Ahoy, squirts! Quint here to present a mega report from Capone. He kicks off mini-reviews of DOMINO, THE FOG and ELIZABETHTOWN with a few paragraphs on some of the better flicks he's caught at the Chicago Film Festival. Of the ones he mentions, I have seen BRICK and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DORKS. I really liked both and after another viewing of each I might even upgrade from "like" to "love." Both are really solid, well-made and entertaining films. Enjoy the man with the bat!

Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here. Before I launch into a look at this
week’s releases, let me say that I have spent so much time in the last week
attending Chicago International Film Festival screenings and watching
screeners of Festival movies at home when I’m not at the theatre that I’ve
actually left myself no time to get around to reviewing the films. With
still one week left to go, let me recommend a few I’ve caught that you can
still check out in the next few days of the festival if you find your self
in Chicago

Last week I talked about the mesmerizing The Hidden Blade from Japan and the
UK amnesia documentary Unknown White Male. These are both must-sees in my
book. Probably the best of those screening this weekend is Brick, from
writer-director Rian Johnson, who takes a California high school setting and
inject a powerful and satisfying film noir storyline. Johnson practically
creates a new language for his rich characters, led by Brendan (Joseph
Gordon-Levitt), who finds the dead body of a girl he liked and sets out to
find out the circumstances of her death. Characters manipulate and
double-cross at ever turn, as Brenden uncovers an evil and violent
underworld that exists at the school, led by a crooked (literally and
figuratively) character named The Pin (Lukas Haas). Brick is whip-smart,
sophisticated, brutal, and smoldering. It’s not scheduled for a mainstream
release until March 2006, so this is your chance to get the jump one of the
best films I’ve seen this year.

I’m also giving high marks to South Korea’s elegant April Snow, an unusual
story about a man and woman who arrive at the hospital at the same time
after a nasty single-car accident has put their respective spouses into
comas. Turns out the coma patients were having an affair, and the spouses
must decide how to cope with the emotional devastation of this discovery.
This film surprised me at every turn, and if I actually possessed a heart, I
might have cried more than once during this lovely work.

Mild recommendations go to the German teen zombie comedy Night of the Living
Dorks (nobody does comedy better than the Germans!), which has enough gore
and laughs to sustain most horror fans. Another comedy (and occasional
musical) worth checking out is Housewarming from France, starring my
candidate for the most beautiful woman in the world, Carole Bouquet, in this
slight but energetic comedy about a talented lawyer renovating her home. The
cast of immigrant workers who destroy and rebuild her flat are the real
stars here, and a celebrity cameo at the end of the film was a nice
surprise.

I also liked the sexually charged Cold Showers, also from France, about an
emotionally immature high school boy who gets involved in a three-way
relationship with his girlfriend and a new student on his judo team. The
film has some fat that could be trimmed, especially scenes involving his
penny-pinching family, but the examination of a kid too young for such an
intense relationship is honest and authentic. While we’re on the subject of
sex, I Am a Sex Addict is a bizarre buy captivating autobiography from
filmmaker Caveh Zahedi, who address the camera and outlines his sexual
history, focusing on his infatuation with prostitutes that turns into an
addiction. Through a series of reenactments and home movies, the squirrelly
looking Zahedi provides clever insight and analysis on his carnal genetic
makeup, although the film does crosses into self-indulgence more than a few
times. Still, a fascinating experience.

Alright, now that that's out of the way, here’s a look at this week’s new
releases, some of them well-covered on this site, some not.

Elizabethtown

There are far worse films than Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown in theatres
right now. If you’ve spent any amount of time reading reports about re-edits
and critical panning of this film, you’ve wasted a whole lot of your time.
Elizabethtown is clearly Crowe’s weakest effort, but the man has, in many
ways, set the bar for putting love stories on film and backing them with
exceptional musical choices. He’s done other types of films as well, but
this is where he’s made his mark on mainstream audiences. The music here is
still pretty good, but Elizabethtown’s problems are two-fold: plot and
casting.

The plot, about colossally unsuccessful athletic shoe design Drew Baylor
(Orlando Bloom) traveling to his father’s hometown in Kentucky to collect
dad’s remains and bring them back to the west coast, is a meandering mess.
He meets free-spirited flight attendant Claire (Kirsten Dunst) on his way to
Kentucky and the two seem inexplicably linked from that point forward. The
pair drift in and out of each other’s field of vision during the course of
the film, as Drew attempts to exist with and relate to his father’s side of
the family. Crowe wisely does not openly mock Southerners, but that doesn’t
stop these scenes from being the funniest and best in the film. But
Elizabethtown takes far too long to get to the predestined place in Drew and
Claire’s relationship, and the journey isn’t all that interesting

A foolish subplot involving Drew’s mother (Susan Sarandon), at first afraid
to even make the journey to Kentucky because her husband’s family has always
resented her for stealing their boy away to the West Coast, is just
god-awful. Her “loving” tribute to her husband—a stand-up routine, followed
by a tap-dance number (I shit you not)—nearly sinks the ship entirely. And
just when you think things can’t get any more pointless, Drew embarks on a
cross-country trip with his father’s ashes, armed with a scrapbook from
Claire filled with brochures and photos of places to visit along the way,
and a never-ending supply of mix CDs to provide soundtrack to the journey.

The most problematic thing with Elizabethtown’s cast is Orlando Bloom. I
believe the guy will grow as an actor on day, but he seems emotionally out
of his depth here. Dunst fares better, but that doesn’t stop her character
from acting like a beautiful bee buzzing in your ear that you want to swat
away. I’m torn about Sarandon’s performance. There is either too much or too
little of her here (I’m still undecided), but I do know that what is on the
screen isn’t the right amount. I will give points to the first 10 or so
minutes of the film featuring Alec Baldwin as the head of the shoe company
Drew works for. He essentially provides a monologue about catastrophic
failure in the corporate world that should be required reading for all
students of business.

Elizabethtown represents a sad turn for writer-director Cameron Crowe, whose
sources of inspiration show the first signs of being tapped out. I hope I’m
wrong.

Domino

This chaotic, over-the-top, kinetic free-for-all gets by on sheer will power
as Keira Knightly finally gets her chance to play sexy and psychotic all in
one tight little package named Domino Harvey. The real-life
model-turned-bounty hunter Harvey died a couple months ago, and this film
essentially gives us a highly fictionalized account of the years leading up
to the troubles with drugs that ultimately killed her.

Told by Harvey to an FBI agent (Lucy Liu) in an interrogation room, Domino’s
life is revealed in flashbacks tracing her life as the daughter of famed
British actor Lawrence Harvey and a money-grubbing mother (Jacqueline
Bisset). After a brief stint in a college sorority and as a supermodel,
Harvey trained her ass off with weapons and self-defense, and decided it was
time for a bit of fun as a bounty hunter. She hooks up with two manly men
bounty hunters (Mickey Rourke and Edgar Ramirez), and the three become the
most successful and popular hunters in the nation as agents for bail
bondsman Claremont Williams (Delroy Lindo).

Domino & Co.’s big assignment is the retrieval of millions of dollars stolen
from a mobbed-up casino giant (Dabney Coleman) and the capture of those who
stole the money. The schizophrenic script from Donnie Darko writer-director
Richard Kelly is just so crazy it might be true, but Domino makes it clear
that you better not ask her what’s real and what’s not. It’s none of your
fucking business, according to the voiceover. Director Tony Scott, truly a
master of stylized filmmaking and rapid-fire editing, has taken a cue from
friend Quentin Tarantino by making bold decisions with his supporting cast.
When you see the likes of Christopher Walken, Jerry Springer (as himself),
singers Tom Waits and Macy Gray, comedian Mo’Nique, and “Beverly Hills
90210” actors Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green (as themselves, also), you
almost have to do a double-take to make sure you’re not hallucinating.

Despite all of this craziness, Domino actually holds together quite nicely.
Knightly scared me as much as she turned me on, and her performance here is
pure atomic energy. Her potential for violence seems to have no bounds (as
an opening sequence featuring a severed arm proves), and her beauty will
shake you. Domino will twist your mind, make your ears bleed and your eyes
twitch. Loads of fun for those who enjoy overindulgence.

The Fog

While John Carpenter still struggles today to get funding for his new films,
he seems to be keeping his head above water selling off the rights to his
older films. Last year, Assault on Precinct 13 got a solid re-imagining
treatment, and now we get the soiled flip side of that coin, with a redo of
The Fog. The original 1980 version of The Fog is not a great movie, but
having just seen it this past summer (at a drive-in theatre, no less), I was
reminded how much I love it. The old-world ghosts coming back to the seaside
town of Antonio Bay, Calif., in a thick fog bank to exact revenge on the
descendents of a group of men who did them wrong many years earlier. It was
the perfect nautical ghost story, and the rat bastards that made this remake
should walk the fucking plague-ridden plank.

When I started reading about this remake, I didn’t focus much on the casting
of Tom Welling (“Smallville”) and Maggie Grace (“Lost”) is the lead roles as
lovers (filling in for Jamie Lee Curtis and tom Atkins in the original) who
unexpectedly end up as heroes in saving potential victims from the fog
monsters. I was more curious (and hopeful) about Selma Blair filling in for
Andrienne Barbeau as town D.J. Stevie Wayne. Alas, even the lovely Ms. Blair
can’t save The Fog from a dreadful script that seems to go out of its way to
miss the elements of the original film that made it so strong and creepy.
Gone are the extended scenes with the town priest reading the contents of a
confessional journal from a town forefather on the fate of the poor souls
aboard the Elizabeth Dane 100 years ago. Gone is the time spent with Stevie
Wayne in her radio station. Gone is the spectacular ending with the priest
clutching the oversized golden crucifix as he confronts the ghosts. But most
importantly, gone are the fog machines. People, CGI fog looks fake and is in
no way scary.

Director Rupert Wainwright (the equally sucky Stigmata) seems to have gone
out of his way to confuse what was once a simple story and clutter it with
backstory after backstory that doesn’t add anything to the proceedings.
Welling and Grace are two very hot chicks, but their stellar acting skills
really didn’t sweep me off my feet any more than the new story elements. I’m
always curious about remakes and would never make a sweeping statement
against their existence, but The Fog is a classic example of screwing up a
good thing.

Capone