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JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRISIS ON TWO EARTHS (2010), dir. Sam Liu, Lauren Montgomery

2010-02-23T06:44:00.000-08:00

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This review was originally published at Cinemaspy.

By now, the Justice League cartoon show has been in syndication and on home video long enough that fans know what to expect: iconic heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman; threats to human life on a planetary scale; and a serious tone overall. While the new Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths doesn't necessarily exist in-continuity with the previous Justice League cartoon, it does feature a similar art style and storytelling approach in an original adventure that should please longtime fans, even if it may not wow them.

The plot is similar to the Justice League cartoon episode "A Better World" which introduced an alternate universe version of our heroes called the Justice Lords, who declared martial law over Earth in order to protect mankind from itself. Once again, Superman and company cross dimensions and face-off against different doppelgangers; but this time, the antagonists are the Crime Syndicate, who aren't well-meaning-but-misguided so much as mobsters with superpowers. They run illicit enterprises across their world, keeping governments in check by threatening to kill millions.

On this world, familiar Justice League arch-enemies were superheroes until they were systematically wiped out by the Syndicate. Now Earth's only hope rests with Lex Luthor, who as befitting a mirror dimension uses his intelligence for good, not evil. After leaving his world for ours, he convinces the League to follow him home and help liberate his planet. What no one expects, however, is for members of the Crime Syndicate to eventually pay the League's Earth a visit, thanks to an important device this Luthor has hidden at the heroes' headquarters.

That's more than enough plot to sustain a feature-length Justice League adventure. Writer Dwayne McDuffie, a veteran comic book scribe who previously wrote for the Justice League cartoon as well as the monthly "Justice League of America" title, fashions a scenario that suitably requires the combined efforts of the world's greatest heroes. In theory, the league is battling itself, so fans expecting action, action, and more action aren't likely to be disappointed. McDuffie leaves enough room for a little character development as well; however, with an ensemble of more than a dozen protagonists, not everyone gets equal screen time.

Overall, the art and animation exceed the Justice League cartoon: colors look rich and saturated, and character movements are exceptionally fluid (indeed, Wonder Woman appears so dynamic in one pivotal fight sequence that she drew cheers from the preview audience). The action is well-paced and occasionally-inspired—though one could argue none of the principals get to use their abilities in any unique fashion. Highlights include an aerial battle with realistic-looking cloud effects; and there’s a certain wit having the League encounter versions of B-list heroes from their world when they first arrive in alternate Earth, then having the same thing happen to the Crime Syndicate when they cross the breach in the reverse direction.

Another way the Justice League movie possibly surpasses the cartoon is the quality of the voice acting. While some of the cast’s big names seemingly get lost in the shuffle — in hindsight, the producers probably didn’t need Mark Harmon for Superman, since he doesn’t get all that much to do — there are plenty of standouts. William Baldwin makes for a brooding and effective Batman, although he seems to be channeling Christian Bale more than mimicking legendary Bat-vocalist Kevin Conroy, and Gina Torres does good work as the Crime Syndicate’s Superwoman, whom she appropriately plays as Wonder Woman with a seductive side. And James Woods is in a class by himself as Owlman, who might best be described as the Dark Knight minus a human side. An actor known for his feral intensity, Woods dials himself back considerably, and the result is the most memorable villain of the lot.

If I had any qualms with Crisis on Two Earths, they stemmed from how little the Syndicate actually resembles its League counterparts. Sure, their powers are similar: the evil Green Lantern sports a power ring; Ultraman can fly, is really strong, and can shoot lasers from his eyes like Superman, etc. But there’s already no shortage of comic book villains with similar powers as their heroic counterparts, but who have contrasting morals. Flash has the Reverse-Flash; Green Lantern has Sinestro; and the Man of Steel has Zod, among others.

In hindsight, what gave "A Better World" a sense of poignancy is how the alternative universe League of that episode, despite being totalitarian, wasn’t all that removed from our own; they just took the mission of protecting mankind a step too far. But because the members of the Crime Syndicate look and sound so different from Superman, Batman, etc., that aspect is missing here, and with the exception of Owlman and Superwoman, they’re just another bunch of anonymous baddies deserving of a super-slugging. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a fun escapist yarn (as I often am) or you’ve been waiting for more Justice League cartoons (as I always am), you could do far worse than Crisis on Two Earths.

ZOMBIELAND (2009), dir. Ruben Fleischer

2009-09-16T19:00:00.001-07:00

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This review was originally posted at Cinemaspy.com

Zombieland seems more interested in eliciting laughs than causing goose bumps. It’s quite good at the former, which results in a fun time at the movies overall, and almost makes up for how slight it feels compared to George Romero’s zombie granddaddies or even the more recent films which ushered in the fast-zombie era. To be sure, there are plenty of "zeds" (and to answer your first question, these are the fast models), but the camera only settles on them when they’re devouring a victim or drooling lots of blood and bile. Is it gross? You bet. Scary? Not really.

What’s really terrifying, in Zombieland at least, is the prospect of human attachment. For that reason, the film’s main character Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) was a shut-in long before a Mad Cow-related virus decimated mankind. The erstwhile college student-turned-last surviving remnant of humanity remains highly-neurotic, living by a set of rules advocating safety above all else (Shoot a zombie in the head twice, watch out in bathrooms, etc.), which simultaneously keeps anyone from getting too close. Of course, Columbus secretly longs for the very human contact he avoids; you’d be a contradiction too, he explains, if the first girl you ever let into your dorm room tried to eat you.

Things start to change when he hitches a ride with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), although it takes a while for their relationship to thaw. The pair are opposite numbers, evidenced when they see a zombie woman devouring a corpse: Columbus remarks that it’s a reminder of how far the world has fallen; his new companion, on the other hand, says it makes him hungry. Tallahassee lives in the now more than Columbus, and indeed, his rules for life include enjoying "the little things," such as Twinkies and bashing a zombie’s head in.

They eventually meet two more survivors: Wichita (Emma Stone) and her sister Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who are headed for a California theme park located in a town supposedly free of the undead. After some initial conflict, the four characters decide to drive to the west coast together, and on the way, Columbus starts to feel some romantic stirrings. He also makes some predictable observations about his new friends and how his previous outlook on life might not have been the best.

In the classic zombie movies, the creatures are supposed to be reflections of ourselves, but screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick invert the formula. Their message appears to be, We’re as much walking dead as the zombies if we don’t try and live, and that means taking some risks, whether it’s our feelings or, in the case of the final 30 minutes, our very lives. Indeed, between where they initially meet and the theme park, the protagonists encounter numerous obstacles, but the undead are rarely the most imposing. Rather, it’s trust issues or past tragedies. The emphasis on the personal extends to set pieces: in one scene there is a surprise raid on a Native American souvenir shop, and zombies are definitely dispatched. But the real point is for the characters to achieve catharsis by subsequently trashing the shop, and to bond with one another while doing so.

Director Ruben Fleischer doesn’t get around to disclosing everybody’s problems, and that benefits the movie, which zips from one moment to the next with only one scene that drags (It features a certain A-list star and is, nevertheless, hilarious). The build-up to the final act promises to mix zombies and a theme park, and without giving too much away, I can say the filmmakers deliver the goods. Think of your favorite kiddie-land rides and amusement park features; for the most part, they’re here and integrated into some pretty satisfying action sequences.

The cast is uniformly terrific, especially Harrelson and Breslin. After a decade in which his career seemed to go comatose, the former has found his comeback role, the kind of potential scenery-chewer many veteran actors would line up for. But Harrelson wisely plays Tallahassee with utmost sincerity, which acts to ground some of the curious things he does and says. (When the character claims he hasn’t "cried this hard since he saw Titanic," we totally believe him.) Meanwhile, Breslin, barely recognizable from her Little Miss Sunshine days, steals quite a few scenes from the rest of the cast, including one in which she fires a shotgun into the air as a warning, then smilingly remarks on the improbability of it. "All those violent video games," she says.

Like Shaun of the Dead before it, Zombieland is an offbeat, unexpectedly sanguine entry to a niche genre. Some viewers may have problems with the last act: at the preview screening I attended, I overheard audience members questioning why anybody would choose to awaken a theme park at night, since the end result would be lots of lights and noises that would attract zombies. Their argument is totally valid, but I would point out the rumor of no zeds in that part of town, as well as the movie’s overall theme that fun often goes against self-preservation.

WORLD'S GREATEST DAD (2009), dir. Bobcat Goldthwait

2009-09-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

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This review was originally posted at Cinemaspy.com

Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait might be best remembered for his voice, which resembles a perennially-stalled car engine, but he’s developed into an accomplished director who can generate laughs and pathos from problematic material. His 2006 Sleeping Dogs Lie revolves around an act of bestiality, and his latest features auto-erotic asphyxiation as a plot point. But in World’s Greatest Dad, he also dares to show the parent-teenager relationship as the simmering pot of antagonism that it can be, and adolescents for the borderline-sociopaths they often are.

Robin Williams plays Lance, a failed writer whose day job is teaching a sparsely-attended high school poetry course. He’s also the single dad of Kyle (Daryl Sabara), who as offspring go, might embody the nightmare of every remotely-dorky thirty-something contemplating whether to procreate. Kyle shows little intellectual potential, and his knee-jerk response to any cultural activities is mean. ("The only thing more queer than music are the people who listen to it," is a typical Kyle-ism.) Apparently, his only interest is pleasuring himself in strange and potentially-lethal ways. When such an adventure goes terribly wrong, Lance frames it as a suicide, going so far as to fabricate a good-bye note.

However, being the writer he is, Lance can’t help but embellish a little bit, making Kyle out to be smarter, more tortured and less of an asshole than he really was. Luckily, aside from the one student who was Kyle’s only friend (Evan Martin), no one else knew him well enough to say otherwise. But when the note gets out, Kyle quickly becomes an object of obsession among the entire school, romanticized by the Goth girls who scorned him, even embraced by the principal, who was a half-step away from expelling him.

Lance doesn’t help matters by faking his son’s supposed memoirs, and painting him as a closeted genius who loved Emily Dickinson. But one gets the feeling that if he had said Kyle admired Fred from Scooby-Doo, the kids would have all shown up the next day wearing orange-colored ascots. Goldthwait, who also wrote the screenplay, has something to say about how we idealize the dead, and how we tend to try drawing connections between tragic figures and ourselves. Why do we do it? In the case of Kyle, it’s a lot easier than getting to know him when he was alive. However, in filling in the proverbial blanks with false details and their own imaginations, Kyle gradually turns into the opposite of what he had been in real life.

We get treated to many, many shots of Kyle’s likeness reduced to a brand, but there are also a few scenes showing students taking genuine inspiration from his made-up story, and I would have liked if the film’s second half spent a little more time arguing why Lance should consider keeping up the ruse. Instead, everyone around him becomes self-absorbed, at which point it’s easy to root for him to call it all off. More screen time could also have been given to the Evan Martin character, who represents the real victim of Lance’s fraud: he wasn’t just Kyle’s only friend; it was true the other way around, too, and now his memory is the one that seems to matter the least.

But overall, World’s Greatest Dad pulls off the trick of being very funny with pretty dark material. Williams, who gives his best lead performance in years, manages to shoulder the entire second half by being largely reactive; one of the movie’s assets is his impish grin, which in scenes where peripheral characters wax touchy-feely about how "being a parent is the toughest job you’ll ever love" or his late son’s gift for prose, seems to take on a life of its own. At the same time, Williams imbues Lance with weighty and tangible sadness, which is surprising until one recalls he did the same in The Fisher King and Good Will Hunting.

As for the first half, it flies by on the relationship between father and son, which feels genuine in its propensity for emotional scarring. I give Goldthwait and Sabara equal credit for their keenly-observed, perfectly-executed teenage misanthrope, who proves thoroughly unlikable, but not in a cartoon way. The key was making Kyle pathetic. In a terrific scene early on, he instigates a fight wherein he gets his ass handed to him, but adding insult to injury is the other student isn’t even the jock Kyle accuses him of being. "I’m not a jock. I don’t even play sports," Kyle is told while being held down and struck.

In another standout moment, after his father purchases him an expensive new computer monitor, Kyle’s sullen response is, "It’s not even the biggest one." While it’s painful seeing this bratty kid’s combination of entitlement and ingratitude, we know that’s part of what adolescence is all about. In fact, these scenes underscore the sadness of what eventually transpires, because we watch Sabara play this petulant bastard early on and think to ourselves, "He’s just going through an obnoxious phase." Sadly, he never gets a chance to grow out of it.

A CHINESE GHOST STORY (1997), dir. Andrew Chen

2009-04-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

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Overall rating: ** (out of ****)

This seems more like an attempt to compete with Walt Disney than Hayao Miyazaki, and that’s unfortunate since Miyazaki’s Studio Gibli effectively set the new gold standard for hand-drawn animation during the late 90’s.

Indeed, films like “Princess Mononoke” and “Spirited Away” sported gorgeous drawings and impressive storytelling. However, they were also characterized by ambitious, occasionally epic storylines that utilized elements of Japanese mythology, executed in a mature fashion that appealed to all audiences. And therein lies the big difference between Miyazaki’s films and this one, produced by Hong Kong action master Tsui Hark; although “A Chinese Ghost Story” does touch on some grown-up themes, it does so in a restless manner that’s heavy on the eye candy. It’s as if Hark believed success depended solely on getting children into the theater.

Based on a story that inspired a live-action film and several sequels, the main character of “A Chinese Ghost Story” is Ning, a wandering tax collector with a broken heart. He was too busy earning his way in the world to keep his lover, who is mostly shown via flashback, from marrying someone else. When night falls, Ning ends up in a ghost city, which looks normal except for all the green tentacle-bearing creatures walking around (and that the city is lit up like Los Angeles in “Blade Runner”). What also distracts him is a beautiful woman named Shine; he falls in love with her at first sight, and it’s not long before she takes an interest in Ning herself.

Little does our protagonist know that Shine, who is also a ghost, works for a powerful entity named Trunk, who needs to eat human souls to maintain her beauty. After helping Ning out of a jam, Shine starts to coax him back to her master; however, a series of events happen which thrust the pair into the wilderness and toward each other. They include appearances by rival ghost hunters: on one side, White Hair and his apprentice, who resemble traditional action heroes; versus the more grizzled-looking Red Beard, who is about 70-percent facial hair and 100-percent gristle. There is also another female ghost jealous of Shine’s prominence among their fellow spirits. Finally, Shine has to beware the daylight, which can reduce her to ash, so Ning carries her around in an umbrella.

I can’t help thinking Miyazaki would have made a charming love story out of a young man with an umbrella that turns into a woman. To its credit, the film does reveal that Shine has a boyfriend – another ghost who has been away for years – and the idea that faithfulness is a shared trait among the protagonists makes their pairing all the more appealing. But screenwriter Hark, more known for kinetic, frenetic martial arts movies like “The Blade” and the “Once Upon a Time in China” series, barely lets the characters be alone together before propelling them into another fast-paced action sequence. The film manages to end before exhausting us, but what we take away isn’t the story and characters, it’s all the gimmicks aimed at the kid set.

Like a lot of the animated American movies of the 90’s, there is a pet sidekick providing comic relief (including a timely urination joke), some forgettable musical numbers, and strange moments of anachronism, including a ghost whipping out what amounts to a cell phone. In addition, characters all seem to try solving their problems by breaking out magical weapons, shooting at one another with electric eye beams, or the coup de grace: activating a giant robot with rocket boosters on its legs, and is clearly made out of computer graphics. At best, children will ooh and aah at the tumult of stimulation, but since nothing looks particularly innovative on a design level, adults are more likely to dismiss the giant robot as an inevitable toy product tie-in, or to wish for tighter editing during the elaborate throwdowns.

Kids may get a kick out of “A Chinese Ghost Story,” but those looking for sophisticated animated fare will probably be bored.

(Note: “A Chinese Ghost Story” was directed by someone named Andrew Chen, but based on the opening credits, you’d think it was Hark. Known for using directors as vessels for his own cinematic visions, he’s gotten most of the credit for movies he’s produced. As such, it only seems fair he gets the brunt of the criticism this time.)

NOWHERE TO HIDE (1999), dir. Myung-Se Lee

2009-04-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

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Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

Imagine “The French Connection” with Wong Kar-Wai and such luminaries of Japanese cinema as Seijun Suzuki and Shohei Imamura at the helm, and you’d end up with something like “Nowhere to Hide.” Although frequently over-the-top, this Korean-language thriller’s highly-stylized nature is what makes it so unique, even if one can never take it very seriously. Meanwhile, it features a terrific performance by Joong-Hoon Park as a violent slob of a cop in the Popeye Doyle tradition.

The slaying of a gangland leader puts the Homicide Division’s best detectives, Woo (Joong-Hoon) and Kim (Dong-Kun Jang), on the trail of an assassin named Sungmin (Sung-Kee Ahn). As one might expect, the two cops are yin and yang: Kim is a conventionally-handsome, introspective family man, while Woo is a blustery, mean-tempered bear of a cop whose first instinct is usually force. But saying he’s tough would be an understatement. In the film’s opening montage, Woo takes on an entire gang of hoods in a warehouse single-handedly, displaying an agility that would make Sammo Hung nod in recognition.

Writer/director Lee liberally cuts back-and forth from that pitched fight to Kim and the others from the Homicide Division, who strut around carrying metal pipes, which they use to check the air in criminals’ heads. They resemble a pack of vigilantes more than police, and that, the filmmakers seem to argue, is the reason they’re so effective at their jobs. Like many classic cop movies, success in “Nowhere to Hide” requires tossing out the proverbial rulebook and resorting to excesses like torture and beatings; however, there are blackly-humorous touches that take some sting out of the brutality (at one point, the entire division decides to beat up on a suspect, but in their unbridled enthusiasm, they trash their headquarters, too).

The subject matter has the potential to be thought-provoking, but the story occasionally gets lost amidst the hyperactive visuals. “Nowhere to Hide’s” first third is a seemingly-non-stop tumult of freeze frames, slow-motion, punk rock guitar riffs and sound-mixing straight out of a spaghetti Western. Now don’t get me wrong; the blitzkrieg of sight and sound does get the adrenaline pumping to a certain extent, which is probably Lee’s intent. My only criticism is it doesn’t ebb and flow the way, say, Kar-Wai’s equally-playful “Fallen Angels” does; rather, it talks in a steady stream of exclamation points as a Michael Bay flick might.

Luckily, once the central investigation kicks in, the visual excesses seem appropriate, what with the lengths Woo, Kim, and the others are willing to go to collar their killer. Moreover, especially during the second half, Lee actually seems to tone things down, as if realizing the performances and plot were now sufficient to maintaining his audience’s attention. The movie continues to be inventive, albeit in ways film buffs may find derivative: the occasional emphasis on powerful images over continuity, a la Suzuki; voyeuristic first-person tracking shots similar to Imamura.

Although “Nowhere to Hide” concerns the Homicide Division as opposed to narcotics, like “The French Connection,” the plot involves surveillance and pursuit (including a memorable set piece involving a train) and cops who play close to the edge. Detective Woo has the same distinctive hat-wear and smile suggesting a punch to the face that Gene Hackman packed, and once the film races to its conclusion, it leans more heavily on Joong-Hoon, who conveys surprising depths to this unapologetic thug. As he explains to a beautiful co-conspirator (Ji-Woo Choi) of Sugmin’s whom they hope to bring around to their side, he knows his job, and that’s nailing the bad guy by any means necessary.

Woo is so convincing at not being self-delusional that the denouement – one of those “waiting by the side of the road, hoping for the woman whose boyfriend you just served justice to will give you the time of day” shots, seemingly borrowed from “The Third Man” – is rather poignant.

EVIL (2003), dir. Mikael Hafstrom

2009-03-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

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What is “pure evil?” According to this searing Swedish drama, it’s causing pain to others simply because one is bigger, or has the protection of the authorities. It’s bullying, and it’s even worse when the bully is reasonably intelligent. Stand up to this kind and they may leave you alone temporarily, but all the while, they’ll be plotting any manner of alternative ways to get at you.

At the beginning of “Evil,” public school thug Erik Ponti (Andreas Wilson) is accused of being exactly this sort of psychopath. He scraps with his classmates, has been suspected of stealing, and despite what glimmer of academic ability he has shown, there is little chance he’ll be admitted to college. What Erik’s critics don’t know is the physical abuse he’s endured at the hands of his stepfather; only Erik’s mother knows, and in desperation, she sends him off to a private boarding school called Stjarnsberg, pleading with him to save what’s left of his future.

From the outside, Stjarnsberg looks like any other preparatory institution for sons of the rich and prominent. Despite being 17, Erik is roomed with younger, fresher-faced students, and his roommate is Pierre (Henrik Lundstrom), an affable dork who brings him up to speed on how things are run. Here the upperclassmen police the lowerclassmen, punishing infractions such as public cursing with some physical reprimand – for example, one student gets struck over the head with a spoon. But it goes further: basically, the lowerclassmen have to do the upperclassmen’s bidding, and when Erik balks, he finds himself at odds with Silverhielm (Gustaf Starsgard), who proves one heck of a sadistic senior.

Pretty much the entire Stjarnsberg upper class sets out to make Erik submit. When he won’t clean a pile of their mud-encrusted shoes, they make him dig ditches in the yard and other forms of hard labor. As for the headmaster, he generally turns a blind eye to whatever the older students do to the younger. Worse, there is a boxing square where lowerclassmen can be challenged to fight, but it’s always two-to-one in favor of upper-classmen, meaning it’s really a place for bigger students to beat smaller, weaker boys into pulp. Erik would be the exception; however, he refuses to engage in fisticuffs out of his promise to his mother to stay out of trouble.

Viewers will figure out early that Erik gets off the sidelines (note the scene where he and Pierre bond over their mutual love of “Rebel Without a Cause,” and the latter says his favorite scene is when James Dean is standing over his best friend’s dead body). To be fair, “Evil” doesn’t telegraph itself quite so cleanly, and it’s pretty good until about halfway through, when a plotline involving Erik’s swimming ability – which gives the underclassmen their first opportunity to steal some glory from the uppers – gets abandoned in favor of escalating antics (although nothing quite tops the use of a bucket containing human waste during the film’s middle).

What lesson are we supposed to take away from all this? Authority figures with absolute power can corrupt absolutely, be they favored students or step-parents? That’s all well and good, but as far as I can tell, the movie never presents or proposes any solution to this problem (and “Evil” does seem to think it’s that). If Erik is to be our example, the only real hope appears to be enduring indefinitely or getting oneself a good attorney. True, he does get a love interest for distraction, but their relationship is strangely underdeveloped, although one scene which amounts to, “You appear to have hypothermia. Let’s have sex,” is pretty funny.

The movie does try to say something about how abuse can shape us, either as individuals or as a mass: Erik was a thug because his stepfather would verbally and physically hurt him; meanwhile, Pierre points out that when Silverhielm was an underclassman himself, he probably had to endure atrocities similar to what he dishes out now. When the movie does allow Silverhielm an explanation, he says Erik’s defiance in and of itself caused him a “living Hell.” This implies the cyclical nature of bullying at Stjarnsberg breeds peer pressure; poor Silverhielm must make his charges fall in line, or else.

However, the most telling scene about the effects of abuse might be when Erik gets one of his tormentors alone, acts like he’s going to kill them, and starts explaining how he will commit the murder and get away with it. It all sounds half-baked, but the victim breaks down and starts begging for their life, at which point Erik looks at them, genuinely half-surprised. “You really thought I was going to do it, didn’t you?” he says, and the answer is: Of course they did. When a person has spent so much time around human beings at their absolute worst, what else would they expect of anyone but the same?

Overall rating: ** (out of ****)

INNER SENSES (2002), dir. Chi-Leung Law

2009-03-06T09:52:00.000-08:00

Ever since “The Sixth Sense” came out almost a decade ago, various movies have tried following in the footsteps of M. Night Shymalan’s supernatural-themed drama, mostly by packaging boogedy-boogedy tales with twist endings. The made-in-Hong Kong “Inner Senses” starts off as such a retread, but doesn’t take very long before finding its own way. The path it takes may be more romantic and mainstream than “The Sixth Sense,” yet the film is entertaining nonetheless, even without the twist ending, which is actually more like a twisted middle.

As in Shymalan’s film, “Inner Senses’” main protagonists consist of a fragile soul who claims to see dead people, and a haunted-looking psychiatrist who tries to help. It should be noted that the predecessor starred Haley Joel Osment as a young boy whose “I… see… dead people” quickly became a popular catchphrase; “Inner Senses” star “Karena Lam,” on the other hand, is an extremely beautiful young woman. My point is we don’t expect the “The Sixth Sense’s” surrogate father-son relationship so much as a romantic one, especially given how good-looking a couple she and co-star Leslie Cheung make from the outset.

However, before these two can ride off into the sunset, they have to deal with the problems of Lam’s character Yan, who claims she isn’t sick but really does see ghosts. We first glimpse her ability shortly after she has moved into a spacious but creepily drab-looking apartment, and a man appears in a room one moment and is gone the next. Having already seen numerous doctors to no avail, Yan ends up with Cheung’s intelligent, rational-seeming, and thoroughly workaholic Dr. Jim, who gives university lectures on how ghosts are merely the result of years of cultural stimuli.

According to Jim, Chinese culture is especially steeped in the supernatural. “We use ghosts to teach things,” he says, giving an example of how parents often tell their children, “Do this or don’t do that, otherwise a ghost will get you.” It is interesting that, in a Hollywood ghost-related film, the supporting cast is typically composed of non-believers, but almost the opposite is the case here – Jim is practically surrounded by superstitious, spirit-appeasing characters. In one scene, a respected colleague admits he will not take Yan in, despite being married to her cousin. Is it because Yan thinks she sees ghosts? On the contrary, it’s because she might actually see them, and both this rational-seeming medical professional and his wife are terrified of ghosts.

“There are already so many people in Hong Kong. Where would the ghosts live?” Jim asks his colleague. Nevertheless, in typical cinematic psychiatry-fashion, he and Yan manage to develop a close friendship over a short period of time, as he attempts to unearth the repressed memories responsible for her specters, including being abandoned by her parents when very young and rejected by a boyfriend after getting too possessive. But is burying the past and boosting her self-esteem really all Yan needs? Meanwhile, what’s up with the strange changes the good doctor appears to go through, including insomnia and flashbacks that initially seem connected to Yan’s childhood?

Like “The Sixth Sense,” there is a mighty twist, only it happens about an hour in as opposed to the last five minutes. As such, “Inner Senses” is a movie of two halves, the first carried along by scare scenes and the burgeoning relationship between the two leads, the second by recycling the first half’s themes of repression, trauma and suicide, and amping up the stuff going bump in the night. Unfortunately, the latter represents the film at its weakest; “Inner Senses” has some creepy-effective moments early on and in the middle, as we wonder if Jim’s problems are purely psychological, the result of a fear of intimacy. But as soon as the horror gets more visceral, the movie just gets grosser and goofier. On the bright side, it culminates in what could be the most touching necrophilia scene ever committed to celluloid.

But at least the first half sets up enough clues that we don’t feel cheated once the twist kicks in. We also come to care about the protagonists; Kam and Cheung convey vulnerability well, and Cheung’s performance is particularly great, the actor practically embodying such qualities as intelligence, decency, and empathy. He also shows a wealth of versatility in scenes I won’t get give away, except to say they could be compared to Mickey Rourke in “Angel Heart,” which I mean as the highest compliment. It should be noted that “Inner Senses” was the last movie Cheung worked on before committing suicide, and watching him try to help someone with their personal demons seems highly ironic, knowing how he ultimately couldn’t outrun his own.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

CHAN IS MISSING (1982), dir. Wayne Wang

2009-02-26T06:50:00.000-08:00

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“Chan is Missing” is a movie about the Chinese made by a Chinese-American, and it avoids the racial stereotyping a lot of Hollywood films do not. It was directed and co-written by Wayne Wang, who has gone on to direct other films about under-represented minority groups, including an adaptation of Amy Tan’s “The Joy Luck Club.” Although the low-budget “Chan is Missing” was filmed over a decade earlier, Wang’s penchant for Chinese characters with real depth already showed.

The movie centers around two San Francisco cab drivers named Jo (Wood Moy) and his nephew Steve (Marc Hayashi), who want to start their own taxi service. When the movie opens, they have given $4,000 to their partner Chan Ho, a relative of Jo’s ex-wife, to go file their business with the city. Unfortunately, several weeks have passed and they haven’t heard back from him. Then they find out from a social worker that Chan was recently involved in a traffic accident, but hasn’t made any of his court appearances.

What happened to Chan? Is he dead, or could he have run off with the money after the accident? Jo and Steve go looking for Chan in Chinatown, only to be told by his co-workers and friends that they haven’t seen him around either. But his jacket turns up at a nightclub he frequented, and there are possible clues in the pocket: a clipping from a local newspaper, about an elderly Chinese man who killed another man over political differences; and a letter from Chan’s brother written in Chinese.

The friends at the nightclub think Chan used the $4,000 to go back to China and resolve a family matter. But Jo, intrigued by the clipping, takes it to a buddy at the Chinese consulate. It turns out to be warning about how dangerous the political climate has become between Chinese who support the mother country’s stance against Taiwanese independence, and those who side with Taiwan. Later, during a stakeout of Chan’s apartment, they hear from his neighbor that a mysterious woman stopped by to talk with Chan about some photographs.

Could the photos Chan supposedly took have something to do with his disappearance? The mystery gradually unravels, albeit in a talky manner reflective of both independent American cinema and the production’s limited budget. Of course, some viewers will be turned off by the lack of movie stars and basic-looking set-ups; indeed, much of the acting seems done by amateurs, and although the black-and-white cinematography could be described as effectively-noirish at times, “Chan is Missing” is not exactly great-looking.

Still, based on cultural significance, the film deserves four stars just for employing real Asian actors as competent protagonists. From the very beginning, Jo and Steve aren’t the usual Chinese stereotypes; the kind of buffoons Mickey Rooney wore yellow-face for in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” They don’t have buck teeth or misplace their r’s and l’s, they don’t practice tai chi or kung fu. On the contrary, both men speak English that sounds vaguely American, and while they exist in a universe of Chinese culture – for example, at the house of Chan’s ex-wife, she gives Jo an orange – such references never seem like attempts at exoticism.

The movie also allows Jo and Steve to be very aware of what non-Chinese think of their kind. The former mentions that his fares inevitably ask where a good place to eat at in Chinatown is; he’ll start telling them the differences between regional Chinese cuisines, leading to a good tip. Meanwhile, Steve, who is the more cynical of the two protagonists, bristles over having gone to see “Saturday Night Fever” at a Chinese theater, only to find the opening theme dubbed, “You can tell from the way I use my wok, I’m a Chinese cook, I’m a Chinese cook.”

Finally, the movie shows Chinese can be prejudiced against one another, which may blow some people’s minds. In the history of American cinema, it’s not uncommon for those with similar skin tones to be lumped together, and Asians have especially gotten that treatment. While heterogonous-minded Hollywood still has trouble distinguishing Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans from one another, in “Chan is Missing,” what gets emphasized is that Chinese come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and political beliefs, and certain ones consider themselves better than others.

For example, early on there is a scene in which Jo, Steve, and Steve’s sister are sitting around the kitchen table, teasing each other about the ingredients in the meal, whether they’re from American supermarkets, as opposed to the more questionable Chinese groceries. They also say unflattering things about “New Money” Taiwanese, disparage “Commie-lovers” who support the regime back in China, and discuss how two Chinese City Council candidates draw from very different demographics within Chinatown.

Being that the main protagonists are American-born Chinese (or “ABC’s”), Jo and Steve initially expect Chan to fit certain stereotypes for a “FOB” – a derogatory term short for “Fresh off the Boat,” or recent arrival to the United States. Steve in particular has a negative image of them, beliefs that get thoroughly subverted over the course of the film. By the end, one character realizes Chan, who could very well be a stand-in for all Chinese, can no longer be so easily categorized. Not that that’s such a bad thing.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

TRIAD ELECTION (2006), dir. Johnnie To

2009-02-06T07:22:00.000-08:00

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There are two types of gangsters that populate this film – angry, cocky ones and calmer guys who look like they belong in a boardroom. “Triad Election” argues the second kind is always more dangerous.

This sequel to 2005’s “Election” returns to the universe of the Triads, the brotherhood to which all organized crime gangs in Hong Kong belong. According to tradition, every two years the inner circle of elderly “boss”-types picks a new chairman, who is essentially a CEO of crime. For the past two years, Lok (Simon Yam) has held that role and the brotherhood has flourished, but with a new election around the corner, some young, hungry challengers have thrown their hats into the ring. Unfortunately, what none of them realize is Lok wants an unprecedented second term.

Of the Triads’ various up-and-comers, the most qualified for the chairmanship would be Jimmy (Louis Koo), an illegal porn-dealer turned legitimate businessman. However, during a dinner with Lok and his other “brothers,” Jimmy makes it clear he’s not interested, seemingly paving the way for Kun (Ka Tung Lan), who acts like he has chips on both shoulders, or Jet (Nick Cheung), Lok’s right-hand man, whom he promises to make chairman in exchange for his loyalty.

What starts off semi-familial – the middle-aged Lok, surrounded by his five “sons” – becomes a tightly-paced sequence of double-crosses and unsavory violence, spurred by the Chinese government’s blocking of Jimmy’s grand scheme to develop land just inside their border. Apparently, only Chinese patriots are allowed to do business in China, and the only way Jimmy can become a patriot, he is told, is to become Triad chairman. Since he doesn’t reveal his motivation to the other “brothers,” Jimmy and his loved ones are soon targeted by rivals, just as he finds his morals being increasingly challenged by the inner circle’s demands.

Having not seen “Election” beforehand (Actually, I thought “Triad Election” was “Election”; it wasn’t until the opening credits, in which it’s called “Election 2” that I realized my mistake), I wasn’t sure how many moral codes Jimmy broke in the first film to get where he is, e.g., whether he previously ordered a man’s death. Either way, he does it here, and it’s only the first of a number of transgressions. The violence gets pretty disturbing, such as the torture sequence where a man gets beaten to death with a sledge-hammer, ground up, and fed to a German shepherd. But To, who is Hong Kong’s pre-eminent filmmaker, choreographs the competition with the elegance of a chess match: each player biding their time, not giving away their respective strategies, and only shedding blood when it matters most.

To, who has made movies of all genres, employs stillness to nearly Zen-like effect. Countless shots consist of characters sitting silently or staring off into the distance, making them look about as glamorous as models in a magazine ad. However, it also serves to ratchet up the suspense, as his protagonists become like coiled snakes, always in the midst of contemplating their next move, which they act in swift, deadly fashion. This feeling of calm also gets expressed through the smooth camerawork and in the musical score, which often consists of either a faint drumming or a few notes on a stringed instrument repeated over and over again, creating a vibe of steadiness.

“Triad Election” is a crime film of surprising depth, even if most of the supporting players are thinly characterized. There is a recurring subplot, about the lengths both Jimmy and Lok are willing to go to keep their progeny away from the gangster life. When Jimmy tells his wife early on, “Our children will be doctors and lawyers,” he’s not just talking as a parent who wants his progeny to achieve great things; what he wants, we sense, is for them to have legitimate jobs, to not have to exist in the shadows, as he has had to.

Similarly, Lok has an adolescent son named Denny, and his efforts to shield him from his father’s Triad life have twisted their relationship. When he finds out Denny may be involved in gang activity, he and his henchmen confront his son and a group of youthful hoods in a restaurant. Unfortunately, violence breaks out, and the boy runs off, frightened of his own father. After Lok unsuccessfully tries to catch him on foot, he gets in a car and watches as his son speeds off. “Don’t scare him,” he tells his men, his face an unexpectedly moving mask of sadness and worry. “Just bring him home.”

One could also read into the relationship between Jimmy and mainland China as reflecting the Hong Kong film industry’s anxiety about the mother country, whether it will respect their traditions, or toss them aside if the upside is wealth and power. If the first “Election” is anywhere near as good as “Triad Election,” the series deserves its reputation as one of Hong Kong’s best in recent years. But for my money, it isn’t quite up there with “The Godfather,” despite the shared attributes of darkly-lit atmosphere and small men fighting over small corners of power.

My problem is with the epilogue and what happens to Jimmy, which I won’t give away. Suffice it to say, this movie is intended to be a tragedy, and tragedies – for me, anyway – are always more interesting if the protagonist falls through a weakness in his/her own character. In “The Godfather, Part II,” for example, Michael Corleone had the whole world in his hands, but lost it because he couldn’t forgive his brother’s betrayal. Again, I don’t want to say what happens to Jimmy, except it appears he was always up against powers far greater than his own. In the end, he never stood a chance, but maybe in the next life, he’ll be more wary of guys in suits who look like they belong in the boardroom.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

EASTERN CONDORS (1987), dir. Sammo Hung Kam-Bo

2009-01-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

A dirty, not-quite-dozen goes behind enemy lines in “Eastern Condors,” an action/war movie about Chinese ex-convicts recruited for an impossible mission. Directed by Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, this Hong Kong production has more in common with the aerobic martial arts films of Jackie Chan than “The Deer Hunter,” but despite being more entertainment than message movie, the entertaining parts really shine.

The plot: U.S. military brass assigns Lt. Col. Lam (Ching-Ying Lam) the task of destroying deadly weapons left behind in Vietnam. In order to infiltrate the country more effectively, his team consists of Chinese immigrants, incarcerated men who take the job in exchange for early release and money. These hard-luck types run the gamut between old and young, brave and timid, and although most of their personalities are painted with broad strokes, the camera seems to gravitate naturally towards Shawn (Kam-Bo), whose noble features contrast his 30-year sentence for killing a policeman.

Like a lot of Hong Kong movies, “Eastern Condors” mixes action and comedy, but the overall tone is fairly serious, even with the occasional touches of wackiness thrown in. There are lapses in logic now and then, such as a team member dying because he has a stutter, and it takes him too long counting to 20 before opening his parachute. In another scene, Lam’s commanding officer tells him, “Don’t do anything heroic. Get home safe.” A moment later, however, the same C.O. asks if he can look up his long-lost brother, a soldier who wasn’t able to escape Vietnam with his unit. This raises the question: Isn’t risking your life to find someone presumed dead heroic, not to mention dangerous?

Luckily, the missing soldier’s nephew (Yuen Biao) turns out to be both an expert smuggler as well as a formidable martial artist who knows the terrain. Meanwhile, woman warriors, a familiar Hong Kong action trope, also feature prominently, this time as three freedom fighters every bit as tough as the men. They may even be tougher: in one grisly scene, a guerilla who has been stabbed and had her hand sliced off still manages to take her assailant down with her.

Kam-Bo, who was a stuntman before becoming a successful movie star and fight choreographer, does a good job directing, too, capturing mayhem at interesting angles and using slow-motion when things get impressively hairy. Sometimes the action gets a little too elaborate: in one of many scenes spent engaging Vietcong troops bent on killing the unit, Biao dives down from trees with vines wrapped around his waist, which seems like an awful lot of effort to take out enemies one-at-a-time. Nevertheless, the film’s breakneck pace and sheer innovativeness ensure things never get boring; expect daring escapes from jungle prisons, explosions, hand-to-hand combat of all sorts, even a scene where leaves are turned into projectile weapons.

Interestingly, “Eastern Condors” is ostensibly about Chinese emigrants to the U.S., and as such, the movie can be viewed as reflecting what Hong Kong thinks its brethren’s relationship with their adopted country is like, in all its potential complexity. There are moments with definite subtext: for example, the look of discomfort on the Lt. Col.’s face when the prison warden tells him he should take 100 Chinese convicts, not just the ten he wants, because he’ll “just lock up more.” Later, when one character is faced with the possibility of dying in Vietnam, he resignedly says, “At least I’ll die in the East.”

With regards to the film’s depiction of the Vietcong, it helps to keep things in perspective, and remember that “Eastern Condors” represents the prejudices of a specific nation with its own baggage about that country. However, any critics of “The Deer Hunter” will likely be offended by certain scenes involving Vietcong child-soldiers, and the appearance of a fey-looking general who alternates between high-pitched giggling and single-word screams is curious. At least that main heavy kicks ass, and the movie ends on a suitably sardonic commentary about the Chinese’s love-hate relationship with America.

When there’s no Army helicopter in sight to effect a rescue, one protagonist starts cursing, “F*cking America, goddamn America.” When Shawn asks him where he’s going to go after leaving Vietnam, his answer is, of course, “Back to America.”

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

DEAL OF THE CENTURY (1983), dir. William Friedkin

2009-01-09T07:19:00.000-08:00

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I was under the impression that good, effective satire meant a sly wit and a straight face. “Deal of the Century,” unfortunately, lacks both of those qualities. The movie’s tone is too broad, and the screenwriter practically hits the audience over the head trying to hammer his message home. This likely represented the low point for director William Friedkin, who took the prestige earned from films like "The French Connection" and “The Exorcist,” and spends 100 minutes firing blanks.

“Deal of the Century” centers around efforts to sell the Peacemaker, a remote control drone manufactured by a company called Look-Up. Their CEO believes the pilot-less plane will revolutionize air combat; unfortunately, following a botched demonstration, Look-Up has to try selling the Peacemaker outside the U.S. Enter Eddie Muntz (Chevy Chase), a small-time arms dealer who improbably closed the deal on a contract for the plane with General Cordosa (William Marquez), only to have the South American dictator renege since Muntz wasn’t authorized to make the sale.

It turns out the general will be in Los Angeles for an upcoming arms convention, presenting an opportunity to secure the deal and, for Muntz, earn himself a hefty commission. Complicating matters, however, is Ray (Gregory Hines), his business partner and a foremost aeronautics expert, recently found Jesus and wants out. Another problem is Catherine (Sigourney Weaver), the widow of the original salesman whose death paved the way for Muntz. They meet in South America, but it isn’t long afterward that she’s back in his life, pointing a pistol at his head and accusing him of killing her husband.

Catherine wants part of Muntz’ cut, and proves willing to do whatever it takes to get it. A lot of money does hang in the balance, but director Friedkin and screenwriter Paul Brickman ask, “Is it moral to sell people what they don’t need, especially if it leads to innocent people getting hurt?” Muntz and Ray are portrayed as everyman-types who need the cash to keep their modest weapons-building operation afloat. “If we don’t make the sale, someone else will,” Muntz rationalizes. But aside from these two entrepreneurs and dreamers, America’s weapons industry is mostly portrayed as a means by which large corporations profit from developing nations, or as a big joke, and herein the film’s weakness lies.

Once upon a time, Stanley Kubrick cut a pie-fighting sequence from “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” because he and the screenwriter agreed it took the satirical film too far into slapstick. “Deal of the Century” is not nearly as disciplined: it tries hard to be outrageous, and in doing so, loses any resemblance of tonal consistency. There is a scene in South America where a pistol-packing hood jumps Muntz, but after the latter whips out an AK-47, he not only relieves the would-be robber of his gun, he takes his wallet, too. Although one could interpret this sequence as illustrating how the arms industry has pushed inhabitants of Third World nations into desperation, the way it ends on a bullying note neutralizes its initial humor.

Likewise, when Look-Up’s super-plane malfunctions due to computers overheating, the real criticism – that an aeronautics firm spends billions on the plane, but recycles cheap air conditioners to keep its vital parts cool – gets lost amidst endless shots of eggheads in their underwear and sped-up footage of bystanders fleeing. Again, the movie can’t settle on a tone. Finally, there is a running gag about Muntz getting shot in the same foot repeatedly, which isn’t really funny in the first place, and has the secondary problem of bad timing, turning a serious scene into what feels like a laboriously-long improv where Chase whines about getting blood on his carpet.

The filmmakers also forget many people actually think weapons are cool. One would think effective satire about America’s predilection for guns and ammo should, if anything, be extraordinarily pro-weapon, which is not what we get, save for a sequence in which Ray cuts loose with a flame-thrower (against, strangely enough, the film’s repeat target: Hispanics). Early on, Muntz demonstrates a tape recorder that can turn into a miniature machine gun, a device that’s effective, but not cool-looking. Meanwhile, Muntz and Ray may be ordinary Joes the viewer can relate to, but their business looks conspicuously two-bit; their garage makes being in the death instruments industry seem downright unglamorous.

Still, the coup de grace might be the Peacemaker itself, a missile-packing, black-skinned thingamajig that isn’t the least bit compelling visually, and is aided by effects that look dated compared to “Star Wars,” which came out six years earlier. For all of “Deal of the Century’s” pontificating, going so far as to juxtapose President Reagan’s speeches on Russia’s missile superiority over the U.S.’ with shots of an arms convention that looks an awful lot like a car show – thereby implying weapons are really luxury goods, not necessities as the president would have us believe – given the sheer ineptitude at just being reasonably entertaining, it’s the film that’s the real rip-off.

Overall rating: * (out of ****)

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2008-12-26T15:23:00.001-08:00

15 (2003), dir. Royston Tan

AB-NORMAL BEAUTY (2004), dir. Oxide Pang

BLADE, THE (1995), dir. Tsui Hark
BOTHERSOME MAN, THE (2006), dir. Jens Lien
BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, OR SITTING BULL’S HISTORY LESSON (1976), dir. Robert Altman

CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO, THE (1979), dir. Hayao Miyazaki
CHAN IS MISSING (1982), dir. Wayne Wang
CHINESE FEAST, THE (1995), dir. Tsui Hark
CHINESE GHOST STORY, A (1997), dir. Andrew Chen
CITY OF WOMEN (CITTA DELLE DONNE, LA) (1980), dir. Federico Fellini
CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER (2006), dir. Zhang Yimou

DEAL OF THE CENTURY (1983), dir. William Friedkin
DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, THE (2007), dir. Julian Schnabel
DUELLISTS, THE (1977), dir. Ridley Scott

EASTERN CONDORS (1987), dir. Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
EVIL (2003), dir. Mikael Hafstrom

FINE, TOTALLY FINE (2008), dir. Yosuke Fujita
FOUNTAIN, THE (2006), dir. Darren Aronofsky

GALLIPOLI (1981), dir. Peter Weir
GOOD BYE, DRAGON INN (2003), dir. Tsai Ming-liang
GREETINGS (1968), dir. Brian De Palma

HAPPY TOGETHER (1997), dir. Wong Kar-Wai
‘HUMAN’ FACTOR, THE (1975), dir. Edward Dmytryk

INNER SENSES (2002), dir. Chi-Leung Law
INSTITUTE BENJAMENTA, OR THIS DREAM PEOPLE CALL HUMAN LIFE (1995), dir. Stephen and Timothy Quay

JACKET, THE (2005), dir. John Maybury
J.S.A.: JOINT SECURITY AREA (2001), dir. Chan-wook Park
JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRISIS ON TWO EARTHS (2010, DVD), dir. Sam Liu, Lauren Montgomery

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005), dir. Ridley Scott

LEON (1994), dir. Luc Besson
LIFEBOAT (1944), dir. Alfred Hitchcock
LUCKY ONES, THE (2008), dir. Neil Burger

MAIKO HAAAAN!!! (2007), dir. Nobuo Mizuta
MCCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971), dir. Robert Altman

NOBODY KNOWS (2004), dir. Hirokazu Koreeda
NOWHERE TO HIDE (1999), dir. Myung-Se Lee

OLDBOY (2003), dir. Chan-wook Park
ON GUARD (2002), dir. Philippe de Broca
ORDER, THE, FROM MATTHEW BARNEY'S CREMASTER 3 (2002, DVD), dir. Matthew Barney

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974), dir. Brian De Palma
POSTAL (2007), dir. Uwe Boll

QUITTING (2001), dir. Zhang Yang

REBELS OF THE NEON GOD (1992), dir. Tsai Ming-Liang
ROBOT STORIES (2003), dir. Greg Pak
ROUGE (1987), dir. Stanley Kwan
RUNNING ON KARMA (2003), dir. Johnnie To, Wai Ka-Fai

SABOTEUR (1942), dir. Alfred Hitchcock
SECRETARY (2002), dir. Steven Shainberg
SIMPLE PLAN, A (1998), dir. Sam Raimi
SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (2000), dir. Roy Anderrson
SQUID AND THE WHALE, THE (2005), dir. Noah Baumbach
STUCK (2007), dir. Stuart Gordon

TARNATION (2003), dir. Jonathan Caouette
TRIAD ELECTION (2006), dir. Johnnie To
TROUBLE THE WATER (2008), dir. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal and Kimberly Rivers Roberts

ULTRAVIOLET (2006), dir. Kurt Wimmer
UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, THE (1988), dir. Philip Kaufman

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA (2008), dir. Woody Allen

WELCOME TO DONGMAKGOL (2005), dir. Kwang-Hyun Park
WORLD'S GREATEST DAD (2009), dir. Bobcat Goldthwait

ZIGEUNERWEISEN (1980), dir. Seijun Suzuki
ZOMBIELAND (2009), dir. Ruben Fleischer

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ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981), dir. John Carpenter
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WARRIORS, THE (1979), dir. Walter Hill

AB-NORMAL BEAUTY (2004), dir. Oxide Pang

2008-12-26T15:17:00.000-08:00

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A little too over the top to be genuinely scary, “Ab-normal Beauty” is nevertheless an effective thriller about obsession and the dark paths it can lead down. Some will consider it unfortunate the chosen path has already been explored in films like “The Cell” and “Hostel,” but in my opinion, that’s where the movie actually gets interesting. Overall, this is a solid effort from half the internationally-famous Pang Brothers filmmaking team.

“Ab-normal Beauty” centers on Jiney (Race Wong), a Hong Kong art student who seemingly has it all: good looks, a comfortable lifestyle, and a talented eye when it comes to art and photography. But despite being the best in her class, she’s morose and withdrawn, only awakening a little around her gal-pal Jas (Rosanne Wong) or when training her camera on something. Her nature changes, however, after witnessing a bloody car accident outside her home, at which point Jiney becomes fixated with capturing images of guts and viscera. That, in turn, leads to an escalating amount of personal risk-taking and taboo-transgression for the sake of art.

“When I press the button on my shutter, everything stops. It’s the same way with death,” Jiney says at one point. The screenplay, by director Oxide Pang and Pak Sing Pang, provides some back-story as to why the big sleep could be such a big turn on, connecting it to an unresolved childhood trauma which seems wholly unnecessary (wouldn’t the alienating and de-sensitizing nature of modern urban life have been enough explanation?) until it gets harkened back to by the final, haunting frame.

Like just about anything by the Pang Brothers, “Ab-normal Beauty” features vibrant colors, music video-style editing, and a throbbing techno score. But to the credit of Oxide Pang, who flies solo this time, the bells and whistles occasionally add up to more than just a superficial attempt to be “cool”; some of the best sequences bring the viewer into Jiney’s mind, allowing us to experience it getting re-wired for blood. For example, there is a scene in which Jiney becomes obsessed with photographing chickens being slaughtered at market, so she pays a butcher to kill bird after bird while she snaps pictures and gives directions. What results is a brisk montage inter-cutting chickens pulled from their cages, their necks sliced, and their bodies tossed in an ever-growing pile, and the rush of all this activity, we assume, is exactly the kind of exhilaration that the protagonist herself is feeling.

There’s also one crazy sequence where Jiney, whose darkroom is normally illuminated by red light, is unable to tell the regular lights have been switched on – a terrific way to depict how blood-lusty she has become. For her, the world still looks crimson-hued, and all the photographs hanging on clotheslines start appearing to bleed. Creepily-effective stuff, and a shame it wasn’t arranged closer to the end of the film when her condition has gotten much worse, because it proves tough to top.

Now to close with a word about the last third: “Ab-normal Beauty” ends up in the kind of sick-green-hued dungeon managed by a twisted-looking soul one expects to find in the “Saw” movies. This is where the plot is at its most conventional, but it’s also a reason why I liked this movie; I can’t help thinking the filmmakers included it as a kind of commentary about society’s viewing habits, that when you have an audience obsessed with seeing images of death and suffering, gradually-escalating reactions (culminating in underground snuff films, which become an integral plot point) are bound to result. Pang might have been thinking about the spate of splatter movies popping up in Asia, but that doesn’t mean “Ab-normal Beauty” lacks universality. Indeed, viewed in context with the current trend of masochistic torture porn flicks that are so popular here in the U.S., “Ab-normal Beauty” gives us additional reasons to look at, and worry about ourselves.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

ZIGEUNERWEISEN (1980), dir. Seijun Suzuki

2008-12-19T06:17:00.000-08:00

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“Dreamlike” may be the most apt description for Seijun Suzuki’s “Zigeunerweisen,” which doesn’t necessarily rely on logic in exploring the depths of its main characters’ feelings. Both a melodrama and something of a ghost story, it doesn’t have much in the way of conventional narrative thrust; rather, the screenplay seems to feel its way around, guided by the emotional states of the intellectual and middle-class set it depicts.

The first part of Suzuki’s famous “Taisho Trilogy,” the film takes place in a 1920’s Japan where the privileged live comfortably, but perhaps not happily or virtuously. Initially set at a seaside vacation resort, the protagonists include Aochi (Toshiya Fujita), a college professor of German, whose manners and traditional bearing make him the polar opposite of Nagasako (Yoshio Harada), his long-haired and wild-eyed friend. Despite his striking good looks, Nagasako is a hedonist, misogynist, and maybe something worse: when we first meet him, he is being accused of a woman’s murder. Although he claims his innocence to the police, he eventually makes a drunken confession to a local geisha named Koine (Naoko Otani). Aochi, meanwhile, remains friends with Nagasako despite the possibility he is a serial killer.

Photographed in a manner that starts out bereft of sunlight and only gets darker, “Zigeunerweisen” isn’t concerned with crime and punishment so much as the emotionally-charged triangles formed between various characters: Nagasako, Koine, and Aochi; and later, either the two men and Aochi’s wife (Michiyo Ookusu) or a Koine lookalike named Sono. Recurring appearances by a trio of blind, vulgar beggars (who look and act like something out of either a slapstick comedy or zombie flick) provide yet another three-sided relationship, but the film is less an essay than a jangled-feeling procession of images that aren’t necessarily consistent from cut to cut, as well as somnambulant portions comparable to the best of David Lynch.

Some of the film’s more gloriously-deranged moments come with no warning and go without any explanation, but in keeping with Suzuki’s reputation as an instinctive filmmaker, and the context of the protagonists being ambushed by their own feelings and inhibitions, they feel right. A nightmarish sequence where Aochi’s wife tries to escape from Nagasako in her house, only to find him behind every door, reappearing in improbable locations, is one of the best. In another scene, the lights in Koine’s home go out when she and Aochi are alone, replaced by floating mirrors and a single, glowing red lantern. “I feel like I’ve fallen into the fox’s den,” Aochi says. “Am I the fox?” the hostess responds.

Koine later says about the beggars, “They were married to each other. It was the only way they could survive.” The same thing, it turns out, could be said about most of the film’s threesomes. Aochi going home to his woman leaves the rest of female-kind at the mercy of cruel Nagasako, apparently. Likewise, when one character’s wanderlust kicks in, all that’s left for his partners to share is bitterness, isolation, and discomfort. Suzuki and screenwriter Yozo Tanaka stage this pattern for just about every triangular permutation, but it’s setting events in a time period with so much preoccupation over self-pleasure that helps ground the potent, phantasmagorical imagery. Here, the objects of desire tend to become desired objects: Aochi imagines Koine as the kind of mythical creature that could be found in the very books he pores over; meanwhile, the man his foodie wife is infatuated with becomes a thing to be devoured and be devoured by.

As for sex animal Nagasako, he seemingly desires to feast on death itself, visualizing a blood-covered crab crawling out of one of his possible murder victim’s genitals, and commenting afterward, “I fancy a dish of eel.” Indeed, Nagasako looks like a man about to rip the next woman open with his teeth before sucking the marrow out, and this objectification with death eventually extends to Nagasako, whose bones he asks for upon his expiration. Will Aochi be able to extricate himself from this decorum-defying pact with a deranged man, or is a bargain a bargain? Known for what some scholars cited as a “sick sense of humor,” Suzuki offers the ultimate comeuppance for a world in which no one believes in anything: proof that something beyond these shores exists, but that it’s equally obsessed with its own enjoyment. That’s what I got out of it, at least.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

RUNNING ON KARMA (2003), dir. Johnnie To, Wai Ka-Fai

2008-11-28T12:04:00.000-08:00

“Running on Karma” throws cops, kung fu, even a little slapstick comedy into a blender before giving them all a good spin. What results is a surprisingly-deep movie that’s as much about the teachings of Buddhism as the adventures of a super-powered monk, whose muscles would give the Hulk a run for his money.

The film opens with two storylines converging on the streets of Hong Kong: a male strip show gets busted by police, and a young cop named Yee (Cecilia Cheung) ends up chasing after one of the dancers, the very Schwarzenegger-looking Big (Andy Lau, wearing a muscle suit). Meanwhile, detectives from the Criminal Investigation Department are attacked by the prime suspect in an Indian immigrant’s death. During the ensuing chaos, the suspect escapes, Yee accidentally shoots a police dog, and Big has visions (which resemble static-filled television) of a boy chasing after another dog with a stick.

“I can see karma,” Big tells Yee after she rescues him from a brutal police beating, explaining that he is able to see a person or animal’s previous life, which can often predict what will happen in their current one. With the police dog, it was a case of karma coming back around, as it had once been a child who savagely beat a canine to death. Looking at Yee, who is ordered to help CID with their case, Big sees a military general in her own prior life, and offers to help using his mystical insights and knowledge of martial arts. After staring at the victim in the mortuary, he concludes the crime is the result of hatred so deep that it can only mean “many lifetimes of betrayal and trust,” which turns out to be an important clue.

With her guts and his big muscles, supernatural senses, and as it turns out, ability to float on air like a feather, it isn’t long before they track down CID’s suspect, who in the tradition of kung fu movies has skills that perfectly contrast with Big’s. Following the collar, he and Yee start running into each other more regularly: him helping to protect her during dangerous cases; her going to see him compete on the amateur boxing circuit. At this point, audiences would be forgiven for including the superhero film in “Running on Karma’s” genre mash-up, despite the noticeable lack of secret identities and costumes. Even Yee, who starts investigating Big’s past as a monk, only to discover that the loss of a close friend caused him to give up his life as an ascetic, cannot overlook the similarity; she muses on how amazing life must be that someone as average as her has an extraordinary person like him watching over her.

Alas, just when it seems both protagonists are on their way to a mutually-beneficial friendship, maybe even romance, the filmmakers throw in a twist that sends “Running on Karma” off the beaten path, and toward an ending that is heartbreaking, and also genuinely thoughtful. It’s here that Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai both show they have more in mind than just wire-fighting fun; indeed, this may be a movie ostensibly about Eastern religion, but it has a message that can be applied to faith in general: that the challenge of spiritual enlightenment isn’t keeping up the practice of religious ideals, it’s not letting go of them, despite a world that challenges those beliefs constantly.

The seriousness of the third act may surprise some viewers, given how the first hour does have some comedic moments, namely the sight of Big, oversize muscles and all, attempting to ride a moped with disastrous results. I assume Big had to be a larger-than-life character in order to seem analogous to Buddha himself, but the prosthetic suit is the worst thing in the movie. Although his appearance gradually stops being a distraction as he appears more frequently with clothing on, there are moments when bad lighting, or having Big shirtless and supposedly performing acrobatic moves in mid-air, are such that even Lau’s considerable charisma cannot overcome the fakery. But even if these problems result in “Running on Karma” not being a great movie, it’s still a good one.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

J.S.A.: JOINT SECURITY AREA (2001), dir. Chan-wook Park

2008-11-22T11:30:00.000-08:00

SITE ARCHIVE! (REGULARLY UPDATED)

This 2001 Chan-wook Park thriller exploits the ongoing tension between North and South Korea, one nation divided since the 1940's. For those (like me) without prior knowledge of the Korean peninsula's current political climate, North equals “Commie,” while South equals “Yankee,” and “Yankees” and “Commies” don’t like each other, as anyone living during the 1970’s and 80’s can tell you. In an attempt to simplify the politics in the peninsula for viewers outside of Asia, the screenwriters have characters yell things like “Commie bastard!” and “Yankee puppet!” repeatedly at each other, as if either phrase could embody their complex feelings. I’m ashamed to say the ploy works.

Actually, it’s a blessing not having to dwell on the politics that have shaped the geographical powder keg that is Korea, especially since “J.S.A.” tells a mystery in complex, “Rashomon”-style format. The title refers to the “Joint Security Area,” the American-occupied territory between the two countries, which belongs neither to the north, nor the south. One night, gunfire is heard on the northern side of the J.S.A., and a South Korean sergeant named Lee staggers across a foot bridge, back to the southern side, just as troops from both armies gather and an incident results. When an investigator from the Neutral Nations Security Council (N.N.S.C.) arrives to get facts, and calm what threatens to become a provocation for war, she gets conflicting stories from both sides. Along with being different, both "official reports" sound highly unlikely.

According to the report from Lee, North Korean soldiers slipped across the J.S.A. and kidnapped him. They took him back across the border, and held him hostage until he broke loose, then killed two of his abductors. Meanwhile, the report by Sergeant Oh of the North Korean army states that Lee crossed into enemy territory of his own volition, then acted out of cold blood, wounding Sergeant Oh and killing two of his comrades. Like “Rashomon,” or movies heavily-influenced by the Kurosawa film, such as “Courage Under Fire" and “Hero,” the mystery of what happened north of the “J.S.A.” is gradually unraveled. As each new tidbit of information is introduced, pivotal scenes are shown again, in light of what N.N.S.C. Inspector Sophie Jean, and the audience, are now aware of. Ultimately, the truth is more complicated than either “official story” we had been given. Nevertheless, it all fits together in a logical and believable way.

Like the more successful "Rashomon" clones over the years, the flashback technique helps tell the story in a manner that builds and sustains suspense. Meanwhile, "J.S.A." also allows an important window into how South Koreans view their brothers to the north, showing the strong reunification urge that pervades the region. Indeed, despite their duties to their respective nations, the soldiers on both sides eventually start crossing the J.S.A. to exchange pleasantries and learn more about one another, and their burgeoning friendship is portrayed downright idyllically, almost like children playing. Sure, Chanwook Park’s film seems to ignore the possible negative consequences of the two countries becoming one again (specifically, if it occurs under the flag of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il, whose regime has been condemned by the American president), but its overriding message, about the tragedy of one people turned against itself due to borders and nationalism, is highly potent.

Also potent: Park’s directing style, a mixture of sleek cinematography and MTV-ish editing that propels the story along. While Park has had greater international success with his 2003 revenge flick “Oldboy,” this older film has less of an S&M edge, even if it retains some of his recognizable black humor (at one point, the image of a character moving in slow-motion flips upside-down to reveal he's falling, which has the same effect of surprise on the viewer as it would on the protagonists). Finally, whereas “Oldboy” was intense, psychological, and occasionally weird, “J.S.A.” is more of a standard drama, requiring Park to do what he can to make conventional scenes visually-interesting. He manages to nimbly direct a sequence where Lee’s rescue team attempts to suppress the North Koreans while retrieving him from a footbridge. The battle culminates in one of those shots you can’t help remembering afterward: the camera looking down on Lee from overhead, then slowly panning back as bullets whiz back-and-forth.

Park uses the overhead crane shot several times at the border—above the actual line that is supposed to separate the north from the south. Framed this way, it looks like a very thin divider, very unimpressive. Could this be Park’s way of pointing out the ridiculousness of the line itself, that a strip of paint on the ground cannot determine the fate of an entire people? And wouldn’t he have a point? Not that reunification should happen the way the world is now, but let’s face it, when a flimsy line is all that stands between two peoples itching to cross it, isn’t reconciliation inevitable?

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

ON GUARD (2002), dir. Philippe de Broca

2008-11-22T11:28:00.000-08:00

“On Guard” doesn’t exactly re-invent the swashbuckling adventurer, but it’s entertaining in a big-budget movie-ish kind of way. The film stars a very Depardieu-looking Daniel Auteuil as Lagardere, a roguish swordsman who goes from outlaw to hero, discovering friendship, honor, and love along the way.

Written and directed by Philippe de Broca, “On Guard” practically threatens to sweep us away with its magnificent scenery and sense of grown-up intrigue. Lagardere is initially hired to assassinate his rival, the Duke of Nevers (Vincent Perez), who is master of an invincible fencing technique that involves running through an opponent’s forehead (apparently, there is a weak point). After sparing his life, Nevers reveals he has an heir whom he did not know about until recently, and hires Lagardere to accompany him into the countryside to visit both the child and its mother.

The pair bond during the course of their journey, the lord growing to admire his social inferior’s rise from poverty: Born a bastard, Lagardere was raised as a circus acrobat, where he honed his considerable fencing skills. The Duke eventually knights him, and when it looks like some masked men on horseback are going to ambush them, teaches him the devastating Nevers Attack. Unfortunately, even that is not enough to ward off tragedy, and Lagardere is left responsible for Nevers’ infant daughter, whom he names Aurore and raises as his own until the day justice can be served.

It takes about 14 years for the day of retribution to arrive; however, that’s about par for the course with any sword-fighting movie where vengeance is the driving motivator. The refreshingly simple plot is buoyed by near-operatic performances by Auteuil and his cast-mates: indeed, Auteuil not only has some of the same shaggy dog qualities as Depardieu, but like that famous French actor, attacks his role with fire and passion. On the other hand, the main villain, a scheming cousin of Nevers’ who wants the family fortune all to himself, is rotten inside and out and near-irredeemable by film’s end. The Count Gonzague (Fabrice Luchini) not only plots to cheat and/or kill his relatives, but bilks the public through a non-existent colony abroad, surrounds himself with scarred killers and hunchbacks, and when ultimately cornered, won’t even face Lagardere like a man.

Meanwhile, Aurore has grown into a beautiful, strong young woman (played by Marie Gillain), raising the question: if the man whom you thought all your life was your father turned out not to be that, what would you do? Some may find the answer creepy; some may view it as merely an example of impossible romance, which befits a movie where characters seemingly wear their hearts on their sleeves. Personally, I think de Broca is trying to provide a counterpoint to Gonzague, a rat born to a noble house. By contrast, Lagardere, who arrived in the world with little in the way of advantages, gets the opportunity to sit pretty because he does the right thing.

“On Guard’s” old-fashioned moral code goes hand-in-hand with an old-fashioned shooting style. In an age where swordfights can be chopped up to near-indecipherable results in the editing room, here they are shot in long, continuous takes from a distance, so the viewer really gets to see the fluid movements of participants. Unfortunately, filming them this way also means there’s less of the frenetic energy swashbucklers like “Pirates of the Caribbean” have in abundance; even when de Broca punctuates with a foil through the noggin, the blood spurt is more like a period than an explanation point.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

THE JACKET (2005), dir. John Maybury

2008-11-07T06:06:00.000-08:00

Like many supernatural-themed movies, “The Jacket” makes certain demands of its audience. In this case, it’s: one, that they’re willing to accept the idea ghosts have nothing better to do than help sullen-eyed teenagers they barely knew before expiring; and two, that the course of an entire life can be predicated by a single event 14 years in the past.

The third expectation is no one will care this movie ultimately makes no sense, so long as it makes good on the tragic romance at its center between Jack Starks (Adrien Brody), who may be crazy or may actually be traveling through time, and a young woman named Jackie (Keira Knightley). The pair first meets in 1993, when she is a little girl stranded beside a Vermont road with her mom. Jack fixes their truck for them, but Jean’s mother proves ungrateful, so he ends up hitching a ride with a mysterious stranger who kills a cop, then frames him for it.

The authorities refuse to believe Jack’s story that someone else committed the murder, since he has mental problems stemming from being shot in the head while serving in the Persian Gulf. He ends up being committed to a hospital for the criminally-insane, where the gruff head shrink (Kris Kristofferson) subjects him to an outdated form of therapy, which involves being fit into a strait jacket, then slid into a locker.

Trapped, Jack has a vision of the year 2007, where he meets a grown-up Jackie whom he doesn’t immediately recognize. She, in turn, doesn’t know who he is either, both because he has barely aged since she last saw him 14 years prior, and because it turns out Jack Starks died on January 1, 1993. From then on, the movie see-saws back-and-forth between 1993 and 2007, between Jack and Jean falling in love in the future and trying to unravel the mysterious circumstances of his death, and his using knowledge from 2007 to help people in the past, including the one kindly doctor in the whole asylum (Jennifer Jason-Leigh).

Clues and events fall into place like puzzle pieces, and the cinematography has a certain bleak consistency. Writer Massy Tadjedin and director John Maybury, however, seem less assured about the film’s overall tone, alternating between creepiness whenever Jack is in solitude and a more straightforward, dramatic mood for scenes outside the locker.

“The Jacket” also strains credibility in ways other movies about mentally-unstable individuals who think they’re time travelers – “12 Monkeys” comes to mind – manage to avoid. Granted, Adrien Brody is a good enough actor to sell every scene he’s in, but considering how crazy his story sounds, his character has a relatively easy time getting others to believe him, and the most incredulous instance may be his convincing Leigh’s medical professional to perform electro-shock therapy on a small boy who appears to have autism.

In addition, the opening footage of the Persian Gulf War left a bad taste in my mouth, mainly because the protagonist’s status as a veteran is completely incidental. He could be a truck driver and the film would more or less turn out the same; but that he was a soldier, along with some brief dialogue about how patients like Jack are treated as criminals, allow the illusion this movie has some kind of relevance today. But really, “The Jacket” is little more than New Age treacle dressed up like something considerably more important, and ends up ignoring some basic time travel-related paradoxes for the sake of a lazy, feel-good ending, where nothing is impossible except actually buying this hokum.

Overall rating: ** (out of ****)

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING (1988), dir. Philip Kaufman

2008-10-23T08:24:00.000-07:00

SITE ARCHIVE! (REGULARLY UPDATED)

A brilliant doctor with a thirst for women; the sincere ingénue who becomes his wife; the doctor’s lover, who understands the thrill of being both pursuer and pursued: these three make up the love triangle in Philip Kaufman’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” Often revered as one of most erotic movies ever made, there’s more to it than just the cool mechanics of sex. Like the Milan Kundera novel it’s based on, the film is set in Czechoslovakia during a time of great political upheaval, and seems to understand how sex is connected to a whole gamut of emotions, all of which can be affected by an event as dramatic as displacement.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Tomas, who starts off the “lightest” of the central protagonists, concerned for little besides his next conquest. Everything changes, however, during a trip to the country to perform a routine operation, whereupon he encounters Tereza (Juliette Binoche) and immediately becomes smitten with her. The feeling is mutual, but they share a strange interaction at first: he wants sex, while she seems to be looking for friendship and romance. The gulf between them could not be better illustrated than when Tereza tells Tomas that she gets off work at six. “Oh, but I have a plane to catch back to Prague,” he replies, a sly, wolfish look on his face. Tereza, who seems to miss the point completely, only registers disappointment.

Yet their separation is short-lived, and soon enough, the young girl has followed the doctor back home, where the relationship is consummated (for her, it appears to be her first time). Afterward, even Tomas seems taken aback by how strongly Tereza clings to him, but refuses to give up his routine of casual encounters, which include sex with Sabina (Lena Olin), a free-spirited artist who understands his nature better than anyone. It’s never clear just how offended Sabina is by this new woman’s presence in Tomas’ life, whether she secretly had hoped their trysts would lead to something more substantial, but that doesn’t stop her from judging Tomas; at one point, she ponders his face in front of Tereza and asks aloud, “What makes him a scoundrel?”

For her part, Tereza seems to detect there is more to Tomas and Sabina’s relationship than meets the eye. Meanwhile, her relationship with the latter is friendly, but not necessarily friendship, although Sabina does help her develop into a skilled photographer. Always more politically-inclined than her beau, Tereza gets a job at a newspaper, and snaps pictures from the front line when the Soviets invade. When that endangers her life, she and Tomas flee to nearby Switzerland, whereupon the profound differences in their nature start becoming clear: she feels everything too deeply, while emotionally, he floats by on a cushion of air.

The main thrust of the movie involves how these characters grow and change as their lives endure one upheaval after another. The genius of Kaufman and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere’s adaptation, however, is in the way the protagonists’ relationships with one another, not to mention their overall attitudes about love and sex, are shown to be interconnected with their politics. Tereza, for example, embraces her home with Tomas and her homeland with equal passion, which leads to disillusionment on all fronts: in Switzerland, she discovers the world’s attention span regarding Czechoslovakia’s invasion has already been exhausted; none of the newspapers will buy her pictures, but an editor does suggest she start taking nude photographs for the fashion section.

With no other job prospects, Tereza looks up Sabina to use as a model, the latter having relocated to Switzerland as well. As she starts taking photographs of her, Tereza, examining the body of her husband’s lover, starts to break down. One gets the feeling she is looking at Sabina and thinking, “How can Tomas trade me for this other woman so freely?” which is not all that different from the question she faces in her work: “How can anyone trade in one passion for another?”

As for Sabina, she, along with acting as another face for the Czech Diaspora, serves to reflect both Tomas’ and Tereza’s qualities back at them (indeed, there is a recurring use of mirrors in shots featuring her). When together with the former, she expresses lust and carnality: at one point, she and Day-Lewis appear in a mirror as a beast with two backs. But like Tereza, her attitude towards love, sex, and life itself seem at least partially informed by her status as a refugee. Later, having no place to call “home” anymore, she thinks nothing of being equally rootless with her sex life, moving from man to man, city to city, especially when her latest beau becomes too serious.

Tomas, on the other hand, subscribes to a moral and political philosophy best summed up as “hands off.” He couldn’t care less about the state of his homeland’s government; he says as much when an article he wrote criticizing the country’s past leaders gets him blacklisted from practicing medicine. A government official tries to convince him to sign a retraction, but he won’t do it, for reasons the bureaucrat cannot understand. Yet the viewer does: although Tomas does not necessarily care who is in power, he wants the freedom to live as he pleases, which includes being able to toss off incendiary letters without reprisal. Likewise, he wants hedonism minus the chains of matrimony, sex whenever the opportunity presents itself, without having to explain or involve Tereza. At one point, she even begs him to bring her to the other women, to let her watch as he makes love to them, but he refuses. To pursue something with absolute freedom, after all, means pursuing it alone.

So what is the solution for the unhappy couple? According to the filmmakers (and we assume, Kundera himself), it is living life simpler, trading urban gray for pastoral green, big city anonymity for community, wealth for subsistence. When survival depends on the fecundity of the land and the sweat of the brow, emotions like jealousy become small and insignificant. Although one might argue such an ending to be tragic, an example of great talent being crushed by the Communist machine, the film itself never seems to argue that anything is lost, but rather, that a different kind of happiness is ultimately gained, one in which deep emotional bonds replace featherweight sex, where one’s being is neither an unbearable or light thing to anybody.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

THE BOTHERSOME MAN (2006), dir. Jens Lien

2008-10-02T06:59:00.000-07:00

In reviews, this film has been compared to a feature-length episode of “The Twilight Zone,” but having seen “The Bothersome Man,” I realize it’s a favorable comparison. The best science-fiction reflects real world concerns through fantasy scenarios, and in this deliberately-paced, Icelandic meander, the numbness of modern society is allegorized through a strange city that may be the after-life, and either a heaven or hell depending on one’s taste.

The film opens with its main character, Andreas (Trond Fausa Aurvaag), leaping into the path of an oncoming train. When next we see him, he is arriving via bus at a station house in what appears to be the outskirts somewhere, at which point he gets a lift to the aforementioned city, which looks at any other metropolis. Here he has a job and apartment waiting for him.

The work is relatively-unchallenging, and it isn’t long before Andreas starts staring out of windows, noticing strange things about the city, such as the lack of smells, and the fact there are never children around. He also finds that food doesn’t taste like anything, and no matter how much alcohol he imbibes, it never has any effect. One day, during a dinner party with friends, he meets a beautiful woman named Anne (Petronella Barker); they make love after a date, but the act seems rote and mechanical.

“It doesn’t always have to be good, but…” he hears another man complain one day. The stranger goes on about how much he misses hot chocolate, and it isn’t long before Andreas begins to miss it, too.

Earlier, I had described this film as taking place in a possible heaven or hell, a fact reinforced by how Andreas cannot do lasting harm to his body. He slices off a finger in a workplace machine, only to find his hand all better just a short time later. Later, he does worse, in a sequence involving subway trains that’s the most eye-opening thing in the movie, both for its unflinching goriness as well as its droll, black humor.

But notice that I spelled heaven and hell with lower-case “h’s.” Jens Lien’s film is entirely non-religious, and from an allegorical standpoint, the common man’s miraculous healing ability may just be screenwriter Per Schreiner’s way of illustrating how the average lifespan has been prolonged. Meanwhile, the inability to do self-harm also means suicide is impossible, which could reflect modern anxieties that the current miseries – icy cordiality in lieu of genuine feelings, rampant consumerism, failure of traditional means of self-medication for escape – will never end, just go on and on.

There is, however, another choice for living, which is to not conform, to actively seek out the sensations felt missing from existence. In the course of the film, that appears to mean reaching for something more idyllic, something consisting of more traditional values. Of course, when most of society is happy with the way things are, this kind of act has consequences, and it’s a shame Andreas couldn’t have fought for those simpler pleasures a little more vigorously.

Had that happened, he might have seemed like more of a tragic hero, rather than just a poor mope. In turn, “The Bothersome Man” might have left viewers feeling galvanized and angry. As it is, it’s a near-masterpiece of sustained tension, drab colors, and emotional remoteness.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

MAIKO HAAAAN!!! (2007), dir. Nobuo Mizuta

2008-10-02T06:55:00.000-07:00

(Courtesy of Pop Culture Shock!)

The best compliment I can pay “Maiko Haaaan!!!” is that it goes beyond its initial premise, in which an obsessed otaku (Sadao Abe) attempts to infiltrate the world of geisha, which is usually reserved for wealthy and important men.

Indeed, Kimihiko Onizuka, who works as an office drone but runs his own website for all things geisha-related, starts off not belonging to either category, but two events push him up the ladder of success, slapstick-style: being transferred to Kyoto, home of Japan’s geisha district; and being subsequently rebuffed by every geisha house in town. It seems that according to tradition, one can only enter such a place accompanied by a regular, and absolutely no newcomers are allowed.

Luckily, the president of the ramen manufacturer for whom Onizuka works is such a V.I.P., and tells him if he makes lots of money for the company, Onizuka can come along on his next visit. At this point, “Maiko Haaaan!!!” could have been about its main protagonist repeatedly trying and failing to accomplish this task, but director Nobuo Mizuta and screenwriter Kankuro Kudo have something considerably more interesting in mind.

Sure, the Hand of Fate puts up a few obstacles at first, but by the midway point, Onizuka accomplishes his long-held dream of setting foot inside a geisha house. The question then becomes: What to do with the rest of the movie? In a neat twist, Onizuka decides to push himself even further and become even more successful, at which point he can date, possibly even marry a geisha, thereby experiencing their world to its fullest depth. The endeavor also allows Onizuka a chance to show up an obnoxious professional baseball player, who had previously-ridiculed him on-line. Both have their eye on the same maiko – the term for apprentice geisha.

There is also a sub-plot involving Onizuka’s ex-girlfriend, who after they have an ugly falling out, moves to Kyoto and enrolls in a geisha school herself (whether this is to win him back or get revenge is never clear). Through her perspective, which is ostensibly less fetishistic than Onizuka’s would be, the viewer gets expository information about the art form, and learns the road to becoming a traditional Japanese entertainer is not an easy one.

Overall, “Maiko Haaaan!!!” has a tone that is more wacky than serious – even when the third act introduces a highly-melodramatic subplot – and the filmmakers cram the 120-minute running time with as many hit-or-miss jokes as possible. Nevertheless, appreciating this movie means learning to tolerate the main character, whose least-annoying attributes aren’t his bowl haircut or penchant for plaid suits; rather, it’s his whole hyperactive shtick, complete with manic facial contortions and childish meltdowns, which get really old really fast, whether or not they’re stereotypical otaku behaviors.

Can otaku and geisha learn to live together in harmony? Kudo wisely decides to not make Onizuka the lone freak amidst a gallery of straight men and women, and if anything, there might be a three-way tie for most screwed-up character in the film. This is consistent with the message that reality is never quite as good as fantasy, and obtaining the object of one’s obsessions doesn’t necessarily equal happiness.

Overall rating: **1/2 (out of ****)

THE LUCKY ONES (2008), dir. Neil Burger

2008-09-25T04:56:00.000-07:00

It’s been six years since the Iraq War began, and during that time, cinema has explored it from the perspective of soldiers on the ground (“Redacted”) as well as back home (“Stop-Loss”). Now here comes “The Lucky Ones,” a road movie about a trio of soldiers on leave from combat. As the title indicates, they’ve been fortunate enough to survive this long, but as writers Neil Burger and Dirk Wittenborn point out, that doesn’t mean they aren’t the walking wounded physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

Audiences won’t find a paraplegic Jon Voight shuffling around on a hospital gurney, but all three main characters – Army soldiers on 30-day leave from Iraq – are having to cope with some part of their life or identity lost. For an ambitious lieutenant named T. K. (Michael Peña), it’s the function of his private parts; for Private Colee (Rachel McAdams), it’s a close friend whom the movie insinuates may have been her lover.

Meanwhile, the older Cheever (Tim Robbins) starts off as the most level-headed of the three, looking forward to returning to his suburban St. Louis life after a two-year tour of duty. But after agreeing to give his fellow soldiers a lift when JFK Airport is grounded by a blackout, Cheever’s happy homecoming turns out far from that: in rapid succession, his wife requests a divorce; his son needs $20,000 to attend Stanford; and the factory where he used to be employed has just gone under.

Luckily, the military sticks together. Floundering Cheever has a brother in Salt Lake City he can visit, and as it happens, both T. K. and Colee are heading westward to Las Vegas, anyway: the former to see a sexual “professional” as a last-ditch effort to cure his impotence; the latter to return her dead beau’s guitar to his family, which strangely enough, doesn’t know she’s on the way.

The road trip part of “The Lucky Ones” could have been tired, fish-out-of-water stuff, as the characters drive their rented van through states where everyone talks in southern drawls. However, the filmmakers go in the opposite direction: rather than treat them like strangers, many of the people encountered go out of their way to be hospitable to servicemen, be it inviting them to a fancy garden party, providing them the last rental vehicle, or as T. K. discovers at one point, offering him free sexual services.

In the face of these situations, which are dramatic, humorous, but never quite hysterical, all three leads do credible work, especially McAdams, who conveys unspoken loneliness beneath her unbridled enthusiasm. Peña, on the other hand, manages to keep a straight face through repeated digs at his precious manhood, the most subtly-funny one involving a car crash where he’s nearly impaled on an erect pipe.

All in all, the movie has its heart in the right place, fully supporting the average fighting man despite its opinions about the war itself. There’s also a not-too-subtle message the military is one big family capable of giving us back what we’ve lost. Now if only the screenplay weren’t occasionally spotty: through the characters on the periphery, Burger and Wittenborn run the gamut of attitudes about the Iraq War and those fighting it, some being supportive, others indifferent.

Unfortunately, the characterizations are also a bit shrill at times. In one instance, Cheever encounters a war-hawk who bites his head off after he says they’re “just trying to survive” in Iraq. “With an attitude like that…,” the hawk starts off, implying the soldiers abroad suffer from a loser mentality.

There’s another scene involving a barroom brawl instigated by McAdams’ otherwise good girl, where it’s a little too easy siding with her, given the obnoxious teenie-boppers who push her too far could qualify for Worst Human Beings Ever status. Bad enough they look down on her serving in the military instead of attending prestigious Indiana University (yeah, that’s sarcasm); one of them mimics Colee’s limp behind her back. Clearly, this stuck-up bitch is not supposed to be an example of observed human behavior, but rather, a punching bag we’ll take satisfaction in seeing worked, especially if our brave fighting men and women are doing the working.

Overall grade: *** (out of ****)

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ROPE (1948), dir. Alfred Hitchcock

2008-09-25T04:54:00.000-07:00

Another Hitchcock film, another nefarious act taken place in seemingly-mundane surroundings: this time, a pair of upper-crust, New York City-types murder their friend in their own apartment, hide the body in a large trunk, and in a sick twist, host a dinner afterward using the trunk as a serving table.

Why commit such an appalling deed in the first place? According to Brandon (John Dall), murder should be reserved for the intellectually and culturally-superior. Given his and fellow perpetrator Philip’s (Farley Granger) refinements – as opposed to their victim’s, who had been an underachieving heir – the act itself was justified. Meanwhile, since they are so smart themselves, they should be able to get away with the crime, even if the trunk has a broken lock making it easy to open.

“Rope” was released in 1948; I don’t know if the source material, a play by Patrick Hamilton, had been a reaction to the mass killings of Jews by the Nazis, but the movie’s message does seem like an appropriate response to the Holocaust. As Brandon and Philip’s former prep school teacher, a character played by James Stewart, asks them, “Did you think you were God?” Do mental, financial, or cultural advantages entitle anyone to deprive another of the right to live and be happy?

Along with being relevant for its time, “Rope” is worth watching just as an exercise in style, as Hitchcock manages to take a screenplay restricted to a single set and wring plenty of tension out of it. Beginning with the murder, moving forward to the dinner party, and ending with Stewart’s detective-like turn, the filmmakers forgo much editing, which makes the movie feel like it’s progressing in real time. Indeed, despite the 80-minute running time, I only counted a handful of clear cuts; otherwise, the camera tracks restlessly around and between rooms in the apartment, and between the foreground and background to keep the experience from stagnating.

By shooting in what seems more or less like real time, however, Hitchcock does the opposite of boring the audience: he raises the tension. Indeed, during the dinner party itself, the camera circulates like another guest, observing the others – a list that includes the victim’s parents, some mutual friends, and the aforementioned former school teacher, who once espoused the same theory that inspired his ex-charges to murder – as they grow increasingly agitated waiting for the heir to arrive, and at not knowing exactly what the dinner party is commemorating. The viewer spends enough time around these characters that their emotional changes feel genuine, from the deceased’s girlfriend’s growing strain at being confronted by an ex-beau, the parents’ mounting worry, Stewart’s character’s growing suspicions, and one of the murderer’s slowly cracking under the strain of guilt.

Hitchcock also throws in a few great camera flourishes, including one shot that uses both foreground and background in tandem: Mrs. Wilson, the housekeeper, walks back-and-forth between the kitchen located at the back of the frame and the serving table at the front. The viewer is invited to watch as she slowly clears away candelabras, silverware, and other items, teased by the knowledge that, once she has finished with those, she’ll put the plates in the trunk, where unbeknownst to her the body is hidden.

Another notable moment is when the camera switches from third-person to first-person, reflecting James Stewart’s perspective as he imagines what Brandon and Philip did with the corpse. In a neat twist that not enough modern directors try, he doesn’t say exactly what he is thinking, not being sure what his former students are capable of, and because he’d rather give the murderers enough of the titular item to hang themselves with. In fact, the ending reinforces the notion a guilty conscience wants to be found out, which may have nothing to do with how intellectually or culturally well-bred one is.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

15 (2003), dir. Royston Tan

2008-09-11T07:13:00.000-07:00

From an outsider’s point of view, “15” is a fascinating film, depicting the alienated and dangerous lives of older boys in Singapore, who flock to gangs as a means of escaping loneliness and – it is implied – academic pressure. Perhaps every scene is not as fresh and shocking as it would have been, say, 15 years ago, but there are some brilliant moments, and the hyper-stylized nature of the whole production gets across an appropriate tone of alienation, to a certain point.

Through a blitz of jump cuts, bells and whistles, and music video-style editing, Royston Tan’s film follows the exploits of a handful of youths through three loosely-connected narratives: The first involves two gang “brothers,” one of whom is on the precipice of failing school. Out of loyalty, the other offers to help him cheat, promising that if one has to go down, the other will, too. A second thread involves a youth named Shaun (Shaun Tan), who had been a friend of the first two boys until one became jealous. Forced away from their bond of intimacy, he joins a rival gang, befriends another gang brother, and becomes involved in drug-dealing.

The latter storyline gets particularly harrowing, while a third thread mixes some dark humor with a similarly-bleak premise: Shaun and his new gang brother Vynn (Vynn Soh) meet Erick (Erick Chun), a wayward hood looking for a building to commit suicide from. In my opinion, this is the best of the three narratives, and not just because it gets the characters out and exploring the urban metropolis. On one level, it’s funny to watch Shaun and Vynn get every gang in Singapore involved helping stage this death spectacle; at the same time, it’s genuinely heartbreaking watching Erick march solemnly towards oblivion, seemingly unaware of the fact he has made new friends, which in theory, would cure his need to end it all.

Along with scenes of fighting, self-mutilation, menacing, gang songs, and quiet emoting, “15” keeps coming back to two themes: the alienation supposedly being felt by youth throughout Singapore, and how the bond between “brothers” is so intimate it veers close to homosexuality. Although Tan never says so explicitly, his film seems to argue the two are connected, that parental pressures to succeed, as well as either too strict or a non-existent home life are driving youth to either suicide or gangs, which provide the love and acceptance they aren’t getting anywhere else. Hence, the irony of Erick’s situation: initially, when Shaun asks Erick why he wants to kill himself, all he says is the equivalent of, “If you were in my shoes, you’d want to do it, too.” However, the film’s closing coda reveals the real reason is a girl dumped him.

Overall, the movie has a definite emotional impact, especially the middle and final thirds, in which the slick polish gives way to something more visceral, and the narrative takes the obsessive love between “brothers” to its most logical and tragic conclusion. But if “15” has any glaring weakness, it’s that the film is so overdone, it occasionally obscures whatever statement Tan is trying to make. There are too many scenes like the drug use sequence, which features a neat CGI-generated flower petal floating around characters’ heads, but goes on for so long that it starts feeling less like the perspective of the film’s disconnected protagonists, and more like the point-of-view of a director trying to be “cool.” Less style would have gone a long way toward making “15” a more effective eye-opener.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

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BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, OR SITTING BULL’S HISTORY LESSON (1976), dir. Robert Altman

2008-08-28T06:03:00.000-07:00

It is said the great ones make what they do look easy. Yet here is a movie about two legendary men of their time – one a white cowboy, the other a Native American chief – in which the saying only seems half true. “Buffalo Bill” shows the hard work that its main character, William Cody, goes through to maintain his image as the archetypal frontiersman, as well as the frustrations this would-be master of animals and killer of Injuns experiences with Sitting Bull, who conjures a near-mystical aura through hardly any labor at all.

There really was a “Buffalo Bill” Cody, a former soldier and Pony Express rider who later starred in the most popular traveling show in the world. Wild West-themed, it featured a variety of skilled performers who did gun tricks and performed stunts on horseback, as well as actors who re-enacted events such as General Custer’s last stand, in which Cody himself appeared as the doomed general. The movie picks up during the troupe’s heyday, around the same time as what ostensibly appears to be a show business coup: the signing on of Sitting Bull, the former Sioux leader.

Federal marshals begrudgingly deliver the chief to Cody and his handlers, who already envision him appearing in a re-enactment of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. But Sitting Bull, who joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West because of a vision telling him he would meet President Grover Cleveland, refuses to participate in their version of the event, in which Custer’s men would be shown massacred. Instead, he demands the re-enactment show the Native Americans being slaughtered, a suggestion Cody flat-out refuses. The show considers firing Sitting Bull, but when a key cast member threatens to walk out as well, Cody capitulates; nevertheless, the incident spurs a battle of wills between the two legends that lasts the entire movie.

“Buffalo Bill” was directed by Robert Altman, and like many of that filmmaker’s works, it’s so many things in one: an ensemble film, a drama with comedic elements, a behind-the-scenes look at a particular corner of show business. But there’s also something edgy and modern about Altman and Alan Rudolph’s screenplay, and one’s appreciation of the overall movie will likely depend on taking to their vision. To them, William Cody – who was a big star before the age of television – is like some kind of 70’s show business icon: handsome and larger-than-life in person (if slightly shorter than one might have expected, thanks to Paul Newman’s perfect casting), but vain, alcoholic, prima donna-ish and a womanizer in private.

I liked everything about this movie, especially how Cody shows an obsession with the public’s perception of “Buffalo Bill” on-par with a modern PR firm. In one of the film’s more humorous moments, he welcomes President Grover Cleveland, who is on his honeymoon, to his own self-titled ranch and resort, allowing the chief executive the use of his own bedroom. When Cleveland expresses an unwillingness to put him out, Buffalo Bill assures him he prefers to spend his nights outdoors among the plains; but of course, the first place he goes is that symbol of civilization: the tavern.

Altman, of course, was no stranger to de-mythologizing the Wild West when he made “Buffalo Bill,” having done something similar in 1971’s “McCabe & Mrs. Miller.” This time around, it’s more the Wild West show he’s dissecting, his roving camera capturing a cavalcade of characters wearing ten gallon hats, only much of it is illusion: the Native Americans are played by black or white actors for the most part; during the brilliant opening sequence, an attack on a frontier town by Indians turns out to be staged; at one point, an actor is told not to get on his horse from behind, for fear it does not look “authentic.” In the spirit of a film that takes viewers “behind the scenes,” “Buffalo Bill” also shows how much intricate choreography, micro-management, and practice went into the acts.

Even the titular character’s ride into each show accompanied by a small herd of bison is far from spontaneous. But if Buffalo Bill is indeed an image whose purpose is preserving the Wild West in its most idyllic form (and that argument is supported by what amounts to a creator, played by Burt Lancaster), the question in William Cody’s mind is whether the same can be said of Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts)? Here is another character with a larger-than-life reputation, but when depicted in the flesh, is short in stature, ghostly-silent, with a child-like face.

He packs none of Buffalo Bill’s bluster, but his resourcefulness clearly exceeds that of the cowboy performers. Later, he manages to win over a white audience through his own quiet dignity and grace – without having to participate in the dog-and-pony show the writers initially conceived – and when he mysteriously disappears, also manages to evade the search party led by Cody, despite his reputation of being a world-class Indian tracker.

“He has to look good in front of his people,” is Buffalo Bill’s response to Sitting Bull making a fool of him. But is Sitting Bull a legend, or, like Buffalo Bill, just a man perpetuating a legend? The answer is never clear, but by film’s end Cody, who has started to become aware of his deficiencies, comes to the decision it is better to be a has-been and know it because the alternative is ending up like Sitting Bull (whose fate I will not disclose here). "My God, look at ya! Look at ya!” he shouts. “You want to stay the same! Well, that's going backwards!" Buffalo Bill, on the contrary, continues looking forward, even if his gaze seems blank, and the rest of his image resembles an outdated relic getting older with each passing moment.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

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THE ‘HUMAN’ FACTOR (1975), dir. Edward Dmytryk

2008-08-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

Two things elevate “The ‘Human’ Factor” from B-grade pot-boiler to a thriller that’s flawed, but not terrible: one is the casting of George Kennedy, who may be better recognized nowadays as Leslie Nielson’s sidekick in “The Naked Gun” comedies; the second is the score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone, who can make otherwise routine scenes such as men typing away at a computer screen seem downright intriguing.

Kennedy plays John Kinsdale, a NATO employee living in Florence, who suffers every devoted family man’s worst nightmare after his wife and children are murdered. The police have no leads; luckily, Kinsdale works with computer systems designed to predict an enemy’s actions during wartime. Using this advanced technology, he and a trusted co-worker named Mike (John Mills) figure out the killers’ modus operandi, and that they are terrorists targeting Americans living abroad.

Mike assumes this information will be turned over to the cops in order to prevent similar tragedies. But the closer Kinsdale gets to his family’s murderers, the less interested he becomes in protecting others as opposed to exacting revenge. Soon a behavioral scientist and an Italian police inspector are also racing the clock to stop him. Kinsdale, however, shuns them all, since they want to put the thugs in jail, while he wants them dead. “You don’t understand!” he yells. “These people murdered my family!”

Director Dmytryk, along with screenwriters Thomas Hunter and Peter Powell, telegraph early on that Kinsdale will be going the vigilante route: he shoots a television set broadcasting a news report about his dead family. The question is whether this middle-aged family man will succeed against a pack of younger, heavily-armed thugs? Although a computer simulation gives Kinsdale only an eight-percent chance of success, the filmmakers argue that the titular “human factor” – in this case, his grief, rage, and despair – can alter those odds significantly.

In the tradition of exploitative cinema, there are chase sequences, some good acting (Kennedy), mediocre writing at best (the terrorists, in particular, are given as little personality as political ideology, thus making them all the easier to despise), limited production values, and lots of violence. But “The ‘Human’ Factor” is an effective character study about an ordinary man pushed past his limits, and there are flashes of the western as well: Kinsdale is the civilized man driven to uncivilized acts, who finds himself on the margins of society as a result.

The first half is the movie’s best, mainly because of just how unassuming the main protagonist appears, and how that becomes his advantage. Indeed, a middle-aged George Kennedy may not particularly intimidating, but his secret weapon, it is pointed out early, is that he’s perceptive. In one scene, he gathers valuable clues by lending a sympathetic ear to an embassy official who doesn’t know who he is, but is outraged by all the news of dead Americans.

The second half, on the other hand, features car chases, rooftop escapes, and hand-to-hand fight scenes to go with Kinsdale’s emotional fall from grace. But as good as Kennedy is at conveying the emotions and will to vengeance of a shattered man, he is no Charles Bronson, and the action sequences strain credibility too far at times. There is no way Kinsdale should be able to effortlessly evade police pursuit, but he does. He also doesn’t seem like the kind of man who’d know how to whip a chain around someone’s neck, but he does that, too.

Yet none of Kinsdale’s prior superhuman feats compare to the final scene, a ridiculously over-the-top shoot-out in a supermarket, where his family’s killers have taken hostages. Despite being armed with machine guns, they are no match for Kinsdale, who only has a handgun. Adding to the surreal tone are moments of unnecessary levity – specifically, while guns are blazing, the disembodied voice over the loudspeaker calmly announces turkey cold cuts are on sale. Interestingly, there’s little enjoyment or satisfaction to go with these long-in-wait executions, as if the “human factor” that got Kinsdale this far had, ironically, reduced him to an unfeeling killing machine.

Overall rating: ** (out of ****)

TROUBLE THE WATER (2008), dir. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal and Kimberly Rivers Roberts

2008-08-21T03:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a great film happens by accident. According to “Trouble the Water’s” production notes, Lessin and Deal had planned a movie about soldiers serving in Iraq who returned home to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. However, after the National Guard cut off their access, they took a side trip to a nearby Red Cross shelter, where they encountered Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott. The meeting ended up changing the course of the film.

One week earlier, the Roberts’ had escaped the flooded city themselves, but not without having to take the initiative for their own survival. “Trouble the Water” shows the experience of Hurricane Katrina from their perspective, the impact of which feels immediate and authentic. But the film also chronicles their attempts to build a new future afterward, and tries to examine why thousands of residents, many of whom were poor or minority, were seemingly abandoned by the state and federal government before and after the storm.

The movie could have consisted of talking heads and sound bytes, but Kimberly Roberts brought something besides her own words and memories: roughly two hours of videotape shot before, during, and after the storm. The footage allows Lessin and Deal to structure things differently from a standard documentary: the first half cuts back-and-forth between present times and the footage, and Roberts’ home movies become akin to the flashback sequences found in non-documentary narratives.

Seeing Kimberly and Scott, their low-income neighborhood, and their friends and relatives prior to Katrina's landfall makes the aftermath all the more dramatic. In total, roughly 15 minutes of Kimberly’s video before and during the storm gets used, and it’s easily the most riveting part of the film: there is palpable tension in the air as she interviews relatives and acquaintances waiting for the inevitable to arrive, while the footage shot during the storm itself consists of murky violence as the elements threaten to tear the Roberts’ world apart.

Kimberly’s video captures just how dire the situation was, but also shows people rising to the occasion. “I never thought God would have use for a man like me,” says a man named Larry who, utilizing a punching bag as a flotation device, rescues the Roberts’ and some family members who are holed up in an attic. Indeed, a recurring theme in “Trouble the Water” is redemption: most of the main characters, including Kimberly and Scott, lived life hard and fast on the mean streets. After Katrina, however, they are helping the smaller, frailer, and older get out of New Orleans alive – what the state and federal authorities failed to do, the movie can’t help pointing out.

According to characters in the film, help from either the state or National Guard did not materialize for days, and when the military did arrive, their priorities leaned more toward safeguarding property than providing relief. A confrontation between residents and armed soldiers over the use of an abandoned Navy base is told from multiple perspectives; unfortunately, the military never quite comes out looking pristine in either telling.

Occasionally, the tone gets a little too snarky, such as when a soldier’s comment that “civilians don’t know the basics of survival” is juxtaposed with Scott’s story of breaking into a high school and stealing food from vending machines. The gut reaction is to respond, “Hey, it may be vandalism, but they all survived, didn’t they?”

If “Trouble the Water” has a potential flaw, it isn’t the human dramas captured by Lessin, Deal, or Kimberly Roberts, the latter an aspiring rap artist whose impromptu performance of a song called “Amazing” provides the film its emotional catharsis. Rather, it’s the fact Lessin and Deal have a history working with documentary-maker Michael Moore, whose mention in the press notes alone raises questions about a possible liberal bias. Does it feel as if more effort could have gone into getting the Bush administration’s side of why the response supposedly went badly? Maybe, but there’s no denying the power of the Roberts’ footage, and lest we forget, they are the ones who lived through the storm.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA (2008), dir. Woody Allen

2008-08-21T03:18:00.000-07:00

A character remarks to Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), who has spent the last six months directing a short film about love: “That’s a mighty big subject to handle in 12 minutes.” It’s no easier in 97, which is the running time for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” But that’s probably the point; despite trading in Manhattan and London for Spain’s picturesque cities and countryside, like Allen’s other relationship comedies, his latest is concerned with the elusive nature of love, how, as he himself put it once: “The heart wants what it wants.”

Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina, two Americans abroad, are best friends with very different attitudes and expectations about love. The former, who has come to Barcelona to do research for her Master’s thesis, plays it safe and as such, is engaged to a boring-but-nice yuppie back home. Cristina, on the other hand, is recently single and on the lookout for love of the fiery kind. After exchanging glances with an intense-looking artist named Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), the trio has another change encounter, at which point he propositions them to spend the weekend with him.

Cristina readily accepts, Vicky begrudgingly to keep her friend out of trouble. Once all the dialogue regarding how Cristina could possibly find his come-on attractive dies down, what follows resembles a Merchant-Ivory production, thanks in no small part to the most adventurous cinematography in an Allen film since “Husbands and Wives” (Indeed, this could be the first time he’s ever used gauzy camera work – seemingly the tell-tale sign of adult sophistication) and the Americans abroad plot. The sights of Barcelona and Oviedo are used to particularly-romantic effect, with fountains, churches, and in one key scene, the famous Tibidabo Amusement Park practically standing-in as characters.

But at its heart, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is, like “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan,” a relationship movie where the plot goes hand-in-hand with the characters’ psychologies. As such, even after some unexpected hitches and emotional upheavals, Vicky and Cristina continue pursuing what they want, or believe they have always wanted. That, in turn, either takes them to the next logical step in their own respective relationships, back into orbit with one another, or into the company of new characters, such as Juan Antonio’s brilliant, but unstable wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz, stunningly dressed-down).

The rest of the cast does uniformly good work as well, moving comfortably with the ebb and flow of a screenplay where events don’t necessarily happen as we expect. But we always have a good idea what the characters are thinking (also due to voice-over narration by Christopher Evan Welch, which actually seems unnecessary and intrusive at times), so the movie never feels dishonest. The end result is comedy and verbal sparring, romance, personal angst, postcard settings, and an underlying message as well, that it’s human nature to long for what we cannot have, and to long for something else once we get what we want. Viewers may long for something more than that seemingly-anti-cathartic lesson, but in the end, the movie is only 97 minutes.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

QUITTING (2001), dir. Zhang Yang

2008-08-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

There has been no shortage of drug movies in recent years, but this one is noteworthy, mainly because of how the material is presented. Despite a plot that sounds like standard movie-of-the-week fare – the real-life story of actor Jia Hongsheng’s struggle with heroin addiction – the end result is engrossing. Part of that immediacy comes from director Yang’s decision to take the phrase “art imitating life” at its most literal, casting Hongsheng and his family as themselves in what amounts to a re-enactment of their personal Hell.

“Quitting” chronicles the four years during which Hongsheng’s parents and sister moved in with him, provided for his needs, and tried to help him break free of drug addiction and depression, twin demons that left him disassociated from the outside world. Once a moderately-successful film actor, he had not taken a role in years, instead secluding himself in his apartment to watch television and listen to music. Starting at the protagonists’ lows before crawling toward redemption, “Quitting” shows the family contending with Hongsheng’s unpredictable mood swings, their own stability as a unit exceedingly threatened by his anti-social behavior, which includes verbal and physical violence.

But as unsettling as the movie can get at times, director Yang, who is known for his humane attitude, is less interested in the visceral aspects of conflict, concentrating more on the insides of his characters’ heads. In the case of Hongsheng, he cuts in voice-overs and interviews with his present self, ultimately humanizing the monster into a beast we can partially understand: his urge for higher levels of experience, enthusiastic embrace of western culture, and rage against his parents’ more traditional, bucolic ways turning out to be derived from something as ordinary as a yearning to be special, itself a response to personal insecurities.

Meanwhile, as Hongsheng’s parents do everything we expect of nosy parents, we are made privy to their secret conversations and de-stabilizing of their relationship, how their strictness and nagging turns out to be counterbalanced by the unthinkable: growing fear of their own blood. Given that all these actors are really playing themselves, the performances take on an eerie life of their own; the scene in which Hongsheng, drunk, starts slapping around his father feels especially traumatic. Fortunately, the director chose to frame “Quitting” as a movie about a play, which in turn, is about real-life-events, and whenever things get too intense, Yang pulls back the camera to reveal how this is all theater, which provides the necessary emotional distance.

Some may complain about using such a device at all, but stage drama does take its power from unfolding real life before the audience’s eyes, which is the same effect Yang achieves through his casting. Admittedly, it can be awkward getting used to it at first, as is attempting to empathize with Hongsheng’s self-absorbed, ungrateful young man, but one comes away respecting his willingness not to be likeable. As Hongsheng himself learns about going cold turkey, sticking with “Quitting” long-term is a good decision.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

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FELLINI – SATYRICON (1969), dir. Federico Fellini

2008-08-07T03:42:00.000-07:00

Here is ancient Rome envisioned by someone with a fever in his brain, and as it happens, Fellini was recovering from a serious illness when he picked up Petronius’ novel Satyricon, and found the inspiration for this depraved, fantastic film.

It should be noted the original novel only exists in pieces. Rather than try and rebuild it, Fellini left the narrative gaps in, and as a result, “Fellini – Satyricon” has a disconnected, dreamlike quality. It is effective nonetheless: we are haunted by its images and sounds; a hollow chime, which reappears throughout the movie, will heretofore be implanted upon the brain. But ask how various scenes of visual opulence are connected, and I could not tell you. As best I can figure, the plot involves two young Romans (Martin Potter, Hiram Keller) who may be scholars or artists, vying for the affections of a younger, androgynous-looking boy (Max Born).

These characters not so much travel as are magically shunted to various locales: a lavish bacchanalia, a galley ship full of captured slaves, into the desert helping kidnap an albino prophet, and face-to-face with the legendary Minotaur. Some amazing costumes are provided by Danilo Donati (who collaborated with Fellini numerous times), and production designer Luigi Scaccianoce’s sets include a building that resembles the Guggenheim Museum crossed with Dante’s Circles of Hell.

Meanwhile, Fellini and cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno try to fit as many garish colors, layers of detail, and strangely-shaped faces and bodies into the frame as possible. Entire background shots are crammed full of people, and at certain times, they are coordinated with a precision that seems mind-boggling. Luckily, the filmmakers also provide a few stark, intriguing moments to keep the feeling of being fatally-overstuffed at bay: panoramic shots of deserts and coasts, the two male leads cavorting with an exotic woman they find inside a cave.

Like many Fellini movies, an earthiness balances out the beauty, but we are not just talking griminess. Characters shout at one another, belch, and lust in such a way that reflects their vigor for living. However, despite how fantastic the whole production is, there is great darkness here, too, as “Fellini – Satyricon” shows the dangers of excess, and explores man’s potential for limitless appetite.

The most powerful and successful secondary characters are depicted as willing to cross what viewers might consider ethical boundaries for art and experience sake: a great actor cuts off somebody’s hand as part of his stage act; a famous poet drinks himself stupid, carries on with a young boy in front of his wife, and has another guest beaten; the emperor himself, who remains unseen, orders boats to sail forth acquiring slaves for his pleasure.

Granted, laws existed in the ancient world, and the historical accuracy of “Fellini – Satyricon” could probably be debated, but the underlying question is a universal one: Can we live our lives solely for seeking pleasure? The movie dramatizes this question by involving the two main protagonists in what is essentially a pointless second half, carried along by exterior forces, greed, or lust. Naturally, when one develops sexual dysfunction, the quest for a cure becomes all-consuming (and leads to that whole fighting the Minotaur-thing – in a labyrinth, no less!). Fellini does tend to reflect his own insecurities in his art, and the theme of male potency reappears in his “City of Women” more than a decade later, but if anything, that only proves the universality of the earlier question.

I am not saying everyone will love this movie. You might argue it’s nothing more than the director indulging his subconscious through a parade of pretty trash, followed by sexually-charged nonsense. My response is: that’s all accurate, but that’s also the whole point.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

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ULTRAVIOLET (2006), dir. Kurt Wimmer

2008-08-07T03:40:00.001-07:00

Based on the opening credits, “Ultraviolet” is supposed to resemble a comic book adaptation, but frankly, it contains everything one could expect from an Asian action flick. Of course, one could argue since the turn of the century, Asian cinema has been overwhelmingly influenced by “The Matrix” series, in which the camera became progressively more innovative, and so it is no surprise finding the lens moving through solid objects here, as well as framing special effects-laden sequences of elaborate mayhem from all crazy angles.

Nor is it shocking to see the use of “bullet-time,” the process pioneered by the makers of “The Matrix,” wherein the action proceeds in slow-motion but the camera does not. In “Ultraviolet,” writer-director Kurt Wimmer does try and mix things up, partially filming the “bullet-time” scene through the point-of-view of an actual bullet, which gets fired at the movie’s central fighting machine played by Milla Jovovich.

Aside from the choreography in some of these one-versus-many scenarios, most traces of creativity are visible in the costumes and production design of Wimmer’s otherwise routine dystopia film. Give him credit, though, for conceiving of giant bowling balls transforming into ninjas; weapons that fold out of wristbands; and something called an “anti-gravity” well, which can turn reality upside-down for both the protagonists and viewers; and all that’s just in the first half-hour.

Unfortunately, once the ultra-cool Violet – get it? – gets saddled with a cute little boy (Cameron Bright), you can pretty much plot the trajectory of her character from dismemberer to nurturer. Six, as the tyke is named, may represent a threat to Violet’s genetically-engineered, vampire-like race, but he’s also a call from the past, a surrogate for the baby she lost during her labored origin. Naturally, she tries to keep Six at an emotional distance while they’re on the run from an evil corporation, but her badass-hood is no match for maternal instinct, and it isn’t very long before her would-be callousness merely resembles a single mom’s tough love.

Luckily, there isn’t too much schmaltz, as the movie, in keeping with its resemblance to Asian cinema, is heavy on action but light on characterization. Indeed, conversations between Violet and the supporting cast are kept to the necessary minimum, and although we see two sides to Violet, everyone else – the child-like Six, the evil bad guy, the good friend – more-or-less fulfill types. No, there’s not much depth to “Ultraviolet,” but at least the surface visuals look cool. Maybe Wimmer can try adapting an actual comic book for his next project.

Overall rating: ** (out of ****)

THE DARK KNIGHT (2008), dir. Christopher Nolan

2008-07-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

When Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman” first came out, audiences were warned: “This isn’t your parents’ Batman,” referring to the campy Adam West television version from the 60’s. Having seen “The Dark Knight,” I think it would be safe to tell fans of Burton’s film the same thing: this isn’t their Batman, but one that’s a lot less gothic, a lot more psychological, and even more violent.

What Christopher Nolan’s movie lacks in production design, it makes up for through intensity. This is one hell of a suspense vehicle, ratcheting up the tension at regular intervals, letting audiences go for a moment, then improbably, raising the stakes even higher. It’s a roller coaster ride that could have been exhausting over the film’s two-hour-plus running time, but thanks to Nolan and co-scripter David Goyer’s emphasis on characters and their relationships, all the plot developments have emotional resonance.

“The Dark Knight” picks up near where “Batman Begins” left off: billionaire heir Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is still the self-appointed guardian of Gotham City, slowly chipping away at the criminal underworld through his alter-ego Batman. His only friend on the police force remains Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman); in the District Attorney’s office, it’s Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, replacing Katie Holmes), his childhood sweetheart who learned his secret identity in the last movie.

A love triangle brews between Wayne, Dawes, and recently-elected District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who seems sincere about crushing criminals and settling down with Bruce’s old flame. But with all due respect to the romantic aspects of the screenplay, the relationship at the heart of this film is that between Dent, Gordon, and Batman, who hatch a plan together to nail the mob on money laundering charges. Naturally, the first meeting of this crime-fighting trio brims with hope and optimism; unfortunately, things don't go as planned, and the next time they’re all together, it’s to reflect on the toll they’ve suffered in the name of the good fight.

Good and evil seem to be at war in “The Dark Knight,” but maybe it’s more like chaos and order. The main villain is a war paint-wearing, facially-scarred, mentally-off-balanced madman who calls himself the Joker (the late Heath Ledger), a self-described “agent of chaos” for whom there’s no applecart he won’t upset or shove through a sharp object, eye socket first. The filmmakers wisely adhere to his comics’ origin and withhold explaining how he got the way he does. Chaos, after all, needs no motivation; as one character wisely explains, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

By contrast, Dent not only represents “law and order,” his life appears built on the idea human will can successfully impose itself on chaos. Even when we think he’s starting to slip up, he’s in total control, “making his own luck,” as he says, seemingly confident of determining his own fate. However, one of the movie’s recurring themes is how short a jump there is between two halves of the same coin: order and chaos, hero and villain, and ultimately, life and death. When order meets chaos head-to-head, the movie argues, even the best of us can lose our way or become walking contradictions -- “two-faced” people.

In some ways, Nolan is a “two-face” himself, dressing up a summer blockbuster into something artier and genuinely disquieting at times. “The Dark Knight” probably features a higher body count than half-a-dozen serial killer movies combined, but despite lots of action sequences, it’s practically anti-violence due to presentation: during particular stretches of carnage, Nolan either cuts off the background music entirely or reduces it to a single, extended note, which somehow makes everything just a little too involving. When there’s nothing distracting you from the sight of the Joker walking down the street, firing a machine gun at anything that moves, that’s when the movie really pulls you out of your orderly viewing experience and puts you in a stranglehold.

Updated 8/3/08: Following the movie’s release, there were numerous articles regarding its supposed politics, with writers claiming references to the Iraq War, suicide bombers, and the Patriot Act. I can kind of see it: in theory, the triumvirate of Batman, Dent, and Lt. Gordon are standing in for the current administration, finding themselves dealing with a firestorm of reprisal after entering a foreign land in the name of justice. Gotham City becomes the battleground, but the problem is enemy soldiers are able to hide themselves in plain sight; for example, the Joker himself – minus his trademark make-up, of course – blends in with a procession of cops during an assassination attempt.

Meanwhile, is that “shock and awe” echoing in Alfred Pennyworth’s (Michael Caine) tale to Bruce Wayne about his past army days, how his unit managed to catch a madman among the natives, only by burning down an entire forest in which he lived? In order to avoid the same, Batman plans to spy on the cell phone calls of Gotham City’s citizenry using a hi-tech computer. One can practically hear him blubbering to Morgan Freeman how this potential breach of civil liberties is, “the only way to stop terror,” in a Texas accent.

The funny thing is the filmmakers seem okay with this encroachment, so long as the ends justify the means (a psycho gets brought down, innocent lives are saved), and there is no abuse of this power. And despite the temptation to keep around such an elaborate spying network – imagine how much easier it would make fighting crime – we assume Batman realizes the ethical implications of such a thing. At the very least, it would reveal a pessimistic view of human nature to rival the Joker and his other enemies. But although we can trust Batman not to abuse such invasive technology, the question the whole subplot seems to raise is: do we feel the same way about the current administration, or does the Dark Knight really symbolize something we don’t have, and are in need of?

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

Please visit the archive for a full list of reviews.

FINE, TOTALLY FINE (2008), dir. Yosuke Fujita

2008-07-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

It’s not easy being almost 30, when society expects a person to have their career, be settled down, and to have left behind the immature trappings of youth. Two of the characters in “Fine, Totally Fine” feel the pressure to grow up from family and co-workers, while a third is almost totally adrift, primarily because she has no one who expects anything from her.

The main protagonists of this Japanese-language film include Hisanobu (Okada Yoshinori), a hospital administrator and perpetual nice guy due to his social awkwardness. However, despite looking normal enough on the outside, he leads a double life participating in low-budget horror flicks and elaborate pranks with Teruo (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa), his slacker buddy who enjoys scaring people.

Teruo, who has a round, childlike face, dreams of opening a haunted house someday and ignores accusations he is some kind of degenerate. But whether or not he should be telling little girls how real bears are much scarier than their teddies, he is clearly out of touch with reality; at one point, he expresses surprise when told he only works part-time as a park employee.

With the big “three-oh” on the horizon, Hisanobu begins questioning if they shouldn’t outgrow their anti-social behavior, a thought that offends Teruo. What else do they have to distract themselves with? The answer comes in the form of Akari (Kimura Yoshino), an attractive woman who possesses a clumsiness that makes Inspector Clouseau look like Gene Kelly. Hisanobu, perhaps recognizing a fellow square peg stuck in a round world, hires Akari to work at the hospital, then lands her another job at the bookstore owned by Teruo’s father.

Hilarity doesn’t exactly ensue once all three characters fall into each others’ orbits, but Yosuke, who also wrote the screenplay, peppers “Fine, Totally Fine” with lots of surreal comic moments that pop up when audiences least expect it. One of the best involves Teruo’s repeated attempts to tell a scary story nobody else finds scary. After two lackluster trial runs, the third time Hisanobu explodes from out of nowhere wearing bloody make-up and fangs.

There are also amusing running gags about a film-within-a-film; Akari’s obsession with fish paste sausages, which she carries in her pocket; and her proneness to accidents. Indeed, at one point, a character asks her about an injury she suffered, joking about it in ridiculous fashion, never realizing what he described is exactly what happened to her. (Speaking of Akari, her personal awakening from shy introvert was particularly well-portrayed by Kimura Yoshino, and I can't understand why the press notes singled out her co-star Yoshiyoshi for praise).

Despite the humorous bits, those who walk into “Fine, Totally Fine” expecting an “Amelie”-type film in which oddballs get with their soul mates may leave disappointed. A line of dialogue goes, “Life’s more fun when you’re an idiot,” which references and celebrates Teruo’s goofball antics; however, it also implies existence can be inherently disheartening. This proves true by film’s end, but no matter how bittersweet things get, Yosuke emphasizes the value of good friendships, an upbeat attitude, and delicious fish paste sausages.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

MAS*H (1970), dir. Robert Altman

2008-07-03T05:39:00.000-07:00

The main characters are jerks, but Altman’s otherwise crazy-good comedy, which is about Vietnam without ever referencing it directly, stands up better if considered for the sum of its parts. Here is a movie that reflects a particular view on war; specifically, a war many of its participants don’t feel like taking part in. Under those circumstances, Altman and Ring Lardner, Jr., the screenwriter, seem to argue that mixing the willing and unwilling together only leads to conflict and chaos.

“M*A*S*H” centers around the doctors and nurses of the 4077 in Korea, which is stationed near the front and sees heavy casualties. The movie opens with the arrival of two new surgeons: Capt. Benjamin Pierce (Donald Sutherland), who goes by the nickname “Hawkeye,” and Capt. Forrest (Tom Skerritt). Although exceptional in the operating room, they don’t exactly behave like military professionals, but this is tolerated by their commanding officer Colonel Blake (Roger Bowen).

Soon Hawkeye and Forrest are joined by even more of a wild card: Dr. “Trapper John” McIntyre (Elliott Gould), who actually carries his own jar of olives on the outside chance he’ll be offered a dry martini. Together, they launch a reign of frat-boy-style terror intended to defy the restrictions of the army, or at the very least, help distract them from their present circumstances; namely, the parade of wounded they frequently operate on under less-than-ideal conditions.

The pranks threaten to go overboard at times, but the entire movie resembles an anarchic free-for-all. Characters are veritable cartoons (Does Hawkeye ever take off his hat, and how often do we see him or Trapper John without a drink in their hands?), and there’s more off-beat, wacky touches than can be kept track of. Col. Blake, for example, is practically a one-man comedy highlight reel, but the most irreverent sequence in the film involves a suicidal dentist and a visual reference to the Last Supper.

And let’s not forget the use of Johnny Mandel’s “Suicide is Painless” over the opening credits, during which a gurney containing a wounded soldier is accidentally dropped. It may seem in poor taste, but when there’s a song in the background stating that killing the self is preferable to going off to war, one gets the feeling the accompanying visuals are meant to be tongue-in-cheek.

Meanwhile, characters who are the butts of jokes almost always deserve it. That is certainly true for Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), a moral hypocrite and bully. The treatment of chief nurse “Hot Lips” O’Houlihan (Sally Kellerman), on the other hand, borders on cruelty – it’s not like she can just transfer to another post in the war, can she? But the character herself is a commissioned officer, and represents everything Hawkeye, McIntyre, and other draftees neither want nor need. For her, the strict disciplinarian is the ideal, and she threatens everybody’s fun with an official complaint regarding Col. Blake’s lack of leadership.

Altman and Lardner, however, make the argument that the moment General MacArthur dropped off American soldiers in Korea prior to retiring, the military had no head. In the case of the 4077, Cpl. “Radar” O’Reilly (Gary Burghoff) appears to be the man in charge, usually one step ahead of Col. Blake, who knows more about football than military leadership. But other authority figures fare no better, the most offensive being the misogynist C.O. of an army unit who challenges the 4077 to a pigskin match, whose leadership style is best described as belittling everyone around him.

Yes, there is a climactic football game, but that implies “M*A*S*H” actually builds to something, when really it’s relatively episodic. Indeed, the progress of time isn’t kept track of by obvious means, and although documentary-like sequences in the operating room ensure we never forget the specter of war, on the whole, there is no discernible “Raising of the stakes” one finds in a typical screenplay.

Quite the opposite happens, in fact; the beginning and middle are concerned with the physical and mental health of American soldiers and foreign civilians, but by the end, the 4077 somehow finds itself competing on a football field for a pot of money. For a while, the movie seems to be an entirely different film set somewhere in the mid-west, as opposed to the Korean theater where our armed forces are supposed to be defending the American way of life. But it befits the rest of the movie’s wackiness, and what’s more American than football and gambling?

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974), dir. Brian De Palma

2008-07-03T05:36:00.000-07:00

Had anyone else directed this movie, it may have only turned out half as good. That’s the biggest compliment I can pay De Palma, who wrote and directed this otherwise B-grade trash film, but elevates it through sheer force of will, dark wit, and the casting of songwriter/actor Paul Williams.

As the title indicates, “Phantom of the Paradise” takes inspiration from Gaston Leroux’s novel “Phantom of the Opera,” about a disfigured musical genius who helps turn the ingénue he’s in love with into a star. This time around, the phantom is a tortured piano player named Winslow Leach (William Finley), the ingénue is an aspiring actress (Jessica Harper), and Paradise is a club owned by the record producer Swan (Williams), who is seeking a new sound to open with.

Swan decides Leach’s music is perfect; however, instead of buying it, he has him wrongfully imprisoned and destroys his face and voice. In a plot that freely borrows from “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Faust,” and others*, Leach escapes, sneaks into the Paradise, and begins sabotaging it until he’s offered a deal he cannot refuse: complete his masterpiece, an opera based on “Faust,” Swan tells him, and he will get creative control and the means to make music again. All he needs to do is sign a lifetime contract in blood, which really, should have been the first sign for Leach that the terms wouldn’t be in his favor.

“What does this mean?” Leach asks regarding legalese stating the contractor gets all rights to fetch and carry forth his “soul, flesh, blood, or goods.” “Oh, that’s a transportation clause,” Swan nonchalantly replies, in a scene seemingly lampooning the real-life music industry, where to this day, lawsuits claiming thievery and mismanagement by producers run rampant. Of course, it’s also an example of the mocking humor that peppered De Palma’s work right up to 1978’s “The Fury.”

There is always some undercurrent of humor to go with the film’s escalating violence and mayhem; nevertheless, “Phantom” feels like a movie done in two halves. Despite being concerned with Leach’s fall from grace, the first half is B-movie-ish in its aesthetic, featuring moments that are manic in tone and downright experimental: a jailbreak played for laughs; a sped-up chase sequence done to classical music; even some rickety, handheld camera work. As Leach, Finley’s dorky looks and lack of traditional leading man stature only add to the film’s cheapie feel, which some will doubtlessly find charming.

Once the second half gets rolling, however, the set pieces become more elaborate and the tone settles into more of a slow burn. True, De Palma throws in some twists – it’s as if he decided, “I’ve ripped off three classics so far, what’s another?” – coming close to derailing the whole enterprise if not for his willingness to simply throttle his way through to the end. In addition, he was fortunate to have Paul Williams to lean the film on; his youthful looks and boyish smile help make everything he said or did seem extra sinister, and his real-life success as a songwriter for The Carpenters, among others, made him the perfect casting choice for Swan.

De Palma has always been something of a cult director, and fans will undoubtedly note the use of split screens – one of his lasting trademarks – as well as his thing for recording technology, which would reappear in 1981’s “Blow-Out.” Meanwhile, beneath such over-the-top touches as a muscular lead singer who is flamboyantly gay off-stage, De Palma the screenwriter does seem to have something halfway-subversive to say about the music industry and pop culture: namely, that everyone’s worth more dead than alive. But the more practical message for struggling musicians might be never sign a contract in blood, at least not without having a lawyer read it first.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

THE CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO (1979), dir. Hayao Miyazaki

2008-06-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

“The Castle of Cagliostro” proves you don’t need flesh-and-blood actors or real locales to stage an exceptional action adventure. Cartoons can do the job just nicely, so long as the writing is smart and the animators are talented.

The movie stars Lupin the Third, a thief descended from Arsene Lupin, the main character of French author Maurice Leblanc. Although he’s a master criminal, he possesses gentlemanly qualities and gadgets a la James Bond, and he’s also remarkably agile, as evidenced by the opening sequence in which he and his sidekick steal a fortune from a casino safe.

But as Lupin quickly recognizes, the bills are counterfeit, which leads them to take a trip to Cagliostro, where the secret of all the forged money is reputed to be. There, they encounter a young woman named Clarisse, who is trying to escape an arranged marriage to a nefarious count. During the rescue, Lupin recognizes the crest on the ring she is wearing, and it’s possible they share a deeper connection.

What follows are breakneck chases, daring escapes, puzzles, even a touch of comedy as an Interpol agent tracks the thief to the count’s castle. It’s interesting to watch “The Castle of Cagliostro” nearly 20 years after it was first released, given that it’s in the action adventure genre, which has been dominated since the 80’s by the twin pillars of James Bond and Indiana Jones.

Of course, Miyazaki’s film came out a few years before “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and Lupin is refreshingly free of Dr. Henry Jones’s influence. He’s less of a brawler, more of a lady’s man, and even though the action in “Raiders” is occasionally like a cartoon, Indiana Jones is always flesh and blood. Not so with Lupin, who can scale walls like Spider-man, and at one point drives a car along the side of a mountain.

Ian Fleming’s Bond, however, has been around since the 50’s, and some of his movies’ influence can be found in “Castle;” chiefly, the villain’s hideout equipped with hi-tech traps. Meanwhile, like any serialized adventure, there is a pre-established cast of supporting characters, including a rival female spy, a sidekick who’s good with a sword, and that aforementioned Interpol agent, who is no dummy but unfortunately finds himself always one step behind his prey.

The art is top-notch for pre-CGI days, but it’s Miyazaki who elevates the entire enterprise to masterpiece levels. Known internationally for epics like “Princess Mononoke” and “Nausicaa,” he co-wrote the screenplay with Harauya Yamazaki, and it’s a very clever one, especially in the various subterfuges Lupin uses.

True, “Castle” may be less serious than Miyazaki’s later efforts, but unlike a lot of modern animated films which seem to be marketed towards young children, this one is free of dumb jokes and all the characters act like they have a brain in their heads. It’s as if Miyazaki set out to entertain grown-ups as well as the young, and as such, Lupin’s motivations are unexpectedly complex and the ending is surprisingly touching.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963), dir. Don Chaffey

2008-06-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

With all due respect to director Don Chaffey, most of the credit for “Jason and the Argonauts’” success belongs to special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen, who frequently brought the fantastic to life in this mythological adventure flick.

Set in ancient Greek times, when a pantheon of Gods frequently toyed with the fates of Man, the family of King Aristo of Thessaly is massacred by Pelias (Douglas Wilmer), a rival who also plans to kill Aristo’s children. Luckily, the goddess Hera intervenes, rescuing young Jason and continuing to watch over him into adulthood. When he reaches the age of 20, grown-up Jason (played by Todd Armstrong) decides to raise an army to overthrow Pelias, avenge his father and sisters, and claim his rightful place as king.

But Jason also wants to prove his worthiness to the public, so he sets out to find the Golden Fleece, a gift from the Gods reputed to be somewhere at the ends of the Earth. Gathering a crew of the toughest and most clever – including such legends as the strongman Hercules (Nigel Green) – he and his crew set out aboard the Argo, from which the band of heroes later get their name.

Of course, an odyssey is nothing without dangers, and the traps and beasties encountered in “Jason and the Argonauts” include a statue come to life, mountains that crush any ship unlucky enough to sail between them, the multi-headed serpent known as the Hydra, and re-animated skeleton warriors. The latter helped earn the film a place among the greatest adventure movies, and also represents Harryhausen’s most recognized work as well as some of the best stop-motion animation ever.

Personally, as much as I liked the skeletons, my favorite special effects sequence involved the rock statue set off after one character fails to heed the word of the Gods. Not only did I love the design of the guardian – tall enough to tower over nearby mountains, carved Greek soldier’s helmet for a head – I admired the half-lurching way Harryhausen decided to animate him, sort of resembling a toy soldier marching.

I also liked how its “Achilles heel,” when exploited by Jason, ends up spurting a steamy hot liquid. Exactly what the substance is never gets explained, but it’s a detail that somehow feels right.

Another terrific special effects moment involves those aforementioned mountains that crush unwitting ships. This time, instead of stop-motion animation, Harryhausen and Chaffey utilize rear-projection for the sequence, which culminates in a Poseiden-like entity rising up from the ocean and really giving Jason and company a shoulder to lean on. Sure, compared to the seamless CGI-graphics of today, it looks as antiquated as anything else in the movie, but the filmmakers add little details that truly give their work personality – in this case, the end of Poseiden’s tail can be seen flopping up and down along the water’s surface.

If “Jason and the Argonauts” has a flaw, it’s that the human characters are not nearly as compelling as their special effects counterparts. Aside from the titular hero, who could best be described as “defiant,” the screenplay gives none of the crew members much depth or opportunity to stand out. The exception might be Hercules, who disappears early on (ostensibly to star in his own adventure flick), and that’s a shame, since he leaves at exactly the point in which Nigel Green starts giving him true gravitas and making him compelling.

Nevertheless, watching for the retro-style special effects is fun enough, and the movie really is about something: that although the Gods are out there, when it comes down to the really important decisions in life, Man makes his own fate. That makes “Jason and the Argonauts” an enduring classic.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

MCCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971), dir. Robert Altman

2008-06-19T06:24:00.000-07:00

“Glamorous” is the last adjective anyone would use to describe “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” which sets out to show how brutal life was in the North American frontier. Directed by the great Robert Altman, it overturns a lot of conventions of the Western genre, depicting a world devoid of nobility, love, and ultimately, heroic ideals.

The plot involves a man named John McCabe (Warren Beatty), who sets out building his fortune in Presbyterian Church, a burgeoning town located in northern Canada. The main industry there is zinc mines, and the town is seemingly devoid of women. McCabe, whose dream is to start up a gambling house, purchases some prostitutes, but is woefully unprepared for some of the realities of the business.

Enter Constance Miller (Julie Christie), who seems as smart and cultured as John McCabe is not. She has an idea about opening a high-class whorehouse in place of what he already has set up. Such a place, she argues, would draw customers from beyond Presbyterian Church and double his money. All she needs is an investor who will let her run it. “I’m a whore, and I know a lot about the business of whoring.”

Mrs. Miller, however, is a serious businesswoman, while McCabe is the gambler by trade. This leads to conflict after the new brothel and bathhouse are built, when some men from a large corporation look to buy them out of their holdings. Believing he can wheel and deal with the best of them, McCabe turns down their price, which later infuriates and worries Mrs. Miller. “They’d just as soon shoot you as look at you,” she warns him.

Indeed, three assassins soon arrive under the auspices of hunting bear, and begin a reign of terror against the two entrepreneurs. A gunfight – notable for both its brilliant staging as well as overall ugliness – ensues: there’s no showdown out in the open, but on the contrary, participants hide in the shadows, have no qualms about shooting somebody in the back, and die messy deaths amidst desolate and snowy backdrops.

“McCabe & Mrs. Miller” is not exactly the kind of western Hollywood produced during its Golden Age. The differences start with the actors: Beatty, despite having leading man looks, conveys none of the moral fortitude of a John Wayne-type hero. He doesn’t resemble a villain either, more a supporting cast member – some dandyish-looking, grumbling, frequently drunk supporting cast member who should be providing comic relief with a seemingly-endless supply of bawdy jokes.

There’s also an unsubstantiated rumor McCabe was a gunfighter who killed a man named Bill Roundtree. He never acknowledges this, and when trouble is actually looking for him, McCabe seems awfully hesitant and full of trepidation for someone who once took another person’s life.

While the movie busies itself tearing down a legend, it also paints a grim picture of women in the wilderness: removed from creature comforts; stared at by lustful, desperate male eyes. Mrs. Miller provides some sanctuary, but the movie does not shy away from how isolation affects her as well. If McCabe has his liquor, she has her own vices, too. They’re just more exotic ones.

Julie Christie gets Mrs. Miller perfectly, conveying glamour as well as the requisite emotional detachment. She may not pack McCabe’s bluster, but she’s a better businessperson, as evidenced by a terrific scene in which she’s both motherly and rational in selling a recently-widowed mail order bride (Shelley Duvall) on prostitution. When she was married, having sex was a means of paying for her room and board. It’s no different now, except she gets to keep a little extra for herself, Mrs. Miller argues.

Overall, the relationship between herself and McCabe is a complicated one, and this is very much a movie where the opposite of what would happen in a traditional western takes place. That’s especially clear in their romance or lack of one, although McCabe does get to utter something borderline tender: “I never did nothing to you except try to put a smile on your face,” he says.

Mrs. Miller, on the other hand, only seems to thaw in one scene where she urges him to get out of town after outside forces threaten. She turns away and starts crying, and we expect her to reveal how she cares deep-down about her boorish business partner. But it turns out she’s really worried about losing the future profits from their partnership.

That may seem all too cool and cynical for some, but Altman, who also adapted the screenplay from a novel by Edmund Naughton, was known for his modern sensibility, and “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” ranks among his best work of the 70’s. Given the widespread distrust of the establishment during the decade, it probably made sense for major corporations to be the main villains. However, there’s also a darkly-humorous scene with intimations about what big liars politicians are.

McCabe seeks help from a lawyer (William Devane) who just happened to have been a governor. The man talks about using newspapers to affect public opinion, but offers no real assistance on how not to get killed. It’s funny, the kind of thing you’d read in “Doonesbury,” but you get the feeling this is exactly what Old West legends really were: ordinary, flawed individuals touted as heroes, when all they really did was gamble and lose.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

SABOTEUR (1942), dir. Alfred Hitchcock

2008-06-19T06:17:00.000-07:00

Hitchcock’s first movie featuring an all-American cast, “Saboteur” walks a fine line between warning audiences that their enemies are where they least expect, and reminding them the way of the United States is to show compassion and not give in to hysteria.

As in many of the director’s films, an ordinary man finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. Barry Kane (the appealing Robert Cummings) is an aircraft factory worker who witnesses the death of his best friend when a fire breaks out at their plant. It appears a fire extinguisher was sabotaged with gasoline, and Barry is implicated when the individual whom he claims gave it to him cannot be found.

Believing other lives are in danger, he evades the law and journeys from the American southwest to New York City, where one of the director’s most famous set pieces is staged on the Statue of Liberty’s torch. Along the way, Barry also makes a daring escape or two, and finds himself involved with Pat (Priscilla Lane), a woman who initially wants to turn him in.

The movie’s tone successfully alternates between drama, sly humor (during the middle third, billboard signs are used to comment on the action), and mounting dread as a plot to set off a bomb in the Brooklyn Navy Yard is uncovered. However, it is not foreign agents or spies who are the culprits, but the crème-de-la-crème of American society, led by a man named Tobin (Otto Kruger).

The screenplay repeatedly hammers home that money, big California ranches, swimming pools and membership in high society render one impervious to suspicions of terrorism. Meanwhile, average Americans are not only content shielding their social and economic superiors, they’re quick to condemn a relative nobody like Barry, whose alleged crime raises their ire. As Pat says at one point, it’s her “patriotic duty” to turn him in.

With most of mainstream America against him, the protagonist’s only hope lies with outsiders including an old man, whose blindness symbolizes that handing Barry over to the cops would not serve the cause of justice. The argument “innocent until proven guilty” is also made by the leader of a circus sideshow which votes to give our hero a lift. Only a little person ignores the voice of democracy, and he is disparagingly referred to as a “fascist.”

Given there was a war taking place abroad and the uneasy climate at home – treason, after all, became punishable by death – one can understand characters’ decisions not to get involved in Barry’s quest to prove his innocence. But is that what makes a good American, this movie seems to ask. Is it blindly doing what we’re told, going with what newspapers and government agents say unquestioningly, or is it giving someone the benefit of the doubt and not giving in to our insecurities?

Such questions came to the forefront again during the McCarthy witch hunts a decade later, and it would be interesting to see how Hitchcock addressed these issues, if he did so at all. But he deserves credit for doing so here, and for visual touches pointed out by other reviewers, such as introducing the saboteur by having their shadow appear behind a white wall upon which the opening credits are imposed.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

THE FOUNTAIN (2006), dir. Darren Aronofsky

2008-06-12T05:27:00.000-07:00

Drubbed by a lot of critics when it first came out, it’s possible to see why “The Fountain” has mostly been forgotten. Given the premise, the quest for a way to defy death, as well as the titular reference to the fabled Fountain of Youth, one expects high adventure in the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” mold. But although the film’s canvas is vast and there are a few scenes involving swordplay, this is a highly-personal drama built mostly around two characters.

Still, there’s plenty to appreciate about “The Fountain,” starting with the craftsmanship of Aronofsky, who also wrote the screenplay. It’s his third film overall, and the follow-up to his critically-acclaimed “Requiem for a Dream,” in which the legendary Ellen Burstyn – who has a small role here as well – crawled through grimy subway stations under the influence of diet pills.

As in “Requiem,” which made drug addiction seem scorching and personal, Aronofky takes a potential epic and presents it in a surprisingly intimate style. Most of the film consists of first-person point-of-view shots from the perspective of his two leads, Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. Despite the presence of a few ancillary characters, they are clearly the focus, even as the film crisscrosses between the Spanish Empire, the modern world, and the celestial heavens.

In one of the three storylines, Jackman and Weisz play a couple named Tommy and Izzy Creo, respectively, and their performances ground the film emotionally. We care about their love story, which faces one of the most familiar obstacles in the history of romance: coming to terms with one partner’s death. But “The Fountain” has its heart in the stars, and Aronofsky, who previously showed a gift as a visual poet, finds the eternal within the ordinary: endless waves in a wallpaper pattern; streetlights extending into the distance.

One of the best set-ups involves a dark room with small, hanging lanterns resembling stars, making it appear as if Jackman takes a walk through constellations. There are also quite a few camera shots looking down on people’s heads, which makes sense in the context of the film, since characters are constantly looking into the faraway distances, both for and at the answer to their questions.

I’ve spent the last few paragraphs noting the aesthetics in “The Fountain” and trying not to give away much more. Truly, this is a movie to be experienced, but has a message that can be understood by nearly everyone. However, if you’ve ever read Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein,” there will be a shudder of recognition when one character, who is a doctor, says, “Death is a disease, it's like any other. And there is a cure. A cure. And I will find it.”

Things don’t end quite the way “Frankenstein” did, although there is one special effects scene in which Aronofsky, in keeping with his reputation as an innovator, successfully meshes the lush, beautiful, and grotesque. Now I really won’t say more except “The Fountain” will likely anger and frustrate some, while others will find themselves moved, maybe even more appreciate of life and what they have.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

ROOSTER COGBURN (1975), dir. Stuart Miller

2008-06-12T05:25:00.000-07:00

The western genre is often about the battle between freedom and civilization. In “Rooster Cogburn,” which was released in theatres after the cowboy movie had its heyday, the latter is represented by cleanliness, religion, and moral righteousness. Meanwhile, the other side, as one might expect in any film featuring six-shooters and ten-gallon hats, is personified by John Wayne.

The legend plays sheriff Rooster Cogburn as a man set in his ways, which has seen plenty and isn’t about to have his authority questioned, even by a magistrate. He meets his match, however, in a frontier woman named Eula Goodnight, who is played by the equally-great Katherine Hepburn as everything we would expect in a Hepburn character. A preacher’s daughter and schoolteacher possessed of almost innate dignity, she is put off by Cogburn’s slovenliness and other bad habits; that is, until the movie requires them to get along with each other.

As in many westerns, there is an outlaw to be pursued and caught, and this time it’s Hawk (Richard Jordan), who has stolen a wagonload of nitroglycerine in order to commit a bank robbery. An unrepentant sinner by his own words, his posse crashes the small town where Goodnight and her father are working to civilize the natives. A night of liquor-fueled mayhem and bloodshed ensues, claiming both the father and the family of Wolf (Richard Romancito), a young brave. Both end up riding with Cogburn in the pursuit of justice, as well as the chance to see two stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age together on-screen for the first time.

Wayne’s relaxed authority and drawl are perfectly contrasted by Hepburn’s uprightness and northeastern accent, but the screenplay makes their characters opposing forces in many ways: Goodnight belongs to the temperance league, while Cogburn at one point defends himself against accusations of being a souse by claiming, “I haven’t had a drink since breakfast”; in addition, she is a Bible-thumper, which Cogburn shows some aversion to.

But Goodnight does seem to subscribe to the “eye for an eye” brand of justice advertised in the good book, and as it happens, Cogburn has become something of a disgrace for killing far more outlaws than he brings in. Although the screenplay attempts to up the ante by having a judge tell him he must bring Hawk back east alive or lose his badge, that subplot eventually falls to the wayside as the three-person posse pursues the “nitro” across the wilderness.

Indeed, what’s more important is Cogburn finds out the schoolteacher is a crack shot with a rifle, while Goodnight learns that her companion has a pure heart, which excuses his occasional moral lapses. Overall, their relationship gets sentimental but never romantic, although there is occasional nagging akin to some old married couple. By midway through, when Cogburn breaks out his flask, Goodnight makes the remark, “Have you ever an alcoholic’s liver up close?” or words to that effect at him, which seems downright affectionate rather than chiding.

As one might expect, there’s lots of pretty scenery, including forests, mountains, and one dangerous-looking river given the circumstances the characters find themselves in. Director Stuart Miller deserves credit for all that, and for neither interfering with the verbal sparring between Wayne and Hepburn or letting either make a fool of him or herself. Although Wayne does have a scene in which he stumbles about intoxicated, shooting at objects hurled into the air by Wolf, these moments actually lend a certain gravitas to his character. Sporting a considerable paunch and puffy-looking visage, Wayne the screen legend never seemed so interestingly human.

Hepburn, meanwhile, comes across as passionate about her religion but not overly shrill. But clearly, she’s hardcore; at one point, she holds her ground as a ruffian fires at her feet, quoting scripture as he unsuccessfully attempts to make her shut up. Like Rooster, Eula is set in her ways and her independent mind is not easily swayed. We are tempted to nod when he, after they’ve had a particularly-grueling debate, remarks aloud, “If they ever give ’em the vote, God help us!”

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

WELCOME TO DONGMAKGOL (2005), dir. Kwang-Hyun Park

2008-06-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

If former enemies could somehow learn to work together, there’s no limit to what could be accomplished. That’s the lesson to be learned from “Welcome to Dongmakgol,” a charming and warm South Korean movie that not only opposes war, but strongly supports reunifying North and South Korea.

Thanks to a village secluded by mountainous terrain, men sworn to kill each other find they are not so different after all. Five soldiers, three representing the north, two from the south, intend to pass through Dongmakgol when an armed standoff breaks out. After accidentally destroying the village’s food supply, they seek to make amends by working the fields alongside the locals, who to the soldiers’ initial bafflement, appear to be living in a kind of time warp, ignorant to both the Korean Conflict and modern war itself.

“What is that? It looks like some kind of potato,” one Dongmakgol-ian remarks when seeing a grenade for the first time.

It turns out, although the villagers are hardly country bumpkins, they are too preoccupied with the minutiae of daily life to be bothered with anything else, even the arrival of a crash-landed U.N. pilot. But this disregard of geopolitics and nationalism slowly wins over the soldiers, some of whom have become disenchanted by war. They trade in their uniforms, start making friends, and ponder whether to leave behind “modern” civilization for good.

When the war machine inevitably arrives at Dongmakgol’s doorstep, the outsiders – even the English-speaking pilot – decide to stand up for something more important than international borders. Scenes of intense, war-related violence follow, but on the whole, Kwang-Hyun Park directs with a sure sense of whimsy, and there are such memorable touches as a downed plane sitting alone amidst green hills, a wild boar attack as Alfred Hitchcock would have directed it, and a slow-motion rain of popcorn when a food shed gets blown up.

These are all magical moments for sure, but sometimes the movie tries too hard to make us feel something, and frequently the score is downright obtrusive. Meanwhile, perhaps it’s because I am viewing “Welcome to Dongmakgol” from a westerner’s point-of-view, but I couldn’t help wondering whether the depiction of rustic village life was a little too idyllic, whether in reality the white man would not have been viewed with more fear, the crazy girl treated with less kindly.

But that would have resulted in a different kind of movie, and the point of this one is convincing people across the world to look past their differences, including North and South Koreans. I don’t pretend to be an expert in the Korean Conflict, and the how’s and why’s are virtually ignored by the film, only touched upon when two soldiers are arguing whether the north invaded the south. Ultimately, the commanding officer of the North Koreans confirms it. “We did?” the other soldier says with some surprise. After a beat, he says, “I only went because I was ordered to.”

If so many Koreans can’t even remember why they fought, all the more reason, the movie seems to argue, for a fresh start.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

AMERICAN GANGSTER (2007), dir. Ridley Scott

2008-05-29T12:22:00.000-07:00

Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) started out as the driver and doorman for Harlem mobster Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson, and ended up top man of New York City’s lucrative heroin industry. But “American Gangster,” which is set in the 70’s, is an American success story as much as a mob flick. Lucas gets where he does by innovating in a cutthroat business; his just happens to be in narcotics.

When the movie starts off, Frank is having a conversation with his mentor, who bemoans how the middleman has been cut out from the retail sector. Ironically, shortly after “Bumpy” passes away, Lucas will build an empire doing just that: buying directly from the supplier. Thanks to a connection in Thailand, he gets his hands on pure-grade heroin, which is far more potent than the watered-down smack being sold by the Italian mob. Soon, Frank has a stranglehold on the industry, but that doesn’t stop wannabe middlemen (led by Josh Brolin’s dirty cop) from demanding a cut before the product reaches consumers.

Plenty of business-related terms and phrases are bandied about in “American Gangster.” Lucas’ heroin, labeled “Blue Magic,” comes in a distinctive package, and when a rival hoodlum cuts it down to re-sell, leading to some overdoses, Frank accuses him of “copyright infringement.” In another scene, an Italian mobster disapproves of Frank’s monopoly on the trade, comparing it to other regulated industries. Finally, Lucas makes a fortune selling a better product for less than the competition, which is how countless American companies in other industries made their mark.

Frank even indulges in the American tradition of nepotism, moving his brothers and cousins from North Carolina to Harlem. This has mixed results, but the familial bonds allow sit-down meals to be conducted like boardroom meetings, even though Frank has to occasionally steal away to kill other gangsters in cold blood.

The movie also spends roughly half its running time with Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), a New York detective so honest, he turns in one million dollars in unmarked bills discovered during a bust. This makes him an urban legend, but a pariah among the NYPD’s mostly corrupt narcotics officers. “If a cop turns in this kind of money, it sends a message he’s willing to turn in dirty cops,” his partner (John Ortiz) warns him.

Initially, Roberts’ personal life is spiraling downward as Lucas steadily climbs to power. On the one hand, it illustrates the two characters’ contrasting natures: Lucas may be a drug dealer, but he’s also a devoted family man who buys his mother a mansion as soon as he hits the big time. Roberts, meanwhile, cheats on his wife, has to go to court to fight for his son, is being disassociated by both his precinct and partner, and even has old buddies working in organized crime.

But personal morals and business scruples do not necessarily go hand-in-hand, and both men, the movie seems to argue, are rebelling against the same thing: the mafia and police who aid and abet the drug trade so they can shake it down for cash. In other words, the status quo that heretofore made lots of money for those atop the pyramid. Roberts’ pursuit of Lucas culminates in a face-to-face meeting between the two characters as well as mutual respect that feels genuine.

Overall, “American Gangster” is a well-made film, with the period details one expects from director Ridley Scott. The story takes place during the same time period as another famous New York City crime film, "The French Connection", but there’s less emphasis on action and more on character development. Steve Zaillian’s screenplay also makes an interesting comment on race, since even Detective Roberts takes a long time to be convinced a black man could rule the heroin trade. It’s exactly these kinds of innovations that make the movie succeed as a crime film, a drama, and maybe something a little more, too.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

POSTAL (2007), dir. Uwe Boll

2008-05-29T12:21:00.000-07:00

POSTAL (2007), dir. Uwe Boll

Thank God for Dave Foley. Praise Allah for him, while you’re at it. At one point in Postal, the character he plays, a New Age cult leader and charlatan who owes over a million dollars to the Internal Revenue Service, responds to something one of his followers says with, “That’s a beautifully… retarded sentiment.”

You get the feeling this moment was improvised, and indeed, Foley spent years refining his deadpan style of delivery on the comedy series The Kids in the Hall. Just putting him in a scene results in off-the-cuff moments that feel genuinely fresh – which is a quality sorely missing from most of Uwe Boll’s would-be comedy.

Now, it may seem unfair to pick on Postal, given it was based on a video game, which rarely results in a memorable film. But according to the press notes, the game only supplied the anarchic plot and ultra-violence; it was Boll who turned it into a spoof of contemporary America touching on everything from politicians and religion to corporat culture eand mass consumerism.

Postal takes place in a mid-western city called Paradise, and revolves around Dude (Zach Ward), a much put-upon everyman who hatches a plan with his Uncle Dave (Foley) to steal a shipment of phallic-shaped “Krotchy” dolls, which are the number one toy this holiday season. Unfortunately, the toys have also been targeted by Islamic terrorists led by Osama bin Laden (Larry Thomas). They plan to use the vials of avian flu smuggled inside the dolls to bring about America’s destruction.

The movie is faithful to its video game roots as far as serving up tasteless violence, which victimizes society’s most defenseless first. Sometimes, the outrageousness and Boll’s attempts at satire meet with decent results, such as a scene inside a welfare office. After a crazed gunmen opens fire on unflinching government workers, Dude ends up crawling from corpse-to-corpse looking for a ticket so he can be next in line.

I also laughed when Boll, one of most maligned filmmakers working today, appeared as himself and confirmed one of his critics’ claims, that his movies are financed with Nazi gold. “We have to do something with all that gold,” he says.

The jokes are delivered rat-a-tat-style along the lines of Airplane. But Postal also wants to be a satire, and on that level, doesn’t succeed. The problem is Boll chooses targets that are just too obvious. Haven’t there been enough films within the past 30 years that argued people living in trailer parks have poor grooming habits, corporations are crazy, Americans love their guns, and the media relishes violence?

Granted, Postal does make a claim that religious followers are either bubble-headed dupes or out for their own selfish rewards, and that may be novel, but I didn’t think the movie did enough with that idea.

Attempting to push the envelope, Boll even has his bin Laden impersonator call up George W. Bush about insurance claims on an oil refinery, but really, how daring is making fun a widely-unpopular president?

Finally, I think Boll missed the boat by not satirizing, of all things, video games themselves. On second thought, given how joyless the action sequences are for those who can only sit by and watch, maybe he does unwittingly take a swipe at this form of entertainment, where the only catharsis is for whoever holds the controller.

Overall rating: * (out of ****)

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008), dir. Steven Spielberg

2008-05-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

They’re back: Movie star Harrison Ford, director Steven Spielberg, and producer George Lucas return to their most recognizable creation. “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull” represents the fourth outing of the globe-trotting archaeologist and adventurer, not to mention the first installment in nearly 20 years. This time around, both the series and its hero show their age, but even if Indy looks ready for retirement, he still has enough juice to carry this summer blockbuster past the finish line.

The movie takes place roughly 20 years after the events of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” The Nazis no longer pose a threat; they’ve been replaced by the Cold War and McCarthyism, and the 50’s details include atomic testing as well. The film opens with Dr. Henry Jones, Jr., better known to his friends and enemies as Indiana, having been kidnapped and brought with an old war buddy named “Mac” (Ray Winstone) to a military storage facility in New Mexico, which happens to be called Area 51.

Their kidnappers are Soviet agents led by Dr. Irina Spalko (the wonderful Cate Blanchett, sporting an impressive accent and dominatrix-inspired outfit). With Jones’ grudging help, they locate a wooden box with magnetic properties, containing a corpse that seemingly looks of extraterrestrial origin.

Naturally, Jones manages to get himself out of this tight jam, dragging the Soviets through a nighttime chase which incorporates a jet thruster prototype and a mock suburb soon to be visited by Dr. Oppenheimer’s baby boy. However, his latest brush with death also brings him under governmental suspicion of collusion with the hated Russkies; Jones loses his job as a college professor, but on his way out of town, is approached by a teenager named Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf), who rides a motorcycle and dresses like Marlon Brando in “The Wild Ones.”

Mutt asks for Indiana’s help locating an ancient artifact called the Crystal Skull, setting off the obligatory chills and thrills associated with the Indiana Jones franchise: elaborate chase sequences; puzzles needing deciphering; encounters with poisonous creatures and unfriendly natives; wisecracking and fist-fighting. But there are also some unexpected developments, including the return of Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), a character last seen in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” who as it turns out, is the kid’s mother.

Of all Indy’s past leading ladies, Marian was always the gold standard by which the others were judged. But her return means more than just placating the fan base, it fits into the overall theme of the movie, which admittedly, gets somewhat muddled in David Koepp’s finished screenplay. Just as “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” was about trying to live forever, this film is about how growing older makes you wiser on matters such as love, life, and fortune hunting. Indy’s eyes may glow a little less brightly in the face of a South American city made of gold, but he recognizes good fortune when Marian reappears, leading to one of the movie’s best lines delivered amidst a daring escape.

The movie could have used at least one more scene between Indy and Marian, not just to give her character needed depth, but to provide a break after yet another series of close calls. Overall, the breakneck speed of the film, which lacks the breath-catching moments of the series’ better installments, is one of many flaws keeping it from standing side-by-side with “Raiders of the Lost Ark” or “Last Crusade.” Another problem is the overuse of computer-generated characters, something we’ve come to expect from the movies of Lucas and Spielberg. They might have taken a more “old school” approach, but at the same time, we might not have gotten quite so scary-looking an army of carnivorous ants that way.

Finally, although lots of Soviets are killed and things get blown up real good, the action sequences don’t feel on-par with Spielberg’s work when Indy was fighting the Nazis. But how could they? Perhaps fascist Germany was more ambitious in its attempts to dominate the globe than the Russians during the Cold War, and more likely to send a few hundred troops in pursuit of absolute power. Or maybe it’s just that Spielberg, who once admitted he enjoyed turning the Nazis into cartoonish buffoons and cannon fodder, doesn’t feel as personal about this new set of playthings. Either way, the body count never reaches the giddy heights of “Raiders” or “Last Crusade,” and the offing is nowhere near as slapstick-y or funny.

But comparing “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” to “Raiders” is comparing a good film to a masterpiece. As it is, this is as good as anything likely to come out this summer. It should please viewers who grew up with the character, those who grew older watching him, even audience members who never heard of Indy – provided they can stomach some horror movie-level violence. More importantly, perhaps, it’s open-ended enough to lay the groundwork for future installments, or to give Indy the opportunity to walk off happily into the sunset.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

STUCK (2007), dir. Stuart Gordon

2008-05-23T05:11:00.001-07:00

STUCK (2007), dir. Stuart Gordon

Stuck was inspired by a real-life incident in which a Ft. Worth, Texas woman struck a man with her car, and afraid of going to the police, left him in her windshield for several days.

Director Stuart Gordon and screenwriter John Strysik kept the basic premise, but turned the victim into an unfortunate soul recently fallen into homelessness. In doing so, the filmmakers elevate Stuck from suspense thriller into a commentary about society’s lack of empathy, as the film shows a multitude of characters continuously failing the main protagonist, even after their actions cause him life-threatening harm.

Stephen Rea plays Tom, a former project manager who lost his job and, at the start of the movie, has been evicted from his home. Brushed off by the State Employment Office, kicked out of a city park, he is reduced to pushing a shopping cart.

Then he runs into Brandi (Mena Suvari), or should we say, Brandi runs into him, with a car she has been driving while under the influence of ecstasy. Tom goes flying through her windshield, where his bloody, sliced-up body gets stuck. Brandi, hysterical at first, doesn’t stop driving until she reaches a hospital, and even then, decides to drive home instead. She is up for a promotion at her job, and fearful police will discover her drug use, makes the panicky decision to hide the damaged car and Tom in her garage.

At a loss for what to do, she confides in her drug-dealer boyfriend (Russell Hornsby), who unaware Tom is alive and embedded in her windshield, convinces her not to call the cops. By morning, Brandi is waiting for Tom to die from his injuries. He, however, has enough awareness to know help isn’t on the way, and starts doing whatever he can to save his own life.

Stuck works because up until a point, both characters are reacting to a terrible situation in ways the viewer can understand, even if they cannot be condoned. The movie seems to argue Brandi should face up to what she has done, if the alternative is Tom will die. Yet the viewer can also see the situation from her point of view: yes, she made a mistake driving under the influence, but what if that one indiscretion costs her promotion, maybe even her job? Should she sacrifice her life to save someone who, as far as she knows, is just some homeless man?

Brandi may choose self-preservation over taking responsibility for her actions, but the film is full of characters showing a tin ear to the troubles of others. There’s Tom’s landlord, the police, and alarmingly, the very bureaucracy which is supposed to serve as his safety net. But Brandi’s boyfriend also provides what looks like support and protection, when all he really wants is to satisfy his own selfish urges.

If Stuck provides food for thought, it still falls short of perfect, mainly because the filmmakers aim for Hitchcockian suspense, while Gordon’s sensibilities seem more along the lines of his gory cult classic Re-Animator (1985). As Tom and Brandi wage a battle of wills to see whether he gets out of the garage alive, the film gradually lapses into scenes of B-movie nuttiness: Brandi beating up a gratuitously-naked woman; a wince-inducing tug-of-war between a rambunctious Pomeranian and Tom’s… well, maybe it’s best not to say.

Luckily for audiences, Gordon and Strysik have made the players and their scenario clear by that point. The movie also benefits from good performances from its leads, including Suvari, whose eyes and face had heretofore not been considered her two chief attributes. Here she does solid work as an ordinary woman trapped in a state of denial. Yes, she flashes some skin for the camera, but that isn’t likely to be what her character is remembered for.

As for the usually reliable Rea, seemingly born with sad eyes and a hangdog face, his humanity shines through, even after his visage is half-covered in latex blood and fake cuts. Meanwhile, his facial expressions, or lack thereof, totally sell Stuck’s most harrowing sequence: Nothing to do with grievous bodily harm, just walking past homeless people camped out on a sidewalk, and not knowing if he may be joining them.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (2007), dir. Julian Schnabel

2008-05-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

Here is a movie that intrigues on multiple levels: as a latter day biopic of Jean-Dominique Bauby, one-time editor of French Elle magazine; as a first-person narrative told from the perspective of an individual who has suffered a seriously-debilitating injury; and finally, as a kind of medical case study on the rehabilitation of someone who has lost most of their physical faculties.

But either way, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” ranks among the best films of 2007, thanks to terrific performances and the directorial vision of Julian Schnabel. Screenwriter Ronald Harwood also deserves credit for adapting Bauby’s seemingly impossible-to-film memoir for the screen, and for fashioning a storytelling device effectively simulating his extraordinary condition.

In 1995, the famous, well-off, seemingly-healthy Bauby suffered a massive stroke which left his body completely paralyzed save for his left eyelid. Awakening from a coma at a hospital in Berck, France, he experiences the shock and terror of not being able to communicate with anyone. Initially, he rejects visits from his children and goes through a period of self-pity in which he requests death. But thanks to the presence of caring therapists and friends, who remind him not to let go of his humanity despite what happened, Bauby not only regains a healthy outlook on life, but composes his bestselling memoir through blinking.

Although there are plenty of movies about overcoming difficult odds, it is hard to think of one more inspiring than “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” It probably helps that Bauby’s condition is relatively easy to sympathize with. However, Schnabel also cast the right actor in the role, as Mathieu Amalric handles both the physical difficulties of playing someone afflicted with “Locked-In syndrome,” and exudes the requisite love of life as the pre-stroke Bauby.

Depth is absolutely integral to this character, as he is never supposed to be a saint, but a man whose key relationships in life – to his former wife, current lover, and father – were complicated before the injury and remain so afterward. As the friends and loved ones who must come to terms with Bauby’s condition, the European cast assembled by Schnabel does fine work, especially Emmanuelle Seigner as the woman Bauby ditched, who still loves him, but understandably, holds a grudge.

Meanwhile, Marie-Jozee Croze and Anne Alvaro play the appropriately angelic speech and physical therapists, respectively. They guide our handicapped protagonist away from darkness without being too preachy about it.

As previously stated, the memoir “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is said to have been difficult to adapt, mainly because so much takes place from a restricted person’s point of view. Both Harwood and Schnabel devised solutions to this problem, one of which involved letting the camera simulate Bauby’s lone working eye. As a result, there are lots of jump cuts and quick edits which emulate the eye’s capacity for rapid movement.

In addition, as the movie progresses, there are lengthy flashbacks as well as segues into Bauby’s imagination. These shifts keep the story from being monotonous to the viewer as well as reflect how the character retreats into his mind.

Finally, the film should intrigue anyone who has ever been curious of how medical professionals treat speech and communication disorders. Granted, the movie takes place in France, where medicine is socialized, and one wonders if the American health care system could provide similarly great care to someone not as wealthy as Jean-Dominique Bauby. But the point is he got the help he needed, and without the doctors and clinicians involved, there may never have been “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” That would have been a tragedy.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER (2006), dir. Zhang Yimou

2008-05-15T07:00:00.001-07:00

Emperor Ping (Chow Yun-Fat) explains to his family how they are like a circle residing inside of a square, the latter of which represents his will. “Curse of the Golden Flower” shows that, despite a royal decree demanding obedience, trying to fit a round peg into a square hole threatens to tear both family and kingdom apart.

This Chinese-language film, directed by the celebrated Zhang Yimou, takes place around the year 928, as Emperor Ping returns to the imperial palace where Empress Liang (Gong Li) and two of his sons reside. The palace is a labyrinth of vibrant colors, which serve to reflect passions trapped by formality. At the beginning, it’s the sexual tension existing between the Empress and her stepson, the Crown Prince (Liu Ye); later, it will be rage and jealousy.

Adding to the court intrigue is the Empress’ mysterious anemia, which causes uncontrollable trembling throughout her body. We quickly learn that for the last ten days, the emperor has been adding a new ingredient to her medicinal tea – a cup of which she must drink every hour – slowly causing her to lose her mind.

But the Empress gets word of the scheme, and confides to her other son Prince Jai (Jay Chou), who has returned to the palace for the annual Chrysanthemum Festival, that she won’t be going without a fight. What follows are secret alliances, betrayals, some unexpected bloodshed, shots of the beautiful Gong Li looking progressively weaker, and ultimately, the attempted coup itself.

Yimou cast two legendary Chinese actors as his leads, and Yun-Fat and Li are appropriately authoritative and defiant, respectively. However, besides those two actors and the remarkable costumes, one gets the feeling the main draw is supposed to be the climactic battle sequences, which prove Asian cinema has come a long way to catching Hollywood with regards to computer-generated special effects.

Unfortunately, while productions like this can match the scale of big canvas epics like “Troy,” there’s also much of the fakery reputed to have dragged down that film. At one point, endless platoons of soldiers come pouring out of the imperial palace to launch a surprise counterattack. It’s impressive for a moment, but upon further review, defies all logic. How did anyone manage to fit this many soldiers inside without the other side noticing them, and within the short time frame the plot gives?

That single gripe is but a symptom of the larger problem with “Curse of the Golden Flower:” it's overproduced and fatally overdone. It wants to be a court drama as well as a martial arts film, but there are no thrills to be had in the intermittent wire fights, despite choreography by Siu-Tung Ching, who worked on Yimou's superior “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers.” In fact, they seem downright derivative of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and Yimou's better movies.

Finally, “Curse of the Golden Flower” makes the mistake of leaning too heavily on special effects and bloody spectacle as it lurches towards the end. As Fat and Li recede into the background, the audience is left vulnerable to seemingly endless shots of eviscerations, dead extras encased in gold and silver armor, and images of flowers stained with blood. Maybe this movie should have been called “Slumming Actors, Slow-Motion Car Wreck.”

Overall rating: ** (out of ****)

IRON MAN (2008), dir. Jon Favreau

2008-05-08T06:51:00.000-07:00

It’s hardly surprising that “Iron Man” is full of neat special effects and well-edited action sequences. After all, it has been marketed as a summer blockbuster, and with the exception of the works of Michael Bay, that’s exactly what these types of movies tend to deliver.

Yet despite its pedigree, “Iron Man” will likely stand heads above its competition this summer. The reason is because the movie, like its main character, is obsessed with being sleeker, nimbler, and more cutting-edge than the rest of the playing field. Meanwhile, for the lead role, the filmmakers shrewdly suited up one of the most talented actors working today, and were rewarded with the foundation upon which they grafted the action movie of tomorrow.

Make no mistake. Although director Favreau and the screenwriters should be credited for streamlining Iron Man’s lengthy comic book history into a feature-length film with nary an ounce of fat on it, the enterprise succeeds because of Robert Downey, Jr. Entirely believable in the role of brilliant and spoiled billionaire industrialist Tony Stark, the character starts off as a charming arms dealer nicknamed “The Angel of Death,” who through harrowing events becomes an armored vigilante.

Unlike most movies based on comic books, wherein the hero has values of compassion instilled in them by the time fate intervenes, Stark is clearly no saint, but a self-centered hedonist without any sense of responsibility. But all of that changes when terrorists attack his convoy in the Middle East, critically wounding Stark and taking him prisoner. Trapped in the mountains, kept alive by a local doctor and fellow prisoner (Shaun Toub), he has a moral revelation about the effects of the weapons built by his company, Stark Industries.

Ordered to build weapons for his captors, he instead constructs an armored suit that allows their escape. From then on, Stark dedicates his life to recovering weapons sold by Stark Industries, which under the leadership of corporate honcho Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), has been double-dealing to both the U.S. military and terrorist groups abroad while keeping him in the dark.

Action movie audiences can expect high-octane thrills, especially when Stark’s updated armor leads to a confrontation with his Air Force buddy (Terrence Howard). But overall, the movie tries to balance its explosions and showdowns with a sense of humor, much of it coming at the expense of Stark as he tinkers with the suit. There’s also a love interest in the form of Stark’s freckled, long-suffering assistant “Pepper” Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). She’s no window-dressing, however, but a competent accomplice who acclimates herself well to some pretty extraordinary circumstances.

The longstanding relationship between Stark and Potts leads to some of the movie’s funniest exchanges, made even better by Downey’s terrific sense of timing and delivery. Following Iron Man’s first adventure, she walks in as he’s being removed from his costume by his laboratory robots, who are struggling mightily. Potts stops in the doorway, aghast, there’s a silence, then Stark reassures her, “This is not the worst thing you’ve ever caught me doing.”

Thanks to Downey, we are constantly reassured this won't be one of those really bad summer movies, either.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971), dir. William Friedkin

2008-05-08T06:49:00.000-07:00

The most interesting elements in the movie are the chase sequences and the lead character played by then-unknown actor Gene Hackman. But there’s also tight pacing and appropriately dingy-looking shots of 60’s/70’s era New York City, all of which add up to an entertaining cop picture.

Based on actual drug smuggling lore, the plot follows the efforts of police detectives Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Hackman) and “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider) to nail some European criminals trying to sneak in high-grade heroin with the help of local gangsters. The film cuts back-and-forth between New York City and Paris, then the perspectives of the cops and their quarry, as the two sides continuously cross paths on their way to a major drug deal.

Friedkin, who won an Oscar for directing this film, and screenwriter Ernest Tidyman spend the first hour letting the tension build to near-unbearable levels before exploding it through a series of well-executed set pieces. But first, viewers get a feel for the Doyle character, a driven policeman with practically no personal life, and the slippery French smuggler played by Alain Charnier, who dines in fancy restaurants despite being aware of the constant police surveillance around him.

“Popeye” and the smuggler appear to be polar opposites, the refined Frenchman versus the loutish, alcoholic racist and xenophobe. At one point, Friedkin, who always seemed to know how to use depth of field effectively, stages a really neat shot illustrating the contrasts between the two characters.

In the foreground, we see “Frog One,” as Doyle comes to call him, enjoying a meal in some opulent setting. Who says crime doesn't pay? Eventually, the camera switches focus to the background, revealing the detective standing in a doorway across the street, looking cold and damp and drinking coffee so bad he tosses it after one sip.

On the plus side, once the movie hits the 70-minute mark, there's a terrific game of cat-and-mouse on a Grand Central subway platform, as well as a car/subway train chase that looks appropriately dangerous. I also credit Hackman and the filmmakers for fashioning one of the more memorable obsessed cops in cinematic history. Doyle is not some frothing-at-the-mouth maniac, but someone capable of blocking out everything in the single-minded pursuit of a goal, which actually makes him seem more normal to me, and therefore scarier.

One truly chilling moment occurs when he commits a serious blunder in the pursuit of a heroin smuggler. His partner is trying to deal with what’s happened, but Doyle just keeps repeating to him, “He’s getting away! He’s getting away!”

Finally, the movie spends a lot of time on routine police work, which by the looks of things can be dull and physically-taxing. There is a feeling these men do a job and not always an enjoyable one, but this type of portrayal gives “The French Connection” an air of authenticity which lingers even after the chase sequences provide the necessary shot of adrenaline.

Overall review: ***1/2

TO CATCH A THIEF (1955), dir. Alfred Hitchcock

2008-04-30T19:01:00.001-07:00

Although he’s been billed as “the Master of Suspense,” Hitchcock is equally adept at fashioning pure escapist entertainment that celebrates its stars and setting. Indeed, “To Catch a Thief,” which stars Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, is exactly the type of confection that charms and disarms you while you watch it, but doesn’t haunt your sleep the way “Vertigo" does.

The movie stars Grant as John Robie, a retired jewel thief content to prowl about his villa in the south of France. Nicknamed “The Cat,” he once spent time in prison, but found redemption by joining the French resistance during World War II. Although he claims to be out of the game, when a string of diamond thefts begins exciting the local populace, both cops and former comrades immediately suspect “The Cat,” prompting him to try catching the thief himself.

Robie hatches a plan with an ex-war buddy turned restaurant owner: Figure out who the next victim is likely to be, stake them out, and catch the suspect in the act. Inevitably, this brings him into the orbit of a wealthy American widow (Jessie Landis) and her very pretty daughter Frances. As played by Grace Kelly, Frances seems like exactly the kind of icy Hitchcock blonde whose romantic advances are immediately suspect, but oh-so-impossible to resist.

So Robie poses as a lumber magnate from Oregon, which is about as believable as Cary Grant playing a former French resistance fighter. As for the young socialite, she takes a fancy to him immediately, which should have sent up red flags if not for the fact she looks like Grace Kelly. There’s tangible chemistry between the two, but is it just his suave good looks, charm and money that attract her, or something else? Admittedly, it is fun watching Robie reacting to a surprisingly strong-willed woman who, as he puts it, "is used to getting what she wants," especially since in most Hitchcock movies, it's the male lead who's obsessed with the blonde female.

Is he still playing her, or is it the other way around? Such questions, however, make “To Catch a Thief” sound much more complicated and serious than it really is. Even though Hitchcock executes the plot efficiently, and there’s even a twist some viewers may not see coming, and even with his directorial trademarks like sleight of hand present and accounted for, the movie adds up to little more than a series of postcards of the south of France, some pretty costumes and witty dialogue between two Hollywood legends.

But if a lark is what you want in a movie, by all means, go for this. Please enjoy the scenery, which won Robert Burks the Best Cinematography Oscar in 1956.

Overall rating: ***

THRONE OF BLOOD (1957), dir. Akira Kurosawa

2008-04-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

I’m actually not very familiar with the films of Akira Kurosawa, but I enjoyed “Throne of Blood,” which is basically “Macbeth” transplanted to feudal Japan. The plot revolves around two great warriors who are told their fortunes by a forest spirit: one of them, Washizu, is destined to become lord of “Spider Web Castle,” a mighty fortress (and the Japanese name of the movie). This is also the destiny of the other man’s son.

Anyone who knows “Macbeth” can figure out the trajectory of “Throne of Blood,” even if there’s very little of Shakespeare’s dialogue. Expect ambition, betrayal, paranoia, more betrayal, madness, revenge, and a Lady Macbeth-type character who eggs her husband on to commit terrible deeds, but isn’t afraid to get her own hands dirty, too. A Macduff equivalent is nowhere to be found, but the forest spirit does tell the main character he won’t die until the “very trees rise up against him.”

Like I said, I’m not especially familiar with the director, and this is the first Kurosawa film from the 50’s I’ve seen. But judged on its own merits, I can say the best features of “Throne of Blood” are its eerie atmosphere and performances by a strong cast. Supposedly, Kurosawa was influenced by Japanese Noh Theatre: there is a chorus, as well as scenes of disquieting silence, broken by brief outbursts of drum and flute.

As in Noh, you also have the magical spirit wearing a mask and expressing its emotions through the positioning of the head as opposed to moving the face. It may sound low-tech, but believe me when I say: it has the total opposite effect as hokey-ness.

Finally, there were a number of scenes, particularly inside Spider Web Castle, in which I felt as if I were watching theatre instead of a film, scenes in which all the action seemingly took place within a limited area directly in front of the camera. There were also moments in which actor Toshiro Mifune, portraying the doomed Washizu, reveals his terror by flinging himself backwards against the nearest wall. These felt particularly stagy.

Of course, this is not to say anyone in the cast gives a bad performance, especially not Mifune or Isuzu Yamada, who made for an especially cold and calculating Lady Washizu. In fact, after the most spectacular sequence in “Throne of Blood” – Lord Washizu being shot at by his own archers – I would pay good money to see the actor portray deer-in-the-headlights-style blind fear in a movie anytime.

Kurosawa and Mifune teamed up for many films in the 50’s and 60’s, some of which are considered classics. After the experience of watching “Throne of Blood,” I’d be interested in seeing them.

Overall rating: ****

A SIMPLE PLAN (1998), dir. Sam Raimi

2006-08-24T06:38:00.000-07:00

Strong characterization is what puts this movie in the upper echelon of thrillers. The screenplay, adapted by Scott B. Smith from his own novel of the same name, establishes the relationships between its protagonists early on. Then, as the wheels of mistrust, alliance-making, and inevitable betrayal are set in motion, Smith builds suspense by either meeting or defying the viewer’s expectations. A nimble writer, he sometimes accomplishes both within the same scene.

The plot of “A Simple Plan” mirrors the novel: Amidst a snowy wasteland, brothers Hank (Bill Paxton) and Jacob Mitchell (Billy Bob Thornton), along with Jacob’s loutish pal Lou (Brent Briscoe), stumble across a crash-landed Cessna in a remote wooden location. Inside, they find a dead pilot, as well as a duffel bag stuffed with over four million dollars in cash. At first, Hank insists that they report their discovery to the authorities. But after much goading – mainly by the down-on-his-luck Lou, with whom Hank shares a mutual dislike – the trio agrees to hide the money in Hank’s house until they can be certain that cops or drug dealers are not tracking it down.

Unfortunately, keeping the money secret requires quick thinking and tight lips, something that simple-minded Jacob and Lou have in short supply. Also, any trust between the three co-conspirators already shows signs of fraying early on. Once the situation escalates – with the brothers finding themselves caught up in assault, then murder – Hank not only has to protect the money from discovery, but his own reputation against Lou, who desperately wants his share.

Throw into the mix a come-lately FBI agent (Gary Cole) who may not be everything that he claims, and you get a movie that almost becomes exhaustive in its slithery-ness. But as the corpses pile up and the sense of impending doom mounts, what makes “A Simple Plan” increasingly fascinating is trying to pin down the intimate relationships – Hank and Jacob; Hank and his wife Sarah (Bridget Fonda) – that lie at the film’s center. Will the lonely and unemployed, but strangely innocent Jacob, who has long nursed a grudge against Hank for their family’s misfortunes, side with his buddy Lou against him? Meanwhile, how far will Sarah, who started off as a sweet, caring mother-to-be, push Hank to keep the fortune, after initially telling him to turn it in?

Ultimately, “A Simple Plan” contains a moral lesson for audiences, that none of us, whether the town drunk or upstanding citizens, is immune to the corruptive power of greed. It’s an important lesson, and Raimi shows an unexpected maturity and restraint in conveying it. Known for his wild, high-energy style in the “Evil Dead” and “Spider-Man” movies, I can only think of one scene where the director likely resorted to special effects over his talented cast. That scene involved a highly-strung stand-off between two characters; a shotgun blast deflates the tension, albeit in a manner reminiscent of the air being let out of a cartoon inner tube.

Overall rating: ****

LIFEBOAT (1944), dir. Alfred Hitchcock

2006-08-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

The best compliment that I can give “Lifeboat” is to call it utterly unpredictable. From scene to scene – within scenes, too – I never had a firm bead on where the plot was headed. Like the main characters in the titular craft, who find themselves adrift at sea after a Nazi attack, I also had to let myself be carried along by unseen forces, which in this case were Hitchcock and screenwriter Jo Swirling. There is no other option. Even if you think you know what the “master of suspense” has planned with this adaptation of a short story by John Steinbeck, he will refute your expectations repeatedly. Trust me: Just hang on for the ride.

Part of the film looks like it was shot in front of a projection screen, others on a soundstage or possibly the open water. I wasn’t always aware of the difference, which is a plus, considering that special effects scenes in old movies tend to show seams. But even during what might have been a complicated, trick-heavy sequence – for example, when the small ship gets battered about by a passing storm – “Lifeboat” never seems hokey. Some credit belongs to Hitchcock’s sound technicians, who clearly knew their way around wave crashes and wind-gust whistles. But accolades should also get passed along to the director himself, who pioneered the art of cutting the music off to build an atmosphere of dread and foreboding.

Indeed, the longer “Lifeboat” stays afloat, the more it becomes saturated with the mood of danger. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this will be a departure from standard Hitchcock fare, just because we are removed this time from symbols of civilization, e.g., the passenger car in "The Lady Vanishes." The director continues his pattern of juxtaposing the ordinary with the terrible, of invading what we perceive to be safe sanctuaries. The ocean starts off looking like a placid, thoroughly innocuous place to find oneself, but Hitchcock delves beneath the surface – or shows something emerging up from it, at least – to reveal how illusory our safety is, and how ironic the title choice really was.

Further enhancing the unpredictable nature of the movie is the casting, which is pitch-perfect in one crucial role. I speak, of course, of actor Walter Slezak, who played the Nazi captain who sank the cruise liner everyone had been traveling aboard. Should the others trust him? He claims that he attacked under orders, and has an unassuming, cherubic face to go with charm, intelligence, and nautical experience. Tallulah Bankhead is also terrific as a materialistic socialite who can go from calm to bedlam in two-seconds-flat. But Slezak is the real casting coup. He embodied a recurring Hitchcock model: guile and resourcefulness hidden beneath a gentle-looking exterior. In other words, something terrible disguised as something ordinary.

Overall rating: ***

SUPERMAN RETURNS (2006), dir. Bryan Singer

2006-07-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

I would be curious to hear what longtime Superman readers think of this new movie, which takes liberties with key characters, and lacks any real hardcore, superhero-on-supervillain action. But personally, I loved this movie. I found it to be unexpectedly thoughtful for a big-budget epic, and a super-sized improvement over the last two installments, which were Kryptonite to the franchise.

The folks behind this pseudo-sequel wisely decided to pare the mythology down to its most familiar elements. Naturally, there is Clark Kent/Superman, played this time around by actor Brandon Routh. Despite the unenviable task of having to fill Christopher Reeve’s big red boots, Routh does a credible job as both doofish Clark and stoic Superman, actually channeling the late actor’s voice and mannerisms at times.

The main plot involves Superman’s return to Earth after five years away in space. After making a grand re-entrance, a world-threatening crisis emerges in the form of arch-nemesis Lex Luthor, who remains bald, evil, and quite possibly the most ruthless capitalist around. This time, he has advanced technology from Superman’s home planet at his disposal. Using crystals that are about the size of a large paperweight, Luthor – played snarkily by Kevin Spacey – plans to submerge entire continents, killing billions of people for profit.

Counterbalancing this threat to Superman’s professional life is news that Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), his great love and Clark’s reporter colleague, has acquired a fiancée as well as a young son. The latter development might cause grousing amidst comic book purists. For me, it only proved that director Bryan Singer and screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris understood the theme that was present throughout the best “Superman” films: That there is a price to pay for being the world’s savior. Young Daniel (Tristan Lake Leabu), whom Lois nicknamed “the munchkin,” represents the family Superman gave up because, well, he’s Superman. Outer space called, and he had to accept the charges.

To date, I have read only one review for this movie, which came from a prominent film critic who was disappointed by it. He found “Superman Returns” to be leaden and not as much fun as “Superman” and “Superman II,” which were released in 1978 and 1980, respectively. Frankly, I’m disappointed by his disappointment. True, this movie is not replete with unabashed goofiness the way “Pirates of the Caribbean” was. It wants to treat the myth of its character with respect and reverence, and to the extent that I was left inspired and in awe, it definitely works.

Let us not forget that Superman is more than just a guy in tights who can leap tall buildings in a single bound. He is singular to the degree that he has godlike power, and also to the extent that he is an orphan, the last survivor of a doomed planet. Singer and company craft a satisfying character arc using that oft-overlooked bit of biographical information. As for the part about “Superman Returns” not being fun, that disapproving critic needs to re-watch the scenes where the Man of Steel catches a passenger plane in mid-air, and blocks an armor-piercing round with his eyeball. Whoo.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (2005), dir. Noah Baumbach

2006-06-05T16:32:00.000-07:00

This movie confirms all my worst fears about divorce, insofar as how it affects children. A very literary couple, Bernard and Joan Berkman (Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney, respectively), decide to separate, leaving their two sons to choose sides. Teenage Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) already mimics the pretentious tones of his father, a once-promising novelist, and follows him to a shabbier part of Brooklyn. As Walt navigates the rickety world of adolescence aided by the inappropriate advice of his wannabe-lothario dad, he fosters a grudge towards Joan, whom he blames for his parents' split.

His younger brother Frank (Owen Kline), meanwhile, begins acting out in ways that are both shocking and disturbing. He starts drinking alcohol, cursing at authority figures, and spreading bodily fluids across his elementary school. The downward spiral both boys undergo is very unsettling to watch, and writer/director Noah Baumbach – who based “The Squid and the Whale” on his own childhood memories – shows them with an unflinching eye. He makes directorial choices that make the story feel extremely intimate: shots representing Walt and Frank’s point of view; or by framing their faces in the foreground so that their emotions hit us hard and naked.

I really liked how the story grew out of these characters, and that I couldn’t predict exactly what direction things were heading in. Yes, this nuclear family has become a ticking time bomb, but the overall tone of the film is kind of funny. The father, in particular, coaxed a smile out of me with his emotional buffoonery, casting judgements that only reveal how bitter he is deep down. At the same time, there is something pitiable in the way Bernard takes every opportunity to cast Joan in an unfavorable light, but nurses a faint hope of one day reconciling with her.

“The Squid and the Whale” has a bright visual style which livens up Baumbach's emotional hell considerably. You can practically smell the lush green trees in Prospect Park thanks to Robert Yeoman’s colorful cinematography. To his everlasting credit, the "Life Aquatic" writer leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and we can only infer that things will get better as the characters do some growing up. Can they fix their own personal foibles and get back into each other’s good graces? Maybe there are no answers to be had so early on. The ambiguous closing shot, which implies taking shelter in the happiness of the past, might represent the best and only thing that a person can do, given what are horrific circumstances.

Overall grade: ***1/2

VERTIGO (1958), dir. Alfred Hitchcock

2006-05-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

This has been referred to as Hitchcock’s definitive movie, and having seen it, I think I can understand why. It’s a mystery, which the director was already adept at making, but also a tale of obsession, a theme that resonated throughout his career.

And above all, “Vertigo” is pure cinema, a film that glides along by the sheer power of images and sound. Hitchcock, in top form as both an artist and craftsman, paces the movie to reflect the glacial rhythm of a dream, which is fitting given the plot. Ostensibly, upper-crust wife Kim Novak has become obsessed with the life of her dead ancestor, and spends her days walking around San Francisco in a trance. As Hitchcock draws us into this unusual dilemma, via a retired policeman (Jimmy Stewart) with the titular condition, he frames Novak in establishing shots that feel spare and still to the point of eeriness.

This is a film that really must be experienced. I could describe it in further detail, but I would be required to give away either too much or too little information. I must not do that. All I will say is that “Vertigo” seems to have two halves, which are unified by a sense of romantic helplessness that is heartbreaking. Several writers reportedly worked on the script before Samuel Taylor’s version earned Hitchcock’s approval. The extra care certainly shows; there is great dialogue and a plot twist that, though unexpected, makes sense dramatically as well as thematically.

Finally, one cannot say enough about Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak, who rose to the challenge of extremely versatile roles. If there are two movies in “Vertigo,” there are also two characters in the script for both leads. Novak gets to play the requisite icy blonde, but also appears as a non-blonde who may be less enigmatic, if perhaps just as mysterious as her doppelganger. Stewart, meanwhile, is a more surprising double-dip; as expected, he portrays the everyman that viewers readily identify with. Gradually, however, his Detective John “Scottie” Ferguson starts transgressing a few moral and psychological boundaries, becoming someone just as recognizably human, though audience members may choose not to admit it.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005), dir. Ridley Scott

2006-05-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

Like the characters depicted in this movie, I went to Jerusalem looking for God, but never found Him.

Indeed, the closest “Kingdom of Heaven” gets to religious idolatry are a few shots of a big gold cross. It looks gaudy and overly ornate, like it should be hanging on the wall of a drive-thru chapel in Las Vegas.

Removing anything resembling religious passion from a movie about the holy land is quite a gamble, and in this case, not an altogether successful one. What we are left with is a routine, albeit beautiful-looking action-adventure flick. Its saving grace is director Ridley Scott ("The Duellists," “Gladiator”), who fills the frame with his usual repertoire of exotic, painterly visuals and minimal characterization.

Orlando Bloom plays Balian, a young blacksmith who journeys to Jerusalem, becomes knighted, gains the affections of a princess, and is left to save the city from rampaging Muslims. He doesn’t really do much to end up in such a precarious position. Rather, it’s what he doesn’t do which lands him in hot water. Balian may be a character who stays true to his conscience to the very end, but that doesn’t make him the most exciting protagonist.

But if he’s a dull hero, the villains are even worse off. While the idea of Christian fanatics as opposed to Muslim ones may seem clever on paper, the script lets them down. Writer William Monahan reduces the majority of Christian characters to broad caricatures, especially Marton Csokas as Guy de Lusignan, the main heavy. The usually-reliable Brendan Gleeson is also wasted as de Lusignan’s slob sidekick. One gets the feeling that their hatred towards Muslims stems from a sense of religious superiority. However, since we get so little Christianity in this movie, it’s hard to know exactly what motivates them. To their credit, the actors don’t seem to know themselves.

A lot of the dialogue is flat. Also, scenes at court where Csokas’ knights wearing red crosses nearly come to blows with Jeremy Irons’ knights wearing blue crosses seem unnecessary. At least we have those sweeping battle sequences at the end, involving catapults, siege towers, and things getting blown up real good. Like Scott’s last war epic, the contemporary “Blackhawk Down,” most of the combat footage is shot from ground level, representing the point of view of man, not God, who wouldn’t be watching anyway.

Overall rating: ** (out of ****)

TARNATION (2003), dir. Jonathan Caouette

2006-01-09T23:16:00.000-08:00

F for F***ed-Up? It’s All True

Caouette takes an original approach to the autobiographical documentary, mostly eschewing hearsay and dramatic re-enactment for a more avant-garde, rock video aesthetic. Utilizing home video footage, some of which dates back to when the subject was barely walking age, he assembles an extremely haunting and stylized pastiche of childhood traumas and adolescent angst. Caouette took to the camera at a very young age, his nascent obsession with capturing images on film serving as his primary means of dealing with years of institutional abuse. But as we watch him grow up before our very eyes, and experience his trials and tribulations, which include sexual experimentation, frequent rages, time in a mental hospital, and a mind-altering experiment involving marijuana dipped in formaldehyde, it also becomes apparent that Jonathan has the soul of an artist, and no shortage of talent wielding his trusty Super 8.

At various points, “Tarnation” stares down the director/subject’s Houston-based family, particularly his grandparents, whose unwavering belief in their normalcy blinds them to how irrevocably screwed-up they actually are. They could be brain-damaged; Caouette himself doesn’t seem to know for sure. Meanwhile, these chapters of unflinching realism are offset by dreamlike sister passages, as if the great David Lynch, whose work Caouette clearly was a fan of (Indeed, the funniest montage in the film documents Jonathan’s successful high school musical production of the 1986 classic, “Blue Velvet”), actually dropped in to personally direct his late night TV-viewing hours.

During these somnambulant interludes, which feature close-ups of television screen blizzards, ominous droning barely perceptible beneath the soundtrack, and the bright and shiny juxtaposed with murky darkness, the tone vacillates between calming fantasy and tweaker’s nightmare. Like any dream, however, the sleeper’s subconscious eventually finds its way into the fabric. If “Tarnation” represents a map of the director’s subconscious, what preoccupies him most is his mother, Renee. Growing up, he never got to know the “real” her, the Renee LeBlanc before the depression, before the divorce from Jonathan’s father, before those aforementioned grandparents, who were about as ignorant as they were morally self-righteous, had shock treatments administered to her, destroying her personality. The lynchpin of the movie is his enduring relationship with her, rife with wonder and frustration, which represents the impossible-to-sever umbilical connection that exists between all mothers and their children.

Renee’s dilapidated, mentally gone existence acts as a mirror to Jonathan, reflecting a future he can envision for himself. Turning out the same world-worn way doesn’t seem all that far-fetched, considering how their respective pasts are already very similar (physical and emotional abuse, drugs, burgeoning career based on physical appearances). During a “Big Brother,” reality TV-style confession that serves as the denouement of the film, Jonathan admits his fears of ending up like Renee. It’s just that, when she was his age, she seemed a lot better than she does now. But looking at things rationally, a similar kind of fate seems highly unlikely for Caouette. If his completed autobiography proves anything, it is his willingness to confront the past, to try and sublimate the pain and overcome the trauma. The mere fact that he attempts this, unlike his mother, who avoids talking about the worst times to the very end, confirms how different they really are. Yes, she is his mother; yes, like her, Jonathan Caouette may consider himself tarnished. But in truth, no one shines brighter than he, and this movie is strong evidence of that.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (1984), dir. Hayao Miyazaki

2005-12-19T04:57:00.000-08:00

A Princess Stuck in the Valley of the Suck

Quite possibly the best animated film made during the 1980’s, “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” crosses science fiction with war scenes of palpable emotional impact. The end result is more ambitious than expected, as the movie reflects on the hypocrisy of war, and mankind’s capacity of terrible acts during times of conflict. Even without too much graphic human suffering, “Nausicaa…” leaves a mark the way “Apocalypse Now” and “The Deer Hunter” left theirs. Yes, the movie also contains flying airships, strange creatures, and psychic powers, but writer/director Hayao Miyazaki merely uses them as context for the issue that’s really preoccupying him.

The movie takes place one thousand years after a fiery cataclysm decimates humanity. All remnants of the human race have dispersed, and a “Toxic Jungle” serves a natural barrier between nations. This enchanted forest contains giant insects, trees that would dwarf the redwoods, and plants that release strange white spores. Inhaling the spores over long periods of time can prove fatal, as the people of the Valley of the Wind, who used to live closer to the “Toxic Jungle,” know all too well.

In hopes of finding a cure for the lethal powders produced by the flora, Princess Nausicaa, pride and joy of her people, makes regular journeys to the “Toxic Jungle.” A top gun behind the controls of her jet ski/hang glider hybrid, the princess is even more likable for how much she clearly cares about her subjects. When she stumbles across the abandoned shell of an Ohm, an elephantine mollusk whose shell features translucent skylights for “eyes,” Nausicaa’s first thoughts have to do with the potential benefits for the valley. Unfortunately, casual activities such as this, and saving her friend from a ticked-off insect that chases him halfway across an adjacent desert, eventually give way to a more serious story. Very soon, war arrives at the doorstep of her home.

The kingdom of Tolmekia does not formally declare war on the Valley of the Wind. However, some very important cargo crashes down nearby, and their army rushes in to secure it. The siege leaves Nausicaa’s father, the king, murdered, and her people inducted into the Tolmekians’ master plan. Unfortunately, Tolmekia’s main enemy, another relatively advanced kingdom called Pejite, cannot separate unwitting foes from genuine ones, so they plan to wipe out the entire valley using a very clever strategem.

Miyazaki, who has addressed the topic of war in other features (most recently, “Howl’s Moving Castle”), paints the conflict in “Nausicaa…” as a potentially endless cycle of atrocities. Ironically, those who inflict there terrible deeds, the director argues, sincerely believe that humanity will benefit from their actions. For example, the Tolmekians plan to use the cargo, which they stole from Pejite, to destroy the “Toxic Jungle” once and for all. The way Princess Kushana, the officer in charge of the Tolmekian army, sees it, the forest must be destroyed, or mankind will spend the rest of eternity living at the mercy of the insects.

On the flipside, Pejite is ready to unleash a glowing, red-eyed Hell upon the Valley of the Wind. Their main purpose, however, isn’t preventing their rival’s machinations, but getting the cargo back, so they can level the “Toxic Jungle” themselves. Like the Tolmekians, Pejite also wants to return mankind to its former, loftier position. However, they are deathly afraid of Tolmekia being the sole possessor of a power as destructive as that cargo. To Nausicaa, who spends time as a prisoner of both kingdoms, the mutual willingness to kill innocents to achieve a goal makes Tolmekia and Pejite equals in her eyes. But Asbel, a vengeful young pilot/prince from Pejite, takes umbrage. “All the Tolmekians want is to take over the world,” he says. “We are nothing like them.” His words only serve to underscore his naivete. After all, since when does any participant in a war not view themselves in a superior moral light compared to the enemy?

Luckily, Miyazaki constantly reminds the audience what “fighting a just war” really implies. As the conflict between the two nations draws in creatures from the “Toxic Jungle,” it’s the weak who suffer most, while those in power get to indulge their most sadistic impulses. Whether it’s images of women and children huddled together, hungry and scared, while the menfolk prepare war plans; the old adage “burning a village in order to save it” brought to startling reality for heroes returning home; a battlefield littered with the corpses of soldier dragonflies (an allegorical shot that’s just as potent as what Miyazaki intended them to represent); or, most appallingly, a display of near-unbearable cruelty visited upon an innocent life for the expressed purpose of stirring up its comrades, trust that in “Nausicaa…,” war contains enough pain for everyone, regardless of gender, age, or species.

Indeed, like most modern war movies, “Nausicaa…” is a veritable minefield of moral transgressions. Even the titular heroine commits one. It’s out of character, of course; through most of the movie, she shows nothing less than absolute respect towards all living things. This one action becomes a blemish, something she spends the rest of the movie trying desperately to redeem. Interestingly, Miyazaki won’t excuse her simply because it is wartime. Human beings are not animals, he seems to be arguing. Our ability to rationalize, to accept the complexities of a given situation, sets us apart from the beasts, who are slaves to their baser instincts.

These baser instincts, such as the need for revenge, cause Nausicaa’s people to take up arms against the Tolmekian invaders. It seems that their doomed airship carried spores from the “Toxic Jungle,” spelling the end for a beloved orchard. Can Nausicaa save her people’s souls, lest they become beasts, or worse, standard-issue characters from a war flick? Miyazaki’s other films during the same decade (“Castle in the Sky,” “Kiki's Delivery Service”) tended towards happy resolutions, so don’t expect the writer/director to deviate this time, either, even if that makes “Nausicaa…” less tragic, and radically different, from quite possibly every war epic that came before.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

THE LADY VANISHES (1938), dir. Alfred Hitchcock

2005-12-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

…but the ‘Master of Suspense’ Makes his Presence Felt

Imagine waking up and discovering that someone you know had disappeared. Worse, imagine trying to convince other people, only to be told that the person never existed.

It sounds like the premise of the recent thriller “Flightplan,” but it actually describes a Hitchcock film made more than sixty years earlier. In “The Lady Vanishes,” written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, Margaret Lockwood plays Iris Henderson, an American travelling abroad who stumbles across a conspiracy.

The missing person is a retired governess named Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), whom Iris befriends while staying at a hotel in a small European country. The next day, Iris takes a bump on the head, and Miss Froy comes to her rescue. But shortly after their train leaves the station, the kindly old woman disappears.

Miss Henderson insists she had a companion on the train, but the others in her drawing room recall no such person. Neither can the porter, nor anybody else, from the paranoid banister (Cecil Parker) to the fellows hurrying home to see a cricket match (Naunton Wayne, Basil Radford). Only Gilbert (Michael Redgrave), a cadish musician who made a terrible impression the night before, reluctantly believes Iris’ story. While he has never met Miss Froy himself, a particular clue persuades him that foul play is indeed afoot.

As for the reasons that motivated Miss Froy’s kidnapping, let’s just say there is more to her than meets the eye, even as the movie itself has less substance than we might expect. Like some of Hitchcock’s best movies—“North by Northwest” springs to mind—the plot merely serves as a delivery system for the director’s particular brand of thrilling cinema. For a man with such prodigious artistic gifts, Hitchcock certainly had a great instinct for giving the audience what they wanted. In the case of “The Lady Vanishes,” he gives them suspense, laughs, images that linger in the mind. He even throws in a charming romance between the seemingly mismatched Lockwood and Redgrave.

A brain doctor (Paul Lukas), rendezvousing with a terminal patient in Prague, tries to convince Iris that Miss Froy is really a figment of her imagination. Is it possible Iris created her, that she is the result of her bump on the head? Or perhaps, considering those upcoming nuptials with an aristocrat in England, Iris is simply preoccupied. Could she be distracting herself, the better to ignore her dread? She admits to not loving him, but her father wants to put his coat of arms next to the company name.

For a while, Hitchcock teases us with the possibility that Miss Froy is indeed a figment of Iris’ mind. During the first scene, which takes place in the hotel lobby, she enters, briefly interacts with the hotel clerk, and then exits through the front door. Hardly anybody seems to notice her. Stranger still, Hitchcock has one of his technicians—probably sound man Sydney Wiles—turn off the boom mikes so that the music and some select noises overlap any spoken dialogue.

The effect is slightly eerie; and the director, superlative craftsman that he was, orders the actors to stay relatively still until Miss Froy leaves. Ultimately, he manipulates image and sound to completely undercut Dame Whitty’s presence. But something about her lingers in the moments after she leaves, like the remnants of a faded memory. Then the rest of the actors start moving, more sounds appear on the audio track, characters recite their lines, and things pick up.

Meanwhile, any doubts we may have about the disappeared woman’s nature only persist to a certain point, then the race to find her begins. Naturally, villains toss in a few unexpected curves to throw off the amateur sleuths, such as a doppelganger for Miss Froy. While her facial features don’t bear much resemblance, she wears a similarly colored outfit, and claims to be the one who helped Iris earlier. Iris insists that this newly emerged woman is not her friend. However, the train has yet to take on new passengers, save for the doctor’s patient in a gurney, and the manifest shows the same number of people.

So if the woman isn’t Miss Froy, why does she pretend that she is? And how did she manage to board the train in the first place, without either Iris or Gilbert spotting her? This is the most satisfying mind-bender in the entire movie, but to Hitchcock’s credit, he finds a way to explain it satisfactorily.

Another thing he does well is portray Iris and Gilbert as “everyman” heroes. Regular joes can show formidable intelligence, but the brain must serve as their primary weapon. The director seems to understand this; whenever the two stars have to get physical, Hitchcock boxes out the action in a clumsy, slapsticky, but believable way. If an exception exists, it is the sequence towards the end, when Gilbert climbs out the window and makes his way along the side of the train.

The camera shoots him from outside the locomotive. As he dangles between two windows, an oncoming train nearly smashes him. While this seems a bit forced, given that Redgrave’s character is primarily funny and romantic, one cannot argue that the resulting shot is a jolter. Hitchcock, who would create some truly memorable compositions and juxtapositions in future, better movies—a few of which also involved trains—was definitely on the right track this time.

“We’re not in England now.”

Indeed, the characters in “The Lady Vanishes” have boarded a train to Hitchcock-land. Here, unspeakable acts occur in places associated with “safe” feelings by the audience. Remember “Psycho,” and the notorious scene of Janet Leigh getting stabbed in the shower? It took theater audiences completely by surprise, since no one expected such a deed to occur in a clean bathroom setting. It’s not exactly a dark alleyway, where people get killed all the time.

Throughout his career, the effectiveness of Hitchcock’s suspense movies have had to do with confounding the audience’s expectations. The same way that the virginal white porcelain of the Bates motel held a certain unspoiled purity, the passenger rail in “The Lady Vanishes” gives off a cozy, hospitable vibe. In a place such as this, travelers and business-people enjoy comforts resembling home. One can purchase a drawing room with cushioned seats, or drink hot tea in the dining car. And someone like Miss Froy, travelling across the European continent, regularly finds yourself in the company of fellow British citizens.

As viewers, we are meant to ask ourselves, How can someone disappear from a place like this? Especially considering the presence of other subjects of the crown, who are also away from the sovereign state. One would expect countrymen to look out for one another, that nothing nefarious could befall an Englishwoman in the near-constant presence of her own brethren.

But herein lies much of the “The Lady Vanishes”’ humor: How these British civilians—even when they’re no longer in England—expect a certain standard of decorum to be upheld. As a result of their stiff upper lips, Miss Froy’s disappearance doesn’t arouse any outrage. After all, why should they waste their rancor on something that simply cannot happen to an English citizen? Like twits, they assume she must not be real, otherwise she would be taking her tea in the dining car, not causing a ruckus throughout the train.

This type of naivete especially applies to the pair of cricket enthusiasts, who hide in their cabin to avoid being questioned by Iris. These two played no part in the actual scheme to disappear the lady. However, they fear any answers they give will only lead to further inquiry, which might prevent them from reaching their cricket match.

Therefore, even though they had a conversation with Miss Froy, they agree with the brain doctor and Iris’ cabin mates, who say the missing woman must be a figment of the poor girl’s imagination. As one of the gentlemen puts it, “An Englishwoman doesn’t just disappear into thin air.” Indeed, Miss Froy did not. However, these two cricket buffs have the equation all wrong: it is possible for Miss Froy to be missing, and still be an actual person; it is possible for Miss Froy to be an Englishwoman, and to have disappeared from the train. But neither gentleman believes that one or the other condition can exist independently.

*** Warning! The following contains information of a SPOILOUS nature! *** Even after the vanished lady returns, they refuse to accept what happened to her. Iris and Gilbert try to explain, and the old woman herself clearly looks worked over. But their reply is fairly dismissive. “My dear chap, you must have gotten the wrong end of the stick somewhere,” says one.

“Yes, these things just don’t happen,” says the other.

This misguided sense of immunity nearly leads to comic tragedy. Prior to the film’s climactic scene, Gilbert tries to warn everyone in the dining car that they have been detached from the rest of the train, and are now headed towards a trap. But even the most obvious evidence, such as how the car is rolling backward in the direction they just came from, fails to have an effect. “There’s nothing left of the train beyond the sleeping car,” Gilbert insists.

“There must be,” one of the cricket enthusiasts replies. “Our bags are in the first class carriage.”

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

ROUGE (1987), dir. Stanley Kwan

2005-12-05T05:10:00.000-08:00

A Ghost's Chance of Rekindling an Old Flame

In “Rouge,” a ghost from fifty years in the past returns to Hong Kong, searching for her lost love. No, this isn't a goofy romantic-comedy, even if the premise sounds awfully familiar. Instead, it's a highly-effective melodrama from director Stanley Kwan, as well as a star vehicle for Anita Mui, the late Cantonese pop singer. As Fleur, a beautiful courtesan who died tragically with her lover, Mui gets to sing, dress up in period costumes, and otherwise command the screen.

The story: Fleur's spirit somehow fails to be reunited in the afterlife with that of Chen (Leslie Cheung, from "The Chinese Feast" and "Happy Together"), her earthly paramour. Assuming he has been reincarnated, she patiently waits in the underworld until August 11th, 1987. Why that date? According to a diviner, whom she consulted while still alive, that is the soonest they can meet again on Earth. Fleur wants to see Chen one more time before returning to the land of the dead, where she will be reborn herself.

Of course, Hong Kong has changed a lot by the time she returns. Fleur requires a guide, and a meek ad man named Yuen (Alex Man) takes pity on her. At first, he doesn't know that she's a ghost; he dismisses her as a harmless eccentric, only to discover her true nature during the bus ride home. After that tense, appropriately creepy revelation, he still takes her back to his apartment, which he shares with his reporter girlfriend, Chor (Emily Chu).

The writers of “Rouge,” Tai An-Ping Chiu and Bik-Wa Lei, cut back-and-forth between Fleur and Chen, and Yuen and Chor, telling parallel stories. With the former couple, we witness the tale of their sad fate, which may not be as clear-cut as Fleur made it sound. Meanwhile, the other couple tries to figure out what really happened to Chen, why his spirit, after he died, was never able to find Fleur's. Relying mainly on Chor's journalistic skills, they locate several clues in places Fleur and Chen used to frequent. Ultimately, these lead to a surprising plot twist or two, which casts everything we were told in a different light. Friend turns against friend, lover against lover, and the climactic Peking opera movie set seems oddly appropriate, as the present literally comes face-to-face with the past.

But solving a fifty-year old metaphysical mystery, compelling as it ends up being, isn't the sole aim of the filmmakers. They use the two time periods, and two couples, to juxtapose love in the 30’s with the 80’s, to show how some aspects are different, while others have stayed the same.

At one point, the old-fashioned Fleur asks Yuen why he hasn't married his girlfriend. He replies that he doesn’t feel any pressure. After all, they live a staid, comfortable life already. They are even past the point of buying each other love tokens. In an earlier scene, when Yuen “surprises” Chor with a gift, it turns out to be an eminently-practical, but not exactly romantic, pair of sneakers.

By contrast, from the moment Fleur and Chen lock eyes, everything about their love affair vibrates with urgency. He publicly declares his affection for her after just one encounter, and showers her with gifts large and small (such as the ornamental make-up box from which the movie’s title derives). After Chen's wealthy family disowns him for refusing to call off the relationship, they continue their desperate clinging. Cinematographer Bill Wong accentuates their passion by infusing the 30's time period with lots of reds and golds. Meanwhile, he adopts conservative colors for the 80's, thus creating two very distinct moods.

But this does not mean relationships in previous times were better, even if the people involved may have shown more passion. Clearly, Fleur is more desperate about her man than Chor about her own. But a woman's role in 1980's Hong Kong has also changed dramatically since the 30's. When Fleur was a child, her parents abandoned her; she became a professional courtesan at the tender age of 14. She knows she must marry in order to become a "respectable" woman. If she does not accomplish this, especially while at the height of her beauty and popularity, she might be stuck at the brothel forever. A modern career woman like Chor never has to worry about suffering this kind of fate.

Perhaps, because love can be viewed more as a luxury than a necessity, Chor’s relationship with Yuen isn't nearly as urgent. Even so, both couples still have aspects in common, such as the need for physical intimacy. Indeed, during one scene, Fleur peeks in on Yuen and Chor while they make love. As she watches, the footage of one couple intermingles with images of the other. They become a montage of affection.

On the one hand, this sequence functions as psychological filmmaking, merging point-of-view shots with memory. But at the same time, it argues that love in the 80’s only seems staid and comfortable, that underneath, the passion that comes from feeling close to someone remains alive and kicking.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

THE CHINESE FEAST (1995), dir. Tsui Hark

2005-11-28T17:55:00.000-08:00

After Two Hours, You'll Be Hungry Again

“The Chinese Feast” is like a 12-course banquet dinner, which serves up a little something for every taste. Director Tsui Hark, best known for crafting elaborate wire-fu epics throughout the 1990’s, blends together slapstick comedy, martial arts, sports flick conventions, and even the “Iron Chef” TV series into one tasty fusion cuisine.

Leslie Cheung, a popular Hong Kong singer and accomplished actor (his credits include the very different “A Chinese Ghost Story,” “Farewell, My Concubine,” and “Happy Together”) plays Chui, a small-time gangster who wants to become a chef so he can travel to Canada, where his girlfriend has gone. After being disqualified from the cooking exam of a Canadian hotel chain, he takes a job at the Qing Han, the oldest local restaurant. The much put-upon owner of the restaurant, Au (Kar-Ying Law), makes Chui perform a variety of ridiculous tasks for the amusement of the kitchen staff. But the last laugh is on him, as romantic sparks begin to fly between Chui and V.V. (Anita Yuen, behaving outlandishly), the owner’s rebellious daughter.

Wacky hi-jinks involving a giant fish, followed by a Mexican standoff between Triad gangs precipitated by a gun hidden inside a straw basket, give way to a slightly more dramatic central plot: Wong Wing (stuntman/actor Xin Xin Xiong), leader of an upstart restaurant company called the Super Group, challenges the owner of the Qing Han to a battle between master chefs. The duel will take place within 30 days, as part of the third annual Qing Han Imperial Feast. While the winner will earn a sum of $60 million HK, the loser must shutter his restaurant. As an added injury, in the tradition of the martial arts flick, the losing chef must call his opponent Master.

The Qing Han’s staff convinces their boss to accept the Super Group’s challenge. Unfortunately, it turns out they have been bribed by their master’s enemies, and their subsequent betrayal causes the old man to have a heart attack. At this point, V.V., like Cordelia in Shakespeare’s King Lear, proves to be a loyal daughter after all. She pledges to prepare the Qing Han Imperial Feast, thus saving her father’s restaurant.

Unfortunately, neither she nor Chui, who wants to help her win the upcoming contest, can so much as boil water, much less prepare a complicated series of dishes featuring truly exotic ingredients. Enter Lung (Man Cheuk Chiu), a kind-hearted local chef. He relates the history behind the event, but admits he cannot help with the actual preparing. However, he knows someone who can: Kit (Kenny Bee), a onetime culinary prodigy turned lost soul.

Kit had been a contender for Hong Kong’s greatest chef until personal tragedy struck. Since then, he has retreated into a cocoon of alcohol and regret. He works a menial job at a supermarket, and ruins his once-formidible taste buds with drink. The character of Kit is in the tradition of countless movie athletes who fall from grace, and must pull themselves up again in time for the requisite happy ending. Naturally, his newfound friends put him through that familiar staple: the training montage. Only in “The Chinese Feast,” relocating one’s Eye of the Tiger means engaging in some pretty over-the-top activities, such as being forcefed a funnel full of ice cubes, acupuncture, and even a smoke-filled “death chamber.”

Can two fledgling cooking assistants, a recovering alcohol abuser with rusty kitchen skills, and a master chef confined to a wheelchair manage to upset the supremely-confident and technologically-advanced Super Group? If you’ve ever seen a sports movie, you don’t need me to tell you the answer. However, even if you’re familiar with every gridiron inspirational or “Karate Kid”-knock-off made to-date, you probably haven’t seen their conventions presented in Tsui Hark’s particularly active style.

Also, even if you’ve already watched Ang Lee’s “Eat Drink Man Woman” or Juzo Itami’s “Tampopo,” “The Chinese Feast” gives the food movie a wholly different look and feel. The camera still lingers on the texture and color of prepared dishes, but Hark places particular emphasis on how his chefs do their thing. From the very beginning, they seem to possess superhuman cooking ability, the same way Jet Li and Man Cheuk Chiu had elemental agility and speed in “Once Upon a Time in China” and “The Blade,” respectively. True, Kit and Wong Wing are culinary artists, not martial artists. But the director frames them in the same bold fashion, angling the camera upwards toward their faces. It’s a point of view that flatters them, even when the angle is slightly canted. And Hark uses slow and fast-motion to make their proficiency with fire and kitchen tools akin to a master’s skill with weapons.

(Speaking of weapons, more than one signature dish is punctuated with a shot of a trembling knife. If you decide to watch this movie, keep a tally of how many times one of the chefs completes a masterpiece, then flings his knife into the cutting board, where it vibrates with exhausted power. Talk about showmanship.)

Like “Eat Drink Man Woman” and “Tampopo,” this movie celebrates food and the way it brings people together. Food serves as the link in a variety of relationships: between burgeoning romantic partners (Chui and V.V.), former lovers (Kit and the woman he is estranged from), parent and child (Au and V.V.), and ultimately, a large group of friends (everyone who teams up against the Super Group). The cast is uniformly great, and the director juggles them well enough that everyone gets at least one good scene.

It probably helps that all the central characters are motivated by redemption. Chui must learn the chef trade honestly to make up for his early cheating. V.V. must save her father’s establishment to make up for her poor behavior in the past. And Kit must win the Qin Han Imperial Feast in order to prove to his girlfriend that he can feel again. But at the same time, the film has enough off-beat humor—the aforementioned giant fish scene, a screaming contest at a karaoke bar, a car-and-motorcycle chase set to Italian opera, and some business involving particular organs belonging to a monkey—that it never veers into schmaltz.

On the contrary, “The Chinese Feast” manages to balance itself between crowd-pleasing and whimsical. Among its possible audience are fans of Asian movie stars Leslie Cheung and Anita Yuen, not to mention martial arts aficionados (Those familiar with Hark’s even better 1995 feature, “The Blade,” might get a kick out of seeing Man Cheuk Chiu and Xin Xin Xiong in showy supporting roles). In turn, those with an appetite for MTV-style, rapid-fire filmmaking (only done right) are also in for a treat. So are those parties with a taste for the exotic. Meanwhile, the film’s universal themes of love and friendship may coax the not-so-brave into giving it a try.

Finally, foodies should be happy with this one. The highest compliment I can pay “The Chinese Feast” is to say that, after being amused, stimulated, and very much impressed by it, I also found myself hungry. A lot of the food cinematography is excellent, but the most tantalizing image occurs towards the end: a juicy piece of roasted meat, slowly dripping with honey. Despite the big meal of Thanksgiving leftovers I had just eaten two hours before, it suddenly felt like my only choices were “Feast” or famine, and I barely stopped myself from taking a bite out of the TV screen.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

GOOD BYE, DRAGON INN (2003), dir. Tsai Ming-liang

2005-11-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

A Movie-going Experience about, among Other Things, the Movie-going Experience

Tsai Ming-liang’s follow-up to his breakthrough film, “What Time is It There?” is an absorbing visual poem about the pros and cons of going to the movies. While it is less expansive than his previous outing, it clearly belongs alongside the director’s other films. Like the rest, it features lonely characters in an urban setting, as well as long, static shots.

“Good Bye, Dragon Inn” takes place in an old-fashioned movie house, which has one screen, shows revivals of classics, and suffers from a lack of customers. The Fu-Ho Grand Theater, as it is called, doesn’t quite live up to its namesake anymore. Much of the interior seems dilapidated, and the overall mood approaches sadness.

The movie alternates between a ticket woman with a bad leg (Shiang-chyi Chen), who seems to be the only employee of this vast theatre, and a young man (Kiyonobu Mitamura) who has come to enjoy King Hu’s martial arts epic “Dragon Inn.” She happens to be away from the booth when he wanders in, so he sneaks into the theater sans ticket. The two characters remain on separate paths: she performs her nightly routine, while he attempts to enjoy “Dragon Inn." Through the course of the film, they never connect with each other. Nor anybody else, for that matter.

Practically half the movie is spent showing the ticket woman hobbling to her locker, a Herculian task given the Fu-Ho's size. Often, the director will let the camera linger until the character retreats from the frame completely. This technique slows down the rhythm of the editing, which affects the speed at which the audience perceives events. But it also emphasizes the solitude of the character, since she remains the sole subject of Ming-liang's interminable shots.

In the case of the young man, the extended takes capture his growing frustration. He does not enter the Fu-Ho Grand looking to be an island onto himself. But petty annoyances, stretched out over the course of long, uninterrupted shots, go a long way towards alienating him from his fellow movie-goers. He hops from seat to seat, but everywhere he goes, he encounters couples who make loud snacking noises, or sneakers next to his head. Occasionally, his interest is piqued by a fellow patron. Unfortunately, his friendly approach often meets a cold shoulder.

The youth never acheives any kind of connection with anyone. There are men who cruise the Fu-Ho looking for dispassionate sex, but it's dispassionate to the point of being invisible. In one scene, which takes place in the men’s room, he never realizes sexual congress has been happening in a nearby stall until the surprise appearance of the second participant. The joke is how subdued, how unimpressively muted, both parties must have been to accomplish such stealthy relations.

Somehow, the youth locates a hidden labyrinth, frequented by men who wear yearnful looks. They wander through shadowy passageways, eyeing one another, squeezing against each other in narrow spots. These shots depict friction without actual heat. The youth's standards, being higher than some, explain why he holds out until meeting someone who tickles his fancy. He approaches a boyishly-handsome stranger in a blue button-up (Kang-sheng Lee, a Ming-liang regular since 1992's "Rebels of the Neon God"). But despite early indications, this one isn’t interested either. Once again, instead of hooking up, the young man finds himself left high and dry.

The way the director handles it, however, proves strangely amusing. He waits until the moment both characters appear most intimate—the stranger having ignited the youth’s cigarette, as well as his libido. When the former leans in as if to kiss the stranger, the latter nonchalantly states the theater is haunted, then walks away. One suspects that the youth has just encountered a ghost himself, but he is too busy being sexually frustrated to heed the message.

Could the Fu-Ho really be haunted, or was the stranger simply messing with the young man’s mind? Several scenes imply the former, such as the ghostly young woman who makes eating sunflower seeds seem like Chinese water torture. There is also the appearance of two actors from the film “Dragon Inn”: Shih Chun and Tien Miao (another veteran of Ming-liang's films). They mourn how no one goes to see movies anymore, and how the images of their younger selves have faded from the public mind. In either scenario, these characters could be people off the street, or they could indeed be spectres. Ming-liang never states anything explicitly.

Personally, I much prefer the ambiguity. The suggestion of ghosts completely changes our perception of shots at the beginning of the film. Remember those opening images: Countless heads staring forward at the projection against the movie screen. In later shots, what happened to those extras? Were they ever really there, or could Ming-liang have been implying something more mystical, that human beings leave part of themselves behind, even when they go to the movies?

Upon looking back, I wondered whether the ticket woman, who never interacts with anyone, could have been a ghost. Perhaps she is cursed to haunt the corridors of the Fu-Ho, a Sisyphus-like spirit who sweeps floors instead of rolling boulders. More likely, however, she’s a real person, whose condition restricts her to menial labor. But working at the cinema allows her certain privileges: There is that wonderful moment when she walks behind the theater screen, and stares up at the giant image of a warrior woman from “Dragon Inn.” The camera cuts back-and-forth between her and the female fighter, as lights from the silver screen play off her face. Not only does this moment perfectly capture the liberating power of the cinema, it offers insight into the ticket woman. We realize that, in spite of the difficult working conditions, she might have chosen to be here all along, in exchange for moments like this one.

“Good Bye, Dragon Inn,” is noteworthy enough for being filmed in the director's signature style. It's also set in an interesting place, and has something to say about movie-going experience. In addition, everything that happens to the youth while he tries to watch "Dragon Inn" adds up to a humorous assemblage of common moviegoer complaints.

Above all, the movie takes place in a theater, which Ming-liang turns into a microcosm of big city problems. The Fu-Ho itself is an historical edifice left to rot, and contains episodes about personal space (the “noise pollution” from the snack-eaters in the viewing room) as well as social alienation (the lonely ticket woman, the silent men in the labyrinth). There is also a crime issue, as deviant behavior has creeped into a place that welcomes young children (the bathroom liaisons, the gay men cruising the labyrinth).

What caused this downward spiral? Is the decline of the Fu-Ho Grand Theater predicated by the same factors that have affected the movie-showing business in America? Too much piracy? Too many entertainment alternatives? Has their industrialized culture broken too many communities into disparate islands onto themselves, for whom the thought of sharing space, time, and experience seems unbearable?

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

THE DUELLISTS (1977), dir. Ridley Scott

2005-11-13T20:41:00.000-08:00

Always Duel the Right Thing?

In 1977, a young director named Ridley Scott brought his painterly sense of beauty to “The Duellists,” based on Joseph Conrad's story about honor taken to absurd levels. The movie was shot across a wide variety of outdoor backdrops, which look spectacular thanks to Scott’s talent for framing and his frequent use of natural light. On a screenplay level, Gerald Vaughan-Hughes gets the adrenaline flowing early and rarely lets up afterward. This is a satisfying action-adventure, the best pure entertainment that year behind George Lucas’ “Star Wars.”

The movie centers around two French soldiers, who are opposites both in appearance and temperament: the tall, gaunt, but gentlemanly Leftenant Armand D’Hubert (Keith Carradine), and his counterpart, the stocky, mercurial Leftenant Feraud (Harvey Keitel). The film opens in Stratburg, France, during the year 1800, where Feraud has just skewered another man. D’Hubert is dispatched to escort him back to headquarters. Unfortunately, he makes a few off-hand remarks that incite the hot-headed soldier, who challenges D’Hubert to combat.

At first, D’Hubert does not take him seriously. Then Feraud draws his sword, and threatens bodily harm if D’Hubert will not draw his. “I believe you are really quite a madman,” the more reasonable man says. So begins their feud, which, thanks to Feraud’s skewed sense of honor (he does not consider the matter closed until one of them receives a mortal wound from the other), spans three decades, several countries, and notable changes in hand-to-hand weaponry. Outside forces constantly intervene to keep the feud boiling. During the first duel, for example, D’Hubert seems to be doing well, but Feraud’s wife leaps upon his back.

Shortly after that initial skirmish, Feraud goes looking for D’Hubert in the streets of Stratburg. D’Hubert, however, would just as soon forget the whole thing ever happened. He views himself as the unwitting participant of that first duel. Feraud had drawn, so he had to defend his reputation, if not his life. Since that regrettable incident, however, he has had to constantly look over his shoulder, in order to avoid the fatalistic rival and his associates.

“The enemies of reason have a certain blind look,” says D’Hubert’s friend Jacquin (Tom Conti), a surgeon who commiserates with him.

And this proves true. Harvey Keitel imbues Feraud with laser-eyed intensity, which seems to countermand any hope of being reasoned with. He challenged his last victim on the grounds that he supposedly “spit on the colors of the flag.” D’Hubert questioned whether this was reason enough to have fought, and earned Feraud’s undying emnity. Not about to skirmish a second time with someone so temperamental, D’Hubert explores his options. If he wants to keep his honor intact, Jacquin tells him, he must secure a promotion (officers cannot be challenged to duels by their inferiors), pray that his regiment stays far removed from Feraud’s, or hope that Napoleon keeps the wars going indefinitely.

“Keep away from him, keep ahead of him, and put your faith in Bonaparte,” sums up Jacquin’s advice. But alas, this proves easier said than done.

“The Duellists” follows D’Hubert as he continuously finds himself face-to-face with his old adversary. This means the brunt of the movie consists of the same two men fighting mano-a-mano in settings both secretive and picaresque. But the movie never gets repetitive, thanks to constantly changing locations and an ever-evolving choice of weapons. Also, D’Hubert undergoes personality changes, as he ascends in rank, endures much hardship, and clashes with Feraud again and again.

The movie culminates with both characters circling each other through the crumbled ruins of a castle outside Paris. Scott effectively draws in the viewer by leaving out background music, and applying a very patient pace. The climactic “dance of death” features a shot that greatly impressed me with its use of depth-of-field: Through the stationary camera, we can see D’Hubert stalking the foreground. A moment later, Feraud appears behind, although he lies in the distance. Neither man sees the other, and soon they pass out of the frame in opposite directions. Scott, a former art student-turned-filmmaker, has endured both highs and lows in the twenty-eight years since making “The Duellists.” Even then, however, he seems to have had a gift for building tension. His two subsequent movies, the much-lauded “Alien” (1980) and “Blade Runner” (1982) featured similarly-sonambulant, highly-effective last acts.

“I have submitted long enough to your notions of honor. You will now submit to mine.”

Ridley Scott’s first four features—the costumed actioner “The Duellists,” the sci-fi/horror thrill ride “Alien,” the sci-fi film noir “Blade Runner,” and the Grimm-style fairy tale “Legend”—represent the period where he chiefly dealt with fantastic situations and characters. Production design quality, especially in the middle two films, was never less than groundbreaking. But given the close attention paid to the technical aspects, and how their sheer visual brilliance often garnered most of the accolades from audiences and critics, Ridley Scott-bashers took to pigeon-holing him as all-style, very little substance.

While I agree that characterization is weak in certain examples of Scott’s work (and this is more a result of genre constraints), any flimsiness in “The Duellists'” screenplay must be forgiven. After all, it compresses thirty years into a scant one-hundred minute running time. Perhaps Feraud could have been fleshed out more, but that’s like criticizing Spielberg’s “Jaws” because the shark never evolves past a one-dimensional eating machine.

D’Hubert’s nemesis, although enigmatic, is never less than effective. Also, notice how, in his final appearance, he resembles a certain French Emperor who had recently been exiled to Elba. Is Feraud, with his stocky build and broad hat, supposed to represent Napoleon? That depends on whether you think Ridley Scott had more on his mind than mere mise-en-scene.

I think he did. If I had to try and sum up the main theme of “The Duellists,” it’s that society, not individuals, define what is considered honorable. The military, for example, counts as a society. After surviving several pitched battles with Feraud--which he had to participate in even after being promoted (As fate would have it, his adversary received a promotion to the exact same rank)--D’Hubert understandably wants no more to do with the man who nearly killed him. But pressure from the soldiers under his command forces him to continue. “We’re now fighting this duel,” D’Hubert says incredulously, “as a compliment to the cavalry.”

Also, when Feraud chooses to make D’Hubert his lifelong enemy, he is acting more as an insulted Frenchman than as an independent individual. Going back to the original cause of their dispute, Feraud asks D’Hubert, “Would you have let this man insult Napoleon?” “Napoleon has nothing to do with it,” D’Hubert replies. But as far as Feraud is concerned, he has everything to do with it. France has achieved unprecedented military glory. The leader of those conquering forces shines like a beacon of national pride. Therefore, a slight at Napoleon is a slight against everything great about being French. Feraud did not reply to such insults as Feraud; on the contrary, he replied as a member of a proud society.

But inevitably, societies change. As they do, the rules governing honor also change. Honor by combat finds itself replaced with glory by contract. D’Hubert seems well-suited to this new kind of battlefield, as he succeeds at wooing the young daughter of his landowning neighbor, and thereby increases his fortune. Feraud, meanwhile, does not fare as well. No silver-tongued charmer like D’Hubert, he ends up in straits very similar to the general he served—marginalized, alone with no one to fight. Now he must submit to “new” notions of honor, as decreed by D’Hubert and a rising class of pro-royalists. Feraud must, or he will cease to exist. He cannot appeal to his foes for some alternative, even if they are not the enemies of reason, with that certain blind look.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

TOM JONES (1963), dir. Tony Richardson

2005-11-03T15:30:00.000-08:00

It’s Not Unusual to be Loved by Anyone...

Likewise, it’s hardly surprising that a populist hit movie—and earner of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Tony Richardson, and Best Adapted Screenplay for John Osborne—should be so darn entertaining. Again, look at the accolades “Tom Jones” earned! While Oscar rarely goes to the finalist that best stands the test of time, it’s equally rare for a prior “best picture” to make us scratch our heads and ask, “How did that even get nominated…?”

Now, of course, there have been exceptions. But in early 1964, when the much-venerated Academy voting body decided to honor this adaptation of Henry Fielding’s classic novel, they did their legacy no shame. “Tom Jones” is a thoroughly enjoyable romp, featuring beautiful scenery, witty dialogue, light-hearted direction that serves the material well, and a star-making turn by then-unknown actor Albert Finney.

While already enjoying leading man status on the British stage, the movie made Finney an overnight star and sex symbol. Tom Jones appears to be the role he was born to play. With his strapping, bucolic build, boyish good looks, and guileless green eyes, he perfectly embodies the character. We believe that kindness and decency lie in his heart, as his adopted uncle, Squire Allworthy (George Devine), repeatedly claims. At the same time, the way Finney’s eyes seem to fog over whenever a lovely specimen of the female gender happens by, reminds us of Jones’ central vice, which nearly brings about his undoing.

Albert has been doing the Finney-ous fog thing for decades, most recently in Tim Burton’s “Big Fish," where their misty quality fit the dreamy nature of Edward Bloom. In “Tom Jones,” Richardson uses Finney’s eyes to reflect a man at the mercy of his own compulsion. Thanks to those orbs, we cannot hold Tom in complete contempt. We really believe this poor guy cannot help himself. Witness the scene between Tom and a woman with most seductive eyes and a coquettish smile. As the camera cuts back-and-forth between them, and the lady becomes increasingly interested in the hunky lad sitting across the table from her, he also goes through changes, which can be read off Finney's face.

At first, Tom seems possessed by a nervous tremble, which isn't fear so much as inner conflict. He fights against the lust which has begun working its way up from his loins. Each time the camera cuts back to Tom’s face, however, another layer of his defenses has been peeled away. Eventually, he goes too far to turn around, the redness of his face becoming too deep, the goofy grin curled too much at the ends. As for thoughts of his true love, Sophie, we can practically detect the moment when she temporarily vanishes from his mind, overwhelmed as it is by the urging of his gonads.

It’s Tom’s inability to control himself, exploited by Blifil (David Warner), his jealous half-brother, and a pair of scheming tutors named Thwackum (Peter Bull) and Square (John Moffatt), that lead to his getting tossed from his guardian’s estate. They catch him fornicating with Molly (Diane Cilento), a woman of ill reputation (Ironically, Mr. Square is one of the reasons for her compromised reputation). While Squire Allworthy has raised Tom like his own son, the boy has always behaved like a rascal. The news regarding Molly, sprinkled with a few lies from Thwackum and Square, leaves Allworthy at his wit’s end. Finding no alternative, he decides he must cast Tom out into the wide world.

Adding insult to injury, Tom learns before departing that Sophie (the fetching Susannah York), his childhood sweetheart and daughter of Squire Allworthy’s wealthy neighbor, Squire Western, has been betrothed to his unworthy half-brother. Sophie is hardly pleased by the news herself, despite the merits argued by her dull aunt (Dame Edith Evans), and the roaring approval of her bellicose father (Hugh Griffith, who steals many a scene pinballing back-and-forth between tranquil inebriation and utter bedlam). Being the rowdy, sporting type, Squire Western actually prefers Tom to Mr. Blifil. But the lad is no heir, and Sophie is his only daughter. While he yet draws breath, Squire Western refuses to allow her to marry some penniless bastard, and so Tom becomes his enemy (To the squire's credit, he also thumbs his nose at foppish city dandies).

Tom’s journey to London—where a reference from his uncle may yet bring him good fortune—gets sidetracked by some Christian soldiers, who relieve him of his moneypurse. Later, he stumbles across one of the more villainous soldiers attempting a rape beside the forest road. Tom rises to the occasion, and rescues the damsel in distress. The woman, who claims to be called Mrs. Waters, rewards our hero by dining with him at a quaint country inn. She moons over him most invitingly. Following the hearty repast, they retreat to an upstairs room for more spirited fun, which is interrupted by a cuckolded husband who bursts into their room.

The various characters Tom encounters reappear throughout the movie, some of them playing pivotal roles. Also included is the man long believed to be Tom’s father. He accompanies our hero to London, where Sophie has also escaped to. Unfortunately, at the previous town, she stumbled across Tom’s indiscretion with Mrs. Waters. Since she no longer wishes to see her former sweetheart, it is up to the lad to work himself back into Sophie’s good graces. His desperation brings him into contact with the manipulative society maven Lady Bellaston (Joan Greenwood). She takes a fancy to Tom, and under the pretense of helping him reunite with the girl he loves, makes him her boytoy, and further sullies his reputation.

Will Sophie reconcile with Tom, or will she be dragged back to the country by her apoplectic father? Can she and Tom really live happily ever after, given his prior betrayal of her? About two-thirds of the way through the film, a strange twist of fate combined with youthful hotheadedness leads to blood being spilled. Then the main question becomes: Will Tom live at all?

Since the last thing I want to do is give away the ending, I will simply refer back to the beginning of this review, wherein I wrote that “Tom Jones” was an “enjoyable romp,” with “beautiful scenery,” “witty dialogue,” and “light-hearted direction.” What kind of ending do you think a movie of this sort would have? But since Tony Richardson helmed it, and John Osborne, who wrote Richardson’s first film "Look Back in Anger" for the stage, served as screenwriter, I did expect more social commentary. That earlier film focused on lower-class people, and found significance in their lives, nobility in their grittiness. I assumed this was the appeal of "Tom Jones" for Richardson, that the title character, despite being born a bastard, is far nobler than many of the movie’s more legitimate gentlemen. He saves Sophie from a runaway horse. He offers to pay the inn bill for the soldiers’ company, even though one of their number attacked him. When Mrs. Waters is being waylayed by a sexual predator, Tom runs to her aid.

Also telling is how Tom decides to take on, and provide for, the destitute man he thought was his father. The familial link isn’t his reason for doing this. Rather, the reputation of fathering a bastard child followed the man wherever he applied subsequent to being dismissed by Squire Allworthy. Tom cannot help feeling partially responsible, since he himself was the bastard. But his decision shows he has a sense of honor that belies his humble blood.

Meanwhile, Tom’s moral and social superiors engage in backstabbing and manipulation. Mr. Blifil and his tutors exploit facts at Tom’s expense. Lady Bellaston convinces a nobleman enamored with Sophie to force himself on her. Mr. Square is a moral hypocrite. True, several characters of equal social rank to Tom do questionable things, too. But the scale of regrettable behaviors seems to be proportional to the size of one’s coffers. Squire Western, though good for a laugh, is a total wreck. When he isn’t drop-dead drunk or fornicating amid livestock, he leads a deer chase that destroys some poor family’s farm. Watching “Tom Jones,” I began to have some inkling why Jimmy Porter, the main protagonist of “Look Back in Anger,” detested the upper class so much.

How strange then, that Richardson presents these contrasts, but withholds passing any final judgement. The dishonest half-brother and tutors never get foisted by their own petard. Not even after the truth about a certain document pilfered by Mr. Blifil gets revealed. There appears to be a total lack of punishment for immoral behavior in the film. The soldier who wronged Tom doesn’t get his comeuppance (Although, to the movie’s credit, he never wins out, either). Even Tom, though not a bad person, has a vice that never gets so much as a rebuke.

(WARNING! THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS DETAILS OF A SPOILOUS NATURE!—Sure, Sophie’s mad at him for a while for diddling Mrs. Waters. But could she really dump the lout and marry Blifil instead?. So the ending, while very upbeat, doesn’t seem convincing. Sophie’s honey never actually undergoes a transformation from ladies man to loyal lover. String music alone does not guarantee he can be faithful, even after a joyous reunion and inevitable marriage. )

Of course, the movie was made in the sixties. Being a cad might have been okay back then, since AIDS had yet to be a problem. Or it might just be Richardson’s aesthetic speaking. After all, he helped pioneer British “kitchen sink style,” which was partially-based on documentary. But even if Richardson decided not to make a statement film, preferring to observe from a distance, there’s no denying he brought a strong visual sense to Osborne's screenplay. “Tom Jones” is supposed to be a “fun” movie, and the director underscores that every chance he gets. As a result, the audience gets treated to wipes of all shapes and sizes, a narrator who says pithy things such as, “It is said that too much wine will dull a man’s senses. That much is true, in a dull man.” Richardson even speeds up a chase sequence, which guarantees it will tickle the funny bone.

Now if only he had chosen to make us think, and not only amuse us on a superficial level.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)

LOOK BACK IN ANGER (1958), dir. Tony Richardson

2005-10-23T15:36:00.000-07:00

Beginnings of a Genre that was All the Rage.

The best thing about “Look Back in Anger” is Richard Burton, whose volcanic performance as Jimmy Porter set the bar for angry young men in Great Britain.

Like Malcolm McDowell in Lindsay Anderson’s “If…” (among other films in the “angry young man” genre released during the following decade), Jimmy isn’t thuggish as much as he is disaffected. His answer to the question of what he wants in life—“Everything… nothing…”—indicates a profound confusion about his own place in the universe. Though college educated, he lives in relative squalor. Though bestowed with artistic gifts, these traits haven’t helped him achieve much in the wider world. Perhaps Jimmy is just too lazy to apply himself, and prefers hurling invectives from the sidelines at others. At any rate, Jimmy’s life is his soapbox, from which he rails against the upper-class, popular culture, and everything in between.

For the most part, Jimmy’s audience consists of his wife, Alison (Mary Ure), and close pal Cliff (Gary Raymond). Cliff occupies the spare room in the couples’ flat, and works at Jimmy’s candy stand. A close friend, he often acts as peacekeeper when tensions between the Porters flare up. Usually, it’s Jimmy who goes too far, making one too many snide remarks about Alison’s family, or Alison herself.

On the morning of a particularly ugly incident, Jimmy is seething because his wife has written a letter to her parents. They happen to be old money-types who never approved of the marriage, and it incenses Jimmy that she maintains communications, when he has abandoned all civility. Jimmy makes relentless fun of them while Alison goes about her ironing, pretending to ignore him. This only makes him try even harder to get a rise out of his wife. Cliff tries to persuade his pal to back off. But that leads to rough horseplay, which causes Alison to burn her arm.

After Jimmy retreats to the nearby pub, following harsh looks from his wife, Cliff tries to comfort Alison. He mentions that he is thinking of abandoning their crazy household. In a moment of intimacy between friends (although it is implied that Cliff thinks of Alison more strongly than that), he asks why she doesn’t just give up on the abusive marriage, and leave Jimmy.

“I’m afraid,” Alison replies. After all, she isn’t sure her parents, whom she is estranged from, will take her back. Later, however, we find out more. Alison is pregnant, has been pregnant several months, and has yet to tell Jimmy. She has vacillated on the decision of letting him know, and now feels uncertain she wants to have the baby at all, since it would cement her bond to this angry young man. In desperation, Alison seeks the counsel of Helena Charles (Claire Bloom), a childhood friend who happens to have landed a role in the local play.

Helena—a prim, raven-haired beauty—presents a fine constrast to Alison, who possesses straw-blond hair and more earthly charms. Helena also appears to be the more stronger-willed of the two women. She refuses to be brought down by Jimmy’s snide remarks, although an attempt on his part for “a little fun,” crashing one of her rehearsals, nearly pushes her over the edge of good behavior.

Having witnessed the way Jimmy treats her, Helena desperately tries to convince Alison to leave him. Her main problem, however, is that she still finds herself attracted to the fire that burns incessently inside her husband. She relates the story of how they met—Jimmy walking into the dance at her old town, covered in motor oil, seemingly burning even then. While that reminiscence doesn’t change Helena’s opinion about how bad a husband Jimmy is, she admits that such an angry man must make life exciting. At this point, a strange look comes over Helena, which implies a possible weakness to the very trap she is trying to extricate her friend from.

Will Alison run away from Jimmy? Will Jimmy change his ways after finding out that he is going to be a father? Will Cliff really jump ship, leaving his two closest pals to their domestic strife? And ultimately, is Helena to play a larger role than enabler to all this?

Director Tony Richardson and screenwriter Nigel Kneale—with John Osborne providing additional dialogue for his adapted stage work—resolve everything in a relatively unsurprising fashion. More compelling are the insights into Jimmy, what motivates his contempt for religion, culture, even education. He was once the beneficiary of university training, but now, the way he uses erudite words in his rants seems like a deliberate attempt to bring them down, to make them vulgar.

So why is Jimmy full of rage? The answer, it turns out, falls into what Orson Welles cited as “pop psychology:” Like Charles Foster Kane, Jimmy Porter suffered a childhood trauma. He lost someone dear to him. Now he resists the love of those who would willingly give it, pushing them away with insults, sometimes unconsciously. But at the same time, nothing seems to make Jimmy sadder than the thought of one more friend going away. “The child is father to the man,” sayeth the poet Gerald Manley Hopkins. In his heart, Jimmy wants everything to be the way it was back when he was a little boy, back when he was happy.

But alas, the nature of life dictates that people must move on, must leave us, must change. The realization on Jimmy’s part—that people never stay, that nothing remains the same—fuels his rage at life itself. At a relatively young age, he already learned the inevitability of death. So now, at twenty-five, he firmly says to hell with earthly ambition, and to hell with love, money, art, and other earthly trifles (Basically, he adopts the whole “angry young man” thing).

Jimmy has stared into the abyss, and having not fallen in, turned away scarred. Only the appearance of a soul mate, worn down as much as him by despair and bitterness, can bring out his long-dormant sense of empathy. That is the only way Jimmy can ever change, and while such a fate has tragic implications, it also provides a strange sense of comfort when it finally comes along, and saves him.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

GREETINGS (1968), dir. Brian De Palma

2005-10-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

The Cinematic Technique of De Palma, fashioning Postcard of Distrust, Sexual Deviancy

During the last twenty-something years, Brian De Palma’s films have featured themes of voyeurism and obsession, while the director himself has employed musical scores that resemble Bernard Hermann in the way they ratchet up suspense. In the service of dark, psychological thrillers, these flourishes have earned De Palma the distinction, or derision, of being an Alfred Hitchcock clone. This is an insinuation I have always felt was unfair.

Haven’t we already seen what train wreck ensues when filmmakers simply ape Hitchcock’s camera moves, which is what happened in Gus Van Sant’s restaged “Psycho?” If that disaster proved anything, it’s that cloning the technical aspects of an auteur does not alone guarantee success. The director must bring something of himself to the project; he cannot get away with simple plagiarizing.

What complicates matters is, the personal traits De Palma brings to his movies are the same ones Hitchcock brought. Both share a fear of women. They each made films featuring characters who become obsessed or paranoid. And in their heyday (the 40’s and 50’s for Hitchcock, the 80’s for De Palma), both men pushed the boundaries of permissible violence and sexuality onscreen.

But De Palma also has a pretty strange sense of humor, which precedes his reputation even moreso than Hitchcock’s did (maybe because Hitchcock’s tended to be more subtle). In a movie like “Greetings,” one of De Palma’s earlier works, the bizarreness helps locate the film in the director’s canon, despite the lack of a Hitchcock-style plot.

The movie opens with TV footage of President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking the American people during a speech, “Have you ever had it better than you do right now?” It’s meant to be ironic, as the movie depicts a group of twenty-something New Yorkers who believe they are not living in the greatest era of their country’s history. Paul (Jonathan Warden) worries about having to go to Vietnam; he has an interview at his neighborhood draft office coming up. His pals Lloyd (Gerrit Graham) and John (Robert De Niro, in his first credited movie performance) want to help him fail it, so they keep him awake for two straight days. That way, Paul can convince the Army psychologist he has insomnia, rendering him unfit to serve.

Lloyd, meanwhile, doesn’t have to worry about being sent over to the ‘Nam. Any military official who spends five minutes talking to the lanky, wild-eyed JFK assassination aficionado would seek to have him committed. As for John, he seems confident he can fail the interview by convincing the recruiter of his involvement in a white-power militia group. After exhausting that plotline fairly early, John begins exploring his voyeuristic tendencies. He even starts to stalk unsuspecting women.

While the “peeper” portion may sound like familiar territory for the director, De Palma, who co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Hirsch, mostly plays that angle for laughs. John spends a lot of time following different women, but his compulsions usually lead to wacky hi-jinks, such as pretending to be an artist putting on a show called “Peepers and the Peeped.” After convincing a shoplifter (Rutanya Alda) from the bookstore where he works that his faux show is for real, he brings her back to his apartment, and records footage of the woman performing what should be her pre-bed ritual.

The scene’s humor derives from her horrendous acting, and the way she exaggerates her routine (Do most women wrap their stockings around their necks, then preen in front of their bedroom window…?). At the same time, the first-person perspective of the camera, representing John’s p.o.v., and the sound of his voice manipulating the subject, make the sequence feel uncomfortably voyeuristic. But for the most part, De Niro, who would later achieve iconic status in “Mean Streets” and “Taxi Driver” gives a solid comedic turn.

De Niro’s gift, which has served him well in countless, more serious roles, is the emotional investment he can put in every scene. When he finally shows up to the recruiter’s office, looking and sounding the way B.D. from “Doonesbury” would in the same situation, his façade initially seems way out there. However, De Niro’s genius is not playing the situation as comedy. On the contrary, he plays this junior jingoist as seriously as George C. Scott would later undertake George Patton. He inhabits the character, and I only wish Hirsch had scripted, and De Palma had filmed, the full interview which would have followed the introduction.

Graham and Warden do good work, too, embodying the mistrust that characterized the Vietnam War era, and the confusion that accompanied sexual liberation. Lloyd is obsessed with finding out the identities of the police officers who pulled up in front of the boarding house where Lee Harvey Oswald had a room. Supposedly, the cops honked their horns twice, then drove off. What was their relationship to one of history’s most famous assassins? Will the unexpected appearance of someone claiming to be the son of the boarding house owner finally break the case “wide open…?”

Paul, meanwhile, tries to find love through computer dating. His amusing vignettes (each proceeded by a psychedelically purple title card) feature women who want to use Paul—for sex without intimacy, as surrogate father, as religious inductee—without providing him with what he really wants. What is Paul looking for? Not mere sexual release, evidently. Why else would he turn down the attractive, mildly hostile Bronx secretary, who accused him of just wanting to get into her pants, but left him a trail of bread crumbs to where she lay naked in the bedroom…?

Well, one obvious reason is to let Lloyd sleep with her instead. This allows for “Greetings’” most brilliant moment of morbid lunacy: a long, single take where Lloyd, addressing the camera directly, disputes the FBI’s official ballistics report detailing President John F. Kennedy’s assassination wounds. As Lloyd rants on and on about the discrepencies, he uses a magic marker to plot the impact of every bullet fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. However, Lloyd plots this information on the naked, sleeping body of the woman he just had sex with.

Naturally, drawing on a nude bedfellow becomes trickier when said figure lies on her back, which Lloyd needs access to. Lloyd addresses this problem with the confidence of someone who has done this sort of manipulating before. Whenever he needs her to lift an arm, or turn over onto her stomach so he can figure out the angle that the bullet exited out of the president, he simply plants kisses on a strategic location. The slumbering body inevitably moves, and Lloyd can continue with his work.

“Greetings” has an improvised, madcap energy, which sustains the movie while Hirsch and De Palma flail about for a plot. Indeed, the first half feels particularly aimless, like a collection of interesting montages and trick shots in search of genuine purpose. Granted, the filmmakers could have intentionally structured the movie that way, in order to reflect the lonely, listless, stuck-in-a-rut feeling that pervaded the country during the late 60's. But, in reflecting artfully on a quagmire, Hirsch and De Palma may have created their own morass, and one which requires patience to slog through.

Luckily, the dual appeal of De Niro and De Palma is considerable. “Greetings” gradually focuses more of its attention on John, as his penchant for falling into absurd situations make him the poster boy for his time. Perhaps De Palma was struck by the intensity De Niro brought to the peeper. Or maybe he recognized a star being born before his eyes. Cinematic history, as well as a peerless list of classic roles, certainly vindicates De Palma’s decision to spend more of the film’s second half following John. As for the director himself, there are moments when his sense of playfulness comes to the forefront. Take, for example, the scene where John chats up the shoplifter. As he describes “Peepers and the Peeped,” the camera slowly pulls back, and a woman can be seen undressing in her ground-level apartment window. It’s the perfect peepshow.

A book on Hitchcock’s films appears as a prop in Paul and Lloyd’s apartment. But I thought I recognized more of the influence of Antonioni, if anyone, in the montage sequences that occur during many of Paul’s couplings. Meanwhile, it’s fascinating to see that, back in 1968, De Palma was already proficient with cinematic sleight-of-hand. Initially, when the shoplifter performs the act which earns her her assignation, other voices distract us, and events happen so fast we can’t be sure what she did. Later on, however, when John meets her on the street, he mentions what happened. De Palma then cuts to the same clip; indeed, she shoplifted that book.

Throughout his career, De Palma has enjoyed leaving clues in plain sight. Then, as the mystery unfolds, he doubles back upon them. He encourages active audiences; he used sleight of hand in “Dressed to Kill” (1980), “Mission Impossible” (1996), as recently as “Femme Fatale” (2002). Perhaps Hitchcock also did the same trick in his time. But the thing to remember is De Palma used them in a genre Hitchcock wasn’t particularly known for.

Overall rating: **, *** if you're a De Palma fan (out of ****)

KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE (1989), dir. Hayao Miyazaki

2005-10-12T23:02:00.000-07:00

A Most Be-Witch-ing Good Time (Return to Main Page)

This older film by Japanese animator Miyazaki tells the story of Kiki, a cute 14-year old girl about to begin her training in witchcraft. In Kiki’s family, witching appears to be a family tradition; her mother mixes explosive potions downstairs from her room, and when the time comes to depart, even passes down her flying broomstick. Those enchanted brooms only have a limited amount of trunk space, however. Enough for a small radio and a talking black cat. As far as clothing, Kiki has to bring what fits on her back, which happens to be the standard uniform of young witches: an oversized, dark-purple dress.

The night Kiki leaves, she encounters a driving rainstorm. She takes shelter in the open car of a train, which drives off while she sleeps. The next morning, she awakens to find herself in a sprawling town beside the ocean. After making sure no other witches live there (Apparently, each town/city has a maximum witch-in-training quota of one), Kiki decides to settle in the bustling port. Unfortunately, the busy pace constantly interferes with her studies. Who has time to master the intricacies of witchcraft, when living costs are so high? In exchange for a room, Kiki takes a job at a bakery (the proprietors are a kindly couple, one expecting mother and her mostly non-verbal partner). She also starts the titular business, which quickly begins to thrive, thanks to her ability to take parcels anywhere by air.

Despite this rare ability, Kiki’s main draw is her everyday girl appeal. She’s plucky and sweet, and the way she won’t hesitate to perform good deeds for strangers earns her fast friends. At the same time, I hoped no one would take advantage of her naivete. After all, this is her first visit to the big city. Luckily, in this film—as is the case for Miyazaki films I’ve seen so far—just about every character is good at heart. The nerdy boy who shouts excitedly at Kiki when she first touches down, rubbing her the wrong way, turns out to be nice. He makes wicked innovations to a bicycle. And the nature-loving artist who initially seems aloof becomes a valuable friend. She teaches Kiki an important lesson about how to work through stress.

Even the pals of the glasses-wearing boy, Tombo, don’t seem so bad in the end. When they first meet Kiki, they seem unimpressed by her plain style of dress. She’s the new girl meeting the cool kids. Trust that by the end credits, however, they accept the young witch for who she is (in-line with the film’s central theme: the importance of being true to oneself).

Exactly how does Kiki manage to gain acceptance in the town, without having to give up those traits that make her special? Let’s just say there is a plot occurrence, involving a zeppelin that breaks loose on a windy day. This particular set piece would look spectacular in a live-action movie, but it seems almost quaint in this one, where the main character spends much of her time soaring above the ground like Superman. But at this point in the film, Kiki has become increasingly distracted with her new life, and as a result, her powers have begun to fade. Will Kiki rediscover her focus, and regain use of her abilities, in time to fly to a friend’s aid?

It’s a safe bet. After all, this is a cartoon for general audiences. And while a lot of Japanese anime is serious and disturbing on the level of a Coppola film, “Kiki’s Delivery Service” happens to be charming good fun. Hayao Miyazaki, who directed it, has made several great animation masterpieces, including “Castle in the Sky” (1986) and “Princess Mononoke” (1997). He has been called the Walt Disney of Japan, and certainly deserves comparison. His films feature fluid, detailed animation, and imaginative designs of characters and backdrops.

Meanwhile, even if a talking cat like Jiji doesn’t hurt Miyazaki’s chances of scoring with the young children’s market, “Kiki’s Delivery Service” also appeals to older audiences. Even those who might not plunk down $9.50 for Disney’s “Chicken Little” come November. Why the wider demographic appeal? My guess would be the more sophisticated storytelling. By this, I am not referring to the quality of animation, which might have been superior at Disney (There’s amazing visuals in “The Rescuers Down Under,” which came out roughly the same time). What I mean is, there’s more substance in a film like “Kiki…” (And less of those annoying musical numbers, too).

Sure, the main character is a witch, and her witchly powers do play a pivotal role. However, the plot of “Kiki’s Delivery Service” is not some operatic rehash of good versus evil, right versus wrong, absolute power corrupting absolutely, etc. Stripped down to its bare bones, the film is really about a young person’s first fateful steps into the wide world. It’s about entering the world, and learning how to navigate it—not just in terms of paying rent and buying food, but the holding onto of ideals, especially those pertaining to the self, what we think we should be. All this, as a maelstrom of change occurs all around.

Anyone who has ever left home for college, or moved to an unfamiliar new city, can relate to Kiki. Witchly powers aside, she lives a scenario where her struggles and responses feel like those of a real person. Which brings me to another trait I have always admired about Miyazaki: In the vast majority of his films which I have seen, his characters always have unusual depth for cartoon folk. Yes, I know those are two-dimensional drawings cavorting up there on the big screen. But as I watch them, I feel there’s a backstory I can detect, something which comes across in every word or action.

Perhaps the best compliment I can give the master animator is that his characters all seem to live real lives. Even in the case of a witch, it’s really neither blessing nor curse to be born that way. It’s just another kind of living.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (2000), dir. Roy Anderrson

2005-07-20T17:16:00.000-07:00

It’s the End of the World—Do They Know It? (Return to Main Page)

Traffic grinds to a halt in an unnamed Swedish city. A man survives being cut in half with a bandsaw. A building moves under its own power. Participants in elaborate costumes perform a ritual of human sacrifice.

What does it all add up to? Are these strange events the signs of a coming apocalypse? Such questions go unanswered in Roy Andersson’s beautiful, but genuinely unsettling film, “Songs from the Second Floor.” The director presents a cross-section of characters, all of whom appear tired, pale, and sick. They are connected in various ways; for example, familial bonds, as in the case of the cartoonishly-large salesman Kalle (Lars Nordh) and his two sons. But the connections go deeper than that. If the different storylines in “Songs…” have anything in common, it is the miserable existence everyone seems to be sharing. Perhaps the world hasn’t ended yet. But clearly, things are so bad that such a drastic event could only improve things.

Kalle has been driven to distraction by his own bad luck. His relationship to his wife is cold and unresponsive. Meanwhile, his two grown-up sons haven’t prospered much in the world. The oldest, Stefan (Stefan Larsson), drives a taxi and drinks too much. When we first encounter him, he is part of a gang that beats up on a hapless foreigner. Tomas (Peter Roth), the younger son, resides in a mental institution. Whenever his family visits, Kalle inevitably berates his sensitivity. Apparently, he “wrote poetry until he went nuts.”

Does insanity run in the family? Kalle, who sells furniture, decides to burn his own store down. Why does he do it? To try and dupe the insurance company. Kalle claims that his showroom, now full of ash piles, had once been occupied by priceless, high-end sofas. He rationalizes the swindle by claiming that it is human nature to buy something, then try to “sell it with an extra zero at the end.”

When the case gets stalled by the insurance company, Kalle makes ends meet by taking a job selling crucifixes. His oily boss (Tommy Johansson) hopes to capitalize on the hysteria surrounding the approaching millenium. Kalle journeys to the train station, giant cross in tow. There, a grim-looking figure begins following. It is Sven (Sture Olsson), Kalle’s former business partner, who commited suicide after having a large sum of money stolen from him.

Is the former furniture vendor seeing dead people? The movie never makes clear whether Sven is a figment of Kalle’s imagination. And what do either of them have to do with the spectre of the boy, the one who walks around with a noose tied around his neck? According to Sven, the youth is looking for his dead sister, whom he played a cruel trick on without ever having the chance to apologize. Perhaps Kalle, like the boy, is supposed to atone for his own sins. He was the one who stole from Sven. Unfortunately, the ghost has no surviving relatives. Even the dead man tacitly agrees that paying back the debt would be very difficult.

While Kalle tries to deal with his very unique dilemna, Andersson cuts to other characters. They include a corporate manager named Lennart (Bengt C.W. Carlsson, who looks like a European Drew Carey with his height, receding hairline, and thick eyeglass frames). Lennert struggles to drag his luggage cart, piled high with suitcases and golf bags, across an airport floor to check-in. He is one of countless travellers performing Herculian acts for the sake of their business trips (Speaking of Herculian acts, the director frames these labors in a single foreground shot that features amazing depth-of-field).

Another scene features a former military general celebrating his one-hundredth birthday. Unimaginably wealthy, though irrevocably broken, he has travelled full-circle, returning to the crib. As the brass assemble before him, the general looks around in a daze. He goes potty in front of the Chiefs of Staff, then performs a Nazi salute. The officers try to fortify the dignity of this much-respected man. But the former general himself, in his current state, has no dignity to fortify.

Also involved in the mix: A mindless mob of men and women clad in business attire. They shuffle out and about the clogged city streets, moaning like zombies, pausing to flog one another. Most haunting, however, is the tale of Anna (Helene Mathiasson), a little girl chosen for a very special purpose. She first appears in a stately living room, surrounded by learned men who have heard of her fine qualities. An aid recites these points, such as her precociousness and her good grades in school, in detail. These virtues, however, turn out to be offenses. In the next scene, Anna receives the proper punishment for her crimes.

Although the events that take place throughout “Songs from the Second Floor” seem absurd, they reflect very modern concerns. Themes such as overwork (the business suit zombies, the airport scene), corporate corruption (Kalle tries to defraud the insurance company; Lennart is told to lay people off in order to raise the stock price, which puts the entire firm at risk), and overpopulation (the learned men, Anna is told, know that “if you throw a birthday party, not everyone can come. If they did, each person would only get a bit of cake this small”) find their way into the larger tapestry.

Meanwhile, is the decrepit old general meant to remind us that we live longer, though not necessarily better? Perhaps he represents something larger, like death overturning. That would explain the hospital corridors with too many patients. Also, the visits to the physician’s office by characters who have received mortal wounds, but still manage to go home afterward. Couple the death of Death with the recurring references to Christ (mostly by occupants of the institution, who, ironically, are much better composed than Kalle), and talk of how everything inevitably comes to an end. One can’t help interpreting these events as the collective calm before that super-sized tsunami of a storm: Armaegeddon.

If the human race is indeed about to receive its cosmic comeuppance, “Songs from the Second Floor” argues that the end has perfect timing. The worn-out appearance of the characters, the non-stop gridlock—all these things imply that civilization has been stretched to the breaking point. Things cannot continue on this path any longer; we suffer from too much stress, too much anger, too much selfishness. Furthermore, we have become morally bankrupt, especially in business. Ruining the lives of thousands is okay if it means a little more for ourselves. Our chief concern has become, as Kalle puts it, acquiring the means to “enjoy ourselves.”

Several scenes involving Lennert, including one where he has just dismissed an employee who had worked for the firm thirty years, imply that the golden carrot many of us expect to find at the finish line invariably turns out to be a pink slip. The solution? Frankly, Andersson doesn’t offer one. There is no resolution, just an ongoing descent towards civilization’s end. This turns out to be the only real weakness of “Songs…,” which relentlessly depicts the world as a miserable place.

Luckily, Andersson’s apocalyptic composition is so visually fascinating. The director understands how to manipulate the depth in each shot, conveying information both in foreground, and in the background. He also uses static camera shots, the exception being a single tracking motion that slowly backs up across a train platform. Modern cinema features so much camera movement, that one doesn’t expect the degree of mileage Andersson wrings from his particular style. There is a single shot, the last one in the film, in fact, that lasts several minutes, and manages to be both funny and disturbing. The humor lies in the timing of the various objects in foreground, middleground, and background. What genuinely disturbs us is their implication.

To accept the last shot is to believe that Grace has already been bestowed, that those who are deserving of heaven have left for the pearly gates above (The “Second Floor” of the title?). Those who remain are in purgatory. Ironically, purgatory doesn’t seem all that different from the world we occupy right now.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)