Merrick here...
Eli Cross and Grandmaster B were kind enough to send in a bevy of reports from Tribeca, which concluded Saturday.
An interesting assortment of films in this batch: including John Malkovich as a Stanley Kubrick poser, Brundlefly as an actor struggling through a production of THE MUSIC MAN, Ralph Fiennes as a prison guard in a totalitarian future where Donald Sutherland is an inmate, and Salma Hayek, James Gandolfini and John Travolta in the 1940s!
We’ll start with Eli Cross…
COLOUR ME KUBRICK (1.85:1)
Two derby hoods in England knock on a door ready for action. Their intention is to find a man at a nearby flat that owes them. When they find the man is not there, they break the door down realizing that they had been conned by a man named Kubrick. His friends call him Stanley and he socializes with people known and unknown. There's just one problem. This man (John Malkovich) is not the real Stanley Kubrick and passes himself off as the reclusive film director for easy entry, better treatment and a bit of vodka every now and then.
The buildup of celebrity and one's treatment of known company comes to play in this character piece headed by an excellent John Malkovich as the man with an angle wider than Spartacus and 2001 but without much of an idea into the knowledge of the man he is posing as.
There's not much for the smaller characters to do but be a victim to the man's leading on and one or two story developments are unresolved by the film's end, but the trip with "Kubrick" is a fun disturbing one that doesn't take itself too seriously, cleverly incorporating musical pieces from Kubrick films and allows for one moment of self-depreciation on the part of Malkovich, leaving room for an third act that manages to be ironic, out of control and sudden at the same time.
Colour Me Kubrick has an English flavor in setting and in environment that wines, dines and socializes with the best of them and manages to get by conning the audience in the best sense from place to place with a mix of a bit of everything and anything.
PITTSBURGH (1.85:1)
It's opening night, the music starts and actor Jeff Goldblum wants to cry before he takes the stage. A few months earlier, Jeff went back to his home city of Pittsburgh and took a big step prepping to star along with his actress girlfriend in a regional production of The Music Man. With a long span of time away from musical theatre, Goldblum turns down film offers to make this production happen unaware of the challenges that lie ahead for him and the challenges of his acting friends (Illeana Douglas, Ed Begley Jr.) he's invited along with him.
This viewer enjoyed the idea of Jeff Goldblum as Harold Hill and wondered what it would be like. The result has this viewer taken along this enjoyable journey of the production from start to finish, and all of the in between compiling of misadventures and struggles of Goldblum and Co. leading up to opening day of The Music Man are successfully compiled together by directors Chris Bradley and Kyle LaBranche into a short and sweet eighty minute film that connects, involves and even touches the viewer with all that transpires caring for our real named leads to get through in the most positive way.
Pittsburgh is fun loving, interesting and backs up its premise with an endearing result that any good fan of Goldblum, The Music Man or both would enjoy. If you don't fit either one of those categories, than you're in for a satisfying movie either way.
LAND OF THE BLIND/LONELY HEARTS (both 2.35:1)
Normally this viewer reviews each film one by one. This time around things are different with this review and both share similar fates, one that would seem redundant in two seperate reviews.
Ralph Fiennes plays a prison guard in a totalitarian future where the leader is childlike and the rules against the leader are dire. This prison guard encounters an inmate writer (Donald Sutherland) who's own stand against the state led him to prison and has regular chats with him. This all comes to a head when the guard decides to switch sides in an effort with the writer to overthrow the leader, unaware of its dire consequences.
What could've been a satisfactory modern day take on the Twilight Zone's "The Howling Man" episode taking a stand on the world today turns into a rehash of many future bleak state films (Brazil, V For Vendetta) without anything new and trying to fit in too much losing the audience very early and one joke goes beyond redundancy. It amazed this viewer how much was wasted in ninety minutes (which felt more like three hours) given the talent and the premise.
The same can be said for LONELY HEARTS (minus the future bleak and adding twenty minutes) set in the late part of the forties and focusing on a man (Jared Leto, who's a cross between Fredo Corleone and Nicolas Cage) killing through personal ads and bank accounts, a woman (Salma Hayek) that wants to love only him and his killer instinct and two cops (James Gandolfini and John Travolta) on their trail.
This may sound like an interesting thriller to the talent involved, but like Land of the Blind, good character development and a sense of structure is nowhere to be found and the opening minutes hurt the film giving away the results of the film.
Many scenes go on longer than they should, some profanity and killing scenes want to provide shocks but provide yawns instead. Too many subplots in the film (such as a connection between Travolta and Laura Dern) are not fully realized and not very convincing which can also be said for the acting in the film which doesn't give all leads much to do and for the most part reduces itself for our leads to overact at the worst time.
Had both films focused on one thing (police investigation/how the future world is fully run), there might have been a chance for a decent result.This viewer has hope for all the talent involved, even in their weakest work. Sadly, both films are forgettable disappointments.
And to all that have crossed Eli's path, thank you for your company.
Now, here’s Grandmaster B with three more…
Close to Home
I’d like to visit Israel some day. It has a rich culture and wonderful history. But there are elements of its background and current events that are absolutely tragic. We see their results nearly every day in the news. It doesn’t matter how many friends or family tell me how much they enjoyed their visit, I can’t get myself psyched to go. So today is not the day that I’ll be visiting. When that day will come, I have no idea. And CLOSE TO HOME (dir. Vardit Bilu, Vidi Bilu, Dalia Hagar) isn’t helping me come to a decision any faster.
This is the story of Smadar and Mirit, two female officers in the Israeli army (for those that don’t know, military service for all Israeli citizens is mandatory until the age of 18). Smadar seems as though she could care less about her military duties and appears to object to some of them as well. Mirit is unhappy for her own reasons and is looking for a way out of her current company of officers, requesting a transfer as soon as one becomes available, but that doesn’t make her any less of a by-the-book officer. They’re a mismatched pair and don’t get along at the outset of their pairing. Their days consist of border patrol in Jerusalem.
They walk the same streets over and over with the intention of spotting and registering Arabs that pass through their specified zone. Suspicious Arabs escorted through the border must have their belongings inspected and clothes removed to be sure that they are not carrying any weapons or other suspicious items on their person. It’s essentially the sort of racial profiling and humiliation that gets police officers in this country investigated, fired, and sued. Except unlike the US, terrorist bombings and kidnappings occur almost every day in Israel. Some would call it a necessary evil.
During our time with Smadar and Mirit, when nothing is happening, their job strikes one as being completely unnecessary. It’s tedious and the majority of the women involved in the particular group assigned to this area (maybe 13 or so total) are prone to goofing off and skirting their patrol duties. After all, they’re still young women that have dreams and desires beyond military service. They have crushes and like shopping and putting an exorbitant amount of effort into their hairdos. Their ranking officer, Dubek, patrols the streets via jeep to keep an eye on the ladies, making sure they’re performing their duties and filling their quotas. The girls, save for two brownnosers, are so uninterested in the task at hand that they’ll shop or flirt with boys while others keep watch for Dubek by calling each other on their cell phones if she’s nearby. By the time the shift for the day is about to come to a close, it’s a mad dash to add as many Arabs to the registrar as possible, lest the officers look foolish before their commander, Liat.
++++++++ SPOILERS ++++++++
While on a lunch break, Smadar is asked by Mirit to register a particular Arab man and search his backpack. Smadar will have nothing to do with it thanks to her break and her indifferent attitude towards Mirit. Smadar lets the man go. It’s not soon afterward that an explosion goes off nearby, briefly knocking Mirit unconscious and truly earning the film’s title. Smadar was unharmed in the explosion, but both women are shaken to their very core as a result. Following the explosion, the two develop a close friendship that has its share of ups and downs as their daily duties and attractions to members of the opposite sex get in the way.
The film concludes with a rather dramatic scene that begins with a (possibly) Arab man refusing to give Mirit his ID so that he may be registered. Smadar and Mirit demand that he give it to them, but he won’t comply. He grabs Mirit. He doesn’t harm her, but it’s enough to draw some bystanders to the scene, where they proceed to berate and threaten the man. Cut to a lengthy close-up of Smadar and Mirit’s faces as they speed around Jerusalem on Smadar’s moped. They have an absolutely defeated look on their faces, as if they are broken women. All the while, the audio from the scene moments earlier continues to play. The shouting from the man and bystanders increases in volume. Threats continue but slams and punches and grunts can be heard now. The voices of Smadar and Mirit are heard, shouting for the violence to stop, but they are ignored. It is assumed that the man was beaten severely, most likely to death.
++++++++ END SPOILERS ++++++++
It should be mentioned that the two leads, Neama Shendar (Mirit) and Smadar Sayar (a big stretch – Smadar), are quite wonderful in the film. Neama plays cutely coy very well (especially when trying to impress a man later on in the film) and Smadar plays the spoiled, rebellious brat to a T. Smadar also has an unusual beauty to her that leaves you eager to see her again as soon as she’s left a scene. The two play well off of one another, be they in the midst of a fight or giggling over a potential romance. Honorable mention goes to Sharon Raginiano as Commander Liat. She’s a hard-ass when she needs to be, but her character has also been where the younger officers currently are, so she’s compassionate towards their plight.
CLOSE TO HOME doesn’t inspire new thoughts on the Israeli conflict or even hope in the region, for that matter. But it does show events there from a perspective I hadn’t seen before. One would think that a tale told from the military’s perspective would be one-sided, but considering the characters involved, it gives a fairly objective point of view on the entire subject. The two instances mentioned within the spoilers area individually promote one side of the conflict over the other, but combined within the same film, they make evident just how complicated the political, religious, and social conflicts are.
Hatchet
Writer/director Adam Green likes 80’s slasher films. He also knows that you like 80’s slasher films. The result of this mutual appreciation is HATCHET, an homage/redux of everything that made 80’s slasher films so enjoyable. The set-up isn’t all that important, so I’ll try to keep it brief. Ben (Dodgeball’s Joel Moore) is a bit of a loser. He’s more than a little broken up over having been deserted by his now ex-girlfriend, so his buddies take him to New Orleans for Mardi Gras to raise his spirits (no pun intended). The only buddy that we’ll really be concerned with is Marcus (Not Another Teen Movie’s Deon Richmond, playing a slightly less "whack" version of his role in that film…only slightly). Marcus is trying everything to get Ben pumped for boobies, boobies, crabs-infested sex, and possibly more boobies at Mardi Gras, but nooooooo, Ben wants to go on a haunted boat tour, much to Marcus’s chagrin. Lucky for Marcus, two of the guests on the tour will be Misty (on loan from the Buffyverse Mercedes McNab) and Jenna (Joleigh Fioreavanti).
They’ll be providing the topless and lesbianic (yes, both of them, for you curious talkbackers) entertainment for the evening as they’re starring in the latest edition of Bayou Beavers, a cheap Girls Gone Wild-esque video. Their "director," Doug Shapiro (Joel Murray), is along for the ride, as are two tourists, Mr. and Mrs. Permatteo (Office Space’s Richard Riehle and Patrika Darbo, who you’ve seen in about a million movies but never knew her name) and Marybeth (Tamara Feldman), who just might be taking the tour for a different reason than seeing the local sights. Of course, what haunted boat tour would be complete without its charlatan of a tour guide, Shawn (Better Luck Tomorrow’s Parry Shen). The area the boat will be heading towards is supposedly haunted by the ghost of Victor Crowley, a deformed man who was nearly burned alive and took an axe to the face while his father was trying to rescue him. And away we go.
Let’s be honest, we’re only in this for some bare breasts (sorry, ladies), funny lines, and gruesome kills. I’d say HATCHET delivers on all fronts. It wasn’t a sold out house when I saw it (who really prefers to see a horror film at 4 PM, anyway?), but it was still fairly packed, and once the boat tour goes awry and the killings begin, everyone involved was on the same page. As our merry band of tourists are picked off one by one, hooting, hollering, and general applause for the sheer insanity of it all ensued. There are some very funny lines indeed as the living participants argue over their inherent differences (country bumpkins vs. city slickers, idiots vs. smarties) and about how they’ll survive the night’s events, and they keep the film moving in between the deliciously over-the-top violence.
What I saw was completely unrated and does not have a distributor yet, but let’s hope it all stays uncut for the good of the film. We clearly wouldn’t want to ruin the vision of such an artiste as Adam Green. I’ve seen a lot of supposedly gory movies in the past few months, including Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes, and Wolf Creek. Hostel wasn’t as gruesome as I was expecting, as I had seen some Miike films it used as inspiration. Hills was a let down on all fronts and I thought a fairly drab horror movie in general. Wolf Creek, as violent was it was, was more grounded in reality and harsh in its violence. Not HATCHET. HATCHET is completely fantastical in its portrayals of murder. And I loved it. Crowley literally rips his victims limb from limb. Sometimes he uses his titular hatchet. Sometimes he just prefers his own brute force. There’s 360 degree neck breakers and rib crushings and torso rippings and, well, I won’t give it all away, but let’s just say a personal favorite of mine involves a belt sander.
As far as the technical aspects of the film, Green wasn’t allowed to divulge the budget of it all during a Q&A afterward, since it has yet to be picked up for distribution, but I’d say if I’m assuming that it was a very small budget, it was a competent piece of filmmaking. Despite the majority of it taking place at night, the characters and gore are all given just enough light to be seen in much-desired detail. If you’re ever running from a hatchet-wielding madman, moonlight apparently provides all the light you’d ever need if this movie and most horror films are anything to go by. And despite the limited sets (the swamp was a pond, a large cemetery in the film was no bigger than maybe a school classroom), there are no nagging details that keep your mind off of the running and screaming and ludicrous nature of it all. Admittedly, the beginning scenes revolving around Mardi Gras and the general set-up of the film seem a bit amateurish in the way their shot, almost as if they’re generic b-roll footage from a Cinemax softcore porn (or, um, so I’ve heard), but once we get to the guts (pun intended, sorry) of the film, Green seems to be more at home.
Fanboys will be happy to know that Kane Hodder plays the part of the "adult" Victor Crowley (Green’s girlfriend, who also did make-up on the film, plays the young Crowley in flashback, with Hodder playing Crowley’s father sans make-up). Hodder is mighty animated in HATCHET, doing all of the running, jumping and growling that he’s come to be known for. I’ll mention that a couple other staples of the genre make some cameos towards the beginning, but won’t spoil the surprises for you. The entire cast is good fun and clearly game for all of the blood and gore that awaits them. Everyone gets a moment or two to steal a scene. Despite multiple lives having ended by the time the credits roll, you’ll be giddier than a maniac on a killing spree by the time it’s all over.
As much of a film fan as I am, I have a low tolerance for experimental films. Sure, every once in a while you have your Un Chien Andalou type deals (thanks, film minor), which, as bizarre as it is, doesn’t take itself too seriously and I’d say has fun with the audience’s expectations rather than looking down upon them. But that is the exception to the rule. A large percent of the time I find experimental films to be pretentious and pointless. Call me spoiled on Spielberg and Hitchcock, but I like a "proper" narrative and coherent scenes and imagery. Which brings me to H.C.E., directed by Richard Sylvarnes. All I have to say is thank God I’m not an epileptic.
H.C.E. is, loosely, a history of mankind, specifically told as the dream of a little girl (actually the director’s daughter) through quotations and re-enacted still images from Western history, including excerpts from the Bible, stories from the Wild West, Greek mythology, Shakespeare, Don Quixote, and much, much more. According to the director, approximately 80% of the film is narrated via famous (and infamous) texts throughout history. The rest consists of original writings and paraphrased versions of stories. It is a "flicker film," which means as certain still images are being shown, background images are being shown in an alternating, repeating, or random pattern, creating a flicker effect not unlike a strobe light. Every 10 to 15 minutes, Sylvarnes will give the flickering a rest so that audience members don’t proceed to slit their eyes Andalou-style.
To give you a sense of the look of the film, imagine a very, very rough online Flash animation. Say a character is talking. In one frame the mouth is closed. In another the mouth is open. No variations in between. That’s the extent of the imagery you’ll see here. Hundreds, maybe thousands of original black and white pictures, all taken by Sylvarnes (whose background is in photography) and roughly "animated." Scenes of the devil and God and Abraham and Billy the Kid and Che Guavera (who was a big fan of ice cream, apparently) are all recreated by Sylvarnes, but they have the look of a high school (maybe middle school) stage play. I’m not going to fault the man for his production values, but it’s hard to take the devil seriously when it’s a man with a Halloween mask, giant rubber devil hands, and his real legs hidden behind a garbage bag so that fake hooves can be placed in front. I suppose you could say a good portion of it has a creepy effect that something like the cheap mask in Scream had – clever in its simplicity - but a lot of the time you’re wondering if Sylvarnes is ever going to use that laser light background we had a choice of for school photos instead of the cloth background he ended up using for the majority of it all.
The film does achieve the dream-like state that Sylvarnes is going for, so kudos to him for that, but overall it is incredibly gloomy, opting to focus on man’s (and woman’s) faults and disasters. There’s lots of "history is doomed to repeat itself" messages to be had here. He covers a lot of ground, thousands of years of history, while giving little mention to the achievements of the human race. Before the film, Sylvarnes stated, "I’d like to give you a warning: this is an experimental film, but that’s not an apology." Oh yeah? Then why even mention that? In the Q&A afterward, he really came across as a pompous "auteur," unfortunately exactly the type of people I associate with these types of films and why I’m turned off by them. Bunuel and Dali had a sense of humor about themselves, which is maybe why I like Un Chien Andalou. Rather than see H.C.E. as a reflection of human history, I saw it more as a reflection of the man that made it, and I must say, he didn’t make a very good first impression on me.
