I kind of put much more effort into seeing Europe Raiders than this not-very-good movie deserves, Yes, sure, you absolutely see the Hong Kong movie when it plays - which has actually been more often of late, as the mainland ones due for release have either been pulled or pushed a lot, creating absolute mayhem with China Lion's release slate - but it was not exactly easy, since it was playing matinees only during the weekend, and the shuffled times for the week aren't great either (last show of the day at 6:10pm). And though it didn't look like there was a whole lot of continuity between films - Tony Leung Chiu-wai is the only person in the cast who carries over - but, hey, it's probably worth knowing the series so that I don't ignorantly say that the problem with #3 is something that's baked into the series from the start. It is, sure, but give it some context!
So, Tokyo Raiders is on Amazon Prime Video, for free if you've got Amazon Prime (aside: whatever branding consultant decided to call every video you can stream from Amazon "Prime Video" as oopposed to just the ones that stream for free with Amazon Prime needs a whack upside the head). I'm kind of zonked after The Spy Went North Friday night, so I watch it Saturday morning, and I'm surprised just how much I like it. But then, they don't have Seoul Raiders. Apparently the only place that does in the US is Google Play Video, and in Standard Definition at that. My Roku does a decent job of upconverting it to either HD or 4K, but that's still kind of rough for a movie that's got Shu Qi in it to look at.
(Kind of rough to watch, too, as I fell asleep watching it Saturday night and had to try again Sunday morning!)
As kind of expected, there was just me and one other person in the theater for a show at noon on Sunday, so I don't know how this would have played to an actual crowd - maybe better, because there's a lot of stuff in it that seemed like it was just on the wrong side of fun, but maybe an environment where other people are laughing gives it a nudge.
I was amused as heck that someone involved must have either been a pretty serious Trekkie or went looking for synthetic languages and decided to backfill. There's a Christmas dinner with a bunch of people wearing Spock ears and not-quite-infringing knockoffs of TOS uniforms, and Kris Wu's character both swears in Klingon and uses it to communicate with Lin so that people around them can't understand them. It's funny because two years ago, there were stories about Paramount hiring a company to make sure that people in China knew what the heck Star Trek was before they released Beyond there. Obviously, Hong Kong is not China in general, but it's still kind of impressive that you will see both this kind of Trek nerdery and Journey to the West references that they would have had to explain the heck out of had this been made for an American audience, but both kind of just left there like the audience is expected to get them.
I'm tempted to add "Klingon" as one of the movie's languages on IMDB, although I'm not sure whether that's silliness or accuracy. And though it's not really a very good movie, I appreciate the weirdness of having a Chinese movie about people working for the American CIA set in Italy quite possibly having more lines in Klingon than English or Italian.
Dong Jing Gong Lue (Tokyo Raiders)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 18 August 2018 in Jay's Living Room (catch-up, Amazon Prime HD)
Tony Leung Chiu-wai always seems like "the other one" to me - Tony Leung Ka-fai seems to have had the more distinguished career, and "Little Tony" always seems to pale in comparison to the other action guys who emerged at about the same time (Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yeun Biao). Heck, in this very movie, he seems to be constantly upstaged by second-billed Ekin Cheng, enough to make me wonder whether this became his series by virtue of his being able to return for Seoul Raiders a few years later.
Despite Leung being kind of forgettable in it, Tokyo Raiders is a really fun movie. It starts off with a bouncy score and a goofy opening gambit (presumably so that it isn't twenty minutes before Leung's character is introduced) before dropping an entertaining odd couple in above their heads and then just having everybody get deeper and deeper in, with tons of secrets revealed that make just enough sense to not feel completely random. It's good-looking - director Jingle Ma made his bones as a cinematographer - but in this very specific way, grainy and with lots of grey-ish costumes for the guys and perky charm for the ladies, almost like the filmmakers are intentionally saying that they cut corners to shoot in Japan (though it seldom gets the expected beauty shots) and put together a decent cast and have them do some fun action. It's not quite a winky, self-aware B-movie, but the sort of Hong Kong action flick that prioritizes certain things and gets by elsewhere.
Plus, man, the rest of that cast! Ekin Cheng has some action chops and the right attitude for the screwball plot. Kelly Chen, gorgeous, charming, and able to take all the betrayal the film throws at her character and build someone the audience likes and cheers on more than they feel sorry for her. Cecilia Cheung, a "special guest" who makes the most of a throwaway pretty-girl sidekick. And Hiroshi Abe, who maybe wasn't yet much of a star in Japan, but who certainly feels like a great get as the brutish but charismatic local villain in retrospect.
I've got to admit, I initially wasn't really looking forward to this one; it felt like unnecessary homework for a sequel that wasn't really anticipated enough to get any evening showings here. But, it turns out, this thing's a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to completing the series over the next couple of days.
Han Cheng Gong Lue (Seoul Raiders)
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 18/19 August 2018 in Jay's Living Room (catch-up, Google Play SD)
Once again, Tony Leung is overshadowed by his co-stars in this sequel to Tokyo Raiders, only this time, he is placed closer to the center, with little room for Richie Jen and Shu Qi to take over the way Ekin Cheng and Kelly Chen did in the first. Most of the action winds up focusing on Lam and his all-girl squad of assistants (who, unfortunately, are never really individual enough to make for a fun squad), chasing around Seoul to find missing counterfeiting plates, eventually killing enough time in light enough fashion that the big reveals of who is actually working together don't feel entirely like cheats.
It feels little cheaper and less ambitious than the first, and a little more prone to being on the wrong side of the self-parody line, too. Fortunately, it seems like they're saving up for the big finale with a chase through Seoul that involves a Cessna that just came out of nowhere. That bit is enjoyably destructive and crazy, with fighting in and on top of the airplane as it plows through city streets. It reminds you right away that, wow, Hong Kong filmmakers used to do some insane things without much apparent CGI enhancement, and at least must have sent people out of the theater happy.
Ou Zhou Gong Lue (Europe Raiders)
* * (out of four)
Seen 19 August 2018 in AMC Boston Common #6 (first-run, DCP)
Released 18 years ago, Tokyo Raiders wasn't a great movie, which goes double for 2005 sequel Seoul Raiders, but they're fair examples of early-aughts Hong Kong movies - relatively-low budget, scripts that aren't great, a bit of brain-drain going on as some of the big names were heading to Hollywood or China, but nevertheless kind of fun because you could still put together a heck of a cast and nobody in the world did action better. Europe Raiders, meanwhile, is a fair look at what movies have in many cases become almost two decades later - some of the same people are involved, but the result feels more processed, with less to be impressed by.
It opens in 2006, on Christmas Eve, when private eye/bounty hunter/CIA agent Lin Zaifeng (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and his team - Steelskin (Lo Mang), Sureblade (Lau Ka Yung), and Megafoot (Yuen Qiu), rather than the adoring young women of the previous films - rescue both master hacker Mercury (George Lam Chi-Cheung) and his two children, though he suspects Mercury wouldn't be caught unless he wanted to be. A decade later those children have grown up, and Sophie (Du Juan) has just stolen the "Hand of God" surveillance system Mercury built for the CIA, and is demanding the release of her brother Rocky (Kris Wu Yifan) from a secret prison. To catch Sophie, the CIA recruits Wang Chaoying (Tiffany Tang Yan), who is not only a top security professional in her own right, but the only one who can contact her ex-boyfriend Lin.
It's kind of odd that the third entry in this series is the first in which Tony Leung Chiu-wai's Lin is firmly placed at the center of the story despite Leung being first-billed in all three, and it still doesn't really allow him to make a strong impression or even feel that important: Though Lin talks about Hand of God being something Mercury regrets like they were close friends, there's nothing in the movie to support that, and his relationship with Wang is very much carried by Tiffany Tang's side of the story. It's bizarre what a relative void Leung is in these movies, considering what great work he's turned in elsewhere. He's far from a negative - he brings a light, playful charm to the part, can still hold his own in a martial-arts scene, and has good chemistry with Tang - but there are a couple times when it looks like the plan here is to relaunch the series with Tang as the star, and it's not just her snappy outfits (compared to Lin's gray suits) that make that an appealing idea. Tang gets to play the prickly, sarcastic agent with something to prove and has a blast selling it, to the point where she probably should have been the star of this movie in a more indisputable manner.
Full review at EFC.
Monday, August 20, 2018
Saturday, August 18, 2018
The Spy Gone North
That first paragraph of the review below is absolutely true - every time I see that there's something out of the ordinary playing locally, I'll look up who's involved, see what else they've done to see just how must-see the new thing is and adjust priorities accordingly. In this case, I saw Nameless Gangster, remembered seeing that, and perked up, only to be surprised that I apparently hadn't loved the movie when I saw it. I wonder if I just absorbed its generally-good reputation, or if it's just got a great name.
I do like this one, though, even if I was kind of worn out by the end; as with a lot of South Korean movies, you could probably lose twenty minutes, and it didn't help that I had just done some birthday shopping for one of the awesome nieces that had me dragging a too-large item from the Museum of Science gift shop in sweaty weather beforehand after getting a bit turned-around on the way. Weird, though, getting out of what feels like an early-evening show that's only kind of long to find things already shutting down.
If nothing else, though, it was a kind of interesting take on North Korea from a South Korean perspective that doesn't make that nation either terrifying or ridiculous. One thing that struck me were the fairly small monetary stakes bandied about when trying to get leverage on the country and even Kim in particular, and it gets to the heart of North Korea's horrific absurdity in a way that doesn't necessarily rely on leaving the unstable Kim dynasty front and center - it's a desperately poor country that that continues as it is seemingly out of pure defiance, racking up a horrific body count on the way, and too many people on both sides of the people (whether their own leadership or that of the South) profit too much from that situation.
Which is more than a lot of other kind of messy movies manage. It's kind of a shame that the Asian movies playing Boston Common got nailed by some really weird times this week (in part, admittedly, because of Crazy Rich Asians. This stuff may be imperfect, but it's at least interesting.
Gongjak (The Spy Gone North)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 17 August 2018 in AMC Boston Common #6 (first-run, DCP)
A funny thing happened on the way to The Spy Gone North; I looked over my previous reviews of director Yoon Jong-bin's films and realized that, despite the good reputations attached to their names, I'd thought they were just okay at the time rather than particularly great movies, and it soon seemed that this one was settling into the same space - interesting material, clear and methodical telling, not-quite-dry results. It takes an interesting turn toward the end, though, in the same way that something begun with one intention can often take on a life of its own.
It starts in the early 1990s, when the Cold War was coming to an end in most of the world but intensifying on the Korean peninsula as the North is getting closer to refining plutonium at its Yongbyon reactor. The National Intelligence Service recruits Park Suk-young (Hwang Jung-min) to make contact with a nuclear physicist working on the project, but that only gets them limited information, so he's soon got a much more ambitious mission: Travel to Beijing representing an import/export front company to try and do some business with Ri Myung-un (Lee Sing-min) of the North's External Economic Commission, and from there try to work his way into the Pyongyang elite, finding a way to get close enough to Yongbyon for operatives to smuggle something out..
Those that enjoy the un-Bond-like nuts and bolts of spy work will find plenty of it here, as Suk-young diligently ruins his own life to establish a cover and then spends months working to make contact with Myung-un rather than having some useful and eccentric supporting character instantly backfill it. The actual work of surveillance and counter-surveillance is presented in detailed fashion that highlights how workmanlike it can be, and when he does find a path to Pyongyang, it's kind of absurd and involves hijacking someone else's work. It is in many ways, about relentlessly staying the course and finding ways to present oneself as harmless to thoroughly paranoid people. Yoon and co-writer Kwon Sung-whee do well to keep this part of the film moving despite the very incremental progress being made and the way that so many of the figures Suk-young encounters are spy-movie staples, behaving exactly as expected without a lot of surprises in store.
Full review at EFC.
I do like this one, though, even if I was kind of worn out by the end; as with a lot of South Korean movies, you could probably lose twenty minutes, and it didn't help that I had just done some birthday shopping for one of the awesome nieces that had me dragging a too-large item from the Museum of Science gift shop in sweaty weather beforehand after getting a bit turned-around on the way. Weird, though, getting out of what feels like an early-evening show that's only kind of long to find things already shutting down.
If nothing else, though, it was a kind of interesting take on North Korea from a South Korean perspective that doesn't make that nation either terrifying or ridiculous. One thing that struck me were the fairly small monetary stakes bandied about when trying to get leverage on the country and even Kim in particular, and it gets to the heart of North Korea's horrific absurdity in a way that doesn't necessarily rely on leaving the unstable Kim dynasty front and center - it's a desperately poor country that that continues as it is seemingly out of pure defiance, racking up a horrific body count on the way, and too many people on both sides of the people (whether their own leadership or that of the South) profit too much from that situation.
Which is more than a lot of other kind of messy movies manage. It's kind of a shame that the Asian movies playing Boston Common got nailed by some really weird times this week (in part, admittedly, because of Crazy Rich Asians. This stuff may be imperfect, but it's at least interesting.
Gongjak (The Spy Gone North)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 17 August 2018 in AMC Boston Common #6 (first-run, DCP)
A funny thing happened on the way to The Spy Gone North; I looked over my previous reviews of director Yoon Jong-bin's films and realized that, despite the good reputations attached to their names, I'd thought they were just okay at the time rather than particularly great movies, and it soon seemed that this one was settling into the same space - interesting material, clear and methodical telling, not-quite-dry results. It takes an interesting turn toward the end, though, in the same way that something begun with one intention can often take on a life of its own.
It starts in the early 1990s, when the Cold War was coming to an end in most of the world but intensifying on the Korean peninsula as the North is getting closer to refining plutonium at its Yongbyon reactor. The National Intelligence Service recruits Park Suk-young (Hwang Jung-min) to make contact with a nuclear physicist working on the project, but that only gets them limited information, so he's soon got a much more ambitious mission: Travel to Beijing representing an import/export front company to try and do some business with Ri Myung-un (Lee Sing-min) of the North's External Economic Commission, and from there try to work his way into the Pyongyang elite, finding a way to get close enough to Yongbyon for operatives to smuggle something out..
Those that enjoy the un-Bond-like nuts and bolts of spy work will find plenty of it here, as Suk-young diligently ruins his own life to establish a cover and then spends months working to make contact with Myung-un rather than having some useful and eccentric supporting character instantly backfill it. The actual work of surveillance and counter-surveillance is presented in detailed fashion that highlights how workmanlike it can be, and when he does find a path to Pyongyang, it's kind of absurd and involves hijacking someone else's work. It is in many ways, about relentlessly staying the course and finding ways to present oneself as harmless to thoroughly paranoid people. Yoon and co-writer Kwon Sung-whee do well to keep this part of the film moving despite the very incremental progress being made and the way that so many of the figures Suk-young encounters are spy-movie staples, behaving exactly as expected without a lot of surprises in store.
Full review at EFC.
Friday, August 17, 2018
Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 17 August 2018 - 23 August 2018
Does anyone know what the heck is happening with MoviePass on a day-to-day basis? I mean, they seem like they've finally hit something sensible and then they go for stupid again. Like, give sensible a week to work, guys!
There for Crazy Rich Asians and The Spy Went North, probably also Alpha, will probably try and catch Night Is Short, Walk on Girl on the big screen again, and level with me, folks - do I need to watch Tokyo Raiders and Seoul Raiders before Europe Raiders?
- So, I guess this is the week when we can really say Crazy Rich Asians opens, with John Chu's romantic comedy about an Asian-American woman who discovers that her boyfriend is, in fact, part of the wealthiest family in Singapore, and his mother (Michelle Yeoh!) is a force to be reckoned with. Final count for opening weekend includes Fresh Pond, the Capitol, West Newton Cinema, Boston Common (with some screenings subtitled in Chinese), Fenway, the Seaport (including Icon-X), South Bay, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux.
Elsewhere, Alpha finally arrives after this adventure about a prehistoric warrior befriending a wolf has been pushed back since at least March (it's apparently now subtitled and not getting as many Imax 3D screenings as expected). That plays Fresh Pond (2D only), Boston Common (including 3D), Fenway (including 3D), South Bay (Imax 3D only), Assembly Row (Imax 3D only) and Revere (including 3D). Then there's Mile 22, with Peter Berg directing Mark Wahlberg in some action thing that you can't convince me has even had a trailer released. It's at Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Boston Common (including Imax), Fenway (including RPX), the Seaport (including Icon-X), South Bay (Dolby Cinema Only), Assembly Row (Dolby Cinema only), Revere (including XPlus), and the SuperLux.
I ignore a lot of the faith-based movies that come out, but An Interview with God landed David Strathairn in the title role, although it's amazing how quickly he's gone from nondescript pro to "space pirate with a crazy accent" thanks to The Expanse, and I'm sad he's not playing God like that. More importantly, one of my favorite Fantasia films in recent years, Night Is Short, Walk On Girl plays a couple nights at Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, and Revere (Tuesday only); subtitled on Tuesday, with Fenway playing it dubbed on Wednesday. It's a daffy, surreal kick, although I'm surprised a company called GKIDS is distributing a movie that is in large part about everybody getting really drunk. Documentary Alt-Right: Age of Rage plays Revere on Wednesday, with that spot also showing Jaws on Thursday. - I missed Skate Kitchen at Fantasia this year, so it's cool to see that it's already showing up at Kendall Square and Boston Common, telling the story of an all-girl skate crew in New York City. The Kendall also gets IFFBoston alum Never Goin' Back, a stoner comedy about two high-school dropouts in Dallas just trying to take a vacation, for two shows a day, and it made me laugh a lot. They also have documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, telling the story of a handsome gas station attendant who became confidante and lover to stars of both sexes.
- Boston Common keeps The Island around, but it seems to mean there's not a whole lot of room for their other Asian features: Europe Raiders reunites director Jingle Ma and Tony Leung Chiu-wai for a third entry in this series (the first in 13 years) with Kris Wu along for the ride and some potentially good action with Cung Le and Jeeja Yanin credited as "assassins", though for matinees only. There are also a couple shows a day for The Spy Gone North, a slick-as-heck looking thriller from South Korea directed by Yoon Jong-bin, who did Nameless Gangster and Kundo: Age of the Rampant.
Hindi sports drama Gold adds Fenway as well as continuing to play at Apple Fresh Pond. The latter also continues Hindi screenings of Vishwaroopam 2 in Hindi, Styameva Jayate in Hindi, Geetha Govindam In Telugu, also opening Tamil crime flick Kolamavu Kokila - The Brattle Theatre has 9:30pm shows of BUFF selection Good Manners from Friday to Monday (10pm on Saturday), but otherwise it's all rep stuff: They celebrate Leonard Bernstein's 100th with On the Waterfront on Friday, West Side Story on Saturday, and On the Town (on 35mm) Sunday, before going back to celebrating Rita Hayworth's Centennial with Pal Joey on 35mm Monday. Tuesday is Trash Night, and then "Heroic!" continues with a 35mm double feature of Auntie Mame & His Girl Friday on Wednesday and The Triplets of Belleville (35mm) & A Touch of Zen on Thursday.
- "Pandas" heads back to IMAX theaters this weekend, entering the rotation at the New England Aquarium and grabbing matinee slots for a week at Jordan's and Boston Common.
- The Coolidge Corner Theatre mostly keeps to last week's schedule, aside from finding showtimes for Puzzle in the Goldscreen. They've got a free mystery "Organic Panic" screening at midnight on Friday (I wonder if it's another one of those prints they're not supposed to have but which has been around since the 80s) and a 35mm print of Batman & Robin (because Poison Ivy is the villain) on Saturday. Monday night is the annual The Big Lebowski party, with costumes, bowling, and other goofiness along with a 35mm print. There's also a "Stage & Screen" presentation of Dear White People on Thursday.
- It's a "Heroic!" weekend at The Museum of Fine Arts with Advanced Style (Friday), Return to Oz (35mm Friday/Saturday), Strange Days (35mm Saturday), Whale Rider (Sunday), Moana (Sunday), and the entry-in-spirit Ava (Sunday).
- The Somerville Theatre is a 3-plex for a while, but they've still got some special programs going, with this weekend including midnights of both Summer of '84 and both John Wick movies, with the first on Friday and Chapter 2 on Saturday. Wednesday's "Play It Cool" double feature is dedicated to Raymond Chandler & Philip Marlowe, with 35mm prints of Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep and Elliott Gould in The Long Goodbye (which, sadly, doubles as the end of the series).
Summer of '84 also plays at Cinema Salem on Thursday, with writer/producer Matt Leslie doing Q&A afterward. - Jeff Rapsis is at the Aeronaut Brewery on Sunday accompanying 1925's Clash of the Wolves, starring the original Rin Tin Tin.
- Bright Lights doesn't official return for a month, but they will be showing Repo Man up in the Bright Screening Room at the Paramount with writer/director Alex Cox on-hand!
- The Regent Theatre has a free double feature of "Between the Folds" and Design & Thinking on Wednesday, presented by UXPA Boston.
- The Museum of Science is wrapping their "Summer Thursdays" series over the next couple of weeks, with Event Horizon being the last "regular" film entry in the program playing the planetarium on Thursday.
- Joe's Free Films has particularly diverse slate for outdoor screenings this week, with multiple showings of the recent live-action Beauty and the Beast, but also the Coolidge guys hitting the Greenway with a 35mm projector for a double feature of the newly-restored Revenge of the Creature (though probably not in 3D) & The Incredible Shrinking Man, while Wednesday features Egleston Square breaking out Bird Boy: The Forgotten Children (do they know how messed up that is?) while Medford goes for Star Wars.
There for Crazy Rich Asians and The Spy Went North, probably also Alpha, will probably try and catch Night Is Short, Walk on Girl on the big screen again, and level with me, folks - do I need to watch Tokyo Raiders and Seoul Raiders before Europe Raiders?
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
This Week in Tickets: 6 August 2018 - 12 August 2018
First full week after Fantasia, so time to start this back up, though there are still two more days from the festival and a few other stragglers. But like I say, you can't just pull out of a three-week Asian/genre festival all at once.
So, I started off with a two-night double feature of Along with the Gods, watching The Two Worlds at home on Monday and then heading out to Boston Common for The Last 49 Days on Tuesday. It was going to be my first use of AMC A-List, but I forgot my passport at home (when you neither drive nor drink, you can sometimes get kind of lackadaisical about having any other sort of current photo ID), so I decided not to chance going without, because who wants the ushers at a theater you go to every week to remember you as "the guy who tries to bend the rules" rather than "the Caucasian guy who sees all the Asian movies and doesn't leave a mess"?
I get why AMC is asking for that - since they allow you to repeat movies, it would be very easy for a few people who only see one movie a week to share a membership - but ushers don't have time for that. Still had my ID anyway on my next two trips to AMCs - on Friday for a packed screening of Huang Bo's The Island and Saturday for a 3D screening of The Meg.
Those two combined would otherwise have cost $30, and I've paid $20 for the month. I suspect that AMC is not actually paying distributors based on the full price on the ticket, but whatever the minimum allowed is (maybe the $7.09 they get for 11am shows), and they've got more reason to just get people in the door so they can sell popcorn, so I figure this will last well past the end of MoviePass - which, to look at what's available on the app right now, is going to basically be A-List for Landmark.
Sunday, I only ventured into Davis Square to catch their Silent Laurel & Hardy Shorts, which Jeff & David mentioned might be their last "Silents, Please" of the year unless they could fit one into November; the place is going to be down to three screens for a while as construction goes on downstairs into October and it will be harder to shift things around. Not sure what they're doing down there, although I'm kind of hoping it's not putting in recliners - that might leave theater #2 with 50 seats and #3 with maybe 100, and that would make things nightmarish at IFFBoston next spring. Maybe they're reconfiguring some other way, putting a kitchen in where the Museum of Bad Art is or something. Or just doing boring but necessary work on the HVAC and stuff.
At any rate, it was, as usual, a fun time. There were little kids beside and behind me, and there's something delightful about little kids discovering the pure, unfettered slapstick of a classic silent. The pace isn't quite like any modern thing but it hits them perfectly. Even the jokes that don't are dated as heck kind of work because they just come off as silly and nonsense.
I've been letting my Letterboxd get behind lately, but I'll try to get back on top of that.
"Call of the Cuckoo"
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 12 August 2018 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Silents Please!, 35mm)
So I looked it up, and the title actually can't a reference to H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu", since this actually came out first. It makes me wonder if the names of both reference some other bit of 1920s pop culture that has vanished into obscurity. Or it's just an odd coincidence.
The short often shows up in Laurel & Hardy collections like this one, but they're just part of the Hal Roach ensemble here, bit players in the story of a family that trades their house located across the street from an insane asylum for another sight unseen, only to find that the construction is shoddy at best and downright inexplicable at worst, leading to all sorts of slapstick insanity.
Director Clyde Bruckman oversees this twenty minute short, and it's a bit of a curiosity for that - he's the credited director on The General and a couple of Harold Lloyd's features, contributing gags to many more, but people seldom consider those films his, and maybe that's fair. "Cuckoo" is one gag after the other pulled off with competence and success, but it never quite displays the brilliance his work with those comedy geniuses has, the sympathetic characterization and strange logic that makes the slapstick disaster inevitable rather than arbitrary. It makes for a fair number of good gags that are taped together haphazardly, only occasionally reaching the heights of the delightfully surreal in a few spots (like when Mama Gimplewart starts mopping the pattern off the linoleum floor), or when the flustered couple's son has a withering look or comment.
Still, a good bunch of gags is a good bunch of gags, and the slapstick here is certainly the work of folks who know what they are doing.
"You're Darn Tootin'" (aka "The Music Blasters")
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 12 August 2018 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Silents Please!, 35mm)
A thing about silent two-reelers is that you don't have to explain why these two people who clearly drive each other insane are hanging around together, because there's no time and the intertitles would make the exposition even more forced. Still, you've got to wonder about some of these Laurel & Hardy comedies, like "You're Darn Tootin'", where they're a pair because the actors are a team and it's very difficult to imagine a backstory that explains why Ollie didn't murder Stanley years ago.
That's the common thread for the three acts of this short, each of which features the pair as a whole not exactly being bright but Stanley constantly doing something that blows up in their faces, kind of making one wonder how they showed the basic competence to get to the point where these two players in the community orchestra got to the point where they could drive the conductor mad, and the whole thing is kind of on the same rickety ladder: The slapstick is executed with precision timing and there's a perfect switch between deadpan satisfaction and escalating shock buried in each gag, but there's always some little nagging question of why they're even doing this that "things kind of got out of hand" can only explain half the time.
"The Finishing Touch"
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 12 August 2018 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Silents Please!, 35mm)
Here, we see what is almost the platonic idea of a silent Laurel & Hardy short - a job that is straightforward but where they are completely overmatched (finishing up a mostly-completed house, that just needs windows, shingles, doors, and the like installed), well-meaning outside forces that are going to be drawn into the pair's ability to screw things up, plenty of bizarre physical comedy, and an eventual donnybrook. It's exactly what you expect, but directors Clyde Bruckman and Leo McCarey are excellent about making sure the timing is down to the second and all the characters are just the exact right functional caricature to lead the audience from one joke to the next.
Stan Laurel is taking a firmer hand behind these scenes by now, and he's got the pair's chemistry more or less figured out, and while these guys aren't really built to go back and forth, they aren't completely at odds, and the slapstick is a steady climb that's questionable at a few points (did people in the 1920s really fill their mouths with nails to bring them from one place to another?), but escalates to the point of mania by the end.
"Big Business"
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 12 August 2018 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Silents Please!, 35mm)
"Big Business" turns out to be a fun switch-up from the other parts of this program because, rather than naturally being cut into a few segments, that each have their own sort of rise and climax, this one looks like it's going to do that, as Stan & Ollie are traveling from door to door, trying to sell Christmas trees in sunny Southern California, encountering different challenges with different people… And then all hell breaks loose when a simple bit of slapstick silliness just keeps escalating, until the guy they're trying to sell a tree to (James Finlayson) completely loses his temper, lashing out against the pair, and they retaliate, and then and then and then…
It's kind of a jaw-dropping level of aggression, blowing well past reasonable and then just piling more and more on top. The slapstick is less pratfalls than vandalism and destruction, thoroughly mean-spirited, but directors James W. Horne & Leo McCarey play the audience like an instrument, making each bit of destruction a bit bigger than the last, speeding up the response, until Stan & Ollie are wrecking the house, the other guy is shredding their car, and what originally started it is almost lost.
If most silents feel like the ancestors of Mickey Mouse cartoons, this one's a Donald Duck.
So, I started off with a two-night double feature of Along with the Gods, watching The Two Worlds at home on Monday and then heading out to Boston Common for The Last 49 Days on Tuesday. It was going to be my first use of AMC A-List, but I forgot my passport at home (when you neither drive nor drink, you can sometimes get kind of lackadaisical about having any other sort of current photo ID), so I decided not to chance going without, because who wants the ushers at a theater you go to every week to remember you as "the guy who tries to bend the rules" rather than "the Caucasian guy who sees all the Asian movies and doesn't leave a mess"?
I get why AMC is asking for that - since they allow you to repeat movies, it would be very easy for a few people who only see one movie a week to share a membership - but ushers don't have time for that. Still had my ID anyway on my next two trips to AMCs - on Friday for a packed screening of Huang Bo's The Island and Saturday for a 3D screening of The Meg.
Those two combined would otherwise have cost $30, and I've paid $20 for the month. I suspect that AMC is not actually paying distributors based on the full price on the ticket, but whatever the minimum allowed is (maybe the $7.09 they get for 11am shows), and they've got more reason to just get people in the door so they can sell popcorn, so I figure this will last well past the end of MoviePass - which, to look at what's available on the app right now, is going to basically be A-List for Landmark.
Sunday, I only ventured into Davis Square to catch their Silent Laurel & Hardy Shorts, which Jeff & David mentioned might be their last "Silents, Please" of the year unless they could fit one into November; the place is going to be down to three screens for a while as construction goes on downstairs into October and it will be harder to shift things around. Not sure what they're doing down there, although I'm kind of hoping it's not putting in recliners - that might leave theater #2 with 50 seats and #3 with maybe 100, and that would make things nightmarish at IFFBoston next spring. Maybe they're reconfiguring some other way, putting a kitchen in where the Museum of Bad Art is or something. Or just doing boring but necessary work on the HVAC and stuff.
At any rate, it was, as usual, a fun time. There were little kids beside and behind me, and there's something delightful about little kids discovering the pure, unfettered slapstick of a classic silent. The pace isn't quite like any modern thing but it hits them perfectly. Even the jokes that don't are dated as heck kind of work because they just come off as silly and nonsense.
I've been letting my Letterboxd get behind lately, but I'll try to get back on top of that.
"Call of the Cuckoo"
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 12 August 2018 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Silents Please!, 35mm)
So I looked it up, and the title actually can't a reference to H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu", since this actually came out first. It makes me wonder if the names of both reference some other bit of 1920s pop culture that has vanished into obscurity. Or it's just an odd coincidence.
The short often shows up in Laurel & Hardy collections like this one, but they're just part of the Hal Roach ensemble here, bit players in the story of a family that trades their house located across the street from an insane asylum for another sight unseen, only to find that the construction is shoddy at best and downright inexplicable at worst, leading to all sorts of slapstick insanity.
Director Clyde Bruckman oversees this twenty minute short, and it's a bit of a curiosity for that - he's the credited director on The General and a couple of Harold Lloyd's features, contributing gags to many more, but people seldom consider those films his, and maybe that's fair. "Cuckoo" is one gag after the other pulled off with competence and success, but it never quite displays the brilliance his work with those comedy geniuses has, the sympathetic characterization and strange logic that makes the slapstick disaster inevitable rather than arbitrary. It makes for a fair number of good gags that are taped together haphazardly, only occasionally reaching the heights of the delightfully surreal in a few spots (like when Mama Gimplewart starts mopping the pattern off the linoleum floor), or when the flustered couple's son has a withering look or comment.
Still, a good bunch of gags is a good bunch of gags, and the slapstick here is certainly the work of folks who know what they are doing.
"You're Darn Tootin'" (aka "The Music Blasters")
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 12 August 2018 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Silents Please!, 35mm)
A thing about silent two-reelers is that you don't have to explain why these two people who clearly drive each other insane are hanging around together, because there's no time and the intertitles would make the exposition even more forced. Still, you've got to wonder about some of these Laurel & Hardy comedies, like "You're Darn Tootin'", where they're a pair because the actors are a team and it's very difficult to imagine a backstory that explains why Ollie didn't murder Stanley years ago.
That's the common thread for the three acts of this short, each of which features the pair as a whole not exactly being bright but Stanley constantly doing something that blows up in their faces, kind of making one wonder how they showed the basic competence to get to the point where these two players in the community orchestra got to the point where they could drive the conductor mad, and the whole thing is kind of on the same rickety ladder: The slapstick is executed with precision timing and there's a perfect switch between deadpan satisfaction and escalating shock buried in each gag, but there's always some little nagging question of why they're even doing this that "things kind of got out of hand" can only explain half the time.
"The Finishing Touch"
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 12 August 2018 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Silents Please!, 35mm)
Here, we see what is almost the platonic idea of a silent Laurel & Hardy short - a job that is straightforward but where they are completely overmatched (finishing up a mostly-completed house, that just needs windows, shingles, doors, and the like installed), well-meaning outside forces that are going to be drawn into the pair's ability to screw things up, plenty of bizarre physical comedy, and an eventual donnybrook. It's exactly what you expect, but directors Clyde Bruckman and Leo McCarey are excellent about making sure the timing is down to the second and all the characters are just the exact right functional caricature to lead the audience from one joke to the next.
Stan Laurel is taking a firmer hand behind these scenes by now, and he's got the pair's chemistry more or less figured out, and while these guys aren't really built to go back and forth, they aren't completely at odds, and the slapstick is a steady climb that's questionable at a few points (did people in the 1920s really fill their mouths with nails to bring them from one place to another?), but escalates to the point of mania by the end.
"Big Business"
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 12 August 2018 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Silents Please!, 35mm)
"Big Business" turns out to be a fun switch-up from the other parts of this program because, rather than naturally being cut into a few segments, that each have their own sort of rise and climax, this one looks like it's going to do that, as Stan & Ollie are traveling from door to door, trying to sell Christmas trees in sunny Southern California, encountering different challenges with different people… And then all hell breaks loose when a simple bit of slapstick silliness just keeps escalating, until the guy they're trying to sell a tree to (James Finlayson) completely loses his temper, lashing out against the pair, and they retaliate, and then and then and then…
It's kind of a jaw-dropping level of aggression, blowing well past reasonable and then just piling more and more on top. The slapstick is less pratfalls than vandalism and destruction, thoroughly mean-spirited, but directors James W. Horne & Leo McCarey play the audience like an instrument, making each bit of destruction a bit bigger than the last, speeding up the response, until Stan & Ollie are wrecking the house, the other guy is shredding their car, and what originally started it is almost lost.
If most silents feel like the ancestors of Mickey Mouse cartoons, this one's a Donald Duck.
Monday, August 13, 2018
The Meg
Strongly tempted to pair this one with The Island for a "Chinese movies about danger in the middle of the ocean" post, but it's really not Chinese enough, despite the setting, a fair chunk of the cast, and the fact that it certainly seems like a fair chunk of the money came from there. It is, at any rate, probably a better attempt at appealing to "the world market" than most movies clearly made with the intent of making a splash on both the American and Chinese box office charts, and it seems to have done all right by that measurement. Tough week to open in China, too, between The Island coming out and that remake of Brewster's Millions presumably going strong.
I'm mildly amused by the slight name change from the original novel Meg, and I kind of wonder if it's a reflection of how we browse different media. In a bookstore or library, Meg is going to not just be in a horror or sci-fi section, but even the spine is going to have a giant shark on it, so you know what to expect. Someone just standing at the box office of the local AMC, though, has no context, and might very well assume that "Meg" is some indie drama about a young woman discovering her own independence. "The Meg" is clearly talking about a thing or an idea that isn't necessarily a common term, so a blind buy at least has you in the general ballpark.
I must also admit, I'm mildly disappointed that there weren't more 3D shows for this one - almost none of the premium screens were 3D and most of the 3D shows there were happened at off-peak-hours. Yeah, it's clearly a conversion job, but underwater stuff makes for good use of depth, and there are a few other nifty uses. Not necessarily worth paying extra for, but worth the upgrade if you've got A-List.
The Meg
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 11 August 2018 in AMC Assembly Row #4 (first-run, RealD DCP)
Folks have been trying to make Steve Alten's novel Meg into a movie since it came out twenty years ago, and you kind of have to wonder what took so long, because it doesn't seem that complicated - there's no piece of it that doesn't come from basically every B-movie about a sea monster ever made, and it's not like you've got to create a whole new monster. Every special effects house probably already has a shark model in their files, after all. That The Meg is kind of an assembly-line monster movie is okay - it's fun to apply the latest technology to these old standards every few years - but what exactly got this stuck in development hell?
It starts, give or take a flashback, with a theory Professor Zhang (Winston Chao) believes that the bottom of the Philippine Trench is actually much deeper than it appears, and that the previously mapped bottom is actually a thermocline layer whose abrupt change in temperature reflects radar and sonar, and he's convinced a tech billionaire (Rainn Wilson) to pay for an underwater research lab. The good news is that he's right; the bad news is that the first submersible sent down gets damaged. Zhang and the station's chief of operations (Cliff Curtis) are able to marine-rescue expert Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) out of retirement - though Zhang's marine biologist daughter Suyin (Li Bingbing) attempts to mount a rescue first - but all those vehicles punching through the thermocline has created a hole that the previously-unseen life in that isolated environment can swim through. Like, say, a megalodon, a sixty-foot shark thought to be extinct for two million years with an insatiable appetite and no predators in today's ocean.
Though the giant shark is obviously the main attraction, the filmmakers pull a nifty trick in that the first act, before "The Meg" even shows up, is kind of the most fun. It introduces a nice ensemble of smart, capable people who can bounce off each other without it all seeming snippy or making light of a situation, right down to Statham not actually winking at the camera as Jonas recites the expected way for a situation to play out. More importantly, director Jon Turteltaub and three credited screenwriters have ample opportunity to go the "this stuff was hidden from us for a reason!" route, but they almost never do, and there's real delight found in exploration and adventure: The submersible crew (Jessica McNamee, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, and Masi Oka) are upbeat, the undersea landscape looks cool (although it could use a few more obviously bizarre species), and there's great fun to be had in both the flashy equipment Morris's money has paid for and the decidedly manual techniques Jonas uses to get past a damaged hatch. There's even a couple good action sequences, and you don't see the megalodon until the climax of the that leg's last one..
Full review at EFC.
I'm mildly amused by the slight name change from the original novel Meg, and I kind of wonder if it's a reflection of how we browse different media. In a bookstore or library, Meg is going to not just be in a horror or sci-fi section, but even the spine is going to have a giant shark on it, so you know what to expect. Someone just standing at the box office of the local AMC, though, has no context, and might very well assume that "Meg" is some indie drama about a young woman discovering her own independence. "The Meg" is clearly talking about a thing or an idea that isn't necessarily a common term, so a blind buy at least has you in the general ballpark.
I must also admit, I'm mildly disappointed that there weren't more 3D shows for this one - almost none of the premium screens were 3D and most of the 3D shows there were happened at off-peak-hours. Yeah, it's clearly a conversion job, but underwater stuff makes for good use of depth, and there are a few other nifty uses. Not necessarily worth paying extra for, but worth the upgrade if you've got A-List.
The Meg
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 11 August 2018 in AMC Assembly Row #4 (first-run, RealD DCP)
Folks have been trying to make Steve Alten's novel Meg into a movie since it came out twenty years ago, and you kind of have to wonder what took so long, because it doesn't seem that complicated - there's no piece of it that doesn't come from basically every B-movie about a sea monster ever made, and it's not like you've got to create a whole new monster. Every special effects house probably already has a shark model in their files, after all. That The Meg is kind of an assembly-line monster movie is okay - it's fun to apply the latest technology to these old standards every few years - but what exactly got this stuck in development hell?
It starts, give or take a flashback, with a theory Professor Zhang (Winston Chao) believes that the bottom of the Philippine Trench is actually much deeper than it appears, and that the previously mapped bottom is actually a thermocline layer whose abrupt change in temperature reflects radar and sonar, and he's convinced a tech billionaire (Rainn Wilson) to pay for an underwater research lab. The good news is that he's right; the bad news is that the first submersible sent down gets damaged. Zhang and the station's chief of operations (Cliff Curtis) are able to marine-rescue expert Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) out of retirement - though Zhang's marine biologist daughter Suyin (Li Bingbing) attempts to mount a rescue first - but all those vehicles punching through the thermocline has created a hole that the previously-unseen life in that isolated environment can swim through. Like, say, a megalodon, a sixty-foot shark thought to be extinct for two million years with an insatiable appetite and no predators in today's ocean.
Though the giant shark is obviously the main attraction, the filmmakers pull a nifty trick in that the first act, before "The Meg" even shows up, is kind of the most fun. It introduces a nice ensemble of smart, capable people who can bounce off each other without it all seeming snippy or making light of a situation, right down to Statham not actually winking at the camera as Jonas recites the expected way for a situation to play out. More importantly, director Jon Turteltaub and three credited screenwriters have ample opportunity to go the "this stuff was hidden from us for a reason!" route, but they almost never do, and there's real delight found in exploration and adventure: The submersible crew (Jessica McNamee, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, and Masi Oka) are upbeat, the undersea landscape looks cool (although it could use a few more obviously bizarre species), and there's great fun to be had in both the flashy equipment Morris's money has paid for and the decidedly manual techniques Jonas uses to get past a damaged hatch. There's even a couple good action sequences, and you don't see the megalodon until the climax of the that leg's last one..
Full review at EFC.
Saturday, August 11, 2018
The Island
Only one trailer for another Chinese movie before this one, but it was for Project Gutenberg, which comes out the week of my birthday and features Chow Yun-fat in what seems like his first "coolest damn criminal on Earth" role in quite a while, and, guys, I am there for that. I knew he was filming it and hoped it was heading stateside, but the confirmation felt so very good.
Will it get the same sort of audience here that this one did? I kind of doubt it; this theater was pretty much packed by the time the movie started. Maybe it's a smaller theater, since my tendency to sit in the center of the last row of the front section put me in the second row rather than the third, but that usually gives me a lot of space, and there were folks right next to me and in front of me. Using their phones, unfortunately, but I feel kind of weird telling people to shut their phones off when I've got a notepad out, especially when I'm the one guy in a Chinese film screening that needs the subtitles. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a huge hit in China, since Huang Bo and Wang Baoqiang are pretty big stars in a pretty decent movie, and I think Shu Qi is too. She's a big favorite of mine by now; she seems to get more beautiful with age, and has not only become a great comic actor, but she seems to like the weird movies a bit.
So - quite fond of this one, even if it is kind of drawn out.
Yi chu haoxi (The Island '18)
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 10 August 2018 in AMC Boston Common #15 (first-run, DCP)
I am not sure where, exactly, the urge to label films as either comedy or drama comes from, but it certainly doesn't do Huang Bo's The Island any favors - that perspective makes it seem like a high-concept comedy that gets too grim or an apocalyptic take on Lord of the Flies that has too much slapstick. Seen as a whole, it's still kind of shaggy, but that's not necessarily a bad tradeoff for a movie this offbeat and oddly ambitious to make.
It's ambitious enough to start in space, where a couple of asteroids colliding has one headed in the general direction of Earth. This is not necessarily a big problem for Ma Jin (Huang); he figures that poor folks like him and foster brother Xing (Zhang Yixing) have the least to lose. A far smaller disaster - their car breaking down - almost has them miss their employer's team-building exercise, which starts out on an amphibious bus. While they're on the water, the meteor hits and the 100-foot tsunami lands them on an island, where Boss Zhang (Yu Hewei) finds that his leadership is maybe not of as much practical use as that of bus driver Dicky Wang (Wang Baoqiang), whose experience includes the army and animal training, so is at least practical in some ways. Ma Jin has other things on his mind than taking sides in that conflict, too: Just before the cataclysm, he discovered that the lottery ticket in his pocket won the jackpot, worth 60 million RMB (about nine million US dollars) - more than enough to pay off his debts and give him the courage to act on his attraction to co-worker Wu Shanshan (Shu Qi), if they get off the island and the world is still there.
To a certain extent, the comedy and drama of that situation sometimes take a back seat to how surreal Huang's vision can be. Craft like the film's "Surfing Duck" are usually used in rivers and harbors, and even before the wave hits and the van proves unusually water-tight, the sight of it out on the open sea seems peculiar. Huang (directing his first feature) doesn't stop with that, either; each stage of the movie introduces something even stranger, from a polar bear to a wrecked cruise ship to the unexplained sort of rain often used as a sign of the paranormal. For an actor directing his first feature, Huang is terrifically adept in harnessing this strangeness - not only do he and his crew often make these shots surprisingly beautiful, but he can build them to a point where the audience can feel how something conventional plays as almost inconceivable to the castaways, but there are little bits (like a homemade antenna that feels like a twitchy, scrambling alien) strewn throughout.
Full review at EFC.
Will it get the same sort of audience here that this one did? I kind of doubt it; this theater was pretty much packed by the time the movie started. Maybe it's a smaller theater, since my tendency to sit in the center of the last row of the front section put me in the second row rather than the third, but that usually gives me a lot of space, and there were folks right next to me and in front of me. Using their phones, unfortunately, but I feel kind of weird telling people to shut their phones off when I've got a notepad out, especially when I'm the one guy in a Chinese film screening that needs the subtitles. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a huge hit in China, since Huang Bo and Wang Baoqiang are pretty big stars in a pretty decent movie, and I think Shu Qi is too. She's a big favorite of mine by now; she seems to get more beautiful with age, and has not only become a great comic actor, but she seems to like the weird movies a bit.
So - quite fond of this one, even if it is kind of drawn out.
Yi chu haoxi (The Island '18)
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 10 August 2018 in AMC Boston Common #15 (first-run, DCP)
I am not sure where, exactly, the urge to label films as either comedy or drama comes from, but it certainly doesn't do Huang Bo's The Island any favors - that perspective makes it seem like a high-concept comedy that gets too grim or an apocalyptic take on Lord of the Flies that has too much slapstick. Seen as a whole, it's still kind of shaggy, but that's not necessarily a bad tradeoff for a movie this offbeat and oddly ambitious to make.
It's ambitious enough to start in space, where a couple of asteroids colliding has one headed in the general direction of Earth. This is not necessarily a big problem for Ma Jin (Huang); he figures that poor folks like him and foster brother Xing (Zhang Yixing) have the least to lose. A far smaller disaster - their car breaking down - almost has them miss their employer's team-building exercise, which starts out on an amphibious bus. While they're on the water, the meteor hits and the 100-foot tsunami lands them on an island, where Boss Zhang (Yu Hewei) finds that his leadership is maybe not of as much practical use as that of bus driver Dicky Wang (Wang Baoqiang), whose experience includes the army and animal training, so is at least practical in some ways. Ma Jin has other things on his mind than taking sides in that conflict, too: Just before the cataclysm, he discovered that the lottery ticket in his pocket won the jackpot, worth 60 million RMB (about nine million US dollars) - more than enough to pay off his debts and give him the courage to act on his attraction to co-worker Wu Shanshan (Shu Qi), if they get off the island and the world is still there.
To a certain extent, the comedy and drama of that situation sometimes take a back seat to how surreal Huang's vision can be. Craft like the film's "Surfing Duck" are usually used in rivers and harbors, and even before the wave hits and the van proves unusually water-tight, the sight of it out on the open sea seems peculiar. Huang (directing his first feature) doesn't stop with that, either; each stage of the movie introduces something even stranger, from a polar bear to a wrecked cruise ship to the unexplained sort of rain often used as a sign of the paranormal. For an actor directing his first feature, Huang is terrifically adept in harnessing this strangeness - not only do he and his crew often make these shots surprisingly beautiful, but he can build them to a point where the audience can feel how something conventional plays as almost inconceivable to the castaways, but there are little bits (like a homemade antenna that feels like a twitchy, scrambling alien) strewn throughout.
Full review at EFC.
Thursday, August 09, 2018
Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 10 August 2018 - 16 August 2018
Late summer means a really random set of movies coming out, from dumpings to not knowing what to do with something to "this might be an awards contender but maybe not".
I've got BlacKkKlansman, The Meg, The Island, and some silents to see, and I'm not sure what else I can fit in.
- Since movies aren't listed by genre at the multiplex, Meg the novel has become The Meg the movie, with Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, and Ruby Rose crewing an international underwater research facility who are set upon by a gigantic, prehistoric shark. No idea whether the book was as goofy as the film looks to be, but I know a bunch of people that swear by it. It's at Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax 2D), the Embassy, Boston Common (including RealD), Fenway (including RPX, RealD, and the two in tandem), the Seaport (in Icon-X including 3D), South Bay (including Imax 2D and RealD), Assembly Row (including Imax 2D and RealD), Revere (including XPlus and RealD), and the SuperLux. If your taste in horror is more creepy things in the shadows than giant monsters, there's Slender Man, with Joey King stuck in a movie about the first urban legend to primarily exist on the Internet. That one's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere.
Intersecting-storylines-with-furry-friends movie Dog Days had an early opening this week, starting on Wednesday and playing Boston Common, South Bay, the Seaport, Assembly Row, and Revere. Crazy Rich Asians had a preview last week and openis for real this Wednesday at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux.
There are multiple anime classics opening this weekend, with Ghibli-Fest screenings of Grave of the Fireflies at Fenway and Revere (dubbed Sunday/Wednesday and subtitled Monday), while the Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door movie plays the Kendall, Boston Common, and Fenway (subtitled Wednesday/dubbed Thursday). The Hangover plays Monday night at the Seaport, and there's a one-night premiere of Blood Fest at Revere on Tuesday. The Elvis '68 Comeback Special plays Fenway, Assembly Row, and Revere on Thursday. - Spike Lee's latest, BlacKkKlansman, tells the story of a black detective who poses as a racial extremist over the phone, necessitating a partner when it comes to make contact. It's opening at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, the Capitol, Kendall Square, the Embassy, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row, and Revere.
The Coolidge also opens The Miseducation of Cameron Post, with Chloe Grace Montez as the title character, whose conservative parents send their daughter off for conversion therapy and accidentally introduces her to an actual gay community for the first time.
At midnight, the Coolidge continues "Organic Panic", with a killer plant double feature of Island of the Doomed & Dr. Terror's House of Horrors on Friday and Troll 2 on Saturday, shockingly, without anybody involved showing up as a guest. The Wizard of Oz is the Big Screen Classic on Monday, with critic Monica Castillo handling the seminar before and after. There's also a Cinema Jukebox presentation of Footloose on Thursday, with the Brookline Music School having a performance before that one runs. All of the special presentations are on 35mm this week. - Kendall Square has IFFBoston selection Nico, 1988, which is a biography of a musician trying to rebuild a relationship with her son in her last days. There's a wider release for Puzzle, which co-stars Kelly Macdonald an Irrfan Khan as an unlikely team of competitive jigsaw puzzle solvers. It also plays at West Newton Cinema and Boston Common.
- Another IFFBoston alum plays The Brattle Theatre, with Hirokazu Kore-eda's The Third Murder playing all weekend, Monday evening, and Monday & Tuesday afternoons. It's pretty good, although it's less a quiet Kore-eda piece than a Very Serious Murder story. That schedule leaves a bit crowded, but there's still room for a benefit screening of Ang Larawan on Saturday afternoon, a Rita Hawyorth double feature of Affair in Trinidad (on 35mm) & Gilda on Tuesday. That leaves two evenings for "Heroic!", with The Witch on Wednesday, and an "All About Evil" double feature on Thursday, featuring 35mm screenings of All About Eve and Showgirls, with critic Adam Nayman introducing both and signing copies of his book about the latter between shows.
- The Museum of Fine Arts continues to split "Heroic!" with the Brattle, with screenings of RBG (Friday/Sunday; the second sold-out), Terminator 2 (Friday), Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Saturday/subtitled), and Advanced Style (Sunday). They also have their own Casanova's Europe series going, with this week's selections Barry Lyndon (Saturday) and Fellini's Casanova (Thursday). They also show Sadaf Foroughi's Ava on Thursday.
- Apple Fresh Pond opens Vishwaroopam 2 in three languages, with at least the Hindi and Tamil screenings having subtitles (not sure about the Telugu). There's also Telugu family drama Srinivasa Kalyanam (through Monday), Malayalam film Koode (Saturday), Telugu romantic comedy Geetha Govindam (starting Tuesday), and two more Hindi movies starting Wednesday: Action flick Styameva Jayate with John Abraham and Gold, telling the story of India's first Olympic medal after their independence (in field hockey, which is huge there).
Boston Common doesn't have room for BuyBust, but they do play The Island<, the directorial debut of Chinese superstar Huang Bo, who plays a guy marooned on a company team-building exercise with a winning lottery ticket in his pocket, although the world may have been wiped out by a meteor impact. It co-stars Wang Baoqiang and Shu Qi, which is a heck of a cast. - The Somerville Theatre has Fantasia Festival selection Summer of '84, a genuinely fun flick from the makers of Turbo Kid that follows a group of kids whose leader is certain that their neighbor is a serial killer. It's not just the "midnight special" on Friday and Saturday, but also plays at 10pm through Sunday with 12:45pm matinees on the weekend. They've also got a "Silents, Please!" program of 35mm Laurel & Hardy Shorts with Jeff Rapsis on the organ on Sunday. They drop down to three screens come Monday, but still have room for Wednesday's "Play It Cool" Burt Reynolds double feature of Smokey and the Bandit (35mm) and his latest, The Last Movie Star, on DCP.
They push The Spy Who Dumped Me, Three Identical Strangers, and Won't You Be My Neighbor to The Capitol, their sister cinema in Arlington, come Monday, and that theater also welcomes Jeff to accompany Constance Talmadge playing a dual role in Her Sister from Paris on Thursday. - With the Red Sox out of town, Fandango is presenting "Movie Night at Fenway Park" on Tuesday with Jurassic Park. Not sure exactly what the setup is, but I'm guessing you get to sit in the loge box seats and it plays way up on the big video board, which is probably as close as us city dwellers who don't have cars get to going to a drive-in, for better or worse. You get to walk the warning track before the movie, too. (Speaking of drive-ins, the Leicester Drive-In appears to still be showing Mission: Impossible 6 on film Friday & Saturday, and if I get their Facebook posting right, so is A Quiet Place after it and the double feature of E.T. & Jaws on their third screen. I guess just one of the three can handle digital, maybe?)
- I think I listed this weekend's Yellow Submarine shows at The Regent Theatre as playing last week (or maybe it just keeps getting held over), but it's showing on Friday night and Saturday afternoon and evening, with pre-show warmups, post-film Q&As, and more.
- Still lots of outdoor movies listed at Joe's Free Films, with Coco being the most frequent and Nocturna (at Egleston Square on Wednesday) the most off the beaten path.
I've got BlacKkKlansman, The Meg, The Island, and some silents to see, and I'm not sure what else I can fit in.
Along with the Gods, Parts 1 & 2
Still time to see Part 2 in AMC Boston Common if you can catch a matinee today, but you might have to catch up on the first one first, so good luck with that. Sorry, I'm bee watching a crap-ton of other Asian movies and back to work.
I recommend this as a two-night deal, though i suppose it could work as a marathon. I streamed the first via Amazon on Monday night, lucky enough that it was $5 to rent or buy, so this is the first movie I only own digitally. Seems wrong not to have something on the shelf, but okay. Went to the late-ish show on Tuesday because getting to a 6:15pm show in Boston Common after working in Burlington just isn't happening. It was the first ticket I bought using AMC's new Stubs A-List level, but those apparently require photo ID, which I didn't have on me, so I wound up buying a second one. Fortunately, Tuesday is $5 day, so it wasn't too big a hit.
Anyway, a big two-part Korean movie is not a bad way to ease myself out of Fantasia mode, even if it pushes getting everything written up back a bit.
Singwa hamgge: Joewa Beol (Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 6 August 2018 in Jay's Living Room (catch-up, Prime Video HD)
The thing that will likely throw non-Korean viewers about Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds is that it's not as much about the heroic fireman journeying through the afterlife on the way to potential reincarnation as one would surmise from the way he's centered on the posters - or indeed, as much as it probably should be. The first half of a two-part series, its plot is torn between Ja-hong's story and setting up The Last 49 Days, and even together that's not enough, although the filmmakers deliver enough impressive visions of hell to keep the audience's interest.
Make no mistake, firefighter Kim Ja-Hong (Cha Tae-hyun) died when he was supposed to, on 28 April 2017, saving a little girl while who was trapped in a burning high-rise, leaving behind a sickly mother (Ye Soo-jung) and a brother, Soo-hong (Kim Dong-wook), intent on finishing law school after his military service. Ja-hong has lived a good enough life to be classified as a Paragon, eligible for immediate reincarnation should he pass the seven trials in 49 days, which is good news for his Guardians and advocates as well - he would be the 48th Paragon that Gang-rim (Ha Jung-woo), Deok-choon (Kim Hyang-gi), and Hewonmak (Ju Ji-hoon) had shepherded to a new life, one short of the number necessary for them to reincarnate as well. But even Paragons can fail the trials, and Gang-rim must soon journey back to the living world because there appears to be a vengeful spirit connected to Ja-hong, and its existence has their 49 days speeding up and the group beset by hell-ghouls.
Ja-Hong's life is what drives the story here, and while we should all aspire to be considered a paragon when we die, it can be a little hard to wring a lot of drama out of that. There's a pattern set early of the trials uncovering that Ja-hong has sinned in the past, but generally for a noble reason, and he's such a good person that he can basically be waved past one or two stops but so out of his element that he can't directly contribute to his own defense (his trials are not punishing tasks but bits of courtroom drama with prosecutors, judges, and exhibits). It's fortunate that actor Cha Tae-hyun is able to project a very genuine-seeming, modest decency in the flashbacks and adds an unstated feeling of trauma to his time in the world of the dead; scenes that seem like that they could entirely be Ja-hong protesting too much about not being that good a man or being kind enough to be insufferable work a heck of a lot better than the dry going through the motions that seems like a straightforward acceptance of him being a Paragon would lead to.
Full review at EFC.
Singwa hamgge: Ingwa Yeon (Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days)
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 7 August 2018 in AMC Boston Common #10 (first-run, DCP)
The first part of the Along with the Gods two-parter, The Two Worlds, was good-looking but didn't quite have a story operatic enough to match its visual ambition, but it's clear right away that The Last 49 Days won't have the same problems - its Paragon isn't nearly as saintly as the one that came before, and all the things hinted at by the end of the last movie are primed to explode. It's not entirely a leap forward, as it winds up a bit weaker in places the other movie was strong, but it's enough of an improvement to make the whole a good combo.
(Spoilers ahead for those who have not yet seen The Two Worlds)
Full review at EFC.
I recommend this as a two-night deal, though i suppose it could work as a marathon. I streamed the first via Amazon on Monday night, lucky enough that it was $5 to rent or buy, so this is the first movie I only own digitally. Seems wrong not to have something on the shelf, but okay. Went to the late-ish show on Tuesday because getting to a 6:15pm show in Boston Common after working in Burlington just isn't happening. It was the first ticket I bought using AMC's new Stubs A-List level, but those apparently require photo ID, which I didn't have on me, so I wound up buying a second one. Fortunately, Tuesday is $5 day, so it wasn't too big a hit.
Anyway, a big two-part Korean movie is not a bad way to ease myself out of Fantasia mode, even if it pushes getting everything written up back a bit.
Singwa hamgge: Joewa Beol (Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 6 August 2018 in Jay's Living Room (catch-up, Prime Video HD)
The thing that will likely throw non-Korean viewers about Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds is that it's not as much about the heroic fireman journeying through the afterlife on the way to potential reincarnation as one would surmise from the way he's centered on the posters - or indeed, as much as it probably should be. The first half of a two-part series, its plot is torn between Ja-hong's story and setting up The Last 49 Days, and even together that's not enough, although the filmmakers deliver enough impressive visions of hell to keep the audience's interest.
Make no mistake, firefighter Kim Ja-Hong (Cha Tae-hyun) died when he was supposed to, on 28 April 2017, saving a little girl while who was trapped in a burning high-rise, leaving behind a sickly mother (Ye Soo-jung) and a brother, Soo-hong (Kim Dong-wook), intent on finishing law school after his military service. Ja-hong has lived a good enough life to be classified as a Paragon, eligible for immediate reincarnation should he pass the seven trials in 49 days, which is good news for his Guardians and advocates as well - he would be the 48th Paragon that Gang-rim (Ha Jung-woo), Deok-choon (Kim Hyang-gi), and Hewonmak (Ju Ji-hoon) had shepherded to a new life, one short of the number necessary for them to reincarnate as well. But even Paragons can fail the trials, and Gang-rim must soon journey back to the living world because there appears to be a vengeful spirit connected to Ja-hong, and its existence has their 49 days speeding up and the group beset by hell-ghouls.
Ja-Hong's life is what drives the story here, and while we should all aspire to be considered a paragon when we die, it can be a little hard to wring a lot of drama out of that. There's a pattern set early of the trials uncovering that Ja-hong has sinned in the past, but generally for a noble reason, and he's such a good person that he can basically be waved past one or two stops but so out of his element that he can't directly contribute to his own defense (his trials are not punishing tasks but bits of courtroom drama with prosecutors, judges, and exhibits). It's fortunate that actor Cha Tae-hyun is able to project a very genuine-seeming, modest decency in the flashbacks and adds an unstated feeling of trauma to his time in the world of the dead; scenes that seem like that they could entirely be Ja-hong protesting too much about not being that good a man or being kind enough to be insufferable work a heck of a lot better than the dry going through the motions that seems like a straightforward acceptance of him being a Paragon would lead to.
Full review at EFC.
Singwa hamgge: Ingwa Yeon (Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days)
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 7 August 2018 in AMC Boston Common #10 (first-run, DCP)
The first part of the Along with the Gods two-parter, The Two Worlds, was good-looking but didn't quite have a story operatic enough to match its visual ambition, but it's clear right away that The Last 49 Days won't have the same problems - its Paragon isn't nearly as saintly as the one that came before, and all the things hinted at by the end of the last movie are primed to explode. It's not entirely a leap forward, as it winds up a bit weaker in places the other movie was strong, but it's enough of an improvement to make the whole a good combo.
(Spoilers ahead for those who have not yet seen The Two Worlds)
Full review at EFC.
Sunday, August 05, 2018
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Seriously, everyone else at eFilmCritic - it's on me to review this? You all do see that I've been kind of busy in Montreal, right? Sheesh!
Heck, I'd barely gotten back to my apartment from Quebec when I turned around to head back to the South Station area so I could see it on the wide Icon-X screen in the Seaport, and though that may not be ideal - I didn't get a whole lot of sleep on the bus and I think all the poutine I ate up there waited until I had crossed the border to form a big rock in my stomach. But, still, a lot of fun.
For all that continuity worked out well here, though, I'd still like Mission: Impossible to go back to the original arc of the series, where they brought in guys with really distinctive styles in Brian De Palma and John Woo, before it sort of settled at Skydance and Bad Robot and hiring folks like J.J. Abrams and Brad Bird who, though talented, are each kind of Just A Guy compared to those two (I don't know if McQuarrie is still Just A Guy, but he kind of was before Rogue Nation). Find someone great, like Kathryn Bigelow or Johnnie To or Kim Ji-woon or Takashi Miike or David Fincher, guys who can use Tom Cruise and a bunch of Paramount's money to make a great big thing that's clearly part of their filmography, rather than getting a boost from doing another entry in a series.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 5 August 2018 in Showcase Icon The Seaport #6 (first-run, Icon-X DCP)
As much as Mission: Impossible has been one of the most reliable action-movie franchises of the past twenty years, that reliability has arguably come at the cost of the distinctive voices Brian De Palma and John Woo brought to the series - J.J. Abrams, Brad Bird, and Christopher McQuarrie are all talented guys, but it's fair to suggest that they didn't bring the sort of individual stamp to a movie that De Palma and Woo did, at least at that point in their careers, and bringing McQuarrie back seems like the least adventurous choice. And yet, that continuity at times seems like the biggest shift in direction the series in years, giving it an extra zing to a movie that already boasts some of the most astounding action sequences of the year.
It's been a couple of years since the events of Rogue Nation, but the IMF thwarting the plans of Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) and capturing him has not simply decapitated his organization; "The Syndicate" is now "The Apostles", but still aimed at bringing about global anarchy. Their new plan involves nukes built by anti-religious crusader Nils Debruuk (Kristoffer Joner). After a mission by Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team to recover a box of missing plutonium goes awry with the reappearance of sometime-ally Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), the CIA insists on adding their own muscle, August Walker (Henry Cavill) to Hunt's team of Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) as they try to retrieve it from broker "White Widow" (Vanessa Kirby) - who has her own conditions for arranging the transfer that put Hunt in quite a spot.
There's big advantages to not starting from zero, and while McQuarrie is good about establishing what someone seeing their first M:I movie needs to know, there's something great about not having to spend time making things personal for Hunt the way that the other movies often do - in fact McQuarrie kind of uses the fact that there is bad blood between Lane and Hunt as something that can simmer in the background while pushing something much more basic forward: There's a fundamental philosophical difference between Hunt, who can't bear to sacrifice even one person for a clearly-defined greater good, and the Apostles, whose plans are apocalyptic but vague (basic "tear it down to start anew" stuff) with personal revenge being a bonus. McQuarrie does a nice job of attacking this directly, tilting the audience's sympathies toward Hunt at the personal level while still presenting how tempting pragmatism can be.
Full review at EFC.
Heck, I'd barely gotten back to my apartment from Quebec when I turned around to head back to the South Station area so I could see it on the wide Icon-X screen in the Seaport, and though that may not be ideal - I didn't get a whole lot of sleep on the bus and I think all the poutine I ate up there waited until I had crossed the border to form a big rock in my stomach. But, still, a lot of fun.
For all that continuity worked out well here, though, I'd still like Mission: Impossible to go back to the original arc of the series, where they brought in guys with really distinctive styles in Brian De Palma and John Woo, before it sort of settled at Skydance and Bad Robot and hiring folks like J.J. Abrams and Brad Bird who, though talented, are each kind of Just A Guy compared to those two (I don't know if McQuarrie is still Just A Guy, but he kind of was before Rogue Nation). Find someone great, like Kathryn Bigelow or Johnnie To or Kim Ji-woon or Takashi Miike or David Fincher, guys who can use Tom Cruise and a bunch of Paramount's money to make a great big thing that's clearly part of their filmography, rather than getting a boost from doing another entry in a series.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 5 August 2018 in Showcase Icon The Seaport #6 (first-run, Icon-X DCP)
As much as Mission: Impossible has been one of the most reliable action-movie franchises of the past twenty years, that reliability has arguably come at the cost of the distinctive voices Brian De Palma and John Woo brought to the series - J.J. Abrams, Brad Bird, and Christopher McQuarrie are all talented guys, but it's fair to suggest that they didn't bring the sort of individual stamp to a movie that De Palma and Woo did, at least at that point in their careers, and bringing McQuarrie back seems like the least adventurous choice. And yet, that continuity at times seems like the biggest shift in direction the series in years, giving it an extra zing to a movie that already boasts some of the most astounding action sequences of the year.
It's been a couple of years since the events of Rogue Nation, but the IMF thwarting the plans of Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) and capturing him has not simply decapitated his organization; "The Syndicate" is now "The Apostles", but still aimed at bringing about global anarchy. Their new plan involves nukes built by anti-religious crusader Nils Debruuk (Kristoffer Joner). After a mission by Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team to recover a box of missing plutonium goes awry with the reappearance of sometime-ally Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), the CIA insists on adding their own muscle, August Walker (Henry Cavill) to Hunt's team of Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) as they try to retrieve it from broker "White Widow" (Vanessa Kirby) - who has her own conditions for arranging the transfer that put Hunt in quite a spot.
There's big advantages to not starting from zero, and while McQuarrie is good about establishing what someone seeing their first M:I movie needs to know, there's something great about not having to spend time making things personal for Hunt the way that the other movies often do - in fact McQuarrie kind of uses the fact that there is bad blood between Lane and Hunt as something that can simmer in the background while pushing something much more basic forward: There's a fundamental philosophical difference between Hunt, who can't bear to sacrifice even one person for a clearly-defined greater good, and the Apostles, whose plans are apocalyptic but vague (basic "tear it down to start anew" stuff) with personal revenge being a bonus. McQuarrie does a nice job of attacking this directly, tilting the audience's sympathies toward Hunt at the personal level while still presenting how tempting pragmatism can be.
Full review at EFC.
Friday, August 03, 2018
Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 3 August 2018 - 9 August 2018
It's time to see just how useless my MoviePass subscription has become while I was away!
I think I'll not see movies for my last couple days in Montreal, then catch up on Mission: Impossible before starting on other things after I get home. Since you've got to ease out of Fantasia slowly, I'll probably do an Along with the Gods home/theater double feature.Ne
- This week's spy movie is The Spy Who Dumped Me, with Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon as two friends who must pick up the slack when one's boring boyfriend turns out to be a secret agent and accidentally pulls her into his business. It's at the Somerville, Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux. Last week's Mission: Impossible - Fallout is still everywhere, possibly still in 35mm at theLeicester Drive-In.
This week's live-action version of Disney material is Christopher Robin, with Ewan McGregor as the grown-up human from the A.A. Milne Pooh stories, whose old toys have escaped from his imagination and come to magical life. That one's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, The West Newton Cinema, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux. Older kids may go for The Darkest Minds, the latest knock-off X-Men movie that 20th Century Fox has produced despite having the rights to the actual X-Men (and soon being part of the same company as Marvel). That one plays Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere.
Crazy Rich Asians gets a head-start on next weekend, opening Wednesday at Boston Common, Fenway, and the SuperLux, while South Bay opens intersection-people-with-canines movie Dog Days.
The new Sailor Moon: Super S movie plays dubbed on Saturday at Fenway and subtitled on Monday at Fenway & Revere. There are 20th Anniversary screenings of The Big Lebowski at Fenway, Assembly Row, and Revere on Sunday and Wednesday, if you can't wait for the Coolidge's annual party. The party-adjacent networking thing at the Seaport on Monday is Black Mass. - Kendall Square has a metric bunch of documentaries that played IFFBoston opening this week, all with guests at certain shows. Dark Money welcomes director Kimberly Reed and a panel of guests for the Friday 7:15pm show, expanding on the movie's themes of how untraceable corporate money is warping elections. Rachel Dretzin is there to talk about Far From the Tree, her film about parents trying to raise children who pose different challenges, on Friday evening and all day Saturday. Generation Wealth also opens, with director Lauren Greenfield visiting for the 2pm show on Sunday
There's also McQueen, which is not about either of the Steves but fashion designer Alexander. - The Brattle Theatre plays Cold Water, an early work by Olivier Assayas that never had an official U.S. theatrical release, all weekend, with Virginie Ledoyen and Cyprien Fouquet as teen lovers in the 1970s.
The Rita Hayworth Centennial continues with a double feature of You Were Never Lovelier & You'll Never Get Rich on Monday and Cover Girl on Tuesday. There's also a free screening with discussion of sustainable-agriculture documentary Forgotten Farms on Tuesday afternoon. The Heroic!: Women Who Inspire screenings for the week are a 35mm double feature of The Matrix & Edge of Tomorrow on Wednesday, and a DCP pairing of Norma Rae & 9 to 5 on Thursday - "Heroic!" continues at The Museum of Fine Arts, with Fargo (Friday/Saturday), Terminator 2 (Saturday), Moana (Sunday), Whale Rider (Sunday), and an outdoor "Sunset Cinema" screening of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (dubbed) on Thursday evening. Though not technically part of the series, Sadaf Foroughi's Ava fits there as well. The first weekend of the month means that there is also an "On the Fringe" show on Friday, which for August is a 35mm print of Gummo.
- The midnight program at The Coolidge Corner Theatre shifts to "Organic Panic" for August, with a 35mm print of Little Shop of Horrors on Friday and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes on Saturday. Monday's Big Screen Classic is Roman Holiday, with a seminar before and after the film is screened on 35mm. There's a special screening of Life on the V: The Story of V66 with director Eric Green on Tuesday (the movie about Boston's 1980s music video channel is in the screening room, so it will probably sell out), and a 35mm Rewind! screening of Con Air on Thursday, with screenwriter Scott Rosenberg facing interrogation afterward.
- Apple Fresh Pond has a new group of Indian movies, including Hindi courtroom drama Mulk and Fanney Khan, which stars Anil Kapoor as a singer who wants to make his daughter a star, and also features Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. There's also Telugu spy thriller Goodachari and romantic comedy Chi La Sow.
Boston Common continues the very fun Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings for those who like Chinese action and Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days for those more into contemporary Korean fantasy. - No midnights at The Somerville Theatre this weekend, but they've got a nifty Wednesday "Play It Cool II" double features of She Done Him Wrong and Go, both on 35mm.
- Apparently last week's Yellow Submarine shows at The Regent Theatre had to be rescheduled, but it's showing on Friday night and Saturday afternoon and evening, with pre-show warmups, post-film Q&As, and more.
- On top of the one at the MFA, Joe's Free Films shows plenty of free outdoor movies, with multiples for Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Ferdinand.
I think I'll not see movies for my last couple days in Montreal, then catch up on Mission: Impossible before starting on other things after I get home. Since you've got to ease out of Fantasia slowly, I'll probably do an Along with the Gods home/theater double feature.Ne
Fantasia 2018.21: What A Man Wants, Madeline's Madeline, Big Brother, and Saint Bernard Syndicate
Day 21 is the official closing night of Fantasia, and it included an email reminder that, really, you're not getting into Mandy with your pass, although we had been told that they would be admitting press to Big Brother, and tickets could actually be refunded if you came to the box office with it and your pass. I never got around to it, but it's not like I'm in a position to really resent having paid an extra ten bucks Canadian.
Most of the day was spent catching up on things that played earlier, including a pretty specific lesson in maybe not watching stuff unless actually looking forward to it or curious. Having kind of endured a Josephine Decker double feature at Fantasia two years ago, and then something similar that she appeared in at IFFBoston last year, I was pretty much in "nope, not again" territory when Madeline's Madeline was booked for IFFBoston in April, happy to have my scheduling simplified. Then I saw it was playing here, and not really against anything I hadn't seen. I begged off Monday because if it ran a little late, it might bump into Tokyo Vampire Hotel (not necessarily great prioritization itself), but Wednesday, it was either see it or kind of feel like I'm stealing my press pass. I realize that this is irrational, but I always say that they don't give me the pass not to review movies. Of course, going into it with that attitude, I was pretty predisposed to notice everything I didn't like, much more than the many things it does well.
But, hey, they let us into the world premiere of Big Brother, with director Kam Ka-wai (right) on hand to introduce it and answer questions. Donnie Yen couldn't be here, as he's currently shooting something in Paris, although he sent a video apologizing (dude: never apologize for being in Paris) and hoping we enjoyed what was pretty clearly a labor of love for him. I did find myself amused that the parent who is very concerned about his son going to a foreign university specifically mentions Boston, and that in the film Yen's character gets in trouble at school in Hong Kong and is sent to America to get straightened out, while in real life he got in trouble at school in the Boston area and was sent back to China to get straightened out.
No, I will not rest until my town claims him as the favored son he should be.
After that, going across the street to DeSève for The Saint Bernard Syndicate was kind of odd - it started late because the previous film ran long, which got us a little restless in line despite the fact that the folks here were either the folks who didn't want to do the alleged insanity of Mandy or were chill about not getting in. It turned out to be an odd way to end closing night of the festival, very dry and kind of ambivalent at points.
But, of course, that's not really the end, as there was a bonus day added when the full line-up came out. Next up are Piercing (assuming dialing into work is done by then), The Field Guide to Evil, What Keeps You Alive, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, and Brothers' Nest. Detective Dee 3 is pretty darn good, and The Fortress isn't bad either.
"Poisson de Mars"
Seen 1 August 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, digital)
So, there were no English subtitles on this, which means I didn't catch the bit about how everyone was planning a practical joke on the poor depressed guy. I thought the final scene was about nobody wanting to eat the pie because the mother was known to be a terrible cook or something.
I laughed at times, based on what I could catch with my terrible high school French and sight gags, but you'll understand if I don't actually rate this!
Ba-lam-ba-lam-ba-lam (What a Man Wants)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 1 August 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, digital)
Somewhere in What a Man Wants is a really delightful farce that knows what to do with its women and plays with the dissatisfaction at its center in a way that heightens both its farce and possibilities. Instead, it bogs down for a while before getting to the really fun parts, and reduces interesting women to a way for the male characters to come around to something conventional.
It's still above-average, in large part due to a cast that can handle fully situation with sexy aplomb and also shift to something serious without losing what makes them funny. There's a good feeling of melancholy to bits of its setting, but not enough to make things mainly sad, and some genuinely great comic bits. The opening is a great efshort on its own, for instance, and the middle segment when things start to really click into place is brilliant - it probably should have been more of the movie.
Madeline's Madeline
* * (out of four)
Seen 1 August 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival: Camera Lucida, DCP)
Well, that's me done with Josephine Decker.
I don't want to be. There are some terrific performances to be found in this movie, a pretty decent core story, and moments that feel like something approaching self-awareness. As with her previous work, I can see great talent and potential there. I want to say nice things.
But she can't just get out of her own way! She's not as terrible as she once was of loving it when shots go in and out of focus, but she still does it a lot, and it's not as revealing as she seems to think. Instead, it just gives me a worse headache than any 3D or hyperactively-edited film ever has. She also puts characters at the center whom the audience recognizes as being full of shit but lets the rest of the cast lag behind, and frustratingly backs away from the film's, brief, beautiful clarity in the last act to finish on more improvised, theatrical nonsense.
It makes a certain amount of sense - Madeline is not "cured" of what ails her at that point - but it goes on and on, the work of a filmmaker who has just not found the point where abstraction helps to say what you mean, rather than takes away from it.
Taai si hing (Big Brother)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 1 August 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
Big Brother is corn of the highest order, and it probably won't be long before Hong Kong film fans watch it with more than a bit of irony, laughing at just how unrefined it can be at times. And that's fine, if not necessarily what the filmmakers were going for, because while the script is heavy-handed, the cast plays it with a relatively light touch, so it's an entertainingly cliched uplifting teacher movie rather than a sneer-worthy one.
The new teacher is Henry Chen Xia (Donnie Yen Ji-dan), who has never held the job before, but what is apparently an exceptional reference letter convinces principal Patrick Lin (Dominic Lam Ka-wah) to hire him as Liberal Studies teacher and assign him as homeroom teacher to Class F-6B, where all of the kids that the system has more or less given up on are. Five stand out - Jack Li (Jack Lok Ming-kit), who is always checked out because he's supporting his grandmother with his part-time job; Gladys Wang (Gladys Li), who wants to be a Formula One driver but whose father ignores her in favor of her younger brother; Faiyaz "Gordon" Ahnan (Gordon Lau Chiu-kin), a third-generation Pakistani immigrant with a talent for music; and twins Chris Guan (Chris Tong Kwan-yiu), a passionate gamer, and Bruce Guan (Bruce Tong Kwan-chi), who keeps their alcoholic father off Chris's back despite his own ADHD. The school on the verge of closing because of its low test scores, and a mobbed-up local developer is already making plans to buy the land after that happens.
Henry Chen hasn't always been a teacher, of course, but it's oddly relieving that the revelation that he's not some sort of undercover cop or a guy with some sort of secret agenda never comes. His backstory is instead pretty much what one would expect, and it allows writer Chan Tai-li and director Kam Ka-wai to not waste much time on Henry being won over, and a quick montage of him reading the students' files lets them quickly explain what their issues are. There's nothing in the film that is treated as a particular revelation - most folks watching it, whether in Hong Kong or elsewhere, will recognize these as issues that they're aware of but don't give much thought to because they're out of sight, and even the somewhat more arcane question of "teaching to the test" is handled without a lot of speechifying. There are, perhaps, a few instances where the filmmakers could have built things in a way that has them practicing what they preach a bit more: Gladys's story involves her not being given attention because she's a girl, and the movie follows along by only having one out of four or five characters of any import be female, and while Henry's classes celebrate critical thinking and broad knowledge over focusing on the MGE, the students' part of the climax is basically about passing the test and not how they manage it.
Full review at EFC.
Sankt Bernhard Syndikatet (The St. Bernard Syndicate)
* * * (out of four)
Seen 1 August 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
The director of The St. Bernard Syndicate has spent much of his career doing "satirical documentaries", and one wonders if he may have had that in mind for this film as well. The subject matter is certainly ripe for such an approach, but in a bit of irony, it turns out that taking a scripted approach allows him and his collaborators to hit upon something that feels a little bit more real.
In the film, Frederik (Frederik Cilius) has what sounds like a solid business idea - not just breeding selling St. Bernard dogs in China, where the middle class is exploding and the breed is a potential novelty - but creating a subscription revenue stream by handling food, veterinary appointments, and the like. His family has been breeding the dogs for generations, but his father (Flemming Sørensen) refuses to invest, saying he has no head for business. The only person from his old, "elite" private school interested is Rasmus (Rasmus Bruun), but he isn't nearly so wealthy as Frederik thinks and has just had a rather disturbing medical diagnosis. Maybe that's why he accompanies Frederik and his big, friendly dog Dollar to Chungqing, looking for adventure and accomplishment, nursing a crush on translator Beyond (Li Boyang) and negotiating with local investor Mr. Ling (Lee Liheng).
It would be easy, perhaps, to make a movie about the dodgy business on all sides as people from around the world try to exploit China's new prosperity, and there's a lot of the eyebrow-raising material that could have been done with director Mads Brügger's usual method of operation; there's a lot of low-key horror that likely comes from a lot of research and effort to make things authentic. It's an oft-fascinating look at both successful businessmen and those who would pose as such operating in their own interests and basically trying to put one over on one another. It's the wild east out there, business-wise, and the groups of amoral hucksters roaming the land are intriguing subjects.
Full review at EFC.
Most of the day was spent catching up on things that played earlier, including a pretty specific lesson in maybe not watching stuff unless actually looking forward to it or curious. Having kind of endured a Josephine Decker double feature at Fantasia two years ago, and then something similar that she appeared in at IFFBoston last year, I was pretty much in "nope, not again" territory when Madeline's Madeline was booked for IFFBoston in April, happy to have my scheduling simplified. Then I saw it was playing here, and not really against anything I hadn't seen. I begged off Monday because if it ran a little late, it might bump into Tokyo Vampire Hotel (not necessarily great prioritization itself), but Wednesday, it was either see it or kind of feel like I'm stealing my press pass. I realize that this is irrational, but I always say that they don't give me the pass not to review movies. Of course, going into it with that attitude, I was pretty predisposed to notice everything I didn't like, much more than the many things it does well.
But, hey, they let us into the world premiere of Big Brother, with director Kam Ka-wai (right) on hand to introduce it and answer questions. Donnie Yen couldn't be here, as he's currently shooting something in Paris, although he sent a video apologizing (dude: never apologize for being in Paris) and hoping we enjoyed what was pretty clearly a labor of love for him. I did find myself amused that the parent who is very concerned about his son going to a foreign university specifically mentions Boston, and that in the film Yen's character gets in trouble at school in Hong Kong and is sent to America to get straightened out, while in real life he got in trouble at school in the Boston area and was sent back to China to get straightened out.
No, I will not rest until my town claims him as the favored son he should be.
After that, going across the street to DeSève for The Saint Bernard Syndicate was kind of odd - it started late because the previous film ran long, which got us a little restless in line despite the fact that the folks here were either the folks who didn't want to do the alleged insanity of Mandy or were chill about not getting in. It turned out to be an odd way to end closing night of the festival, very dry and kind of ambivalent at points.
But, of course, that's not really the end, as there was a bonus day added when the full line-up came out. Next up are Piercing (assuming dialing into work is done by then), The Field Guide to Evil, What Keeps You Alive, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, and Brothers' Nest. Detective Dee 3 is pretty darn good, and The Fortress isn't bad either.
"Poisson de Mars"
Seen 1 August 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, digital)
So, there were no English subtitles on this, which means I didn't catch the bit about how everyone was planning a practical joke on the poor depressed guy. I thought the final scene was about nobody wanting to eat the pie because the mother was known to be a terrible cook or something.
I laughed at times, based on what I could catch with my terrible high school French and sight gags, but you'll understand if I don't actually rate this!
Ba-lam-ba-lam-ba-lam (What a Man Wants)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 1 August 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, digital)
Somewhere in What a Man Wants is a really delightful farce that knows what to do with its women and plays with the dissatisfaction at its center in a way that heightens both its farce and possibilities. Instead, it bogs down for a while before getting to the really fun parts, and reduces interesting women to a way for the male characters to come around to something conventional.
It's still above-average, in large part due to a cast that can handle fully situation with sexy aplomb and also shift to something serious without losing what makes them funny. There's a good feeling of melancholy to bits of its setting, but not enough to make things mainly sad, and some genuinely great comic bits. The opening is a great efshort on its own, for instance, and the middle segment when things start to really click into place is brilliant - it probably should have been more of the movie.
Madeline's Madeline
* * (out of four)
Seen 1 August 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival: Camera Lucida, DCP)
Well, that's me done with Josephine Decker.
I don't want to be. There are some terrific performances to be found in this movie, a pretty decent core story, and moments that feel like something approaching self-awareness. As with her previous work, I can see great talent and potential there. I want to say nice things.
But she can't just get out of her own way! She's not as terrible as she once was of loving it when shots go in and out of focus, but she still does it a lot, and it's not as revealing as she seems to think. Instead, it just gives me a worse headache than any 3D or hyperactively-edited film ever has. She also puts characters at the center whom the audience recognizes as being full of shit but lets the rest of the cast lag behind, and frustratingly backs away from the film's, brief, beautiful clarity in the last act to finish on more improvised, theatrical nonsense.
It makes a certain amount of sense - Madeline is not "cured" of what ails her at that point - but it goes on and on, the work of a filmmaker who has just not found the point where abstraction helps to say what you mean, rather than takes away from it.
Taai si hing (Big Brother)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 1 August 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
Big Brother is corn of the highest order, and it probably won't be long before Hong Kong film fans watch it with more than a bit of irony, laughing at just how unrefined it can be at times. And that's fine, if not necessarily what the filmmakers were going for, because while the script is heavy-handed, the cast plays it with a relatively light touch, so it's an entertainingly cliched uplifting teacher movie rather than a sneer-worthy one.
The new teacher is Henry Chen Xia (Donnie Yen Ji-dan), who has never held the job before, but what is apparently an exceptional reference letter convinces principal Patrick Lin (Dominic Lam Ka-wah) to hire him as Liberal Studies teacher and assign him as homeroom teacher to Class F-6B, where all of the kids that the system has more or less given up on are. Five stand out - Jack Li (Jack Lok Ming-kit), who is always checked out because he's supporting his grandmother with his part-time job; Gladys Wang (Gladys Li), who wants to be a Formula One driver but whose father ignores her in favor of her younger brother; Faiyaz "Gordon" Ahnan (Gordon Lau Chiu-kin), a third-generation Pakistani immigrant with a talent for music; and twins Chris Guan (Chris Tong Kwan-yiu), a passionate gamer, and Bruce Guan (Bruce Tong Kwan-chi), who keeps their alcoholic father off Chris's back despite his own ADHD. The school on the verge of closing because of its low test scores, and a mobbed-up local developer is already making plans to buy the land after that happens.
Henry Chen hasn't always been a teacher, of course, but it's oddly relieving that the revelation that he's not some sort of undercover cop or a guy with some sort of secret agenda never comes. His backstory is instead pretty much what one would expect, and it allows writer Chan Tai-li and director Kam Ka-wai to not waste much time on Henry being won over, and a quick montage of him reading the students' files lets them quickly explain what their issues are. There's nothing in the film that is treated as a particular revelation - most folks watching it, whether in Hong Kong or elsewhere, will recognize these as issues that they're aware of but don't give much thought to because they're out of sight, and even the somewhat more arcane question of "teaching to the test" is handled without a lot of speechifying. There are, perhaps, a few instances where the filmmakers could have built things in a way that has them practicing what they preach a bit more: Gladys's story involves her not being given attention because she's a girl, and the movie follows along by only having one out of four or five characters of any import be female, and while Henry's classes celebrate critical thinking and broad knowledge over focusing on the MGE, the students' part of the climax is basically about passing the test and not how they manage it.
Full review at EFC.
Sankt Bernhard Syndikatet (The St. Bernard Syndicate)
* * * (out of four)
Seen 1 August 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
The director of The St. Bernard Syndicate has spent much of his career doing "satirical documentaries", and one wonders if he may have had that in mind for this film as well. The subject matter is certainly ripe for such an approach, but in a bit of irony, it turns out that taking a scripted approach allows him and his collaborators to hit upon something that feels a little bit more real.
In the film, Frederik (Frederik Cilius) has what sounds like a solid business idea - not just breeding selling St. Bernard dogs in China, where the middle class is exploding and the breed is a potential novelty - but creating a subscription revenue stream by handling food, veterinary appointments, and the like. His family has been breeding the dogs for generations, but his father (Flemming Sørensen) refuses to invest, saying he has no head for business. The only person from his old, "elite" private school interested is Rasmus (Rasmus Bruun), but he isn't nearly so wealthy as Frederik thinks and has just had a rather disturbing medical diagnosis. Maybe that's why he accompanies Frederik and his big, friendly dog Dollar to Chungqing, looking for adventure and accomplishment, nursing a crush on translator Beyond (Li Boyang) and negotiating with local investor Mr. Ling (Lee Liheng).
It would be easy, perhaps, to make a movie about the dodgy business on all sides as people from around the world try to exploit China's new prosperity, and there's a lot of the eyebrow-raising material that could have been done with director Mads Brügger's usual method of operation; there's a lot of low-key horror that likely comes from a lot of research and effort to make things authentic. It's an oft-fascinating look at both successful businessmen and those who would pose as such operating in their own interests and basically trying to put one over on one another. It's the wild east out there, business-wise, and the groups of amoral hucksters roaming the land are intriguing subjects.
Full review at EFC.
Wednesday, August 01, 2018
Fantasia 2018.20: The Brink, River's Edge, Arizona, and Montreal Dead End
Another quiet day as the festival winds down and guests from out of town are relatively scant, and there's a temptation to wonder if maybe the festival does run a bit long, but by now there's just a couple days left so why not hit the full three weeks? And, hey, you get some interesting stuff as well.
There being a few reruns means there's time to get actual food, and here is the most amusingly named eatery in Montreal:
The dishes are named after tyrants and those who aspire to the position; I had the "Kim" poutine, and I suspect many appreciate them keeping the "Bush" on the menu even though there's also a "Trump".
Speaking of Montreal-specific things:
I think that's all the directors that worked on Montreal Dead End, which is the annual feature from "Fantastic Week-End" that makes its way into the main program. I am thankful it had English subtitles this time so that I didn't just sit there feeling like an idiot like last year, which is always a relief. The movie itself is kind of what you expect from a group whose creed is basically that the movie you make is better than the one you don't, so it's okay if things are kind of rough. And it's rough as heck in spots, but kind of fun for those who love the city, festival, etc.
Today's the official closing night, although Thursday is a sort of "bonus day". I'll be at What A Man Wants, Madeline's Madeline, Big Brother, and Saint Bernard Syndicate (unless it looks like they've decided to let badge-holders into Mandy after all and the line looks manageable).
Kuang shou (The Brink)
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 31 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
"Max" Zhang Jin is certainly well-positioned to be the next big Hong Kong martial-arts star, fresh off a couple fight-scene-stealing turns against Donnie Yen and Wu Jing & Tony Jaa, the sort that make you want to see more of the guy playing the villain. Of course, it's worth remembering that Wu's first starring roles after similar parts weren't exactly impressive, and that's where Zhang finds himself here: Physically gifted, showing enough acting chops to suggest star potential, but not yet getting cast in the good lead roles yet.
Instead, he's in this, playing a rule-breaking cop hunting down gold smugglers who are much more interesting to watch before one starts consolidating power and taking charge. It's not quite boring, but it feels like a script built around location availability and what needs to happen, but not really fleshed out otherwise. The astonishingly loyal girlfriend who shakes tails with homemade bombs doesn't even get a name, and she's the number one "show me more of her" thing in the movie.
Zhang has just enough charisma to not be sunk by the script, though, and there are some pretty nice fight scenes. Underwater kung fu doesn't work out so well, but Zhang is great in close quarters, and there's a pretty great chase over, around, and through the boats in the harbor.
I guess you've got to pay your dues. It probably won't be long before Zhang is the next big thing and we're laughing over some of the steps he needed to take to get there, I reckon.
River's Edge (Ribâzu ejji)
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 31 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
River's Edge feels like it could have been made during its 1994 setting: It lacks many easy nostalgia cues, frames its shots in a square 4:3 aspect ratio, and has an earnest confessional framing that feels like that period's independent film, as do its aimless kids, untethered to either parents or mobile phones.
It makes for a fascinating examination of detachment and earnest affection, with many of the teens we want to like often morbid, and simple kindness often more rare than it should be. The filmmakers build its story simply, without fuss, which includes being frank rather than precious with its sex scenes. It's also got a strong young cast which sometimes looks a bit older than their roles, but always hit their targets.
"End Times"
* * * (out of four)
Seen 31 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, digital)
Apparently, when I saw it at BUFF and tried to re-review it later, it was part of a run of shorts that didn't make a strong impression on me, but on a second viewing, I really like it. Writer/director Bobby Miller plays up a certain dark absurdity, but what really ties it together are the little details of how the character played by Richard Longstreet is struggling with his mourning: The lack of people at his father's funeral, his reluctance to spend much on an urn, the way the recognition that he actually loved his father comes with a dying squirrel finally breathing its last. It's a really terrific little performance by Longstreet, sincere and emotional amid archness and insanity without feeling like a straight man.
Really glad I got to see this one a second time.
Arizona
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 31 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
Arizona starts out in a smart, timely spot, taking advantage of the vast number of hollowed-out, prefabricated, unfinished developments in the Southwest to create both a memorable sense of desperation and an isolated setting, but somewhere along the way the black comedy of people unwilling to take responsibility for increasingly horrible actions and a twisted American dream becomes a standard direct-to-video thriller. Eventually, a guy chasing a woman and his daughter with a gun is just that, no matter how clever it started out.
Sure, it does matter that the guy is Danny McBride, and he's going to slip perfectly-executed moments of dumb, entitled white male privilege in even after it's become just a chase, and that Rosemary DeWitt handles her earlier shift from comic to thriller well. There's also a fun supporting cast, including some memorable surprises. A lot of the film's nastier turns don't land quite as well as they could, though, getting a little bit of a gasp of shock or not believing they went for that joke, but not really putting that feeling to work for more than half a second or so.
The movie doesn't fail, but it's also never nearly the film it seems like it could have been after it gets started.
Full review at EFC.
Montréal Dead End
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 31 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival: Fantastiques Week-Ends du Cinéma Québécois, DCP)
I enjoy that Montréal Dead End opens near Berri-UQAM, near the bus station where I arrive for the city's Fantasia International Film Festival every year. This is, obviously, a complete coincidence, because as with much of what is produced by Québéc's film industry, it is an intensely local product, filled with references that may befuddle first-time tourists and probably don't travel well. But while a tale zombies, ghosts, and other horrors may seem like an odd love-letter to one's home town, there's a certain charm to it that transcends its DIY nature.
And, make no mistake, Montréal Dead End is very do-it-yourself project, with most of its 18 directors being credited with a few shorts prior to this feature, and clear limitations on budget and other resources. For the most part, the filmmakers choose stories that can be executed under those sorts of constraints, and there's some good work on showing the Montréal city-scape with mysterious green smoke hanging over it, but by and large this looks like the work of resourceful enthusiasts, rather than professionals working on a labor of love.
It gives the filmmakers a lot of freedom to do whatever they want, and the pieces where the filmmakers are free to get kind of loopy and play things out are often the best. I particularly enjoyed the ones about a girl and her jealous boyfriend who find themselves suddenly exchanging bodies in La Parc La Fontaine, an intern finding himself pulled into an alternate history when his boss takes him to a secret bar in Centre-Ville, zombies whose culinary tastes require more than raw flesh in Mile End, another cook who sees his food fight back near Marché Atwater, and a tour guide who learns more about Le Vieux Montréal than she wants to know. Most of them are simple ideas, but the filmmakers find entertaining twists on them and make good use of the framework given, creating a situation where anything can happen, but it is not necessarily tied to anything else in a meaningful way. It's a loose, but thoroughly effective anthology format.
Full review at EFC.
There being a few reruns means there's time to get actual food, and here is the most amusingly named eatery in Montreal:
The dishes are named after tyrants and those who aspire to the position; I had the "Kim" poutine, and I suspect many appreciate them keeping the "Bush" on the menu even though there's also a "Trump".
Speaking of Montreal-specific things:
I think that's all the directors that worked on Montreal Dead End, which is the annual feature from "Fantastic Week-End" that makes its way into the main program. I am thankful it had English subtitles this time so that I didn't just sit there feeling like an idiot like last year, which is always a relief. The movie itself is kind of what you expect from a group whose creed is basically that the movie you make is better than the one you don't, so it's okay if things are kind of rough. And it's rough as heck in spots, but kind of fun for those who love the city, festival, etc.
Today's the official closing night, although Thursday is a sort of "bonus day". I'll be at What A Man Wants, Madeline's Madeline, Big Brother, and Saint Bernard Syndicate (unless it looks like they've decided to let badge-holders into Mandy after all and the line looks manageable).
Kuang shou (The Brink)
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 31 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
"Max" Zhang Jin is certainly well-positioned to be the next big Hong Kong martial-arts star, fresh off a couple fight-scene-stealing turns against Donnie Yen and Wu Jing & Tony Jaa, the sort that make you want to see more of the guy playing the villain. Of course, it's worth remembering that Wu's first starring roles after similar parts weren't exactly impressive, and that's where Zhang finds himself here: Physically gifted, showing enough acting chops to suggest star potential, but not yet getting cast in the good lead roles yet.
Instead, he's in this, playing a rule-breaking cop hunting down gold smugglers who are much more interesting to watch before one starts consolidating power and taking charge. It's not quite boring, but it feels like a script built around location availability and what needs to happen, but not really fleshed out otherwise. The astonishingly loyal girlfriend who shakes tails with homemade bombs doesn't even get a name, and she's the number one "show me more of her" thing in the movie.
Zhang has just enough charisma to not be sunk by the script, though, and there are some pretty nice fight scenes. Underwater kung fu doesn't work out so well, but Zhang is great in close quarters, and there's a pretty great chase over, around, and through the boats in the harbor.
I guess you've got to pay your dues. It probably won't be long before Zhang is the next big thing and we're laughing over some of the steps he needed to take to get there, I reckon.
River's Edge (Ribâzu ejji)
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 31 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
River's Edge feels like it could have been made during its 1994 setting: It lacks many easy nostalgia cues, frames its shots in a square 4:3 aspect ratio, and has an earnest confessional framing that feels like that period's independent film, as do its aimless kids, untethered to either parents or mobile phones.
It makes for a fascinating examination of detachment and earnest affection, with many of the teens we want to like often morbid, and simple kindness often more rare than it should be. The filmmakers build its story simply, without fuss, which includes being frank rather than precious with its sex scenes. It's also got a strong young cast which sometimes looks a bit older than their roles, but always hit their targets.
"End Times"
* * * (out of four)
Seen 31 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, digital)
Apparently, when I saw it at BUFF and tried to re-review it later, it was part of a run of shorts that didn't make a strong impression on me, but on a second viewing, I really like it. Writer/director Bobby Miller plays up a certain dark absurdity, but what really ties it together are the little details of how the character played by Richard Longstreet is struggling with his mourning: The lack of people at his father's funeral, his reluctance to spend much on an urn, the way the recognition that he actually loved his father comes with a dying squirrel finally breathing its last. It's a really terrific little performance by Longstreet, sincere and emotional amid archness and insanity without feeling like a straight man.
Really glad I got to see this one a second time.
Arizona
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 31 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
Arizona starts out in a smart, timely spot, taking advantage of the vast number of hollowed-out, prefabricated, unfinished developments in the Southwest to create both a memorable sense of desperation and an isolated setting, but somewhere along the way the black comedy of people unwilling to take responsibility for increasingly horrible actions and a twisted American dream becomes a standard direct-to-video thriller. Eventually, a guy chasing a woman and his daughter with a gun is just that, no matter how clever it started out.
Sure, it does matter that the guy is Danny McBride, and he's going to slip perfectly-executed moments of dumb, entitled white male privilege in even after it's become just a chase, and that Rosemary DeWitt handles her earlier shift from comic to thriller well. There's also a fun supporting cast, including some memorable surprises. A lot of the film's nastier turns don't land quite as well as they could, though, getting a little bit of a gasp of shock or not believing they went for that joke, but not really putting that feeling to work for more than half a second or so.
The movie doesn't fail, but it's also never nearly the film it seems like it could have been after it gets started.
Full review at EFC.
Montréal Dead End
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 31 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival: Fantastiques Week-Ends du Cinéma Québécois, DCP)
I enjoy that Montréal Dead End opens near Berri-UQAM, near the bus station where I arrive for the city's Fantasia International Film Festival every year. This is, obviously, a complete coincidence, because as with much of what is produced by Québéc's film industry, it is an intensely local product, filled with references that may befuddle first-time tourists and probably don't travel well. But while a tale zombies, ghosts, and other horrors may seem like an odd love-letter to one's home town, there's a certain charm to it that transcends its DIY nature.
And, make no mistake, Montréal Dead End is very do-it-yourself project, with most of its 18 directors being credited with a few shorts prior to this feature, and clear limitations on budget and other resources. For the most part, the filmmakers choose stories that can be executed under those sorts of constraints, and there's some good work on showing the Montréal city-scape with mysterious green smoke hanging over it, but by and large this looks like the work of resourceful enthusiasts, rather than professionals working on a labor of love.
It gives the filmmakers a lot of freedom to do whatever they want, and the pieces where the filmmakers are free to get kind of loopy and play things out are often the best. I particularly enjoyed the ones about a girl and her jealous boyfriend who find themselves suddenly exchanging bodies in La Parc La Fontaine, an intern finding himself pulled into an alternate history when his boss takes him to a secret bar in Centre-Ville, zombies whose culinary tastes require more than raw flesh in Mile End, another cook who sees his food fight back near Marché Atwater, and a tour guide who learns more about Le Vieux Montréal than she wants to know. Most of them are simple ideas, but the filmmakers find entertaining twists on them and make good use of the framework given, creating a situation where anything can happen, but it is not necessarily tied to anything else in a meaningful way. It's a loose, but thoroughly effective anthology format.
Full review at EFC.
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