Looking at director Ang Lee"s other successes (Sense and Sensibility, Brokeback Mountain) makes this comic-book based action movie an even more puzzling entity than it would be without taking cast and crew into consideration. The plot seems ideal for a summer blockbuster; radiation exposed, repressed photogenic young man transforms into an uncontrollable rage fuelled green monster. A green monster that certainly creates impact on promotional film posters.
However, the screenplay loads on dark, character subplots (usually portrayed by disturbingly grim flashbacks) until the already fantastical story collapses under the weight, and becomes seemingly mindless, manic action. Eric Bana"s lead is certainly not bad, and he plays the part of the tortured soul behind hulk with believable recklessness. It is a shame this is let down by the overall feel of the movie which fails to both connect and satisfy.
Although the first instalment in this now tiresome franchise was at best entertaining, this near ridiculous sequel doesn"t do it justice. The plot follows Nicholas Cage and crew from historical location to historical location, with short, garbled explanations as to what they are doing there. Each scene has a bizarre element to it, ranging from unlawfully entering Buckingham Palace to kidnapping the President of the United States.
The only feature that keeps this film afloat is its terrific cast, including a grouchy John Voight and a self-assured Helen Mirren. It"s a pity the clunky plot and nonsensical script didn"t give them better material to work with. If you leave your cerebral attachment to reality behind before viewing, you may get a glimmer of enjoyment out of this, but for me it fails to impress.
The Other Boleyn Girl has had to endure a lot of criticism from the press since its release. Although some of the dialogue is unbelievable (to put it mildly) and the plot represents a daytime soap opera, I feel this is compensated for by the subtle acting techniques and the skilful, faintly claustrophobic atmosphere created by intense up-close discussions between characters.
Americans being cast in the roles of British historical figures has sometimes caused disaster in the film industry, but while watching this film I didn"t feel it were a problem. Natalie Portman succeeds with her finely tuned English accent, producing a vicious cat style performance (sharp claws and all) when confronted with her timid, more humane sister (Scarlet Johansen). Apart from moping around looking like a lost golden retriever, Johansen portrays her repressed passion and inner torment well. Her character, Mary Boleyn manages to win the sexual attention of King Henry (the charismatic Australian Eric Bana), where her sister, Anne, failed at the first hurdle. Bowing to the inevitable, Mary falls pregnant with the King"s child, causing a jealous Anne Boleyn to enter the limelight.
The film isn"t critic friendly, as it mixes modern dialogue with old fashioned problems and morals, making it try to appeal to 21st century audiences and at the same time take itself seriously. On this level it just about scrapes through, hurling impact at viewers during the ending"s expertly judged execution scene (guess who"s execution it is) using a heart achingly melancholy instrumental score that weaves regret and forgiveness between the gazes the two Boleyn girls share with each other.
This beautiful adaptation of Michael Cunningham"s award winning novel features three powerful female leads. The most talked about is probably that of Nicole Kidman, who carries off the role of troubled author Virginia Woolf with expertly crafted emotion.
The story switches between Virginia Woolf"s English backdrop, 1950s American Suburbia and a 2001 New York, with actors Juliet Stevenson and Meryl Streep fitting comfortably into their period roles. As a whole, this is an intelligent take on Woolf"s novel, Mrs Dalloway, with each female lead having a connection with the book. The tone of the film hints at unseen, repressed reckless emotion, helped by one of the most wonderful film scores I have ever heard, courtesy of composer Philip Glass.
This film, which was released ahead of Oliver Stone"s World Trade Centre, is the intensely harrowing story of the heroic forced landing of flight United Airlines 93 on September 11 2001. As the film"s poster tag-line says, this is the story of the plane that didn"t meet its target, but was brought down by the passengers after the plane had been hijacked by knife wielding terrorists.
United 93"s intensity picks up during the initial hijack scene, and continues to fix the viewer to their seat for the rest of the "flight". Paul Greengrass adopts a very real, gritty filmmaking technique, similar to that used in Michel Winterbottom"s 2007 film "A Mighty Heart", and manages to keep the pace without straying out of real time. Right up until the stunning ending, this is a fair and intelligent portrayal of the 9/11 disaster.
Dan, widower of four years, father of three (really two and half) disgruntled (kind of his fault - they blame him anyway) daughters, is taking his family to his parents house to meet all the cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. for the annual gathering. By the time he arrives his daughters are not talking to him and his mum orders him out for some fresh air. He leaves the utility room where he is housed, his younger brother has female company this year, and ends up in a book shop. He spots Juliette Binoche. Her pleas for help spurned by the shop keeper, she turns to Dan, thinking he works there too. He doesn"t, but does sell her many random books in a rare charm offensive for the stiff widower. They walk, he tells her about his life, they fall in love and she gets a phone call from her boyfriend and rushes off. Dan manages to get her number though. Back at home and BANG! - its not really a surprise - Binoche walks in, Dan"s brother"s new girlfriend. Soon the whole family love her too, and are shocked by the sometimes uptight, rude and/or flirty Dan. From this premise "Dan in Real Life" develops into the kind of comedy that makes you cringe with social embarrassment (in the vein of "The Office" if it starred Adam Sandler). It is funny - I cringed and laughed a lot. And also sweet (perhaps a little too sweet by the end). I particularly liked the way it resisted painting Dan"s brother as a sleazy, clearly second best option for Binoche. Although not great, it is worth a watch (particularly if you have a read of one particularly nice comment on imdb).
When I saw the promos for this show, I thought it was yet another "friends" serial, which in fact it is but Will & Grace is about a totally "different" set of friends, it has a charm of its own; no wonder I am now hooked to this serial, a must...
Overlong, intentionally inaccurate movie seemingly constructed to obfuscate Masonic involvement in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. 'National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets' boasts an impressive cast, but falters and bores with a flat, wholly unconvincing narrative about Cage's ancestor, who's falsely implicated in Lincoln's murder ('evidenced' in recently discovered pages from John Wilkes Booth's dairy). In spite of being a Nic Cage fan, I gave 'National Treasure' a wide berth back in 2004, and though this glossy sequel may fare better with fans of the original, I can't for the life of me understand how such a listless premise gets green-lit in a post 'Indiana Jones' post 'The Mummy' post 'Tomb Raider' world. Nicholas Cage is back as archaeologist adventurer Benjamin Franklin Gates, alleged real life Freemason John Voight returns as his father, Ed Harris resentfully grinds his way through a thankless bad guy role whilst professional gluttons for punishment Diane Kruger (who hasn't managed to capitalise on her performance as Helen in 'Troy'), Justin Bartha (best known as despised retard Brian from 'Gigli') and Harvey 'where's-Tarantino-when-I-need-him?' Keitel all reprise their roles. Joining them is our own Helen Mirren, slumming it as Gate's mother in a forced and mostly unfunny role. The plot, which actually isn't half bad were it not an overt assault on historical facts, rightly damns Queen Victoria's 'British Empire' as part of an insidious conspiracy to prolong the American civil war. But would they dare mention Rothschild? Of course not, especially since some of their benefactors own a stake in 'Disney' which released this picture. For its common knowledge that Presidents Garfield, Lincoln and Kennedy were assassinated by the global elite, for trying to free their nation from the tyranny of Rothschild / Masonic usury (i.e. interest based inequities of the Templar banking system): Clan Rothschild were also financing both sides the civil war, hence President Garfield was killed by an Illuminati old boy for attempting to broker a peace deal with Confederate leaders to end the conflict. Lincoln spoke out against usury and outlawed the lucrative business of slave trading, thus was promptly murdered by Rothschild patsy John Wilkes Booth, Jack Kennedy suffered the same fate: after an impassioned speech about purging America of neo-pagan secret societies e.g. Masons, Zionists, CIA, Knights Templar, Com 300, Bilderberger and their Rothschild / Lurian Cabbalist handlers (collectively dubbed 'The New World Order'). JFK's speech, delivered before the 'American Newspaper Publisher's Association' on April 27th 1961 (seven months before his assassination) is still suppressed and rarely discussed by mainstream historians or paid off, pro-cultist, corporate media shills.
Much of 'NT2's' plot revolves around the discovery of the fabled book of secrets; a presidential handbook that, as its title denotes, contains secrets for U.S. presidents. And maybe its not-so mysterious page 47 is like one of those juvenile high school book gags, you remember; when some bright spark writes 'Go to Page 21', which you do, only to discover he/she's inscribed another command: 'Go to page 15', promptly followed, 'Go To Page 9' and so on until you're inexorably drawn to a page which conclusively declares that you are, indeed: a c***, and anyone who pays to see another 'National Treasure' sequel will, no doubt, fall into the aforementioned category. Now John Tutletaub made a pretty decent film about 12 years ago with John Travolta called 'Phenomenon', though his directorial output since then has been anything but, and yet not even a great cast or initially intriguing storyline can compensate for a story that loses momentum from the get go, if only because most people know its a fraud, and subjects as serious as individual freedom / humanity's struggle to establish a just society were never meant to be placed into the hands of Hollywood hacks and the criminal corporations those dead presidents tried to bring down. 'NT2' is somewhat of a low point for all involved whilst Nicholas Cage can, should and hopefully will move on: Fool's gold, best left ashore.
My sister"s kids loved this, even if I didn"t. It is the story of a recently divorced woman, or rather her children, moving home. Her children are the teenaged Mallory and young twins Simon and Jared. Jared is quite an angry, adventurous and difficult child. One day, exploring his new home, Jared discovers a mysterious key and "Spiderwick"s Field Guide", a book about faeries. Despite a warning not to, he reads it. And then the special effect wizards are let loose and creatures start to enter the children"s lives. Griffins, ogres, goblins and faeries all feature. I think this, and the young protagonists" adventures are what enthralled my young niece and nephew. But it is also what disappointed me. The CGI seemed to tread old water, the Harry Potter franchise came to mind (though that was immensely popular, and is not necessarily a bad thing), and the children moving to new place and finding faeries there also reminded me of Pan"s Labyrinth - which is much more interesting from an adults perspective. However, I am perfectly aware that it is the children"s perspective that is relevant here, and they were charmed and scared, and made to laugh by Spiderwick"s different computer generations. Which is good. But I also thought one thing about this movie was great - the acting. Particularly of Freddie Highmore who plays both twin brother, managing to create two distinguishable characters. Not bad for a sixteen year old, and very much worth watching, especially if you have children.
John Rambo returns to grace our screens again, this time in Burma, and just as dangerous as he was 20 years ago. It seems that he had been hanging around in South East Asia since the Vietnam War ended, collecting snakes in Northern Thailand for tourist shows and living with the locals. Then his peace is disturbed by a group of American medical missionaries wishing to go up stream to help the Karen, brutally persecuted, as I write this, by the military junta that rules Burma. Rambo tells them not to go, that they will not change anything, that their pacifism means nothing in Burma - that they are not in their cosy suburban neighbourhoods anymore. Nevertheless, he gives in and, courtesy of an attractive blonde, agrees to take them up river. At this point I was cringing: Could this film really justify US cultural as well as military intervention in Asia? Apparently not. Rambo is proved correct before the missionaries even reach their destination when they are attacked by some river pirates. Rather than seeing his Christian fares raped and beheaded, John shoots the pirates, to the disgust of the missionaries. They get to their destination, but are then kidnapped in a brutal raid on the village they are staying in. Predictably, Rambo returns to right that wrong, despite his world-weariness, and with a group of mercenaries - the devil is brought in to do god"s work. This is all as corny you might imagine and the dialogue truly, truly terrible. Perhaps its message - underlined twice at the end of the film, a missionary learns the way of violence, and acknowledging it - is dubious. But I don"t think it shows that violence is all that it takes to fix a problem. War and genocide do not end when Rambo has finished gunning, often in half, a few hundred Burmese soldiers. And the film is haunted, like Rambo, incidentally, by the ghosts of Vietnam and the war films set their. The film opens with real images of war in Burma and does show the Karen freedom fighters doing their stuff. The action is brutal, not glamorous. And I think that the film is a lot more interesting than others might have you believe. Adding to that the fact that Stallone"s heart is, I think, in the right place - he wants to draw our attentions to what is happening in Burma - the film is worth watching. And if you liked the earlier instalments of the franchise I am sure you will get a kick out of the carnage in this one, John Rambo"s swansong.
Werner Herzog has had a long and very prolific career as a director, encompassing both fiction features and, especially of late, a huge number of documentaries both long and short. But despite this profusion of films, he is still remembered, for better or worse, for the strength of his five collaborations with the actor Klaus Kinski, all of which are contained in this remarkable box set. Even calling Kinski an actor is somewhat misleading -- he's more akin to a force of nature, and these five films are equally famous for their raw onscreen intensity and for the often rocky circumstances of their creation. At least one rumor suggests that Herzog was once forced to pull a gun on Kinski to threaten him into performing, and the tense relationship between director and star was compounded by the wild locales in which the films are set.
"Aguirre: The Wrath of God" is a hallucinatory fable about a rebel Spanish conquistador who takes his troops off in search for a legendary city of gold, leading them instead to their deaths in the middle of a hostile rain forest environment. Kinski is volcanic in the title role, and Herzog perfectly captures the humid, oppressive atmosphere hanging over this ill-fated expedition right from the beginning. This first collaboration between the duo was legendary right from the start, and it culminates in a famous scene where the wild and increasingly insane Aguirre, the last survivor of his decimated crew, stands on a raft swarming with scurrying monkeys, ranting into the jungle.
This fascination with doomed men setting impossible goals is carried over into "Fitzcarraldo," with Kinski once again in the title role as a man so obsessed with opera that he plans to pull a steamboat over a mountain in order to bring an opera house to the Amazon. Herzog loved filming in these fierce jungles and wild river rapids, and he insisted that the film's central moment, the boat being propelled over a mountain, should be realistic, not achieved through any special effects. These scenes thus have a very raw physicality, and one can feel the stress and power of the physical processes involved in leveraging this boat up steep inclines and back down the other side.
More humble and constrained are "Woyzeck" and "Nosferatu," which are equally deranged in their intense emotional content but much less physical. The former has Kinski as a cuckolded soldier who's driven insane by his fickle wife, and is finally driven to murder. The whole movie, adapted from a stage play and correspondingly confined in its sets and characters, is intense and claustrophobic, never more so than in the absurd opening titles, which feature a wild-eyed Kinski doing push-ups.
Herzog's remake of the silent vampire classic "Nosferatu" is relatively faithful to the original but amps up the moody, languid atmosphere and the subtle, creeping terror, creating a vampire film in which everyone, monster and victims alike, seems to be sleepwalking. Kinski, of course, plays the vampire, and there has never been a more frightening movie monster, or a more perfect role for the unhinged actor. He is the ideal actor to capture the unsettling sexuality and sensuality that is inherent in the best vampire stories.
The final Herzog/Kinski collaboration was "Cobra Verde," and though it's not as successful as the other four films, it's still very interesting. Kinski plays an adventurer who is slowly driven into corruption and insanity as he becomes a slave trader, and it's a curious film that mostly stands testament to Kinski's weird animal magnetism. It's impossible to take one's eyes off him, no matter what he's doing.
This excellent box set is, finally, rounded off by the inclusion of "My Best Fiend," Herzog's documentary about his torrid on-set relationship with Kinski, with whom Herzog apparently shared intense love/hate feelings. Herzog uses this documentary to relate many of the most sensationalist and legendary stories about Kinski's on-set behavior and the great lengths the director sometimes went to restrain him. The result is a film that's both funny, unbelievable, frightening, and even strangely moving -- much like the five features the duo made together. This is an absolutely essential box set for those interested in either Herzog or Kinski, or for that matter in the cinema itself. For this was one of the most provocative and productive collaborations in cinema history.
Paul Verhoeven's "RoboCop" is probably best remembered as a gritty, extremely violent futuristic action piece, and it undoubtedly excels on this front. But it's also a surprisingly witty and biting satire of media, the politics of law enforcement, and the Orwellian misuse of power. The film's satire pivots on the idea that, to those in power in this futuristic city, the "perfect cop" is imagined as a being completely without human feeling or sympathies, who will blindly enforce the law without thought for the people affected. To that end, the Halliburton-like independent contractor OCP first creates an entirely robotic police bot, ED-209, but this proves unreliable due to a programming glitch. Thus, the designers settle on a kind of compromise solution, turning a fatally injured policeman (Peter Weller) into a cybernetic hybrid, his human impulses suppressed by rigid programming rules. The film is a heartfelt outcry against this tendency towards the removal of normal human reactions from governmental and police actions, and RoboCop, as the film's hero, remains sympathetic only to the extent that he resists his programming and tries to rediscover his human past. Verhoeven's direction ably balances the film's tonal shifts and many moods, allowing the film to move smoothly from taut action sequences to broad comedy to withering satire. Best of all is the climactic battle between RoboCop and ED-209, which begins with a hail of bullets and flurries of action, but soon shifts into outright comedy when Verhoeven anthropomorphizes the awkward robot, drawing humor out of its tentative attempts to walk down a staircase. When it ends up on its back, crying like a baby, it's a weirdly hilarious moment in the midst of a brutal action scene. The message is obvious: removing humanity from the equation is both dangerous and fundamentally limiting. "RoboCop" delivers this political commentary with wit and startling insight, as well as with the requisite gore and ultraviolence, making a bright, flashy film that is nevertheless not lacking in deeper substance.
"To Die For" is a brilliantly vicious satire of the media, an ahead-of-its-time look at a world in which, as Nicole Kidman's character says at the beginning of the film, you're not really anybody unless you're on TV. Kidman gives the performance of a lifetime as Suzanne Stone, a dim-witted but predatorial woman who will do literally anything to get her face on TV, and if even her earnest but low-class husband (Matt Dillon) gets in her way, she has no qualms about simply eliminating the obstacle. To this end, she enlists a trio of idiotic trailer trash high schoolers (Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck, and Alison Folland) to kill him off. This story, based on true events but spiced up with plenty of biting dialogue and vibrant details, is related in the fractured, fragmentary style of a TV documentary, with everyone Suzanne knows being interviewed and telling stories about her. Director Gus Van Sant constructs a perfect pastiche here, stitching together the full story from the accounts of a multitude of characters, some of them appearing in talk show roundtable discussions or on-camera interviews. There are many shots of characters on TV screens, especially Suzanne, who also spends much of the film directly addressing the camera against a plain white background. Kidman is phenomenal here. Even the way she moves her mouth, the tightly controlled movements of her lips, gives the impression of someone who is thinking about external appearances at every possible second. This is a harsh but hilarious dark comedy with amazing central performances and a highly original approach to the visual style, fitting for a film that so thoroughly satirizes media representations.
George Cukor was one of those classical Hollywood directors who, rather than inscribing his imprint boldly across his films, preferred to subtly burrow into the material, making his unique perspective felt most clearly in isolated scenes rather than in entire films. "Heller in Pink Tights" was his sole attempt at a Western, and it's a very unusual Western indeed, with Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn as members of a traveling theatrical troupe touring the Wild West. The film has these atypical characters stumbling into an archetypical Western tale, complete with gunmen for hire, gamblers, and saloons. But Cukor's interest, of course, is elsewhere, focused directly on the theatrical milieu that always fascinated him, and on the vivacious Loren. Cukor's touch is most evident in a wonderful scene of an Indian attack, when the Indians are distracted from the fleeing actors by the troupe's wagons, which are filled with garish costumes. The Indians abruptly abandon their chase to stage an elaborate party with these costumes and props, with feathers and shreds of cloth flying everywhere, war whoops echoing in the air, and the braves donning masks, dresses, and fancy hats in a wild game of dress-up (not to mention cross-dressing). This scene is indicative of Cukor's method in general, as he briefly diverts from the forward thrust of the plot for a detour into a moment of sexually charged fun. These moments are scattered liberally throughout the film, most notably in a scene where Loren peers through a sliding screen with a painting of a naked woman on it, so that the famous actress seems to emerge, looking sexy as ever, from within another naked body. The "real" sex symbol pokes her head out from the flat representation of a sex symbol. It's a fun and multi-layered image that represents the sexual playfulness and openness of Cukor's cinema. This isn't quite a great Western, but it's definitely a great Cukor comedy.
Bob Dylan does not actually appear in Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There" until a still photo at the very end, but his spirit, music, ideas, and artistic sensibility fill every frame of the film nonetheless. The film is not so much a Dylan biopic as a collection of associations and riffs on the "idea" of Dylan, his pop cultural resonance and the changing characters he's embodied over the years. There are six pseudo-Dylans here, six incarnations of various aspects of the chameleonic singer's personality and style. There's a rail-riding young black boy named Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin), a poet named Arthur Rimbaud (Ben Whishaw), an East Village folk singer who later becomes a born-again preacher (Christian Bale), an angry young actor who plays this folk singer in a movie (Heath Ledger), a gnomic and drugged-out 60s rock star (Cate Blanchett, doing an impeccable imitation of "Don't Look Back"-era Dylan), and finally the aging outlaw Billy the Kid (Richard Gere). These names and characters constitute a dense web of references, both to Dylan's own music and to the literature and pop culture that formed a large part of his frame of reference. The film rapidly cuts between these different characters, some of whom have stories to follow, and others who seem to simply exist in hermetic, abstract vignettes. These stories often have resonance with Dylan's life and biographical details, but they could hardly be said to trace his life exactly. It's more like an elaborate code for Dylan fanatics, one which at times would probably seem opaque to neophytes. But even for those who can't always follow the density and referentiality of Haynes' Dylan maze will doubtless find plenty to enjoy in the film's pastiche of visual styles, from Pennebaker to Godard to Fellini, and the glorious music on the densely layered soundtrack. There are, of course, plenty of Dylan's own songs, plus a multitude of fascinating covers and live performances, most notably Franklin's bluesy front porch jam and a stunning performance of the Basement Tapes song "Goin' to Acapulco" by Jim James with Calexico. James performs the song in the film dressed up as Desire-era Dylan with thick white makeup caked on his face, and it's a strange and moving moment indicative of the film's oddball beauty.
The critics who have dismissed Paul Verhoeven's latest masterpiece as "Schindler's List meets Showgirls" doubtless didn't realize just how apt their comparison really was, or how much of a compliment it turned out to be. Verhoeven has always been all about taking serious subjects and genres and undercutting them with his trademark satirical humor and wild sensibility. "Black Book" is no exception, and it's one of Verhoeven's absolute best. A wartime thriller set in WW2-era Holland, the film follows Rachel (Carice van Houten), a young Jewish girl whose parents are murdered by Nazis before her eyes, and who consequently flees into the underground resistance, infiltrating the Nazi high command in her country as a singer and the lover of the garrison commander Muntze (Sebastian Koch). The film is a morally complex examination of the nature of wartime culpability, as well as the processes of rehabilitation and war crimes tribunals instituted in the aftermath of the war. As is typical of Verhoeven's films, concepts of guilt and innocence are strictly relative, as are good and evil, and the film rejects moral absolutism in no uncertain terms. More importantly, Verhoeven is just as interested in fulfilling the expectations of a wartime spy thriller as he is in exploring the deeper moral issues at his story's core. The film is continually exciting, even downright exhilirating, and Verhoeven never shies away from capturing feelings of joy, lust, and celebration along with the darker elements inherent in any WW2 picture. His film at times turns into a dazzling cabaret, as in the wonderful sequence where Rachel takes the mic and croons out a torch song as the sleazy, terrifyingly sadistic German officer Franken (Waldemar Kobus) sidles up to her. Verhoeven's film is exemplary for the way it humanizes even the Nazi villains, and Muntze in particular becomes a startingly complex and at times even sympathetic figure, while the resistance is not always portrayed in a positive light. Verhoeven completely rejects the ways in which people label entire movements or groups as either good or evil, preferring the subleties of human individuality in depicting all his characters, whatever "side" they might fall on. The film is an absolute masterpiece, with an unstoppable central performance from Van Houten, who's revealed as a major star here.
David Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" is a relatively straightforward action thriller for the director better known for grotesque "body horror" and psychological dramas. The film represents, as the opening two scenes make clear, the intersection of birth and death in the milieu of Russian crime families based out of London. Right from the start, Cronenberg shows both a birth and a murder, making each of them equally gory and visceral, an appropriate equivalence since both scenes are linked to the same Russian underworld. This intertwining of mortality and new life extends even into the characters of the Russian hitman Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) and the maternity ward nurse Anna (Naomi Watts), who is pulled into Nikolai's dark world by her attempts to uncover the secrets of the baby she helps deliver at the beginning of the film. Cronenberg handles the thriller plot with verve and wit, and Mortensen gives a phenomenal performance as the hard-edged killer whose body tells the story, in tattoos and scars, of his rough past. This theme becomes most apparent in the movie's already legendary bath-house fight scene, in which a completely naked Mortensen brutally fends off a pair of attackers. This scene, with Mortensen spiritually as well as physically naked, is the culmination of the film's undercurrent of exploring identity and violence as embodied in the human form. This is a smart, economically told thriller with an intensity practically unmatched in modern action cinema. Only Cronenberg could reinvigorate the moldy genre of the mob picture with such psychological density and raw energy.
"Husbands and Wives" is undoubtedly one of Woody Allen's most assured films, a movie that deftly combines comedy and drama in a way he'd been steadily working towards for over a decade. With its distinctive handheld camera style, freeing the camera for the first time in Woody's ouevre, the film's perspective shakes and shivers around two central couples going through marital difficulties and dealing with the possibility of a breakup: Woody and then-girlfriend Mia Farrow, and Syndney Pollack and Judy Davis. The jittery, constantly moving cinematography is a perfect complement to the relationship instability of these two couples, especially in the opening scene where the latter two announce their decision to separate. Woody matches this rough camera style with a similar raggedness in the editing, employing frequent ellipses and staggered cuts in a way he hadn't with any regularity since its much more limited use in a single scene from "Stardust Memories." The film is also a kind of summation for Woody, harkening back not only to that film but to "Manhattan" (in the relationship between Woody and the much younger Juliette Lewis) and "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (the opening scene features a snippet of the documentary that Woody's character was making in the earlier movie). In every case, Woody seems to be looking back on his old characters and situations with a newfound maturity and distance, suggesting that his loser persona might someday find success, and that his lecherous old man might forsake an ill-advised affair for a chance at stability.
If ever there was a master key to the 1960s films of Jean-Luc Godard, "Pierrot le fou" is it. The film is a catalogue of Godard's obsessions and themes, both summing up his pre-1965 features and pointing the way forward to the increasingly political and didactic films he'd be making in the second half of the decade. Like even his most strident later films, "Pierrot" mixes its political dialectics and commentary with a healthy visual playfulness and sense of humor that keeps the film from becoming too weighty. On its narrative level (always the least important part of any Godard film), the film recounts the story of a washed-up former writer (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who runs off with his former lover (Anna Karina), a free spirit who's mixed up in mysterious ways with some gun-runners and revolutionaries. The film brings together Godard's two most iconic stars, casting them in a rambling road trip adventure that's a dual trip through Godard's previous films and the history of literature every bit as much as through any physical terrain. There's a commercialist satire reminiscent of the Bardot vehicle "Contempt," both in its vicious mocking of the bourgeoisie and in its seemingly random application of multi-colored filters to the image. There are a handful of makeshift musical numbers that recall Karina's turn in "A Woman Is a Woman," and a sequence of torture that directly references the themes terrorism and violence from "Le Petit Soldat." And "Pierrot" also looks forward to the theatrical elements and bright primary colors that would increasingly figure in Godard's politically motivated films after 1965. All of this makes "Pierrot" a key film for those interested in Godard's progression as an artist, but perhaps more importantly the film is simply a ton of fun to watch. With its patently fake backdrops and props and its playful sense of composition, color, and genre deconstruction, the film is the epitome of Godard's early 60s period.
Raoul Ruiz's puzzling thriller "Comedie de l'innocence" opens with an intriguing premise: the young boy Camille suddenly announces to his mother Ariane (Isabelle Huppert) that she is not his real mother, and that he would like to be taken to his true home. Ariane is not sure how to react, but she indulges the boy and takes him across town to a house he directs her to, where he embraces and is embraced by Isabella (Jeanne Balibar), who claims to be his real mother. This is a thriller set-up worthy of Hitchcock, and in its psychological dimensions and creative storytelling the film is reminiscent of Hitch in many ways. But Ruiz is also a very different director than Hitchcock, and he injects a subtle hint of surrealist humor and absurdity into the proceedings, which only makes this mystery even more unsettling. The characters seem to always be acting at some remove from human experience, especially once Ariane reluctantly invites Isabella to move in with her and her son, forming a strange trio of a son with two mothers. There are undercurrents of incest and familial strife throughout the film, and in many ways the film is a critique of modern upper-class child-rearing practices, in which responsibility and discipline are completely forsaken. The care of Camille is continually passed from one hand to the next, with his father away on business for the duration of the film and the responsibility for him passed from mother to nanny to nanny's friend, and eventually to his new usurping mother figure. Balibar and Huppert give phenomenal performances as the two women fighting a restrained battle for Camille's attention. The former is sweetly sinister with her constant smiles and lilting voice, while the latter is as cool and distant as ever. The DVD features an excellent transfer that preserves Ruiz's understated and atmospheric lighting, plus an enlightening interview with the mischievous director.
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