Some film franchises die hard, no matter how hard they try.
I'm not dissing the long-running, mostly long-in-the-tooth ones, like James Bond or Godzilla. It's the ones that probably shouldn't exist in the first place, yet still find ways to shuffle on, zombie-like with mindless will yet unfortunate coordination. I mean, did we really need The Crow: Wicked Prayer?
But the granddaddy of them all just received a mercy gut shot. The new Highlander movie...
Yeah, there's another Highlander movie coming. Really. Didn't know that? Not surprised....
Anyway, after a year in post-production, the next Highlander film finally will make its world premiere...on the Sci-Fi Channel.
Is that a funeral march I hear?
You know, it's pretty sad when a straight-to-DVD release would be preferable to becoming an "original" for a cable station, who's reputation for new programing is somewhere slightly above Lifetime movies. As somebody who loved the original film and everything it represents, this turn of events hurts. And it's the sequel's fault.
If there was a film that shouldn't have had a sequel, the original Highlander was it. No more immortals left, and the anti-hero had his love and his own mortality. Yet, the movie became a cult classic, and at the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century, the enterprising producers decided it was high time for a sequel, even managing to rope Sean Connery back into their merry mess. The fact his character had died probably didn't matter much--this is fantasy! About immortals! We can make it work!
The wretched thing is that it probably could have worked. Highlander II: The Quickening came out when I was in college, and I swear that just about every male on the campus but me went to see it. The following Monday, I asked a buddy of mine how it was, and you would have thought I kicked his kitten before tying its tail in a square knot on top of the Old Main fountain.
"Don't. See. It."
"That bad? How can it be that...?"
"Two words: they're aliens."
He then listed off several other problems, but honestly, I had stopped listening due to my brain suddenly imploding. The original Highlander was about people--humans, not little green men--dealing with the curse of immortality, how it tore everything they are and loved away from them. For a story that sounded like the worst Hollywood pitch ever, Highlander took it seriously, creating something more than just silly swordfights in the always-wet car park. It was about Connor MacLeod, being forced into a way of life he doesn't want but can't avoid. After Connor's first wife Heather dies of old age, while he never ages a day, Conner uses his clan sword as her headstone and takes up his mentor's Japanese katana, which had been made by his third and last bride's father. The death of that love devastated that old immortal, and in a single image, the film managed to tell of Connor's pain--he was taking up his mentor's loss, while burying everything from his old life. He was no longer a MacLeod, no longer a Scot, but a nameless nomad, passing through his existance under pseudonyms, fighting battles he doesn't want to fight.
It wasn't a perfect film, but it was good enough. A sequel would have been hard, but to fail as mightly as The Quickening, which contradicted just about everything from the original, took a great deal of thoughtless strain. Instead of a romantic, dark urban fantasy, the sequel presented a cut-rate William Gibson futuristic brew with pseudo-science and narrative nonsense. The original film deserved better. Much better. And in the theater at least, it never got it.
Two more sequels followed. The Final Dimension returned to the original "it's a kind of magic" story, but did so in a souless, well-abused carbon copy manner, yet it still managed to contradict its mother movie. Endgame hoped to bridge the movie and television series stories, but it sunk under too many characters, too much plot, and not enough logic. Plus, it commited the sin of killing off the original hero...even though he was the last immortal.
And yes, there was a television series, which followed the adventures of Duncan MacLeod: "Same clan, different vintage." Despite the crater of The Quickening, the producers managed pull together enough interest in a syndicated show. Surprisingly, it worked this time; after a shaky first season, the series found a direction and began adding to the mythology of the immortals, creating stories with the same adventurous attention as the original Highlander. Unfortunately, the show's success only raised hopes. The Final Dimension followed. Then an animated series. Then a sequel series that succumbed to convention. Somewhere in there were books, comics, and long-forgotten video games. Then Endgame.
Failures all.
And that should have been that. But when series star Adrian Paul announced that he was helping produce the fifth Highlander movie, dubbed The Source, I got my hopes up again. When the series story supervisor David Abramowitz signed on to rewrite the script, my hopes climbed a bit. Maybe this time, they'll get it right. Maybe this time, we'll get a good sequel. Maybe this time, I can see a real Highlander film in the theater.
Whoops. I should have seen this coming, though. The Source features no names; the biggest movie star is Peter Wingfield, who had a small soldier bit in X-Men 2 and a turn as the villan's henchman in Superbabies 2. Star Adrian Paul has been in little except straight-t0-video flicks for years. Although Lionsgate Films had signed on to distribute the movie, the chance of The Source seeing a projector was between slim and nil; the idea of anything but a horror movie being distributed without any real stars--especially one in a near-dead franchise whose last attempt was seven years ago--is fantasy by itself. Then, a few months ago, a hurried rough cut got released on DVD in Russia, and the diehard fans have done nothing but skewer it, calling it worse than...wait for it...The Quickening. Sigh.
We get what we deserve, I guess. The original Highlander is a cult classic, a rare cinematic moment when something that shouldn't have worked does. Anything that followed would have been diminished, a Quixotian venture to replay that moment. If a sequel never had been attempted, nobody would have been noticed, but because the first try was so wrongheaded, the wish to set things right became overpowering, while the right thing was to leave the original film and Connor MacLeod alone.
Yet, I'll probably see this, when the official "unrated cut"--at least the R-rated version--finally finds its way to DVD. Then I can judge it for itself. Maybe my thirst will be quenched, but I doubt it. It'll be a nice surprise though. And hey, I could always watch the anime movie.
Yes, the anime movie.
Man, I'm pathetic. That's what hope does, I guess.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
Theatrical Traveler
Despite my love of film, I rarely went to the movie theater growing up. My parents--who came of age with 50 cent flicks and double-features--balked at the $3 or $4 ticket price plus concessions, deciding that there were many other, more worthy things on which to spend Dad’s paycheck. The first movie I saw on my own was WarGames, and that’s only because Mom shelped me off to the discount theater one afternoon. Not until I hit high school and driving age did I manage to see movies on my own.
Thus, most of the 1980s cinematic zeighast passed me by . . . but only in theaters. Starting in the early part of the decade, around the time I began trolling video stores, I started stealing the entertainment sections of the Sunday New York Times and Daily News from my parents for the sole purpose of gazing at the movie advertisements--the more obscure, the better. Back then, commercial independents like New World and Empire were in full bloom, able to shop their wares on limited theatrical runs before usually making their money back on video. And if it wasn’t playing in New York, it wasn’t playing anywhere.
I read those sections every Sunday for years, right up to the time I left for college, and even then I occasionally visited the Ezra Lehman Memorial Library to read the Times’s Arts section. That’s how I learned about Highlander, Clearcut, The Plague Dogs, Walker, The Quiet Earth, Clockwise, American Ninja, Powwow Highway, Where the Rivers Flow North, Queen of Hearts, Fright Night, Johnny Dangerously, Night of the Comet, One Crazy Summer, even Troma’s The Toxic Avenger. In the unwired era, before even Windows existed, those advertisements were a boon. Sometimes it would be years before I finally saw the movies, but if I was interested, I eventually saw them.
But I still missed out on the theatrical experience.
Maybe in these days of digital discs and plasma televisions, the brick-and-mortar cinema seems antiquated. But whether it be a modern multiplex littered with stadium seating or a relic from the grindhouse age irking out a second-run existence, the movie theater still is the only place where the communal emotion of live theater and timelessness of recorded media come together. It is a unique show, one that has existed since Edison photographed a man’s sneeze. The experience can be shared, not just in one sitting but across the country at the same time--a connection so painfully subtle--and the experience can be returned to, any time the reel is threaded. For nearly half my life, I missed out, and missed the glory days of the cool little flicks I adore so much. One of those was The Terminator.
Back when it was released in the mid-1980s, The Terminator looked like any number of action flicks, decked out with titles like The Exterminator and The Eliminators. The ads were simplistic--Arnold wearing those sunglasses, holding that big arse gun complete with laser target. I didn’t think much of the movie until it appeared on cable a year or so later. All Dad and I knew was that the big German guy who played Conan was in it, and it had explosions.
The movie left me breathless.
It moved, and until I stumbled into John Woo’s The Killer halfway through, I never saw a movie that moved like that. Ever since, The Terminator has become one of my favorite genre films, reliving Sarah Connor’s and Reese’s desperate flight and fight dozens of times on cable or DVD. I always wondered, though, what the movie was like big-screen-style, while trapped with a dozen or so strangers.
So, there I was last Friday night, staring up at the marquee of the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, where The Terminator flashed across on a lighted message board, wondering if this is how it felt 25 years ago.
I still have no idea. It couldn't have been this good, could it?
From the start, from the moment the electronica title score pulsed alive and stilled the audience, everything was different. First, I just noticed things I never did before, like the ironic Jetsons tee-shirt Sarah wears early on, or the tire track tattoo slapped across the face of a very young Bill Paxton, playing a very short role. The terminator’s brutality rippled shivers through my spine for the first time in years, the impact screaming for my attention with little gore for embellishment. The tin model effects and old school back-screening also got my attention, but strangely, seeing the now-obvious seams didn’t bother me so much--it’s been a while since I saw a handmade movie like this, with every effect in-camera. It’s a film that’s been crafted, not processed in post.
There is one scene in the movie, though, that I’ve never been able to sit through: when Arnold’s cyborg operates on himself after a particularly messy encounter with Reece and Sarah. I made myself watch this time--the only time I’ll ever get to see this movie in the place it was meant to be shown. I cringed, even though the head is clearly a robotic stand-in. Cringed, because I can’t pause the film, take a break, make a snack. Sure, I can get up and leave, but there’s something about sitting in a theater that prevents me. By then, you see, I was lost.
At the beginning of the movie, as the story bloomed, I immediately noticed the stitches, holding up facades for fantasy. But The Terminator’s window dressing was never the point, and by the time the skeletal chassis rises within the fire, the stop motion doesn’t matter, and I’m fully within James Cameron’s nightmare.
What drives The Terminator isn’t just the action--it’s the demented triangle of Sarah and the two pursuing her--one to save and one to destroy. What people remember most of the movie isn’t the gunfire or the carnage or the futuristic vision or even Arnie playing doctor. It’s that one line.
You know, that one.
That line became a pop culture staple because of Schwarzenegger’s performance. Maybe some joked, maybe some still do, about how Arnold’s best role is one where he plays a robot. But that performance is unique among the genre--many have played androids, replicants, and droids, but no one has conveyed the cold, physical menace that Schwarzenegger did. That’s better than any special effect.
The characters of The Terminator do more than distract; they offer a way into the fantasy. Not just the malicious metal man, but Sarah, with her transformation from nice waitress to humanity’s hope, and Reece, with all of his expectations and fear. They aren’t players, they’re people, thrown into a peril where their limits are tested and broken. The audience is caught up in their story, and accepts their reality. They know they are watching fiction, but just for a brief moment, they are caught up in that fiction, not just witnessing but sharing the experience with the avatars on screen.
That’s the theatrical experience--a willing, emotional immersion into a false reality. Only the cinema, where there’s no escape from the story on screen, can weave that trick. From epics like Blade Runner and Doctor Zhivago to little movies like The Terminator, for all their hand-worn faults exposed by time and technology, they still manage to make us disappear for a while.
And not even the audience tittering at Sarah Connor’s last line could spoil it.
Well, not completely.
Thus, most of the 1980s cinematic zeighast passed me by . . . but only in theaters. Starting in the early part of the decade, around the time I began trolling video stores, I started stealing the entertainment sections of the Sunday New York Times and Daily News from my parents for the sole purpose of gazing at the movie advertisements--the more obscure, the better. Back then, commercial independents like New World and Empire were in full bloom, able to shop their wares on limited theatrical runs before usually making their money back on video. And if it wasn’t playing in New York, it wasn’t playing anywhere.
I read those sections every Sunday for years, right up to the time I left for college, and even then I occasionally visited the Ezra Lehman Memorial Library to read the Times’s Arts section. That’s how I learned about Highlander, Clearcut, The Plague Dogs, Walker, The Quiet Earth, Clockwise, American Ninja, Powwow Highway, Where the Rivers Flow North, Queen of Hearts, Fright Night, Johnny Dangerously, Night of the Comet, One Crazy Summer, even Troma’s The Toxic Avenger. In the unwired era, before even Windows existed, those advertisements were a boon. Sometimes it would be years before I finally saw the movies, but if I was interested, I eventually saw them.
But I still missed out on the theatrical experience.
Maybe in these days of digital discs and plasma televisions, the brick-and-mortar cinema seems antiquated. But whether it be a modern multiplex littered with stadium seating or a relic from the grindhouse age irking out a second-run existence, the movie theater still is the only place where the communal emotion of live theater and timelessness of recorded media come together. It is a unique show, one that has existed since Edison photographed a man’s sneeze. The experience can be shared, not just in one sitting but across the country at the same time--a connection so painfully subtle--and the experience can be returned to, any time the reel is threaded. For nearly half my life, I missed out, and missed the glory days of the cool little flicks I adore so much. One of those was The Terminator.
Back when it was released in the mid-1980s, The Terminator looked like any number of action flicks, decked out with titles like The Exterminator and The Eliminators. The ads were simplistic--Arnold wearing those sunglasses, holding that big arse gun complete with laser target. I didn’t think much of the movie until it appeared on cable a year or so later. All Dad and I knew was that the big German guy who played Conan was in it, and it had explosions.
The movie left me breathless.
It moved, and until I stumbled into John Woo’s The Killer halfway through, I never saw a movie that moved like that. Ever since, The Terminator has become one of my favorite genre films, reliving Sarah Connor’s and Reese’s desperate flight and fight dozens of times on cable or DVD. I always wondered, though, what the movie was like big-screen-style, while trapped with a dozen or so strangers.
So, there I was last Friday night, staring up at the marquee of the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, where The Terminator flashed across on a lighted message board, wondering if this is how it felt 25 years ago.
I still have no idea. It couldn't have been this good, could it?
From the start, from the moment the electronica title score pulsed alive and stilled the audience, everything was different. First, I just noticed things I never did before, like the ironic Jetsons tee-shirt Sarah wears early on, or the tire track tattoo slapped across the face of a very young Bill Paxton, playing a very short role. The terminator’s brutality rippled shivers through my spine for the first time in years, the impact screaming for my attention with little gore for embellishment. The tin model effects and old school back-screening also got my attention, but strangely, seeing the now-obvious seams didn’t bother me so much--it’s been a while since I saw a handmade movie like this, with every effect in-camera. It’s a film that’s been crafted, not processed in post.
There is one scene in the movie, though, that I’ve never been able to sit through: when Arnold’s cyborg operates on himself after a particularly messy encounter with Reece and Sarah. I made myself watch this time--the only time I’ll ever get to see this movie in the place it was meant to be shown. I cringed, even though the head is clearly a robotic stand-in. Cringed, because I can’t pause the film, take a break, make a snack. Sure, I can get up and leave, but there’s something about sitting in a theater that prevents me. By then, you see, I was lost.
At the beginning of the movie, as the story bloomed, I immediately noticed the stitches, holding up facades for fantasy. But The Terminator’s window dressing was never the point, and by the time the skeletal chassis rises within the fire, the stop motion doesn’t matter, and I’m fully within James Cameron’s nightmare.
What drives The Terminator isn’t just the action--it’s the demented triangle of Sarah and the two pursuing her--one to save and one to destroy. What people remember most of the movie isn’t the gunfire or the carnage or the futuristic vision or even Arnie playing doctor. It’s that one line.
You know, that one.
That line became a pop culture staple because of Schwarzenegger’s performance. Maybe some joked, maybe some still do, about how Arnold’s best role is one where he plays a robot. But that performance is unique among the genre--many have played androids, replicants, and droids, but no one has conveyed the cold, physical menace that Schwarzenegger did. That’s better than any special effect.
The characters of The Terminator do more than distract; they offer a way into the fantasy. Not just the malicious metal man, but Sarah, with her transformation from nice waitress to humanity’s hope, and Reece, with all of his expectations and fear. They aren’t players, they’re people, thrown into a peril where their limits are tested and broken. The audience is caught up in their story, and accepts their reality. They know they are watching fiction, but just for a brief moment, they are caught up in that fiction, not just witnessing but sharing the experience with the avatars on screen.
That’s the theatrical experience--a willing, emotional immersion into a false reality. Only the cinema, where there’s no escape from the story on screen, can weave that trick. From epics like Blade Runner and Doctor Zhivago to little movies like The Terminator, for all their hand-worn faults exposed by time and technology, they still manage to make us disappear for a while.
And not even the audience tittering at Sarah Connor’s last line could spoil it.
Well, not completely.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Netflix Almanac: July 2007
Nothing. Nada. Not one movie, film, nor flicker. The 39-episode Seven Swordmen box set I rented from the local video store probably had something to do with that, along with the simplicity that, hey, it’s been a cool summer and I could use the air.
But I promised myself to do this report each month, and rather than leave all three of my readers wanting, I culled my many pages historia of Netflix rentals for a selected few titles from previous Julys. So, much sooner than originally planned, I present to you the first issue of Netflix Almanac: Rewind, in disguise:
Savior (1998)
After American military official Joshua Rose (Dennis Quaid) witnesses his wife and son killed in an Islamic terrorist bombing, he storms into a mosque and guns down the Muslims praying there. Several years later, he has found an existence as a mercenary plying his trade for the Serbs in the Bosnian civil war. His partner is killed by a child, leaving him without a mentor at the worst moment--when he is assigned to help escort a Serbian female prisoner named Vera, who was impregnated by a Muslim captor. When Rose’s Serbian cohort beats and threatens to murder her and her “unclean,” unborn child, Rose kills him and winds up delivering the baby. He then takes them under his protection, no matter how much she doesn’t want it. Director Predrag Antonijevic’s film has the subtly of a sledge, but Quaid’s Everyman performance for what is a very difficult character makes the story work. Savior takes a personal approach to war, allowing Rose--the American outsider yet involved--to witness and experience the hatred that destroyed that region’s people. Hating her Muslim baby, Vera refuses to feed or care for it, but then in turn is ostracized by her father. With his own hatred mirrored in Vera, Rose’s compassion is dragged out of his dead heart. Antonijevic was born in the region in which the film takes place, and he presents an uncompromising story of the conflict with no pat answers or fully happy endings. In this post-September 11th era, with the raging rhetoric of radical Muslims drowning out reason and stirring up religious prejudice, Savior is a hard film more important now than it was a decade ago, showing how hatred and cruelty have no boundaries, political or ethnic. (Viewed: July 29, 2001)
Rare Birds (2002)
In a small, quirky Newfoundland seaside town, Dave Purcell (William Hurt) irks out a living with his barely-solvent, fine-dining, seaside restaurant called The Auk. Dave is a quirky perfectionist, which has driven his business to the brink. Then his quirky neighbor, who believes the government is spying on him, suggests creating a hoax in which a rare duck is sighted near The Auk; the customers will flock (groan) to his restaurant for lunch while vainly searching for the non-existent fowl. The quirky plan works, and soon Dave needs a waitress. Enter Alice (Molly Parker), the neighbor’s “bookish” cousin, who is anything but bookish. Dave and Alice begin to fall for each other, but strange (or, quirky) obstacles keep tripping them up. And maybe the government is watching....Suffice to say Sturla Gunnarrson’s film is quirky, too quirky at times, trying too hard and hitting several discordant notes, the loudest of which is the cocaine subplot. Although greatly reduced from the source novel, it still feels out-of-place with the rest and, honestly, prevented me from completely falling for the film. Molly Parker, on the other hand, already had me. Still an enjoyable little movie, with just a few missteps. (Viewed: July 25, 2004)
Gamera 2: Attack of Legion (1996)
The 1990s reinvented the Japanese monster genre. First, Toho brought back Godzilla, unleashing a series of comic book adventures that nonetheless were more serious and mature than the vast majority of the original classic series. Most of all, Godzilla was back to being a bad guy and a threat. But what really changed Japan’s expectations for the kaiju film was the mid-1990s Gamera trilogy. The big turtle was a joke of the genre--the “friend of all children” starred in a desperate series of mostly kiddie movies designed to feed off of the Godzilla phenomenon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Director Shusuke Kaneko and writer Kazunori Ito brought the monster back and completely reworked him into a mythological epic tale that put the Godzilla films to shame. Most fans apparently feel that the second film is the perfect kaiju film and the best of the trilogy, but I don’t. Although the special effects are a startling improvement over this film’s predecessor, released just one year before, the story features far too much “leap-of-faith” exposition, in which characters reach just the right conclusion based on the barest of evidence. Also, those characters simply aren’t as compelling to me as the previous film’s, while Asagi--such an integral part of the first movie--is reduced to a near cameo here. Attack of Legion thrives, however, in the battles, when the aforementioned special effects bolster some excellent visual storytelling on the part of Kaneko. A strong kaiju film and perhaps the best one to watch of the trilogy as a standalone. (Viewed: July 23, 2004--bought it)
Shall We Dance? (1996)
I remembered this movie from its theatrical run, back when Miramax tried to find a foreign film every year to dominate art houses and critics’ best-of-the-year lists. Unfortunately, as Miramax was wont to do, the studio cut nearly 20 minutes out of the original Japanese version. Which only amazes me: The film is still wonderful. A successful Japanese businessman--dutiful husband to a lovely wife, father to a good kid, and a new homeowner--feels completely buried in routine, empty and alone. One night on the train ride home, he sees a beautiful woman standing forlornly at a dance studio window. Taken with her, he spontaneously bolts off the train and stumbles into signing up for dance lessons, only to learn that the woman is not his instructor and also doesn’t date students. But the businessman sticks to his lessons, in secret from his family and coworkers because ballroom dancing is viewed with suspicion. He falls in love not with the dancer but with the dance, awakening from the repression that enveloped his life. Shall We Dance? is a charm of a work, the kind of quiet romance that eschews the cliched ideals of what is a love story. The missing scenes from the movie apparently spend more time with the supporting characters populating the dance studio, which is a shame, because they are all wonderful surprises, sending the story spiraling into unexpected directions. Heh, now I’ve made myself go watch it again. (Viewed: July 22, 2005--bought it)
Project: Valkyrie (2002)
The advent of digital technology in the film industry revitalized the independent scene and helped the old regional movie industry resurface in homemade movies, made by pure amateurs with grandose ideas and miniscule budgets. Jeff Waltrowski’s creation features all of the problems of those films--hideously low production values, hammy acting, in-jokes that overstay their welcome, ill-advised shifts in tone, and a wandering plotline in dire need of an editor. That plot involves a loser inheriting a World War II-era mechanical superhero and the neo-Nazis who become mutated with one of his grandfather’s failed chemistry set experiments. This comedy, though, still manages some legitimate laughs and only really falters at the end when Waltrowski’s overdone gore swamps any hilarity. Far better than it has any right to be. (Viewed: July 26, 2006)
But I promised myself to do this report each month, and rather than leave all three of my readers wanting, I culled my many pages historia of Netflix rentals for a selected few titles from previous Julys. So, much sooner than originally planned, I present to you the first issue of Netflix Almanac: Rewind, in disguise:
Savior (1998)
After American military official Joshua Rose (Dennis Quaid) witnesses his wife and son killed in an Islamic terrorist bombing, he storms into a mosque and guns down the Muslims praying there. Several years later, he has found an existence as a mercenary plying his trade for the Serbs in the Bosnian civil war. His partner is killed by a child, leaving him without a mentor at the worst moment--when he is assigned to help escort a Serbian female prisoner named Vera, who was impregnated by a Muslim captor. When Rose’s Serbian cohort beats and threatens to murder her and her “unclean,” unborn child, Rose kills him and winds up delivering the baby. He then takes them under his protection, no matter how much she doesn’t want it. Director Predrag Antonijevic’s film has the subtly of a sledge, but Quaid’s Everyman performance for what is a very difficult character makes the story work. Savior takes a personal approach to war, allowing Rose--the American outsider yet involved--to witness and experience the hatred that destroyed that region’s people. Hating her Muslim baby, Vera refuses to feed or care for it, but then in turn is ostracized by her father. With his own hatred mirrored in Vera, Rose’s compassion is dragged out of his dead heart. Antonijevic was born in the region in which the film takes place, and he presents an uncompromising story of the conflict with no pat answers or fully happy endings. In this post-September 11th era, with the raging rhetoric of radical Muslims drowning out reason and stirring up religious prejudice, Savior is a hard film more important now than it was a decade ago, showing how hatred and cruelty have no boundaries, political or ethnic. (Viewed: July 29, 2001)
Rare Birds (2002)
In a small, quirky Newfoundland seaside town, Dave Purcell (William Hurt) irks out a living with his barely-solvent, fine-dining, seaside restaurant called The Auk. Dave is a quirky perfectionist, which has driven his business to the brink. Then his quirky neighbor, who believes the government is spying on him, suggests creating a hoax in which a rare duck is sighted near The Auk; the customers will flock (groan) to his restaurant for lunch while vainly searching for the non-existent fowl. The quirky plan works, and soon Dave needs a waitress. Enter Alice (Molly Parker), the neighbor’s “bookish” cousin, who is anything but bookish. Dave and Alice begin to fall for each other, but strange (or, quirky) obstacles keep tripping them up. And maybe the government is watching....Suffice to say Sturla Gunnarrson’s film is quirky, too quirky at times, trying too hard and hitting several discordant notes, the loudest of which is the cocaine subplot. Although greatly reduced from the source novel, it still feels out-of-place with the rest and, honestly, prevented me from completely falling for the film. Molly Parker, on the other hand, already had me. Still an enjoyable little movie, with just a few missteps. (Viewed: July 25, 2004)
Gamera 2: Attack of Legion (1996)
The 1990s reinvented the Japanese monster genre. First, Toho brought back Godzilla, unleashing a series of comic book adventures that nonetheless were more serious and mature than the vast majority of the original classic series. Most of all, Godzilla was back to being a bad guy and a threat. But what really changed Japan’s expectations for the kaiju film was the mid-1990s Gamera trilogy. The big turtle was a joke of the genre--the “friend of all children” starred in a desperate series of mostly kiddie movies designed to feed off of the Godzilla phenomenon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Director Shusuke Kaneko and writer Kazunori Ito brought the monster back and completely reworked him into a mythological epic tale that put the Godzilla films to shame. Most fans apparently feel that the second film is the perfect kaiju film and the best of the trilogy, but I don’t. Although the special effects are a startling improvement over this film’s predecessor, released just one year before, the story features far too much “leap-of-faith” exposition, in which characters reach just the right conclusion based on the barest of evidence. Also, those characters simply aren’t as compelling to me as the previous film’s, while Asagi--such an integral part of the first movie--is reduced to a near cameo here. Attack of Legion thrives, however, in the battles, when the aforementioned special effects bolster some excellent visual storytelling on the part of Kaneko. A strong kaiju film and perhaps the best one to watch of the trilogy as a standalone. (Viewed: July 23, 2004--bought it)
Shall We Dance? (1996)
I remembered this movie from its theatrical run, back when Miramax tried to find a foreign film every year to dominate art houses and critics’ best-of-the-year lists. Unfortunately, as Miramax was wont to do, the studio cut nearly 20 minutes out of the original Japanese version. Which only amazes me: The film is still wonderful. A successful Japanese businessman--dutiful husband to a lovely wife, father to a good kid, and a new homeowner--feels completely buried in routine, empty and alone. One night on the train ride home, he sees a beautiful woman standing forlornly at a dance studio window. Taken with her, he spontaneously bolts off the train and stumbles into signing up for dance lessons, only to learn that the woman is not his instructor and also doesn’t date students. But the businessman sticks to his lessons, in secret from his family and coworkers because ballroom dancing is viewed with suspicion. He falls in love not with the dancer but with the dance, awakening from the repression that enveloped his life. Shall We Dance? is a charm of a work, the kind of quiet romance that eschews the cliched ideals of what is a love story. The missing scenes from the movie apparently spend more time with the supporting characters populating the dance studio, which is a shame, because they are all wonderful surprises, sending the story spiraling into unexpected directions. Heh, now I’ve made myself go watch it again. (Viewed: July 22, 2005--bought it)
Project: Valkyrie (2002)
The advent of digital technology in the film industry revitalized the independent scene and helped the old regional movie industry resurface in homemade movies, made by pure amateurs with grandose ideas and miniscule budgets. Jeff Waltrowski’s creation features all of the problems of those films--hideously low production values, hammy acting, in-jokes that overstay their welcome, ill-advised shifts in tone, and a wandering plotline in dire need of an editor. That plot involves a loser inheriting a World War II-era mechanical superhero and the neo-Nazis who become mutated with one of his grandfather’s failed chemistry set experiments. This comedy, though, still manages some legitimate laughs and only really falters at the end when Waltrowski’s overdone gore swamps any hilarity. Far better than it has any right to be. (Viewed: July 26, 2006)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
