Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) [Special Edition] – DVD

June 19, 2001Posted in1970s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Japan, War

***½/**** Image A Sound B+ Extras A
starring Martin Balsam, Joseph Cotten, E.G. Marshall, Tatsuya Mihashi
screenplay by Larry Forrester, Ryuzo Kikushima, Hideo Oguni
directed by Richard Fleischer and Kinji Fukasuka & Toshio Masuda

by Walter Chaw A joint project between a Japanese film crew and veteran American director Richard Fleischer (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), Tora! Tora! Tora! had Akira Kurosawa assigned as the lead Japanese director, poised to make his American debut with a mammoth script weighing in at well over four-hundred pages–and that just for the Japanese side of the story. Accustomed to complete autonomy in his projects, Kurosawa bowed out after several weeks following a series of run-ins with Fox executives over not only the unwieldiness of his vision, but also disagreements concerning the shade of white used in the interiors of the Japanese carrier ward rooms! Unfortunately, Kurosawa’s initial involvement with the picture resulted in his regular cohort Toshiro Mifune turning down the role of Admiral Yamamoto (a role he would play in Jack Smight’s 1976 Midway and in 1968’s Yamamoto biopic Rengo kantai shirei chôkan: Yamamoto Isoroku), as the two titans of Japanese cinema had lingering bad feelings over their last collaboration, the underseen Akahige.

Love Potion #9 (1992) – DVD

June 18, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Romance, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image D+ Sound C-
starring Tate Donovan, Sandra Bullock, Mary Mara, Dale Midkiff
written and directed by Dale Launer

by Walter Chaw Love Potion #9 is an indescribably bad film that elicits so many feelings of true hatred it should be classified as a post-expressionist nihilist experiment rather than a romantic comedy. It is a gimmick flick based on a novelty song that manages to be worse than the stillbirth of an idea that spawned it. I can only surmise that it's being resurrected now on the DVD format because of the inexplicable fame of Sandra Bullock–a realization that makes me not only want to sleep with the lights on, but also begin to dread the inevitable digital remastering of Religion, Inc..

Donovan’s Reef (1963) – DVD

June 16, 2001Posted in1960s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Romance

*½/**** Image A Sound B
starring John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Elizabeth Allen, Jack Warden
screenplay by James Edward Grant and Frank Nugent
directed by John Ford

by Walter Chaw One of legendary director John Ford’s last films, and his final collaboration with John Wayne, Donovan’s Reef is, like much of Ford’s later work, a derivative amalgam of his earlier successes. Curmudgeonly and vicious, it’s a lighter-than-air farce with a black heart that feels suspiciously like the mad rantings of an old soldier describing his vision of a bucolic Valhalla to which he one day hopes to return. Released in the same year (1963) that saw Sidney Poitier become the first black man to win an Oscar in a major category (for Lilies in the Field), Donovan’s Reef is a shockingly, unapologetically racist and misogynistic film about braggadocio, therapeutic rape, and belittling the natives. In other words, John Ford apologists need to work overtime to dig their favorite auteur out from under this surreal bilge.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

June 15, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Fantasy, Germany, Japan, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

*½/****
starring Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig, Leslie Phillips, Mark Collie
screenplay by Simon West and Patrick Massett & John Zinman
directed by Simon West

by Walter Chaw To say that Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is completely incomprehensible is not entirely accurate, for the basic plot appears to be pretty straightforward. The British Lara Croft (played by the American Angelina Jolie) is a sort of jet-setting archaeologist in the Indiana Jones mold who is extremely well outfitted by a gadget man in the James Bond mold, and who boasts of a loyal, shotgun-packing butler in the Batman mold. Her task is to discover two pieces of a triangular artifact before the Illuminati do on the day that a rare syzygy coincides with a solar eclipse, allowing the triangle-bearer to control time.

Cash Crop (1999) – DVD

June 13, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD

Harvest
*½/**** Image B Sound B- Extras C
starring James Van Der Beek, Jeffrey DeMunn, Mary McCormack, Fred Weller
screenplay by Jim Biederman, Stuart Burkin, David M. Korn
directed by Stuart Burkin

by Walter Chaw A micro-budget independent venture shot in twenty-six days, Stuart Burkin’s auteur debut Cash Crop (a.k.a. Harvest) is a pro-pot film (not to be confused with The Killing Fields, a Pol Pot film) that has as its headliner TIGER BEAT icon James Van Der Beek (Varsity Blues), who does indeed lend his Bert-browed visage to about five minutes at the beginning of the movie. The real stars of the show, however, are B-list veterans John Slattery (Traffic, Eraser) and the always excellent Mary McCormack (The Alarmist) as a rural Pennsylvania sheriff and a DEA agent, respectively. It is their performances alone which nearly rescue Cash Crop from its awkward plot progression, a handful of embarrassing subplots, and a few secondary turns that run the gamut from “torturous” to “unwatchable.” Slattery and McCormack don’t make Cash Crop a good movie, don’t get me wrong, they just make it a barely “not as terrible as it would otherwise have been” movie that I’ll forget, Lord willing, in a day or two.

The House of Mirth (2000) – DVD

May 29, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, France, Germany, Romance, UK

**½/**** Image B- Sound B Extras C
starring Gillian Anderson, Dan Aykroyd, Eleanor Bron, Terry Kinney
screenplay by Terence Davies, based on the novel by Edith Wharton
directed by Terence Davies

by Walter Chaw Terence Davies's adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel, The House of Mirth is ultimately a languid and luxurious failure, though always a lavish and often a compelling one. Gillian Anderson and Eric Stoltz are vaguely miscast as the Titian leads, while an appearance by Dan Aykroyd in a distracting role as a lascivious cad nearly sinks the production with every moment of his Elwood Blues quick-talking shyster patter, yet Davies's ability to infuse each of his films with a charge of self-confessional mortification lends the piece an air of sad gravity and outrage. The almost unbearable claustrophobic weight of alienation that flavours his non-linear portfolio (Death and Transfiguration, Distant Voices Still Lives, The Long Day Closes) can be traced to Davies himself feeling

Nine Months (1995) – DVD

May 22, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Romance

*/**** Image B+ Sound B
starring Hugh Grant, Julianne Moore, Tom Arnold, Joan Cusack
screenplay by Chris Columbus, based on the film Neuf mois by Patrick Braoude
directed by Chris Columbus

by Walter Chaw That Chris Columbus consistently gets opportunities to direct films in Hollywood is not a result of his talent or wit, but rather the American box-office’s indefatigable hunger for empty cinematic calories. When such unforgivably unpleasant and sentimental Columbus pap as Home Alone, Home Alone 2, Mrs. Doubtfire, Only the Lonely, and Stepmom drop like lead balloons into the cineplex to the approving chorus of the terminally uncritical and the incurably dim-witted, there is no possible reason for studios to try to create something of quality and value. Psst! Wanna make a fortune? Toss a cheap and manipulative tearjerker peppered with mean-spirited slapstick to Chris Columbus, and watch the money pour in.

Paradise Road (1997) – DVD

May 13, 2001Posted in1990s, Australia, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, War

**/**** Image A+ Sound A
starring Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Pauline Collins, Cate Blanchett
written and directed by Bruce Beresford

by Walter Chaw In 1976, Polish composer Henryk Gorecki composed his stunning orchestral and choral piece Symphony No.3 Op.36 “Symfonia pie¶ni ¿a³osnych” (“Symphony for Sorrowful Souls”), a collection of smaller movements comprising, much like Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, varied texts both sacred and found. Among those sources used by Gorecki are a 15th-century lamentation of the Holy Cross Monastery; a folk song from the Opole region; and, most specifically, a young prisoner’s inscription on the wall of her cell in Zakopane’s Gestapo prison.

Orson Welles: A Critical View – Books

May 13, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Books About Movies, Directors: Orson Welles

FFC rating: 8/10
by André Bazin

by Walter Chaw André Bazin is one of the most influential figures in cinema, not for his actions behind a camera, but for his actions as an active spectator–as that most loathsome and vital of creatures, the critic. A founder of the legendary arts magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, Bazin became the de facto father of the French Nouvelle Vague movement and a nearly literal father to director François Truffaut, whom he saved more than once from imprisonment and impoverishment. Writers employed by Cahiers du Cinéma include the “big five” French New Wave directors: Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer. Each began his career in cinema among its staunchest critics, and each would later endeavour to redefine film as a more “novelistic” and “authentic” method of expression.

Antitrust (2001) [Special Edition] – DVD

May 9, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, Thriller

*/**** Image A+ Sound B+ Extras D
starring Ryan Phillipe, Rachael Leigh Cook, Claire Forlani, Tim Robbins
screenplay by Howard Franklin
directed by Peter Howitt

by Walter Chaw A fitfully entertaining throwback to the Pakula paranoia thrillers of the Seventies, Peter Howitt’s Antitrust is a cross between the techno-geekery of Wargames, the ‘gifted youngster getting a crash course in Machiavellian corruption’ of The Firm, the steal-the-air adolescent angst anthem of Pump Up the Volume, and the ‘rebel teen-geniuses unite’ malarkey of the simply-abominable Hackers. The great shame and irony of Antitrust is that after all the high concept–the creative use of sesame seeds, the Citizen Kane-esque skewering of a media tycoon, the constant reiterations of the hero’s intelligence–the film remains a conventional addition to the thriller genre that is slightly better than it should be because of its audacious goofiness, but far worse than it could have been because of its failure to be goofier. Antitrust, in other words, suffers from what I call the Wizard of Oz malady: no heart, no brain, no courage.

Lost and Delirious (2001) – DVD

May 9, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Drama, DVD, Romance

*½/**** Image A Sound B
starring Piper Perabo, Jessica Pare, Mischa Barton, Jackie Burroughs
screenplay by Judith Thompson, based on the novel The Wives of Bath by Susan Swan
directed by Léa Pool

by Walter Chaw A teen-lesbian Phenomenon without the maggots and psychotic chimp, Lost and Delirious is gawky, breathy, and self-important–just like a teenage girl, I guess, which makes the film difficult to criticize in a conventional way. It does such a good job with the portentousness of that mawkish Shakespeare-quoting period in a young woman's life that some will and have mistaken its gaucherie for a portrayal of gaucherie. But mostly what Lost and Delirious succeeds in doing is helping The Virgin Suicides and its portrait of the dulcet, ephemeral cult of childhood impress even more by comparison.

The Substitute 4: Failure Is Not an Option (2001) – DVD

May 1, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, DVD, Thriller

The Substitute: Failure Is Not an Option
*½/**** Image C Sound B Extras B-
starring Treat Williams, Angie Everhart, Patrick Kilpatrick, Bill Nunn
screenplay by Dan Gurskis
directed by Robert Radler

by Walter Chaw Since being robbed of an Oscar for his performance in Sidney Lumet’s underestimated Prince of the City, Treat Williams has been engaged in a terrifying and vengeful rampage of direct-to-video schlock and woeful cinema (The Deep End of the Ocean). Taking over the decidedly unimposing titular role of “the substitute” after Tom Berenger’s surprise cult favourite inversion of the tired Blackboard Jungle/Dangerous Minds mold–fish-out-of-water teachers beating the tar out of inner-city youths–Treat Williams makes his third appearance as the teacher we’d love to torment…but better not.

Finding Forrester (2000) – DVD

April 25, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Directors: Gus Van Sant, Drama, DVD

**/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras D+
starring Sean Connery, F. Murray Abraham, Anna Paquin, Busta Rhymes
screenplay by Mike Rich
directed by Gus Van Sant

by Walter Chaw Not content to play Salieri on film just once, F. Murray Abraham, after years of toiling away in decidedly lowbrow productions subsequent to Amadeus, has returned to the role that made him fitfully famous. It’s interesting to me that an actor who found fleeting celebrity (as a composer who borrowed fame very briefly) would choose to make a ‘comeback’ portraying a once almost-famous writer/now frustrated teacher of English at a snotty prep school. Still, given the level of relative originality in Finding Forrester, it’s not entirely unexpected that a secondary character played by a rather limited character actor is transplanted whole cloth from another film. On the other hand, something of a surprise is that Sean Connery would reprise his performance as an antisocial genius (who opens his heart to a creature of the Bronx) from Medicine Man, and that Gus Van Sant would try to resuscitate the flyblown carcass of Good Will Hunting by cleverly splicing it together with The Paper Chase.

julien donkey-boy (1999) – DVD

April 4, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Esoterica

**½/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Ewen Bremner, Chloe Sevigny, Werner Herzog, Evan Neumann
written and directed by Harmony Korine

by Walter Chaw Julien Bishop (Ewen Bremner, of Trainspotting) is schizophrenic, a stream-of-consciousness construct biding his time shambling along city streets, riding public transportation, and volunteering at a school for the blind. Aggressively disoriented and a sower of discomfort, Julien is not only a twisted Christ figure at the center of this most religious of Harmony Korine’s pictures, but a clear manifestation of Korine’s filmmaking philosophy.

Gummo (1997) – DVD

April 2, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Esoterica

***/**** Image A- Sound A Extras C
starring Linda Manz, Max Perlich, Jacob Reynolds, Chloe Sevigny
written and directed by Harmony Korine

by Walter Chaw Xenia, Ohio, America's middle-of-nowhere, is imagined by Harmony Korine (Kids) as the quintessence of Grant Wood's slightly canted take on the gothic at the heart of the mundane. It's a town out of step, recovering from a tornado which, an opening narration tells us, left people dead, cats and dogs dead, and houses ripped apart. In Gummo, his directorial debut, one of the tasks Korine sets for himself is detailing the psychological damage wrought on Xenia by two different forces of nature: the lingering emotional fallout from the almost-forgotten tornado; and the tragedy of being born with no advantageous DNA in an ever-diminishing gene pool.

Wonder Boys (2000) – DVD

March 25, 2001Posted in****/****, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Christmas, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Germany, Japan, UK

****/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes
screenplay by Steve Kloves, based on the novel by Michael Chabon
directed by Curtis Hanson

by Walter Chaw While safely cocooned in the lushly-padded walls of academia, I had as my advisor a Grady Tripp–a man I respected as a professor and as a friend. We exchanged books often, we talked a great deal about the obscure minutiae of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s life, and we argued over whether William and Dorothy Wordsworth were engaged in a seedy incestual entanglement. (Yes, Brad, they were.) I even suspect that there was a tattered, coffee-stained manuscript tucked in the top drawer of his desk. If you’ve ever had a professor who shaped your opinions and a good portion of your intellectual life, and if you were additionally lucky enough to call him a friend as well as a mentor, then you’re predisposed to liking Curtis Hanson’s Wonder Boys.