The Civil War (1990) – DVD

October 28, 2002Posted in****/****, 1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Documentary, DVD, FFC Must-Own, War

****/**** Image A Sound A+ Extras A
directed by Ken Burns

Logo: FFC MUST-OWNby Walter Chaw Almost forgotten amidst the lavish praise and hyperbole heaped on Ken Burns’s eleven-hour foray into the American Civil War is that the picture is among the finest of its kind ever produced. The Civil War is an indescribably informative, exhaustively researched and compiled work that particularly astonishes not for its depth of information, the audacity of its creation, or the logic of its organization, but for the amount of emotion it evokes in recounting familiar events.

The Santa Clause (1994) [Widescreen Special Edition] – DVD

October 27, 2002Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Christmas, Comedy, Disney, Drama, DVD, Family, Fantasy

½*/**** Image A Sound B+ Extras D+
starring Tim Allen, Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson, Eric Lloyd
screenplay by Leo Benvenuti & Steve Rudnick
directed by John Pasquin

by Bill Chambers Julia Roberts’s male equivalent in persecution vanity, if not box-office viability, Tim Allen has a ‘Cinderfella’ complex that vividly unveiled itself in the first big-screen vehicle built for the comedian-turned-sitcom star, The Santa Clause, a holiday stinker mysteriously elevated to instant-classic status after managing to outgross Speed, The Mask, Pulp Fiction, and Interview with the Vampire. That it spoke to the zeitgeist is just one of those things, ultimately beyond comprehension; why it actually sucks, that’s a little easier to break down.

Desert Saints (2002) – DVD

October 26, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, DVD, Romance, Thriller

**/**** Image C Sound C
starring Kiefer Sutherland, Melora Walters, Jamey Sheridan, Leslie Stefanson
screenplay by Rich Greenberg and Wally Nicols
directed by Rich Greenberg

by Walter Chaw Closer to Flashback than to Freeway, the Kiefer Sutherland vehicle Desert Saints is actually closer to Montana than either: a neo-Tarantino erstwhile buddy road trip that pairs Donald's son with a flighty dingbat channelling Rosanna Arquette. Kiefer is Banks, a hired killer who hatches a plan with woman-on-the-lam Bennie (Melora Walters) to play house, check into the same (!) hotel south of the border to do his wicked business, and evade the pair of feds, Scanlon and Marbury (Jamey Sheridan and Leslie Stefanson), hot on his trail. Soul-searching and gut-spilling lead to the kind of sudden reversals that shift power from Banks to Bennie and back before ending in what can only be described as a confusion of trick endings telegraphed from the start. It's less delightful than I make it seem.

The Rats (2002) – DVD

October 24, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

*/**** Image C Sound C Extras C+
starring Vincent Spano, Mädchen Amick, Shawn Michael Howard, Daveigh Chase
screenplay by Frank Deasy
directed by John J. Lafia

by Walter Chaw In a peculiar case of “how much do I cop to,” I admit that I felt a surge of excitement upon first beholding the cover for the DVD release of The Rats, largely because it resembles a great deal the artwork for an edition of English horror author James Herbert’s Rats from many moons ago. After searching the credits diligently (and futilely) for any mention of the hale Brit’s stamp of approval, it was with considerably less excitement that I beheld proper the latest from poor Vincent Spano and Mädchen “Didn’t you used to be on ‘Twin Peaks’?” Amick. The Rats is fairly typical monster-/Seventies disaster-movie fare, also following in the faded footsteps of Willard and Ray Milland’s perverse cult classic Frogs. The main difference being that in our post-modern amusement park (Entropy! Get your tickets now!), the picture isn’t so much about even something so banal as eco-paranoia, but about itself and the genre that it simultaneously lampoons and aspires to.

Beauty and the Beast: Special Edition (1991|2002) [Platinum Edition] – DVD

October 22, 2002Posted in1990s, 2000s, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Disney, DVD, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance

*½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B
screenplay by Linda Woolverton
directed by Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise

This review was popular for its contrarianism, but to my current thinking it’s insubstantial and hurries through the movie to get to the DVD; I’d like to take another crack at it someday.-Ed. (6/14/17)

by Bill Chambers Disney solidified the comeback of 2-D animation after the success of The Little Mermaid with Beauty & the Beast, a throwback to the fairytale reimaginings that defined the studio in its heyday. Uncle Walt himself had, in fact, kicked around the idea of adapting the “song as old as rhyme” during his reign but threw in the towel when he couldn’t figure out a way to sustain kiddie interest in what is, in its classical tellings, the story of a monster and a hottie who dine together in the evenings.

Big Fat Liar (2002) – DVD

October 22, 2002Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Family

**½/**** Image C Sound A- Extras C+
starring Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti, Amanda Bynes, Amanda Detmer
screenplay by Dan Schneider
directed by Shawn Levy

by Walter Chaw Although it closes with thirty minutes of pratfalls and screaming, Big Fat Liar begins its life as a fun revenge fantasy that makes the interesting choice of never being about greed, but rather truth. Marty Wolf (Paul Giamatti) is an evil Hollywood producer who steals the vaguely autobiographical writing assignment of pathological liar Jason (Frankie Muniz) and turns it into a big-budget blockbuster that shares its name with this film’s title. Saddened that his wolf-crying (like “Marty Wolf”–get it?) has resulted in a loss of trust between him and his parents, Jason takes off for California with his tart pal Kaylee (Amanda Bynes) in tow to convince Marty to cop to the theft. No mention of economic restitution is ever made.

Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled (2002) – DVD

October 21, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Fantasy, Horror, Romance

**/**** Image B Sound B+ Extras B-
starring Michael Trucco, Tara Spencer-Nairn, Jason Thompson, John Novak
screenplay by John Benjamin Martin
directed by Chris Angel

by Bill Chambers You’ve got to love a movie (trust me, you do) that opens with a sex scene, brings up a title card to read “3 Years Later,” and mere moments after that flashes back to the opening sex scene. The dumbitude of Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled, frankly, excited me–this is not a dull bad film, but one chirpy and alive. Shot like an episode of “Red Shoe Diaries”, rendering the goblin-featured title genie an always-jarring sight (you keep expecting to see him in lingerie), the picture reveals itself to be on autopilot (the Airplane! kind that’s inflatable and winks) when it can’t even offer up a clever resurrection of the Djinn except to have some schlub hand our heroine a box capped by a fire opal and say, “Here, I bought this for you.” She peers into it, sees a creature screaming against a backdrop of flames, and suggests he have it appraised.

Men with Brooms (2002) – DVD

October 16, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance, Sports

**½/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras C
starring Paul Gross, Molly Parker, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Outerbridge
written and directed by Paul Gross

by Walter Chaw Closer in spirit to Mystery, Alaska than to the similarly Olympics-inspired Cool Runnings, Men with Brooms is an underdog sports intrigue mashed together with a bedroom farce–and neither dog-eared formula is handled with very much originality, while uncomfortable subplots concerning adultery, alcoholism, and healing father/son rifts (see also: Hoosiers) vie for a level of pathos that always feels out of place in what is essentially The Bad News Bears (or The Replacements, or Slap Shot) for curling. Though it’s extremely tempting to lay out an endless stream of titles for films that are essentially identical to Men with Brooms, time is better served just saying that the picture, the directorial debut of Canuck star Paul Gross, is a low-aspiring bit of nonsense that fits as comfortably as a cozy pair of ratty sneakers while stinking a little all the same.

Enough (2002) – DVD

October 12, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, Revenge, Thriller, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image A Sound A
starring Jennifer Lopez, Bill Campbell, Tessa Allen, Juliette Lewis
screenplay by Nicholas Kazan
directed by Michael Apted

by Walter Chaw So try this one on for size: a woman wronged by a world of evil men recuperates, studiously fails to call the police (too many men on the police force–men=bad; we’ll be returning to this equation often), and finally tracks down her tormentors with the express purpose of murdering them. This not only describes Michael Apted’s Enough, but also Meir Zarchi’s infamous exploitation flick I Spit on Your Grave, the main difference between the two being that Enough tries very hard to hide the fact that it’s an ugly bit of repugnant vigilantism masquerading as a feminist uplift drama.

Life or Something Like It (2002) – DVD

October 7, 2002Posted inAuthors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance

*½/**** Image C+ Sound B+ Commentary B-
starring Angelina Jolie, Edward Burns, Tony Shalhoub, Christian Kane
screenplay by John Scott Shepherd and Dana Stevens
directed by Stephen Herek

by Walter Chaw A little like Forces of Nature in its dreamy, forced artificiality, Life or Something Like It washes out as an unwise amalgam of Broadcast News and Vibes. A love story without warmth starring Angelina Jolie as an ice princess and Ed Burns as his ol' smugly insufferable self, the film is a laborious trudge through faux-mysticism, heatless romance, and shallow philosophy–100 minutes of "carpe diem" that, because they're missing grace and life, lack resonance and purpose as well. Preternaturally sunny and too gutless to honour its stupid premise, Life or Something Like It inspires only one disquieting existential thought and that is the realization that whatever that self-aggrandizing idiot Burns made on this film is no doubt going to fund another one of his indies somewhere down the road.

The Mummy: Quest for the Lost Scrolls (2002) – DVD

October 6, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Television, Thriller

*/**** Image A Sound B- Extras C-

by Walter Chaw Universal and Kids’ WB present the abominable and derivative The Mummy: Quest for the Lost Scrolls, the first three episodes of a tragically bad action-adventure cartoon based on characters from Stephen Sommers’s live-action blockbuster The Mummy Returns. After Aryan-izing Fraser’s Rick O’Connell and his irritating moppet Alex (who is, predictably, the star of the show), the animators proceed to rip-off sources as disconcertingly varied as The Evil Dead, Star Wars, and Sommers’s Mummy saga, natch, all while perpetuating myths of the wilting femme and the foppish Brit that, shockingly, its adult counterparts never did.

Scooby-Doo (2002) [Widescreen Edition] – DVD

October 5, 2002Posted in2000s, Adventure, Australia, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Family, Mystery

**/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras B
starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard, Linda Cardellini
screenplay by James Gunn
directed by Raja Gosnell

Scoobydoovelmacapby Walter Chaw At one point in Raja Gosnell’s Scooby-Doo, Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) tells the titular pooch, “We’re like two trippin’ peas in a freaky pod, man”–and the counter-cultural freak flag just keeps on flyin’ in a live-action film more for the late-twentysomethings who grew up with the subversive Hanna-Barbera-Iwao Takamato cartoon than the kids of today being weaned on the much tamer, direct-to-video “Scooby” fare. I love that the reviled Scrappy-Doo is given a much-deserved vilification (“Puppy power! He’s not even a puppy–he’s got some kind of glandular thing”), that there’s a scene in which Shag and Scoob are unseen in the Mystery Machine–while smoke billows out of its sunroof to a reggae refrain Shaggy can be heard rapturously intoning, “So toasted, soooo toasted,” and that when Shaggy gets a girlfriend (the smokin’ Isla Fisher), her name is Mary Jane (“That’s, like, my favourite name!”). I love that Velma gets slyly “outed” (“I’m going on a journey of self-discovery”), and I love that one of the main villains is a Telemundo wrestler.

Hellchild: The World of Nick Lyon – DVD

October 4, 2002Posted in1990s, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Esoterica, Germany, Horror, Short Films

by Walter Chaw A DVD collection of short films written, directed, and edited by Idaho-born, German-based filmmaker Nick Lyon, Hellchild: The World of Nick Lyon is an often brilliant exercise in high John Waters trash augmented with actual filmmaking ability and an imagination as feverishly fecund and difficult to shake as a yeast infection. Lyon's work is equal parts deadpan and disgusting, a comic-book exercise in grotesquery that reminds a little of Sergio Aragones's "Mad Marginals" in its sprung logic (and sense of humour) and a little more of David Lynch (or Tim Burton) in its dark reflection of suburban America.

Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) [Widescreen] + [3-Disc Collector’s Edition] – DVDs

October 1, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, DVD, Film Festivals, France, Horror, Mystery

Le Pacte des loups
***½/****
WIDESCREEN DVD – Image A Sound A+ Extras B
3-DISC COLLECTOR’S EDITION DVD – Image B Sound A+ Extras A+
starring Samuel Le Bihan, Mark Dacascos, Emilie Dequenne, Vincent Cassel
screenplay by Christophe Gans, Stephane Cabel
directed by Christophe Gans

by Walter Chaw A beautiful girl adrift in a vast natural expanse is set upon by an unseen menace and slammed against a solid object before being dragged away to her bloodily-masticated doom. Enter a famed naturalist (Samuel Le Bihan), considered the expert in the breed of beast that might be responsible for the heinous deed; his investigations mostly reveal that the culprit is larger than your average monster. Alas, no one in the isolated and picturesque community believes him, consoling themselves in an amateur hunt that bags a load of smaller members of the creature’s species. When the killing continues, the famed naturalist, his highly-trained sidekick (martial artist Mark Dacascos, here reunited with his Crying Freeman director), and a meek member of the ruling class along for the adventure, lay down a series of traps, gather hunting implements, and, after some derring-do, overcome their foe, incurring tremendous losses in the process.

Casper: A Spirited Beginning (1997) + Casper Meets Wendy (1998) – DVDs

September 30, 2002Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Family, Horror, ZERO STARS

CASPER: A SPIRITED BEGINNING
ZERO STARS/****
starring Steve Guttenberg, Lori Loughlin, Rodney Dangerfield, Michael McKean
screenplay by Jymn Magon, Thomas Hart
directed by Sean McNamara

CASPER MEETS WENDY
½*/****
starring Cathy Moriarty, Shelley Duvall, Teri Garr, George Hamilton
screenplay by Jymn Magon
directed by Sean McNamara

by Walter Chaw Taking place in a scary netherworld where up is down, black is white, and Steve Guttenberg, Rodney Dangerfield, Lori Loughlin, Pauly Shore, and Richard Moll still have careers, Casper: A Spirited Beginning is one long spiritless harangue designed for the kid with the helmet and the drool cup. Shockingly awful computer animation coupled with simply appalling acting wrapped around a plot that rips off Beetlejuice at every turn (newly-deceased goes through the process of denial before finding a handbook and a sympathetic morbid kid to help him/them adapt to the afterlife), Casper: A Spirited Beginning at the least honours the quality of those Harvey comics you used to read in the barbershop while trying to sneak a peak at the PLAYBOYs under the mirror.

Mickey’s House of Villains (2001) – DVD

September 23, 2002Posted in****/****, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1990s, 2000s, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Disney, DVD, Family, Horror, Short Films

**½/**** Image A Sound A Extras C-
directed by VARIOUS

by Walter Chaw Just in time for Halloween, Mickey’s House of Villains collects eight animated shorts spanning sixty-some years while illustrating the creative flatline that Disney has experienced from its heyday to well into its current decline. The Mouse demonstrates, too, a tiresome reliance of late on loosely framed anthologies for their direct-to-video releases and this one is no exception, as a gallery of Disney rogues collect in a nightclub to plot the demise of proprietors Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, et al.

Blade II (2002) [New Line Platinum Series] – DVD

September 21, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Vampire

***½/**** Image A+ Sound A+ Extras A+
starring Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, Luke Goss
screenplay by David S. Goyer
directed by Guillermo del Toro

by Walter Chaw Detailing the uncomfortable alliance of Blade and his arch-enemy vampires against a mutant “crack-addict” form of vampire called “Reapers,” Blade II introduces the hints of a twice-illicit romance between Blade (Wesley Snipes) and a succubus princess Nyssa (Leonor Varela) that blossoms after a meet-cute involving the threat of beheading and castration (awww), as well as an unusually pithy look at strange bedfellows in a mutually beneficial conflagration.

Kissing Jessica Stein (2002) – DVD

September 19, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance

**½/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras B+
starring Jennifer Westfeldt, Heather Juergensen, Tovah Feldshuh, Esther Wurmfeld
screenplay by Jennifer Westfeldt & Heather Juergensen
directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld

by Walter Chaw New Yorker Jessica Stein, referred to at one point in Kissing Jessica Stein as the Jewish Sandra Dee, is looking for love in the brack of the late-twentysomething dating pool. This means that we’ll get a dating montage during which we sample the poor object choices available to the intrepid, sensitive, modern urban woman about town. A devout reader of Rilke (pegging her as both dreamy and pretentious, which also describes the film at hand), Jessica perks up when she hears a favourite passage quoted in a singles ad–only slightly tortured by the fact that the ad has been placed by another woman, Helen (Heather Juergensen). Helen runs a small art gallery, Jessica is an artist; Helen knows Rilke, Jennifer knows Rilke; and though Jennifer is almost pathologically incapable of falling headlong into lesbian sexuality, through the tender, Color Purple ministrations of Helen, she does come around in time.

American Psycho 2 (2002) – DVD

September 17, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, DVD, Horror, Thriller

American Psycho II: All American Girl
*/**** Image B- Sound B Extras B
starring Mila Kunis, Geraint Wyn Davies, William Shatner, Robin Dunne
screenplay by Alex Sanger and Karen Craig
directed by Morgan J. Freeman

by Walter Chaw That William Shatner is the best actor in Morgan J. Freeman’s direct-to-video American Psycho 2 (a.k.a. American Psycho II: All American Girl), as easy a barnside to strike as almost any in popular culture, is one of those things that is taken with ironic mirth when it should be taken as a stern warning. Rachel (an overmatched Mila Kunis) as a little girl kills Patrick Bateman–the anti-hero of Mary Harron’s sometimes-brilliant ’80s exposé American Psycho–while he’s in the act of murdering her babysitter. That Bateman is not actually a killer doesn’t seem all that important to the makers of this picture, a moronic cross between Murder 101 and Heathers with none of the camp value of the former and none of the intelligence of either.

Three DVDs That Commemorate 9/11

September 17, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blog, Documentary, DVD, Television, ZERO STARS

by Walter Chaw Distilling raw viscera into heartbreaking stories at once the most dangerous thing that we as an American culture do and the thing at which we are the best, the first anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the United States finds three documentaries on DVD to go with the around-the-clock soft-milking of the events on what seems like every channel on the dial. While the endless cascade of now-familiar images continues to enrage and shock, too often the intention of the coverage is to find the "human" stories in the midst of the suggested carnage; to tug the heartstrings (and, truly, what human cannot be moved by orphaned children, widowed wives, widowed husbands, progeny-less parents, and martyred heroes) is fine so long as there is an accompanying resolve.