Review: Mongol
June 8, 2008
Filed under: Foreign Language, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, New in Theaters
In an early scene in Iron Man, one of the evil terrorists makes a speech about Genghis Khan, explaining how impressive it was that he managed to take over so much of the world given the technological drawbacks of his time. That one moment says a lot more about the real Genghis Khan than the entire, bloated 126 minutes of Mongol. Directed by Sergei Bodrov (Prisoner of the Mountains), Mongol does a lot of “sweeping.” It moves from sweeping vistas to sweeping battles and when it stops sweeping, it really has no idea what to do; it merely waits for the next opportunity to sweep. In one scene, our hero, Temudjin (Tadanobu Asano), returns to his family after some time in captivity, and he has brought his new bride with him. Bodrov films a quiet dinner scene inside a tent, but he’s so impatient and restless over such an “ordinary” scene that the dialogue mainly consists of, “isn’t it great to have Temudjin home again?” The film can’t wait to get back outside and begin sweeping again.
Review: The Promotion
June 7, 2008
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Independent, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, New in Theaters
.jpg)
(Note: We’re re-posting our review of The Promotion from SXSW to coincide with the film’s theatrical release this weekend.)
Review: You Don’t Mess With the Zohan
June 6, 2008
Filed under: Comedy, New Releases, Sony, Theatrical Reviews
It would be one thing if You Don’t Mess With the Zohan was simply bad; after the recent string of Adam Sandler comedies like I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Click and The Longest Yard, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan continues the Sandler career path where low comedy is intended to result in high profits. Sandler’s films now seem to function mostly as a kind of philosophical experiment: How lazy, sloppy and stupid can a film be and still make money? And let’s not mince words here, or hem and haw and add caveats about a few laughs or good intentions: You Don’t Mess With the Zohan is astonishingly, impressively, depressingly bad.
Review: Dreams with Sharp Teeth
June 5, 2008
Filed under: New Releases, Theatrical Reviews
A non-fiction portrait of acclaimed, polarizing author Harlan Ellison, Dreams with Sharp Teeth doesn’t attempt to conclusively explain how its subject came to be who he’s. Avoiding a easy, chronological cause-and-effect recitation of the various noteworthy events of his life, Erik Nelson’s engaging documentary instead opts to merely present the writer in all his arrogant, combative, cantankerous glory, interspersing Ellison’s diatribes about writing, TV and religion (among many other topics) with comments from admiring friends (including Robin Williams and Neil Gaiman) and segments in which Ellison reads passages from some of his most renowned works (”‘Repent Harlequin!’ Stated the Ticktockman,” “Spider Kiss”) in front of cheesy computer-generated backgrounds. Less intent on investigating than simply depicting, it’s neither a definitive statement on his canon nor on his fantastically interesting life but, rather, an intimate portrait of a now-73-year-old artist who, as Gaiman sums up, is “partly one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century…and partly an alternately impish and furious 11-year-old boy. Or possibly 9-year-old boy. Or possibly 5-year-old boy.”
Fan Rant: Adam Sandler, Republican Actor
June 4, 2008
Filed under: Comedy, New Releases, Sony, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Exhibition, Politics, Columns
Adam Sandler’s movies haver never represented the apex of cultural awareness, but they do tend to grapple, if somewhat brashly, with the finer points of human relations. In his latest raunchfest, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, the insolent comic creates “his stupidest character ever” (as an audience member muttered five minutes into last night’s New York preview screening), but it’s also his most symbolic one: Sporting a hyperbolic flair for disco music and using hummus as toothpaste, hardened Israeli soldier Zohan is a bloated creature of Semitic extremes.
Overall, however, the movie uses metaphors more than stereotypes. When Zohan and a furious Palestinian terrorist (John Turturro) use paddles to bat a live grenade back and forth, the result is a lowbrow editorial cartoon.
Review: The Fall
June 3, 2008
Filed under: Action, Independent, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, Roadside Attractions
When Tarsem Singh’s The Cell was released in 2000, I spent most of my review talking about the way it looked, from the cinematography to the costume design. Eight years later, Tarsem (he’s just going by his first name now) has finally made his second film, and it looks like my review of it might be structured the same way.
Review: Larger, Stronger, Faster*
June 1, 2008
Filed under: Documentary, New Releases, Magnolia, Theatrical Reviews, Cinematical Indie
In 1988, sprinter Ben Johnson exploded out of the blocks and powered his way to the finish line in the 100-meter dash at the Seoul Olympic Games, easily defeating a somewhat humiliated Carl Lewis, who was heavily favored to win the race. It was a stunning TV moment, a study in contrast between the well-muscled, modestly-spoken Canadian and the brash and lean American. Within 24 hours, it was all over. Johnson tested positive for steroid use and Lewis was awarded the gold medal.
Borrowed ‘Sex’ Scenes
May 30, 2008
Since Sex and the City has screened around the world and critics have weighed in, it’s time for a tiny nitpicking — and nobody seems more up to the task than that unflagging beacon of urban gossip, Page Six. This day, the New York Post column reports that New Line Cinema and Radio City Music Hall are facing off in a blame-fest following the mistake that lead to 1,000 ticket holders getting turned away at the New York City premiere. At the close of the piece, however, the article gets into some of the details of the plot: “Those who’ve seen Sex and the City are buzzing that its story owes much to widely reported episodes involving Jonathan Tisch and Ellen Barkin,” it reads, and that’s just one of the alleged rip-offs. There’s also a supposed reference to Tisch’s canceled engagement to Jill Swid, and a “scene where Carrie freaks out about having a 347 area code seems just like one in an old Seinfeld episode.”
Not having seen the motion picture, I have the ability to only judge from afar, but this sounds like two very separate complaints. That Sex and the City would use real life incidents to inspire its metropolitan plot shouldn’t bother anyone (except the real life inspirations, of course). But borrowing from Seinfeld? Now that’s a low blow.
Another ‘Valkyrie’ Film to Challenge Cruise Film Prospects
May 28, 2008
When two movies with similar plots hit theaters around the same time, it usually just reveals the vapidity of Hollywood formula (as was the case when Deep Impact and Armageddon came out a few months apart). The situation changes, however, when the subject matter has far more thematic weight. Defamer’s S.T. VanAirsdale points out the potential conflict brewing now that The Weinstein Company has picked up U.S. theatrical, DVD and TV rights to the 2004 German film Operation Valykrie, a dramatization of the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hilter during World War II. Sound familiar? That’s because Bryan Singer’s upcoming 2009 release, Valkyrie, tells precisely the same story, with Tom Cruise in the role of would-be assassin Col. Claus Von Stauffenberg. In the German movie, the character is played by Sebastian Koch, the debonair star of The Lives of Others and Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book.
In addition to the overlapping content, VanAirsdale points out another potential conflict: Koch’s female co-star in Black Book, the alluring Carice van Houten, stars opposite Cruise in Valkyrie, creating the sort of meaty overlap that money can purchase. Harvey Weinstein’s no slouch when it comes to instigating controversy, but his company hasn’t exactly had the ideal of luck with its current daring titles (few turned out for Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?). Personal drama has impacted Cruise’s films before, but this might be the rare case where he would have nothing to do with it. Via[Cinematical]
‘Waltz with Bashir’ Goes Where it Belongs
May 28, 2008
Among the handful of titles Sony Photos Classics snatched up for American distribution at the conclusion of the Cannes Film Festival, the animated Israeli documentary Waltz with Bashir makes the most sense. While Tyson certainly has potential to modify the public perception of the country’s infamous boxer, and Lorna’s Silence has appeal for crime fans and art house aficionados alike, both movies could perform well regardless of which distributor picked them up (more or less). Bashir, on the other hand, has SPC written all over it: Relentlessly downbeat and frequently unsettling, Bashir is director Ari Folman’s account of his 1982 experience in the Israeli military during the infamous massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The animated approach sometimes has a gimmicky feel to it, but that’s probably the point; Folman’s memories are so foggy that his reconstructions of them seem plausibly unrealistic.
Bashir isn’t easy to get into, but you could say that about Thomas Pynchon, too. What we’ve here’s an animated motion picture for grown-ups, which puts it squarely in SPC’s line of expertise. The company has guided many mature animated films to audiences in a manner unparalleled by their colleagues. Last year, talented SPC co-presidents Michael Barker and Tom Bernard commandeered the releases of the outlandish anime Paprika and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, and the latter film very almost won an Oscar. Remember The Triplets of Belleville? That was them, too. These people know their stuff. Listen up, guys: I hear Bill Plympton’s new movie is quite good.
