DIFF ’02: 7 Days in September

October 6, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Documentary, Film Festivals
***½/****directed by Steve Rosenbaum by Walter Chaw An often-harrowing collection of amateur video taken on the days in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, 7 Days in September accomplishes what so many retrospectives since that day have failed at in its evocation of the immediacy of atrocity and outrage, fear and fury of a day that is already fading into the repository of memory and irony. Footage, seldom-seen in a dangerously squeamish United States, of a person jumping from a building shares time with the immediate reactions of people hiding from the smoke and debris.…

DIFF ’02: Mile High: A Tale of Two Stadiums

October 6, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Documentary, Film Festivals, Sports
**½/****directed by Samuel A. Safarian, Dirk Olson by Walter Chaw One of my earliest memories is watching Haven Moses catch a touchdown pass from Craig Morton in the 1977 AFC Championship games against the hated Oakland Raiders; since that time, I've only missed a total of three Broncos games (preseason included). If there was ever a viewer to which a documentary was tailor-made, then, it is Dick Olson's Denver Center Media-produced Mile High: A Tale of Two Stadiums, a soft-sell documentary commissioned to ease the transition to a new football stadium in the Mile High City, my hometown. Comprising over…

DIFF ’02: Home Room

October 6, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Teen
*/****starring Busy Philipps, Erika Christensen, Victor Garber, Raphael Sbargewritten and directed by Paul F. Ryan by Walter Chaw A standard good girl-meets-bad girl formula wrapped around a gloss on high-school shooting (our own perverse millennial take on the fin-de-siècle phenomenon), Home Room presents its vision of post-traumatic stress disorder with such hamhandedness that it threatens to spawn the same in the viewer. Essentially an Afterschool Special complete with pre-packaged messages about the evil of cigarettes, the secret pain of goth chicks, the importance of not taking the Lord's name in vain, and the crass stupidity of well-meaning cops and school administrators,…

The Mummy: Quest for the Lost Scrolls (2002) – DVD

October 6, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Television, Thriller

*/**** Image A Sound B- Extras C-

by Walter Chaw Universal and Kids’ WB present the abominable and derivative The Mummy: Quest for the Lost Scrolls, the first three episodes of a tragically bad action-adventure cartoon based on characters from Stephen Sommers’s live-action blockbuster The Mummy Returns. After Aryan-izing Fraser’s Rick O’Connell and his irritating moppet Alex (who is, predictably, the star of the show), the animators proceed to rip-off sources as disconcertingly varied as The Evil Dead, Star Wars, and Sommers’s Mummy saga, natch, all while perpetuating myths of the wilting femme and the foppish Brit that, shockingly, its adult counterparts never did.

DIFF ’02: The Fabulous Stain (Introduction)

October 5, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blog, DIFF/SDFF, Film Festivals

Difftitle2002bby Walter Chaw The silver anniversary of the Denver International Film Festival (hereafter DIFF) came to town with rumours run-rampant and grand, but the reality is a mixture of raised eyebrows, surprise announcements, and last-minute acts of God. Hoping for more innovative programming in its key slots, I was disappointed to learn that White Oleander, the star-studded adaptation of Janet Fitch's "Oprah Book Club" selection, would occupy the opening-night stage with a gala presentation at the lovely Temple Buell Theater in the Performing Arts Complex. Premiering just a few hours before its regular theatrical run begins on October 11th, the film is a mainstream Oscar-grab vying amongst the glut of mainstream pictures for the increasingly devalued top honours during the fall and holiday "awards season" and, for my sensibilities, a poor choice to headline the 25th anniversary of the fest. Last year's darkly-hued Lantana was a far more daring and appropriate pick to commence festivities. A rule of thumb has been ignored: bigger is not always better–in fact, in the case of modern film, it's almost never better.

Scooby-Doo (2002) [Widescreen Edition] – DVD

October 5, 2002Posted in2000s, Adventure, Australia, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Family, Mystery

**/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras B
starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard, Linda Cardellini
screenplay by James Gunn
directed by Raja Gosnell

Scoobydoovelmacapby Walter Chaw At one point in Raja Gosnell’s Scooby-Doo, Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) tells the titular pooch, “We’re like two trippin’ peas in a freaky pod, man”–and the counter-cultural freak flag just keeps on flyin’ in a live-action film more for the late-twentysomethings who grew up with the subversive Hanna-Barbera-Iwao Takamato cartoon than the kids of today being weaned on the much tamer, direct-to-video “Scooby” fare. I love that the reviled Scrappy-Doo is given a much-deserved vilification (“Puppy power! He’s not even a puppy–he’s got some kind of glandular thing”), that there’s a scene in which Shag and Scoob are unseen in the Mystery Machine–while smoke billows out of its sunroof to a reggae refrain Shaggy can be heard rapturously intoning, “So toasted, soooo toasted,” and that when Shaggy gets a girlfriend (the smokin’ Isla Fisher), her name is Mary Jane (“That’s, like, my favourite name!”). I love that Velma gets slyly “outed” (“I’m going on a journey of self-discovery”), and I love that one of the main villains is a Telemundo wrestler.

Hellchild: The World of Nick Lyon – DVD

October 4, 2002Posted in1990s, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Esoterica, Germany, Horror, Short Films

by Walter Chaw A DVD collection of short films written, directed, and edited by Idaho-born, German-based filmmaker Nick Lyon, Hellchild: The World of Nick Lyon is an often brilliant exercise in high John Waters trash augmented with actual filmmaking ability and an imagination as feverishly fecund and difficult to shake as a yeast infection. Lyon's work is equal parts deadpan and disgusting, a comic-book exercise in grotesquery that reminds a little of Sergio Aragones's "Mad Marginals" in its sprung logic (and sense of humour) and a little more of David Lynch (or Tim Burton) in its dark reflection of suburban America.

Trembling Before G-d (2001) + Satin Rouge (2002)

October 4, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Documentary, Drama, France, Israel, Musical, Theatrical, Tunisia

TREMBLING BEFORE G-D
**½/****
directed by Sandi Simcha Dubowski

Red Satin
**/****
starring Hiyam Abbas, Hend El Fahem, Maher Kammoun, Monia Hichri
written and directed by Raja Amari

by Walter Chaw “Leah” and “Malka” are a lesbian couple whose names have been changed and faces obscured (a fey conceit that begins to grate with the use of potted plants) to protect identities that appear, for all intents and purposes, to already be “outed”–at least before their families and their rabbi. David, after struggling for a dozen years with his homosexuality, returns to visit his childhood rabbi, a genuinely kind man whom we manage to forget once advised David to snap himself with rubber bands whenever he had a “gay” thought. Then you have Mark, HIV positive, English, and terminally unfocused, and Schlomo, so outspoken and demented that it’s surprising we still muster sympathy when he gets a pathetically dissociative telephone call from his two decades-estranged father.

Skins Game: FFC Interviews Chris Eyre

October 2, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Interviews

CeyreinterviewtitleOctober 2, 2002|Striking a chord with his first film Smoke Signals (based on a collection of short stories by Sherman Alexie, who himself makes his directorial debut this year with The Business of Fancydancing), director Chris Eyre is now on the "Rolling Rez Tour" with his second film, Skins, travelling across the country in a giant semi-trailer equipped with, of all things, a 35mm projector and comfortable, air-conditioned stadium seating for ninety. There's even a popcorn machine.

Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) [Widescreen] + [3-Disc Collector’s Edition] – DVDs

October 1, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, DVD, Film Festivals, France, Horror, Mystery

Le Pacte des loups
***½/****
WIDESCREEN DVD – Image A Sound A+ Extras B
3-DISC COLLECTOR’S EDITION DVD – Image B Sound A+ Extras A+
starring Samuel Le Bihan, Mark Dacascos, Emilie Dequenne, Vincent Cassel
screenplay by Christophe Gans, Stephane Cabel
directed by Christophe Gans

by Walter Chaw A beautiful girl adrift in a vast natural expanse is set upon by an unseen menace and slammed against a solid object before being dragged away to her bloodily-masticated doom. Enter a famed naturalist (Samuel Le Bihan), considered the expert in the breed of beast that might be responsible for the heinous deed; his investigations mostly reveal that the culprit is larger than your average monster. Alas, no one in the isolated and picturesque community believes him, consoling themselves in an amateur hunt that bags a load of smaller members of the creature’s species. When the killing continues, the famed naturalist, his highly-trained sidekick (martial artist Mark Dacascos, here reunited with his Crying Freeman director), and a meek member of the ruling class along for the adventure, lay down a series of traps, gather hunting implements, and, after some derring-do, overcome their foe, incurring tremendous losses in the process.

Casper: A Spirited Beginning (1997) + Casper Meets Wendy (1998) – DVDs

September 30, 2002Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Family, Horror, ZERO STARS

CASPER: A SPIRITED BEGINNING
ZERO STARS/****
starring Steve Guttenberg, Lori Loughlin, Rodney Dangerfield, Michael McKean
screenplay by Jymn Magon, Thomas Hart
directed by Sean McNamara

CASPER MEETS WENDY
½*/****
starring Cathy Moriarty, Shelley Duvall, Teri Garr, George Hamilton
screenplay by Jymn Magon
directed by Sean McNamara

by Walter Chaw Taking place in a scary netherworld where up is down, black is white, and Steve Guttenberg, Rodney Dangerfield, Lori Loughlin, Pauly Shore, and Richard Moll still have careers, Casper: A Spirited Beginning is one long spiritless harangue designed for the kid with the helmet and the drool cup. Shockingly awful computer animation coupled with simply appalling acting wrapped around a plot that rips off Beetlejuice at every turn (newly-deceased goes through the process of denial before finding a handbook and a sympathetic morbid kid to help him/them adapt to the afterlife), Casper: A Spirited Beginning at the least honours the quality of those Harvey comics you used to read in the barbershop while trying to sneak a peak at the PLAYBOYs under the mirror.

Psst!: FFC Interviews Christian Frei

September 29, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Documentary, Film Festivals, Interviews, Switzerland

CfreiinterviewtitleSeptember 30, 2002|While flipping through a magazine on a flight to Chicago in April 1997, Swiss director Christian Frei became acquainted with the work of photojournalist James Nachtwey, one of the most decorated artists in his field and the subject of Frei's remarkable documentary War Photographer, which debuts this week in Denver at the Argus Human Rights Festival. A fascinating, almost Lacanian separation of observer and observed indicates the piece, a film shot with a specially designed camera-mounted camera that provides an intimate point of view of the photographer at work. I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Frei this morning on the telephone to Switzerland as the director, fresh from a trip to Kabul researching his newest project, The Giant Buddhas, spends the next week and a half in his homeland.

Last Action Hero: FFC Interviews Steven Silver

September 28, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Film Festivals, Interviews

SsilverinterviewtitleSeptember 29, 2002|At once a startling exposé on the horror of Rwanda's 1994 genocide and a stirring portrait of heroism, Steven Silver's fantastic documentary The Last Just Man is a balanced, provocative film that demonstrates a steady hand at the rudder and an educator's philosophy at the helm. It is wrenching and difficult to consider one's own life from the same perspective once watched–thus it fulfills the noblest aspirations of the medium: to move, to inspire, to edify, all so professionally composed that it manages to disguise its mechanism. Finding the right balance between history and irony, outrage and careful consideration, is a devilishly tricky thing, and Mr. Silver carries it off with a surplus of apparent ease. I was honoured to chat with Mr. Silver on the telephone from Toronto this morning preparatory to the Colorado debut of The Last Just Man at the Argus Human Rights Festival.

Skins (2002)

September 27, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, Theatrical

*/****
starring Eric Schweig, Graham Greene, Gary Farmer, Noah Watts
screenplay by Jennifer D. Lyne, based on the novel by Adrian C. Louis
directed by Chris Eyre

by Walter Chaw There is palpable desperation in Skins, director Chris Eyre’s broad follow-up to his well-received Smoke Signals, but that desperation is not so much a reflection of the plight of the film’s Native American characters as a result of Eyre’s yen to expose the tragedy of the Native American experience. Skins is far from an effective exposé of the calamity of the Ogallala Sioux–it founders badly as a pulpit-pounding vanity piece, playing its cards loose and proselytizing. A picture this badly written, transparently directed, and–save a pair of decent performances in its two main roles–dreadfully acted is a tune best received and appreciated by a very specific choir and likely no other. While a nearly all-Native American cast and crew is certainly a refreshing accomplishment, one is left to wonder if the picture needed to be so much specifically for an all-Native American audience–and a limited one at that. Skins, in other words, is a pretty good rant, but a pretty bad movie.

Igby Goes Down (2002)

September 26, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Germany, Theatrical

**/****
starring Kieran Culkin, Susan Sarandon, Jeff Goldblum, Claire Danes
written and directed by Burr Steers

Igbygoesdownby Walter Chaw A battle between bug-eye theatre and dead-eye matinee, Igby Goes Down represents another post-Rushmore neo-Salinger debut (from hyphenate Burr Steers, nephew of Gore Vidal) that places an anti-establishment fish in a prep-school pond and surrounds him with a florid panoply of castrating mothers, Oedipal complexities, and evil schoolmates. In attempting to find new material in a genre that seems mostly played out (and played better by Wes Anderson and Alexander Payne), Igby Goes Down is another desperately overwritten Stygian coming-of-age melodrama à la another recent Kieran Culkin angst flick, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys.

The Tuxedo (2002)

September 26, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Jackie Chan, Martial Arts, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller

*/****
starring Jackie Chan, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jason Isaacs, Debi Mazar
screenplay by Michael J. Wilson and Michael Leeson
directed by Kevin Donovan

Tuxedoby Walter Chaw Between watching Jennifer Love Hewitt’s breasts consistently upstage her (and be constantly commented upon besides) and Jackie Chan try hard to erase his legacy as the best physical comedian of the talkies, it’s tempting to declare that The Tuxedo is a bankrupt entertainment and a remorseless time pit. Tempting and not entirely inaccurate, but in truth The Tuxedo is more than just cheerfully misogynistic (and most of Chan’s films are, in one way or another, woman-hating), cartoonish, and even racist in a Green Hornet/Kato sort of way–The Tuxedo is a symptom of a far deeper concern involving the inability of the West to ever make proper use of hijacked foreign commodities or construct an action film anymore that doesn’t resort to slapstick childishness and/or grotesque violence.

In Conversation with Arthur Dong

September 26, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Documentary, Film Festivals, Interviews

AdonginterviewtitleSeptember 27, 2002|The latest by a veteran and much-lauded documentary filmmaker based in the Los Angeles area, Arthur Dong's Family Fundamentals examines the toll that hatred and intolerance have taken on either side of the ideological divide separating fundamentally Christian families from their homosexual children. Following three families, Dong's picture is notable for its remarkable restraint–its amazing lack of stridency in the face of as insidious–and puzzling–a form of fanaticism as any in our cultural dystopia. Such objectivity graces all of Mr. Dong's late production–works such as the (twice-honoured at Sundance) documentary Licensed to Kill (in which murderers of gay men are interviewed in prison) and Outrage 69, which details, in part, the Stonewall riots of that incendiary summer of '69. I talked to Mr. Dong, a Chinese-American and an openly gay man raised in the Chinatown section of San Francisco, about getting started in film and growing up Chinese in the United States.

When There’s No More Room in Britain: FFC Interviews “Shaun of the Dead” Filmmakers Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost

September 26, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Interviews

ShaunofthdeadinterviewtitleThe makers of Shaun of the Dead on building a better zombie movie

September 26, 2002 | I met up with Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright, the creative team behind the Britcom "Spaced" and now the brilliant zombie rom-com Shaun of the Dead, right before I was scheduled to host a Q&A after a free screening of the film (comprised mainly of Romero fanatics and genre geeks) at Denver's Pavilions Theater. As the movie unspooled, the four of us retired to a Planet Hollywood where they were playing, of all things, an old, unknown FIXX song from the '80s. There was something pleasantly right about that, chatting with these blokes–who had made a half-assed record collection in Shaun of the Dead into an arsenal to irritate the legions of the shambling undead–as the detritus of our glossiest, Teflon age pounded the corners of one of the most soulless prefab eateries in the world.

Mickey’s House of Villains (2001) – DVD

September 23, 2002Posted in****/****, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1990s, 2000s, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Disney, DVD, Family, Horror, Short Films

**½/**** Image A Sound A Extras C-
directed by VARIOUS

by Walter Chaw Just in time for Halloween, Mickey’s House of Villains collects eight animated shorts spanning sixty-some years while illustrating the creative flatline that Disney has experienced from its heyday to well into its current decline. The Mouse demonstrates, too, a tiresome reliance of late on loosely framed anthologies for their direct-to-video releases and this one is no exception, as a gallery of Disney rogues collect in a nightclub to plot the demise of proprietors Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, et al.

Blade II (2002) [New Line Platinum Series] – DVD

September 21, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Vampire

***½/**** Image A+ Sound A+ Extras A+
starring Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, Luke Goss
screenplay by David S. Goyer
directed by Guillermo del Toro

by Walter Chaw Detailing the uncomfortable alliance of Blade and his arch-enemy vampires against a mutant “crack-addict” form of vampire called “Reapers,” Blade II introduces the hints of a twice-illicit romance between Blade (Wesley Snipes) and a succubus princess Nyssa (Leonor Varela) that blossoms after a meet-cute involving the threat of beheading and castration (awww), as well as an unusually pithy look at strange bedfellows in a mutually beneficial conflagration.