The Great Muppet Caper (1981) – DVD

July 17, 2001Posted in1980s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Crime, DVD, Family, Muppets, Musical

***½/**** Image B Sound B-
starring Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo
screenplay by Tom Patchett & Jay Tarses and Jerry Juhl & Jack Rose
directed by Jim Henson

BUY @ AMAZON

by Bill Chambers Jim Henson said that The Great Muppet Caper was the Muppet movie nearest and dearest to his heart, and it’s little mystery why. For starters, it’s the only one of the original trilogy he officially directed. And it’s closer in execution to “The Muppet Show”, Henson’s surreal, Emmy-winning brainchild that ran on TV for five years, than either The Muppet Movie or The Muppets Take Manhattan in not only showcasing a wide variety of song styles and involving the human guest stars in the musical performances, but also framing itself as what it is: a movie. With tongue firmly in cheek, The Great Muppet Caper deconstructs itself all the while. The film taught me a lot about the cinema–conventions, techniques, genre–as a kid, for which I am grateful.

Two Family House (2000) + Panic (2001) – DVDs

June 30, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, Romance

TWO FAMILY HOUSE
***/**** Image A- Sound B+
starring Michael Rispoli, Kelly Macdonald, Katherine Narducci, Kevin Conway
written and directed by Raymond De Felitta

PANIC
***½/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras B
starring William H. Macy, Neve Campbell, Tracey Ullman, John Ritter
written and directed by Henry Bromell

by Bill Chambers Two Family House and Panic, a pair of overlooked films hopefully not destined to become overlooked DVDs, have more in common than a passing glance suggests, and their joint failure to earn even a pittance sounds the death knell for independent cinema as we knew it in the early-’90s. These days, only the import indies get a shot at the big time, which would be quite the statement on an improved national tolerance of foreign-language entertainment were such hits as Billy Elliot and Life is Beautiful not as warm and fuzzy as a Care Bear’s behind. The market’s unresponsiveness to the winsome New York story Two Family House, in particular, generates the following theory: American moviegoers now feel guilty for seeing The Mummy Returns twice instead of something less promoted once; they take the least painful route of cultural redemption by buying tickets to the most domestic thing with accents available, thus developing a distrust of or distaste for the genuine article.

The Pledge (2001) – DVD

June 23, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Crime, Drama, DVD, Jack Nicholson, Mystery, Thriller

***½/**** Image A- Sound A-
starring Jack Nicholson, Benicio Del Toro, Aaron Eckhart, Helen Mirren
screenplay by Jerzy Kromolowski & Mary Olson Kromolowski, based on the novel by Fredrich Durrenmatt
directed by Sean Penn

by Bill Chambers The Pledge implicates anyone and everyone, especially its viewers. There are critics who like to remain situated on a high horse looking down at the movies: that group loathed The Pledge, because it knocked the saddle out from under them. Their reviews are full of defensive posturing, refusing to deal with the film head-on, denouncing exploitation before deciding on whom or what is being exploited. It’s easy to call The Pledge “sick,” for instance, because of the moment where Jack Nicholson’s Jerry Black sifts through crime-scene photographs of slain children and, because the camera is over his shoulder, so do we.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) – DVD

June 11, 2001Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Coen Brothers, Comedy, Crime, DVD, France, Music, UK

**½/**** Image A+ Sound A
starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Time Blake Nelson, Charles Durning
screenplay by Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
directed by Joel Coen

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover We can start by making two things perfectly clear. One: despite an opening credit to the contrary, the new Coen Brothers opus, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, has almost nothing to do with Homer's Odyssey–a few episodes notwithstanding, the bulk of the film is radically different from the great classical work. Two: it bears only a passing resemblance to the films of Preston Sturges, whose Sullivan's Travels provides the title; a ridiculous deus ex machina ending aside, it has none of the affection–if all of the wildness–of that writer-director's memorable oeuvre. So, having been smokescreened by these red-herring references, you have to ask: If it has nothing to do with Homer or Sturges, what the heck does it have to do with?

Teenage Caveman (2001) – DVD

June 10, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Horror, Sci-Fi, Television, Thriller

**/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras D+
starring Andrew Keegan, Tara Subkoff, Richard Hillman, Tiffany Limos
screenplay by Christos Gage
directed by Larry Clark

by Bill Chambers Larry Clark’s first official foray into the horror genre, Teenage Caveman simply introduces gore to his usual hedonistic admixture. Part of Cinemax’s “Creature Features” line-up (glossy re-imaginings of Sam Arkoff monster movies overseen by Arkoff heir Lou, actress Colleen Camp, and F/X man Stan Winston), Teenage Caveman, if nothing else, handily demonstrates the auteur theory, as rather than suggest the work of a director-for-hire, the film evinces little regard for the series’ presumed directive.

Hamlet (2000) – DVD

June 8, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, Romance, Shakespeare, Thriller

***½/**** Image B+ Sound B+
starring Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan, Diane Venora, Liev Schrieber
screenplay by Michael Almereyda, based on the play by William Shakespeare
directed by Michael Almereyda

by Bill Chambers This review of Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet has long gestated, and the good thing is, the film does not suffer the ravages of memory. My expectations for this modern-dress Shakespeare adaptation were low enough that I presumed its impact would be short-term at best (the play will always transcend approach and performance to a certain degree), having been effectively show-stopped by Kenneth Branagh’s definitively faithful take of 1996. Prior to spinning the DVD, I also internally debated Almereyda’s talked-about corporate setting, a milieu that would seem a better fit for the political backstabbing of “Macbeth” or “Julius Caesar”.

The Apartment (1960) – DVD

June 7, 2001Posted in1960s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Best Picture (Academy Awards), Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance

**/**** Image B Sound B
starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston
screenplay by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond
directed by Billy Wilder

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover I’ve never been able to fully accept the idea of Billy Wilder as a great director. While I have to admit that many of his films are solid entertainment–Some Like It Hot and Sunset Boulevard especially–they’re crippled by a tired, laboured sensibility that keeps them from rising to greatness. They have structure, all right, and snappy, cutting dialogue, but the rigidity of their conception stops us from reading between the lines: Wilder and his writing partners tend to tell us exactly what to think and expect us to accept their words as the word of God Himself. And because ultimately nobody can be this sure of themselves–even in a Hollywood noted for sweeping moral certainties–it becomes obvious that even Wilder isn’t falling for the phoney cynicism he passes off as wisdom. I can appreciate his craft, but his joyless inflexibility makes it hard for me to accept him as a great artist with a vision.

Two Girls and a Guy (1998) – DVD

June 5, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, DVD

**/**** Image B+ Sound B Commentary B
starring Robert Downey Jr., Heather Graham, Natasha Gregson Wagner
written and directed by James Toback

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Viewers of Toback's 1977 cult classic Fingers will find no new ground covered in 1998's Two Girls and a Guy. Once again, we have a young-turk artiste (Robert Downey Jr. in this incarnation) who's too wrapped up in what his mother thinks of him. We also have his wanton sexual behaviour, and his attempts to put his chaotic life in order. This time, however, we are to believe that he's being properly grilled by his two girlfriends, who meet by chance when they get the same idea of surprising him on his doorstep.

The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) – DVD

June 4, 2001Posted in1980s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Family, Muppets, Musical, Romance

**/**** Image A- Sound B
starring Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo
screenplay by Frank Oz and Tom Patchett & Jay Tarses
directed by Frank Oz

by Bill Chambers The third and final Muppet feature to which the dearly departed Jim Henson contributed, The Muppets Take Manhattan is a hodgepodge of terminally ’80s show tunes and ill-considered plotting that ransacks The Muppet Movie‘s basic premise–colourful nobodies seeking stardom–while gutting it of its thematic resonances, including the power of interracial harmony, i.e., “the Rainbow Connection.” What we’re left with is something that sparks but never ignites; The Muppets Take Manhattan is a Muppet film largely without Muppets save Kermit the Frog, and when you get right down to it, Kermit is only as interesting as his sparring partner. Like most leading men, he’s handsome but a bit of a blank slate.

Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000) – DVD

June 2, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, DVD, Mystery, Sci-Fi

*/**** Image A Sound A Extras B-
starring Ashton Kutcher, Seann William Scott, Kristy Swanson, Jennifer Garner
screenplay by Philip Stark
directed by Danny Leiner

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Anyone who cares about film doesn't need me to warn him or her away from Dude, Where's My Car?, and anyone who doesn't probably wouldn't listen to me, anyway. But for what it's worth, here's the skinny: Jesse (Ashton Kutcher) and Chester (Seann William Scott) are a pair of stoners living in what appears to be sunny California. Recently, they have managed to get themselves in a bit of a fix: After a night of intense partying, they find that they cannot remember what happened the day before. This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that Jesse's car, on which their addled lives depend, has mysteriously vanished–presumably in the massive frolic mentioned earlier. Thing is, today is their anniversary with their girlfriends (The Twins), their gifts are in their car, and they trashed the Twins' house in the previous night's revelries to begin with, making it necessary to get back in their good books. And so they must ask, "Dude, Where's My Car?"

Jaws 2 (1978) [Widescreen] – DVD

May 21, 2001Posted in1970s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Horror, Thriller

**½/**** Image A- Sound B Extras A-
starring Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Joseph Mascolo
screenplay by Carl Gottlieb and Howard Sackler
directed by Jeannot Szwarc

by Bill Chambers Some key players besides Roy Scheider stuck around for this second helping of Jaws, which accounts for the tonal continuity and touch of class that are absent in the subsequent sequels. Producers David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck prostituted their box-office sensation because, according to Brown in Jaws 2's DVD documentary, "We decided if we didn't make it somebody else would make it. We felt very protective about it." Screenwriter Carl Gottlieb again returned to do the production draft. Production designer Joe Alves exhumed, and expanded the scope of, Amity Island. John Williams adapted his indelible Jaws score for a more youth-oriented adventure. And on screen, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, and Bruce reprised their roles as Mrs. Chief Brody, the unconscionable mayor (who, in the movie's darkest joke, is still in power), and the mechanical shark, respectively.

Forever Mine (2000) – DVD

May 21, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, Directors: Paul Schrader, Drama, DVD, Romance, Thriller

**/**** Image B Sound B- Commentary B+
starring Joseph Fiennes, Ray Liotta, Gretchen Mol
written and directed by Paul Schrader

by Bill Chambers Paul Schrader’s fragmented, risqué melodrama Forever Mine tells the tale of an exceptionally well-read Miami Beach cabana boy named Alan (Joseph Fiennes) who steals the heart of Ella (Gretchen Mol, an old-fashioned bombshell), the wife of councilman Mark Brice (Ray Liotta), and pays for it: first by being sent to jail an innocent, then with a bullet in the head. (The jealous husband does the deed.) But Alan survives and, unbeknownst to Brice and Ella, steals a new identity for himself, that of a Miami druglord called upon fourteen years later to act as the politico’s criminal liaison in New York. Haunted Ella finds herself compelled by this scarred stranger and his thoughtful glances.

Bamboozled (2000) [New Line Platinum Series] – DVD

May 15, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Directors: Spike Lee, Drama, DVD, Music, Satire

***½/**** Image B+ Sound A Extras A-
starring Damon Wayans, Savion Glover, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Tommy Davidson
written and directed by Spike Lee

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover I can see from the negative press surrounding Bamboozled that Spike Lee has supposedly overshot the mark. Nobody, they say, really likes the racist imagery of the minstrel show anymore, and they say that Lee’s insistence that people might pretty much disqualifies his film from serious attention. But I wonder. I remember being in a college-dorm common room watching a horribly racist production number in the Marx Brothers’ A Day at the Races, to hear one viewer shrug it off simply because the participants “looked happy,” and I remember having a roommate who owned a publicity knick-knack of a black baby bursting out of an orange who had no idea how it could be construed as offensive.

Threesome (1994) – DVD

May 8, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance

**/**** Image A- Sound B+ Commentary B-
starring Lara Flynn Boyle, Stephen Baldwin, Josh Charles, Alexis Arquette
written and directed by Andrew Fleming

by Bill Chambers I first saw Threesome during its theatrical run, which coincided with the end of my freshman year at university. I liked the film enough back then, for what it didn't reflect of my experiences it evoked, and its characters suggested people I had met at school, maybe myself at that point, in the exaggerated, nay, grotesque manner of political cartoons. Which is a scary thought seeing Threesome again some seven years later: maturity (mine?) recasts its protagonists in a dark, contemptible light.

If I Die Before I Wake (1996) – DVD

May 7, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, DVD, Horror, Thriller

if I die before I wake
***/**** Image C+ Sound C
starring Stephanie Jones, Muse Watson, Michael McCleery, Coryanne Sennett
written and directed by Brian Katkin

by Bill Chambers If I Die Before I Wake is not a guilty pleasure (and definitely not a pleasure, period), but it did provoke a very guilty reaction from me: one of admiration. Other critics have dismissed it outright, calling it cheap, classist, exploitative, even sick. Guess what? It is all of those things, yet I found the film to be an efficient button-pusher with impressively acute access to our emotions, and there is combustible tension in our heroine's plight that had me practically praying aloud for her safety. If I Die Before I Wake, unlike so much of modern schlock (believe me, I've seen my quota), is panic-inducing, which isn't nothing.

All the Pretty Horses (2000) – DVD

May 7, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, Romance, Western

**½/**** Image A+ Sound A
starring Matt Damon, Henry Thomas, Lucas Black, Penélope Cruz
screenplay by Ted Tally, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy
directed by Billy Bob Thornton

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover The difference between Cormac McCarthy's novel All the Pretty Horses and its current, honourable film adaptation is a matter of weighting. There's nothing in the movie that doesn't happen in the novel, and the film's golden, sun-burnished look is gentle and humane. The film loves its wayward characters and sympathizes with their plight, but when it's over, it turns out to have merely been a story–a series of events with a dramatic payoff. The body is always imperilled, but the soul is never touched; it never puts together the motives the characters have in protecting their honour and desires, and it never suggests that there are powers beyond their control that force them to make decisions. While All the Pretty Horses is always friendly and never dull, there is a certain letdown in its refusal to make connections to larger forces and its clumsiness with the novel's very powerful symbolism–which, however questionable it might be, has a lesser dramatic force than its literary namesake.

The X Files: The Complete Third Season (1995-1996) – DVD

May 4, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Television, Thriller

Image A Sound A- Extras B+
"The Blessing Way," "Paper Clip," "D.P.O.," "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," "The List," "2Shy," "The Walk," "Oubliette," "Nisei," "731," "Revelations," "War of the Coprophages," "Syzygy," "Grotesque," "Piper Maru," "Apocrypha," "Pusher," "Teso Dos Bichos," "Hell Money," "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'," "Avatar," "Quagmire," "Wetwired," "Talitha Cumi"

by Bill Chambers They're folded compactly in a box, similar to those gift packages of Life Savers I used to find in my stocking on Christmas morning. Likewise, they inspire trial-and-error taste tests (I never ate the butterscotch ones), the names often betraying little about the flavours. I'm talking about the seven-disc/24-episode collection of "The X Files"' third season, which bows on DVD a year after Season One did and arguably improves upon the high standards set by it. It helps that this is the series in top form.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) [The Collector’s Edition] – DVD

May 2, 2001Posted in****/****, 1970s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Sci-Fi, Spielberg

****/**** Image A Sound A Extras A
starring Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Francois Truffaut
written and directed by Steven Spielberg

Mustownby Bill Chambers If his Jaws was about the Fourth of July, then Steven Spielberg followed it up with something like the holiday itself. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a soft-touched yet uncompromising hypothesis of benevolent flying saucers, seems structurally patterned after that day: domestic chaos, then military parades, then fireworks. It’s a film now in its third incarnation; Columbia TriStar’s DVD version, like their recent-vintage LaserDisc that preceded it, contains a Spielberg-sanctioned melding of the 1977 and 1980 theatrical releases, the latter the controversial “Special Edition” that effectively ransacked the imagination of fans. The latest rendition, which appears to have adopted the label “The Collector’s Edition,” is nothing short of masterful.

Dragon Forever (1988) – DVD

April 15, 2001Posted in1980s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, DVD, Hong Kong, Jackie Chan, Martial Arts, Romance

Dragons Forever
飛龍猛將
Fei lung mang jeung
***/**** Image C Sound A –
starring Jackie Chan, Samo Hung, Yuen Biao, Corey Yuen Kwai
screenplay by Szeto Cheuk Hon
directed by Sammo Hung & Corey Yuen

by Bill Chambers To my mind, the formation of “the three kung-fu-teers”–Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, and Yuen Biao–was more of a shock than their eventual break-up. The latter two are portrayed as the former’s punching bags in Chan’s autobiography, I Am Jackie Chan, whose early chapters recount the Dickensian power structure at the China Drama Academy, known colloquially as the Peking Opera School. The school’s unforgiving master sanctioned his older pupils (collectively, “Big Brothers”) to administer swift, cruel punishments to the younger students; the wrath of Hung, the biggest Brother of them all (in body mass as well as reputation), seemed measureless and reserved explicitly for Chan and Biao. At least in Jackie’s memory.

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) – DVD + CD

March 12, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

*½/**** Image B+ Sound A Extras B-
starring Jeffrey Donovan, Kim Director, Erica Leerhsen, Tristine Skyler
screenplay by Dick Beebe and Joe Berlinger
directed by Joe Berlinger

by Bill Chambers Despite the brainy posturing of director/co-writer Joe Berlinger, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 will probably never be canonized in a sequel debate, that lunchtime activity of film freaks everywhere which has brought a nerdish ascendancy to, among the handful, The Godfather Part II and The Empire Strikes Back. Why? Well, for starters, it’s pretentious as hell; when the DVD liner notes–written by no less than Berlinger himself–for a fast-tracked cash-grab include such descriptive phrases as “mollify the cynics” and “post-modern approach,” you know you’re in for everything but a good time.