High Heels and Low Lifes (2001) – DVD

May 6, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, UK

½*/**** Image A Sound A Extras C+
starring Minnie Driver, Mary McCormack, Kevin McNally, Mark Williams
screenplay by Kim Fuller
directed by Mel Smith

by Walter Chaw Mel Smith’s feminist crime farce High Heels and Low Lifes blares Aretha Franklin and the Eurythmics‘ “Sisters are Doin’ It For Themselves” over its closing credits, always a bad sign. Trying desperately to combine the only two types of British films that have seen commercial success in the last decade (the gangster farce and the Jane Austen empowerment fable), this product from the director of Bean and the screenwriter of Spice World is so rote that its frantic attempts at good natured quirk come off as grotesque and uncomfortable.

Waking Life (2001) – DVD

May 6, 2002Posted in****/****, 2000s, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Directors: Richard Linklater, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, FFC Must-Own

****/**** Image A Sound A Extras A-
starring “Wiley Wiggins and an ensemble of 74 other actors”
written and directed by Richard Linklater

Mustownby Walter Chaw It begins with a child’s game that ends with the chilling premonition “Dream is destiny” and closes with what appears to be the fulfillment of that statement. Richard Linklater’s Waking Life is an anti-narrative with no discernible story arc: The film’s conflict arises between its characters’ varying cosmologies and the challenge that presents to the viewer’s own existential verities, such as Descartes’s dictum cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”). Waking Life is one of the most interesting and engaging films of a year that sports its fair share of complex, fascinating fare (Mulholland Drive, Va Savoir).

Film Freak Central Does Hot Docs 2002 Canadian International Documentary Festival – May 5

May 5, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Canada, Documentary, Film Festivals, Hot Docs

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover

BOLLYWOOD BOUND
***/****
directed by Nisha Pahuja

Bollywood Bound is a perfectly decent film about aspiring actors working in Bombay that would be even better without the cutesy editorializing of director Nisha Pahuja. There's a wealth of interesting information in this examination of Canadian expatriates trying to make it in Hindi filmmaking; Pointing out that Bollywood provides a place for East Indian descendants that Hollywood won't provide, it shows the various cultural distortions that several actors faced regarding India, Indian culture, and themselves. Previously known to their white schoolmates as "the Indian kids," they suddenly find themselves equally marginalized as "the Canadian actors," and discover that the pure "Indianness" they fought to protect in Canada is largely non-existent.

Film Freak Central Does Hot Docs 2002 Canadian International Documentary Festival – The Innovators: Frederick Wiseman

May 5, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Blog, Canada, Documentary, Film Festivals, Hot Docs

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover

The Revival, Toronto|After being lulled into a stupor by the sins and shortcomings of this week's panellists, today's Frederick Wiseman talk was like being slapped back into full consciousness. There was no "drama" and "truth" spouted by this man, there were no sweeping generalizations about the places and people he films. There was simply a desire to explore the things that interest him and widen the scope of institutional life. And with a refreshing blunt humour and low tolerance for bull, Wiseman cut through the pretensions and got to the point of how and why he works as he does.

Film Freak Central Does Hot Docs 2002 Canadian International Documentary Festival – Filmmaker Discussion: History and Innovation

May 5, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Blog, Canada, Documentary, Film Festivals, Hot Docs

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover

The Revival, Toronto|The more I listen to documentarians, the less I trust the documentary. The line that separates fact from fiction and reportage from drama is so fine that it frequently disappears altogether; even the best-intentioned filmmaker is under pressure to give shape to something that is essentially formless, and in so doing leaves out much essential information. The directors on today's panel, which deals with the vagaries of representing the past for the present, did their best to downplay the dangers of such a situation, but their words kept raising more questions than they answered, and I walked out of Revival even more leery of the form than I was going in.

Film Freak Central Does Hot Docs 2002 Canadian International Documentary Festival – May 4

May 4, 2002Posted in1960s, 2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Canada, Documentary, Film Festivals, Germany, Hot Docs

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover

ABSOLUT WARHOLA (2001)
*½/****
directed by Stanislaw Mucha

There is, believe it or not, an Andy Warhol museum in the remote Slovenian town of Medzilaborce; sadly, director Stanislaw Mucha can't scare up much of a reason to know about it. Essentially a stomp-the-hicks number, his film takes great pains to mock the residents of Warhol's ancestral home, who, though not quite sure why these paintings are supposed to be important, are nevertheless pleased to have such a famous relative and native son. But as Absolut Warhola heavy-handedly contrasts the guileless and homey Warholas–who prattle on about everything from the television and the relative merits of Lenin and Stalin–with the ultra-urbane art objects enshrined in the leaky museum, the film backfires on itself: it makes Warhol seem less interesting by showing how little he matters to people who live outside an urban cultural elite.

Brewster’s Millions (1985) [Widescreen] – DVD

May 3, 2002Posted in1980s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, DVD

*½/**** Image B+ Sound D+
starring Richard Pryor, John Candy, Lonette McKee, Stephen Collins
screenplay by Herschel Weingrod & Timothy Harris, based on the book by George Barr McCutcheon
directed by Walter Hill

by Bill Chambers The 1985 remake of Brewster’s Millions is a failed high-concept fable not for its dearth of laughs (which is disappointing, what with Richard Pryor and John Candy headlining) or its overfamiliarity (it will remind you of not only Brewster’s Millions past, but also every underdog comedy ever made), but because you wouldn’t really want to wear the shoes of the eponymous Monty Brewster, a millionaire whose inheritance is shackled by so many caveats as to deny Monty–when we know him, anyway–a sense of wish-fulfillment.

Hollywood Ending (2002)

May 3, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Romance, Satire, Theatrical

**/****
starring Woody Allen, George Hamilton, Téa Leoni, Debra Messing
written and directed by Woody Allen

Hollywoodendingby Walter Chaw Woody Allen’s pictures are exhausting things about absolutely nothing save Manhattan and Woody Allen–Allen’s fascination with the cinema and younger women, Allen’s disingenuous fear of writer’s block, and more recently, Allen’s desire to reconcile with his children. Sometimes any one of those is enough.

Deuces Wild (2002)

May 3, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Theatrical

*½/****
starring Stephen Dorff, Brad Renfro, Fairuza Balk, Norman Reedus
screenplay by Paul Kimatian & Christopher Gambale
directed by Scott Kalvert

by Walter Chaw During the course of Deuces Wild, a bit of schizophrenic juvenilia (half nostalgic, half belittling) from director Scott Kalvert (The Basketball Diaries), there arises the uncomfortable realization that we are in the company of a “West Side Story” with trick-shots and graphic violence subbing for the Bernstein/Robbins book and staging. As mannered and artificial as the Neverland boroughs and lost-boy antagonists of Robert Wise’s film version of West Side Story, what Deuces Wild doesn’t have is the benefit of the traditional musical format to excuse its more gut-busting howlers. Kalvert’s film is of the sort that makes one wonder which version of history includes Debbie Harry as a zoned-out shut-in singing Christmas carols year-round while daughter Fairuza Balk laments, “Of course Santa exists, mommy, he just don’t come to Brooklyn no more.” Moreover, if such a history ever existed, it begs the question of why anyone would ever wish to revisit it, in art or otherwise.

A Shot at Glory (2002)

May 3, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Sports, UK

*/****
starring Robert Duvall, Michael Keaton, Ally McCoist, Libby Langdon
screenplay by Denis O’Neill
directed by Michael Corrente

by Walter Chaw Edited by David Ray (an awfully dignified name, methinks, for a chimp with a razor), A Shot at Glory is easily the worst-assembled film I’ve seen in ages, so incomprehensibly inept that the idea of continuity is not merely abandoned but trod and spit upon. The film’s pacing is lax, there is never anything approaching tension, and there is such a disconnect between shots (let alone between scenes) that the whole exercise plays like a particularly pointless and chaotic montage. I suspect the only reason the thing makes any sense at all is through one’s overwhelming familiarity with the underdog sports intrigue and the UK working-class saga. In other words, we have an idea of what’s going on in A Shot at Glory because it’s Hoosiers meets The Full Monty–neither scrimping on the male nudity nor the crusty “working class schleps make good” formula that such a horrific union implies. That’s also probably why the film got made in the first place.

Late Marriage (2001)

May 3, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, France, Israel, Romance, Theatrical

Hatuna Meuheret
***/****
starring Lior Ashkenazi, Ronit Elkabetz, Moni Moshonov, Lili Koshashvili
written and directed by Dover Koshashvili

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover For those who have tired of funny family squabbles with magical reconciliations, relief is on the way. The new Israeli film Late Marriage (“Hatuna Meuheret”) takes the conventional pains of a hundred bad ethnic comedies and gives them added bite; instead of a traditional family causing “hilarious” havoc on their modernized progeny, we are given a nasty tug-of-war between a need to live one’s life and a desire for familial approval. Because there are no easy outs in its bitter turf battle for clashing sets of values, the film is surprisingly tense, uncomfortable, and refreshing in its serious examination of a situation that movies normally trivialize.

Hard Lessons (1986) – DVD

May 2, 2002Posted in1980s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Biopic, Drama, DVD, Television

The George McKenna Story
*/**** Image C- Sound C
starring Denzel, Lynn Whitfield, Akosua Busia, Richard Masur
screenplay by Charles Eric Johnson
directed by Eric Laneuville

by Walter Chaw Hot on the heels of Denzel Washington’s second Oscar–which was sort of a relieved, honorary accolade for avoiding the umpteenth resurrection of his Glory performance, another collaboration with Spike Lee, and a third slain civil rights leader–comes Artisan’s hasty repackaging of 1986’s TV movie The George McKenna Story, ironically dubbed Hard Lessons and refurbished with new promotional art.

Film Freak Central Does Hot Docs 2002 Canadian International Documentary Festival – May 2

May 2, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Documentary, Film Festivals, Germany, Hot Docs

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover

BLACK BOX GERMANY (2001)
Black Box BRD
***/****
directed by Andres Veiel

Dealing with the ultra-left terrorism that swept West Germany in the '70s and early '80s, Black Box Germany both examines and obscures the implications of its main subjects: Deutsche Bank executive Alfred Herrhausen, who was killed by a car bomb, and RAF member Wolfgang "Gaks" Gams, who died in mysterious circumstances while being pursued by police. The main event is the who-ya-gonna-believe question, pitting capitalist thug vs. terrorist hooligan; unfortunately, this blots out every political persuasion in-between (and beyond), with a maddening vagueness that keeps you from taking a position. One can't imagine either party being too thrilled with the film: the banker would be annoyed by the implied challenge to his authority and the radical would find its "ambiguity" and precious aestheticism irredeemably bourgeois.

Film Freak Central Does Hot Docs 2002 Canadian International Documentary Festival – Filmmaker Discussion: Epic Adventures and Heroic Quests

May 2, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Blog, Canada, Documentary, Film Festivals, Hot Docs

The Revival, Toronto| Today's "Filmmaker's Discussion" was marked by its divergence from yesterday's ethical certitude. Where the earlier panel dealt with the responsibility of the filmmaker towards its subjects, the four panellists on hand today spoke of the Faustian bargain between making a stirring film and keeping conscientious. Despite the talk's grandiose title "Epic Adventures and Heroic Quests"–alluding to the probing nature and uncertain outcomes of the panellists' films–the matter at hand was the fine detailing that keeps a documentary interesting, which is not necessarily the same thing as keeping it truthful.

Film Freak Central Does Hot Docs 2002 Canadian International Documentary Festival – May 1

May 1, 2002Posted in2000s

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover

DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND
*½/****
directed by Lucy Walker

DevilsplaygroundContrary to Peter Weir's Witness, there is a point in a young Amish person's life where he/she is allowed to enjoy the things that lie outside the community; at 16, they are allowed to partake of the "English" world so that they might reject it later. This is a fascinating topic for a documentary, but Devil's Playground doesn't fulfil its potential. Instead of exploring the issues and pressures surrounding the decision of whether to be Amish, director Lucy Walker clumsily glosses over them, unable to see beyond the admittedly bizarre spectacle of wild bonneted youth under the influence of cars, cursing, and crystal meth. The result is a Pennsylvania Dutch Kids, with more of a kinky fascination with than an understanding of a phenomenon.

Taking Care of Business (1990) – DVD

May 1, 2002Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD

½*/**** Image D Sound D
starring James Belushi, Charles Grodin, Anne De Salvo, Loryn Locklin
screenplay by Jill Mazursky & Jeffrey Abrams
directed by Arthur Hiller

by Walter Chaw Proving that hope springs eternal in the hearts of idiots and madmen, Taking Care of Business features the Cubs in a World Series and Jim Belushi in one of those showcase roles in which a nominal comedian gets to demonstrate his alleged madcap skills. Occurring in that weird twilight zone of cinema where once-topical humour is briefly funny again in a retro-Gen-X way (Jim’s exclamation upon entering a mansion, “I’m on freakin’ ‘Dynasty’!” would find a home in any neo-Tarantino screenplay), Taking Care of Business also features two “Star Trek: The Next Generation” stars (Gates McFadden and John de Lancie)–the one making a joke out of her breasts, the other nodding quietly in appreciation of them. The flick is, to summarize, interesting in a surreal sort of way.

Film Freak Central Does Hot Docs 2002 Canadian International Documentary Festival – Filmmaker Discussion: Working with Community

April 30, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Blog, Canada, Documentary, Film Festivals, Hot Docs

The Revival, Toronto|The thorny matter of working with alien communities was the issue at hand at today's Hot Docs filmmaker's panel. Directors Lucy Walker (Devil's Playground), Sandi Simcha Dubowski (Trembling Before G-d), Sherine Salama (A Wedding in Ramallah), and Susanna Helke (The Idle Ones) hashed out their views on the burning question: Does one protect the privacy of the subject or expose them in the name of the truth? The unanimous answer? The subject must not be exploited, even if that leads to some logistical nightmares.

Film Freak Central Does Hot Docs 2002 Canadian International Documentary Festival – April 30

April 30, 2002Posted in1990s, 2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Canada, Documentary, Film Festivals, Germany, Hot Docs

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover

THE LAST JUST MAN
***½/****
directed by Steven Silver

The Last Just Man is a conventional but engrossing account of the appalling UN SNAFU in Rwanda, told from the point of view of the scapegoat who tried to stop it. Canadian Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire had little field experience when he headed into Rwanda–he likened it to sending a fireman in prevention to a four-alarm blaze–and discovered, when the country was on the verge of erupting, that his superiors would refuse to get involved. Smarting from the debacle in Somalia, they were skittish about sending troops in, but as the ruling Hutus take out their historical animus against the Tutsis (manufactured decades before by brutal Belgian colonists), their self-protection left Dallaire and the Tutsis at the centre of the apocalypse.

Film Freak Central Does Hot Docs 2002 Canadian International Documentary Festival – April 29

April 29, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Documentary, Film Festivals, Hot Docs
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover THE SETTLERS (2001)**½/****directed by Ruth Walk The strange case of a tiny Jewish settlement in Palestinian Hebron is given a superficial gloss in this video, which simply slaps its head and says, "Can you believe these people?" Admittedly, there is some fleeting interest in the stubbornness of the female interviewees, who remark about how beautiful the landscape is "despite all the Arabs," and a demonstration in a public square--featuring an eyebrow-raising pro-Israeli pop song--is perversely fascinating for the awesome density of its participants. But The Settlers is mostly a series of ironic gotchas in which the oblivious…

From Hell (2001) [Director’s Limited Edition] – DVD

April 28, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Czechoslovakia, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller, UK

***/**** Image A- Sound A+ Extras A
starring Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, Ian Holm, Paul Rhys
screenplay by Terry Hayes and Rafael Yglesias, based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell
directed by Albert Hughes & Allen Hughes

by Walter Chaw Alan Moore’s brilliant graphic novel From Hell is first a work of Romanticism (in that it evolves from a mistrust of industry, a demonizing of all that the rail represents to the continued corruption of nature), then a nostalgia for a hopelessly idealized past. Once his Romantic roots are established, Moore clarifies the evolutionary link between British Romanticism and Modernism by lifting a quote from Jack the Ripper’s infamous letter: “One day, men will look back and say I gave birth to the twentieth century.” As it’s employed by Moore and in consideration of the author’s grasp of literary theory, this one quote eloquently juxtaposes the impact of Bloody Jack’s Grand Guignol rampage in London of 1888 with the fin de siècle (The French Revolution) that marked the actual birth of Romanticism in the Lake District of 1789. In simpler terms, From Hell is a work of incomparable incandescence–smart stuff for smart people and theoretically the easiest of Moore’s works to translate to the big screen.