What happens when the love of your life leaves town for a few days? You continue to catch up some essential viewing, TV can kiss my ass! Although now I'm totally out of the loop having missed the news for a week, apparantly Ballarat got gazumped by some big ass storm...
Pressure - stars Kerr Smith, Lochlyn Munro
Wasn't sure what to make of this, judging by the blurb it sounded rediculous. It seriously was one of the worst efforts at a blurb I've ever read. I read it and thought, hhmm, this person struggled through film promotion 101 that's for sure.
In short, Steve (Smith) and Patrick (Munro) are on their way home from a medical conference. They stop in at a country bar so Patrick can pee, but as soon as they get through the door and realise that the Oregon cheerleading championship entrants are partying there, its soon decided that they'll stay for "just one beer". Steve is seduced into the carpark by a woman whose boyfriend subsequently knocks him out and robs him. The plot thickens when the boyfriend accidentally shoots himself (don't ask) and calls for backup - he's a cop, bugger! Further chaos ensues when the responding police officers accidentally shoot the bar owner and then one of their own and to avoid further embarrassment the local sheriff takes charge and pins the shootings on Steve. The guys escape into the woods and are helped by a hobo pro-gun activist whose land they have stumbled on. How will they get out of this one?
It sounds bloody tragic does't it, I mean could this situation have been concocted any worse? They say truth is always stranger than fiction, but yeah nah, this does not apply here. The increasingly impossible scenarios are played out farely well by the cast however, and Munro's semi-serious performance is also a nice change for him - think Steve Zahn in Roadkill. But back to the scenarios, at one point they're escaping into the woods and Patrick steps into a bear trap, not once, but twice! You've got a torch, use it!
Performances aside, one of the things that kept bugging me was here we have two intelligent characters who have been framed in the most rediculous circumstances - and perhaps its the CSI coming out in me - why didn't they just make contact with the police somehow and front them with evidence that considering only three bullets are missing from the gun he took, how on earth has he shot three people several times??? Then of course the question gets begged, why did he even take the gun in the first place.
Also annoying was the director's insistence on pausing the camera on people for too long. I think it was to emphasise the frame of mind they were in and the situations they were going through, both emotionally and physically, but I found myself so often wanting the camera to go anywhere but where it was. You've made a point, now move on.
Its a feeble attempt at a suspense thriller where a road trip has gone wrong in every possible way, and portraying yet another back-of-beyond naive police department is old hat as well. Loads of potential but badly executed. 2 and a half stars.
So Close - stars some of Hong Kong Cinema's finest
This is the type of movie I'm sure Hong Kong are brilliant at - hi-tech assassins combine strengths of satellite technology and martial arts in order to infiltrating their targets and bring them down. Nice twist here, the assassins are sisters. "There's nothing more beautiful than a fine young woman holding a gun". Needless to say this one's straight out of Hong Kong.
Sisters Lynn and Sue are contract killers. Lynn does the manual stuff, Sue gets her in and out via satellite. Enemy Of The State, eat your heart out, lol. But their latest client is different, as they plan to off the Angels after they carry out their dirty work they hired them for. While this is unknown to them, Lynn decides she wants out of the business, but Sue doesn't and decides to continue the work alone. Meanwhile, detective Hong, a gifted newcomer to the local department (also female) is hot on the trail for our two deadly lasses. Who will get to who first?
The action sequences in this are amazing, loads of Matrix isms in the movements, loads of Woo isms in the slowmo's, and big ass hand guns! Also refreshing with this flick is the fact that its not so badly overacted. If you recall seeing anything from China/Hong Kong you'll know what I mean, that dicky over emphasis on each emotion, its way overdone. But not here, this is really well acted. The plot is also refreshing, though not totally original, it lies somewhere between Mission Impossible, Enemy Of The State and a modern world Crouching Tiger. If you can get yourself in that frame and take the good out of each, then you're just about here.
Check reality at the door and sit back to watch these gals go at it. My favourite scene is the rather poignant moment when detective and sisters come face to face in an elevator, great stuff. I can forgive a slightly weak plot for everything else this film has to offer. 3 and a half stars.
Trapped - stars Charlize Theron, Kevin Bacon, Stuart Townsend, Courtney Love
I'd never heard of this, while hiring it the girl says to me "oh this is good, I saw this at the cinema when it came out" and I'm like "it was on at the cinema?" Have any of you heard of it? But that's just the way I like it...
Theron plays Karen Jennings, a career mother whose child is kidnapped by a very organised crew and accosted by its leader. Her husband William (Townsend) is away at a conference yet he is also confronted by another member of the crew. Very organised indeed. All Karen and William have to do is arrange the ransom money to be picked up the next day, get through the night without incident, then make the dropoff and they get their child back unharmed. They don't dig the idea and decide to fight back.
Its a psychological thriller and where it succeeds for the most part is the fact it involves the child. You think of any other psychological thrillers of this ilk and you'll agree (I hope anyway) that the element of children in the plot draw more empathy out of us viewers. Think Ramsom, think Don't Say A Word.
The cast is fantastic, not that it wouldn't be, Bacon's a great bad guy. Remember him in The River Wild (was that its name?), cool, calm and dead set remorseless. Everyone's good in this, no complaints, and while you're thinking the outcome is going to be a bit predictable it twists and turns quite nicely, so kudos to the plot as well. Trouble is they tried to open up a couple of tangents that really didn't make sense. Maybe it was just so, maybe it was so we could see Charlize in knickers, maybe it was to give Courtney a bit more airtime, either way it didn't make sense to have it happen and ridiculed the bad guys despite their commanding presence in the film.
They also failed to climax it very well, for me it just fell a bit flat right at the end. I guess I put a lot of emphasis on a film's ending so if they fuck it up I'm gonna be ropable. They didn't fuck it up per se, but yeah, it lacked and I think it lost its momentum as a result. Otherwise its a pretty good effort, though not as good as the above-mentioned titles. 3 stars.
In The Realm Of The Senses - stars that I think are Japanese porn actors
This title has only recently been passed by the censors to get approval for an R rating. Much controversy surrounded its release back in the 70's, particularly in Australia, for its, er, shall we say, intimate scenes. It screened at a festivals in its uncut form and was immediately banned from release, and after being substantially culled some 12 months later, an edited version hit the cinemas. More recently the censorship board, being more lenient these days has granted the R rating for the uncut version, and now its sitting on the "Drama" shelf at Video Ezy. Look, anything surrounded by that much controversy has to be seen as far as I'm concerned, so I hired it last night. And what did I find?
Porn. That's all it is. The liner notes suggest that this is a journey into the emotional psyche of two intimate people, but no, its a dead set shag fest with barely plausable segues between each scene. Arthouse? No way, this should be sitting on the shelf at Fantasy Lane and put on special, in fact they should be offering money for people to take it away.
Plot goes something like: In pre-war Japan, a respected man begins a torrid affair (putting it lightly) with one of the house maids, who is an ex-prostitute. This while he continues his marriage. Eventually they elope - and yes, get married - to solidify their bond and...I turned it off after that.
Now let me give you a couple of scenarios and you tell me if its Arthouse, and I'm sorry if my vernacular is a little off here:
1: The maid is shown sucking off her man - yes folks, not only do we see vaginas and penises, we see everything - and he subsequently shoots into her mouth. The director makes a point of showing the cum dripping out of her mouth and down his shaft. She then takes her mouth off his cock and more cum drips out of her mouth and down her chin while she makes what I think is meant to be an erotic shape with her mouth.
2: The maid, now wife, and her man are eating dinner. She dips each chop-stick full of food into her vagina, then feeds him with it. This turns him on, so he takes a whole boiled egg and puts it into her vagina. Yes folks, we get a closeup of him putting a boiled egg into her vagina, and she then gets up on her haunches into a squat and "lays" it back out. He then makes her eat it.
Someone boil some water, I need to sterilise the fork I'm about to stick in my eye! The dialogue is like something out of a 4th grade play ... "I love you so much"..."yes and I love you"..."and I love you"..."and I love you" ... and the sets and filming, touted as being one of the greatest in Japanese film making, is horridly simple and bland. Not one thing said about this film is anything like the film itself.
If you want to see a controversial film to come under the X banner and you want a half-decent story line, go hire Intamacy. Its actually less controversial than you'd think and the story ain't half bad. This on the other hand, was a waste of digital technology and would struggle to become a drink coaster. I just did a spell check and found that I had spelt controversial and controversy four different ways - all wrong! 0 stars.
Changing Lanes - stars Samuel L Jackson, Ben Affleck, Toni Collette
I'd been looking forward to this for a while now, missed it at the movies as I tend to do. I haven't heard too much in the way of reviews but I had been warned first hand that its a bit boring...I think those were the words. So I was wary when I hit play, not really sure what to expect. I like Jackson, I tolerate Affleck, lets see what we see.
Doyle Gibson is a recovering alcoholic who is currently going through a custody battle with his ex-wife. But he's got his life back on track, having just received a loan approval to buy a house. He's on his way to the court procedings armed with his new plan on life in joint custody. Gavin Banek is a high-profiled lawyer, a partner in his firm, who has recently struck a deal to usurp the board of a charity and hand power of attourney to his firm. He's on his way to the municiple court to hand in the signed documents and seize control. They collide in a car accident. What ensues is a very long day in which both men's lives are turned upside down thanks to eachother, neither conceiding nor wanting to.
I originally thought this was going to be a road rage thing, but its not really, although the car accident starts it all off. Its a psychological thriller (there's that moniker again) which drags you into these people's downward sprial and I've gotta admit I felt pretty uncomfortable going through some of these scenarios with them. The movie gets you to empathise with the characters very well, and just when you think there's a silver lining they go and rub it out again. I thought the ending let the film down though, fell flat when it could've gone anywhere. Did they take the easy way out? Possibly.
Overall its a pretty good film, doesn't live up to the hype so if you avoided that you'll probably enjoy it more. I have to admit I enjoyed it, barring the ending of course, but still fell a little flat as a result. I got loads of Falling Down isms and would probably recommend that over this. 3 and a half stars.
BH