Blindness (2008) + Eagle Eye (2008)

October 1, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Brazil, Canada, Drama, Germany, Japan, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Spielberg, Theatrical, Thriller

BLINDNESS
*/****
starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga, Gael García Bernal
screenplay by Don McKellar, based on the novel by José Saramago
directed by Fernando Meirelles

EAGLE EYE
½*/****
starring Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, Billy Bob Thornton
screenplay by John Glenn & Travis Adam Wright and Hillary Seitz and Dan McDermott
directed by D.J. Caruso

by Walter Chaw Brazilian wunderkind Fernando Meirelles has the one-trick pony and he's beaten its corpse for all the slickefied, electrified, vaguely exploitive prestige pieces he's made his calling card since City of God exploded into the loving arms of the arthouse. His latest, Blindness, feels like just another stroll down the same moralizing path as the residents of some generic city go blind, with only the bleary, red-rimmed eyes of Julianne Moore left as the moral barometer and literal/spiritual guide. And like his stable of reliable steeds, Blindness reveals itself at the end as having nothing much to say beyond the Lord of the Flies truism that men left to their own devices are no better than animals. Moore's an unnamed dingbat housewife fond of drinking a little too much wine and tittering around the limited orbit of her optometrist husband (Mark Ruffalo). When The Doctor (none of the characters have names, because the movie is profound) encounters a Patient (Yusuke Iseya) who has gone spontaneously blind, it's not long before the typical end-of-times plague starts the high-concept hullabaloo in earnest. Soon, The Doctor and The Wife find themselves in the Spooky Deserted Hospital that The City uses as The Quarantine Ward, though more literary-minded viewers will choose to refer to it as The Microcosm.

Californication: The First Season (2007) – DVD

September 28, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Television

Image B+ Sound B+
"Pilot (Californication)," "Hell-A Woman," "The Whore of Babylon," "Fear and Loathing at the Fundraiser," "LOL," "Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder," "Girls Interrupted," "Filthy Lucre," "The Devil's Threesome," "Turn the Page," "The Last Waltz"

by Ian Pugh "Californication" can only be described as an attempt to replicate Bukowskian swagger: a lot of drinking, fighting, and fucking, with a touch of melancholy as it silently laments that it doesn't know anything else. It's intriguing, but it proves to be a problem because, unlike its alcoholic inspiration, it really doesn't know anything else–especially how to properly express its perspective on all that drinking, fighting, and fucking. Indeed, it's a major problem, considering the show revolves around a novelist, Hank Moody (David Duchovny), who suffered an unwilling relocation from New York to L.A. after his alleged masterpiece of nihilism God Hates Us All was somehow transformed into a romantic comedy entitled A Crazy Little Thing Called Love, starring Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Much to the chagrin of his agent (Evan Handler), Hank hasn't written a word in almost five years–and in-between trying to win over his ex-lover Karen (Natascha McElhone) and their distant daughter Becca (Madeleine Martin), he spends his time patrolling the local bars and jumping into bed with every woman who crosses his path.

The Babysitters (2008) – DVD

September 24, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Alex Jackson, Drama, DVD

**/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras B+
starring John Leguizamo, Katherine Waterston, Cynthia Nixon, Andy Comeau
written and directed by David Ross

by Alex Jackson Shirley Lyner (Katherine Waterston) is not only anxious about getting into the right college, she's worried about how she's going to pay for it, too. Unlikely inspiration hits after she babysits for Michael and Gail Beltran (John Leguizamo and Cynthia Nixon). While driving her home, Michael takes Shirley to a diner for coffee and they begin to talk. When Michael first met his wife, she was a boldly sexual "party girl," and he misses that spark. He asks if Shirley has a boyfriend and she says "no." An outburst from a nearby group of teenage boys provides a hint as to the reason, likewise an obsessive-compulsive tic whereby Shirley reorganizes the condiments on the counter. She doesn't seem to view herself as very sexy or lovable; since school has always taken precedence over boys for her, she is rather flattered by the attention Michael is showing her. They have sex. Terrified to confront his infidelity and his exploitation of this young girl, Michael generously tips Shirley, shyly reminding her that he has a wife and kids. This gives Shirley a great idea: she'll recruit her friends to prostitute themselves out to middle-aged men from around the neighbourhood.

Daniel (1983) + One Missed Call (2008) – DVDs|One Missed Call (2008) – Blu-ray Disc

September 17, 2008Posted in1980s, 2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Ian Pugh, Blu-ray Disc, Directors: Sidney Lumet, Drama, DVD, Horror, Mystery, UK

DANIEL
**½/**** Image A Sound B
starring Timothy Hutton, Mandy Patinkin, Lindsay Crouse, Edward Asner
screenplay by E. L. Doctorow, based on his novel The Book of Daniel
directed by Sidney Lumet

ONE MISSED CALL
½*/****
DVD – Image B Sound B
BD – Image A- Sound A
starring Shannyn Sossamon, Edward Burns, Ana Claudia Talancón, Ray Wise
screenplay by Andrew Klavan
directed by Eric Vallette

by Ian Pugh There's a great story just screaming to be told in Sidney Lumet's Daniel: In reworking the legacy of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg from the perspective of their fictionalized son, it's poised to deliver a fascinating tale about the tragic, perhaps inevitable consequences that starry-eyed idealism can have on the family dynamic for generations to come. This strange collision of Winter Kills, The Godfather Part II, and Citizen Kane finds sensitive intellectual Daniel Isaacson (Timothy Hutton) deeply opposed to pasting his parents' name on a foundation for "radical studies" in service to the anti-war movement circa 1967, which puts him at odds with his revolution-obsessed sister (Amanda Plummer). Soon, however, Susan attempts suicide, forcing Daniel to hunt down the facts and search his memories for the truth about his parents Paul (a manic Mandy Patinkin) and Rochelle (Lindsay Crouse), who were accused of selling–or conspiring to sell–A-bomb secrets to the Soviets and executed at the height of the Red Scare. Were they really that deeply involved in a conspiracy, or were they just patsies?

The Fall Guy: The Complete First Season (1981-1982) + CHiPs: The Complete First Season (1977-1978) – DVDs

September 17, 2008Posted in1970s, 1980s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Ian Pugh, Crime, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Television

THE FALL GUY: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON
Image B Sound B- Extras C-
“The Fall Guy Pilot,” “The Meek Shall Inherit Rhonda,” “The Rich Get Richer,” “That’s Right, We’re Bad,” “Colt’s Angels,” “The Human Torch,” “The Japanese Connection,” “No Way Out,” “License to Kill (Part 1),” “License to Kill (Part 2),” “Goin’ For It!,” “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harold,” “Soldiers of Misfortune,” “Ready, Aim… Die!,” “Ladies on the Ropes,” “The Snow Job,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Town,” “Child’s Play,” “Charlie,” “Three for the Road,” “The Silent Partner,” “Scavenger Hunt”

CHiPs: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON
Image C Sound B Extras D
“Pilot,” “Undertow,” “Dog Gone,” “Moving Violation,” “Career Day,” “Baby Food,” “Taking Its Toll,” “Green Thumb Burglar,” “Hustle,” “Highway Robbery,” “Name Your Price,” “Aweigh We Go,” “One Two Many,” “Rustling,” “Surf’s Up,” “Vintage ’54,” “Hitch-Hiking Hitch,” “Cry Wolf,” “Crash Diet,” “Rainy Day,” “Crack-Up,” “Flashback!”

by Ian Pugh In giving a modern-day look-see to a television series that stars a late-’70s/early-’80s icon as a Hollywood stuntman who improbably moonlights as a charming, violent bounty hunter, it seems only natural to start the discussion by lobbing a few Death Proof jokes in its general direction. Take the time to really sit down and watch “The Fall Guy”, however, and you’ll find that the complete honesty of its quest to grab the viewer’s attention just melts away your desire to be snarky. Lee Majors is the show’s anchor as Colton Seavers, the eponymous stuntman who spends his free time on assignment for a bail bondsman (Jo Ann Pflug) searching for folks who’ve skipped town before their court date, bringing his overeducated cousin (Douglas Barr, dead weight) and a stuntwoman-in-training (Heather Thomas, attractive dead weight) along for the ride. Although that premise gets bogged down in guns, fistfights, and doing crazy shit with whatever vehicles are available, Majors’s earnest performance offers a sense of levity to the proceedings, particularly once the character finally overcomes the traits ascribed to him by “The Fall Guy”‘s whiny country+western theme song, which complains about the stuntman’s inability to hold onto fame, money, or women. Indeed, as the series progresses, it becomes more interested in presenting Seavers as a conceptual mirror for the man who plays him, making Colt more of an aggressive ladies’ man (Majors was, after all, married to the era’s goddess-avatar of teenage onanism) and perhaps even turning his tides of bad luck into a tidy metaphor for Majors’s unsuccessful foray into features on the heels of “The Six Million Dollar Man”.

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: The Wrestler

September 9, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Directors: Darren Aronofsky, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Sports, TIFF

***½/****
starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, Todd Barry
screenplay by Robert Siegel
directed by Darren Aronofsky

by Bill Chambers Mickey Rourke has spent the Aughties staging a series of mini-comebacks, but they’ve mostly sidestepped his iconography in favour of transforming him into a character actor. Not so Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, which is poignant largely for how it reflects and refracts the Mickey Rourke mystique. Quite aware of his film’s ghoulish appeal, Aronofsky, after spotlighting the visage of young, beautiful Mickey Rourke under the main titles, shields Rourke’s face from view long enough that even though we know what he looks like now (that detour into prizefighting and God knows how many botched surgeries really took their toll), his first close-up still causes momentary grief. But the film is not just about lost youth, Rourke’s or otherwise (44-year-old Marisa Tomei, reacquainting Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead viewers with her breasts, God bless her, plays the kind of stripper pitied by her clientele): it’s about how the culture of ’80s nostalgia–arguably the dominant culture–is like Lenny from Of Mice and Men, arrested in a childlike state and unable to resist squeezing the life out of Reagan-era totems. Wrestling, meanwhile, proves to be the perfect analogue for acting in that its Golden Age, like Rourke’s, was somewhere around 1987, the year of Angel Heart and the seminal WrestleMania III; when Rourke’s washed-up Randy “The Ram” Robinson, permanently cast out of the ring by a heart attack, challenges a neighbourhood kid to a game of Nintendo wrestling, suffice it to say the conflation of relics is nothing less than poetic.

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…

The Counterfeiters (2007) – Blu-ray Disc

September 5, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bryant Frazer, Blu-ray Disc, Drama, Germany, Thriller

Die Fälscher
***/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B
starring Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow, Dolores Chaplin
 screenplay by Stefan Ruzowitzky, based on the book by Adolf Burger
directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky

by Bryant Frazer This year's winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher) is defined in equal terms by what it is and what it isn't. It is a Holocaust survivor's yarn told with a certain playfulness and no lack of moral consideration, but it is not really a concentration-camp movie; mostly, it feels like a prison caper yarn that happens to take place in Sachsenhausen. The film's weight comes from the things we know about but cannot see within the frame: those haunting images of emaciated Jews, the walking-dead stares of the prisoners consigned to the gas chambers and crematoria, the tragedy of systematic genocide.

TIFF ’08: Lorna’s Silence

September 3, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Belgium, Directors: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Germany, Italy, TIFF
Le silence de Lorna***½/****starring Arta Dobroshi, Jérémie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione, Alban Ukajwritten and directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne by Bill Chambers That figures: I'm finally ready to get on board the Dardenne Brothers bandwagon and everyone's bailing. What I like--maybe love--about their latest, Lorna's Silence (Le Silence de Lorna), is that it zigs when you expect it to zag, which may peg me as superficial (some reviews of the film have admonished it for having a plot) but which nevertheless strikes me as a refreshing change of pace from the neorealist wallowing of their earlier work. (To my…

Shotgun Stories (2008) – DVD

September 3, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Thriller

**½/**** Image B- Sound B Extras B
starring Michael Shannon, Douglas Ligon, Barlow Jacobs, Natalie Canerday
written and directed by Jeff Nichols

by Walter Chaw I’m sick of the kind of exceptional that Shotgun Stories represents–sick enough that I wonder if it doesn’t actually reflect a certain faddism attending the creation of the picture. How many times is it seemly to invoke Faulkner before the prestige of it sours into eye-rolling familiarity? To call Shotgun Stories an American classic ignores that it’s a tonal clone of David Gordon Green’s idylls, which themselves owe their cadences to Terrence Malick’s true American classics (which themselves owe a tremendous debt to Charles Laughton’s singular Night of the Hunter). That’s just the cinematic legacy. At the end of all that impeccable menace, that twisted Grant Wood Americana and surreal, gravid Norman Rockwellian perversity, is this post-millennial, post-9/11 moral that revenge is strange and bitter fruit. As it goes, it’s not much; and as the novelty of it’s faded like the cheap denim spent in the telling of it, the only thing left is this faint after-image of better, more pioneering films in the genre. Like so much that begins as alternative fare, Shotgun Stories ends up the normative mean to which prestige indies inevitably tend. There’s a lot to admire about this film, I just feel like I’ve seen it about a dozen times by now.

Kill Bill, Volume 1 (2003) – Blu-ray Disc

September 1, 2008Posted in****/****, 2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Crime, Directors: Quentin Tarantino, Drama, Esoterica, FFC Must-Own, Hong Kong, Martial Arts, Revenge, Road Movie, Thriller

Kill Bill, Vol. 1
****/**** Image A- Sound A Extras C+
starring Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, David Carradine
written and directed by Quentin Tarantino

Mustownby Walter Chaw There is a palpable, undeniable perversity to Quentin Tarantino's fourth feature film, a taste for the extreme so gleeful and smart that its references are homage and its puerility virtue. I seem to find a reason between every Tarantino film to dislike him, to cast aspersions on my memories of his films, but I'm starting to think the source of my dislike is jealousy. Tarantino is the director Spielberg is too timid to be: a gifted visual craftsman unafraid of the contents of his psychic closet, and a film brat whose teachers happen to be blaxploitation, samurai epics, and Shaw Brothers chop-socky instead of John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock. And it isn't that I have aspirations of becoming a filmmaker, it's just that I want to be as good at something as Tarantino is at making movies.

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: Derrière moi

August 31, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Drama, Film Festivals, TIFF
Behind Me**½/****starring Carina Caputo, Charlotte Legault, Patrice Duboiswritten and directed by Rafaël Ouellet by Bill Chambers The title translates as Behind Me, which is sort of where I want to put this Lukas Moodysson-esque downer. I hasten to add, though, that this is a work of fierce emotional intelligence, and I honestly can't decide whether its profoundly upsetting closing minutes (however bullshit they might be) are an example of the characters letting us down or the filmmakers letting the characters down, cynically betraying them and the scenario for shock value. What's interesting is that the logline sent out to the…

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…

Felon (2008) – Blu-ray Disc

August 11, 2008Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bryant Frazer, Blu-ray Disc, Crime, Drama, Prison, Thriller

***/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B-
starring Stephen Dorff, Harold Perrineau, Marisol Nichols, Val Kilmer
written and directed by Ric Roman Waugh

by Bryant Frazer If Jeffrey Lebowski had made a few wrong turns in life–if, let's say, he had brutally murdered some very bad men, as well as their families–he may have turned out not entirely unlike John Smith, the hulkingly mellow convict played by a moustachioed, goateed Val Kilmer in Felon. Judging from the wide berth the rest of the inmates give him, Smith is known as the silent-but-deadly type. Kilmer plays him from behind a whole bunch of prison tattoos with a steely glare, but also with a kind of openness that doesn't immediately compute. Although he's tagged as a sociopath, he's really just the opposite. He believes in justice, and he longs for the death sentence he feels his crimes deserve.

Birds of Prey: The Complete Series (2002-2003) – DVD

August 6, 2008Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Ian Pugh, Drama, DVD, Sci-Fi, Superhero, Television

Image C+ Sound B- Extras C+

BIRDS OF PREY: THE COMPLETE SERIES
"Pilot," "Slick," "Prey for the Hunter," "Three Birds and a Baby," "Sins of the Mother," "Primal Scream," "Split," "Lady Shiva," "Nature of the Beast," "Gladiatrix," "Reunion," "Feat of Clay," "Devil's Eyes"

GOTHAM GIRLS: THE COMPLETE SERIES
"The Vault," "Lap Bat," "Trick or Trick, Part 1," "Trick or Trick, Part 2," "A Little Night Magic," "More Than One Way," "Precious Birthstones," "Pave Paradise," "The Three Babies," "Gardener's Apprentice," "Lady-X," "Hold That Tiger," "Miss Un-Congeniality," "Strategery," "Baby Boom," "Cat-n-Mouse," "Bat'ing Cleanup," "Catsitter," "Gotham Noir," "Scout's Dishonor," "I'm Badgirl," "Ms.-ing in Action," "Gotham in Pink," "Hear Me Roar," "Gotham in Blue," "A Cat in the Hand," "Jailhouse Wreck," "Honor Among Thieves," "No, I'm Batgirl," "Signal Fires," "Cold Hands, Cold Heart"

by Ian Pugh The most that can be said for the execrable "Birds of Prey" is that, five years beforehand, it predicted the disaster of David Eick's unfortunate "Bionic Woman" remake: owing its creation to the popularity of a similarly-themed show ("Smallville" being the analog for "Battlestar Galactica" in this instance), it transforms an already-overblown superhero premise into an ill-conceived soapbox to peddle some artificial feminist claptrap. And, like "Bionic Woman", it attempts to capture the atmosphere of its forebears while betraying zero understanding of what made them successful in the first place. Unlike many of the show's detractors, I don't really care that "Birds of Prey" is a Batman series without Batman's literal presence; I do, however, care that it basically removes any hint of pathos from the setting and, in the classic tradition of the now-defunct WB television network, replaces it with the superficial whininess that teenagers frequently use to get attention. It's The Dark Knight Returns without the nostalgic melancholy. The Killing Joke without the sick, mind-bending tragedy. No Man's Land without the goddamned earthquake.

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.

Encounters at the End of the World (2008) + Frozen River (2008)

August 1, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Directors: Werner Herzog, Documentary, Drama, Theatrical

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
***½/****
directed by Werner Herzog

FROZEN RIVER
*½/****
starring Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott, Mark Boone Junior
written and directed by Courtney Hunt

by Walter Chaw It’s a source of endless delight for me that Werner Herzog–the man who refers to nature as “obscene”–has become known of late for delivering mordant, mildly condescending nature documentaries. His Grizzly Man is a modern classic of Bavarian madness–now find Herzog in Antarctica, declaring at regular intervals in Encounters at the End of the World that “something doesn’t seem right” with a perfectly-preserved hut used by Shackleton a hundred years ago, or with a demented penguin making its way to certain doom on an inexplicable march to the inland. With an opening that has Herzog immodestly laying out his mission statement as wishing to discover, in a roundabout way, why it is that men are obsessed with riding their metaphorical steeds into the wild unknowns, he illustrates the conundrum with a sideswipe at mankind, equating us with ants that hold other insect species as “slaves” and wondering why chimps, despite their intellectual sophistication, decline to domesticate goats to ride them on their own existential pursuits.

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."