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 BLACK MASK. None of our reviewers had a chance to see this
Hong Kong action flick, so we pulled this review off an internet
fan site. It's by Ralf Herzel of Moormerland, Germany:
"Summary: One of the greatest HK-Action Movies! The story
deals about his old friends. But there is one problem, the friends
are superfighters! The film is filled with blood, super action
and the best stunts forever. And Lau Ching-Wan is a great Co-actor.
Of course the movie has the typical HK-Fun. But I love it! In
Germany, Black Mask is uncut!" --Thanks, Ralf!
CHILDREN OF HEAVEN. In spite of the fact that the U.S.
sponsored a bloody coup in their country in the 1960s, Iran still
sends us much better films than we deserve to watch. This latest
from director Majid Majidi is a quintessentially Iranian film,
focusing on the small tensions in daily life and giving them a
sense of urgency and universality. Young Ali loses his sister
Zahra's shoes, and must engage in a difficult series of trade-offs
that bring the siblings closer together. Sparse use of music,
unnaturally apt acting by the child-stars, and a strong sense
of rhythm make this a deeply engaging film. --DiGiovanna
ELECTION. I've never really agreed with universal participatory
democracy, because so much of the electorate is ill-informed and
their votes are easily manipulated by demagogues and heartlessly
ambitious power-mongers. (That's why I just let Tucson Weekly
editor Jim Nintzel pick my votes for me...he's well informed and
has no ambition. I call it Nintzelocracy.) Commenting on this,
Election takes all the worst traits of American politics
and squeezes them into a high school full of immature teens, which
is pretty much what American politics looks like to the rest of
the world anyway. Director Alexander Payne's sharp eye for satire
makes Election the funniest, and one of the smartest, films
so far this year. --DiGiovanna
EXISTENZ. This may be Cronenberg's best film, and makes
up for his misfire on Crash. The story involves a virtual-reality
video game, wherein the players play a virtual-reality video game,
wherein the players play a virtual-reality video game. Take that,
Will Shakespeare, with your little play-within-a-play motif! All
the technology in this surreal sci-fi is fleshy, like the video
game consoles that are made of organic parts from mutated amphibians,
and the anus-like "ports" in the player's spines through
which they jack into the games, and a gun made of frog parts that
shoots human teeth. Then there's the most disgusting lunch buffet
ever filmed. And some bizarre and compelling dialogue, with weird
and chilling performances that mesh neatly with the story's inherent
lost reality. eXistenZ is sexy, slimy and so refreshingly
creative that it's ultimately like nothing you've ever seen. Its
97 minutes zip by so fast you'll want to see it again just to
make sure it was real. --DiGiovanna
GOODBYE LOVER. For a couple of weeks, various strange people
have been asking me if I'm married. No, I'm not married, but only
because Patricia Arquette's personal secretary won't give her
my letters and phone messages. In Goodbye Lover, Arquette
cements her reputation as one of the finest actors of the American
theatre by engaging in Nazi leather sex with Don Johnson and a
jar of pitted olives. This film about murder, double indemnity
and double crosses works as well as any film noir--if you're willing
to swallow the few far-fetched plot twists it gives back with
lots of sleazy action. A big bonus is Ellen Degeneres, who's hilarious
as the cynical police detective investigating a murder and occasionally
putting Arquette into a series of aesthetically pleasing bondage
poses. And any movie that includes the line "fuck me like
a little Republican" deserves our national gratitude.
--DiGiovanna
LIFE. The Shawshank Redemption meets Stir Crazy
in this decades-spanning prison comedy. Eddie Murphy and Martin
Lawrence play a couple of buffoons who get framed for murder in
the Deep South. Their incarceration carries them from the Prohibition
Era into modern times, and director Ted Demme takes the opportunity
to mix social observation (it'd be a stretch to call it "commentary")
into the story. This includes surprisingly well-shaded views of
racism. Mostly, though, Life provides Murphy and Lawrence
with scattered opportunities for comic riffing. Murphy does his
funniest, most free-spirited work in years, and Lawrence makes
a likable straight man. It's a shame the movie is so aimless,
but a sloppy Life is worth a dozen tight Dr. Dolittles.
--Woodruff
LOST AND FOUND. This David Spade comedy is a mixed bag.
On the plus side is David Spade, who delivers a series of cruel
and yet self-deprecating one-liners that are almost always funny.
On the other is the over-worked story of the guy who engages in
stalker-like behavior in order to win a woman whose only appealing
characteristic is her extreme beauty. The role of Extreme Beauty
is played by Sophie Marceau, who's extremely good at looking beautiful.
She won the Cesar Award (the French Oscar) for "Most Looking-Beautiful
Woman-Type Creature" (that's a roughly literal translation).
She plays the romantic comedy version of the ideal girlfriend:
she's hot, she speaks French, and she's willing to date assholes.
If the movie was just Sophie Marceau being painfully fly and David
Spade being painfully funny it'd be a four-star knock-out, but
unfortunately there's also a plot about a missing diamond ring,
a pile of dog poop, a struggling businessman who's willing to
act zany to get a loan, and, of course, the romantic pleasures
of lying, stalking, and felony breaking and entering.
--DiGiovanna
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Local punk rock star Greg Petix
told me that there's always one woman whom you cannot openly admire
without pissing off every other woman in the country. Currently,
that woman is Calista Flockhart, who I must say, turns in a fabulous
performance in A Midsummer Night's Dream. She has a clear
mastery of the language, and is the only actor in the production
who emphasizes the iambic pentameter without sounding artificial.
Kevin Kline is also outstanding, as are Stanley Tucci as Puck
and Rupert Evert as Oberon. Unfortunately, Michelle Pfeiffer as
Titania sounds like a non-native speaker attempting to phonetically
sound-out the script; but there are enough strong performances
here to make her insignificant. This is good stuff for Shakespeare
lovers, but the difficult dialogue may be off-putting to those
who prefer Shakespeare in Love to the real material.
--DiGiovanna
THE MUMMY. When the female lead spouts dialogue like "we've
lost everything...our tools, our horses, and all of my clothes!"
you know you're watching a classy film. The Mummy is the
story of Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian priest who gives his life
for love. Three thousand years later, he's accidentally resurrected
by capitalist/colonialist grave robbers Brendan Fraser and Rachel
Weisz. In spite of the fact that Imhotep is the only character
in the film who stands for anything besides plundering the treasures
of other cultures, he's supposed to be the villain. Me, I just
wanted him to kill Weisz, Fraser and their entire posse of white-ass
imperialist war criminals. Bonus: this movie contains the most
stupid and offensive stereotypes of Arabs that I've seen in a
Hollywood film in the last 25 years, which can be considered quite
an accomplishment given Tinsel Town's insensitivity on this subject.
I'd rather you threw your $7.50 in the sewer than spent it on
this racist and predictable pabulum. --DiGiovanna
TRIPPIN'. This is without a doubt the most original film
I've ever encountered: see, there's this high school boy, and
he's something of an "outsider." Oddly enough, he falls
in love with the most beautiful and popular girl in the school!
Of course, the viewer assumes that he'll never get with her...but
wait, he develops a plan, a scheme, a "plot," if you
will, which wins her heart! So okay, he has the girl, so the movie
is over, right? Wrong! It turns out that his "plot"
involved some deception...and in a completely unexpected "plot
twist," the girl finds out about this deception...right before
the prom!!! Thus, he must attend the prom alone. I won't tell
you if he makes a heartfelt speech about what a terrible mistake
he made, and if that speech (shockingly and most unexpectedly!)
wins back his beloved, but let's just say that that's just the
kind of storytelling that you can expect from the wildly titled
Trippin' ! --DiGiovanna
STAR WARS: EPISODE 1--THE PHANTOM MENACE. This movie is
just like real life for a museum tour guide: the dialogue sucks
and there's no plot, but it's full of pretty things to look at.
--DiGiovanna
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