thudding message picture centers on a trio of goons and the engaged couple they shanghai.
Carla (Mia Maestro) is a sultry socialite who justifies her poverty-free existence by volunteering at a hospital for underprivileged children. Her only sin is wearing a cocktail dress in "a starving city." Okay, she also enjoys a little pot and coke, which are exactly what she and boyfriend Martin (John Paul Leroux) are partaking in at the time of their abduction. Decades after Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" smokescreen and it's still near impossible for a character to fire up a joint without instantly being earmarked for doom.
Their captors (Carlos Julio Molina, Pedro Perez and Carlos Madera) cavort like the Bowery Boys on crank. Violent, upidstay, and badly dressed, these homophobic brutes are hard pressed to differentiate between HIV and H20. Their cartoony machismo, one pig seems genuinely impressed that his rape victim wears Victoria's Secret, does little more than pile on shock.
The films is not totally void of shading. A clever twist momentarily transforming the criminals into crime victims and a well-executed front seat/back seat use of horizontal split screen both stand out. Later, a stopover at gay coke dealer's place finds the pusher asking to exchange drugs for thirty-minutes between the sheets with Martin. The reveal, before Carla, that Martin and the dealer were past lovers came as a bona fide surprise. At least until questions concerning a group of hardcore criminals loco enough to drag bruised and bloody hostages along on a drug deal popped up.
Even with sub-titles and grainy, rough-edged frames this action drama runs closer in spirit to this year's Bruce Willis blockbuster "Hostage" than "City of God," its obvious blueprint. Box-office benediction will determine whether or not the time is right for Jakubowicz to slap a "Hollywood, U.S.A." sticker on his steamer trunk and book passage.
Der Untergang (2004)
A Limp Heil
Last year's "Hitler's Secretary" documented the life of Traudl Junge, the last woman to transcribe the virulent dictator's dictation. Did anyone out there order a straightforward narrative account of Hitler's final days in the bunker? Following in the goosesteps of Richard Baseheart, Alec Guinness, Sidney Miller and countless others is Bruno Ganz, Wim Wenders' fallen angel, trying hard to add a little extra sieg to the heil, stretch to the salute and spittle to the tirades. Ganz makes a great Fuhrer. The obligatory tousling that falling lock of famous hair and siphon-bursts of anger are brilliantly mimicked. He even adds a new mannerism to the character - the left hand behind the back spastically squeezing an imaginary ball.
In an attempt to add a touch of documentary realism, the first voice we hear belongs to the real Ms. Junge, Hitler's farewell stenographer. Apprehension set in early on during Traudl's (Alexandra Maria Lara) interview. Hitler confides, "I make so many mistakes when I dictate." Not that I was expecting a Mel Brooks musical number, but some type of subtle suggestion that the authors understood the irony in the dialog would have added a tinge of personality to this otherwise conventional directorial debut.
Much has been said of the movie's alleged attempts to humanize Hitler. He's nice to his dog and Traudl. He was good enough to marry Eva Braun just prior to their mutual suicides. Still, that doesn't make him sympathetic or any less capable of committing atrocities. More like a lame attempt by a publicist to frantically stir up word of mouth over a film that asks viewers to spend the better part of their day in a bunker with the Maharishi of mass murder, his architects of doom and their families.
Even though the film is limited to only one screaming mother, it still can't help but plead guilty to stirring up the kind of messy sentiment too often associated with the genre. When all else fails, toss in a child and feebly juxtapose their clean slates with the Nazi atrocities. In this case there are kids both in and out of the bunker. An eight-year-old "civilian" who takes down two tanks before receiving a personal commendation from Shickelgruber must eventually learn the errors of his ways. Next to a bucket of amputated body parts in the O.R., the most difficult scene to watch has Mother Goebbles feeding cyanide to her sleeping offspring. The former is off-putting due to its sudden, graphic appearance. The latter is even more repulsive due to its meticulous, downright loving (in the sense that the filmmakers knew the power of the scene and milked it for all the schmaltz its worth) pictorialization. Is this one of the humanizing elements people are bent out of shape over? It isn't long before death can't be mentioned without being butted against a scene featuring children. The Goebble's Family Singers perform a song for Aunt Eva and Uncle Hitler just prior to an in-depth discussion of various forms of death. A suicide is dutifully followed up with a symbolic baby's doll flying out a window.
The vast majority of the running time plays out in the bunker and once we lose Der Fuhrer it all becomes tiresome. The loose ends come together and once again, Ms. Traudl (this time with an image to accompany the voice) is brought into play, Obviously tacked on to add a bookend (and documentary credence) it cannot help but evoke unwelcome memories of "Schindler's List," the film spawned it.
2046 (2004)
A So-So Year for a Remake
Not since Wim Wenders regrettable follow-up to "Wings of Desire" has an continuation of a major work of cinematic art left me feeling this deflated. Wong Kar Wai's extension of "In the Mood for Love," one of this decade's most breathtakingly original films, is a convoluted blend of past, present and computer generated future that tacks on one layer too many.
If "In the Mood for Love" represented a culmination of Kar Wai's artistry to date, "2046" is a self-conscious attempt to further his reputation through inner dialog. As with any sequel worth its salt, "2046" attempts to amplify, not merely duplicate, it's predecessor. Conversation from the first film is repeated verbatim. "In the Mood for Love's" female lead (Maggie Cheung) is played by a different actress (Gong Li ), yet Ms. Cheung appears in two fleeting shots. Journalist Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung), initially shy, romantic and hopelessly bottled up, is now a career womanizer. Not unlike modern day movie moguls, he abandoned more serious projects upon discovering a more lucrative audience in fantasy pulps.
The director was never one to rely on a shot-by-shot screenplay. This time it shows. The production went through four years and three directors of photography and leaves an impression of endless modification and visionary tinkering. The science-fiction segments sprinkled throughout play more like a studio tack-on aimed at targeting teen moviegoers. It's not, of course, but given the minimal amount of times the film returns to the future, a voice-over detailing events from Chow's novels would have sufficed.
Kar Wai's first venture into the realm of CinemaScope proves to be repetitive and uninspired. Considering his complex, non-linear style of film-making, a similarly thoughtful application of the oblong lens seemed pre-ordained. His anamorphic storytelling consists largely of cross-cutting between characters sentenced to opposite sides of the frame while textured drapes or walls fill the remaining space. Instead of studying anamorphic masters Sam Fuller or Otto Preminger, Kar Wai seems to have taken his cue from "Breaker Morant."
Subsequent viewing's will undoubtedly yield more insight. Make sure to revisit the original before venturing into "2046." (I should have taken my own advice.) Unlike the standard multiplex graffiti, even second tier Wong Kar Wai is not to be missed. As is, he's still ahead of the game. "The Hand," his segment from "Eros" released earlier this year, is pure cinema, transcending and redeeming even the slightest story through the lens of his camera.
Saw II (2005)
Good, grisly fun
Jigsaw (Tobin Bell ) is a psycho who makes good on his promise - "There will be blood." If inventive sadism is your idea of a fun night at the movies, "Saw II" delivers ninety minutes of relentless screw-tightening shocks.
In spite of its nonsensical conclusion James Wan's "Saw" was a engagingly grisly, brutally graphic thrill ride that delivered box office gold. With a twenty-five day shooting schedule forcing inventiveness and a tad more logic thrown into the mix, "Saw II" is a rarity among sequels: it's as good as the original. Instead of two characters and a corpse, we now have eight tortured victims united by one common bond.
Bad cop Mark Wahlberg can't seem to reign in his teenage son (Frankie Munoz substitute Erik Knudsen) who seems well on his way to a guest spot on "America's Most Wanted." That's all the impetus Jigsaw, a scientist when it comes to preying upon the weakness of his victims, needs to set the sequel's mechanics in motion. "Saw II' plays a clever twist on the original by placing the hero and villain, instead of the two victims, in one room. With a handful of TV monitors broadcasting closed-circuit coverage of the action, Jigsaw delights in watching the detective squirm.
The gut-churning parade kicks off with a pre-credit sequence in which the key to freedom is surgically implanted in the eye of it's victim. Two choices: either pull a Bunuel and slice wide your retina or suffer the fate of a Mario Bava-inspired spiked black mask timed to turn its victim's head into a colander. A pit of hypodermic needles, gallons of coughed-up blood and thoughts on serial killers and their quest for immortality suggest a game of "Clue" gone terribly wrong.
Casting "Saw's" Shawnee Smith, the only survivor of Jigsaw's game, in a key role proves that a sequel was never far from the mind of the franchise's creator. Instead of limiting the gore to one room, "Saw II' gives us an entire tenement in which to splatter about. Nerve gas, the film references the terrorist attacks on the Tokyo subway, is being pumped into the vents and Jigsawagrees to unlock the door one hour after the poison takes full effect.
With the exception of Tobin Bell, the rest of the actors were cast according to type. As the soft-spoken ringleader of carnage, Bell provides the prerequisite of every good horror yarn: a truly despicable antagonist. Quiet revelations of his gut-shot illness will have you cheering on the cancer.
It should come as no surprise that only a few characters live to see the final fade out and credit the filmmakers with devising several new sado-masochistic kinks. Not content to simply rearrange the narrative order of its predecessor, "Saw II" will not disappoint fans of the original.
Into the Blue (2005)
'Blue' Blows
"Into the Blue" gives straight teenagers a chance to ogle Jessica Alba's butt and pokies and gay boys a shot at surveying Brad Pitt clone Paul Walker's constant shirtless physique. That's about it.
Somewhere between the crotch and pex shots lurks a story concerning two couples' discovery of sunken treasures: the multi-million dollar bounty of a legendary shipwreck and a drug trafficker's submerged airplane loaded with kilos of cocaine.
The Coppertoned leads are certainly easy on the eyes during the opening travelogue passages, but when it comes to the business of acting Alba and Walker can't stay afloat. Walker is best grinning and baring it while Alba's method appears to be an uncanny ability to nod along with each syllable she pronounces.
Couple #2 consists of a taller, blonder version of Ms. Alba (Ashley Scott) who, unlike the sexless sex goddess doesn't mind appearing topless in long shot. Not since "Young Guns" has a film assembled a cast of second-generation talent. Scott Caan seems to have gotten the role of hotheaded party boy Bryce cause his old man played Sonny Corleone. Following in the dynastic footprints of Danny Baldwin and Chris Penn, Caan is another thick-necked ape who, when given a chance, provokes little more than unintentional laughs.
The villain in the piece is played by Josh Brolin, son of James Streisand. If only Josh put as much force into acting as he did into (allegedly) smacking around real-life spouse Diane Lane. Rounding out the family affair behind the lens is director John Stockwell, son of "Blue Velvet's" Dean Stockwell. Following the success of "Blue Crush," Stockwell seems to be the go-to man for updating the "Beach Party" cycle. As a director, Stockwell is best remembered for his acting in John Carpenter's killer-car film : "Christine."
At Last (2005)
Vanity Piece
Even with a running time of just over ninety-minutes, when the closing credits roll you'll find yourself repeatedly (and gratefully) shouting the film's title.
"At Last," a vanity piece based on the real life romance of the film's screenwriters, never rises above the level of a made-for-TV families-in-crisis melodrama. Set in Bayou country, Martin Donovan, doing a fine mid-period Fred MacMurray, plays an unhappily married father of two. Rummaging through a box of memories, Donovan happens upon a stack of romantic correspondence between himself and a teen flame that was denied the couple by his prison warden of a mother (Brooke Adams). Of course Donovan and Kelly Lynch meet, of course they are both in miserable romances, and of course they make it work in the end. If only this path to true love was not paved with so many pothole-sized clichés.
Each actor is assigned two or three instantly recognizable characteristics that define them. Donovan sells cars, lives in his father's shadow and longs to chuck it all and sail around the world. His wife (Jessica Hecht) is a cold, bottled up workaholic whose bun hairdo reflects her tightly-wound personality. Lynch is a social worker who constantly fights with her daughter while despising her husband's (Michael Arata) alcoholism. Aside from being a drunk, Arata loves practicing his golf swing, and when pressed, is able to let loose a powerful backhand across his daughter's cheek. Mother Adams chain-smokes and drinks. If her profound inability to apply eye make-up is any indication, this is one mama with a bad case of the shakes.
First time (and does it show) director Tom Anton can't resist cheap linking devices: Lynch in the kitchen dousing her onion-stung eyes with cold water, match cut to Hecht over a basin trying to cool down after discovering her home pregnancy test came up positive. Nor is the director skilled at side-stepping hackneyed plot devices: the lovers' first kiss is interrupted by the wake of a passing boat. Anton even has the giggly film school chutzpah to have his name paged over the airport loudspeaker.
Donovan and Lynch give it their all, but the film's only salvation arrives in the form of M. C. Gainey. From Swamp Thing in "Con Air" to the bouncer in "Terminator III" to the full-frontal rampaging hubby in "Sideways," Gainey has carved his niche as a character actor willing to take chances in the most ungainly roles. As Donovan's pot-smoking, law defying older brother, Gainey has the role of his career as a Cajun artist whose gravelly, booze-bathed voice plays Jiminy Cricket to Donovan's guilt-ridden adulterer.
The film's most disturbing element has nothing to do with its dutiful structure. Timing is everything, and in light of the recent devastation in New Orleans the couples' climactic shipboard reunion backed by the bouncy ditty "Hurricane Party" gave me chills.
Smile (2005)
Pathetic Pathos
Not to be confused with Michael Ritchie's nasty 1975 beauty pageant spoof, this "Smile" is a down-turned example of those good intentions paving the road to hell.
The film parallels two stories: an impoverished Chinese father sacrifices his wife and son to raise a facially-deformed orphan named Ling (Yi Ding), and a TV-spawned Malibu family act out "Gidget Get Birth Control." Katie (Mika Booram, the third Olsen twin) plays a spoiled, self-absorbed high schooler distanced from reality. Her teacher (Sean Astin) paves the way for a school trip to China aimed at showing students how to work with deformed children.
The film uses deformity as a means of suspense by treating Ling like the Frankenstein monster. Kramer continually masks her deformity through hats, hoods and camera placement. This approach exploits the freak show quality inherent in the material. She may be uncomfortable with the way society views her and Kramer's answer is to cover her up until the big reveal. Why disturb your audience with such unpleasantness? We see her face briefly at the end and only minutes before closing-credit snapshots of her after surgery disclose a swan beneath the harelip. It is not good enough to give the girl a reason to live; what is imperative is Ling being equally as hot and popular as Katie.
Funding for the film came from a trust established by the late Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. They envisioned a heritage of quality family films. Give me "Son of Paleface" any day.
Valiant (2005)
Pigeon Hole
An animated lexicon of WWII clichés for toddlers who have yet to rent "Where Eagles Dare" or "Battle of Britain." In an attempt to breathe life back into England's legendary Ealing Studios, the British Film Council aligned themselves with Disney and John M. Williams, producer of "Shrek" to form Vanguard Animation. Poised to become Europe's first "full-scale digital animation studio," their inaugural CGI feature is the $40 million adventure tale of Valiant, a traditionally diminutive Disney lead whose efforts on behalf of the Royal Air Force Homing Pigeon Service make him a hero.
If you must make a film about winged creatures during the war, pigeons are the obvious choice. Not ranked high on the list of favorite animated species, pigeons did make brief (and sultry) appearances during the war in a pair of first-rate Warner Bros. propaganda cartoons, "Spies" and "Plane Daffy." Anthropomorphic superstar Heckle once told Jekyll (or was it the other way around), "We're cartoon characters. We can do whatever we want!" The same can't be said of these salt-tailed pigeons. Aside from personification, there isn't much they do that couldn't be accomplished with trained, live-action carriers. The majority of the gags are dialogue driven and the limited visuals, awash with hideous pastels, on par with Disney-TV.
At its best, classic Disney represents childhood primers on adult neurosis. Hey kids -- Bambi sure is cute, but guess what? Just like Bambi's mother, your mommy is going to die, although chances are it won't be from a hunter's bullet. Check out Disney's "On the Front Lines" DVD collection. "Education for Death" is as harrowing as any live-action propaganda. If only the fledgling studio held true to its name by heralding even a slight anti-war vanguard. It is bad enough that so many Depends-wearing Americans back Bush, do we really need a recruitment film for the Papmers generation? I've been obsessed with American studio animation for longer than I care to recall. Bugs, Daffy, Betty Boop and Donald Duck can all out-act Keanu, Bennifer, Antonio and Julia. On their worst days, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Dave Fleischer and Walt Disney drew circle-upon-circles around ninety-percent of today's CGI whiz kids. Their's was cartoon storytelling at its finest: inventive, resourceful and timed to the millisecond. The question of whether they were drawn for moppets or adults with adolescent longings is moot. Kids deserve quality multiplex-fodder as much as their parental guardians. When asked his target audience, animation guru Chuck Jones replied, "we make them for ourselves and hope that if we like it, everyone else will."
Being from the old school, I experienced wet-eyes when news broke that Disney put an end to hand-drawn animation. (I can see Disney's famous "Nine Old Men" terminal at their terminals.) This is not to say that all CGI lacks imagination. Pixar's "A Bug's Life" and "Finding Nemo" do Uncle Walt justice. Nor is it a case of the incompetent craftsman laying blame on his toolbox. "Valiant" had all the right ingredients save one: imagination. That's what make Disney's Summer 2005 offering a less than valiant effort.
Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei (2004)
Love Child Gone Bad
After the last presidential election I began wondering what kind of ex-hippie would pluck the daisy from their rifle and vote Bush in? Twice no less! It took some time, but Hans Weingartner's second feature eventually got around to examining a German love child gone bad.
The first hour of "The Edukators" in which a trio of budding anarchists key cars, protest sweat shops, spout current events, smoke, screw and attempt to bring about "poetic resistance" by breaking into the homes of vacationing capitalists, covers no new ground.
Daniel Bruhl, who garnered attention in "Goodbye, Lenin!" stars as Jan, the angry, young and already disillusioned group leader. He fears that today's young radicals find the hippies a tough act to follow and don't bother trying. His co-conspirator Peter (Stipe Erceg) seems equally content stealing Rolex watches as he does engaging in political uprising. Peter is involved with Jule (Julia Jentsch), a struggling waitress who moves in with the boys and is immediately drawn to their mysterious brand of anarchy.
Their handle is "The Edukators" and their goal is to, what else, edukate the masses. Working off an address list of local yacht club ambassadors they plan to change the system from within mansions. Their distinguishing characteristics: rearranging personal belongings and a cautionary note that threatens, "Your days of plenty are numbered." These are the most victim-friendly terrorists one is every likely to meet.
The ideas of defining self by assuming the lives of others and home invasion as an anti-capitalist statement are better dealt with in Kim Ki-Duk's "3 Iron." Weingartner should have nailed these malcontents in the first ten minutes and cut to them scrambling for a kidnap plan the moment homeowner Hardenberg (Burghart Klaussner) makes an unexpected return. Only then does their youthful folly, and the film's ultimate purpose, become blindingly apparent as their catch turns out to be a fifty-year-old former SDS radical-turned-Republican millionaire.
While laying low in a mountain getaway, the old school activist befriends the group, becoming their instant guru. In a well-calculated rush of nostalgia, Hardenberg drops the ultra-radical concept of "free love" While Peter was on vacation, Jan and Jule began a clandestine relationship that the savvy capitalist caught wind of. Watching Scout Master Hardenberg's fleeting return to rebellious idealism as he works the kids is time well spent. The "knock-your-socks-off" ending hyped in the promotional material arrived three minutes too late for my taste and could easily have been excised.
Note to cinematographers Matthias Schellenberg and Daniela Knapp: Get some shocks and struts on that shopping cart you use for a camera dolly. Your fuzzy digital visuals are made even worse by the director's insistence on wall-to-wall, hand held camera-work. 35mm film stock may be cost prohibitive, but a tripod? Luster quickly fades when a tool of visual punctuation and/or expression becomes the sole mode of presentation.
Binjip (2004)
A hole-in-one!
According to director Kim Ki-duk, "People who play golf know that the 3 iron is the least used club. Imagine the 3 iron stuck in an expensive leathery golf bag but only rarely used. Its image parallels that of an abandoned person or empty house." Sporting gear, weapon, or implement of hope and change? In the case of Ki-duk's spiritual romance "3 Iron," circle all of the above.
Tae-suk (Jae Hee) has devised the perfect breaking-and-entering scheme. Moving from house to house, he tapes advertising pages over door locks. Retuning later he observes which fliers remain untouched. Figuring that the owner is gone, he picks the lock and assumes the vacationing owner's lives for a couple of days.
Tae-suk wisely checks the owner's answering machine for clues to the length of their absence. Neither burglar nor thug, he is instead the perfect house-guest. In addition to watching the place for a few days he cleans up and even hand-scrubs their laundry. Perhaps this is repayment for the few days room and board. Or is he a contemporary Everyman, void of individuality, defining self by assuming the lives of others?
Moving from neighborhood to neighborhood on his BMW motorcycle the young drifter is a contemporary hobo hopping stray houses instead of boxcars. Inside one ritzy dwelling he takes his customary bath, this time bringing a coffee table book which he reads underwater. In a wizardly moment of surrealism, he even goes so far as ironing the pages dry before returning the book to its proper place.
Later that night the stealthy invader encounters destiny in the form of a meek, physically abused wife whose husband is away on business. She quietly observes his actions, unsure of his intentions. Not until after Sun-hwa (Lee Seung-yeon) sees him regulate a broken bathroom scale does she fully realize that he is not a criminal. During these introductory scenes, Ki-duk has a grand time using reflective surfaces and focal lengths to depict Sun-hwa's spying game.
The press notes offer this bit of insight from the director into Sun-hwa's character:
"We are all empty houses Waiting for someone To open the lock and set us free. One day, my wish comes true. A man arrives like a ghost And takes me away from my confinement. And I follow, without doubts, without reserve, Until I find my new destiny."
Startled awake by her presence, Tae-suk makes a break for the door, stopping long enough to overhear a phone call from her husband that reveals the horrors of her current situation. He leaves, but is unable to shake her and returns to comfort Sun-hwa. In turn she becomes comfortable and extends her trust. Until her husband (Kwoon Hyuk-ho) returns. Forcing himself on his wife enrages Tae-suk who grabs a three iron and drives a few golf balls into the violent brute. Together, the soul mates pick up a stack of fresh fliers and attempt new a life together.
Eventually the couple is caught. In one home they find the body of an elderly man. The couple respectfully bury the old man, but his son pays an unexpected visit. Tae-suk is charged with murder and Sun-hwa if forced to return to her husband. Virtually the entire film plays out without the benefit of dialog on the part of either main character. Depriving Tae-suk of speech only heightens his sense of social isolation. Ki-duk knows his characters so well that words are not necessary. One reviewer went so far as suggesting that most viewers will be so caught up in the film they won't even notice that the characters don't speak until the very end.
When we enter Tae-suk's jail cell, I could not help but think of Henry Hataway's majestic "Peter Ibbetson." Even in prison, Gary Cooper would not be withheld Ann Harding's love. Each night his soul "breaks out" to join hers in their spiritual playground. It is unlike anything Hathaway has ever done and the most neglected Hollywood romance from the thirties.
In the end, Ki-duk asks his audience to decide between surrealist fairy tale and modern day ghost story. Unlike Christoper Nolan's overrated "Memento," the ending of "3 Iron" does not play like a pseudo-intellectual cop out. Nolan withheld the crucial opening scene from his viewers basically rendering the film incomprehensible. He lucked out when critics and audiences alike bought into his backwards babble. Ki-duk shows everything we need to appreciate his film and encourages us to use our imaginations to interpret his vision.
King's Ransom (2005)
Fool's Gold
The ex-wife of millionaire Chicago businessman Malcolm King, a disgruntled former employee and two co-workers, a loser living with his grandmother and the millionaire himself all plot to arrange and execute his kidnapping. The WB on the big screen complete with anonymous aerial shots of the city that act as scene-bridgers. Donald Faison as a valet parker mistaken for King and his burly, ex-con kidnapper (Charlie Murphy in the Tiny Lister role) add a couple of chuckles and Loretta Devine is always welcome. Anthony Anderson is only funny in posed background photographs scattered throughout. The one quality moment involves the three friends (Nicole Parker, Leila Arcieri and Brooke D'Orsay) arriving at the kidnapping wearing mask of Condoleeza Rice, Jesse Jackson and Colin Powell. Note the only white girl in the bunch dons the Powell disguise. Regina Hall as Peaches, King's bimbo secretary and Jay Mohr as the grandmomma's boy are unthinkable.
Beautiful Boxer (2003)
Raging Dull
I can almost hear a television booth announcer winding up for his movie-of-the-week introduction. "Tonight on The Best of CBS comes the real life story of a trans-gendered kickboxer who fought like a man to become a woman." Hot on the heels of "Million Dollar Baby" comes "Beautiful Boxer," complete with an inspired-by-true-events, chicks-with-dicks agenda all its own. In light of Clint's magnificent genre-transcending fight film this plays like "A Buck-and-a-Half Tranny." Asanee Suwan stars as Parinya Charoenphol who from birth knew that he was a woman trapped in a man's body. The film opens with a journalist tracking down Nong Toom, as his family calls her, for an interview. Instead of showing us the boxer up front, Uekrongtham cuts around her as if unveiling Frankenstein for the first time. I half expected to start on the shoes and pan up to her face.
JOURNALIST
"Tell us the story of your life." CUT TO: INT. NIGHTCLUB -- DAY, CU TAPE RECORDER The reporter presses the 'record' button on the cassette machine.
DISSOLVE TO: Five minutes in and the place began smelling like a first film. Five minutes more and it reeked of stage direction.
Talk about playing fast and loose with the facts in order to concoct a life changing day! Toom's first time at a carnival not only exposes the child to a pretty girl with an orchid in her ear and a boxing ring, but a sideshow with a drag queen singing about boys and girls and boxing! Uekrongtham should have his poetic license revoked.
We follow Toom from lipstick wearing schoolboy, through his career in the ring, to life as a pre-op transsexual, each phase harvesting little or no surprises. Early scenes in a Buddhist monastery make the Catholic church seem lenient by comparison. Not only are the young boys forced to go through a rigorous brainwashing process, failure to comply results in a caning. We are given nothing to work with other than two facts: Toom is a woman trapped in a man's body and a kickboxer. Friends, family and relationships and character development are all shunted in favor of a tunnel-vision approach.
"Beautiful Boxer" is also being packaged as an action film. All of the boxing scenes are strictly shoot-now-and-figure-it-out-later. Had they put half as much effort into film-making as they did makeup, "Beautiful Boxer" would not look like a burn victim.
Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005)
Diary of a bad black filmmaker
What is it with contemporary black male comics who feel the need to don layers of makeup and padding to play obese women? The statute of limitations ran out somewhere between Milton Berle's Texaco Theater and Mel Brooks' Roger Debris. Following in the footsteps of Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence tramples playwright Tyler Perry. After a couple of his works were transformed into direct-to-video releases, Perry now brings his drag character Medea to the big screen. Was anyone aside from Perry's mother clamoring for the cinematic unveiling? If only fat guys parading in drag was my only complaint with the film. On the occasion of their twentieth anniversary, Charles McCarter (Steve Harris) decides to coldly gift his wife Helen (Kimberly Elise) with a divorce. Before the credits ended, I was led to expect an old fashioned potboiler complete with dragging a soon to be ex-wife across the marble floor before throwing her to the curb. Pretty heavy stuff to kick off a supposed comedy, but wait - At the center of it all is Elise, one of the finest dramatic actresses at work today and a name not readily associated with belly laughs. Charles' emotional abuse should have resulted in Helen pulling a Farrah and setting him ablaze, but that's not what Jesus would do. According to the film, even if your spouse beats and cheats or consumes enough drugs to deteriorate your family, it is your sworn duty to God to stand by them.
The story is nothing if not ambitious. Aside from the marital melodrama we have the all-too familiar look-what-drugs-can-do-to-a-family scenes, courtroom drama, a musical number, crude sexual comedy, the blush of new love, and an Act III miracle. There's even a sadistic nod to "Baby Jane?" brutality that, according to the audience I saw it with, was played strictly for laughs. For the first hour the sheer audaciousness on the part of the filmmakers to throw every cliché at you is acceptable in a first-film manner. After about the third reel religion is brought into play and its not long before the film sinks under the weight of its mixed messages. When Helen is confronted by Orlando (Shemar Moore), the most perfect envisionment of man either black or white to hit the screen in ages, she must first finish getting even with Charles before she can join Mr. Right in eternal happiness. I'm no Bible scholar; was it the book of Matthew or Leviticus that preached the benefits of mentally torturing a man in a wheelchair to enact revenge? Even before the ham-fisted climax where a cripple walks and a drug addict is instantly rehabbed, the film was on a downward spiral. Perry's latex tonnage and cartoon characterizations take away from Elyse's emotional transformation. The prosthetics are an unwelcome distraction that cushion the filmmaker's anxiety over addressing the more substantial material. It will play, but only if the material is interrupted every ten minutes by flabby comic relief. I was thrilled to see a pot smoking senior go unpunished, but in this context the hypocrisy was laughable. On board to add credibility is Cicely Tyson, that symbol of suffering black women everywhere. From "Sounder" and "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" to Viagra and fart jokes. The last time Ms. Tyson appeared in a theatrical feature was the dreadful "Hoodlum" in 1997. This is the vehicle she chose to make a big screen return. She doesn't embarrass herself, but by the same token this uncomfortable blend of boorish yuks and Bible-thumping is far beneath her talents.
Most distressing of all is watching a group of African Americans basically echoing and endorsing Bush's ungodly use of God as a tonic. Given all the strides society has made in the past ten years on behalf of emotionally and physically abused women, the rationale behind this forgive-and-forget mindset escapes me. What would Oprah say?
Fiddlesticks (1930)
Fiddle-Dee-Dee
After breaking with Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks opened his own studio and introduced the world to his first solo cartoon creation, Flip the Frog. Flip would go on to appear in 38 cartoons, over half the output of Iwerks' studio. From the opening pan left we are introduced to a horizontal universe with nothing to offer in the way of depth construction. Our hero begins by hopping lily pads, a realistic trait that is quickly eliminated as Flip spends the rest of the short walking (and dancing) upright. A couple of buttons and a red bow-tie further undermine Flip's resemblance to a real frog. Without a plot to speak of, this Paleozoic venture into sound and color had only its star to rely on. Flip's sole raison d'etre in this short is to entertain two audiences: the one in the theater and an animated woodland gathering of insects, skunks and rodents. Credit Iwerks with completely avoiding repetition. Flip may cavort a bit too long, but he never makes the same move twice. At the piano, Flip is accompanied on the violin by a Mickey lookalike while interrupted by the spit from a tobacco-chewing robin. This is about as funny as the short gets, but as with the pioneer efforts of the Lumieres, Iwerks was more interested in movement (and characterization) than narrative storytelling. Besides, there are few things more charming at this point in cartoon history than the joyful dance that Flip, the mouse, the piano and its stool put on. Flip and his piano carry on a rather perverse relationship. Initially Flip offers a handkerchief to blow its keys on during a sad interlude. This compassion goes one step further as the frog begins to rub one out on the piano's leg. This causes the baby grand to give Flip a well-placed boot, only to have the frog finish by punching out a crescendo and ultimately kicking its teeth out. Long on seamless execution but lacking in character personality and development. A Disney cartoon void of Uncle Walt's flair for personification and storytelling.