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Posted on 01.23.10 by Charlie @ 5:59 am
 Splice After Splice finished its North American premiere at the famous Egyptian Theater in Park City tonight, director Vincenzo Natali (best known for his sci-fi hit Cube) was on hand for a Q&A along with stars Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley. The first question went something like “That’s the most f—–d up movie I’ve ever seen, and I mean that in a good way”. The 2nd and 3rd questions were pretty much the same, leading to theater-wide cheers. So, clearly Splice had won over the audience, but then again, it was the first “midnight movie” slot of the festival, and at that time of night audiences tend not to be too picky. As I walked home I debated how less festive audiences might respond. On the one hand I shared the audience’s general enthusiasm, but as I was watching the film I also found myself resisting certain parts as overly ridiculous. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Contributors: Charlie and Rating: Good ★★★ and Movie Reviews: Canada and Film Festivals: Sundance 2010 Comments: 3 Comments |
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Posted on 11.25.09 by Charlie @ 12:20 pm
 The Road Like the current arthouse favorite Precious, The Road is a film that you should see in spite of its being a heavy, depressing story. I know the film has been getting mixed reviews, but if you buy into the underlying philosophical questions, as I do, I think you’ll find the film leaves you with a lot to think about — the ending is especially intriguing. If nothing else, The Road offers great acting, impressively bleak, post-apocalyptic sets (presumably all filmed on location in Detroit), and as a bonus, film buffs should have great fun simply trying to categorize the film, as it brushes up against genres ranging from serious dramas to post-apocalyptic and zombie flicks. As is appropriate for a story taken from a Cormac McCarthy novel (who also wrote No Country For Old Men), the premise of The Road is wonderfully stark: we don’t know why it’s a post-apocalyptic setting, and nobody in the film tries to explain it. As with Night of the Living Dead, it turns out that simply asserting the situation is far more powerful than any explanation would be. Everything in the world is dying; deal with it. More specifically, virtually all animal and plant life is long dead by the time the film begins. People have only fared slightly better, and most of the few that are still alive have devolved into pure hedonistic barbarians (not entirely unlike the villains in Serenity). Kill, eat, rape, sleep, repeat. It’s pretty grim, and more importantly, it’s not clear that there’s a place in this new world for our stars, a father and son played admirably by Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Without animals or plants to feed on, our stars are reduced to scavenging for whatever scraps remain from the former, civilized world. As they roam, they live in perpetual fear of all other people, most of whom appear to depend on cannibalism to survive and, we soon come to see first hand, would kill them in a second if given the chance. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Rating: Good ★★★ Comments: None |
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Posted on 11.13.09 by Charlie @ 6:29 pm
 Good Hair There is something ironic, maybe even a little disturbing, about last night’s screening of Good Hair, which kicked off Livia Bloom’s new documentary series “Documentaries in Bloom” at the Maysles Institute in Harlem. As I discuss below, the film itself is excellent and stands out as one of this year’s must-see films. But as the latest in a seemingly endless series of documentaries that ends with a competition, Good Hair also exacerbates an alarming trend, which goes something like this: it’s not enough to document a compelling subject, these days you need something a little more entertaining — a twist ending, a Hollywood “arc” or, the recent overwhelming favorite, the inherent suspense of a competition. As I sat in the Maysles Institute last night, I couldn’t help but think that if this is the new model for documentaries, some of our most celebrated documentary filmmakers wouldn’t cut it today, perhaps not even the Maysles brothers themselves. How would their classic Salesman (1968) be received today? Can you imagine it recast to end in a competition among the salesman, as we all sat on the edge of our seats waiting to the end to see who would win? That may sound silly, but if you sit back for a moment and think about recent breakout documentaries, the pattern is stunning: Spellbound (spelling bee competition), Wordplay (crossword competition), Air Guitar Nation (air guitar competition), King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters (king kong video game competition), Murderball (paralympic rugby competition) and Pulling John (arm-wrestling competition) to name a few. Now admittedly, they’re all wonderful, enjoyable films, but what makes Good Hair such a bizarre addition to this club is that at least these earlier documentaries are documenting something that’s inherently competitive. After all, it’s hard to fault Spellbound for being structured around a spelling bee. But with the surge of competition films that followed it’s also clearly a game of copycat, a gimmick that film producers can bank on as a “tried and true” pattern to ensure success. And it’s far more alarming to see this gimmick extended to Good Hair, a film whose premise has virtually nothing to do with the competition that anchors it. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Rating: Good ★★★ Comments: 2 Comments |
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Posted on 07.07.09 by David @ 8:49 am
 AKA: Pintu Terlarang Review By: David Austin  On the basis of this year’s Forbidden Door and last year’s Kala, Joko Anwar is one of the most fascinating new talents working in genre cinema. His work is a far cry from the extremely fun but trashy Indonesian films of the 1980s, like The Warrior or Mystics in Bali, and he deserves a far wider audience. It is a shame that the lack of exposure of Indonesian cinema has resulted in his almost total obscurity outside of his own region. Anwar achieved success in Indonesia with a couple of well-received social comedies, but turned 90 degrees with 2007’s Kala, a paranoid modern noir with its feet set firmly in the world of supernatural. Influenced as much by J-horror as by Roman Polanski thrillers like Chinatown and The Ninth Gate, Kala is a masterpiece of apocalyptic atmosphere and one of the rare films of the last few years to send a genuine chill down my spine. Kala features all the noir hallmarks – femme fatales, hardboiled detectives, corruption, and a mystery plot that spirals into terror - as well as uniformly excellent performances. Were it not for an ill-advised and poorly-executed turn into Night Watch-style fantasy mythology in the last act, which, unfortunately, tarnishes the entire experience, I would say that Kala is one of the best films of the decade. Forbidden Door does not quite reach the heights of Kala, but nor does it sink to its lows. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Contributors: David and Rating: Good ★★★ and Movie Reviews: Indonesia and Film Festivals: New York Asian Film Festival 2009 Comments: None |
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Posted on 06.18.09 by David @ 9:35 am
AKA: Tau ming chong Review By: David Austin WARLORDS PLAYS AT THE IFC CENTER ON JUNE 19 AT 6:30 PM AND ON JUNE 23 AT 7:15 PM. SEE THE FULL SCHEDULE HERE  Warlords is an interesting example of how the same tale can be filmed very differently. The true story that forms the basis for the film – the rise of an ambitious Chinese general during the Taiping Rebellion of the late 1800s and his eventual assassination – was previously told by legendary martial arts director Chang Cheh in Blood Brothers, one of his absolute best movies. Peter Chan’s 2007 remake follows the same outlines, but makes significant changes while taking advantage of a far larger budget and a far grander scale. However, though the artistry of the recent film is far superior, and though Warlords has aspirations to be a manly tearjerker of the highest quality, Blood Brothers remains the more emotionally resonant and successful film. While filming Blood Brothers, Chang was at the top of his game and recorded some of the best performances of his career – Warlords, on the other hand, hits all the expected notes and hits them well, but never quite catches fire. Filed under: General and Movie Reviews and Contributors: David and Rating: Good ★★★ and People: Andy Lau and People: Jet Li and People: Takeshi Kaneshiro and People: Peter Chan and Movie Reviews: China and Film Festivals: New York Asian Film Festival 2009 Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.23.09 by David @ 8:58 am
AKA: Låt den rätte komma in Review By: David Austin  I have been looking forward to this one for a while, ever since the buzz began to grow. A horror movie out of Sweden, particularly a good one, is not exactly an everyday event. Sweden’s international cinematic reputation has long rested on the twin legs of art cinema and exotica, but little else. Certainly, the Swedes are well known in the field of exploitation films, deriving from the country’s reputation (true or false) for sexual permissiveness and leggy blondes, with a long history ranging from the hybrid arthouse/sex “I Am Curious” series to Thriller: A Cruel Picture, but other genres have always come up short, especially next to the prolific Italians or even their Danish neighbors. Before watching Let the Right One In, I found myself shamefully unable to name even one other Swedish horror movie (not counting The Virgin Spring, which is not really horror). I am glad to say that Sweden has finally remedied this shameful situation, and in the best possible way. Let the Right One In, based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist (who adapted his own work for the screen) is the story of a lonely, picked-on, 12-year-old boy, Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) who befriends Eli (Lina Leandersson), the new girl in town, who just happens to be a murderous, bloodsucking vampire. It is an interesting approach to an over familiar subgenre. I find that children often make for interesting protagonists in horror films. Their reactions to the supernatural are less extreme and more accepting than their adult counterparts; their worldview has not yet cemented to the point where the supernatural is automatically a source of horror or a worldview-shaking philosophical cataclysm. As in Guillermo del Toro’s masterpieces, The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, Oskar is capable of a different response than his parents and neighbors – it may not be the best response but it is infinitely more fascinating. Filed under: General and Movie Reviews and DVD Reviews and Contributors: David and Rating: Good ★★★ and Movie Reviews: Sweden and DVD Companies: Magnolia and DVD Reviews: Sweden Comments: 3 Comments |
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Posted on 03.04.09 by David @ 9:54 am
AKA: Dung che sai duk redux; The Heretic East and the Venomous West Review By: David Austin [Confession time: I’ve never seen the original version of Ashes of Time – I gave up following a failed attempt years ago to watch a DVD of it that easily ranks among the most appallingly discs ever created. Consequently, I cannot speak to the differences between the two versions.] Ashes of Time is an almost purely sensual experience. The film is about colors, and light, and the eyes, faces and skin of some of the most beautiful (and most talented) actors and actresses that Hong Kong has to offer. The soul of the film lies neither in its plot or its dialogue, but rather in the deep textured oranges and blues and greens with which Wong and famed cinematographer Chris Doyle lens the deserts of western China. Wong constantly cuts away from the story to focus on the landscape, making it as essential a character as any of the protagonists. Surprisingly few films truly capture the physical majesty of China. I once took an 18 hour train ride through China and was stunned by the immensity and variety of the landscapes outside the cramped urban centers. Wong and Doyle capture this feeling of vastness. This is not to suggest that the human players are short-changed. Wong pays as much attention to how he shoots the cast as he does to the backdrop. Consider the artistry of a lengthy shot of Brigitte Lin standing before a slowly rotating birdcage, the shadows flickering across her face. We are clearly in the hands of the same sensualist who years later would helm In the Mood for Love, with its restrained fetishizing of smoke and rain and gorgeous cheongsam dresses. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Hong Kong and DVD Reviews and DVD Reviews: Hong Kong and Rating: Good ★★★ and People: Wong Kar-wai and People: Brigitte Lin and People: Maggie Cheung and People: Tony Leung Chiu-wai and People: Tony Leung Ka-Fai and People: Leslie Cheung Comments: None |
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Posted on 12.01.08 by David @ 10:37 am
AKA: Los Cronocrimenes Review By: David Austin [Timecrimes opens in limited release in the United States on December 12, 2008]  A man, Hector (Karra Elejalde), relaxes on the lawn of his wooded property. Through binoculars, he sees a girl undressing in the forest. He goes to look for her and is attacked by another man. Seeking refuge in a nearby laboratory, he is sent back in time several hours. Now in his own near past, he encounters the girl, but she is not in the forest where he saw her before. If she does not go to the woods, how will he end up looking for her and go back in time, ending up in his present position. What should he do? What must he do? In this manner, director Nacho Vigalondo has crafted a unique horrific cinematic vision. Timecrimes has no villain, no intentional wrongdoing, just a growing sense of dread as the characters become enmeshed in the remorseless gears of their predicament. In that sense it reminded me of David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly – the horror is in the inevitability of the bad end, not simply in the “monster.” It is this that makes Timecrimes, as with The Fly before it, a tragedy as much as a horror or a science-fiction film. Filed under: Movie Reviews and DVD Reviews and Rating: Good ★★★ and Movie Reviews: Spain and DVD Reviews: Spain Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 09.09.08 by Jeff @ 6:15 am
 Dororo
As one can tell from the above plot description, Dororo is one loopy movie, albeit one told with a completely straight face. To wit: the organless infant protagonist resembles Dr. Bunsen Honeydew from The Muppet Show. Moreover, many of the demons are also fabulously, imaginatively rendered, in a style that is reminscent of the Yokai Monsters, but updated to reflect the capabilities in scale and fluidity of movement that are offered by CGI. The scenes in which our hero fights the demons are quite thrilling. Although I don’t generally enjoy CGI-heavy action scenes, the fights in Dororo are expertly choreographed by Tony Ching Siu Tung (of A Chinese Ghost Story fame). In a touch obviously inspired by Kill Bill, many of the action scenes are set to music that is alternately reminiscent of the Gipsy Kings and Ennio Morricone. The final confrontation between father and son is also quite rousing and satisfying. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Hong Kong and Movie Reviews: Japan and Rating: Good ★★★ and Rating: Great ★★★★ and People: Johnnie To and People: Simon Yam and Contributors: Jeff and Film Festivals: New York Asian Film Festival 2008 Comments: 1 Comment |
Dororo features everything one could reasonably hope to find in an action blockbuster: action, suspense, an engaging plot, and mind-bending weirdness. Although I did not take notes during the screening of the film, my recollection of the plot (much of which is told in flashback) is as follows: A warrior seeks to become the dominant ruler of Japan by striking a deal with the dozens of demons who occupy a temple. In exchange for the warrior’s infant son, the demons will grant the warrior military victory. Each of the demons removes a different internal or external organ from the infant, whose mother then sends him in a basket down the river, much like Moses in ancient Egypt. A magical hermit rescues the infant, and grows replacement organs for him. The infant grows up to be a warrior himself (now played by Satoshi Tsumabuki), who is charged with the mission of slaying each of the demons who has stolen his organs, and accompanied by a scrappy female pickpocket who also lacks a name (played by Kou Shibasaki). Every time a demon is defeated, our protagonist recovers one of his original organs, and comes closer to reaching the inevitable confrontation with his evil father. (It gives nothing away to acknowlege this event, which is telegraphed from the beginning of the film.)|
Posted on 07.02.08 by David @ 9:22 am
AKA: Tenten Review By: David Austin ADRIFT IN TOKYO PLAYS AT THE JAPAN SOCIETY THURSDAY, JULY 3RD AT 4:20 PM Adrift in Tokyo has the kind of low-key, effortless charm that most movies sweat for. It is a perfect example of what have been called “hanging out” movies – movies where the pleasure is less about plot or story and more about spending time watching an entertaining group of characters interact. Here, at the end of Adrift in Tokyo, I could not help but be disappointed that my time in Miki Satoshi’s fascinating little microcosm of a world was done.  The premise, and it is really more of a premise than a plot, is that yakuza/debt collector/jack-of-all-trades Fukuhara (Tomokazu Miura) offers a deal to slacker college student Takemura (Jo Odagiri, truly a chameleon of an actor) – walk with Fukuhara for as long as Fukuhara chooses, and at the end of their peregrinations, Fukuhara will forgive Takemura’s debt and even pay him something extra. The walk is set to end at Kasumigaseki (the administrative and government center of Tokyo) where Fukuhara intends to turn himself in for a crime, but how long it will take to get there, and what detours they will take along the way, is up to Fukuhara. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Japan and Rating: Good ★★★ and Film Festivals: New York Asian Film Festival 2008 and Film Festivals: Japan Cuts 2008 Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 05.21.08 by Charlie @ 9:48 pm
 Los Bastardos aka The Bastards Rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars (very good)  Los Bastardos really is lovably obnoxious. Intentionally discordant and uncomfortable, even the opening scene comes off as a shot across the bow — literally for several minutes we watch as two men (who will be the stars of the film) start hundreds of feet away as little dots, and slowly walk towards us down a long stretch of abandoned cement in near silence. At first you can’t even see the two guys. It is an astoundingly dull way to start a movie. Most films try to hook the audience in the first few minutes, but Los Bastardos goes to considerable effort to send a different message: “we’re going to do this our way — deal with it”. That’s a lot to ask of Cannes audiences, many of whom are watching films, taking meetings, and pitching their hearts out from 8:00 am to well past midnight each night. I, for one, had been up for about 30 hours when Los Bastardos began, and my only hope of making it through the film was that the beginning would wake me up. I could hardly believe my eyes as minute after minute passed (in near silence) and still nothing was happening — the camera hadn‘t moved an inch, nothing was moving in the background, absolute nothing. This struck me as so obnoxious, I was actually intrigued. How in the world would the film recover from this atrociously boring opening? When the shot finally ends, a very loud, single, unpleasant metallic CLANG rings out, like a foghorn blast or someone banging a giant pan in your ear to wake you up now that the director had just lulled us to sleep. Each of us in the audience was now the persecutee in a Looney Tunes cartoon. The joke’s on me, but I have to admit, that’s actually kind of cool. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Rating: Good ★★★ and Film Festivals: Cannes and Movie Reviews: Spain and Movie Reviews: Mexico Comments: 3 Comments |
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Posted on 05.20.08 by Charlie @ 9:15 pm
The Chaser Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good)  South Korean thriller The Chaser is fascinatingly ambiguous. The lead is Jung Ho, a former detective played by Yoon-Suk Kim, who over the years has given in to cynicism, trading in his badge for a higher-paying living as a low-life pimp, though it has clearly not made him a happy man, or rich for that matter. In fact he’s broke, in part because he put large down payments on several new prostitutes who disappeared before they’d cleared their (and his) debts. He had assumed they’d simply run off. But, as the film starts, another girl has gone missing, Mi-Jin, and now he’s having second thoughts because he realizes that all of the missing girls were contacted by someone at the same telephone number. This sets the star scrambling to find out what’s happened, and I can tell you right now the results are going to be violent and bleak. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: South Korea and Contributors: Charlie and Rating: Good ★★★ and Film Festivals: Cannes Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 05.19.08 by Charlie @ 10:53 pm
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good)  I’m happy to report it doesn’t suck. And since this movie is as critic-proof as they come, that’s all you really need to know. But on the off-chance you do want to know more, I’ve written a full review below (taking great pains not to give away any even remotely important plot points, by the way). Interestingly, in the lead-up to the premiere, there was some speculation that premiering here at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival was risky. The fear was that cranky, overworked and under-slept Cannes attendees have dumped on mainstream Hollywood fare in the past and would do so again. But, luckily for Spielberg and co., the fears do not appear to have been justified. I caught today’s day-after screening (it premiered yesterday) and the audience reacted very well, with spontaneous applause when the credits began to roll and lots of chatter as everyone was leaving about how they liked it. As for the movie itself, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is non-stop action and fits in nicely with the original trilogy. Keep in mind that the story was co-written by George Lucas, so — in a post-Jar-Jar-Binks world — the fact that the film surpasses expectations is a pleasant surprise. (Click Here To Read More…) Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Rating: Good ★★★ and Film Festivals: Cannes Comments: 6 Comments |
Posted on 05.18.08 by Charlie @ 12:04 pm
 The Guatemalan Handshake Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good) Think of The Guatemalan Handshake as a love letter to memories of growing up in small town, USA. The film, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Slamdance Film Festival, has only just been made available on DVD from Benten Films (more on the label later). The Guatemalan Handshake is loosely centered around Will Oldham’s character, Donald Turnupseed — or rather his disappearance, and as fair warning, it is not structured around a traditional narrative structure of any kind. Rather, it is a collection of moments that come together like a collage to paint a loving picture of small town life, warts and all. For those with the patience for atypical narratives, this one’s a real treat. Filed under: General and Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and DVD Reviews and DVD Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Rating: Good ★★★ and DVD Companies: Benten Films Comments: None |
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Posted on 05.05.08 by Jeff @ 3:54 pm
Country and Year: Indonesia (1979)  In recent years, the Mondo Macabro DVD label has provided Western viewers with easy access to the colorful world of Indonesian exploitation cinema. Highlights have included the delirious Virgins from Hell (which splits the difference between Russ Meyer’s early work and a Cannon action movie) and Mystics in Bali, one of the most notorious films in the East Asian “black magic” genre. Mondo Macabro has now added another “black magic” film, Queen of Black Magic, to its collection. Just like Mystics in Bali and many other “black magic” films, Queen of Black Magic tells the story of an innocent who falls under the influence of an evil sorcerer and is exposed to the weird world of magical rituals, floating heads, blood, snakes, maggots, and other gross stuff. However, QoBM is a much more polished piece of filmmaking than Mystics in Bali. While Mystics in Bali is basically a series of bizarre special effects sequences connected by only the loosest of narratives, Queen of Black Magic is a flat-out melodrama. Fans of Mystics in Bali should have no fear, however, as QoBM definitely delivers the goods, particularly in the final third of the film, which features all of the exploding people, flying body parts and sorcery duels that fans of the “black magic” genre have come to know and love. Filed under: General and Movie Reviews and Rating: Good ★★★ and DVD Companies: Mondo Macabro and Movie Reviews: Indonesia and Contributors: Jeff and DVD Reviews: Indonesia Comments: 2 Comments |
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