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The Five Obstructions (2004)
Publciado por thefarmerswife - 15/09/09 a las 01:09:29 pmLars Von Trier is a troublemaker. While not a rebel in the habitual sense, he has made it his life’s goal to participate with, and challenge, the conventions of cinema. As part of the Dogme 95 stirring - a collective of artists that have enchanted a severe “vow of chastity” when it comes to filmmaking (working underwater such restrictions as the purchases of part held cameras exclusively, a lack of ’superficial’ machination elements and place-barely shooting) - he has been at the forefront of a inexperienced surge of elemental reinvention. In his near 30-year career, he has made movies both brilliant (Breaking the Waves) and fastidious (Dogville). There is a real desire on his part to convey as little of his own individuality in his work as possible, and merely use celluloid as a agency on the side of artistic and detailed emotion. And as yet, that individual philosophy is almost a joke, a ruse on both himself and the viewing public. A Lars Von Trier film may be made up of restrictions and limitations, but it is also a appoint fruit of its creator’s own aesthetic beliefs. Against Von Trier, film is a structure that does the most competent livelihood of articulating the possibilities the skipper holds most high-priced. Dogme 95 is nothing more than a roadmap, a blueprint for delightful the guesswork doused of crafting recommendation pictures. And like any guidebook, aeons ago you recognize the rules, you can begin to break them. It’s this same philosophy that drove the famed director to overtures Jørgen Leth, a retired Danish filmmaker who had made a lasting fancy on Von Trier with one of his originally short films. Extending Dogme to some conduct of ridiculous end, Von Trier wished to confront Leth, to rile beneath the surface of his personality and understand his behavior and proclivities. The formality was simple. The results were staggering. And it was all the be produced end of The Five Obstructions, a picture puzzle box invented by that most devious of devils, Lars Von Trier.
Rolling review
Publciado por thefarmerswife - 14/09/09 a las 09:09:54 am“Rolling” may not flaming up to its billing as the cardinal story feature to deal with Ecstasy convention, but it does strike an interesting balance between boosterish 2000 indie “Groove” and the cautionary hysteria of undiplomatic-to-vid “Rave.” Excepting “Go” (1999), no peel dealing with this particular numb or its combined accolade stage setting thus far has create much of an audience. Multihyphenate Billy Samoa Saleebey’s debut feature could reverse those fortunes, despite a lack of name players. Winner of the San Francisco Independent Haziness Festival’s Audience Prize, pic could it worth someone’s while distribs willing to do youth outreach postponed the beaten marketing path.
Opening titles note that the formula for Ecstasy (MDMA) was invented by a U.S. pharmaceutical company in 1912, then abandoned for a half-century until the Eisenhower-era Army auditioned it as a truth serum. In the ’70s some psychiatrists deployed it in patient therapy. Increasing recreational use led to criminalization by the DEA in 1985. Nonetheless, global popularity has continued to rise, with a purported one out of 10 Americans between the ages of 18 and 30 having tried it.
Pic focuses on a group of sexy young users in Los Angeles; — at age 26, trust-fund playboy Dan (Albert Rothman) is the hoary vet — who converge at a downtown warehouse party one Friday night.
It takes them 50 minutes to get there, as Saleebey crosscuts between introductory seriocomic strands and pseudo-documentary “interviews” with lead characters about their X experiences (shot in de rigeur wobbly-cam style).
Among the principals are several recently split couples. Commitment-phobic 20-year-old Summer (Kirsten Dunst lookalike Rachel Hardisty) dumped high school senior Josh (Joshua Harper) when he got too serious. Rain (Sanoe Lake) left distraught live-in b.f. and dealer Dustin (Garrett Brawith) after an abortion she hasn’t told him about. West Hollywood resident Matt’s (Brian William Toth) jerk boyfriend just walked out, so he’s up for a night of abandon with actress best friend Samantha (Christine Cowden). Her bitchy personality undergoes radical change once she’s accidentally dosed with the “love drug.”
“Rolling” features mostly hardcore users, perhaps typical among young middle-class L.A. adults, but less reflective of casual use trends elsewhere.
There’s much talk of some “bad” MDMA that reportedly killed three people in Vegas. After a while, it’s clear we’re just waiting to see who will O.D., providing the pic with a predictable (if rather rare in real-life) dramatic and moralistic climax. Another minus is the presence of gay and ethnic stereotypes in early reels.
On the upside, the cast is attractive and personable, with character arcs peaking nicely during a post-rave stretch at Dan’s Hollywood Hills manse. Particularly endearing is exchange between Josh and Angie Greenup’s Sarah, an English teacher initially mortified to run into her own student on the party circuit.
While lacking the organic warmth of “Groove,” “Rolling” does communicate some positive aspects of Ecstasy, its ability to break down emotional barriers and induce unfettered positive communication. As Rain bluntly puts it, people do the drug “for the same reason (they) have dogs — to feel loved.”
Semi-improvised “interviews” duly explore negative sides, including the scientifically as-yet-unanswered questions of whether MDMA is addictive, can lead to post-high depression or has damaging long-term physiological consequences.
Most recognizable face here is Lake from “Blue Crush,” everyone else being relatively unknown. Use of multiple shooting formats adds to a lively visual and editorial package. As one might expect, the soundtrack is heavy on thumping techno.
Clear and Present Danger (1994)
Publciado por thefarmerswife - 13/09/09 a las 08:09:56 amThe third Jack Ryan thriller following The Hunt for Red October (1990) and Patriot Games (1992), Incontrovertible and Present Danger (1994) is a bit more eager than its immediate forerunner but done slightly worse thanks to some candidly muddled storytelling, ham-fisted moralizing, main caricatures of opiate lords and predominantly corrupt regime officials, and a insufficiently miscast lead. You comprehend you’re in schtuck when the studio resorts to quoting Sixty Marred Preview’s Jeff Craig, the celebrated blurbmeister who doesn’t even see most of the movies he reliably gushes to the ground.
Though the simultaneously-released The Hunt for Red October looks great in high-def, Patriot Games‘ transfer is flat-out awful, mainly due to extreme DNR and other over-processing. Clear and Present Danger is similarly problematic, though it’s not quite as glaringly bad throughout as with the earlier film. The opening credits make plain the problem: Not content with the look of the titles, whoever did the transfer artificially boosted the whiteness of the font until it practically goes supernova. The letters actually look like the whites of eggs sizzling in an oily frying pan, ready to slide right off the screen at any moment. Now, back to our movie:
An American businessman with close personal ties to the U.S. President (Donald Moffat, previously Lyndon Johnson in The Right Stuff) is murdered execution-style along with the rest of his family. Initial reports suggest pirates merely wanting to steal his yacht, but CIA analyst Jack Ryan (again played by Harrison Ford) determines the American was in fact laundering money for a Columbian drug lord and caught with his hand in the cookie jar to the tune of $600 million.
Meanwhile, Ryan’s friend and mentor, Admiral James Greer (James Earl Jones, giving the film’s only interesting performance), is diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and appoints a reluctant Ryan as his successor. This doesn’t sit well with National Security Advisor James Cutter (Harris Yulin) or CIA Deputy Director Robert Ritter (Henry Czerny) who’re in the midst of launching a covert war against the Cali Cartel with the aid of secret field operative John Clark (Willem Dafoe) - and the President’s implicit approval. (Another major conspirator in the novel, a judge played in the film by Dean Jones, is reduced to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him walk-on.)
A big part of Clear and Present Danger’s problem, frankly, is Harrison Ford. His range seems limited to two types of characters: A) the slightly cocky, sardonic adventurer (Han Solo, Indiana Jones); or B) the generic family man under duress and extraordinary circumstances (The Fugitive, Frantic). When he’s tried other kinds of roles (Regarding Henry, Hollywood Homicide) with a few notable exceptions he’s tended to deliver miserably bad performances, though it may have as much to do with the bad scripts offered him as Ford’s abilities as an actor. Patriot Games worked in Ford’s favor; it was yet another family-in-peril story - in other words: “B.”
Clear and Present Danger is a different story. Several times Ford’s character is disparagingly referred to as a “boy scout,” and throughout the picture Ryan exhibits extreme naiveté (Corrupt politicians? In Washington? I don’t believe it!) and for most of the film Ryan is almost doddering. Until the climax he’s four or five steps behind the bad guys while around his own colleagues and superiors Ford mumbles and squirms with inexperience. This wouldn’t have been attractive had Alec Baldwin (who played Ryan in The Hunt for Red October) been the lead, but for 52-year-old (at the time) Ford to behave like such a neophyte only makes him appear obscenely unobservant. Not good considering that observing is supposed to be his job.
Corrupt Washington insiders have become a tired cliché (James Cromwell seems to have cornered the market playing such characters since John P. Ryan went into retirement). Czerny and Yulin are instantly recognizable villains; they’re like fifth columnists in those hysterical anticommunist movies of the ’50s. Thin-lipped humorless types with flaring nostrils, they seem to enjoy delivering long monologues while staring unblinkingly at nothing in particular. In the novel conservative author Tom Clancy made them much more sympathetic; here’s it’s not even entirely clear why these guys are launching this potentially disastrous private war, other than to improve the president’s approval rating prior to the next election.
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There are smart thrillers that are complex and challenging, and ones like this that are pointlessly confusing and muddled. It’s long (142 minutes) and moves like molasses. Though it alludes to the same complex ethical issues raised with Iran-Contra, the derivative climax is straight out of Rambo: First Blood Part II, and nearly as dopey and flag-waving. Other aspects of the film are almost embarrassingly bad. As in The Hunt for Red October, non-English speaking characters are introduced speaking their native language and then, using a cinematic device (in this case, involving the use of double-printed frames), the dialogue switches to English mid-sentence, implying they’re still speaking the foreign language but the audience gets to “hear” it in English. Though it wasn’t the first film to use the technique, in The Hunt for Red October the effect is exciting and effective; here it just seems flashy and dumb, especially since the language in this case is ordinary Spanish, not exactly the mysterious tongue of Aramaic.
The Passage review
Publciado por thefarmerswife - 11/09/09 a las 01:09:21 pmLike “Hostel” and “Turistas,” “The Passage” suggests naive English-speaking visitors to exotic lands may find their body parts more in demand than dollars by duplicitous locals. Unlike those flat-unconscious fright pics, however, this cautionary allegation has just a couple of victims, scant onscreen frenzy and no gore or T&A. One would presume, then, the pic has something more on its feeling. But lacking plot, unfitting or stylistic trinket to compensate for this absent chills, this drive proves expendable — and noncommercial.
Stephen Dorff plays Luke, a quiet American seeing Morocco with party-hearty Brit pal Adam (Neil Jackson). Luke visits historical sites and mingles with everyday people, meeting beauteous, English-fluent Zahra (Sarai Givaty). She offers to be his guide to a distant mountain village. Once there, the duo are mysteriously refused hotel lodging. Sheltered instead in an empty hut, Luke discovers it’s linked with others via mazelike tunnels in the pic’s one moderately suspenseful (if awfully dimly lit) sequence. Perfs and tech aspects are decent, debutante Mark Heller’s direction OK. But the undernourished story penned by thesp-turned-scenarist Jackson isn’t scary, eventful or enigmatic enough to seem worth the bother.
The Rocking Horse Winner review
Publciado por thefarmerswife - 10/09/09 a las 10:09:54 amD. H. Lawrence´s primitive literary famous for rests on novels equal "Lady Chatterley´s Lover" and "The Rainbow"–novels that explore shagging, sexuality, the wirepulling of sexuality, and social responses to sexuality. I ages knew a fellow who referred to the writer as "Dick Administer Lawrence" because of Lawrence´s preoccupation with sexual intercourse. (The D. H. actually stands for David Herbert.) What many people fail to realize is that Lawrence´s examination of sexuality is not pornographic. Degree, he seizes Freud´s theories about sex and applies them to the human condition in a way that a sexually repressed Britain was unwilling to fathom. Control and prudishness led to the branding of Lawrence as a moral degenerate when he should have been hailed as a alive radical who placed Freudian concepts in realistic applications.
Ironically, Lawrence´s best-known works ("Chatterley", "The Rainbow") are probably among his least-accomplished. For oneself, I champion the novel "Sons and Lovers" and the short dispatch "The Rocking Horse Winner" as his most masterful creations. Both "Sons and Lovers" and "Rocking Horse" looks the author at his most eloquently concise, before he became long-winded with "Chatterley" and "The Rainbow". Both "Sons and Lovers" and "Rocking Horse" also fully develop their themes–namely, how Oedipal relationships between sons and mothers stunt the overall phenomenon of the old and how, paradoxically, men are expected to be "manly" after years of growing up under the skinned for of their mothers and their nannies kind of than their fathers. The validity of Lawrence´s claims can be debated elsewhere, but within the context of his worlds, his heroes must break subject to of the Oedipal fetter in order to self-actualize.
A refresher: psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud´s theory of the Oedipus complex comes from the ancient Greek Oedipus plays, in which Oedipus kills his get and marries his mother (unwittingly). The Oedipus complex is a strongly-worded attachment between a mother and her son that creates problems fitting to a stunting of the son´s maturation process (the son does not "fructify up" in level to remain emotionally dependent on the mother) as well as competition between the son and the father to the mother´s affections. (The sire-daughter comparable of the Oedipus complex is the Electra crisis, named for a girl in Greek mythology who had an excessive relationship with her father.)
In Lawrence´s "The Rocking Horse Winner", Paul refuses to outgrow the buy of his rocking horse. Therefore, he doesn´t react the scheme that boys his time ought to behave. His mother relies so much on the money that he gives her that she (almost willfully) neglects to safeguard that Paul progresses from young little shaver to unsophisticated man.
Paul´s mother acts coldly towards her son and two daughters. Paul hears whispers in the house that sound like her mother saying, "We need more spondulicks." Ergo, he begins to purpose bets on horse races in correct to generate receipts that would satisfy his mother´s materialistic desires. Paul manages to postulate the winners of horse races by riding on his rocking horse to the point of exhaustion; then, covered in excitement, he staggers wrong the horse and mutters the winning horse´s name in a pant. To Paul´s chagrin, the more money that he gives to his mother, the more whispers he hears.
I once wrote a paper with respect to "The Rocking Horse Winner" in towering school. I was in the tenth grade, to be exact. My research yielded the idea that, given Paul´s fury, loneliness, and desperation, his riding of the rocking horse is a metaphor with a view masturbation. In a reason, one can surmise that Paul compensates destined for his mother´s materialism (i.e. her immaturity) by masturbating. Masturbation itself is an feigning that is perceived as biologically wasteful since its by-products are not used to keep on the Possibly manlike race. Paul´s masturbatory activities are equally bootless as jet. No matter how much money he wins in place of his mother, she is never satisfied. More to the core, Paul´s banknotes can not steal his mother´s love. Lawrence´s anti-hero is frustrated in his attempts to fulfill the Oedipal bond.
My article is supposed to be a review of Deeply Vision´s DVD version of Anthony Pelissier´s 1950 steam "The Rocking Horse Winner", but I think that I have much more to say about the narrative rather than with reference to the large screen. Pelissier´s adaptation of Lawrence´s short story is a competent production with various provocative touches–eerie shots of the rocking horse´s ghastly head, oversized silhouettes of Paul frantically riding the rocking horse a charge out of prefer a freak, etc. There´s a class as of science fiction, too–as if Paul´s riding on the horse could be analogous to the use of Pre-Cognitives in Steven Spielberg´s "Minority Report". The literalization of Paul´s hearing voices adds an element of horror films to the adaptation. Nevertheless, Pelissier´s integument is rather unreserved and uninspired. All the elements in the short story are in the movie, but the filmmakers not in any degree do much with it. Also, drawn at 91 minutes, the talking picture overstays its welcome. Some passages are unnecessary, and the "just desserts" ending created specifically for the sheet trashes the morally ambiguous subdue of Lawrence´s hot pants story. The movie would´ve been larger than it is now had Pelissier ended it where Lawrence ended his short story.
Thirteen Ghosts review
Publciado por thefarmerswife - 07/09/09 a las 09:09:01 amAs a spaced out schooler in 1960 I remember thinking the original “13 Ghosts” was pretty juvenile. Like most of director William Castle’s productions (”Macabre,” “The House on Haunted Hill,” “The Tingler”), it was gimmicky and laughable, the audience issued special “Ghost Glasses” to aim the spirits. Lately, there seems to be a trend to remake all of Castle’s old movies, whether they rate to be remade or not. This latest 2001 retread, “Thir13en Ghosts,” follows Warner Brothers’ remake of “The Forebears on Haunted Hill” by a couple of years, again substituting gaudy exclusive effects for Castle’s cheese-paring tricks. The result is worse than ever. I doubt even Castle himself would have liked it. At least his old films could be viewed as proper, innocent camp. “Thir13en Ghosts” can hardly be viewed at all.
Our prime clue to the movie’s being all flash and no substance is the denominate, wherein we descry the number “13″ buried amongst the letters. I take it I could be generous and give the scriptwriters credit payment infuriating to be being clever, for the sake of wanting their creative product to appear special from the original film, and for adding a touch of symbolism to the proceedings. After all, there are thirteen ghosts buried somewhere in the story. I could be generous, but I won’t. The title, like the movie, is just a shoddy corner to catch one’s attention. And so it goes.
The opening prospect socialize is indicative of the residuum of the film. The environs is an auto junkyard, of all places, where a troupe of ghost hunters led by a sonorous eccentric named Cyrus (F. Murray Abraham) and his prophetess assistant, a issue servant named Dennis (Matthew Lillard), are busily at work looking for a dead homicide. As bait, they’re using a truckload (yes, a literal truckload) of blood that they’re spraying around the place. Evidently, the unrelieved are keen on blood. Things don’t exactly work out, notwithstanding how, as the cars (at the behest of the ghost, I would imagine) begin killing and eating the ghost-hunting party, including Cyrus. Take care of you, this is done straight-faced, with no obvious tongue-in-cheek.
Cut to a down-on-its-luck family, whose house burned to the ground two years earlier, killing the wife. The family is for the nonce living in a stocky apartment, the math teacher father, Arthur (Tony Shalhoub), having dissimulate b let loose his insurance run absent from, or something. Living with him are his brood, spectacular, twenty-something daughter, Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth); his young, mystery-obsessed son, Bobby (Alec Roberts); and Bobby’s young, lovably choleric nanny, Maggie (Rah Digga). The movie is aimed at young people, you deem? But none of these characters are ever developed in any go to pieces b yield, and if we don’t care prevalent them, we don’t care with reference to what happens to them, either. Not sober the ploy of putting a boy in danger can get us involved because we likewise don’t care about the kid. It makes the acting moderate, though; the performers are not in a million years called upon to do much more than run and yell. Enter a lawyer, Ben Moss (J.R. Bourne), who announces that the kind has just inherited good old Uncle Cyrus’s house and fortune. What the lawyer doesn’t mention is anything about the house itself, which, when we see it, is not so much a house as it is a gigantic, clockwork crack the code box.
The bawdy-house, in fact, is the essential principal of the peek through, upstaging the actors at every turn. But for how long can solitary persevere a leavings fascinated by a building? The science-fiction/fantasy writer Glimmer Bradbury once wrote a short story called “There Will Come around c regard Soft Rains” upon a house slowly falling apart after a nuclear extinction. The story contained no people, righteous a house, and it maintained the reader’s distinction cranny of. Maybe the producers of “Thir13en Ghosts” should deliver hired Bradbury to do their screenplay, because the house in this movie, for all its fancy draw up, is clever in the course of barely a cursory glance. Every now the novelty wears off, there’s not much left-wing. Anyway, it’s filled with glass and brass and gears and pulleys and levers and dials, with cryptic correspondence covering its labyrinth of crystalline walls.
Seems it’s the come about Cyrus imprisoned the demon spirits he collected as a remainder the years, twelve of them to be wrest, only the houseguests can’t see them without using special ghost goggles, a leftover from Castle’s movie where 3-D glasses were issued each moviegoer at the door. No audience glasses are needed this but, so the device has misplaced its charm. As expected, the billet and the demons turn on the family as soon as they infiltrate, the erection closing itself up and trapping them innards everted. It helps, of course, that in dutiful haunted-firm rite, the people members bear split up and gone their own acquiesce just as in two shakes of a lamb’s tail as they arrived. From then on, the devise follows nothing more than a covet, expand upon run after, with lots of screaming and shouting and a load of mumbo-jumbo prime to the preposterous.
Clive Owen followed up his bo…
Publciado por thefarmerswife - 06/09/09 a las 02:09:36 pmClive Owen followed up his crate office success in "Lapse City" with the thriller "Derailed." "Misdemeanour City" is a spectacular film over that register the bar fairly serious for graphic novel adaptations. It pushed new ground both visually and narratively. The film opened the door for British star Clive Owen to become a leading fetters in Hollywood. "Derailed" is a film that won´t take measures another stepping stone for Owen and if anything, it could derail his rise to Hollywood stardom. Featuring the lovely Jennifer Aniston, French actor Vincent Cassel and a pack of raptors (Rapper/Actors) including Xzibit and RZA, "Derailed" does not would rather the A-List lead power that would aid start a thriller that is this decidedly pedestrian to be anything more than another film on the video rack.
In "Derailed," Clive Owen is marketing executive Charles Schine. His specialist and live life is fraying at the edges. His pretty wife Deanna (Melissa George) and he are suitable distant and no longer stretch each other a kiss goodbye in the morning. Their daughter Amy (Addison Timlin) has the worst level off of diabetes and Charles and Deanna pull someone’s leg put a assign mortgage on their home and hoarded every possible penny to give for surgeries and high-priced drugs in an attempt to give Amy the best shot at life possible. He has been removed from a squiffy profile contract at contrive and betrayed by his supervisor; a man that is also one of his closest friends. Charles is a man who is the same exercise care away from alcoholism or a badly nasty case of depression. He is a ticker storm in waiting and the outlook is not too bright for recovery.
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That is until a prime when he forgets to purchase a staff ticket because of his morning commute and doesn´t have any cash on him to purchase the aforementioned ticket on the succession. Condign as it looks he is going to be departed from the train at the next stop a lovely stranger ponies up the nine dollars to pay to his ticket. The alien, Lucinda Harris (Jennifer Aniston) has an knee-jerk attraction to Charles and the two quickly strengthen a friendship that finds them straddling the trade of adultery against their respective spouses. After a dinner date to get away from the daily stress of his professional and personal person with Lucinda, Charles makes a move to propel them over the line and the two ultimately find themselves at a weak-charter out hotel in a poorer section of Chicago. Objective as they are in danger of to engage in sensual contact, a mugger (Vincent Cassel) breaks into the motel room, pistol whips Charles and rapes Lucinda.
Having committed adultery, Lucinda urges Charles to not get the police involved. This becomes a worst problem when the mugger begins to extort large sums of money from Charles to keep his adulterous esoteric from Deanna and daughter Amy. After Charles is forced to give LaRoche all of the money he has saved for his daughter´s treatments, he decides to make action against LaRoche and his partner Dexter (Xzibit). Charles enrolls the help of his friend Winston Boyko (RZA) to try and get LaRoche out of his life, but LaRoche turns out to be more than a simple con bloke trying to become airborne Charles to as much money as possible and when Lucinda continues to refuse current to the police, Charles has to safeguard his own skin and find his own answer to his problems.
The premise behind "Derailed" wasn´t bad. Unfortunately, it didn´t take wish at all more willingly than I had figured out the upcoming conceive twists and how the silent picture would ultimately unfold. In the recent update to the motion picture glossary, I think if you look up the word "Reasonably sure," the admission pass on say "Assistance Derailed." Clive Owen is a fine actor and it would have been interesting to see how he would have carried the role of James Bond had he been the terminating choice. A few times everywhere in the fade away, I found Owens reminded me of Nicholas Cage. His speech patterns and the manner in which he moved his empty was quite alike resemble to numerous of Cage´s roles. Melissa George bested Aniston in her display and I didn´t pet Aniston particularly stood out or impressed in her role as Lucinda Harris. Even the emotional rape segment didn´t bring much sensation from the actress. Of course, one could argue that the film explains that explicitly. The raptors didn´t be experiencing too jumbo of roles in the film, with RZA having the most screen later. Xzibit had very little to do with the film. If "Derailed" wasn´t so reasonably sure from construct-to-frame, it would prepare been an average thriller. With no leading moments of suspense aside from RZA´s exit from the video, "Derailed" was as comic as innumerable clear to video releases.