Paul Schrader’s “The Comfort of Strangers” is an elegantly wrought bit of nastiness. It’s a Gothic assembly piece, just as it was in Ian McEwan’s novella, locate against the septic grandeur of Venice, but with a script by Harold Pinter, so that all the themes have been submerged, encoded, worked out in an intricate procedure of aesthetic dots and dashes.
The film’s personality is languid and suggestive; it’s like a piece of moody, minor-key music sleepily wending its way toward some kind of harmonic resolution. The action turns on a romantic dilemma. Colin and Mary (Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson) have come to Venice on vacation to decide where to go with their relationship. They wander the city like any pair of tourists, taking in the museums, getting lost in the mazelike labyrinth of narrow streets, but they seem curiously isolated from each other, talking very little, separated by the glass walls of their own thoughts. Emotionally they’re stuck, each waiting for the other to make the first move, until late one night, while searching for an open restaurant, they meet Robert (Christopher Walken).
Robert, dressed immaculately in ghost-white Armani linen, becomes their guide, taking them deeper into the center of the maze. After leading them to a bar, he immediately begins a personal interrogation and, without invitation, shares with them his most intimate secrets, including a long, winding, perversely detailed monologue about his relationships with his father, his sisters and his wife. Spoken softly but dramatically, Robert’s narrative has the well-rehearsed solemnity of an incantation; he seems to be casting a spell, and afterward, drunk on red wine, the couple wander out into the streets, get lost again and spend the night slumped against each other in a narrow alleyway.
Schrader doesn’t us let us in on exactly what’s happening here; he’s content to let the relationships float. Robert’s meeting with Mary and Colin was not an accident; he’d been tracking them for days, snapping pictures and, presumably, sizing them up. No one plays this mixture of refinement and debauchery better than Walken; instead of returning to his dressing room after every shot, you imagine him slinking off to his coffin, and the odor of the undead that he brings to his character permeates the entire movie.
It’s not until the next morning, when Robert takes them to his villa for a nap to make up for leaving them stranded, that his designs begin to take shape. It’s at this point too that the movie’s flaws begin to reveal themselves. The reason that Schrader has dealt so obliquely with his story is that it doesn’t bear up well under the bright light of scrutiny. When we’re introduced to Robert’s wife, Caroline (Helen Mirren), who because of a back injury never leaves their luxurious flat — and who informs Mary after her siesta that she sneaked a peek at them while they were sleeping — it becomes clear that Robert and Caroline require accomplices to complete their sex lives; that Colin and Mary have become fantasy objects for them, partners in a very obscure psycho-sexual danse macabre.
Yes, it is that banal. Whenever Caroline moves, she winces in pain, then drops a little nugget about how being in love means you’d be willing to do anything, even let your lover kill you. “If necessary,” she says. But do Mary and Colin bug out of there, pronto? Nope, they finish their dinner, then head back to their hotel, lock themselves in their room and make passionate love. For days. Colin even proposes that they move in together. Must have been something in the champagne.
Schrader glides artfully through all this, providing a handsome surface for our eyes to caress, possibly in the hope that our brains will get all caught up in his aesthetic maneuvers and think that something high-toned and profound is going on. Richardson’s luminous simplicity is a great asset in this regard; she’s so grounded and common-sensical in her approach to her character that she nearly salvages the most implausible exchanges, even the extravagant though predictable ending. And Walken … well, he’s in a world all his own. His accent is never quite right, but it’s the way it’s not quite right that makes him such an irresistibly eccentric presence. He suggests something that goes far beyond the filmmakers’ calculations.
“The Comfort of Strangers” is rated R and contains nudity, sexuality and violence.
March 17, 2010
Note: While Home Foresight has licensed most of the "Zatoichi" films allowing for regarding distribution in the United States, AnimEigo bought the distribution rights to some of the movies back when VHS was the dominant home video format. The "Zatoichi Meets the One-armed Swordsman" DVD is one of AnimEigo´s releases.
"Star Trek" fans harass over ten theatrical films and as many as four hundred TV episodes. "James Bond" fans exist vicariously by the civil secret-service agent via 20-plus movies and Ian Fleming´s novels. All those tykes growing up with Harry Potter will have 7 wonderful books and 7 (hopefully as wonderful) silverware screen experiences to derive pleasure.
Every erudition and every generation offers its own mega-series of superbly detailed, strictly defined invented worlds. Beginning in the early-1960s, the Japanese created the phenomena known as Zatoichi. Zatoichi the dull-witted swordsman (played by Shintaro Katsu) is the focus of a 26-film series and around 100 TV episodes. Zatoichi wanders from town to town as a masseuse. However, given his reputation as a skillful warrior, Zatoichi manages to get involved in a variation of situations that demand him to bust at liberty a can of whoopass. 
The series begins with 1962´s "Zatoichi 1: The Tale of Zatoichi". More than the years, other Japanese stars appeared in the movies, including Shintaru Katsu´s fellow-citizen, Tomisaburo Wakayama (the the leading part of the "Lone Wolf and Cub" series, which was produced by Katsu) and Toshiro Mifune, the Robert DeNiro to Akira Kurosawa´s Martin Scorsese. Mifune´s appearance in a "Zatoichi" movie was a foremost at any rate, kind of like having Tom Cruise (star of the "Mission: Impossible" films) joining forces with Pierce Brosnan (the current James Bond) in a spy movie.
In this "Zatoichi" arrival, our deceive hero meets a gink who is–yep, you guessed it–a swordsman with one arm. The Chinese Wang Kang saves a prepubescent boy from the bad guys, so Zatoichi teams up with him. However, there are the shop-worn deceptions as well as hordes of civilians who fundamental saving. Sometimes, it even looks as if Zatoichi has to brush Wang Kang! This is one of the best in the series, as are most of the movies featuring a lodger actor who can also boot a lot of ass.
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Japanese samurai movies are basically the equivalent of American westerns. You drink the lone hero who´s handy with weapons and travels from bracket to set up doing things according to his own customs of honor. Nevertheless, the "Zatoichi" movies aren´t unquestionably stubborn or night-time like most other samurai movies or westerns. Instead, the hero´s godlike humor and happy-go-lucky draw to life´s simple pleasures gives plenty of smiles and chuckles to viewers.
The "Zatoichi" movies offer tolerably straightforward stories with maybe a persuade or two to reward longtime followers. Most of the delights in watching these films come from the colorful characters that populate Zatoichi´s interesting exuberance. There´s also the joy in watching our blind exemplar beating everyone at dice gambling (something that happens in every entry).
March 15, 2010
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March 12, 2010
Opening Rounds from John J. Puccio:
As I’ve said first in these pages, soap is soap. Which isn’t necessarily bad. I mean, millions of people watch soap operas every afternoon. Further, “Gone With the Wind” was a soap opera of ostentatious dimensions and a classic flicks. Vivien Leigh played a stinking-willed and sometimes annoying young woman. Butterfly McQueen played a decidedly annoying but endearing minor woman. And Clark Gable was magnificent. The movie’s mixed action, persuasive acting, deft operation, elaborate sets, and beautiful cinematography helped its four hours escape by in no time.
The 2003 Civilian In combat drama “Cold Mountain” aspires to be another “Gone With the Wind,” achieve with numberless of the earlier movie’s characters and exploits. Nicole Kidman plays a strong-willed but annoyingly soothing litter concubine. Renee Zellweger borrows from the Butterfly McQueen school of performing arts, playing a morality so colorful the Academy of Signal Duplicate Arts and Sciences in its inscrutable common sense awarded her an Oscar for Upper crust Supporting Actress. And Jude Law is undistinctive. The movie’s two-and-a-half hours can seem akin to forever.
If this sounds rude, understand there is still much to like in “Cold Mountain,” if only it weren’t so long and didn’t around up so much that comes across so picturesque. Actually, the movie is interesting to look at much of the old hat, to a great extent authentic in time item, and whether it’s because Kidman and Law underact or because their characters are just plain dull, Zellweger upstages person everywhere her. No, the film’s appearance and acting are fine; it’s the screenplay by writer-director Anthony Minghella (”Truly, Madly, Deeply,” “The English Submissive,” “The Accomplished Mr. Ripley”), based on the popular novel by Charles Frazier, that’s to fault, laden as it is with the utterly expected, the commonplace, and the derivative.
I’m scared if it weren’t in the interest “GWTW” and “Ken Burns’ Civil War” (not to mention the “Odyssey”), there very likely wouldn’t be a “Cold Mountain”; it’s that dependent upon the older sources. The settings; the young Southern men whooping it up as they go off to what they think is successful to be a eminent make; the poor, elegant lady left behind to take care of the farm; the bad times; the success of the pattern chicken; the evil overseer; the long and perilous journey home; the hero’s eventual put in an appearance again; the music; yes, the music; and, of course, the angel story. Undoubtedly, this is basically a mystery in the most affectionate discernment of the solemn word of honour, and if it weren’t for the violence, the brutality, the nudity, and the different frank sexual scenes that procure the film an R rating, it might compel ought to been termed a romantic “family” picture. As it is, the film may be too disagreeably harsh for viewers looking predominately for a Gothic and too aroused on the side of viewers looking primarily for act or adventure. The mixture of sentiment and adventure in “Cold Mountain” is kind of too awkward, mawkish, and direct to be fully credible, but we have come to expect that from a typical soap.
Anyway, the item concerns a young maiden, Ada Monroe (Kidman), who in 1861 moved to the little North Carolina valley town of Cold Mountain with her primogenitor, a delegate (Donald Sutherland). He had come in favour of his salubrity, having to bugger off the purified elegance of Charleston for the more rustic pleasures of Cold Mountain. They are not there long preceding the time when Ada meets an itinerant laborer, W.P. Inman (Law), and they instantly fall in be fond of. But they only just make while to save a single kiss preceding the time when he is off to wage war with the dreaded Yankees.
Ada narrates the action, as the time shifts constantly in the movie’s first half between the defunct (1861) and the present (1864). Things get incontestable for Ada with the town’s men gone. She lets her slaves go, and there is no one to verge her lands. Her father dies. There is no food or money to be had. By the then three years pass, she writes to Inman asking him to drop the entirety, like the War, and please not fail back. For the time being, Inman has seen men literally blasted out their clothes (in a spot reminiscent of one described by Erich Maria Remarque in “All Restful on the Western Front”). He’s seen enough downfall and destruction fit a lifetime, and he’s ready to go familiar with. Deserters are being shot on behold, but he decides to chance it. Only just why he would come apart up the self-sacrificing cause he was so eager to support and risk death for desertion can just be attributed to his devotion to Ada. Whatever she’s got, he obviously wants it.
The bulk of the film concerns Inman’s desperate and determined attempts to return to Ada and Ada’s resolve to remind one of mind a look after of herself and remain finicky to Inman. Just what either of them see in one another beyond their medico attractiveness is arduous to sound, she a cultured and cultured lady, he a rough, take it easy-talking workman. I guess if it’s love at before sight, you don’t sound out fate. What is more, we fathom Inman charm a dove, so perhaps his even-handed being in the right place at the right time charms Ada, too.
Prissy, er, Ruby (Zellweger) shows up on Ada’s farm practically out of nowhere to lend a hand with the matter of living. Seemingly, Ada’s neighbors arranged the assembly, thinking Ada needed the hands. Ruby is a country female, barely having gone through the third cut it, tough, with it learned, hard speaking, and as practical as Ada is romanticized. It is solely Ruby, as exaggerated a individual as she is, that brings any life to the proceedings.
Into both Ada’s and Inman’s lives come a series of trials, tribulations, disasters, adventures, calamities, and temptations as Ada tries to preserve continue the profoundly fires burning and Inman tries unambiguously to evade home. The sequences give up and go without much cohesion, merely a string of exciting and/or melodramatic moments, and the love representation is a bit like “Sleepless in Seattle” in that the two lovebirds only foretell each other at all until the very put an end to of the film.
In the midst the many supporting actors in the story, Brendon Gleeson plays Ruby’s father, a simpatico layabout who deserted her long before and comes on all sides wanting alleviate when he, too, deserts the Southern belief. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the Reverend Veasey, a defrocked clergyman whom Inman picks up along the distance. Natalie Portman plays a lonely, tempting naive widow with a baby that Inman meets along his odyssey home. And Bar Winstone plays the villain of the crumble, Teague, a valet too prior to go to war, who remains in Cold Mountain as the numero uno of the To the quick Guard. It’s his onus to hector the locals, keep an evil eye on Ada, and streak deserters on sight. Of a piece with all dastardly villains, he has no nitty-gritty.
If, in fact, any of this sounds vaguely approve of Homer’s “Odyssey,” it is, says the film’s creators, because that’s what it’s supposed to prompt you of. Inman’s attempts to come back home to Ada, with constant woe along the course, are intended to conjure up visions of Odysseus’s frustrated attempts to return home to Penelope. The enquiry chestnut must implore is, So what?
The music of the movie when one pleases cause to remember many listeners of the music in “Ken Burns’ Civil War,” and everyone can understand how and why both films mined the regardless folk material. Mostly the music is serenity, grief-stricken, and melancholy, although during the incipient battle sequence it is choose overdone with its choral accompaniment. The scenes of cross swords and devastation are naturalistic to the extreme, and some shots may make viewers watch away. As compensation, the cinematography is occasionally ravishing as we contact c finish widescreen panoramas of mountains, forests, rivers, and valleys. But is any of this enough to reparation for the movie’s oppressive pace and overreliance on clichés and stereotypes? Not in effect.
A limit of the film’s insufficiency of effectiveness is the points that after the Strife-O-Meter and I fatigued what seemed find agreeable an entire afternoon watching “Cold Mountain,” we were both surprised to note that it was barely half finished. We rumination the film was so unproductive moving that poor old Inman would never get adroit in. When he did, I’m not firm it was benefit our burden. While the screen is handsome to look at and has its show division of realism, it also gets slews sappy along the way. A 6/10 at most successfully.
Video:
The picture quality is very good but not in all respects ideal. The anamorphic screen take the measure of admirably mirrors its 2.35:1 theatrical exhibition ratio, rendered here as approximately 2.11:1 across a standard television. There is a slight pattern noticeable, especially in nighttime scenes, but this is not unique to the best film stock. All-inclusive, the icon is fairly conniving despite the small degree of fibre. Daylight shots are ingenious and well delineated; colors are natural, if a tad dark; and haloes and moiré effects are noticeable at times but at worst a problem if you’re looking for them.
March 10, 2010
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is an extremely original but somewhat odd film. It seeks to superimpose the ways of the ancient samurai with the present day in the tale of a loner who works as a hitman for the local mafia family. Day in and day out, Ghost Dog, the film’s protagonist played by Forrest Whitaker likes his life according to the ancient precepts of the Hagakure, a book written by a samurai in the 1750’s as a guide to samurai living. Throughout the film, Ghost Dog recites portions of this work, describing his current state and his next move and Director Jim Jarmusch puts these passages on screen for the audience to read.
The film feels somewhat slow-moving throughout much of its first hour, only to seem to reach a climax 30 minutes before it actually ends. The film is aided by some interesting characters. While the mafia characters are somewhat identical to those depicted in countless other films, (with the exception of the strange fascination with cartoon violence that each member shares), the character of Ghost Dog is quite an intriguing one, especially in his interaction with those around him. He reacts very differently to many of the different characters he encounters and shows a side of violence and a side of peaceful sadness in everything he does. In addition, his best friend, a Haitian ice cream salesman is another thoroughly enjoyable character, and the scenes which pass between the two, with the ice cream man only speaking French and Ghost Dog only speaking English work well, especially because, without knowing it, the men find a common understanding so often. In addition, the scenes in which Ghost Dog commits murder range from the banal to the intricate, and some of the scenes, especially the one in which he employs the bathroom sink are quite impressive.
Jarmusch puts in a number of thematic elements which are obviously symbollic, but whose ultimate symbolism is less clear. Besides the constant presence of literal cartoon violence (Itchy and Scratchy from “The Simpsons” make multiple appearances in the film), there is the recurring presence of the book “Rashamon,” which is transferred from character to character. An extremely powerful book, it took a look at a singular event from a number of personal perspectives. Whether Jarmusch is suggesting that we are only getting one perspective on the events and that another would be greatly divergent, or if there is some other meaning is left for the viewer to determine.
Finally, Whittaker, though not necessarily resembling the hit man type does an extremely good job in this film in establishing a complex character who seems to be in two different worlds simultaneously, yet who completely resembles neither. While this internal conflict appears to make the character and the performance a hard sell, it ultimately pays off, as Whittaker really shines in the film.
The Picture
Ghost Dog is presented in anamorphic widescreen with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. All in all the film looks good, with a few specks and other imperfections showing up from time to time on the screen, but never in a way which lessens enjoyment of the film. The colors of the film come through well, and there is little wavering.
The Sound
Ghost Dog is presented in 5.1 Dolby Digital Sound. The film uses the superior sound well, with a mix of dialogue, sound effects and music, the majority of which was presented by founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, The RZA. The sound comes through well, particularly in the presentation of the music of the film, coming through strong at times and weak but effective at other times when the film’s dramatic themes call for it.
Bonus Materials
The Ghost Dog DVD comes with a fair share of bonus materials, including a 20 minute documentary featurette, 5 short outtakes from the film, a “Cakes” music video, extremely extensive cast and crew bios, and six television spots and trailers for the film.
Most impressive of the materials is “The Ghost Dog Oddessy,” the 20 minute featurette, which includes a number of scenes from the film and extensive interviews with the panel of Jarmusch, Whittaker, and The RZA, covering a range of topics from the origins of the Hagakure, the character of Ghost Dog, the creative process behind the film, Jarmusch’s image of the film and its casting, and the music which plays an important role at constantly establishing the themes of the film. The featurette takes an extensive look at The RZA’s musical background and the formulation and origins of the Wu Tang Clan and the emergence of the RZA as an artist scoring the film. The three discuss, with some detail, a number of the central themes of the film, and to a certain extent, the conversation seems to make up for the lack of a commentary track, always a lamentable omission with a film which has a good amount beneath its surface.
The trailers and television spots are also fairly interesting, from the perspective they offer on the many ways in which this film was marketed, as those marketing the film had to deal head on with the number of contrasting thematic elements present in the film.
Finally, although three of the four outtakes are just alternate versions of scenes from the film, the first of the outtakes involves an accountant who meets with the mafia heads to discuss their financial dealings and tries to convince them that they should file bankruptcy. Such a scene would obviously have been somewhat out of place in the film, and it is clear why it was cut, but its inclusion is enjoyable nevertheless.
Final Thoughts
Fans of Jarmusch will likely not be disappointed by this film. It demonstrates his typical methodic style and has interesting characters and an interesting plot. For those who are not fans of Jarmusch’s work, this film is a slightly riskier endeavor. While the modern-day samurai plot was previously touched upon in “Ronin” here, the typical mafia characters seem to break up the story and make it a bit more disjointed and a bit less compelling. Nevertheless, if one has the time and interest, the film is worth renting.
Agree? Disagree? You can post your thoughts about this review on the DVD Talk forums.
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March 8, 2010
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Promiscuously and funny from origination to indecisive Preston Sturges The Palm Beach Story is a must comprehend Hollywood comedy from the 1940’s.
Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea star as a wife and husband who have reached an impasse in their marriage. Still respectful of each other they are a bit bored. Colbert - who’s character’s name is Gerry - decides to take a trip to Palm Beach and arrange for a divorce. She takes a train. Joel - who’s character is named Tom - follows her to Florida in a plane.
Tom gets down there to discover that Gerry is being woo’d by an extremely wealthy man named John D Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee). Hackensacker is a boring but decent fellow and Gerry entertains his desires for a few nights.
Gerry stalls both Hackensacker advances and Tom’s anger a bit by pretending that she and Tom are brother and sister. The ruse works for a while until Gerry can figure out what to do about her dilemma.
The film’s most hilarious scenes come on board a train when Colbert runs into a group of unruly men who are members of the Ale and Quail Club. She becomes their ‘mascot’ or Snow White - if you will. They buy her ticket and then feel the need to protect her. During this set of scenes the film becomes all out slapstick as the men drink themselves silly, pull out their shotguns, shoot up the train and then head out on a posse through the train to find Colbert who has escaped to a quiter sleeping car in the train.
The underriding theme in the film is about the lure of money and the need to find happiness in that alone. An early dialogue sequence points to Gerry’s desire to try something new.
Gerry: I may not even get married again. I might become an adventuress.
Tom: I can just see you starting for China on a twenty-six foot sail boat.
Gerry: You’re thinking of an adventurer, dear. An adventuress never goes on anything under three hundred feet with a crew of eighty.
Tom: Well, you just let me catch you on a 300-foot yacht or even a 200-foot yacht.
Gerry: At least I wouldn’t have to worry about the rent.
Can money buy Gerry? That’s a minor question that the film asks.
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At only 88 minutes there is nary a moment wasted, the dialogue zings by, the characters are wacky and fun, and the scenes really snap. Part of the appeal of the film is the script. Full of a plethora of humorous dialogue, which Sturges was master at writing. It makes for a film that can be enjoyed on multiple viewings.
In some cases the dialogue is quite suggestive.
Hackensacker: “If there’s one thing I admire it’s a woman who can whip up something out of nothing.”
Gerry: “You should taste my pop-overs.”
Hackensacker: “I’d love to.”
At other times right up front:
Tom: …I mean, sex didn’t even enter into it!
Gerry: Oh, but of course it did…. Sex always has something to do with it, dear…From the time you’re about so big, and wondering why your girlfriends’ fathers are getting so arch all of a sudden. Nothing wrong, just an overture to the opera that’s coming…but from then on, you get it from cops, taxi drivers, bell boys, delicatessan dealers…
Tom: Got what?
Gerry: The Look! You know: ‘How’s about this evening, babe?’
What seems to be one of the film’s weaker points is Gerry’s motivations for leaving Tom. After all he is attractive, he loves her and has done nothing to hurt her.
As it turns out The Palm Beach Story reveals itself to have another plot entirely that is only glossed over in the beginning.
The credit sequence that opens the film is rarely commented upon. Partly because the film is so good that it almost seems superfulous. Plus, it being a credit sequence many don’t pay attention and instead choose to read the credits. But a closer look reveals much behind the actions and motivations of Claudette Colbert’s character - Gerry - in the movie.
What this first scene reveals - with quick edits, freeze frames and a wacky score - is deception. What we don’t learn until the end of the film is that Gerry has a twin sister. What the scene shows is that her twin is the one who was supposed to marry Tom. But Gerry has tied up her sister, put her in a closet and rushed off to the wedding in her place.
This point is never really brought up in the film but an astute viewer can deduce this from a combination of the film’s first scene with that of the somewhat hasty denouement where Gerry and Tom both reveal nonchalantly that they have identical twins. Whom we both see in a final wedding scene in the end.
Whether one puts this all together or not is of little consequence because the film is so good anyway.
Video:
An excellent transfer in 1.33:1.
Audio:
English dolby digital 2.0 mono. As good as it was in the 40’s. Good enough to hear all the dialogue.
Extras:
None except subtitles in English, Spanish and French.
Overall:
If you have never seen The Palm Beach Story then do yourself a favor and watch it. In fact, just go buy it for under $10.00 on many web sites or stores. It’s funny. You’ll love it.
Agree? Disagree? You can post your thoughts about this review on the DVD Talk forums.
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March 7, 2010
My personal view of "blaxploitation" is that it's a racist term. There's no such thing as a genre being Black.
Keenen Ivory Wayans, helmsman of
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
I can't imagine who was being exploited. My checks cleared.
Fred "Hammer" Williamson, star of
Hell Up in Harlem
JANUARY 17, 2004|
With MGM collating five of their "Soul Cinema"-branded DVDs–
Coffy
,
Cooley High
,
Wily Brown
,
Hell Up In Harlem
, and
I'm Gonna Come to an understanding a arise You Sucka
–supplementary a CD sampler in a new "best of" box combination (one presumes that titles beginning with letters that come after "i" are being saved owing a second volume), no time like the give out to finally harpoon the big animal known as blaxploitation in these pages. Expect a rude capsule every Saturday at least until our "Soul Cinema" well runs dry; if all goes smoothly, we'll also get around to
Superfly
and more.
-
Bill Chambers
Buy at
Amazon USA
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Amazon Canada
or
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AUTEUR'S CORNER
also by Keenen Ivory Wayans
The body of a unspeakable man is discovered in an
alleyway. The ideal of death? O.G.–"over gold." (Or over-gold: the
body is wearing a suffocating number of Mr. T. chains.) That's almost as
foxy as
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
gits, and it's a joke drilled into the ground with jackhammer repetition. Coming inaccurate Robert Townsend's breakout indie
Hollywood
Shuffle
, which dealt with the individual of a struggling actor from the African-American perspective, writer-top banana-star Keenen Ivory Wayans makes beneficent on that film's pulpit by reviving, however briefly and tongue-in-cheekily, the bleeding genre reponsible for de-marginalizing sombre genius post-cordial rights, in addition to the careers of some of its central figures. (Just don't call this genre "blaxploitation" around the hairbreadth Wayans–the mastermind behind the homophobic "Men on Film" skits and
Hair-raising Movie
's misogyny.) And yet, there's something ungrateful current on under the surface: when late Cleveland Brown Jim Brown (who's flat-out sparkling in James Toback's
Fingers
) asks Wayans' Jack Spade what qualifications he has for fetching on an underworld synthesize, Spade cracks, "I was a football player"–I guess slab is change one’s mind when you eat it, too. The source of
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
's biggest yuks is not its oral self-referentialism, but rather moments have a weakness for the stunt-doubling of a black woman with a moustached undefiled man, or Wayans giving a purposefully stiff performance in those scenes meant to be sentimental; as the knee-pants-lived "The Ben Stiller Show" would later grangerize, it's aesthetically-minded salutes like these that truly flatter the audience for a actuality scoff at, because they let out conscientiousness beneath the mockery. MGM presents
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
on DVD in an inoffensively bland 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer with an equally unassuming Dolby Ring soundtrack to unite. The film's original overacted trailer rounds out the disc.
1.85:1 (16×9); English Dolby Surroundings; French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; 89 minutes; R
DVD -
Representative:
A
, Sound:
B+
, Commentary:
A+
There compel ought to been wiser marketing decisions: MGM leaves
Blacklist Caesar
out of their Best of Soul Cinema set while including the film's upshot,
Hell Up in Harlem
. As I've not yet managed to see
Black Caesar
, I wondered if that's why
Hell Up in Harlem
seemed so inscrutable to me, but according to scribbler-commandant Larry Cohen in his DVD commentary, one of the best I've till the end of time listened to, that ain't the half of it. In their indeterminate percipience, AIP cashed in on a follow-up to
Black Caesar
so one day after its release that Cohen and "Swart Caesar" himself Fred Williamson had to shoot it in tandem with
It's Alive!
and
That Bracelets Run away
, respectively. Since the productions were situated on reverse coasts, Williamson couldn't movie his guide role in
Pain Up in Harlem
until inseparable or the other wrapped, resulting in a shake-and-bake screenplay whose main dramatic regard was how to accumulate away with an plenteousness of over-the-cold-shoulder shots of the important. (This is also why Williamson's character inexplicably decides to move to L.A., and why he boards a decamp
to
Los Angeles at L.A.X. Foreign.) Though Cohen is surprised that critics at the immediately didn't seem to review how spotty the picture's plotting is, I intend it's in his favour that nobody goes into a blaxploitation flick expecting a soberly-oiled doodah–and in abandoning logic totally for the purpose a series of brutal, funny, and largely improvised set-pieces that let ex-football star Williamson loose on unconscious extras (imagine a Richard Lester silver screen where
The Beatles
are homicidal maniacs), the picture's second half more than atones for the duration of the creakiness of the whole enterprise. (Blessedly dropped at the halfway mark, too, is an ape on the spinning-newspaper aesthetic of Warner's early gangster pictures that, combined with a cast bedecked in borderline-anachronistic fedoras, can't help but make
Hell Up in Harlem
non-standard like equal a warm-up for the Michael Keaton spoof
Johnny Dangerously
.) Cohen, whose eye on the side of locations and guerrilla spunk to schedule without a permit lend his potboilers a
vérité
quality that owes more to Jean-Pierre Melville than to Roger Corman, deserves points for rising to the challenge, even if the sequelae is mostly risible. MGM's 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen DVD is on a par with
Foxy Brown
's (see below): yes,
Ordeal Up in Harlem
was a popular picture, but that by no means guaranteed it wouldn't wilt in storage. The 2.0 mono soundtrack is strong, if the songs therein aren't: as Cohen details in his emphasize-length yakker, when condense negotations poor down between AIP and James Brown, the nightingale took aid his already-completed score, barely to put it out on a record-breaking–"The Payback"–that ironically became his most profitable, in addition to a particular of the most sampled albums in CV. (Apparently, some music cues were changed for this version of the film–none are specificied.) Teaser and ostentatious trailers for
Scolding Up in Harlem
globe out the disc.
1.85:1 (16×9); English Mono, French Mono; French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; 94 minutes; R
DVD -
Image:
A
, Resemble:
B+
, Extras:
C+
Although the
Coffy
Photostat
Foxy Brown
is prototypical of the copycats that follow in the wake of an unexpected hit in that it puts all the pieces in the wrong place, the difference between it and, phrase, every pellicle that wanted to be
E.T.
is that
Coffy
's own writer-director did the cloning.
Foxy Brown
drops the care for angle and makes Pam Grier a vigilante by daylight, vigilante by Cimmerian dark–apart from that, she some time ago again adopts a secret sameness as a prostitute after a pimp-score-drug tradesman ruins the lives of her loved ones and finds herself placed in captivity when procedure A goes awry.
Coffy
has its campy aspects (i.e. a catfight from which the participants come forth topless), but it respects itself; with its Tennessee Williams appellations (Miss Katherine, Murky Cotton, Link Brown), Maurice Binder-spoofing title sequence, and epithetical refrains (choicest: "Let's shoot some niggers"), all of it rendered in a completely inexpressive aesthetic,
Foxy Brown
dubiously embraces its inner minstrel show. With
Coffy
, the Caucasian Hill knew nothing all round black culture wealthy in, but he seems a bit too smug in the role of honky anthropologist this time yon, a attainable by-product of having to hack the handwriting out on a tight programme. The movie is also aggressively homophobic (Foxy nicknames every goon "Faggot," while the compulsory girl-on-girl fracas unfurls in a lesbian saloon exclusively populated by bull-dyke stereotypes), thus devaluing what little sexual conscience it has. There's a bold comparison pinched between drugs and serfdom, and I guess
Foxy Brown
gains some incline in the context of the racist James Controls films produced around the despite the fact age (
Live and Let Droop
,
The Man with the Golden Gun
): it gave black audiences a chimerical Bond where the hero was an ebony female, the villain was an ivory female, and the savagery was equally facetious but flavoured with an urban edge–a plane doesn't just run into a house, its propellers slice and dice a dude on the runway. But quits from his nastiest foes, 007 never had to put up with being called a "socking-jugged jigaboo." Inherently blah visuals aside, MGM's 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen DVD presentation of
Plotting Brown
, taken from an immaculate source put out (save the expected speckling during opticals), is breathtaking. More outwardly vintage is the Dolby 2.0 mono discombobulate c snarl, although it meets coarse expectations. Hill doesn't do the pic any favours in a depressive commentary track in which he sounds chagrined of his cursive writing, his direction–pretty much the aggregate but the actors. (He's typically fawning of Grier, who is indeed a born movie star.) If there's a lesson to be literate, it's that there's no such thing as brownie points in Hollywood, not even at the independent level: according to Hill, the success of
Coffy
only made AIP tighten their leash on the auteur. An amusing trailer rounds out the dish.
1.85:1 (16×9); English Mono; French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; 91 minutes; R
DVD -
Clone:
B
, Lucid:
C+
MGM has reprinted
Cooley Peak
's jacket art to freshly splay it with their "Reason Cinema" streamer, but of all the films sedate in "The Richest of Soul Cinema" box set, this is the, pardon the expression, gloomy sheep, less blaxploitation than teensploitation. Greenlighted to cash in on the success of
American Graffiti
but not like it made for the same reason, the film casually follows the exploits of most desirable friends "Cochise" (Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs) and "Preach" (Glynn Turman) during those discombobulating last only one weeks of high school leading up to graduation.
Cooley Enormous
opens with a fiercely melancholy montage of Chicago's inner-city landmarks set to
The Supremes
' "Baby Love" (maybe it's the fact that there's no row noise layered in), which doesn't literally psych limerick up for the rasping comedy that ensues, but as misfortunes heap up and the point-of-view scale shifts from Cochise, the more handsome, academic, and all-thither universal of the two, to Lecture, a poet and aspiring screenwriter persevering to do whatever it takes to get manifest of the ghetto except apply himself in his studies, the film's guerilla movement of pathos starts to empathize with not only just counterintuitive, but also a little ghoulish. While part of this has to do with Turman's unharmonious society (he seems to grow more and more lecherous), mostly it's the nature of an autobiographical screenplay–"What's Event!!" the Deity Eric Monte based the calligraphy on his own coming-of-period–by an avowed excellence galoot. Still, a reprimand-hack off b intercept to a parked hearse is as stinging as any of the losses smuggled into John Singleton's affecting
Boyz N the Hood
, a film that owes its basic framework to
Cooley High
. The disc's fullscreen turn over is open-matte, but that's no excuse in return denying the cover a release in its eccentric aspect ratio. That aside, though definition is toned and shadow detail wanes, this is the cleanest and brightest I've ever seen
Cooley High
look. The Dolby 2.0 mono look like is screechy and on occasion hissy, with less to recommend it than the video. An circular booklet of notes on the AIP forming fills old hat the serving dish.
1.33:1; English Mono, French Mono; English, French subtitles; DVD-5; 107 minutes; R
DVD -
Image:
B+
, Sound:
B+
, Extras:
B+
It's impossible today to avoid viewing
Coffy
through the prism of Quentin Tarantino's work, but more interesting than singling out their common iconography–and I've always wished that someone would challenge Tarantino's poignant but faking recycling of Roy Ayers'
Coffy
anthems "Vitori's Theme - Prince is Through," "Bizarre Romp," and "Escape" in
Jackie Brown
, since the auteur went on a tear about
Rotten Dancing
's usage of "Be My Baby," a bother that ostensibly "belonged" to
Mean Streets
–is noting decent how tender and tactful the argumentative Tarantino is in the ambiance of his influences. In many ways,
Coffy
is the opposite of
Jackie Brown
, each of which stars Pam Grier as a career woman cornered into playing criminals against one another; banal but accurate to say that
Coffy
sees the glass, unlike
Jackie Brown
, as half-wanting. Coffy herself is one of Travis Bickle's purest antecedents, a vigilante by night who confides in men incapable of deciphering her cryptic confessions (she compares feeling rage to sleepwalking) and divulges the full pathology of her anger with a pit-stop to dig up a shotgun buried in her front green in anticipation of a bloody showdown. If anything, nation takes a backseat to gender in
Coffy
, a picture proper to win as many female fans as detractors: while Coffy's reprisal scheme against the florid lowlifes behind the ruined lives of her loved ones costs her sexually, her foreknowledge of that sacrifice calls her motives into question, and the ending simply, if ruthlessly, reduces Coffy to the green-eyed eyesore of countless he-dun-me-wrong native land ballads. There's no denying the film's bloodthirsty power, however, as typified by the horrible comeuppance of a pimp (Robert DoQui) in a baffling sequence that conspicuously traffics in figurativeness we associate with the Public Rights times. MGM's "The Most qualified of Soul Cinema" attribute contains their entire and contrariwise DVD disenthral of
Coffy
from 2001, a 1.66:1 non-anamorphic appearance that will captivate those refusing to hold its insufficiency of 16×9-enhancement against it. Detail is somewhat smoggy, but the source print is clean and colours are realistic. Though noticeably aged, the Dolby 2.0 mono sound is clear and frequently zealous. Chief honcho Jack Hill's humble feature-length commentary, the disc's only extra besides
Coffy
's trailer, is irredeemable, although the auteur seems pooped long before crossing the finish line. Every aspect of the film's existence is addressed, from AIP's urge to facilitate a make up for a revenge picture as metaphorical payback conducive to having
Cleopatra Jones
stolen out from under them to the same studio's junky treatment of Hill–he had next to no involvement in despatch-manufacturing and was babysat wholly the discharge by uptight executives. I didn't know ex to listening that Allan Arbus (mob boss Vitori) is photographer Diane Arbus' ex.
1.66:1; English Mono, French Mono, Spanish Mono; French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; 90 minutes; R
© Film One-off Leading; filmfreakcentral.net. This review may not be reprinted, in whole or in release, without the express acceptance of its founder.
March 5, 2010
Without knowing anything else about this movie other than that it's
a sequel to the great, intelligent
Babe
from 1995 with
the ridiculous name
Babe: Pig In the City
, you'd swear it
would be insufferable. It turns out not only is it a marvelously
creative work, but its title is quite appropriate after all.
Although the mood of
Babe: Pig In the City
is substantially
different from that of the original, they both have that enchanting
fairy tale quality. In this movie, retaining that essential element
hinged on skewing the city into a manifest exaggeration. That
director George Miller most certainly does. "The city" is a pure
product of the imagination, filled as much with shadows and dark
emotions as it is with hulking hotels and neon lights. The people
that inhabit it are exaggerated to similar effect. Paradoxically,
the animals are more human; children, used to being the only ones
they can understand in a world dominated by mystical adults, will
relate to the animals quite easily. At the same time, be forewarned
that this is not for small children; in fact, this movie is more
directed at adults. A G-rated movie about talking animals? No wonder
this movie had an uphill battle finding its intended audience.
Impact Pt I movie hd
As much as I admire the film, however, I wouldn't say it even comes
close to the original film, whose perceptiveness and cheery splendor
make it one of my favorites. The slapstick, for instance, is
overdone, and not all of the animal co-stars hit home for me. But
the good far outweighs the bad.
Series Entries
March 3, 2010
The biggest challenge in making any film musical is credibility because in real life, for the most part, people do not suddenly break into song in the middle of the day while folding laundry or having dinner with friends. Maybe that’s why the French make intriguing film musicals.
Since the French worldview seems to entail a generalized suspension of disbelief anyway, directors like Jacques Demy and Christophe Honoré don’t worry much about why the audience is asked to believe a story in which the characters suddenly start singing to each other.
Demy, of course, is forever associated with the 1964 musical romance, “Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg),” starring an impossibly young and beautiful Catherine Deneuve, whose daughter - perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not - is one of the cast members in Honoré’s new musical romance, “Love Songs.”
Teaming up with composer Alex Beaupain, Honoré tells the interwoven stories of several young people looking for love and then, in some cases, finding themselves restless in romantic captivity. At the start, we meet Ismaël (Louis Garrel) and Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), who have taken a third partner to their bed, Ismael’s co-worker, Alice (Clotilde Hesme), in an effort to re-energize their relationship. Is it working? Julie and Ismaël love each other, but he is beginning to worry that Alice’s presence is diluting his relationship with Julie, rather than stimulating it.
But when a tragic event occurs early on in the film, the characters scurry in emotional desperation. Louis allows Julie’s sister, Jeanne (Chiara Mastroianni), to get close to him for a while, until he begins to feel stalked. Alice, who has previously said she has no sexual interest in men, begins seeing a married man whose younger brother, Erwann, falls for Ismaël. Through it all, we have Beaupain’s charming songs, enabling the characters at times to reveal themselves to each other more than they would in mere conversation. There are even a few winking suggestions of choreography, as if Honoré is saying, yes, it’s insane that these people are singing, but what if they were dancing, too? With the same kind of irony we find in Beaupain’s understated music, Honoré gives us “dance” by having Ismaël and Alice swirl around each other on rolling office chairs, and, later, Ismaël and his young friend, Erwann (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) sing to each other on cell phones while zigzagging back and forth on a Paris street.
At times, the movie seems to have an almost accidental quality, as if it’s all improv and Honoré doesn’t really know where everything is going. But there is also ample evidence of careful planning, including the fact that much of it is set near the Place de la Bastille - what better setting for a film about emotional confinement? And when the blond Julie and brunette Alice prepare for bed, they undress, with their backs turned to Ismaël, in perfect synchronicity, slyly suggesting a Monroe-Russell song and dance from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” Or is it a reference to another Demy musical, “Les Demoiselles de Rochefort,” in which Deneuve co-starred with her late sister, Françoise Dorléac?
The performances contribute to making Honoré’s vision almost work. As Julie, Sagnier may look a vision of winsome purity, with her blond hair and white coat, but she’s feeling flattened by life and love. At times, she is jealous of Alice, but then she uses Alice to make Ismaël jealous. Sagnier is extraordinary as she delivers a tightly reined performance barely disguising emotional turmoil beneath the surface.
With a profile that seems to have been lifted from an ancient Greek statue, or a Mercury dime, Garrel romps wonderfully through the film with superb comic timing and a deceptive lightness to his performance. He’s rapidly becoming France’s most intriguing male actor, having already nailed the title of hottest.
Looking more like her father, Marcello, than her mom, Mastroianni is equally fine as Julie’s older sister. Like Sagnier as her sister, Mastroianni plays Jeanne as a bit tightly wound, except that, instead of feeling romantically imprisoned, she reveals herself as desperate for love and passion.
Tragic death, loss, sexual threesomes, broken hearts, dashed hope, lots of cigarettes: Ah, l’amour toujour. But, as dark as these themes seem, in Honoré’s capable hands, they become almost frothy and the perfect elements for a surprisingly joyous musical.
– Advisory: Brief nudity, sexual situations and unrepentant cigarette smoking.
February 28, 2010
Broken Lizard’s Club Dread: Slasher comedy. Starring Jay Chandrasekhar,
Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske and Bill Paxton.
Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar. (R. 104 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
Club Med was an urban legend even in the swinging ’70s, when exaggerated
stories of random sex and unrestrained libidos floated back from various world
paradises. A new movie from the comedy troupe Broken Lizard has some fun with
this myth, conjuring up a haven for singles on the prowl with one major
drawback: a machete-wielding serial killer in their midst.
The comedy team claims pride of ownership by titling this intermittently
funny effort “Broken Lizard’s Club Dread,” as if the group’s name carries the
same weight as, say, Shakespeare’s. If you enjoy gross humor — elevated by
an occasional witty line — and looking at babes, and don’t mind a little
blood and gore, do I have a date movie for you. The coup de grace offers a
close-up of the top half of a disemboweled body reaching out — like the
hand from the grave in “Carrie” — to claim another victim.
The five troupe members, who hit big with the cult favorite “Super
Troopers,” have written leads for themselves as Club Dread’s determinedly hip
staff. They’re the best part of the movie, exhibiting the comic timing honed
by years of working together. Steve Lemme sparkles as a Latino diving teacher
with a hefty accent whose time in “yale,” as he calls it, makes him a prime
suspect. His incarceration turns out to have been for initiating intimate
relations on a goat. “We ‘leeved’ on a farm, and I got lonely,” he explains,
throwing up his hands.
Broken Lizard’s Jay Chandrasekhar does double duty, acquitting himself
well as a pompous tennis coach, but directing the proceedings with a not-
always-sure hand.
Slasher comedies are tough to master. They require a firm understanding
of the genre they’re parodying. “Scream” worked because it was basically a
teenybopper movie turned on its head. But “Club Dread” doesn’t quite capture
the devil-may-care feel of a sex comedy. For one thing, there’s not enough sex
– coitus continually being interrupted by the threat of mayhem.
The movie does, however, boast an amusing premise. The killer only
targets staff members, who make every attempt to conceal the murders from
their paying customers. A thing like that could spoil a vacation. So, as the
blood-soaked bodies pile up, the partying continues unabated. In one amusing
sight gag, an aerobics instructor tries to flee the murderer in a golf cart,
as he merrily keeps pace with her on foot.
Eventually, clues to the order of the elimination process are found in
the lyrics of a song written by “Club Dread” owner Coconut Pete, a has-been
’70s pop star. The song is played backward, presumably looking for some
message akin to “Paul is dead.” Coconut Pete is no help. “I don’t even
remember making the album. Those were some wild times we had back then,” he
says.
Bill Paxton, not so long ago the star of summer blockbusters, plays
Coconut Pete as if he were still high on something. Paxton makes the most of
the role, but it’s a bit sad to see him slumming, like a moderately successful
boxer whom circumstances have forced into the ring again as a wrestler.
Advisory: This film contains nudity, blood and gore.
February 27, 2010
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Andres Connor