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(Daai si gin)
Johnnie To, Hong Kong / China, 2004
3 out of 4 stars

The film kicks off with a violent confrontation between police and robbers, in which a beat cop is caught in the fray and, what’s worse, caught on camera looking particularly unheroic. This opening sequence is a setup for an hostage plot in which the commanding officer’s main goal is to craft a counternarrative for the media in order to restore her department’s credibility and public image.

The word “satire” popped into my head as I thought about how to describe this movie, but aside from some typically dubious uses of technology, the film avoids that slightly-exaggerated, larger-than-life tone of most satirical films. Indeed, it’s commentary on how PR holds equal importance with solving crime for police today is not particularly subtle, but it does constitute an interesting angle for what could have otherwise been a rote police drama. I find it interesting that, for the most part, the filmmakers refrain from condemning anyone overtly. This leads to less of the usual hand-wringing and finger pointing that we might expect from an American mainstream film attempting to tackle this subject.

The main downside to this film is that characterization is very slight. This is, of course, a film without much filler or prologue, so this decision seems to have been deliberate. I must confess, however, that I do like characterization, and without it, the connections between the characters sometimes seem hard to understand or unearned. It’s also a little difficult to see how the stock “renegade cop” character really ties in to the central commentary of the film, except until maybe the end, and that doesn’t seem to be that crucial, really. It’s almost as if his character is a major concession to the “bread and circuses” reality of mainstream film, something that is as much of an issue in Hong Kong as it is here, in all honesty.

Source: UMVD DVD
10 June, 8:27 PM

Devil in a Blue Dress

Carl Franklin, USA, 1995
2 out 4 stars

I always find it tiresome when a reviewer, or just someone with whom I’m having a conversation, starts off on how the book was so much better, and how the movie was bad because they changed things, and how dare they. When it comes to some recent franchises, I am strongly in favor of the plot alterations made by Peter Jackson and his screenwriting partners, and Alfonso Cuarón’s Harry Potter film is the best in part because it is the least slavishly faithful of the films that have been released so far.

Of course, the reason that I hold these opinions is because I believe Jackson and Cuarón each show better storytelling instincts than Tolkein or Rowling, or, if that’s too blasphemous for you, let’s just say that they know what works for cinema. So when I complain that Carl Franklin’s film seems to miss the point of Walter Mosley’s book in almost every way possible and is almost completely inferior, I hope that I’m merely recognizing that Franklin clearly falls short of Mosley. Even so, I have taught this book twice now and, in a month, will probably teach it for the third time, so I do wonder if I haven’t reached the point that so many others have, at which I am no longer receptive to an alternate version.

Suffice it to say that this is one of my least favorite noir films, perhaps because Denzel Washington’s character never really gets his hands dirty like the book’s protagonist, Easy Rawlins, does. The narration that he recites and the moral dilemmas he goes through just seem like going through the motions compared with the original. Indeed, although I like Washington, he is too unambiguous here. Don Cheadle, who plays an antihero of sorts, would have made a much better Easy. Considering that, even in 2004, Hotel Rwanda had to be made independently so that Cheadle instead of Washington, it’s safe to say that the studio system’s very narrow list of black stars considered “marketable” mandated casting here – to the detriment of the film. What’s perhaps harder to understand is why almost all the other characters seem miscast as well.

Most of the film just falls flat, in the end analysis. Franklin certainly missed the point of the book in many ways, which is not to say that the book is perfect; indeed, any adaptation would have to “fix” many awkward or confusing elements in it. Unfortunately, the fixes attempted here mostly just expose new holes.

Source: Sony VHS
2 June, 8:24 PM

Ali G Indahouse

Mark Mylod, UK / France / Germany, 2002
2.5 out of 4 stars

I was enjoying myself during the larger part of this movie’s running time, so I figured that I would give it a good rating. However, as I sat down to review it, I increasingly felt defeated by the film in my attempt to assess its quality, as if the idea of “quality” didn’t really apply to a film like this. It’s a lot easier when you’re just repelled by an often-disgusting, plotless film just as this, in which case you can dismiss it as dreck or whatever. I started to wonder if I even wanted to continue “reviewing” films here, considering that movie-watching is taking up less of my time lately, but some kind words from friends encouraged me to continue on, reviewing this film quite a while after the fact.

So, is this a good movie? No, although neither is it an awful film. Perhaps this is splitting hairs, but it’s possible to enjoy a movie even though it is not very good, although I will say that if the whole film had been funny, I probably would rate it higher. I think it starts off fairly strong, particularly in the south-central Los Angeles fantasy scene, and in the scenes in Ali G’s hometown of Staines. It starts to show the cracks around the time Ali makes it to Parliament, and, strangely, becomes less and less funny as it tries to put together a plot near the end. Everything is capped off with a protracted closing sequence that isn’t even remotely amusing.

You see, unlike Borat, here Sacha Baron Cohen is interacting with actors throughout, and there is not even an attempt to feign a “documentary” aesthetic. This frees sensitive souls such as myself from any need to feel sorry for the people he harasses, but it also robs the film of any pretensions of “outsider commentary” (and perhaps one could observe that said pretensions are exposed from the get-go by the reminder that Baron Cohen started his career by harassing his own countrymen). This just seems like the kind of movie a former cast member of Saturday Night Live would make, if slightly-more-inspired film than those efforts. And finally, Baron Cohen sure seems to put the truth to David Sedaris’ assertion that straight people spend too much time thinking about gay sex (I don’t even know if his “interest” is homophobic or not, it’s too weird to even be sure).

Source: Cinemax on demand
25 May, 9:17 PM

The Painted Veil

John Curran, China / USA, 2006
3 out of 4 stars

Those of you that are familiar with my kneejerk leftism will know that I’m no big fan of “white people in Asia” movies – I prefer to let the Asians speak for themselves, to put it bluntly. Nevertheless, this picture, aside from The Quiet American, is one of the better examples of this kind of film. The focus is on the spoiled socialite wife (Naomi Watts), and her microbiologist husband (Edward Norton), who find themselves acting out the ups and downs of all-but-arranged marriage against the backdrop first of Shanghai, then later of rural China, as Norton’s character tries to stem a cholera outbreak.

The perspective of the film is such that it does not try to instill the couple with an unrealistic level of insight regarding their complicity in 1920s Europeans imperialism. It does not shy away from pointing out these issues, but it also manages to avoid heavy-handedness. Ultimately, the movie really is about the trials of the couple themselves, and the actors both do a good job with some shifts and changes that might have seemed absurd if acted out by others. Finally, the cinematography is certainly nothing to sneer at.

Source: Warner DVD
19 May, 9:59 PM

Volver

Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, 2006
2.5 out of 4 stars

Certainly, Almodóvar retains his interesting, bright visual style, although it doesn’t seem quite as distinctive overall. And he continues spotlighting the generational traumas and triumphs of women and whatnot. Yet despite all that, this film fell fall short of the only other one I’ve seen by him, All About My Mother. There is much here that should be involving, but I felt strangely uninvolved for the most part. Despite the serious issues at play, the plot is structured in a manner that felt either like a sitcom or a soap opera, I’m not quite sure which. It’s also all over the map; threads get dropped or deemphasized at will, leaving me unsure as to what I was really supposed to be paying attention to.

If I’ve been vague about what happens in this film so far, it’s because anything that is really important happens after a good 30 minutes is past, which is generally my vague cut-off point for giving away plot details (this rather conservative spoilerphobe policy is a direct response to all those TV and film trailers, not to mention TV listing and DVD box covers, that carelessly tell you everything that’s gonna happen). To give you some kind of hint, though, just let me tell you the apparent use of magical realism was one of the more interesting things about the film, and I felt more than a bit let down once I realized how this element was actually being put to use. That might just be my fault, and perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood for this film, but as it is, I did not enjoy it very much.

Source: Sony DVD
13 May, 9:27 PM

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

George Roy Hill, USA, 1969
3.5 out of 4 stars

My parents showed me this film on videotape when I was a teenager, and then, on DVD, I’ve seen it in a composition class and now again as a projectionist for a lower-division film class. Each time, it holds up as an effective, entertaining deconstruction of the Western ethos, even in an era in which deconstruction is a dime a dozen. To be honest, I don’t think I knew much at all about what was being deconstructed the first time I saw this film, as, much like the neo-noir of the 1970s, it all ends up being “the past” for today’s generation, or even mine, so some level of genre awareness is required to understand what is transpiring (for this class, it was provided by an episode of Bonanza that I was unable to sit through due to its, well, suckiness).

That said, this kind of awareness is not necessary in order to be entertained by the film, which was evidenced by the significant amount of laughter I heard from the undergrads throughout the screening. Of course, wisecracks are that eternal, postmodern form of humor that resontates throughout the ages, but the actors clearly have good chemistry and really sell the material. I do think some parts are more uneven than others, and perhaps we have ended up with a lot of bad formula films as a result, but this film overall reminds one of how the formula can work.

Source: Fox DVD
7 May, 5:09 PM

Spider-Man 3

Sam Raimi, USA, 2007
2.5 out of 4 stars

So rumor has it that this film, at $250 million, surpasses Cleopatra as the most expensive movie ever made (adjusted for inflation, obviously), and while this might be an obvious angle on the latest in the spider-franchise (and one should try one’s hardest not to judge the film on the basis of what is said in the entertainment press), I can’t help but feel like they could have saved about $100 million and made a better film in the process. The third film, at 140 minutes, manages to seem both over-crowded and overly languorous.

You see, certain scenes from the second film, such as the first skyscraper fight with Dr. Octopus, or the climactic train scene, still stick with me, even though I only saw it once. Yet although the special effects are plenty bombastic and impressive here, I don’t think I will remember anything very specific about this movie even a few months later.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. I will remember Raimi’s really peculiar decision as to how to dramatize “evil Spidey.” My friend called him Emo-Spidey, whereas as the ridiculous montage of him strutting and prancing on the street continued, I was more inclined to view him as Metro-Spidey. No matter how you slice it, these scenes really take you out of the movie and into some truly bizarre, retro-musical pastiche, in which Maguire actually voices the words “dig on this” in a non-ironic manner. Huh?!?

There are other problems, mind you. The film is hyperviolent in the most disingenuous of ways; death only counts when the filmmakers want it to, to the extent that the same bomb exploding at the same range will produce entirely different results at different times. Emotionally, the film cheats as well, actually giving MJ a good reason to be mad at Pete early on, but then, about halfway through, drastically obscuring the issues at hand as if it is too distracted to really close the can of worms that it has opened.

You know, I did enjoy it, more or less. It’s just fortunate that I was expecting it to be a bit of a trainwreck thanks to what I have read. See it as long as you are expecting another installment in the cycle, but don’t go expecting any kind of culmination for the trilogy. The studio is already thinking about number four; let’s hope they learn to scale back for once.

Source: Sony 35mm print
5 May, 9 PM

Hot Fuzz

Edgar Wright, UK / France, 2007
3 out of 4 stars

If you’ve noticed the tagline “from the makers of Shaun of the Dead,” which in this case means not merely the producers but the same writers, stars, and director, then you know why I was looking forward to this film so much. In such an instance, the inevitable comparison must be made, and so I regretfully have to say that this movie is definitely not as good as their previous effort, which I rated at 4 stars, for whatever that’s worth.

That’s not to say that this isn’t a strong effort. In fact, it works on perhaps even more levels that Shaun did, although I don’t know if I’m saying that merely because I’m somewhat more familiar with the cop action genre and its clichés than I am with previous zombie horror films. Actually, I think it is fair to warn you that parts of this film are not entirely unlike a horror film, which is perhaps not that unusual for the genre.

Here, we have the meta aspect of the characters actually discussing other cop action films and comparing their own lives to it. This doesn’t merely take the shape of that lame “life isn’t a movie” type of false claim to realism that some self-referential films take, but neither is it the overly-knowing, braindead plotless “parody” of stuff like Epic Movie (which I admittedly have not seen) either.

The thing is, this is an intricately-crafted film that actually contains some good action and an interesting plot with a very chilling twist, one that I probably should have figured out early (oh sure I spotted the red herring, but I didn’t pay enough attention to most important bit of foreshadowing). The slash subtext (which seems to be rapidly becoming text) is hilarious and dead-on without being purile or homophobic, as one would expect in an American comedy. In fact, this relationship is probably the best part of the film. It just seems like, in the end, the film isn’t quite as funny as the other one, despite all that it has going for it. And although it doesn’t really bring the film down or anything, there are some peculiar ideological contradictions – it’s hard to be sure what the filmmakers are saying about the cops… perhaps nothing?

Source: Universal 35mm print
29 April, 4:30 PM

Good Night, and Good Luck

George Clooney, USA, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

A film like this raises inevitable difficulties when one sets out to evaluate it, and it is safe to say that these difficulties have been well covered by the criticism that has already been written regarding Clooney’s agit-prop resurrection of the newsman who, we are told, took down McCarthy and therefore left a lesson to us all, media people and common people alike, that we are clearly not living up to in the age of Bush II.

First, there is the question of whether this even really counts as a film. I would say yes, but just barely, and clearly filmmaking for its own sake was not key to Clooney’s agenda. It’s tempting then to ask what, exactly, this film is supposed to do. So-called intellectuals such as myself don’t really need to be educated on who McCarthy was. Perhaps I needed some education on Ed Murrow, the primary figure here, but amusingly, that has already been provided by the significant media coverage of the film. Of course, this coverage would not exist without the making of the film itself, and that leads me to conclude that the main reason that this is a motion picture is that, due to the medium, it therefore demands more attention than a book or, dare I say it, a television special, either of which might have been more appropriate for conveying this “lesson,” especially considering how much archival footage is used and how long the film spends showing us some of it.

Finally, then, we must consider how the “ignorant” would respond to such a film. I vaguely remember my roommate, who is not the brightest pulp in the package, being unsure as to what time period the damn thing took place in, but on the other hand, the undergraduate class that I watched most of it with (in my role as “projectionist”) seemed to get involved in the thing, cheering at some of Murrow’s more provocative lines.

And sure, I imagine we could have gotten the benefit of these choice tidbits from archival footage of Murrow’s show itself, but it goes back to the question of “would anyone have watched it in that case, even in a classroom?” I think the answer is no, and I have to admit that, for some reason, the film actually is pretty entertaining. It is a slight but also hard-hitting propaganda piece that has the benefit of being on the side of truth, more or less. So yeah, I recommend it, even if I’m somewhat bemused by it.

Source: Warner DVD
23 April, 6:37 PM

The Namesake

Mira Nair, India / USA, 2006
3 out of 4 stars

This is one of those movies where the progression of events is quite clear and linear, but the plot is nonetheless somewhat fluid, and not very defined. This partly results from the shifting focus from the couple that immigrates from Calcutta to New York, played by two Bollywood actors, to their American-born son, played by Kal Penn. If you've seen the trailer, you'll probably be surprised by this, as the advertising department has attempted to impose this very definite narrative on the film in which Penn's character is the sole POV and his identity crisis dilemma consumes the entire film. They do this by drawing almost all the trailer from one scene of the film, and by disrupting sequence the sequence in one key instance.

Suffice it to say, the actual movie is more interesting in that; we don't just see the son's journey towards understanding the parents and their "foreign" ways, rather we start with the parents, making us feel more understanding of their frustration with him. Overall, it's not a very didactic piece at all, and the son's identity crisis is a very subtle one. I think the performances were very effective and the film itself is rather well done, if perhaps still a bit familiar.

Source: Fox 35mm print
30 March, 1:10 PM

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