Party Monster (2003)

October 24, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Biopic, Crime, Drama, Netherlands, Theatrical, Thriller

***/****
starring Macaulay Culkin, Seth Green, Chloë Sevigny, Natasha Lyonne
screenplay by Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato, based on the book Disco Bloodbath by James St. James
directed by Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato

Partymonsterby Travis Mackenzie Hoover By all rights, Party Monster shouldn't work as well as it does. Not only is it flip about matters of grave seriousness (in this case, the murder of a Hispanic drug dealer by Club Kid impresario Michael Alig), but it hasn't got much on its mind beyond the endless debauchery afforded by its subject matter, and consequently gives all other matters the rhinestone-studded shaft. But despite all of this shallowness, the film is surprisingly engrossing; as Alig falls into his downward spiral, it becomes a harrowing reminder that, per the film's much-abused Blake quote, the road of excess can often lead to the path of destruction.

To Live and Die in LA (1985) [Special Edition] – DVD

October 23, 2003Posted in1980s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, Directors: William Friedkin, Drama, DVD, Thriller

To Live and Die in L.A.
***/**** Image B Sound A- Extras A
starring William L. Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, Debra Feuer
screenplay by William Friedkin and Gerald Petievich, based on the novel by Petievich
directed by William Friedkin

by Bill Chambers William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. sprang from the director's mid-'80s preoccupation with music-video nihilism, and as such has peaks and valleys depending on the degree of montage a sequence calls for. The tin-ear that Friedkin contracted sometime after the Seventies, which drove him to fatally second-guess Paul Brickman's Swiftian screenplay for Deal of the Century, imbues many an exchange in To Live and Die in L.A. with authenticity (only real people flounder this much trying to sound hard-boiled), but the stylish visuals in turn butt heads with the dialogue, prompting us to wish for a slicker whole. The silliest repartee also throws the symbolic-to-the-point-of-corny names of central figures Chance (William L. Petersen) and Masters (Willem Dafoe) into tautological relief: Chance is a Secret Service agent who thrives on risk (fittingly, a found poker chip decides him in pursuit of the bad guy), while Masters, who's like Patrick Bateman without the civility, is a painter who has mastered the art of making funny-money, as is demonstrated for us in a breathtaking collection of how-to shots that single-handedly justifies Friedkin's dabble in the MTV aesthetic.

Willard (2003) [New Line Platinum Series] – DVD

October 22, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Drama, DVD, Horror, Thriller

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A+
starring Crispin Glover, Laura Elena Harring, Jackie Burroughs, R. Lee Ermey
screenplay by Glen Morgan, based on the screenplay by Gilbert Ralston and Ralston’s novel Ratman’s Notebook
directed by Glen Morgan

by Walter Chaw If you’re going to remake an Ernest Borgnine movie from the Seventies, I’d rather see a redux of The Devil’s Rain. But Willard it is; for the blissfully uninitiated, Willard concerns the travails of a lonesome weirdo who makes friends with a bunch of rats, Phenomena-style (Argento not Travolta, which brings us back to The Devil’s Rain, curiously), and sends them on a crusade against an evil boss who wants to buy Willard’s house. Bruce Davison as the original Willard has a nice moment in that film where he implores his rat-kinder to “tear it up” good, but the film is probably best remembered for the theme song of its sequel, Ben, penned by Michael Jackson v.0.2. The theme song, and Davison, have stupid cameos in the new Willard.

DIFF ’03: The Flower of Evil

October 19, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Thriller
*½/****screenplay by Caroline Eliacheff and Louise L. Lambrichs, adaptation by Claude Chabroldirected by Claude Chabrol by Walter Chaw Claude Chabrol, the master of the French thriller, is perhaps better described as the master of the French femme-fear film, making an art of women empowering themselves through the destruction of class and gender distinction. With The Flower of Evil (La Fleur du Mal) (no relation to the Baudelaire), Chabrol continues his slide into quaint, comfortable insignificance with his umpteenth treatment of a theme; he's become sort of a French Ozu, if you will, but with murder. This time around, the aging…

Veronica Guerin (2003)

October 17, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Biopic, Crime, Drama, Ireland, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

*/****
starring Cate Blanchett, Gerard McSorley, Ciarán Hinds, Brenda Fricker
screenplay by Carol Doyle and Mary Agnes Donoghue
directed by Joel Schumacher

Veronicaguerinby Walter Chaw By the end of the piece, the only thing missing is John Wayne in ill-fitting Centurion garb, drawling "I do believe she truly was the son of God" over the corpse of slain journalist Veronica Guerin (Cate Blanchett), so at pains is Joel Schumacher's tedious spectacle of a hagiography of Guerin to paint her as some sort of sainted martyr. Veronica Guerin is horrible, really, a passel of forced dramatic slow push-ins framing Blanchett's mannered performance (in a Princess Diana haircut, no less, to really ramp up that pathos) all of insouciantly arched eyebrows and saucy eyeballs and centred dead and soft-lit like a Giotto effigy. Much is made of Guerin's print peers looking down on her, then a closing title card offers a statistic on the number of journalists killed in the line of duty, the suggestion being that journalists are sniffy elitists who don't like someone who can't write, has no background or experience in journalism, and takes unnecessary risks with themselves and their families–and that journalists are heroes regularly martyred by their thirst for truth. You really can't have it both ways, and that lack of focus isn't ambiguity so much as confusion brought about by a mortal dose of self-righteousness.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) – DVD|[Special Collector’s Edition] DVD

October 14, 2003Posted in1980s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Vincent Suarez, DVD, Sci-Fi, Star Trek, Thriller

**½/****
1999 DVD – Image B Sound A-
SCE DVD – Image A Sound A Extras A
starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, James Doohan, Laurence Luckinbill
screenplay by David Loughery
directed by William Shatner

by Vincent Suarez On the heels of the wildly successful (and equally overrated) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the Trek franchise seemed poised to become, of all things, a crossover phenomenon. That changed with the release of the financially disappointing and generally reviled (by critics and Trek fans alike) fifth installment, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, which nearly killed the film series. Wisely, Paramount and producer Harve Bennett asked Nicholas Meyer, director of the magnificent Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, to helm Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, putting the series back on warp drive.

DIFF ’03: I’m Not Scared

October 14, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Italy, Mystery, Spain, Thriller, UK
Io non ho paura***/****written by Niccolò Ammaniti, Niccolò Ammaniti, Francesca Marcianodirected by Gabriele Salvatores by Walter Chaw An Italian version of Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter in many respects, Gabriele Salvatores' I'm Not Scared (Io Non Ho Paura) is admirable in its ability to evoke the dreamy disconnection of childhood--the startling realization at some point along the way that your parents may not be merely flawed, but occasionally malicious. A young boy, Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano), finds a child imprisoned in a hole next to an abandoned house in the middle of an impossibly beautiful fall Tuscan landscape, all yellow…

28 Days Later (2002) [Widescreen Special Edition] – DVD

September 24, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller, UK, Zombie

28 Days Later…
**½/**** Image B Sound A- Extras A
starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Christopher Eccleston
screenplay by Alex Garland
directed by Danny Boyle

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover 28 Days Later… is a film that shoots for resonance but is too shortsighted to hit the target. Its tale of an England beset by rage-crazed zombies is clearly a metaphor for something–but what? Timing rules out certain international disasters (9/11 happened as the film was shooting), and a certain opacity of intent clouds the entire film, making you reach out for something that you're never sure is really there. There are compensatory pleasures (a general creepiness, one smashing performance), but the film lacks something beyond its grasp, leaving you with an adequate, reasonably entertaining picture, and nothing more.

Enigma (2001) [Special Edition] – DVD

September 23, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Espionage, Germany, Mystery, Netherlands, Romance, Thriller, UK, War

**½/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras A-
starring Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet, Jeremy Northam, Saffron Burrows
screenplay by Tom Stoppard, based on the novel by Robert Harris
directed by Michael Apted

by Walter Chaw The easy thing to say is that the Mick Jagger-produced Enigma is enigmatic–it's more difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons why. Stars Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet, and Jeremy Northam are fine, Tom Stoppard's screenplay would on the surface surely seem fine, and Michael Apted's polished, if unremarkable, direction is the very definition of just fine. So the onus must fall on the material adapted, Robert Harris's follow-up to his much-lauded Fatherland, which promised a Ken Follett romantic espionage page-burner while delivering a staid and occasionally incomprehensible period bodice-ripper crushed under the dual gorgons of the sophomore jinx and the Tom Clancy "guess I'm not very good at dialogue" bogey. Enigma's problems begin and end with its inability to overcome the essential faults of its inherited plot, its most interesting aspect–WWII cryptologists at London's Bletchley Park–subsumed by a run-of-the-mill mystery and a never-in-doubt love story. It appears the curse of many historical fictions that attempt to familiarize the "long ago" with a "universal" romantic story arc dooms Enigma's period and historical detail to function as mere decorative flourish.

Underworld (2003)

September 19, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Fantasy, Germany, Horror, Hungary, Theatrical, Thriller, UK, Vampire, Werewolf

*½/****
starring Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Shane Brolly, Michael Sheen
screenplay by Danny McBride
directed by Len Wiseman

Underworldby Walter Chaw Appearing to be based on two White Wolf role-playing games–"Vampire: The Masquerade" and "Werewolf: The Apocalypse"–introduced a while back (and indeed, the games company is suing Sony, Screen Gems, and Lakeshore for copyright infringement, citing no fewer than sixty points of unique similarity), Len Wiseman's Underworld may prove to be less "Romeo and Juliet" than much ado about nothing. The picture looks fantastic, Kate Beckinsale and Scott Speedman look fantastic, and that's pretty much all there is recommend about the piece, which is so boring, lifeless, and humourless that White Wolf would do well to distance itself from the thing toot sweet. This is gravid filmmaking at its worst, indulging in its twin cults' puerile wish-fulfillment fantasies with a sexless lust: the life of an immortal rock star in period garb thirsting for the blood of bullies for the one, of a raging man-beast thirsting for the blood of bullies for the other. In between are tons of rip-offs of everything from The Crow to The Matrix to the leather fetish and arms of Blade to the sweaty bodice-ripping of Anne Rice to the Alien3 wall-crawling monster views of David Fincher. Wiseman, in his hyphenate debut (he co-concocted the story), has scored big with a real-life engagement to the ethereally beautiful–and undernourished and anaemic–Kate Beckinsale, enough to take the sting out of the blah of Underworld, I'd surmise. And why not? Many would fail worse for less, but as a writer and director he proves himself to be a pretty good set designer.

Dreamcatcher (2003) [Widescreen Edition] – DVD

September 16, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Drama, DVD, Horror, Sci-Fi, Stephen King, Thriller

*/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B-
starring Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis
screenplay by William Goldman and Lawrence Kasdan, based on the novel by Stephen King
directed by Lawrence Kasdan

by Walter Chaw As stupid as stupid can be, Lawrence Kasdan’s splashy comeback on the backs of two writers who haven’t really been any good for about 40 years between them (Stephen King and William Goldman) is riddled with knee-slapping plot inconsistencies and the sort of dunderheaded conveniences that reek equally of desperation and a lack of respect for the audience. Based on the first King novel written after the author was smeared across a Maine highway by a man who would later kill himself in a trailer, the book is a fine short story trapped in the body of a 600-page book. Hopelessly protracted, after the first 200 pages, the novel becomes a pathetic exercise in chronic self-reference: the malady of a successful author who’s begun to lose the line between reality and his cult of personality. King has become a writer interested in writing love letters to his fanbase and smug gruel for everyone else.

TIFF ’03: Gozu

September 10, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, Drama, Esoterica, Film Festivals, Horror, Japan, Mystery, Thriller, TIFF
Yakuza Horror Theater: Gozu***½/****starring Hideki Sone, Sho Aikawa, Kimika Yoshino, Keiko Tomitascreenplay by Sakichi Sotodirected by Takashi Miike by Bill Chambers I've sat here staring at a flashing cursor, wondering what to write about Takashi Miike's Gozu--a picture whose spirit harks back to the David Lynch of Eraserhead--that could persuade you to see it: Though Gozu begs a viewing, any description likely to pique one's interest would force you to pre-emptively pass moral judgment on a film that a) explicitly requests to be taken as a joke, and b) is too fecund to truly offend. Gozu begins with the over-the-top…

TIFF ’03: Bon Voyage

September 7, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Mystery, Romance, Thriller, TIFF, War
*½/****starring Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Depardieu, Virginie Ledoyen, Yvan Attalwritten and directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau by Bill Chambers "And I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll boorrre the hell out of you." Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Bon Voyage labours harder than any film in recent memory to entertain, but the result is so draining I don't remember grooving with it once. In the opening scene, the latest vehicle for champagne starlet Viviane Denverts (Isabelle Adjani, who at 48 should be too old to play an ingénue, but looks at least half her age--it's quite miraculous, really) leaves rapt the attendees of a French…

The Experiment (2001) – DVD

September 6, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Germany, Thriller

Das Experiment
**/**** Image B+ Sound B+
starring Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Oliver Stokowski, Wotan Wilke
screenplay by Don Bohlinger, Christoph Darnstädt, Mario Giordano, based on the novel by Black Box by Giordano
directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel

by Walter Chaw Midnight Express with pretensions, Oliver Hirschbiegel's The Experiment is based loosely on Zimbardo, Haney, Banks, and Jaffe's "Stanford Prison Experiment," conducted in 1971 to test the reactions of twenty-four ordinary college students–some cast as prison guards, others incarcerated in a mock prison–paid fifteen dollars a day for their participation in the study. Having to end the experiment after only six days because of pathological prisoner reactions and sadistic guard reactions, the "Stanford Prison Experiment" remains one of the more ethically shaky mindfucks in Stanford's proud tradition of such things (my favourite of them being the one where experimenters tested men's "performance anxiety" while urinating in public restrooms)–a topic dramatic enough to merit a cinematic treatment, without question, but a treatment served poorly by the formula embellishments favoured by The Experiment.

TIFF ’03: Elephant

September 6, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, Directors: Gus Van Sant, Drama, Film Festivals, Palme d'Or Winner, Teen, Thriller, TIFF
***½/****starring Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson, Elias McConnellwritten and directed by Gus Van Sant by Bill Chambers Though it ultimately garnered Gus Van Sant the Best Director prize (in addition to the Palme d'or), Elephant's lukewarm reception among ink-slingers at last May's Cannes Film Festival confirms the dulled senses of the critical establishment--that a contemporary masterwork can practically blind with its colour scheme and still go unrecognized as such by cinema's ambassadors is more terrifying than anything in Van Sant's searing interpretation of the Columbine atrocity. The first film intended for theatrical exhibition to be screened in Academy ratio…

Burnt Offerings (1976) – DVD

September 3, 2003Posted in1970s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Italy, Mystery, Thriller

**/**** Image C+ Sound D+ Extras C
starring Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Burgess Meredith, Eileen Heckart
screenplay by William F. Nolan and Dan Curtis, based on the novel by Robert Marasco
directed by Dan Curtis

by Walter Chaw Plodding, ugly, moribund, Burnt Offerings is bolstered by a few great campy turns from a game cast that includes Oliver Reed, Karen Black, and Bette Davis in a performance that runs counter to the self-loathing roles of her Baby Jane/Sweet Charlotte days. Finding its way to the DVD format just a couple of weeks before another haunted house flick (Cold Creek Manor) debuts on the big screen, veteran television director Dan Curtis's horror quickie is one of those comfortable relics that doesn't scare so much as mildly chill, offering countless opportunities to shout at the screen without any sort of discernible payoff–until the end, that is, but even that shocker of a conclusion has been telegraphed since at least the midway point of the first act, muffling its surprise.

Confidence (2003) – DVD

September 1, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, DVD, Thriller

***½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A
starring Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz, Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman
screenplay by Doug Jung
directed by James Foley

by Walter Chaw The urban surfaces of Americana are lent the sheen of Edward Hopper's neon isolationism by cinematographer Juan Ruiz Anchía in the appropriately named Confidence, which finds director James Foley back on noir ground, where his footing is firmest. It's the same effect generated by Foley/Anchía's Glengarry Glen Ross, here in Confidence used to mellifluous affect rather than staccato at the service of a caper flick if not the equal to Jules Dassin's seminal contributions to the genre, at least several times better than the slickified nonsense (The Score, the Ocean's Eleven remake) and sinkholes of talky illogic (Heist) of recent fare. A successful heist film as rare as a film that uses Edward Burns correctly in a sentence, Confidence is proof positive–if proof were needed–that James Foley, when he's at the top of his game, is at the top of the game.

Out for a Kill (2003) – DVD

August 30, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Aruba, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, DVD, Martial Arts, Thriller

*/**** Image A- Sound A-
starring Steven Seagal, Michelle Goh, Corey Johnson, Kata Dobó
screenplay by Dennis Dimster
directed by Michael Oblowitz

by Bill Chambers The other day, my friend and I were at the CNE, Toronto's annual expo of overpriced amusements, when we got a hankering for the raw sewage peddled inside its flea-market-sized food court. Where we wound up eating was at Kentucky Style Chicken, one of the many transient take-outs named for maximum copyright infringement and serving a synthetic mock-up of the already-inedible. Out for a Kill exists in the same spirit: Steven Seagal's first direct-to-video production in weeks, its designation combines the titles of his early pictures Hard to Kill and Out for Justice while mixing and matching nearly every trend, past and present, of the martial arts genre, on whose outskirts Seagal has toiled throughout his film career. Here, imitation isn't the sincerest form of flattery, it's a cloaking device–"Doesn't this remind you of something?" vs. "Boy, does this stink." You know something? Sometimes I get a hankering for movies I know I'll regret, too.

Four Faces West (1948) + Blood on the Sun (1945) – DVDs

August 26, 2003Posted in1940s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, Romance, Thriller, War, Western

FOUR FACES WEST
*/**** Image B Sound B+
starring Joel McCrea, Frances Dee, Charles Bickford, Joseph Calleia
screenplay by C. Graham Baker, Teddi Sherman; adaptation: William Brent and Milarde Brent, based on the novel by Eugene Manlove Rhodes
directed by Alfred E. Green

BLOOD ON THE SUN
**½/**** Image F Sound B+
starring James Cagney, Sylvia Sidney, Porter Hall, John Emery
screenplay by Lester Cole, with additional scenes by Nathaniel Curtis
directed by Frank Lloyd

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Auteurism giveth, auteurism taketh away. It’s generally assumed that if we gravitate to the director with the greatest skill and the most obvious “personal” style, we will be doing ourselves a big cultural favour and putting ourselves on the side of the angels. And indeed, we generally strive for the power and aesthetic purity of those “originals,” as they give us the most pleasure. But if we declare–regardless of whether that personality has anything to say or says anything halfway coherent–that the only criterion of value in a film is a director’s personality, we will be shutting ourselves off from the other thing that artists do, which is interpreting the world for us. And sometimes lesser filmmakers take on subjects that great artists ignore–creating, if not brilliant analyses, something to stand for or against.

The Medallion (2003)

August 21, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Fantasy, Hong Kong, Jackie Chan, Martial Arts, Theatrical, Thriller

½*/****
starring Jackie Chan, Lee Evans, Claire Forlani, Julian Sands
screenplay by Bey Logan, Gordon Chan, Alfred Cheung, Bennett Joshua Davlin, Paul Wheeler
directed by Gordon Chan

Medallionby Walter Chaw I think it's fair at this point to say that I'm no longer so much a Jackie Chan fan as I really like a few Jackie Chan movies. His career has taken a rather conspicuous downturn since he reintroduced himself to Hollywood almost a decade ago, just after his last great film Drunken Master 2, scraping and bowing and remixing a few of his Hong Kong hits with English-dubs (and why is it that Asian films are the only ones consistently re-voiced for North American release?) and consenting to play ethnic Kato caricature to a string of Yank comedians for inexperienced directors and that screaming idiot Brett Ratner.