Gateway Cinephiles

They Caught a Bad, Bad Train

September 2, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Dramas, Foreign, Action No Comments

Transsiberian
2008 (UK / Germany / Spain / Lithuania)
Director: Brad Anderson
Viewed: August 31, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

Allow me to clear up one thing that the marketing of Transsiberian has unforgivably muddled: Woody Harrelson might have first billing, but Emily Mortimer is the clear protagonist and the star of this serviceable–albeit raw-nerved–thriller. Director Brad Anderson begins with a meaty premise: two guileless Americans find themselves enmeshed in a heroin trafficking plot during their journey aboard the titular train. This is not a Locked Room mystery in the tradition of Murder of the Orient Express. Jessie (Mortimer) and Roy (Harrelson) spend as much time off the train as on it, and the film clearly owes a debt to Hitchcock’s more harried, dashing thrillers in its action set pieces and its fascination with Jessie’s responses to desperate, often uncanny, circumstances. Unfortunately, Anderson lends barely any thematic heft to the tale. While Jessie’s plight often has us sweating bullets in the moment, Transsiberian’s themes are confused, when the film-makers bother to articulate them at all. The result is a film that offers excitement and opportunities for “What Would You Do?” speculation, but little else.

Read the rest…

3-Minute Intro: The Cannonball Run

September 2, 2008 Andrew 3-Minute Intros, Comedies, Action No Comments

Screened: September 1, 2008
Format: DVD - HBO (2001)
Selected By: Grant

When Korean War veteran Hal Needham came to Hollywood in the 1950s to work as a stuntman, he had no intention of transforming action filmmaking. Needham quickly developed a strong reputation for his stunt work in television Westerns, parlaying his success into film. Eventually progressing to stunt coordination and second unit direction, Needham was regarded as one of the industry’s chief innovators by 1976, when he approached friend Burt Reynolds with a script called Smokey and the Bandit. The film was an enormous hit for both the director and star, a feat they replicated in 1981 with The Cannonball Run, a camp ensemble comedy celebration of auto racing and Hollywood excess.

Back in 1976, there had been two films—the action feature Cannonball! and the comedy The Gumball Rally—based on a real-life outlaw cross-country auto race, the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. Run five times between 1971 and 1979, the Dash was legendary in Needham’s racing and stunt circles for having no rules save the specified starting and end point. With The Cannonball Run, the director undeniably created the race’s most widespread cultural legacy, going so far as to integrate notorious events from past Dashes into the film’s plot.

Cannonball was a part of Reynolds’ unparalleled 1978-1982 domination of the American box office, although his collaborations with Needham and other B-movie fare had by 1981 somewhat diminished his reputation in the eyes of audiences and directors. However, dismissing Cannonball, or any Needham film, as shallow misses the point. The director always intended his films to be joyful tributes to his heroes and the things he loved, particularly fast cars. Despite its broad, engaging cast of comedy fixtures, rising stars, and Hollywood has-beens—including Roger Moore parodying his contemporary James Bond role—Needham’s focus is on the vehicles, which he films with the devoted attention that only an enthusiast can bring. Ultimately, the film’s frisky character ensures The Cannonball Run’s status, not merely as a 1981 cultural artifact, but also one of the great Hollywood chase films. It’s a character embodied in its roguish disdain for law enforcement and its enthusiasm for a competition where nothing is at stake but bragging rights.

Review: The Dark Knight

July 21, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Film Diaries - Libby, Film Diaries - Roland, Action, Science Fiction, Film Diaries - Beth, Film Diaries - Mark No Comments

2008
Director: Christopher Nolan
Viewed: July 20, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

Indulge me for a moment, as I’m going get effusive right off the bat (pun intended). With The Dark Knight, writer-director Christopher Nolan sets upon the “comic book film” with sledgehammer and napalm, and delivers the sort of sorely needed genre reconstruction that occurs once in a generation. Here we have, at long last, a film that winnows away the limitations of comics, distills their strengths, and emerges as a work wholly cinematic in character, leaving its ancestral medium far behind. The Dark Knight is a noir action epic of the grandest, bleakest, most exhilarating sort. It is not a flawless film, nor is it a masterpiece. However, it is a wonder to behold. It is a film so ambitious, so dizzying in its lofty heights and abyssal depths, I suspect that it was only the appealing Batman branding that permitted Nolan to create it at all. This is Hollywood film-making as bloodless revolution. As Heath Ledger’s terrifying Joker observes, “You’ve changed things. There’s no going back.”

Read the rest…

Review: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

July 15, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Film Diaries - Libby, Fantasy, Action No Comments

2008
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Viewed: July 12, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

With Hellboy II: The Golden Army, director Guillermo del Toro–that Mexican gothic with a boundless sympathy for monsters and a gluttony for visual spectacle–returns to Mike Mignola’s fantasy comic-verse in a shower of goblin sparks. In visiting the demonic well once again, del Toro perhaps inevitably fails to capture the freshness that made the first outing such a pleasure. In Hellboy, the originality of the film’s blend of otherworldly design, authentic pathos, and cartoon wit was central to its appeal. The Golden Army compensates for its familiar territory by emphasizing the design–ramping it up, in fact, to Oz-ian levels. The heart and the laughs are still there, but del Toro seems most intent on wonder. It’s a credit to his skill, then, that The Golden Army engages despite fiddling with the delicate balance of the first film. Moreover, the film adeptly fulfills the purpose that all fantasy sequels should at minimum fulfill: moving its world forward, in terms of plot, themes, and mythic richness.

Read the rest…

Quick Review: Hancock

July 14, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Action, Science Fiction No Comments

2008
Director: Peter Berg
Viewed: July 8, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

In the abstract, Will Smith’s reluctant, negligent superman, John Hancock, is a comic hero with an admittedly cunning twist. And Smith, to his credit, uses his own boundless charisma to nicely affect the mysterious messiah’s transition from sophomoric alcoholic to godling with a conscience. In the end, however, the Idea and the Star alone cannot elevate Hancock when the filmmakers have relatively pedestrian ambitions. The film’s best moments are also its nastiest–such as when Smith flings a little bully a few thousand feet into the sky to put the fear of Krypton into him. Too often, however, Hancock lunges for cheap sentiment or weak laughs. Berg’s camera captures the distinctive glaze of modern Los Angeles, but also insists on a style that consists primarily of constant, distracting jiggling. I wasn’t bothered by the out-of-left-field revelation in Hancock’s third act, but its poorly conveyed implications and the confused, tension-free climax ensured that the “surprise” was wasted. The early glee at watching Hancock’s disastrous attempts at heroism (and Smith’s “Fuck Y’all” attitude) just barely make up for the generally limp storytelling, or the discomfiting subtext in a black man–even a black superman–who needs to go to prison to learn a lesson.

Film Diary: Hellboy (Director’s Cut)

July 12, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Dramas, Action No Comments

2004
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Viewed: July 12, 2008
Format: DVD - Sony (2004)

Review: Mongol

July 11, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Foreign, Action No Comments

2007
Director: Sergei Bodrov
Viewed: July 6, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

Mongol is far too mediocre a film, given its ambitions. It purports to be “The Untold Story of the Genghis Khan’s Rise to Power”. Whether this tale of the man who would be Genghis—here still called Temudjin—was truly “untold” until now or just unfamiliar to Western audiences, I can’t say. Regardless, it’s clear that director Sergei Bodrov wants his film to be a grandiose period epic in the vein of Braveheart or Gladiator, with all the cheesy mythologizing that entails. Yet even in this, Mongol stumbles. The film’s luscious look and generally warm, mature treatment of its characters can’t conceal the incoherence or tedium of its story. Furthermore, Mongol delivers almost no fresh insight into one of history’s Great Men, a nagging flaw in light of how forcefully the film trumpets its “untold” character.

Read the rest…

Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

May 30, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Film Diaries - Libby, Fantasy, Action 1 Comment

2008
Director: Steven Spielberg
Viewed: May 26, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

Let’s get the Bad News out of the way first: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the weakest chapter to date in the now-grizzled archeologist’s adventures. To put that statement into context, consider that I have stubborn admiration and affection for the series’ previous low point, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Given the mark the original trilogy left on my young mind, and given that it’s been so long since Harrison Ford last took up the fedora and bullwhip, I’m finding it somewhat difficult to put the new film into the proper perspective. What I can’t deny is that there’s a sense of melancholic disappointment to Kingdom, a sharp slap of reality that fades to a lingering sting. It’s like running into a an old schoolmate after nearly twenty years apart, and finding that the former star athlete and class president is now a termite inspector living in a trailer with five kids. Kingdom is a fine adventure film, and it superbly accomplishes its tricky task of updating the series for a new age. Yet there’s something a little shocking and unwelcome about unearthing a new Indy film at long last, only to discover that, in many ways, it’s just another action-film-as-amusement-park-ride in a bloated summer season.

Read the rest…

Review: Speed Racer

May 22, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Action, Science Fiction No Comments

2008
Director: Andy and Larry Wachowski
Viewed: May 21, 2008
Format: IMAX Theatrical Print

[Full Disclosure: Although its trailers had intrigued me, the overall critical drubbing that Speed Racer has received (35% on Rotten Tomatoes, 37 on Metacritic) dissuaded me from seeing the film in its first week. However, a beautifully written and overwhelmingly positive review by Dennis Cozzalio re-piqued my interest, prompting me to catch Speed Racer at a late IMAX showing. In most cases, I avoid reading reviews for films I know I’m going to see, lest the reviewer’s impressions creep into my own. I violated this rule of thumb for Speed Racer, and I will acknowledge up front that Dennis’ work likely lent a positive bias to my review, in that he helped me see the virtues of this apparent flop.]

Right out of the gate, let me lay out some facts about Speed Racer: 1) It is absolutely batshit crazy. By this I mean that it refuses to play by the rules and exhibits abnormal, even alarming, behavior. 2) It is not, despite initial appearances, an empty vessel of day-glo gloss and digital mayhem. 3) It is an ideal family film for parents to share with older children and preteens. 4) It is a work of ambitious filmmaking, and in the final analysis, it succeeds more often that it stumbles. 5) Did I mention that it’s CRAZY?

Read the rest…

Review: Iron Man

May 6, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Film Diaries - Libby, Film Diaries - Roland, Film Diaries - Lara, Action, Science Fiction 1 Comment

2008
Director: Jon Favreau
Viewed: May 4, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

Entries in the superhero genre have been coming fast and furious lately. Lamentably, for every adaptation that conveys thrills, humor, and heart in an artful way, a slug of forgettable nonsense or outright dreck comes down the studio pipe. Arriving at the bleeding edge of a densely packed summer action film season, Jon Favreau’s Iron Man is the latest attempt to breathe twenty-first century cinematic life to a seminal character. The film certainly hits all the right notes for its source material, but it occasionally stumbles into the usual action film sins: predictability, ridiculous dialogue, and trite character development. Yet despite these flaws, Iron Man emerges as a delicious work of modern techno-fantasy, and reveals Favreau as an action director of generous skill.

Read the rest…

Gateway Cinephiles

They Caught a Bad, Bad Train

3-Minute Intro: The Cannonball Run

Review: The Dark Knight

Review: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Quick Review: Hancock

Film Diary: Hellboy (Director’s Cut)

Review: Mongol

Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Review: Speed Racer

Review: Iron Man

Screenings

Search

Categories

Last Posts

RSS FEED

Blogroll