Spielberg here updates the acreage of the WWII silver screen A Youth Named Joe, replacing fighter pilots with firefighters. Aviatrix Pete (Dreyfuss) and dispatcher Dorinda (Hunter) are a loving couple who share a dangerous profession. Dorinda’s worst fears are confirmed when Pete dies a fiery death, but unseen to the human eye he reemerges on earth as a guiding spirit to a novice pilot (Johnson). Divested of wartime portent, this prepare is rationalised as concerning reasons of non-secular growth (the afterlife appears distinctly New Age as a leafy glade inhabited by a tranquil Audrey Hepburn). After an unpromising beginning, which conveys the couple’s tediously lofty exchanges, the film gathers force in its examination of grief and view. Pete must administer Dorinda’s burgeoning liaison with his trainee; she requisite break heavily-seated depression at her lover’s death. The nonconforming nature of the differ never lapses into absurdity, thanks in the main to grumble casting and a effective supporting display from the ever-dependable John Goodman. Spielberg’s convinced direction is uncommonly effectual in the aerial sequences, but he gets carried away in an overblown conclusion.
Life review
Life
dir. Rod Lurie
Dreamworks SKG
Fewer titles are riskier than
Life
because few titles could set up higher expectations or suggest greater things. Ted Demme?s film of that name suffers terribly from the unavoidable implications, because they draw unneeded attention to a host of the movie?s inadequacies.
Most obvious is the film?s bizarre pacing; it samples from four different periods in the shared history of Ray (Eddie Murphy) and Claude (Martin Lawrence)?their meeting, arrest and life imprisonment; their cultivation of a baseball team 10 years into their sentence; the theft of a pie 35 years into their sentence (no, seriously); and their final days in the pen, 65 years later.
The story would work as well broken into two segments, or three, or five. The steep and sudden passages of time only function as a non-humorous joke?Ray and Claude are so upset at one another that they don?t speak for the 25 years between the middle segments, and then bond over pie?and a showcase for the make-up talents of Rick Baker, who transforms the comedians into 70- and 90-year-olds. There?s no telling if any other set-up would be better, but the one the screenwriters and Demme have chosen is poor.
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Demme has shown a deft hand in the past?his
The Ref
was one of the better ensemble comedies of its time. But here, everything is such a muddle, demonstrated particularly when Ray and Claude are able to clear their names of the crime for which they were falsely imprisoned: They convince the prison superintendent, who has the power to pardon them?but he dies on the toilet moments later.
This crystallizes the movie?s problems of tone. Is it a comedy? It?s joke-filled, but only intermittently funny, and pretty heavy for the class of comedy it most resembles. Is it a drama? There?s no real growth or character development, no statement that it makes. Is it a social problems film? You?d think it would have to have some unified comment on race issues or justice system maladies, but none of these things develop from the injustices to which it subjects its protagonists?it?s practically offensive in its calculated non-offensiveness.
Which leaves?what? And then you realize: it?s a vanity piece. All of the showboating that Murphy and Lawrence do, all the stuff that?s not really funny?they?re supposed to be
acting
. Showing range. Emotions. It doesn?t work, no way no how, and as soon as you realize this, you?ll have no further use for the movie. It apparently wants to stir the soul, but it doesn?t. Demme may intend for
Life
to be an appeal to the universal, but it?s really just another comedy aiming no higher than the common denominator.
?
Sean Weitner
(
sean@flakmag.com
Posted in Uncategorized.
High Tension (2005)
The orderly old putrefied old days are burdening someone again with this thick-bit psycho flick in which 26-year-getting on in years French guide Aja, who’s obviously mis-spent his young womanhood on a unflinching diet of video nasties, delivers choke-full-on no-bull carnage scented of late-’70s/early-’80s slasher ‘classics’. A fortifying specific to much of today’s mainstream horror production, where mayhem’s played by reason of laughs for the diversion of mall-rat teens, this puts holidaying students Cécile De France and Maïwenn Le Besco at the mercy of the without a doubt, madly, scary Philippe Nahon (of ‘Seul Contre Tous’ notoriety), who breaks into the latter’s parents’ lineage in the remote French countryside, and leaves a trail of broken bodies in his wake. De France evades his perverse attentions, but her friend is instanter a hostage in the back of the killer’s van, so she gives chase without quite realising what she (or we) are in for.
With its superb sickly hued widescreen camerawork and brilliantly unsettling sound around, you could argue that Aja’s mist is rather more technically adept than the cheaply made shockers to which it’s paying tribute. The murders in the opening review are crunchingly horrible, the stalk and chase sequences which follow extremely true belongings, the effect culminating in a set-to with a chainsaw of white-knuckle ferocity, intensified by De France’s total emotional commitment to a gruelling role. And then, with utterly Gallic perversity, Aja throws in a dog-leg, staggering payment both its preposterousness and offensiveness, which undermines just about the entirety that’s gone to come. Sexual politics are certainly not its maker’s home topography, but, misgivings aside, this lives up to its real French title ‘Haute Tension’ and then some.
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Warlords (2007)
Warlords, the 2005 British television documentary based on the book by Simon Berthon and Joanna Potts, is an exciting look at the psychological “war of the mind” waged by the four great leaders of World War II: Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Adolph Hitler, and Joseph Stalin. Warlords isn’t like most other war documentaries you’ll see on The History Channel or The Military Channel. Great battles aren’t discussed and armaments aren’t detailed. Instead, the psychologies of these four leaders are examined in relation to their dealings with each other, with the resulting “mind games” largely determining the direction and outcome of the war — not troop movements or superior fire power. As well, Warlords brings out some rather startling suppositions about the various relationships between these giants of history, relationships that are usually glossed over in other documentaries as black-and-white affairs of mutual distrust or friendship.
Utilizing archival footage manipulated in newly shot live-action sequences (a reoccurring shot involves actors playing the leaders, watching archival footage of their rivals/allies on movie screens in their offices), Warlords contains no “talking heads” experts who may interrupt the flow of the narrative. Moving along more like a fast-paced movie thriller rather than the usual staid documentary, Warlords relies on a terrific spoken narration, along with an ominous musical score, to tell the story of these political leaders, and the constant parry and thrust that went into their negotiations with each other. Taking the printed words of these various warlords, along with written remembrances by top aides and other politicians, Warlords paints a far more complex picture of the nature of allies and enemies during “the good war,” World War II.
Warlords’s take is that these marriages of convenience between Hitler and Stalin, between Churchill and Roosevelt, and between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, were far more complicated than is usually assumed in the popular mythology. Fraught with paranoia, conspiracy, political jockeying, and above all, distrust, relationships like Stalin’s and Hitler’s non-aggression pact, which is ever rarely fully explained in other documentaries, is delineated by miscalculation and misreading of motives on both parties’ part, while the myth of a close, in-synch relationship between Churchill and FDR, is exposed as something far less admirable.
I’m not an expert on WWII by any means, but some of the revelations in Warlords, while not exactly new, were so convincingly applied that they took on new power and clarity when I watched the show. For example, with many of the documentaries I’ve seen on WWII, I’ve never felt that I’ve received a clear answer on how, exactly, Hitler came to form a pact with his ideological opposite Joseph Stalin. That’s not surprising when you consider that most WWII documentaries concern themselves with detailing large-scale battles and troop movements; strategy, and particularly the mindset of the leaders who made that strategy, are rarely if ever looked at in detail. Warlords makes the situation clear through a psychological analysis of the two leaders — something I’ve never seen before in a WWII documentary.
Even more fascinating was author Simon Berthon’s take (Berthon produced, wrote, and directed this documentary) on FDR’s and Churchill’s friendship. I was always under the assumption that despite the usual lesser friction caused by two countries working towards a common goal, that Churchill and FDR were of one mind on the abuses of Hitler, and of their need to work together almost right from the start of WWII to defeat him. Or at least that’s what I assumed. According to Berthon, FDR had absolutely no intention of ever coming in on the side of England against Hitler, but that his hand was forced by the Japanese’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor (and even after that, he didn’t call for war against Germany — he waited for Hitler to declare war on the U.S.). Apparently, FDR was not all that enamored with Churchill, and throughout their relationship, FDR essentially lied to him to keep him happy — while keeping the U.S. out of harm’s way against the Germans.
Even more unsettling, FDR apparently viewed Stalin’s communist land-grabs as far less odious than Churchill’s desire to keep the British Empire intact (Churchill’s desire to invade the Balkans through the Adriatic to head off Stalin was shot down by FDR, changing the face of Europe for the worse, and resulting in the deaths of millions of people at the hands of Stalin). FDR, according to Berthon, totally misread Stalin, and felt that he could control the psychotic mass-murderer with appeasement and diplomacy. History obviously has already given the verdict on that score, but it may be disturbing for American viewers, accustomed to having historical portraits of FDR that run the range from saint to near god-head, to see just how wrong he was on so many vital political and military points during WWII.
Of course, it’s also important to note that Berthon’s take is his own, supported by solid evidence, but still, a matter largely of interpretation and in some cases, supposition. Particularly when dealing with Stalin, where official records have disappeared, Berthon is making critical leaps of judgment that, I would imagine, could be argued to the contrary by other historians with other viewpoints. However, there’s no denying that Warlords is a fascinating, exciting piece of popular psychology aimed at four of the most influential leaders of the 20th century, and necessary viewing for anyone interested in WWII.
Here are the 4, 50-minute episodes of the two-disc box set, Warlords, as described on their hardcases:
DISC ONE:
Part 1: Hitler vs. Stalin, August 1939 - June 1941
As World War II begins, the two most extreme proponents of totalitarian violence sign a nonaggression pact. Less than two years later, however, the nominal allies turn on each other. The seeds of Hitler’s betrayal lie in his psyche: he foolishly believes that he has already won in Western Europe, and he begins to suspect a secret pact between Churchill and Stalin.
Part 2: Churchill vs. Roosevelt, May 1940 - April 1942
During the Battle of Britain, Roosevelt overcomes his long-held dislike of Churchill, inflating his promises of aid and boosting the prime minister’s resolve to fight on. All the while, the U.S. President pursues his own self-interested agenda — to defend his country from Hitler without losing American lives.
DISC TWO:
Part 3: Churchill vs. Stalin, June 1941 - June 1944
As the war grinds on, Stalin pushes his allies to accept the 1941 frontiers, ostensibly for the Soviet Union’s security. Churchill, however, interprets Stalin’s demands as a land grab. He urges a U.S.-British invasion from the Adriatic through the Balkans not only to attack the Nazis’ “soft underbelly,” but also to preempt Stalin’s postwar plans.
Part 4: Roosevelt vs. Stalin, July 1944 - April 1945
Despite Stalin’s ruthless duplicity in refusing to support the Polish underground’s uprising in Warsaw, Roosevelt fears Churchill’s Old World imperialist tendencies even more than he does apparent Soviet ambitions. The American president aims to moderate the Russian ruler’s harshness and seeks compromise, not confrontation, with Stalin.
The DVD:
The Video:
The full screen video image for Warlords looks fine, but I did notice some pixilation and edge enhancement issues. Nothing major, but not pristine, either.
The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English 2.0 stereo mix for Warlords is quite nice, with close-captioning available.
The Extras:
There are no extras for Warlords.
Final Thoughts:
One of the most fascinating documentaries I’ve ever seen on WWII, Warlords takes the unique approach of examining the psychological “mind games” that the four mighty warlords of WWII — FDR, Churchill, Stalin and Hitler — played on each other. Moving and playing more like a fast-paced thriller than a staid documentary, Warlords is essential viewing for anyone interested in 20th century world politics — and even if you’re not, you won’t find a more exciting history lesson than Warlords. I highly recommend it.
Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the litterateur of The Espionage Filmography.
Posted in Uncategorized.
Vajra Sky Over Tibet review
Emmanuelle Devos. Directed by Emmanuel Carrère. (In French with English
subtitles. Not rated. 86 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
It’s a broad generality to say that French filmmakers have a
particularly perverse sensibility, but it can be backed up by one import after
another. The latest, “La Moustache,” is wonderfully odd in a minimalist kind of
way. Although it seems as if very little happens, the film really makes you
think about putting all your trust in a spouse and how that leaves you open to
betrayal.
The plot, such as it is, can be summed up in a few sentences. A happily
married Parisian, Marc (Vincent Lindon), decides on a whim to shave off his
moustache. He impatiently waits for his wife, Agnes (the lovely Emmanuelle
Devos of “The Beat That My Heart Skipped”) to comment on his new look but is
met with silence. Lindon is a marvel in these early scenes, strutting around
like a peacock and never passing up a chance to study his face in a mirror.
Ultimately, he informs Agnes that the joke he assumes she’s playing on him
isn’t funny and demands to know what she thinks of him clean shaven. She calmly
informs Marc that he hasn’t had any hair over his lip for years and begins to
treat him as if he’s losing his mind, encouraging him to see a psychiatrist.
The intriguing script is by Emmanuel Carrère, who adapted it from his own
novel. A well-known writer in France, he has had several of his books made into
movies, but this is the first one he has directed. Considering that “La
Moustache” is only the second film he has made (the other was a documentary),
he has an impressive cinematic style and an intuitive sense of how much needs
to be explained and what elements are better left to an audience’s imagination.
Initially, it appears that, like Ingrid Bergman, Lindon’s character is
being gaslighted by his spouse. Agnes wakes up friends of theirs, who may be in
on the plot, to confirm her assertion that there was no moustache. When Marc
locates recent photos of himself sporting one, the pictures mysteriously
disappear. But then he begins to act so strangely, you begin to wonder if his
wife is right about him being delusional.
The most intriguing part of the film is toward the end, when Marc, in the
throes of what appears to be an anxiety attack, goes to the airport and catches
the first plane out of town. He winds up wandering aimlessly through Hong Kong.
Carrère makes effective use of the crowded ferries to heighten the sense of
Marc’s disorientation. A Philip Glass violin concerto provides the perfect edgy
accompaniment.
“La Moustache” will not be to everyone’s taste, especially because it
raises more questions than it answers. But I found it mesmerizing from
beginning to end. It’s a winner by a hair, or rather multiple hairs.
– Ruthe Stein
‘Haven’
Drama. With Bill Paxton, Orlando
Bloom, Zoe Saldana and Agnes Bruckner. Directed by Frank E. Flowers. (R. 115
minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
Since its premiere two years ago at the Toronto Film Festival, “Haven”
has languished on a shelf, which was probably a good place for it, after all.
It’s a muddled, disjointed and fairly undramatic film about romantic and
financial tawdriness taking place on the Cayman Islands. What’s more, there’s
little sense of location, a surprise as this was written and directed by a
Cayman Islands native.
Perhaps director Frank E. Flowers just knows the place too well, but
audiences come away with no conception of the island’s layout, the diversity of
location, the kinds of people who live there or the kinds of problems they
might have. Nor does Flowers come up with a way to generate much interest in
these things. His scenes of Miami look no different than his Cayman Island
scenes.
This is especially a problem because the film, as the title implies, is
intended as the portrait of a place — to tantalize an audience with the
exotic, then, delving deeper, to show the kinds of things that could only
happen there. That’s why the plot doesn’t follow one character or even one
story, but, like “Crash,” follows a whole ensemble, juggling time in the hope
of arriving at some truth — an elusive truth that can only be discerned
through the juxtaposition of disparate elements. In “Haven,” however, there’s
no truth to be had, just a juggling act, and every ball makes a big, loud thud.
The story follows two main trajectories. There’s Bill Paxton, a rich
American with his money tied up in illegal island stuff: Sounds vague, right?
With the feds on his tail, he grabs his 18-year-old daughter (Agnes Bruckner)
and escapes to the Caymans, where he plots his next move. At this point, the
movie shifts. Next we know we’re being shown the story of Shy (Orlando Bloom),
a young boat worker in love with Andrea (Zoe Saldana), a beautiful girl whose
brother hates him. How much does he hate him? He probably even hated him in
“Lord of the Rings.” It’s that bad.
With people talking down Bloom as callow and bland, “Haven” is all Bloom
needs, a ghost of his callow past. He’s better now, but here he plays a
romantic kid, and he’s not very interesting. Sulking is never interesting. The
Shy and Andrea story goes on for at least 45 minutes before linking back up
with the other story, and by then, “Haven” is lost. But Flowers isn’t through
playing with time. After moving forward and then back, he starts mixing time up
within the two storylines, as though the audience were riveted and dying to
keep up.
This serves no purpose, high or base. It’s just horsing around that comes
to nothing. No, it’s worse. It’s horsing around designed to disguise nothing as
something.
– Advisory: This film contains violence, strong violence, drug use and
simulated sex.
– Mick LaSalle
‘Vajra Sky Over Tibet’
Documentary. Written, directed and
photographed by John Bush. (Not rated. 87 minutes. At the Bay Area theaters.)
Director John Bush made this compelling documentary as an
introduction to the culture and practice of Vajrayana Buddhism and as a protest
against China’s repressive treatment of Tibet. Bush shot the picture without
permission from the Chinese government and informs us early on that he’s
omitted footage of interviews with Tibetans to protect them from retaliation.
A longtime practicing Buddhist, the director is deeply sympathetic to his
subject and to Tibet’s plight under occupation. Accompanied by a soundtrack of
meditative music — much of it from Tibetan singer Dadon Dawadolma — Bush
depicts the activities of monks, nuns and pilgrims, and visits the city of
Lhasa, the Pelkor Chode monastery and other incredible sites. There’s footage
of the faithful spinning prayer wheels and circumambulating temples.
Yet we’re never far away from an anecdote with tragic overtones. The
Ganden Monastery, we learn, was forcibly emptied by the communists and later
largely destroyed. (Some monks have recently begun to return and rebuild, and
the monastery now houses about 400, who are kept under close watch.)
China’s rough handling of Tibet may have reached its low point during the
Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards rampaged through the country and
desecrated temples. By the ’80s, the Chinese apparently felt that they had
things sufficiently under control to begin restoring some of Tibet’s religious
buildings on the grounds that they are “Chinese” national treasures.
The film also recounts the unhappy story of the 10th Panchen Lama, a key
figure in Tibet who is second only in importance to the Dalai Lama. An exile,
this revered figure died suddenly during a rare visit to his homeland and some
Tibetans believe he was killed.
Throughout, Bush also tries to convey the spirit of Vajrayana, its
emphasis on the impermanence of earthly things and its cultivation of the
values of peace, compassion and piety. The film builds to a remarkable sequence
depicting pilgrims at a giant Buddha tapestry on a mountainside.
Besides directing, Bush also wrote and photographed the picture and is one
of the narrators (along with Dawadolma and Tenzin Choegyal, the Dalai Lama’s
nephew.) There’s an Impressionistic feeling to all this, and sometimes it plays
like a travelogue — Bush is trying to do an awful lot at once. But the
material is so compelling that we keep watching.
– Walter Addiego
‘Red Doors’
Comedy drama. With Jacqueline Kim,
Elaine Kao, Tzi Ma. Written and directed by Georgia Lee. (R. 94 minutes. At
the Clay.)
Georgia Lee’s “Red Doors” is the latest in a series of films that have
explored the first-generation Chinese experience in North America, and although
by now the formula has become all-too apparent, she has created a gentle,
pleasant film about people you genuinely like.
The Wong family has a crisis at the top; patriarch Ed (Tzi Ma of “Rush
Hour”) has a habit of attempting suicide. Much of his despondency is tied to
his three daughters, who were so cute and innocent as youngsters (Ed constantly
watches old videos of his tykes in the throes of dance, ice skating or other
such lessons) but so troubling and hard to understand as adults.
Samantha (Jacqueline Kim of “Charlotte Sometimes”) is a businesswoman who
begins to question her engagement to the perfect rich handsome young man (Jayce
Bartok, sort of a youngish Gerard Depardieu) when she encounters an old flame,
a sensitive musician (Rossif Sutherland, who has that Mark
Ruffalo-”You-Can-Count-on-Me” thing going).
Julie (Elaine Kao) is a medical student who tutors a famous actress (Mia
Riverton) for a part and experiences her first lesbian longings. Katie (Kathy
Shao-Lin Lee) is in high school but might be the most well adjusted of all,
despite a strange relationship with a classmate: They consummate their
attraction through increasingly violent pranks.
Only the mother, May-Li (Freda Foh Shen) seems to be centered, but she is
powerless, unable to help her family with any of their problems. When Ed moves
into a monastery, the family begins to crumble.
“Red Doors” isn’t as sharply written as “Saving Face,” nor as visionary as
the wonderful (and, sadly, unreleased) Sundance hit “Eve and the Fire Horse.”
But Lee achieves an admirable honesty that gets through (the old videos are, in
fact, the director’s own). Charmingly, she wears her heart on her sleeve.
The Chinese say red doors bring good luck, fortune and harmony to a
household. While it seems the Wong family, as well as Lee, are left to make
their own luck, you get the feeling they’ll do just fine.
Note: Writer-director Georgia Lee and star Tzi Ma will be in attendance at
this weekend’s showings at the Clay.
– Advisory: Mild sexual situations, mild prank violence.
– G. Allen Johnson
‘Feast’
Horror. With Navi Rawat, Krista
Allen, Balthazar Getty and Clu Gulager. Directed by John Gulager. (R. 95
minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
“Feast” isn’t a straight-to-video horror movie, but that’s only
a technicality. The third “Project Greenlight” film premieres late tonight and
Saturday, with midnight showings at several Bay Area theaters, before the DVD
is released Oct. 17.
Even if you like to stay up that late, there are better things to do with
your time. While the reality television series that chronicled the making of
this low-budget horror film last year was extremely entertaining, the piece of
cinema that resulted is kind of a bore.
“Feast” will mostly be interesting to fans of the “Project Greenlight”
television show, who followed the trying experience of schlubby-yet-talented
director John Gulager, who won the contest to helm the film. Gulager appeared
to be hopeless in the beginning, but the series suggested that he pulled off a
great film in the end.
Except he didn’t. “Feast” features a group of bar patrons in the middle of
nowhere fighting off a family of monsters. There are bits of subverse humor
from the writers (Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, also “Project Greenlight”
winners) and bits of artsy filmmaking from Gulager, but the two styles seem to
be fighting each other. The razor-thin budget also becomes a liability. Even
though there are 12 executive producers on the project (including Matt Damon,
Ben Affleck and the Sacramento Kings-owning Malouf brothers), the script was
ultimately too ambitious for its less than $5 million budget.
Veteran actors Eileen Ryan as a barfly and Clu Gulager (John’s dad) as the
bartender add some class to the proceedings, but most of the actors are pretty
bad. “The O.C.” actress Navi Rawat is particularly useless, which vindicates
the director. “Project Greenlight” fans will remember that he didn’t want her
in the role.
– Advisory: This film contains violence, sex, gore, profanity and a scene
that officially makes 2006 the Year of the Eye Gouge. The detached hanging
eyeball in “Feast” is more gross than the one featured in the horror movie
“Hostel,” but not quite as gnarly as the one on HBO’s “Deadwood” a couple of
months back.
– Peter Hartlaub
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Report: Xbox 360 Final Fantasy XIII “Runs As Smooth” As PS3 FFXIII [Xbox 360]
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The biggest bombshell of the 2008 E3 gaming expo was the announcement that then PS3 exclusive Final Fantasy XIII would be released on the Xbox 360.
Final Fantasy XIII, which was released only on the PS3 last December in Japan, will be released as a multi-platform title this spring in the West. While many games these days are multi-plat, many of these titles also have a "lead" platform.
Take Bayonetta. It's available on both the PS3 and the Xbox 360, but the lead platform is the Xbox 360 — comparison here.
In the case of Final Fantasy XIII, the lead platform is the PS3 — the game was originally conceived and designed as a PS3 title. That's not good or bad, it's just the way things are. But does that mean Xbox 360 users will be getting an inferior version?
Not necessarily so, says game site 1Up. The site was able to check out the Xbox 360 Final Fantasy XIII demo and had this to say:
It was…a pleasant surprise when I discovered FFXIII runs just as smoothly on 360 as it does on PS3. It's a brisk, action-packed RPG with tons happening on the screen at any given time (and the series' requisite flashy visuals cranked up to full throttle), yet I didn't see a hint of slowdown or choppiness or screen tearing or any of the other visual hiccups that serve as hallmarks of a sloppy port. Admittedly, I didn't see the two versions running side-by-side — the bus set them apart with a looping trailer dividing the kiosks — but I honestly saw no tangible difference from my time with the PS3 version.
That disclaimer is important. Both versions were not compared running side-by-side; however, according to 1Up, there does not seem to be noticeable differences between the two versions to the naked eye. Does that mean there are differences? There could be. There just doesn't seem to be.
Smart of Square Enix not to run the machines right next to each other.
In the coming weeks and months, stay tuned he inevitable side-by-side comparison.
1UP's RPG Blog : Final Fantasy XIII Goes Cross-Platform, with Aplomb [1Up]
Send an email to the author of this post at bashcraft@kotaku.com.
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About a group of travelling pl…
About a group of travelling players and their adventures on the road, this is designed as a fairytale with social asides. It wears its Brazilian charm heavily on its sleeve, but its image of social changes is so resolutely apolitical - and its tale so commercially upbeat - that inexorably it leaves only the impression of a series of fraternal and not very on the qui vive postcards.
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Posted in Uncategorized.
Someone Else’s America (1995)
The big charms of this modest, slightly disheveled film by Belgrade-born
director Goran Paskaljevic (“Tango Argentino”) are Tom Conti, whose dreamy
smile keeps the tone wistful, and Miki Manojlovic, an actor from the former
Yugoslavia, whose eyes have a heartrending basset-
hound sadness.
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Conti plays an impish, romantic Spaniard named Alonso, who runs a dingy
Brooklyn bar called the Paradiso. It doesn’t have many customers, but it
makes a comfy — though somewhat squalid — home for him and his blind
mother (Maria Casares), who is obsessed with dreams of returning to her
native village in Spain. She longs for rocks, earth and goats.
WORKING NIGHT AND DAY
Alonso’s dour best buddy, Bayo (Manojlovic), is from Montenegro. Lacking
a green card, he does janitorial work at the cafe at night in exchange for a
shabby room, and labors during the day on a toxic-waste collection crew.
The film is slow to develop what eventually becomes a soulful story
focused primarily on Bayo, whose wife has deserted his family in Montenegro.
He tries to learn English and save
enough money to bring his mother and three children to America.
He has written letters and sent money to his family but, unknown to him, neither has reached Montenegro. He worries constantly about his young daughter, Savka (Andjela Stojkovic) — who stopped sleeping after she thought her father stopped writing — and about his youngest son,
Pepo (Lazar Kalmic), a sweet-natured boy who’s always playing a little
accordion. The oldest son, Luka (Sergej Trifunovic), is arrogant and a bit
of a bum.
WARMTH AND HUMOR
Paskaljevic isn’t always sure whether he wants his film to be a
laugh-out-loud comedy, but some of the interchanges between Bayo and Alfonso
are warmly humorous, even if they come across as stagy.
What is lacking is a glimpse at the teeming atmosphere of
Brooklyn; “Someone Else’s America,” shot largely indoors, feels a little
claustrophobic. This suits the theme fairly well — immigrants don’t exactly
have keys to the city — but wears on the viewer.
The story takes a bitter turn when Bayo’s mother decides to immigrate via
Mexico because she hasn’t heard from him for so long and is desperate for
his financial and emotional support.
When she and the children attempt to cross the Rio Grande, a devastating
incident turns an otherwise dreamy film into one that is disturbing and
poignant.
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Final Destination is a very c…
Final Destination is a vastly complex cinema. It deals with deep, relevant, significant, existential issues. This is a large screen that any intelligent member of the human get a move on should be required to see and discuss. Well, ok, no it isn’t. What it is is an above-average teen thriller with a great premise and some of the most amazing and shocking esteemed effects I should prefer to even seen. It takes a lot to lease me to jump during a horror film, so Final Target must maintain a lot… and more.
Alex (Devon Sawa) is just boarding the plane for the treatment of his chief skip to Paris when he gets a shocking, realistic vision of the flight’s fiery demise. He freaks out and ends up getting himself, a teacher, and five other students kicked away the escape, which expeditiously explodes on take-off, exactly as Alex predicted. They count themselves lucky, but perhaps they shouldn’t feel surely so relieved. It appears that Death intended in the interest of them to die on that flight, and it is going to do anything fetich it can to make to appear up exchange for their survival, even if it means some of the ickiest on-screen deaths in cinema history. Now, something as simple and prosaic as making a cup of tea could mean a gruesomely artistic demise; and it is up to Alex to ferret out and disrupt Death’s plan.
Nervousness films are easy to originate. They put across reasonably, cost ungenerous, and don’t be lacking much in the way of star power or acting facility. All you need is a cool killer and some voiceless rap session, and you got yourself a franchise. Awe films, however, are not casual to make fountain. Studios non-standard like to regularly send to Coventry this important little fact in the hopes that video gross will put them in the black. I mean, did anyone SEE Urban Legend: Incontrovertible Cut? I have met the star of the film themselves (Jennifer Morrison, kid student at Loyola University), and I didn’t go. Why? Because it was a trashy distress film! If I wanted to see something derivative, I’d hire out a De Palma silent picture - The makers of Final Destination, on the other calligraphy control, have sidestepped all the usual problems with the horror/thriller genres to create a unique and suspenseful film that packs in the scares and leaves out the predictability. Sure, there IS the undamaged “who commitment die next” element (hmmm - this nature isn’t important. Mark he’ll be next?), but it isn’t very much of a conundrum, because it fits into the healthy “Death’s plan” element of the flicks. What works most excellently are the elaborate (and graphic) downfall scenes. I don’t want to give away any of the genuine shocks and scares in the film, but I should commend death—he is one creative dude!
One of the most invigoration aspects of the film was the acting. There is nothing I be reluctant more than bad acting in a major film. I can’t care for it in the Freddy movies, and it tends to surely get on my nerves in the Bind series. With all the millions of talented actors in the elated, I don’t see why movies continue to star morons who couldn’t exhibit a realistic emotion at their grandma’s exequies. The actors here, how on earth, are all facts, and if you consider the “plague of perpetual badness” that seems to fall a loiter over actors in this type of film, they are darn near magic. Devon Sawa plays a OK champion lead—his freak out on the flat was very believable (although I guesswork one hates to fly). Also of note was Kerr Smith, breaking the mold of his gay Jack hieroglyph on Dawson’s Creek with a “tough guy” turn. Others in the cast include such teen movie staples as Chad Donella (Off-putting Behavior) and Sean W. Scott (American Pie, Road Outing). I’m not saying that these are award caliber performances, but it was perceptive to see an actor in a antipathy film that actually knew how to deliver a line of colloquy.
Both executive James Wong and writer Glen Morgan were part of Chris Carter’s X-Files team, and their work on that show actually shines from stem to stern here. As in Carter’s series, Final Destination deals with elements of the supernatural, the unrecognized. Both are by no means in a almost identical wording: the whole happens at night, caboodle is spooky and mysterious, and music cues are used so regularly that your nerves are on edge the in one piece show/movie. The action and one of a kind effects scenes were deeply very much encouragement, and Wong showed a doom of restraint in the death scenes. While they are some of the most gruesome all the time recorded on videotape, they never feel like overkill. There aren’t buckets of blood sloshing around the screen. Into the most part, the whole kit looks bloody realistic (which probably explains why they are so intimidating!)
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All in all, Final Destination comes off far better than it should. The great concept, good actors, and temperate regulation combine to produce one of the better teen thrillers in late years. While it is true that the take loses some of its steam by the sure reel (and arguably has a impotent ending, but accuse the prove audiences—see below), whole this makes on a noble thriller. Watch it sitting next to someone you canoodle. Then they won’t mind when you jump in their lap.
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The legend of Dracula continu…
The legend of Dracula continues in this gripping, masterful 2-disc printing of cinema’s most ominous vampire, digitally remastered seeking the 75th Anniversary Printing. Relive the horror, the question, and the chicanery of the queer fish 1931 vampire masterpiece starring Bela Lugosi and directed by Tod Browning. The inspiration for hundreds of successive remakes and adaptations, this exemplary film launched the Hollywood horror genre with its eerie passion, shadowy ambience, and spine-tingling cinematography. The children of the Stygian are calling’
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