Kate Hudson’s sister-in-law. Or maybe that’s the other way around — maybe she celebrates being Kate Hudson’s sister-in-law by having her 34th birthday today. Or maybe by being hot. Or buying an extra consonant for her name.
I’m sorry… what were we talking about?
Journey to the End of the Night is a
gritty, passably persuasive, sin’s-underbelly crime thriller about an illegal narcotics deal gone
wrong. Two Americans living in exile, Rosso Sinatra (Scott Glenn) and his bitter
adult son Paul (Brendan Fraser), have spent the last several years carving out
a living in
running a nightclub-brothel, but the margins seem to be shrinking and each harbors
dreams of getting out of the business once and for all.
customer leaves behind a suitcase in the club that contains the means for Rosso
and Paul to change their collective fates. The potential end results make this eying
of a one-time drug deal seem lucrative. Rosso makes plans to take his beautiful
young wife, ex-prostitute Angie (Catalina Sandino Moreno, above left), to start over in a
city
together, Lazare. Paul, meanwhile, wants to escape mounting debts and an
escalating cocaine habit, as well as finally be rid of his father, whom he
despises and blames for almost all of his problems. The X-factor is his own involvement with Angie — yep, it’s
one of those types of relationships. Further
mixed up in all of this is Nigerian immigrant kitchen worker Webma (Mos Def, above right), who’s
recruited by Rosso to take the place of the original drug mule and navigate the
perilous, nocturnal gauntlet of Sao Paulo. But to whom will his allegiance ultimately
tilt?
director Eric Eason, Journey to the End
of the Night benefits from its maker’s keen eye for sweaty travelogue detail
and mood. There’s actually a pinch of the same sort of world-weariness and
Spartan intrigue on display in Frasor’s own The
Quiet American, but this movie amps things up to a considerable degree, and
Frasor’s performance is a bit too loud, comparatively speaking. I didn’t really
buy into the overly dramatic father-son stakes in the film; it’s too hazily
pitched. The movie is otherwise nicely acted, though, and cinematographer Ulrich Burtin (Red Carpet) shoots an interesting frame. While the story is a familiar one, it’s these elements that hold one’s attention.
widescreen anamorphic presentation, the disc’s transfer impressively captures
the movie’s rather dim and dank visual palette — which is in and of itself an
outwardly manifested metaphor for the dangerous, loathsome and conflicted inner
workings of its characters. A simple making-of featurette is the only DVD
supplemental extra, providing EPK-type chats with actors and a handful of the
behind-the-scenes players, like Eason and Burtin. Previews for other First Look
DVD releases round things out. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)
The popularity of YouTube and other video-sharing sites can
be credited to the idea of “audience empowered entertainment,” a somewhat new
and still not wholly formed notion, but one that’s not hard to grasp. You can watch
a clip when you want, and decide when you’ve had enough. Forget quaint old
notions of “appointment television” — this gives you the viewer control of your
own appointment calendar and vast multimedia catalogue.
figuring out both a business model and ways to try to incorporate viewers’
expectations and interests into their product. An interesting experiment in
this realm, then, comes in the form of Soup
of the Day, a free-flowing narrative show that took its lead character’s social
blogging on MySpace.com and used that to help inform his relationship decisions.
In 2006, the series attracted almost nine million online views.
the reality series Kill Reality for
E! Entertainment Television), Soup of the
Day was loosely co-scripted by Zakarin with writer-producer Rob Cesternino,
who first wedged his foot into the entertainment industry by appearing on Survivor: Amazon. The series centers
around nice guy photographer Brandon Craig (Jon Crowley, of The Jigsaw of Life), a regular guy who accidentally
stumbles into concurrent “monogamous relationships” with three very different women: tough
gal Wendy (Patty Wortham), an undercover cop; free-spirited Franki (Tina Molina),
the host of a popular Internet show called Missleblast;
and his photo editor boss Monique (Catherine Reitman, daughter of director Ivan,
and possessing his same big, sleepy eyes).
knows he must eventually choose between them, but he finds himself genuinely
enjoying the company of all three, and confused as to how to proceed.
certainly some interesting scenarios of flagellation constructed here. Honestly,
though, a lot of the rest of the acting is uneven; it’s Reitman who really
scores as the assertive Monique (she has Craig photograph her nether regions on
their first “date”), and you find yourself wishing other characters were
jettisoned entirely. The main thrill of Soup
of the Day must have been in following it serially online, and that adventure
is obviously dented here in its captured form on DVD. The main problem of this
construct, it seems to me, is that audience members might respond to a portion
of a show, but find certain characters (which is to say, bluntly, actors)
unappealing, and then lead a rebellion of sorts that — if you’re a producer hell-bent
on trying to maintain a core audience — impacts your show in largely unforeseen ways.
the nicest thing about its commercial release might be the approximately three
hours of bonus footage the double-disc DVD set offers up. Supplemental extras kick
off with a 35-minute documentary that lays out the ambitious conceit of the
show, and details its off-camera assemblage. Also included are bloopers and
deleted scenes, a filmmaker commentary audio track, cast interviews (consisting
of both in-character footage and straight, off-set material), audition clips, and
never-before-seen alternate endings. I’m not entirely sold on Soup of the Day
as is, in its current form, but there are some interesting things being done on
the Internet, and this effort certainly reflects that. C+ (Movie) A- (Disc)