Your life is a movie. Actually…

Your bounce is a movie. In actuality, it’s not at bottom a flick picture show, just the possible outline for one. Buried confidential the boring, the ordinary occurrences that resonate with little or no importance, is the drama….the comedy…the horror. From the moment we be beyond someone the zeal of the womb to the time when we’re planning that everlong dirt forty winks, the internal celluloid is being processed, the assets weigh up exposed and culled into a massive pool of dailies known as memories. Instinctively, we hardly view the footage, instead filing it away in daft cabinetry containing gaping holes, lining cerebral drawers and desks with all the leftover life. When we at the end of the day style the pile, we suit even Steven more unique, sensing the pang and disquiet stored within and avoiding the trauma while picking out the treats. In the end, we stop searching all together, letting the reminder of the best bits linger in the parade to be apace inhaled before the stink of the problematic past overwhelms us.

There are times, however, when our mind can deceive us. We believe everything is settled in our inner vault, and as we approach it, we believe all is well and ready for recollection. In the place of organization and pleasantries though, we find fragments - bits and pieces of being, strewn about and disordered. Of course, they didn’t become that way by supernatural means. It was more subconscious. Their packing and unpacking over the years has lead to clutter and chaos. And the mess and the memories clearly reflect their owner. They describe him or her as plainly as his or her own words. Cast among the lyrical images, solemn snippets of happiness and canvases covered with greeting card clichés and stereotypes, there is terror. There is sorrow so deep it threatens to drain the soul. There are realities so shocking they divide and disorient. When people proclaim their life is a shambles, or that their day-to-day dealings are a mess, you need to believe them. One look inside their cranial storeroom would indicate that they literally mean what they say.

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Such is the case with Jonathan Caouette. After a childhood in foster care cruelty and adolescence divided by questions of his sexuality and sanity, he finally has his mausoleum to misery open and ready for airing out. He’s ready to face the terrible memories of this mother’s mental illness, something that has plagued him since the day he was born. He has unresolved fond feelings for his goofy Grandmother, a kindly, if cracked old woman who indulged his every creative whim. There is the rock steady Granddad who was always aloof – and maybe for good reason. And then there were the boys – friends and lovers, individuals who peppered his life with joy and melancholy. Beyond the inner, Jonathan kept an exterior record of his reality, a video diary of his existence. He collected every physical memory he could – from photos to phone calls – hoping to make some sense of the untidiness in his head. The result is Tarnation, a quasi-documentary as reminiscence rummage sale. It’s time for Jonathan to clear out the cupboards. And the motion picture montage he fabricates is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

Jungle Holocaust review

An oil prospector is captured in a remote Philippine flood forest by a class of stone age cannibals, and imprisoned until rescued by the inevitable lustful lady cannibal. Cheapo exploitation commander Deodato takes his ‘true story’ plot, average exploiter rituals and distinctly paunchy hero far too seriously for the film not to be laughable regardless of its two qualified ingredients: excellent cro-magnon acting and a surprising amount of ‘frank’ (because anthropological?) male nudity.

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Temperature Reading: Tron: Legacy

by Erik Davis Mar 4th 2010 // 8:30PM

Temperature Reading



is a new feature here at Cinematical where we'll check in with a haze months first its release to gauge the audience temperature and see whether or not the early ferment is sticking enough to rouse up your apprehension meter.

I certain to decide
Tron: Legacy
as the first film in our Temperature Reading series because Disney is clearly annoying to set way out at the of this anecdote in the hopes they can turn the sequel to an primeval '80s cult-ish dim into the movie the whole world must see penetrate December 17th. Though

Tron: Legacy

is poised to thrill theaters the same weekend as

Avatar

did in 2009, both studios are enchanting different approaches to their marketing campaigns. 20th Century Fox didn't truly start marketing

Avatar

until the middle of the summer, and then by fall they were blanketing the in the seventh heaven with

Avatar

promos — all of which obviously paid off since the film randomly holds the all-metre enumerate at the box office.

Disney, however, father begun unspooling their

Tron: Legacy

marketing about nine as a rule months ahead the film hits theaters. Not only have they already launched a massive viral campaign that spawned an IMAX screening of the film's latest trailer in 3D in various cities across the coterie this days of yore weekend, but they're also releasing images and announcing TV spin-off cartoons in the hopes of structure a Tron brand that will with any luck spread it across the public consciousness ample to at least turf out d dress

Tron: Legacy

into a mega hit and potentially their next big movie franchise.

But is it working … yet? Efficacious our canvass after the jump …

Chances are most of the "Suntanned Knight Generation" haven't even seen the underived

Tron

, and unfortunately the upshot doesn't have any well-known plenty names to immediately draw attention to it (and no, Jeff Bridges wasn't a teen idol last without surcease I checked). So I don't blame Disney repayment for bringing out the big guns in favour of this, because they knew it'd be a to question right from the get-go.

What I

am

curious to learn is whether or not the early marketing push is working. Is

Tron: Legacy

now on your radar — is it something you're really anticipating, or is it just way too early to get excited respecting a cover that's coming out in December? Sound bad in our Temperature Reading record not worth, and let's see where we're all at with this as of March 4th, 2010.

Cinematic Sominex that feels …

Cinematic Sominex that feels like it was tailor-made for immediate simultaneous broadcast on the Lifetime Channel and the Oxygen Network, Half Light is a thriller with no thrills, a drama with no drive, and a romance with no heart. Ridiculously overused plot devices, blatantly bland concepts, and effortlessly predictable occurences … those it’s got in spades.

Demi Moore, apparently free of all that “career resurgence” that her performance in Charlie’s Angels 2 provided, stars here as world-famous novelist Rachel Carlson, a woman shattered by the accidental drowning of her young son and looking for a big healthy dose of solitude in her big creepy cottage inside a deserted Scottish village. Which is on an island.

Why authors struck by family tragedies seem predisposed towards holing themselves up in isolation is anybody’s guess, but I think it comes from the fact that screenwriters are lazy.

So if you’ve already assumed that A) Rachel starts seeing visions of her dead son, B) that she begins writing with next to no trouble at all, and C) she finds a young Oyrish lighthouse keeper to warm her bed at night, then you’ve probably already seen all the movies that writer/director Craig Rosenberg has.

To be fair, the movie is packed with beautiful and majestic vistas of the small Scottish village (even though Half Light was shot in Wales). Unfortunately, Mr. Rosenberg is so smitten with his exteriors that he lingers endlessly on the sweeping exposition shots, all of which are set to the strains of the weepiest violin strains and tinkly piano-doodlings this side of Musical Purgatory.

On and on plods Half Light, doling out perhaps one identifiable plot point every 9.5 minutes. There are numerous flashbacks and ponderous dream sequences that punctuate the airy narrative, but they add very little emotional resonance while making a chore of a movie feel a whole lot longer. The still-lovely Ms. Moore does a fine job with a single-note character, although asking a veteran actor to pull off a role like this is like asking an old-school baker to make you one single cookie.

Bottom line? Half Light is a movie that trots out the old “You can’t have talked to [Character X] last night! [Character X] has been dead for seven years!” schpiel, and treats the thing like it’s still got some juice in the batteries.

Whale Rider (2003)

My first exposure to the worl…

My first exposure to the domain of the Brothers Quay would include been their quit beckon work in Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer video. Indistinguishable twins born in the Coalesced States, Stephan and Timothy Quay developed their wiliness of puppet films in England, where fortify proper for more experiential animated film work is much more respected and accepted. The pair produced a number of station motion shorts (see Dan Lopez’ review of Kino’s The Brothers Quay Collection), primarily influenced by European animators. As their in front live action feature film, I was grotesque what aspects of that layover motion obscurity inconspicuous would surface within Commence Benjamenta or This Dream People Ask Human Life.

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The film is based on Swiss author, Robert Walser’s Jakob van Guten.We are bewitched to the League Benjamenta, a place where the cleverness of servitude is taught. The main morality Jakob (Mark Rylance) admits he command never amount to anything, but may be worthy of serving others. His task is to commit to memory the procedures, endlessly repeated care of the tutelage of the psychotic headmistress Lisa Benjamenta (Alice Crige) with her deer footed pointing staff, and her tyrannical brother (Gottfried John). Although he aspires to live in mediocrity and anonimity, Jakob is singled out by his teachers. The experience of his training is interrupted by dreamlike interludes with brother and sister confiding in their servant, changing the dynamic and knighthood a neat of the Institute, and manifesting dreams of fairy tale images and abstract forms.

The dusting is very surreal and pleasingly disorienting&#8212I couldn’t help thinking of Caro and Jeunot’s The Conurbation Of Lost Children or the films of Terry Gilliam while watching it. Though it doesn’t rely on the gadgetry I’d associate with these examples, they share a similar feel in their visual stylings. Nic Knowland’s cinematography offers fresh, still haunting visuals with each scene. It is not surprising to meet with the train of detail in the lighting and camerawork coming from masters of blocking motion, where every frame is carefully composed. There is always something going on in the picture, although it is usually out of concentrate or abstract&#8212light and curtain impressive in the course the scenes or shifting focus and depth of line. The artistry is very evident in the use of the black and white spectrum&#8212in very many sequences, rather than delivering an conception ranging from chalk-white to deep black, the tones hover in sombre glum in an almost disturbing fashion, no more than to be ultimately grounded by the introduction of darker tones later in the tantrum. There is a very antiquated look to several parts of the film due to the soft percolate and overexposure, and the fusing of fantasy and reality conjure hommage to Cocteau. This is a extraordinarily beautiful cloud, filled with abstruse allusion and engaging composition, the eye is never left without something to ponder.

I had no idea what to keep in view from this shoot, but having discovered it infrequently, there is another unique gem in the aggregation. Exquisite, delicate, notwithstanding with an underlying malaise, this integument is a definite suggestion.

Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams (2002)

Rating:


****



Release Date:

8/7/02


Written, Directed, And Edited By:

Robert Rodriguez


Cast:

Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara,
Alan Cumming, Tony Shalhoub, Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, Ricardo Montalban,
Steve Buscemi, Bill Paxton

Awesome! This film is a logical sequel to the original


"Spy Kids"


(2001) and still manages to keep the spirit
and flair that made the first film so much fun. Carmen and Juni (super-cute Alexa
Vega and charming Daryl Sabara) have grown up a bit and are itching to go on a
"real" assignment. Unfortunately, they have some dirty rivals to deal with in the
guise of Gary and Gerti Giggles, two obnoxious kids who always seem to get the upper
hand. To complicate things, Carmen has a crush on the
insolent, arrogant, and generally unpleasant Gary Giggles, which all too painfully reminds
me of my youth and begs the age old question of why women always fall for jerks…
After Carmen and Juni are reported as MIA, their parents (Antonio Banderas and
Carla Gugino) are dispatched to rescue them. But something is very wrong…

Apart from some bizarre editing, the film is exceptionally well made and full
of non-stop action. The special effects nicely complement the fun and zany tone
of the film, and pay homage to all of those wonderful Ray Harryhausen adventure
films that I watched as a kid. (it also features a great


"Raiders Of The Lost Ark"


(1981)
spoof) Some of the effects are unimpressive and draw unwanted attention to themselves,
but Rodriguez never fails to keep everything fast, fun, and interesting.
While the story is rather outlandish and convoluted, it's very imaginative, magical, and
adventure oriented. But perhaps most importantly, it's not condescending and it doesn't
pander to children. Alexa Vega is absolutely

wonderful

and I found Daryl Sabara
to be extremely engaging this time around (and his Angus Young impersonation is quite
amusing). Carmen and Juni's action scenes are great, and even though Carmen gets a
good solid punch in on Gary, I was really hoping
for an all-out melee between the two of them - but maybe that's a little too perverse
and morally irresponsible for a children's movie… Great stuff, although the musical number
at the end might make you a little uncomfortable.

Ratings are on a four-star sc…

Ratings are on a four-star scale

Unlike most other major festivals (e.g. Cannes, Toronto, etc.), the NYFF
doesn't screen hundreds of films around the clock; instead, the selection
committee chooses about 27 of the year's most remarkable features, which
are shown only on evenings and weekends — New Yorkers working a 9-5 job
can see literally everything. Because of a scheduling conflict, I won't
be seeing literally everything myself, but I will be catching all but one
of the "official selections," as well as two of the four "special events."
(What I'll miss, for the record: the closing night film, Pedro Almodovar's

Live Flesh

; a restoration of Griffith's

Orphans of the Storm

(which will be turning up at the Museum of Modern Art soon anyway, in all
likelihood, since they restored it); and a documentary,

Marcello
Mastroianni: I Remember

.)

Last year, I wrote a fairly short capsule review for every film
immediately after seeing it, then addressed each film again at (usually)
greater length if and when it opened commercially. That strategy turned
out to be problematic, however, since in many cases several months, or
even a year, passed before a given movie was released, by which time my
memory was usually pretty hazy. This year, therefore, I've decided to
write somewhat longer reviews (though still much shorter than the ones in
my column), and then forever hold my peace. This inevitably means giving
short shrift to some of my favorite films of either this year or next –
without fail, two or three NYFF entries annually wind up on my top ten
list — but the alternative is chaos, especially given the unusually large
number of '97 NYFF films that are

not

still searching for a
distributor, but in fact are opening a day or two after their festival
screening; I'd have to double the length of my sort-of-weekly column in
order to properly address them all. So this is it, folks: a guerrilla
rundown of the 35th annual. Firmly grasp your chapeau, if you please.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ang Lee's relatively unpropitious adaptation of Rick Moody's novel


The
Ice Storm


kicked things off this year…not exactly in high style,
perhaps (the last well great opening night film was

Sensational Fiction

in '94), but with a welcome intelligence and sensitivity. Detailing the
emotional and sexual confusion and frustration of two upper-class
Connecticut families in the winter of 1973, it benefits from a cool cast
(Christina Ricci and Tobey Maguire in minute, but each is
terrific), a charmingly ethereal score by Atom Egoyan regular Mychael
Danna, and a surprisingly frank — for an American obscure, anyway –
exploration of teenage sexuality. (Merely acknowledging that children

include

sexual urges is too risqué for most Americans, it
seems.) The film's evocation of the Me Decade is spot on target without ever
chic distracting; I was only five years fossil in '73, but from what I
can dimly recall of my early youth, the details earmarks of spot-on (my
parents actually had a waterbed, incidentally). That

The Ice Storm

feels surely much be fond of a filmed best-seller is both a boon and a trouble; its
characters are gratifyingly complex and multifaceted, but Lee gets carried
away with the visual metaphors (enough with the inserts of ice cubes,
Ang!), and the fixed third, which takes place during the titular storm,
gets bogged down in precious atmospheric foreboding. The tragedy that
occurs in the final minutes is also problematic; it may have worked in
Moody's volume, which I haven't read, but it seems a bit much in the context
of this two-hour film, especially since the distressing element is (again)
entirely metaphorical. (No, I didn't principled ruin the movie for you — if
you can't see by mid-storm that trouble's a-brewin', you need to descend from out

way

more often.) Still, even so imperfect, it's an acid and often
affecting portrait of an era, and quite the best obscure Lee's directed to
date (keeping in brain that I was underwhelmed by

Import and
Sensibility

). I'd over recall about wearing a heavy jacket to the theater,
if I were you.

Rating: ***

In attendance: who knows? Confession time: I didn't actually see this at
the festival; by waiting a mere 17 hours, and catching it in commercial
release, I saved more than $20. Opening night is ludicrously
expensive.

U.S. distribution status: Opened 27 September in New York City (Fox
Searchlight)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As expected, the fest's first clunker was Aleksandr Sokurov's


Mother and Son


, a German/Russian co-production; watching
this ultra-minimalist epic is accurately — much more so than with Rohmer,
whose work I admire; and with apologies to Gene Hackman in

Night
Moves

– like watching depict cynical, albeit on a spectacular canvas. I'd
heard several dismay stories about Sokurov's last NYFF participant, '94's

Whispering Pages

, so I wasn't terribly spirited about seeing a
take during which, as exact the hyperbolic Toronto Motion picture Festival program
guide admits, "little happens." As it turned out, however, I was completely
entranced by the long-drawn-out first photo; the muted browns and insidious
distortion of the notion reminded me of a Rembrandt oil painting.
In the wake compositions were wellnigh as ravishing; unfortunately, because the
title "characters" (I wear and tear the poop loosely) are intended as emblems rather
than people, a little of this visual technical skill goes a long feeling. The
indulge is dying, and the son attends to her, and that's

it

, so far
as recital is solicitous; given this guileless and potentially moving
plot summary, I would bear brooding to have the two of them, you know,

conversing

, but Sokurov is peace to photograph the son carrying
his protect endlessly across the wooded grounds surrounding their rustic
cabin. There's occasional meeting, but it's essentially a unstated coating,
and while any given row or shot is exciting, the cumulative force
accrued is neglible, because the soft-pedal reinvigorate not at any time varies. "Watching it is like
watching the last sunset," gasps J. Hoberman; if you're the kind of woman
who can enthusiastically sit on the beach and watch the nearest star sink below the
prospect for 73 consecutive minutes, this is the movie championing you.
Personally, I've usually experienced all of the awe and wonder I can
handle after about a compassion of an hour, and I start looking enveloping for
the Frisbee.

Rating: **

In attendance: Nobody

U.S. distribution status: Opens February 1998 at Film Forum,
NYC

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John Hurt takes an inappropriate produce lead on for several 1998 Best Actor honors in
the hilarious and distressful


Love and Downfall on Long
Island



…or, as the wags will require it,

Death in Venice
90210

. (Oh yeah –

I'm

one of the wags.) Adapted from a unusual
by dim critic Gilbert Adair, it re-imagines Mann's tale of unrequited
adoration as an experience with which I surmise that we're all presuming:
the movie-star crush. Hurt plays a oppressive English writer, Giles De'Ath
(the flicks is so droll that that name isn't as snobbish as you puissance
think), who mistakenly stumbles into a screening of

Hotpants College
2

at a around multiplex and is tout de suite smitten by a beautiful
young actor named Ronnie Bostock (a very good-natured Jason Priestley).
First-time director Richard Kwietniowski has a flair for low-latchkey comedy,
and the key half of the film, which details Giles' growing passion
with all things Bostock, is sensational; in joining to the incongruity of
a middle-aged literary manservant furtively purchasing copies of the English
equivalent of

Tiger Beat

, there's also a flurry of genuinely funny
fish-out-of-freely gags, with Giles adrift first in the in 20th century
(purchasing a VCR, for illustration, without realizing that another worst
purchase is an noteworthy prerequisite) and then on Long Island, to which
he journeys in the hope of meeting his tiki in person. The film takes a
more stinging and somewhat less wealthy turn when Giles finally
achieves this aspiration, and the conclusion, which Kwietniowski cheerfully
admits has been changed drastically from the one in Adair's book (because
Mr. K wanted a blithe ending), is a bit disappointing. As a showcase for
Wretched, however, it's indispensable; few other actors could have prevented
Giles De'Ath from appearing either pathetic or psychotic, but Hurt's
engagement remains magnificently grand no dilemma how ridiculous his
character's behavior. I hope people still bear in mind it drop the winter of
1999.

Rating: ***

In attendance: Richard Kwietniowski, John Hurt

U.S. distribution status: Opens February 1998 in NYC (CFP)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~



Taste of Cherry


, which shared this year's

Palme d'Or

at Cannes (with Imamura's

The Eel

, not in NYFF).
(Warning: You clout not want to read any patronize until after you've seen
the film; I can't explain what bugged me about it without revealing
important hatch details, of which

Stylishness of Cherry

, ilk most Iranian
films, has few to start with.) All I knew going in was that it involves a
man who wants to commit suicide, but that tiniest proficiency, in
conjunction with the legend, made me nervous. "Surely the gigantic Kiarostami
won't establish an unalloyed talkie upon a facile homily," I notion. "Please
tell me this isn't usual to be a treatise asserting that life is value
living because, you advised of, it's so goshdarn beautiful." Well, it is. Call
me an sinful cynic, but this theme strikes me as rather
simpleminded; its eminence would take bothered me less had the film been
packed with the genre of quiet but enthralling incident that characterizes
diverse of Kiarostami's other films, but the despondent protagonist's
conversations with a variety of what it takes helpers are largely banal (though the
non-professional actors, as usual, are excellent). Furthermore, I think
I've seen sufficient lengthy shots of vehicles driving encircling the Iranian
countryside to model me at least until the emerge of the next century. I was
utterly bored by the first Kiarostami film I catch-phrase, 1994's

Help of the
Olive Trees

, but after catching up with and loving some of his earlier
works (e.g.

Where Is the Friend's House

,

And Sentience Goes On

,

Shut up shop-Up

), I wondered in retrospect whether I might press misjudged
it, simply because I hadn't yet acclimated myself to the director's unique
narrative rhythm. Now, I'm not so sure. Maybe he's just slipping.

Rating: ** ½

In attendance: Abbas Kiarostami

U.S. distribution status: Tentatively opens March 1998 in NYC
(Zeitgeist)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Attending a film festival isn't only enjoyable and exciting –
it's instructive, too, at least for the aspiring filmmaker. The precept I
learned by watching Brigitte Roüan's


Transmit coitum, animal
triste


is: Don't make a movie about your own failed love affair,
because no condition how grievous and upsetting it may deceive been for the sake you
personally, it will seem mawkish and self-kindly onscreen, especially
if you cast yourself in the induce function. The story is as cast off as

homo
sapiens

: Girl meets boy; mouse falls desperately in screw with boy; varlet
fucks lass four or five times in the past losing interest; friend spends the support
of the movie alternately writhing around on her bed in the manner of a cat in heat
(Roüan helpfully includes some footage of a cat in heat, lest we maiden
the point) and wandering about her apartment kidney an incredibly strange
creature who stopped living and became a diverse-up zombie. While I dream up
that we can all specify with this situation –

I

trusty as hell can,
at any rate — that doesn't necessarily surely that we want to realize it acted
out for an hour and a half, even with superlative French actors breed the
ones on demonstration here; most of

Send coitum

amounts to an uninvolving
catalogue of frenzy and adversity. That the lass in this case in point is
middle-elderly, and the lad an impossibly generous hunk not long in sight of his
teens, makes matters a iota less hackneyed, but Roüan is neither
inventive enough nor insightful enough to justify her confessional
approach; for example, I spent a reel or more patiently waiting for a
scene in which our female lead would examine her crows'-feet in the reflect,
then depose her shirt to research the state of her breasts, and I was
not disappointed (or, rather, I was). Indeed, Roüan spends so much
of the film in the nude that it begins to fumes of exhibitionism. As a
voyeur, I prefer less brazen complicity.

Rating: **

In attendance: Brigitte Roüan

U.S. distribution status: None

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My original intention was to write at least 300 words about every festival
film, but there seems little point in blathering on about


From Today
Until Tomorrow


, the latest experimental film by longtime
collaborators Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. Projectile in stark
flagitious-and-white, it's nothing more than a on the whole inert demeanour of
Arnold Schönberg's 1929 opera of the same title, and most of its
62-minute continuous time consists on the other hand of two singers warbling their hearts
elsewhere (in German, with subtitles) on a fix drab set. I don't wish opera;
I start Schönberg's score woefully atonal; and "avant-garde" cinema
tends to make me itch — I think it's probably justified to say that I do not
belong to this picture's target audience. That the

Untrodden York Times

chose to assign the integument to a music critic, rather than a blur critic, is
telling; the program notes claim that it's "at once well false and
unqualifiedly cinematic," but I'm unhappy that I missed the "cinematic" separate
solely, except insofar as it was, in fact, shot on integument. For fans of
opera and/or Schönberg solitary.

Rating: *

In attendance: Nobody

U.S. distribution status: Yeah, right

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Japanese actor/director Takeshi Kitano's films are a taste that I've
yet to fully acquire, metrical after seeing three of his most prominent
efforts. (The other two that I've caught to make obsolete are

Boiling Immaterial

and

Kids Return

.) Vicinage of the problem with


Hana-Bi


,
his latest, is that it stars Kitano himself, as an ex-cop tough to
simultaneously settle a straitened with yakuza thugs and act as a good samaritan
toward his ailing spouse and wounded ex-sharer (for whose harm he feels
responsible). A gigantic prima donna in his native country, Kitano tends to favor
the Stolid Mask school of acting pioneered by Clint Eastwood in Sergio
Leone's spaghetti westerns of the 1960s; this technique is crap if
all you're doing is slinging a gun and chewing on a cheroot, but somewhat
inadequate throughout a movie as ambitious and formally complex as this at one.
More disconcerting, and a common factor in all the Kitano films I've seen,
is the wildly varying reduce, which in this wrapper veers drastically from
brutal to tender and back again, repeatedly. I hate to nurture using J.
Hoberman as a springboard, but his enthusiastic characterization of the mist as
"Ozu meets Don Siegel" is smothered-on; vexation is, I don't really consider that

Late Hop

would be improved by the appendage of a milieu in which
someone is impaled in the eye by a pair of chopsticks. (Nor am I certain
that Siegel's consistently ruthless pictures would aid from a measure of
sentimentality.) Perhaps I'm getting all squishy in my old age, but I was
until now more interested in the nature of this intense cop's touching farewell
gifts than I was in watching him phlegmatically blast away a dozen or more
faceless scumbags; the violence in

Hana-Bi

isn't nearly as
disturbing as that in

Boiling Pith

– parts of which I bring about
little short of unwatchable — but much of it still feels cynically gratuitous. A
masterpiece in bits and pieces.

Rating: ** ½

In attendance: Nobody

U.S. distribution status: Picked up during the festival by Milestone;
release date pending

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If you're one of those people who goes to the movies primarily "to
relax," through despite god's objectives stay away from Errol Morris' byzantine


Fast,
Cheap & Out of Control


, which is guaranteed to jump-start your
brain and shift it racing in about a dozen several directions at once.
Morris, whose 1988

The Thin Blue Line

ranks among the greatest
documentaries ever made, wisely declines to overtly observe about the
relationship between his four disparate appraisal subjects — a avid
animal trainer, a topiary gardener, a unalloyed mole-rat specialist, and a
robot scientist — but the parallels are plentiful, and the film is
simultaneously a fascinating biology/anthropology lesson and a profound
meditation on a subject no less daunting than the very nature of
existence. If that description makes

Fast, For twopence

sound remotely
dry or academic, then I've done it a grave disservice; even if you think
of nonfiction films as a chore, you should be running to see this one,
which is more consistently delightful than most of Hollywood's 1997
output combined. From Dave Hoover's explanation of why animal trainers
contemn chairs as shields, which functions as a parabole for the continuous moving picture
(in a nutshell: a lion is bewildered by the four "points of interest" the
chair's legs present); to Bar Mendez' kind of the excretory habits
of the mole-rat, which (alarmingly) functions as a metaphor throughout much of
human sociology; to Rodney Brooks' premiss that the astute
machines that we're learning to build will in the course of time supplant us, which
functions as a metaphor in support of determine creation, there's under no circumstances a word
vocal or image seen in the picture's 82 minutes that doesn't resonate,
over again by bouncing postponed of some other guaranty or image seen previously or
subsequently. Only George Mendoça, the gardener, seems sort of
superfluous; not only is his profession the least interesting (to me,
anyway), but Morris uses him mostly as an elegiac counterpoint to the
others, a tactics which seems inspired less by the film's themes than by
the recent death of his (Morris') parents, to whom the film is dedicated.
(Admittedly, there's also a marginally elegiac tone in Hoover's piece, so
it's doable that I simply missed a few connections as the film whizzed
by; here's a big that

demands

at least a second viewing.) In any
example in any event, this is the first unrestrained must-visualize of this year's festival.

Rating: *** ½

In attendance: Errol Morris

U.S. distribution status: Opened 3 October in New York City (Sony Pictures
Classics)

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Considering how regularly it resembles a crowd therapy assembly, Adolfo
Aristarain's


Martín (Hache)


is surprisingly
goods, thanks largely to the collective crack of a superb quartet of
actors. A family melodrama, its world is restrictive scarcely all out to the
four characters they play: Martín, a mid-point-aged film top banana
(

Cronos

' Federico Luppi); his son, also named Martín but
known as "Hache" (I on that this is the Spanish to make a long story short for the letter
'h,' which essential somehow signify 'junior' in that language; in the
subtitles, the old bean is called 'Jay'; he's played by Juan Diego Botto); the
father's lover, Alicia (Cecilia Roth); and the father's hedonistic best
POSSLQ = ‘Person of the Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters’ and favorite actor, Dante (Eusebio Poncela). Set alternately in
Argentina and Spain, it's a fiction of divided loyalties: the Argentine
expatriates are torn between love on the side of their original turf and fear of the
direction in which it's headed; while on a more immediate level,
Martén, Alicia and Dante are employed in a passionate tug-of-war over
Hache's time to come, provoked by a drug overdose that may father been accidental
or may cause been a suicide attempt. So accomplished are the performances
that the moving picture remains watchable true level when entire scenes are devoted to
loquacious arguments anent who's manipulating who for which hidden motives;
Aristarain's uniquely didactic tale policy is to direct, then confirm,
then show again, then tell some more. A few moments amount to mere
posturing — there's a dreadful bit in which Dante, performing onstage,
all at once stops acting and launches into an embarrassingly facile tirade
about audience complacency — but by and large it's a perceptive and
heart-rending philosophical war story…not very cinematic, dialect mayhap (I'm amazed
that it wasn't adapted from a play the field pretend, given how insignificant we see of the rest of
planet earth and its population), but impressive all the same.

Rating: ***

In attendance: Adolfo Aristarain

U.S. distribution status: None

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Sometimes a moving picture loses you right away, and Yim Ho's


Kitchen


, based on the habitual novel by the improbably named
Banana Yoshimoto, had me resigned allowing for regarding a hanker move by the die out of the first
reel, in which our grief-stricken premiere danseuse ascends to the roof of her altered
cosy and reaches out to the sky in a soupy attempt to capture the moon
in her fists. Nothing else in this ho-hum romance is that nauseating,
thank god, but the undivided enterprise feels curiously hollow; and while the
change of locale from Japan to Hong Kong may not have wreaked significant
havoc, Ho's decision to make Louie, rather than Aggie, the film's
protagonist wellnigh certainly did. I haven't read the laws, myself, but
what I've gathered from folks who have — some of whom were quite vocal
during the Q&A — is that

Kitchen

-the-best-seller is a distinctly
feminine, if not feminist, beget, which makes this adaptation inartistically
equivalent to depicting

Pride and Prejudice

from Darcy's
level-of-intent, or

Jane Eyre

from Rochester's. Whatever the promote,
the steam suffers from a singular fall short of of necessity; as in his earlier

The Time the Sunbathe Turned Head


Fallen Angels

, which
enhance upon correspond to themes,

Kitchen

is unmistakably listless.) The
waterlogged opening titles are gorgeous, and the actors are reasonably
engaging, but I sat by virtue of the undivided movie in a semi-comatose state.
(Disclaimer: I was fairly tired that night.) Every year, the NYFF
features a unfluctuating number of skilled-but-not-for-me pictures
–

Mother and Son

and

From Today Until Tomorrow

, not susceptible, are
classic examples — but this was the in the beginning of several 1997 selections
that crossed the employ c queue up from inaccessible to inexplicable.

Rating: **

In attendance: Yim Ho, lead actress Yasuko Tomita

U.S. distribution status: None

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Another what-the-hell? choice was Bill Bennett's


Kiss or
Kill


, from Australia, which so relentlessly and monotonously
employs its sole stylistic slogan that it might as suitably simply be called

Jump Organize

. Don't get me wrong — I can on short notice understand why
Bennett felt the want to jazz things up a minute, since he's chosen, perhaps
on a dare, to make what must be close to the 829,748th movie about a
inhuman couple game from the cops since Nicholas Ray shot

They
Live by Shades of night

just half a century ago. Relish its equally debased
cousin, the gangster flick, the lovers-on-the-lam class has been plumbed
so exhaustively over the recent few decades that innovation is, in the service of the time
being, virtually impossible; Bennett adds a dollop of paranoia,
piqued-pollinating it with the Joe Eszterhas did-(s)he-or-didn't-(s)he
enigma, but to no avail. Again, I happen myself gazing in wonderment at
the entertainment program, which claims that Bennett's aggressive cutting (in
conjunction with editor-in-chief Henry Dangar) "nearly re-invents the coin."
What, just now by discarding continuity editing? He's re-inventing the formulate
by aping 1959 Godard? Have I gone mad? As the loving but increasingly
mistrustful couple,

Love and Other Catastrophes

veterans Frances
O'Connor and Matt Day do creditable work, but they're playing not
characters so much as rusty icons. Still, as generally no big deal as

Kiss or Administer the coup de grece

is, I'm not a bit depressing that I saw it, because amidst
all of the relaxed details and visual lurching is the finest, most
delightful comic sphere of the year — a scene that's wonderful in part
because it involves two secondary characters and has truly nothing to
do with the take one’s ease of the film. (Damn, that's unclear praise.) I didn't
give a hoot whether Nikki (O'Connor) or Al (Day) was responsible in requital for the
spoor of corpses left in the pair's wake, or whether one of them might be
planning to ice the other…but I started alert when song of the two police
officers trailing them, for no plain reason, began regaling his
gullible participant with invented details respecting his home life, delivered with
a magnificently straight face. In the Q&A, Bennett revealed that this was
the film's only scripted scene: the rest was largely improvised. Next
on occasion, Beak, sit down and create the full thing, okay?

Rating: **

In attendance: Bill Bennett, Frances O'Connor, Matt Day

U.S. distribution status: Opens in New York in November
(October Films)

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The duplicate mise en scene in Frederick Wiseman's documentary


Free
Cover


– which dispassionately documents, in Wiseman's everyday
have a fit-on-the-wall style, a join of weeks in the lives of residents of a
Chicago project — finds two housing cops giving a semi-fraternal warning
to a middle-old woman who looks down on her luck at best, exiled and
addicted at worst. For several minutes, a woman of the cops alternately
lectures her in a condescending tone all round the evils of drug abuse and
urges her in a minatory tone to revoke the property at times and to reprieve
away from it in future; the dame nods her head a lot, and seems vaguely
cooperative, but at the after all is said time is clearly reluctant to move on. I was
fascinated by the confrontation…but I was even more fascinated by the
fact that not anyone of its three participants ever so much as glanced at the
camera, which can't fool been more than a yoke of yards away. The
scene, like almost every scene in this three-hour-and film, begins

in
media res

, and I can't in support of the life of me think what must have
occurred previously to to the scattering minutes that we undertake; it's stubborn to imagine
Wiseman approaching the trio and saying, "Hi, I'm making a movie about
this lob, I'd like to pic this conversation, would you plans just
ignoring the camera and carrying on as before? Thanks a stacks," but I'm
otherwise at a loss to untangle justify why a woman who's being hassled by regulate
would studiously ignore a camera crew that's less breathing down her
neck. This is but one example of many; a number of viewers touched on the
topic during the post-screening Q&A, but Wiseman, who seems to be weary
of talking round his method, steadfastly insisted that the people in his
films behave no differently in the presence of his camera than they would
behave in its truancy, at one point flatly stating that "the Heisenberg
uncertainty principle does not pay attention in this case." "Bullshit," say
I…and so, while I admire

Public Enclosure

for its incisive,
strict, and (incredibly) never dull research of a taste in
disaster, I don't entirely trust it. If I did, the rating not worth would be at
least half a star higher.

Rating: ***

In attendance: Frederick Wiseman

U.S. distribution status: None, but it airs on PBS in December

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Agnieszka Holland's wan pic of Henry James'


Washington
Satisfying



Wings of the Dove

– is beyond my
comprehension; while there are probably authors whose works are sober less
suitable for cinematic adaptation, I must own up that I'm having some
difficulty intellectual of individual off the top of my flair, apart from such
obviously non- or anti-chronicling writers as Burroughs and Dos Passos.
James' play is internalized, for the most role in, eschewing pithy rap session
à la Austen or gothic melodrama à la the Brontës
(

The Turn of the Apply pressure

is a notable object to, and hence the
most potentially cinematic work in James' oeuvre; I haven't yet seen Jack
Clayton's 1961 variation, entitled

The Innocents

, which is reputedly
excellent), so the only responsible way to convey his characters' heady
emotions onscreen is to completely re-imagine the constituents. That's
in all respects what Ruth and Augustus Goetz did with their division customization,

The Heiress

, which was delightfully filmed by William Wyler back in
1949; while it sometimes subverts James' themes, especially in its
invented conclusion, it also achieves a showy power that Holland's more
faithful model sorely lacks. With actors appreciate Jennifer Jason Leigh (a
bit too fluttery at key, she gradually settles into a more believable
and affecting frailty), Albert Finney, and Maggie Smith in the cast,

Washington Naive

Rating: ** ½

In attendance: Agnieszka Holland, Jennifer Jason Leigh

U.S. distribution status: Opened 5 Oct. in New York City
(Hollywood Pictures)

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Ms. Holland could learn a thing or two from Atom Egoyan, whose first
adaptation,


The Ambrosial Hereafter


, is a brilliant synthesis of
Russell Banks' novel and Egoyan's own longstanding thematic obsessions;
where

Washington Old-fashioned

feels like generic garb malarkey,

The
Sweet-sounding Hereafter

, ignoring its heritage, is recognizably related to its
director's previous masterpiece. (The final shot consistent consciously echoes the
final shot of

Exotica

.) Flitting effortlessly extent numerous
timelines — this may be the most masterful use of protection account I've
continuously seen — it uses the aftermath of an accident in a teeny town in
British Columbia as a springboard to examine issues of accountability,
displacement, and denial; Egoyan's genius is evident in his treatment of
the traumatic fact itself, which would likely organize either begun (see

Alive

) or concluded (see

The Accused

) anybody else's motion picture,
but which he wisely a) buries in the middle of the portrait, and b) shoots
from a specific distance (I'm trying to elude spoilers here) that renders
the tragedy all the more horrifying. (Shudder to think of what, say,
Sydney Pollack might have done.) The express ensemble is top-groove, but
Ian Holm, Bruce Greenwood, and Sarah Polley form something of a
psychological triangle, and all three give towering performances (if Holm
doesn't get an Oscar nomination notwithstanding this haze, we should all storm the
Shrine Auditorium come spring, and I recommend that we not take
prisoners). My only quibbles: this should have been a film surrounding a
community, and Egoyan doesn't really seem interested in

connecting

the various characters in geographical or emotional duration — they're as
isolated as the folks in

Speaking Parts

or

The Adjuster

Rating: *** ½

In attendance: Atom Egoyan, Russell Banks, Ian Holm, actress
Arsinée Khanjian, producer Camelia Frieberg

U.S. distribution status: Opens 21 Nov. in New York City
(Fine Line Features)

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I don't intend throughout my reviews to behave primarily as a consumer manoeuvre
(that's what the diva ratings are there for), but concert films don't much
impart themselves to lock up investigation, so here's the skinny: if you like Neil
Young and Deranged Horse, go see Jim Jarmusch's stroll documentary,


Year
of the Horse


; if you don't, don't. It must have been Jarmusch's
popularity that attracted the voting for committee (though this cover was
technically a "specialized event" and not an "ritualistic selection"), because

Year of the Horse

, cool executive or no, is extremely representative of
this generally nondescript genre: lots of combustible footage (great if you correspondent to
the tunes, tedious if not — firstly since Excited Horse is decumbent to
turning a three-bantam appear tune into a 13-trifling extended jam)
interspersed with backstage hijinks and banal interviews with the gang
members. (

Stop Making Sense

is the greatest concert skin ever made
in part because Jonathan Demme dispensed with the stereotypical candid tomfoolery;
Demme recently shot a Robyn Hitchcock tour film, apropos of, which I'm
anxiously waiting, as I attended anybody of the rehearsals.) As a fan of
Young both with and without Crazy Horse, I had a good time at my midnight
screening; I'd feared that the movie would concentrate on brand-new Litter
bodily, about which I'm less hearty, but was pleasantly surprised
to find it dominated by such stellar chestnuts as "Barstool Blues,"
"Witless Girl," "Tonight's the Tenebriousness," and "Like a Hurricane" (a
dispatch from the '96 tour stunningly segues into one from 20 years
previously). Jarmusch includes a few entertaining backstage arguments
from different early previously to tours (shot by demiurge knows who), but his mete out-day
Q&As are of kindle only to rabid aficionados, and a little of his
hallucinogenic road footage goes rather a extensive way. But, to his praise,
it's the rock'n'fall that's front and center, and anybody who owns a
worn-exposed duplicate of

Zuma

shouldn't miss this.

Rating: ***

In attendance: Jim Jarmusch, Crazy Horse

sans

Neil Young

U.S. distribution status: Opened 5 Oct. in New York City
(October Films)

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So you've hit upon a sure-fire subject for a large screen, one that's both unique
and provocative: a little fellow who wants to be a particle girl. Any more, how
best to approach it? You could hint a sedate, emotionally grueling
theatricalism, in which the dismal young man encounters hostility and
misunderstanding both at State school and at home; or, alternatively, you could
make a pastel-colored, dizzy fantasy, in which the lovable nonconformist
lives gaily in a solipsistic bubble that only vaguely resembles the honest
unbelievable.


Ma vie en rose


(which will probably be released in
the U.S. as

My Dash in Pink

), the start with feature directed by Belgian
(I think) executive Alain Berliner (no relation to U.S. special-disquisition
filmmaker Alan Berliner), does both, incredibly adequacy, and the
juxtaposition of tones works more usually than not — conceivably because the
chimera Terra is a fable provoked by the cruelties of the real one.
(The two fuse, however, and "reality" here is heightened considerably;
the vacillating tone of

Heavenly Creatures

Rating: ***

In attendance: Alain Berliner, Georges DuFresne

Wyvern movie download bluray

U.S. distribution status: Opens Christmas Day in New York City
(Sony Pictures Classics)

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Egyptian director Youssef Chahine won a special lifetime achievement award
at this year's Cannes obscure holy day, and it's a testament to the pathetic
provinciality of American film distribution and presentation that


Destiny


, his latest, is the first of his 30+ features that
I've had an opportunity to accept since I began paying publicity to
transpacific-language movies more than a decade ago. Unfortunately, it didn't
make also in behalf of the conquer introduction to his work. Most of what I know about
Chahine I gleaned from a lengthy article written by Dave Kehr that
appeared in the November-December circulate of

Film Comment

; Kehr noted
(approvingly) that "you are on no account unaccompanied watching a Chahine film, but
sharing his firm with a third beano — the phantom of whatever
filmmaker he is invoking at the moment." I watched

Destiny

while
sitting close to the ghost of Cecil B. DeMille, and since I don't much misery
suitable DeMille's grandiose religious epics, I was equally unmoved by
Chahine's appropriation of their spirit. Coterie in 12th-century Andalusia,

Destiny

is a laudable but didactic plea for religious and
intellectual magnanimity, involving the existent-life philosopher Averroës
(Nour El Cherif, in a diaphanous performance) and his disciples, as proficiently as the
Caliph (ruler) and his family; distinct parties dash about attempting to
make copies of Averroës' books and safely secrete them away before the
originals are burned. As though, say, the '56

Ten Commandments

, the
blur is visually impressive but dramatically ponderous; it comes cognizant of
only during its two musical numbers (!), which are as stirring and
exuberant as the inactivity of the picture is stifling and lethargical. Had it
been a full-fledged musical, I would have more promptly forgiven — peradventure
even downright enjoyed — its humanistic excesses.

Rating: ** ½

In attendance: Youssef Chahine

U.S. distribution status: None

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In his own reassess of


Voyage to the Beginning of the World



out

the
window (look out! it's Semantic Man!). More over, however, I read, or
notation, or pay attention to to music, and movies about landscapes do tend to bore me.
(2) I'm interested in my grandparents' histories and memories, but that's
mostly because I'm kin to them, and so their past is a piece of my own
past, in a sense. I wouldn't likely care to see

your

grandparents'
photo albums, and I'm equally blasé about de Oliveira's memories,

per se

. That doesn't in any case by dint of that I'm opposed to memory-based
narratives, intellectual you, but I'd prefer that the reminiscing be a tad less
languid than it is in

Voyage

, in which, as metrical Steve admits,
less nothing happens. (3) My proficiency of de Oliveira's work is
narrow (I've also seen

The Convent

, which I liked a bit better
than this one), and my knowledge of his being is essentially nil — but a
film that depends upon your foreknowledge of its case, particularly its

metaphorical

subject, is on transparent ice.

Voyage to the Beginning
of the World

, like so many of the films in this year's festival,
strikes me as a big that was go places more important for its pilot to make
than it intent be for most viewers to see — it's cinema as personal
therapy. Note to fans of Marcello Mastroianni: yes, this was his form
film, but be forewarned that he's barely in it, composed though he appears in
virtually every scene.

Rating: **

In attendance: Nobody

U.S. distribution status: Probably an early '98 release
(Strand)

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Canny Crimson


, Arturo Ripstein's dramatization of the sad,
sordid lives of the trustworthy-resilience Solitary Hearts Killers (the facts of the case
were previously filmed by Leonard Kastle as

The Honeymoon Killers

),
sports a misleading caption; notwithstanding a fair amount of blood has been spilled
by the time the credits roll, as a certain would expect, the film's superior bluster
is a peculiarly blurred brown, making Mexico look like the world's largest
septic tank. To their credit, Ripstein and screenwriter Alicia Paz
Garciadiego establish enormous compassion to the human trash that
inhabits it — more compassion, certainly, than

I

could have
mustered. The film's murderous lovers (played with persuasion and
susceptiveness by Regina Orozco and Daniel Gimenez Cacho) commit not too acts
of unspeakable depravity, yet their victims' deaths feel unmistakably
tranquil when compared to their own disturbed, miserable life; each
time Nicolas fumbles to take over from his toupee preceding star notices the
bald spot that extends over most of his skull, or Coral's eyes lessen to
slits as she watches Nicolas flirting with one of their matronly marks,
it's as if somebody turned the theater thermostat down another ten
degrees. This isn't Mickey-and-Mallory bullshit prematurely, in other words:
it's a unencumbered-eyed, nonjudgmental look at the kind of people who tend to be
either demonized or lionized by other movies, as articulately as a parade
of how the deadly sins of Pride (sub-department: Vanity) and Desire
(sub-category: Jealousy) are as compatible as oil and the best quality. What

Deep
Crimson

lacks — what might have transformed this fine, unwavering picture
into something transcendent — is determination, either narrative or cinematic.
Ripstein and Garciadiego understand these devastated souls, and manage to sin
them without condoning their actions (no amenable task), but the spark is
missing, by fair means, and much of the film feels quiet and controlled, as if
we were watching a relation slightly than a interpretation. You will have
recognized the contradiction: I respect the filmmakers on not
mythologizing their subjects, and yet I beef that the fruit is
ever-so-slightly too colourless, insufficiently courageous. You suspect that I am
simply absurd to please. And you may well be right. All I can report
is that

Deep Crimson

struck me, in the end, as just a little

too

brown for its own good.

Rating: ***

In attendance: Arturo Ripstein, Alicia Paz Garciadiego

U.S. distribution status: Opened 9 October in NYC (New
Yorker)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~



Fallen Angels



Chungking
Expose

, but was predetermined during production because Wong decided that the
cinema was getting too long. Recital isn't Wong's forte — mood is –
and it's no coincidence that

Chungking Express

, which divides its
running time between two separate but thematically interdependent tales, is his
best get someone all steamed. (I haven't to this day seen his appear,

As Tears Go By

, but I
sire until now to encounter anyone who has who'd weigh it in the race.)

Fallen Angels

, which features more lovelorn urban misfits and
obstinately stoic yearning, might have worked as a third part of a

Chungking

triptych, but on its own it's both disappointingly slight
and absurdly overgrown. Imagine the earliest feature in

Chungking

– the
complete with Takeshi Kaneshiro as the cop obsessed first with pineapple
expiration dates and then with Brigitte Lin — stretched to 96 minutes,
but directed with even

more

verve, and you'll have a fair idea of
what this combine-on feels identical to. Paradoxically, it's both redundant and
essential: you've already seen it, but you've

gotta

distinguish it
again.

Rating: ***

In attendance: Wong Kar-wai

U.S. distribution status: Opens January 1998 in NYC (Kino
International)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By this metre, you don't dire me to tell you that


Boogie
Nights


is a ascendant good mist — so let me instead use my force
explaining why it isn't, contrary to popular (or at least critical)
evaluation, The Ardent American Motion picture of 1997. For identical thing, an R-rated epic
about the porn industry was a goofball idea from the get-go…and, sure
enough, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson, who has for all practical purposes nothing of
attracted by to say with regard to the national in the firstly right (he's squiffy on the age
and the general decadence and naughtiness, but ostensibly couldn't suffering
less about why these people do what they do, or out how they do it), is
forced to convey what little he

does

have to tell via a neverending
succession of coy feedback shots. Exactly one (1) segment in the film takes
get ahead on a film lay down, which is as zany as if only anecdote scene in

Heyday
for Night

had bewitched place on a film set; what we see there, in any
patient, feels phony and smug, like a parody of the making of a porn dusting
that you might see in a

intrinsic

porn film. Its final phallus-spot
notwithstanding,

Boogie Nights

is a disappointingly strait-laced and
moralistic film — particularly in its weaker assistant half, in which
Anderson contrives bleak, terrifying downfalls for a handful of his
protagonists. (Admittedly, this section also includes the film's best
scene, with Alfred Molina pirating the picture as a wacked-passe hophead
with a yen for Night Ranger and Rick Springfield.) And don't flatter me
started on how many shots and ideas were lifted directly and brazenly from
Scorsese's oeuvre, or we'll be here all week. Despite all of this
carping, however, I

did


that

large.

Rating: ***

In attendance: Paul Thomas Anderson, Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds,
Heather Graham, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ricky Jay, Luis Guzman

U.S. distribution status: Opened 12 October in NYC (New Line)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One of filmmaking's greatest challenges is the accurate portrayal of
boredom and apathy; ironically, the closer you come to truly conveying the
monotony of a late-end existence, the more likely it is that your audience
leave wind up as bored and apathetic as your characters. Bruno Dumont, in
his debut film,


La vie de Jésus


, does a unequalled
job of capturing the picky detail hell that is stasis — so much so that I
only couldn't be tabled for the moving picture to end, so that I could seek some construct
of mental or actual stimulation. Superficially, there are no greater than three
activities handy to the denizens of the small town in northern France
in which the big is set — passionless fucking, aimless joyriding, and
unprovoked attacking of the provincial minorities — and Dumont provides
endless variations of this unholy trinity, to diminishing effect. Worse,
the film is numbingly predictable; as in time as the affectionate Arab capacity fitting,
Kader (Kader Chaatouf), was introduced, I wondered how elongated it would be
first our unthinking, hulking protagonist, Freddy (David Douche), either
seriously wounded or killed him. The plea, to my dismay, was: The
entire sentence large screen. In other words, after a three-month period of an hour I'd guessed
exactly what would afterward occur, and fitting for the next 80 minutes or so I
simply sat servants’ and impatiently watched as my every suspicion was
confirmed…same. sheerest. very. slowly. I was alarmed and disturbed to find
myself meditative things type "I wish this creep would hurry up and kill
that charming Arab, so I can go home" and "Hasn't he killed that Arab

yet

? What outmoded is it, anyway?" By the time the Cure tune "Killing
an Arab" started resounding in my skull, I was beginning to get peeved;
Dumont's plodding attitude had equated the hard-hearted murder of an innocent
servant with the sound of the second shoe thudding onto the floor. Yes, it's
attainable to keep someone going interest and edginess square when the outcome is patently
obvious — be wise to persevere

Heavenly Creatures

,

Apollo 13

, etc. — but
this requires storytelling, and there's none to be set up in

La vie de
Jésus

. (Let's straight ignore the unbearably pretentious title,
shall we?) There's no greater than stagnation, and the sound of wheels spinning.

Rating: **

In attendance: Bruno Dumont

U.S. distribution status: None

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After seeing


Telling Lies in America


, the first NYFF
selection ever to have been penned by Joe Eszterhas, I'm convinced that
the selection committee is accepting bribes. A fictionalized account of
the

Showgirls

scribe's formative years as a Hungarian immigrant in
Cleveland, it's more heartfelt than Eszterhas' million-dollar Hollywood
scripts, but it's every bit as incompetent: the dialogue is hamhanded, the
subtext crushingly blatant, and Humongous Joe remains enamored of such tired
screenwriting devices as the Cutesy Ironic Twist. (In

Jagged Edge

,
Glenn Close types "He is innocent" on Jeff Bridges' typewriter, and the
telltale flaw of the lowercase 't' at the undecided of the final word confirms
his crime. Here, we have Karchy [the very Hungarian-looking Brad Renfro],
who has trouble with the English 'th' practical, over again practicing his
manner of speaking in the repeat with the phrase "and that's the truth!" –
which he for all time gets right the moment he stops lying. Egad.) Kevin
Bacon, as a local DJ who befriends Karchy and winds up inadvertently
teaching him valuable vitality lessons, gives a corker of a performance –
he's much more at home in the '50s and '60s than in the present day, as

Diner

also attests — but his cocky grin and alertly release are all
that this hackneyed, sentimental memoir has to recommend it. Foreman Mock
Ferland, I suspect, has sold his soul to Satan: his awesome debut,

The
Babysitter

, somehow escaped the straight-to-video fate that it so
exquisitely equitable and wound up with a Mexican foxtrot at New York's arthouse venue Film
Forum, and now this utterly unremarkable picture somehow beat out such
contenders (I assume that they were submitted) as Zhang Yimou's

Keep
Cool

, Manuel Poirier's

Western

, and Shohei Imamura's co-Palme
d'Or-victor

The Eel

towards this NYFF slot. Enjoy the brimstone,
Chap.

Rating: **

In attendance: Guy Ferland, Kevin Bacon, Brad Renfro

U.S. distribution status: Opened 17 Oct. in NYC (Banner)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~



The Apostle



The Apostle

is a portion

too

enthralled with the details of its eponymous hero's
workday; the last half hour, in particular, feels as dream of as a bona fide church
utility, and almost as repetitive. Granted, Sonny's brilliant exhortations
make an effort a certain captivation — this must be the most zingy, tireless
performance given by a chief city-dweller since Cagney barked his personality washing one’s hands of

One, Two, Three

in 1961 — but because this is Duvall's portray from
start to the greatest (he even financed the entire thing himself, when no person
else would clothe up the money), the lengthy sermons many times come across as
self-indulgent grandstanding. More stuff are the quieter moments:
Sonny casually whacking his wife's lover upside the head with a baseball
bat in a sudden change of rage (yes, that's a quiet instant, which is what
makes it so remarkable), or tentatively wooing the secretary at the local
tranny railway station (Miranda Richardson), or driving his rickety bus from lodge
to house to pick up his (mostly black) mob every morning. It's a
passionate, sincere, and gratifyingly complex film about the message of
religion, and one that managed to intermittently wear even-handed a godless
heathen such as myself. It's simply way too damn long. I'll be curious to
see whether it stays that damn long.

Rating: ** ½

In attendance: Robert Duvall

U.S. distribution status: Opens in late December in NYC
(October Films)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Don't you aversion it when a critic dismisses an entire movie just because
(s)he doesn't care as a service to the subject occurrence? Doesn't the reconsideration-by-character
strike you as distressingly cursory and slow-witted, not to announcement lazy?
For one’s part, I think that that kind of artificial, devil-may-care analysis
ought to be forbidden by law…tomorrow. As for today:


Happy
Together


, the

other

Wong Kar-wai film in this year's
festival (this one is actually new), is an evocative exploration of an
distressed relationship, and features scene after scene after scene of its
two lovers, Lai Yiu-fai (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Ho Po-wing (Leslie
Cheung), bickering. Hong Kong natives living as expatriates, in place of no
apparent reason, in Argentina, the put together quarrel, demonstrate, accuse, repudiate,
for a few moments submit, play torturous mind games with one another — it's a
completely believable portrait of the final weeks of a bonk affair.
(Leslie Cheung, incidentally, for those of you who don't know, is a man;
this is a rare "gay film" in which the characters' sexual preference is
simply taken in behalf of granted, and what a breath of rosy air it is.) And,
equal Godard's distinguished

Contempt

, which is equally accurate connected with
the ways in which paramours prosper at a distance, it bored me more often than not,
sparely because I gather up such behavior as tedious and meaningless on the home screen
as I do in real life. Still less ostentatiously flashy than Wong's
previous two films,

Happy Together

features all of the elements
that have dependably impressed me in his other pictures: elegantly moody
characters; magnificent cinematography (courtesy Christopher Doyle, as ever);
a loose-limbed narrative that careens from provocation to shot without
deliberation; a general germane to of cinema as possibility. All that's missing
is the powerful romantic yearning that suffused

Chungking Swift


Ashes of Meanwhile

and

Days of Being Wild

. In its
place, to my irritation, is everlasting squabbling — the selfsame indulgent that,
instead than engendering my sympathy, entirely finds me incomplete my head,
waving my penmanship in a circular get-on-with-it gesture, and murmuring "okay,
it's over, deal with it, stirring a get moving on." Those who aren't similarly afflicted
may fountain-head encounter the couple's plight extremely moving; I long you well, so
prolonged as we aren't dating.

Rating: ** ½

In attendance: Wong Kar-wai

U.S. distribution status: Opened 12 Oct. in NYC
(Kino International)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As much as I enjoyed the pre-eminent installment of

The Kingdom

, the
spooky-ridiculous Danish soap opera directed by Lars von Trier and Morten
Arnfred, I was a bit dismayed by the farcical turn that the testimony seemed
to be winsome in the waning moments of the final occurrence — a inclination that
seemed to me to sacrifice the on tenterhooks tension that its creators had worked
so hard to establish. As I feared,


The Kingdom II



The Kingdom

are no doubt wondering, as I was, where von Trier
and co-screenwriter Niels Vorsel could possibly go with the (ahem) unusual
plot dog-leg that brought occurrence four to a (ahem) somewhat momentous climax;
I won't let slip the answer, but suffice to say that it's both utterly
unusual and inappropriately weepy –

Basket Envelope

meets

Terms
of Endearment

is the best vague ilk that I can think of. The
attractive thorough info is that the without a scratch principal cast is back, albeit now about
line dominated by Ernst-Hugo Järegaard as Stig "Danish scum!"
Helmer, who returns from Haiti on the level more enjoyably awful than when he
departed. His presence merely makes

The Kingdom II

an seasonal
riot, and it's more or less a must-see notwithstanding everybody who saw and enjoyed

The Kingdom

, if only because the first part inspired a curiosity so
recalcitrant that it simply must be satisfied. But my expectations for

The
Kingdom III

, necessary sometime around 2000, are considerably diminished,
and I can't claim to be waiting for it with my breath a-bated.

Rating: ** ½

In attendance: N?obody

U.S. distribution status: Undetermined 1998 release date (October
Films)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Finally, Pedro Almodóvar's


Active Flesh



Live
Physical

, by contrast, feels somewhat generic — it's the first
Almodóvar motion picture since I became aware of his career in 1988 in which
his signature isn't obvious on every frame. Not to harp on this theme
or anything, but could this possibly have something to do with the items
that it's his from the start adaptation (of a best-seller by Ruth Rendell, whose books
are suddenly in demand by European auteurs;

A Judgment in Stone


Alight Flesh

struck me as cinematic calisthenics — a progress
due to the fact that Almodóvar to keep his directorial muscles toned while he waits
for his muse to start whispering. No law against that, and I'd disinclined to
keep company with those muscles atrophy, but this isn't individual seeking the time capsule, I'm
on edge.

Rating: ** ½

In attendance: Pedro Almodóvar, actresses Francesca Neri and
Angela Molina

U.S. distribution status: Tentatively opens sometime in December in NYC
(Goldwyn/MGM)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I'd intended to write a few retrospective words about this year's festival
– readily the least impressive of the three I've attended to date — but
you can draw your own conclusions, right? You'd rather see me attend to some
of the new releases that I've neglected while attending to this massy
rundown, yes? That's what I intention. See you next year.

Cobra Verde (1987)

THE STRAIGHT DOPE:
By the time the 80’s rolled around the gigantic collaborations of Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski were starting to look like dinosaurs. Even though Fitzcarraldo was released in 1982 it had been in development for years and had more of the feel of earlier triumphs like 1972’s Aguirre: The Wrath of God. That is why it is so shocking that their final collaboration, the bitter and acidic Cobra Verde was released in 1988. For such a monstrous production to have been mounted in the post-Heaven’s Gate era seems unthinkable now. Just ponder the logistics: Kinski, in one of his maddest roles ever plays the bandit Cobra Verde who leaves the hellish Brazilian gold mines to seek out the ocean. He finds work as an overseer to six hundred African slaves on a sugar plantation. After impregnating all three of the plantation owner’s daughters he is sent on an unbelievable suicide mission: To single-handedly reopen the dormant slave trade with a west African king. In Africa he discovers a society as difficult to understand as the one he just left, but through his maniacal dealings manages to get the job done. He eventually discovers that he is being cheated from all sides and decides to help a rebel movement overthrow the mad king in exchange for total control of the slave trade. To do so he trains an army of thousands of women who attack the kings palace in a sea of screams. The film ends with the spent Cobra Verde collapsing on the beach trying to pull a boat into the water to escape the madness he has helped create.

A complex film that deals with huge issues and ends on a somewhat opaque note, Cobra Verde has been derided as the least of the Herzog - Kinski collaborations. While it may not live up to the lyrical depth of Nosferatu or Aguirre it is hardly a clone of the earlier epics. Kinski’s amazing performance is as different from Aguirre or Fitzcarraldo as can be. He may seem like yet another insane tyrant but the demons that drive him here come from a disgust with all those around him, instead of from greed and megalomania (Aguirre) and unachievable vision (Fitzcarraldo).

The larger scenes in Cobra Verde are as astonishing as any big budget film: a line of thousands of Africans relaying a message from one village to another by waving white flags, a endless army of tribal woman training for battle, first as a formless mob, then with total precision. There are scenes of great intimacy as well: Early on Cobra Verde shares a meal with a young cripple by candle-light. The lack of big film lighting makes the scene seem so personal and unusual that when Cobra Verde tells the young man “I’ve never had a friend before,” the gesture is unmistakably real.

Some may consider the film racist for its depiction of the slave trade, but the traders are not spared any criticism. It’s just that this ultimately is not a film about slavery, like Amistad, but rather about one man’s journey for peace and the impossibility of ever finding that. A few moments near the end where Cobra Verde dismisses slavery as a huge crime almost seem out of place, since he has seemed so apolitical to that point. He may glower disapprovingly at a slave owner, but he is also quick to inspect the teeth of his chained slaves as if they were horses.

A powerful early scene keys us into this side of Kinski’s character: When a slave about to be flogged in a Brazilian town square escapes and runs through the crowd Cobra Verde blocks his way and, with piercing eyes, freezes the man in his tracks. He advises him not to run, that running will only ultimately make the persecution worse. The man, stock still, stares back at Kinski, almost as if under a spell. Then, as guards violently seize the man Kinski works the same mind control on them. He tells them to let the man go and that he can find the whipping post by himself, essentially restoring a drop of the slave’s dignity by allowing him to make his own path. This complex moment, which defines a lot about the dynamic of the film, is key in understanding a rich and deep performance by a unique master.

PICTURE:
The picture is amazing. Crystal clear images really help capture the hugeness of the production. It is anamorphic and really shows off some stunning cinematography. The film was filmed entirely on location in Columbia, Brazil, and Ghana and really uses the locations expertly. There is no way to mistake the scenery for a sound-stage. Herzog’s searches for authentic locations are legendary and it’s easy to see why.

AUDIO:
The audio is also quite good. The German track is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and that’s the one to watch. There is also an English 2.0 track and a director’s commentary track. Popol Vuh’s score is subtle to the extreme. There are just touches of music that really help accentuate some key emotional moments.

EXTRAS:
The only notable extra is Herzog’s commentary track. It is presented in interview form, but is scene specific. Herzog is always fascinating to listen to and even though there are some lags in the commentary, his stories about life on location are priceless. By now Herzog has amassed volumes of discussion of his working and personal relationship with Kinski, between his commentary tracks and the documentary Kinski: My Best Fiend. These tales are so fascinating that I could just listen to them all day.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Cobra Verde is not necessarily for everybody. The characterizations are dark and there is always a palpable air of danger. Kinski’s sneering performance is as effective as ever, but these qualities that I seek out in the films by these men are exactly the qualities that may turn some off. The portrayal of the slave trade is often brutal and may be misinterpreted, but I’m sure they only scratch the surface of a sickening period in world history. Unlike recent Hollywood pap like The Patriot, which practically denies that slavery was all that bad, Cobra Verde pulls no punches.

Other Herzog / Kinski reviews:
Nosferatu
Woyzeck
My Best Fiend

Gil Jawetz is a graphic designer, video director, and t-shirt designer. He lives in Brooklyn.

E-mail Gil at buskerdog@yahoo.com

Being Julia (2004)

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