2003 Foreign, Alternative and Independent Films

Been getting behind, so I'll dump what I've been seeing instead of while looking for a new job over the past couple of weeks:

The Good Thief - ½

The Brattle Theater (which is right up there with Fenway Park on my list of indispensable Boston places) has been running a "50 years of French Cinema" series, starting with a group of New Wave classics. Even if The Good Thief wasn't a direct remake of Bob le Flambeur (which I haven't seen), I'd still associate it with those movies; it's got a lot of the same structure, where we just sort of watch the characters for a while as they meander off onto side plots before they actually get on with their plan in the end.

And The Good Thief is adequate when it comes to that. Indeed, I probably enjoyed it a lot more than many "actual" New Wave movies. It's got a lead performance by Nick Nolte that is either some of Nolte's best work or him being cast in just the right part (or a little of both). And yet, it's only in the end that this movie becomes really noteworthy, and the final sequence in the casino does achieve a sort of hypnotic quality. It's ridiculous and random, but also strangely compelling.


Divine Intervention - ½

I just don't get Divine Intervention. At least, not as a whole. There are sequences, and moments, of delightful absurdity, comedy, and sadness. But the movie seems to be so random as to never gel into a whole; it's not like What Time Is It There where there's a thread of loneliness connecting all the scenes, or Gerry which works as a demonstration of filmic composition and rhythm.

It might just be cultural, though. Divine Intervention was infamously spurned from Oscar consideration for Foreign Language Film because it has no country; it's a Palestinian film without a Palestine to submit it. And it is very specifically about a certain time, place, and culture; it may come together beautifully for someone from the Palestinian sections of Jerusalem. That's just not me, though.


Winged Migration -

Has IMAX spoiled the nature documentary for everybody else? I wonder. I've gotten so used to seeing movies like this with the stunning clarity of large-format film surrounding me, either at the Museum Of Science's dome or in 3-D at the Aquarium that seeing it on a flat 35mm screen at a regular movie theater is sort of underwhelming.

Don't get me wrong - this is a beautiful film, presented in such a simple and straightforward was as to add to its beauty. The filmmakers have done a lot of innovative things to capture birds in flight without them fleeing the camera, and Winged Migration deserves a place beside their previous stunner Microcosmos. I especially liked how the movie didn't wholly condemn humanity as an entirely destructive force; the movie shows birds as resourceful creatures, adapting to man's cities and ships in addition to being crowded by them.

(But, man, what this would have been like in IMAX...)


The Dancer Upstairs -

I liked this one. Not groundbreaking, by any means, but director John Malkovich does a good job using the structure of a police procedural to ground a movie about terrorism, fanatacism, and an honest man trying to do right by his country. It is kind of odd to see a movie about a contemporary Latin American story, with Spanish and Latin actors, filmed almost entirely in English.


City Of Ghosts - ¼

You know, there really isn't much in Matt Dillon's filmography to indicate he's capable of something this good. He's not a bad actor, but I've never thought of him as exceptional, either - certainly not auteur material.

But he's pretty sure-handed here. He makes good use of his Cambodian locations, tells an interesting story of fraud, family, and crime, and gives a good performance. I think perhaps he's a little guilty of going to a foreign land and then focusing almost exclusively on the white expatriots there, but that's a sort of community that would be connected.


"Ghosts Of The Abyss" - ¼

The most interesting parts about James Cameron's return to the Titanic are those that aren't, specifically, about the Titanic. It could be any sunken wreck that Cameron, actor/buddy Bill Paxton, and a team of scientists are investigating and it would still be an interesting trip thanks to the nifty submersibles, robots, and 3-D cameras they've brought to check the place out. The visuals are spiffy, and Paxton's narration is actually enjoyable despite how it occasionally sounds like bad poetry - the man is legitimately enthused and awestruck, and that comes across.

The parts where they're talking about the details of who was on Titanic and what a grand ship it was - feh. Cameron's already done one three-hour movie on that, and while I'm sure there's an audience for it, it's not nearly as interesting, to me, as the gee-whiz stuff the team is using to explore it.


Only The Strong Survive - ½

This movie wants to be Memphis's Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, but pales in comparison. Shadows knew what it wanted to do - introduce you to the unknown men behind the Motown sound and demonstrate that they made it - but Only The Strong Survive is more scattershot; it doesn't have a central theme. It has interviews with various Stax Records recording artists and shows them at work, and alludes to their history, but never comes together. It's a shame, because there's glimpses of good stories about how these guys who had huge hits bottomed out, disappeared, or persevered, but it's never developed.

And, man, it's sad to say this, but the performances are kind of sad. Only Isaac Hayes comes off as still really vital; the rest feel like old men and women kidding themselves. And I don't think that's the point the directors and producers are trying to make; the narration is enthusiastic without a hint of irony.

Respiro

About halfway through the film, a woman behind me turned to her companion and said, "When is the movie going to start?" That will probably be a common reaction among viewers who want to know exactly what they're going to see when they plop down in their seat. Respiro dispenses with a lot of the familiar techniques for situating the viewer in the world of the film. It simply plunks you down on a tiny Italian island (the location is Lampedusa off the west coast of Sicily) and slowly insinuates you into the life of a local family, Grazia (Valerio Golino) and her fisherman husband and three children.

Grazia suffers from some sort of ailment (whether physical or psychological is never explained) that causes occasional seizures and may or may not explain some of her odd behavior, such as swimming topless in full view of the crew of her husband's fishing boat. Grazia's condition, and how others react to it, provides the through-line for the film, but the resolution isn't entirely satisfying and the real strength of the film lies in its incidental moments, which are presented almost casually, as if the camera just happened to stumble across them. There's Grazia's husband, drinking and chatting with his fellow fisherman about the worsening condition for their trade. There's her elder son, Pasquale, and his ongoing rivalry with other teens on the island. There's the younger son, Fillippo, who exchanges fish for raffle tickets and whose vigorous protests when he loses are hilarious; he's a kid trying to act out the role of a stereotyphical Italian male, and it's both funny and sad to watch. And there's the daughter, Marinella, who is just discovering the power she can wield over men.

The performances are uniformly excellent, and at 95 minutes, the film doesn't overstay its welcome. Those looking for Big Statements and Big Themes will be disappointed. Anyone who's intrigued by the prospect of exploring a life very different from that of most of us will be amply rewarded.

M.

I'm glad both Hero and Shaolin Soccer are getting U.S. releases . While watching both films on dvd, I kept thinking how much cooler they would look on the big screen.

Visually, Hero is a real triumph. The colors are amazing and there's lots of great martial arts fight scenes that I'm sure will keep audiences entertained here in the states. Storywise, it's pretty simple, though it contains some surprising turns. All the actors put in convincing performances, even Jet Li whose work in American films has left something to be desired. Inevitably, everyone here will compare this film to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Of the two, Crouching Tiger is the far superior film, but Hero is still a very entertaining ride.
Hero -

Shaolin Soccer is a film that follows pretty much the same plot of most Hollywood sports movies since Bad News Bears, but the execution is so original and entertaining, I couldn't help loving it. It's just pure fun. It looks like it will be getting a wide release here, but I saw a trailer on another dvd and was pretty disappointed that they've given it a less than convincing dub and added that extremely overused "Kung Fu Fighting" song. It would be nice if they would go the way of Disney with Spirited Away and also release a subtitled version for limited release in the art houses. Still, definitely worth checking out.
Shaolin Soccer - 1/2
*Oh, make sure to look out for the Bruce Lee lookalike playing goalie.*

I saw a lot of discussion on the Quiet American and Rabbit-Proof Fence on the earlier pages. Unfortunately, I missed the Quiet American, but I was able to catch Rabbit-Proof Fence in the theater and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a fairly simple story, but very well told. I found the first-time actresses fascinating, as were the Australian landscapes.

Right now, I'm hoping that Lilya 4-Ever comes to one of the two art house theaters I have access to. I really enjoyed Fucking Amal, though I've heard this one is much, much more depressing. Anyone heard about a Region 1 dvd release for Moodyson's previous film, Together?

Also, does Bubba Ho-Tep have a distributer or a release date yet? I'm getting really tired of reading reviews of it; I just want to see the god damned thing already.

Thanks Michael, the poster for Respiro is up at one of our art houses and I was wondering about it.

Has anyone seen Man On The Train? I've become a fan of Patrice Leconte's (particularly The Girl On The Bridge) so I've been waiting for it and I should get a chance to see it this weekend. Also I should get to see Spellbound and The Man Without A Past, possibly Chaos too if I go tonight.

I have, several weeks ago. I've been seeing more foreign and alternative films than I've had time to review for this thread. No doubt, that's why CGI is not ruining my moviegoing experience.

Man on the Train is an engaging film, with an almost fable-like atmosphere. Critics always seem to comment on Johnny Hallyday's "presence", but for me it's Jean Rochefort who makes the film. His part is very difficult, because he has to do talk constantly without becoming tiresome, and somehow he brings it off. (What a marvellous Don Quixote he would have made in Terry Gilliam's aborted film.) I can imagine the typical HTF crowd picking apart the credibility of the film's events, but if that's what grabs your attention, you've missed the point.

If you get a chance to see L'Auberge Espagnole, I highly recommend it. It runs a bit long and, at bottom, it's a fairly conventional story (think Portrait of the Artist as Young Man). But it's often very funny, and the cast is hard to resist.

M.

Michael, I caught the two films you just mentioned this last week.

The Man on a Train - I was also struck by Jean Rochefort's presence in this film and was thinking how great he would have been as Don Quixote. I probably saw this film too late in the evening because its liesurely pace was such that my mind started to loose focus toward the end. I enjoyed it and would recomend it if you have liked any of Patrice Leconte's films. I want to see this film again after some time has passed and can imagine myself liking it even more.

L'Auberge Espagnole - A very fun film. There are a few early scenes that will remind you of the tricks in Amelie, especially with Audrey Tautou in it. The film does settle down with an entertaining story of the seven students living in Spain. The film makes great use of the sites of Barcelona, it has some great music, and a few extremely funny scenes. The ending is a bit of a disappointment and a couple of scenes don’t quite work but overall a definite recommend.

Jason, I agree with you on the possibilities of Winged Migration on IMAX. The movie is full of stunning shots, but the authority that IMAX offers would bring more power. Also, unlike IMAX films, Winged Migration rang too long for me. This is a great 50-60 minute experience; it runs thin after that, especially with its sub-par musical score.

Man On The Train reminded me of Jean-Pierre Melville's films. It is funnier, and is more overtly emotional than Melville's, but compared to most male-bonding/criminal-ritual flicks, it is very understated. The moments between the two leads are all very good.

I loved MAN ON THE TRAIN - probably my favorite movie of the year. It helped that I knew nothing going in, but I think I would have loved it anyway - it's quietly charming and sad and funny all at once.

I hated RESPIRO, but I appear to be in the minority on that one. (My hatred stems mostly from disliking all the main characters and
Warning Spoiler! Click to show )

MAN WITHOUT A PAST is good, droll fun.

JohnAP, MGM's putting out TOGETHER this fall (as well as another stellar IFC film, JUMP TOMORROW).

Wow, thanks for all the comments, I'm planning on seeing Man On The Train after work. I've seen the trailer for L'Auberge Espagnole 2-3 times (including last night before Chaos) in 2 different theaters so it should be playing Atlanta shortly. Looked like it could be either fun or obnoxious.

Man Without A Past is gone so I missed my chance to see it. I think it was only here 1 week.

You can tell a real addict Brook, when their big weekend night out with the wife & kids missing, is to go to the movies.

Good one Michael.

Which theater did you see this at?

Spellbound began its general release in Dallas this last weekend and I saw it for the second time (it had already appeared here as a part of a video festival). I won’t add to Scott’s excellent review Post #123), other than to note that the first two showings Sunday were full of kids and their parents, a far different audience than the Magnolia (one of our ‘art’ houses) usually gets. It made it a lot of fun.

Highly recommended.

Blue Car

I'm glad I didn't see much in the way of description of this movie or reviews before I headed down the street to see it. Heck, if I'd stopped to look at the poster outside the theater - one of those "reprinted review" ones, I would have been treated to much more information about the story than I really wanted to know.

Part of what makes Blue Car stand out is that it looks like a pretty straightforward "talented kid" movie. All the pieces are there - a smart kid who doesn't initially believe in her own talent, a missing father, an overextended mother, a younger sibling she has to assume a lot of responsibility for, a teacher to serve as a mentor/father figure, and a competition. That's not necessarily a bad thing; it became a formula because, to a certain extent, it worked.

What makes Blue Car exceptional, though, are its performances - Agnes Brucker as Meg, David Strathairn as her teacher, Margaret Colin as her mother, and Regan Arnold as her sister are all outstanding - and its script. Even though, looking at it afterward, it seems to conform to the "talented kid" template, I was continually surprised by what happened while watching the movie.

Blue Car is cruel in how it goes about heading toward the final poetry competition - where most movies in this genre will make it an opportunity, this one at least allows a feeling of unease, that maybe Meg shouldn't be pinning all her hopes on this, especially when she sets herself so single-mindedly to it. It's an uncomfortable film, in that way, but an honest one.



Sweet Sixteen

Let me get something off my chest - I didn't need subtitles. Sure, the characters all have heavy Scots accents, but I think I would have acclimated in about ten minutes if I didn't have those blasted things drawing my attention to the bottom of the screen. They were speaking English, for crying out loud!

Anyway... Liam's a pretty interesting character. He's fifteen, smart, and practical... for a fifteen-year-old. He hasn't had close to the best upbringing - his father's not in the picture, his mother's in prison, and his grandfather along with said mother's boyfriend deal drugs. His life markedly improves when the latter two throw him out (smashing his beloved telescope), forcing him to move in with his sister.

Despite all this, he's still got dreams. They're small, conventional ones - he just wants to live with his family in a nice home, and it's not going to happen unless he makes it happen. He's a natural-born businessman, and gets into selling drugs both as a way to get revenge on his guardians and because, well, you can make a lot of money in a short about of time.

In some ways, Liam is a lot like Blue Car's Meg - they both want a better life (and can't expect much help from anyone else), but get so fixated on their goals that they are able to make some really bad choices to pursue it. As smart as Liam is, he is still a kid, and winds up in over his head despite appearing to be in control.

Rookie actor Martin Compston puts that across very well - he's got an easy charm, as well as the chops to basically carry the film. Director Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty have given him a good part to play, and the only real fault I would really find with their work is that what happens to Liam's best friend Pinball is left needlessly vague.

I presume the title refers to the age at which someone who commits a crime in Scotland/the United Kingdom would be tried as an adult, as well as being personally important for Liam (his mother is scheduled to be released from prison the day before his sixteenth birthday). Even if it doesn't, it does work to get across the basic idea, that just because you may be considered grown up doesn't mean you're ready for it.

¼

L'auberge Espagnole

It's almost more interesting to talk about Fox's advertising for this movie than the movie itself. First, notice how the print ads put Audrey Tautou's recognizable name front and center, despite her role being small and supporting, and not even in the trailer. The trailer itself makes it appear that the movie is in English, though to be fair it has a lot more English-language dialogue than most such deceptive trailers (aside - one of the trailers that preceded the film was Jet Lag, which was all narration. Apparently, neither Jean Reno or Juliette Binoche never even says something that even sounds like "hello" or "no"). And, even though most green-flagged trailers will cut away from someone saying "hell", "damn", or "ass" ("I'm going to kick your--"/cut to explosion), the all-audience trailer for this movie manages to drop an f-bomb.

So, what about the movie? Well, I didn't really think much of it. It starts out pretty aggressively annoying, with writer/director Cédric Klapisch employing a lot of narration, sped-up footage, "let's start here... no, let's start the story here", and other gimmicks during the first act, really getting between the audience and what's going on. It thus seems to take forever to get from Paris to Barcelona, where the basic idea of the movie - a bunch of people from different cultures coming together, struggling with their differences, and coming out stronger for it - takes place.

The lead may be another problem. Romain Duris reminds me of That 70s Show's Topher Grace physically, but he doesn't seem to have that actor's charisma, though he's settled with a pretty unpleasant character in Xavier (and, because he's the lead and narrator, so are we). Xavier really remains a chipher, and even when we learn things about him, we don't really feel it, so that a big fight with his girlfriend falls flat, and his decision at the end of the movie really doesn't mean anything.

I think the biggest problem may be the format, though. L'auberge Espagnole has the feel of being a bunch of reminiscences crammed together, which doesn't give the movie a strong story. It might make a pretty good TV series, though, especially considering some of the tonal shifts. The first fifteen minutes, for instance, is bureaucratic hell, but doesn't have much to do with the rest of the movie. For ten minutes toward the end of the movie, it actually becomes (out of nowhere) an entertaining farce. Seperate them into different episodes, while developing other plotlines over time, and it might work a lot better.

It's not a complete loss - that ten-minute sequence toward the end is pretty entertaining, there's a nifty wordless shot of Audrey Tautou on an escalator, and Judith Godrèche has an interesting character (though we only see how she relates to Xavier). But it is a mess, and on the average, boring.

I missed Raising Victor Vargas too, but Sweet Sixteen and Blue Car are still playing.

Bill, RE: trailer for L'Auberge Espanole, I saw it at Lefont Garden Hills and twice at Madstone.

Spellbound I liked but not as much as I thought I would. Possibly a combination of reading too much about it and a common problem I have with doc's -- they are rarely long enough for me. I always want to know more or want to ask questions that the filmmaker's don't. I think Spellbound would have really been helped by some sort of coda so we could find out if this competition had any real impact on their lives or to find out what their lives are like a year or two later when they aren't devoting 8 hours a day to studying spelling. It also felt like almost every time somebody said something really interesting, they'd back away from it and switch to something else.

Man On Train I was also very impressed with Jean Rochefort's performance and intrigued by the story, but I found myself not nearly as interested whenever Rochefort wasn't on screen. The Halladay/gangster stuff is so fatalistic in tone it becomes one-note and drains the energy away from the light that Rochefort sheds on everything with his humor and politeness. I liked it, but not nearly as much as The Girl On The Bridge or The Widow Of St. Pierre. Maybe I just missed Daniel Autieul.

Chaos was my favorite of the 3 but I had some problems with it as well. For the first two-thirds it was this sad and tender film about a woman who's life has become a series of activities, work, and chores with no time for caring and emotion. When she is shocked out of her complacency by her husband's cold dismissal of a woman about to be beaten by thugs, it is a beautiful moment. She needs so much to be needed again, and when her family rejects her, she finds solace in caring for another person, the beaten woman. In protecting her, she finds a side of herself that was lost.

At this point it was one of my favorite movies of the year, but after risky and well-executed lengthy flashback in which we hear the interesting, funny, and complex story of the beaten woman, the film switches gears to the "Thelma and Louise" comparisons I've seen in a few reviews ie. a woman's revenge flick. The nuance of the strong female characters is lost in exchange for more mundane story-telling/plot advancement. There are a few entertaining, and funny, things that happen, but I thought the movie could have been so much more if it had worried less about sticking it to every male character in the film (not that they didn't deserve it .

Still recommended, despite my problem, I liked it quite a bit. I liked the look of the film. It isn't quite Dogme, but the handheld "dirty" style accentuated the emotions in a similar way.

Re: L'Auberge Espagnole. It's not the first time Monsieur Seaver and I have had wildly varying reactions to a film, but I'm still in shock from seeing the words "Topher Grace" and "charisma" in such close proximity.

M.

Maybe "charisma" isn't the right word, but Grace certainly comes off (on That 70s Show, at least) as someone you can identify with and like, even when his character does something stupid or selfish. Duris doesn't even have that.

And I was actually thinking of that as I left - every few months I'll go to a movie that gets good reviews, and I'll be able to see everything it does well with perfect clarity, but while I'm in the theater, there's something in my head just screaming "get me out of here!" and wondering how long its gone on; I'd bolt but I paid for the ticket, damn it, and I'm not going to waste the money (which just gets me in an even fouler mood).

Happened in Igby Goes Down. Happened in Chicago. Happened at L'Auberge. Fortunately, it doesn't happen often, so I figure I'm probably good until the Boston Film Festival.

You're not alone there. Someone who bought the DVD on a blind purchase hated it so much that he posted today in Ron's review thread just to vent. If only people would learn to check this thread (or its predecessors) before taking a chance on an indie title.

Just returned from Whale Rider, which was wonderful. Ill try to write more about it later.

M.

The Man Without a Past was Finland’s choice for the Oscar’s ‘Foreign Language’ film last year, but I just saw it for the first time.

Although the film begins with a shopworn device as an man on a train arrives alone in a city and is immediately robbed beaten senseless to the point that he no longer has any memories. The rest of the story follows his rebirth as a new man—and it is not until near the end of the film that we understand whether he was in need of a new life or not.

His struggles with the down-and-out of Helsinki is alternately very funny and quietly moving as he struggles against the Finnish bureaucracy while trying to establish a new life. Along the way he even manages to liberate a street corner, Salvation Army band (and who among us has not wished that they updated their repertoire, while depending on the Army’s charity and good works. And he manages to find true love (or new love) all at the same time.

But it is the complete inability of anyone but the other discarded members of society to be able to deal with his loss of memory that provides the leavinging for what might otherwise be just another ‘up from the ashes’ love story.

Well worth seeing.

Back from the first night of Cinevegas!

Octane (2003) ZERO out of ****
Director: Marcus Adams (Long Time Dead)
England
Horror
90 mins
Cast: Madeleine Stowe, Mischa Barton

Before I review this, I should copy down what is written in the provided film book....

When Senga(Madeline Stowe) and her teenage daughter Nat(Mischa Barton), travel home on a freeway at night, they start to see strange things: a couple picnicking by the side of a crashed car, a baby crawling up the middle of the road and a lone Recovery Man(Norman Reedus) who travels the night for anew car wrecks.
Then, at a roadside coffee stop, things really get weird. Forced into a nightmarish chase, Senga is plunged into a dark, deranged world where she must confront her past to save her daughter.

Utilizing exquisite cinematography and astounding sound and production design to put the audience into the sleep-deprived head of the pill-popping Senga, Adams' expertly captures that pre-sleep state in which you can't tell what is real and what is a nightmare.
Boasting a phenomenally talented and sexy cast, Octane injects terror into your veins while taking you on a horrifying road trip of your darkest fears.


NOW MY REVIEW

I'm really surprised(and I'm not the only one) that this film was chosen for the opening night, not to mention chosen at all.
This film in no way reflects a horror movie, if anything it reflects a bore-or movie.
The film has no directive, no interesting characters and no point.
All the things mentioned above(ex Couple picnicking, baby crawling on road) is nowhere to be seen in this film.

The film also goes in directions of trying to present the Madeline Stowe character as either crazy, drug induced or just tired, but doesn't present it or follow through with it well enough for you to care or for it to make any kind of sense.
they also try to throw in some kind of abortion issue message towards the Stowe character, but even that seems to have really no relation or point to her or the story

The point of the movie(which I say there is none) is Senga trying to rescue her daughter from this crazy cult(which is also uninteresting)
During this time, the film seems to go to a complete stop, and bores the audience to death.
None of the characters in the cult are interesting or have any value or purpose in the story.

This movie is just one big mess.
The biggest problem is the ending, which throws in a tirelessly cliche of an ending(just like every recent teen horror movie) which just makes it laughable.

Back with DAY 2 from Cinevegas

Keep Your Eyes Open **
HOSTED BY: Tamra Davis
Artisan 78 mins
In theaters: First week of Aug
DVD: Aug 19th

Dir by Tamra Davis
Special appearances by Mike D and Spike Jonze
music by: Latch Bros.

Keep Your Eyes Open is a little different for Tamra Davis.
Instead of doing full comedies, she tries her hand at extreme sports in a documentary sense.

Your first introduced to all the extremists, through their home movies and actions, all of which are just okay to start, but the motor crosser's intro was the most entertaining, as he has more to tell and show.

The film is a good effort, but seems to be spotty, with on and off again interesting footage, again with the motor crosser being the most interesting.
The BMX extremists also has worthy stories and footage.

The best of the movie for me(and Tamra Davis as well)
was all the crashing and injuries.

Tamra Davis does this kind of movie well, but seems like she tries to go back to her comedic element and adds in an unnecessary skateboarding segments.

The skateboarding doesn't add any realism, and steers away from the whole nature of the film, and really comes off like Police Academy 4.

I'll add more Day 2 and Day 3 stuff later this afternoon

double

Interesting article from today's USA Today on the current summer release arthouse films: Dig For These Movie Gems.

~Edwin

...And it's weird directors week at the Seaver house (well, actually, at the various niche theaters within walking distance of the Seaver apartment)!

Dracula: Pages From A Virgin's Diary - ½

Sometimes, the environment in which you see a movie is crucial. Last October, this movie was the big draw for me to go the the Coolidge Corner Theater's Halloween Horror Marathon; even though Guy Maddin's features had always seemed to lose me after about an hour, I had loved his short "The Heart Of The World", and near as I could tell, it was a United States Premiere.

It wound up running at sometime around 3:30am (the marathon started at midnight), and I was already dragging. It was projected onto the Coolidge's big screen from a DVD-quality source. And, unbeknownst to all of us who went down to Brookline looking for twelve hours of horror movies, it was a ballet. I gave it 2.5 stars, but admitted I may have slept through parts.

Did the movie get better in the intervening eight months? No, but I got a chance to see it projected off film, at a reasonable hour, with an audience that had some idea what they were getting into. And darn if I couldn't appreciate it more that way.

Is it the best screen Dracula ever? No, that title still goes to the original Nosferatu, as far as I'm concerned. But it is a great Guy Maddin film, beautiful despite its grainy Super-8 photography, exploding with energy, and filled with great ideas. Casting Wei-Qiang Zhang (a dancer with no other roles in the IMDB) as Dracula? Brilliant; it makes the vampire even more exotically sexy than he has ever been, and lets Maddin include an undercurrent about the xenophobia of the Victorian era. Filming it as a silent movie, with characters introduced by intertitles, which also handle dialogue? Perfect - using the visual language of silent film makes Lucy's overt sexuality somewhat shocking rather than before-her-time, and lets Van Helsing and his men be unapologetically aggressive when hunting the vampires.

But Maddin uses modern tricks, too; unlike most silents, the camera is often in motion, and he's not afraid to cut quickly. Digital manipulation is used to let blood flow bright red, and when the men fight the vampires, you may not hear dialogue, but you'll hear swords clash and blows land. This is probably the strongest narrative Maddin has ever had, and though many of his previous films work as art, this one works as a movie.

Check it out. Yes, it's black and white, only about seventy-five minutes long, and a ballet. It's also a whole ton of fun.


Ichi The Killer - ¾

Like Maddin, Takashi Miike is a stylish director whose films attract a cult audience, and can totally repel the mainstream. Of the five of his movies I've seen, this is easily the most repellant.

Watching this movie means watching people get murdered and tortured in various terrible ways. Check out its IMDB entry for what was cut out of the Hong Kong release to see if you've got the stomach for it first. It's cruel and disgusting and while it may explain the characters' actions (somewhat), you won't find justification or redeption here. If you can enjoy gore for being gore, you'll find plenty here.

That said, the movie is perversely fascinating. The characters have backstory and personality. Their costumes are damn nifty, from Ichi's superhero outfit to masochistic gangster Kakihara's colorful ensemble. The action has a slapsticky quality that doesn't undercut its brutality. Even if it is nothing more than a gory adaptation of a nasty comic book, it's done with care and enough attention to character to at least make me suspect that maybe, just possibly, there's something more going on.

It's not enough to get me to like the movie, or even think of adding it to my DVD collection. But I will say this: Unlike some of the other movies in my bottom 10 (though released in Japan in late 2001, IMDB gives it a US release date of 2003), Ichi never bored me, which may be a worse sin than disgusting me.

The Man On The Train manages to be interesting – thanks to the performances of both Jean Rochefort and Johnny Hallyday (they play two strangers who meet by accident, develop a friendship and then wonder how life would have been had they lived it differently). At the same time, its existential finality will either leave you fully satisfied or helplessly unsatisfied due to its vagueness.

~Edwin

Edwin, what do you mean by vagueness?

A lot of audience members in the almost full house screening I attended were asking: "What the hell was that ending about?" One gentleman commented, "That is typical of French films".

I just laughed.

~Edwin

I think the ending for Man on the Train is just about perfect for the film and not unlike Leconte's other films.

But on to other films...Capturing the Friedmans. Has anyone else seen this?! I was completely knocked out by this at today's screening. Here's a documentary that delivers surprise after surprise after surprise and leaves you feeling in many ways that you have fewer answers than before you entered the theater. Flat out amazing.

I won't go into describing what the film is about since practically anything is a spoiler to some degree, but...

We've been lucky to get a good run of documentaries within the last year or two. This one takes the prize. Keep a spot reserved for the best of the year.

Interesting Edwin, my wife and I went to see The Man on the Train Saturday night—I did not any feeling of that type of audience reaction at all. The theatre was probably 40% full. The film has played here for a while.

Maybe I did not see deeply enough, but I thought that the ending was pretty clear and straightforward.

I have. Rashomon has nothing on this film. If you're honest with yourself, you have to admit at the end that you simply don't know what happened. Just when you think you know, you're shown something new to make you doubt your latest conclusion.

Not only is the source material extraordinary, but the editing is also a masterpiece. The film parcels out information in just the right order and at just the right speed so that it plays fair but still manages to whip you around until you're dizzy. Toward the end, there's a "twist" (it comes in a series of intercut interviews with one of the Friedmans and his lawyer) that makes the head fakes of Sixth Sense and Fight Club look like child's play.

I think this is one of the best and most important films of the year, but I'm not sure it's going to be widely seen -- not because of the subject matter (alleged child abuse) but because of the dreaded "d" word. People just won't go to see documentary films anymore, even when they're more dramatic than most of the mainstream fictions. (The Oscar winner Murder on a Sunday Morning never even received a theatrical release, despite being arguably the finest courtroom drama since Anatomy of a Murder.)

If Capturing the Friedmans plays anywhere near you, make every effort to see it. If you can't see it in theaters, watch for it on HBO, which has licensed it for broadcast later this year.

M.