In America

Jim Sheridan, UK / Ireland, 2002
3 out of 4 stars

Maybe it's just because I went a while without watching any movies, but lately, I've been having a lot of trouble evaluating the films I've been seeing. This in particular is a strange animal, in that it constantly threatens gloom and doom but veers away from it towards something else, as the bad events are mostly in the past, gradually developed through furtive references.

In fact, it's had to get a handle on the rhythm of this story, in which an Irish family illegally immigrates into Manhattan. It seems to be some kind of memoir which may explain why the story doesn't unravel in a very "clean" manner, but there are nonetheless some pretty obvious cinematic conventions going on here, the most glaring of which is the Magical Black Man (a la The Green Mile et al), played here by Djimon Hounsou. Dismissing his plotline in such a way may seem harsh, but it's pretty accurate.

And yet... it is a crime for a story not to go the way you expect it to? This does seem like a fairly insightful character study, and the acting is good, especially from the children, believe it or not (although they do sorta look a bit too clean and happy, too much like they are about to go home to their suburban homes right after the scene wraps, which of course they are, I imagine). I can't really tell if the filmmakers are subverting expectations or just confused or deceitful about the story they want to tell, and I suspect I'm being too hard on a good film... so consider this somewhere in between 2.5 and 3 stars.

Source: Fox DVD
27 March, 8:35 PM

Primer

Shane Carruth, USA, 2004
2.5 out of 4 stars

Who's up for some indie, low budget realist scifi adventure? Okay, perhaps "adventure" might not be the right word for a rather low key film about a couple of tech workers who try to invent things in their garage until one day, they stumble upon a reality-bending device. I might well be being too easy on this one, simply because it was so difficult to understand what was happening that I ultimately decided that I shouldn't hold my lack of comprehension against it. It seems clever and sort of dark, but it also seems a bit like the Sundance version of any number of Star Trek episodes I could name. Like another film I've seen recently, it's also 77 minutes, and it seems pretty clear that it's not any longer than the filmmaker could afford to make. I think that it's somewhat possible that some of the missing pieces of information here are actually a result of running out of money, and instead are made into a virtue by creating a "mindbender," but maybe it really is just difficult to understand. I usually try to avoid reading any websites about a film until after I've written these, but in this case, I'm looking at some stuff that explains how this is all about science and how really no one gets it after the first viewing. I guess I am not much of a science guy or a repeat-viewing guy, so I am willing to consider that it might be a masterpiece after watching it 50 times, but there are other films to watch, after all.

Source: Warner DVD
25 March, 7:53 PM

The Science of Sleep

(La science des rêves)
Michel Gondry, France / Italy, 2006
3 out of 4 stars

The stock critical narrative regarding this film is that Michel Gondry's visuals are still entrancing, but without the help of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, with whom he collaborated on with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the visuals are just adrift and things are just meaningless, too indulgent. The trouble with reading reviews and criticism is that, if you don't have a strong feeling of your own about a film, it's fairly easy to go along with the established critical narrative, and in this case, I suppose I agree, but I would go so far as to agree with those who see this as a "bad" film.

It is quite amazing but nowhere near as amazing as his "other" film, because it is so directionless. The characers are just as "charming" but their relationship is very over-familiar, only dressed up with mass amounts of quirkiness. Luckily the quirk is quite engaging and all, so it's not just a rote film, but yeah, a story would help, I am afraid.

Source: Warner DVD
24 March, 8:05 PM

The Motel

Michael Kang, USA, 2005
2 out of 4 stars

This Asian American coming of age story is a bit unusual, but largely ordinary, in the way that many low-budget, self-consciously "indie" films strive to be. I usually don't mind it when a film is short, but this one seems to be only 77 minutes because the filmmakers simply don't have anything else to say. Everything seems to follow a pattern and the acting is a bit off, perhaps because the emotions are overly muted. I understand the value of understatement, but this is a film that wants to make some kind of statement, so it's a bit problematic in this case. It's a valiant effort, but just not that good.

Source: UMVD DVD
23 March, 9:28 PM

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles

(Qian li zou dan qi)
Zhang Yimou, China / Hong Kong / Japan, 2005
4 out of 4 stars

An elderly Japanese man is trying to bridge an unexplainable gap that has developed between him and his son, when his daughter-in-law gives him a tape of that son’s trip to China to film a folk opera. Inspired by a promise the son makes to film a different piece next year, the old man travels to Yunnan province to do it himself, hoping that this gesture will mean something to his son.

Yes, in between the interesting but flawed House of Flying Daggers and the positively infuriating Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang Yimou actually made another “human” film hearkening back to his old days, but the introduction of the Japanese element makes this a different film, as we now have Ken Takakura, apparently a major film star, acting alongside the local non-actors that Zhang had become accustomed to using before he switched to wuxia. And of course, Takakura’s character and the Chinese villagers he meets don’t understand each other and interpreting services are not always easy to come by.

Simply put, this is one of the best quest-driven films I’ve seen in a while, and although I’ve liked Zhang’s earlier films, I think I liked this one even more because it has those quiet, reflective moments but uses them in service of a surprisingly-compelling story (whereas that description above might have given away the entire plot of some of his films, there are plenty more twists and turns in this one). The theme of communication, or lack thereof, is very successfully developed throughout; this man can’t talk to his son, he can’t talk to the Chinese, but somehow these folks find a way, more or less. It’s all very moving and surprisingly funny at times. I strongly recommend checking this out.

Source: Sony DVD
22 March, 12:02 PM

Zodiac

David Fincher, USA, 2007
3.5 out of 4 stars

Sometimes it helps to read the press. In my case, I probably would have avoided the film if I had been under the false impression that this film addresses the serial killer subject by engaging in some kind of creep-out gore-fest (whereas my friends, and the teenagers apparently being kept out be a heightened alter of ID checking, were indeed expecting such a thing apparently). And of course, Fincher does have a certain reputation thanks to Seven. But no, what we have here, and what I was prepared and made interested in for thanks to various pieces I read and heard, is a very talky procedural concerned with the role of the media in society, the nature of obsession, and other things that I find more interesting than the lurid wallowing in the bloody details; this is more the subject of the film itself than its actual modus operandi.

Another key here is the thoroughness of the film, and Fincher's desire that it be seen as fairly accurate. While I'm sure liberties were taken, there is a reason why Dirty Harry, a more fictionalized, contemporary version of this story, features prominently in one segment. There seems to be a real need for the filmmakers to tell a story that hews as close to the facts as possible, meaning that various laws of dramatic structure are clearly transgressed in order to give a more accurate, but still very compelling picture about how this case affected the lives of two men working at the San Francisco Chronicle and two SFPD officers. Admittedly, I am usually not all that fond of Law and Order and its spawn, but this film does take care to provide us with compelling characters and engaging dialogue. It is long, but it is worth checking out.

Source: Paramount 35mm print
4 March, 11:35 AM

My Sassy Girl

(Yeopgijeogin geunyeo)
Kwak Jae-young, South Korea, 2001
3 out of 4 stars

If you are a young Asian person or a young person with Asian friends, there’s a good chance that you have heard someone rave about this film, even though it is not readily available in stores here. I finally had a chance to watch it, and I found it charming, entertaining, and also a bit frustrating, mostly near the end.

What we have here is the purportedly blog-inspired story of a somewhat ineffectual dopey male college student and a drunk girl he meets on the subway. As they fall into some kind of weird relationship, she endlessly terrorizes him with her irrational demands and erratic behavior, but of course, is strangely irresistible as well. I am well aware that Korean film has a reputation for being melodramatic - and even if I wasn’t, some cleverly-integrated parody vignettes gently satirize this trend - and so it is almost with resignation that I anticipated the second half of the film, when things get a bit more serious, and complications ensue (as if “complications” weren’t already built in to the relationship!).

Without question, this is much more nuanced, engaging, and clever than any recent domestic romantic comedy that I can recall, and it will most likely be bled of these qualities when the remake comes around later this year, even if some of the more prolonged melodrama might possibly be excised without too much detriment. Ultimately, however, I think I am being too hard on the final portion of the movie. There are enough interesting developments to sustain interest throughout the second hour of the piece; it’s only really in the last twenty minutes or so (yes, this is a long film) that things started to get repetitive. I guess the point is that for the first hour, it was just a fun film to watch, but near the end, I started to feel more like it was more just a good film to watch with a girl. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.

Source: Starmax DVD
27 February, 8:40 PM

Dark City

Alex Proyas, Australia / USA, 1998
4 out of 4 stars

I suppose it’s silly to try to talk about this film without giving away the twist, but I fondly recall being all but blown away by the multiple reveals that really brought the film together, so I can’t help but stick to my usual “no-spoiler” policy, even though I could see this time that the twists might be fairly obvious to many people. It’s true that there were a few films that drew upon similar ideas (although with much different styles) that came out not long after this one and met with much greater success (this was a critical and commercial failure), but that isn’t as surprising to me upon this viewing. This is, after all, more of a great vision than a perfectly-executed film.

What’s interesting is that, at the outset, the film seems to be some kind of neo-noir, but the opening shot and the narration clues you in that there is a mysterious sci-fi element, which becomes more apparent once you meet the villains. These villains, I have to say, do get lamer as the film goes along, although I think the giggles of the students I was watching the film with say more about their unwillingness to go along with the film than the film itself (the next-door drilling, and the failure of one of the speakers, didn’t really help). There is a lot to overlook; I felt like of the main cast, only William Hurt and Jennifer Connelly give really good performances. But nevermind that, as this is really about the art direction and the obvious, yet brilliantly conceived conceptual mind-trips. It struck me this time, as I’m sure it has others, that this is an especially interesting form of metacinema, making interesting comments on the act of filmmaking itself (and that doesn’t give as much away as you think it might). It’s definitely something that everyone should take a look at, although it probably isn’t for everyone.

Source: Warner DVD
22 February, 5:10 PM

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

John Cameron Mitchell, USA, 2001
3 out of 4 stars

By far, the best part of this flashback-driven road film (without the road) is the music, containing all the best tendencies of rock and the musical in any number of rousing numbers. The lyrical content, as you might expect considering that the singer character is a transgendered person whose operation didn’t really go that well, is quite explicit and shocking, but it’s done with the right balance of accessibility and shock value, to the point that I think almost anyone could get behind this music with the right level of open-mindedness (which I understand is a tall order for some folks).

I’m not entirely sure, however, about the actual film this music is contained it; I think it’s good but more of a vehicle for the music than particularly great in and of itself. For one thing, I am a bit irked at how musicians are apparently considered to be the only acceptable subject matter for musicals, indicating that the convention of people breaking into song for “no reason” is really truly consigned to the dustbin of cinema, despite Joss Whedon’s best efforts. In fact, there is really only one true “musical number” here in the traditional sense, and it’s no coincidence that it was my favorite sequence.

Otherwise, most of the movie consists of one-song performances carried out at various gigs in different locations of a thinly-veiled Applebee’s knockoff; this conceit is more pragmatic than anything, as the evil of the chain restaurant is that you could plausibly be in different regions of the country even though the setting changes only superficially. These performances are entertaining, if a bit MTV-style and not exactly all that filmic. The narrative that is conveyed through the aforementioned flashbacks is compelling and develops the character fairly well, but overall, the story itself becomes increasingly underserved at the end, eventually leading, most frustratingly, to a sort of Lord of the Rings multiple ending syndrome. While I usually approve of a 90 minute running time, I feel like storyline was slashed here in order to make room for the songs. If that was the tradeoff they had to make, they chose wisely, but I would have preferred a longer film that allowed both the story and the music some room to breathe, as I feel like important questions were answered in an overly oblique manner at the end.

Source: Warner DVD
15 February, 5:10 PM PM

Welcome to Dongmakgol

Park Kwang-hyun, South Korea, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

This is something of a high-concept drama, lighthearted at times, but one that takes its subject, the Korean War, very seriously of course. It involves soldiers from the North, the South, and even the US who end up separated from their colleagues and take refuge in the titular village, an inexplicably utopian settlement that has something of an Edenic quality to it, as the villagers don’t even understand what the guns do, leading of of the funniest standoff scenes I’ve ever seen. The filmmakers wisely avoid making these unsophisticated country folk the butt of any jokes, while similarly avoiding any heavy-handed, didactic speeches. Instead, there are some spectacular visual scenes, although I wasn’t always entirely sold on the style used in some of them, particularly the boar scene. The characters are a little thin, too, although this may not be entirely inadvertent.

I mentioned earlier that there is actually an American soldier in the town along with the soldiers from the two Koreas, and I can only figure that he is there for balance, because, overall, the Americans are portrayed with visual and musical queues that remind the viewer of the Empire from Star Wars. While I think it would be an exaggeration to say that this film is entirely a straightforward political allegory, it’s hard not to draw parallels with how many Koreans in the south today feel about America’s role in the division of the peninsula.

Source: KD DVD
14 February, 11:15 PM

Conversations with Other Women

Hans Canosa, UK / USA, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

I had never heard of this film until I saw it on a Blockbuster shelf, and having one last in-store rental from my free trial with the online service, I picked it up solely on the strength of the actors, Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter. I anticipated that the film would be exclusively focused on them, and that their performances would be very engaging, and I was right on both counts.

The two actors play wedding guests who meet and begin flirting. Two things stand out right away. The first is that the dialogue is sparking and quite clever, and the second is that everything is in split-screen. This is a difficult effect to describe; sometimes each actor occupies a different side of the screen, sometimes we get different angles, different moments in the scene (some of which appear to have not actually occurred), and even flashbacks, on occasion. It actually did take me a little while to get accustomed to this very singular stylistic choice, as sometimes it’s hard to know where to direct one’s attention! Furthermore, although as usual I don’t want to give anything away, you can’t take everything these characters say to each other at face value, at least not at the beginning.

Ultimately, I would say that the interplay between these characters is really entertaining and moving, and that the actors definitely sell it. I think the split-screen works, although it perhaps would have been better to just use it in part of the film, as there are moments in which it seems unnecessary. This is a good solid film; there just isn’t enough here for it to be a great one (and with less-talented actors, it might well have been a bad one).

Source: WEA DVD
8 February, 8:32 PM

Fong Sai Yuk

Corey Yuen, Hong Kong, 1993
3.5 out of 4 stars

Old kung fu films have a reputation in the US as being overly-corny, which is perhaps why all of the 21st century, internationally-targeted martial arts films are so deathly serious, perhaps overcompensating a bit with the gravity in order to pure associations with the perceived silliness of the older stuff. Meanwhile, most of Jet Li’s 1990s film output has been released in English-only, cut versions, with anything too “weird” or even worse, “foreign” being excised in order not to offend the aesthetic (?) sensibilities of the Western viewer.

With all that preamble, I guess the point is that I watched this early Jet Li film on the uncut, original language DVD (with less-than-perfect, but comprehensible English subtitles), and I really enjoyed it. I don’t want to indiscriminately label all films of this time period and genre as lost classics, because many of them are actually quite boring, others are indeed just too ridiculous, and still others are just hodgepodges, with no discernible unity to them. This film might seem to fall under the last category, as it starts with pure comedy and somewhat unexpectedly transitions to something a bit weightier (although not grim, by any means) about two-thirds of the way through. Although Jet Li had already played Wong Fei-hung and would soon get a little too stuck in his “goody goody” persona, at this point he is still willing to put on the happy go-lucky persona that I saw in Swordsman II, which I watched last year.

That said, Josephine Siao largely steals the show as the mother of Li’s titular character. Her manic energy and frantic delivery is always just one step shy of total overkill, but her performance is ultimately quite effective. What’s more, a surprising amount of pathos arises from a romantic plotline that, for fear of spoiling it, I won’t describe in detail here. Although much of the plot is rather slapstick, there is a certain element of Shakespearean comedy to the proceedings, perhaps paralleled by Chinese precedent as well. Finally, the fight scenes are quite good, not overly-dependent on special effects (as, surprisingly, some kung fu films of this time period are), but not too prosaic either, containing various interesting setpieces, such as one in which two characters fight while using the heads of the audience members as their platforms.

Source: Universe remastered DVD
7 February, 10:30 PM

The Queen

Stephen Frears, UK / France / Italy, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

I may have some Anglophile tendencies, but I tend to draw the line at the contemporary monarchy, which is why I had to be convinced by the recommendations of at least three friends that this was something that I should see (and not just another celebration of middlebrow mediocrity on the part of the Academy). It has also been implied, at least by one of my professors, that a woman of intelligence such as Helen Mirren is giving the supposedly dim Elizabeth II too much credit by playing her in the first place.

The truth is, I don’t know anything about the British monarch, and I suspect that I don’t know that much more about her after having seen this film. Perhaps in part due to an interview I read with the director, I didn’t feel, despite the television footage that is peppered throughout (these segments serve to give some context, and are crucial considering how much of the purported discontent was being conveyed through news media), that I was meant to take the depictions at face value. This is not a docudrama, as will probably be clear from the fact that most of the attention has been given to Mirren’s performance.

Instead, Mirren’s queen and Michael Sheen’s Prime Minister (I was told ahead of time that his performance was also quite good, and that person was right in saying so) portray real, living people with a fine level of verisimilitude and imitation, while also performing obvious and yet fascinating roles as emblems of different trends in modern British society. I do think that there are times at which this thread threatens to become too didactic, as I didn’t appreciate the queen and her aide explaining to each other what Blair’s politics were at the beginning (meaning that any viewer with some knowledge of the subject matter must have felt this way at some point in the film). But even though the conflict of values would seem to lend itself to broad strokes, the script and the actors combine to make it a surprisingly successful sort of parable. Finally, I have no investment in Princess Diana whatsoever, so it’s particularly impressive that I could be this involved in a film that is concerned entirely with events surrounding the aftermath of her death.

Source: Buena Vista 35mm print
3 February, 7:25 PM

Monster House

Gil Kenan, USA, 2006
4 out of 4 stars

Pixar may have faltered last year (okay, I didn't see Cars, but everything I've heard and seen points to an artistic, if not commercial, failure), but at least for 2006, there was an unexpectedly successful attempt to take their place in 3D animation domination with this film. It's very high concept, almost deceptively simple in its commitment to a very basic plot; two boys and a girl face down a house that doesn't so much "contain" monsters as it actually is the monster in and of itself. Around this core concept, the filmmakers manage to craft a surprisingly well-realized suburban fantasy world (this is, apparently, Anglo-American magical realism). The characters and the situations they find themselves range from funny to hilarious, and there was enough emotional involvement and genuine spook factor to keep me hooked throughout. This is definitely not one that is only for the kids, but it manages to be so in a way that doesn't make you wonder whether kids should actually be watching it (here I'm referring primarily to much of the DreamWorks product). I'm glad I happened to read some positive evaluations of this film online, because this is definitely something I wouldn't have given a chance without the right prodding. Believe me, it's much better than you might expect.

Source: Sony DVD
2 February, 11:26 PM

Orlando

Sally Potter, UK / Russia / France / Italy / Netherlands, 1992
3.5 out of 4 stars

I have only a passing familiarity with this particular slice of Anglo magical realism, so I kept feeling like the director had made more alterations to Woolf’s novel (or “biography”) than is probably the case. Such irrelevant questions aside, I thought that this was a great showcase for a quietly impressive performance by Tilda Swinton, who, at least at the outset, is a man, and who also seems to live for a very long time. This was the first time that I got to see her in a leading role (perhaps it is her only one?), and I was as impressed as I expected to be; she certainly has the right quality to pull of this very peculiar role, whereas I imagine few other actresses would. Although the quality of the film suggests that the movie was done on the cheap, the various pageantry and location shooting is rather well done, although this is not perhaps the most visually dynamic film I’ve ever seen. It’s actually a hard film to describe, seeing as how there is no logic, not even a clear emotional logic, to what happens, but in this sense, I think the film is faithful to the novel. What I’m saying is, I’m once again not really sure what this is about, but I found that it held my attention throughout and gave me some things to think about.

Source: Sony DVD
1 February, 9:24 PM

Idiocracy

Mike Judge, USA, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

The same studio that was responsible for dumping this film into all of 130 theaters last year, 20th Century Fox, just this last weekend opened Epic Movie, a film that has 0% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes and is unanimously described as a film that contains no actual jokes, merely a random sequence of reenactments of various blockbusters alongside depictions of bodily functions. Of course, this was last weekend’s #1 film. Unsurprisingly, some people on the Internet feel that Fox is engaged in some kind of conspiracy, preferring that we not see this comic (but also very angry) depiction of dystopic society in which, 500 years later, everyone has become terminally stupid due to natural selection no longer taking its course (“only stupid people are breeding,” as the song goes).

Rumors also circulate that this film has been butchered by the studio, and I couldn’t help but engage in guessing games while watching the film. For instance, did they really need that narration? Although it was often funny, it also felt, often enough, like it was really just explaining the obvious, although you could take that as some kind of perverse metacommentary. The film is also only 84 minutes, which made me wonder if the narration wasn’t covering up the gaps left by all the footage that had been hacked away (unless Mike Judge got his budget slashed and had to use narration to convey what he wasn’t able to film).

Indeed, there are ways in which the film seems cheap or hastily done, but there is still a spark of malicious genius to the whole thing, a sort of tremendous hate-letter to our modern society and its valorization of the idiotic; the cynic will claim that most of the things in the film are only slightly exaggerated. I don’t think I agree with Judge that people are getting dumber, and will only get dumber in the future. I think that the popular culture certainly is getting dumber, but I think that this is, for the most part, due to the media’s increasing willingness to pander to our more vapid and venal impulses, rather than attempt to pacify us as they did in the Father Knows Best days (what was so “smart” about that stuff, after all? I think, then, that our overall intelligence isn’t decreasing, it’s more that the visibility of the unintelligent is at an all time high, and whatever thrall the intelligent once had over those who are less so is at an all time low. I will say that the part that rang the truest for me was when the “average” hero is time and time again shot down for his apparent effeminacy, because that is how the future people read anything other than idiocy. I may not agree with Judge’s diagnosis (much less his reading of class and sex, which is questionable at best), but I agree that something is rotten, and I found his vision, powered by righteous anger, to be appropriately disturbing.

Source: Fox DVD
31 January, 10:32 PM

The Claim

Michael Winterbottom, UK / Canada / France, 2000
3.5 out of 4 stars

It’s an interesting feeling when almost everything in the plot suggests that some awful collision is about to take place at the expense of the main characters, but the result, instead, is always something more nuanced, if not, ultimately, less catastrophic. I was quite impressed with this unique “western,” in which a railroad engineer and his crew come to a town called Kingdom Come in order to determine the course of the railroad and, it’s understood, the fate of the town itself. Arriving at the same time is a woman and her adult daughter, both of whom lead to a revelation, in flashback, as to the somewhat dubious origins of this town, and of course, everyone’s plot line intersects as well.

It’s interesting to see what a filmmaker like Winterbottom, concerned mostly with films that contain some measure of “reality,” does with a mid-level epic such as this one. Although he uses actors rather than real people, and works in a historical period rather than in the “now” of most of his other films, I think there is definitely some sense that he is trying to capture a historical turning point (through microcosm) by showing us the low-key interactions and almost mundane incidents that make up these kinds of shifts, entirely eschewing the melodrama and tragic elements that often are assumed to be necessary components of anything remotely epic or historical. This is not to say that he has made a boring film, or a film that tries the viewer’s patience in a self-consciously “arty” fashion. Rather, he seeks to overturn those assumptions I mentioned at the beginning, making everything a bit more immediate and, by consequence, more engaging. If I have any complaints, it’s that the plot is actually somewhat hard to follow at times, partially because you have to connect the dots to a certain extent.

Source: MGM DVD
28 January, 10:36 PM

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

(Moartea domnului Lazarescu)
Cristi Puiu, Romania, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

Spending two and a half hours a man slow decaying towards a fate preordained by the title itself is the kind of film experience that critics rave about (it was on many top 10 lists) and audiences shun (the American box office was a whopping $80,301). As for myself, well, I often lean towards the critics in cases like these. I think they may have overpraised the film a bit, but I also think that this film is exactly what it is supposed to be.

The length is certainly excessive (even some of its strongest proponents have said so), and yet the lackadaisical pacing is key in the director’s attempt to convey the maddening delays and demurrals of the Romanian medical system – at least as depicted here. The characters are thinly sketched, but this is also necessary; Lazarescu needs to be enough of everyman that the pathos can come from the events (or lack therof) alone. While I wasn’t exactly rapt with attention, I was invested enough with Lazarescu’s plight that, even though I knew what would happen, I felt hopeful when he seemed to come across someone willing to do something for him. The point is, this is not an unrelenting film in which people are all bad, which is what you might expect from the premise and from the execution. Instead, it shows a world in which pettiness and decency are mixed, often in the same people. It might try the patience of some folks, and it’s not the masterpiece that some critics claim it to be, but it is a good, solid, and unusual film.

Source: Genius DVD
27 January, 7:03 PM

Pan’s Labyrinth

(El Laberinto del Fauno)
Guillermo del Toro, Mexico / Spain / USA, 2006
4 out of 4 stars

This is an extremely well-realized, gripping vision of fairies in fascist Spain, which sounds like some kind of ridiculous high concept project, and in a way, it is quite ridiculous, but del Toro manages to make it work for him. He has very effectively created a sense of terror without resorting to cheap tricks. Although the Faun that the heroine encounters is very big on rules, these rules seem arbitrary at best, and overall I was never quite sure what would happen to whom, which means that everything seems more crucial and more tense. Finally, the picture is shot in a way that is grim but not unrelenting or lifeless. I found the ending, actually, to be the most unsettling thing about the picture, largely for the unanswerable questions it brings up. I wouldn’t call it a perfect film, but at the same time, there are no significant flaws for me to pick on. It is definitely a triumph.

Source: New Line 35mm print
26 January, 6:45 PM

Kill Zone

(Sha po long)
Yip Wai Sun, Hong Kong / Macau, 2005
2 out of 4 stars

So what happens when you mix the martial arts genre (more recently associated, at least by Western audiences, with the period piece) and the cop genre? At least in this film, the result seems to be some kind of reconstituted slasher film, and I have to admit that I have never been one to get behind the slasher genre. It’s one thing to have some gore in the battle scenes, but some of these characters aren’t even capable of putting up enough of a fight, meaning that many of the “action” scenes are nothing more than slaughters.

In fact, the fighting is quite good in this film, although it is nothing groundbreaking. Although the filmmaking isn’t incompetent, there’s not all that much else to celebrate I about it, and the acting is particularly laughable at times (strong emotions come out of nowhere and then disappear again). My usual complaint in these kind of films is that I am just waiting through the bad acting for the good action, but in this case, I guess I also have to complain about the general nihilism that is the inevitable consequence of veering too far into slasher territory. It seems like the filmmakers wanted to have some kind of weight behind the whole thing, but really, this is an insubstantial picture with a underlying morality that is muddled at best.

Source: Genius DVD
25 January, 10:53 PM