2004 Foreign, Alternative and Independent Films

Gozu - ¼

Wow. A Takashi Miike movie in a multiplex, albeit a boutique multiplex. For those who have not yet experienced his work, Takashi Miike brings to mind some bizarre experiment in genetic engineering where the DNA of Takeshi Kitano, Quentin Tarantino and David Cronenberg was mixed, too-quickly grown to adulthood, and let loose on an entertainment industry with no MPAA to hold him back and a mandate to crank out an average of five movies a year, for theaters, television, and video.

So, even though I'm recommending Gozu, remember the director. He makes crazy, violent, disgusting (and often sickly funny) movies, and he starts early here. If what happens to the dog in the first five minutes makes you want to leave, then by all means, leave. Pull out your cell phone and act like there's a family emergency; maybe you'll get your money back. Because by the time the movie is over, you'll see some even weirder shit. You won't even be able to eat corn flakes the next morning, because it would involve spoons and milk.

At first, young yakuza Minami thinks that it's just his mentor Ozaki who is crazy - he was, after all, responsible for that terrible bit of animal cruelty (really, I don't approve) that opened the film, claiming that a little Peke was in fact a vicious "yakuza attack dog". But, someone being that nuts is a danger to the gang, so Minami is tasked with bringing his "Brother" north to a body dump and eliminating him. As Minami and Ozaki approach the dump, though, it soon becomes clear that it's not just Ozaki who's crazy - it's the whole world.

Not just people, although almost everyone around Minami (Hideki Sone, the sane center of the movie) acts in a peculiar fashion. Roads just run straight into rivers, minotaurs appear during the night, and - in what provides most of the plot that pushes Minami to investigate the surreal world around him - a corpse apparently walks off while he's using the toilet, forcing him to find it. And when he does, things get really strange.

The middle portion of the movie moves somewhat slowly, as Miike and screenwriter Sakichi Sato throw one bizarre situation after another at Minami (and the audience). I can't say I really understand what the point of a lot of this section was about. The rest of the movie follows a sort of strange logic - well, not logic, but there's a sort of story through-line which works if you grant the filmmakers a gigantic unexplained impossible element - but the middle is a sort of surreal padding, a detour to put some space between the start and end of the story.

But, then, making sense isn't what this movie is about. After all, just as the movie finishes perhaps its most grotesque scene, and I really think I get how it works, it shifts gears for a completely incongruous epilogue that, though it features the same actors, is so different in tone and look as to appear to be taken from another movie.

But that's okay. This is, after all, a horror movie, at least in part, and the horror comes from Minami's interaction with an unknown and possibly unknowable world outside his experience. For things to suddenly make sense at the end would be something of a cop-out, even if making peace with that strangeness isn't.

Zatoichi -

I found myself half-wondering during Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi whether this was supposed to be a semi-parodic remake. Not full-out, but some elements seemed just a little exaggerated (and others greatly so). Having only seen one entry in the original series, I'm really not equipped to judge this movie's relation to its forebears; on its own, I found it an enjoyable movie that could have been great except for one large flaw.

That flaw is the blood. Not that there's too much - when the various yakuza, ronin, and other swordsmen pull out their blades and start going after each other, the red stuff is bound to fly. However, instead of going to the experts and KNB (or whatever the Japanese equivelent is), Kitano opts for digital effects which are quite unsatisfying. Digital blood doesn't stick to people and surfaces, and it doesn't ever seem to jet from the bodies at the right angle or speed. There are some scenes when it doesn't even look as good as the Pepto-Bismol that Klingons had coursing through their veins in Star Trek VI.

I've read that this was a deliberate decision by writer/director/editor/star Takeshi Kitano, and for all I know, it was a great artistic success in Japan. The crowd in Cambridge last night, however, laughed every time it happened. It's partly that reaction that made me wonder whether Takeshi was going for comedy; it so thoroughly undercut almost every action beat. It had me reacting like "whoa, that was bada... (giggle)" a lot, and not like I had with Gozu two nights earlier. Gozu served up black comedy that shocked and amused with its audacity and perversity, while Zatoichi's fake blood just had me laughing at a shortcoming.

It's a shame, because the rest of the movie is, well, great. Kitano displays a warmth as Zatoichi that I don't recall seeing from him in other movies, though my exposure has been somewhat limited. The rest of the cast is good, too, expressive but pulling back from the overacting that can plague Asian films, especially when it comes time for comic relief.

The story template for a Zatoichi movie is straightforward, and Kitano doesn't deviate far from it: Blind masseur and gambler Ichi (Kitano, credited as "Beat" Takeshi) arrives in a town after dispatching some highwaymen who thought to give the blind guy trouble (only to wind up learning that Ichi's cane contains a wickedly sharp sword which he wields with gruesome skill, his four other senses heightened). The town, of course, has yakuza issues, and other recent arrivals threaten to make things worse. When the yakuza threaten the woman who gives Ichi a place to sleep, Ichi makes them deeply regret it in the seconds before they die.

Among the arrivals are the ronin Hattori and his sickly wife. Hattori is a man of honor who dislikes the yakuza-bodyguard work he takes, but does it professionally so that he can afford medicines for his wife. In broad daylight, he may be a match for Ichi. Also recently arrived are a pair of geisha who early on establish that they're on a quest for bloody vengeance for something that happened when they were children. Kitano establishes these characters quickly, using extended flashbacks to show us their backstory.

The sights and sounds of this village are enjoyable, as well. Where previous Zatoichi flicks were sort of B-movies, cranking out three or four a year at times, Kitano has a decent budget and invests it in solid-looking sets. There's a tone of whimsy to much of the music, with the farmers in the background occasionally working in sync with it. And the rousing tap-dancing festival number that closes the movie is so delightful that one can forgive its complete incongruity.

The action, up until the point of someone actually being cut and spewing fakey CGI blood, is well choreographed. Some of the blades must be CGI as well, or else a few scenes of yakuza and ninjas getting run through involved some very real trips to the trauma ward.

Supposedly, Takashi Miike was considered as the director at one point in production, which may have produced the coolest movie ever: Miike directing Kitano in a bloody samurai/yakuza epic starring a beloved character. Maybe Miike wouldn't have gone for the "real fake blood", either, and maybe he would have just veered into bizarre territory

Kitano does a bang-up job, though, except for the blood. I must sound like a sicko for harping on this, but this one flaw is what keeps Zatoichi from being one of the year's best, as opposed to one of the year's very good.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet will be aiming for the Best Picture Oscar with his latest pic, A Very Long Engagement with Audrey Tautou and Jodie Foster instead of Best Foreign Language Film. Too bad most of us won't see it until early 2005. From Variety:


~Edwin

Intimate Strangers - ½

Part of what's enjoyable about watching foreign films is that the characters are often played by unfamiliar actors, and thus come without the baggage of other roles; the only familiar face in Intimate Strangers for me was Gilbert Melki, who appeared in the "Trilogy" movies but has a fairly small role here. Sandrine Bonnaire (Anna) and Fabrice Luchini (William) are just these characters for me right now.

Shame they're not in a more interesting movie. It's got an interesting set-up - attractive woman with marital problems goes into the wrong office and winds up confessing her marital problems to a tax attorney rather than a psychiatrist - and he is too stunned to immediately correct her. It's a situation that really can't be strung out too long before it becomes absurd, and director Patrice Leconte doesn't, having Anna figure out the situation before her third visit.

Unfortunately, Leconte and screenwriter Jérôme Tonnerre don't have much to replace that with. The two of them talk, we see some background on William's life - he and his ex Jeanne (Anne Brochet) are friendly, and he has inherited his father's clients, office, and secretary. Luchini has a sort of sad-sack face, and his slumped body language indicates a sort of uncertain dissatisfaction. Ms. Bonnaire is pleasant enough, but the filmmakers keep her character somewhat in reserve. There's a half-hearted effort to make the film's last half into a thriller of sorts as Anna's husband Marc (Melki) enters the picture, but it doesn't amount to much.

That's the problem with the movie. I got William's dissatisfaction pretty quick, and sort of liked the guy, but never felt the story was anything special. Luchini and Bonnaire are pleasant enough together, but don't generate a lot of heat. It's an open question as to whether we'd rather see William with Anna or with Jeanne, or whether he's interesting enough to make a good match with either.

Paramount Classics turned this movie around fairly quickly, getting it from France to American theaters in less than six months, presumably to capitalize on the relatively recent success of Leconte's Man on the Train. I haven't seen that movie, so I can't say how this compares. Based upon this movie, though, I'm not terribly tempted to seek the rest of Leconte's body of work out. Just too much talking and not enough happening.

Maria Full Of Grace

Every year, we get a handful of dramas that really stand out from the rest of the pack. Joshua Marston’s Maria Full Of Grace is one of those films. Beautifully acted and written with such dramatic intensity, it is an engrossing film that examines the lengths some will go through to escape the life of poverty, desperation and a dead-end job, in this case, to act as drug mules from Colombia to New York.

Newcomer Catalina Sandino Moreno gives a spot-on performance from maintaining her composure in front of immigration and custom officials while being interrogated to the story’s more somber moments. The details of the drug muling were handled in such a way to be educational but with terrifying realism.

This is the type of film that gets a director instant international acclaim in the same manner City of God did to Fernando Meirelles, Before Night Falls to Julian Schnabel and Amores Perros to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.

~Edwin

Heh. I'm pretty sure that this is an American film with an American director produced by an American company (HBO).

I think you're right, Jason. I didn't look closely on the production notes.

~Edwin

Nicotina

Pulp Fiction is the obvious blueprint for this Mexican film from the producers of Amores Perros. Like PF, this film shifts among several plots that intersect at odd points, so that a central character in one becomes a bit player in another. And like PF, this one is set mostly among criminals and features a lot of violence that is both horrific and comical (and Nicotina has a much higher body count). In the end, though, it doesn't quite work, and I think it's because the characters don't engage us to the same degree that Tarantino's characters do. There's no one as commanding as Samuel L. Jackon's Jules or as charming as Travolta's Vincent. Lucas Crespi's Nene comes the closest to achieving that kind of presence (his argument with his partner, Thompson, over the dangers of smoking could be seen as a homage to the "quarter-pounder-with-cheese" exchange in PF), but it takes more than one good character to keep a film like this aloft.

We start with Diego Luna's Lolo, whose character is two things, both of them trite: a hacker and a shy stalker (think William Baldwin in Sliver). Lolo has a crush on his neighbor Carmen, a cello player, but he's also hacking a Swiss bank for account information that Nene and Thompson want to sell to a Russian gangster in exchange for diamonds. The caper gets set up at the beginning of the film, but then it's put on hold while we watch Lolo's entanglements with Carmen. The film is already in trouble, because while Luna is a likeable actor, Lolo is just an incompetent creep and not much fun to watch. In fact, his incompetence is a major engine of the plot (but I'll leave it at that).

It gives nothing away to say that the caper goes wrong, because that's what happens to capers in films like this. The rest of the film plays out in a drugstore and a barbershop, each inhabited by an unhappy and feuding couple, before finally returning to Lolo's place for the finale. A lot of people die, and no one gets rich.

Writer Martin Salinez and director Hugo Rodriguez were clearly trying for something wild and madcap, but it just doesn't work despite some fancy camerawork and numerous plot turns that should have special subtitles saying "Droll, isn't it?" At the end, I just wanted to see Pulp Fiction again.

M.

The Brown Bunny

Almost half an hour shorter than the version that outraged audiences at Cannes, Vincent Gallo's one-man show is now being released in the U.S. Gallo is the writer, director, producer, editor and star, and he also did much of the 16mm camerawork. If anything qualifies as an auteur's creation, this is it.

I can see why the longer version drove viewers over the edge, because the 92-minute edit that Gallo is releasing here constantly teeters on the brink of boring its audience into revolt. Every shot is held longer than almost anyone else would hold it, and even though the shots are exquisitely composed (at times the film suggests a picture book of artsy stills), Gallo stubbornly refuses to provide anything resembling a conventional plot.

Which isn't to say that he fails to provide the audience with information. As we follow his character, Bud, a motorcycle racer, on a bizarre and mostly solitary trip across the country, we learn a great deal about him. We see him engaged in almost wordless flirtation with a series of women, all of whom have names representing flowers. We watch him make a laconic visit to the parents of his girlfriend, Daisy (Chloe Sevigny) -- it's a scene that would fit comfortably in a David Lynch film -- and finally we see his reunion with Daisy. (And yes, the oral sex scene is graphic, but no more so than what routinely shows up in my junk folder in Hotmail.) By the end, you realize that Gallo has managed to convey a dramatic (even melodramatic) story, but you can't see it until you reach the end.

Is it self-indulgent? Sure. Is it interesting to watch? I thought so. Is it a good film? It might well be, but I can't say for certain until I see it again. It almost demands a second viewing, for reasons which will be obvious to anyone who watches it.

M.

Mean Creek

Writer/director Jacob Aaron Estes' debut feature is the kind of little independent film that critics like to adopt, and which they usually overpraise to the point that, when people finally see it, they wonder what all the hoopla was about. Mean Creek is a fine film, but it's also a modest one that doesn't need a lot of critical hand-holding. It the kind of thing that's best when audiences discover it for themselves.

The story bears more than a passing resemblance to that of Larry Clark's Bully, but the similarities end there. Estes doesn't share Clark's voyeuristic fascination with extreme personalities committing lurid acts. (It's also worth noting that Estes wrote the script seven years before he started production, which means that it predates Bully.) When Sam (Rory Culkin) gets abused at school by George (Josh Peck), Sam's older brother Rocky (Trevor Morgan) organizes a plan to teach George a lesson. The plan involves inviting George on a boat trip, where the three of them are joined by Rocky's friends, Clyde and Marty, and Sam's friend, Millie, the only girl in the film and the only one (besides George) who doesn't know the real purpose of the trip. When things go horribly wrong, everyone has to deal with the consequences, and they all start to find out (as do we) what each of them is made of.

Despite the gorgeous Oregon scenery, the real territory of Mean Creek is the interiors of the six characters, all of whom show more of themselves as the film progresses. Even George the bully is not what he first appears to be. The entire cast is good, but I was particularly impressed by Carly Schroeder, who quietly becomes the moral center of the story. Rory Culkin continues to grow as an actor, and Josh Peck does a wonderful job as George, a kid you alternately despise and feel sorry for.

M.

Last Life In The Universe - ¼

Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (with co-writer Prabda Yoon) tells a story in Last Life In The Universe, but he implies another. He hides it well, though, disguising this second, hidden story as character bits for the first story until we see a character from an angle that had been carefully avoided up until that point.

Up until that point, it's not unreasonable to watch Ratanaruang's movie and look at it as being reminiscent of the work of Tsai Ming-liang. There's a plot, but it's subordinate to mood, and dialogue is kept to a minimum. The in-story reason for this is that the main characters don't share much in the way of language, not that Kenji (Tadanobu Asano) is much of a talker anyway. Kenji is a librarian working at the Japanese Cultural Center in Bangkok, while Noi and Nid (Sinitta and Laila Boonyasak) are a pair of pretty young girls, sisters, who work as hostesses in a local club which caters to Japanese tourists. They wind up speaking English as an intermediary (though frequently with heavy enough accents to require subtitles).

Kenji's got problems, though. As the film opens, he is attempting suicide, in a sort of half-hearted manner. He's got what appears to be obsessive-compulsive disorder, arranging everything in his refrigerator just so and apparently ordering the books which fill his apartment by the Dewey Decimal System. He spots Nid looking at a children's book in the center and is infatuated. And to make things worse, Kenji's brother comes to town, having annoyed an Osaka yakuza boss by sleeping with his daughter.

Kenji and Takashi don't have much in common, and Nid irritates Noi. But they're family, and when both families experience a sudden tragedy, the survivors retreat to the sisters' home in the country. It's an appalling mess, which drives Kenji crazy.

The middle portion is vaguely romantic, as the two survivors feel each other out, and there's a really beautiful special-effects sequence as Kenji cleans the house. And just as it starts getting too arty... Well, remember those yakuza who were after Kenji's brother? They eventually send a trio of over-the-top assassins, led by Takashi Miike, of all people (he's normally a director; a poster for one of his gonzo yakuza movies is featured early on).

It struck me how little this movie worries about giving offense; the Thai characters would occasionally throw the word "Jap" out, and the head yakuza's comments to airport security about whether someone of their ethnicity would hijack a plane is too politically incorrect to even be considered in an American movie. I wasn't sure whether to be shocked in terms of it being a cultural difference between Asia and America or just take it as this specific character saying it being important.

I'm understating how funny the movie is at times; much of it is dark humor, based on how ineffective (or indecisive) Kenji's suicide attempts are or how the stink of rotting corpses is apparently powerful enough to gross out the trio of assassins. There's a little bit of the Three Stooges in the killers, for that matter, as Miike's character smacks his dim-witted assistants around like Moe frustrated by Curly's idiocy. It's far from a straight-out comedy, but the funny moments are among the most memorable.

Most of the time I dislike the term "art film" because it implies that more mainstream films aren't art, and that the person using the term thinks that this film may be more than most of the unwashed heathens who make up the American audience could understand. In this case, I think it's somewhat apt. I don't think it's out of most audience members' grasp, but it does reward that audience in direct proportion to the effort they put in to watching it.

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Code 46 - ¼

I wish Code 46 were a better movie. Granted, I wish that for most bad movies, but when a science fiction film does something right that is more often than not done poorly or not at all, it would be nice if something (anything) in the rest of the movie was to the same standard.

I liked the way Code 46 seemed to be set in a believably evolved future. All too often, the future in a sci-fi movie is basically the present, with one bit of new technology added. Writer Frank Cottrell Boyce does better here, even peppering banal everyday conversations with bits that seem alien or incomprehensible to the present-day audience. Despite the long written bit of exposition on what a "Code 46" is at the beginning, other features of the future world aren't so carefully explained. It seems to be a given that most children are conceived via artificial insemination, and may not be genetically related to the parents who raise them. The landscape outside every city shown is arid desert, from Shanghai to Seattle. And it's relatively common for skills and abilities to be implanted via virus.

So, the movie's got that going for it. Unfortunately, apparently the most interesting story Boyce could find to tell in that future world was a tepid romance between William (Tim Robbins), an "intuitive investigator", and Maria (Samantha Morton), one of the factory workers he is brought to Shanghai to question. That he lies to protect her (and apparently doom someone else to life outside the city walls) at first seems inexplicable, although a connection forms between the characters, if not necessarily the actors.

Obviously, all that stuff we saw during the opening about how a Code 46 violation infolves a relationship between people with at least a 25% genetic relationship (which is generally what one has with siblings) is going to be important. That's where the movie becomes, for lack of a more descriptive term, icky. I can see the idea that having genetic material being randomly distributed in the way this future world posits would lead to a lot more inadvertant relationship between people whose DNA comes from the same source, but when the characters opt to pursue it despite all that, who do you root for? By the end, the movie practically has one thinking that the secretive "Sphinx" organization - which appears to be run like a corporation while functioning as a de facto world government - is the most reasonable group of people in the movie. And as I've said before, I don't like being put in the position of having to feel that the guys who erase memories and implant thoughts and compulsions are the good guys.

Director Michael Winterbottom opts to go the Gattaca route visually, for the most part, although the streets of Shanghai aren't quite so slick and antiseptic as the world of Andrew Niccol's movie. The movie appears to be shot primarily in locations with odd enough architecture to suggest a sort of sleek future aesthetic. The constant identity verifications also might remind one of Gattaca. And while Code 46 is in some ways more ambitious in its ideas than Gattaca - Code 46 offers a more complicated set of moral quandries than the simple desire to for self-determination even if one is considered genetically inferior - none of the people have the passion displayed by Niccol's characters. Code 46 never cracks its world's austerity to get at the primal thoughts that would drive the story.

It's a nice try, I suppose, and it hurts me to speak ill of a science fiction movie that has ambition beyond being an action movie with laser guns, but the end result is pretty disappointing.

End of the Century - ½

Aw, geez. I hate when the people responsible for me going to a movie free or early (or, in this case, both) come out and expect me to evangelize. "If we don't get people to come this weekend, then this movie will only play Boston for a week." The thing is, when it comes to the Ramones documentary End of the Century, I'm more or less okay with that, but I certainly don't want to cause a short run for something others might like.

The "rock doc" genre as a whole inspires a sort of fickleness. Certainly, any documentary is going to split the audience in terms of pre-existing interest in the subject, I'm not a particular fan of this band's music, so I'm looking for a uniquely interesting storyline, or to be bowled over. And End of the Century didn't do that for me.

I'm not sure whether I failed to connect with this movie because of the subjects or the work of co-director/producer/editor/cinematographers Jim Fields and John Gramaglia. On the one hand, they seem to assume a certain amount of musical knowledge from their audience - that when the subjects mention the New York Dolls or the Stooges, we'll know who they are. I admit, I thought they were talking about a group of slapstick comedians when the first Ramone talked about liking the Stooges. And yet, it seems like there's not a whole lot of inside information offered. The filmmakers happily dance around the the animosity between Joey and Johnny, and don't even give any screen time to the woman who came between them.

And then there's the issue of doing a movie about the Ramones. Okay, they made some catchy pop/punk songs, but when they start to talk (or when you see the quotes from the late Jeffrey "Joey Ramone" Hyman), what becomes clear is that these guys are the model for Spinal Tap. They really don't seem that bright, and they don't seem that talented: Many jokes are made about their musical talent, but it's not balanced with showing us why and how these guys were, actually, good.

There's some amusement to be had watching Dee Dee pontificate, because he seemed to have an Ozzy Osbourne thing going on, and then the movie reminds you that he died of a heroin overdose, and it's suddenly not funny. Joey died of cancer in 2001, so there's not much footage of him. Johnny is articulate, but hostile, and the other band members seem somewhat peripheral to the story of the band. It feels like we're not getting into their heads, although there may not be much in there to see.

So the end result is a movie about a group of guys of limited abilities who do pretty good, but never grab the world - or the audience - the way the movie feels that they should. Which might be a fair assessment, but doesn't make for the most exciting of movies.

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(Gives self lecture about updating index in a timely fashion and thus not having to spend half an hour on it)

Jason, thanks for updating the thread index. Since you're the most prolific contributor to the thread, it seems only fitting!

Today's New York Times has a long article extolling the virtues of this summer's alternative films. Almost every film mentioned has been reviewed here by one or more participants. For those with access (free but requires registration):

Serious Films for Popcorn Season

M.

Danny Deckchair - ¾

Funny how this one just dropped off the radar - two months ago, Landmark Theaters was pushing it with a contest and promos in front of absolutely every movie they played, but when it finally arrived in Boston, it not only didn't play the Kendall Square, but just Copley Place. After one week, it was sharing a screen with Baby Geniuses 2: Superbabies. And to add insult to injury, Superbabies got the 7pm show, leaving Danny Deckchair with only one 9:30pm showtime. Though not much more than a pleasant romantic comedy, Danny Deckchair deserves better than that.

"Pleasant" is probably the best word to describe Danny Deckchair. The story, in which a man floats away from his home after tying forty-odd balloons to a lawn chair, is based on an actual event, although I doubt Larry Walters wound up landing in the back yard of a single woman who would be a much better fit for him than his current girlfriend when he pulled this stunt in real life. The characters are likable, even the ones stuck with the usually thankless task of being the obstacles between Danny (Rhys Ifans) and Glenda (Miranda Otto).

Writer/director Jeff Balsmeyer is occasionally guilty of stretching a somewhat lightweight story - a subplot about a state parliament race seems to exist for no reason than to keep Danny occupied long enough that he doesn't seem to be callously tossing long-time girlfriend Trudy (Justine Clarke) aside as soon as he meets Glenda. He also misses some obvious bits of the plot, as the question of why Danny makes no attempt to assure Trudy or his friends that he's all right is flat-out ignored. The end is a little obvious and drawn-out.

To Mr. Balsmeyer's credit, his previous work as a storyboard artist serves him well in terms of telling the story visually. When we first see Glenda, for instance, she's watching a fireworks display that's part of her hometown of Clarence's "Macadamia Festival"... alone, in her backyard, surrounded by hedges on all sides. That one shot tells us all we need to know about her without saying a word. Similarly, the establishing shots of Clarence show the town surrounded by trees, implying the disconnection from the Sydney suburb where Danny took off but also a bright, cozy small town where everybody knows everybody else. There are several other examples of his skill at using physical space rather than words to make points.

He's also got a nice cast. Rhys Ifans is probably best known for playing skinny goofballs, though he's not as skinny here as he is in earlier films. Still a goof, though, all restless and nervous energy when he's stuck at home during a planned camping holiday. Miranda Otto is probably best known in the States as Eowyn in the latter two Lord of the Rings movies and Human Nature (where she was also paired with Ifans). She reminds me a little of Julianne Moore's understated beauty, and is winning as a woman seeming to just now remember how to enjoy life. Justine Clarke probably has the trickiest character, as Trudy is somewhat superficial, wanting a more glamorous life than her goofball construction-worker boyfriend will ever be interested in. As much as she clearly enjoys her newfound fame when Danny floats off, and more-than-flirts with the reporter covering the story, she never becomes the story's villain, and still cares about Danny.

Danny Deckchair is a sweet, air-filled marshmallow of a movie. Its Aussie accent works in its favor; set this movie in America and maybe its relaxed, colorful characters seem naïve, as ridiculous a stereotype as that may be. It makes for a fun movie, though.

I noticed that too Jason. The Danny Deckchair contest ads were incessant at the Landmark theater for at least a month, than it finally showed up it played for 1 week at a Regal/UA theater and then was gone. Sounds like it's worth a rental.

Danny Deckchair played one of the local Regal Cinemas for two weeks and then disappeared. Jason's is the first review I've read that's even mildly complimentary.

I have been otherwise engaged but will try to post a review of Remember Me, My Love later this week.

Does anyone think Vanity Fair qualifies for this thread? It was released on a thousand screens, but my sense is that it's only attracting the arthouse crowd. I enjoyed it, because I'm a sucker for English period pieces and anything featuring either Eileen Atkins or Jim Broadbent. But I can't recommend it.

M.

The really funny thing is that so far, every movie Landmark has promoted with a contest this year has wound up at Loews (Danny Deckchair, Zatoichi, I'm Not Scared; Ghost In The Shell 2 and The Motorcycle Diaries haven't come out yet), although it's usually at the Harvard Square location which doesn't share movies with Kendall Square because of geographic exclusivity. Danny got shunted to Copley Place, which is Bostonese for "if you can't see a movie anyplace else". It's a second-run theater charging first-run prices. I hate that I'll be spending time there for the Boston Film Festival this coming week.

I'm pretty easy to please; make me smile two or three times and I'll give your movie two stars. I'd be surprised if the reviews for this were overwhelmingly negative, though; it's just not ambitious enough to stray very far from "competent" in either direction.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution review was not far off from Jason's sentiments. I think they gave it a B- or C+.

I hadn't noticed that before Jason, but you're right. Love Me If You Dare also didn't play at the Landmark and I saw that contest ad a bunch as well. I'm going there this weekend to see The Five Obstructions and possibly Brown Bunny (not sure yet which theater it's playing in) so I'm sure I'll see the Motorcycles ad a few more times.

Sorry, that one's not on my reading list.

The Landmark Sunshine in New York frequently fails to get films for which the chain sponsors contests and/or runs trailers. I suspect this is dictated by agreements with the distributor, e.g., in NYC there are certain films that the Angelika or Film Forum gets; so the Landmark (which is nearby) is left out, even though the same film may play Landmark theaters in other cities.

M.

Nor should it be Michael. I don't like their reviewers at all (they are almost anti-art and also have this fake Joe Bob Brinks type guy giving reviews of "guy" movies complete with a boobie and naughty word count), but since I get the newspaper, I read 'em.

Criminal

I'm not sure how widely this is being released, but since I've seen little or no discussion of it elsewhere on HTF, and since it's being released by Warner's independent division, I'm putting these comments here.

If you've already seen the Argentinean film Nine Queens (which I reviewed two and a half years ago), this American remake will hold few surprises. Writer-director Gregory Jacobs wisely keeps nearly all of the story elements and events from Nine Queens, which was so neatly plotted that it could hardly be improved on. But Jacobs doesn't do a slavish imitation. While he transplants the story from Buenos Aires to L.A., he still manages to keep the "street" feel that distinguished the original, and because L.A. is such a different locale, that requires making subtle adjustments in tone throughout.

Also, Jacobs has assembled a terrific cast. John C. Reilly takes on the role of the older con man who undertakes to train a younger one, played by Diego Luna. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Reilly's sister, whose position as concierge at a fancy hotel gives Reilly access to a rich mark he wants to fleece (played with understated flair by Peter Mullan). The con now revolves around a rare piece of U.S. currency instead of stamps, but that's merely a detail.

If there's a major difference between Criminal and its Argentinean progenitor, it's in the character of Reilly's Richard. The equivalent character in Nine Queens, Marcos, was unfailingly smooth and urbane. Reilly's character can affect that demeanor, but you only have to scratch the surface to see that Richard is a scumbag. Jacobs gives Reilly a number of speeches that make him seem almost sociopathic (no doubt trying to play off Reilly's "nice guy" image from such films as Chicago and Magnolia). It's an interesting shift, though I'm not sure it makes much difference to the plot's ultimate resolution.

If you've seen Nine Queens, you can enjoy watching the way Jacobs adapted it to a U.S. locale, and you can appreciate the sly work done by the actors. If you're coming to the story for the first time, it's a fun con movie -- but then go see Nine Queens.

M.

When Will I Be Loved

I can't help but think of A Home at the End of the World, which seems to be known chiefly for Colin Farrell's nude scene, even though the scene was cut out of the film. Well, James Toback's latest film has kept its "money" shot of Neve Campbell masturbating with a showerhead, and it would be a shame if that's what people focus on. (Which isn't to say that I'm above pandering to prurient interests by leading with the reference.)

Toback has always been fascinated by hustlers, and Campbell's Vera may be the most skillful hustler ever to grace a Toback film. A rich girl with indulgent parents, she's just moved into a sumptuous loft in downtown Manhattan and is applying for a job as the assistant to a Columbia Professor (played by Toback himself). But even as she strolls down Broadway with the professor interviewing her, she can't stop herself from chatting up men who catch her fancy and collecting their phone numbers. Intercut with these opening scenes are shots of Vera's boyfriend, Ford, played by Frederick Weller in a kinetic performance that's equal parts funny, offensive and sad. Ford is a hustler without any of Vera's advantages, and although we never learn how they met, we very quickly realize that, with Vera, Ford is in way over his head.

The center of the plot is an explicit replay of Indecent Proposal, with Ford offering Vera to a billionaire Italian count (Dominic Chianese a/k/a "Uncle Junior", in an exquisitely calibrated performance) in exchange for $100,000. The long scene where the count and Vera face off in her apartment is remarkable. Having established a pairing that is out of balance in almost every conceivable way -- generational, sexual, emotional, financial -- these two actors engage in a contest of wills that is no less epic for being conducted in low, even tones.

The plotting may be haphazard, but there's a lot more to the film. We get numerous scenes of Ford's activities -- the argument when a woman to whom he owes money spots him in Times Square is hilarious -- and we meet Vera's parents (Karen Allen plays her mother) as well as one of her female friends -- and let's just say that Vera is far more advanced in her explorations of the world than her fast-talking boyfriend can even begin to imagine.

The soundtrack is an odd mixture of rap, Beethoven and Bach, and towards the end there's a scene of Vera alone in her apartment listening to Bach and gesturing in time with the music that reminded me of Hannibal Lecter just before he escapes from custody in The Silence of the Lambs. The parallel is not inappropriate.

M.

Spring Summer Fall Winter ...and Spring (What a wonderful film!)
Code 46

These two films were released earlier but made their US debuts in 2004:

Twilight Samurai
Young Adam

The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi

Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a dice-gambling genius, who comes to the aid of the disenfranchised. Zatoichi has been compared to James Bond as Japan’s longest running film and TV series character. Conceived in 1962, it has generated 26 films and a TV series that ended in 1989.

Takeshi Kitano’s version is ultra violent and transcends genre rules of the action drama. It incorporates comedy that doesn’t go over the top and certain elements of a musical, mostly with percussion instruments. Others may be bothered by this latter approach, but for the most part, I viewed it as a welcome change to what might otherwise have been a standard samurai picture. However, the extended musical production that appears in the end seems to be out of place when compared to the film’s period setting that preceded it.

According to Kitano, “(The film) allowed me to do preposterous things and explore new areas I hadn't before. I can certainly say that making the film has been one of the most artistically and creatively satisfying experiences of my career.” Takeshi Kitano’s Zatoichi is meant to be fun, entertaining and an enjoyable outing. It is at this level that this version of Zatoichi works.

(out of four)

~Edwin

Man, if that's the case, then how do you classify Ichi The Killer?

Grotesquely ultra mega violent.

~Edwin

Remember Me, My Love (Ricordati di me)

I missed writer-director Gabriele Muccino's previous film, Last Kiss, but now I'm going to seek it out, because I've read that it's similar in style and subject matter to Remember Me, My Love. After this film, I'm a fan.

RMML begins with a narrator who introduces us to the four members of the Ristuccia family as they're awakening to greet the day. A middle class couple living in Rome, Carlo and Guilia have been married long enough to produce two teenagers, Paolo and Valentina, and Carlo has apparently been successful enough to establish a comfortable life for his family. However, as the narrator promptly informs us, the members of this family don't know each other.

The women are the stars here, partly because of how the roles are written and partly because Laura Morante (as Guilia) and Nicoletta Romanoff (as the teenage Valentina) steal every scene they're in. Morante is mesmerizing as a woman who feels trapped as a wife and mother and yet is almost paralyzed with fear when she's given an opportunity to step out of that world. A former actress, she gets a part in what looks like the Roman equivalent of off-Broadway and then is nearly prostrate with stage fright. Morante lets you see right through Guilia's skin (it's the quality in Guilia that gives her such potential as an actress), and she doesn't hesitate to show Guilia's uglier side, particularly in her dealings with her children. I wouldn't want to be married to Guilia, but I loved watching her.

Valentina would be a cliche if she weren't played so beautifully. She's bored with school and yearns for showbiz; the big break she's after is as a dancer on what looks like a fairly cheesy TV show. First we see Valentina dream of stardom with her friends and then we get to watch as, with remarkable determination, she literally sleeps her way into the job she wants. Nicoletta Romanoff's performance maintains a perfect balance between naivete (Valentina is still a kid) and an instinctive shrewdness that keeps her on track even when she's not sure what the hell she's doing.

Carlo, the nominal head of the family, is a lost soul who's deathly bored at work, dreams of completing the unfinished novel locked in a drawer for years, and only begins to show signs of life when he reconnects with an old flame played by Monica Belucci. It would be a spoiler to say more about what happens with this relationship, but Belucci is magical as always.

Paolo, the son, is probably the least interesting character -- adrift, sexually frustrated and fixated on a woman who doesn't reciprocate his feelings. Fortunately, we don't spend too much time with him.

As these four souls quest for a more meaningful life, you think you know where the film is going. Then, in the last half hour, it takes an abrupt turn that throws everything into doubt. Sitting in the theater, I thought Muccino had made a huge mistake, but as I've reflected on the film, I realize that he was trying for something quite original.

Too often, movie characters take a "journey" whose destination is perfectly obvious, even if there are detours along the way. In life, though, the detours often are the journey, and that's what Muccino wants to show in the last act of RMML. By the end of the film, almost nothing has been resolved. Still, characters and their lives have experienced genuine change, some of it for the better. The film concludes with a very pointed question about several of their futures, and Muccino bravely leaves most things unresolved. It's up to the audience to imagine what happens next.

M.

Silver City

A big disappointment from the usually reliable John Sayles. Don't be fooled by the misleading trailer, which promises a full-out political satire. Chris Cooper's bumbling gubernatorial candidate is in the movie only marginally more than he's in the trailer. The real center of the movie is the journalist-turned-investigator played (wanly) by Danny Huston. Huston is hired by Cooper's campaign manager (Richard Dreyfuss) to help manage a potentially embarrassing incident involving a body that pops out of a lake while the candidate is filming an environment-friendly campaign spot.

The film has no narrative drive. You can pretty much figure out what happened as soon as you hear the coroner's report, and I'm giving nothing away by saying that it has nothing to do with the candidate. Sayles tries to use the incident as an opening for a larger exploration of the intersection of politics and corporate interests, but he can't construct much of a plot, and the characters are mostly stick figures, with Huston's reporter being the stiffest stick of the bunch. Every so often, an interesting character actor arrives to resuscitate the film for a few minutes -- Miguel Ferrer as an embittered radio talk show host, Ralph Waite as an embittered former environmental investigator, Darryl Hannah as the candidate's embittered and estranged sister (are we sensing a pattern here?). Other fine actors simply sink under the burden of underwritten parts -- Kris Kristofferson as the evil industrialist who's probably behind everything seems to think he's still playing the mobster in Payback, and Michael Murphy, as the candidate's Senator father, seems to have left his comic dexterity in Jack Tanner's suit pocket.

The film ends with an eerie shot of dying fish floating to the top of an otherwise idyllic Colorado lake, while Cooper delivers one of the candidate's cliche-ridden speeches about the environment. It's a hint of what the film could have been if Sayles had been willing to show us the savage attack on the current state of America that he obviously has bubbling around inside him. That might have alienated a lot of audience members, but at least it wouldn't have bored them.

M.

Silver City opens here next week but based on word of mouth here and elsewhere I'm losing a lot of interest in it already.

~Edwin

It's a real shame. Sunshine State had a similarly broad canvas, but there Sayles was able to orchestrate a deft blend of character drama and social commentary. In Silver City the drama is almost entirely lacking. Since there's no shortage of acting talent on display, the fault has to be in the script and the direction.

M.

P.S. Is anyone besides Edwin, Jason and me still reading this thread?