What Lies Beneath (2000) [Widescreen] – DVD

January 29, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Directors: Robert Zemeckis, Drama, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

***/**** Image A+ Sound A- Extras B
starring Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Diana Scarwid, Miranda Otto
screenplay by Clark Gregg
directed by Robert Zemeckis

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover What Lies Beneath isn't very nasty, but it's nice. The film takes Polanski-style horror, the kind where the environment itself seems to be falling apart and the individual has to navigate through miles of decay, and gives it a white-enamel Hollywood gloss that makes it fearfully cold and sinisterly antiseptic. It's a given from the get-go that this pure whiteness will, by film's end, be defiled by the blood of the innocent and the violence of the guilty. It's only a matter of time before it gets there, but the travel involved is bracing and loaded with suspense. While the end of What Lies Beneath wallows in some rather familiar horror-movie scare tactics, the rest of it is a nicely understated affair that cleverly plays on your nerves without relying too much on brutality or not enough on jolt.

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

January 26, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Drama, Esoterica, Horror, Luxembourg, Satire, Theatrical, UK, Vampire

**/****
starring John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Catherine McCormack, Eddie Izzard
screenplay by Steven Katz
directed by E. Elias Merhige

by Bill Chambers They certainly dressed the part in those days. As the pre-eminent German filmmaker F.W. Murnau, John Malkovich declares: “We are scientists engaged in the creation of memory.” On set, before the lamps are fired up and action is called, Murnau and his crew don tinted aviator goggles, looking as if they’re about to launch an atomic bomb. This was standard practice during cinema’s formative years, when it took an intense amount of light to satisfactorily expose an image. (It was not uncommon for those who didn’t take precautions to go blind later in life.) But Malkovich/Murnau is not describing costumes; he’s probably, in fact, speaking for the makers of the gothic comedy in which he appears as the catalyst, Shadow of the Vampire. Director E. Elias Merhige, working from a screenplay by Steven Katz, forges a new memoir of Nosferatu, Murnau’s unauthorized, silent-film-era take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula that was rumoured to star a real vampire.

When Harry Met Sally… (1989) [Special Edition] + Prelude to a Kiss (1992) – DVDs

January 8, 2001Posted in1980s, 1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, Romance

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY…
***½/**** Image A Sound B Extras B+
starring Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby
screenplay by Nora Ephron
directed by Rob Reiner

PRELUDE TO A KISS
***/**** Image B Sound B
starring Alec Baldwin, Meg Ryan, Kathy Bates, Ned Beatty
screenplay by Craig Lucas, based on his play
directed by Norman Rene

by Bill Chambers Meg Ryan, the Princess of Perk, gets a makeshift career retrospective this month with the DVD releases of three high-profile gigs: When Harry Met Sally…, Prelude to a Kiss, and The Doors. I’m forsaking any further mention of The Doors to focus on the first two–delightful, whimsical films, unlike The Doors–and Ryan’s romantic-comedy stranglehold. Call it the curse of the button nose: the actress, who is more talented than anyone, myself included, is willing to admit, seems out of her element by a country mile in pictures that don’t require her to meet cute and kvetch over the subsequent courtship. And now that she’s pushing 40, Ryan is becoming to chick flicks what Stallone and Schwarzenegger were to actioners after Clinton got elected: we’re sick to death of seeing her in these Nora Ephron-type movies–yet, as Proof of Life, um, proved, we also don’t want to see her in anything but.

Chuck & Buck (2000) – DVD

January 2, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, DVD

***½/**** Image B- Sound B Extras B
starring Mike White, Chris Weitz, Lupe Ontiveros, Beth Colt
screenplay by Mike White
directed by Miguel Arteta

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Can a film be unpleasant and valuable at the same time? On the one hand, I was made truly uncomfortable by Chuck & Buck, which centres on a character so obnoxious and so deluded that he would hardly be tolerated in polite society. His single-minded obsession with a man with whom he had a childhood friendship is so invasive and toxic that he repeatedly strains audience sympathy; further, it traps us in his myopic point of view and makes us watch in horror as he plans another assault on his former friend’s life, for the sake of some deeply confused homoerotic desires that he can barely articulate. And yet, I found myself profoundly moved at the end of this singular film, which never wavers in its unconditional love for its screwed-up protagonist and seeks for him a place in the world that he sadly cannot make for himself. I don’t exactly know what I can do with the information it gives me about this man, but I can certainly say that Chuck & Buck gave me more of an experience than the majority of fireballing studio products from 2000.

The Virgin Suicides (2000) – DVD

December 18, 2000Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Directors: Sofia Coppola, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, Romance

***/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras C+
starring James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett
screenplay by Sofia Coppola, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides
directed by Sofia Coppola

by Bill Chambers The Virgin Suicides is perverse, but I don't mean dirty. Everything about it is a little bit lopsided–James Woods, of all people, is cast as a henpecked husband, for instance. But its director, Sofia Coppola, doesn't play it as pop kink; instead, she strives for the reverie quality of David Lynch at his most suburban, which makes everything that's in principle out of the ordinary seem in tune, even unexotic. Watching The Virgin Suicides, a fractured nostalgia piece, is like trying to deduce the story of someone's life from a box of snapshots. It's wispy yet substantial (let's call it ethereal), and it stumbles upon a few great images and many more lasting ones.

Chicken Run (2000) [Special Edition] – DVD

November 28, 2000Posted in2000s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Family, France, UK

***/**** Image A+ Sound A- Extras B+
screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick
directed by Nick Park & Peter Lord

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Chicken Run is slight but savoury. While it doesn't have the conceptual punch that, say, a Disney spectacular might have, it has a great deal less malice than most other films aimed at the same segment of the market. Instead of a highly manipulative, emotionally overwrought run through the wringer, we have a sweet and good-natured exercise in whimsy and friendliness. While this means that the film loses something in terms of dramatic impact, it also means that it relies more on wit than it does on action. What could have been garish and brazen is here sweet and mild-tempered, and it sweeps you up in its goodwill until the final frames.

Mother Night (1996) + Waking the Dead (2000) – DVDs

November 16, 2000Posted in****/****, 1990s, 2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, FFC Must-Own, Mystery, Romance, Thriller, War

MOTHER NIGHT
***/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras A
starring Nick Nolte, Sheryl Lee, Alan Arkin, John Goodman
screenplay by Robert B. Weide, based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut
directed by Keith Gordon

WAKING THE DEAD
****/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras A
starring Billy Crudup, Jennifer Connelly, Molly Parker, Janet McTeer
screenplay by Robert Dillon, based on the novel by Scott Spencer
directed by Keith Gordon

by Bill Chambers In Timequake, the most recent and arguably most flawed of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s novels (like many of his fans, I found it only intermittently readable), the author writes: “…I have never used semicolons. They don’t do anything, don’t support anything. They are transvestite hermaphrodites.” Perhaps Keith Gordon’s Mother Night is one of the few artistically successful cinematic adaptations of a Vonnegut work because Gordon avoids semicolons in his filmmaking–there is no straining to cohere, here.

Rules of Engagement (2000) – DVD

October 19, 2000Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Directors: William Friedkin, Drama, DVD, Germany, Thriller, UK, War

**/**** Image A Sound A+ Extras B-
starring Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Guy Pearce, Bruce Greenwood
screenplay by Steven Gaghan
directed by William Friedkin

by Bill Chambers In an absurd bit of pop irony, director William Friedkin's biggest smash post-The Exorcist is…The Exorcist. His 1973 horror masterpiece just returned theatres as you've never seen it before–meaning it has been radically altered to fit the George Lucas model of re-release. Starting from scratch today, I doubt Friedkin could have made something half as trenchant as even this tailored-to-the-Nineties version of The Exorcist; for all its unnecessary underscore and pandering CGI, the film retains a purity of emotion he's rarely pursued–or hit upon–since. With Rules of Engagement, which bows on DVD this month, Friedkin seems jazzed by a good cast and implosive subject matter, but at the end of the day I'd be hard-pressed to call it anything but hollow.

Me Myself I (1999) + Passion of Mind (2000) – DVDs

September 19, 2000Posted in1990s, 2000s, Australia, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, DVD, France, Mystery, Romance, Sci-Fi, Thriller

ME MYSELF I
**/**** Image B Sound A Extras C
starring Rachel Griffiths, David Roberts, Sandy Winton, Yael Stone
written and directed by Pip Karmel

PASSION OF MIND
**/**** Image A Sound B+
starring Demi Moore, Stellan Skarsgård, William Fichtner, Peter Riegert
screenplay by Ron Bass and David Field
directed by Alain Berliner

by Bill Chambers SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. With a bumper crop of "what if?" movies hitting screens over the past couple of years–enough of them, perhaps, to signify a genre–the time is nigh to examine, in the hope of capping, this Cinema of Regret, a marriage propagandist's dream. Both Me Myself I and Passion of Mind arrive (coincidentally?) on DVD this week, and each in its roundabout way encourages its existentially lost central character to attach sentimentalism to family values. Dan Quayle must be happy as a clam.

The Fly/The Fly 2 [Fox Double Feature] – DVD

September 12, 2000Posted in1980s, Authors: Vincent Suarez, Canada, Directors: David Cronenberg, Drama, DVD, France, Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi, UK

THE FLY (1986)
***½/**** Image A Sound B
starring Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz
screenplay by Charles Edward Pogue and David Cronenberg
directed by David Cronenberg

The Fly II (1989)
*/**** Image B- Sound B
starring Eric Stoltz, Daphne Zuniga, Lee Richardson, Harley Cross
screenplay by Mick Garris and Jim & Ken Wheat and Frank Darabont
directed by Chris Walas

by Vincent Suarez

“Long live the new flesh.” — Max Renn, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983)

“I must not know enough about the flesh. I’ve got to learn more.” — Seth Brundle, David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986)

“I want it out of my body … now!” — Veronica Quaife, David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986)

SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. David Cronenberg’s most memorable and profound films are a unique blend of fascination, celebration, inquisitiveness, and horror with regard to the possibilities of the flesh. Hollywood’s most memorable and profound monster movies (Bride of Frankenstein, King Kong (1933), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)) are a similarly mystical mingling of romance, repulsion, and overwhelming sympathy with regard to the creature. It’s no wonder, then, that Cronenberg’s The Fly is essentially the genetic splicing of his trademark obsessions with these hallowed genre conventions. In making the material his own, the pathos generated by Cronenberg’s fusion of elements raises the film’s status from mere remake of the campy 1958 original to masterpiece.

TIFF ’00: Low Self Esteem Girl

September 3, 2000Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, TIFF

Low Self-Esteem Girl
***/****
starring Corrina Hammond, Ted Dave, James Dawes, Rob McBeth
written and directed by Blaine Thurier

Guys want her body.
Zealots want her soul.
–Low Self Esteem Girl‘s honest tagline

by Bill Chambers A few minutes into Low Self Esteem Girl, I got the distinct feeling I was watching an episode of “Candid Camera” in which the recording device itself, and not the camera’s subjects, was the one being had. First-time director Blaine Thurier, a former cartoonist for Vancouver’s TERMINAL CITY, zigzags his digital video camera about the house of Lois (Corrina Hammond) like a spy who has unwittingly stumbled upon a stage exercise: Lois and Gregg (Ted Dave), her one-night stand, conduct a pillow-fight with overtones of rape, and then she offers him a beer–at which point I half-expected a drama teacher to call time-out, step into the frame, and critique their performances.

Not One Less (1999) – DVD

September 1, 2000Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, China, Drama, DVD

一個都不能少
Yi ge dou bu neng shao
***/**** Image A Sound B-
starring Wei Minzhi, Zhang Huike, Tian Zhenda, Enman Gao
screenplay by Shi Xiangsheng
directed by Zhang Yimou

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Zhang Yimou's Not One Less, while suffering from a disease of nonspecificity, nevertheless manages to make its points with style and grace. It's not an especially deep film, railing as it does against a poverty that has no known source and, thus, no possible remedy. But even as nonspecific as it tries to keep itself, the film does sink you deep into the problem of poverty in China. The film is at least a cri de cœur for the lost futures of China's rural children, trapped as many are between education and supporting their families. And the cry is voiced beautifully by Hou Yong's cinematography, giving even an impoverished village and dirty city the visual élan that is the hallmark of Zhang's craft. If some subtler analysis gets lost in the interim, you can't have everything.

Here on Earth (2000) – DVD

August 7, 2000Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Drama, DVD, Romance, Teen

*/**** Image B+ Sound B
starring Chris Klein, Leelee Sobieski, Josh Hartnett, Annette O'Toole
screenplay by Michael Seitzman
directed by Mark Piznarski

by Bill Chambers In Here on Earth, prep-school valedictorian Kelley (Chris Klein) leaves campus after curfew in his new Mercedes and gets embroiled in a game of chicken that winds up leaving the small town next door short one gas station ("here on Earth" even Hallmark movies have explosions) and restaurant. Kelley and the other boy, a local with permanent bedhead named Jasper (Josh Hartnett), are sentenced to a summer of rebuilding the diner, which I'm sure sounds like wise, character-building justice until the headline "ROOF OF RESTAURANT BUILT BY TEENAGE RIVALS WITH NO CONSTRUCTION EXPERIENCE COLLAPSES, KILLING PATRONS." A girl comes between them, the latter's long-time sweetheart Sam (Leelee Sobieski). She spies on the preppie delivering the graduation speech he could've made to the birds and the trees, and is touched enough to want to jump his bones.

The Beach (2000) [Special Edition] – DVD

July 24, 2000Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Drama, DVD, Romance, Thriller, UK

**½/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras B+
starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Virginie Ledoyen, Guillaume Canet
screenplay by John Hodge, based on the book by Alex Garland
directed by Danny Boyle

by Bill Chambers When we meet Richard, the U.S.-born narrator/hero of The Beach, he has succumbed to the idea that finding adventure necessitates getting the hell out of his homeland–drinking snake's blood and sleeping with roaches play pleasantly into his romantic notions of danger. And as he roams the steamy streets of Bangkok in search of the next hedonistic-masochistic delight, Richard appears cutely oblivious to the American infiltration of Asian culture ("The Simpsons" episodes on TV, the constant bubblegum music sounding from ghetto blasters, etc.). The Beach is about how we as earthlings can't escape Western civilization, and the futility of trying.

Dead Again (1991) – DVD

June 28, 2000Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Jarrod Chambers, Crime, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Thriller, UK

***½/**** Image B Sound B Extras B
starring Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Andy Garcia, Derek Jacobi
screenplay by Scott Frank
directed by Kenneth Branagh

by Jarrod Chambers A convicted murderer on death row, about to be executed. A stolen pair of scissors, he lunges–a woman wakes up screaming. It was all a dream, or was it? The door opens, a flash of lightning, illuminating a silver cross dangling from the neck of an attendant nun.

Hanging Up (2000) – DVD

June 26, 2000Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Germany

*/**** Image B Sound A- Extras C+
starring Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton, Lisa Kudrow, Walter Matthau
screenplay by Delia Ephron & Nora Ephron, based on the book by Delia
directed by Diane Keaton

by Bill Chambers In Hanging Up, only Eve, the middle child between two sisters, accepts responsibility for their ailing dad, and we wish that he–and his eldest and youngest daughters, for that matter–would die already so that Eve could go off and lead a life actually worth making/watching a movie about. As Eve, Meg Ryan is in typical perky-panic mode. What’s got her whipped into a tizzy this time? Well, a Nixon exhibit that she, a party planner, is hosting (a nod to co-writer Nora Ephron’s first husband, Watergate whistle-blower Carl Bernstein?), the impending death of her dementia-addled father (Walter Matthau, Dick Clark’s opposite in that he has always looked 80 years old), the fallout from a car accident, and the realization that her sisters (Diane Keaton and Lisa Kudrow) are complete and utter parasites are all converging at once. Eve juggles her responsibilities over the telephone, through convoluted multi-line conversations that give the film its title as well as its raison d’être.

Sweet and Lowdown (1999) – DVD

June 19, 2000Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Music

***½/**** Image A Sound C+
starring Woody Allen, Blythe Danner, Judy Davis, Mia Farrow
written and directed by Woody Allen

by Bill Chambers Woody Allen movies of late are eager to indict the creepy misanthrope who's been a staple of the writer-director-actor's oeuvre at least since Allen stepped into the shoes of Annie Hall's Alvy Singer. But in the final analysis, Allen has continued to pardon his alter egos, deflecting blame for their shortcomings by casting a negative light on everybody they know, too. If Sweet and Lowdown, the movie Deconstructing Harry wasn't ready to be, is any indication, the Woodman's work is, at last, becoming more nakedly confessional.

The Green Mile (1999) – DVD

June 18, 2000Posted in1990s, Authors: Vincent Suarez, Crime, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Stephen King

**½/**** Image A Sound A Extras D
starring Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse, Doug Hutchison
screenplay by Frank Darabont, based on the serialized novel by Stephen King
directed by Frank Darabont

by Vincent Suarez In his review of The Thin Red Line, your host at FILM FREAK CENTRAL laments that viewers often are inclined to choose whether they prefer that film or its contemporary, Saving Private Ryan. I find that the same unfortunate phenomenon exists among those who’ve seen both of Frank Darabont’s first two films, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. (Curiously, Tom Hanks stars in each pair of films.) While the two share many traits (their prison setting, their writer-director, and their source material: short stories by Stephen King), they are vastly different films. For while The Shawshank Redemption is an institutional morality tale, The Green Mile is a death-row fairy tale.

Blue Collar (1978) – DVD

June 8, 2000Posted in1970s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Crime, Directors: Paul Schrader, Drama, DVD

***/**** Image B- Sound C+ Commentary B+
starring Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto, Cliff DeYoung
screenplay by Paul Schrader & Leonard Schrader
directed by Paul Schrader

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Blue Collar gave me pause. On the one hand, it’s a no-excuses lambasting of management control and union corruption, railing against those who conspire to keep labour powerless and pliable. On the other, it offers no avenue for redress, throwing its protagonists’ lives out the window in an attempt to be modishly downbeat. The film is constantly at odds with itself, riling us into an angry mob while limiting the outlets for that anger, assuming that no political solution is possible and thus chopping everyone off at the knees. The result is a compulsively watchable film that never figures out what it’s trying to say, contained as it is within a boundary that keeps it from investigating the true nature of the problem.