julien donkey-boy (1999) – DVD

April 4, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Esoterica

**½/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Ewen Bremner, Chloe Sevigny, Werner Herzog, Evan Neumann
written and directed by Harmony Korine

by Walter Chaw Julien Bishop (Ewen Bremner, of Trainspotting) is schizophrenic, a stream-of-consciousness construct biding his time shambling along city streets, riding public transportation, and volunteering at a school for the blind. Aggressively disoriented and a sower of discomfort, Julien is not only a twisted Christ figure at the center of this most religious of Harmony Korine’s pictures, but a clear manifestation of Korine’s filmmaking philosophy.

Gummo (1997) – DVD

April 2, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Esoterica

***/**** Image A- Sound A Extras C
starring Linda Manz, Max Perlich, Jacob Reynolds, Chloe Sevigny
written and directed by Harmony Korine

by Walter Chaw Xenia, Ohio, America's middle-of-nowhere, is imagined by Harmony Korine (Kids) as the quintessence of Grant Wood's slightly canted take on the gothic at the heart of the mundane. It's a town out of step, recovering from a tornado which, an opening narration tells us, left people dead, cats and dogs dead, and houses ripped apart. In Gummo, his directorial debut, one of the tasks Korine sets for himself is detailing the psychological damage wrought on Xenia by two different forces of nature: the lingering emotional fallout from the almost-forgotten tornado; and the tragedy of being born with no advantageous DNA in an ever-diminishing gene pool.

Wonder Boys (2000) – DVD

March 25, 2001Posted in****/****, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Christmas, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Germany, Japan, UK

****/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes
screenplay by Steve Kloves, based on the novel by Michael Chabon
directed by Curtis Hanson

by Walter Chaw While safely cocooned in the lushly-padded walls of academia, I had as my advisor a Grady Tripp–a man I respected as a professor and as a friend. We exchanged books often, we talked a great deal about the obscure minutiae of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s life, and we argued over whether William and Dorothy Wordsworth were engaged in a seedy incestual entanglement. (Yes, Brad, they were.) I even suspect that there was a tattered, coffee-stained manuscript tucked in the top drawer of his desk. If you’ve ever had a professor who shaped your opinions and a good portion of your intellectual life, and if you were additionally lucky enough to call him a friend as well as a mentor, then you’re predisposed to liking Curtis Hanson’s Wonder Boys.

The Perez Family (1995) – DVD

March 14, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance

***/**** Image A Sound A
starring Marisa Tomei, Alfred Molina, Chazz Palminteri, Anjelica Huston
screenplay by Robin Swicord
directed by Mira Nair

by Walter Chaw Sensuous and lush with a hint of Isabel Allende’s magical realism in the bleeding of a man’s broken heart and a string of rose petals trailing a line along the belly of a new lover, Mira Nair’s lovely The Perez Family is all ripe colours, song, sex, honour, and dance. A long-lost father asks his wife upon their decades-long separation if their grown daughter remembers him: “She says she remembers dancing with you.” In The Perez Family, that’s only as it should be.

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) – DVD + CD

March 12, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

*½/**** Image B+ Sound A Extras B-
starring Jeffrey Donovan, Kim Director, Erica Leerhsen, Tristine Skyler
screenplay by Dick Beebe and Joe Berlinger
directed by Joe Berlinger

by Bill Chambers Despite the brainy posturing of director/co-writer Joe Berlinger, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 will probably never be canonized in a sequel debate, that lunchtime activity of film freaks everywhere which has brought a nerdish ascendancy to, among the handful, The Godfather Part II and The Empire Strikes Back. Why? Well, for starters, it’s pretentious as hell; when the DVD liner notes–written by no less than Berlinger himself–for a fast-tracked cash-grab include such descriptive phrases as “mollify the cynics” and “post-modern approach,” you know you’re in for everything but a good time.

Get on the Bus (1996) – DVD

March 7, 2001Posted in1990s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Directors: Spike Lee, Drama, DVD, Road Movie

**/**** Image A Sound A Extras D+
starring Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, Ossie Davis, Charles S. Dutton
screenplay by Reggie Rock Bythewood
directed by Spike Lee

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Didactism is a treacherous course for a movie to take. Drive down that road and you chance accusations of propagandizing, as though taking a political position were a violation of some Hollywood code of enforced irrelevance; try as you might to avoid such a situation, be it through aesthetic compensations or the urgency of the issues at hand, overt politicking in a motion picture is usually–and unfairly–a good way to draw unfriendly fire.

Digimon: The Movie (2000) – DVD

March 6, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Sam Jonasson, DVD, Family, Japan, Sci-Fi

***/**** Image A Sound A
screenplay by Jeff Nimoy & Bob Buchnolz
directed by Shigeyasu Yamauchi, Mamoru Hosoda

At 10 years old, Sam Jonasson is FILM FREAK CENTRAL‘s youngest contributor yet. (Unless we’re talking mental ages.) Knowing the lad is a cartoon junkie, I thought Digimon: The Movie would be right up his alley. Sam squeezed in this report on the disc between homework and architectural–Lego–pursuits.-Ed.

by Sam Jonasson Digimon: The Movie is actually two movies in one: the first movie is about the first season of Digidestines and the second movie is the second season of the TV show, which is on lots of kids channels. You would need good eyes and at least a vague idea of Digimon to understand it. A Digimon is an imaginary creature (animal or human) with one single type of attack (besides things like hitting and biting) who can Digivolve into a stronger and bigger Digimon who has one new attack type. Sometimes, the stronger has two attack types. Digimon are born out of an egg and live in the Digital world, which is parallel to ours. Some Digimon warp or Armor-Digivolve, which means they skip a level or two. Evil Digimon usually take a longer time to Digivolve.

In the Mouth of Madness (1995) – DVD

February 15, 2001Posted in1990s, Authors: Vincent Suarez, Directors: John Carpenter, Drama, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness
*½/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras C
starring Sam Neill, Jurgen Prochnow, Julie Carmen, Charlton Heston
screenplay by Michael DeLuca, from stories by H. P. Lovecraft
directed by John Carpenter

by Vincent Suarez John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness opens as John Trent (Sam Neill) is being dragged into an insane asylum, with characters making vague references to a seemingly-widespread epidemic of madness. After Trent covers his padded cell, face, and clothing with black crosses (an image featured in the trailer and which hooked me, proving that while a picture may be worth a thousand words, it may not be worth 95 minutes of one’s time), he recounts the events leading to his current state, and the film proceeds in flashback.

Do the Right Thing (1989) [The Criterion Collection] – DVD

February 14, 2001Posted in****/****, 1980s, Authors: Vincent Suarez, Directors: Spike Lee, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, The Criterion Collection

****/**** Image A Sound A- Extras A+
starring Danny Aiello, Spike Lee, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn
written and directed by Spike Lee

Mustownby Vincent Suarez SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. I was one of the few Caucasians who defied the tabloid pundits and ventured into a New York City theatre to see Do the Right Thing in the summer of 1989. Seated beside me were not rioters, but a tiny African-American child very much like the sidewalk artist appearing both in the film and on its posters. Her mother and I got a kick out of her enthusiastic dancing to the strains of the Public Enemy tune that drives the credit sequence, and she spent the next two hours bobbing in her seat, softly singing “fight the power” whenever Radio Raheem’s box would blare its anthem.

Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000) – DVD

February 5, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, DVD, Horror, Mystery

*½/**** Image B Sound B Extras B
starring Jennifer Morrison, Matthew Davis, Hart Bochner, Joseph Lawrence
screenplay by Paul Harris Boardman & Scott Derrickson
directed by John Ottman

by Bill Chambers The absent piece of biographical info in John Ottman’s “talent file” on Columbia TriStar’s DVD release of his directorial debut, Urban Legends: Final Cut, is that the USC vet actually attended film school in a fairytale world of limited oversight and unlimited resources. This quasi-sequel to Urban Legend-minus-the-“s” is perhaps the least conscientious of modern slasher flicks by virtue of setting up myriad Spielberg wannabes for disappointment. It’s (just barely) amusing in that regard to people like myself who consider themselves “in the know,” but misleading to cineaste undergrads and the people who already hate them on principle.

What Lies Beneath (2000) [Widescreen] – DVD

January 29, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Directors: Robert Zemeckis, Drama, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

***/**** Image A+ Sound A- Extras B
starring Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Diana Scarwid, Miranda Otto
screenplay by Clark Gregg
directed by Robert Zemeckis

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover What Lies Beneath isn't very nasty, but it's nice. The film takes Polanski-style horror, the kind where the environment itself seems to be falling apart and the individual has to navigate through miles of decay, and gives it a white-enamel Hollywood gloss that makes it fearfully cold and sinisterly antiseptic. It's a given from the get-go that this pure whiteness will, by film's end, be defiled by the blood of the innocent and the violence of the guilty. It's only a matter of time before it gets there, but the travel involved is bracing and loaded with suspense. While the end of What Lies Beneath wallows in some rather familiar horror-movie scare tactics, the rest of it is a nicely understated affair that cleverly plays on your nerves without relying too much on brutality or not enough on jolt.

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

January 26, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Drama, Esoterica, Horror, Luxembourg, Satire, Theatrical, UK, Vampire

**/****
starring John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Catherine McCormack, Eddie Izzard
screenplay by Steven Katz
directed by E. Elias Merhige

by Bill Chambers They certainly dressed the part in those days. As the pre-eminent German filmmaker F.W. Murnau, John Malkovich declares: “We are scientists engaged in the creation of memory.” On set, before the lamps are fired up and action is called, Murnau and his crew don tinted aviator goggles, looking as if they’re about to launch an atomic bomb. This was standard practice during cinema’s formative years, when it took an intense amount of light to satisfactorily expose an image. (It was not uncommon for those who didn’t take precautions to go blind later in life.) But Malkovich/Murnau is not describing costumes; he’s probably, in fact, speaking for the makers of the gothic comedy in which he appears as the catalyst, Shadow of the Vampire. Director E. Elias Merhige, working from a screenplay by Steven Katz, forges a new memoir of Nosferatu, Murnau’s unauthorized, silent-film-era take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula that was rumoured to star a real vampire.

Twin Dragons (1992) – DVD

January 22, 2001Posted in1990s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, DVD, Hong Kong, Jackie Chan, Martial Arts

**½/**** Image C Sound B+ Extras D
starring Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung, Nina Li, Teddy Robin
screenplay by Barry Wong and Tsui Hark and Cheung Tung Jo and Wong Yik
directed by Tsui Hark

by Bill Chambers The day Steven Seagal inflicts two performances on us within the same film I’ll hang up my film critic’s apron and call it a life. Soap opera actors and fighting stars, you see, are not so much nonimmune as prone to landing the dual role of identical twins, and one muumuu-wearin’ aikido “master” is already too much to bear. But a couple of Jackie Chans, that I can and did handle: Chan’s 1992 action-comedy (emphasis on comedy) Twin Dragons isn’t as seedy as the similarly plotted Van Damme vehicle Double Impact. With action auteurs Tsui Hark and, purportedly, Ringo Lam at its helm, though, and choreographer Yuen Wo Ping (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) behind the stuntwork, one has every reason to expect more combat and spectacle than Twin Dragons actually delivers.

When Harry Met Sally… (1989) [Special Edition] + Prelude to a Kiss (1992) – DVDs

January 8, 2001Posted in1980s, 1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, Romance

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY…
***½/**** Image A Sound B Extras B+
starring Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby
screenplay by Nora Ephron
directed by Rob Reiner

PRELUDE TO A KISS
***/**** Image B Sound B
starring Alec Baldwin, Meg Ryan, Kathy Bates, Ned Beatty
screenplay by Craig Lucas, based on his play
directed by Norman Rene

by Bill Chambers Meg Ryan, the Princess of Perk, gets a makeshift career retrospective this month with the DVD releases of three high-profile gigs: When Harry Met Sally…, Prelude to a Kiss, and The Doors. I’m forsaking any further mention of The Doors to focus on the first two–delightful, whimsical films, unlike The Doors–and Ryan’s romantic-comedy stranglehold. Call it the curse of the button nose: the actress, who is more talented than anyone, myself included, is willing to admit, seems out of her element by a country mile in pictures that don’t require her to meet cute and kvetch over the subsequent courtship. And now that she’s pushing 40, Ryan is becoming to chick flicks what Stallone and Schwarzenegger were to actioners after Clinton got elected: we’re sick to death of seeing her in these Nora Ephron-type movies–yet, as Proof of Life, um, proved, we also don’t want to see her in anything but.

Chuck & Buck (2000) – DVD

January 2, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, DVD

***½/**** Image B- Sound B Extras B
starring Mike White, Chris Weitz, Lupe Ontiveros, Beth Colt
screenplay by Mike White
directed by Miguel Arteta

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Can a film be unpleasant and valuable at the same time? On the one hand, I was made truly uncomfortable by Chuck & Buck, which centres on a character so obnoxious and so deluded that he would hardly be tolerated in polite society. His single-minded obsession with a man with whom he had a childhood friendship is so invasive and toxic that he repeatedly strains audience sympathy; further, it traps us in his myopic point of view and makes us watch in horror as he plans another assault on his former friend’s life, for the sake of some deeply confused homoerotic desires that he can barely articulate. And yet, I found myself profoundly moved at the end of this singular film, which never wavers in its unconditional love for its screwed-up protagonist and seeks for him a place in the world that he sadly cannot make for himself. I don’t exactly know what I can do with the information it gives me about this man, but I can certainly say that Chuck & Buck gave me more of an experience than the majority of fireballing studio products from 2000.

The Virgin Suicides (2000) – DVD

December 18, 2000Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Directors: Sofia Coppola, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, Romance

***/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras C+
starring James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett
screenplay by Sofia Coppola, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides
directed by Sofia Coppola

by Bill Chambers The Virgin Suicides is perverse, but I don't mean dirty. Everything about it is a little bit lopsided–James Woods, of all people, is cast as a henpecked husband, for instance. But its director, Sofia Coppola, doesn't play it as pop kink; instead, she strives for the reverie quality of David Lynch at his most suburban, which makes everything that's in principle out of the ordinary seem in tune, even unexotic. Watching The Virgin Suicides, a fractured nostalgia piece, is like trying to deduce the story of someone's life from a box of snapshots. It's wispy yet substantial (let's call it ethereal), and it stumbles upon a few great images and many more lasting ones.

Loser (2000) – DVD

December 17, 2000Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, DVD, Romance, Teen

*/**** Image B+ Sound A-
starring Jason Biggs, Mena Suvari, Greg Kinnear
written and directed by Amy Heckerling

by Bill Chambers SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. As with most of her films, director Amy Heckerling’s latest, Loser, seesaws between unpleasant and artificial, and is sometimes both at once. When she tackles big issues, such as abortion in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, it’s impossible to tell whether she’s being matter-of-fact or glib about them (they carry an almost documentary starkness), but whatever the case, she continually refuses political comment. Such is the sitcom tendency of her work: to jeopardize the innocence of her characters and then hit the reset button. This fear of drama soured me on Fast Times…, Look Who’s Talking, Clueless, and now Loser, in which Ms. Heckerling also demonstrates, for the first time, zero affinity for the milieu.

Chicken Run (2000) [Special Edition] – DVD

November 28, 2000Posted in2000s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Family, France, UK

***/**** Image A+ Sound A- Extras B+
screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick
directed by Nick Park & Peter Lord

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Chicken Run is slight but savoury. While it doesn't have the conceptual punch that, say, a Disney spectacular might have, it has a great deal less malice than most other films aimed at the same segment of the market. Instead of a highly manipulative, emotionally overwrought run through the wringer, we have a sweet and good-natured exercise in whimsy and friendliness. While this means that the film loses something in terms of dramatic impact, it also means that it relies more on wit than it does on action. What could have been garish and brazen is here sweet and mild-tempered, and it sweeps you up in its goodwill until the final frames.