Reviewer: Dylan de Thomas
Rating (out of 5): ****

Much like the terrific Traffik before it (later turned into Steven Soderbergh's Oscar-winning Traffic), State of Play is the latest miniseries from the UK that will shortly be made into a feature stateside (starring Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck). The miniseries casts a jaundiced eye at politics and journalism, two professions at least as disgraced as the drug trade.

The plot is set up with a lean but mesmerizing ferocity: a young black teenager is chased and shot in cold blood while the researcher - and illicit lover, we find out shortly - of a rising-star Member of Parliament (played by David Morrissey) is found under a train. What follows takes the shape of a newspaper's investigation into the two deaths and all the muckraking that entails. The series rewards close viewing as minor characters amble in and shortly become the focus for the run of show.

Continue reading "State of Play" »

Posted by at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): Election ***½
Triad Election **½

If you've not yet rented Johnnie To's Triad Election (2006), on November 6th you'll have the opportunity to watch it with To's original Election (or "Black Society," made in 2005), when the first film is released to DVD. The actual title of "Triad Election" when it was released on its Hong Kong home turf was "Black Society 2." It's a noticeably inferior sequel that could easily turn you off from watching the original, a masterful piece of filmmaking about the Hong Kong triad organization. While either movie may hold up as a entity unto itself, there is no way viewers can appreciate even the second-rate virtues of the second film without first understanding how the situation in which the characters find themselves came about.

Election tracks the process (it's relatively democratic, for a crime ring) by which a possible new leader is decided upon. His reign lasts but two years and must be solidified via the possession of a very special, beautifully carved wood "baton." Abetted by screenwriters Nai-Hoi Yau and Tin-Shing Yip, To introduces us to a rather large cast, headed by two fascinating antagonists Big D (Tony Leung Ka Fai) and Lam Lok (Simon Yam), each with his own style and sentiments. Every cast member registers as individual and interesting in his own right (there is only one major woman in each film, and her role is mostly for show, particularly in the sequel). We get some intriguing history, too, doled out in smart visual terms. The movie pulls you in via its characters and keeps you glued so that when the action finally begins, you're beyond hooked. (Much of the action, too, springs from character--unusual for this genre--which makes it all the more riveting and special.)

Continue reading "Election/Triad Election: To for the price of one" »

Posted by at 12:28 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: Dylan de Thomas
Rating (out of 5): ****

Red Road, writer-Director Andrea Arnold's notably assured feature debut (and winner of a jury prize at Cannes), tells a spare and haunting mystery about a Glasgow woman's growing obsession with a shadowy figure from her past. To give more information seems frankly unfair, with the movie doling out bits of information as though a precious commodity and the growing sense of dread building to a singular climax.

We first meet the protagonist, Jackie (in a stunningly honest performance by Kate Dickie), watching a bank of video screens with feeds coming from municipal surveillance cameras that watch over the city. She's looking for people in trouble, crimes in progress, when she finds someone that she clearly recognizes, though we have no idea why. From there, the movie becomes a genuine thriller, though one that goes in directions the genre rarely sees.

Continue reading "Red Road: An assured feature debut" »

Posted by at 2:06 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: James Van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): *½; add half a star if you’re a diehard Pacino fan

Shortly before and during the time that William Friedkin was shooting Cruising, the protests from the gay movement here in New York City struck me as untimely. The movie wasn't yet made: Didn't this go against the very idea of freedom of expression? I've now seen the film three times: upon its release, later on videotape and now on DVD in its much-improved, digitally re-mastered version. Protests or no, it stinks.

Seen today, the film appears almost to have been made by a crew of beginners--which is hardly the case, given the resumes of Friedkin (who acted as both director and writer/adaptor of the Gerald Walker novel on which the film is based) and his crew. From the second scene onwards, the heavily expository dialog, coupled with some terrible acting, simply embarrasses. As the film proceeds, it becomes clear that there is little "plot" per se, almost no sense of development, and the dialog remains dead--flat, expositional, and devoid of the quirks of speech that might make it seem real. The acting is mostly on the level of bad "method" (monochromatic, dreary) and this includes, I'm afraid, the lead performance of Al Pacino. When you are given no interesting dialog to work with, acting "real" can bore the pants off the average viewer.

The look of the film is bleak, seedy and mostly devoid of color--except in the apartment of the Pacino character's girlfriend Nancy (played by Karen Allen in what may be the most thankless role of her career), about whom we never learn a thing. Oddly enough, Allen is practically the only female in the film. I don't recall another movie set in a NYC so totally devoid of women. Gays actually do have female friends, but you wouldn’t glean that fact from this movie. It's all guys, all the time, mostly gays and cops, and most of these sick and unhappy. Now, I don't mind watching a movie that's dark and bleak, but I would like to be able to find some sense and meaning to it. In scene after scene, Cruising sports an air of unreality that never lifts. Its victims are characterless, the villain is essentially a cipher with but a single characteristic (the daddy issue), and the "hero"--despite his inordinate amount of screen time--is also very nearly character-free.

Continue reading "Cruising: Third Time Out and Still Not the Charm" »

Posted by at 1:19 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: Elizabeth Hille
Rating (out of 5): ****½

Nicholas Roeg's 1973 supernatural thriller, based on the short story by Daphne du Maurier, Don't Look Now remains creepy. Set in wintertime Venice, the film slowly chronicles the dismantling of Laura (Julie Christie) and John's (Donald Sutherland) guilt in the aftermath of their young daughter's drowning. Without giving too much away, the bare bones of the plot is simple: The child drowns in her red raincoat in their backyard, the couple go to Venice because John has work there as an architect restoring an old church, Laura meets two elderly sisters—one has the gift of second sight—and begins spending time with them, which alleviates some of her grief. John's unhappy about this and it adds tension to their marriage.

While it's true that time might have tamed some of the film's eroticism and terror, time has not eroded Roeg's ability to create labyrinthine anxiety and atmospheric tension though his direction and editing. The decaying, claustrophobic streets of Venice provide the perfect setting for how guilt is disintegrating the couples' psyches, albeit in different ways. Critics of the film have complained about its pace, calling it plodding, but without the slowness, the actors wouldn't have been able to carefully reveal the cracks in how the shared grief affects Laura and John together, and separately. Roeg incrementally induces paranoia without the viewer realizing exactly why she's getting creeped out.

Continue reading "Don't Look Now: 70's Gothic chiller" »

Posted by at 12:55 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: Dylan de Thomas
Rating (out of 5): ****½

With Tony Blair stepping down as the long-time Prime Minister of Great Britain and his replacement, Gordon Brown, spending the weekend with W. at Camp David, I thought it would be a good time to recommend the excellent House of Cards trilogy of miniseries, starring veteran British actor Ian Richardson as the fictional Prime Minister Francis Urquhart.

House of Cards, the first of the three series (the other two are To Play the King and The Final Cut), with its perfect blend of Macbeth and Richard III, of humor and drama, is the best--though once you start watching, stopping is hardly an option. The most obvious influence on the character is the aforementioned Richard, with his gleeful, cool, perfectly-reasoned badness and regular catchy audience-addressing. One halfway expects Urquhart to start speaking of his winter of discontent at any moment.

Continue reading "House of Cards" »

Posted by at 3:54 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Movie-watchers looking for an old-fashioned but absolutely riveting piece of fictionalized history could do no better than The Tunnel. Yes, it lasts two hours and 47 minutes, but I wager, once you've begun, you will savor every one of those minutes--particularly the final hour which builds an accumulative suspense that is breathtaking. Director Roland Suso Richter (he made a so-so The I Inside here in America after the success of this German film) may be no knock-out stylist, but everything he does is in service to the tale at hand. He draws fine performances from his cast (one of his actors, Sebastian Koch, starred in last year's Best Foreign Film The Lives of Others), and the look of the film is wonderful: in period, while using all of today's movie technology to create that period.

Continue reading "The Tunnel: Another Great Escape" »

Posted by at 3:06 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***½

Comedy of Power seems to me a departure for Claude Chabrol, and probably a welcome one, so far as he and his audience are concerned. He works this time not from any dark fictional Ruth Rendell-ish source but from a real case of corporate "sleazery" at the top of the French totem pole. (Watch the DVD extras for an interesting look into this subject and how the filmmaker addresses it.) He has also left behind his oft-used small-town bourgeoisie for those in national political, judicial and corporate control. Everything is fictionalized, of course, but the screenplay offers us a thoughtful look at haute bourgeois family life and work environment--in the process giving two of France's finest actors an opportunity to shine. Isabelle Huppert is superb, as usual, as the prosecuting judge (the French system certainly differs from ours) and François Berléand (The Chorus) is funny, nasty and finally sad as her initial prey. The rest of the spot-on cast includes a wonderful Robin Renucci as Huppert's lonely husband and the director's son Thomas (this may be Chabrol's most "family" movie) as the husband’s nephew who moves in with the couple temporarily and becomes a kind of sounding board for Huppert.

Continue reading "Comedy of Power: And the joke's on us" »

Posted by at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ***½

While it's certainly not a superb film, Xavier Beauvois's Le Petit Lieutenant got a rather scathing review in Variety and I feel compelled to defend it (after I saw it at the San Francisco International Film Fest last year). The policier stars Nathalie Baye - whom I remember most vividly from The Return of Martin Guerre ages ago, though she was also seen here in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can - and she's remarkable playing a recovering alcoholic police commandant who joins a precinct at the same time as the titular cop fresh out of the police academy (a pouty Jalil Lespert). Together they work to investigate a case involving clochards, illegal immigrants and the Russian Mafia, before things take a tragic turn. But while it may remind one a bit of Prime Suspect á la français, this is less about the mystery than it is about the characters. And even a borderline cliché turning point as Baye's temptation to return to drinking is rendered with such acute humanity by the actress that it is still profoundly moving. The film works as a procedural and as a rendering of the life of a cop. It's to the film's benefit that it is presented so matter-of-factly and acted so earnestly, and I found myself forgiving it's occasional flatness.

Beauvois has been more prolific in France as an actor than as a director - this is his fourth film, with the previous efforts well-reviewed but little seen in the States, and it's likely Le Petit Lieutenant won't break that streak. But it's well worth seeking out, because of Nathalie Baye - who won a César for Best Actress for this - and the rest of the cast, and as an example of making something fresh and authentic out of relatively common material.

Posted by at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

If Sidney Gilliatt's Green for Danger at first reminds you of a (very) early hospital "soap," do hang on. This "veddy" British mystery is done with the kind of understatement and sophistication those of us old enough to remember such out-of-date terms still appreciate. The time is WWII and the location a small-town hospital at which the staff is perhaps a tad too well-acquainted. The mystery element, though handled nicely, will hardly ruffle a feather in these days of Hostel and Wolf Creek. After a bit you'll easily figure out who's what. It's with the entrance of the inspector (who’s been narrating since the start) that the movie picks up and becomes the classic you're expecting. Played by Alastair Sim (Stage Fright, A Christmas Carol's Scrooge), this guy--even after all the detectives we've seen in the 60 years since--is an original.

Continue reading "Green for Danger: Veddy British Mystery" »

Posted by at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Few small foreign-language films get the top-notch send-off from critics (an absolute necessity for international success) accorded 13 Tzameti. From festivals in Venice, Sundance and (yes!) Transylvania to the European Film Awards, the little black-and-white thriller--moody, noirish and grim--has bowled 'em over. It sure did me, despite a beginning that relies on coincidence (overheard conversation and a deity-blown breeze that rather too perfectly lifts, guides and deposits a particular object from here to there). Allow the movie that bit of whimsy and, once set in motion, the story, direction and performances are all of such a piece that there is simply no turning back--for us or for the main character.

Continue reading "13 Tzameti: Grim noir" »

Posted by at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): ****

Paying as much tribute to Douglas Sirk as her previous film But I'm a Cheerleader did to John Waters, Jamie Babbitt uses a sort of magic carpet ride of hyper-stylization to explore grief, sexual abuse, drug addiction, physical disability and sexual repression. What could have easily slid into teenage (read: inane) psychosexual dramagedy nonsense plays instead like an interesting little character piece drenched in syrup.

Recently orphaned deaf-mute Dot (Camilla Belle) goes to live with her godparents (Hal Hartley go-to's Martin Donovan and Edie Falco) and their cheerleader daughter Nina (Elisha Cuthbert). Since everyone believes Dot cannot hear (and thus not judge) under the guise of condescending inclusivity they use her as a constant human confessional to unburden their souls.

Continue reading "The Quiet: Hush hush, sweet cheerleader" »

Posted by at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A primer on James Bond that I co-wrote with Walt Opie is now up on GreenCine. Some (well, many) would say I got stuck with the bum half of the franchise's history - writing about the more recent films - but it was still a kick to, for the first time, revisit those in an analytical frame of mind.

Meanwhile, seeing the latest incarnation of James Bond, Casino Royale, on the heels of watching all these other recent 007 films made it easier to see clearly how superior it is to most of them.

I do hope that any of those who carped ad nauseum about the casting of Daniel Craig - "he's a blonde!" (gasp!) - are quieted within ten minutes into the film. Craig's a fine actor - Layer Cake in particular must have put him in the sights of the Bond casting agents - and here he manages to give Bond both humanity, vulnerability and prone to paroxysms of violence. With his imperfect but appealing features (and also a chiseled physique that the filmmakers show off several occasions), Craig holds sway in every moment he's on screen.

The film starts with an incredible - in both senses of the word - chase sequence that reveal Craig's Bond as one capable of making the occasional tactical error, and also as one who can keep up with a ridiculously agile criminal (they both manage to jump, run and climb impossibly). It's an unforgettable scene and the film offers quite a few other spasms of violent action, but unlike many of the other Bond films in which the quiet moments - either romantic or character-revealing - make us want to cringe or head to the snack bar, in Casino Royale these scenes, too, hold our attention. Judi Dench, returning as M, finally has a great actor to play off of and her scenes with Craig have a dramatic zing rare for the series, and striking actress Eva Green (with mesmerizing eyes that match her name), takes  a "Bond girl" to near tragic levels and her scenes, too, with Craig have sparkle. Some credit should go to the script, above average for a Bond film, by Bond regulars Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, along with Oscar-winner Paul Haggis, as it deftly takes the franchise in new directions while also referencing with sly one-liners the franchise's previous history. Mads Mikkelsen, a highly regarded actor in his native Denmark (check him out in the Pusher trilogy), makes for a creepy enough villain (his glassy eye and its tears of blood are a memorable touch); the torture scene between he and Bond is a memorable, even funny, bit of sadistic interplay.

If the film suffers from the same overlength tendency and complicatted plotting that characterizes most of the more recent era Bonds, and if it seems a little laughable that Bond would so swiftly declare his love for Eva Green's Vesper, the film overall is hard to rag on. The pacing is better than most recent Bond efforts, and the very ending is perfect.

All in all, Casino Royale admirably earns its way as a great action film - not just as another Bond. -- Craig Phillips

Posted by at 9:56 AM | Permalink

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Who is The Uninvited Guest? This question, along with a number of others, may stick with you after viewing this rich, engrossing Spanish film that does not easily give up its secrets. The first full-length feature from writer/director Guillem Morales (he's done a number of short films), the movie is a visual stunner, beautifully composed, and with a musical score that captures mood without being overly intrusive. Intellectually, it stimulates and teases. Emotionally, it pulls you quickly in then jerks you back and forth between acceptance and rejection. If you are looking around for something somewhat scary and original (very!) for Halloween - yet not a blood-and-gore fest - this might be your movie.

Continue reading "The Uninvited Guest" »

Posted by at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): **** ½

With Paul Verhoeven's new film, Black Book, also centered around the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, and his first film shot in his native country in decades [read David D'Arcy's review of the film which premiered in Toronto], it seemed a good time to revisit Soldier of Orange.

Epic in length and scope, but also a character-driven piece, Verhoeven's masterfully entertaining WWII film Soldier of Orange is the most polished of his early Dutch films (though the more subversive The 4th Man is perhaps his sharpest). It makes it all the more apparent how far he eventually fell in his more recent Hollywood forays (B-movie masterpiece RoboCop notwithstanding). Soldier also catapulted Rutger Hauer to stardom, charismatically playing real life heroic (and, eventually, flying) Dutchman Eric Lanshof, a bit of an anti-hero who was initially apolitical during WWII but eventually found himself figthting in the resistance after Holland was overtaken by the Germans. The recognizable, always solid Jeroen Krabbe plays Lanshof's longtime friend who gets caught up along with him in trying to save the country they love, long after their Queen (whom they eventually meet) has fled to England.

Continue reading "Soldier of Orange" »

Posted by at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (2)

Reviewer: Marc Barrite
Rating (out of 5): ****

In his first feature, French director Louis Malle struck cinematic gold with this film noir, an adaptation of a novel by Noel Calef. There are many faces appearing here who would become fixtures in French cinema but it's the lovely Jeanne Moreau who leaves the most indellible impression; she gives a stand-out performance as the bourgeois Florence Carala helplessly wandering the streets of Paris at night in search of her lover. Moreau's travels are masterfully captured by cinematographer Henri Decae, who employs many of the groundbreaking, budget-conscious techniques that would be used more overtly in the subsequent French new wave movement, including the sole use of available light, which in this film results in a beautiful array of natural shadows cast about in each scene.

Elevator's success and timelessness was further sealed by having jazz trumpet legend Miles Davis perform the unforgettable soundtrack. The improvised score is a shining example of the cool and seductive sound Davis purveyed during the rise of his career. The spare instrumentation and smoky atmosphere of the recordings are hypnotic, complementing the film perfectly.

Though nearing its 50th birthday, Elevator holds up with the best of its contemporaries. The pacing and plot complexities will keep today's less-than-patient viewer attentive, there's enough isolation and paranoia to satiate even the most hardened Hitchcock and noir fans, and the screenplay (by Malle and Roger Nimier) is at once sharp, romantic and political. The Criterion bonus disc offers interviews with Malle and Moreau from 1975 and 2005 respectively, rare footage of Miles Davis performing the soundtrack, and Malle's rarely seen film school short, Crazeologie, to boot.

Posted by at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (41)

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ***

Robert Connolly's The Bank is a well-made, tense little thriller from Down Under which manages to make the world of finance and math interesting, even to those of us who don't religiously follow NASDAQ. The opening credits, reminiscent of Vertigo, pull you in, the Philip Glass-like music hypnotizes you, the Wall Street-like morality debate will fascinate. While some of its elements don't feel all that fresh (and listening to the director's fairly pretentious audio commentary won't change your mind), The Bank is presented in a fresh way, the acting is quite good, and the ethical dilemmas debated (huge corporate banks that care not one iota about the common man) are extremely timely. It's a bit funny to see Australian actor Anthony LaPaglia, more often seen these days on American TV shows and American movies, being in a film from his home country and yet playing an American - but he does so quite well. The characters aren't as deep as you might hope for, but deep enough as thrillers go, and the farm family in particular is poignantly captured. There are some genuinely surprising (if occasionally farfetched) little twists as the plot unfolds, and the moody and tense atmosphere of this cool, unfeeling world is heightened by Tristan Milani's cinematography. All in all, well worth a rental for anyone looking for a thriller that doesn't pander to the audience. -- Craig Phillips

Posted by at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (35)