Fenwick's Review Thread

[Fenwick]

Hey guys,

Thought I may as well start up one of these review thingys to collect some of my assorted movie craps. They'll be capsule-sized craps though, don't you worry. If you have any questions on particular films or my reviews drop me a PM or ask me in this thread directly. Thanks!

[Fenwick]

http://i3.fc-img.com/CTV02/Comcast_CIM_Prod_Fancast_Image/49/20/1229361997032_6DreamLover_mif_290_210.jpg

Dream Lover

Nicholas Kazan/1993/James Spader, Mädchen Amick, Fred Lehne


Tame psychosexual thriller but nonetheless worth a gander. Twin Peaks star Amick's treasure-hunting seductress does not quite have the manipulative, femme fatal-ity of ultimate screen bitch Linda Fiorentino from The Last Seduction but has engaging rapport with serial erotocist Spader. Unfortunately, the circus-set, almost Lynchian, dream sequences distort rather than illuminate while the final act fizzles out to no conclusion.

[n3wt]

:up:

Nice review mate look forward to reading more :yup:

[Fenwick]

Cheers n3wt!

While i'm still around, here is another little one.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2010/2/10/1265819367492/A-Single-Man-001.jpg

A Single Man

Tom Ford/2009/Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, Nicholas Hoult, Jon Kortajarena

Gorgeous mood piece that may just be a little 'style over substance' for some. Fashionista turned filmmaker Tom Ford shoots through multiple layers of consciousness - a narcissitic frame of glass, mirrors and metallic surfaces that weave themselves into the very fabric of the film. At times, his reflexive visual vocab is too heavy-handed, but nevertheless, there is sophistication and potential here.

[Justin]

I liked A Single Man for the most part, but you nailed my issues with it in the first sentence.

[Fenwick]

http://houseofpaper.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/radio-on-still1.jpg

Radio On

Chris Petit/1980/David Beames

Chris Petit's striking, recently re-released debut, stimulates on an audiovisual level but its unyielding vision of late 70's British life may explain its 30 year hibernation. Co-produced by road movie mogul Wim Wenders, Radio On shares the stark black and white photography of Kings of the Road, yet can never replicate that film's (or indeed that entire trilogy's) maturity and subtle humour. Instead, it revels in its own bleakness, for which a soundtrack of David Bowie and Kraftwerk provide no relief. Perhaps worth a watch for some (all too fleeting) patches of aesthetic beauty and a brief appearance by Sting, but this is a difficult, often unrewarding experience.

[honeykid]

I have this recorded, but I'm yet to take a look yet. Thanks for the review.

[Fenwick]

It's been a few days since my last review, i've been too busy watching re-runs of Danny Rose's goal against Arsenal to write anything :)

Anyway, here's a quick one. I may expand it next week if I can get over my severe bout of lazybastarditis.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2009/12/28/1262007115742/Scene-from-Still-Walking--001.jpg

Still Walking

Kore-eda Hirokazu/2009/Hiroshi Abe, Yui Natsukawa, You, Kazuya Takahashi

I don't think one can pay a greater compliment to a filmmaker than to compare his work to that of Yasujiro Ozu. Kore-eda's family talkathon Still Walking however, implicitly recognises the generational conflict of Tokyo Story, taking Ozu's painstakingly composed domestic grids, bittersweet humour and impeccable pacing to craft an anti-melodrama worthy of the grandmaster. This film deserves more words than this reviewer will allow it, but in short, this is utterly essential and may just be the first great film i've seen in a cinema this decade.

[Justin]

Sounds interesting. I'll check it out....

Good work, Fenwick.

[linespalsy]

I'm enjoying the reviews and looking forward to more recommendations. I haven't seen any of the movies you mentioned so far, but keep them coming. I seem to recall you mentioning Oshima Nagisa before. If you have any thoughts/favorites or least favorites you can put into review form I'd love to read it.

[Fenwick]

Lines,

I like what i've seen of Oshima, Naked Youth and Night and Fog in Japan (although at points I found them both a little, well, for lack of a better word, neo-Godardian), but sadly that's all i've got to so far. I'm eager to catch A Sun's Burial, The Ceremony and some others, but I don't have a line on any of those as of yet. One that is in the pipeline is In the Realm of the Senses which i've been putting off for a while now (for obvious reasons), so i'll see how I get on with that.

In the meantime, here's another quick one:

http://blog.newsok.com/bamsblog/wp-content/imagescaler/5375b736725c35ccfe6d9e758a057d7a.jpghttp://bluemoviereviews.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/crazy-heart-4.jpg

Crazy Heart

Scott Cooper/2009/Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall

Jeff Bridges' Oscar winning turn as washed-up folk singer 'Bad Blake' is not far removed from his role as 'The Dude' in The Big Leb, his shirts are half done-up, his belts unbuckled, he just sings country tunes and drinks whiskey instead of a white russian. Cooper's film however, recalls the redemptive story of last year's The Wrestler, and like that film, is an affecting portrayal of loneliness and regret. Although perhaps more optimistic than Aronofsky's film, it misses that same spark and drifts into some frustrating cliches. With such a fantastic soundtrack and great performances though, this is definitely worth your time.

[earlsmoviepicks]

Good review Fenwick, keep em up-- I like discovering films like this--thanks!

[Fenwick]

Another one from the cinema:

http://www.slashfilm.com/wp/wp-content/images/the-ghost-writer-trailer-1.jpg

The Ghost

The Ghost Writer (USA)/Roman Polanski/2010/Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Tom Wilkinson

If Still Walking had the virtues of Ozu, then The Ghost has the craft of Hitchcock. Roman Polanski's newest film, a taut political thriller that also serves as a none-to-discreet mini-allegory on the Anglo-American political sphere, stars the brilliant Ewan McGregor, ghost writer to Pierce Brosnan's smarmy former prime minister Adam Lang. Equally adept at the Yank pandering and grandiloquent platitudes of Tony Blair, he is also a surrogate for Polanski himself, in that he is unable to cross borders in fear of arrest. Polanski is too good however to be sidelined by the looming spectre of politics and allegory, this is captivating from first frame to last, and the work of a master in complete command of his medium.

[honeykid]

Thanks for the review, Fenwick. This is something I've been looking forward to seeing for a while. :)

[Justin]

Glad to see you liked it so much. I enjoyed it a lot, too.

[Fenwick]

Thanks for all the responses guys!

One of my favourite parts about The Ghost, Justin, that I didn't mention in my review, was that sense of open-aired anxiety if you know what I mean. That open plan post-modern pad, the desolate seclusion of the island etc. It had all the claustrophobia of Repulsion, The Tenant and Rosemary's Baby yet was much more free. Can't wait to buy the DVD when it comes out, it was as good a genre film as i've seen in the cinema this year.

[Fenwick]

Hey again people!

Haven't managed to get anything down in a while as i've been up to my eyeballs in other stuff. I have found myself in the cinema a few times though.

http://www.mfa.org/dynamic/events/sb_events_image_1_42916.jpg

The Headless Woman

La Mujer sin Cabeza/Lucrecia Martel/2008/Maria Onetto, Claudia Cantero, Cesar Bordon

The 'New Argentinian Cinema' has become one of the most consistent and prolific national cinemas in the Spanish-speaking world and Lucrecia Martel one of its most talented filmmakers. After La Cienaga and The Holy Girl comes The Headless Woman, according to Peter Bradshaw amongst others, one of the seminal works about guilt from this century. The opening is stunning and misleading - stunning in its use of small details, such as a hand print that changes places between cuts - and misleading because the film peaks early, unable to reach these dreamlike heights again. Martel dallies around middle-aged paranoia and if anything, the film appeals to a Bunuelian critique of the bouregoisie.


http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2009/12/16/hot-tub-time-machine-traile.jpg

Hot Tub Time Machine

Steve Pink/2010/John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry, Clark Duke

Better than its title suggests, Hot Tub Time Machine marks the third collaboration of producer/director Steve Pink and greatest-actor-ever John Cusack. It's cock-filled canon of gross-out gags comes closer to the 'guy' ethos of the Apatow crew than Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity (both of which Pink didn't direct but penned and produced). Pink however, does get some mileage out of the time travel stuff, and particularly refreshing is his carefree handling of the space-time continuum and all its myriad inconsistencies, playing it for laughs rather than the intergerlactic mumbo-jumbo that often comes with it.


http://www.greatnewmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/The-Girl-with-the-Dragon-Tattoo.jpg

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Man som Hatar Kvinnor/Niels Arden Oplev/2009/Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace

The success of Steig Larsson's 'Millenium Trilogy' both at home and across-the-pond made a big-budget screen adaptation a matter of time. The first of three already-made films, this one directed by Niels Arden Oplev, the others by the easier-to-spell Daniel Alfredson, it copies pretty much verbatim from the source material, which'll no doubt keep the novels' fans in-check (by-the-by, I have never read the books but plan to do so). Quality-wise, the film resembles the last thriller I reviewed, The Ghost - it's fast-paced, gruesomely affecting and shows an impressive attention to detail. Almost ineveitably when the build-up is so good, the payoff comes as a bit of a let down but the film is never less than enthralling, all throughout its 150-minute running time. And may I add, that in the unconventionally gorgeous Noomi Rapace, Oplev and Larsson uncover one of the most intriguing heroines in a long while.

[Fenwick]

I'm going to attempt to revive this thread, although i'm unsure if this is the film to do it with! Anyway after a month or so out, here goes:

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/.a/6a00d834518cc969e2011571305cd4970b-500wi

24 City - 二十四城記

Er shi si cheng ji/Jia Zhang-ke/2008/Joan Chen, Lu Luping

Jia Zhang-ke's latest film, a fiction-nonfiction hybrid that charts China's rampant sociopolitical evolution, from precapitalism and Mao to its post-Western consumer-driven present, through the residents of a formerly state-owned factory, brings the industrial cityscapes of Platform, Unknown Pleasures, The World and Still Life into a very real context. Unjudgmental as Jia is, this is no history lesson; instead he counts the human cost of the changes. Focusing solidly on eight interviewees, some genuine, others played by actors (Joan Chen appears in a bizzarely reflexive segment, the closest 24 City comes to Still Life's UFO), Jia shirks half-hearted criticism of aestheticisation; that his elegaic compositions beautify the futureshock of New China. My criticisms are much simpler however; his work is difficult, only moderately diverting at the best of times, especially to a pampered Westerner like myself, but the second half of this film in particular palpitates with emotions that are transnational. And thanks to some oddly sentimental musical interludes and universally appealing poetry, this may be Jia's most accessible film; it is certainly the one to start with if you are new to him.

[nebbit]

Nice reviews Fenny :yup: Thanks :)

[christine]

Enjoyed reading your review Fenny. Keep em coming :)

[Fenwick]

http://i35.tinypic.com/104i0bn.jpghttp://personal.amy-wong.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/love-exposure-ai-no-mukidashi.jpg

Love Exposure - 愛のむきだし

Ai no mukidashi/Sion Sono/2008/Takahiro Nishijima, Hikari Mitsushima, Sakuro Ando

A digitally shot, 240 minute hyper-treatise on Catholic guilt, faith in the modern world, young love, parenthood, perverts and peek-a-panty porn, Sion Sono's Fipresci winning film is as ambitious and original as it is outrageous and successful. Its manga-influenced stylings echo the flourescent, bubble-gummy tones of even-odder compatriots Kamikaze Girls and Memories of Matsuko, yet it suits a much grander purpose; the eroto-theosophical sensibilities of Alexandre Jodorowsky and furthermore, the modernization of East Asia's arcane sexual attitudes - in practice, thought or the clandestine images one may remember from incendiary works like Crazed Fruit or more graphically, In the Realm of the Senses. Indeed, if this were not so inescapably middle-class and its violence not so carnivalized, Love Exposure would be positively Imamura-like. The below-the-belt humour and nods to equally sexploitive Japanese cinema (the hard-on gags hark to Hanzo and the Miss Scorpion alter-ego riffs on Meiko Kaji's likewise named creation) make this an inimitable imitation, the stuff celluloid (or digital) dreams are made of.

[Fenwick]

http://filmonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/inception-film.jpg

Inception

Christopher Nolan/2010/Leonardo Di Caprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, Cilian Murphy, Marion Cotillard

The zinger that closed my previous review would better serve this capsule for Inception, a screwball-scramble of a mind-puzzle**** from hot-off-the-block 'sure thing' Christopher Nolan. Inception could allegorize, in smashy-smashy pots 'n pans form, the filmmaking process, with Leo's plucky dream thief a substitute for Nolan, himself an architecht of design. Indeed, this is very 'out-there' for a summer blockbuster, its theology far less dimestore than standard big-budget hokum, but much of this is stymied by repetitive gunfights that make more noise than sense. Make no mistake, this is more Michael Bay than Andrei Tarkovsky, but only explosions and visual gymnastics outnumber ideas here. Although it is 12 years, two Batfilms and $170 million later, like his first film Following, made for tuppence in Eraserhead monochrome, Inception is overpopulated with the kind of hocus-pocus that obfuscates rather than illuminates.

[Yoda]

Ouch. Pretty harsh stuff. I'll agree that the gunfights are repetitive (probably the film's only major flaw, from my perspective), but I wouldn't say they don't make sense. And the film has scads of ideas. Some of this we agree on (but disagree as to the degree), but that's one complaint I can't relate to at all, honestly.

[Fenwick]

Ouch. Pretty harsh stuff. I'll agree that the gunfights are repetitive (probably the film's only major flaw, from my perspective), but I wouldn't say they don't make sense. And the film has scads of ideas. Some of this we agree on (but disagree as to the degree), but that's one complaint I can't relate to at all, honestly.

Reading my review back, it does come off as rather harsh. I liked it well enough but to be honest, I haven't thought about it since my achy coxsix came off the seat last night.

And you're right the gunfights do make sense but logistics aside, they make one helluva racket, and I can't help but think that for a technical virtuouso like Nolan, the content of these 'dreams' are worryingly routine. We start by bullet-spraying over a rainy LA, then tirlt-a-whirling through the corridors of a post-modern hotel and then trudging (and by then I definitely was as well) through some bizarre alpine territory - it seems like Bourne and Bond to me.

Thirdly Yoda, once again I agree, the film has scads of ideas (only it has more Matrix-style wizardry) but suffocates under the weight of them, much like Following did, much like Memento did, much like The Prestige did (that had other problems too). But hey, at least it's not Insomnia.

[mark f]

Damn, I liked Insomnia.

[Fenwick]

Damn, I liked Insomnia.

It cured mine. I have a lot of time for the Norwegian one mind.

http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/Insomina%201997%20pic.jpg

[honeykid]

The Norwegian one does indeed piss all over Nolan's version.

[mark f]

Not for me, but I guess that means that somebody just pissed on me...

[The Prestige]

double post, soz.

[The Prestige]

Nah, Nolan's Insomnia is in no way inferior to the original. Yeah, I know i'm biased, but I think the worst thing you can say about the remake is that it's on par with the Stellan version, which I did enjoy too.

I do think that original's protagonist motives are a bit more ambigious and, perhaps, a little bit less likeable. However, Nolan's version does a far better job at exploring the complex relationship between the killer and detective. Plus the female lead is more interesting in his version and has more to do. Plus it is BEAUTIFULLY directed and proved that Nolan can work within the confines of narrative, too. Watch the remake again without thinking about the original.

[Fenwick]

I don't hate Nolan's Insomnia. Come to think of it, he hasn't made a bad film, but then again, I don't think he has made a great one either. I know that if Nolan pissed in a glass and called it lemonade, you'd think it was the best ****ing lemonade ever (and I like the fact you know this :)) but it has been far too long since i've seen either to get into semantics. All I remember, and all I need to remember, is that to this day the Norwegian effort reverberates much stronger in my mind than Nolan's, which has vanished into some vague images of Al Pacino chasing Robin Williams through snow.

One question though. What do you mean when you say Insomnia proved Nolan can work within the 'confines of narrative'? Surely he was working within the 'confines of narrative' with Following and Memento? Memento was back to front granted, but still had a narrative. Do you mean that Insomnia proved Nolan could comply with a traditional genre formula? For a director of his technical skill, I don't think this was ever in question - he certainly never need to prove it to me.

[Yoda]

I assume he means the confines of a fairly traditional narrative. Memento and (to a lesser extent) Following were far from linear. When he has his way, dude seems to like to jumble scenes about quite a bit. He'd probably do it with the Batman films if he thought he could get away with it.

[Fenwick]

I assume he means the confines of a fairly traditional narrative. Memento and (to a lesser extent) Following were far from linear. When he has his way, dude seems to like to jumble scenes about quite a bit. He'd probably do it with the Batman films if he thought he could get away with it.

This is what I assumed.

Nolan is what, 40 years old so time is on his side. I'd be very suprised if we get anything less than 10 more films out of him, and odds are that one of them will tick all my boxes. And good luck to him.

[honeykid]

My biggest problem with Nolan's version and, therefore the entire film, is that I never get that feeling of tiredness. It doesn't feel like the guy's been up for days, I don't get that sense of weariness that I do with the original. The Nolan version's ok, but I truly don't think it's a patch on the original.

[meatwadsprite]

I didn't like either of 'em. So there ! Now I'm gona watch this four hour acrobat panties movie that Fenwick liked.

[The Prestige]

Yep, what Yoda said. Confines of traditional narrative.

Lol, so you have me well figured out too, Fenwick. Tis true, Nolan could probably make a film about toilet cleaning and i'd still find it interesting. Dunno about drinkin' his pissade though ;). But seriously, I understand how the remake was difficult to appreciate at first, especially since the original sticks in your mind, but I am fairly confident that you will get a more rewarding film if you watch it again.

HK, some people have raised similar issues with the Nolan version. I dunno maybe it's just me but I think both films do a fair enough job in conveying the disorientating mind of the detective. The difficulty in that though is to do it in a way that doesn't make the viewer feel tired.

Watch the film from the beginning and watch how Pacino's (In one of his best performances in the last 10 years) Dormer's face begins to sag from scene to scene, and his random emotional outbursts. It's a feeling though and it would be difficult to get that one again in repeated viewings if you didn't feel that way the first time around, but I certainly did. Though, I do think more could have been shown to see the devasting effects of sleeplessness, but then you run the risk of having a bit of a science lesson.

[mark f]

I don't know. There are several scenes in Alaska, especially near the beginning where we see things through Pacino's eyes and the camera seems to cloud up and the photography gets slower and distorted. I always accepted those images as signs of insomnia. Come to think of it, the same thing occurred with the sound effects, obviously. Yes, I think it's Al's best performance since Donnie Brasco anyway.

[Fenwick]

http://soberingconclusion.com/movies/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/The-Karate-Kid-2010.jpg

The Karate Kid

Harald Zwart/2010/Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, Taraji P. Henson, Wenwen Han

A blatant Jaden Smith vehicle spearheaded by Mum and Dad, Will and Jada Pinkett, this kowtowing remake of the Ralph Macchio original spars with the same dramatic moves that kicked their way into teenage fandom 26 years ago. The lil’ Fresh Prince flexes his flimsy acting muscles next to weathered handyman and super kung-fu master Jackie Chan in a role that swaps ‘wax-on, wax-off’ for coat hanging and the brilliantly named Mr Miyagi for tepidly tagged Mr Han. There are other changes too, kung fu in place and stead of karate (why wasn’t this called The Kung Fu Kid?) and California to an incredibly apolitical, a-racial China. Indeed, director Zwart’s mystical, spiritualized vision of China, complete with mountain-top meditation, a cobra/woman pas de deux and of course the Great Wall, panders to a specific Western idea of the East. Orientalism aside however, as it will be for this generations new Karate Kid admirers, at 140 minutes there is excess here in need of a chop down; no material this slight warrants such generosity. Nevertheless, there is good clean Hollywood fun to be had here, to say anything but is something akin to saying the original is a classic.

[planet news]

China isn't mystical or spiritualized at all anymore. It's the most ideologically cynical, ultra-capitalistic totalitarian government in the world. I think Will Smith's gravy-training son is the ultimate metaphor here.

Good review.

[planet news]

A digitally shot, 240 minute hyper-treatise on Catholic guilt, faith in the modern world, young love, parenthood, perverts and peek-a-panty porn, Sion Sono's Fipresci winning film is as ambitious and original as it is outrageous and successful. Its manga-influenced stylings echo the flourescent, bubble-gummy tones of even-odder compatriots Kamikaze Girls and Memories of Matsuko, yet it suits a much grander purpose; the eroto-theosophical sensibilities of Alexandre Jodorowsky and furthermore, the modernization of East Asia's arcane sexual attitudes - in practice, thought or the clandestine images one may remember from incendiary works like Crazed Fruit or more graphically, In the Realm of the Senses. Indeed, if this were not so inescapably middle-class and its violence not so carnivalized, Love Exposure would be positively Imamura-like. The below-the-belt humour and nods to equally sexploitive Japanese cinema (the hard-on gags hark to Hanzo and the Miss Scorpion alter-ego riffs on Meiko Kaji's likewise named creation) make this an inimitable imitation, the stuff celluloid (or digital) dreams are made of.
This is a great review, man.

[christine]

http://i35.tinypic.com/104i0bn.jpghttp://personal.amy-wong.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/love-exposure-ai-no-mukidashi.jpg

Love Exposure - 愛のむきだし

Ai no mukidashi/Sion Sono/2008/Takahiro Nishijima, Hikari Mitsushima, Sakuro Ando

A digitally shot, 240 minute hyper-treatise on Catholic guilt, faith in the modern world, young love, parenthood, perverts and peek-a-panty porn, Sion Sono's Fipresci winning film is as ambitious and original as it is outrageous and successful. Its manga-influenced stylings echo the flourescent, bubble-gummy tones of even-odder compatriots Kamikaze Girls and Memories of Matsuko, yet it suits a much grander purpose; the eroto-theosophical sensibilities of Alexandre Jodorowsky and furthermore, the modernization of East Asia's arcane sexual attitudes - in practice, thought or the clandestine images one may remember from incendiary works like Crazed Fruit or more graphically, In the Realm of the Senses. Indeed, if this were not so inescapably middle-class and its violence not so carnivalized, Love Exposure would be positively Imamura-like. The below-the-belt humour and nods to equally sexploitive Japanese cinema (the hard-on gags hark to Hanzo and the Miss Scorpion alter-ego riffs on Meiko Kaji's likewise named creation) make this an inimitable imitation, the stuff celluloid (or digital) dreams are made of.

interesting. Funnily enough I've just finished watching Memories of Matsuko which I'm reflecting on just now. I wasn't expecting to be upset by that film but I am.

[planet news]

It's a fairly light film all in all, Love Exposure, that is. No real explicit material. Nothing really disturbing.