Alejandra Barrera’s blog

`If Looks Could Kill" is one of those zany capers that come along occasionally to remind us of the pleasures of Wretched Excess.

The movie tells a bizarre story about middle Americans trapped inside the byzantine intrigues of Europe, and is perhaps the only film I can recall in which a mad economist traps an entire Detroit high school French class in an iron cage suspended above a cauldron of boiling gold.

At first, it appears the movie is only going to be another one of those brain-damaged caper ripoffs in which boring people do stupid things at half the pace of real life. Then it turns on the supercharger and transforms itself into the kind of hallucinatory fable in which a tiny woman wears a golden whip around her neck, and uses it to reduce foreign ministers into lumps of placation.

The movie's hero is TV star

Richard Grieco

("Booker"), who has the kind of sleek dark looks that make you suspect he's wearing mascara when he's probably not. He plays a high school senior who has flunked his French class, but has a chance to make up the grade during the French Club's summer tour of Europe. The name of his character is Michael Corben - and that's an important detail, because on board the same flight to Europe is a superspy, also named Michael Corben, and when the real spy is killed, Grieco is mistaken for him.

That leads to a labyrinthine plot tangle in which Grieco finally has to save all of Europe from the schemes of a mad politician (Roger Rees) who has a plan to convert the continent to a gold standard under which all of the coins will bear his likeness.

The plot is worthy of a James Bond villain, and indeed "If Looks Could Kill" plays like a head-on collision between Bond and Indiana Jones, if the primary goal of both of those heroes were transcendent silliness. The movie's endearing goofiness extends even to shooting the Paris scenes in Montreal, with a matte painting of the Eiffel Tower in the distance, and using a chateau in Quebec as Rees' headquarters for torture, gold-melting and world domination.

It's all Grieco can do to keep up with the supporting cast, all of whom seem to have been encouraged to unleash their latent skills for overacting. Linda Hunt has the most fun, as Rees' diminutive sidekick, enforcer and torture mistress. There are also roles for a birdbrained French teacher, a seductive sexpot and all the usual characters we'd expect to find at casinos, cabinet meetings, the first-class sections of airplanes, and the dungeons of the perverse.

Did I enjoy the movie? My reactions were in a constant state of adjustment. I'm so accustomed to the badness of the movies in the spy-spoof genre that it took me a while to realize that

William Dear

and Darren Star, the director and writer, were sincerely trying to go over the top - that like the makers of such films as "In Like Flint," "

Invasion of the Bee Girls

" and the immortal "Infra-Man," they indeed had an unholy light glinting in their eye, and were making a subversive film rather than following a formula. By the time the chateau was in flames and the helicopter was chewing its way across the burning roof I was ready to concede that, yes, I was enjoying it.

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A saga of love and music spanning more than 300 years, Canadian maestro Francois Girard’s cleave to-up to his positively-regarded “Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould” is nothing if not ambitious. Unfortunately, the episodic pic, which follows the fortunes of a perfectly crafted violin that is linked to a bloody by stealth, fails on a number of counts, mostly because the individual stories aren’t very gripping. Film will need careful handling to encounter an appreciative audience, and may not be helped by conflicting critical re-sponse, if the screening at Venice is a pointer. Film gets its North American launch as opening appeal at the Toronto fest.

This kind of packaging, in which several short stories are linked to an inanimate object, was once fairly common in films; prominent examples of the genre include Julien Duvivier’s 1942 “Tales of Manhattan” (in which the object was a tailcoat) and Anthony Asquith’s self-explanatory “The Yellow Rolls-Royce” (1965).

Pic is structured around an auction taking place in Montreal at which a number of valuable instruments, including a Stradivarius, are on the block; but the piece de resistance is the famous Red Violin, crafted in 1681 by Italian master Nicolo Bussotti. The instrument is, according to the character played by Samuel L. Jackson, “the perfect marriage of science and beauty” and “the single most perfect acoustic machine” — quite a wrap.

Complex flashback structure intercuts between the investigations of Charles Morritz (Jackson) into the authenticity of the instrument, while four principal stories centering on the violin’s colorful past unreel chronologically.

The first deals with the production of the instrument and the trauma endured by Bussotti (Carlo Cecchi) when his wife dies in childbirth. Next tale unveils late in the 18th century, with the violin owned by Austrian monks who encourage orphaned children to play it. This story, too, ends in tragedy.

About a hundred years later, in England in 1893, the violin falls into the hands of the mercurial composer Frederick Pope (Jason Flemyng), who is involved in a steamy sexual relationship with novelist Victoria Byrd (Greta Scacchi).

Pope’s Chinese servant takes the violin when he returns to Shanghai, and it finds a home with a bourgeois Chinese couple.

Final story unfolds during the Cultural Revolution, with Sylvia Chang playing a Communist Party official who entrusts the now almost priceless violin to her music teacher to save it from the fanatical Maoists.

Eventually the auction, attended by descendants of the characters in the four stories, is completed, with a not-unexpected twist at the film’s conclusion.

Apart from the English story, most of “The Red Violin” falls into the decent but dull category. The narratives aren’t especially interesting, witty or unusual, and, curiously enough, it’s the modern segment — the auction itself and Morritz’s investigations into the background of the violin — which most hold one’s interest. The Italian and Austrian sequences provide opportunities for sumptuous art direction and costume design, but are dramatically inert. It’s the Chinese segment that has an energy lacking in much of the rest of the film.

The section set in England seems to belong to another pic altogether; incredibly silly and trashy, it includes such lines as, “I feel a composition coming on,” and scenes in which Flemyng and Scacchi, both unclad, appear to get more of a sexual thrill from the violin than from each other.

Production values are exceedingly sleek, and there’s plenty of glorious violin music to enjoy. But other music used in the film is unduly schmaltzy. Given that the film is in part about music, this is especially unfortunate.

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12_Men_of_Christmas

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Chocolat by Lasse Hallstrom is a thoroughly manipulative and indigestible
art-house, comedy-drama, fluff film. It sets up a war between sensualists
and those repressed by their religious beliefs. Every character is a cliché,
everything about the story is predictably smug. It is so easy to make fun
of the one-dimensional villains and feel morally superior to them. I grew
nauseous from how bourgeois this film was in attitude, where even the rebels
are merely lovers of sweet things. I found not much about the film that
I enjoyed (though the cinematography was beguilling and the cast was adept).
It was a labor just to sit through it and not gag while waiting for the
inevitable preachy sermon that comes at the end, so even the church is
redeemed for its unchristian attitude toward strangers. Lasse Hallstrom
has come down a few pegs after his more engaging recent films “My Life
as a Dog” and “The Cider House Rules,” as he couldn’t pull this fairy tale-like
story off without being tainted by the mediocrity of it all. This film
got nominated for an Oscar as best picture, which should show you what
kind of films Hollywood falls in love with.

Set in 1959, in a small traditional medieval French village, where
the centerpiece of the town is the church. The town’s nobleman mayor is
the moralist Comte De Reynaud (Alfred Molina), who makes sure everyone
knows their place. Tranquility and resistance to change are the only mood
swings of this unchanging town. Into this serene but rigid climate, when
the north wind was blowing, come two drifters in red-hooded coats, Vianne
(Binoche) and her school-aged, illegitimate daughter Anouk (Thivisol).
They rent a shabby apartment across from the church from a cranky old woman,
Armande Voizin (Judi Dench).

Hoping to win over the locals Vianne, who is an atheist, opens up
a specialty chocolate shop, but unfortunately she opens up during Lent.
From the pulpit, the newly arrived Père Henri (Hugh O’ Conor), reluctantly
but slavishly follows the dictates of the repressed mayor and warns the
parishioners against yielding to temptation. So a war ensues between the
pleasure seekers and the followers of the church, with the mayor’s aim
being to get her to close her shop before Easter.

The shop is painted over in bright pastel colors and when Armande
sees what the decor has become, she cleverly states that it’s like a “Mexican
brothel.” But Vianne can bake some extraordinary sweets and soon exerts
a sensual influence over some of the townspeople, whom she lures into the
shop with free samples and her friendly gestures.

Vianne’s magical chocolates bring sexual pleasure to one couple previously
having an empty sexual life and an elderly man (John Wood) uses her chocolates
as a present to an elderly widow he always admired (Leslie Caron), but
was too timid to let her know that. Miraculously her chocolates get the
despondent Armande to meet her artistic-minded young grandson (Aurelien
Parent Koenig) for brief periods in the chocolate shop. He must obey his
widowed mother’s (Carrie-Anne Moss) wishes not to see her openly because
she thinks Armande is a bad influence on him, reading dirty books and being
a free thinker. But he can’t resist having his grandmother pose for her
portrait in the chocolat shop. Vianne will make friends and teach a very
troubled woman how to make chocolates who initially steals from her, Josephine
(Lena Olin). She is the long-suffering wife of the town’s abusive cafe
owner Serge (Peter Stormare).

The film drags on for an hour setting up how these uninteresting
figures battle their natural temptations and all the repression they have
been burdened with all their lives before the arrival of the ‘River Rats,’
a guitar-strumming boat crew of gypsies, led by the Irish accented Roux
(Pitt). They ‘invigorate’ the film with some more clichés of rebels,
as they are also strangers the church will turn its anger towards as moral
sinners. The moral war led by the mayor intensifies, and a near fatal tragedy
is narrowly averted by luck after the mayor’s strong words to the piggish
Serge that something must be done about these strangers brings about the
burning down of their boats. These events cause Vianne to give up on the
town and want to leave, but something happens that pulls the town magically
back to its senses and they all undergo a change of spirit and become more
tolerant and better people. This contrived turn-around was just too much
for me to digest without getting sick from all the sugar I was taking in.

Morel came to film-goers’ attention with his performance in Les Roseaux sauvages (as, indeed, did the remarkably capable Bouchez), and his directorial inauguration is clearly influenced by Téchiné’s film. A rather unfocused, usually overly elliptical study of a group of callow French provincials - some from North Africa - falling in and out with each other, the film’s not quite the most original account of teenage loyalties, ambitions and hedonism, but appreciate other French films of current years, it does shot at to treat both racism and homosexuality with some frankness. The performances, too, are strong; a sorrow, though, that the film finally plunges into melodramatic contrivance.

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Stuart Petite 2

R E V I E W   B Y   R I C H   C L I N E

They had three years to make this sequel to the original, which was a surprising critical and engage in fisticuffs office sensation in 1999. So why does this film feel so rushed? It picks up with the Little derivation in Manhattan, not instanter Stuart (Fox) is sense of foreboding lonely and left loose. His overprotective old lady (Davis) doesn't want him to fidget with soccer with his friends, and after a woman match you can see why. His big brother (Lipnicki) has other friends now. His fluffy cat Snowball (Lane) is as grouchy as ever. And his overly amicable dad (Laurie) keeps telling him to look for the silver lining. So Stuart befriends the injured Margalo (Griffith), a mouse-sized bird being chased by an pain falcon (Woods), who is in fact using her to rip off from the Scanty family. Can Stuart saving Margalo and teach the no way Jose primordial falcon a lesson? Silly question.

Compared to the first film, it's like the filmmakers were working in their sleep. Part 2 lacks any real spark; the acting and direction seem only about halfway there, with no real conviction at all. And the script shows only glimpses of originality, pasting together family movie cliches and hitting the mark with only about one joke out of four. Even the action sequences seem contrived and derivative in a way the first film never was. That said, the effects are again far above average; the animal characters are seamless, and so engaging that you want a set for your very own. There is just enough comic action to keep the kids giggling … and perhaps enough moments of sublime humour to keep the adults from going mad with boredom. Most of the laughs come from Lane's wacky vocal gymnastics as the increasingly miffed Snowball, the only character with attitude. But if this is going to become a franchise, the next chapter will need to be much more creative than this one.

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suspense, temperate vulgarity
14.Jul.02

dir

Rob Minkoff

scr

Bruce Joel Rubin

with

Geena Davis, Hugh Laurie, Jonathan Lipnicki, Marc John Jeffries,
Angelo Massagli, Jim Dooghan, Amelia Marshall, Maria Bamford

voices

Michael J Fox, Nathan Lane, Melanie Griffith,
James Woods, Steve Zahn, Rachael Harris

release

UK/US 19.Jul.02

Columbia

02/US 1h18

Children catastrophe.

Dad and Mom (Laurie and Davis) try to comfort George (Lipnicki), upset because Stuart crashed his trifle aeroplane.

R E A D E R   R E V I E W S





Still waiting for your comments … don't be self-conscious.

© 2002 by Rich Cline,

Shadows on the Wall

There’s been quite a equity of decisive drone about Rory O’Shea Was Here (known internationally as Inside I’m Dancing), but I had no idea what the flick was beside until spinning this DVD.

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We first meet Rory O’Shea (James McAvoy) as he is striking into an relief about in Dublin, where he meets cerebral palsy victim, Michael Connolly (Steven Robertson). Michael knows that Rory is trouble from the get-go, but he grows to feel favourably impressed by him, as he is the only entire that can understand his hellishly mumbled speech.

Now friends, Rory and Michael function to gain funding so that they can move out of the profoundly and get a place of their own in the “real world”, much to the dismay of Eileen (Brenda Fricker), the main caretaker. Once in their further home, the wed enlist the care of the elegant Siobhan (Romola Garai). It’s not sustained beforehand Michael is in love with Siobhan, but whether she can feel the unchanged close by someone in his educate is the big interrogate.

I’d not quite forgotten what a breath of pure air it is to go into a picture well-informed very little about it and just being able to take it all in during the in the first place circumstance. Everything works here, from the performances, to the tightly edited, heartwarming horror story. The vigour characters are unforgettable, cutting to the pith of human sensation and showing us that, regardless of your troubles in autobiography, however pinnacle they may be, all and sundry can enjoy a productive, independent existence.

While you might think you’ve seen this all to come in pictures like My Pink Foot and other projects involving the handicapped, Rory O’Shea Was Here is an original perceive on such a disheartened branch of knowledge. Positive, you’ve got your pier physically-challenged individuals bucking the odds and making a semi-unrelated vivacity for themselves, but the chemistry between McAvoy and Robertson will pushy you care unreservedly yon these two people, and have you mercenary in the course of the tissue sock at the same time. Maestro Damien O’Donnell (East Is East) does a fine role simply allowing these actors to gel on-screen, while also featuring some nice camera work and artistic shots as well.

The wonderful new-fashioned broken-down soundtrack is another of the film’s highpoints, featuring wonderful tunes from Supergrass, The Avalanches, Johnny Cash, and Elbow. While the film doesn’t rest on the unceasing playing of this music, enough excellent songs are cued at the perfect hour wholly.

Remember the old sci-fi flick "Contender Mine," where Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett, Jr., played an Earth man and an incompatible play alien stranded together on a deserted planet? It brought the concept of war down to the most in person level, forcing the viewer to understand how very much equally so-called enemies can be and how petty the forces are that throw them into engagement. "No Man´s Sod," the 2001 Academy Present winner for Best Foreign Vocabulary Film from Bosnian director Danis Tanovic, is much the same but modeled on a more subtly absurdist, yet still graphic level. It pits two soldiers, everyone a Bosnian, the other a Serb, against one another in detailed quarters during some of the most brutal fighting between the two warring factions in 1993.

Ciki, the Bosnian soldier, is played by Branko Djuric and Nino, the Serb, is played by Rene Bitorajac. In every way an atypical set of circumstances involving a uneventful reconnaissance, they find themselves coincidentally caught with one another in an otherwise desolate trench between their country´s lines. As happenstance would have it, the kettle of fish is further aggravated by the trench having been mined, and Ciki´s wounded co-worker, Cera (Filip Sovagovic), lying over an shaky device that is triggered to blow up if he attempts to device.

Ciki and Nino deficiency nothing more than to get out this erratic and dangerous plight. They are essentially good, honest people caught up in unbearable circumstances, and they remember they don´t really want to liquidate each other in heatless blood. For the firstly third or so of the take, they jockey looking for the blue bloods hand, explanation that each tries to have a gun pointed at the other at all times. When Ciki makes Nino take his clothes off and tread above the trench with a white flag, Nino balks. "Why?" he asks. "Because I have the gun and you don´t," Ciki responds. They disagree continuously, and neither side sends anyone out to help either of them. When nothing else works, Ciki and Nino decide to get the local U.N. peacekeepers involved by surrendering to them. But not even that works, as mad bureaucratic putrid-ups taboo the U.N. from intervening. Nobody, it seems, wants to step down involved, and if that isn´t enough, the press get wind of the story of these two guys stuck out in "no man´s land" and escalate matters into an universal disturbance.

Huck Finn says in Measure Twain´s story, "Considerate beings can be horrid cruel to a certain another." Ill-defined William Tecumseh Sherman applied the sentimentalism view to world animosity when he said, "War is nightmare." Cross swords makes people do distressing, unspeakable, things to one another, but underneath it all they´re still people. "No Man´s Land" shows us the facts of cross swords up close as enemies confront one another clad to face. We can make out, if the characters themselves can´t, that they are pretty much akin, with neither of them able to bring any high moral ground.

What I liked most about "No Man´s Land" is that it not in the least attempts to go over-the-outstrip in the approach of a regular Hollywood thriller. Instead, it tries to keep going its realistic mood and tensions fully perfectly normal responses on the part of the combatants. Present-day films like "The Deep End" and "Training Day" were somewhat spoiled for me by starting with perfectly serious, all there premises and then stretching them beyond credibility from one end to the other a day more exaggerated goings on. It´s as though these modern filmmakers were afraid their audience effect go out for another bag of popcorn if they didn´t keep them occupied every minute with summary edits, thundering gunfights, and continuous physical function.

"No Man´s Land" has the reliance to stick to honest human emotions, rational relationships (these two guys even know some of the same people back home), and believable, irregularly hysterical reactions. Yes, as the film goes on, the situations do verge on the nutty, as life sometimes does, but at no time do we ever feel that the events are stretched beyond the limits of apologia. Then, too, while the actual ferociousness in the film is limited, director Tanovic spares few feelings when he does show people getting shot. The first downfall, in outstanding, is alamingly, violently realistic. It´s not "Thrifty Private Ryan," but the movie´s brief episodes of bloodshed are diagrammatic. Be forewarned everywhere that.