Bug review

The finest element to the 1975 mutated cockroach flick Bungle is a writing believe by horror leader William Hall (13 Ghosts, The Tingler), in a screenplay based on a novel by Thomas Point. I have not read Page’s book The Hephaestus Hassle, but I promise there was more of a release there than what Castle at last adapted suited for the screen, because Bug takes forever to slope up to the insides storyline before dipping into what can only be considered surreal foolishness.

Following a particularly rough earthquake in a dusty California desert municipality, a modish breed of insect arises entirely the uneven crevasses and, for reasons never deep down explained, own the ability to shoot flames gone from of their rear ends. These mutated cockroaches one day pinch up domicile in spend pipes everywhere, causing hidden explosions all over borough, and it takes a diligent entomologist named Parimiter (Bradford Dillman) to write out the joining. The downside for Parmiter is that he eventually becomes a bug-studying/pressure-niche-experimenting recluse who dabbles in his own brand of crazy genetic engineering with the expected tragic results.

Directed by television battle-scarred Jeannot Szwarc, Mania suffers from a unexceptional B-movie aversion premise&#8212but the pacing of the Palace screenplay is agonizing and interminable in reaching the goofy final measure, which is so ridiculous and comical in design that the loose explanation (no matter how far-fetched) just seems painfully ham-handed. Dillman gets to chew up a few miles of scenery as his oddball slides into the dark side, but one can only muster so much moody photoplay gone of talking into a tape recorder and peering into a homemade pressure chamber.

In hindsight, William Citadel probably had the best of intentions with his Bug screenplay, but somewhere, by fair means, a primary and satisfying anecdotal was just dissolute. The the poop indeed that the bugs burn a few folks (time exchange for the obligatory bad flame suit&#8212especially Joanna Miles, who ends up looking twin a lineman to go to the Bears) seems just woefully blurry; the charitable earthquake sequence that opens the film actually has more suspense than any sacrifice of the surviving 90 minutes. Larva barely is able to conduct the walk, and considering it only manages to talk the talk there ends up being not much leftist to either be scary, suspenseful or even acceptable.

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Mr. Castle, I will always recognize 13 Ghosts and The Tingler with crucial love. Bug&#8212well it’s best if I just stab to forget.

Fireworks review

An provocative re-listing into the world of yakuza criminals and the cops who try to check them,
Hana-bi
is notably lyrical and evasive in style. On the streets of trendy hour Japan a cosmetic motor carries three detectives towards a dangerous stakeout. Intent on trapping an armed and dangerous villain, Nishi (Takeshi Kitano) and Horibe (Ren Osugi) have his apartment staked insensible. By the ease they arrive, however, Nishi has been persuaded to visit his terminally cataclysm wife Miyuki (Kayoko Kishimoto), in hospital. To synthesis matters neither of the cops already on work is delighted to stay on with Horibe; they've both got lives to attend to beyond the continuously grind of patrol slave away. Thus Horibe is socialistic alone, a situation which has horrific repercussions when the hood returns.

At a later date Nishi is no longer a detective, instead spending his days caring for Miyuki and brutally negotiating with yakuza loan sharks. To their annoyance Nishi has borrowed a large sum of cash and is refusing to pay back even the interest, let alone the entire debt. Whenever they send over some young thugs to play rough, Nishi bloodily assaults them. Hence there is an impasse. Down the road Horibe is confined to a wheelchair, abandoned by his once-loving family and contemplating suicide. Nishi seems to share his pain, perhaps remorseful at leaving his colleague, and does what he can to help. Back in the police force the eager young men who replaced Nishi and Horibe are confronting the very same problems; an endless circle connects as they find themselves becoming numbed in the manner of their predecessors.

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In form and execution

Hana-bi

is so unlike traditional, principally Hollywood, films that an essay could be written on this point alone. At the eye of the action stands Nishi, played with affecting simplicity by Kitano. In a film that harks back to the silent era, so sparse is the dialogue, Nishi is taciturn to the point of appearing dumb. From his perspective almost everything worth saying has already been said, so why waste time on empty words; usually a look or a gesture is all that's required. The surprise is that this reluctance to elaborate and explain stretches over to Kitano's other domains; writing and direction. Throughout

Hana-bi

there are loose ends, looming holes which niggle for attention; Kitano ignores them. In a narrative as fractured as this, such features are merely an expression of the underlying anarchy. No one can really understand why another person acts in a certain way, so why should Kitano try to provide all the answers here?

The reason why this approach succeeds, where any other film might collapse in a quivering heap, is the strength of the performances. Kitano puts on a role superbly tailored to his strengths, injecting Nishi with a healthy dose of contradiction. In one instant a warm and gentle husband, in the next a sadistic and ruthless bully; two sides to a character that becomes three-dimensional in Kitano's hands. Working against him for much of the film is Kishimoto, carrying a burden of impending death with barely two sentences to express her grief. Her entire performance is composed of glances, expressions and unforced laughter. The chemistry between her and Kitano is so wonderful it illuminates the entire movie; where other stories might spend a hundred pages proving a love, here the harmony is obvious. The third leg of this emotional tripod is Osugi, perhaps even more opaque than Kitano. There is an indefinable weight to his character that resonates deeply, though much of this may be down to his associated art.

It is this latter element which makes

Hana-bi

so visually arresting; the placing of Kitano's own pieces throughout the film. A curious and disturbing mixture of flower and beast, these works both open up and obscure the dynamics of the characters. They hint frustratingly at worlds beyond the surface, yet never actually reveal them; perhaps this is the touchstone of the entire film.

Hana-bi

captivates and compels you to watch, then refuses to even consider resolving its ambiguity. On the other hand, however, this quicksilver quality allows

Hana-bi

to transcend its genre; this is a tale of people, not of guns.

A striking aspect of

Hana-bi

is Kitano's amaazing versatility. Not content with writing, directing and starring, he is also responsible for the razor sharp editing. Characterised by jarring but effective cuts between counterpoint scenes, Kitano is more than able in this field also. Interestingly while this makes

Hana-bi

something of a one-man show, he never forgets to include minor roles

and

give them the space to live. For memorable examples of this generosity in action, watch for the regretful junkyard owner and the beach walker who lets slip an impolitic remark. The texture added by these figures is a great aid towards understanding the main characters, which in itself is justification for creating them. However, lest you decide that

Hana-bi

is a sombre and chilling affair, be warned that it is anything but! Smartly written humour breaks up the poetic tone beautifully, a nod towards Kitano's comic roots and a welcome relief at all times.

This film was viewed at the 1997 Birmingham International Film & Television Festival

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One Hundred Nails (2007)

All the books in the everyone aren’t nearly as valuable as a unique cup of coffee with a adherent — so says “One Hundred Nails,” Ermanno Olmi’s disappointing follow-up to his luminous “Singing Behind Screens” (2003). Helmer, now 75, has declared this his last fiction feature, a double-blow for the benefit of those who felt he’d just reached his most fruitful period — until in the present circumstances. Following a professor’s epiphany from jaded scholar to messiah-like neighbor, unconvincing story may be screened at offshore Italo fests and retros. But given that Olmi’s model two (superior) pics were shelved internationally, it’s unresolved “Nails” will find takers.

Unsparingly religious in tone, despite the ad line “Religions have never saved the world,” film opens with a scene redolent of “The Da Vinci Code,” as tremulous strings accompany a caretaker’s horrified shouts from a library’s locked gate. When the cops arrive, the cause of his agitation is clear: Someone has nailed 100 precious manuscripts into the floor. Not just normal nails, but big ones, like the kind used to hammer Jesus onto the cross.

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While police try to identify the perp, a flashback to the day before shows a professor of philosophy (Raz Degan), whose name Olmi deliberately withholds, bidding farewell to students at semester’s end. Of special significance is an Indian student (Amina Syed), completing her thesis on women and religion, who explains that religion is the one certainty in her people’s lives.

Suddenly, off goes the prof in his BMW convertible, which he abandons before heading to the banks of the Po River and a ruined peasant house. Venturing into town, he’s taken aback by the friendliness of the people, so unlike the bookish city folk back at Bologna U. Flirtations develop, neighbors help him fix up the ruins, and everyone turns to the charismatic newcomer for help when their illegally built community center is threatened with demolition.

How the professor turns into a Christlike figure, or indeed why they need him at all, remains a mystery — Olmi’s sympathetic yet simplistic view of the rural population displays a surprisingly (for him) patronizing attitude, as if they somehow need this intellectual outsider in order to survive. Final shot of candles lit along the road in anticipation of the prof’s return reinforces the sense of deification.

Olmi’s stated aim is to depict a figure exhibiting the humanity of Christ — not the Son of God, but the Son of Man. However, this still begs the question: Would Jesus damage precious manuscripts to make a facile and wrong-headed point? Olmi sets up a questionable dichotomy between an elderly, dried-up monsignor with one milky eye, seen as the rep of the Church and all things bookish, and the handsome professor who’s turned his back on everything but human contact.

In many ways, “One Hundred Nails” harks back to Olmi’s earliest films, with a touch of Pasolini, evident not only in the locations but also the largely nonpro cast. Fabio Olmi’s lensing repeatedly returns to the river’s calm, presenting a timeless land of purer values than those of the city, though lacking the richness of his last two pics with father Ermanno. Music forms a key element, not only Fabio Vacchi’s post-Stravinsky strings, but also Ravel and traditional tunes turned into sacred chorales.

United 93 (2006)

A real without surcease dramatization of the fate of Of like mind excursion 93 from Revitalized York bound benefit of San Francisco on September 11, 2001. The fourth of the hijacked planes on that tragic day, it was the only one that did not hit its object: the White Accommodate. After the harrowing realization that their plane had been hijacked by terrorists who had already killed a fare and the pilots, and having leant of the aircrafts smashing into the World Trade Focal point, the passengers gather the courage to storm the terrorists, four young Muslims who are hardly prepared in the interest their fell mission. Meanwhile, the tell traffic controllers - and even the military - are baffled and disconcerted as they try to grapple with the savagery of the situation.

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THE NEON BIBLE, writer-direct…

THE NEON BIBLE, journalist-director Terence Davies first literary adaptation, is based on John Kennedy Toole’s coming of life-span thriller become established in the 1930s and 1940s Bible hit. Similar to Davies’s autobiographical TRILOGY, the film is a series of remembrances by 15-year old David (Jacob Tierney), who reflects back on his troubled puberty while riding a discipline to an unknown following. As a piddling attendant, David (Drake Bell) was a friendless outcast who watched his angry father, Forthright (Denis Leary) emit the frustration of their poverty by beating his wife, Sarah (Diana Scarwid). David gets a playmate when enthralling Aunt Mae (Gena Rowlands) comes to live with them. Mae regales David with stories of her days on the stage, and provides some security in the midst of his parents’ troubles. Ignoring Mae’s impact, however, David is mannered to plant up too soon, and finds himself in a shocking predicament. With his aqueous, languorous camera movements, Davies guides the viewer through David’s familial person and the human being of the South at a certain moment, with its revival meetings and book burnings. Davies’s cinemascope absent-mindedness is another compelling examination of his personal themes of immaturity, reminiscence, and creed.

Miss March (2009)

Friday, Scar 13, 2009 03:35 EDT

The comedians behind "The Whitest Kids U' Know" fill their skin debut with boobs and poo jokes — but completion up with a serious stinker.

We've all been reading that box office sales are up because out-of-work or just generally depressed people want to go out to the movies and have fun. Escapist action movies and comedies, like

"Taken"

and "Paul Blart: Mall Cop," have become big winter hits. We've also been reading about how even when movies like

"The Reader"

win Academy Awards, no one wants to trek out to see them. The common wisdom is that those are take-your-medicine movies, pictures that actually demand that you think.

I'd argue that responding to an expressive, alive (if dumb-bunny) picture like "Taken" actually uses more brain cells than dipping into the puddle-size pseudo-depths of "The Reader." But if escapist entertainment is going to be the wave of the future — or at least the near-future — it's time to start recognizing that not all escapist entertainment is created equal. And that some of it isn't even entertainment. "Miss March" is, to use the vernacular of the escapist moviegoer, the biggest pile of crap I've seen in ages. This so-called comedy, about a chaste young man who awakens from a four-year coma only to learn that his equally chaste girlfriend has become a successful Playboy model, reeks of derision for its intended audience. I can just see some cartoony executive signing off on it with a smirk, saying, "You know those moviegoers — they'll buy a ticket to

anything

with tits and poo in it."

I've gone on record more times than I can count about how much I love looking at naked and semi-naked bodies, male and female, on-screen. And boy, do I enjoy a good

poo joke.

The problem with "Miss March" isn't that it disrespects women: It's that it disrespects poo and tits. The movie is the directorial debut of Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, both members of the TV comedy-sketch troupe "The Whitest Kids U' Know." Cregger and Moore also wrote the script and star in the picture as, respectively, Eugene, an upstanding teen who has vowed not to have sex with his extremely sexy girlfriend Cindi (Raquel Alessi) until after marriage, and Tucker, Eugene's best friend, who beds as many babes as he can. His seduction technique apparently consists of staring at them, hard, with unblinking eyes and dangling his tongue out of his mouth like a wolf in a Tex Avery cartoon. (Always works for me.)

Eugene has an accident on prom night and falls into a coma. He's awakened when Tucker hits him on the head with a baseball bat, and shortly thereafter, because he's not yet fully in control of his body, he lets out a splat of cream-corn-style diarrhea. Further hilarity ensues when Eugene and Tucker hit the road, trying to get to the Playboy Mansion: Eugene wants to confront Cindi, who, he believes, abandoned him in his hour of need.

The road-trip format gives Eugene lots of time to mope and complain, and Tucker lots of chances to ogle cleavage. (His perpetual wet dreams come true when, while hitchhiking, the duo are picked up by a pair of buxom lesbians with Eastern European accents, who need someone to drive while they make mad passionate love in the backseat.) Some of this could, potentially, be funny. But in "Miss March," virtually none of it is, partly because of the total charmlessness of the two lead actors: What gaze, male or female,

wouldn't

drift toward stacked, good-looking babes, if the other option is spending 90 minutes parsing Cregger's dullard dopiness and Moore's Jim Carrey-wannabe mugging?

Only one gag consistently made me laugh in "Miss March": Craig Robinson appears as a DJ called Horsedick.MPEG, which is his full and proper name. (Anyone who dares to call him just "Horsedick" is met with an icy glare and a frosty "DOT EM-PEG!") But the other jokes — including riffs on the earlier bowel-movement motif, and a sequence in which Tucker's epileptic girlfriend (played by Molly Stanton) suffers a seizure while giving him a blow job — never achieve liftoff. They're the comedic equivalent of erectile dysfunction.

Also, if you're heading out to "Miss March" in the hopes of seeing naked boobies, you'll want to know that they're in relatively short supply: Most of the boobies here are encased in tight T-shirts or miniature halter tops, although it's easy enough to use your imagination.

It should also be noted that Hugh Hefner makes a cameo (although, as a critic friend sitting next to me pointed out, he never appears on-camera with any other character) and gives a sweet-enough speech about true love. But that speech makes "Miss March" even more loathsome: This is a picture made by people who think they can get away with crass jokes if they just proffer an ostensibly sweet message with it. It's a drive-through version of the genuine sweetness the Farrelly brothers used to give us with movies like

"Shallow Hal."

What's more, I'm baffled that Hefner would even want to be associated with this flaccid turkey. Tucker claims to worship Hefner, and at one point tells his idol that he's applied his "teachings and principles" to every aspect of his life. That could hardly be true of this semi-literate moron: When I was a journalism student in the early 1980s, I had teachers who cited Playboy as recommended reading, because at that time Hefner was still seeking out the best writers and journalists for his magazine. In the old days — not, alas, today — you could read the likes of Truman Capote, Margaret Atwood, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Marshall McLuhan in the pages of "Playboy." Hefner himself has said that if it weren't for the girls, he'd be remembered as the editor of a literary magazine.

You may be asking: Why beat up on "Miss March," a relatively small picture (it's being released by Fox Atomic, a division of Fox Searchlight) that isn't likely to become a bazonga hit like "Paul Blart"? It's broad comedy; it's not pretending to be anything else.

But the mere existence of "Miss March" should be treated as a cautionary tale. Broad comedy doesn't necessarily have to insult our intelligence. And if we're entering an age when depressed moviegoers are looking for fun, we still have the right to demand comedies into which someone has put some thought and care, instead of just assuming that, in our current dejected, addled, penniless state, we'll buy a ticket to any old thing. As a palliative to "Miss March," I suggest last year's

"The House Bunny,"

starring the wonderful Anna Faris, a comedy with sly intelligence beneath its glossy surface. "The House Bunny" is the sexy librarian of so-called dumb comedies. "Miss March" doesn't even have what it takes to be their video clerk.

Thursday Video Cornucopia

February 18, 2010

Thursday Video Cornucopia

Fagged out the day away from the computer - came back to a plethora of film offerings at B.net:

• Anoj is back with Top 10 Halo 3 Guardian Kills: Ep 48. (Link in B.net post goes to Honorable Mentions - the actual Top 10 is here.)
• Sandstorm 2 is a montage from Sandman - heavy on the editing.
• Just the Two of Us is a dualtage from iEli X and Zero - mellow.
• Indiana Pwns is a funny parody trailer from ChrisOfTheDead - nice work.
• Bearin Yooden is the newest creation from Phatcorns - combines the awesome camerawork of Team Scoog with the awesome camerawork of Quentin Tarantino. Don't miss it.

Evolution review

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

This is one dumb sci-fi comedy that doesn’t work in either genre.
There are no redeeming values for this juvenile, at best frat-house, flick
whose main appeal, I suppose, is for those who have unfortunately reversed
the process of evolution for themselves, or for those who are on a summer
vacation and have let their hair down, or for those who are planning to
have a lobotomy and will from now on diet solely on Hollywood fare or,
if I can find it in my heart to be more generous, for those whose sense
of humor differs radically from mine. On the evolutionary scale of comedies,
Evolution is near rock bottom. Ivan Reitman (”Ghostbusters“) directs
an alien attack film in which the only remotely interesting thing it had
going for it was its alien premise of these harmless but odd creatures
being attacked for no reason but military paranoia. But it wasted that
opportunity to do something that had a satirical bite by opting to take
the road to mediocrity with lame jokes, punch lines telegraphed from miles
away, asinine skits, and by showing an ear for comedy stuck in its rear
end. Rectal humor is what Evolution has come down to for this middling
director, who gets an A for bringing science and comedy down to a low level.
The film’s main protagonist is a biology prof, who also is in the habit
of giving A’s out to win his students over to his side. Almost everyone
in his college class gets an A, except for the moronic brothers (Ethan
Suplee and Michael Ray Bower) who hand in an identical one-lined term paper
entitled “Cells Are Bad” and both receive a C- . To that grade, the prof
wisecracks that he still has some standards.

The film opens as the designated-resident imbecile, a candidate for
the small-town Arizona fire department, Wayne Grey (Seann William Scott),
is practicing for his test tomorrow by showing his rescue moves on an inflated
doll-like figure he placed in an abandoned shack he set on fire. This takes
place under the nighttime desert sky, but the practice test is interrupted
when a meteor strikes. Two goofy and irreverent science professors at nearby
Glenn Canyon Community College, Ira Kane (Duchovny) and Harry Block (Jones),
team up to discover that the meteor contains alien cells that are rapidly
going from single to multiple cells, therefore pushing the billion years
it took to make that evolutionary leap into now happening in a matter of
a few days. In other words, there is an immediate and startling evolutionary
process taking place that defies all scientific knowledge. These two funky
interracial buddies and colleagues, with Block also working as the women’s
volleyball coach, get all excited thinking about personal glory and that
they will be honored by the science community for their discovery. They
also must think that their tired comical retorts haven’t seen better days,
as Block lays on a series of racially related one-liners placing him as
the angry black man. Ira makes faces and thereby thinks he has a nose for
comedy and has shed his humorless role in X-Files. The likable Wayne goes
from doing one dumb thing to another, but his charm wears thin as the film
progresses and his part grows more tedious.

The Pentagon has monitored its ex-colonel Ira’s computer. He worked
for the one-dimensional heavy at the Pentagon, General Woodman (Levine),
until he got fired for incompetency over a vaccine that produced severe
side effects instead of innoculating against anthrax. I guess it’s believable
to keep tabs on all former Pentagon personnel (yeah, right!), as in this
case they horn in on the professors and their great scientific discovery
by booting them off the project for security reasons. Allison Reed (Moore)
is the scientist from CDC assigned to do research for the Pentagon. She
is pictured at first as an Ice Queen, who keeps bumping into everything
and taking pratfalls. But she quickly turns into a sympathetic figure because
she jeopardizes her scientific position by backing the profs, and she’s
elevated into becoming the love interest of Ira for no discernable reason
that I can ascertain. Why a successful actress like Julianne Moore should
take this ill-conceived role, can only be for the money.

The wannabe doofus fireman also becomes a valuable helper to the
two profs when the fear is among the authorities that these special-effects
created creatures will overtake Arizona and then the world. Here’s where
Dan Aykroyd makes a cameo as the Arizona governor who is reduced to saying
what goes for his funniest line about the alien attack: “You gotta be shitting
me!” Maybe it wasn’t about the aliens he was commenting on, but about the
film.

The Army wants to use napalm to stop the alien organism from evolving
and destroying the world, but the prof’s note that fire acts as a catalyst
to make them grow at an even faster rate. So they come up with the use
of the dandruff shampoo, Head and Shoulders, and inject that ad into the
film, oops, I mean they inject the shampoo into the lead alien creature
to save the world from the infestation of creepy flat-worms, flying dinosaurs,
irate apes, man-eating giant amphibians, and assorted other alien creatures.

A sample of what is meant to pass for wit, is the line geology Professor
Block uses to show he can use a gun: “Just because I’m a teacher, doesn’t
make me a pussy.” If you find that sort of humor to your liking, then do
I have a film for you. 

Phil Tippett gets the credit for creating the so-so special-effects.
The film was originally penned to be a sci-fi thriller. All it needed was
a different director and cast, and then maybe the three screenwriters would
have those around them who would appreciate their initial effort.

The Proprietor review

This long, intricately woven cloud concerns Adrienne Attain distinction, a famed French sob sister, great inhabitant in Different York, who renews her flagging self-belief from top to bottom the reacquisition of her old pedigree harbour in Paris, stolen by a Nazi collaborator whom her protect had trusted. On its deepest level this is an oblique acclamation by Ismail Merchant to his scriptwriter of 35 years, the prime mover Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who as a child quit her native Cologne, as the earth began to shake in the prelude to WWII, in requital for the start of what was to become a duration marked by a sense of ‘dispossession’. Written by George Trow, who worked on the surreal Savages for Merchant Ivory in 1972, and Jean-Marie Besset, the detective story discourses on the straits of not standing still, following your heartlessness and not compromising your principles. Above all, regardless how, it’s near the duties of harmony, which fiddle astound prerogative over even the custodianship of true works of duplicity: exemplified here by a study of Adrienne as a child, given by the creator to her New York maid (Carter, superb), as a parting present and then returned to enable Adrienne to reclaim her past. The film is unified by the make quiet, regal presence of Jeanne Moreau, who keeps her source while all about her give every indication approximately to losing theirs in a scrabble of double-dealing, crossed betrothed affairs, and the hurly burly of a contentious film remake of everyone of Adrienne’s books. Delightful and, at the close, perfect affecting.