Nikkatsu Roman Porno Trailer Collection

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

In the early 1970s, Nikkatsu, Japan’s oldest movie studio, launched a line of erotic films, known as “roman pornos,” aimed squarely at the Asian adult marketplace. In advance of Impulse Pictures’ 2011 DVD release of a couple dozen of said films, Nikkatsu Roman Porno Trailer Collection presents a taste of these Japanese sexploitation flicks.

The stylistic diversity of the offerings is readily evident in the 38 trailers assembled here, which collectively run just over an hour. While a lot of the settings, set-ups and characters seem selected from a limited grab-bag (nurses, teachers and schoolgirls figure prominently into the proceedings, unsurprisingly), the visual modes of expression seem to vary wildly — sometimes shot in an expressionistic, color-saturated fashion, and other times a grimy, realistic nature.

Tonally, the movies seem quite different as well. Some of the titles are brutish and unpleasant (Rape Across the Drenched Wasteland… really?), while others are humorous (Zoom Up: Beaver Book Girl and Painful Bliss! A Surprise Twist). Regardless, the English translations included here, under Japanese textual interstitial inserts and overlays, are sometimes questionable, or at least disconcerting at best (a rape is shrugged off with “The moment of darkness passed…”). If there is one thing that is clear, however, it’s that certain kinks and bondage fetish — as well as the rough enforcement of male will — are particularly Asian preoccupations, tied up in subjugation and the anxiety attached to any deviation from more readily fixed gender roles. Oh, and for those wondering, none of this material is hardcore, though it certainly skirts the edges.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Nikkatsu Roman Porno Trailer Collection comes to DVD presented in anamorphic widescreen, with a Japanese language 2.0 mono soundtrack and optional English subtitles. Individual trailer selection is enabled via a main menu collection of chapter stops, or one can play the entire hour-long presentation straight through. In addition to a four-page color insert with a superb overview essay by Behind the Pink Curtain author Jasper Sharp, a full-screen presentation of the half-hour, video-shot short film Ryoko’s Lesbian Flight is included, in which a pair of flight attendants lotion themselves up, and then explore each other’s bodies, only to eventually be interrupted by a guy. The hardcore action, or even any presentation of downstairs genitalia, is pixelated, however. C (Movie) B (Disc)

Tangled

Film Reviews



An appropriately commingled sense of classic sentimentality and contemporary, gender-equal romance and adventure meet in Tangled, an engaging updating of the Grimm brothers’ Rapunzel fairytale that represents Walt Disney Studios’ 50th animated feature. Amidst the backdrop of a slate of much more forcibly lively animated fare, this well-rendered throwback underscores the still existent pleasures of traditional storytelling. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Disney, PG, 100 minutes)

South of the Border

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews, Politics

Throughout much of his career, Oliver Stone amassed a well deserved reputation as a rabble-rouser and sort of cinematic contrarian. But after the massive commercial failure of 2004’s Alexander (and another DUI/drug pinch, in 2005), beginning with the politically streamlined World Trade Center and W., Stone made a concerted effort to step away from his outsized personality, to become a less public and divisive personality — to “play nice,” in essence — in order to remain relevant, plugged in and in favor with the Hollywood studio system. He didn’t quit making movies to which he had a personal attachment, but he did make sure that he stopped quite as vociferously advertising himself as a free, moving target for his frequently conservative detractors.

A terrific, easy-to-digest alternative living history to the mainstream media’s by turns atrocious and disinterested
coverage of Latin American politics, Stone’s insightful new documentary, South
of the Border, introduces North American viewers to the
Presidents of South America and their modern-day leftist revolution. It’s a smooth and personable work that could easily fit within the confines of a hard-driving, network tele-newsmag (if any truly remained), but the compelling and undeniable macro portrait that emerges is of an entire region demonized and controlled by proxy for generations by its capitalist, democracy-touting neighbor to the north.

In what is very much a sort of intellectual travelogue (the film chronicles Stone’s personal travels to South America in the winter of 2009), South of the Border tells the story of the rise to power of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (above right) and other South American presidents responsible for sweeping social and political changes in the region. Those subjects include Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and ex-President Néstor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Raúl Castro (Cuba). In a series of casual and intimate conversations interspersed with oddly touching and amusing personal moments (Chávez returns to his childhood home, and tries to ride a too-small bike; Morales gets in a bit of soccer practice with Stone, after instructing him on the proper way to chew cocoa leaves), South of the Border presents these leaders as reasonable, level-headed people with the best interests of their populaces at heart.

Understandably, the film has drawn some criticism from the United States’ considerable right-wing media and anti-Chávez factions (it doesn’t even pretend to give lip-service equal time to Chávez’s detractors, for instance), and it’s true that absent any dissenting voices it’s hard to accurately and adequately gauge Chávez’s record on human rights and freedom of the press, for instance. But Stone also sprinkles in a variety of trusted academics, journalists and other talking heads, including author Bart Jones, and the portrait that emerges is one of understandably informed slight paranoia, given both the rich history of covertly supported regime overthrow by the United States and specific actions taken by the Bush Administration in 2005.

There’s undeniably a revolution underway in South America, and South of the Border clears up many of the misconceptions of the area. The irony is that as democracy — a system we purport to value and champion everywhere — has become more robustly embraced in South America, it has elected atypical leaders of the indigenous and/or historical underclass population (including a metal worker, a soldier, a former bishop and two women), heads of state who bristle at the United States’ general triumphantist arrogance and do not feel necessarily beholden and subservient to our country in the same ways as past South American leaders.

The film’s most breathtakingly telling moment involves ex-Argentinean President Kirchner recalling President George W. Bush deriding talk of a cooperative, Marshall Plan-esque policy of trade, fiscal responsibility and stimulus as Democratic claptrap, and instead extolling the economic benefits of war, a tired and fallacious orthodoxy that has been peddled for generations, particularly if not entirely exclusively by Republican chicken hawks working in synchronous lockstep to keep feeding the gaping maws of the military-industrial complex. The movie’s big-picture takeaway, meanwhile, concerns how the International Monetary Fund has been used a mechanism of control and guinea pig experimentation, preaching state nonintervention in the face of various crippling South American economic crises — you know, exactly the sorts of policies that the United States and Europe do not pursue. The ugly, sad truth: in a global economy, the world is a scale, really, and for the United States to remain up, other countries must remain down. Those south of the border won’t do so quietly anymore, however.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, South
of the Border comes to DVD presented on a region-free disc. The disc’s ample special features consist of a clutch of deleted scenes, an extended interview segment with Chávez, a behind-the-scenes featurette, a “Changes in Venezuela” segment that serves up a look at Chávez’s various reforms and
their impact on the country’s poor, plus two South American television interviews
with Stone. All told, it’s over 90 minutes’ worth of bonus content, all of which provides further valuable context to the current geopolitical climate and its economic realities. To purchase the movie on DVD or Blu-ray, click here. Or to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)

Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields

Film Reviews

My musical tastes were and still are fairly catholic, despite having escaped the South with, ahem, a less pronounced and geographically ingrained appreciation for country music than one might suspect. Hip-hop, pop, classic rock, folk, jazz and blues, crooners in the vein of Frank Sinatra, mid-’90s college radio staples like Superchunk, Matthew Sweet and Dillon Fence, even classical music — all found welcome home on mix tapes and CDs in my music collection, long before the days of MP3 players. Still, I for some reason hadn’t heard of the Magnetic Fields — or at the very least they hadn’t purchased a permanent space in my consciousness — when a friend gave me a copy of 69 Love Songs, the group’s three-CD magnum opus, a couple years after its 1999 release.

Quickly, I was snake-bitten by the swooning, ambitious, rangy material — full of mordant humor, literate, character-rooted lyricism and at times unexpectedly chirpy, bouncy arrangements — and I read up on intellectual frontman Stephin Merritt’s talents and background, as well as his assumed dourness. Co-directed by Kerthy Fix and Gail O’Hara, the documentary Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields delves further into the veritable modern-day Cole Porter, the man behind the band who has inspired such cultish devotion amongst a small and diverse group, while also remaining virtually anonymous to the public at large.

A writer can certainly appreciate Merritt’s adroitness with sardonic prose (and many do), but his gift with a startling array of musical styles and genres is often overlooked, if only because his deep, melancholy baritone seems to coat almost everything in distancing tones, like a thick layer of bitter honey. Strange Powers purports to get to the bottom of Merritt’s “process” (he claims to write tunes while sitting in gay clubs listening to thumping disco and techno music, which he doesn’t particularly like, for six or eight hours at a time), but it’s hard to always take such revelations seriously when Merritt acknowledges a penchant for exaggeration and falsehood, or says to pianist/manager Claudia Golson at one point while working on a tune, “I’m not sure that’s going to fit with the expressionless Bresson character that I’m doing.”

Likewise, while the movie delves heartily into his relationships with both Golson, who he met during their teenage years, and his hippie mom (Merritt recalls her trying to fix a faulty radiator by rubbing a green banana on it), filmmakers Fix and O’Hara mostly steer clear of why Merritt never particularly got to know his biological father Scott Fagan, an island-influenced pop-rock troubadour. While it may not seem particularly immediately germane to the Magnetic Fields, there is certainly an interesting case to be made for both nature-nurture talent, and Merritt’s compositional songbook serving as a kind of extended response to his childhood.

Mostly, though, even though the creation of 69 Love Songs gets oddly short shrift, Strange Powers is a warm, loving look at a unique talent, and something that fans of the Magnetic Fields and neophytes alike appreciate as a peek behind the creative curtain. A diverse roster of fellow artists like Daniel Handler, Peter Gabriel, Sarah Silverman and Neil Gaiman pop up to
offer their thoughts on Merritt’s work — as do guitarist John Woo and cellist Sam Davol, Fields mates who maintain a respectful but almost strictly working relationship with their band leader — but the heart of the movie is undeniably Merritt’s friendship with Golson, who is in many ways his surrogate caretaker. Strange Powers describes the unique hold of Merritt’s music, but it also showcases how amazing artists can sometimes be sort of bad at life. A tip of the cap, then, to Golson, a warmhearted enabler. (Variance Films, unrated, 85 minutes)

Winnebago Man

Amusements, Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

Cult infamy and accidental celebrity take a turn under the microscope in
Winnebago Man, an intriguing documentary from Ben Steinbauer that takes
a look at Jack Rebney, the foulmouthed “star” of a viral sensation
that Christian Bale, in a moment of more good-natured reflection, could likely appreciate. Hired in the late 1980s to host a series of industrial videos for
Winnebago’s RV campers, Rebney repeatedly lost his temper in the
sweltering Iowa summer heat, and his crew — half out of irritation at
his antics, half out of bemusement — left the camera rolling.

The
outtakes became an underground sensation, traded around on VHS tapes,
and, starting around 1995, became a huge hit on YouTube, generating
millions of views. Quirky sayings of Rebney’s (“Would you do me a kindness?”) infiltrated mainstream pop culture in stealth fashion, popping up as dialogue of low-key homage in films like 2004’s Surviving Christmas. With Winnebago Man, Steinbauer tracks down the heretofore unexamined
Rebney living in semi-seclusion in northern California, where he
initially claims to know nothing of his strange demi-celebrity. Again
given a stage, though, Rebney soon roars to life.

The original clips are funny because in them the savvy viewer recognizes, perhaps if even just on a subliminal level, the public presentation of a very private anger (“Why don’t I say it fucking right? My mind is just a piece of shit!”). Steinbauer, though, never really seems to work up either a cogent thesis statement or tack of inquiry, and thus the film bears the marks of a serial noodler. Early, promising strands seeming to offer some greater sense of contextualization in the Internet celebrity age give way to little more than a travelogue, in which Steinbauer and a longtime friend of Rebney’s coax and cajole him into attending a special San Francisco festival screening of his clips and other video curios, despite the fact that his eyesight is failing.

Even as Steinbauer becomes closer to his subject, and tries to interject biographical details of Rebney (like his past work as a local news journalist), the essence of the man remains curiously distant. (Unlike, say, his anger at Vice President Dick Cheney and the Bush administration, which he wants to forcefully articulate.) If it’s a bit hairy and slapdash, the emergent portrait of Rebney still offers a glimpse forward at the next generation of Andy Warhol’s famous assertion regarding fame, when one person’s 15 minutes in the spotlight can now become a frozen-in-time, perpetual humiliation — either good-naturedly owned or forever an irritant.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Winnebago Man comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a 5.1 stereo surround sound audio mix. Its supplemental bonus features consist of the full, 25-minute 1989 Winnebago sales video, the movie’s theatrical trailer and a 15-minute Q&A from Winnebago Man‘s New York theatrical premiere, in which Michael Moore and Jeff Garlin appear to introduce the movie and Rebney appears afterward. A bit more material with Steinbaur, and maybe some more of his chats with the production crew from the original Winnebago video and/or talking heads looking at comparative examples of web-clip celebrity would have been nice complementary inclusions. To view the trailer and/or purchase the DVD, click here. Or if Amazon and only Amazon is totally your thing, meanwhile, click here. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)

Ocean Odyssey

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

Nature documentary Ocean Odyssey follows renowned underwater cinematographer Feodor Pitcairn as he traverses the depths of the seas to bring stunning clarity to that alien environment.

Commissioned by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the hour-long Ocean Odyssey takes viewers on an undersea journey to remote and magical places. Pitcairn, a pioneer in underwater high-definition cinematography, explores marine ecosystems of the Galápagos Islands, Raja Ampat in Indonesia, the Maldives, the Azores, Hawaii, the Caribbean, the Bahamas, the Channel Islands, British Columbia, the Gulf of Mexico, French Polynesia and Belize. Filmed in high definition, with commentary by Pitcairn and fellow cinematographer Bob Cranston, Ocean Odyssey is a stirring film. In showcasing the wide variety of life — from hammerhead sharks and otters to sea anemone and brine shrimp — and revealing some of the most amazing underwater footage ever seen, it implicitly points out some of the many great biological mysteries that remain on Earth, as well as offering insightful working reflections by two of the most prominent specialty cinematographers of today’s age.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Ocean Odyssey comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track that more than adequately handles the title’s rather straightforward aural demands. Optional English SDH subtitles are also included, as well as, nicely, a half-hour behind-the-scenes featurette that delves into the making of the movie but also shines a certain light on its makers, and what first inspired their occupational interests. To purchase the DVD, phone (800) PLAY-PBS, or simply click here. Or, if Amazon is totally and irretrievably your thing, click here. B+ (Movie) B (Disc)

Hunt to Kill

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

No, Steven Seagal does not star in this, somewhat shockingly. As he’s transitioned to a career in acting, ex-wrestler Steve Austin has tried to branch out a bit, without much success. Hunt to Kill, however, is a meat-and-potatoes ass-kicker, with all the lack of subtlety and nuance that its title implies.

The plot here finds U.S. Border Patrol agent Jim Rhodes (Austin), a divorced single dad still mourning the loss of his partner (Eric Roberts) in a meth lab shootout, going about his business, trying to corral the headstrong instincts of his spitfire, know-it-all teenage daughter Kim (Marie Avgeropoulos). When a crew of trigger-happy fugitives led by the psychotic Banks (a scruffy-faced Gil Bellows, menacingly nursing suckers and toothpicks) takes Rhodes and his daughter hostage, the rugged wilderness of Montana serves as a backdrop for beat-downs and vengeance.

Scripted by Frank Hannah and directed by Keoni Waxman (The Keeper), Hunt to Kill is a steady-as-she-goes programmer, through and through. Brows are furrowed, threats exchanged, and bones snapped, but one never feels terribly invested in the proceedings, mostly because the characterizations are so thin and the dialogue so lame. Stunt coordinator Lauro Chartrand comes up with some scenarios that help generally spotlight Austin’s rugged physicality, but Waxman doesn’t exactly set imaginations on fire with
his yawning slow-motion stagings, as well as editing that occasionally works against the artful balleticism that informs wrestling’s hand-to-hand combat.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, Hunt to Kill comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. Bonus features include a feature-length audio commentary track with Waxman
and actor Michael Eklund, as well as a short behind-the-scenes featurette with a couple cast and crew interview snippets. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) C (Disc)

Damned by Dawn (Blu-ray)

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

The feature directorial debut of Brett Anstey, Australian import Damned by Dawn represents a stab at homage to the classic Hammer Horror films of yore. It does not succeed terribly. Or, rather, it is terrible… but just not in a successful way.

Claire (Renee Willner) takes her new boyfriend Paul (Danny Alder) home to meet her family, who live on an isolated property in the country. The family reunion begins well enough, but Claire becomes increasingly uneasy with the medicated mumblings of her ailing grandmother (Dawn Klingberg), who is convinced that an evil spirit is coming for her during the night. Later that evening, the family is awoken by piercing shrieks, and Claire’s worst fears become a waking nightmare as the Screaming Banshee (Bridget Neval) and her army of undead return to unleash blood-soaked fury on them all.

Horror is especially a director’s medium, but since the story here is so simple and straightforward, execution is additionally paramount. The problem is that Damned by Dawn‘s acting, composition and editing work decidedly against any artfully elicited tension. As well as writing and directing the film, Anstey also created more than four hundred visual effects shots for the film, though the amount of digitally added fog eventually becomes absolutely risible. While some of the effects shots are technically quite accomplished, their deployment in overly affected “intense” shock cuts (along with accompanying soundtrack squeals and peals) becomes wearying quite quickly, even before the 40-second-long tea kettle scream that announces the movie’s monstrous siege.

Damned by Dawn comes to Blu-ray presented in 1080p high definition in 1.78:1 widescreen, with a DTS-HD master 5.1 audio track. In addition to separate cast and crew audio commentary tracks and the movie’s trailer, there is an extremely comprehensive 55-minute making-of featurette, which tracks the movie through inception (Anstey cites Taste the Blood of Dracula as an early inspiration), production and post-production, and is actually more interesting than the finished product. To purchase the movie’s Blu-ray or DVD via Amazon, click here. D (Movie) B+ (Disc)

Trapped in an Elevator

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

Its conceit would be a great horror movie to some (and I’m sure it will be the claustrophobic setting of some enterprising low-budget genre breakthrough, if it hasn’t already), but Trapped in an Elevator, the latest PBS Nova title to premiere on DVD, just lacks enough inherent intrigue or narrative meat on its bones to make it interesting or worthwhile to any reasonable slice of a mainstream audience.

The release’s back cover text peddles statistics as ominous-factoids-in-waiting (“Across North America, elevators move 325 million passengers every day, and most of the time people don’t give them a second thought…”), but Trapped in an Elevator is chiefly a look at the brainy, nuts-and-bolts makeover of elevator computer control panels. Writer-director Joseph Seamans attempts to paint this as potentially dangerous for our individual and collective future (entrusting our vertical movement to, gasp, technology!), and narrator John Lithgow gamely breathes concern into voiceover text. But this is all a big yawn, really. On his Comedy Central show last year, Daniel Tosh did an amusing “web redemption” segment on a guy that got trapped in an elevator for 41 hours, and that three-minute bit is more entertaining and engaging than all 56 minutes of Trapped in an Elevator.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Trapped in an Elevator comes to DVD presented in 1.33:1 full screen, with an English language stereo audio track. There are no supplemental features, or stickers of the most over-elevatored buildings in the world. To purchase the DVD, click here, or phone (800) PLAY-PBS. Or, if Amazon is totally and irreversibly your online retailer of choice, click here. C- (Movie) D (Disc)

Megamind Scrubs “Welcome to the Jungle” Lyrics

Amusements, Musings

Tangentially, one interesting thought Megamind raises is how movies like to make easy use of known pop and rock songs, but always frequently take care to work up creative bridge-to-bridge edits or other choral snippets, to get the emotive/cathartic “meat” of a tune while scrubbing any lyrics that are either potentially offensive or overwhelm/run counter to the moment being presented in the film. Megamind does this fairly liberally, since it works in two cuts of AC/DC and a healthy dose of Michael Jackson‘s “Bad,” but the moment that most stood out to me was its sound mix tweak of Guns ‘N Roses‘ “Welcome to the Jungle,” which of course has a monstrous, get-pumped opening riff. The movie dips its complementary audio track and pumps up the dialogue mix at a couple key moments, making sure characters’ lines cover the lyrics, “If you got the money, honey/We got your disease” and “I wanna watch you bleed.”

Fair Game

Film Reviews, Politics

A film never to be confused with the 1995 Cindy Crawford-Billy Baldwin actioner of the same name, director Doug Liman’s Fair Game is a riveting political thriller based on the real-life exposure of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts), whose career was destroyed when her covert identity was published as part of a politically motivated press leak after her ex-diplomat husband, Joe Wilson (Sean Penn), penned a critical op-ed outlining his conclusions about the alleged attempted sale of enriched uranium from Niger to Iraq during the drumbeat of run-up to war in that country.



There’s enough political intrigue and moving and shaking here to more or less satisfy fans of adult power-corridor drama like Michael Clayton, The International and Body of Lies. Whipsmart pacing, crackerjack dialogue and smart editing make it bristle with an entirely earned indignation; Fair Game is the sort of film Alan J. Pakula would have knocked out of the park just as resolutely as Liman were its circumstances set two decades or so ago. And the real (and important) themes under the microscope here — personal courage and steadfastness, bureaucratic cowardice and governmental betrayal — are more than just ably delineated, they’re given a searingly tangible injection of intimacy and immediacy, courtesy of all those involved in the production.

But screenwriters Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, working from two books by the film’s subjects, also tackle the human consequences of Plame’s outing with great economy and aplomb. It is greatly to its credit that the film is brutally honest about the widening chasm in the pair’s marriage as a result of differing reactive approaches — Wilson wants to hit back, and hit back hard, while Plame is reticent to do so. The performances here, in Watts and Penn’s third pairing, are swollen with angst and interpersonal turmoil, and Liman’s handheld camera style matches the swirl of chaos, both domestic and professionally, that envelops the narrative.

In its end game, the movie dips just a bit into awkward, civics lesson speechifying, but it’s a lecture, regardless of personal politics, more Americans would be wise to heed — a powerful message about the bullhorn naturally accorded to power, and the anger and betrayal the public should feel when that benefit of the doubt is willfully abused, in perfidious fashion. (Summit, PG-13, 106 minutes)

Megamind

Film Reviews

A super-villain awakens to the possibility of the virtues of decency and integrity in Megamind, a slightly manic but dependably enjoyable animated effort that assays the symbiotic nature of good and wickedness. Voluminous joke output and a winning vocal performance by Will Ferrell jointly power this peppy entry, which seems poised somewhere between familiarity and freshness, given its strong narrative similarity to this summer’s Despicable Me. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Paramount, PG, 95 minutes)

Gareth Edwards Has Russian Wingman for Next Film

Casting About, Interviews

Monsters multi-hyphenate Gareth Edwards — the swoon-inducing crush of at least two different Los Angeles publicists — has budding Russian auteur Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) as his protective wingman for his next project, Todd Gilchrist notes, over at the Wall Street Journal‘s Speakeasy blog. It’s a science-fiction film that’s being billed as “an epic human story, set in a futuristic world without humanity.” And yes, that’s a direct quote.

Armond White Strikes Again, In Jackass Jackass 3-D Review

Amusements, Irritations

Just glimpsed the Rotten Tomatoes pull quote for Armond White’s review of Jackass 3-D, in which he notes that Steve-O’s port-a-john routine “utilizes distance and trajectory in a way that recalls the great waterslide joke in Norbit (and should help rehabilitate that wonderful film’s unfair reputation).”

Goddamn, that guy just does not quit. His stunt façade is impenetrable. I didn’t click through to read the whole thing, by the way. That’s the only power I have.

Another Guest-Starring Role on First Dollar Gross

Ephemera, Musings


See me guest on Geek Week’s First Dollar Gross on Justin.TV
I returned to First Dollar Gross this week, sitting in with Damon Houx, Luke Y. Thompson and E! Online’s Peter Paras Monday afternoon to discuss the latest entry in the Saw franchise, Saw 3D, as well as the fall film season. And, oddly enough, Max von Sydow in Flash Gordon, 3-D conversions in general, and the Hellraiser series. Hey, that’s what happens when you talk… things come up.

Altitude

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

Its R rating description is hilarious (“For language and a sexual gesture”), and its dialogue and performances don’t always connect, but low-budget, sci-fi-inflected thriller Altitude is a better-than-it-needs-to-be and at times even borderline-artful entry in the direct-to-DVD sweepstakes — a movie that makes smart use of its limited means, and works, in a sort of old-school Twilight Zone fashion, to wring maximum effect out of tried and true storytelling devices rather than merely goosing CGI special effects work.

The plot centers on a group of teens on a weekend getaway (they’re headed to a Coldplay concert) aboard a small plane, and the sudden turn for the worse that sparks much bickering, consternation and screaming. Jessica Lowndes stars as rookie pilot Sara — she of the mother whose life was tragically cut short by a small-engine airplane crash — and along for the trip are her socially awkward boyfriend Bruce (Landon Liboiron), her cousin Cal (Ryan Donowho), her friend Mel (Friday the 13th‘s Julianna Guill) and Mel’s insufferably jerky boyfriend Sal (As the World Turns‘ Jake Weary, showcasing his soap opera demonstrativeness). After take-off, unexplained mechanical malfunctions send the aircraft climbing out of control, and into the heart of a strange, dark storm. Unable to land, but running out of fuel, the group tries to troubleshoot their problem and figure out what’s going on, but eventually come to realize they’re locked in battle with a sort of supernatural (and perhaps fated) force.

Altitude‘s dialogue, in its efforts to evoke panicked realism, sometimes comes off as merely ridiculous (“This doesn’t make any sense — the systems aren’t supposed to fail like this!”), and a nod to Sartre doesn’t quite ring true coming from Sara’s mouth. Still, the basic third act plot twists are interesting and for the most part well rendered, which mitigates some of the movie’s uneven acting. It certainly helps, too, that director Kaare Andrews — who actually has a background in comic book artwork and animation, in addition to some short films — tells the story with an emphasis on, well, the story. There’s green-screen work galore, given the nature of the confined setting, but his camerawork, editing and even the film’s other fairly modest special effects feed a spiraling sense of uncertainty and doom. He also deftly interweaves some integral flashback material, related to Sara’s mother’s flight. Altitude isn’t a must-see smash, but what it accomplishes certainly bodes well for its behind-the-scenes creative team.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, Altitude comes to DVD presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, divided into a dozen chapters, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio mix, and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. It’s very heartening, too, that the DVD features such a robust slate of bonus material, anchored by 50 minutes’ worth of behind-the-scenes footage that includes interviews with all the cast and crew, and charts the movie from inception (producer Ian Birkett was a film school classmate of Andrews, and his older brother Paul worked up the script) through pre-production work, shooting up in Canada, and post-production. There’s also a separate 10-minute featurette on the film’s green-screen special effects work (one gets to fully appreciate the imaginative nature of a ceiling-mounted spinning camera), a trailer, and a scrollable “concepts gallery.” To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B- (Movie) B+ (Disc)

Kylie: Rare and Unseen

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

My first exposure to Kylie Minogue came in the form of some sort of tabloid news reportage, when she was dating an American actor… David Schwimmer, I think it was, maybe, during the earliest days of Friends? I shrugged, maybe let a glance at one of her photos linger, and then moved on. Years later, I would discover, via her Fever hit “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” that Minogue spoke (sang) the refracted truth; she knows how to craft and deliver a catchy vocal performance. All of which is further confirmed by Kylie: Rare and Unseen, a new DVD title that delves into her career, which now spans more than two decades.

Though it runs only an hour, and evidences all the editorial precision of a totally-like-oh-my-god-excited teenager, Kylie: Rare and Unseen presents, in its own scattered way, a compelling snapshot of the career and offscreen life of Minogue. There’s an Australian TV interview with a 21-year-old Kylie, a collection of British small screen interviews from the late 1980s on through to today, footage from her first-ever TV appearance (on London’s 6 O’Clock Show) and much, much more, including fashion shoot and awards show footage. While some of the interstitial bits from her concerts yawningly lean too heavily on overwhelmed fans professing their undying love for Minogue, and other passing declarations of childhood inspiration (Olivia Newton-John, the Muppets) come across as indistinct soundbites to a media hungry for informational nuggets to plug into a promotional machine, there’s also a good bit of nice footage in which an on-stage Minogue fields questions from fans, and gives props to her brother and sister (who always seem to be in the audience, actually). These bits — and other frank discussion excerpts, where Minogue talks about her battle with breast cancer — give nice human shading to her otherwise glamorous celebrity. This isn’t a wildly revelatory biography, really, but it is a nice glimpse behind-the-scenes for fans, and seemingly confirmatory proof that Minogue is a hip, real-world gal.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Kylie: Rare and Unseen comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, on a region-free disc, divided into 10 static chapters of loose thematic grouping. Its audio mix, which tends to fluctuate quite a bit, is an English language Dolby digital 2.0 stereo track. There is no slate of additional bonus material. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) C- (Disc)

The Lost Tribe

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

I was hoping the phrase “Croatoa” might make an appearance carved into a tree, but no, instead, jungle-set horror-thriller The Lost Tribe is a basically just a warmed-over iteration of Predator, with Lance Henriksen, a healthy pinch of The Ruins and a bit of Neil Marshall’s The Descent thrown in for good measure.

Directed by Roel Reiné, the movie unfolds on a remote tropical island, where a cold open reveals a primeval secret that that fells a group of archeologists. Much later, a group of friends are shipwrecked on that same island — a group including young physician Anna (Emily Foxler), her boyfriend Tom (Nick Mennell), Chris (Hadley Fraser), Joe (Marc Bacher) and Alexis (Brianna Brown). (The ex-almost Mrs. Ed Burns, Maxine Bahns, also appears as Maya, for what it’s worth.) There, the guys and dolls find quite a secret waiting for them: a strong,
ravenous, and none-too-friendly tribe of humanoids. Facing off with these remnants of prehistory, this group of friends becomes
the hunted, relying on their own animal instincts to survive.

Reiné works in an efficient visual style that is compelling enough in an of-the-moment fashion. The problem is that The Lost Tribe‘s script is thin on interesting characterizations, and even thinner still on the mystery it halfheartedly attempts to attach to Henriksen’s brutal and ruthless Catholic crusader. Ergo, the (much less interesting) horrific thrill-hunt elements of the film overwhelm any sense of slow-building trepidation or mystery regarding the discovery at the movie’s core. Diehard genre fans might enjoy a twirl with this Tribe, but general audiences won’t be missing much.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Lost Tribe comes to DVD presented in a nice transfer and 2.35:1 aspect ratio, enhanced for 16×9 televisions, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English SDH subtitles. Bonus features come by way of the movie’s trailer, a 10-minute behind-the-scenes featurette and a very literal-minded audio commentary track with Fraser and producer Mohit Ramchandani. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Saw 3D

Film Reviews

The contortionist, moralizing thrill-kill theatrics of the Saw series come to a close (momentarily, at least) with Saw 3D, a gory entry that ditches some of the somberness of its predecessors. Yet again, however, the formal, almost episodic narrative adventurousness of its sprawling mythology gets drowned out by flat staging and unimaginative direction. For the full, original review from Screen International, click here. (Lionsgate, R, 90 minutes)

Amer

Film Reviews

The feature debut of Belgian co-directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, and a
movie that, quite understandably, played in heavy rotation and received warm embrace at a number
of festivals earlier this year, Amer is a woozy, deeply eroticized and entirely cinematic fever-dream, a study of entwined fear and desire.

Unfolding in near-wordless fashion, as a mondo stylish and at times brutally direct and elemental study of frayed-nerve terror, the movie assays the warping effects of a twisted childhood on a woman’s relationship with sex and love. Told in three different “movements” that correspond to the
childhood, adolescence and adulthood of its female protagonist (played by three different actresses, including Marie Bos, above), the movie is innately beguiling even when it sags a bit in its middle, compelling you to lean forward and watch, to partake of its stylistic adventurousness.

The title is the French word for “bitter,” but this provocative work is anything but. Instead, it’s lush, dangerous and darkly inviting. Most immediately, Amer is an homage to 1970s Italian giallo horror movies (Dario Argento’s Suspiria comes to mind), though re-imagined as a sort of avant-garde, French rave trance film. But hyperbolic tips of the cap to other filmmakers abound, too, from Chronos-era Guillermo del Toro and the enigmatic, dream-like logic of David Lynch to the creepiness of the aforementioned Argento, Brian De Palma, Mario Bava, and, in the movie’s concluding segment, the stalking, operatic violence of his son, Lamberto Bava.

A stylistically diverse triptych — alternating between striking widescreen compositions, strobe cuts, obstructed frames, discrete montage snapshots and nervy close-ups — Amer also benefits greatly from a smart, exacting sound design and savvy use of emphatic music cues, many lifted from original giallo soundtracks, it turns out. Both metaphorically and quite literally, Cattet and Forzani are interested in the seen versus the unseen, the surface appearance of things and what lingers underneath — and how that informs behavior, elliptically and subconsciously. Amer doesn’t resolve any of this psychological or thematic noodling on a narrative level, but on a purely aesthetic level it surely showcases a strong grip. In Los Angeles, the film plays exclusively at the Laemmle Sunset 5 this week. (Olive Films, R, 90 minutes)