Seabiscuit (2003) [Widescreen] – DVD

December 9, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Sports

*/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras B-
starring Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper, Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Banks
screenplay by Gary Ross, based on the book by Laura Hillenbrand
directed by Gary Ross

by Walter Chaw In a summer redolent with superhero melodramas, Seabiscuit, a Golden Age bodice-twister about a plucky boy and his intrepid horse populated with a cast of good-looking cut-outs to fill out the good-looking backgrounds, isn't even the most interesting. All of it feels a little airless–a carefully-manipulated arrangement composed entirely of meticulously-preserved flowers that give the illusion of vitality when in truth, they're taken out of time and well past their prime. Seabiscuit could have been made in the 1940s–and it was, really, as My Friend Flicka: two untamed spirits tamed by one another while various authority figures wisely cheer them on. Like that film, writer-director Gary Ross's adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand's excellent non-fiction washes out as something creepily nostalgic, weightless, and unintentionally disturbing. There's something poetic about a scene in the middle of Seabiscuit when Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges, always good) leaves in the middle of a bloody bullfight when taken with a line later in the film when plucky boy jockey Red (Tobey Maguire) warns his replacement not to beat Seabiscuit on his left flank because "that's where he was beaten when he was young." Beat him on the right side, is the implication, and decades of conditioning from other films (particularly Disney's anthropomorphic films) have made driving animals to the brink of exhaustion and death at the end of whip a little hard to take with a blithe indifference.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) [Widescreen] – DVD

November 26, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Superhero, Vampire, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B+
starring Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Peta Wilson, Tony Curran
screenplay by James Dale Robinson, based on the comic books by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill
directed by Stephen Norrington

Leagueofexcapby Walter Chaw Though I'm a fan of Alan Moore, it's pointless to address the myriad departures made by the cinematic adaptation of his graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen–doing so would not only take too much time, but also miss the point entirely. Stephen Norrington's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen isn't appallingly bad only because it departs completely from its source material, but rather because it's a work of extreme cynicism and incompetence on every appreciable level, too. Five minutes into the film, a steam-powered tank has already stormed its way into a London bank (demonstrating a technical superiority for the bad guys that instantly invalidates the main conflict of the film) and a German zeppelin factory has gone the way of the Hindenberg–both scenes marked carefully by unhelpful title cards (London 1899; Germany 1899) that become something of an unintentional running joke, the only vaguely amusing thing to follow in what amounts to one of the most painful experiences to be had this year short of dental surgery, an Andrew Lloyd Weber revival-in-the-round, or getting stabbed in the eye with a knitting needle.

Bruce Almighty (2003) [Widescreen] – DVD

November 25, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Fantasy

½*/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras B-
starring Jim Carrey, Jennifer Aniston, Morgan Freeman, Lisa Ann Walter
screenplay by Steve Koren & Mark O'Keefe and Steve Oedekerk
directed by Tom Shadyac

by Walter Chaw There's something blissfully broken about the state of our self-esteem when first The Emperor's Club and now Bruce Almighty come shambling onto the silver screen wearing candy-coloured clothes while stumping subversive messages apropos to never being able to overcome one's shortcomings. And there's something blissfully broken about popular Christianity when within two weeks comes a high profile film about a wooden surfer unifier of nature and machine (Blake's Old and New Testament in The Matrix Reloaded) and this malignant high profile stillbirth, which answers Job's question with, "Let's see if you can do any better"–the one a politically-correct gloss on Christianity as survey movie spirituality, the other a politically-correct–and facile–view of the Christian walk with an entirely unredeemable (and unredeemed) protagonist who plays into our current theocratic leadership's belief that the imitation of Christ includes vengeance and greed.

X2: X-Men United (2003) [Widescreen] – DVD

November 23, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Sci-Fi, Superhero, Thriller

X2
**½/**** Image A Sound A+ Extras A-
starring Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry
screenplay by Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris
directed by Bryan Singer

X2dvdcap

by Walter Chaw Where the first film opened with a Holocaust backstory, the second instalment begins in the White House with a quote from Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address and a cool doubling of Aaron Shikler's pensive portrait of John F. Kennedy. X-Men is setting itself up as a high-minded comic book franchise, one unusually committed to relating its empowerment panel soap-opera with solid performances, decent scripting, and direction from a filmmaker, Bryan Singer, interested in the sanctity of narrative. The problems with X2's (a.k.a. X-Men 2 and X2: X-Men United) premise and its wrangling of so large an ensemble are fairly obvious: there are no real limits placed on the powers of the "X-Men" mutants and there is little time afforded to the proper establishment of relational conflict.

Escape from New York (1981) [Special Edition – DVD Collector’s Set] – DVD

November 23, 2003Posted in1980s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Directors: John Carpenter, DVD, Sci-Fi

John Carpenter’s Escape from New York
***½/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras B+
starring Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence
screenplay by John Carpenter & Nick Castle
directed by John Carpenter

by Bill Chambers Is there a person alive who can hear the opening theme from John Carpenter’s Escape from New York and resist the urge to tap the keys of an invisible synthesizer? Composed by the director himself (who knows how to write memorable bad music, as much an asset as the ability to write good music), the Mike Post-in-spurs riff is a fitting anthem for The Apocalypse, as well as a textbook example of how to draw, nay, ease the audience into a film that will feel the whole time like you’re staring through a filter at other films, chiefly those belonging to the western, vigilante, and zombie genres. The gift for acclimatizing an audience to his idiosyncratic vision through a simple, melodic overture is one that Carpenter shares with idol Sergio Leone; another is an affinity for the ‘scope aspect ratio, although he steers clear of the extreme close-up (Leone’s signature), probably half out of plagiarism-worry and half because he’s not a sensualist. Carpenter barely even bothered to exploit cheesecake-ready Adrienne Barbeau the two times he directed her–even if she was his wife back then, that takes indifference. I think that men love John Carpenter movies, especially his early shoot-’em-ups, because Carpenter’s action figures are so chaste as to evoke the sexless joy of boyhood roughhousing.

The Santa Clause 2 (2002) [Widescreen] – DVD

November 18, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Christmas, Comedy, Disney, DVD, Family, Fantasy, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image A Sound A- Extras D+
starring Tim Allen, Elizabeth Mitchell, Eric Lloyd, David Krumholtz
screenplay by Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul and Steve Rudnick and Ed Decter & John J. Strauss
directed by Michael Lembeck

by Walter Chaw There is a scene about midway through Tim Allen's latest genuinely bad movie in which Allen and his screen family gather for dinner wielding McDonald's food in perfect bags, held in such a way so as not to obscure the golden arches for the duration of the shot. A 90-second commercial embedded in what passes for entertainment too often nowadays, it's driven home by the disconcerting realization that this picture's animatronic reindeer talk like The Hamburglar. (Warble blarble warble.) In addition to being misogynistic, racist, and apparently trying to plumb the humour of fascist regimes, The Santa Clause 2, then, is also home to one of the most sinister marketing ploys since Pokémon.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) [Special Collector’s Edition] – DVD

November 10, 2003Posted in****/****, 1960s, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Italy, Western

****/**** Image A Sound A- Extras A-
starring Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson
screenplay by Sergio Donati and Sergio Leone and Mickey Knox
directed by Sergio Leone

Mustownby Bill Chambers Ennio Morricone's score for Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West is responsive and we're conditioned to expect dictatorial. For the first time in the enduring Morricone-Leone collaboration, a kind of pantomime pervades the music, with notes and actions so closely coordinated that the Charles Bronson character's theme becomes diegetic: Every time Bronson, called Harmonica because the instrument is practically his first language, blows into his harp, the resulting noise is incongruously omnipresent. (It seems to come from everywhere but his instrument.) The film has been likened–and regarded as a precursor–to rock videos for how inextricable its sound and image are, a by-product of Leone playing Morricone's ready-made compositions on set. Leone later applied this pre-synch technique to Once Upon a Time in America, but there, it was used more as a mood-enhancer than as a cue card.

Hulk (2003) [2-Disc Special Edition] – DVD

November 8, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Sci-Fi, Superhero

**/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B-
starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott, Josh Lucas
screenplay by John Turman and Michael France and James Schamus, based on the Marvel comic
directed by Ang Lee

Hulkcapby Walter Chaw The first in a troika of films to focus on rage as the catalyst for physiological change (the others being Danny Boyle's brilliant 28 Days Later… and Stephen Norrington's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which counts Mr. Hyde among its gentlemen) this past summer, Ang Lee's Hulk is a plodding dirge about the sins of the fathers that struggles mightily between the requirement to awe and the desire to mean something. Its story of repressed memories of abuse and reconciliation amounts to not-much when the tortured protagonist seems supremely capable of suppressing his rage, only losing control when jolted with a cattle prod or when his girlfriend is menaced by a trio of mutant hounds. An oh-so-subtle suggestion–embedded in a dream within a flashback–that emotionally distant Bruce Banner (Eric Bana in full zombie mode) may have abused his ex-girlfriend Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly) speaks to a canny chronicler of dysfunction in Lee (The Ice Storm) struggling with the demands of a film with a ridiculous budget and a level of expectation in the same stratosphere. When Betty nonsensically offers, "It must be a combination of the nanomeds and the gamma radiation," Bruce responds: "No, it's something deeper." Alas, it's not.

Finding Nemo (2003) [2-Disc Collector’s Edition] – DVD

November 3, 2003Posted in****/****, 2000s, Adventure, Animation, Australia, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Disability, DVD, Family, FFC Must-Own, Pixar

****/**** Image A+ Sound A+ Extras A-
screenplay by Andrew Stanton & Bob Peterson & David Reynolds
directed by Andrew Stanton

Findingnemohirescap

Mustownby Walter Chaw The perfect American parable for an anxious new millennium, Andrew Stanton's Finding Nemo is riddled with nightmares and weighted by the existential smallness of its heroic pair, finding a certain immutable gravity in the fear and hope represented by children, rekindled, both, by the spate of child-on-child violence ending our last thousand years. Following hot on horror films that, like the horror films of the late-'60s/early-'70s, focus on unapologetically evil children (then: Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary's Baby, Don't Look Now, The Exorcist, now: The Ring, Identity, Soft for Digging), what Finding Nemo does is present generational paranoia from a parent's point of view, opening as it does with an act of senseless, heartbreaking violence in the middle of an idyllic suburbia. It's not the horror (at this point) of a child facing social ostracism in the school environment, but the horror of making a choice to escape a bad environment only to find oneself in the middle of an upper middle-class tinder pile about to light.

The House That Dripped Blood (1972) – DVD

October 31, 2003Posted in1970s, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Mystery

**½/**** Image B Sound B Extras D+
starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Nyree Dawn Porter, Denholm Elliot
screenplay by Robert Bloch
directed by Peter Duffell

by Bill Chambers Anthology films are by their very nature self-defeating–especially, it seems, when the individual stories are linked by a framing device rather than by a thematic spine. (The majority of Hammer also-ran Amicus' output vs. Pulp Fiction, for example.) As the Amicus production The House That Dripped Blood draws to a close, you can't contain the urge to crown a favourite chapter; the rest of the picture becomes a useless husk. Based on the works of Psycho author Robert Bloch, The House That Dripped Blood stars genre stalwarts Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, John Pertwee, and still others (including an unrecognizably young Joss "Diplomatic Immunity!" Ackland) in separate tales all set inside a gothic manse that, we determine from interstitial vignettes, is unloaded on some steel-nerved rich dude roughly once a week by shifty real estate agent A.J. Stoker (John Bryans).

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) [2-Disc Widescreen Edition] – DVD

October 29, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Germany, Schwarzenegger, Sci-Fi, UK

**½/**** Image A- Sound A+ Extras B
starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes, Kristanna Loken
screenplay by John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris
directed by Jonathan Mostow

by Walter Chaw Where the first film banked on romantic melancholy, and the second on a literalization of both techno-paranoia and the Oedipal split, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (hereafter T3)–the first in the Terminator trilogy to be directed by someone other than James Cameron (U-571‘s Jonathan Mostow)–is essentially a mega-budgeted slasher flick rematted as a hero mythology, but without the sociological significance of the genre. What T3 is, at its core, is a post-modern picture with a few agreeable moments of self-knowing humour that devolve into a self-worshipping reverence. With Arnold Schwarzenegger threatening to jettison his foundering movie career (something of a disaster since the last Terminator film) to pursue a terrifying career in politics, the picture plays like an Academy highlight reel, with Arnie delivering three variations of his “I’ll be back” as well as a quick “I lied” for the dozen or so people who still remember Commando. T3 never gets more clever than that, really (though a moment where Arnie’s killer robot dons a pair of Elton John sunglasses is a classic image only missing a quick refrain of “The Bitch is Back”), and the picture resolves itself as derivative (I should say “slavishly, worshipfully derivative”) of the other films in the trilogy while adding a lot of loud “nothing new.”

To Live and Die in LA (1985) [Special Edition] – DVD

October 23, 2003Posted in1980s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, Directors: William Friedkin, Drama, DVD, Thriller

To Live and Die in L.A.
***/**** Image B Sound A- Extras A
starring William L. Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, Debra Feuer
screenplay by William Friedkin and Gerald Petievich, based on the novel by Petievich
directed by William Friedkin

by Bill Chambers William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. sprang from the director's mid-'80s preoccupation with music-video nihilism, and as such has peaks and valleys depending on the degree of montage a sequence calls for. The tin-ear that Friedkin contracted sometime after the Seventies, which drove him to fatally second-guess Paul Brickman's Swiftian screenplay for Deal of the Century, imbues many an exchange in To Live and Die in L.A. with authenticity (only real people flounder this much trying to sound hard-boiled), but the stylish visuals in turn butt heads with the dialogue, prompting us to wish for a slicker whole. The silliest repartee also throws the symbolic-to-the-point-of-corny names of central figures Chance (William L. Petersen) and Masters (Willem Dafoe) into tautological relief: Chance is a Secret Service agent who thrives on risk (fittingly, a found poker chip decides him in pursuit of the bad guy), while Masters, who's like Patrick Bateman without the civility, is a painter who has mastered the art of making funny-money, as is demonstrated for us in a breathtaking collection of how-to shots that single-handedly justifies Friedkin's dabble in the MTV aesthetic.

Willard (2003) [New Line Platinum Series] – DVD

October 22, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Drama, DVD, Horror, Thriller

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A+
starring Crispin Glover, Laura Elena Harring, Jackie Burroughs, R. Lee Ermey
screenplay by Glen Morgan, based on the screenplay by Gilbert Ralston and Ralston's novel Ratman's Notebook
directed by Glen Morgan

by Walter Chaw If you're going to remake an Ernest Borgnine movie from the Seventies, I'd rather see a redux of The Devil's Rain. But Willard it is; for the blissfully uninitiated, Willard concerns the travails of a lonesome weirdo who makes friends with a bunch of rats, Phenomena-style (Argento not Travolta, which brings us back to The Devil's Rain, curiously), and sends them on a crusade against an evil boss who wants to buy Willard's house. Bruce Davison as the original Willard has a nice moment in that film where he implores his rat-kinder to "tear it up" good, but the film is probably best remembered for the theme song of its sequel, Ben, penned by Michael Jackson v.0.2. The theme song, and Davison, have stupid cameos in the new Willard.

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) – DVD

October 17, 2003Posted in****/****, 1940s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Western

****/**** Image A Sound B+ Extras A-
starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Henry Morgan
screenplay by Lamar Trotti, based on the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
directed by William A. Wellman

by Bill Chambers William A. Wellman's 1943 film The Ox-Bow Incident is so brave and piercing that you can overlook its gawky title. That star Henry Fonda had a knack for picking westerns goes without saying, but The Ox-Bow Incident has more gothic qualities than do most oaters made prior to the dawn of Europe staking its genre claim: it's the scene in cowboy flicks where a bunch of guys cheer on an unceremonious hanging expanded to feature-length. The movie has such definitive–and perhaps, given the climate, urgent–things to say about mob mentality, the sour side of fraternity, that the Navy-enlisted Fonda deferred his tour of duty in order to appear in it. What makes this doubly noble is that, despite his lead billing, he's really not The Ox-Bow Incident's leading man. With a cast of dozens granted comparable screen time, no one is.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) – DVD|[Special Collector’s Edition] DVD

October 14, 2003Posted in1980s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Vincent Suarez, DVD, Sci-Fi, Star Trek, Thriller

**½/****
1999 DVD – Image B Sound A-
SCE DVD – Image A Sound A Extras A
starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, James Doohan, Laurence Luckinbill
screenplay by David Loughery
directed by William Shatner

by Vincent Suarez On the heels of the wildly successful (and equally overrated) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the Trek franchise seemed poised to become, of all things, a crossover phenomenon. That changed with the release of the financially disappointing and generally reviled (by critics and Trek fans alike) fifth installment, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, which nearly killed the film series. Wisely, Paramount and producer Harve Bennett asked Nicholas Meyer, director of the magnificent Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, to helm Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, putting the series back on warp drive.

Dawson’s Creek: The Series Finale (2003) – DVD

October 12, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Coming of Age, Drama, DVD, Teen, Television

**½/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras A-
starring James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, Michelle Williams, Joshua Jackson
screenplay by Kevin Williamson & Maggie Friedman
directed by James Whitmore, Jr. ("All Good Things…") and Greg Prange ("…Must Come to an End")

by Bill Chambers SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. When it first aired, I was fuming. But I've not only come to terms with the series finale of "Dawson's Creek", I've grown to appreciate it, too. What I realized on a second viewing (not as superfluous as you might think: the DVD that facilitated a reassessment restores 20 minutes of footage cut from the broadcast version) was that my own tenuous identification with the main character, a movie lover and amateur filmmaker prone to befriending unattainable hotties, was getting in the way of appreciating a perfectly laudable reversal of expectations. There's no sense beating around the bush: Joey (Katie Holmes) picked suave Pacey (Joshua Jackson). The first "Dawson's Creek" scripted by series creator Kevin Williamson since the second season's "…That Is the Question" (in tandem with which he announced he was stepping down as the show's Professor Marvel), the two-part capper–aired as a movie-of-the-week–leaves Dawson (James Van Der Beek) without a fallback girl, as Joey romantically rejects Dawson on the heels of the passing of her alternate: single-mother Jen (Michelle Williams), who dies from a rare heart condition.

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003) [Special Edition] – DVD

October 7, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD

*½/**** Image B Sound A- Extras A-
starring Reese Witherspoon, Sally Field, Bob Newhart, Luke Wilson
screenplay by Kate Kondell
directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld

by Walter Chaw Recognizing that there's nothing more patriotic than rampant materialism, cultural ignorance, fast fashion, a steadfast lack of imagination, and disturbing dog-love, Charles Herman-Wurmfeld's Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde is essentially a blow-by-blow remake of its predecessor with a different setting and more Chihuahua. It tackles animal rights and congressional corruption with the same seriousness as Versace vs. Gucci, hoping against hope that Reese Witherspoon's considerable charm will smooth over the clumsy grafts and inevitable tissue rejection of a film with speaking roles for Jennifer Coolidge, Bob Newhart, and Sally Field. Harvard Law is replaced by the Beltway Boys, factoids about perms are replaced by factoids about facials, and all of it boils down to the importance of sorority sisters–particularly ironic in a picture so horrified by the evils of intractable nepotism amongst insular societies.

Holes (2003) [Widescreen] – DVD

September 30, 2003Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Disney, Drama, DVD, Family, Mystery

**/**** Image A Sound A Extras B-
starring Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Patricia Arquette, Shia LaBeouf
screenplay by Louis Sachar, based on his novel
directed by Andrew Davis

by Walter Chaw A certain level of grotesquerie in a children's entertainment is essential, but at some point grotesquerie just becomes grotesque. Holes, adapted by Louis Sachar from his award-winning children's novel, is a cheerless little melodrama, dusty and marooned in the middle of nowhere with what is essentially a pint-sized version of the time-tripping buffoonery of The Hours. Its tale of destiny and stroking the sins of the fathers rattles along its rails like a rusted-out mine cart, going to where it's going with a lot of noise and broken-down drama but without anything like surprise.

28 Days Later (2002) [Widescreen Special Edition] – DVD

September 24, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller, UK, Zombie

28 Days Later…
**½/**** Image B Sound A- Extras A
starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Christopher Eccleston
screenplay by Alex Garland
directed by Danny Boyle

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover 28 Days Later… is a film that shoots for resonance but is too shortsighted to hit the target. Its tale of an England beset by rage-crazed zombies is clearly a metaphor for something–but what? Timing rules out certain international disasters (9/11 happened as the film was shooting), and a certain opacity of intent clouds the entire film, making you reach out for something that you're never sure is really there. There are compensatory pleasures (a general creepiness, one smashing performance), but the film lacks something beyond its grasp, leaving you with an adequate, reasonably entertaining picture, and nothing more.