Mute Witness: On “Synecdoche, New York”

September 14, 2008Posted inAuthors: Bill Chambers, Blog, Canada, Charlie Kaufman, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Esoterica, Film Festivals, TIFF

As threatened, a few stream-of-consciousness thoughts on Charlie Kaufman’s latest…

When Synecdoche, New York premiered at Cannes, I remember being annoyed by how feeble the critical coverage on it was. But I get it now. This is a film I’m hard-pressed to describe, let alone review in depth, after just a single viewing. I can say that I see why Kaufman kept this one for himself rather than entrusting it to Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry—it’s so dense and cryptic that it would be nigh uninterpretable by anyone but the source. Kaufman is a pretty meat-and-potatoes director, all things considered, but there are so many idiosyncrasies built into the material that it’s stylish by default.

TIFF ’08: Gigantic

September 13, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, Romance, TIFF
**/****starring Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel, Ed Asner, Jane Alexanderscreenplay by Adam Nagata & Matt Aseltondirected by Matt Aselton by Bill Chambers Gigantic is littered with dead and loose ends, which wouldn't be a big deal if this were the quasi-freeform jazz of a Cassavetes or even an Apatow wannabe, but is a considerable problem when taking into account the crispness of the film's aesthetics. The clean 'scope compositions and fat-free performances become increasingly incongruous; by the time the movie stops short with everything and nothing resolved, you're convinced the filmmakers snatched a script out of the oven half-cooked after a window…

TIFF ’08: Rachel Getting Married

September 6, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Directors: Jonathan Demme, Drama, TIFF
**/****starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Mather Zickel, Bill Irwinscreenplay by Jenny Lumetdirected by Jonathan Demme by Bill Chambers Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married has the cultural disadvantage of arriving soon after Margot at the Wedding and the personal one of following Claire Denis's 35 Shots in my screening log. Denis does so much more with so much less; perhaps sight-unseen, people have been calling this a return to form for Demme (as in, the form before The Silence of the Lambs created certain commercial expectations of/obligations in his work), but I don't remember him ever being this histrionic. And my…

TIFF ’08: The Girl from Monaco

September 1, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, France, TIFF
La fille de Monaco**/****starring Fabrice Luchini, Roschdy Zem, Louise Bourgoin, Stéphane Audranscreenplay by Anne Fontaine, Benoît Graffindirected by Anne Fontaine by Bill Chambers Her ringtone is a wolf whistle, her bedroom is decorated with Princess Di memorabilia, and she says things like "I feel orange." She's The Girl from Monaco. She's also a coarse variation on Sarah Jessica Parker's SanDeE* from L.A. Story (this time, it's she who does the weather), duking it out for the soul of lawyer Bertrand against his emotionally-involved bodyguard, Christophe. Bertrand (Fabrice Luchini) is in Monaco representing a suspected murderess (Stéphane Audran) in a case…

TIFF ’08: A Christmas Tale

August 29, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Christmas, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, France, TIFF
Un Conte de Noël***/****starring Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Anne Cosignyscreenplay by Arnaud Desplechin, Emmanuel Bourdieudirected by Arnaud Desplechin by Bill Chambers A Gallic collision of The Family Stone (ugh) and The Royal Tenenbaums (woo) but far more palatable and novelistic than that might suggest, Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale (Un Conte de Noël) unfurls over Christmas in bourgeois Roubaix, where the dysfunctional Vuillards have congregated to weigh their options now that matriarch Junon (Catherine Deneuve) has been diagnosed with cancer. She needs a bone-marrow transplant, and the only potential matches are black sheep Henri (Mathieu Amalric) and Henri's…

Comedy Central’s TV Funhouse: Uncensored (2000-2001) + Dear Pam [2 DVD Set] – DVDs

August 20, 2008Posted in1970s, 2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, DVD, Television

COMEDY CENTRAL'S TV FUNHOUSE: UNCENSORED
Image B Sound B Extras B-
"Western Day," "Hawaiian Day," "Christmas Day," "Mexicans Day," "Caveman Day," "Safari Day," "Astronaut Day," "Chinese New Year's Day"

DEAR PAM (1976)
*/**** Image C- Sound D+ Extras D+
starring Crystal Sync, Jennifer Jordan, John Holmes, Tony Perez
written and directed by Harold Hindgrind

by Ian Pugh Viewing it today, I realize that Robert Smigel's unfortunately short-lived Comedy Central series "TV Funhouse" probably represented a major turning point in my understanding of film and television as artforms. Its casual acquaintance with reality and fantasy was a vital link that germinated the meta seeds planted by "Freakazoid!" and Back to the Future Part II before I graduated to The Dead Pool and Tenebrae; and although the cartoons parodying celebrities are horribly dated now, they're most likely where I properly developed a sense of irony. ("Stedman," wherein Oprah's fiancé pretends to be a secret agent in order to spend her money and avoid sleeping with her, remains my most lucid memory of the show's broadcast run.) The revelation was somehow surprising yet completely logical all the same, considering how the show operates in a grey zone between two perspectives–that of a child vs. that of an adult–and questions whether the two are really that different from each other.

The Whoopee Boys (1986) – DVD

August 12, 2008Posted in1980s, Authors: Alex Jackson, Comedy

**/**** Image B- Sound B-
starring Michael O'Keefe, Paul Rodriguez, Denholm Elliott, Dan O'Herlihy
screenplay by Steve Zacharias and Jeff Buhai and David Obst
directed by John Byrum

by Alex Jackson John Byrum's 1986 comedy The Whoopee Boys is a strictly hit-and-miss affair. When it hits, it's good for a chuckle and a worthy distraction. When it misses, it is, to borrow one of the film's favourite visuals, like a swift kick to the groin. I'm being a lot easier on the picture than I imagine most people would be, in part because I simply admire its sheer hubris. The Whoopee Boys really puts it on the line, and there are many times where it seems like it's working without a safety net. What do you have to gain from making a movie like this? You might make people laugh. What do you have to lose? You could create such an unholy object of pure, unadulterated shittiness that audiences will commit hara-kiri in the aisles to preserve the very last shred of dignity they have left after buying a ticket.

Once Upon a Zeitgeist: Blue City (1986); Top Gun (1986); The Lost Boys (1987); Bull Durham (1988)

August 5, 2008Posted in1980s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Crime, Directors: Tony Scott, Drama, DVD, Horror, Sports, Teen, Thriller, Tom Cruise, Vampire

80sdiscstitle

BLUE CITY – DVD
ZERO STARS/**** Image C- Sound C-
starring Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Paul Winfield, Scott Wilson
screenplay by Lukas Heller and Walter Hill, based on the novel by Ross MacDonald
directed by Michelle Manning

TOP GUN [Widescreen Special Collector’s Edition] – DVD + [Special Collector’s Edition] Blu-ray Disc
*/****
DVD – Image B Sound B+ Extras B
BD – Image B+ Sound A+ (DTS) A- (DD) Extras B
starring Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards
screenplay by Jim Cash & Jack Epps, Jr.
directed by Tony Scott

THE LOST BOYS [Two-Disc Special Edition] – DVD
***/**** Image B+ Sound B Extras C+
starring Corey Feldman, Jami Gertz, Corey Haim, Dianne Wiest
screenplay by Janice Fischer & James Jeremias and Jeffrey Boam
directed by Joel Schumacher

BULL DURHAM [Collector’s Edition] – DVD
**/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras B+
starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Trey Wilson
written and directed by Ron Shelton

by Walter Chaw Released in 1986 and tonally identical to contemporary suck classics The Wraith and Wisdom, the Brat Pack travesty Blue City represents the nadir of a year that produced Blue Velvet, Down By Law, The Mosquito Coast, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Sid and Nancy, Aliens, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Fly, Big Trouble in Little China, Something Wild, Mona Lisa, and Night of the Creeps, for starters. It’s the quintessence of why people remember the 1980s as a terrible decade for film, poor in every single objective measure of quality. Consider a central set-piece where our hero Billy (Judd Nelson) and his buck-toothed cohort Joey (David Caruso) stage a weird re-enactment of the heist from The Killing at a dog track that includes not only such bon mots as “I’m new at this! Give me a break!” but also the dumbest diversionary tactic in the history of these things as Joey tosses a prime cut on the track in front of a frankly startled/quickly delighted pack of muzzled greyhounds. Then again, it’s not a bad metaphor for the Me Generation and its blockbuster mentality. After cracking wise a few times in a way that makes one wonder if he’s suddenly become a Republican, Billy blows on the barrel of his gun in his best John Ireland-meets-Montgomery Clift and professional bad editor Ross Albert (the whiz kid behind Bushwhacked, The Beverly Hillbillies, and The Pest) cracks a little wise himself by cutting to a rack of hot dogs. Unfortunately, suggesting that Judd Nelson is gay as a French holiday is only mildly wittier than suggesting the same of clearly gay Tom Cruise. More on that when we get to Top Gun.

Tootsie (1982) [25th Anniversary Edition] + The Pied Piper (1972) – DVDs

July 28, 2008Posted in1970s, 1980s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Fantasy, Musical, Romance, UK, West Germany

TOOTSIE
**/**** Image B Sound A- Extras B
starring Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman
screenplay by Murray Schisgal and Larry Gelbart
directed by Sydney Pollack

THE PIED PIPER
*½/**** Image C Sound C
starring Donovan, Jack Wild, John Hurt, Donald Pleasence
screenplay by Andrew Berkin, Jacques Demy & Mark Peploe
directed by Jacques Demy

by Ian Pugh SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. The fatal flaw of Tootsie can be traced back to the fact that, here at least, Teri Garr is a better actress than Jessica Lange, playing a better character in a more interesting scenario. It only takes one scene to realize that: Garr's Sandy Lester, long-time friend and protégé to douchebag actor Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman, who possesses enough self-awareness as a douchebag actor to be the film's saving grace), bursts into tears because a promising role on the soap opera "Southwest General" requires the one quality she can't play: "a woman!" Suddenly, you're thrust into the compelling inner circle of a profession fraught with self-doubt, false friends, and the attempt to decipher a very slippery perception of "reality."

The Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly Collection – DVD

July 22, 2008Posted in1940s, Animation, Authors: Alex Jackson, Comedy, DVD, Musical, Romance, Sports, War

ON THE TOWN (1949)
**/**** Image C Sound B-
starring Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller
screenplay by Adolph Green and Betty Comden, based on the play
directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME (1949)
**/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras C
starring Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, Betty Garrett
screenplay by Harry Tugeno and George Wells
directed by Busby Berkeley

ANCHORS AWEIGH (1945)
**/**** Image C+ Sound B- Extras D
starring Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, Gene Kelly, Dean Stockwell
screenplay by Isobel Lennart
directed by George Sidney

by Alex Jackson One of the cinema’s most startling moments in recent years was a close-up of Paul Dano early on in There Will Be Blood. Dano was never meant to get that friendly with the camera. I’m not sure I can properly convey this notion, but his close-up created a dissonant effect. It felt as though director Paul Thomas Anderson had broken some unstated rule of filmmaking. I think the reason it’s so jarring is that the Close-Up wasn’t designed for actors like Paul Dano. It was designed for somebody like his co-star, Daniel Day-Lewis. To put it as delicately as possible, Dano wasn’t blessed with a “movie star” face. He’s a bit strange-looking. In contrast, Daniel Day-Lewis is traditionally handsome and truly “belongs” on the silver screen. In and of himself, he’s as cinematic as anything you’re ever going to find in the movies.

Drillbit Taylor (2008) – Blu-ray Disc

July 14, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, John Hughes, Teen

**/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras B
starring Owen Wilson, Leslie Mann, Danny McBride, Josh Peck
screenplay by Kristofor Brown & Seth Rogen
directed by Steven Brill

by Bill Chambers For good and for ill, John Hughes's sticky fingerprints are all over Drillbit Taylor, his first screen credit (under his nom-de-plume "Edmond Dantès") in six years. The film has signs of something written post-Curly Sue, given its glib fascination with the homeless, penchant for quasi-Dickensian names (Drillbit, Filkins, Doppler, Fence), and reams of sadistic slapstick. Yet it also echoes an earlier period in which Hughes treated high-schoolers with sensitivity, confronted the sometimes-toxic influence of their parents (particularly the patriarch), and understood pop-culture as teenage shorthand. (If the score's pomo quotation of the Cape Fear theme wasn't indicated in Hughes's 70-page "scriptment," it's an uncanny homage. Ditto a non-sequitur of the nurse's office pulling down a "Closed" sign like a nervous bank teller in the Wild West during an altercation in the hall outside.) Too, Drillbit Taylor betrays Hughes's influence in scenes of class warfare, though a moment when the protagonists, running for their lives, stop to ogle a couple of sunbathers is so derivative of his Ferris Bueller's Day Off that only the rabid fandom of script doctors Kristofor Brown and Seth Rogen could account for it.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

July 11, 2008Posted in****/****, 2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Fantasy, Germany, Hungary, Sci-Fi, Superhero, Theatrical

****/****
starring Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, John Hurt
written and directed by Guillermo del Toro

Hellboyiiby Walter Chaw It’s at the forefront of one’s mind during Hellboy II: The Golden Army (hereafter Hellboy II), Guillermo del Toro’s brilliant dance along an ephemeral tightrope between pop and Puccini, that David Cronenberg and Howard Shore recently converted their remake of The Fly into a full-fledged opera: I can see the same thing happening with a lot of del Toro’s pictures. The director’s said that after his Pan’s Labyrinth “something popped” in regards to his restraint in allowing the menagerie of monsters in his brain free rein over his imagination–and that he endeavoured to bring all the madness of Mike Mignola’s “Hellboy” universe to the big screen with or without a commensurately giant budget. (Of Summer ’08’s blockbusters, Hellboy II, costing around 85 million dollars, might be the most frugal.) The result is a film so crammed to the gills with invention that a bit of background business in a scene set at a bazaar hidden beneath the Brooklyn Bridge (this is the second great genre film this year after Cloverfield to make a pit stop at that particular locale) wherein a creature plays a pipe made out of a tanned human corpse is left uncommented-upon and is somehow ultimately unremarkable. The wonders of Hellboy II as experienced through our avatars Hellboy (Ron Perlman), Liz (Selma Blair), and Abe (Doug Jones, this time vocalizing the character as well)–team members for a covert government agency that deals with supernatural intrusions–are the way the world is, and it’s fascinatingly left for the normals in the audience to crane for a better look.

Lars and the Real Girl (2007); The Passion of Greg the Bunny: The Best of the Film Parodies Volume 2 (2006-2007); The Cottage (2008) [Unrated] – DVDs

July 6, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Canada, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, Horror, Romance, Scream/Shout! Factory, Thriller, UK

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL
*½/**** Image A Sound B Extras D
starring Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner
screenplay by Nancy Oliver
directed by Craig Gillespie

THE PASSION OF GREG THE BUNNY: THE BEST OF THE FILM PARODIES VOLUME 2
Image B+ Sound B Extras C+
"Fur on the Asphalt," "Wumpus the Monster," "Sockville," "Blue Velveteen," "Plush: Behind the Seams," "Wacky Wednesday," "The Passion of the Easter Bunny: A Fabricated American Movie"

THE COTTAGE
½*/**** Image A- Sound B- Extras D
starring Andy Serkis, Reece Shearsmith, Stephen O'Donnell, Jennifer Ellison
written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams

by Ian Pugh Beyond its pale stab at indie street cred and an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay (which are almost one and the same these days), Lars and the Real Girl shares with Juno an invitation to partake in a never-ending stream of laughs over its premise until it basically flips a switch and instructs you to get emotional over it–the supposed target of discussion here being nothing less than that ever-popular subject of paternalistic revulsion, mental illness. Ryan Gosling turns his "twitchy zombie" knob up to eleven as Lars, a quiet loner living in his brother Gus's (Paul Schneider) backyard shed. After Gus's pregnant wife Karin (Emily Mortimer) expresses concern that her brother-in-law is spending too much time by himself, Lars orders a realistic sex doll named "Bianca" over the Internet and parades it around the neighbourhood as the girlfriend he never had, much to the consternation of Gus, Karin, and Lars's would-be love interest Margo (Kelli Garner), who can only respond with uncertain stares and a lot of hemming and hawing.

P.S. I Love You (2007) – Blu-ray Disc

July 3, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bryant Frazer, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Drama, Romance

**/**** Image B Sound B Extras C+
starring Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudrow, Kathy Bates
screenplay by Richard LaGravanese and Steven Rogers, based on the novel by Cecelia Ahern
directed by Richard LaGravanese

Psiloveyoucap

by Bryant Frazer In P.S. I Love You, Hilary Swank gets to play a part that's typically the province of male actors: the lovesick bachelor. The gender-specific word for what she is here is widow: Her husband has succumbed to brain cancer, leaving her alone in a Chinatown apartment. But the stereotype is so familiar as a guy thing–Swank's place is littered with pizza crusts, Chinese take-out containers, and take-out coffee cups, and she herself parades around in boxers–that its presence is a touch of wit in a movie that has lots of grace notes. That's a testimony to the skills of writer-director Richard LaGravenese, a sort of go-to guy for contemporary melodrama. He's made a career out of investing commercial romantic comedy with soul, humour, and a little bit of weirdness. Alas, that LaGravenese touch is not enough to balance out the manipulative tone of the whole wish-fulfillment enterprise he's working at here. P.S. I Love You is easy to watch and occasionally rewarding, but it's so transparently inspirational that its feel-good contortions might end up making you feel worse for the wear.

The Love Guru (2008) + Get Smart (2008)

June 19, 2008Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Espionage, Germany, Romance, Theatrical, UK, ZERO STARS

THE LOVE GURU
ZERO STARS/****
starring Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Ben Kingsley
screenplay by Mike Myers & Graham Gordy
directed by Marco Schnabel

GET SMART
***/****
starring Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, James Caan
screenplay by Tim J. Astle & Matt Ember
directed by Peter Segal

Loveguruby Walter Chaw Dick this, cock that, penis penis penis–let me mention in the interest of full, ahem, disclosure that I don't think Mike Myers is funny; that Chris Farley's death was a great shame for a lot of reasons, among the worst that his passing opened the door for Myers to voice Shrek; and that it's not amusing in the slightest to make an endless stream of johnson jokes. The Love Guru has Myers sort of taking a wave at a cheap Indian accent in a redux of that Eddie Murphy triumph Holy Man–which means, essentially, that he proves himself not as committed as Will Ferrell and not as feral as Adam Sandler and not as neutered, as it happens, as Eddie Murphy. Myers, in other words, is less than his peers, doomed to be upstaged at every turn by anyone unfortunate enough to share a scene with him. (Doomed, too, to be constantly undermined by his inability to resist mugging for the camera.) Myers is Guru Pitka, a writer of Dr. Phil-cum-Deepak Chopra self-help volumes hired by the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Jane (Jessica Alba), to cure star winger Roanoke (Romany Malco) of his sudden case of the shakes. Thus Myers marries his two passions (hockey and not being funny) into one noxious ball of shit and wiener jokes, in the process taking a colossal dump on an entire culture with puerile wordplays like "Guru Satchabigknoba" and "Guru Tugginmypudha" (Ben Kingsley, playing it cross-eyed). It was funny when Monty Python did it, yes, because Monty Python was made up of people who were funny.

Square Pegs: The Like, Totally Complete Series… Totally (1982-1983) + Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985) – DVDs

June 16, 2008Posted in1980s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, DVD, Music, Romance, Teen, Television, ZERO STARS

SQUARE PEGS
Image B+ Sound B Extras B+
"Square Pegs (Pilot)," "A Cafeteria Line," Pac-Man Fever," "Square Pigskins," "Halloween XII," "A Simple Attachment," "Weemaweegate," "Open 24 Hours," "Muffy's Bat Mitzvah," "Hardly Working," "A Child's Christmas in Weemawee," "It's All How You See Things," "Merry Pranksters," "It's Academical!," "The Stepanowicz Papers," "To Serve Weemawee All My Days," "No Substitutions," "No Joy in Weemawee," "The Arrangement"

GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN
ZERO STARS/**** Image B- Sound B
starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt, Shannen Doherty, Lee Montgomery
screenplay by Amy Spies
directed by Alan Metter

by Ian Pugh The "square pegs" of the title are brainiac Patty (Sarah Jessica Parker, already having settled into a halting conversational style that never left her) and "fat girl" Lauren (Amy Linker), newly-initiated freshmen at Weemawee High School who pledge during the opening narration of each episode that this year, this year, they're going to be popular. Unfortunately, their never-ending–maybe even Wile E. Coyote-esque–bid to break into Weemawee's social elite always results in half-baked schemes and humiliating compromises. (Upon being ousted from a table in a crowded diner by the popular crowd, Lauren rationalizes that "having them sit where we were just sitting is almost as good as sitting with them.") While "Square Pegs" never fails to empathize with the folks who are young and foolish enough to believe in such a ridiculous enterprise–because it's all they know at this stage of their lives–what really makes the series special is how it forces older viewers to contemplate the people they were in high school and who they are now.

I Was a Teenage Strangler (1998) + Vampire Strangler (1999) – DVDs

May 14, 2008Posted in1990s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Esoterica, Horror, Vampire

I WAS A TEENAGE STRANGLER
*/**** Image D Sound D
starring Josh Miller, David Alan Interior, Daisy DeWright, Lil' Erin DeWright
written and directed by The People of Severed Lips

VAMPIRE STRANGLER
*½/**** Image D Sound D Extras C-
starring Misty Mundae, William Hellfire, Ben the Stain
written and directed by William Hellfire

by Ian Pugh Some ten years after the fact, the filmmakers behind the ultra-cheap Factory 2000 brand refer to their super-VHS fetish videos I Was a Teenage Strangler and Vampire Strangler as amateur tributes to Andy Warhol, John Waters, and Dario Argento, though in actuality these are best described as generic paeans to depraved cinema as a whole. Operating in the vein of Gary P. Cohen's do-it-yourself VHS snuff series Video Violence, the F2K crew have a preternatural understanding for how these kinds of movies work and furthermore how they're marketed–and they aren't about to let a complete lack of talent or sophisticated editing equipment discourage them. It's far, far removed from the amateur passion and promise offered by a film like The Equinox …A Journey into the Supernatural, but realize that even pornography shot in scummy basements without the aid of a script can make a bid for cinematic legitimacy and soon you're forced to look at these films with a serious critical eye and maybe a little diseased admiration. Don't misunderstand: they're unforgivably terrible, too often forgetting their own reasoning halfway through. But the circumstances of their genesis should at least count for something.

Speed Racer (2008)

May 8, 2008Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Australia, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Esoterica, Family, Germany, Japan, Sci-Fi, Sports, Theatrical

*/****
starring Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Matthew Fox
written and directed by The Wachowski Brothers

by Walter Chaw This generation’s Tron lands with unsurprisingly little fanfare early in the 2008 blockbuster sweepstakes, the victim of niche nostalgia and bottomless kitsch as well as the theory that total indulgence from all involved will prevent The Wachowski Brothers’ Speed Racer from turning out to be their Spruce Goose. I’ve seen just enough “Speed Racer” cartoons to recognize when people like John Goodman are impersonating badly-drawn ’60s television anime (as opposed to Goodman impersonating badly-drawn ’60s Hanna-Barbera)–and just enough, too, to futilely hope against hope that there wouldn’t be a chimp and a chubby tyke who stow away in a racecar’s trunk now and again. But I haven’t seen nearly enough of the TV series to want to see more of it, and after enduring the Cool World live-action version of “Speed Racer”, I confess I’ve sort of lost the will to live. In other words, I was never a fan of the cartoon and was mainly interested in this trainwreck on the strength of Bound and The Matrix. Still, I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t take a moment to laud the brothers on their audacity–the very quality I appreciated in the two Matrix sequels, which were, by most analysis, disasters. It seems like sour grapes to knock the picture besides–or at least it seems futile, because the Wachowskis don’t appear to care what people think of them along their road to wearing Kleenex boxes on their feet and saving their pee in mason jars. Speed Racer is exhibit one in the case that the Wachowskis aren’t in it for praise (they’re not going to get any credible praise here) or money (they’re already loaded), but rather to luxuriate in the contents of their den’s shelves: first Alan Moore comics with V for Vendetta, now this excruciatingly faithful reproduction of an inexplicable camp artifact. Perhaps we should count our blessings that they weren’t huge fans of “Voltron.”

Then She Found Me (2008)

May 8, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Theatrical, UK

½*/****
starring Matthew Broderick, Colin Firth, Helen Hunt, Bette Midler
screenplay by Alice Arlen and Victor Levin & Helen Hunt and Helen Hunt (<–not a typo)
directed by Helen Hunt

Thenshefoundmeby Walter Chaw Mamet-lite–which is to say "garbage-lite"–for the most part, the dialogue in Helen Hunt's hyphenate debut is repetitive and deeply irritating, especially as delivered by Hunt in that perpetually whinging, laconic fashion of hers. Marry it to a directing style that could gently be called "self-aggrandizing" and generally be called "static" and Then She Found Me thuds into place as one of the most atrocious things to collapse on the silver screen in months. Here Hunt is Barbra Streisand without the singing, optimistically cast as a woman "about to turn forty" while asking poor, mortgage-needing Colin Firth to twice opine that her increasingly cadaverous-looking self is "beautiful" and "gorgeous." To each his own, of course, but Hunt the director/prime mover (she co-wrote and produced the benighted thing) sticking herself in front of a conservative gross of close-ups and pushing others to compliment her appearance is so far beyond distasteful that it's boring. Adoption, artificial insemination, infertility, miscarriage, infidelity, lumpen milquetoast Matthew Broderick as the really, really obscure object of desire, and stereotypes about East Coast Jews pollute this godawful mess like Union Carbide in some unfortunate, populous third-world nation. Call said ghetto the "arthouse" (its citizens, what the hell, "festivalgoers") and point to it whenever the random, ossified, effete intellectuals offer that they prefer to watch "indies" in the "arthouse," eschewing "mainstream" cinema with a sniff, a wave of a hanky, and a puff of talcum.

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008)

April 25, 2008Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Theatrical

½*/****
starring John Cho, Kal Penn, Rob Corddry, Neil Patrick Harris
written & directed by Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg

Haroldkumar2by Walter Chaw The first film was a pleasant surprise for its light-hearted puerility and surprising smarts, and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (hereafter Harold & Kumar 2) misunderstands this to the extent that all that's left are the shit and dick jokes and the dispiriting carrying of the new torch that male full-frontal nudity is the ne plus ultra of comedy. When it works, credit John Cho and Kal Penn (and Neil Patrick Harris, reprising his role as the filthiest Neil Patrick Harris on the face of the planet) for their comfort in their roles–and when it doesn't (which is most of the time), blame a lacklustre screenplay that strives for edgy but, like the Judd Apatow school of moral/filth passion plays, is exceptionally conservative, even timid, in its message. All that stuff about smoking pot and saying "vagina" is a smokescreen for monogamous relationships, upholding traditional family values, and a studious avoidance of offending anyone politically in a movie that revolves around an Asian and an Indian getting sent to Guantanamo Bay because the one is mistaken for an Arab terrorist. The contortions the picture goes through to remain innocuous are so awkward (take, for example, the attempts to humanize W. and Muslims) that, in just a few short months, it could become this archaic artifact of the political correctness that's killed the current era in scatology. The flick's only sure target is homosexuality–because, let's face it, the only thing safe to talk about in this context is how much we hate fags. Am I right?