Taste of Cherry (1997)
March 20, 2010
A bracelets drives around villages and the desert hills contribution a series of carefully selected men a pinch and unusually well paid work; he’s not looking into a pick-up but, as we discover after a while, someone to help in his planned suicide. Characteristically, Kiarostami’s Palme d’Or title-holder is low on narrative drive, slowly but steadily revealing more and more report, visual and verbal, until we are totally caught up in his protagonist’s psychological and ethical dilemma. (Suicide is forbidden to Muslims.) As till doomsday, the subtile, deceptively square mise-en-scène speaks volumes, notably a nightmare of noisy industrialism in the desert, and the remarkable penultimate scene, which goes even help in its minimalist vagueness than the final shots of the mould two movies of Kiarostami’s trilogy.
The Boy Who Could Fly (1986)
March 17, 2010
With such a promising premise, it’s a shame that The Boy Who Could Sling so quickly descends into Disneyland. Milly (Deakins) is the further kid on the block. The boy next door is Eric (Underwood), an autistic child who spends his days perched on a bedroom windowsill with arms outstretched in dreams of do a moonlight flit. The two outsiders are at at times drawn to one another, and a sympathetic trainer (Dewhurst) plays upon their developing relationship, hoping to reintegrate Eric into the classroom and prevent the authorities from institutionalising him. As the adults close off in, the young dreamers are chased on to the school roof, with nowhere to deliver up but up or down. Boss Hall gets fallen in fantasy, spoiling a hopeful portrait with some heavy-handed tense manipulation and an escapist conclusion.
“Return to Me,” Bonnie Hunt’s…
March 15, 2010
“Return to Me,” Bonnie Hunt’s visage directorial debut, is a simplistic, enthusiastically contrived romantic comedy near the mysterious workings of fate — in this case, a cuddle affair between a naive widower and a waitress who, unbeknownst to him, has received his current wife’s transplanted sentiment. How successful this harmless but unexciting confection will be at the B.O. will depend greatly upon whether David Duchovny’s “X-Files” fans support the film. Beyond that, however, this serio-comedy does have a number of other commercial points in its favor: a PG rating, an amiable performance by Minnie Driver, and a skillful senior supporting throw away, most prominently Carroll O’Connor in his first studio feature in more than 25 years.
As an actress, Hunt has made her mark in mostly comic roles that recall the snappy delivery style of Eve Arden. But as a helmer and co-scripter, she has opted for safe middlebrow and predictable fare — pic is marketed as “a comedy straight from the heart.” Taking its title from a Dean Martin song, “Return to Me” strives to gain situate itself in the territory of “Moonstruck,” which also exploited a Martin song and used several older characters as a Greek chorus commenting on the actions of the younger protagonists. As lightweight in ideas as “Moonstruck” was, at least it boasted major stars and buckets of charm that “Return” lacks.
First reel chronicles the happy marriage of Bob Rueland (Duchovny), a successful architect-engineer, and Elizabeth (Joely Richardson), an ambitious zoologist who devotes herself to the construction of a new gorilla habitat at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo, until her untimely death in an accident.
Living a routine existence in the same city is Grace Briggs (Driver), a waitress at O’Reilly’s, no doubt the town’s only Irish-Italian restaurant. Living with her loving grandpa Marty (O’Connor), Grace is a shy woman about to receive a new lease on life through a heart transplant. Since the audience knows that Grace’s new heart will come from Elizabeth, pic’s only puzzles concern the specific circumstances under which Bob and Grace will meet and when will Grace tell him about her link to his wife.
In the wake of his mate’s sudden death, Bob sinks into deep depression, his only consolation being the companionship of their dog. Matchmaking efforts by his veterinarian friend Charlie (David Alan Grier) prove fruitless as Bob is not quite ready to start over. That is, until he meets Grace at her family’s restaurant, which he patronizes on what turns out to be a disastrous blind date. Shy Grace, who’s haunted by the tragic circumstances that took her mother from her when she was a child, begins to blossom as Bob pays more and more attention to her.
Lacking wit and sophistication, “Return to Me” registers as a sappy, life-affirming fairy tale whose only link to reality is Bob’s sense of loss.
About half of the yarn is set at O’Reilly’s, a venerable joint where a lively clique of oldsters watch over Grace — and dispense wisdom. Group includes grandpa Marty, Italian uncle Angelo (Robert Loggia), lonely-hearts Emmett (Eddie Jones), Wally (William Bronder) and Sophie (Marianne Muellerleile). Very much in the spirit of “Moonstruck,” though sans that movie’s canny intelligence, pic panders aggressively to its senior citizens.
Suffering from draggy pacing and excessive running time, comedy occasionally comes to life in scenes set in the home of Megan (Bonnie Hunt), Grace’s best friend and a mother of five, and her vulgar working class hubby, Joe (James Belushi). That the saga ends happily with the wedding of two of its senior characters, rather than that of the romantic leads, smacks of political correctness as well as film’s intent to win the older demographics.
Sights of Rome, where aspiring painter Grace goes to rethink her life and art, offer some delights, though here, too, helmer can’t resist being cute when she shows how some local nuns get excited and go for a euphoric ride on Grace’s red bike. Production values, particularly lensing by vet Laszlo Kovacs, are proficient, and acting of Duchovny and Driver is decent, though both thesps deserve much better material.
Having reaped great acclaim wi…
March 12, 2010
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Having reaped great acclaim with ‘Crane World’ and ‘El Bonaerense’, Argentinian litterateur-director Pablo Trapero ups the ante with an individual of the finest films released here this year. Not that his achievement makes itself fully felt until the final shot; previous to then, it may condign deem like a consistently amusing but rather ramshackle, even chaotic road-movie with no real plot or thematic theme.
It starts guilelessly: Emilia (Graciana Chirino) feeding pets and preparing for a befall by genre and friends to celebrate her 84th birthday. At the party there’s a surprise demand from a forgotten cousin, inviting her to be matron of honour at a wedding in the village of her birth. Remind for the entire clan – four generations (if a certain includes a new baby) – to wealth into her son-in-law’s olden camper van and make the long, frequently testing travel from Buenos Aires to the Brazilian purfling limits.
There’s no real drama: just a risk of breakdown and the tensions that climb from cramming so scads population – some thrilled they’re there, others not – into a small, hot, bumpy space. Trapero knows bloodline can be both crutch and millstone (or haven and prison); that unsentimental truce, expressed in deftly observed details, brings much deliciously tender-hearted, telling humour to the movie, which instances feels like Altman at his most gleefully wayward and facetious. But warmth’s there, too; with the magnificently low-key certain shot mentioned above, it becomes disambiguate become fair we’ve seen a mist of subtlety and wisdom, a hirsute-dog story about information to deal with disappointment, compromise, confusion and loss: learning, in short, to predisposed to brio in all its painful truth and strength.
Once Upon a Time in Mexico review
March 9, 2010
Raw loose between “Spy Kids” assignments, Robert Rodriguez returns to his kind roots — albeit with greater specialized means and an A-list cast — in “Once Upon a Time in Mexico.” Resurrecting the gun-slinging guitar Thespian for the third time after “El Mariachi” and “Desperado,” the new entry inhabits a more epic dimension and — as the subhead suggests — evokes the mythic feel of Sergio Leone Westerns. Despite a convoluted conspiracy that begs for cleaner lines, the chaotic shoot-outs, cartoonish injure b warp and charismatic eject should attract sortie fans to theaters in significant numbers, followed by rowdy home entertainment metier.
Fact that the multihyphenate filmmaker is clearly having fun here is underlined by credits like “shot, chopped and scored by Robert Rodriguez.” In addition to those duties and to writing and directing, Rodriguez also served as production designer, re-recording mixer and visual effects supervisor, with much of the post-production carried out at the director’s Troublemaker facilities in Austin, Texas.
Made on a modest budget and displaying a refined version of the technical resourcefulness that first put Rodriguez on the map with the $7,000 “El Mariachi,” the new pic also serves as a testament to the advancements in visual quality of digital video. Shot with Sony 24-frames-per-second digital high-definition cameras and almost indiscernibly blown up to widescreen 35mm, the film has remarkable visual depth and clarity, not to mention rich, scorching color.
Setting the tone in a larger-than-life register that mixes reality with fantasy, an amusing pre-titles sequence re-introduces both the singing pistolero (Antonio Banderas) and his sultry inamorata, Carolina (Salma Hayek), in a bloody clash with a crew of villainous scum, as retold with embellishments by Belini (Cheech Marin) to rogue CIA agent Sands (Johnny Depp). Belini reveals that el Mariachi’s chief adversary, General Marquez (Gerardo Vigil), did not die in the fight but lives on.
The story picks up on the guitar player living in isolation, smoldering with psychological scars after the murder of Carolina and their daughter. A romantic back-story is patched together through memory sequences. El Mariachi enlists help from his crooning sidekicks (Enrique Iglesias, Marco Leonardi) after he is recruited by Sands to intervene in a coup d’etat. Plot is being orchestrated by General Marquez and cartel kingpin Barrillo (Willem Dafoe), who plan to assassinate the Mexican president (Pedro Armendariz Jr.) during the Day of the Dead celebrations. Barrillo also has a price on el Mariachi’s head.
An elaborate web of double-crossing and deceit gradually emerges as Sands begins playing off various elements against each other. Lack of focus and delineation in the overburdened, messy plot is exacerbated by the blur between Marquez and Barrillo as key villains, and by the latter’s poorly illustrated scheme to kill off a look-alike and start fresh with a surgically altered face.
The backdrop of impending revolution also is unsatisfyingly sketched, as is Barrillo’s double role as vicious murdering drug lord and friend-to-the-people folk hero. And affable as they are, el Mariachi’s sidekicks also serve no real purpose, though music chart heartthrob Iglesias makes a respectable screen bow.
Far more effective are the digressions to recap the Mariachi’s relationship with Carolina, which expand on the seed of the earlier movies and lend breadth and soulfulness to this final installment. And one scene in particular, involving the sexy couple’s escape from a fifth-floor hotel room while chained together, is arguably the most exciting of the pic’s many action sequences.
Rodriguez knowingly uses Banderas as an iconic figure given to few words, strutting through gunbattles more like a flamenco dancer than a killer. Hayek makes a ballsy impression in her fleeting appearances, but other cast members appear to be along for the joyride with little time to flesh out fully developed characters. Main exception is Depp, who follows his enormously enjoyable work in “Pirates of the Caribbean” with another inventive turn, finding the sly comedy and even an unexpected paternal side behind his character’s cool cruelty.
Rodriguez’s muscular camerawork is matched by his exhilarating editing — especially during the visceral gunplay set pieces — and backed by his driving score, which blends Mexican guitar themes with suspenseful Latino orchestral work. Production design also is sharp, making good use of dusty locations, rustic bars and classic Mexican architecture.
Mary Allen