Film Freak Central

Far from Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog (1995) - DVD

**/**** Image B Sound B
starring Bruce Davison, Mimi Rogers, Jesse Bradford, Tom Bower
written and directed by Phillip Borsos

by Walter Chaw Though shot with a nice eye for vistas, Phillip Borsos's ponderously titled Far From Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog (hereafter Yellow Dog) is decidedly modest in scope. It's a wilderness fantasy/adventure involving a boy and his dog that follows along so closely to the set-up/pay-off structure that the build up to the inevitable marooning is almost sadistic in its inevitability. Think of every moment dad teaches his boy to build a fire as the children's-movie equivalent of a green foot soldier in a war flick showing a picture of his sweetheart to his buddy right before a big action scene.

Nowhere in Africa (2001)

Nirgendwo in Afrika
**½/****
starring Juliane Köhler, Regine Zimmermann, Merab Ninidze, Matthias Habich
screenplay by Caroline Link, based on the novel by Stefanie Zweig
directed by Caroline Link

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover One wants very badly to condescend to a film like Nowhere in Africa (Nirgendwo in Afrika). Like a multitude of other middlebrow efforts, it has large ambitions it can't fulfill, and it strains to say big things about a subject it hasn't really thought through. But somehow, one can't write the whole thing off. The subject matter is so suggestive on its own that it allows you to go on your own mental journey, riding over director Caroline Link's visual and analytical deficiencies to find the material's implications. True, that's not as good as having a real director give you ideas that send you further, but it is enough to keep you watching with no real pain.

Malevolent (2002) - DVD

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

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

Head of State (2003)

½*/****
starring Chris Rock, Bernie Mac, Tamala Jones, Lynn Whitfield
screenplay by Chris Rock & Ali LeRoi
directed by Chris Rock

by Walter Chaw Chris Rock's directorial debut Head of State is a little like Weird Al Yankovic's UHF or Dana Carvey's Opportunity Knocks: a vehicle meant to showcase a sketch comedian's strengths but functioning more as an exposé on said comedian's weaknesses. It vacillates between a potentially interesting central plot and a couple of misogynistic and boring subplots, managing by the end to come off as shrill, cynical, and disjointed as well as overly cutesy and infatuated with its own cult of bling. Its one saving grace is that it seems to occasionally know what a satire is, conceiving of a "white folks can't dance" sequence that actually scores a couple of points in letting the poor Man dance well instead of mockingly (see Bringing Down the House), and in the identification of "God Bless America" as the hypocritical exclusionary bullshit that it is.

The Core (2003)

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

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

Abandon (2003) + Dawson's Creek: The Complete First Season (1998) - DVDs

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

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

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

Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) - DVD

**/**** Image B- Sound C+
starring Robert De Niro, Michael Moriarty, Vincent Gardenia
screenplay by Mark Harris, based on his novel
directed by John Hancock

by Walter Chaw Almost fatally hamstrung by an appalling score by Stephen Lawrence, John D. Hancock's Bang the Drum Slowly is a character-driven adaptation of a Mick Harris's novel (Harris also wrote the screenplay) that evokes the odd twilit detachment of professional sports in general and baseball in particular with a tale made suddenly popular in 1973 by the success of Brian's Song. Its baseball scenes almost tertiary to the friendship between a pitcher and his catcher (and the catcher and his hooker girlfriend), the picture feels a little like Of Mice and Men (complete with Steinbeck's low American primitivism) in the doomed relationship between a blue-collar man and his retarded friend. The film is riddled with pitfalls from the start: the potential for maudlin excess, the trap of over-writing, and the allure of some sort of overriding message for humanity. And though Bang the Drum Slowly dances along the edge of those pitfalls for a good portion of its running time, ultimately it's just another one of those films better remembered than revisited.

The Filmmaker with Four Syllables in Her Last Name: FFC Interviews Lisa Cholodenko

March 23, 2003|She looks a little like the subject of one of her own films: vaguely Bohemian, artsy, with the air of one invested in the secretive, slightly disassociating practice of creation. I met Lisa Cholodenko at Denver's Hornet restaurant, just across the street from the Landmark Mayan theatre on a clear, warm Colorado winter's afternoon. In town for an advance screening of her new film Laurel Canyon that took place the night before, this day found her badly in need of a quick nosh after a mad morning with the florid bouquet of the Denver media (badly in need of pruning so that the live ones can flourish). Ms. Cholodenko speaks succinctly and carefully--she can seem a little defensive at times, the source of her discomfort possibly having something to do with the speed with which her work has been politicized along sexual (lesbian) lines. But over two orders of the restaurant's lovely Mayan Salad (get it with the dressing on the side), I found Ms. Cholodenko to be curious and warm as we dished a little on the ultimate failure of The Hours and the essentialness of New Order's "Brotherhood" album (and Antonia Bird's Ravenous). I asked her how she got her start as an editing assistant on John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood.

West Side Story (1961) [Special Edition - DVD Collector's Set] - DVD

****/**** Image A Sound A Extras B+
starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris
screenplay by Ernest Lehman, based on the play by Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins
directed by Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

by Walter Chaw With apologies to Frank Zappa, Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise's West Side Story is dancing about the tumultuous social architecture of Manhattan's west side in the 1950s--a picture as political as it is ephemeral and, consequently, as timeless as it is exhilarating. It is one of those rare pictures that feels like the first time I've seen it every time I see it--renewing itself endlessly through its rare energy and meticulously choreographed nihilism. That it doesn't hold together particularly well as a drama, much of the emotional power of its doomed love affair sapped by Richard Beymer's amazingly bad performance as lead Tony, is secondary to the enduring effectiveness of the Leonard Bernstein score (with Sondheim's amazingly current lyrics and Saul Chapin's bright orchestration); Jerome Robbins's ebullient dance sequences; Rita Moreno and George Chakiris; and the revelatory location work and lighting design.

The XX/XY Interview: FFC Interviews Petra Wright & Austin Chick

March 23, 2003|I met Austin Chick during a Critic's Reception at Denver's Pinnacle Club, a swank spot perched on the 38^th floor of the Qwest building with panoramic views of the front-range. Compact and friendly, Chick has a firm handshake and a spare New Hampshire accent; I was glad of this encounter later because, when my scheduled interview proper with Chick rolled around, a blowhard of a local reporter decided to take it upon himself to redefine sycophancy for about ten minutes of my allotted time. In my cocktail party interplay, however, I learned of Chick's initial desire to shoot in DV before receiving a 35mm camera from a kind studio benefactor; that he came to be familiar with Mark Ruffalo through seeing him in a Kenneth Lonergan play; and that he is in the process of developing two projects, one as a director for a major studio.

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie (2002) [2-Disc Collector's Edition] - DVD

***/**** Image A Sound A Extras A+
written and directed by Paul Vischer and Mike Nawrocki

by Walter Chaw Sort of Monty Python-lite with a Christian message, the VeggieTales direct-to-video series of didactic sketches is, I'm told, the top-selling home video series in history, speaking at once to the creepy rise of grotesquely hypocritical religiosity in the United States and the fact that VeggieTales, judging by its first feature-length film Jonah, is extremely clever and entertaining. Packed with visual gags and semi-subtle references (a "Moby Blaster" video game in a seafood reference recalls Melville's fondness for the Jonah tale), Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie is a bouncy Christian animated musical with a handful of compulsively catchy tunes and some crisp computer-imaging work. It occurred to me a few times during the course of the picture that as far as Christian entertainment goes, this is the first product that didn't disqualify the term as an oxymoron.

Drumline (2002) [Widescreen Edition] - DVD

**½/**** Image B+ Sound A Extras B-
starring Nick Cannon, Zoë Saldaña, Orlando Jones, GQ
screenplay by Tina Gordon Chism and Shawn Schepps
directed by Charles Stone III

by Bill Chambers Appealing newcomer Nick Cannon stars in Drumline as Devon, a Harlem high-school graduate making the transition from a big fish in a small pond to a guppy in the ocean that is Atlanta A&T. Devon begins his gruelling training for A&T's mostly-black drumline on the wrong foot, wearing dark colours when white was demanded, failing to get his roommate to the first tryout on time, and claiming an instrument reserved for upper-tier members of the drumline--and refusing to give it back until he's shown some respect by veritable drill sergeant Sean (Leonard Roberts). The one bold move that works in Devon's favour at the start is hitting on Laila (Zoë Saldaña), captain of the cheerleading squad; she and Devon's superiors, including the drumline's manager, Dr. Lee (Orlando Jones), aim to turn the boy into a man through demonstrations of tough love peppered with encouragement.

8 Mile (2002) [Widescreen w/Uncensored Bonus Features] - DVD

*/**** Image A Sound A+ Extras B-
starring Eminem, Kim Basinger, Brittany Murphy, Mekhi Phifer
screenplay by Scott Silver
directed by Curtis Hanson

by Walter Chaw I was of a mind once that Kim Basinger is pretty good at playing a milquetoast and a sexual victim (I liked her in 9½ Weeks, and she won the Oscar, after all, for L.A. Confidential), but I stand corrected. As a milquetoast sexual victim (not to Eminem, surprisingly) and mother to a steel worker-cum-rapper, Ms. Basinger's every moment in Curtis Hanson's 8 Mile is a moment that the film, an otherwise serviceable underdog Flashdance intrigue, grinds to a halt. In reprising her abominable cornpone accent from the aptly named No Mercy, she fails to understand that "country-fried bayou redneck" makes a lot less sense in the liminal "8 Mile" section of Michigan than it does in New Orleans.

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

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

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

Bushwhacked (1995) - DVD

*/**** Image B- Sound B-
starring Daniel Stern, Jon Polito, Brad Sullivan, Ann Dowd
screenplay by John Jordan & Danny Byers and Tom Swerdlow & Michael Goldberg
directed by Greg Beeman

by Walter Chaw The Yang to the distaff Yin of Troop Beverly Hills, Bushwhacked, Greg Beeman's endlessly irritating slapstick take on High Sierra, finds the bird-faced actor Daniel Stern doing his best to milk the hysterical simpleton shtick of his hapless Home Alone villain. Nicknaming Stern's character "Spider" for no real reason but to, eight years after its release and just now finding its way to DVD, connect it in a disturbing way to David Cronenberg's thirteenth film by way of arrested Freudian developmental phases and fixations on body function, Bushwhacked, as it happens, is also about as funny as Spider--not a particularly shining endorsement of something that's ostensibly a comedy.

Roger Dodger (2002) - DVD

***½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras A
starring Campbell Scott, Jesse Eisenberg, Mina Badie, Jennifer Beals
written and directed by Dylan Kidd

by Bill Chambers There's a clever moment in Roger Dodger destined to slip past viewers that underscores the precision with which the film was conceptualized. Roger (Campbell Scott), the lady-killer whose nickname (which he shares with the stooge in Sidney Lumet's Q&A) lends the picture its title, walks up to one of the glass walls of a meeting room inside his workplace to communicate with two colleagues on the other side--one of whom sticks the word "incubator" to his own forehead just as the scene cuts. Coming on the heels of a prologue in which Roger has demonstrated his persuasive albeit highly misogynistic grasp of sexual politics to his dazzled peers, this tableau is the movie in a nutshell: With a man of such confidence around, all others are hatchlings hanging on his tutelage. The film is subsequently about Roger passing a certain torch to his visiting 16-year-old nephew, Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), and Nick fighting his moral instinct to extinguish it, as when he practices Roger's art of seduction on a couple of bar-hopping older women played by the pitch-perfect duo of Elizabeth Berkley and Jennifer Beals.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) [VISTA Series] - DVD

***½/**** Image A Sound B Extras A+
starring Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Joanna Cassidy, Charles Fleischer
screenplay by Peter S. Seaman & Jeffrey Price, based on the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit by Gary K. Wolf
directed by Robert Zemeckis

by Bill Chambers Who Framed Roger Rabbit opens with an animated short ("Somethin's Cookin'") starring Roger Rabbit (voice of Charles Fleischer) and Baby Herman (Lou Hirsch) in which Roger, sitting for the lady of the house, is thwarted in his attempts to keep his young charge from climbing the refrigerator. You'd hardly know it, but we're seeing these characters for the first time--and the ineffable period authenticity of "Somethin's Cookin'," a cartoon commissioned specifically for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, betrays the scrupulous eye of director Robert Zemeckis almost immediately. Animated by the legendary Richard Williams, "Somethin's Cookin'" is fashioned in Tex Avery's mix of elegance and elasticity; later, when Bugs Bunny makes an appearance in the movie proper, he still has the slopey head of yore. (Warner actually insisted on the modern versions of Looney Tunes appearing in the film, so Zemeckis had dummy footage mocked up to get their approval that he had no intention of using in the finished product.) The prologue ends prematurely when Roger sees bluebirds instead of stars--in the picture, cartoons are shot on soundstages: Roger Rabbit exists for real, as do Mickey Mouse, Bugs, et. al, and they hail from a Hollywood subdivision called Toontown. They are invincible, but they are also actors who bring their personal lives to work, so sometimes they just can't generate stars on command.

Secretary (2002) - DVD

***/**** Image B- Sound B- Extras C
starring James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeremy Davies, Patrick Bauchau
screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson, based on the short story by Mary Gaitskill
directed by Steven Shainberg

by Walter Chaw Pleasantville for the sadomasochism set, Steven Shainberg's Secretary is a gentle sexual-awakening fable set in a peculiar fairytale hyper-reality reminiscent of the saturated inward-gazing milieu of David Cronenberg's Spider. Featuring a courageous, social-convention-shattering performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal, the picture is The Graduate by way of humiliation and water sports--the hallmark pool scenes feature Gyllenhaal's Benjamin Braddock character Lee Holloway festooned with water-wings, her position just on the surface the mordant reflexivity of Sunset Blvd.'s doomed Joe Gillis rather than of Braddock's bottom-of-the-drink disconnection. Between Secretary and the Jake Gyllenhaal starrer Moonlight Mile, the Gyllenhaal siblings seem intent on tackling their generation's particular alienations by way of Mike Nichols's counterculture classic, but where Jake takes a conventional route in Moonlight Mile, Maggie's exploration of plastics-vs.-individualized happiness embraces the essential shadows of our nasty sexual ids in a Solondz-lite waltz with seething suburbia.

Agent Cody Banks (2003)

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

VIEW IN iTUNES - USA|CANADA

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

City of God (2002)

Cidade de Deus
**/****
starring Matheus Nachtergaele, Seu Jorge, Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino da Hora
screenplay by Bráulio Mantovani, based on the novel by Paulo Lins
directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund

by Walter Chaw I'm uncomfortable with Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund's City of God--not for its brutality, but for the slick cinematic treatment of that brutality as it manifests itself through the harsh realities of Brazil's favelas ("slums"). Social Darwinist and serio-mythic in equal queasy measure, the picture is more influenced by Tarantino than Meirelles's background in commercial and video filmmaking, finding itself trying to balance its sizzle with social conscience before choosing in the end to remove itself as a strict adaptation of Paulo Lins's book Cidade de Deus. That being said, Meirelles does a magnificent job of parceling out--of marketing--the key touchstones in the history of a slum seething with violence. The result is a film that suggests what it might be like if Guy Ritchie helmed The Pianist--kinetically intriguing and technically proficient, but deeply troubling for its pop sensibility.

Ghost Ship (2002) - DVD

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

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

Le6ion of the Dead (2001) - DVD

Legion of the Dead
½*/**** Image B Sound B+ Extras B
starring Michael Carr, Russell Friedenberg, Kimberly Liebe, Matthias Hues
written and directed by Olaf Ittenbach

by Walter Chaw Sort of like how I imagine Samuel Beckett would read while huffing accelerant, Olaf Ittenbach's Le6ion of the Dead rips off a couple of Tarantino screenplays en route to winning the title of the most arbitrary and impossible-to-follow film that isn't composed primarily of stock footage. Though the director has tried to have his name removed from the picture, citing unapproved edits made in the struggle for an "R" rating, unless the studio wrote the screenplay, pointed the camera, and hired the actors...sufficed to say that there's enough blame here to go around.

Moonlight Mile (2002) - DVD

**½/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras A-
starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon, Holly Hunter
written and directed by Brad Silberling

by Walter Chaw There is a delicacy to the dusk of the early-Seventies, poised as those years were on the lip of paranoia and disquiet as the psychic scars of the Sixties assassinations, Watergate, and Vietnam worked like rough puberty on an infant nation's whored naiveté. Capturing that space in the disintegration of individuals, traditions, hopes, faiths, is something best left in the hands of casualties of war (Tim O'Brien) and outsider perspectives (Ang Lee and his The Ice Storm). That Brad Silberling, writer-director of Moonlight Mile, appears to be making the death-by-stalker of his actress fiancé Rebecca Schaeffer the metaphor for that twilight time is cause for some concern.

Inspector Gadget 2 (2003) - DVD

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras B-
starring French Stewart, Elaine Hendrix, Caitlin Wachs
sceenplay by Ron Anderson and William Robertson & Alex Zamm
directed by Alex Zamm

by Bill Chambers Edited with the cuisinart clarity of a car commercial, designed with a balloon-animal colour palette similar to that of last year's psychedelic Thomas in Love, Inspector Gadget 2 (henceforth IG2--incidentally, the on-screen logo reads Inspector 2 Gadget) has style in theory, like Avril Lavigne, but is monotonous and exasperating--also like Avril Lavigne. I haven't seen the original film, but I did watch the cartoon every morning before school as a kid (we used to sing our own version of the theme song in the playground: "Doo doo doo doo do, Inspector Goo-head"--ah, those halcyon days), so I recognize certain touchstones the sequel, um, touches: faceless supervillain with the pussycat emblem Dr. Claw (who, robbed of his synthetic speech in addition to his lap kitty, looks and acts like Truman Capote in IG2); Inspector Gadget's niece, Penny (Caitlin Wachs), and her dog Brain (in IG2, a beagle without the flexibility of his animated counterpart), both fledgling detectives; and the always-fuming Chief Quimby (Mark Mitchell), who does not pop out of mailboxes and such things here to deliver messages to Gadget that self-destruct. More disappointingly, he does not have a moustache.

David Cronenberg Re-examines David Cronenberg: A Retrospective Interview

FILM FREAK CENTRAL takes a look at David Cronenberg's body of work--with a little help from the master himself

March 9, 2003 | Offered the opportunity to visit with David Cronenberg a second time recently, I sat down with the legendary director the morning after moderating a post-screening Q&A with him at Denver's Landmark Mayan Theater (where a sell-out crowd of over 450 was enthusiastically in attendance for a sneak of Spider) to discuss his work from student films Stereo and Crimes of the Future all the way through to what is arguably his best--certainly his most mature--film, the oft-delayed Spider. Dressed in casual cool as is the director's habit, Mr. Cronenberg exudes supreme confidence; gracious in the extreme and unfailingly polite, not given to displays of false modesty or overly interested in compliments, his speech is pleasant and carefully modulated--a sort of intellectual detachment that has marked even his earliest, "tax shelter" work. It seemed clear to me that Mr. Cronenberg was not generally accustomed to talking of his earlier work on the junket circuit. Speaking only for myself, it was a wonderful break from the usual stump.-Walter Chaw

Irreversible (2002)

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

"You know what? Time destroys all things."

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

Poolhall Junkies (2003)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bloody Murder II: Closing Camp (2003) - DVD

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

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

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) + Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) - DVDs|[Special Collector's Edition] - DVDs

STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK
***/****
DVD - Image A Sound A
SCE DVD - Image A Sound A Extras B+
starring William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei
screenplay by Harve Bennett
directed by Leonard Nimoy

STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME
**/****
DVD - Image B- Sound B Extras C
SCE DVD - Image A Sound A Extras B+
starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan
screenplay by Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes, Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer
directed by Leonard Nimoy

by Vincent Suarez I've always had a love/hate relationship with the middle installments of the six Star Trek films featuring Captain James T. Kirk and his crew; I would have been content had the series ended with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, which is not only a great Trek movie but also an extremely fine piece of filmmaking in itself. (The seventh film in the series, Star Trek: Generations, passed the phasers to Captain Picard of "The Next Generation", and included only brief appearances by a select few under Kirk's command.) For me, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock seemed to betray the spirit, morality, and philosophy of its predecessor, while Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home represented the low point in cinematic "Trek," reducing the series to formulaic farce.

Labyrinth (1986) [Superbit] - DVD

*½/**** Image A- Sound B+
starring David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly
screenplay by Terry Jones
directed by Jim Henson

by Walter Chaw As riffs on Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz go, Jim Henson's Labyrinth is a painfully dated, shockingly un-magical romp through a fragmented netherworld populated by Ziggy Stardust and a horde of little people wearing giant papier-mâché heads. Following a wish by bratty Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) that her bratty kid brother be spirited away by the Goblin King (David Bowie) and Sarah's inevitable lapse into unconsciousness and journey into the titular, Escher-inspired labyrinth, the picture unfolds at a laboured clip marked not so much by a sense of wonder, but rather a feeling of confused disinterest. While the film is a nostalgic hallmark for many (and so is Pete's Dragon, it occurs), cinematically and artistically, better to revisit Henson's flawed but alive The Dark Crystal.

Asunder (1998) - DVD

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

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

Love Notes: FFC Interviews Todd Louiso and Philip Seymour Hoffman

his role as one of John Cusack's sidekicks in High Fidelity (star-struck employees hovered around us, hoping for a word), I was more excited to talk to him about his vocal cameo in the late, lamented series "The Critic", as well as, of course, his first foray into directing with the remarkable Love Liza. Clad in the epitome of unassuming casual, Mr. Louiso seemed surprised that I had a complete filmography for him and embarrassed that I wanted to talk about his career in some detail--reactions both that speak to not only the investment that most of my peers take in researching their topic, but to a certain quality of Mr. Louiso: an unforced modesty that charms. Over the course of our interview, we talked about all manner of things and particularly, fascinatingly, of his passages over water.

Six Feet Under: The Complete First Season (2001) - DVD

Image A Sound A Extras B+
"Pilot," "The Will," "The Foot," "Familia," "An Open Book," "The Room," "Brotherhood," "Crossroads," "Life's Too Short," "The New Person," "The Trip," "A Private Life," "Knock, Knock"

by Bill Chambers Like you, I was enthralled by American Beauty, but its resonance proved short-lived. The spell was broken for me when my friend innocently observed after a screening that men only masturbate in the shower in movies--the whole film mentally unravelled from there, that hanging thread, as I became cognizant of, and progressively bothered by, its oversimplifications. Is it just my imagination, or would Mr. Furley spin in his syndicated grave over the misinterpretation that informs the picture's climax? Though the culturally young are entitled to find American Beauty profound, since it's of that particular kind of Hollywood caginess that takes a trained eye (and is especially cheeky coming from an enfant terrible of the British stage), more people need(ed) to recognize that it's Blame It On Rio with proscenium arches.