On paper, The Pink Panther 2seems solid. Start with the cast. It features John Cleese, Jeremy Irons, Alfred Molina, Andy Garcia, Lily Tomlin and the outrageously ravishing Aishwarya Rai. Throw in a screenplay that works better than the first Martin Panther and all seems primed for gold.
But then there's the weak link. Steve Martin seems more cloying and annoying this time around. For Sellers, it was one element of a broad, seamless caricature, a nasally voice behind a mouth that butchered whatever language was being spoken. For Martin, the accent is an excuse to mug for the camera and make cutesy faces. Martin's is a caricature of a caricature.
Perhaps next time yet another reboot is in order. And next time recruit another British actor to play Clouseau. Chat up Sacha Baron Cohen and see where he can go with the role.
Fox has once again released a technically superb Blu-ray disc. The picture pops with color and rich detail, all the better to appreciate Aishwarya Rai... and film grain.
Blame it on the economy, blame it on a new presidency or a new sense of consumer conservatism, whatever the case, Confessions of a Shopaholic didn't find a lot of buyers during its theatrical run. Actually, that's a shame. It's a mighty happy little movie with a lot of spunk and a decent message. Aside from a jab at a CEO raking in the bucks while his company's investors eat a (modest in the current economy) 8% loss, Confessions doesn't have the satirical bite of The Devil Wears Prada (the book, not the movie) and it doesn't have the sophistication of Mike Nichols' Working Girl, but it does have Isla Fisher.
Fisher ( I Heart Huckabees) stars as Rebecca Bloomwood, a woman who prefers the security of a good sale to the love of a man (after all, you can't return a man like you can cashmere, she says). Fisher, who was born in Oman to Scottish parents, really gets her role as a fashion-obsessed New Yorker. She's gorgeous, funny, quirky -- she is perfectly cast. It doesn't matter if she's indulging in some really, really bad dance moves or embarrassing herself in a really, really bad job interview, she's really, really funny. And this should've been a breakout movie for her.
A journalist with her sights set on working for the fashion-fabulous Alette magazine, Rebecca winds up getting her foot in the door by taking a job at Successful Saving, a money magazine run by the same publishing house. The joke is Rebecca has no dollar sense, yet she winds up earning international fame as "The Girl in the Green Scarf," serving up financial advice in laywoman's terms. Unfortunately for her, she's run up quite a bill and has a pit-bullish debt collector hot on her trail. Sharing in her world is a terrific supporting cast that includes a number of A/A-/B+-listers, including Kristin Scott Thomas, John Lithgow, Julie Hagerty, John Goodman, Joan Cusack, Lynn Redgrave and Wendie Malick.
Careful storytelling and emotional power make Dear Zachary one of the best documentaries in years.
Like Surfwise and51 Birch Street, Dear Zachary tells its story in several distinct acts. Director Kurt Kuenne withholds some information for dramatic effect and to give his story a feature-film-sized arc. What initially looks like an amateur's home movie (in fact that's what it is) turns into a gripping drama about a lost friend, and the emotions of pain, grief, and longing for justice (or revenge?) that go with it.
Part of what makes Dear Zachary such a great documentary is the power of the story that it uncovers. You could go so far as to say that the film is about good and evil. The film presents a rare and genuine example of evil, along with the reactions of the rest of humanity. The film reveals that humanity gives evil the benefit of the doubt. And evil, predictably, takes advantage of that. Evil destroys without reason. On the other hand, good is reluctant to destroy anything -- even evil -- because destruction should not come lightly or easily.
Dear Zachary is a powerful film. Midway through, you may find yourself uncomfortable, outraged, saddened, and indignant. But Kuenne guides you through the emotional landscape safely, and leaves you back where you started, touched by the journey, but safe and sound.
While Jason finally dons the infamous hockey mask for the first time, the abandonment of any and all drive-in Hitchcock aspirations sends this third slasher party into a ho-hum state of gore for gore's sake.
The action then picks up directly after the events of Part 2, with a TV newscaster reporting on the recent horrors. What follows is a series of 3D effects that help explain why the resurgence of 3D back in the '80s was a short-lived phenomenon. The bulk of the effects involve the equivalent of a poke in the eye. There's the replacement of a laundry line pole, with the pole jabbed out into the audience before getting put back in its place; there's also, quite literally, an eyeball handed out to the audience and there's also that timeless classic: the passing of a joint into the crowd.
This Blu-ray incarnation of the 3D experience is by no means ideal, but it is a decent novelty for a little amusement. Those wishing to concentrate on the finer aspects of the film, such as characterizations and plot points, can do so with the accompanying 2D presentation. Rest assured a far more high-tech take on 3D for home presentation is in the works, seeking to take advantage of the increased popularity of the once-again resurgent theatrical 3D presentation.
Part 2turns out to be a decent sequel thanks in large part to a creepy finale that, as with the first movie, slices and dices Hitchcock's Psycho.
One year after the first movie scared up big box office, but five years after the events at Camp Crystal Lake, Jason's all grown up and at the center of a new spree of murderous mayhem. Unfortunately, by virtue of the fact he's essentially a feral man-boy with limited formal education, he ain't the sharpest blade in the drawer.
One of the movie's saving graces is a fun, but sick, sense of humor that plays with horror movie conventions as it serves up false starts, red herring showers and vicious scene shifts, such as focusing in on a sweet little dog named Muffin then cutting to a grill full of hot dogs. And there's also a skinny-dipping scene that plays on the riff from Jaws.
Clocking in at a scant 86 minutes, including that prior episode recap, this first sequel holds pretty steady in its own sordid way, but the finale is extremely abrupt, almost as if they simply ran out of film and decided, "OK. Well... that works..."
The biggest visual shock in The Machinist is Christian Bale himself. In a move that takes "dedication to the craft" to a whole new level, Bale shed more than 60 pounds, a full third of his body weight, to tackle the role of Trevor Reznik.
What's Trevor's problem? Why is he so skinny? Well, he's haunted; he hasn't slept in a year and he consumes more java than grub. He's one troubled soul who spends his evenings cleaning his bathroom floor with bleach and a toothbrush.
The Machinist: Hiding in Plain Sight (14 minutes) is a nifty little segment that details the story's use of symbolism and divulges some of the bits of classic literature that served as inspiration. It's a great analysis of the minutiae and provides food for thought while revisiting the movie.
The picture (2.35:1) is quite well done, in spite of some edge enhancement that is glaringly obvious in spots. On the bright side, the more often than not the image offers loads of detail (the hairs on Bale's bony chest, for example) and the black level is perfect, especially given the amount of deep, dark blackness used in the movie.
In 1975, Sydney Pollack and Robert Redford played a tense spy game called Three Days of the Condor. But in 2009, as the film sees its Blu-ray debut, it's hard for this gen x-er to take the tension seriously. It's still fun, but it has a dose of camp that might not have been intended 30 years ago.
Robert Redford plays an academic. He works among the tweed in a converted genteel brownstone. He reads for a living -- books, magazines, anything -- and then reports to the CIA any surprising trends or codes or ciphers. Returning from lunch, he discovers his colleagues have been gunned down. Now he has to find out why they were targeted, and whether to trust his life to his CIAs superiors whom he's never met. He takes a woman hostage in trying to escape some suspicious-looking spooks. She warms to him and then decides to help him.
The story is just as suspenseful as the modern day Bourne movies. But Three Days of the Condor is much slower paced, which might frustrate younger audiences (personally, I like the rhythmic contrast). Really, the movie is mostly about the chase, but the MacGuffins are energy production and the flow of information, two topics that are still timely today. These larger themes help the movie seem less anachronistic.
The disco-influenced jazz score from Dave Grusin sets the era; it's hard not to chuckle at the funk with strings. And then there are the halo silhouettes filmed in soft focus with a star filter glinting off Redford's lower lip. Some of this '70s stuff looks silly, but it's not out of place within the context of the movie.
Although it is a documentary about the 1960s, don't expect to see hippies and Woodstock in A Cat Without A Grin. Those tired American stereotypes play no part in Chris Marker's four-hour, three-ring-circus of a film. The main attraction in A Cat Without A Grin is Paris in May of 1968... which was a sort of a French Woodstock in that it's a watershed event by which all others are judged. Student demonstrators took to the streets and battled with police and a general strike almost toppled the government.
Marker is an accomplished filmmaker... he directed La Jetée (1962, the inspiration for12 Monkeys), Sans Soleil (1983) and the Akira Kurosawa documentary AK (1985). In the 1960's he was making Left-looking documentaries on politics in France and Europe and of course filming on the streets during May '68.
Crowded onto the same stage of A Cat Without A Grin are Russian tanks in Prague, Che Guevara in South America, the American War in Viet Nam and Chairman Mao's Red Guards in China. The common thread connecting all of them was the sudden appearance of a new international Leftist movement hell bent on confronting the conservative "Establishment"... whoever that might be.
The film is one long montage of images and impressions from around the years 1967 to 1973. Unless you are really up on your history, most of it will be a jumble of people marching in the streets and cops cracking heads. Occasionally I would see a scene I recognized ... National Guard troops marching across the lawn at Kent State, Ohio, and the effect on me was electrifying. To a French audience familiar with the history, the film as a whole must be quite a ride. This will probably confuse an American audience whose repressed understanding of history can allow the names 'socialist' and 'fascist' to be equated without a blush.
Back in the '80s, John Hughes was an unrivaled cinematic trailblazer. During the course of seven wildly productive years he directed seven popular, epoch-defining flicks.He also wrote and/or produced a slew of other hits before tanking with Curly Sue in 1991. In the thick of Hughes' hay-making period was Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a mild success in theaters that achieved "cult classic" status thanks to home video, much like Napoleon Dynamite several years later.
In brief, Ferris Bueller is a high school kid with a charmed life. His parents adore him, his sister is insanely jealous of him, everyone else at school admires him (except for the principal) and his girlfriend is incredibly hot. Taking yet another day off from school, Bueller spends the morning managing the parents, the principal and the implementation of his free day. Then he's off with friends Sloane (Mia Sara, Legend) and Cameron (Alan Ruck, Ghost Town) to check out an art exhibit, hijack a parade float and basically reaffirm the message that life is short. Live it up!
Compared to the majority of high school comedies these days (and just about anything with the names Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen attached), Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a lighthearted, inoffensive affair. Thankfully, Ben Stein, one of the financial gurus on Fox and former host of Win Ben Stein's Money, is on the scene as a teacher of economics. His half-hearted conversational manner bores all his students into a borderline catatonic stupor. And because of that droll, monotone voice, the infamous line, "Bueller... Bueller..." is entrenched in the American lexicon.
All of the video supplements are presented in standard definition (1.33:1) and are rehashed from the 2005 DVD release. It's disappointing to report the John Hughes running commentary from last year's "I Love the '80s" edition DVD is NOT included. That's really lame, Paramount. Certainly a lack of disc space cannot be the excuse.
Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) tries to drive out the new priest in town, Father Brendan (Philip Seymour Hoffman). She suspects him of starting an inappropriate relationship with a boy.
The boy's mother tells Sister Aloysius that her son needs a father figure because his father is disgusted by his homosexual tendencies. Father Brendan is happy to be a father figure, but whether he wants the boy that way is an open question. Hoffman's history of playing sexually dubious characters makes him a great choice for the role, because, as the very title tells us, we will never know whether the accusations against Father Brendan are true.
Some stagey aspects of this drama don't play as well on the big screen. The look is stagey. The dialogue is wordy and stilted and heavy with belabored metaphors. In the scene of highest drama, Sister Aloysius and and Father Brendan try to upstage each other using props and lighting.
While the presentation quality of Sin City on Blu-ray is superb, the clumsy handling of the Blu-ray exclusives and the omission of one of the better standard-def features make this a disappointing release. Those with the deluxe box set DVD are probably better off staying put until another iteration comes around, probably when the oft-rumored Sin City 2finally makes it to the big screen.
While there's another stylized bar fight, believe it or not the best extra footage involves Marv and his mother -- and it's played for laughs. More surprisingly, they're really good laughs.
Nonetheless, Sin City does manage to create a giddy sense of sick, twisted fun as the unflappable good guys battle the Hell-bound bad guys. With that in mind, as far as schlock goes, Sin City is pretty good stuff. As an added bonus, there are plenty of quotable lines ("Kill him for me, Marv. Kill him good.") and it is satisfying to see the bad guys get their comeuppance.
There are a couple things missing from the standard DVD edition. There's no Sin-Chroni-City interactive tour, a real shame since it's a standout feature of the standard DVD release. In their place are two new items. One is Cine-Explore on the theatrical version and the other is Kill 'em Good, an interactive comic book on Disc 2.
Much has already been made about Mickey Rourke's "comeback" in The Wrestler. But my latest interest in the movies is still subtext. Luckily, there's a lot for me to like.
Rourke is a fiftysomething professional wrestler named Randy "The Ram" Robinson. He was big back in the day, but professional wrestling ain't what it used to be, and neither is Randy. His drugs of choice are steroids and pain killers, in that order. Randy has cared for his muscles and his hair, but the wear and tear has taken its toll on his face. Now he plays to tiny crowds without TV cameras and waits all day for autograph-seekers who never come. He lives in a mobile home and sometimes sleeps in his van. He seeks friendship in bars and strip clubs.
Aronofsky and Siegel offer their bleak, fatalistic view on ambition. Their story tells us that we should probably accept our nature, and not aspire to what we are not. And yet the attitude is healthy, too. If you can embrace your true nature, if you can be happy with what you've got, you'll probably do better than if you stretch for something you can't reach. The two notions balance out, giving audiences a bittersweet story, one with a sad middle and a palatable, happy ending.
Americans don't go to cemeteries to have a good time. We are not as a rule a contemplative people. But in Paris, France, where culture is not a bad word, they have the Père Lachaise Cemetery, an elephant's graveyard of genius and talent.
Consider some of the artists in residence: Balzac, Bernhardt, Callas, Chopin, Delacroix, Méliès, Moliere, Piaf, Proust, Wilde (his memorial is peppered with kiss-marks). If all of that draws a blank, Père Lachaise is the place where Jim Morrison of the Doors is buried. If people still come to Jim's grave 100 years from now then he too can join this elite club.
Though this is a documentary set in a cemetery, it is the living that are the real story in Forever. Honigmann's method is to show a grave and then the people who come to pay their respects. The Japanese piano student who visits Chopin, the Iranian ex-pat paying his respects to the Iranian author Sadegh Hedayat. Of course not everyone buried at Père Lachaise is a star and Honigmann does not neglect the relatives and loved ones of the un-famous who also come to visit. It is through their interpretations and explanations that we understand why this pilgrimage has been made.
With A-Rod in the doghouse (and also getting standing ovations), now might be the best time to watch Bigger Stronger Faster*, a documentary on recreational steroid use in the United States. Director Chris Bell's curiosity leads to some questions. Are steroids harmful? Can they cause dangerous mood swings? Are they "cheating"?
Then again, maybe not. First the film says steroids aren't so bad. Then it says maybe steroid use is something you should be ashamed of. It never takes a firm stand on the issue, and rarely makes a good argument. It proves that an interesting and timely subject does not guarantee an interesting documentary.
At first blush, making a documentary about a drummer who performed with Bob Dylan for four years during the mid-1990s sounds like an extreme example of niche filmmaking. As it turns out, Never Ending Tour Diaries is a unique piece of work that holds broad appeal for those who seek it out.
Winston Watson divulges some really interesting stories about working with Dylan. At the core of Dylan's music is a solo artist, but he needs a band to support him on the road. The question is: How do you hire a bunch of strangers and expect them to perform like they've been together forever? Well, in the case of Dylan the answer is to pay performers the big bucks and then expect things to gel.
It's the bare-all aspect of Never Ending Tour Diaries that helps the production transcend mere fandom and enter the world of harsh rock reality. Watson becomes homesick and headed for divorce before ultimately having to part ways with Dylan and the band. And he's also ready to take the glam out of rock star gatherings. They're no different than mechanics gatherings, he says. Instead of transmissions, everybody stands around talking about their lawyers. Even so, he fully acknowledges that experience provided an education no amount of money could buy.
The highlight of the supplements is a collection of 21 MP3s from the documentary's soundtrack, accounting for a whopping 82 minutes (or so) of music by Highway 61 Revisited.
The children of the Paskowitz family -- all nine of them -- grew up in a camper, chasing the waves. This movie is about how such an upbringing works, whether it can work, and whether it's worth trying.
Rather than raise his kids in the traditional American way, with a job, a house, and public schools, "Doc" Paskowitz decided he was going to take them surfing as often as possible, driving from one spot to the next in their camper van, following whichever wind blew him strongest at the moment.
The first 30 minutes introduce us to the Paskowitz's Bohemian lifestyle. Just when I thought the movie couldn't have anything else to say, Pray introduces a new wrinkle that changes the entire course of the story. The same thing happens again after about 60 minutes: the story plays itself out and then Pray introduces another new wrinkle.
Ironically, the film's biggest disappointment is its perfect ending. It breaks the pace of the movie. Still, Surfwise is a very good documentary, thanks again to Pray's great sense of storytelling and editing.
To Catch a Thief was made by Alfred Hitchcock near the peak of his career in 1955. It had two of his favorite stars: Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. It was filmed in one of his favorite places: the French Riviera.
Grant plays John Robie who thieved for the French resistance during the war. A recent spate of burglaries casts suspicion on him, so he sets out to catch the real cat burglar to clear his name. He crosses the path of Francie Stevens (Grace Kelly), the daughter of an American heiress, one of the people in the neighborhood with something worth stealing. Francie falls for Robie and sets out to catch her own thief.
Hitchcock has been a favorite for American audiences for so long that we take his work for granted. It's tame enough for TV. But watch it on DVD -- maybe even on this Centennial Collection DVD -- and you'll come to appreciate just how good To Catch a Thief really is.
The audio commentary is recorded by Dr. Drew Casper, who holds the Hitchcock chair at USC. He has interesting things to say about the story, the context, and Hitchcock. And most of the featurettes on disc 2 are worth watching.
Quantum of Solace is an adrenaline rush that's the most artsy and cinematically stylish Bond of them all. Derided by many as a disappointment in the wake of Casino Royale, the flip side is those who found the latter a royal bore should find the former a royal treat.
The pre-credits action sequence is just that -- action. Bond speaks only five words before Jack White and Alicia Keys take over with their theme song. And things rarely slow down from there. And what drives this unique approach? Well, this is Marc Forster's first (and from the sound of it, last) Bond film. He's most certainly an odd choice. His other movies include The Kite Runner and Finding Neverland -- not exactly high octane action pictures. Nonetheless, Forster brings a fresh sensibility to the series that really spruces up the proceedings in surprising ways.
Since it is a "shorter" Bond movie, this single-disc Blu-ray is far more packed than the first Casino Royale Blu-ray release, but it's not as comprehensive as the two-disc double-dip edition that arrived in tandem with Quantum 's theatrical release. No doubt there'll be another edition of Quantum to greet the release of Bond 23. Among the supplements that should make the next go-round will hopefully be a reported alternate ending that would've set things up for the next chapter. It'd also be great to hear a commentary from director Marc Forster. He's quite a sensitive Swiss-German artist, so hearing his take on all the action set against all the artistic flair could prove interesting.
Late Bloomer is that good and yet it's not that good. Fans of outré Japanese splatter films will want to see it , but probably for all of the wrong reasons, and folks who would never touch that kind of cinema with a 10 foot kendo stick will be staying away from a film they probably should see.
Sumida (Masakiyo Sumida) has a major disability (I don't know if it's MS or CP). He can sort of walk but mainly gets around in his electric wheelchair. He's a fan of his friend Take's punk-thrasher band; inside he's a normal guy, outside he's damaged goods. He falls for Nobuko who has become one of his caregivers as a class project. He thinks Take and Nobuko are getting a little too friendly, and when Nobuko spurns him, he tells her he will kill her. She leaves, so Sumida begins plotting to kill Take instead.
As soon as Sumida makes his first kill, he gets a taste of the kind of empowerment he's never had before and away we go; it's random violence from here on out. The idea of a serial killer stalking the streets from his electric wheelchair is brilliant, and the filmmaking on one of the kills is as good as anything Hitchcock could have done.
But there's a lot of reality mixing in with the story in Late Bloomer. The Sumida of the film is essentially the Masakiyo Sumida of real life. Naozo Horita really is in the band that we see performing with Take. The beginning of the film is more documentary than storytelling, and director Shibata says as much in an interview included in this DVD. It's at this point I start to have problems with Late Bloomer. It can't decide what it really wants to be, a documentary, a tragedy, a farce, or a thriller.
Despite tremendous performances from its two young stars, The Kite Runner doesn't reach its lofty aspirations and instead flutters about as a ho-hum drama. Written by Khaled Hosseini (born in Kabul, Afghanistan), the story is too mundane and too calculated to create a truly resonating experience.
The story starts in 1978 Kabul, Afghanistan, and focuses on the friendship of two young boys, Hassan and Amir. Amir's a champion kite flyer and Hassan is an adept kite runner -- one who tracks down and recovers kites "cut down" during competitions -- in order to claim them as trophies. Loyal beyond all reason, Hassan even accepts responsibility for a theft he didn't commit, which is a prelude to their falling-out. Their departure was merely the beginning of the turbulence to head Amir's way. With Russians invading Afghanistan, Amir and his father Baba flee the country and make their way to California.
With such a dramatic landscape to work with, one in which prejudices are seen traveling the world like a virus and Amir is given a fairly epic life arc to follow as he goes from living in exile in the U.S. to returning to Pakistan (where the Taliban has banned kite flying altogether) in order to find "a way to be good again," there's a wallop lingering around in the material that's never dealt.
The Blu-ray's featurettes do a fine job of providing a sense of what it was like making The Kite Runner, particularly in getting a sense of Forster's penchant for detail appreciating the rationale behind filming the Afghanistan scenes in Dari rather than English.
The Odd Couple survives as a meme, but it has become a caricature about opposites living together -- to the point that there was an animated remake featuring a cat and a dog. Yet the "opposites" idea has very little to do with the movie. Obviously it's a great comedic setup, but the movie takes that as its starting point, not its focal point.
Felix and Oscar are well matched, not mismatched. Sure, one is tidy and one is a slob, but that's a complementary pairing, not an explosive matter/antimatter situation, at least as performed by Lemmon and Matthau. The proof is in the 11 films that they went on to make together after The Odd Couple . They are not just buddies; they love each other. As Lemmon's son Chris says repeatedly in the DVD's special features, there was a sort of magic between them that you can't quite pinpoint -- some sort of chemistry that just worked. That's the relationship that was cemented in The Odd Couple.
If you've never seen it, add The Odd Couple to your list. It's a solid, entertaining comedy. Unlike To Catch a Thief, also released under Paramount's Centennial Collection today, the extra features on The Odd Couple disc are non-essential.
At Telluride last year, Mike Leigh said he deliberately wanted to make an "anti-miserablist" film. But that doesn't mean Happy-Go-Lucky is all bubble gum and rainbows. Even the effervescent Poppy (Sally Hawkins) can have a bad day or a scary encounter in the dark.
Poppy is self-consciously positive, so much so that it becomes one of the central themes of the film. Is positivity the same as naiveté? Can a person stay positive in the face of dourness, defeat, and back pain? For Poppy, it's not easy staying positive, yet it also seems like the most natural thing in the world.
The audio commentary track by Mike Leigh offers some genuine insights, but there are also times when it sounds like he's out of touch and talking down to you. During the first ten minutes he asks rhetorical questions: "Who is this woman, what is she like, why does she gravitate towards children's books?" as though lecturing to a classful of beginning drama students. Nevertheless, Leigh is well prepared, which I appreciate in a commentator.
