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Rumble in the Bronx (1996)

Posted by tomhellersblog, Jul 02nd, 2010

Unfortunately, they’ll see such a weak film that it’s hard to
imagine it winning him many new fans.

Chan has been the biggest star in Asia for years, and he easily
qualifies, just in terms of artistry, as one of the great figures in
contemporary film. Anything good about “Rumble in the Bronx” has directly
to do with Chan: his humor, his boyish charm, his inventive use of props,
his audacious stunts.

But “Rumble in the Bronx” — his first starring role in America
and his first Hollywood picture in more than 10 years — is an awkward
hybrid of Asian and American film techniques. It’s also an uninvolving story
that casts Chan in the role of a fish out of water and gives him little
opportunity to show his exuberant personality.

Chan plays Keung, who comes to the Bronx and works in his uncle’s grocery
store. When the uncle sells the store to a young woman, he stays on to help
the new owner, who soon has her hands full when a local gang starts
shoplifting.

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Keung makes himself conspicuous by beating up some of the shoplifters,
and from there he spends half the movie running. “Rumble” also throws in a
plot dealing with international diamond thieves, but the only important
thing here is that Chan gets to do his stuff.

To an extent he does. He takes a running jump off a roof, flies through
the air and lands on the fire escape of another building. He lets a
Hovercraft roll over him. He water skis without skis. And he does it all
himself — no stuntman.



But he’s not funny in “Rumble in the Bronx.” Maybe he can’t be; here, he’d
be not just the funny guy, but the funny Chinese guy, which is something
else.

American discomfort about racial issues puts a squeeze on the
film. Keung fights a white street gang in the Bronx, but in the real Bronx a
white street gang would have long ago moved to the suburbs. “Rumble”
throws Chan into the middle of an unrecognizable, cartoonlike version of
America, then makes him look silly by forcing him to take it all too
seriously.

“Rumble in the Bronx” was filmed in Vancouver, which makes you
wonder. If they wanted neither to film in the Bronx nor to tell a real Bronx
story, why bother
setting the story there?

Director Stanley Tong employs a device relatively common in Hong Kong
pictures. He has the actors overdub most of their dialogue, instead of
having them record it live. The effect seems glaringly artificial in an
American studio picture. The people on screen move their lips in English,
but the effect is much the same as watching a dubbed foreign film.

Perhaps the reason for the dialogue is that Chan doesn’t have the
easiest time with English. He struggles, seems tentative and gets
unintentional laughs with his ingenuous reading of such lines as, “Don’t
you know you’re the scum of society?” Chan is much better on his home turf,
as the cocky wise guy.

Let’s hope, if “Rumble in the Bronx” bombs, Chan will get
another chance to make it in America. But if he doesn’t, it will be the rest
of America’s loss. It won’t be his. And it won’t be ours.


Grass review

Posted by tomhellersblog, Jun 30th, 2010

Ron Mann’s Grass takes us through a past of marijuana laws and beliefs in 20th century America. Dawning with the prime laws at the turn of the
century, designed to exasperate prejudice against the Mexicans, the film takes us through individual administrations and law enforcement bodies as the get of beating the ’scourge’ becomes astronomical. True footage shows anti-drug campaigners such as Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, and even Elvis
Presley. One man dominates, Harry J. Anslinger, as the war against the weed becomes both his power base and source of income. Moderates such as Jimmy Carter and Immature York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia have midget contact.

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Krisana (2005)

Posted by tomhellersblog, Jun 27th, 2010

A quiet archivist in the Latvian capital of Riga investigates an superficial suicide in the piqued, black-and-white inscrutableness “Fallen.” Deceptively candid and defiantly obtuse, pic will infuriate some auds and mesmerize others. Though mannered prospects are marginal at best, pic reps a bottle choice for bold fest programmers and could pic up tube sales.

While walking home from work one night, archivist Matiss Zelcs (Egons Dombrovskis) passes a woman on a bridge. A few moments later, he hears a splash and some brief screams. He returns to investigate but finds nothing.

After Matiss summons the police, a cynical and chatty detective (Vigo Roga) arrives and lectures him on the high local suicide rate and the general bleakness of society.

Soon, however, a helpful barman (Gundars Silakaktins) produces the woman’s purse, which yields some photographs and a name: Alina (Aija Dzerve). Matiss also finds some unfinished love letters in a trash can, which eventually lead him to Alexei Mesetzkis (Nikolai Korobov), who’s in some of the photos but isn’t Alina’s husband.

Since making his first film “Fate” in 1994, Kelemen has been identified with angst-ridden German doom-and-gloom. While there are certainly elements of that in the long takes and grungy black-and-white of “Fallen” — and these are favored weapons in Kelemen’s modest arsenal — pic also respects and satisfactorily revives the time-honored film noir tradition of a loner on a Quixotic quest for a truth for which he’s entirely unprepared.

In more conventional hands pic could have become more, well, conventional. Tolerant auds may respond to the tension between the story and the style, while others will flee the theater.

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Tech credits are willfully spare, highlighted by the deft steadicam work of Kaspars Brakis and Valdis Celmins. In a unanimous jury vote, pic won the FIPRESCI prize at April Euro film fest in Lecce, Italy.


Children of the Century (2002)

Posted by tomhellersblog, Jun 25th, 2010

('Les Enfants du Siècle')

Juliette Binoche…George Sand

Benoît Magimel…Alfred de Musset

Stefano Dionisi…Dr. Pietro Pagello

Marie-France Mignal…Mme. De Musset

An Empire Pictures release of an Odeon Films presenting of a Les Films Alain Sarde/ Alexandre Films/France 2 Cinema production presented with Canal Together with. Director Diane Kurys. Producers Kurys and Sarde. Screenplay François Olivier Rousseau, Murray Move and Kurys. Cinematographer Vilko Filac. Editor Joele Van Effenterre. Music Luis Bacalov. Costumes Christian Lacroix. Production draughtsman Bernard Vezat. Art director Maxime Rebiere. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 57 minutes.

Exclusively at the


Cecchi Gori Fine Arts Theater


, 8556 Wilshire Blvd., (310) 652-1330.

To order a reprint of this article, please

click here

.

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Mine Own Executioner review

Posted by tomhellersblog, Jun 23rd, 2010
“This overlooked British psychological
drama is a gem.”

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Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Anthony Kimmins (”Come on George”/”The Captain’s Paradise”/”Smiley
Gets a Gun”) directs in a visually flat workmanlike way, except for one
marvelously stylish flashback sequence on the capture and torture of the
featured PoW. Nigel Balchin’s screenplay is adapted from his own 1945 novel.
This overlooked British psychological drama is a gem, one of the few films
at that time that didn’t bow down to the feet of psychology and still gave
us a very thrilling sophisticated psychological suspense story.

Felix Milne (Meredith) is a skilled and dedicated lay psychoanalyst,
donating his services at a London clinic for the impoverished and maintaining
his own practice. The lay practitioner, feeling inadequate because he doesn’t
have a medical degree, is persuaded by Molly Lucian (Barbara White) to
treat her handsome husband, Adam (Kieron Moore), who has mental problems
since the ex-PoW, an RAF pilot, was captured in Rangoon by the Japanese
and tortured. He escaped after a year of captivity. Adam has a lame leg,
and has shown signs of severe schizophrenia and has recently tried to strangle
his wife. Molly can’t get him to see a doctor, as he hates doctors. Thereby
she convinces the reluctant lay practitioner Felix to treat him. Felix
treats his dangerous and untrusting patient with therapy. 

In the meantime, Felix is having problems at home and feels he’s
giving all his energy to his patients and neglecting his long-suffering
wife Patricia (Dulcie Gray) and has been tempted by an attractive woman
(Christine Norden) locked into a loveless marriage, from the couple’s circle
of friends, who is coming on to him. When Felix finally induces Adam to
open up by drugging him and getting him to reveal how cowardly he behaved
as a PoW, Felix begins to realize he might be in over his head on this
case. The patient returns for the next treatment feeling relieved he told
someone about his dark secret and feeling he’s cured. But Felix has doubts
he was cured, thinking he only seems better, yet mistakenly lets him go
home untreated. That night Adam goes berserk and has visions his wife,
who he dearly loves, is the Japanese guard in the prison camp and kills
her with his Luger and then commits suicide on the ledge of a tall building.
The coroner, at the inquest, questions Felix about his role in letting
this dangerous insane man free and not turned over to someone medically
qualified so he could be institutionalized. To Felix’s rescue comes his
Harley Street clinic colleague, Dr. Garsten (John Laurie), whose opinion
that Felix acted properly exonerates him and allows him to return to his
practice.

Showing the therapist to be neither a miracle man nor a quack but
a talented professional who is fallible, the film more honestly captures
its subject than the usual Hollywood film that wishes to sensationalize
things. Kimmins directs a complicated character study and a compelling
melodrama, one that is both intelligently acted and scripted, and Kimmins
manages not to screw it up.


Children of Men review

Posted by tomhellersblog, Jun 20th, 2010

one of the unexcelled science fiction films in the existence few years.

?Children of Men?

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron

Starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Clare-Hope A****ey, Charlie Hunnam, Danny Huston and Chiwetel Ejiofor

Rated R

I?ve always preferred my art fiction to be slightly dystopian, so I more readily enjoyed Alfonso Cuaron?s ?Children of Men,? a film that paints a fairly bleak portrait of a stone’s throw from-future humankind, yet manages to find an ambiguous ray of await at the end so that you don?t leave the theater consummately depressed. Just my cup of tea.

The year is 2027 and a pain in the neck of infertility has driven the world to the brink of eradication. After all, why fight to save a better tomorrow when humans wishes be demode is just a not many decades? Clive Owen plays Theo, a depressed tippler wasting away his definitive days in London until he?s contacted by a past lover (Julianne Moore) who needs his relief smuggling a young number out of England.

It turns out that this lone woman is miraculously loaded, and it becomes Theo?s quickening mission to get this possible Eve out of England before the government or the rebel forces seize her and her child for their own partisan purposes. The film doesn?t quite manage to explain how the woman?s exodus will save open-heartedness, but allowed the anarchy at home, there?s little waver that any place would be safer into the new nurturer of the human race.

Based on the narrative by P.D. James, ?Children of Men? leaves a great deal b much of plot questions unanswered, so it?s to administrator Alfonso Cuaron?s place one’s faith that he manages to transmogrify the muddled biography into a attach-piercing action flick. Much of the haze is rapidly in a hand-held, documentary style, which adds a patina of authenticity to the story and makes for two thrillingly realistic vim sequences. Cuaron also bleaches most of the color out of the glaze, which creates a grainy overlay to a exultant accepted through its final end throes.

The bottom line is that ?Children of Men? suffers the story problems that most novels face when they?re adapted for the cinema, but thanks to a solid actresses and exceptional direction, the film emerges as one of the best information fiction films in the done few years.


Kris Lemche gives a stellar p…

Posted by tomhellersblog, Jun 18th, 2010

Kris Lemche gives a headlining portrayal (Canadian Press) as Caleb, a charming small-township entrepreneur identified to keep his woodworking shop afloat in spite of the determined idealism of his task partner and father, aging hippie draft-dodger Jim (Michael Hogan, Battlestar Galactica). When opulent American Matthew (Matt Craven, Crimson Tide) arrives, Caleb sees a turn to turn his fortunes around provided he can keep Jim distracted long enough. Juggling mounting debts, freeloading hippie houseguests, and a budding love compulsion, Caleb strikes a by stealth deal with Matthew that could set him up for good if it doesn’t destroy his entire way of life.


Trailer Park: ‘The Extra Man’ and Other Eccentrics

Posted by tomhellersblog, Jun 15th, 2010


Mould week's Trailer Deposit could contain been called "Scott Pilgrim vs. the Smashing Encounter II puppet movie," acknowledged that for awhile the poll results were neck and neck between

Scott Hajji vs. the World

and

Jackboots on Whitehall

. In the end,

Crusader

's 24%. But choose the Nazi puppets really draw elevate surpass than Michael Cera's comic post suiting? The get would mark

Jackboots

devise do better at the box office, but I discredit that will be the case.

As if model week's faggy puppet Hitler wasn't enough, this week epigram some

really

unaccustomed movie trailers come our way. One is for kids (


Rango


), a specific is not into kids (


Dogtooth


), one is

undoubtedly

not for kids (


Showgirls 2


) and one is — I'm not sure who it's appropriate for strictly (


Separado!


). And then there is


The Extremely Guy


, which isn't so much strange as quirky. Granting it seems a second on the common side, I've chosen its trailer as my pick of the week, because I love Kevin Kline being eccentric, I'm intrigued about John C. Reilly looking either homeless or loopy (or both) and, in provoke of the fit

Nanny Diaries

waste of time, I'm still beside oneself in all directions co-directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, of

American Splendor

repute.

Once again, Paul Dano is paired up with a crazy old man; this time it's Kline (his

Emperor's Club

co-star) in the elder role (instead of Brian Cox or Daniel Day-Lewis). And he's got a cute love charge, played by Katie Holmes (who co-starred with Kline in

The Ice Williwaw

).

The Very Man

, which is based on the novel by Jonathan Ames (creator of HBO's

Bored to Death

), premiered at Sundance, from which I don't recall hearing much — good or bad — nearby it. This is why films need trailers

beforehand

they fritz at festivals. Of course, I'm reliable hardly people will watch this trailer and be as excited as I am. But I'll watch, and regularly love, Kline in anything.

Bill at large the rest of this week's trailers and back up for your favorite after the jump.


5.

-

Another bizarre trailer that thinks fitting flip one’s lid b explode your forget. Described as a "psychedelic western dulcet," this way-out documentary starring Super Furry Animals' Gruff Rhys too reminds me of Alejandro Jodorowsky (I'm in agreement with
on that). It also kinda looks like a mountebank peel thrown together for

Grindhouse


8.

-

Not much documentary overlay represented this week, but here's a French film

nearly

(Teaser #2) -

It saddens me that Disney is making animated features that seem influenced by

Shrek

and

Kung Fu Panda


Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines review

Posted by tomhellersblog, Jun 14th, 2010

Starring Nick Stahl, Claire Danes, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kristianna Loken, David Andrews.

Directed by Jonathan Mostow.

A-

"Your levity is good. It relieves tension and the fear of death."

While James Cameron has been putzing around making documentaries about the Titanic and producing episodes of crappy television series, he has been replaced on the franchise that made him a name, and his absence is barely even missed.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

, directed by genre genius Jonathan Mostow, is maybe the best pure action movie since… well, since

Terminator 2

. Months of disheartening buzz around this second sequel have turned out to be for naught; at just under two hours, the fast, funny, heartstoppingly suspenseful blockbuster plays like forty-five minutes.

This, despite the fact that

T3

is more or less a rehash of its immediate predecessor. John Connor, somewhat matured and now played by Nick Stahl, is again the target of an advanced Terminator sent back through time, though the "T-X," materializing in the form of a female (Kristianna Loken), now has a list of other targets, including Kate Brewster (Claire Danes), Connor's future wife and first lieutenant in the fight against the conquering machines. Again they are rescued in the nick of time by an obsolete Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), whose program commands him to protect them at all costs.

A familiar series of desperate chase scenes and fights ensues, though the three runaways are outmatched by the far more capable killing machine chasing them. There is, however, more to the story:

T3

promises to detail the beginnings of, appropriately enough, the rise of the machines, as SkyNet, the advanced artificial intelligence built by the US government to act as a defense system, seizes control of the nation and attacks. Brewster's father (David Andrews) is a high-ranking general who is reluctant to release SkyNet into the world but is pressured to do so when a powerful virus cripples every network in the country.

There is no other way to put it: Jon Mostow is incredibly good at what he does. As an action filmmaker, he is second only to Cameron himself, and rapidly gaining at that. His instincts are just dead on, and thus there is never a false moment; the pacing is perfectly calculated, the editing keeps the action sequences completely lucid, and the movie builds suspense at a remarkable rate. There is inherent tension in seeing our heroes being chased by an implacable, indestructible villain (and inexplicably even more so when the villain is a villainess), but countless Hollywood filmmakers could have made it into glum, confused mishmash. Mostow is unpretentious, high-spirited, and singularly effective.

High-spirited? Yes, actually.

T2

had its share of cyborg jokes, but

T3

cheerfully unleashes wagonloads of them, from the way Ah-nuld obtains his "Cloooz" to his newfound knowledge of basic human psychology. Somehow, this doesn't break the tension even a little bit; we expect this from the

Terminator

franchise, and they fit nicely into the movie's lean frame. The best Ah-nuld lines of all time are definitely waiting for you here.

The ending. There will be controversy about the ending. I am fairly crazy about it. The minor plot twist is a satisfying surprise that works on an emotional level and, by not copping out of the inevitable, goes a long way to further the mythology of the franchise. The beauty of the

Terminator

backstory is that it's really a forward-story: villains and heroes keep time-traveling from the future, so there is clearly a lot of ground remaining for new films to cover.

The idea of the T-X manifesting itself as a ridiculously attractive woman isn't exactly a flash of brilliant inspiration, but it works well here, mostly because model-turned-actress Kristianna Loken has such a steely presence; she might be the creepiest hot chick I've ever seen. Nick Stahl, arguably selling out after a career filled with indie credits, fills in nicely for the generally MIA Edward Furlong, and a strangely unrecognizable Claire Danes replaces the even more MIA Linda Hamilton as the female hero.

But this is really Mostow's movie. With the awesomely tense

Breakdown

, the underrated

U-571

and now this flawlessly executed summer action extravaganza, he is carving out a name for himself as one of our leading genre film wizards. While I'd love to see him take on something more heady, he is serving a very important purpose exactly where he is, keeping these projects away from Michael Bay, Rob Cohen and other Hollywood slice 'n dice hacks.


Burnt by the Sun review

Posted by tomhellersblog, Jun 11th, 2010

Military male lead Colonel Sergei Petrovich Kotov (Nikita Mikhalkov) has enchanted provisional bid someone of his leaning and is spending a relaxing vacation with his woman Marusia’s family in the country. Rowing down a pretty river with his charming young daughter Nadya (Nadezdha Mikhalkova), he seems at finished peace with his life. Everything feels charming away from the cities, but the rule of Stalin in 1936 was fraught with paranoia and unfair practices. Looking at his acclaimed standing with the government, Kotov could not conceptualize being considered a double-crosser to his wilderness. Even as they slip down the river, however, the confidential police is mobilizing to destroy the in figure.

Burnt By the Sun received the Oscar® for Overcome Foreign Language Film in 1995 and is dedicated to “those who were burnt by the sun of revolution.” Renowned the man Nikita Mikhalkov filmed, starred, and co-wrote this emotional account, which depicts the unkind removal of a well-timed, chauvinistic man. The shooting style is jolly straightforward, but odd unnatural moments exist that seem out of place in this historical slander. A bright yellow sphere resembling a sun appears several times, and a big-hearted balloon towing a Stalin momentous provides the manifest symbolism. These items may accept felt genuine when initially created, but on the screen they distract from the inside human story.

The film begins in promising mania, with Kotov wavering the gesticulation of Russian tanks across the farmers’ wheat crops. These moments inject just the right amount of whimsy and fun while presenting his telling nature. Life becomes more ornate with the mysterious new chum of Mitya (Oleg Menshikov)—Marusia’s lost love—for unexplained reasons. She is torn between her devotion to Kotov and lingering feels in requital for the younger, handsome Mitya. Unfortunately, the pace drags considerably during this middle hour and takes far too long to into the possession of moving again. By the time his motives become clear, my overall note had diminished to a much lesser degree. Several engaging scenes do occur, including the migrant of citizens extremely concerned with a gas attack, but nothing offers any remarkable material.

Burnt By the Sun saves itself with a poignant, sad finale that is expected but still very difficult to take. Mikhalkov spends the first 90 minutes drawing us to Kotov’s humanity and love for his family. While this connection should not take this great, it still creates a purposely frustrating strain during the pattern act. Extraordinarily touching is the row-boat relationship between the real-life governor and daughter. The six-year-disintegrated Nadya virtually becomes the story’s most compelling emblem by showcasing her father’s strong personality. Mitya is obviously not important us everything, and his true motives are not exhaustively clear by the film’s end. Dragging substantially for far too lengthy, this representation is not informal viewing for most audiences. Mikhalkov’s steadfastness is laudatory, but the execution could have been improved significantly.