TIFF ’02: Love Liza

Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Germany, TIFF
***½/****starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Jack Kehler, Sarah Koskoffscreenplay by Gordy Hoffmandirected by Todd Louiso by Bill Chambers Love Liza is a potent movie about compulsive behaviour I'm growing fonder of by the hour; the film rises above some hoary tropes to become almost peerlessly unsettling. As a new widower who can't bring himself to read his wife's suicide note, Philip Seymour Hoffman once again dissolves before our eyes into a sweaty, ticcy mess stuck between sleep and awake. But here, without the reprieves you get from his strange behaviour in the ensemble pieces the actor seems to favour (Boogie…

TIFF ’02: The Good Thief

Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Crime, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Ireland, Romance, Thriller, TIFF, UK
***/****starring Nick Nolte, Tcheky Karyo, Said Taghmaoui, Nutsa Kukhianidzewritten and directed by Neil Jordan by Bill Chambers A loose remake of Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le Flambeur (director Neil Jordan seems to have cast Tcheky Karyo for the way "Bob le flambeur" rolls off his tongue), The Good Thief is a minor-ish work from Jordan that benefits mightily, as most movies would, from Chris Menges's cinematography. Nolte inherits Roger Duchesne's role as Bob Montagne, an expert gambler and larcenist who in this film is hooked on heroin out of what appears to be sheer boredom. (A hilarious scene finds him stumbling…

TIFF ’02: Ararat

Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Directors: Atom Egoyan, Drama, Film Festivals, TIFF, War
**/****starring David Alpay, Charles Aznavour, Eric Bogosian, Brent Carverwritten and directed by Atom Egoyan by Bill Chambers Shuffling the picture's sequences like a deck of cards, Atom Egoyan's signature postmodernism smacks of a diversionary tactic this time in Ararat. A film about the Armenian Genocide was Egoyan's dream project, yet he maintains an intellectual distance throughout, transparently terrified of the ostensible subject matter. Drawing from his well-stocked stable of actors while tossing a few fresh faces into the mix, Egoyan casts wife Arsinée Khanjian as an art history critic named Ani, newcomer David Alpay as her son, Raffi, bombshell Marie-Josée…

TIFF ’02: Standing in the Shadows of Motown

Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Documentary, Film Festivals, Music, TIFF
*½/****directed by Paul Justman by Bill Chambers They had more number-one hits than Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys combined. They were...The Funk Brothers? That reversal of expectations, which occurs in the opening voice-over of Paul Justman's Standing in the Shadows of Motown, is one of the few clever touches that actually works in this documentary about the rotating panel of studio musicians who helped turn Berry Gordy's Detroit record company into a hit factory. In the film's first reel, producer/drummer Steve Jordan offers that it wouldn't matter if "Deputy Dog" had sung the songs…

TIFF ’02 Raising Victor Vargas

Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Coming of Age, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Romance, Teen, TIFF
***½/****starring Victor Rasuk, Judy Marte, Melonie Diaz, Altagracia Guzmanwritten and directed by Peter Sollett by Bill Chambers The remarkable Raising Victor Vargas (formerly Long Way Home) stars soon-to-be somebody Victor Rasuk as the titular Victor, a 17-year-old raising the ire of his strict abuela (Altagracia Guzman) during the long, hot New York summer by virtue of having outgrown her idle threats. As the film opens, Victor asks out the beautiful Judy (Judy Marte) at a public pool in a pre-emptive bid to salvage his reputation for getting it on with a neighbourhood lass nicknamed "Fat Donna." When Judy shoots him…

TIFF ’02: 8 Femmes

Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Crime, Esoterica, Film Festivals, France, Italy, Musical, Romance, TIFF
8 Women***/****starring Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béartscreenplay by François Ozon, Marina de Van, based on the play by Robert Thomasdirected by François Ozon by Bill Chambers Almost every French actress I can rhyme off without help from the audience is in the cast of François Ozon's 8 Femmes, a delightfully odd murder mystery with song-and-dance interludes. (Imagine if John Waters had directed Clue.) The film takes place during Christmastime in 1950s France at a country manor where various women have gathered to celebrate the holidays with Marcel, the only significant man in any of their lives. But…

TIFF ’02: L’Idole

Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Germany, Japan, Romance, TIFF
The Idol**½/****starring Leelee Sobieski, James Hong, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Jalil Lespertscreenplay by Gérard Brach, Samantha Lang, based on the novel À l'heure dite by Michelle Tourneurdirected by Samantha Lang by Bill Chambers I'm largely indifferent to L' Idole, a Gallic production directed by an Australian and co-starring two Americans of different ethnicities who admirably perform their parts in French. Leelee Sobieski's task is made more difficult by the role's requirement of her to deliver foreign-language dialogue in a tertiary accent, as the native New Yorker plays an Australian touring France with a theatre company. (I'm not enough of a linguist to…

Frailty (2002) – DVD

Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, Germany, Thriller

***½/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B+
starring Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Matthew O’Leary
screenplay by Brent Hanley
directed by Bill Paxton

by Walter Chaw Dad (Bill Paxton) gets lists of demons from God. He has also provided Dad with three weapons with which to dispatch said demons: a pair of work gloves, a length of pipe, and an axe named “Otis.” Oldest boy Fenton (Matthew O’Leary) and his little brother Adam (Jeremy Sumpter) are left to decide whether Dad is indeed touched by divine hand or just another redneck serial killer in a white van.

High Crimes (2002) – DVD

Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Thriller

½/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman, James Caviezel, Adam Scott
screenplay by Yuri Zeltser & Cary Bickley, based on the novel by Joseph Finder
directed by Carl Franklin

by Walter Chaw Its title too easy a condemnation of the film itself, the otherwise-talented Carl Franklin’s High Crimes is a sickly, by-the-numbers member of a proud lineage of films that includes such abortive boondoggles as The Presidio, A Few Good Men, The General’s Daughter, True Crime, and eventually What Lies Beneath. It begs the question of whether Morgan Freeman, unquestionably the American actor with the most commanding presence and charisma, will ever get a film that’s truly worthy of him–and whether professional punching-bag Ashley Judd will meekly get the stuffing knocked out of her in the upcoming Catwoman as well. It confirms that Jim Caviezel should consider either a cup of coffee or a different career, that Amanda Peet was probably born sucking on a lollipop and wearing Daisy Dukes, and that after having seen some variation on High Crimes for the umpteenth uncountable time, I have grown, unquestionably, very weary of it.

Return to Never Land (2002) – DVD

Posted in2000s, Adventure, Animation, Australia, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Disney, DVD, Family

*/**** Image A Sound A Extras C+
screenplay by Temple Mathews and Carter Crocker
directed by Robin Budd, Donovan Cook

by Bill Chambers I can only assume that Disney buried Peter Pan in Stephen King’s pet sematary, for resurrected in the misbegotten Return to Never Land is one sour Fairy King. In the original Peter Pan, the title character lost his shadow; in the sequel, Peter is all shadow, a fascist dictator separated from the malicious Captain Hook by a single distinguishing feature: the hook. Return to Never Land pits the two in conflict once more, this time over the stolen treasure of Captain Hook, which Peter has stowed away for a rainy day. The movie gives no indication as to how Hook acquired the chest full of gold in the first place, thus our introduction to Peter is as a thief. And by the end of the picture, that’s the kindest thing I could think to call him.

Wild in the Country (1961) + The Razor’s Edge (1984) – DVDs

Posted in1960s, 1980s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Drama, DVD, Romance, UK, War

WILD IN THE COUNTRY
***/**** Image A- Sound B+
starring Elvis Presley, Hope Lange, Tuesday Weld, Millie Perkins
screenplay by Clifford Odets, based on the novel by J.R. Salamanca
directed by Philip Dunne

THE RAZOR’S EDGE
***/**** Image B- Sound B-
starring Bill Murray, Theresa Russell, Catherine Hicks, Denholm Elliot
screenplay by John Byrum & Bill Murray, based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham
directed by John Byrum

by Bill Chambers It occurs to me that many of the most ungainly movies about love–and in the end, most movies are (about love, that is)–have gotten it right for their very awkwardness as cinematic constructs. This week, in the August funk that used to correspond with the encroaching schoolyear but is now some vague collegiate-nostalgia trip, I shook the salt of Wild in the Country, The Razor’s Edge, Pretty in Pink, and Some Kind of Wonderful (the latter two to be covered in a separate piece) on my reopened wounds and came away impressed not by the art of these films, but by their emotional complexity. What you see in all four of these pictures that you perhaps don’t often enough is that money tends to govern attraction.

We Were Soldiers (2002) – DVD

Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, France, Germany, War

***/**** Image A- Sound A+ Extras B
starring Mel Gibson, Madeleine Stowe, Sam Elliott, Greg Kinnear
screenplay by Randall Wallace, based on the memoir We Were Soldiers Once…and Young : Ia Drang–The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam by Harold G. Moore, Joseph L. Galloway
directed by Randall Wallace

by Walter Chaw We Were Soldiers is a rousing war epic presented as the world’s most gruesome underdog sports intrigue, its carnage–fuelled by a brilliant attention to the decisions made in the heat of battle by a genius-level military mind–at once exploitive and orgasmic in its cathartic effectiveness. Concerning the bloodiest confrontation between the United States and North Vietnam, which took place in the infancy (November 14, 1965) of the doomed police action at LZ X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley, the memoir of the battle We Were Soldiers Once…and Young (by battlefield commander Lt. Col. Hal Moore with war journalist Joseph Galloway) finds its way to the screen with Mel Gibson as Moore and his Braveheart scribe Randall Wallace at the typewriter and behind the camera.

Reservoir Dogs (1992) [Ten Years – Special Edition] – DVD

Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, Directors: Quentin Tarantino, Drama, DVD, Thriller

***½/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras A+
starring Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi
written and directed by Quentin Tarantino

by Bill Chambers

"They were perfect strangers, assembled to pull off the perfect crime. Then their simple robbery explodes into a bloody ambush, and the ruthless killers realize one of them is a police informer. But which one?"
–DVD liner summary for Reservoir Dogs

I came around to being a fan of Reservoir Dogs after Quentin Tarantino's standing had crested and the backlash was kicking in. It's impossible for me to see now why I didn't take to it initially–solid flick, as they say. Stylish, knowing, but not necessarily pretentious. Well-performed. And moving, in its macho way: Let us not forget that Reservoir Dogs ends in tears and an embrace.

The Business of Strangers (2001) – DVD

Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, DVD, Film Festivals, Thriller

***/**** Image A- Sound A-
starring Stockard Channing, Julia Stiles, Frederick Weller
written and directed by Patrick Stettner

by Walter Chaw Julie (Stockard Channing) is a hardened businesswoman on a lecture trip who becomes certain that her last day on the job draws nigh. When young Paula (Julia Stiles) arrives to a presentation late, Julie unleashes all her fears and frustrations on the hapless girl. Written with an ear for dialogue and a wicked edge, Julie’s enthusiastic upbraiding of Paula sets the stage for three elements that drive The Business of Strangers to its conclusion. The first is the discomfort arising from Julie and Paula being stuck in the same hotel overnight due to grounded flights, the second is a possible explanation of the antagonism between the pair that culminates in a disturbingly open-ended finale, and the final is the idea that in Stettner’s interpersonal corporate nightmare, fear is the mechanism that catalyzes the characters towards generosity, friendship, and cruelty.

Wolfen (1981) – DVD

Posted in1980s, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Horror, Thriller, Werewolf

**½/**** Image A- Sound B-
starring Albert Finney, Diane Venora, Gregory Hines, Tom Noonan
screenplay by David Eyre and Michael Wadleigh, based on the novel by Whitley Strieber
directed by Michael Wadleigh

by Bill Chambers Wolfen goes through the paces of a typical detective thriller, but it’s far from conventional. I crave to understand this picture’s somewhat literal bleeding heart better and thought the DVD would be of more assistance–unfortunately, the advertised commentary track with actors Gregory Hines and Edward James Olmos and director/co-writer Michael Wadleigh is AWOL. My mother calls Wolfen “a werewolf movie from the werewolf’s point of view,” and that’s not a bad take on it, since the homicidal title creatures are in essence the good guys of the piece. Certainly, the film’s preponderance of “wolf P.O.V.” shots make it less than figuratively so.

The Sweetest Thing (2002) [Unrated] – DVD

Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Romance, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image B+ Sound B Extras B-
starring Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, Thomas Jane, Selma Blair
screenplay by Nancy M. Pimental
directed by Roger Kumble

by Walter Chaw Roger Kumble’s The Sweetest Thing presents a good news/bad news situation. On the one hand, it’s barely eighty minutes long–on the other, for those eighty minutes it’s repugnant beyond words. On the one hand, the worst film of 2002 has already appeared with eight months to go, and on the other, I not only had to watch the benighted thing, I am now required by my vocation to relive it in detail. I am forced, for instance, to remember a scene in which the only Jewish Laundromat owner in all of San Francisco’s Chinatown tastes a semen stain to determine that it’s such; to recall the moment where a woman with a penis stuck in her throat mumbles Aerosmith‘s “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” to clear her air passage. Yes, The Sweetest Thing is crass and moronic, this much goes without saying (that Cameron Diaz plays another emetic simpleton is also not much of a surprise). What is a shock is that Parker Posey cameos late in the game and even she’s not funny. If it takes a brilliant director to make a bad actor look good, the corollary holds, too.

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) – DVD

Posted in1970s, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller, UK, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image B Sound B
starring Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Kitty Winn
screenplay by William Goodhart
directed by John Boorman

by Bill Chambers Possibly the worst film ever made and surely the worst sequel ever made, Exorcist II: The Heretic is the last of an uneven trilogy to hit DVD. Understand that while I would only recommend a purchase to my arch-enemy, the picture is definitely worth seeking out in the way that one likes to see the Leaning Tower of Piza or Easter Island before leaving this world–it’s the greatest unnatural wonder known to cinema. I’ve now endured it twice (please send my Medal of Honor for self-sacrifice in the line of duty in care of this website), the second time so that I could compile a list of my favourite bits; apologies in advance if this review reads too dada for its own good.

Speed (1994) [Five Star Collection] – DVD

Posted in1990s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Thriller

***/**** Image A Sound A Extras A-
starring Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper, Jeff Daniels
screenplay by Graham Yost
directed by Jan de Bont

by Bill Chambers At the risk of calling it generic, Speed is such a perfect title for the film to which it belongs that you’re almost reminded of those unornamented yellow boxes dotting the aisles of grocery stores everywhere–the ones labelled simply “SALT,” “FLOUR,” “BRAN FLAKES”…you get the picture. Though “Speed” gives it permission to be about anything, the film, to its credit, actually practices velocity and momentum. It puts the action movies that preceded it on fast-forward, so that in each sequence is packed the sum thrills of a Jean-Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal joint. It’s one of the few films in which propulsion forgives stupidity because it makes the point-blank claim of being an amphetamine.

Innerspace (1987) – DVD

Posted in1980s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, DVD, Sci-Fi, Spielberg, Thriller

**½/**** Image A- Sound A- Commentary B+
starring Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, Meg Ryan, Kevin McCarthy
screenplay by Jeffrey Boam and Chip Proser
directed by Joe Dante

by Bill Chambers Fifties monster movies and grindhouse sludge bookended Joe Dante’s coming-of-age, and these twin species of B cinema–sisters in spirit if not in execution–often squish up against each other in his work as a director. The man who gave us the loving but danger-filled tribute to showman William Castle and Castle’s acolytes Matinee (a better Cuban Missile crisis picture, he said ducking tomatoes, than Thirteen Days) preceded his tenure with neo-Castle Roger Corman (for whom he made Piranha) by covering every last exploitation picture of the early-Seventies for THE FILM BULLETIN.

Joe Somebody (2001) – DVD

Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras B-
starring Tim Allen, Julie Bowen, Kelly Lynch, Greg Germann
screenplay by John Scott Shepherd
directed by John Pasquin

by Walter Chaw There is no life to Joe Somebody; it is a rotting, derelict husk of a film that drifts anchorless in a sea of dead jokes and plot detritus. It has no excuse for existing, and should be held up as the prime example whenever conversation turns to what’s wrong with our culture in general and the movies in particular. Joe Somebody is so sloppily put together that when it comes time at last to end this cinematic thumbscrew, its moments of uplift make little, if any, sense because of the lack of care taken to establish a place for them. If you have a moment to which the entire film is supposedly building, I humbly offer that it’s probably not good when that epiphany appears with neither warning nor justification. It’s like having a story that is not otherwise about a playwright wrapping up with a playwright having her first play produced. Exactly like that, in fact.