Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 20th, 2008
What is love worth? How much pain would you endure before you would murder someone you loved to end it? In The Killing Gene our serial killer seeks these answers, reducing it all down to an algebraic equation. The film is actually the American DVD release titles for the British film WAZ or W Δ Z depending on the source. This title refers to the killers equation which translates to roughly W Δ Z = COV. It’s a rather odd indy looking piece, filmed in
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 11th, 2008
There's much ado on the case's copy that this was a major inspiration for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the similarities are hard to miss. Like Ang Lee's film, this 1966 effort is a lush period piece with gorgeous, rich colours and elaborate wire work. And, as in the later film, the central character is a female warrior, in this case an officer of the law sent to rescue a kidnapped victim from a clan of ruthless (but not always terribly bright) bandits. There’s a male aid here, too, in the form of an apparent drunken bum who is, of course, in reality a martial arts master.
There is a lot of pleasure to be had here, and the film has considerable charm, though some viewers might be put off by the sometimes jarring juxtaposition of silly, knockabout comedy and harsh violence. Modern viewers might also be a bit disappointed in the fight scenes, which don’t have the grace of the later movie, and they can also be very brief. Nonetheless, a good time at the flicks.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 26th, 2008
Welcome to Gino’s school of film art. Today I’m going to teach you how to make a modern art film. You know the kind. The type of film that no one really likes, but a lot of folks pretend to like because they think it makes them look cool. Just think how cool you’ll look when you can make one of those pretentious pieces of crap and watch phony critics go on and on about how brilliant it was. Meanwhile you laugh your behind off and cash in on the phony baloney. You might even grab yourself a film festival award, which along with $5 will get you a coffee at Starbucks. Follow these quick and easy steps and pretty soon you’ll be the talk of the town…
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 21st, 2008
According to Wikipedia, Bruges is the capital of Belgium and home to the college of Europe. Much of the architecture from the 12th and 13th centuries is in good shape and preserved fairly well. The Church of Our Lady is one of the tallest brick buildings in the world. The Basilica of the Holy Blood purports to be a church that houses some blood from Christ. It also serves as the backdrop for a couple of hitmen who have to find comfort in the town for awhile in the film set in Bruges, called In Bruges.
The film was written and directed by Martin McDonagh, whose previous work was in the Oscar-winning short film Shooter. Ray (Colin Farrell, The Recruit) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson, Kingdom of Heaven) are forced to stay in the town for two weeks, after an assassination assignment given to Ray turns particularly brutal. The two look at this presumed exile in two different ways; Ray thinks of it as purgatory; he loves the lifestyle of London and access to anything he wishes. Ken rather enjoys it. He views it as an opportunity to enjoy a place he’s never been before. The nuances of Bruges are also memorable; aside from a little person in a movie and a drug dealing local named Chloe (Clemence Poesy, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), the film is chock full of hilarity and hijinks. When Ken and Ray’s boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes, Schindler’s List) comes to meet with the boys, things take a bit of a dramatic turn.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 14th, 2008
It’s not that these fantasy-epic films that feature a young child in the starring roles bore me, it goes to the larger notion that Hollywood will remake every child’s fantasy novel into some sort of cinematic product, so a buck or two can be made. For every Harry Potter, there’s a Golden Compass or even Spiderwick Chronicles. The well is rapidly running dry, and you needn’t look much further than The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, a film about a young lonely boy who finds himself in circumstances and an adventure beyond what he might initially suspect. Wait, doesn’t that sound like EVERY children’s movie lately?
The novel was written by Susan Cooper and edited by John Hodge, who did Trainspotting, of all films, and was directed by David Cunningham (To End All Wars). In this, Will (Alexander Ludwig, Race to Witch Mountain) plays the youngest in a family of six Americans who have moved to London for their father’s job. He soon finds out about his real roots, continuing a lineage of warriors, protected by the old ones in Miss Greythorne (Frances Conroy, Six Feet Under) and Merriman Lyon (Ian McShane, Deadwood). No other performers from HBO television series were involved in the making of the production.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 12th, 2008
When The Ruins opens, it doesn’t look quite so promising. We’ve got two American couples sharing a vacation in
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 7th, 2008
I don’t know what it is about Owen Wilson, but whatever film he’s in he seems to be playing himself. The soft-spoken, rather glib personality has taken him places over the years, but you have to ask yourself if he’s ever going to actually take any risks. Drillbit Taylor is no more a stretch for the actor than any of these other roles. What that means for us, the viewers, is that we’re sure to get a solid and quite believable performance. We know that we’ll end up warming to
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 4th, 2008
Todd Haynes continues to dazzle and amaze with his body of work. In Velvet Goldmine, he told the story of a fictitious glam-rock band in David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust style. Far From Heaven found him taking the Douglas Sirk films of the ‘50s into a nontraditional turn. In his follow-up film I’m Not There, his first directorial effect in five years, Haynes examines the persona and essence of Bob Dylan without actually really using the name or the words together at all in the film in a film released in 2007, where features like No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood earned a slew of awards, I’m Not There was an understated gem, and yet summing it up is a little difficult.
First off, while I’m Not There is a film inspired by the life of Bob Dylan, semantically it’s not a biopic. It examines the more notable images created by Dylan; one of the adolescent who portrayed himself to be the poor white kid who liked the work of Woody Guthrie and who, ironically enough, is named Woody (Marcus Carl Franklin, Be Kind Rewind). Arthur Rimbaud (Ben Whishaw, Layer Cake) is the mid-‘60s Dylan and de facto narrator whose words appear to be lifted from magazine articles of the era; Jack Rollins (Christian Bale, Batman Begins) is the folk hero and later born-again Christian-era Dylan; ironically Rollins is played by Robbie Clark (Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain), who watches his marriage deteriorate while he deals with the period of fame he has wrought; and Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth) plays the electric Dylan, touring in England, addicted to pills and alienating his acoustic fans. In his later years, Billy the Kid (Richard Gere, Pretty Woman) plays Dylan as the aging anonymous hero in the west, which in a way Dylan seems to want to do in reality. While none of these interpretations can be claimed to be accurate, they are, as Haynes says, fleeting glimpses of the image that Dylan created for himself. Using surrealistic and style choices influenced by Fellini and Goddard, Haynes helps make the worlds of Dylan all the more emotionally affecting.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 1st, 2008
Call it Deliverance meets Texas Chain Saw Massacre by way of Straw Dogs. Really that’s the best way I can describe this incredibly derivative film starring Gary Oldman. It’s Summer in 1978 and two couples are making their way to an isolated vacation house in the woods. The house is the ancestral home for Paul. The four are traveling from
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 1st, 2008
Hannibal Lechter is running the show, and even if it is his alter-ego Sir Anthony Hopkins who�s at the wheel of this ride, it could just as easily have been
