Authors: Walter Chaw Archives - Page 118 of 145

Mr. Intense: FFC Interviews James Foley

April 26, 20032000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Interviews

April 27, 2003|Discovered at a student party by director Hal Ashby, one of the more tragic figures of the American New Wave of the ’70s, James Foley is at his best when detailing the brash social textures of the United States and the intricacies of male relationships (and, by extension, male relationships arrayed around dangerous women) in his canny shrines to the film noir genre. His new film Confidence returns Foley to the mean streets of his Glengarry Glen Ross in a caper film that defies the odds by not only being an entertaining and cohesive heist flick (after the high-profile flops that were David Mamet’s Heist and Frank Oz’s The Score), but also by finding a role for the aggressively unlikable Ed Burns that actually suits him. Foley’s best film, however, remains the brilliant After Dark, My Sweet–the only film, curiously, that he’s ever written, and the only screen adaptation of Jim Thompson that rings with the lewd authenticity of a Thompson novel.

The Hot Chick (2002) – DVD

April 25, 20032000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Teen, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image A Sound B+ Extras B-
starring Rob Schneider, Rachel McAdams, Anna Faris, Andrew Keegan
screenplay by Tom Brady & Rob Schneider
directed by Tom Brady

by Walter Chaw What to think of a variation on Teen Wolf wherein the victim of the lycanthropic puberty metaphor is a young girl who turns into Rob Schneider? What to make of a film that wrests its central conceit of enchanted jewellery from the long-putrefied grasp of Mannequin 2? And what to make of a film released in the year 2002 that is this misogynistic, homophobic, racist, and cruel to the obese? Rather than postulate that our culture has regressed to the hale cultural morass of the mid-1980s, it’s doubtless more fruitful to examine the ways in which film is becoming as self-reflexive, meta-critical, and free of irony as television.

It Runs in the Family (2003)

April 25, 20032000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Theatrical, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/****
starring Michael Douglas, Kirk Douglas, Cameron Douglas, Diana Douglas
screenplay by Jesse Wigutow
directed by Fred Schepisi

by Walter Chaw Appalling at its best, Fred Schepisi’s It Runs in the Family is a congenital disaster best described as an interminable episode of “Old People Say the Darndest Things”. Between this and Last Orders, Aussie director Schepisi seems to desire cornering the market on gravid meditations on decrepitude and death. He finds himself here a far cry from his Seventies output (The Devil’s Playground, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith), which, much like countryman Bruce Beresford’s early work, announced an important filmmaker who has, in the intervening years, become a hired hand and a coin of considerably devalued worth. It Runs in the Family is so relentlessly mawkish that it does give insight into the state of mind that allows condescension to become comfortable status quo by habitually marginalizing the elderly and demented as adorable dispensers of quaint homilies and spunky vulgarity.

Darkwolf (2003) – DVD

April 20, 20032000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Werewolf, ZERO STARS

Dark Wolf
ZERO STARS/**** Image B Sound B- Extras C
starring Samaire Armstrong, Ryan Alosio, Andrea Bogart, Jaime Bergman
screenplay by Geoffrey Alan Holliday
directed by Richard Friedman

by Walter Chaw Something to do with hybrid werewolves and full-breed werewolves and how one hybrid biker werewolf is interested in mating with the last full-bred matriarch bitch in order to preserve the line of the pure-blood werewolves, the direct-to-video DarkWolf at least has the decency to open in a strip club and continue into a fairly decent gore set-piece before launching into its incomprehensible lore. Tied to the creatures of the id-horror subgenre (the best example of which is probably Neil Jordan’s psychosexual A Company of Wolves), a recent glut of lycanthropic fare (Ginger Snaps, Dog Soldiers) holds a curious candle to the idea that, despite Arab belief to the contrary, Western civilization seems to be regressing into a puritanical sexual hysteria that proves fertile ground for horror films about the cycle of sexual repression/aggression. It’s possible, also, that guys (and dolls) in fur suits are just cool again.

The Straight Shooter: FFC Interviews George Hickenlooper

April 19, 20032000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Documentary, Interviews

April 20, 2003|There at the beginnings of Billy Bob Thornton and Naomi Watts, after the success of 2002’s The Man from Elysian Fields, it may finally be director George Hickenlooper’s turn in the spotlight. In the mountain resort for the twelfth annual Aspen Shortsfest, I scouted out a place in the deserted lobby/bar area; Hickenlooper, suffering from the onset of a head cold, was down in a flash.

A skilled documentarian and interviewer, Hickenlooper is a friendly presence, cutting an unassuming swath through the impossibly nice lobby of Aspen’s Hotel St. Regis. Starting his career after Yale with an internship under Roger Corman, the filmmaker has worked in several genres, earning his first major break with the exceptional documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. What impresses most about Mr. Hickenlooper, however, is his knowledge of film history and respect for the auteur theory–in his presentation as a part of the fest’s “Masterworks” programming, he not only clarified what Bogdanovich defined to him as the two philosophies of editing (mise-en-scène vs. montage), but also made mention of Cahiers du cinema, Dziga Vertov, and the politics of shot selection that can actually save a director’s vision from meddling studio interests.

The Wild Thornberrys Movie (2002) – DVD

April 18, 20032000s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Family

The Wild Thornberrys
***/**** Image A Sound A Extras D
screenplay by Kate Boutilier
directed by Jeff McGrath and Cathy Malkasian

by Walter Chaw Preaching its message of courage, family, and self-confidence with grace and a bare minimum of soapbox grandstanding and mawkish sentimentality, The Wild Thornberrys Movie is a picture of warmth and imagination. Its globe-trotting wildlife-show family, the titular Thornberrys, have as their most conspicuous member gawky Eliza (voiced by Lacey Chabert), a freckled, bespectacled, orthodontically challenged little girl who earns the power to communicate with animals through an act of kindness. The locating of a traditionally unattractive young female as the superhero at the centre of an adventure serial (the picture is based on a Nickelodeon series) is so rare an idea in American animation that its appearance here makes for one of the more bracing, genuinely exciting creations of the modern popular culture. Its mainstay status in Chinese martial arts and Japanese anime films remains a gulf that U.S. culture, in its occasional simple-mindedness, remains far from bridging.

Levity (2003)

April 17, 20032000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, France, Theatrical

*½/****
starring Billy Bob Thornton, Morgan Freeman, Holly Hunter, Kirsten Dunst
written and directed by Ed Solomon

by Walter Chaw Sort of Frank Capra without the subtlety, Levity is a relentlessly moralizing film that finds Billy Bob Thornton in his second role (Monster’s Ball) in three years as a man responsible for another man’s death who proceeds to woo a close relation of said victim as a means of atonement. The greatest irony of a film about forgiveness is that it’s destined to inspire the opposite in most viewers, but with a professionally underachieving cast of good actors (Morgan Freeman is now into his eighth year of not trying very hard), a master cinematographer (Roger Deakins), and the sort of story that attracts said actors like atoning moths to the mainstream arthouse flame, the picture is not altogether useless.

A Mighty Wind (2003)

April 15, 20032000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Music, Pseudo-Documentary, Theatrical

**½/****
starring Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Bob Balaban
screenplay by Christopher Guest & Eugene Levy
directed by Christopher Guest

by Walter Chaw Though Waiting for Guffman remains the best of the three Christopher Guest-directed improv-sketch mockumentaries, A Mighty Wind finds Guest’s troupe returning somewhat to form after the disappointing and mean-spirited dog show spoof Best in Show. Following the efforts of grieving son Jonathan Steinbloom (Bob Balaban) to reunite the folk acts represented by his late father Irving for a tribute concert to be broadcast on public television, the picture is essentially an outline fleshed-out through a bunch of improvisations tied loosely together by largely disconnected vignettes. Free, for the most part, of the cheap shots of Best in Show, A Mighty Wind‘s failures are again a cartoonish turn by Eugene Levy and a healthy dose of sentiment that goes down suspiciously like arrogance. If there’s a unifying thread to Guest et al’s forays into parody (including Rob Reiner’s directorial debut This is Spinal Tap), it’s that faint, pervasive whiff of superiority… And the atmosphere appears to be getting thicker.

Anger Management (2003)

April 11, 20032000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Jack Nicholson, Theatrical

**/****
starring Adam Sandler, Jack Nicholson, Marisa Tomei, Krista Allen
screenplay by David Dorfman
directed by Peter Segal

by Walter Chaw Packed with SNL alum in secondary roles and directed by Peter Segal, the steady hand behind Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Adam Sandler’s follow-up to the remarkably good Punch-Drunk Love is the remarkably familiar Anger Management. It finds Sandler returning to his old, tedious ways: the athlete cameos, Asian hate, scatological humour, mockery of disability, vintage sing-alongs, sentimental finales, and “you can do its.” Good news for the ever-diminishing cult of Sandler, the rest of Western civilization should cringe at Jack Nicholson returning to his Corman days by reciting a series of dick and fart jokes while banking to a dangerous degree on his lupine grin. The most frustrating thing about Anger Management isn’t that Sandler is back to his old tricks, it’s that there are observations embedded here about the state of our culture in decline that exhibit a genuine insight and cynicism that could have made for a fascinating satire rather than this unintentional one.

Femme Fatale (2002) – DVD

April 10, 20032000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Directors: Brian De Palma, DVD, Romance, Satire, Thriller

*½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras C
starring Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Antonio Banderas, Peter Coyote, Eriq Ebouaney
written and directed by Brian De Palma

by Walter Chaw The first script written solely by Brian De Palma since his 1992 film Raising Cain, Femme Fatale, like that film, rips off the famous murderer-reveal of Dario Argento’s Tenebre. Come to think of it, the picture is essentially a rehash in one way or another of every film De Palma’s ever written (the voyeurism and body switch of Body Double, the phallic film equipment of Blow Out, the steamy stall-sex of Dressed to Kill, the evil twin thing and split-screen of Sisters, the voyeurism again of Hi, Mom!, and so on)–and because De Palma’s best films and screenplays were iterations of Hitchcock (and sometimes Argento, the Italian Hitchcock), Femme Fatale is as stale and detached as the third-generation copy that it is.

Darkness Falls (2003) [Special Edition] – DVD

April 9, 20032000s, Australia, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

**/**** Image B- Sound A Extras B-
starring Chaney Kley, Emma Caulfield, Joshua Anderson, Andrew Bayly
screenplay by John Fasano and James Vanderbilt and Joe Harris
directed by Jonathan Liebesman

by Walter Chaw Two years removed from Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers (and on the eve of a sequel to that film), Darkness Falls whets cult appetites by being nearly a scene-for-scene recreation of that film’s inferior second half. Essentially a series of “I don’t believe your story–hey, why did the lights go out?” scenarios and unearned jump scares, the picture opens with a nice fairytale prologue and a nifty “12 years ago” introduction that hints at the promise of a murderous Tooth Fairy. As soon as the action jumps to the present day with a warbling youngster, her hot sister, and our troubled hero, however, any pretense of a creepy, coherent mythology flies out the window as the flick devolves into an inexorable killer flick amped-up to “11.”

Red Dragon (2002) [2-Disc Director’s Edition] – DVD

April 6, 20032000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, Germany, Thriller

*/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B-
starring Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel
screenplay by Ted Tally, based on the novel by Thomas Harris
directed by Brett Ratner

by Walter Chaw Because Thomas Harris’s haunting novel of the same name is flawed in someone’s eye, Red Dragon hacks and slices the piece with a rude imprecision that would inspire pop icon Hannibal Lecter to sharpen his carving tools. The picture opens with a ridiculous and awkwardly-staged Lecter backstory (meaning it plays like the rest of the Lecter additions) that gives a self-parodying Anthony Hopkins a ponytail in place of the self-respect to which he can no longer lay claim, bringing to mind the unwieldy cameos of Cannonball Run.

A Man Apart (2003) + The Man Without a Past (2003)

April 4, 20032000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Finland, France, Germany, Romance, Theatrical, Thriller

A MAN APART
**/****
starring Vin Diesel, Larenz Tate, Steve Eastin, Timothy Olyphant
screenplay by Christian Gudegast & Paul Scheuring
directed by F. Gary Gray

Mies vailla menneisyyttä
***½/****
starring Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen, Annikki Tähti, Juhani Niemelä
written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki

by Walter Chaw The one an absurdist sketch, the other just absurd, both Aki Kaurismäki’s The Man Without a Past and F. Gary Gray’s A Man Apart use violence as a catalyst for existential introspection, but while Gray’s emetic excess deadens with its Death Wish-cum-The New Centurions wish-fulfillment fantasy, Kaurismäki’s gentle fable finds grace amongst society’s victims. Gifting their respective stars each with a hospital scene and subsequent resurrection and new lease on life, the two protagonists are paired with a lady love once back on the street–Kaurismäki’s hero with a Salvation Army matron (Kati Outinen), Gray’s with a ridiculously loyal partner (Larenz Tate) who discards his role as conscience to become an extension of a revenge plot that’s made more ludicrous with a heaping dose of morality and a Lethal Weapon graveside penance.

What a Girl Wants (2003)

April 4, 20032000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Family, Romance, Theatrical, UK

*/****
starring Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth, Kelly Preston, Anna Chancellor
screenplay by Jenny Bicks and Elizabeth Chandler, based on the play “The Reluctant Debutante” by William Douglas Home
directed by Dennie Gordon

by Walter Chaw A cynical play for the babysitting money of a very particular demographic, What a Girl Wants is a by-the-numbers Cinderella story that’s not only a carbon copy of The Princess Diaries but also the umpteenth iteration of a distaff preteen fantasy that equates irreverent immaturity with being true to one’s own self. It takes potshots at the stuffiness of the British in the same way that urban comedies take aim at the stuffiness of white folks, seeking to loosen up the awkward unfortunates with a pathetic dance sequence. And it offers Nickelodeon phenom Amanda Bynes yet another opportunity to try on a bunch of outfits in not one, but two dress-up montages. The film believes that it knows what will please twelve-year-old girls (and their 35-year-old fathers), and it may well indeed, but the problem with What a Girl Wants is that there’s precious little honour in satisfying the basest needs of its audience with the equivalent of leftover porridge.

Sordid Lives (2001) – DVD

April 2, 20032000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Romance, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image D Sound D Extras C
starring Olivia Newton-John, Beau Bridges, Delta Burke, Bonnie Bedelia
written and directed by Del Shores

by Walter Chaw Essentially an extended drag shtick captured on surveillance-quality DV, Del Shores’s Sordid Lives finds the playwright’s stage production translated literally to the big screen (well, to the television screen) without, one presumes, the pace and the busyness that would have made it bearable. Poorly-aimed pot-shots at dysfunction (sexual, familial) share the stage with the classic “gathered for a funeral” plot that forms the basis of so many community theatre productions, mainly because no matter how ribald the comedy becomes, there will always be the opportunity for a sickening dose of sentiment at the final curtain. There’s nothing suburban middlebrow consumers like better than a shot of the ol’ pulpit to forgive all sins: round-in-the-round as buffet-dinner confessional.

Evelyn (2002) [Special Edition] – DVD

April 2, 20032000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Family, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, UK

*/**** Image C+ Sound B- Extras B+
starring Pierce Brosnan, Julianna Margulies, Aidan Quinn, Stephen Rea
screenplay by Paul Pender
directed by Bruce Beresford

by Walter Chaw It seems as though “inspired” in the phrase “inspired by a true story” is the operative word as the 2002 Christmas season presents to us a rotten couplet of films “inspired” by true stories that, in all likelihood, were pretty interesting prior to the whitewashed variety of “inspiration” dished out in most high profile biopics. Headliner Antwone Fisher (a rancid piece of garbage I like to refer to as “Good Antwone Fishing” or “Finding Fisher-er”) gains esteem just by the association of twinkly-eyed Denzel Washington behind the camera (and stentorian Denzel in front), while small foreign film Evelyn will probably gain esteem by dint of its small and foreign status. (Just like its cute-as-a-button titular waif.) Like so many horrible movies of this mongrel breed, however, both Antwone Fisher and Evelyn are so uncompromising in their saccharine manipulations that nurses should stand at theatre entrances, passing out hypodermics of insulin.

Far from Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog (1995) – DVD

March 30, 20031990s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Family

**/**** Image B Sound B
starring Bruce Davison, Mimi Rogers, Jesse Bradford, Tom Bower
written and directed by Phillip Borsos

by Walter Chaw Though shot with a nice eye for vistas, Phillip Borsos’s ponderously titled Far From Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog (hereafter Yellow Dog) is decidedly modest in scope. It’s a wilderness fantasy/adventure involving a boy and his dog that follows along so closely to the set-up/pay-off structure that the build-up to the inevitable marooning is almost sadistic in its inevitability. Think of every moment dad teaches his boy to build a fire as the children’s-movie equivalent of a green foot soldier in a war flick showing a picture of his sweetheart to his buddy right before a big action scene.

The Core (2003)

March 28, 20032000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Disaster Movie, France, Germany, Italy, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

**½/****
starring Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci
screenplay by Cooper Layne and John Rogers
directed by Jon Amiel

by Walter Chaw Jon Amiel’s poorly-timed disaster throwback The Core is a by-the-numbers affair that features the sort of special effects mayhem that folks will reference when terrorists blow-up the Acropolis–perhaps explaining in part why this bombastic summer film is being rushed into release in the late-winter doldrums: better to get it in movieplexes before it has to be delayed for a few months. But with unfortunate mentions of the Al Jazeera news agency and a botched shuttle landing that is exceedingly uncomfortable given its proximity to NASA’s recent tragedy, it could just be that The Core is a bad idea for any time, and releasing it when no one is likely to see it is just a cut-your-losses sort of thing. The Core is probably betting that people are more fatigued by the Riefenstahl-ian “embedded” live coverage of our troops in action than by their over-familiarity with this kind of Armageddon/Deep Impact/Poseidon Adventure falderal, when the truth is that it’s possible to be tired of both.

Head of State (2003)

March 28, 20032000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Satire, Theatrical

½*/****
starring Chris Rock, Bernie Mac, Tamala Jones, Lynn Whitfield
screenplay by Chris Rock & Ali LeRoi
directed by Chris Rock

by Walter Chaw Chris Rock’s directorial debut Head of State is a little like Weird Al Yankovic’s UHF or Dana Carvey’s Opportunity Knocks: a vehicle meant to showcase a sketch comedian’s strengths but functioning more as an exposé on said comedian’s weaknesses. It vacillates between a potentially interesting central plot and a couple of misogynistic and boring subplots, managing by the end to come off as shrill, cynical, and disjointed as well as overly cutesy and infatuated with its own cult of bling. Its one saving grace is that it seems to occasionally know what satire is, conceiving of a “white folks can’t dance” sequence that actually scores a couple of points in letting the poor Man dance well instead of mockingly (see Bringing Down the House), and in the identification of “God Bless America” as the hypocritical exclusionary bullshit that it is.

Malevolent (2002) – DVD

March 28, 20032000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, Thriller

½*/**** Image B- Sound C+
starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Kari Wuhrer, Edoardo Ballerini, Gwen McGee
screenplay by Dennis Shryack & Peter Bellwood
directed by John Terlesky

by Walter Chaw A castration/redemption picture with the most ineffectual central character in any film south of Polanski, direct-to-video thriller Malevolent casts Lou Diamond Phillips as an eternally-framed homicide detective and Kari Wuhrer as an ex-softcore goddess now reduced to acting badly in a variety of scoop-necked blouses.