It's hard to fathom the idea that there was actually a script for the Russian sci-fi epic BRANDED. It feels more like a pitch that the writing/directing team of Jamie Bradshaw and Alexander Doulerain came up with between bong hits: "OK, seriously. Duuuude, listen. What if the brands like, fuckin' came to life, man? No, no, no, dude...seriously, check this shit out. Seriously, I'm not fuckin' around, just hear me out. Like, we don't decide what to buy...but it's like the things we buy control us, man! Dude! The fuckin' corporations! Am I right? It's not science-fiction! It's happening now! Our thoughts are not our own! They decide, man!" A disaster of ludicrous proportions, BRANDED was stealthily dumped into theaters for a week last fall by Lionsgate under its Roadside Attractions banner, where it somehow grossed $350,000. I can't imagine anyone who bought a ticket was still in attendance when the closing credits rolled. Russian marketing hotshot Misha Galkin (Ed Stoppard of the UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS revival and son of Oscar-winning screenwriter Tom) has been overseeing the advertising of American products and brand names in Moscow while working under powerful ad honcho and American spy Bob Gibbons (Jeffrey Tambor). Gibbons has some strange connection to god-like marketing guru Joseph Pascal (Max von Sydow), who's hatching some master plan from a high-tech fortress in the Polynesian Islands to alter the world's perception of beauty ("We will make fat the new fabulous!" he says). Meanwhile, Misha is working on a side project and falls in love with Gibbons' visiting niece Abby (Leelee Sobieski), helping her produce a cosmetic surgery reality show. That idea goes down the toilet (joining everything else about BRANDED) when their star goes into a coma during surgery. Gibbons dies, Abby disappears, and Misha becomes a fugitive. Six years later, Pascal's "branding" has taken hold and the overweight and obese are now the supermodels and the world's beauty standard, and Abby finds Misha working as a cow herder (with Stoppard sporting one of the worst glued-on beards ever seen), and reveals that they have a son. Misha sacrifices a red cow and bathes in its blood, which allows him to start seeing visions of gelatinous, worm-like creatures surrounding everyone and everything, and he's convinced that these are brands coming to life and controlling our desires for products and consumption. Misha decides to fight the power by starting a guerrilla "death cow" ad campaign that bankrupts the fast food industry. Misha starts using the same technique on other mind-controlling corporations, which results in brands mutating into giant CGI monster form and attacking Moscow. Oh, and the whole thing is narrated by a talking cow constellation in the sky.
This actually got funded, filmed, acquired by a major company, and distributed in theaters for people to pay money to see. It's one of the most bewilderingly awful films to come down the pike in years, filled with actors who don't seem to understand what's going on, subpar CGI effects, toothless jabs at TV advertising, movie trailers, and the corporate power structure, and satire that's simply too heavy-handed to work. Stoppard and Sobieski just look lost, Tambor exits halfway through and hopefully got to enjoy the rest of his paid Moscow vacation, and von Sydow is clearly elsewhere, never interacting with the main actors and in front of an unconvincing greenscreen, obviously reading lines that were just given to him moments before (there's no way he read this script--he made sure the money was deposited and showed up for a day or two, tops). Whatever ambitions Bradshaw and Doulerain had are obliterated by their utter ineptitude as writers and directors and their complete inability to establish any kind of narrative drive or pacing of the story. Pages upon pages of dialogue are spouted by the actors and the first half of the film feels like THEY LIVE re-enacted by marketing students forced to take an improv class. But when the giant monsters in Misha's head start attacking Moscow GODZILLA and MOTHRA-style, the film starts to look like its makers are just baked out of their skulls and the entire project is cashed. The stunningly bad BRANDED has to be seen to be disbelieved. (R, 106 mins)
DOOMSDAY BOOK (South Korea - 2012)
This three-part anthology film began shooting in 2006, with segments to be directed by Yim Pil-Sung, Kim Jee-Woon (A TALE OF TWO SISTERS, I SAW THE DEVIL), and Han Jae-Rim. Yim and Kim finished their segments but the financing fell apart before Han's contribution was started. The project was shelved until 2011 when new backers entered the picture and the third segment--different from what Han was planning--ended up being directed by Yim, with some uncredited collaboration from Kim. Opening with Yim's "Brave New World," DOOMSDAY BOOK presents three different apocalypse scenarios, kicking off with a 28 DAYS LATER-type zombie virus outbreak in Seoul stemming from bacteria in a rotten apple that made its way through a recycling plant and into some cow feed and into the eventual beef consumed at a hibachi restaurant by the hapless Seok-woo (Ryo Seung-Byum), from whose home the apple came in the first place. Of course, flesh-eating mayhem consumes the city in a rather tired story that makes its points in ten minutes but lasts another 30, though there is one great gag involving characters in an online video game even being infected by the virus. Things take a much more philosophical turn in Kim's "Heavenly Creature," set in a future where worker robots are commonplace. One such robot, an outdated RU4 unit called In-Myung (voiced by THE HOST's Park Hae-Il) works at a Buddhist monastery and has achieved some kind of sentient autonomy and announces he's reached enlightenment. A technician is called and finds nothing functionally wrong with In-Myung but the corporate CEO decides, in the best interests of the human race, that In-Myung and any RU4s still operational need to be destroyed immediately. But the monks--who profess to live a "simple" life but all have their own cell phones--see In-Myung as a new spiritual leader. Finally, in "Happy Birthday," the segment shot in 2011, a little girl placing a replacement order on a dubious web site for a damaged 8-ball for her billiards-obsessed dad and uncle coincides with the uncle spotting a UFO and two years later, the 8-ball is finally on its way--in the form of a giant meteor speeding toward Earth.
"Brave New World" is easily the least of the three tenuously-connected stories (though the rotten apple makes a cameo appearance in "Happy Birthday"), but the other two can almost function as stand-alone short films. "Heavenly Creature" is beautifully shot and quite moving at times, with In-Myung earning its place as one of sci-fi cinema's most memorable robot characters. "Happy Birthday" is the kind of inventive, clever, absurdist silliness that probably would've put a smile on Douglas Adams' face. Even the image of a giant 8-ball in the sky looks like it belongs on the cover of a lost Adams novel. As the poet laureate Jim Steinman once wrote for the philosopher Meat Loaf, "two out of three ain't bad," and once you get past its relatively weak opener, DOOMSDAY BOOK is an admittedly uneven but alternately powerful, profound, silly, and hilarious anthology that's well worth a look. (Unrated, 114 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Written by Scott Z. Burns. Cast: Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Channing Tatum, Vinessa Shaw, Ann Dowd, Polly Draper, Mamie Gummer, David Costabile, Peter Friedman, Laila Robins, Michael Nathanson, Sheila Tapia. (R, 106 mins)
Steven Soderbergh has been announcing his retirement from feature films for several years now, and SIDE EFFECTS feels like what must be his seventh or eighth "last" film. For a guy on the verge of retirement, he's been highly prolific: SIDE EFFECTS is his third directorial feature in the last 13 months (after HAYWIRE and MAGIC MIKE), plus his upcoming HBO Michael Douglas-as-Liberace biopic BEHIND THE CANDELABRA is set to air later this year. Whether he means it or if he just needs some time away from Hollywood remains to be seen, but SIDE EFFECTS finds Soderbergh in top form, working from a script by frequent collaborator Scott Z. Burns (who also wrote Soderbergh's 2009 film THE INFORMANT! and 2011's CONTAGION), and fashioning a cleverly-constructed puzzler that starts out as one thing and very seamlessly and organically becomes another, all the while frequently misdirecting the audience but never cheating.
In a performance demonstrating the same intensity she brought to David Fincher's THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, Rooney Mara is Emily Taylor, a young NYC ad agency staffer who's been on her own after her Wall Street husband Martin (Channing Tatum) was busted by the Feds for insider trading. After serving four years in a minimum-security facility, Martin is paroled and Emily finds the adjustment difficult. She's battled depression in the past and it rears its ugly head once more when she's hospitalized after intentionally driving her car into a parking garage wall at full speed. In the hospital, she's consulted by attending psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), who agrees to take her on as a patient and prescribes Zoloft, but the side effects leave Emily fatigued, moody, and withdrawn. After discussing Emily's situation with her former psychiatrist Dr. Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones), Banks decides to prescribe the relatively new (and fictional) Ablixa. Emily responds well to Ablixa, with more energy, better moods, and a hyperactive sex drive, but even it has side effects, such as prolonged episodes of sleepwalking where Emily spends the day on the subway and forgets to go to work, or wanders the apartment, blasting music and preparing elaborate meals with no memory of it the next morning.
It's during one of these sleepwalking episodes that Emily unknowingly kills someone and completely blacks out afterward. It's here that Soderbergh and Burns shift the focus to Law's Dr. Banks, who finds himself a toxic pariah under fire by the cops, the lawyers, his colleagues, the ethics board, and the media when Emily blames the medication for her actions. He's thrown under the bus by the partners in his practice, cut loose from a $50,000 contract for an experimental sleep med (which he also prescribed to Emily), has a professional transgression from his past drudged up, and his wife (Vinessa Shaw) is sent photos that seem to reveal an affair with Emily. Banks' personal and professional lives come crashing down around him, and he starts getting the paranoid feeling that this is something much bigger than Emily's Ablixa side effects.
SIDE EFFECTS initially seems like it'll be an indictment of the pharmaceutical industry done with the clinical, point-by-point approach Soderbergh brought to the 2000 drug-trade chronicle TRAFFIC and the global contamination thriller CONTAGION. But Soderbergh has always been a filmmaker who can deftly balance numerous styles and approaches to his work, whether tackling environmental issues in the form of a crowd-pleaser like 2000's ERIN BROCKOVICH, or using imaginative non-linear directorial and editing techniques on genre fare like HAYWIRE, 1998's OUT OF SIGHT, or 1999's THE LIMEY. SIDE EFFECTS finds Soderbergh on his more straightforward, commercial, OCEAN'S ELEVEN side, and though it goes in unpredictable directions, it really displays no more depth than a vintage LAW & ORDER episode and would likely be made-for-TV movie material in lesser hands (there's even a humorous bit where Emily is describing the pre-prison era of her marriage to Banks and Soderbergh films the flashback in the same style as a prescription drug TV commercial). The term "Hitchcockian" will be bandied about until the end of time, but it applies here, not just in the way the story switches gears and cleverly misdirects (think PSYCHO), but also in the construction. SIDE EFFECTS is almost quaintly old-fashioned in the way it draws you in, manipulates you, then pulls the rug out on you. When most films attempt this, it feels cheap and forced, and many filmmakers find that they have to cheat by negating earlier elements of the plot and unsuccessfully cramming pieces that don't fit into the plot holes left behind. Soderbergh and Burns are smarter than that--they don't overshoot and don't go so far as to back themselves into a corner where they have to fudge it and force things to work that don't. In our post-USUAL SUSPECTS and post-Shyamalan world of suspense thrillers, everything has to have a crazy twist or ten, and more often than not, they collapse because they're trying too hard to outdo everything else. SIDE EFFECTS plays it a lot cooler, offering twists, but they're plausible and restrained twists. That's the kind of expertise that someone like Soderbergh brings to the table.
Is SIDE EFFECTS a "great" film? Is it going to be a "classic"? Probably not, and it isn't aspiring to be. But it's smart, well-written, tightly-constructed, excellently-acted (even by Soderbergh man-crush Tatum), masterfully-directed, and above all, extremely entertaining. It's refreshing proof that commercially-geared popcorn movies can be fun and intelligent and made for grown-ups without pandering to the lowest common denominator and dumbing everything down. It expects you to turn your phone off, pay attention and keep up, and it generously rewards those simple actions accordingly. Remember when that wasn't asking much from an audience?
Directed by Dave Grohl. Written by Mark Monroe. Cast: Dave Grohl, Vinny Appice, Robert Levon Been, Frank Black, Lindsey Buckingham, Mike Campbell, Kevin Cronin, Mick Fleetwood, John Fogerty, Neil Giraldo, Chris Goss, Taylor Hawkins, Joshua Homme, Jim Keltner, Barry Manilow, Paul McCartney, Rupert Neve, Stevie Nicks, Krist Novoselic, Keith Olsen, Stephen Pearcy, Tom Petty, Nick Raskulinecz, Trent Reznor, Rick Rubin, Pat Smear, Rick Springfield, Corey Taylor, Benmont Tench, Lars Ulrich, Butch Vig, Lee Ving, Brad Wilk. (Unrated, 104 mins)
Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl's filmmaking debut functions equally as a BEHIND THE MUSIC documentary, all-star jam session, and a heartfelt love letter from a fan to all of the rock heroes of his childhood. Grohl's documentary is not just about the legendary Sound City Studios in Van Nuys--it's about rock history, the passion of artists, the creative process, and finding a balance between using technology in a way that makes it an instrument as opposed to a crutch. Despite being one of the biggest rock stars in the world, Grohl is still a fan first, and that love and respect and pure sense of fun comes through in every minute of SOUND CITY.
Grohl's first encounter with Sound City came during his days as Nirvana's drummer when they recorded Nevermind there in 1991. His initial reaction to the run-down, no-frills studio was "This is Sound City?" Turns out it hadn't changed much since 1975 when it first became the place to be after Fleetwood Mac put it on the map. REO Speedwagon's Kevin Cronin describes his first impression of Sound City as a "shithole," and veteran producer and one-time Sound City employee Nick Raskulinecz says "If you spilled a bottle of Jack Daniels, it would be like 'It's Sound City, who cares?'" But magic happened at this small, non-descript studio that often dealt with parking lot flooding spilling into the main entrance. Not only did all the hot acts in rock start working there, but it was also home to a unique, custom-made mixing console designed by Rupert Neve, which was reputed to capture a drum sound that no other studio could achieve. The strictly analog Sound City found itself becoming obsolete by the mid-1980s, with chief engineer Keith Olsen jumping ship to open a digital studio right next door. As synthesizers and drum machines and programming became more commonplace, Sound City was essentially tumbleweeds and chirping crickets until Nirvana worked there (it was cheap) and grunge gave rise to a return to a more pure and real sound. But with the onset of technological breakthroughs like ProTools and AutoTune software, Sound City once again found itself on the outs, finally closing down in 2011.
Grohl and Lindsey Buckingham checking out
the Neve Console. Note the awesome
Velvet Grohl in the background
Grohl assumed the Neve Console would "go straight to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," but owner Tom Skeeter (his business partner Joe Gottfried died in 1992) sold the Neve to Grohl, who had it moved to his own studio, where he gathers rock luminaries past and present to record a Sound City tribute album (also look fast for the hilarious art adorning the studio wall: a velvet Grohl sporting a smoking jacket), due out in March. The second half of SOUND CITY is devoted to these sessions, which Grohl uses to illustrate the sense of spontaneity and collaboration and "feel" that makes great music. People like Stevie Nicks, Trent Reznor, Josh Homme, Lee Ving, Rick Springfield, and in the film's exhilarating finale, Paul McCartney, come in to jam and we observe the creative process and we see the music happen as Grohl, barely able to contain the fanboy within, puts the Neve Console to use.
Throughout the film, there's an infectious feeling of unbridled enthusiasm, but also a deep sense of mourning for the loss of a bygone era. Reznor comments that ProTools and the like have enabled people who have no business being in the music industry to become superstars. Many mention the digital element and the software and the ability to achieve perfection only serve to take the human element out of the music (Tom Petty: "It's not supposed to be perfect"). And when Sound City closes, it's like a death in the family (Homme: "Technology and the internet are cool for some things, but now there's no music stores, there's no bookstores, and now there's no Sound City"). Some of the film's highlights: rare home-movie footage of Petty and the Heartbreakers recording Damn the Torpedoes and realizing how much the sparse, down-to-the-basic-essentials Sound City tested their abilities and pushed them as musicians; Skeeter showing Grohl the original early '70s work order for the Neve Console with a cost of $75,000 (Skeeter: "I bought a house in Toluca Lake that same year for $38,000!"); Raskulinecz describing working the reception desk one night and seeing Petty, John Fogerty, and Carl Perkins walk in; and Springfield expressing sincere remorse at how he treated Gottfried, who shepherded his career and helped make "Jessie's Girl" happen until Springfield says he was "coerced" into dumping him a few years later. Springfield struggles to keep his composure at the memory of it, saying how wrong he was and how grateful he is that they were able to make amends before Gottfried's death.
SOUND CITY runs the gamut of emotions throughout, and it's hard to imagine any rock music fan not finding this a rich, rewarding, and very moving film that celebrates an important time and place in music history. Already one of 2013's best films, SOUND CITY also takes its place among the best rock documentaries ever made.
This Montreal-shot fugitives-on-the-run thriller from Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky (ANATOMY, THE COUNTERFEITERS) offers an intriguing set-up but quickly gives way to cliches and contrivances before completely collapsing in the third act. Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde are siblings who pull off a day-before-Thanksgiving Michigan casino heist before wrecking their car on a snowy rural road. With Detroit cops and highway patrol in hot pursuit, they split up, Bana finding refuge with a family at a cabin where he kills the abusive stepfather, and Wilde with ex-con Charlie Hunnam, a disgraced boxer who may have accidentally killed his crooked manager about ten minutes after being paroled that morning. Hunnam and Wilde have some drinks at a bar and have sex in a motel room, so of course, they're in love the next morning and he takes her home to the family farm to meet mom Sissy Spacek and dad Kris Kristofferson. Naturally, an injured Bana is already there holding Mom and Dad hostage, and he's not very happy that his sister, for whom he harbors controlling and probably incestuous feelings, is in love with Hunnam. So with local deputy Kate Mara and her sexist, asshole sheriff father Treat Williams (why do the filmmakers make this character even more hateful than Bana?) closing in, an increasingly wild-eyed Bana decides to gather everyone for Thanksgiving dinner and poke them with sticks by getting into their heads and re-opening family wounds. Because hey, why not? It's not like the clock's ticking or anything.
It's too bad Ruzowitzky and debuting screenwriter Zach Dean gather all of these fine actors around a table only to have them go through some really tired soap opera melodrama. DEADFALL has some OK moments and there's snippets of genuine suspense, but the whole thing is so rote and hackneyed that it rarely rises above the level of strictly average. Most of the cast can't win playing such implausible characters (Wilde and Williams, in particular), but Kristofferson and Spacek do some really nice work here, convincingly conveying the strong sense of familiarity of a hard-working couple who've been together forever and can communicate in their own verbal shorthand or with just a look. DEADFALL feels most real in these few quiet moments with these two. (R, 95 mins)
ALEX CROSS (US - 2012)
Tyler Perry steps out of his comfort zone and into Morgan Freeman's shoes in this reboot of the wildly popular "James Patterson"® bestsellers that previously spawned the films KISS THE GIRLS (1997) and ALONG CAME A SPIDER (2001). Judging from the film's paltry box office, audiences weren't really interested in Tyler Perry: Action Hero. It's easy to mock Perry and make Madea jokes, but while he gets some points for trying, he's really not good here, though a lot of it is just bad writing. Maybe Freeman can sell the whole Sherlockian awareness of everything going on around him and being able to "tell that you had scrambled eggs for breakfast at 100 yards," but where Freeman plays authoritative and dignified, Perry glowers, growls, and overacts, turning Cross into more of a gun-toting, vengeance-obsessed, action-movie badass. It doesn't help that Cross is squaring off against a cartoonish supervillain in Matthew Fox's hired assassin "Picasso," on a spree at the behest of a corporate benefactor and so-called because he leaves clues to his next killing in intricate charcoal drawings at the murder scenes. Fox lost an alarming amount of weight for the role and turned what he had left into pure muscle. It's an unusual level of dedication for a film so silly and inconsequential, and he might've been more effective if his performance didn't rely on so many cliches (bulging eyes, wicked grins, calling Cross and taunting him, etc). There isn't one surprise here, unless you count how the filmmakers give police psychologist Cross a pass for breaking almost every law in the book, justifying it with Picasso killing Cross' pregnant wife (Carmen Ejogo). The film moves the novels' setting from D.C. to Detroit, presumably for production tax incentive purposes, though most of the film has downtown Cleveland filling in for Detroit, at least until Cross and Picasso's climactic showdown at the old Michigan Building, in the theater refurbished as a parking garage.
Also with Edward Burns and Rachel Nichols as Cross' partners, Cicely Tyson as Nana Mama, Jean Reno as a French billionaire targeted by Picasso, John C. McGinley as Cross' boss who's always reading Cross the riot act even though he's right 100% of the time, numerous scenes with Cross revealing key plot information to his clueless associates while the camera urgently circles around them, and one of the least-convincing CGI explosions ever seen in a major theatrical release. The one-sheet's tag line reads "Don't ever cross Alex Cross." Well, it's probably a good idea to not ever watch ALEX CROSS, either. (PG-13, 101 mins)
UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING (US - 2012)
Sometimes a really ambitious and inventive film can get made when nobody's paying much attention, and UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING (the fourth film in the franchise, sixth if you count two made-for-TV movies) is anything but another by-the-numbers action outing. Its VOD and limited theatrical release in late 2012 got some unexpected praise from some serious critics, and the film displays a level of depth and intelligence that demand it to be taken seriously. Director/co-writer John Hyams made 2010's UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION and returns with original UniSols Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, essentially supporting characters with the focus on John (Scott Adkins), who sees his wife and daughter brutally murdered in a home invasion led by UniSol Luc Devereaux (Van Damme). Awakening from a coma nine months later, John struggles to figure out who he is and why he's haunted by these painful memories. It turns out Devereaux is rounding up a rogue army of former UniSols and implanting a chemical that makes them consciously aware of their status as mind-controlled government killing machines. John discovers Devereaux is living deep in the Louisiana bayou, a messianic cult leader to a band of rogue warriors acting on their own volition, away from a government that can no longer control them. Is John one of these UniSols? Is Devereaux the real Devereaux?
US: DOR has Christopher Nolan-sized ideas on a DTV budget and you'd have to possess the ability of psychic premonition to have expected a film like this from Hyams (son of veteran director Peter Hyams), whose efforts to date have been unimpressive, to put it mildly. While some plot elements may borrow liberally from INCEPTION, THE TERMINATOR, and APOCALYPSE NOW (it's an intentional homage as John's journey down a river to Devereaux's camp even has a nearly-identical repetitive music cue heard when Martin Sheen arrived at Marlon Brando's compound), Hyams creates a surreal, disorientingly harsh, horrifyingly violent (30 seconds of splatter were cut to avoid an NC-17 rating), and potentially audience-alienating atmosphere throughout US: DOR. At times, the film feels like a waking nightmare that's being secretly directed by Gaspar Noe. It's almost experimental in the way it uses sound and visuals (particularly a dizzying strobe effect), and even with the impressive action sequences, there's no doubt that some people will absolutely hate this. Hyams even says as much on the commentary track, stating the script is admittedly "a little far off the reservation." It occasionally bites off more than it can chew and it goes on a bit longer than it needs to, but Hyams deserves a lot of credit for not going the easy route, and attempting--and very often succeeding--to create a significantly more unique, daring, and thought-provoking film than anything you'd expect something titled UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING to be. An instant cult classic. (R, 113 mins)
HARA-KIRI: DEATH OF A SAMURAI (UK/Japan - 2011; 2012 US release)
Originally shot in 3D, Takashi Miike's remake of Masaki Kobayashi's 1962 classic HARAKIRI examines the same themes of honor and hypocrisy and retains most of the major plot details while deviating quite a bit in the third act. Miike, who's not quite as prolific and eager to shock as he was in his AUDITION, VISITOR Q, and ICHI THE KILLER glory days, fashions his HARA-KIRI as a dramatic companion piece of sorts to his excellent 2010 remake of Eiichi Kudo's 13 ASSASSINS (1963). Where 13 ASSASSINS finds unemployed samurai overjoyed at finally having a way to go out in a blaze of glory, this film has warriors on the other end of the spectrum: broke, jobless, without purpose, and struggling to survive in a world that no longer requires their unique skills. Miike's HARA-KIRI is one of his most restrained films, a samurai story with powerful drama, emotion, and tragedy at its core. In feudal Japan of 1630, peace has led to many unemployed samurai attempting suicide bluffs, where, in the name of honor, they request to commit seppuku in the courtyard of a feudal lord, usually resulting in a small job, a meal, or in the best cases, a financial handout from the sympathetic lord. The lord of the House of Ii is away when penniless ronin Hanshiro Tsugomo (Ebizo Ichikawa) requests to use the courtyard for ritual suicide. The lord's chief counsel Kageyu (Koji Yokusho) tries to talk Tsugomo out of his decision by telling him the story of Monome (Eita), who similarly requested to commit seppuku in the courtyard, resulting in Kageyu and the Ii samurai calling Monome's bluff and making him go through with it despite not even having a real sword, instead just one made of wood for show. Monome had a sick wife and child at home and heard about the suicide bluffs and decided to use it as a last resort. Tsugomo then informs Kageyu that he indeed knows Monome, and tells his own story about how the two are connected, and why he's really at the House of Ii. Ichikawa turns in a devastating performance as Tsugomo, often rivaling the finest work of Toshiro Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai in the samurai classics of old. Miike's film is leisurely paced but never dull, and there's a bizarre finale with long takes and intricate choreography that feels like a Kurosawa samurai battle restaged by Blake Edwards. (Unrated, 128 mins)
Directed by Fisher Stevens. Written by Noah Haidle. Cast: Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Alan Arkin, Julianna Margulies, Mark Margolis, Lucy Punch, Vanessa Ferlito, Addison Timlin, Craig Sheffer, Katheryn Winnick, Weronika Rosati. (R, 94 mins)
There's a famous Gene Siskel quote where the legendary film critic said that one of the criteria in his reviewing a movie was "Is this film more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch?" That's not to say that STAND UP GUYS is a bad movie, because it's not. And in all fairness, most movies released these days aren't as interesting as the notion of sitting in on Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin kicking back and bullshitting over a meal together. While STAND UP GUYS offers some laughs and some drama and a chance to see three living legends doing what they do, the film seems fully cognizant of its ability to just coast through 90 minutes without really making much of an effort, because with 72-year-old Pacino, 69-year-old Walken, and 78-year-old Arkin onboard for approximately 140 combined years of movie experience, 90% of the work is pretty much done. Seeing these guys onscreen together is an absolute joy for any serious film fan. It's too bad they weren't given much to work with other than essentially being GRUMPY OLD GOODFELLAS and Pacino walking around with a giant hard-on after scarfing down a fistful of boner pills.
When mid-level mobster Val (Pacino) is released from prison, his best buddy Doc (Walken) is there to pick him up. Val served 28 years, taking the fall for a botched job that resulted in the death of the son of powerful and bizarrely-nicknamed mob boss Claphands (Mark Margolis). Claphands gives the long-retired Doc 24 hours to kill Val. Val knows it's coming and the conflicted Doc decides to take him out for one last party. The pair visit a brothel, break into a pharmacy to steal some Viagra, go back to the brothel, steal a car, bust their old emphysema-stricken wheelman Hirsch (Arkin) out of a nursing home, and take on the lowlifes who own the stolen car and gang-raped a young prostitute (Vanessa Ferlito). All the while, the clock's ticking and Doc, under increasing pressure from Claphands and his goons, has until 10:00 am to whack Val and can't bring himself to do it.
Pacino and Walken work so well together that they make it easy to overlook the deficiencies of Noah Haidle's script. Both do their distinct "Pacino" and "Walken" routines while admirably not overdoing it. Pacino avoids his "Hoo-aah!" histrionics and Walken is nicely subdued as the quiet Doc, who spends his days painting and watching "the cable TV" (which, like most things, is awesome when said by Christopher Walken), and visiting an all-night restaurant where he's befriended a sweet graveyard-shift server (Addison Timlin). Walken is given the film's most interesting character and underplays it quite well, looking appropriately weathered and worn-down after a long life nickel-and-diming it as a blue-collar working stiff gangster (these guys were probably friends of Eddie Coyle). STAND UP GUYS focuses primarily on the relationship between Val and Doc, and Arkin really gets shortchanged in what basically amounts to an extended cameo. His Hirsch doesn't even turn up until halfway through and even then, he doesn't really prominently figure in before a highly implausible departure that doesn't make a whole lot of sense (Julianna Margulies has a couple of scenes as Hirsch's daughter, and she's given even less to do).
STAND UP GUYS, which expanded this week after opening on one screen in New York and Los Angeles for a week in December 2012 to qualify for the Oscars (that was hardly a necessary maneuver, Lionsgate), has a lot of quiet and introspective moments that really work but just as many silly elements that don't, and as a result, it struggles to find a consistent tone. Arkin is a national treasure, but even he can't sell the idea of his character hooked to an oxygen tank gasping for breath in one scene, and leading the cops on a wild chase in the next before going to a brothel and fulfilling his lifelong dream of "two women at the same time." Old guys doing young guy things can be funny, like Kirk Douglas in a Red Hot Chili Peppers mosh pit in 1986's somewhat similar TOUGH GUYS, but STAND UP GUYS too often panders to the lowest common denominator by going for the cheap "geezers being vulgar" laughs, and a dazed Pacino pitching a tent in his pants is about on the level of Burgess Meredith talking about "taking the skin boat to Tuna Town!" in GRUMPY OLD MEN. But with these guys working together, Haidle and director Fisher Stevens clearly realize that most of their work is done for them. It's really hard to dislike the admittedly slight and forgettable STAND UP GUYS, but one still wishes it exerted itself just a little and gave these still-vital gentlemen something a little more substantive.
Netflix recently added a truckload of Kino/Redemption titles to their streaming service, including several offerings from the extremely prolific British sex comedy subgenre of the 1970s. Often playing like THE BENNY HILL SHOW with tons of nudity and smarmy double entendres and centered on people in everyday jobs stumbling and bumbling into a series of slapstick sexual misadventures, these films, like the penis-transplant classic PERCY (1971), AU PAIR GIRLS (1972), and the whole CONFESSIONS OF... series starring Robin Askwith (1974's CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER, 1976's CONFESSIONS OF A DRIVING INSTRUCTOR, etc), which spawned its own imitations with 1975's THE UPS AND DOWNS OF A HANDYMAN and the Barry Evans-starring ADVENTURES OF... series (1976's ADVENTURES OF A TAXI DRIVER, 1977's ADVENTURES OF A PRIVATE EYE, and 1978's ADVENTURES OF A PLUMBER'S MATE), were hugely popular with audiences (CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER was a cultural phenomenon at home, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1974 in the UK), loathed by critics, and were staples in US grindhouses and drive-ins. Even the long-running CARRY ON film series, dating back to 1958, started to change with the times and up the raunch factor in films like CARRY ON GIRLS (1973), CARRY ON DICK (1974), and CARRY ON EMMANNUELLE (1978). Many of these comedies are now forgotten by everyone except cult movie enthusiasts and most of them are rather tame by today's standards, but even in the '80s, they were raunchy enough to be in regular rotation on late-night cable in the '80s, usually on Showtime's awesome "After Hours."
AU PAIR GIRLS aka THE YOUNG PLAYMATES (UK - 1972)
One of the best-known titles in the British sex comedy explosion of the 1970s, AU PAIR GIRLS, directed by veteran journeyman Val Guest, plays a lot like a British version of a Roger Corman/New World "Nurses" film of the same period. Four sexy young ladies arrive in England as au pairs (actually, there's a fifth, but she disappears after the opening scene--was she cut from the film?): Swedish Anita (Astrid Frank), Danish Randi (Gabrielle Drake, German Christa (Nancie Wait), and Chinese Nan Lee (Me Me Lay), leading to a series of mostly wacky and occasionally dramatic misadventures over the course of the night and into the next morning. Anita enchants the wealthy, lecherous Sheik El Abib (Ferdy Mayne), Randi spends the night in a barn with amiable doofus Stephen (Richard O'Sullivan) after his car gets a flat, the virginal Christa meets rock god Ricky Strange (Steve Patterson), and Nan makes a man of childlike, possibly autistic piano prodigy Rupert (Julian Barnes). Lots of hijinks and smutty, winking one-liners (Randi: "I'm Randi!" Stephen: "You're not the only one!"), every male is a leering horndog, and the women disrobe at every opportunity. In short, AU PAIR GIRLS delivers exactly what it promises, but in another similarity to the New World productions, it occasionally drifts into unexpected directions, such as the surprising sympathy demonstrated by Strange's sleazy manager Buster (John Standing) when he finds out Christa was a virgin and realizes how upset she is about feeling used by Strange and even by Buster himself when he allowed himself a drunken turn with her as well, but the film sort of sidesteps the issue that Buster essentially rapes her.
Also with Geoffrey Bayldon, John Le Mesurier, Johnny Briggs, Rosalie Crutchley, and Milton Reid, cast radically against type as a silent, hulking manservant. Me Me Lay co-starred in Umberto Lenzi's cannibal film MAN FROM DEEP RIVER the same year and would go on to be a fixture in the Italian cannibal subgenre. O'Sullivan became a huge TV icon in the UK, starring for six seasons on the popular MAN ABOUT THE HOUSE, which was remade for US TV as THREE'S COMPANY, with O'Sullivan's Robin Tripp becoming John Ritter's Jack Tripper. Guest (1911-2006), best known for helming the British sci-fi classics THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (1955) and QUATERMASS 2 (1957) and some of the 1967 Bond spoof CASINO ROYALE, saw his career get a second wind from these sex comedies and went on to direct CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER. AU PAIR GIRLS was released as THE YOUNG PLAYMATES in the US by the early, pre-Golan & Globus incarnation of Cannon. If you find the interminable opening theme song catchy, fear not...you'll only hear it 72 more times over the course of the film. (Unrated, 84 mins)
THE SEX THIEF (UK - 1974)
Several years before finding his niche in Eurocult films by the legendary likes of Lucio Fulci and Antonio Margheriti, a shaggy-haired David Warbeck starred in this racy British comedy that originally received an X rating in the US for its vigorously explicit sex scenes. Warbeck is second-rate paperback mystery writer Grant Henry, who supplements his income by working as a cat burglar, stealing and fencing expensive jewels and seducing the horny wives he finds sleeping alone while their husbands are away on business. His actions leave Scotland Yard's Inspector Smith (Terence Edmond) frustrated because, while all of the recent burglaries are obviously committed by the same person, the women all give wildly varied and increasingly ridiculous descriptions of the burglar ("he's everything from a club-footed midget to a six-foot-six Russian with a hare-lip!") and all inexplicably wait several hours before calling the police. Smith and his dim-witted partner Sgt. Plinth (co-writer Michael Armstrong, who also directed MARK OF THE DEVIL) team with accident-prone photographer Guy (Christopher Neil) and sexy, karate-expert insurance investigator Judy (Diane Keen) to set up a sting to nail the Sex Thief.
Armstrong and co-writer Tudor Gates (BARBARELLA, DANGER: DIABOLIK, THE VAMPIRE LOVERS) both hide behind the single screenwriting pseudonym "Edward Hyde" and Gates produced under the name "Teddy White." THE SEX THIEF marked the directorial debut of Martin Campbell, who went on to direct two 007 films (1995's GOLDENEYE, and 2006's CASINO ROYALE) in addition to big Hollywood movies like THE MASK OF ZORRO (1998), VERTICAL LIMIT (2000), and, most recently, GREEN LANTERN (2011). The film is moderately amusing, and the early scenes have some big laughs, particularly at Smith's exasperation at the ludicrous descriptions the victims give and his failure to understand how one wants the newspaper to print that the burglar didn't get all of her jewelry in the hope that he'll return and seduce her again, but it's a fairly predictable mix of slapstick antics and graphic sex, with one sped-up sequence an obvious riff on A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. The sex scenes leave little to the imagination and are absurdly overdone, and Campbell probably could've trimmed some of them, as one has the camera lingering on a huge pimple on Warbeck's ass. In its original form, THE SEX THIEF was released in the US in 1974 by International Amusements, then retro-fitted with body doubles in newly-shot hardcore inserts, re-edited without the involvement of any of the filmmakers or cast, and dumped on the porno circuit in 1976 as HER FAMILY JEWELS. (R, 93 mins)
ZETA ONE aka THE LOVE FACTOR aka ALIEN WOMEN (UK - 1969)
It's hard to imagine a 007 spoof about a race of topless alien women being dull, but ZETA ONE is an utter disaster from start to finish. Exhibiting a laundry list of red-flag indicators of a difficult production (obvious padding of the running time, a clumsy flashback structure valiantly attempting to explain the plot, the biggest-name actor completely disappearing from the film without explanation, and IMDb shows it's the director's first and last feature film), ZETA ONE begins with a laborious 20-minute prologue that turns out to be a wraparound segment. Suave secret agent James Word (charisma-vacuum Robin Hawdon) returns from his latest mission to find Ann (LUST FOR A VAMPIRE stunner Yutte Stensgaard), his boss W's secretary, in his mod bachelor pad. They play a drawn-out game of strip poker that finally leads to Word giving her the lowdown on what happened (it's interesting that Word arrives home with a fake mustache coming unglued and he removes it when Ann points it out to him--why would he wait until he got home to remove it? Because Hawdon has a mustache in what became the flashback footage and didn't have one when he was called back for the presumably hastily-arranged reshoots). Word got involved in an incomprehensible plot involving a clash that pits topless alien women of the planet Angvia (really?), led by Zeta (Dawn Addams, who remains clothed because she's a respectable actress), against the megalomaniacal Major Bourdon, played by an embarrassed and hopefully drunk James Robertson Justice, clearly reading cue cards like a disinterested SNL host in one of his last films before a series of strokes forced him to retire from acting.
ZETA ONE makes up in gratuitous nudity what it lacks in laughs and any sense of coherence or pacing, but even that's not enough to make this boring "comedy" worth the suffering. Hawdon is pathetic and Addams soldiers through with a stiff upper lip but looks like she'd rather be anywhere else. But beloved British character actor Justice doesn't even hide his contempt for the entire project, and one can hardly blame him. Chances are he didn't even stick around, because his character vanishes from the film shortly before the climax and is never referenced again. Director Michael Cort's IMDb page shows this and a 1972 short subject, and absolutely nothing else. The Hawdon-Stensgaard wraparound sequences were clearly added to clarify the plot (they don't) and add some T&A (well, OK, fine), but these scenes provide about 25 minutes of superfluous padding, which means Cort initially had about an hour of useable footage. There's probably an interesting story to be told about this obvious train wreck of a production (difficult star? First-time director in over his head? Unfinished script?), but anyone involved who's still with us has likely long since blocked it from their memory. The mod, swingin' '60s atmosphere of ZETA ONE had to look hopelessly dated by the time this was belatedly released in the US in 1975 as THE LOVE FACTOR (right around the time Justice died). It later turned up on US home video in the '80s from Prism Entertainment as ALIEN WOMEN. It's unwatchable under any title. (R, 86 mins)
Directed by Walter Hill. Written by Alessandro Camon. Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Sung Kang, Jason Momoa, Sarah Shahi, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Christian Slater, Jon Seda, Holt McCallany, Brian Van Holt, Weronika Rosati, Dane Rhodes. (R, 99 mins)
It's been eleven years since the words "A Walter Hill Film" appeared on the big screen in a new theatrical release, and the lean, mean, bone-cracking, head-splattering BULLET TO THE HEAD finds the man still in fine form. Hill first gained notoriety as a screenwriter, scripting Sam Peckinpah's THE GETAWAY (1972) among others before making his directing debut with the Depression-era bare-knuckle brawling classic HARD TIMES (1975). Numerous box-office hits and enduring movies-for-guys favorites followed: THE DRIVER (1978), THE WARRIORS (1979), THE LONG RIDERS (1980), SOUTHERN COMFORT (1981), 48 HRS (1982), STREETS OF FIRE (1984), EXTREME PREJUDICE (1987), RED HEAT (1988), JOHNNY HANDSOME (1989), ANOTHER 48 HRS (1990), TRESPASS (1992), GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND (1993), WILD BILL (1995), LAST MAN STANDING (1997), and UNDISPUTED (2002). He co-produced the ALIEN films and the HBO series DEADWOOD, and also directed the cable TV mini-series BROKEN TRAIL (2006). He's been away for some time, and despite talk of behind-the-scenes friction with star Sylvester Stallone and a release date that was delayed multiple times (this was shot two years ago, and was completed before Stallone made THE EXPENDABLES 2), BULLET TO THE HEAD fits perfectly into the mold of what one expects from A Walter Hill Film, though it's hard telling if there's much mainstream multiplex interest in an action film starring a 66-year-old Stallone being directed by a 72-year-old Hill. This match-up really isn't that much different from all of those late '80s Cannon action movies starring a pushing-70-year-old Charles Bronson being directed by 75-year-old J. Lee Thompson. Stallone and Hill are older and obviously past their heyday, but they still have it. But after the catastrophic tanking of Arnold Schwarzenegger's THE LAST STAND, does anyone under the age of 40 really care? And will everyone over the age of 40 just wait for DVD/Blu-ray or VOD? It's as much of a question of an aging star's bankability as it is the changing landscape of film distribution.
Like the recent string of geriatric actioners in the wake of THE EXPENDABLES, BULLET TO THE HEAD is an instance of formulaic convention working to the film's advantage. When I say that it feels like it could've been made 25 years ago with few changes (cell phones, digital visual effects, Stallone's hair plugs), it's meant as a compliment. From the mismatched heroes to the smartass one-liners and racial stereotyping played for laughs to the abducted loved one all the way to the showdown at an abandoned factory, BULLET TO THE HEAD leaves no cliche untouched. It knows it's junk and has a good time with it. Is it up there with Hill's best work? No, but it's a nicely-done, highly entertaining nostalgia trip for fans of Hill, Stallone, and days gone by. And honestly, neither of these guys are interested in reinventing themselves at this point in their careers.
Stallone is James Bonomo, aka Jimmy Bobo, a New Orleans-based hit man and career criminal. Bobo and his associate Louis Blanchard (Jon Seda) are hired to whack Greely (Holt McCallany), a dirty ex-cop from D.C. Two hours after the job, Blanchard is killed and Bobo attacked by hulking ex-mercenary Keegan (Jason Momoa of GAME OF THRONES), who's been hired to off Bobo and Blanchard by the same guy who commissioned them to kill Greely. Bobo reluctantly forms an unholy alliance with visiting D.C. detective Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang of the FAST AND THE FURIOUS films), who's investigating Greely's murder against the wishes of the obviously corrupt local cops. Bobo and Kwon (which almost has the same ring as TANGO & CASH) have to set aside their differences as criminal and cop to work together to bring down the bad guys...if they don't kill each other first!
The man responsible is land developer and Nigerian crime kingpin Robert Nkomo Morel (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who's trying to (what else?) knock down slum housing to build expensive properties. Bobo and Kwon get a flash drive from Morel's sleazy lawyer Marcus Baptiste (Christian Slater, sixth-billed and not even granted the dignity of an "and Christian Slater" credit) that details all of the local cops, politicians, and assorted big shots in Morel's pocket. And, in a turn of events that should surprise no one, Morel and Keegan have Lisa (Sarah Shahi), Bobo's tattoo-artist daughter.
To the abandoned factory for an axe fight!
Stallone and Kang make a good team, engaging in plenty of sarcastic and politically incorrect ballbusting (usually involving Bobo calling Kwon "Confucius" or "Oddjob" and telling him to "go read your tea leaves" or bitching about how Asians can't drive), and the seemingly gargantuan Momoa (who was effectively cast in the otherwise forgettable CONAN THE BARBARIAN remake in 2011) is a memorably imposing villain. While BULLET TO THE HEAD is essentially a Stallone vehicle, it's also distinctly Hill's. From the constant bantering (not quite on the level of Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy's back-and-forth in 48 HRS) to the bluesy, guitar-driven, Ry Cooder-esque score by Steve Mazzaro, to the intense action sequences, BULLET TO THE HEAD (based on the French graphic novel Du Plomb dans la Tete) frequently feels like a Walter Hill greatest hits package, and while it breaks no new ground, it's a nice thing to see in 2013.
