You are here: Home / Archives for The World / Film

Brotherhood of the Wolf

January 27, 2003 By Leave a Comment

Brotherhood of the Wolf is a veritable party tray of a film. Director/co-writer Christophe Gans has put together an action/horror/thriller/period piece/mystery/martial arts flick that literally has something for everyone.

A lifelong film fan, Gans was involved in several fan publications in France. He has taken bits from nearly every type of film and placed them within the context of his story so that the seams don’t show. A technical achievement in the success of the blending, even if the story peters out before the end.

Filed Under: Film, The World Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Catch Me if You Can

January 25, 2003 By Leave a Comment

Catch Me if You Can is about one of the cleverest check forgers ever, Frank Abagnale (here’s his personal web site abagnale.com. I’m not a fan of cons turned cops, but most of this film is about Abagnale’s adventurous youth, so it’s interesting. Of course the filmmakers knew that we’d be more interested in the con than the consulting he does now. Tom Hank’s role reminded me of his role in Road to Perdition, except of course he was a nerdy, loner, of an FBI agent. DeCaprio’s role somehow reminded me of Matt Damon’s in The Talented Mr. Ripley, but without the homicidal madness. One likes this character better. Catch Me if You Can is a contemporary The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper in attitude. It romanticizes the outlaw, even if he does get caught in this one, and leaves a fair amount of anti-establishment flavor to savor (especially at a time when media is full of silly cop shows like America’s Most Wanted tell us criminals are “crazy” for running afoul of the law. I liked this flick. It’d be more fun with a French edge, and one could argue it’s kind of made-for-TV, but I liked Abagnale’s character enough that I stayed through it.

Filed Under: Film, The World Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

How High

January 25, 2003 By Leave a Comment
Cover of "How High"
Cover of How High

How High is another “in the hood” drug film. You know the genre. The stereotypes aren’t amusing. The constant obsession with the perfect ‘bud’ is as trite as Cheech and Chong, and will mainly appeal to those who are currently feeling the “munchies”. And the ‘stupid stoners go to Harvard on an affirmative action gig’ worn-out plot premise that relies on canned ‘clash of culture’ gags is a real yawner. Another film we’ve seen before under many other titles. Skip this one and check out Spike Lee’s School Daze. While the latter can be tedious in places, when not outright offensive, at least it’s got some substance.

Filed Under: Film, The World Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Center Stage

January 25, 2003 By Leave a Comment

Center Stage is one of those ‘snapshot in the lives of’ films. You know. It’s like most such films about the struggles and affairs of doctors, spies and soliders (the current fashion for the security state), policemen, police women, ice skaters, figure skaters, skate boarders, street dancers, teachers, musicians… etc. If you liked Fame, this is that with ballet dancers. And, of course, it’s got the usual “stick up their butt” (nice imagery) American Ballet Association needs a dose of street dancing ‘soul’ cliches. You know. Shakespeare needs hip hop to make it palatable, and so on. Again, we’ve seen it before; pick your title.

Filed Under: Film, The World Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Pumpkin

January 20, 2003 By Leave a Comment

Pumpkin is exquisitely painful and beautiful. Silly and sappy, at times too. It’s a surreal comedy (in the classical sense) that rests on agony and despair — loneliness, the relentless pressure of society, it’s gaping wounds. No, we don’t usually ask for films like that, or go out of our way for them. But this one is different. It’s full of insight; it says the unspoken. What a film! I wouldn’t have missed a moment of it. I could tell you what it’s about, but that wouldn’t tell you what it’s like. It’s like the twelve bitter, dry, and sour foods at the last meal of the Nativity Fast. Best taken solemnly. And leading to a shining light.

Filed Under: Film, The World

Changing Lanes

January 18, 2003 By Leave a Comment
Cover of "Changing Lanes"
Cover of Changing Lanes

Changing Lanes was interesting. Jackson does it again in this role and Ben Affleck isn’t bad. The latter makes a good yup, which is the role he has in this flick. Feels like I’ve seen this one before, but I can’t recall under what title. And the flavor reminds me, not entirely because of Jackson, of The 51st State. Still, I like the intellectual aspect of the film. It’s two cultures colliding. The role that Jackson gets is the man that is always misinterpreted, always pounded down by some bureacratic technicality, and no one will listen. Consequently, he can’t seem to rise from the pavement. I can understand. Affleck is the usual yuppy asshole who thinks he can walk up and slap a stranger on the back, say whatever he wants, and then just walk safely away. Instead, he gets followed home, so to speak. Middle class white bread all the way. I like it.

Filed Under: Film, The World Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Blade II

January 18, 2003 By Leave a Comment

Blade II kinda kicked ass. There were some horror elements that reminded me of Mimic – I’m not big on that stuff – but as the usual vein of vampire flicks goes, Blade and Blade II aren’t that bad. And I do believe that Kris Kristopherson has actually found his niche. A vampire hunter! Blade II spends a little too much time on the drama and the medical details of vampirism – obviously fun stuff for the vampirella-goth crowd – but overall, the action is freaking great. Watching this is like playing Quake without having to think. :)

Filed Under: Film, The World Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Kate & Leopold

January 18, 2003 By Leave a Comment
Film poster for Kate & Leopold - Copyright 200...
Image via Wikipedia

Kate & Leopold is the usual romance. Bumbling male, sharp female. If he rolls over and plays nice, he’ll win her heart. Excuse me while I vomit. If you like nice films about nice men and the uptight women who want them, you’ll like this one. This is every other romance you’ve seen where you could substitute Hugh Grant for the lead male. The bewildered kind of mind that only sees the beauty of the specialness that is you (i.e. her) – the kind you can dress up in knee-length trousers, suspenders, and a puffy shirt and take shopping with you. On the other hand, if you want a man’s teeth at your throat, look elsewhere.

Filed Under: Film, The World Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The Royal Tenenbaums

January 18, 2003 By Leave a Comment

The Royal Tenenbaums. I don’t have a lot to say about this one. I didn’t find it funny. I didn’t find it enlightening. I’ve debated this, but I still see it as basically another naturalistic mood piece. I happen to like (I’ll take crap for this) Gene Hackman, and I like Anjelica Huston and (more crap coming, I know) Gwyneth Paltrow (Shakespeare in Love is one of my all time favorites, though perhaps she simply benefits from being in that one). Ben Stiller’s best role, imo, is still “The Screamer” (a Friend’s episode – the one where he yells viciously at everyone while playing the gentle soft male to Rachel, and they finally catch him in time for Chandler to say, “Back away from the duck.”.). But I kept looking for something in this film and, typical of naturalistic films, it kept promising, but it never paid off. Sure, there’s some kind of psychological resolution for each of the characters, so I can see the point of the person I argued this with, but then look what kind of resolution it is – it’s resolution without real meaning, imo. The incest part of it is certainly interesting, and that should have been the plot, I think.

Filed Under: Film, The World Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Ocean’s Eleven

January 18, 2003 By Leave a Comment

Likewise, Ocean’s Eleven was an action-heist flick we’ve seen under a number of other titles. It’s the usual man out of prison, puts together the old crew, does one last big job, but there are complications plot. They strung together all those big names for it – Clooney (with a pathetic love interest and not much else – none of that style we saw in O Brother Where Art Thou or Dusk Til Dawn – or maybe just so much of the same that it went by unnoticed), Matt Damon (who ached for a more prominent role – Rounders and Good Will Hunting are still top billings for him), Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt (nothing outshines Fight Club for him), and even Elliott Gould (as a wealthy gangster type). It’s a yawner. Heavy on cast, low on things for them to do. They practically stand around looking at each other. I suppose I remember commenting on this film elsewhere, too.

Filed Under: Film, The World Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

War Flicks

January 18, 2003 By Leave a Comment

I can’t say enough bad things about Behind Enemy Lines and Black Hawk Down. Besides being propaganda flicks to justify our current foreign policy (euphemism alert), they’re chalked full of enough inaccuracies and hype about specific or thinly veiled representations of specific persons and nations that they’re even more offensive. If you can turn off the part of your brain that cares about such things (if you can, we’ve really nothing to say to each other anyway), and just watch them as action flicks or combat flicks (for those who like combat film for the sake of combat film), ok. As anything else, let alone truth about Serbia or Somalia, they’re crap. Talk to Ambassador Oakley about Somalia, for instance, and you still won’t get a story quite this squeaky clean. Or… maybe you might, come to think of it. I’ll bet they consulted him on the project. Yeesh. And following on the heels of Pearl Harbor, and several other such flicks, it’s been just too much of a barrage of jingoistic sentiment and smokescreen about the villages and hospitals we destroy from the air, the waters we poison, and the people we dispossess and turn into refugees. If we’re going to say something about Somalia or Serbia or Iraq or Afghanistan or (soon) North Korea, that will live on as the public’s cinematic memory about it, it should include the napalm, the FAE’s, and the BLU-82′s.

Filed Under: Film, The World Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Barber Shop

January 18, 2003 By Leave a Comment

Barber Shop is meant to be like the Barber Shop in Coming to America. It isn’t. Rent the latter Eddie Murphy video one more time and have fun with it. There’s some interesting discussion of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and… what’s his name… you know, the Rainbow Coalition guy, in this one. Enjoyable if you like political humor – I laughed out loud a few times for all that. And it reminds me vaguely of Spike Lee’s School Daze in that way. But the rest is cliched drama about losing the store, keeping up the family business, and poor comedy about life in the hood.

Filed Under: Film, The World

Life or Something Like It

January 18, 2003 By Leave a Comment

Life or Something Like It. Well, all right. I only saw half an hour of it. And I suppose I wasn’t completely turned off. I’ll go back and see the rest. But parts of it are just so Richard Gere. If I weren’t interested in The Prophet (the character that predicts future events), I’d probably not bother

Filed Under: Film, The World
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »