Queer as Folk: The Complete First Season (1999) – DVD (volumes 1 and 6 only)

February 19, 2002Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance, Television

Image C Sound C+ Extras ?

by Walter Chaw It's extremely difficult to review a television show in a traditional sense. Television series tend to be long-term investments–seldom is the first season of anything ("The Sopranos" being an obvious exception, "Cheers" being an obvious example) worth much of a damn, especially in comparison to later seasons, when everything hums like a well-oiled machine. Explanation for this can be found in the awkwardness inherent in too much desperate exposition crammed into too short a time. Accordingly, the first episode of "Queer as Folk", recently collected in a six-DVD box set (FILM FREAK CENTRAL was supplied only with discs one and six), is mannered and uncomfortable. That's almost beside the point.

John Q. (2002)

February 15, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, Theatrical, Thriller, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/****
starring Denzel Washington, Robert Duvall, Kimberly Elise, Eddie Griffin
screenplay by James Kearns
directed by Nick Cassavetes

by Walter Chaw John Q’s (Denzel Washington) chosen nom de guerre is a tripartite signifier meant to evoke Kafka, Black Muslims, and the everyman (“John Q. Public”). It’s the kind of import-laden affectation that almost always indicates a screenwriter in over his head. It is, in other words, only the first hint that John Q. is going to be the kind of populist bullshit to which Oprah Winfrey will inevitably devote an hour of her terrifying television show. According to the film, though, anyone even approaching the big O’s income bracket is part of The Problem.

Iris (2001)

February 15, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Biopic, Drama, Romance, UK

**/****
starring Kate Winslet, Hugh Bonneville, Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent
screenplay by Richard Eyre, Charles Wood, based on the book by John Bayley
directed by Richard Eyre

Iris

by Walter Chaw Iris wants nothing more than to be an objective look at the life and decline of British novelist Iris Murdoch (played by Kate Winslet and Dame Judi Dench) from insouciant free-love literati to decrepit Alzheimer’s victim in the care of her stuttering husband, novelist and critic John Bayley (Hugh Bonneville and Jim Broadbent). But the film confuses objectivity with sentimentality, and in the process obscures its titular protagonist with maddening fragments meant to elucidate her brilliance. Iris makes the mistake of assuming that its audience is well versed in the work of Murdoch and Bayley–enough so that the loss of her mind is one that is tragic beyond the spectator’s basic human decency. Iris also makes the mistake of not allowing Dench the opportunity to play Murdoch as anything but a woman in mental decline, leaving the “pre-disease” spunk and vitality to a game Winslet. The “before” and “after” shots are two different people and the film just isn’t agile enough to carry an illusion contrary.

Crossroads (2002)

February 15, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Music, Romance, Theatrical, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/****
starring Britney Spears, Zoe Saldana, Anson Mount, Taryn Manning
screenplay by Shonda Rhimes
directed by Tamra Davis

Crossroadsby Walter Chaw Crossroads is appalling and noxious. Consider how it maturely teaches that a young girl’s choice to lose her virginity should be one based on careful consideration, and then has its heroine bed a tattooed ex-con she met five days previous; this is Smooth Talk without recognition of consequences. It stars Lolita mega-tart Britney Spears in her first movie, and the first scene we share with her is in her bedroom as she jumps up and down on the mattress in teeny underwear, quickly followed by a shot of Ms. Spears in tiny pink Victoria’s Secret attire hopping into bed with her dorky lab partner before reconsidering the big leap. We also get shots of Spears in a sleazy Louisiana nightclub, where she finally erases any line left between her act and a strip show, and after that a few weird angles of her posing on the hoods of cars and in motel rooms while clad in towels and bikinis. The only thing separating Crossroads from a Showtime soft porn (it has all the excrescent acting, bad soundtrack, and vaguely suggestive dialogue) is the lack of any actual nudity. Like its star, the film is just a highly inappropriate tease.

The Object of My Affection (1998) – DVD

February 12, 2002Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image A Sound B
starring Jennifer Aniston, Paul Rudd, Alan Alda, Nigel Hawthorne
screenplay by Wendy Wasserstein, based on the novel by Stephen McCauley
directed by Nicholas Hytner

by Walter Chaw A fascinatingly unpleasant precursor to NBC’s “Will & Grace”, The Object of My Affection details the predominantly platonic friendship between a romantically tortured straight woman, Nina (Jennifer Aniston), and a prototypically sensitive gay man, George (Paul Rudd). The unbearably treacly score by long-time offender George Fenton immediately announces by its very presence (and Fenton’s very participation) that The Object of My Affection is going to be atrocious, and true to form, it’s really atrocious. Yet to say that it’s as predictable as it is sickening in its laziness (there’s a VH1 music video montage in which our odd couple attends a dance class) would be to downplay the actual visceral “wrongness” of the piece, something that has nothing to do with the subject matter.

Muhammad Ali: Through the Eyes of the World (2001) – DVD

February 11, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Documentary, DVD, Sports

**½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B-
directed by Phil Grabsky

by Bill Chambers One can't accuse the documentary Muhammad Ali: Through the Eyes of the World of false advertising: it filters Ali's life story through the perspective of people who don't necessarily know him but were around to feel the ripple effect he had on pop and politics in the hippie era. There is Billy Crystal, who says he couldn't sleep for days after Ali lost his title to Joe Frazier; there is Maya Angelou, she of the voice that's like a lozenge for our spiritual ills, saying she might have co-opted Ali's "Float like a butterfly/Sting like a bee" verse were it not spoken during the peak of his fame.

Fatal Error (1999) – DVD

February 11, 2002Posted in1990s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller

ZERO STARS/**** Image C+ Sound C
starring Antonio Sabato Jr., Janine Turner, Robert Wagner, Jason Schombing
teleplay by Rockne S. O’Bannon, based on the novel Reaper by Ben Mezrich
directed by Armand Mastroianni

by Walter Chaw A fatal virus transmitted by an evil computer program enters via the eyes and turns people into chalk (neatly combining two plots of “The X Files”). It’s up to hunky Antonio Sabato Jr., as ex-Army virologist-cum-contract paramedic Nick, and the vacuous Janine Turner, as current Army virologist Dr. Samantha, to unravel the puzzle before millions die. That Robert Wagner plays the corporate villain without a hint of irony is just one of those sad lessons about wise investments that parents should tell their children.

Don’t Say a Word (2001) – DVD

February 10, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Thriller

*½/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B+
starring Michael Douglas, Brittany Murphy, Famke Janssen, Sean Bean
screenplay by Anthony Peckham and Patrick Smith Kelly, based on the novel by Andrew Klavan
directed by Gary Fleder

by Walter Chaw It’s probably not at all surprising that lock-step director Gary Fleder’s Don’t Say a Word, based on a by-the-numbers novel by fiction hack Andrew Klavan (True Crime), has less original material than Michael Jackson. It opens on a heist scene that reminds of Point Break and Heat (plus a thousand other heist films), segues into a home invasion/child-snatching that recalls Michael Douglas’s own Fatal Attraction, proceeds into a cell phone cat-and-mouse like Ransom, ends with a cascade of particulate debris that brings to mind Witness, and touches base to varying degrees with Sliver, Nick of Time, Instinct, Nuts, and Awakenings in particular in its sloppy patient/doctor dynamic (and the naming of a secondary character “Dr. Sachs”). There’s even a bit concerning a stolen child, a mother, and a song familiar to them both taken whole from Hitchcock’s remake of his own The Man Who Knew Too Much. Sadly, Don’t Say a Word forgets to first establish that the tune is meaningful. It is a poignant omission that illustrates as well as any the problems of a lazy knock-off film that plays a lot of familiar notes but doesn’t once strike a chord nor find a melody of its own.

Collateral Damage (2002)

February 8, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Mexico, Schwarzenegger, Theatrical, Thriller, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/****
starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elias Koteas, Francesca Neri, Cliff Curtis
screenplay by David Griffiths & Peter Griffiths
directed by Andrew Davis

by Walter Chaw There is an inexplicable instinct in Hollywood to cast Arnold Schwarzenegger as an everyman when the Austrian Oak has only ever played a pre-Christian barbarian and post-apocalyptic robot convincingly. Perhaps sensing something awry in Arnold playing a mild-mannered Irish fireman named Gordon Brewer, the creators of Collateral Damage have made an effort to portray Schwarzenegger’s character as a comic book superhero–maybe one named “Fire Man.” Brewer irrationally favours the tools of his life-saving trade (a pair of axes and a serendipitously placed sliding pole) over the far more plentiful (and practical) guns, while a cleverly donned white Panama Hat (making Arnie look a little like Leon Redbone crossed with a bratwurst) somehow successfully disguises the 6’2″ goliath from seeking eyes. A pulp caped-crusader comic would at least have the decency to be lurid and exciting, though–all Collateral Damage manages to be is shatteringly dull.

Sleepless (2001) – DVD

February 6, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Directors: Dario Argento, DVD, Horror, Italy, Thriller

Non ho sonno
*/**** Image D Sound D
starring Max von Sydow, Stefano Dionisi, Chiara Caselli, Gabriele Lavia
 screenplay by Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini, Carlo Lucarelli
directed by Dario Argento

by Walter Chaw Italian horror master Dario Argento’s desperation for a critical or popular success is starting to manifest itself in self-imitation and sloppiness. Fourteen years removed from his last good movie (Opera), his latest film Sleepless (a.k.a. Non ho sonno), starring the inimitable Max Von Sydow and heralded as a return to Argento’s roots in the giallo genre, hits North American shores months after bootleg copies of it have already circulated amongst the ranks of disappointed fanboys. Sleepless lacks the savant-level spark of invention that elevates Argento’s best films (Deep Red, Suspiria, Tenebre) and the flashes of brilliance that indicate his second-tier of work (Phenomena, Opera, Inferno). It is listless and painful, with fakey gore and dialogue that reaches nadir even for an auteur never known for his pen.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) [2-Disc Collector’s Edition] – DVD

February 6, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Disney, DVD, Family, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

**/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras A
screenplay by Tab Murphy
directed by Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise

by Walter Chaw Clearly trying to gain some anime credibility by aping the mystical mumbo jumbo of Akira in an unfathomable third act, jettisoning the musical romantic comedy format, and inserting a few subtitles, Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire (henceforth Atlantis) has moments of true grandeur, though it has a good many more of pure Disney. It gets hip genre credibility from the story contributions of “Hellboy” creator Mike Mignola and “Buffy” scribe Joss Whedon, but the best of intentions often lead to the worst of eventualities, and Atlantis is ultimately less “wow” than “oh, boy” and, eventually, “huh?”

Bubble Boy (2001) – DVD

February 5, 2002Posted inAdventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Road Movie, Romance, Sci-Fi

**½/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Swoosie Kurtz, Marley Shelton, Danny Trejo
screenplay by Cinco Paul & Ken Daurio
directed by Blair Hayes

by Walter Chaw At its giant heart, Bubble Boy attempts the Herculean task of convincing us that the best parts of America died with the forced naiveté of “Land of the Lost”. Single-handedly, the film tries to resurrect the cheesiness of that awful Kroft Brothers’ show that held my generation transfixed after Saturday morning cartoons, allowing its titular protagonist to play a mean electric guitar version of its theme song (provided by Dweezil Zappa) while featuring a dream sequence cobbled together from outtakes from that late, lamented prehistoric Neverland. If this strikes you as a strange thing for a movie to try, consider that Bubble Boy is also the finest Todd Solondz film that Solondz never made.

A Rumor of Angels (2002)

February 1, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Theatrical

*½/****
starring Vanessa Redgrave, Ray Liotta, Catherine McCormack, Trevor Morgan
screenplay by James Eric & Jamie Horton & Peter O’Fallon, based on the book Thy Son Liveth: Messages From A Soldier To His Mother by Grace Duffie
directed by Peter O’Fallon

Rumorofangelsby Walter Chaw A Rumor of Angels is a maudlin tearjerker in the rarely interesting “gimp on the hill” tradition (The Man Without a Face, Finding Forrester, Heidi): a child befriends the town outcast to teach us all a little about acceptance through a series of rote vignettes. Peter O’Fallon’s belated follow-up to his claustrophobic neo-Tarantino gangster flick Suicide Kings is long on twinkly-eyed close-ups and short on shame. A young boy (Trevor Morgan) trespasses on a wizened hag’s property (Vanessa Redgrave), gets shot at, suffers a post-traumatic stress fit at a bridge (the source of which is not ever a mystery, considering the boy’s mother has recently died), and gets picked up by his weird uncle (Ron Livingston, overacting). There is never a question that the boy and the old lady will become dear pals, never a doubt that they will fill a void in one another’s life, and never an uncertainty that the kid’s skeptical parents (Ray Liotta as his dad and Catherine McCormack as his stepmother) will eventually come around.

Slackers (2002)

February 1, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Romance, Theatrical

**/****
starring Devon Sawa, Jason Schwartzman, James King, Michael C. Maronna
screenplay by David H. Steinberg
directed by Dewey Nicks

by Walter Chaw A film that does for masturbation what Freddy Got Fingered did for manually pleasuring large land mammals, Slackers is a teen revenge/romance film (a bellicose cross between Real Genius and Three o’Clock High) that surprises for its random Conan O’Brien-esque spark of perverse invention. There are at least two sequences that belong in a better film, and they’re tied together by a gross-out comedy that vacillates between the typical (a vibrator gag) and the surreal (a talking penis-powered sock puppet). It’s an amalgam of Farrelly Brothers archetypes (i.e., the flawless inamorata: gorgeous, kind, candy striper) and Jason Schwartzman’s Rushmore-brand of aggressive outcast, and though it spends long minutes flirting with “potential cult favourite,” Slackers ends up as just another ugly also-ran.

The Testimony of Taliesin Jones (2002)

February 1, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Family, Theatrical, UK

Small Miracles
Taliesin Jones
*½/****
starring Jonathan Pryce, Ian Bannen, Griff Rhys Jones, Geraldine James
screenplay by Maureen Tilyou, based on the book The Testimony of Taliesin Jones by Rhidian Brook
directed by Martin Duffy

“Excessive sorrow gains nothing,
Nor will doubting God‘s miracles.
Although I am small, I am skilful”
—6th century, Taliesin

by Walter Chaw Chief Bard of Britain and a Celtic shaman, the historical Taliesin lived in Wales in the sixth century, his poems the direct precursor to the Arthur legend as well as his own as a druidic shape-shifter and spiritual healer. (He’s thought to be the inspiration for the Merlin character.) Rhidian Brook’s well-regarded children’s tome The Testimony of Taliesin Jones concerns a quiet child who, stricken by the divorce of his parents, turns to faith-healing to deal with the arbitrary turmoil of his life. With its heart so clearly in the right place, it’s hard to come down too hard on Martin Duffy’s same-named cinematic adaptation of Brook’s text, but the film is so intent on capturing the spiritual aspects of its title character and its namesake that it gives short shrift to the tragedy of its familial disintegration, discarding subtlety, too, in its proselytizing wake.

An American Rhapsody (2001) – DVD

January 31, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Scarlett Johansson

**/**** Image B- Sound B+ Commentary B
starring Nastassja Kinski, Scarlett Johansson, Tony Goldwyn, Mae Whitman
written and directed by Éva Gardos

Americanrhapsodycapby Walter Chaw Editor Éva Gardos’s An American Rhapsody, her first film as writer-director, is riddled with inconsistencies, lacklustre performances, and convenient platitudes that are perhaps not terribly surprising for a debut screenwriter and director, but disheartening from a veteran cutter who gained experience with the likes of Hal Ashby and Peter Bogdanovich. The problem with an autobiography, after its inherent onanistic self-absorption, is that it will too often hide behind the aegis of truth to excuse a multitude of narrative sins. An American Rhapsody is deeply felt, no question, but it jerks and lurches along without much regard for secondary characters, continuity, motivation, and coherence. It is ultimately little more than an episodic patchwork of over-burdened vignettes that among them share only a desire to manufacture unearned pathos and manipulate events towards the most expedient solution.

Amy’s O (2002) – DVD

January 29, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Romance

Amy’s O…
Amy’s Orgasm
½*/**** Image C+ Sound C+ Extras C+
starring Julie Davis, Nick Chinlund, Caroline Aaron, Mitchell Whitfield
written and directed by Julie Davis

by Walter Chaw It’s one thing to make a film about a person who’s terminally self-indulgent and stricken with delusions of grandeur, another altogether to make a film that endorses its insufferable main character’s unrepentant egotism. Julie Davis’s abrasively cute Amy’s O… is ninety minutes of watching someone masturbate while fantasizing about herself–there are enough lines of dialogue here about our heroine’s overpowering beauty and great tits that it starts to resemble There’s Something About Mary without the attendant sense of self-awareness and irony.

U.S. Seals 2 (2001) – DVD

January 25, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD

U.S. Seals II: The Ultimate Force
*/**** Image B- Sound C
starring Michael Worth, Damian Chapa, Karen Kim, Marshall R. Teague
screenplay by Michael D. Weiss
directed by Isaac Florentine

by Walter Chaw The only things you really want to know about U.S. Seals 2 are whether or not it has nudity (yes) and martial arts (also yes). The more sophisticated filmgoer will be curious if the film is unintentionally funny (yes), if a paintball gun that shoots acid balls figures into the proceedings (yes), and if there’s a final showdown that incorporates the nudity, martial arts, and paintballs (alas, no). Unless you’re in the lower 10% of human intelligence, you don’t need me to tell you that U.S. Seals 2 is a cheap-o direct-to-video action knock-off that happens to be a sequel to a film that no one in their right mind saw in the first place.

A Walk to Remember (2002)

January 25, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Romance, Teen, Theatrical

*/****
starring Mandy Moore, Shane West, Peter Coyote, Al Thompson
screenplay by Karen Janszen, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks
directed by Adam Shankman

Walktorememberby Walter Chaw An interminable trudge through afterschool-special hell, Adam Shankman’s A Walk to Remember stars teen pop starlet Mandy Moore and is based on a novel by best-selling schmaltz-meister Nicholas Sparks–a combination sure to warn away most reasonably intelligent folks. After a kinetic opening sequence that recalls a nearly identical scene from The Lost Boys while giving false hope that A Walk to Remember will be an agreeably nostalgic diversion, the film becomes a vaguely surreal morality play scripted along the straitjacket genre conventions that indicate each of Sparks’s novels. A Walk to Remember is hopelessly unrealistic and often uncomfortable to watch, far more interested in presenting Moore with showcase opportunities to peddle her cavity-causing music; it threatens to do for her what Glitter did for Mariah Carey. Worse, if you don’t know every single plot point and twist after the first twenty minutes, you’ve done the sensible thing and left after the first ten.

The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

January 25, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Ireland, Romance, Switzerland, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

**/****
starring Guy Pearce, Jim Caviezel, JB Blanc, Henry Cavill
screenplay by Jay Wolpert, based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas
directed by Kevin Reynolds

Countofmontecristoby Walter Chaw Preserving the main events of the bombastic blunderbuss novel on which it is based, Kevin Reynolds’s adaptation of Alexandre Dumas père’s The Count of Monte Cristo also jettisons what meagre subtlety there was in the source material. The film, an attractive swashbuckling spectacle, is pleasantly campy for its first hour and a plodding endurance test for its final eighty minutes, an initially agreeable, if ridiculous, escapist (literally) flick that bloats to the dimensions of standard Hollywood offal.