Film Freak Central

Driven (2001) - DVD

*/**** Image A- Sound A Extras A
starring Sylvester Stallone, Burt Reynolds, Kip Pardue, Til Schweiger
screenplay by Sylvester Stallone
directed by Renny Harlin

by Walter Chaw A homoerotic cock-opera showing the sad and pathetic multiplicity of forms that mid-life crises can take, Driven, Renny Harlin's ode to thick necks and macho poses, is more "programmed" than "directed." The film resembles a particularly irritating and impenetrable video game juxtaposed with pages torn from the jug-heavy EASY RIDER magazine and scenes paraded out of the Big Book of Movie Clichés, all performed by a cast that provides a definitive example of the way "legendary" can be used in a derisive sense.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) - DVD

*/**** Image D+ Sound D
starring Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens, Rutger Hauer
screenplay by Joss Whedon
directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui

by Walter Chaw Constrained by, among other things, what writer/creator Joss Whedon calls Donald Sutherland's reprehensible attitude and script tampering plus director Fran Rubel Kuzui's inability to stand up to the veteran thespian, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a slog through the underbelly of cinematic dredge that feels at least twice as long as its 86 minutes. The most stunning thing about this horror-comedy is that the TV series spun from it is very possibly among the top ten shows in regards to quality of writing, performance, and level of intelligence, of the past decade.

Glitter (2001)

ZERO STARS/****
starring Mariah Carey, Max Beesley, Eric Benet, Vondie Curtis Hall
screenplay by Kate Lanier and John Wilder
directed by Vondie Curtis Hall

by Walter Chaw About halfway through Glitter's bloated running time (105 minutes of unique hell), a foreign video director sagely complains: "The glitter can't overpower the artist!" The two problems with Glitter are that the glitter does overpower the artist, and that the glitter itself is preposterous, dreary, and dull. Billie (Mariah Carey) is enlisted as the back-up singer for an entirely talentless woman, and her voice is hijacked in a Singin' in the Rain intrigue, natch. But even as I was resigning myself to a customary "VH1 Movies That Rock" piece of dreck about the girl singing behind the curtain getting rewarded for her saintliness on the opening night of a national tour, Dice the DJ (Max Beesley) swoops in and makes Glitter an interracial version of screenwriter Kate Lanier's own What's Love Got To Do With It?. Only Glitter's Ike is a pretty nice guy, despite his jealousy/management problems, and this Tina is as expressive as a person on a horse's ration of Thorazine. When Billie tells Dice, after some very chaste lovemaking, that she has trouble trusting people, I whispered to the screen, "Honey, you probably shouldn't start at a guy named 'Dice' who sports a large gold pendant that says 'DICE.'"

The Great L.I.E.: FFC Interviews Stephen Ryder

September 22, 2001|Stephen Ryder's voice is forceful and worn in the way of a man who has a lot of stories and knows that the stories are good ones. A published poet, a professor of dialogue and writing at NYU, and a former police officer and journalist nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Op/Ed in 1976, he is a magnetic personality and a graceful speaker: careful not to interrupt and catching one off guard with an incisive question born of his experience as a professional interrogator. Mr. Ryder's new film L.I.E. bristles with a brittle reality balanced against a deep scholarly vein that is surprising only until you speak with the man. Also generous with his time, Mr. Ryder sat down with Film Freak Central recently to share some of his thoughts on his movie, Jack Valenti and the M.P.A.A., and Walt Whitman.

The Mummy Returns (2001) [Collector's Edition (Widescreen)] - DVD

*/**** Image A Sound A+ Extras B-
starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo
written and directed by Stephen Sommers

by Bill Chambers The Mummy Returns reminds me of a little film called The Mummy. Actually, it made me think of Trail of the Pink Panther, which was assembled from outtakes of other Inspector Clouseau movies due to star Peter Sellers expiring before, it would seem, his contract did. The Mummy Returns is all but a patchwork quilt made up of, if not leftover scenes, then scrap ideas. In The Mummy, a looming face of swirling sand pursued our hero; in The Mummy Returns, it materializes from a waterfall. The kind of production for which the writing credit should probably read "cocktail napkin by," The Mummy Returns fails to distinguish itself from the undistinguished original. Why are they both superhits?

13 Ghosts (1960) - DVD

*½/**** Image A Sound C Extras C
starring Charles Herbert, Jo Morrow, Martin Milner, Rosemary De Camp
screenplay by Robb White
directed by William Castle

by Walter Chaw 13 Ghosts, showman director William Castle's gimmicky follow-up to his most infamous film The Tingler, is slow-paced hokum that gives lie to the belief that the horror movies of yesteryear are very much better than those of today. Between awful acting, a terrible screenplay by celebrated kiddie author and long-time Castle collaborator Robb White, and direction from Castle that alternates between plodding and ridiculous, 13 Ghosts is a good deal of fun in spite of itself. It is a prime candidate for a "Mystery Science Theater" treatment and best enjoyed with the quick-witted or the inebriated.

Together (2000)

Tillsammans
**/****
starring Lisa Lindgren, Michael Nyqvist, Emma Samuelsson, Sam Kessel
written and directed by Lukas Moodysson

by Walter Chaw A cross between Lars von Trier's The Idiots and an irritating home video made by flower children, Swedish phenom Lukas Moodysson's Together (Tillsammans) is an aggressively affable, ultimately simplistic film that displays almost nothing in the way of the craft or sensitivity of an Ingmar Bergman, his mentor in spirit and most vocal supporter. It is a film that defies criticism by beating critics to the punch: "These people are unlikable hypocritical idiots? My point exactly," says Moodysson. "It's filmed with almost no knowledge of even the basics of filmmaking? What better way to show the rawness of real life?" But I don't buy it, not when we're eternally two steps ahead of the gutless screenplay and consistently pulled from the drama by the same repetitive series of establishing zooms and shaky framing. Tillsammans looks as bad as any Dogme 95 film.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

***/****
starring Monty Python
screenplay by Graham Chapman & John Cleese & Terry Gilliam & Eric Idle & Terry Jones & Michael Palin
directed by Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones

by Walter Chaw Comprising Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Graham Chapman, the comedy troupe Monty Python had as their stock in trade the dialogue-dense, mildly absurdist short-form sketch. To that extent, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a series of comedic skits and improvisations bound loosely--very loosely--by the contention that this merry sextet of Britons is attempting to tell the Arthur myth without the aid of budget, plot, or accuracy. All of them are classically educated, and the film seems to be a giant flip of the nose at the pretension of the British literary tradition. In the act of being such, it nearly becomes the best telling of the Grail legend available. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a satire that instructs with its informed irreverence, a piece that knows the rules before it breaks them and has shown itself over the course of 26 years to be almost as immediate and hilarious as it was upon initial release.

The Goonies (1985) - DVD

*/**** Image A Sound A Extras B-
starring Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Corey Feldman, Kerri Green
screenplay by Chris Columbus
directed by Richard Donner

by Walter Chaw I went to see The Goonies at the age of twelve because I was a Cyndi Lauper fan. As co-star Ke Huy-Quan (now "Jonathan Ke Quan") hammed it up, I glimpsed the torments of my upcoming sixth-grade year. See, Quan in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom doomed me to being called "Short Round" for several months, accompanied by Pidgin English recreations of choice line readings ("You caw heem Meesta Jones, Doll!")--which was admittedly better than the "Wassa happenin' hot stuff?" jibes inspired by Gedde Watanabe's legendary act of race betrayal as Long Duk Dong in John Hughes's execrable Sixteen Candles.

The Musketeer (2001)

ZERO STARS/****
starring Justin Chambers, Catherine Deneuve, Mena Suvari, Stephen Rea
screenplay by Gene Quintano
directed by Peter Hyams

by Walter Chaw There is a moment in the trailer for Peter Hyams's absolutely abominable The Musketeer where a series of scenes are edited in such a way as to suggest that Justin Chambers's dashing D'Artagnan is promising stunned-looking waif Francesca (Mena Suvari) he will return for her. In the film, in truth, D'Artagnan makes the promise to his fallen horse (it's an easy mistake to make). I mention this to right an injustice, for the great beast lying there frothing in all its exhausted equine glory turns in what is easily the best performance of the whole catastrophe. I felt a lot of sympathy for that poor steed, the only character in the film with which I had even a moment's identification: we'd both been ridden hard and put away wet.

Two Can Play That Game (2001)

*½/****
starring Vivica A. Fox, Morris Chestnut, Anthony Anderson, Gabrielle Union
written and directed by Mark Brown

by Walter Chaw I suspect that the preponderance of advertising executive characters in romantic films nowadays (What Women Want, Sweet November) is a misguided attempt to justify excessive product placement. There can be no other explanation for the blatant shilling of Coca-Cola and Miller Genuine Draft in Mark Brown's smarmy, derivative Two Can Play That Game, a film not otherwise about soft drinks and cheap American beer that is festooned with more conspicuous logos than a NASCAR driver. The impression that the movie is little more than a naughty-talking, 90-minute commercial for cool refreshments and prehistoric gender stereotypes is enhanced by characters who keep breaking the fourth wall to address the camera directly.

Halloween II (1981) [Widescreen] - DVD

**/**** Image A Sound B+
starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer
screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill
directed by Rick Rosenthal

by Bill Chambers Halloween II picks up exactly where Halloween left off, although a seam would show if you pasted the two films together, and that seam goes by the name of Rick Rosenthal. Director John Carpenter's handpicked replacement (Carpenter came on board as co-writer, co-producer, and co-composer), Rosenthal tries for the slow-burn intensity that the original had and achieves mere slowness. The film may feel even logier now because it helped consecrate the formula for the slasher movie, then in its infancy but now old hat. That's not exactly Halloween II's fault, but saying this doesn't make it any more palatable 20 years later.