Despite the acclaim that Allen’s film often receives, I’ve never really felt any substantial connection to the events, situations, or characters depicted within Hannah and Her Sisters, so the film always exudes a certain distant, unfamiliar, almost foreign sensation. Even Mickey’s search for spiritual significance feels far too broad, shallow, and silly. Fortunately, even though Allen may be borrowing from his prior material, the subplot involving Mickey’s quest for some form of spiritual enlightenment does yield the film’s most hilarious moment, when Mickey’s father utters the line “How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don’t know how the can opener works!”
On a totally pointless side-note, I always find it weird to watch Sam Waterston and Dianne Wiest dating each other within this film after watching her play the role of his rather indecisive boss on Law & Order.
by Chiranjit Goswami | Source: MGM DVD
30 Apr 2008 7:11 PM | Submit Comment
While it is mildly enjoyable in a rather bland way (you often get the sense that the producers were marking off their checklist while watching the initial screenings), I tend to agree with Rumsey’s assessment of this movie and concur with the opinion that the filmmakers unfortunately placed their emphasis on the wrong priorities within its narrative.
However, I’m honestly not even sure if I would call this a movie, since I’m uncertain if the central narrative was actually the primary concern of the filmmakers. I’m sure Luketic and his crew achieved everything they initially envisioned as their goal with this project, but the finished product feels like another expensive commercial created for what is turning out to be the most elaborate advertisement campaign ever created for a city. Considering the number of feature films that Hollywood keeps churning out about the glamorous lifestyle that Vegas supposedly offers (and I shudder when pondering the potential results of the upcoming Kutcher-Diaz comedy centered around the city), I’m starting to wonder if these films are the result of agreements brokered between Hollywood producers and casino owners in an effort to begin paying off the gambling debts that these producers have accumulated over the course of a few too many weekend getaways at the Bellagio and the Wynn.
by Chiranjit Goswami | Source: Columbia Pictures 35mm Print
30 Apr 2008 6:38 PM | Submit Comment
It may just be residual goodwill towards Tina Fey on account of 30 Rock, or the fact that I saw it on my birthday, but I really enjoyed this film. Director Michael McCullers takes the burgeoning pregnancy-angst-comedy genre and makes it into something rather more subtle and adult than Knocked Up or Juno. Fey and Poehler’s trademark personae are both reined in to a certain extent — Fey is less cutting and Poehler less broad than usual — but in this case that’s a good thing, and both show unexpected range and appeal. (After seeing this, I think Fey could probably be Sandra Bullock if she wanted to; hopefully she doesn’t.) Especially welcome is the way the movie gestures towards political issues — class conflict, gentrification, environmentalism, etc. — without either travestying them or using them as a lever to secure audience sympathy: they’re just part of the background of 21st century life, often ignored, sometimes unignorable.
Plus: it has the funniest performance by Steve Martin in roughly a decade. Which isn’t really saying a lot, but still.
by Evan Kindley | Source: 35mm print
29 Apr 2008 12:32 PM | Submit Comment
There is something about a comforting embrace from your mother that offers an emotional sanctuary quite impossible to replicate. Azazel Jacobs, the writer and director of Momma’s Man, makes just such a mother’s embrace – his own mother’s, mind you – the dramatic climax of his new film and one of quietly bracing devastation.
It is hard to imagine a more personal creative endeavor than Momma’s Man. Jacobs cast his actual parents, Ken and Flo Jacobs, as the father and mother of his lead, Mikey, the thirty-something husband and father having what to outsiders would seem like a premature and unnecessary mid-life crisis, but to him is so real it’s suffocating. Jacobs also uses his parents’ New York apartment as the backdrop for nearly all of the film’s action. In watching Mikey navigate the apartment’s narrow corridors and tip toe across the aching hardwood floors, you get the feeling the Jacobs’ home hasn’t significantly changed in many a year, and that is exactly the impression intended by the film’s director. It is this familiarity, this suffocating nostalgia that is at first a burden on Mikey, but eventually induces a type of paralysis.
Mikey’s tipping point is a solo sojourn from his current home in L.A. to his parents’ apartment in N.Y. When he is supposed to fly home, Mikey begins inventing any number of excuses – some innocent and others quite insidious – to stay a few more days with his folks. After a day or two of rehashing comics and hilariously vengeful songs he wrote on his guitar in high school, visiting old friends and reconnecting with his past, the friendly confines of the nest stricken Mikey with agoraphobia of sorts—he eventually seems physically unable to leave and face the life and problems he left behind. What finally provides his capacity for flight is not the continuous offers from his mother of selfless servitude, but simply her genuine embrace that makes all else seem irrelevant. For Mikey, and the audience, it’s an unforgettable moment. Often very funny and eventually heartbreaking, Momma’s Man is a welcomed discovery and a rare achievement.
by Chet Mellema | Source: 35mm Film
28 Apr 2008 10:12 PM | Submit Comment
This is the first of Im Kwon-Taek’s one hundred films that I’ve managed to see and I assume — also from what I’ve heard of Chunhyang and Chihwaseon – that it’s characteristic: the stateliness, the aestheticised landscapes, the melodrama kept barely in check, and the interest in/celebration of traditional Korean culture. Here, the cultural form at issue is pansori, a kind of recitative singing, and the story follows Youbong, a none-too-successful itinerant pansori singer who adopts a son and daughter to train them up as drummer and singer respectively. The setting is post-World War II, with the inevitable decline in the pansori audience, although in fact not so much is made of this, nor is much made of the inter-personal conflicts, such as the son’s resentment and ultimate rebellion. Even the horrifying act at the centre of the film, Youbong’s deliberate blinding of his daughter, seems drained of any great emotional force or moral judgement. Instead, the centre of the film is the trio’s performance of pansori, at its most sublime when they perform to an audience of no one but themselves in the middle of nature. That’s the significance, too, of the brother and sister’s final meeting, after a separation of so many years, when they perform together without acknowledging in words that each knows who the other is; instead all the pain and emotion is expressed through the music, which Im observes with a certain contemplative distance.
by Ian Johnston | Source: DVD
28 Apr 2008 2:00 PM | Submit Comment
Dashang, a reticent husband with a history of infidelity, manages a small inn with his wife in the shadow of a mountain. He is ill, we’re told, though his illness is never revealed; he spends much of the film going between his greenhouse and lying in bed. His wife is doting and patronizing, forcing him to eat healthy and give up cigarettes, though her ways have root in his disloyalty and emotional distance; at times compassionate and loving, and at other times cold and paranoid, she has clearly been wronged.
The title object appears almost immediately: A locked piece of luggage floating down a river. When it becomes stuck on a jutting of rock outside the inn, Dashang manages to scoop it from the water without alerting his wife. Stealing away to his greenhouse, he opens the case to find blocks of ice, each containing a severed human body-part. From there on he balances trying to remain at ease in front of his wife with ogling his discovery in private, hiding the case behind a false wall so it won’t be found. He doesn’t go to the police, we soon learn, because his brother-in-law also happens to be the chief, as well as the man who unearthed his affair.
The case as a metaphor initially seems overdone, especially when the ice begins to melt and Dashang tries to hide severed hands in flower pots. This happens as his marriage becomes increasingly strained thanks to a new arrival at the inn: A beautiful young woman and her sick husband. (It’s interesting to note that, while Deshang’s wife is never given a name, the young woman’s name is revealed almost instantly.) But the blatant metaphors end when the film’s plot takes a brazenly sharp turn towards Fincher territory, exposing a major secret and ultimately squandering any remaining tension that’s been built up, sexual or otherwise. And after this scene ends, we’re thrown once again into the grinding cogs of yet another plot twist, this one a tiresome Hollywood cliché that answers little and, occupying less than five minutes, is totally pointless.
by Adam Balz | Source: 35MM Theatrical Print
24 Apr 2008 1:31 PM | Submit Comment
Takao Okawara’s great middle-finger salute to Roland Emmerich. And considering Okawara’s track record with Tanaka’s franchiseÑbringing it back to its smirking glory after the barren 1980s and offering us eternal duels between the giant atom-baby and his mechanized equal, among othersÑhe seems like the perfect person to have made such a grand reintroduction. (Godzilla 2000, according to the IMDb “Trivia” section, was the first Gojira movie in fifteen years to be shown in American theatres.) There’s the man in the rubber suit, the cardboard cityscapes, the constant human struggle between good and evil, not to mention hordes of bad extras running in front of a screen like, well, bad extras. And, to sweeten the proverbial pot, the entire film is dubbed haphazardly by a slew of grunting English voices without a single subtitle optionÑor at least none that I could find. Yes, Godzilla 2000, along with all its predecessors, is campy and atrocious, but at least it set out to be that way.
by Adam Balz | Source: DVD
24 Apr 2008 1:30 PM | Comments (1)
It’s not hard to see the final twist in Yella coming, but in a way this is beside the point. Director Christian Petzold’s interest is in following the path Yella takes from the film’s early dramatic outburst — bitter and needy ex-husband Ben drives himself and Yella into the River Elbe — through to the film’s conclusion. The underpopulated look to the film’s settings — in fact, we’re mostly confined to hotel rooms and company meeting rooms — might reflect what I guess is the film’s limited budget, but that also works to buttress Yella’s caustic portrayal of the state of German capitalism. Yella’s much more successful than Petzold’s previous film Ghosts, whose parallel-story structure undermined the overall effect. Here, Petzold focuses solely and successfully on Yella, and the clean lines and quiet tone of the film — where wind rustling through the trees takes on a metaphysical dimension — are in its own understated way rather compelling.
by Ian Johnston | Source: DVD
20 Apr 2008 1:13 PM | Submit Comment
You’re certain to lose count of how many times Giancarlo Giannini smacks a bitch in this movie.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Koch Lorber DVD
13 Apr 2008 10:07 PM | Submit Comment
Miracle Mile is a modestly-budgeted film with ample imagination and exemplarily resourceful direction. It’s about a potential apocalypse (it directly recalls The Rapture, but it’s much more bombastic), and it’s pervaded by a gathering sense of dread—this sense is amplified in the film’s final two-thirds, which are told nearly in real time. Reportedly, Miracle Mile originated as an episode in The Twilight Zone movie; it does have a simplistic and fantastical narrative (a man picks up a ringing pay phone, and the voice on the other end foretells a nuclear bomb in less than one hour), but it also indulges in aspects that sustain instead of abbreviate the atmosphere of total urgency. In one scene, the characters must find a helicopter pilot; in another author’s hands, a hero pedestrian would responsibly step up to the helm, but here the escape plan is delayed by a frantic search for the pilot. Safety – of both the principle characters and that of humanity in whole – is never certain, not for an instant.
There are so many reasons why this premise should falter, but for the most part it never does. It’s crucial that Harry, receiver of the aforementioned phone call, convince us of an imminent apocalypse as well as his falling for the girl of his dreams—he meets her in the opening scenes, and his instinctive desire for survival is compromised only by his necessity to see to her safety before his own. The film creates an imaginative doomsday scenario, and commits to it with such fierceness that the familiar cinematic scenario is rendered uniquely frightening. This was a near-relevatory discovery for me, and it’s a shame to find that its director, Steve De Jarnatt, has resorted to directing television ever since.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: MGM DVD
13 Apr 2008 10:05 PM | Submit Comment
Both this and the Duplass brothers’ The Puffy Chair (which I also saw recently) are considered cornerstones to a rather frowned upon genre I relent to refer to by (its inane) name. But these are two very different films—one, a road trip in which the participants grow increasingly cognizant of themselves and others, and the other a frustrated telling of the occupational malaise that accompanies most of us upon our college graduation. The similarities between the two are in their hand-held camerawork and presumed improvisation. These similarities are only superficial, and my problem with their collation in genre is that it’s half-hearted and ultimately reductive.
Incidentally, academic Ray Carney champions both of these films with enough hyperbole to stir a hibernating polar bear.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Wellspring DVD
13 Apr 2008 10:01 PM | Submit Comment
An alcoholic reporter repeatedly sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong in hopes of both tracking down a vicious black-gloved killer and winning back the affections of a former lover. Meanwhile, pretentious yuppies are murdered in moderately grotesque ways.
Although this languid and, by exploitation standards, tame giallo never gets going as a gripping mystery, and doesn’t stand up when compared to the genre classics, it is well worth watching for its aesthetic value alone. Looking back over my notebook, I see the words “shots of resonance and inspiration,” “beautiful,” and “marvelous” peppered on the page, but hardly a mention of plot points or character motivations. A shame, I suppose, that the story should have such little impact. But as is the case with many gialli, a disposable narrative hardly means a valueless film. What matters are the odd camera angles, the rich colors, the enduring set pieces. And whether it’s Franco Nero brooding over a drink and a typewriter in the middle of the night; or the killer chasing a child down an impossibly narrow hallway, the lighting perfectly framing his gloved hands and obscuring his face, The Fifth Cord has more than it’s share of scenes to savor.
by Thomas Scalzo | Source: Blue Underground DVD
10 Apr 2008 8:40 PM | Submit Comment
Versatile director León Klimovksy has a go at the Dracula legend, employing a Hammer-esque atmosphere of gothic castles, mist-enshrouded cemeteries, and fearful villagers, and an intriguing plot that draws inspiration from the likes of Brides of Dracula, Rosemary's Baby, and even the great Dracula's Daughter.
The narrative begins with a variation on a well-worn Dracula scene: a young woman named Berta and her husband Hans traveling by coach through a rustic and foreboding landscape, the unsettling surroundings disturbing the horses. Soon enough, however, Emilio Martínez’s script gets interesting: for not only is Berta pregnant, she is carrying the potential heir to the Dracula line, and the enfeebled count has placed all his hopes of sanguinary immortality with his granddaughter. Somehow Berta managed to live her entire life as a Dracula without realizing the implications of the name, and is understandably discomfited to discover that her beloved grandpa is both undead and obsessed with passing on his hideous legacy to her unborn son.
As is the case with much of Klimovsky's work, the promising story here never quite coalesces into a completely satisfying film. The vampire attacks are generally uninspired, and the fascinating psychological implications of a daughter of Dracula compelled, more or less against her will, to succumb to the destiny of her ancestors is only hinted at. Yet Klimovsky and Martínez must be commended for even attempting to take the tale of the fabled count in a new direction, especially in light of Hammer's own Dracula effort of the day (the generally loathed, though not entirely worthless, Dracula A.D. 1972 ). And despite the film's shortcomings, it does offer a solid horror atmosphere, and several memorable set pieces, in particular the unexpected, and terrifying, appearance of the one-eyed mutant Valerio in all his webbed-fingered glory; and there are few moments in Dracula cinema as gritty and disturbing as the chilling climax featuring a dead-eyed Berta seeking vengeance on her accursed family…with an axe.
by Thomas Scalzo | Source: BCI Eclipse DVD
09 Apr 2008 8:51 PM | Submit Comment
Kind of a transitional episode, in which Franz gives up peddling propaganda for selling shoelaces and eventually realizes that going straight is not in the cards. The tone of this chapter is closer to camp, it seems to me, than the first two were: Fassbinder loves playing up his characters’ Germanness, as when Biberkopf swills a stein of beer, or a flophouse landlady reminisces about “the old days”; and Peer Raben’s wistful harmonica theme is getting steadily louder in the mix, becoming more and more cloying and intrusive. At the same time, the texture of the frames is getting denser, the primary images often obscured by flowers or reflected in omnipresent mirrors. This suggests that Franz’s burgerlich existence is becoming oppressive and untenable, in a reversal of the general trajectory of Chapter One. Whether this is leading up to a rising action of some kind, or still more psychological yoyoing, remains to be seen.
by Evan Kindley | Source: New Yorker DVD
08 Apr 2008 11:11 PM | Submit Comment
Second-tier Mel Brooks offering opens with Dr. Thorndyke, a man with a terrible fear of heights (High Anxiety, get it?), flying west to assume command of the prestigious Institute for the Very, Very, Nervous. Tragically, the clinic’s previous chief met with an untimely demise, and there are some, including driver-lackey-amateur photog Brophy, who think that the Doc’s death was no accident, and that Thorndyke may be next.
Structured around loving homages to several Hitchcock classics, particularly Spellbound, and Vertigo, High Anxiety, like all Brooks, offers hilariously high comedy (Harvey Korman’s patient-terrifying werewolf impersonations) muddled with repetitive and banal humor (Brophy’s endless insistence that he’s “got it”), with several scenes in between that I’m not quite sure what to make of (Is Brook’s crooner rendition of “High Anxiety” a funny tune about a fear of heights, or forgettable time-filler?).
But also like all Brooks, with time, and repeat viewings, comes an appreciation of the comedic genius at work. Somehow the man’s films grow on you, and each successive screening is more enjoyable than the last. It’s as if once the inane plot out of the way, you’re free to focus on all the little things happening in the background, the sly touches that make the films, and the man, pure magic. For who but Brooks could stage a parody of The Birds, with defecating pigeons in place of murderous crows, or mock the infamous Psycho shower scene with a disgruntled hotel employee and a newspaper?
by Thomas Scalzo | Source: Twentieth Century Fox DVD
04 Apr 2008 12:13 AM | Submit Comment
Richard Lester reteams with the Beatles for this fairly slapdash follow-up to A Hard Day’s Night. It’s mostly failed by its totally perfunctory screenplay, which not surprisingly consists of a few loosely connected scenes in which the Fab Four pretends to look enthusiastic about being in a film. Ringo is the only Beatle looking remotely game, which is probably why the film is essentially about him and his travails with a certain ring belonging to a non-specifically racist sacrificial cult from the Bahamas, led by Leo McKern for some reason. Virtually everyone else looks uncomfortably high and behaves accordingly: George remains quiet, John makes snide remarks, and Paul looks cute. Ringo seems to have been the only Beatle who could be both high and charming on camera, which likely explains why he was the only Beatle with a subsequent acting career of any note (The Magic Christian, Caveman, Son of Dracula, Shining Time Station, etc.). (George’s HandMade Films, on the other hand, made perhaps the more lasting contribution to cinema on the other side of the camera.)
All of this is nonetheless to say that this is a great Beatles film, with some truly groundbreaking and stunningly filmed ur-music videos that more than make up for the laziness everywhere else in the film. And it should be said that this is a great and often overlooked period for the Beatles’ music, too, coming just before the Shea Stadium concert, Rubber Soul, the “Jesus” comment, and representing (along with Beatles for Sale) their best pure-pop songwriting. Harrison’s “I Need You” is a stand-out, as is Lennon’s “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” which the band performs in their totally awesome mod quadruplex.
The official Beatles website has a really fancy Help! mini-site which everyone should check out immediately.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Capitol DVD
02 Apr 2008 4:44 PM | Comments (2)
The future, as envisioned by Italians in 1982: The Bronx has fallen into the hands of rival gangs, and the powers that be have declared it a no man’s land, with all civil and municipal operations terminated. With complete autonomy over the territory, the gangs are free to form allegiances, or destroy each other. It is this latter possibility that the Manhattan fat cats are hoping for, doing what they can to sew the seeds of mistrust among the Bronx gang elite.
Complicating matters is Ann, heir to the presidency of the Manhattan Corporation (largest arms supply dealer in the world), who wants nothing to do with such a bloodthirsty and ruthless company, and decides her chances are better in the Bronx. As Hammer, a bounty hunter hired by Ann’s father, attempts to extricate the girl, Ann begs assistance from young Trash, leader of The Riders, and encourages Trash and The Ogre to form an alliance to better defend their turf.
As is the case with many an Italian bleak-future production, the filmmakers here are much more interested in showing off their impressive pyrotechnics and love of impalings rather than offering a coherent story. And though the numerous explosions are terrific, and the body count is acceptably high, stitching together all the loose ends into something resembling a coherent plot is quite a challenge. For instance, who is Hot Dog, and why is he willing to sell out the Riders to Hammer? And is Ice really content to share power with the Zombies once Trash and Ogre are out of the way? I have yet to conceive adequate answers to these burning questions. Thankfully the high inane-entertainment value here (and the presence of Vic Morrow, Fred Williamson, and George Eastman) merits a rewatching.
by Thomas Scalzo | Source: Media Home Entertainment VHS
01 Apr 2008 6:22 PM | Submit Comment