DOUGH BOYS

There is part of me that would like to think that if I had never seen Menace II Society, or Juice, or Boyz ‘n the ‘Hood, or any of the other urban dysfunctional dramas that have come out over the years, that I might think Dough Boys was a halfway decent film. But the truth is that even if I had never seen these other films—and I have, so pretending I haven’t is pointless—it doesn’t change the fact that Dough Boys isn’t a very good movie. Now, I don’t want to be overly negative, but at the same time, if I were to adhere to the “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” school of film criticism, this review would end right here.

Arlen Escarpeta stars as Corey, one of a quartet of friends calling themselves the Dough Boys. Corey’s crew includes Smooth (Cory Hardrict), Black (Mo), and Long Cuz (Lorenzo Eduardo), and between the four of them, their small time hustles don’t amount to much. Compared to his friends, who range between stupid and dumb-as-a-bag-shit, Corey is moderately intelligent with some semblance of ambition. His girlfriend wants him to leave Los Angeles and join her at college in San Francisco. But instead of doing the right thing, Corey and his crew steal some counterfeit casino chips, which they then try to unload. This brings them into the world of big time gangster Julian France (Wood Harris), who lives a life of luxury up in the hills, where hot broads do his bidding and every vice you could hope to become addicted to is readily available. Of course, given that this film is rife with clichés and utterly predictable twists and turns, it comes as very little surprise when it turns out that Julian is the guy that the Dough Boys inadvertently ripped-off. And he wants compensation for the misdeeds perpetrated by the Dough Boys, or he will personally pop a cap in all their asses.

The problem with Dough Boys—and to be honest, narrowing it down to one is difficult, so this is really the most obvious—is that the script is just plain bad. This story would have played out like an endless parade of hackneyed clichés if the movie had come out in the early 1990s, like the films it so shamelessly mirrors (especially Juice). But coming nearly twenty years after the films that defined this particular genre, Dough Boys just seems way out of touch with the times, which characters of no depth or dimension (especially when compared to similar characters in the first, third and fourth season of The Wire). Written by Preston A. Whitmore II, whose 1995 debut film The Walking Dead was equally as unimpressive as this nonsense, Dough Boys is overwhelmed by a startling lack of originality. As the film enters its third act, it spirals into a ridiculous sets of circumstances that leave you mumbling, “Well of course they would do that, they’ve already done everything else by-the-numbers.”

Compounding the sub par script for Dough Boys is the direction by Nicholas Harvell, which is perhaps slightly more inspired than the script (but quite possibly not). Among the many shortcomings of the direction is a total lack of tension and a complete inability to evoke any emotional resonance other than annoyance from the material. Harvell also has trouble getting consistent performances out of his cast. Even an actor like Wood Harris, who has proven himself to be more than competent, gives an uneven performance. During the movie’s climax, Harris comes across like he’s pissed off at Harvell, and has decided to intentionally give a laughable performance just to screw things up.

But the biggest problem with Dough Boys is that it is just plain bad, instead of monumentally bad. While it is a sad amalgam of already-told tales, directed with little if any style, and acted with inconsistency, it doesn’t suck nearly as much as other ‘hood crime dramas. In other words, it never quite crosses that line of bad filmmaking where it is so bad it becomes a work of trashy art. But while that may be something of a compliment, it is a backhanded one, because without hitting the true depths of bad filmmaking, Dough Boys just languishes in a limbo just below mediocrity, but slightly above total trash that’s good for a laugh or two. The end result is a movie with no real reason to watch it, other than if you’re looking to waste your time.

CONNECTED

For decades there has been a back-and-forth exchange of creative influences between Hollywood and Hong Kong. John Woo was heavily influenced by Sam Peckinpah, and in turn Woo’s The Killer and Hardboiled helped rewrite the book on how action was presented in Hollywood films. For a long time, this relationship of Hong Kong influencing Hollywood and vice versa was limited primarily to loving homages and unabashed rip-offs, but seldom did it manifest in legitimate remakes. Perhaps the best known example of a remake is Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which had been made earlier in Hong Kong as Infernal Affairs. The Departed and Infernal Affairs served as a great example of how Hollywood could take an exceptional film from Hong Kong, and do it justice. Now, Hong Kong has taken a not-so-exceptional film, the 2004 action thrill Cellular, and turned it into the much better Connected.

Barbie Hsu stars as Grace Wong, a single mother and electronic engineer working for a toy designer. For reasons unknown, Grace is kidnapped by a sadistic gang that wants something her brother has. She is taken to a remote shack, where she is held captive, but thanks to her engineering skills, she is able to put a smashed telephone back together. Although she can’t actually dial the phone, she is able to get it to dial randomly, which is how she connects with Bob (Louis Koo). A single father himself, Bob is something of a loser. He works for a collections agency, and he hasn’t been much of a father to his young son, who is getting ready to leave for boarding school in Australia. At first Bob thinks Grace’s call is a prank, but he soon comes to believe her, and finds himself racing around the city trying to keep her young daughter from harm. Meanwhile, disgraced cop Fai (Nick Cheung) crosses paths with Bob, and though he doesn’t believe him initially, the former detective begins to realize that there is something suspicious going on. As Bob desperately tries to save Grace and her daughter from certain death, he is also trying to make it to the airport to see his son off, knowing the boy can’t handle another disappointment.

In its earlier incarnation, Cellular was a mildly entertaining movie, but to be honest, many of the film’s details have long since slipped from my memory. I do recall that it was not so exceptionally entertaining that I wanted to see it again. By contrast to the version of Cellular that exists in my faulty memory, Connected is a superior film. In the original film, Chris Pine played something of a slacker, whereas Koo plays more of a sadsack failure. The film early on establishes Bob as a man of good intention who nonetheless has a bad reputation of being a disappointment. This makes the character more torn about the decisions he must make throughout the film, which in turn gives Connected more of an emotional depth.

Connected also works better than Cellular with its impressive action sequences, especially an extended chase sequence where Bob pursues the gang after they’ve abducted Grace’s daughter. Not much of a fan of car chases, it is still hard not to be entertained by this high speed demolition derby. The rest of the action is equally impressive, but it is interesting to note that the action, while certainly over-the-top, is much more toned down than the Hong Kong movies of the 1990s. Films like Hardboiled took the action and violence of Hong Kong cinema to unreal heights, but in recent years there has been a move to something a bit less hyperbolic. Yes, the action is still big and bombastic, but it is definitely toned down in a way. But that is not a bad thing, as it keeps Connected a bit more grounded in reality, as opposed to a fantasy world of hyper violence.

Connected is one of the better Hong Kong action thrillers to come out in the last few years. It moves at a quick pace, maintains a great sense of tension, and builds a strong relationship between Bob and Grace, which is especially impressive since physically they are only in one scene together. Director Benny Chan has amassed a solid list of credits, including New Police Story and Gen-X Cops, which seem to have been building up to Connected, a very entertaining film that establishes him as one of the best filmmakers currently working in Hong Kong.

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3

The word “classic” is thrown around a bit too carelessly these day when it comes to films, making it some sort of magical adjective used to describe movies that by some arbitrary set of sensibilities have been deemed worthy of being classical. Unfortunately, not every film that is called a classic really is a classic, as some films, while being great are simply just that, great. For any film to truly be a classic, it needs to reach a level of excellence that all movies strive for, but few ever achieve. And then decades later, if the film in question still holds up—if the writing is still finely crafted, the acting still solid and capable, and the direction still effectively evokes the sort of emotional response it was intended to evoke—then and only then can it be considered as possibly being a classic. Understanding this is crucial to understanding why the original 1974 version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a classic.

Based on John Godey’s novel, the original version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, as well as the inferior 1998 television remake and this most recent version directed by Tony Scott, deals with a heavily armed gang of criminals that seize a New York City subway train, demanding cash for the hostages. The original was a tense thriller that pitted Zach Garber (Walter Matthau), a detective for the New York Transit Authority, against the cold-blooded gang leader, Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw). Under the tightly structured direction of Joseph Sargent, the original Pelham moved at a quick pace, relying heavily on a well written script, pitch perfect performances by the entire cast, and such a minimal amount of action it’s hard to believe the movie qualifies for the genre. But as far as action crime thrillers go, it doesn’t get much better than Sargent’s vision of Pelham.

In the 2009 incarnation of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, John Travolta leads a team of gunmen as Ryder, a barking psychopath demanding ten million dollars for a subway car full of hostages. Where Robert Shaw played the gang leader as a levelheaded sociopath with ice water running through his veins, Travolta plays the role like a bipolar bulldog with rabies. Stuck on the other end of the radio, trying to keep Ryder from blowing a gasket and killing hostages, is subway dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington). Formerly a bigwig in Transit Authority, Garber has been demoted to dispatch pending an investigation into charges he took a bribe. He is man who has given his life to the subway system, and gotten little in return. Faced with losing his job and his status, Garber becomes the unwilling simpatico of Ryder. When hostage negotiator Camonetti (John Turturro) replaces Garber as the disembodied voice dealing with Ryder on the radio, the gunmen responds by killing a hostage. Soon it is clear that Ryder will only deal with Garber, which then raises suspicions about Garber’s role in the heist.

Throughout all three version of Pelham, people speculate as to how the criminal hopes to get away seeing as how they are underground in a subway tunnel. A similar thinking applies to this remake in that you can’t help but wonder what can be done to the original story that hasn’t already been done. The very nature of Pelham’s storyline, and what makes it so effective, is it’s lean narrative: Bad guys take hostages on the subway and demand money, while good guys try to figure out how to stop them. Just as the characters are limited by being inside a subway train and the dispatch command center, so too is the story limited as to where it can go.

In an effort to cover new territory and set itself apart from the other filmed versions of Godey’s novel, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 takes two very distinctly different approaches. First there is Tony Scott’s direction. Anyone who has sat through Scott’s style-over-substance directing knows that few directors get more in the way of the story they are telling than Tony. In the past, his now trademark use of everything from slow motion to speeding up the film to quick cuts to all sorts of visually overloading stimulus has helped mask the fact that films like Domino have truly sucked. Unfortunately, Pelham is probably the best story Scott has been attached to since True Romance, but the director seems to think that his flourishes of style will bring some extra special sauce to the meal, when it most definitely is not needed.

The film also seeks to cover new ground by mining the characters for more depth. Garber now has a wife and backstory, while Ryder also has a history that reveals who he is and what his motives are. The need to explain every detail and motive has become a problematic trait of many contemporary screen villains. Sadly, it seems like the days of bad guys like Robert Shaw’s Mr. Blue, who simply show up and wreak havoc with little or no explanation, have gone away. Instead, our cinematic evil must now be explained, taking much of the mystery—and therefore the evil—out of the monsters that scare us.

The added character depth doesn’t do much more for Pelham other than prompt a noncommittal shrug and the passing thought of, “I guess that worked.” It does, however, give John Travolta plenty of material to mine as he takes his performance up and over the top in a manic performance that seems to be as all over the place as the mental state of his character. Travolta’s performance goes from effective to laughingly ridiculous, often within the same scene and sometimes even within the same line reading. Balancing out Travolta is Denzel Washington, who turns in what is probably his best performance since The Manchurian Candidate. Washington packs his character with emotional density, but doesn’t play it all over the charts. Both actors seem to be working to shed their movie star personas and get back to some good old fashioned acting. The only problem is that Washington does it better than Travolta.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is not a bad film, but it also isn’t the great film that the original version was. Scott’s style-over-substance direction keeps the film moving at a quick pace, but since the story itself is fast paced, the visual stimuli is unnecessary overkill. And while Brian Helgeland’s script adds depth to the characters, that too isn’t really needed. The result is an entertaining film that chooses to be more than it needs to be, but as a result diminishes its own effectiveness. For what it is, the film is entertaining, but it will never be the classic it once was.

OPIE GETS LAID

It’s not a surefire formula for success, but independent filmmakers just starting out and low on cash would all be well advised to study the work of other filmmakers dealing with similar conditions. In particular, they should be watching those films that employ a small cast with few locations to see how those stories are told. Some of the best indie films of all time were launched using this equation of small cast and limited locations, the beauty of which being that it works for a host of genres. It worked for George Romero in Night of the Living Dead, Jim Jarmusch in Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law, Quentin Tarantino in Reservoir Dogs, and Kevin Smith in Clerks. Of course, all of these movies had interesting stories to tell, which is the essential ingredient in all films, no matter how big the cast, how many locations, or how much money they have to spend.

As a first time director, James Ricardo has stuck what could easily be considered the most tried and true formula of the low budget indie film. His debut feature, Opie Gets Laid, formerly known as Sunnyvale when it was on the festival circuit, employs a cast made up primarily of Ricardo himself and three actresses, and limits most of the action to a single apartment. With such a minimal amount of resources to work with, the success or failure of Opie Gets Laid rests primarily on Ricardo’s abilities as a writer. And though the film has some problems, it succeeds more than it fails.

Ricardo stars as Opie, and unemployed, ambitionless junkfood junkie that’s addicted to porn and masturbates chronically. He lives in a nice loft apartment that his uncle lets him stay in for free, and he only leaves to replenish his endless supply of junkfood, which he pays for with his unemployment benefits. When hippy-dippy pot dealer Thai (April Wade) comes to Opie’s apartment by mistake, she invites herself in, and never quite leaves. Thai becomes obsessed with Opie, who’s reclusive, ambitionless, misanthropic life to her holds some sort of allure, and she becomes determined to find him a girlfriend. But before the socially inept Opie can meet anyone on an Internet dating site, Thai hops in the sack with him, and soon finds herself a regular in his bed. Thai’s lesbian lover Dakota (Ute Werner) becomes enraged when she finds out about the affair with Opie, but for her own reasons she is drawn to the slacker, and soon Opie is sleeping with her as well. Things become even more complicated when Rain (Jesselynn Desmond) answers Opie’s personals ad, and soon she is also in the sack with him. When all three women find out about each other, they decide that rather than give up the low maintenance Opie, who will do pretty much whatever they want him to (except take his shirt off during sex), the ladies decide to share him. But this situation is far from ideal for our hero, whose life begins to spiral into a nightmare.

For a first time director, Ricardo could have done much worse. His script is good, and he gets good performances from his three lead actresses. His biggest problem is himself. Directors like Woody Allen and Clint Eastwood make acting in their own movies look easy, but it is actually incredibly difficult. Ricardo’s deadpan performance as Opie is serviceable, but at times there is a self conscious stiffness to it that should have been caught by the director. By acting and directing, Ricardo may have bitten off more than he could chew, and I would be curious to see what he’s capable of as a director who isn’t acting, because directing seems to be his strongpoint. And despite the problems with his performance, he’s not terrible—certainly not in the way directors like Tarantino and Spike Lee are terrible actors—and he doesn’t ruin the movie.

Comprised largely of static shots and long takes, Opie Gets Laid is a lowbrow talking head comedy with a wittier than average script, but despite the sexual nature of the story, there is no onscreen sex. This might throw some viewers for an unpleasant surprise, but the lack of sex and nudity serves the film well, and raises the intellectual bar. Of course, if this were a lesser film in terms of script or acting, the fact that there is no nudity or sex would actually be a problem, because often times those are the only things that can redeem a movie.

Opie Gets Laid is what I like to call a good “festival film.” These are the movies that play really well in a festival environment, where not having a known cast or a big budget is not a distraction, and audiences tend to be more forgiving. A good festival film can hold its own in the festival environment, but might not do that well on the shelves of a video store, where suddenly it is competing for the attention of a different type of audience, with a different set of expectations. This doesn’t mean that a film’s quality changes when it crosses over from the festival circuit to home video; but it does mean that it can be received differently. While it was in festivals under the title Sunnyvale, James Ricardo’s movie was a quirky romantic comedy about sex that had no sex and starred a cast of unknowns. Now that it is on video, it is the same movie, only it is called Opie Gets Laid, which might throw people for a loop when they discover it is a quirky romantic comedy about sex that has no sex and stars a cast of unknowns. But if you can get past that, you should be entertained.

AFFLICTION

I’ve decided to write a series of reviews entitled “Downer Cinema” showcasing films that at the core are very good and even great but are some of the most depressing films ever to see the light of day. These films find yourself saying, “That was a great movie! I never need to see that movie again!”

“Affliction” is a movie I saw on video upon it’s initial release in 1997. It’s a film of unrelenting power that when I would be surfing the cable movie channels years later and see that it was showing I would quickly blip to the next channel. I couldn’t bare to even see one frame without feeling I needed to freebase some Zoloft.

In so making this summation of this movie you’re probably wondering , if this film was so goddamned unbearable then why recommend it for other people to endure and suffer the same fate? Because unlike other movies around at that time Affliction felt authentic while other movies like Kids and anything by Atom Egoyan , except The Sweet Hereafter, which coincidentally, is also based on a Russell Banks story, rang hollow. Affliction boldly stays true to it’s downward spiral.

Affliction tells the story of Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte) a faded small town hero who is a paper policeman, a lackey for a prominent businessman who practically owns the town and has everyone on his payroll. When another wealthy man dies mysteriously in a hunting accident, It triggers in Wade a sense of purpose to solve the crime that ultimately shows how truly lost and adrift he is in his own life.

Writer/Director Paul Schrader is on familiar ground here, examining the damnation of the pained male psyche that he has explored in countless films he has either written or directed such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Hardcore and Blue Collar. Affliction is perhaps one of his best screenplays and by far the best directed of his films. His script has the perfect mix of his observational style and Banks’ tranquil fatalism. Schrader constructs Wades’ downfall like a Greek tragedy. The sins of the past culminate in the present leading to his doomed destiny of being a slightly gentler version of his monster of a father.

This is where the violent need for Prozac kicks in. Schrader boldly explores the path that most men find unbearable, the path of examination, the Freudian gobbledygook that makes men so emotionally disconnected. Schrader explores this deftly, and precisely making us feel empathy and disgust for Wade.

Affliction is bereft of Schrader’s usual cold disdain for his characters, a distancing he uses in his writing that has tripped him up in his prior films. He dares to be in the skin of Wade Whitehouse.

The film is anchored by the best performance of Nick Nolte’s career. Nolte, whose willingness to break free from his leading man pigeon hole from his early career has made some of his later film and acting choices arch and over the top. Here his fearlessness is warranted bringing a brave truth to his performance.

James Coburn, in one of his last performances, finally got to show his subtle genius in a showy role as Wade’s horrible father so well in fact, that it garnered him an Oscar. Sissy Spacek, Willem Dafoe, and the woefully underused Mary Beth Hurt round out the pitch perfect cast.

Affliction is no lightweight trifle, but it isn’t heavy-handed in tone as the narrative suggests. It explores themes such as murder, and addiction with an unnerving view that is intimate rather than showy which made it disturbing upon first viewing but that intimacy is what gives Affliction the density of a novel and the cinematic scope of watching an ordinary man lose his soul. Party On!

THE DEVIL’S TOMB

There is something about Cuba Gooding Jr. that just gets on my last nerve. Maybe it’s the shameless way he prances around and hams it up in insipid comedies. Or maybe it’s the way he strikes that stoic, misty-eyed pose in ham-fisted melodramas. Whatever it is, there is something about Gooding that really bothers me, and with the exception of maybe two films, I’ve never seen him in anything where I liked his acting. But no matter how much I may not like his acting—and I really don’t like his acting—the one “positive” thing I can say about Gooding is that he puts something into every performance (crappy though it may be). At least that was the one thing I could say until I saw The Devil’s Tomb, in which Gooding appears to put so little effort into his “performance” that it seems more like he accidentally wandered on to a set of a movie after having awakened from a week-long coma.

Gooding stars as Mack, a self-described soldier of fortune leading a rescue mission in the Middle East. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I think of a soldier of fortune, I actually think of a mercenary and not some sort of career soldier in Special Forces. But since the hackneyed script doesn’t seem to delineate the difference, I guess we can assume that a guy in Special Forces is also a soldier of fortune. Anyway, Mack is the leader of motley assortment of soldiers of (mis)fortune that are sent in to rescue some sort of archeological team that has gone missing after a seismic disturbance. Once our team of wise-cracking, gun-toting kickers of ass arrives at the underground bunker where the scientific team has gone missing, they make some spooky discoveries. First, you’ve got Bill Moseley, who appears to be dead, but is still moving around and quoting the Bible. When bullets don’t stop crazy Mr. Moseley, Mack and his team, rather than getting the hell outta the place, decide to investigate more. This is just the beginning of a downward spiral into stupidity, as it takes a special kind of moron to run across a talking zombie and not say, “You know what, I think I’ll skip this party.” Of course, things get freakier, with team members hallucinating and all sorts of supernatural mumbo jumbo going on. One of the soldiers is visited by a young girl that is actually her aborted baby, while another is seduced by a naked woman, both of which seem like perfectly normal things to encounter on a mission at an underground bunker somewhere in the Middle East. Soon—but not soon enough—Mack and his team come to realize that they have stumbled upon an ancient burial site where an angel cast out from Heaven has been frozen in ice (or something that looks like ice, but could be something else). It seems that this cast out angel, which in theory could be considered a variation of a demon, wants to take over a human body in order to wreak havoc on a Biblical level. But there really isn’t anything to fear, because Cuba Gooding Jr. is on the case, and though he doesn’t bug his eyes and prance around like he did in Snow Dogs or look deadly serious with a quivering upper lip like he did in Men of Honor, clearly he can handle the situation.

The Devil’s Tomb is one of those movies you catch one night on cable and watch while thinking, “This isn’t that bad, but it sure isn’t that good.” But by the time the movie is over, and you’ve had all of a minute or two to dwell on what you’ve just seen, the shear magnitude of how bad this thing really is comes flooding down over you like an avalanche of crap. Recycling story elements from Aliens, Prince of Darkness, The Thing and The Lost Patrol, The Devil’s Tomb doesn’t appear to have a shred of originality to claim as its own. The script is nothing more than a series of familiar scenarios that, depending on how many movies you’ve seen, quickly degenerate into tired clichés. There is also an overarching sense of stupidity that infects every scene in the movie. The characters say and do stupid things, and react stupidly to the stupid shit that is happening to them. Watching the movie is like being beaten up by slobbering goons wielding heavy clubs made of stupid.

Sleepwalking his way through the movie, Gooding comes across like he’s literally there to collect a check. For an actor known for his over the top hijinks, this time around he shows almost no emotions or signs of life whatsoever. And while I suspect that may be what the character of Mack was supposed to be, Gooding doesn’t play the emotionally dead soldier convincingly. And while the rest of the cast actually appears to be doing something that could be considered acting, the script makes it so that whatever efforts are being put forth by the other performers, it is all for naught (because, as I mentioned, the script is stupid).

On some level, I suppose The Devil’s Tomb might be entertaining, if what you’re looking for is junk filmmaking. And it is certainly good for unintentional laughs. You could also have some sort of perverse fun watching the movie and pointing out all the ridiculous things (there’s already an impressive list on IMDB). But if you watch this stinker with the intention of seeing something good—something that leaves you entertained and not feeling like you wasted your time or your money—then this is most certainly not the movie for you. With so many choices at the video store or on cable, not to mention other distractions like reading a book or scrubbing your bathroom, I can’t think of a reason for watching The Devil’s Tomb.

CRIPS AND BLOODS: MADE IN AMERICA

As a documentary filmmaker, Stacy Peralta came into his own with Dogtown and Z-Boys and Riding Giants. Both films examined subcultures within the United States—skateboarding and surfing, respectively—offering rich historical perspectives on subject matter that could just as easily have been dismissed. Peralta was able to find a comfortable balance in those two documentaries that made both films informative and entertaining. But while both films had moments of human drama, and perhaps even a bit of tragedy, there’s no denying that by and large, Peralta’s work was lighthearted in tone. The same can’t be said for his most recent documentary, Crips and Bloods: Made in America.

In Dogtown and Z-Boys, Peralta traced the history of skateboarding, a cultural phenomenon that came into its own on the streets of southern California. Peralta himself was part of that movement that began in the 1970s, while just a few miles away, in another part of greater Los Angeles, the African-American street gangs the Crips and the Bloods were still in their formative years. In this world, far removed from the surf culture that lead the way to skateboarding, young black men were waging a war with an ever-increasing body count.

Through a wealth of interviews, vintage photographs and archival footage—much of it devastatingly heartbreaking—Peralta pieces together the incredible history of the Crips and the Bloods, rival street gangs whose ongoing battle has lasted for over four decades. The documentary traces the origins of contemporary gangs to 1950s Los Angeles, where crews like the Slausons were formed by young black men. By the 1960s, many of these gang members became politicized by the growing Civil Rights movement and organizations like the Black Panther Party. But as political leaders were felled by assassin’s bullets and the Black Panther Party was systematically destroyed by the FBI’s counterintelligence program, many of the black youth in the city of Los Angeles—a city plagued with years of racism and police brutality—became lost in a directionless community with no real leadership. In that environment, the Crips were born, followed soon thereafter by the Bloods, resulting in a war that has lasted for four decades, and claimed more lives than the violence between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. As unemployment grew, creating poverty on an epidemic level, and as crack cocaine was introduced to the inner city, the violence increased as the black community spiraled further out of control.

Crips and Bloods: Made in America dedicates a fair amount of its running time developing a historical overview of Los Angeles, and in doing so creates a deeper context for understanding the bigger pictures of violence, poverty and oppression. But the film is not just a historic look at how this incredible cycle of violence began, the film also looks at the here and now, featuring interviews with current gang members, as well as the former gangsters who are now trying to break the cycle of death and destruction. This mix of past perspectives intertwined with contemporary reality makes for a compelling examination of how the American Dream failed so miserably on the streets of South Central Los Angeles, resulting in an ongoing urban nightmare.

Not always an easy film to watch, and not entertaining in the way his earlier documentaries were, Crips and Bloods: Made in America is Peralta’s best film simply because it is his most urgent, addressing issues of societal importance that simply can’t be denied. Not to take away from Dogtown and Z-Boys, which itself is an important and inspiring film that achieves a level of brilliance; but Crips and Bloods is something else. Along with Cle Shaheed Sloan’s similar documentary Bastards of the Party, Peralta’s film creates an important historical document that reveals some of the uglier truths about America. But in doing so, both films create the opportunity to move forward, for in order to create a better future, we must first understand the past. Crips and Bloods: Made in America goes a long way to creating a level of understanding and opening the door to dialogs that need to occur in order to end a war that most people don’t even know about. This is documentary filmmaking that is powerful and evocative, and stands as a movie that should be required viewing, not just for inner city black Americans who need to understand the systemic problems faced within the community, but by all Americans, so they can understand the harsh realities that exist in this land of freedom.

PANDORA’S BOX

Much has been said about the iconic impression left by Louise Brooks in G.W. Pabst’s brilliant Pandora’s Box and although the role has transcended the woman, it is rare that a film is so deserving of such obsession and worship.

Pandora’s Box was adapted from two extremely popular plays at the time in Berlin. The Lulu Plays , as they were commonly referred to, centered on Lulu , a woman whose innocent sexuality destroys everything she touches. The part of Lulu was initially offered to Marlene Dietrich but Pabst and the actress had a difference of opinion on how the part should be played and Pabst had doubt that she was the right actress for the part.

Pabst finally found his Lulu in American movie star Brooks, whose nationality and natural acting style created much controversy in Germany. The adaptation created it’s own controversy because of Pabst’s decision to streamline the movie to a handful of characters and cutting out some repetitive scenes.

The film is visually hypnotic capturing the sensual world that Lulu inhabits. The story starts with Lulu living as a kept woman in the luxurious cage she lives in courtesy of Schoen (Fritz Kortner), an influential newspaper editor who has been Lulu’s lover for years but has to break the news that he is officially engaged to a “proper” woman and that he must end their arrangement. Lulu’s refusal to let him go sparks a series of lies, and misunderstandings that leads her on to a path of destruction.

Pandora’s Box teems with imagery that is at times lurid, erotic, nightmarish and jarring in it’s beauty. The film is rightfully anchored by Brooks’ touching performance. Brooks is unpredictable at coloring Lulu with a wide spectrum that takes her from dreamy child to haughty vamp while making her vulnerable and relatable.

The Criterion Collection presentation is a delectable embarrassment of riches. The extras include a second disc that has two documentaries on Louise Brooks and her tumultuous love affair with Hollywood and the persona that sometimes overshadowed her own life. The disc has multi- score options that allow you to experience the film in different ways. Filled with beauty and resonant with a true filmmaker’s passion, Pandora’s Box is a haunting classic that is evokes the true love of film.

TERMINATOR SALVATION

Back in 1984, James Cameron’s low budget sci-fi action film The Terminator seemed to be just about the coolest movie of its time. Borrowing heavily from two classic episodes of the television series The Outer Limits—“Soldier” and “Demon With a Glass Hand”— Terminator offered the mind-bending tale of a time-traveling killing machine (Arnold Schwarzenegger) sent from the future into the present to kill a woman whose son would lead a rebellion against the machines that overthrow mankind. Much like Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien, The Terminator kicked off a science fiction franchise that started out strong, hit its apex with the sequel (both Terminator 2 and Aliens were directed by Cameron), and then lost much of its energy—only with the Alien films, there were more sequels and spin-offs to measure the downward spiral.

Twelve years after Cameron’s impressive sequel to his original film came Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Not nearly as impressive as the first two films, T3 offered a grim final scene that left audiences depressed, but left the door open for future installments. Although the film performed poorly at the box office in the United States, its global haul was impressive, which all but ensured a returned of terminators to the big screen. The problem, of course, is that when films do well overseas, leading to the inevitable sequels geared for a global audience, it almost always means said films will cater to the things that sell well in the worldwide film market—action, explosions, action, violence, more explosions, action and violent action. Sadly, things like story and character development generally take a backseat to the action; the train of thought being that you don’t have to speak or understand English to appreciate shit blowing up, and most people don’t want to read subtitles when they’re watching shit being blown up.

Sadly, it is this sort of global filmmaking strategy that is guiding Terminator Salvation, the fourth film in the franchise that now includes a television series and countless comic books. Set in the not too distant future, when the deadly machines have already overthrown much of the human race. Skynet, the self-aware computer system has struck and continues to strike against the remnants of the human race, using deadly machines to hunt and kill people. John Connor (Christian Bale), is a member of the human resistance, and has been prophesized to be the one person who will destroy the machines. But we all know this, because we’ve seen all the other movies. This time around, Connor is fighting the good fight, when word gets to him that the terminators have targeted him and a teenager named Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin). Of course, we all know that Kyle Reese will grow up to be the man Connor sends to the past to protect his mother, and in turn get her pregnant with John. As Connor helps plan a massive assault against Skynet, using a signal transmitter that provides the sort of plot device that can be easily translated to the film’s global audience, Reese crosses paths with Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a convicted felon that was executed and whose body was donated to science before the rise of the machines. As it turns out, Wright’s body was used by Cyberdine, which we all know is the company that designed the machines that destroyed humanity, and through he doesn’t know it, he’s actually a terminator. All of this plot comes together in an extended chase that is punctuated by lots of explosions, and over simplified ruminations on the humanity of Wright, who refuses to accept his status as a terminator, and instead chooses to fight along side the humans.

Terminator Salvation is a film that is entertaining, but it stops short of actually being a good movie. The script is both heavy-handed and light weight at the same time, and it doesn’t deliver anything more than what is needed to keep the franchise alive. The story jumps back and forth between John Connor and Marcus Wright, but the film really is more about Wright than Connor. In fact, there comes a time when the movie starts to feel like perhaps Connor had a smaller role in the original script, but the part was beefed up when Bale signed on. Whether or not that’s the case, Connor himself is pretty boring, lacking the sort of gravitas you’d expect from someone who is destined to lead the rebellion against the machines. Wright’s character is far more interesting, but his story feels as if it’s been trimmed here and there to give more time to Connor, which is part of what weakens the overall story.

As far as big budget summer movies go, Terminator Salvation provides a mildly entertaining distraction, much better than X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but not nearly as good as Star Trek. The script itself is flawed to the point of being weak, but the sensory overlaod caused by McG’s hyperactive direction makes it difficult to notice the pedestrian writing. The movie doesn’t really suffer from Schwarzenegger not being in it, but it also has problems defining itself as a Terminator flick without him. Schwarzenegger’s absence—other than a computer generated cameo—might not be so obvious if the movie itself tried harder to define itself as its own cinematic entity, rather than just another entry in a franchise that is now twenty-five years old. Bale’s performance lacks anything of true merit, and he is overshadowed by Worthington, who has his own problems, not the least of which is his Australian accent that comes and goes throughout the course of the movie. Still, Worthington seems to actually be acting, while Bale is clearly figuring out how to spend all the money he was paid for being in the film.

CADILLAC RECORDS

There’s an air of ambition floating around the first twenty minutes of Cadillac Records promising to eschew the familiar terrain of the music bio-pics by attempting to layer several stories at once. Cadillac Records tells the story of “Chess” records, the legendary Chicago record label and studio where the likes of Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry, Etta James and Muddy Waters created some of their most classic hits. Adrian Brody plays Leonard Chess an immigrant’s son who has ambitions of success that would erase the years of struggle passed on by his failure of a father. Jeffery Wright plays blues legend Muddy Waters, a sharecropper who uses his musical talents to escape his doomed life in Mississippi. The two meet up and the like-minded duo from different side of the tracks form a partnership that endures success, death, and addiction.

Writer-director Darnell Martin manages to get a great performance out of Wright as Waters, and as good a performance one can probably get from Beyonce Knowles as Etta James. Knowles doesn’t really possess the rawness needed to play James, but Martin gives Knowles some good bits of dialogue and a flesh and blood subject to play which has eluded her up until this point. The inspired casting of Mos Def as Chuck Berry and Eamon Walker as Howlin’Wolf pays off winningly with both actors capturing the essence of the real men they portray. Unfortunately for Brody he is saddled with the underwritten role of Chess playing him either as a cipher who paid his artists in Cadillac cars rather than cash and royalties or as the father figure/ manipulator of his artists allowing no subtlety or time to see him in any other light.

This is where Cadillac Records starts to falter. Martin starts to get too caught up juggling the different characters that some storylines feel abandoned, most notably Muddy Waters who seems to be the lead in the beginning but gets sidetracked by the Etta James portions. The film deteriorates into an episodic muddle as the film reaches it’s abrupt ending sadly erasing any promise it’s rich subject matter deserves.

La RONDE

I approached “La Ronde” with some trepidation because although I consider myself a film know-it-all, I do not in any fashion think of myself a connoisseur. The truth is I’m this shy of being a bumpkin, and worse, I’m a bumpkin set in my ways. So the words subtitles, cinema, auteur, neo-realism  leaves  me shaking in my fish-waders.

It seems The Criterion Collection was created for film loving simpletons like myself. The Criterion Collections provide lovingly, and sometimes, painstakingly restored and rendered versions of classic or forgotten and influential films of the past century. I came across this newly re-mastered version of the 1950 French film directed by the celebrated Max Ophuls with only hearing it referenced for years for it’s then revolutionary storytelling.

Adapted from the  banned play Reigen by controversial  turn -of -the -century Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler,   La Ronde is quintessentially  European  in it’s attitude towards sex and infidelity, showcasing some boldly romantic scenes which seem tame today but would never see the light of day in an American movie of the time. The film tells  interlocking stories narrated straight to the audience by Anton Walbrook.  He tells the tale of the romantic dalliances  of different couples. The first episode begins with the story of a prostitute and a soldier and  the film is book ended with final story of the same prostitute and a count.

If the story seems bereft of character development that’s because Ophuls is exploring the politics of love and sex, their motivations for it and the powerlessness of one’s position when one gets caught up in it. What does make La Ronde a standout is not only the lush black and white photography by veteran lens man Christian Matras, but by the affection that Ophuls exudes from every detail of the film from the lush music score to the star-studded cast he assembled.

The Criterion disc features two interesting but altogether boring documentaries by a scholar and biographer of Ophuls. After hearing him repeat the same nugget of knowledge three different times, the words “wind” and “bag” slowly came to mind.  Aside from a touching interview with his son, Marcel, the extras are not what I would consider much of a supplement. This little glitch does  not detract to the film’s  staying power.   The deceptive power of La Ronde seems to lie  in the fact that  on the surface it seems to be a frothy sex comedy but  in reality it’s  a frothy sex-comedy that influenced a generation of filmmakers.

BLACK HOLLYWOOD: BLAXPLOITATION AND ADVANCING AN INDEPENDENT BLACK CINEMA

It is with a great degree of embarrassment that I admit that up until very recently, I didn’t even know that the documentary Black Hollywood: Blaxploitation and Advancing an Independent Black Cinema existed. Having produced my own documentary on the subject, published a magazine dedicated to the subject, co-authored a book on the subject, and having worked on other projects for other people, all revolving around black films of the 1970s, it seems ridiculous that I knew nothing of Black Hollywood. It also seems equally ridiculous that in years of research, and with countless conversations and interviews conducted, not a single person ever mentioned this movie. It was as if it never existed. But here it is, newly released on DVD, after what I can only imagine has been a long time of existing in a limbo of barely remembered films.

To date, there have only been a handful of documentaries about blaxploitation (mine included). These films have had their strengths and weaknesses (mine included), but most were nostalgic glimpses at the black film craze of the 70s that relied heavily on film clips and interviews that never quite packed too much of a political punch (mine excluded). In fact, during my many years of trying to raise completion funds for my film, one bone of contention between myself and would-be funders was the political stance my film took, and the way it addressed racism in the film industry. “That’s not what people want to see when they think about blaxploitation,” was what I was told time and time again, until I simply gave up on getting money, and decided to do things my way. But during the years I spent making my movie, I always wondered why it was that no one else had ever made a documentary about blaxploitation films. As it turns out, some did.

Black Hollywood was made in 1984 by a filmmaker named Howard Johnson and produced, as near as I can tell, for England’s Channel 4. With Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message” providing the opening song, the film takes place during the curious time shortly after the death of blaxploitation, just as hip-hop was making its way into the mainstream, Richard Pryor was still the most sought after black actor in Hollywood, and Eddie Murphy was just rising to superstardom. This was essentially the dead time of black film in Hollywood. Spike Lee had yet to make She’s Gotta Have It, The Color Purple had not come out yet, and John Singleton was still in high school. The memories of the blaxploitation era were still fresh in the minds of most blacks in the film industry, but everyone was still wondering with uncertainty what the future would hold. And all of this and more is what Johnson captures in Black Hollywood.

Relying heavily on interviews with an eclectic mix of actors, producers and directors—only a handful of whom were actually involved in blaxploitation movies—Black Hollywood examines the origins of the explosion of black films in the early 1970s. Amazingly enough, the documentary manages to offer an incredibly comprehensive overview with a minimal use of films clips, and almost no mention of any films from the era. Rather than relying on a clip-heavy showcase, the documentary takes an intellectual approach, explaining the origins of the black exploitation movies, going all the way back to the silent era, and then discussing what needs to be done in the future. Tremendous insights are offered by Jim Brown, Vonetta McGee, Oscar Williams, the late Rosalind Cash, and D’Urville Martin, who died shortly after being interviewed for this film. The list of impressive interviews also includes comedian Paul Mooney, publicist Vincent Tubbs, and Lorenzo Tucker who, known as the “black Valentino,” worked with pioneer black director Oscar Micheaux during the 1920s, 30s and 40s.

Black Hollywood: Blaxploitation and Advancing an Independent Black Cinema will be for some people a revelation in terms of how it addresses the subject matter that is more often than not dissed or dismissed. For others it will be a welcome chapter in a history of film that has been largely either neglected, misrepresented or merely misunderstood. It is a crucial bit of filmmaking that still packs a powerful punch twenty-five years after it was made. True fans of black cinema will find this to be required viewing that offers profound insight into both the history of blacks in film, but how race and racism plays out in Hollywood.

STAR TREK

My original review of the new Star Trek, director J. J. Abrams’ seemingly ill-advised attempt to relaunch a franchise that has become an integral part of world culture, consisted of only two words. Those words were “fuck” and “yeah.” Some people might question the validity of a review that simply said, “fuck yeah,” but that was the first coherent thought running through my head after the initial punch-you-in-the-face-to get-your-adrenaline-pumping opening sequence of Star Trek. Fuck yeah.

As more than a casual fan of Star Trek, I was one of those who regarded this new film with dreaded cynicism. As far as I was concerned, there was no reason for a franchise relaunch with all new actors playing characters I had come to know and love over the last four decades. And I was equally pissed off that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Captain Benjamin Sisko hadn’t been tapped for his own feature film. Granted, I wasn’t like some fans, who bitched, whined and moaned about how this new film would be terrible, filling the Internet with inane babble that spoke of social retardation. No, I just kept it all to myself, expecting the worst, and hoping for something better than the last three Star Wars movies.

Others have already posted their feelings about the new Star Trek, with more opinions to come over the days, weeks and years ahead. First will be the initial gut reactions people have, followed by the obligatory follow-up reconsiderations, where people either grudgingly admit the film isn’t that bad, or that it is worse than they thought, and finally there will be the thoughts that come years from now, as more sequels follow, and this new film is judged as part of a much larger universe. And to be perfectly frank, other than my initial thought of “fuck yeah,” I didn’t really want to write about this film. As a critic, sometimes you just want to enjoy a movie, without having to convey to others what works and what doesn’t work. Star Trek was that type of film for me. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. And explaining why I liked it so much would be either preaching to a choir that does not need my voice, or arguing to those still enraged that William Shatner is not in this movie.

So, why am I writing this review? Well, for one thing, this isn’t much of a review. I haven’t gone into any sort of specifics about the plot, and I don’t plan to in the words that follow. I also haven’t gotten into what makes this movie great. Trust me when I say that the more I think about Star Trek, the more I like it, and I could easily write a 5000 word essay on what makes this movie “fuck yeah” awesome. But that would just end up being another long-winded review, and there are enough of those out there. Let’s just say that Star Trek manages to take the mythology of the original series, the animated show, and the films starring the original cast, and distill it into an entertaining movie that pays respect to everything that came before it, while at the same time having the assured audacity to be its own movie. Abrams film reinvents the adventures of the starship Enterprise and its intrepid crew in much the same way Casino Royal reinvented the adventures of James Bond.

Having grown up watching Star Trek, and having bitterly argued over how and why Star Trek is better than Star Wars, and having sat for countless hours and debated everything from who was the best Starfleet Captain, to which episodes of which series were the best, I can say that I had low expectations for this new movie. In fact, I was looking forward to writing a scathing reviewing of everything this movie did wrong. But as near as I can tell from my first initial viewing, it hasn’t done anything wrong. Star Trek is an action packed film that delivers characters who are well developed into a setting that is both familiar and different from what fans have come to know and expect. It is a film that succeeds at being highly entertaining, delivering everything you could want or expect from a Star Trek movie, while at the same delivering surprises you would have never imagined. Fuck yeah.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE

There was a time in my life when I thought the Chuck Norris movie Missing in Action 2: The Beginning was a great film. Of course, that was back in 1985, when it first came out, and my cinematic tastes were far from fully developed. The reason I’m sharing this bit of information about myself is because I think it’s important to note that there was a time when I liked certain movies, simply because I didn’t know enough to realize that they kinda sucked. Which is why I feel confident in saying that there was a time when, in all likelihood, when I would have really liked X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But that time, for better or worse, has long since passed; meaning that years from now I will never have to look back and say, “Man, I can’t believe I actually thought Wolverine was good,” the same way I now look back at Missing in Action 2 and say, “What the fuck was I thinking?” That is, unless of course, I don’t look back years from now and suddenly see some sort of cinematic genius in X-Men Origins: Wolverine that now eludes me. It could happen; but honestly dear friends, I highly doubt it will.

In this much hyped prequel to the original X-Men films, a trilogy that started off with a solid first film, picked up steam with an impressive second installment, and then turned to shit with a third film that was both bad and laughable—sometimes during the same scenes—Hugh Jackman returns as the mutant with metal claws that grow from the backs of his hands. As the film kicks off in the mid-1800s, we meet our favorite mutant when he is still a boy, just as his claws emerge for the first time (and before they have been encased in an unbreakable metal alloy). During a hasty opening sequence that spans over a century, we see James/Logan/Wolverine in action, as he and his brother, fellow mutant Victor Creed/Sabertooth (Liev Schreiber), cut a bloody swath through one conflict after another. This crucial sequence establishes the brothers as killers impervious to injury, whose hairstyles and silly facial hair remain the same from the Civil War to World War I, through World War II, into the Vietnam War, and right up into the present day. Seriously, their hair never changes. And the reason I mention this is because the facial hair of Wolverine and Sabertooth seems to have been given more attention than the story itself. It’s almost as if the producers sat around a table and said, “If we make these guys have consistently annoying facial hair in every scene of this movie, which spans well over one hundred years, maybe people will focus on that, and not notice that our script sucks.” And that tactic might have actually worked, if the movie were only about twenty minutes long. But as it stands, there is so much that sucks in Wolverine, that nothing, not even bad hair, is an effective diversion.

Logan and Victor are recruited by William Stryker (Danny Huston), who wants them on a special team of soldiers all with unique powers. But when Logan has enough of the wanton killing, he leaves the team and retires to a quiet life as a lumberjack in the wilds of Canada. Years later, for reasons that will seem clever to some, but contrived to others, Stryker comes knocking on Logan’s doors, hoping he will help him stop a renegade Victor, who is killing former team members. Logan refuses, which is nothing more than a plot device to pad out this sad state of affairs long enough for personal tragedy to strike, resulting in our hero allowing Stryker to perform experimental surgery on him. This, of course, is the surgery that gives Logan his unbreakable metal skeleton, which coupled with his incredible healing abilities, and his new name of Wolverine, makes him the guy we all fell in love with in the first X-Men movie.

Co-written by David Benioff, who’s script for 25th Hour resulted in one of the most laughably bad final acts ever committed to film, and Skip Woods, who’s Swordfish was just plain stinky, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a jumbled mess of comic book lore cobbled together into a screenplay that overflows with mediocrity and hackneyed conventions. Making matters worse—as if a bad script was not enough of a problem—director Gavin Hood, who’s Tsotsi was a very good film, lacks the chops to make this mess enough of a visual distraction to even make the movie seem moderately fun. Hood’s direction is as bad as the script it brings to bombastic life, all of which is driven home by shoddy editing and special effects that are neither special nor effective.

Saying that X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a bad movie is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. It’s more of a not-that-good movie that runs too long, and in doing so comes pretty close to being bad. But again, if you were to trim this thing down to about twenty minutes—thirty minute, tops—you would likely have an entertaining movie on your hands. And I say “entertaining” because to be perfectly honest, I see little evidence of anything in Wolverine to indicate that it is actually good. But since good can be forsaken from time to time if something is entertaining, then there shouldn’t be anything wrong with Wolverine being nothing more than an entertaining film. Keep in mind, of course, that I am talking about the possibility of Wolverine being entertaining if it were twenty to thirty minutes long. But it isn’t twenty to thirty minutes long, which means that it is something of an endurance test that serves as a reminder of exactly what makes both home video and the accompanying fast forward button such an integral part of the entertainment process.

TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS

The work of writer Charles Bukowski can, most assuredly, be an acquired taste. Bukowski was best know for his raw, often brutal, largely autobiographical narratives involving alcoholism and womanizing, written with such uncompromising honesty that some people often mistake is for misogynistic nihilism. The truth, however, is that Bukowski was an incredible writer haunted by personal demons and addictions, who seemed more comfortable fraternizing with society’s underbelly and never straying too far from the working class. This is what he largely wrote about, and he wrote about it exceptionally well, beautifully crafting words to describe the grime and decay that can eat away at a person’s soul. And while Bukowski’s work makes for some of my favorite reading, his work has yet to be adequately captured on film.

Adapted from Buskowski’s collection of short stories Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness, director Marco Ferreri’s Tales of Ordinary Madness is an artistically ambitious attempt to bring the author’s words to life in moving pictures. Ben Gazzara stars as poet Charles Serking, who any fan of Bukowski will recognize as a thinly veiled cinematic interpretation of Bukowski himself. Serking is the Bukowski protagonist, a self-loathing, lecherous drunk with a knack for scoring with women who are either beautiful and crazy, or just plain crazy, and even more self destructive than Serking himself. The plot is thinner than the paper Bukowski’s prose was originally written on, as Serking basically wanders around, mostly in Los Angles, getting drunk and getting laid. He has a tryst with a sleazy sex pot he follows on the bus, which lands him in jail, fights with his ex-wife/landlord (Susan Tyrell), and gets into a dysfunctional relationship with an unbelievably beautiful prostitute named Cass (Ornella Muti), who expresses her inner pain through self mutilation. Beyond that, there’s not much story, which actually is effective in the written work of Bukowski, but leaves Tales of Ordinary Madness an often plodding picture that drunkenly shambles along as if it’s looking for a story to tell in between attempts to be visually arresting.

The problem with Tales of Ordinary Madness, is that it works on the assumption that Bukowski can be translated to film by simply showing whatever it is the writer has described in his work. But that doesn’t work, simply because the pictures Bukowski paints with his words are incredibly detailed, but they are words that evoke atmosphere, mood, and even raw tactile stimulation in a way that you know not only what a dingy watering hole looks like, but also how it smells and sounds and some semblance of the vast history that has transpired at the other end of the bar. But none of that is conveyed in Ferreri’s film. In other words, Bukowski is able to take readers to places and introduce them to people with his words in a way that is frightening tangible; whereas Ferreri shows us places and people, but nothing else. Ferreri’s interpretation of Bukowski’s work lacks the heart and soul that makes the words come alive.

Tales of Ordinary Madness has other problems beyond the difficulty of translating Bukowski to the screen. The film’s meandering pace does not serve it well, and makes the 98-minute run time feel even longer. Ornella Muti seems miscast as the prostitute Cass, and by the time her character is introduced, the movie begins to stumble over blocks of pretentiousness. Bukowski’s work could be called many things—sexist, fatalistic, profane, vulgar—but it should never be pretentious. As artistic as his work is in its own right, it is almost anti-art. It was not just spitting in the face of conventional and acceptable prose and poetry, Bukowski’s writing dumped a big, fat steaming load shit on top of the head of conventional art and literature. And to that end, it was pretty much the opposite of what the film tries to be.

Despite the shortcomings of Tales of Ordinary Madness, it has one thing going for it that makes the film watchable, and that is Gazzara’s incredible performance. Gazzara brings Bukowski’s alter ego to life in a way that carries much of the film, and is more true to the booze-soaked, skirt-chasing anti-heroes found in the writer’s work than Mickey Rourke or Matt Dillon, who both played essentially the same character in Barfly and Factotum, respectively. Gazzara captures the hard-lived-life persona, and looks more the part than Rourke or Dillon, who were both a little too pretty to play Bukowski’s literary persona. But all three films have inherent problems which are almost enough to make you think that the work of Bukowski should not be attempted as motion pictures. At the same time, Steven Buscemi’s Tres Lounge manages to create a Bukowski-like world on screen, proving that it isn’t impossible.

Fans of Bukowski will want to check out Tales of Ordinary Madness for its performance by Gazzara, and some of the better executed scenes, but when all is said and done, the film is just okay. I’m not sure how the film will play to people who aren’t fans of the writer, but I can’t imagine it being in a positive or receptive way.

SPLINTER

The concept is about as basic as it gets: a small number of people, taking refuge from an outside force that threatens them. Agatha Christie used a variation of the formula in her classic mystery And Then There Were None (a.k.a Ten Little Indians), Alfred Hitchcock used differing versions of the formula in both The Birds and Rear Window, and most famously in the world of horror, it has been used in everything from Night of the Living Dead to Alien to The Thing. Sure, by now it isn’t exactly the most original premise, but if it is done right, especially under the guise of the horror genre, it can make for a damn entertaining movie. At the same time, when this time-proved concept is done poorly, the result is a laughable hodge podge of tired clichés and predictable conventions. And because this concept is so simple, it is easy for some less talented filmmakers to delude themselves into thinking that following the Night of the Living Dead model will be easy, when in fact, it can be the kiss of death.

Splinter closely adheres to the rules of the small cast in limited locations being stalked by a deadly force genre of film, and in doing so sets itself up to be just another forgettable horror movie with nothing new to say. But the fact that the film is so well made, and that it does vary slightly from the formula and conventions that dictate this particular genre, makes Splinter both a pleasant surprise, and an entertaining experience for any true horror fan.

Paulo Costanzo and Jill Wagner co-star as Seth and Polly, a city-dwelling yuppie couple who go camping to get away for their anniversary. Seth, however, isn’t too keen on the woods, and convinces Polly that they should leave the campsite and spend the night at a motel. Driving along an isolated road in the backwoods of Oklahoma, the couple makes a deadly mistake when they stop for someone they think is a stranded motorist. It turns out that Lacey (Rachel Kerbs) is the strung-out junkie girlfriend of escaped convict Dennis (Shea Whigham), who is on the run from the law. Dennis and Lacey take Seth and Polly hostage, but things take a turn for the worse when the car accidentally runs over some wild animal, causing the tire to blowout. What none of them realize at the time is that the animal they’ve run over was infected by some sort of parasitic creature that can shoot out tiny splinters, which then infects whatever it touches. When the car overheats, they are forced to pull over at a rural gas station where the attendant was earlier attacked by the splinter creature. Lacey quickly falls victim to the disgusting monster, which reanimates her corpse as Dennis, Seth and Polly take refuge in the gas station. And if things could not get any worse, Dennis himself is infected, and the parasitic creature inside of him slowly begins to take control of his body.

When all is said and done, Splinter is not exactly a film that can be considered a classic by any stretch of the imagination. It is, however, very entertaining, maintaining a tight pace with a great level of tension that remains consistent once the story really kicks into gear. There are a few genuinely creepy moments, punctuated with some great gore effects, and a creature that remains hidden enough from the camera that it manages to remain convincingly scary throughout the entire film. But what makes the film really work are the characters, who start out largely as conventional clichés, but actually have enough depth and dimension that they have more growth than is usually found in films of this nature. Of course other films have had what is essentially the antagonist making a heroic shift at some point, but only a handful have pulled it off as effectively as Splinter, as Whigman’s menacing Dennis undergoes a well-executed character transformation. The same is true for Polly and Seth, who in a throwaway genre entry would be characters whose deaths are greeted with applause, but in this film keep us rooting for their survival.

Splinter is an effective horror film with solid scares and splatter that is held together by solid performances. Director Toby Wilkins makes the most of the basic concept, effectively utilizing the small cast and the limited locations to maximum effect. Wilkins direction, along with Nelson Cragg’s mostly hand-held photography, creates a stylish look that gives Splinter an organic feel, as opposed to the more manufactured and lifeless aesthetic of so many other horror films. But for all the credit that goes to Wilkins and Cragg, special attention must go to editor David Maurer. Splinter is an incredibly well-edited film, so much so that you don’t really notice how well cut together it is at first, just that it has a really solid, tight pace. But Splinter, which holds up to repeated viewings anyway, deserves to be watched simply to see how beautifully it was edited. For anyone who has endured mediocre movies just to get their horror fix, Splinter delivers enough quality filmmaking to help alleviate some of the bitter taste left behind by lesser pictures.

George Romero’s 1977 film Martin remains one of the greatest vampire movies of all time. A brooding deconstruction of the genre and mythology of vampires, Martin raised the burning question of whether or not the title character was really a blood-thirsty monster, or just a very crazy young man. If in fact Martin (John Amplas) was a vampire, then the film stripped away all the magic and superstition surrounding the supernatural creatures, making them sad and mundane creatures that lead lives of lonely desperation. But if the antagonist in Romero’s film was not an 84 year old blood-sucker, then he was merely a disturbed kid who happened to be a serial killer. And while Romero himself has clearly stated his intention, the film is vague enough that it can be interpreted either way, which is what makes it genius. That same level of thought-provoking genre deconstruction can be found in co-writers and co-directors Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore’s Special.

Michael Rapaport stars as Les Franken, a timid, almost socially retarded Parking Enforcement Officer that reads comic books. Les volunteers to take part in a clinical trial of an experimental new drug called Specioprin Hydrochloride. Soon after he starts taking the drug, Les begins to develop special powers. First he finds that he can levitate, then that he has telepathy, and eventually even the ability to pass through solid walls. Or can he? It seems that either Specioprin Hydrochloride has given Les extraordinary powers, or made him exceptionally crazy. To the world around him, it would be the latter. Instead of seeing him pass through walls, others see him slamming into them. But perhaps there are forces at work making others think Les is crazy, when in fact he isn’t. Or is that just part of Les’ delusional breakdown? As his powers continue to develop—or he becomes crazier, depending on how you see things—the stakes become higher. Donning a homemade costume spray-painted white, Les takes to streets to fight crime, where his actions are perceived as those of a lunatic who randomly tackles people. The owners of the pharmaceutical company that developed Specioprin Hydrochloride want to stop Les at any cost. But is it because they don’t want anyone to know their drug made someone crazy, or because they don’t want others to develop the same powers as Les?

The first time I saw Special was at the Sundance Film Festival back in 2006, and at the time I thought it was one of the best superhero movies I had seen. After three years of waiting for it to get some semblance of a release, I’m still convinced this is one of the best superhero movies I’ve ever seen. The quiet, unassuming script by Haberman and Passmore is a clever deconstruction of superhero mythology. There have only been a handful of films about crime fighters that were not based on actual comic books that tried to redefine the myth of the modern superhero. Unbreakable is of course the most notable, while Sidekick was a nice attempt that had moments that worked, but never quite delivered. But Special pretty much works on all of its levels, avoiding the somber-faced seriousness of Unbreakable as well as the obviously limited budget constraints of Sidekick. And while neither of those films feel as if they were informed by the comic book medium, Special feels like it could have been an adaptation of a comic by a writer like Garth Ennis.

The direction by Haberman and Passmore is a loose, mostly hand-held style that gives the film a gritty, cinema verite feel. The camerawork is never so shaky that it induces nausea, but it is informal enough that it creates a certain intimacy that is hard to find when a camera is locked down on a tripod, or moving smoothly with the help of a steadicam. Special mixes the character-driven quirkiness of early John Sayles (think Brother From Another Planet) with the dark satire of Larry Cohen (think God Told Me To), creating a unique film that moves from humor to drama with a seamless ease.

Michael Rapaport, who has never really made much of an impression on me before, delivers a powerful performance that deftly fuses dry comedy and serious drama, often within the same line of dialog. Rapaport is nothing short of brilliant in the role of Les, who at his heart and soul wants nothing more than to be something other than ordinary. This makes the audience want for Les’ powers to be real, because there is a little bit of him in all of us, frightened and afraid that we are nothing special, and never will be.
Special starts out with a great premise, and steadily builds it up around an intriguing character study. It never promises to be more than it is, and never ceases to be anything other than an exceptionally entertaining film.

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Never Say Never Again, the 1983 James Bond film that marked the return of Sean Connery, but was not part of the actual Bond franchise that had started back in 1962 with Dr. No. That same year saw the release of Octopussy starring Roger Moore, which represented, at least at the time, the worst of the Albert Broccoli produced Bond films. Octopussy was so bad that when Never Say Never Again was released a few months later, it seemed brilliant. The best Bond movie ever. But twenty-six years later, released as a “special edition” DVD to coincide with the release of Quantum of Solace, and without the stench of Ocotpussy making it smell like a bed of roses, it seemed like a good time to revisit Never Say Never Again.

The byproduct of a lawsuit that gave producer Kevin McClory the rights to remake Thunderball (which had been Connery’s fourth outing as Bond), Never Say Never Again is pretty much the same movie as Thunderball. Connery was 53 years old when the film was released (as opposed to Moore who was 56 when Octopussy came out), and the film wisely plays off the fact that this is an older Bond. Taking its cue from the recently relaunched literary Bond, who was an aging relic in John Gardner’s follow up to Ian Fleming’s original series, Never Say Never Again earns bonus points for letting Bond grow old. This time around, as with Thunderball, he finds himself racing against time to find two nuclear warheads stolen by the sinister terrorist organization known as SPECTRE. While searching for the bombs, 007 has a run in with Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera), a sadistic assassin who tries to feed Bond to some sharks after humping him on a boat. Blush works for Maximilian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), the SPECTRE operative and megalomaniacal tycoon in possession of the bombs. Blush’s failed attempts to kill Bond brings him one step closer to saving the day. It also brings the British agent one step closer to scoring with Domino (Kim Basinger), Largo’s main squeeze. With the help of his CIA counterpart Felix Leiter (Bernie Casey)—and this should come as no surprise—Bond is able to foil the nefarious plans of the bad guys.

The history of Never Say Never Again begins with a story written by Ian Fleming and Kevin McClory for a film that was never produced. Fleming reworked the story and turned it into the novel Thunderball, which then became the film of the same name. Because of a complex set of legal issues, McClory had the right to make a movie based on the book Thunderball, but had to be careful not to steal from the movie. The result was this film, which was released amidst a significant amount of publicity, due almost exclusively to the fact that it featured Connery as Bond after a twelve-year hiatus. The hype and anticipation surrounding Connery’s return as Bond, not to mention the unmitigated crapitude of Octopussy, made Never Say Never Again seem much better than it actually was.

Not a terrible Bond film, Never Say Never Again certainly ranks above Connery’s Diamonds Are Forever, as well as at least three of Moore’s films, and Timothy Dalton’s License to Kill. It is, by Bond standards, an okay film, but many aspects have not aged well. First and foremost is the soundtrack, which in 1983 seemed pretty bad, but now, decades later, borders on unbearable. This is hands down the worst score to ever accompany a Bond film, with a title song that outshines even Moonraker in being pure shit.

Once you get past the music—and honestly, there’s no getting past it—the other problems with the film are a bit more difficult to nail down. Brandauer is a fine actor, but as far as Bond villains go, he suffers from the same lack of diabolical charisma that plagued every antagonist from the mid 1970s all the way through the 80s. Brandauer’s Largo is largely unremarkable and equally forgettable. The same is true for Basinger’s Domino, who is pretty bland. Making matters worse is that this is one of Basinger’s earlier films, when her talents as an actress were suspect at best. Neither Basinger nor Brandauer can hold their own opposite Connery, which makes their characters terribly overshadowed by Bond. Only Carrera and Casey seem to be up to the task of being on screen with Connery.

The key problem with the film is the script, which tends to meander at a pace that is often a bit too casual, before finally arriving at an uninspiring climax that looks as if the production had run out of money and was forced to cut corners. This isn’t to say that the script is terrible, but it isn’t classic Bond either. It comes across like some sort of pale imitation of a Bond movie, and by default so too does the movie itself. You never feel like you’re watching a James Bond movie so much as a homage to a Bond movie, with Connery paying some sort of tribute to himself.

All of that said, the one reason, and for the most part the only reason to watch Never Say Never Again is Sean Connery. Effortless is the best way to describe his performance, and in some ways he almost seems to be apologizing for Diamonds Are Forever, which was most definitely his swansong as 007. Connery makes the film more entertaining and watchable than it deserves to be in what amounts to a cinematic miracle. In fact, there’s really no reason to watch the film other than for Connery. The direction by Irvin Kershner, having come straight off of Empire Strikes Back, is bordering on pedestrian, to the point that even the action sequences aren’t that exciting. And the film’s pace is such that it never seems to fully get going. Still, it is great to see Connery do his thing, and appear to be having fun while doing it.

Really, when you stop and think about it, there really isn’t a character better suited for an easy transition from the comic book page to the movie screen than Marvel’s Punisher. Loaded down with enough fire power to stop an army, decked out in a black outfit emblazoned with a skull, and no super powers other than the ability to kill criminals, the Punisher is about as no-frills as comic book characters get. There’s no convincing a movie audience he can fly, or that he transforms into a giant green monster, or that he has enhanced strength from being bitten by a spider. But despite the simplicity of the character, the last two attempts at bringing the Punisher to life—an idiotic 1988 adaptation starring Dolph Lundgren and an even more abysmal 2004 version starring Thomas Jane—have ranked among the more craptacular comic book movies. And those two miserable failures are either enough to make you wonder why anyone would make another Punisher movie, or give you cynical hope that at least there’s nowhere to go but up.

Following in the latest Hollywood trend of restarting franchises with pseudo-sequels to earlier failures, Punisher: War Zone is to the bad 2004 Punisher what this year’s Incredible Hulk was to 2003’s disappointing Hulk. Both films were not so much sequels as they were attempts to correct some really bad decisions that resulted in movies that were not that fun to watch. Irish actor Ray Stevenson takes over the lead role of ex-special forces operative Frank Castle, who loses his wife and children to a Mafia massacre after they witness a brutal gang execution. With nothing to live for, and bent on destroying organized crime, Castle arms himself to the teeth, and stalks the underworld as the take-no-prisoners Punisher. With the mob afraid of him, and the cops turning a blind eye to him, Castle is pretty much left to do what he does best—amass a massive body count of bad guys. But when the Punisher accidentally kills an undercover federal agent, he begins to question his actions. But as fate would have it, gangster Billy Russoti (Dominick West) is looking for his missing money—money last seen in the hands of the agent killed by Castle. With his face terribly disfigured after an encounter with the Punisher, Russoti, now calling himself Jigsaw, goes after the wife and daughter of the murdered agent. Despite his desire to give up his life of splattering the brains of criminals all over the place, Castle refuses to sit by as Jigsaw wrecks havoc, which of course means it’s only a matter of time before the hot lead starts flying and the bodies start dropping.

Punisher: War Zone, while being a ways away from great cinema, is a vast improvement over the two earlier Punisher movies. Ray Stevenson, looking like a Punisher drawing by legendary comic book artist Tony DeZuniga, is well suited for the role. Perhaps the only other actors right for the role would be Tommy Lee Jones about twenty years ago or Tom Berenger around the time he basically played the same role in The Substitute. Stevenson brings a nice steely grit to the character, and a look of determined intensity that doesn’t need pointless dialog to prove a point.

The rest of the cast of Punisher: War Zone is pretty inconsequential, the notable exception being Dominic West, who gives an over-the-top performance that outdoes all others in a film full of over-the-top performances. In fact, restraint is something not to be found in most of Punisher: War Zone, as the cast delivers ham-fisted dialog in heavy New Yawka accents. That’s not to say the script is terrible—especially compared to earlier versions of the Punisher—but this isn’t screenwriting at its finest, either. The problem here is that the film feels like it’s trying to prove that it is adapted from a comic book by playing into the notion of what a comic book is. Everyone involved has clearly studied other super hero movies, without really considering the fact that Punisher is not a real superhero. The Punisher is not Spider-Man or even Batman; he’s Charles Bronson in Death Wish or Robert Forster in Vigilante. It would be nice if the films reflected that a bit more, and instead drew inspiration from other comic-to-film adaptations like A History of Violence.

Part of what makes the Punisher such an interesting character in the comic book world is the way he interacts with super-powered heroes like Spider-Man and Daredevil. Comic fans know that Punisher is seldom more interesting when he goes to-toe-toe with masked heroes who can’t bring themselves to cross the same line he doesn’t give a second thought to. This creates a great conflict that has propelled some of the best Punisher stories. But you can’t do that in a film, because there are no costumed heroes for the Punisher to play off of in the movie world. This is why Punisher: War Zone, and if there are any other entries in the franchise, would be better served by scaling back the comic book-ish nature of Frank Castle’s screen persona in favor of something more grounded in reality. The Punisher is, after all, a crime book, not a superhero book.

For what it is, Punisher: War Zone is entertaining. It is a B, or perhaps a B-minus grade entry in the world of films based on comic books. But considering how bad the earlier Punisher films were, as well as junk like Daredevil and Ghost Rider, there’s a certain comfort in knowing that this movie is not as bad as it could have been. Is that a ringing endorsement? No, it is not. But if you like the Punisher, or if you like fairly brainless tales of vigilantes on a killing rampage that are punctuated with excessive violence and splatter-happy gore, then this film will do the trick.

ROLE MODELS

There are people who will no doubt not like Role Models, deeming it, as one of my school teachers used to call me, “rude, crude and socially unacceptable.” Well, the truth of the matter is that I am rude, crude and socially unacceptable. I scoff at political correctness and the delicate sensibilities of others as my brow hangs defiantly low. And while all of that may lend itself to why I enjoyed Role Models so much, the real reason is, quite simply, that Role Models is a very funny movie.

Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott star as Danny and Wheeler to co-workers who, contrary to Danny’s assertions, are actually friends. Both work for Minotaur, one of those disgusting energy drinks load with caffeine that taste terrible and turns your urine neon green. Danny delivers motivational speeches to school kids about saying no to drugs and instead chugging Minotaur, and while he’s giving his spiel, Wheeler dances around in a ridiculous costume of the company’s mascot. For Wheeler, an aging party animal that still enjoys meaningless one night stands, his job is great. But for Danny, a bitter, cynical man who’s annoyed by everything and everyone, his job is a living hell. When Danny’s girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks) breaks up with him and moves out, he snaps, and goes on a bit of a rampage that lands him and Wheeler in jail. Beth, being a lawyer, manages to cut a deal where Danny and Wheeler can avoid jail by performing 150 hours of community service. They are sent off to Sturdy Wings, an organization that pairs kids, known as “littles,” with adult mentors, conversely known as “bigs.”

It comes as no big surprise that Danny and Wheeler are paired up with two kids that can’t seem to make it work with their bigs. Danny’s little is Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a socially inept nerd who wears a cape and participates in live action role playing. Meanwhile, Wheeler is stuck with Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson), a foul-mouthed kid with a penchant for slapping people who has gone through eight different bigs in six weeks. But for Danny and Wheeler, there is no choice but for them to make it work with their littles, or they will go directly to jail. Things get off to a rocky start, and it is quickly apparent that in many ways Danny and Wheeler are more childish than the kids they mentor. Both have trouble taking their responsibilities seriously, but as they begin to have an impact on the lives of the kids, Danny and Wheeler also begin to see the world from a different perspective.

There are so many reasons why Role Models could have failed, but when all is said and done, it succeeds because it never pulls any punches. In an era of Judd Apatow-produced comedies that has reestablished unabashed R-rated humor for adults, Role Models delivers the sort of crass humor that is sure to offend some people. It may be especially shocking to people who mistake the film for something of a family comedy about two loveable guys mentoring two young rascals. This is a good-natured comedy steeped in raunchy humor and profane language. At the same time, it’s not all boob jokes and sophomoric locker-room banter, because Role Models also delivers a certain sentimental feel good-ishness that keeps it from being comedic trash. With solid direction by David Wain, and a sharp, clever, well written script, Role Models is both laugh-out-loud funny and sentimental, without being overly syrupy.

The script and the direction work to make Role Models an entertaining comedy, but the cast bring it all to life. It is difficult to think of even a small bit player who doesn’t give a good performance, as everyone in the film seems to bring a certain bit of magic to their role. Rudd and Scott have a great chemistry, and play well off of each other, but they also work in their pairings with Mintz-Plasse and Thompson, and all four work together as an ensemble as well. With the wrong actors cast as the kids, the film could have easily fallen apart. It would have been easy to present Augie and Ronnie as precociously cute children, or merely glorified props used to propel the story of Danny and Wheeler. But the kids, as well as their parents, are given a bit more depth that is often found in comedies, and all play an integral role in how the movie unfolds.

Initially, I was apprehensive about Role Models. For one thing, I was one of those people that absolutely despised director David Wain’s Wet Hot American Summer, so much so that I was hesitant to watch this movie. But thankfully I got past that, and gave Role Models a chance, because it is frankly one of the more funny films I’ve seen in quite some time. As much as I’ve enjoyed movies like Superbad, Pineapple Express and 40 Year Old Virgin—and make no mistake: I have enjoyed those films—I actually enjoyed Role Models a bit more. Like all of those other films, it isn’t perfect, and it isn’t for everyone, but anyone that is not easily offended and enjoys a solid, rock-out-with-your-cock-out comedy will be thoroughly entertained by Role Models.