Owning Mahowny (2003)

May 1, 2003Posted in****/****, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Crime, Drama, Theatrical, Thriller

****/****
starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Minnie Driver, Maury Chaykin, John Hurt
screenplay by Maurice Chauvet, based on the Gary Stephen Ross book Stung: The Incredible Obsession of Brian Molony
directed by Richard Kwietniowski

by Walter Chaw Richard Kwietniowski’s Owning Mahowny charts the mendacity of addiction with something like a poet’s lyrical melancholy. The director’s follow-up to his surprisingly gentle take on Thomas Mann, Love and Death on Long Island, finds another story of obsessive love that is itself obsessed with the importance of place in defining the accumulated essence of identity and desire. Kwietniowski’s films seem to be about secret outsiders finding themselves at some point swept out to proverbial sea, the land fading fast. While in Love and Death on Long Island that divorce illustrates the reach traversed by reclusive novelist Giles De’Ath (John Hurt) to claim his inamorata, in Owning Mahowny, the widening gyre is considerably (and deliciously) more complicated; the film marks Kwietniowski’s emergence as the most promising cartographer of self-confessional mortification since countryman Terence Davies. And Kwietniowski does it all with gentle, uncompromising humour.

The Dancer Upstairs (2002)

April 30, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Crime, Drama, Spain, Theatrical, Thriller

**/****
starring Javier Bardem, Laura Morante, Juan Diego Botto, Elvira Mínguez
screenplay by Nicholas Shakespeare, based on his novel
directed by John Malkovich

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Why do people insist on making movies as though all Latin-American countries are the same? How is it that they can get away with ignoring cultural differences and national identities as though they were nothing? The same first-world writers who set their scripts “somewhere in Latin America” would surely find an Ecuadorian or a Peruvian presumptuous for setting his or her own tale “somewhere in Western Europe.” But these jokers have no guilt about herding millions and millions of people into the same leaky boat, and defining the stretch from Mexico to Argentina as one big, ugly banana republic. The results are usually not pretty, and The Dancer Upstairs is no exception to the rule.

Femme Fatale (2002) – DVD

April 10, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Directors: Brian De Palma, DVD, Romance, Satire, Thriller

*½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras C
starring Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Antonio Banderas, Peter Coyote, Eriq Ebouaney
written and directed by Brian De Palma

FEMME_FATALE07by Walter Chaw The first script written solely by Brian De Palma since his 1992 film Raising Cain, Femme Fatale, like that film, rips off the famous murderer-reveal of Dario Argento’s Tenebre. Come to think of it, the picture is essentially a rehash in one way or another of every film De Palma’s ever written (the voyeurism and body switch of Body Double, the phallic film equipment of Blow Out, the steamy stall-sex of Dressed to Kill, the evil twin thing and split-screen of Sisters, the voyeurism again of Hi, Mom!, and so on)–and because De Palma’s best films and screenplays were iterations of Hitchcock (and sometimes Argento, the Italian Hitchcock), Femme Fatale is as stale and detached as the third-generation copy that it is.

Darkness Falls (2003) [Special Edition] – DVD

April 9, 2003Posted in2000s, Australia, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

**/**** Image B- Sound A Extras B-
starring Chaney Kley, Emma Caulfield, Joshua Anderson, Andrew Bayly
screenplay by John Fasano and James Vanderbilt and Joe Harris
directed by Jonathan Liebesman

by Walter Chaw Two years removed from Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers (and on the eve of a sequel to that film), Darkness Falls whets cult appetites by being nearly a scene-for-scene recreation of that film’s inferior second half. Essentially a series of “I don’t believe your story–hey, why did the lights go out?” scenarios and unearned jump scares, the picture opens with a nice fairytale prologue and a nifty “12 years ago” introduction that hints at the promise of a murderous Tooth Fairy. As soon as the action jumps to the present day with a warbling youngster, her hot sister, and our troubled hero, however, any pretense of a creepy, coherent mythology flies out the window as the flick devolves into an inexorable killer flick amped-up to “11.”

Red Dragon (2002) [2-Disc Director’s Edition] – DVD

April 6, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, Germany, Thriller

*/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B-
starring Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel
screenplay by Ted Tally, based on the novel by Thomas Harris
directed by Brett Ratner

by Walter Chaw Because Thomas Harris’s haunting novel of the same name is flawed in someone’s eye, Red Dragon hacks and slices the piece with a rude imprecision that would inspire pop icon Hannibal Lecter to sharpen his carving tools. The picture opens with a ridiculous and awkwardly-staged Lecter backstory (meaning it plays like the rest of the Lecter additions) that gives a self-parodying Anthony Hopkins a ponytail in place of the self-respect to which he can no longer lay claim, bringing to mind the unwieldy cameos of Cannonball Run.

A Man Apart (2003) + The Man Without a Past (2003)

April 4, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Finland, France, Germany, Romance, Theatrical, Thriller

A MAN APART
**/****
starring Vin Diesel, Larenz Tate, Steve Eastin, Timothy Olyphant
screenplay by Christian Gudegast & Paul Scheuring
directed by F. Gary Gray

Mies vailla menneisyyttä
***½/****
starring Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen, Annikki Tähti, Juhani Niemelä
written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki

Manapartwithoutapastby Walter Chaw The one an absurdist sketch, the other just absurd, both Aki Kaurismäki’s The Man Without a Past and F. Gary Gray’s A Man Apart use violence as a catalyst for existential introspection, but while Gray’s emetic excess deadens with its Death Wish-cum-The New Centurions wish-fulfillment fantasy, Kaurismäki’s gentle fable finds grace amongst society’s victims. Gifting their respective stars each with a hospital scene and subsequent resurrection and new lease on life, the two protagonists are paired with a lady love once back on the street–Kaurismäki’s hero with a Salvation Army matron (Kati Outinen), Gray’s with a ridiculously loyal partner (Larenz Tate) who discards his role as conscience to become an extension of a revenge plot that’s made more ludicrous with a heaping dose of morality and a Lethal Weapon graveside penance.

The Core (2003)

March 28, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Disaster Movie, France, Germany, Italy, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

**½/****
starring Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci
screenplay by Cooper Layne and John Rogers
directed by Jon Amiel

by Walter Chaw Jon Amiel’s poorly-timed disaster throwback The Core is a by-the-numbers affair that features the sort of special effects mayhem that folks will reference when terrorists blow-up the Acropolis–perhaps explaining in part why this bombastic summer film is being rushed into release in the late-winter doldrums: better to get it in movieplexes before it has to be delayed for a few months. But with unfortunate mentions of the Al Jazeera news agency and a botched shuttle landing that is exceedingly uncomfortable given its proximity to NASA’s recent tragedy, it could just be that The Core is a bad idea for any time, and releasing it when no one is likely to see it is just a cut-your-losses sort of thing. The Core is probably betting that people are more fatigued by the Riefenstahl-ian “embedded” live coverage of our troops in action than by their over-familiarity with this kind of Armageddon/Deep Impact/Poseidon Adventure falderal, when the truth is that it’s possible to be tired of both.

Malevolent (2002) – DVD

March 28, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, Thriller

½*/**** Image B- Sound C+
starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Kari Wuhrer, Edoardo Ballerini, Gwen McGee
screenplay by Dennis Shryack & Peter Bellwood
directed by John Terlesky

by Walter Chaw A castration/redemption picture with the most ineffectual central character in any film south of Polanski, direct-to-video thriller Malevolent casts Lou Diamond Phillips as an eternally-framed homicide detective and Kari Wuhrer as an ex-softcore goddess now reduced to acting badly in a variety of scoop-necked blouses.

Abandon (2003) + Dawson’s Creek: The Complete First Season (1998) – DVDs

March 27, 2003Posted in1990s, 2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Coming of Age, Drama, DVD, Teen, Television, Thriller

ABANDON
***½/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Katie Holmes, Benjamin Bratt, Charlie Hunnam, Zooey Deschanel
written and directed by Stephen Gaghan

DAWSON’S CREEK: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON
Image C+ Sound B- Extras B-
“Pilot,” “Dance,” “Kiss,” “Discovery,” “Hurricane,” “Baby,” “Detention,” “Boyfriend,” “Road Trip,” “The Scare,” “Double Date,” “Beauty Contest,” “Decisions”

by Bill Chambers Abandon is a damn good movie detested in some quarters because, he hypothesized, it’s not very comforting, because it subverts the entrenched John Landis approach to depicting college life, and because it’s determined to be meaningful within the framework of a supernatural potboiler. The film stars Katie Holmes, whose career has caught its second wind with the near-simultaneous DVD releases of Abandon and the first season of “Dawson’s Creek”, in addition to the title role in 2003’s Sundance favourite Pieces of April and upcoming appearances in Keith Gordon’s The Singing Detective and the Joel Schumacher thriller Phone Booth. She’s also seeing the end of her aforementioned TV series “Dawson’s Creek”, which sails into the sunset this May after five years on the air. It will leave her more time for movies, and with her remarkable taste in film projects (see also: The Gift, Go, and The Ice Storm), I’m anxious to see where that freedom takes her. Especially if it’s anywhere near the territory of her poised work in Abandon.

Das Boot: The Director’s Cut (1981/1997) [Superbit] – DVD

March 19, 2003Posted in1980s, 1990s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Czech Republic, Drama, DVD, Thriller, War, West Germany

***½/**** Image A Sound A+
starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch
screenplay by Wolfgang Petersen, based on the novel by Lothar G. Buchheim
directed by Wolfgang Petersen

by Walter Chaw The curious mental state of German submariners in the waning days of the Second World War is reflected in the general malaise of the United States in the weeks following September Eleventh and the hours preceding our unpopular pre-emptive strike against Iraq. Caught in the maddening doldrums between one act of unimaginable violence and its inevitable aftershocks, America’s implacable disquiet is one part anticipation of the inevitable, multiple parts cynicism, and, for a large portion of the population, a dollop of distinct lack of faith in the motives and competency of our leadership. A closer examination of the similarities pithy but perhaps unfruitful, sufficed to say that revisiting Wolfgang Petersen’s masterpiece Das Boot (in its Director’s Cut form) at this suspended moment in time is not only rewarding as great cinema can be, but also current and amazingly poignant.

Agent Cody Banks (2003)

March 14, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Comedy, Crime, Espionage, Family, Romance, Theatrical, Thriller

*/****
starring Frankie Muniz, Hilary Duff, Angie Harmon, Keith David
screenplay by Zack Stentz & Ashley Miller and Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski
directed by Harald Zwart

Agentcodybanksby Walter Chaw A pint-sized version of a James Bond film, Harald Zwart’s Agent Cody Banks locates that series’ fascination with modes of conveyance and breasts and places it cannily in the realm of early adolescence. It belongs there, after all, but burying Frankie Muniz’s face in Angie Harmon’s breasts (a second attempt is recognized and discouraged) is filmed statutory rape, even if he’s not complaining. Its screenplay by committee (four writers, with a fifth credited with story) is flat and uninvolving (and feckless), with the sole highlight coming in a background PA announcement asking the owner of a silver Aston Martin to move it from the handicapped parking zone. Otherwise, the picture is just a collection of teensploitation formulas (“the bet” chief among them) married to a few weak gadgets and the same sort of world-saving wish-fulfillment fantasy that Bond has long since made stultifying and passé.

Ghost Ship (2002) – DVD

March 13, 2003Posted in2000s, Australia, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

**/**** Image A Sound A- Extras C+
starring Julianna Margulies, Desmond Harrington, Isaiah Washington, Gabriel Byrne
screenplay by Mark Hanlon and John Pogue
directed by Steve Beck

by Bill Chambers Ghost Ship is better than its director Steve Beck’s previous film for Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver’s “Dark Castle,” the repugnant Thir13en Ghosts–but we’re talking incrementally. Somewhere in between the two pictures, Beck learned that even though the AVID editing machine makes an infinite number of cuts possible, he shouldn’t take that as a dare, and in Ghost Ship, he embraces the démodé in a way that he ironically didn’t in Thir13en Ghosts, the one of them that’s a remake. Ghost Ship opens with large, dissolving titles drawn in pink cursive script that would be at home in a Fifties movie with Vic Damone on the soundtrack. It’s a striking touch (if not entirely appropriate for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre aboard a sinking, possessed ocean liner), and it precedes a dazzling, disgusting prologue wherein the passengers on the deck of the Antonia Graza are slaughtered like so much cattle.

Tears of the Sun (2003) + Bringing Down the House (2003)

March 7, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Theatrical, Thriller, War

TEARS OF THE SUN
*/****
starring Bruce Willis, Monica Bellucci, Cole Hauser, Fionnula Flanagan
screenplay by Alex Lasker & Patrick Cirillo
directed by Antoine Fuqua

BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE
*/****
starring Steve Martin, Queen Latifah, Eugene Levy, Joan Plowright
screenplay by Jason Filardi
directed by Adam Shankman

Bringdownthetearsofthesunby Walter Chaw Antoine Fuqua’s curiously timed Tears of the Sun is an unpleasant bit of jingoistic bullroar that seeks to redress the Clinton administration’s refusal to intervene in the Rwandan genocide by offering up a small band of American special forces soldiers as saviour bwana bravely risking all for a white woman and, incidentally, restoring the son of a slain tribal leader to power. A lot like Schindler’s List, for all the devastating scope of human tragedy involved in its story, the film is about the survivors and the white heroes, not the victims.

Poolhall Junkies (2003)

March 7, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Sports, Theatrical, Thriller

*/****
starring Chazz Palminteri, Rick Schroder, Rod Steiger, Michael Rosenbaum
screenplay by Gregory ‘Mars’ Martin and Chris Corso
directed by Gregory ‘Mars’ Martin

by Walter Chaw Obviously the spawn of a post-Rounders discussion (“Hey, that was great, but wouldn’t it be better with pool instead of poker?”), Gregory ‘Mars’ Martin’s Poolhall Junkies also counts among its plunder victims The Hustler, The Color of Money, On the Waterfront, and–pick any David Mamet. With the late Rod Steiger as a crusty pool hall owner, Christopher Walken in his typical role as actor in an actor-less stew, and a law school student girlfriend (Alison Eastwood, similar to, but somehow more expressionless than, Bridget Fonda) in a plush pad who has a lot of morals except when it comes to nepotism and winning a job in a pool game, Poolhall Junkies is B-list, B-movie garbage that plows through its clockwork machinations with a kind of juvenile bluster that keens like a hammer to the brainpan.

Irreversible (2002)

March 7, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, Drama, Esoterica, France, Mystery, Romance, Theatrical, Thriller

Irréversible
**½/****
starring Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel, Philippe Nahon
written and directed by Gaspar Noé

“You know what? Time destroys all things.”

Irreversibleby Bill Chambers SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. That’s the opening line of dialogue in Irréversible, meaning it comes after the closing titles, which scroll down the screen backwards and are followed by back-to-front names in block letters. Each word lands with a percussive thud (“Bellucci!” “Noé!”) echoed in the sound produced by a fire extinguisher in one of the two scenes everybody’s talking about: Director Gaspar Noé’s secondary conceit (the primary we’ll discuss momentarily) is a kind of reverse foreshadowing, with disturbing noises and gestures recontextualized elsewhere, invoking the standby “Hindsight is 20/20.” A film that appeals to the pessimist in us, Irréversible may make you think of Memento, but where Memento was about destiny, Irréversible is cynicially hopeful (if there is such a thing), illustrating the human impulse to look to the past for happy endings–Bogey’s bogus reassurance that “we’ll always have Paris.”

Bloody Murder II: Closing Camp (2003) – DVD

March 6, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Bloody Murder 2: Closing Camp
**/**** Image D Sound C-
starring Katy Woodruff, Kelly Gunning, Amanda Magarian, Tiffany Shepis
screenplay by John Stevenson
directed by Rob Spera

by Walter Chaw Amateurish, awkward, and bordering on genuinely offensive, Bloody Murder II: Closing Camp surprises by actually being a nice walk down ’80s slasher flick memory lane. Shot on a zero-budget by Rob Spera (the man behind the infamous Leprechaun in the Hood), the picture is packed with some nice gore, a great deal of nudity, and almost no aspirations towards cleverness. Save one Scream-influenced exchange about the dangers of flashing skin and being African-American in this genre, Bloody Murder II is a mindless series of sadistic stalking/slashing sequences that pick on the nerd, the slut, and the jock while a virginal heroine (with a blood tie to the masked murderer, natch) tries to unravel the mystery in time to save herself.

Asunder (1998) – DVD

March 3, 2003Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Romance, Thriller

*½/**** Image A- Sound A-
starring Blair Underwood, Debbi Morgan, Michael Beach
screenplay by Eric Lee Bowers
directed by Tim Reid

by Walter Chaw A courageously unpleasant role for “L.A. Law” heartthrob Blair Underwood, Tim “Venus Flytrap” Reid’s derivative Asunder is only otherwise brave for its remorseless abuse of otherwise innocent pregnant women–crossing a seldom-crossed line of taboo in American film unless it’s to punish a heroine (see: High Crimes, Crossroads, and so on) for having the child of a bad man. Billing itself as “In The Suspenseful Style Of Fatal Attraction And Unfaithful,” Asunder is every bit the rushed, formula production moldering on a shelf somewhere until either one of its stars hits it big (see: Ordinary Decent Criminal and Colin Farrell) or, as in this case, a higher-profile film with a similar theme makes an impact, thus giving the folks in marketing a hook.

The Lady Killer of Rome (1961) + The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971)

February 21, 2003Posted in1960s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Crime, France, Italy, Palme d'Or Winner, Theatrical, Thriller

L’Assassino
The Assassin
**½/****
starring Marcello Mastroianni, Micheline Presle, Cristina Gaioni, Salvo Randone
screenplay by Pasquale Festa Campanile & Massimo Franciosa & Tonino Guerra & Elio Petri
directed by Elio Petri

La Classe operaia va in paradiso
Lulu the Tool
***½/****
starring Mietta Albertini, Giovanni Bignamini, Flavio Bucci, Donato Castellaneta
screenplay by Elio Petri & Ugo Pirro
directed by Elio Petri

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover What a difference a decade makes: watching Elio Petri’s first film (1961’s The Lady Killer of Rome (L’Assassino)) and one of his most honoured (1971’s The Working Class Goes to Heaven (La Classe operaia va in paradiso)) reveals just how the march of history can change a director from distinguished craftsman to agent provocateur. One marvels at how the Left-inflected debut, made before the upheavals of the late-Sixties shook up film aesthetics, goes down easy and comfortably, while the Left-committed later film, made in the miasma after those upheavals failed, grabs the viewer by the lapels and shakes him or her until he or she cries uncle. And one is grateful that that sea change happened: it’s The Working Class Goes to Heaven which looks best from the present vantage point, because it makes its points with a desperate urgency that the earlier film, however pointed it might seem, can’t hope to match.

The Life of David Gale (2003)

February 21, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, Germany, Mystery, Spain, Theatrical, Thriller, UK, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/****
starring Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet, Laura Linney, Gabriel Mann
screenplay by Charles Randolph
directed by Alan Parker

Lifeofdavidgaleby Walter Chaw SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. One wonders if there isn’t, after all, a subtle right-wing conspiracy at work in the entertainment industry, where ultra-liberal stumps are turned into the sort of ostensibly pro-leftist propaganda reel that does serious harm to the pro-leftist agenda. If it’s not the reprehensible The Contender, with its Ayn Rand-ian hypothetical, it’s I Am Sam and its bizarre vilification of the child welfare system–or worse, John Q, with its curiously misdirected lament against our obviously broken health-care state. Trumping them all in terms of muddle and melodrama, however, is The Life of David Gale, an anti-death penalty tirade that, by the end, feels like a life sentence the audience wishes hadn’t been commuted. The only way to make any sense of the film is to suspect it of darker motives: Its ultimate message–and it’s not a bad one–seems to be that the criminal justice system the film so actively vilifies is, in fact, the only honest (though imperfect) force in the entire mess.

Swimfan (2002) – DVD

February 19, 2003Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Teen, Thriller

½*/**** Image A Sound B Extras B-
starring Jesse Bradford, Erika Christensen, Shiri Appleby, Kate Burton
screenplay by Charles Bohl & Phillip Schneider
directed by John Polson

by Walter Chaw It’s one thing to say that Swimfan is a boldly unoriginal rip-off of such gems as The Crush, Deadly Friend, Wicked, and Poison Ivy, but it’s another, far more disturbing thing altogether to note that Swimfan travels the same inexplicable path of the moon-faced pork-pie Lolita so purposefully trundled by the likes of Alicia Silverstone, Kristy Swanson, Julia Stiles, and Drew Barrymore. Erika Christensen–memorably spacey as the troubled daughter in Soderbergh’s Traffic–reveals herself in Swimfan as just the next completely interchangeable cherubic baby-fat starlet to try (or continue) to sully her ephemeral image in a role day-trippers might mistake for “edgy.” Make no mistake, Swimfan may be many things, but it’s about as edgy as Christensen’s Romanesque elbow.