Germany Archives - Page 13 of 16

Blue Crush (2002) [Collector’s Edition] (Widescreen) – DVD

January 27, 20032000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Germany, Romance, Sports

***/**** Image A- Sound A+ Extras B-
starring Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, Matthew Davis, Sanoe Lake
screenplay by Lizzy Weiss & John Stockwell, based on the article "Surf Girls of Maui" by Susan Orlean
directed by John Stockwell

by Walter Chaw Bob Marley sings "Could You Be Loved" as a quartet of surf girls in a finned vintage powder-blue ride, yellow surfboards strapped to its roof, chase the dawn to catch the perfect pipe breaking over Hawaii's sand bars and coral reefs. There is possibly no finer capsule of the adrenaline of early morning and youth in recent memory, and while Blue Crush, the movie surrounding this moment, can't sustain that feeling of hope springing eternal, what it manages is an estrogen opera so intensely feminine that it serves as the antidote (and cannier doppelgänger) to Diesel's xXx flex-a-thon.

About a Boy (2002) [Widescreen] – DVD

January 17, 20032000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, France, Germany, Romance, UK

**½/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras B
starring Hugh Grant, Toni Collette, Rachel Weisz, Isabel Brook
screenplay by Peter Hedges and Chris Weitz & Paul Weitz, based on the novel by Nick Hornby
directed by Paul Weitz & Chris Weitz

by Walter Chaw Will Freeman (Hugh Grant) is a philanderer and a playboy. Independently wealthy because of residuals from his father’s authorship of an inexplicably successful Christmas tune, he spends his feckless days in carefully scheduled thirty-minute “units.” (One unit for taking a bath; three for lunch.) Finally feeling a void in the middle of his rootless life at the tender age of thirty-eight, Will–after a scheme to feign single-parentage backfires roughly–finds himself involved with a mordant thirteen-year-old named Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) and Marcus’s suicidally-depressed mother, Fiona (Toni Collette). Rachel Weisz plays the girl too good for the pre-evolution rapscallion, her late appearance ultimately best described as the plot point that drives act three.

Metropolis – 2002 Restoration (1927)

January 15, 20031920s, 2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, Germany, Sci-Fi, Theatrical

**½/****
starring Alfred Abel, Gustav Fröhlich, Brigitte Helm, Rudolf Klein-Rogge
screenplay by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, based on her novel
directed by Fritz Lang

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Now it can be told: Despite its status as a cinema landmark, I’ve never been particularly enamoured with Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Like its immediate descendant Blade Runner, it’s a film better designed than directed and better staged than thought through–a gorgeous white elephant that’s all dressed up with no place to go. Granted, that design and staging are hugely influential, making it essential viewing for students of the cinema, and on a level of simple eye candy it has few peers in all of cinema. But while the current restoration shows us a fuller and more substantial narrative, that doesn’t mean that it is, in fact, full or substantial, and Lang’s rigid camera set-ups lack the fluidity and lightness to truly make the film more than a notable museum piece.

The Bourne Identity (2002) – DVD

January 15, 2003****/****, 2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Czech Republic, DVD, FFC Must-Own, France, Germany, Mystery, Thriller

****/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B
starring Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Clive Owen, Chris Cooper
screenplay by Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron, based on the novel by Robert Ludlum
directed by Doug Liman

by Walter Chaw The Bourne Identity is a composition of gestures stripped of romance and presented in their barest forms. It is the most cannily cinematic film of the year and one that, during its first half-hour, boasts blissfully of but one minute of dialogue. The picture recognizes that Matt Damon is best as an everyman with potential by presenting him as a character born at the age of thirty-three. And the Oedipal detective story that forms the centre of the tale (“Who am I?”) is so ripe for examination that it may flower in time to be as debated and revered a fantasy as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (which likewise features the murder of The Father prior to a kind of manhood and subsequent mate choice). Very loosely based on Robert Ludlum’s novel of the same name, indie punk Doug Liman (director of Swingers) has constructed a parable of self-discovery that can as easily be read as a subversion of the conventions of the thriller genre, a discussion of the ways in which the audience participates in the process of genre fiction, or as a science-fiction piece in which strangely robotic über menschen run amuck in a technocratic world metropolis.

The Hours (2002)

December 27, 20022000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Drama, Esoterica, France, Germany, Romance, Theatrical, UK

**/****
starring Meryl Streep Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, Eileen Atkins
screenplay by David Hare, based on the novel by Michael Cunningham
directed by Stephen Daldry

by Walter Chaw Nicole Kidman is a wonderful Virginia Woolf–a distracted mess in a film that is a literalization of that description. The only real problem with Kidman’s performance is her prosthetic nose–it’s a no-win situation in which The Hours finds itself: allow Kidman to look like Kidman as Woolf and there will arise such a clamour of voices; make Kidman look like Woolf and not only is it impossible to stop looking for the line at the bridge, there will still arise such a clamour of voices. The problematical manipulations and presumptions of the rest of the film are as difficult to overlook as the nose stuck on Nicole’s face: The Hours is mannered to no good purpose, glowering with no good justification, and the sort of artificial construct that presents life lessons writ large by a cadre of talented performers who recognize a mainstream prestige piece when it presents itself. The only thing that separates The Hours from garbage like A Beautiful Mind (last year’s odds-on favourite to disappoint people who care while pleasing people who don’t really give a damn and don’t remember the morning after anyway) is that its marquee disability is being a woman and, apparently, being a lesbian.

Johnson County War (2002) – DVD

December 9, 20022000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Germany, Television, Western

*/**** Image C+ Sound B+
starring Tom Berenger, Luke Perry, Rachel Ward, Burt Reynolds
screenplay by Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana, based on Riders of Judgment by Frederick Manfred
directed by David S. Cass, Sr.

by Walter Chaw The Hallmark Channel's epic remake of Heaven's Gate–based, like that film and Frederick Manfred's Riders of Judgment, on the Johnson County Range War of 1892–does the impossible by making Michael Cimino's legendary boondoggle gain esteem in memory and by comparison. Actually a remake in subject only, legendary stuntman-turned-really bad TV director David S. Cass, Sr.'s Johnson County War (clocking in at an inexcusable 180 minutes) is a dog's breakfast of hoary western clichés, appalling film craft, and wooden performances from B-list talent.

Unfaithful (2002) [Widescreen Special Edition] – DVD

November 26, 20022000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, France, Germany, Romance, Thriller

**½/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras A-
starring Diane Lane, Richard Gere, Erik Per Sullivan, Olivier Martinez
screenplay by Alvin Sargent and William Broyles Jr., based on the screenplay for La Femme Infidele by Claude Chabrol
directed by Adrian Lyne

by Walter Chaw The designer’s eye and yen for the seedy of Adrian Lyne–sort of the Ridley Scott of soft-porn–manifest themselves in Unfaithful, the latest permutation of Lyne’s ongoing upper-middle-class angst cycle: blood-pounding eroticism into passionate bloodletting. The kind of Jacques Tati wind that carries off Kansas farm-girls sends Diane Lane’s Big Apple gal Connie into the brawny arms of book-dealing Frenchman Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez). Connie dabbles in adultery, though she is not exactly unhappily married to armoured car company owner Edward (Richard Gere); call it the milk-fed blues. She’s just bored enough to take an eleventh-year slackening of attention and a forgotten overcoat as an excuse to tryst in an impossible Soho loft.

The Quiet American (2002)

November 22, 20022000s, Australia, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Drama, France, Germany, Romance, Theatrical, Thriller, UK, Vietnam, War

***/****
starring Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, Do Thi Hai Yen, Rade Sherbedgia
screenplay by Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan, based on the novel by Graham Greene
directed by Phillip Noyce

by Walter Chaw Walking a fine line between nostalgia and regret, irony and earnestness, Philip Noyce’s The Quiet American, adapted from the novel by Graham Greene, is a lovely film that captures, like Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, the delicate balance between romance in the immediate foreground and the backdrop of war and politics. Evoking the colonial decay of Greene’s work while evincing one of the best performances of Michael Caine’s career, The Quiet American stars Caine as a British journalist in Vietnam who falls in a hopeless kind of love with a beautiful girl a third his age. His subsequent desperation and jealousy feel real; take note of an anguished scene in a bathroom stall–Caine suddenly seems to be getting better with every role.

The Pool (2001) – DVD

October 30, 20022000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Germany, Horror, Mystery, Thriller, ZERO STARS

Swimming Pool – Der Tod feiert mit
ZERO STARS/**** Image B Sound B Extras D
starring Kristen Miller, Elena Uhlig, Thorsten Grasshoff, Cordelia Bugeja
screenplay by Lorenz Stassen and Boris Von Sychowski
directed by Boris Von Sychowski

by Walter Chaw In an ineffable way, Boris von Sychowski’s The Pool reminds of those old Eighties television teensploitation summer camp movies starring the butch from “Facts of Life” and the fascist from “Family Ties”: poor production values enslaved to the straitjacket of rigid formula filmmaking, wrapped around G-rated titillation that at least in The Pool recognizes is the result in some part of submerged menace. Cabin date rape and teen pregnancy are represented here by the rude insertion of phallic blades through water slides.

Heaven (2002)

October 25, 20022000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, France, Germany, Italy, Romance, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

***½/****
starring Cate Blanchett, Giovanni Ribisi, Remo Girone, Stefania Rocca
screenplay by Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz
directed by Tom Tykwer

by Walter Chaw There is something of the alchemical when two disparate talents discover that their collaboration is inspired. It is an inkling of the excitement at the promise of A.I. with Kubrick’s misanthropy and Spielberg’s cult of childhood–or the pop-cultural satisfaction embedded in the narrative genius of Stephen King mixing easily with the stiff overwriting of Peter Straub. Heaven is the product of a screenplay by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski (and writing partner Krzysztof Piesiewicz) and surprisingly sedate direction by previously hyperactive wunderkind director Tom Tykwer. The result is another of Tykwer’s unpredictable romances blending with another of Kieslowski’s carefully metered, studiously non-didactic discussions of morality and consequence. The result of their union is often amazing.

DIFF ’02: Safe Conduct

October 22, 20022000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Biopic, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Germany, Spain, War

Laissez-passer***/****starring Jacques Gamblin, Denis Podalydès, Charlotte Kady, Marie Desgrangesscreenplay by Jean Cosmos, Bertrand Tavernier, based on the book by Jean Devaivredirected by Bertrand Tavernier by Walter Chaw The best didacticism is one carried by a strong sense of humanism, and Bertrand Tavernier's oft-brilliant Safe Conduct ("Laissez-passer") wears its heart on its sleeve--a few inches sometimes from where a yellow star would have been sewn in the occupied Paris where it sets its scene. There is a reason to Tavernier's rambling madness (the film clocks in at just about three hours), found in the care taken in establishing a sense of…

DIFF ’02: Be My Star

October 20, 20022000s, Austria, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Film Festivals, Germany, Romance

Mein Stern**½/****starring Nicole Gläser, Monique Gläser, Jeanine Gläser, Christopher Schöpswritten and directed by Valeska Grisebach by Walter Chaw An extremely naturalistic German product, Valeska Grisebach's short (65 minutes) hyphenate debut Mein Stern ("Be My Star") demonstrates an unerring ear for the maelstrom of first love and just-pubescent angst but fails to maintain much interest in its inevitable story arc even over its brief running time. The picture is structured as an allegory for the capriciousness of adult relationships, though in route to its broad statements about the fickleness of attraction and devotion it finds itself choppy and unstructured. Distinguished by…

DIFF ’02: Bowling for Columbine (2002)

October 12, 20022000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, DIFF/SDFF, Documentary, Film Festivals, Germany

***/****
directed by Michael Moore

by Walter Chaw The most successfully provocative film of the year, Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine nonetheless hurts itself with its questionable tactics and Moore’s inability to leave certain pulpits alone, but the documentarian succeeds in providing a canny, often brilliant, examination of the root causes of America’s amazing propensity for gun violence. The picture goes beyond a condemnation of “gun nuts”–and beginning as it does with an extended interview with James Nichols (the nutball brother of nutball Terry Nichols, who, along with Timothy McVeigh, was convicted of the Oklahoma City Murrah Building bombing), it’s not always certain that it will.

The Rules of Attraction (2002)

October 11, 20022000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Esoterica, Germany, Romance, Theatrical

***½/****
starring James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, Ian Somerhalder, Jessica Biel
screenplay by Roger Avary, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis
directed by Roger Avary

by Walter Chaw Roger Avary’s The Rules of Attraction jitters and grooves like a thing possessed. It’s a post-modern Less Than Zero based on a below-average book by nihilism wunderkind Bret Easton Ellis transformed by a pair of exceptional performances and the insouciant style of Avary (more, Avary’s one-time partner-in-crime Quentin Tarantino) into a portrait of college life feral and uncomfortable. It handles time and traditional narrative structures with an expert insolence and earns points besides for making a cunning pop cultural reference to Sheriff Buford Pusser and Walking Tall. It’s too smart to outsmart itself, then, juggling its in-references with a kind of casual offhandedness that allows the proscenium to be occupied by a surprisingly piquant trio of character sketches.

DIFF ’02: Sweet Sixteen

October 7, 20022000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Germany, Spain, UK

***½/****starring Martin Compston, William Ruane, Annmarie Fulton, Michelle Abercrombyscreenplay by Paul Lavertydirected by Ken Loach by Walter Chaw Ken Loach returns to his blue-collar roots with the incendiary Sweet Sixteen, a fabulous evocation of place and the plight of the lower class in the mean streets of Glasgow. Supremely well-acted and marked by Loach's gift for an effortless transparency in setting and the performances he coaxes from inexperienced actors, the picture follows young Liam (Martin Compston) on the eve of his sixteenth birthday as he shuck-and-jives his way towards a better life for him and his soon-to-be-ex convict mother, Jean…

DIFF ’02: Roger Dodger

October 6, 20022000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Coming of Age, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Germany

***½/****starring Campbell Scott, Jesse Eisenberg, Isabella Rossellini, Elizabeth Berkleywritten and directed by Dylan Kidd by Walter Chaw Roger (Campbell Scott) is a fast-talking lothario with the usual laundry list of the insecurities, sexual or otherwise, that plague the modern man. But this far meaner and smarter version of The Tao of Steve--and what slight praise that is--takes a turn to the intriguing when Roger's 16-year-old nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) appears for a few lessons on the art of pitching woo. In three brilliantly-scripted and wondrously paced sequences, Kidd points his Casanova Virgil and virginal Dante into the concentric circles of…

Hellchild: The World of Nick Lyon – DVD

October 4, 20021990s, 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.

Igby Goes Down (2002)

September 26, 20022000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Germany, Theatrical

**/****
starring Kieran Culkin, Susan Sarandon, Jeff Goldblum, Claire Danes
written and directed by Burr Steers

by Walter Chaw A battle between bug-eye theatre and dead-eye matinee, Igby Goes Down represents another post-Rushmore neo-Salinger debut (from hyphenate Burr Steers, nephew of Gore Vidal) that places an anti-establishment fish in a prep-school pond and surrounds him with a florid panoply of castrating mothers, Oedipal complexities, and evil schoolmates. In attempting to find new material in a genre that seems mostly played out (and played better by Wes Anderson and Alexander Payne), Igby Goes Down is another desperately overwritten Stygian coming-of-age melodrama à la another recent Kieran Culkin angst flick, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys.

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)

September 20, 20022000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Germany, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/****
starring Antonio Banderas, Lucy Liu, Roger R. Cross, Ray Park
screenplay by Peter M. Lenkov and Alan B. McElroy
directed by Kaos

by Walter Chaw Walking away with the title of Most Incomprehensible Film of 2002 (walking away is also, incidentally, what you should do when presented with the prospect of seeing this film), Wych Kaosayananda’s ponderously branded Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever is a collection of puzzling explosions married to a series of alternately stunning and hilarious line deliveries of, to be fair, unspeakable exposition. It hopes to obscure its awfulness with its volume or, failing that, to dress up its stupidity with backlit shots of a woman communing with a captive manatee.

Mostly Martha (2002)

September 20, 20022000s, Austria, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Germany, Italy, Romance, Switzerland, Theatrical

Bella Martha
**½/****
starring Martina Gedeck, Maxime Foerste, Sergio Castellitto, August Zirner
written and directed by Sandra Nettelbeck

by Walter Chaw A Bavarian Big Night, Sandra Nettelbeck’s Mostly Martha joins a romantic-comedy premise with a lost-child scenario, setting it all to a leisurely pace and framing it with an eye for the handsome. Its sightlines as crisp and clean as the dishes chef Martha creates in her immaculate kitchen, the picture is as relaxed a viewing experience as any this year–a dish without many exotic ingredients (like a good Salmon dish, the film tells us), but just enough substance to forgive the froth.