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

March 30, 2003Posted in1990s, 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, 2003Posted in2000s, 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, 2003Posted in2000s, 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, 2003Posted in2000s, 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.

Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) – DVD

March 26, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Robert De Niro, Sports

**/**** Image B- Sound C+
starring Robert De Niro, Michael Moriarty, Vincent Gardenia
screenplay by Mark Harris, based on his novel
directed by John Hancock

by Walter Chaw Almost fatally hamstrung by an appalling score by Stephen Lawrence, John D. Hancock’s Bang the Drum Slowly is a character-driven adaptation of Mick Harris’s novel (Harris also wrote the screenplay) that evokes the odd twilit detachment of professional sports in general and baseball in particular with a tale made suddenly popular in 1973 by the success of Brian’s Song. Its baseball scenes almost tertiary to the friendship between a pitcher and his catcher (and the catcher and his hooker girlfriend), the picture feels a little like Of Mice and Men (complete with Steinbeck’s low American primitivism) in the doomed relationship between a blue-collar man and his retarded friend. The film is riddled with pitfalls from the start: the potential for maudlin excess, the trap of overwriting, and the allure of some sort of overriding message for humanity. And though Bang the Drum Slowly dances along the edge of those pitfalls for a good portion of its running time, ultimately it’s just another one of those films better remembered than revisited.

The Filmmaker with Four Syllables in Her Last Name: FFC Interviews Lisa Cholodenko

March 23, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Interviews

LcholodenkointerviewtitleMarch 23, 2003|She looks a little like the subject of one of her own films: vaguely Bohemian, artsy, with the air of one invested in the secretive, slightly disassociating practice of creation. I met Lisa Cholodenko at Denver's Hornet restaurant, just across the street from the Landmark Mayan theatre on a clear, warm Colorado winter's afternoon. In town for an advance screening of her new film Laurel Canyon that took place the night before, this day found her badly in need of a quick nosh after a mad morning with the florid bouquet of the Denver media (badly in need of pruning so that the live ones can flourish). Ms. Cholodenko speaks succinctly and carefully–she can seem a little defensive at times, the source of her discomfort possibly having something to do with the speed with which her work has been politicized along sexual (lesbian) lines. But over two orders of the restaurant's lovely Mayan Salad (get it with the dressing on the side), I found Ms. Cholodenko to be curious and warm as we dished a little on the ultimate failure of The Hours and the essentialness of New Order's "Brotherhood" album (and Antonia Bird's Ravenous). I asked her how she got her start as an editing assistant on John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood.

West Side Story (1961) [Special Edition – DVD Collector’s Set] – DVD

March 23, 2003Posted in****/****, 1960s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Best Picture (Academy Awards), Crime, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Musical, Romance

****/**** Image A Sound A Extras B+
starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris
screenplay by Ernest Lehman, based on the play by Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins
directed by Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

Mustownby Walter Chaw With apologies to Frank Zappa, Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise’s West Side Story is dancing about the tumultuous social architecture of Manhattan’s West Side in the 1950s–a picture as political as it is ephemeral and, consequently, as timeless as it is exhilarating. It is one of those rare pictures that feels like the first time I’ve seen it every time I see it–renewing itself endlessly through its rare energy and meticulously choreographed nihilism. That it doesn’t hold together particularly well as a drama, much of the emotional power of its doomed love affair sapped by Richard Beymer’s amazingly bad performance as lead Tony, is secondary to the enduring effectiveness of the Leonard Bernstein score (with Sondheim’s amazingly current lyrics and Saul Chapin’s bright orchestration); Jerome Robbins’s ebullient dance sequences; Rita Moreno and George Chakiris; and the revelatory location work and lighting design.

The XX/XY Interview: FFC Interviews Petra Wright & Austin Chick

March 23, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Interviews

XxxyinterviewMarch 23, 2003|I met Austin Chick during a Critic's Reception at Denver's Pinnacle Club, a swank spot perched on the 38th floor of the Qwest building with panoramic views of the front-range. Compact and friendly, Chick has a firm handshake and a spare New Hampshire accent; I was glad of this encounter later because, when my scheduled interview proper with Chick rolled around, a blowhard of a local reporter decided to take it upon himself to redefine sycophancy for about ten minutes of my allotted time. In my cocktail party interplay, however, I learned of Chick's initial desire to shoot in DV before receiving a 35mm camera from a kind studio benefactor; that he came to be familiar with Mark Ruffalo through seeing him in a Kenneth Lonergan play; and that he is in the process of developing two projects, one as a director for a major studio.

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie (2002) [2-Disc Collector’s Edition] – DVD

March 22, 2003Posted in2000s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Family, Musical, UK

***/**** Image A Sound A Extras A+
written and directed by Paul Vischer and Mike Nawrocki

by Walter Chaw Sort of Monty Python-lite with a Christian message, the VeggieTales direct-to-video series of didactic sketches is, I’m told, the top-selling home video series in history, speaking at once to the creepy rise of grotesquely hypocritical religiosity in the United States and the fact that VeggieTales, judging by its first feature-length film Jonah, is extremely clever and entertaining. Packed with visual gags and semi-subtle references (a “Moby Blaster” video game in a seafood reference recalls Melville’s fondness for the Jonah tale), Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie is a bouncy Christian animated musical with a handful of compulsively catchy tunes and some crisp computer-imaging work. It occurred to me a few times during the course of the picture that as far as Christian entertainment goes, this is the first product that didn’t disqualify the term as an oxymoron.

8 Mile (2002) [Widescreen w/Uncensored Bonus Features] – DVD

March 19, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Germany, Music

*/**** Image A Sound A+ Extras B-
starring Eminem, Kim Basinger, Brittany Murphy, Mekhi Phifer
screenplay by Scott Silver
directed by Curtis Hanson

by Walter Chaw I was of a mind once that Kim Basinger is pretty good at playing a milquetoast and a sexual victim (I liked her in 9½ Weeks, and she won the Oscar, after all, for L.A. Confidential), but I stand corrected. As a milquetoast sexual victim (not to Eminem, surprisingly) and mother to a steel worker-cum-rapper, Ms. Basinger’s every moment in Curtis Hanson’s 8 Mile is a moment that the film, an otherwise serviceable underdog Flashdance intrigue, grinds to a halt. In reprising her abominable cornpone accent from the aptly named No Mercy, she fails to understand that “country-fried bayou redneck” makes a lot less sense in the liminal “8 Mile” section of Michigan than it does in New Orleans.

Bushwhacked (1995) – DVD

March 19, 2003Posted in1990s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Crime, DVD, Family, Mystery

*/**** Image B- Sound B-
starring Daniel Stern, Jon Polito, Brad Sullivan, Ann Dowd
screenplay by John Jordan & Danny Byers and Tom Swerdlow & Michael Goldberg
directed by Greg Beeman

by Walter Chaw The Yang to the distaff Yin of Troop Beverly Hills, Bushwhacked, Greg Beeman’s endlessly irritating slapstick take on High Sierra, finds the bird-faced actor Daniel Stern doing his best to milk the hysterical simpleton shtick of his hapless Home Alone villain. Nicknaming Stern’s character “Spider” for no real reason but to, eight years after its release and just now finding its way to DVD, connect it in a disturbing way to David Cronenberg’s thirteenth film by way of arrested Freudian developmental phases and fixations on body function, Bushwhacked, as it happens, is also about as funny as Spider–not a particularly shining endorsement of something that’s ostensibly a comedy.

Das Boot: The Director’s Cut (1981/1997) [Superbit] – DVD

March 19, 2003Posted in1980s, 1990s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Czech Republic, Drama, DVD, Thriller, War, West Germany

***½/**** Image A Sound A+
starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch
screenplay by Wolfgang Petersen, based on the novel by Lothar G. Buchheim
directed by Wolfgang Petersen

by Walter Chaw The curious mental state of German submariners in the waning days of the Second World War is reflected in the general malaise of the United States in the weeks following September Eleventh and the hours preceding our unpopular pre-emptive strike against Iraq. Caught in the maddening doldrums between one act of unimaginable violence and its inevitable aftershocks, America’s implacable disquiet is one part anticipation of the inevitable, multiple parts cynicism, and, for a large portion of the population, a dollop of distinct lack of faith in the motives and competency of our leadership. A closer examination of the similarities pithy but perhaps unfruitful, sufficed to say that revisiting Wolfgang Petersen’s masterpiece Das Boot (in its Director’s Cut form) at this suspended moment in time is not only rewarding as great cinema can be, but also current and amazingly poignant.

City of God (2002)

March 14, 2003Posted inAuthors: Walter Chaw, Brazil, Coming of Age, Crime, Drama, France, Theatrical

Cidade de Deus
**/****
starring Matheus Nachtergaele, Seu Jorge, Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino da Hora
screenplay by Bráulio Mantovani, based on the novel by Paulo Lins
directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund

by Walter Chaw I’m uncomfortable with Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund’s City of God–not for its brutality, but for the slick cinematic treatment of that brutality as it manifests itself through the harsh realities of Brazil’s favelas (“slums”). Social Darwinist and serio-mythic in equal queasy measure, the picture is more influenced by Tarantino than Meirelles’s background in commercial and video filmmaking, finding itself trying to balance its sizzle with social conscience before choosing to remove itself as a strict adaptation of Paulo Lins’s book Cidade de Deus. That being said, Meirelles does a magnificent job of parcelling out–of marketing–the key touchstones in the history of a slum seething with violence. The result is a film that suggests what it might be like if Guy Ritchie helmed The Pianist–kinetically intriguing and technically proficient, but deeply troubling for its pop sensibility.

Agent Cody Banks (2003)

March 14, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Comedy, Crime, Espionage, Family, Romance, Theatrical, Thriller

*/****
starring Frankie Muniz, Hilary Duff, Angie Harmon, Keith David
screenplay by Zack Stentz & Ashley Miller and Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski
directed by Harald Zwart

Agentcodybanksby Walter Chaw A pint-sized version of a James Bond film, Harald Zwart’s Agent Cody Banks locates that series’ fascination with modes of conveyance and breasts and places it cannily in the realm of early adolescence. It belongs there, after all, but burying Frankie Muniz’s face in Angie Harmon’s breasts (a second attempt is recognized and discouraged) is filmed statutory rape, even if he’s not complaining. Its screenplay by committee (four writers, with a fifth credited with story) is flat and uninvolving (and feckless), with the sole highlight coming in a background PA announcement asking the owner of a silver Aston Martin to move it from the handicapped parking zone. Otherwise, the picture is just a collection of teensploitation formulas (“the bet” chief among them) married to a few weak gadgets and the same sort of world-saving wish-fulfillment fantasy that Bond has long since made stultifying and passé.

Secretary (2002) – DVD

March 14, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance

***/**** Image B- Sound B- Extras C
starring James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeremy Davies, Patrick Bauchau
screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson, based on the short story by Mary Gaitskill
directed by Steven Shainberg

by Walter Chaw Pleasantville for the sadomasochism set, Steven Shainberg’s Secretary is a gentle sexual-awakening fable set in a peculiar fairytale hyper-reality reminiscent of the saturated inward-gazing milieu of David Cronenberg’s Spider. Featuring a courageous, social-convention-shattering performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal, the picture is The Graduate by way of humiliation and water sports–the hallmark pool scenes feature Gyllenhaal’s Benjamin Braddock character Lee Holloway festooned with water-wings, her position just on the surface the mordant reflexivity of Sunset Blvd.‘s doomed Joe Gillis rather than of Braddock’s bottom-of-the-drink disconnection. Between Secretary and the Jake Gyllenhaal starrer Moonlight Mile, the Gyllenhaal siblings seem intent on tackling their generation’s particular alienations by way of Mike Nichols’s counterculture classic, but where Jake takes a conventional route in Moonlight Mile, Maggie’s exploration of plastics-vs.-individualized happiness embraces the essential shadows of our nasty sexual ids in a Solondz-lite waltz with seething suburbia.

Le6ion of the Dead (2001) – DVD

March 11, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Germany, Horror, Vampire, Zombie

Legion of the Dead
½*/**** Image B Sound B+ Extras B
starring Michael Carr, Russell Friedenberg, Kimberly Liebe, Matthias Hues
written and directed by Olaf Ittenbach

by Walter Chaw Sort of like how I imagine Samuel Beckett would read while huffing accelerant, Olaf Ittenbach’s Le6ion of the Dead rips off a couple of Tarantino screenplays en route to winning the title of the most arbitrary and impossible-to-follow film that isn’t composed primarily of stock footage. Though the director has tried to have his name removed from the picture, citing unapproved edits made in the struggle for an “R” rating, unless the studio wrote the screenplay, pointed the camera, and hired the actors…sufficed to say that there’s enough blame here to go around.

Moonlight Mile (2002) – DVD

March 10, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Romance

**½/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras A-
starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon, Holly Hunter
written and directed by Brad Silberling

by Walter Chaw There is a delicacy to the dusk of the early-Seventies, poised as those years were on the lip of paranoia and disquiet as the psychic scars of the Sixties assassinations, Watergate, and Vietnam worked like rough puberty on an infant nation's whored naiveté. Capturing that space in the disintegration of individuals, traditions, hopes, faiths, is something best left in the hands of casualties of war (Tim O'Brien) and outsider perspectives (Ang Lee and his The Ice Storm). That Brad Silberling, writer-director of Moonlight Mile, appears to be making the death-by-stalker of his actress fiancé Rebecca Schaeffer the metaphor for that twilight time is cause for some concern.

Tears of the Sun (2003) + Bringing Down the House (2003)

March 7, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Theatrical, Thriller, War

TEARS OF THE SUN
*/****
starring Bruce Willis, Monica Bellucci, Cole Hauser, Fionnula Flanagan
screenplay by Alex Lasker & Patrick Cirillo
directed by Antoine Fuqua

BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE
*/****
starring Steve Martin, Queen Latifah, Eugene Levy, Joan Plowright
screenplay by Jason Filardi
directed by Adam Shankman

Bringdownthetearsofthesunby Walter Chaw Antoine Fuqua’s curiously timed Tears of the Sun is an unpleasant bit of jingoistic bullroar that seeks to redress the Clinton administration’s refusal to intervene in the Rwandan genocide by offering up a small band of American special forces soldiers as saviour bwana bravely risking all for a white woman and, incidentally, restoring the son of a slain tribal leader to power. A lot like Schindler’s List, for all the devastating scope of human tragedy involved in its story, the film is about the survivors and the white heroes, not the victims.

Poolhall Junkies (2003)

March 7, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Sports, Theatrical, Thriller

*/****
starring Chazz Palminteri, Rick Schroder, Rod Steiger, Michael Rosenbaum
screenplay by Gregory ‘Mars’ Martin and Chris Corso
directed by Gregory ‘Mars’ Martin

by Walter Chaw Obviously the spawn of a post-Rounders discussion (“Hey, that was great, but wouldn’t it be better with pool instead of poker?”), Gregory ‘Mars’ Martin’s Poolhall Junkies also counts among its plunder victims The Hustler, The Color of Money, On the Waterfront, and–pick any David Mamet. With the late Rod Steiger as a crusty pool hall owner, Christopher Walken in his typical role as actor in an actor-less stew, and a law school student girlfriend (Alison Eastwood, similar to, but somehow more expressionless than, Bridget Fonda) in a plush pad who has a lot of morals except when it comes to nepotism and winning a job in a pool game, Poolhall Junkies is B-list, B-movie garbage that plows through its clockwork machinations with a kind of juvenile bluster that keens like a hammer to the brainpan.

Bloody Murder II: Closing Camp (2003) – DVD

March 6, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Bloody Murder 2: Closing Camp
**/**** Image D Sound C-
starring Katy Woodruff, Kelly Gunning, Amanda Magarian, Tiffany Shepis
screenplay by John Stevenson
directed by Rob Spera

by Walter Chaw Amateurish, awkward, and bordering on genuinely offensive, Bloody Murder II: Closing Camp surprises by actually being a nice walk down ’80s slasher flick memory lane. Shot on a zero-budget by Rob Spera (the man behind the infamous Leprechaun in the Hood), the picture is packed with some nice gore, a great deal of nudity, and almost no aspirations towards cleverness. Save one Scream-influenced exchange about the dangers of flashing skin and being African-American in this genre, Bloody Murder II is a mindless series of sadistic stalking/slashing sequences that pick on the nerd, the slut, and the jock while a virginal heroine (with a blood tie to the masked murderer, natch) tries to unravel the mystery in time to save herself.