27
08
2008
With a shoestring budget, little-known actors, and a tiny set, director and co-writer Vincenzo Natali has created a compelling and gripping movie that will keep you engaged from intriguing beginning to startling end. The film was funded by the Canadian Film Centre, with special effects supplied free of charge by the Toronto visual effects company C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures; it’s an eloquent argument that it doesn’t have to take millions to make an outstanding movie: it takes creativity and imagination and the willingness to take artistic risks.
Cube starts out with one of the most original and intriguing opening sequences I’ve seen in a while. The camera is looking in on a gaunt, desperate-looking man who is climbing through a strange cube-shaped room which has trapdoors in each interior face leading to more cube-rooms. Tension rises; there is something very strange and disturbing going on here…
The premise is the basic one of “strangers must cooperate in order to survive”: six characters (Nicole de Boer, Nicky Guadagni, etc) have all awakened in this strange cube with no idea why they’re there or how they can escape. The genius of Cube is that there are real surprises in store for the audience here. For one thing, our loyalties to the characters have to be questioned as the film progresses and personalities (and motivations) are revealed. The film’s events and revelations raise disturbing questions in the characters’ minds, and thus in the audience’s mind, about certain aspects of our society, and our potential complicity in situations that we would normally strenuously protest.
The acting is unfortunately one of the weaker elements of the movie, with an overall amateurish feel. I got a sense of the actors being conscious of “acting out” their roles, instead of portraying them in a natural manner.
Despite the claustrophobically contained location, the story moves along at a brisk pace. Early in the film, I briefly thought “Oh, no. Are we going to be stuck in this cube for the whole movie?” As it turned out, I forgot all about that question as the movie went on. With the story combining the internal struggles of the characters and their external struggle to escape, there were no dull moments. The various dangers that the characters encounter are presented very effectively, so that on several occasions I was practically holding my breath in anxiety for what I feared was going to happen. There are some extremely gruesome moments in the film, made all the more shocking by their sheer unexpectedness. Cube keeps the tension level humming at a high level throughout the whole film, but on a psychological level; when an act of violence occurs, it’s horrifying and shocking because the brutality occurs on a very personal and individual level where the audience relates to it personally, completely unlike the depersonalized, sanitized violence of mainstream action or horror movies.
Cube may be low-budget, but it’s not cheesy. The special effects are well done, including one at the beginning of the film that has to fall into the category of “impressive.” The effects are integrated well into the movie: they’re used when necessary in the story, not thrown in just for the sake of special effects.
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27
08
2008
The day after local girl Becky is murdered in the woods, new boy Owen (Julian Morris) arrives at Westlake Preparatory Academy, where, inducted into a secret society that meets at night to play lying games, he quickly gets to show off his talent for casual deception. As news of Becky’s demise break out, the group decides to spread plausibly specific, if entirely invented, online rumours about the characteristic orange ski mask, hunting knife and modus operandi of the killer, whom they dub “The Wolf”.
Owen’s journalism teacher Mr Walker ( Jon Bon Jovi) sees through the ruse right away, but Owen ignores his warning of possible consequences, until, that is, he receives threatening messages on his computer from someone identified as “Wolf” and the society’s members begin to disappear under highly suspicious circumstances. With Halloween fast approaching and a masked figure with a knife stalking the campus, Owen, his roommate Tom (Jared Padalecki) and love interest Dodger (Lindy Booth) are not sure who to trust, or how to get anyone to believe their story.
Although it may be smartly scripted and ingeniously plotted, Cry Wolf is unapologetically a genre flick. Anyone who has seen Scream, or any of the teen slashers it so knowingly pastiches, is unlikely to be surprised by the new film’s use of a masked killer, a Halloween setting or a net full of red herrings. Indeed, Owen and his friends explicitly base their hoax profile of the murderer on the archetypal cinematic “slasher” and gleefully compose their false internet rumours as though writing a scenario for a cliched horror movie.
Yet there are things that make Cry Wolf stand out from the competition. First, there is the labyrinthine nature of the film’s twists and turns, motivated by a chaotic nexus of subplots and character arcs, so that even if it is possible from quite early on in the picture to work out who the killer is, it is next to impossible to guess how all the different pieces fall into place. In a giallo-style mystery like this, such narrative complexity would normally be very welcome, although the sequence of expositional flashbacks required in the final scenes, just to tie everything together, makes the film end on an awkwardly didactic note.
Where Cry Wolf really comes into its own, however, is in its integration of the props of modern technology to advance the thrills. In response to those who claim that the ubiquity of cell phones makes the imperiled prey of the slasher genre seem implausible (why don’t they just call for help?), Cry Wolf presents a killer well versed in exploiting a victim’s ownership of a mobile device and who also knows that the anonymity of the ‘net can cloak identity as well as a ski mask. With its focus on web gossip, identity theft and conspiracy theory, this truly is a slasher for the information age.
As a feature debut, Cry Wolf is certainly an impressive calling card for its co-writer/director Jeff Wadlow, even if ultimately it is too derivative to qualify as something to howl about.
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27
08
2008
The talented, yet under-appreciated Mark Dacascos stars as the “Crying Freeman,” the popular assassin of manga fame in an international film directed by an upstart French filmmaker who thinks he’s John Woo and Tsui Hark in one? Either sounds like a potential genre fan’s dream or a recipe for disaster. In the case of CRYING FREEMAN you get both.
Freeman is an assassin who has been trained by a shadowy Chinese organization to protect Chinese interests. Apparently, the Japanese Yakuza is stirring up trouble and Freeman is ordered to eliminate the leading family that happens to be in Vancouver, BC. The first to die is the son and unfortunately for Emu O’Hara (Julie Condra), she witnesses the whole thing. Suffering from a severe case of boredom, she decides to patiently wait for Freeman to return and kill her off. He dons a rusty hockey mask (it is Canada after all) and takes care of the Yakuza father in dramatic gunplay fashion. Instead of killing Emu, Freeman gets “jiggy” with her and together they run off to Japan where he’s told to take on another mission.
By this point, we’re coming to understand why he’s called Crying Freeman. He sheds a tear for each of his victims because underneath, he has no desire to kill. Once a world-class potter, he was kidnapped by an old hag who chained him to a idol and did all kinds of nasty things like tattoo his body. At this point, you may not believe a word of any of this, but it’s true.
After remaining members of the Yakuza clan randomly kill off a dozen or so Chinese to get the attention of Freeman’s group, he’s sent to kill the rest of them along with his trusty partner. Then again, his partner has been ordered to kill Freeman as well once the job is done. Things don’t work out for Freeman’s partner and it’s up to the remaining members of the Sons of the Dragons to take on Freeman who just wants to go off and shape clay with his girl… or whatever.
I apologize to fans of the Crying Freeman manga for my irreverent review thus far. I hear the film is actually quite faithful to the comic book. But on its own, the story, or should I say, the script is much like director Christophe Gans’ second feature, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF (2001) in that it tries to take on too much. Style-wise, the film owes much of its look to modern Hong Kong action cinema. If you put the film in that context, a lot of the ridiculously unbelievable gunplay is quite forgivable. What is not forgivable is the all too frequent breaks in action for the story’s propagation of schlock.
Julie Condra, who has spent most of her career on the small screen is absolutely horrid. Maybe she does do the best with what Gans offers but two times nothing is still nothing. Rae Dawn Chong is another television transplant who just can’t rise above that level. Tchéky Karyo, who played a reasonably entertaining villain in KISS OF THE DRAGON opposite Jet Li sounds like he’s had his voice dubbed. Doesn’t matter though – there’s nothing of interest to lose in the translation.
Mark Dacascos is an actor I want to like. He’s an outstanding martial artist and has a fair amount of charisma. It’s just that he appears to have sold himself out in this film (not to mention some of his other films). All I can say is that it’s demeaning. Attention ladies - he spends a lot of time running about naked for little reason and we only get to see him really show off his fighting skill at the very end. Even so, Gans’ style is so heavy-handed that even this seems like a television ad for Gap jeans. I was a big fan of BROTHERHOOD OF THE WORF despite its obvious faults but back in 1995, Gans still had even more learning to do. CRYING FREEMAN has the veneer of a large-scale production that is too sincere for its own good. Fans of the manga or of overblown behemoths like THE ONE (2001) may disagree.
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27
08
2008
“Cry-Baby” is basically “Grease” without Divine inspiration, an agitated spoof of the leather-jacket genre from Baltimore’s tacky John Waters. Set right next door in 1954, it is a mock-heroic medley of doo-wop, rockabilly, white bucks and bullet bras aimed not at camp followers, but at a mainstreamier audience of adolescents and nostalgic boomers.
This time around the kid stuff is Johnny Depp. Already knighted “a face of the ’90s,” the rock star cum teen idol has got bobby-sox appeal. In the title role of “Cry-Baby” Walker — a “drape,” as Baltimore toughs were known — he falls in love with Allison Vernon-Williams, a rich “square.” Amy Locane, who costars as the fallen teen angel Allison, also glows like sixteen candles despite the stale role.
Allison is the grandchild of the headmistress of the local charm farm, a good girl who yearns to be bad in Cry-Baby’s arms. Motivated by hormones and new rock rhythms, she turns her back on her Pat Boone-ish boyfriend, Baldwin (Stephen Mailer), to become a “drapette” and Cry-Baby’s moll. Baldwin, the head “square,” leads his clique against the juvenile delinquents, who are unjustly blamed for the ensuing ruckus, and their leader is sent to reform school.
Waters, who once told inmates of Patuxent Institution, “These films I make are my crimes,” has spent time behind bars lecturing to prisoners. Maybe that’s why the best of “Cry-Baby” is in the lockup where Willem Dafoe attempts to hammer the values of the Eisenhower Age into his delinquent charges. And there’s jailhouse rock, enthusiastically performed by the zebra-suited chorus with the sulky Depp and the sultry Locane passionately lip-syncing their tunes.
Not so much a lampoon as a celebration of cliches, “Cry-Baby” has less to say about adolescence and learning to be one’s own person than 1988’s “Hairspray.” And some of his notions — racial harmony among the blacks and rednecks of the period, for instance — seem especially thin coming from the maker of “Pink Flamingos.” While this is a common conceit among the makers of nerd vengeance comedies, surely Waters is capable of something a tad more original.
Basically the filmmaker reminds us of his affection for social misfits, but without much conviction. He’s simply too hip to commit himself to his beliefs, and a relentless frivolity prevails. Still “Cry-Baby” is not without its spit-curled charms, its amusing lines and its funky famous-name cameos. Patty Hearst, Troy Donahue and Polly Bergen are among the has-beens featured. Like them, “Cry-Baby” wants to be so out, it’s in. But even that’s out these days.
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27
08
2008
In a modern day retelling of the French play Les Liaisons Dangereuses aka Dangerous Liasons, Screenwriter/Director Roger Kumble reminds me of why classic pieces of writing are poorly modernized (see William Shakespeare’s Romeo+Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes and Great Expectations with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneyth Paltrow). I Know What You Did Last Summer and 54 star Phillippe plays his normal hormone-crazed character. The only difference is that in this film he is a supposed genius despite the fact that he lacks the thinking skills to successfully enunciate sentences. He is playing the part of Sebastian Valmont, the John Malkovich role in DL. Sebastian is a wealthy Manhattan socialite that spends his spare time grabbing girls to suit his sexual needs for the moment. Enter his wicked step-sister, a vamp straight from the Glenn Close portrayal in DL. Sarah Michelle Gellar whose previous works have included the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Scream 2, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Simply Irresistible turns out well cast for the role, especially masked behind dyed black hair. Her Kathryn is both appealing and unappealing at the same time. She also gets kudos along with Selma Blaire for well pulling of a lesbian kiss scene without turning it into the normal Hollywood formula treatment.
The story follows Sebastian’s bet with Kathryn that he cannot get Annette, a young girl from Kansas that wrote a report for Seventeen Magazine about waiting for marriage. Played by the voluptuous Reese Witherspoon, Annette has a certain allure to her that makes her “manifesto” a little hard to swallow. Anyway, as formula goes, Sebastian actually falls in love with Annette despite the attempts by Kathryn to stop this from happening.
The film does put forth a better attempt than the down-right awful Romeo+Juliet, but all in all it lacks the potential to be sexy that it’s previews so tauted it to be. As master film critic Lisa Shwartzbaum put “Showing less skin than an average Lever 2000 soap commercial and making less orgasmic noise than promos for Clairol shampoos, these teenthrobs are merely playing at being studs and vamps.” And unfortunately that is the truth. Like the so-called “steamy-hot” Female Perversions and Wild Things, Cruel Intentions is the antithesis to what we might make if we wanted to be sexy filmmakers but did not want a R rating. In fact the films rating is completely based on it’s language. It had potential, especially after the kiss between Blair and Gellar but never makes up for what it acts like it was setting out to do.
On an ending note, the cast does give a good try at it (except for the never quite on the mark Phillippe) and Kumble makes some good directorial attempts but the screenplay bogs down a film that most would say needed no screenplay at all.
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26
08
2008
The Crow is a gothic nightmare. With a view of Detroit that is every bit as bleak and dazzling as the urban panoramas presented in Batman and Blade Runner, this film makes it clear from the outset that wherever its flaws may lie, they will not be in the realm of visual presentation. Indeed, not only is The Crow a feast for the eyes, but it collides violently with another sense, utilizing a high decibel soundtrack to keep the energy level up.
There can be few in the audience upon whom the tragic irony of this picture will be lost. Lead actor Brandon Lee met his death in the final days of filming, killed as the result of a gun accident while acting the part of a man who returns from the dead to avenge his murder and that of his girlfriend (the film is dedicated to Lee and his fiancee, Eliza Hutton). It is a case of “art imitating death”, and that specter will always hang over The Crow. Fortunately, however, the vision of director Alex Proyas lifts this film above its sad history.
Lee plays murdered rock star Eric Draven, who returns from the grave one year following his Devil’s Night slaughter. His task is simple and bloody — avenge his death and that of his beloved Shelly by taking out each of the four killers. This he proceeds to do, with each murder becoming progressively more grizzly. Along the way, he teams up with a friendly cop (Ernie Hudson) who sympathizes with his goals.
The Crow allows no room for the viewer to take a breath, as it blazes with breakneck speed from scene to scene. Proyas displays a similar talent to that of John McTiernan and James Cameron in the way he packages the action scenes. This motion picture moves, and that makes up for a number of character and plot deficiencies. Admittedly, the appeal of The Crow is entirely visceral. There’s nothing intellectual about frying eyeballs and impaled bodies. No matter how stylish the direction and how captivating the action scenes, it’s hard to see this film as much more than a highly-accomplished entry into the “revenge picture” genre.
The decision to tell the story, at least in part, from the perspective of young Sarah (Rochelle Davis) is an effective choice. By utilizing her point-of-view, The Crow attains an emotional level that it would not otherwise have reached. This is one of the few occasions when a voiceover works to advance, rather than hinder, the story. Most of the comic relief is provided by Angel David’s Shank, but this character grows wearisome quickly, and lingers for a few too many scenes. Conversely, we probably don’t see enough flashbacks of Eric and Shelly together in happier times.
Over the past few years, the flow of action movies has slowed, but that hasn’t meant an overall increase in quality. The Crow is rare exception — something that stands out because it’s different and exciting. As a project that the director and producer finished in memory of their young star, this film is a fitting epitaph.
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26
08
2008
“Crossroads” borrows so freely and is a reminder of so many other movies that it’s a little startling, at the end, to realize how effective the movie is and how original it manages to feel despite all the plunderings. The movie stars Ralph Macchio as a bright teenager who studied classical guitar at Julliard and worships as his heroes the great old blues musicians of the 1930s and 1940s. One day he tracks down a survivor of that era, a harmonica player named Willie Brown (Joe Seneca), in a nursing home. Macchio helps him escape, and they hit the road, hoboing their way down South to a crossroads where Seneca once made a deal with the devil.
With the devil? You bet. “Crossroads” is a cheerful cross between a slice of life and a supernatural fable. And at the end, it’s up to the kid to pick up his guitar and outplay the devil’s man, to save Seneca’s soul. This story is a combination of no less than two reliable genres.
It borrows, obviously, from Macchio’s 1984 movie, “The Karate Kid,” which also was the story of a young man’s apprenticeship with an older master. It also borrows from the countless movies in which everything depends on who wins the big fight, match, game or duel in the last scene. The notion of the showdown with the devil may have been suggested by the country song “Devil Went Down to Georgia.” And yet the remarkable thing is how fresh all this material seems, and how entertaining it is. Just when I’m ready to despair of a movie coming up with a fresh plot, a movie like “Crossroads” comes along to remind me that acting, writing and direction can redeem any plot and make any story new. The foundation for “Crossroads” is the relationship between the boy and the old man, and here we have two performances that are well-suited to one another.
Macchio, again as in “The Karate Kid,” has an unstudied, natural charm. A lot of young actors seem to take themselves seriously, but not many have Macchio’s gift of seeming to take other things seriously. We really believe, in this movie, that he is a fanatic about the blues, and has read all the books and listened to all the records.
Seneca does a terrific job as a rock-solid, conniving, no-nonsense old man who doesn’t take this kid seriously at first, and uses him as a way to get out of the nursing home and back down South to the crossroads, where he has a long-standing rendezvous. The kid knows that Willie was a partner of the legendary blues musician Robert Johnson and he makes a deal with the old man. He’ll help him return to that crossroads if the old man will teach him a lost Johnson song.
Along the way, the two men pick up a third partner, a tough young runaway named Frances (Jami Gertz), and there is a brief, sweet romance between the two young people before she leaves one morning, perhaps because it is better for the old man and the young one to move on to their mutual destiny. Gertz is a newcomer; this is her second major movie this year, after a somewhat thankless role in “Quicksilver,” in which she worked for a bicycle messenger service. She’s just right for this movie, with the toughness required by the character, and yet with the tenderness and the romantic notes that remind us that this is really a myth. Another good performance in the movie is by Joe Morton, who played “The Brother from Another Planet,” and this time is the devil’s assistant, sinister and ingratiating.
The film was directed by Walter Hill, who specializes in myths, in movie characters who seem to represent something greater than themselves. Detailed character studies are not his strong point; he makes movies such as “The Warriors,” “48 HRS” and “Streets of Fire,” in which the characters seem made out of the stuff of legend. In “48 HRS,” though, he also found the human qualities in the Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy characters, and he does that again this time, making Seneca and Macchio so individual, so particular, that we aren’t always thinking that this movie is really about an old man and a boy and the devil.
A word about the music. Ry Cooder did most of the soundtrack, drawing from many blues sources, and the movie is wonderful to listen to: confident and sly and not all tricked up for Hollywood. The closing scene, the dueling guitars, presents a challenge that perhaps no film composer could quite solve (what’s the right approach to music as a weapon?), but somehow Cooder actually does pull off the final showdown.
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