Vampires, Assassins, and Romantic Angst by the Seaside: Takoma Reviews

Nostalgia for the Light, 2010

The Atacama Desert in Chile is notable for its extremely low humidity, which makes it the perfect place for astronomers to construct observatories and study the universe. The Atacama has another distinction, however, namely that it is the dumping ground for a tremendous number of tortured and executed political prisoners from the Pinochet era. As scientists attempt to discern light and energy patterns dating back to the beginning of the universe, determined women comb the desert for the bodies of their lost loved ones.

It can be such a fine line between telling a harrowing story and feeling like you’re veering into exploitation. This film takes a truly devastating situation and frames it wonderfully and empathetically by examining the way that the astronomers and the family members are trying to understand the past.

This film has been sitting in my heart since I watched it. It would have been easy for the film to center on the torture and murder that took place, but instead the film is almost entirely focused on how people cope with their pasts, be that family past or the past of the universe. And somehow, this gentle simplicity proves much more devastating than any catalog of criminal acts.

One of the best interview subjects in the film is Gaspar Galaz, a Professor of Astronomy. In one of three sequences in the film that really stuck out to me, Galaz reflects on the different ways that people respond to the quests of the astronomers and of the families. He notes that it’s troubling that people are more aware and supportive of the work of the astronomers, when what the families have gone through is part of their country’s history. He also reflects on the way that people will support the astronomy, but will say to the families that what’s in the past is in the past. Galaz is an empathetic person, and I appreciated that he was able to talk about his enthusiasm for astronomy without ever sounding like he was minimizing what the families are going through.

A second incredible sequence involves a woman recounting what it was like when the searchers finally found her brother. All they could find were some teeth, some skull pieces, and a single foot. She describes spending the night in a house with her brother’s foot, the joy of having found him and the heartbreak of confirming his death smashing together. This interview, and an interview with a 70 year old woman still combing the desert for her lost brother, really pierce your heart.

Then comes an incredible part of the film where the astronomy and the lost families come together in a single person. Valentina Rodriguez was a child when her grandparents were forced to reveal the location of her parents. They did so, managing to save Valentina but at the loss of Valentina’s parents. Valentina talks about this past, her gratitude to her grandparents for raising her, her feelings about being a parent of her own child, and how the eons-long cycles of the world help her to cope with the pain that she feels. Intercut with Valentina’s interview are shots of the grandparents sitting on a couch in the house. They don’t say anything. What can they say? Their silence speaks volumes.

This movie is a gorgeous, heartbreaking but not hopeless, look at how we process our own lives and our place in the world. I found myself incredibly drawn to all of the interview subjects, and I think that the filmmakers did an incredible job of honoring the stories and memories of the victims of Pinochet’s regime without ever feeling exploitative.

Stork, 1971

Stork (Bruce Spence) is fed up with his corporate job, and so he quits in splendid fashion and goes to live with his friend, Westy (Graeme Blundell). Westy shares a house with Clyde (Helmut Bakaitis) and Tony (Sean Myers), who are both dating Anna (Jacki Weaver). Stork becomes obsessed with getting together with Anna.

Occasionally entertaining in its abrasive approach, for the most part this one falls a bit flat.

For better or for worse, the movie rests on the audience’s relationship to Stork. At its best, the film and Spence show us someone who is full of bluster, but also plagued by an identity crisis and some deep insecurities, especially around sex. At the same time, that bluster is very . . . blustery. Stork expresses himself in rants and bellows, often with the camera right in his face. It feels like a lot, and the longer the film lasts, the more abrasive it can feel.

The supporting performances are all pretty good, with Jacki Weaver being the standout as the much lusted after Anna. The movie seems to have some contradictory feelings about Anna---can a woman be in a relationship with more than one man and NOT be a slut?--but I really enjoyed her character. The film also gets some good physical comedy out of placing Weaver next to Spence, who looks like he’s twice her height. (Though a perhaps unintentional side-effect is that sometimes it looks like a grown man and a child which, you know, gross.)

It’s ultimately the film’s relationship to Anna that gave me mixed feelings about the film. Late in the movie, Anna discovers that she is pregnant. Tony immediately demands that she get an abortion, and continues to badger her about it even after she says she wants to continue the pregnancy. In this last act, Stork decides that because he has had sex with Anna, she is now “his.” Maybe this is supposed to come across as his naivete, but I thought it had weird, controlling vibes. It’s actually Clyde who comes across the best, willing to marry Anna despite not knowing if the child is biologically his.

I know that this film has historical significance in terms of kicking off the Australian New Wave. And I do think it’s worth watching, because it has that very left-field, independent feeling to it. There’s certainly something happening in this film, even if that something wasn’t mostly for me. There’s plenty of casual homophobia and sexism tossed around (“I’m not a lesbian, I’m a normal woman”), and it being “era appropriate” doesn’t make it more palatable. The central plot around Stork’s obsession with Anna didn’t feel all that compelling to me, and so I had very little to anchor me in the story.

Interesting as a historically significant film, but it didn’t do a lot for me.

The Eagle Shooting Heroes, 1993

The conniving Ou-yang Feng (Tony Chiu-wai Leung) and his cousin (Veronica Yip) attempt to overthrow the throne. But to do so, they must hunt down the princess (Brigitte Lin) who holds the royal seal. Both parties are soon on the hunt for a mystical kung fu manual. Also in the picture are Huang Yaoshi (Leslie Cheung) and his companion Suqiu (Joey Wang). There’s a suicidal beggar (Jacky Heung) whose attempts to die at Feng’s hands repeatedly end in mishaps. A fighter (Carina Lao) whose gender is ambiguous seeks revenge for the death of their lover (Kenny Bee). Finally, an eccentric gentleman, Tuan (Tony Ka Fai Leung) tries to achieve immortality.

Wowza. This wuxia adventure parody is a complete free-for-all, but with so much talent in front of and behind the camera, it manages to be a mostly delightful one.

This is the kind of movie where there are at once a thousand little subplots and also one loose, sprawling overarching plot. It also comes with the wonderful relief that if at any point you’re not totally sure what’s happening, it really doesn’t matter. Is Carina Lao playing a man, or playing a woman who has always passed for a man? Inconsequential. Are those dudes in the background working for Feng? Doesn’t matter.

This film is straight up 90+ minutes of a prestige collection of Hong Kong acting talent pulling faces, flopping around, pretending to control dancing centipedes with tiny drums, and seducing or rejecting one another every five minutes.

So, yeah, it’s kind of great when it works, because there’s a level of commitment from the actors and also a level of professionalism from the production itself (Sammo Hung was the action coordinator). It’s stupid, but it knows it’s stupid and, darn it, it’s going to be the best kind of stupid you’ve ever seen. At one point Tony Leung, In the Mood for Love dreamboat, tries to teach another character how to flirt while suffering from allergy induced sausage lips. I’ve already mentioned the tiny drums. It really feels like everyone involved has totally embraced letting loose in a talent-without-ego vibe.

This extends to the trappings of the film. The costumes are colorful and expressive. The effects in the action scenes are solid. The movie knows when to look good and when to intentionally be goofy, such as when the characters encounter three monsters in a cave who are clearly dudes dressed as a gorilla, a godzilla, and a big bird.

There are only two downsides here. The first is that there are times that the jokes stretch on a bit too long. There’s a line where something is stupid and it’s fun, but then it just starts to wear out its welcome. This happens on and off throughout the movie. There’s also some very early 90s humor, like a sequence where a cross-dressing Tuan tries to seduce an uncomfortable Yaoshi. Tuan is actually a pretty fun character, in my opinion, of the “I’m amazing and just try to tell me otherwise” variety. But with Leslie Cheung having been actually queer and the entire joke hinging on “a man flirting with a man?!”, it feels a bit off even if it manages to avoid feeling entirely mean-spirited.

Definitely a unique film and a really good time.

The Fearless Hyena, 1979

Shing Lung (Jackie Chan) lives in a village with his grandfather (James Tien) who tries to train him in the secret ways of martial arts. But Lung is reckless and undedicated, preferring to gamble and get into silly brawls. Lung’s skills soon come to the attention of an inept martial arts teacher (Lee Kwan), who hires Lung to teach his students and fight students from other schools while wearing ridiculous disguises. But things get serious when an evil kung fu master (Yam Sai-kwoon) rolls into town, gunning for Lung’s grandfather. Lung must dedicate himself to the wise teachings of a man called the Unicorn (Hui-Lou Chen) in order to come out triumphant.

This film, which marks the debut of Jackie Chan as a writer/director, is a delightful comedy-action romp that wonderfully centers Chan’s physical and comedic talents.

Overall this movie is about pitch perfect for an action comedy, which is to say that it has just enough plot to move you from one action sequence to the other without it feeling jarring, but it also doesn’t get too bogged down in its story. There’s a nice alternation of comedy sequences leading into action sequences, leading back into comedy sequences, with just enough real emotion coming from the relationship with Lung and his grandfather to keep the movie grounded and give Lung a satisfying character arc.

The heart of the film, though, is the range of action scenes, and they do not disappoint. While any Jackie Chan film is going to be a showcase for his athletic talents, and this one definitely is, I was mainly taken by the humor. At one point, a cross-eyed, fake-mustache-wearing Chan sidles toward an opponent to the Pink Panther theme, and it’s a winner before a single punch is thrown. Later, Lung dressed in drag as a no-nonsense young woman who cheerfully demolishes an opponent who keeps trying to flirt with her. (Also, kudos to the film for Chan just . . . looking nice in drag.) The film reaches its climax as Lung uses a type of emotion-based kung fu to battle his opponent.

There are also some notable non-action or minimal-action sequences, such as a bit where Lung tries to get a job working for a shady coffin salesman, or where he tries to win at a rigged cup and ball game.

As you might expect, the characters are not super well developed. This mainly is an issue with the villain, who is not remarkable as a character aside from being the evil guy who shows up to do evil things. But there’s enough humor and affection between Lung and his grandfather and later Lung and the Unicorn to keep you invested in the outcome.

Good times.

I believe we were promised Vampires….where are the vampires?

The Time Machine, 1960

An inventor named George Wells (Rod Taylor) creates a machine that can move objects and people through time. Excited to see the progress of human development, George moves forward in time. He is dismayed to learn of the world wars, but that doesn’t hold a candle to the long-distant future where he befriends a teenage girl named Weena (Yvette Mimieux) who is part of a strange, passive society.

A killer concept and wonderfully engaging special effects make this film incredibly watchable, while some dopey, dated sci-fi tropes render the character arcs a bit underwhelming.

The best aspect of this film is the way that it goes about portraying the time travel element, via visual cues and stop-motion animation. George spends a lot of the film simply sitting in the time machine as the world changes around him. The passage of time is conveyed largely via the changing styles of clothing on a mannequin in a clothing store across the street from George’s home. Later, George will watch as a volcano erupts and he is surrounded by hardened lava, leaving him no choice but to wait until the rock naturally erodes around him. The effects don’t always make sense (at the speed time is passing, he wouldn’t see the mannequin being undressed and redressed), but who cares?

There are also some very interesting aspects to the future society that George encounters. Their civilization has advanced to the point where all of their needs are being automatically met. As such, there is no longer a need to work or learn. The people are passive to the point that they sit by indifferently as someone drowns. Ben Franklin once dreamed that physical labor would be taken over by automatons, freeing up all citizens to pursue art and science. This story posits that, actually, freed of the necessities of survival, most people will turn into slugs. George is horrified to discover that the innovative drive of the past has been forgotten completely.

Where the film loses me a bit is in George’s character, and specifically his behavior in the segment in the far future. There’s a very touching sequence where George goes just about 20 years into the future, emerging in the middle of World War One. Thinking that he’s spotted his best friend, David (Alan Young), George discovers that it’s actually David’s son, James. Further, he learns that David has been killed in action, but that he put safeguards in place so that George’s home would never be sold or torn down. It’s very sweet and speaks to the friendship between the men.

But then George hits the far future and, WOW, does his entitled Western tourist vibe hit hard. He goes into the place where the people live and basically invites himself to dinner. When they aren’t curious about him, he throws a little hissy fit. It is, in a word, embarrassing. Really embarrassing.”Perhaps curiosity has died. Perhaps even courtesy has died, but I have come a long way and there are things I would like to know.” After more aggressive questioning, he rains more contempt down on the young man who tried to answer his questions. Later in the film, he tells Weena that he shouldn’t be mad at them, after all, they’re ignorant just like the indigenous foreign people of his own time!

And while the age difference between the characters of Weena and George isn’t terrible (Mimieux was 17 at the time of filming, and is 12 years younger than Taylor), the framing of their relationship as romantic/sexual gave me the big time icks. George refers to Weena as a vegetable. At one point he says, “Only children are afraid of the dark. But then, you are a child, aren’t you?”. It’s yet another iteration of this weird sci-fi fantasy about finding a woman with a post-puberty body and the mind/maturity of a child and I find it off-putting every single time. (There is one other woman in the movie, George’s elderly housekeeper, whose defining characteristic is that he mocks her fashion style at one point).

So points for style and for the development of the friendship between George and David, major eyeroll to the last act.

Back to the Future 2, 1989

Moments after the events of the first film, Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) and his girlfriend Jennifer (Elisabeth Shue) are scooped up by Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) and carried off to the year 2015 where Marty’s children are in a lot of trouble. But Doc’s attempt at benevolent intervention backfires when old nemesis Biff (Tom Wilson) learns about the time machine and uses it to craft a very different past and future.

Plenty of imagination on screen and engaging performances add fun to this film, though it ultimately ends up pulling itself in far too many directions.

There is a lot of enjoyment to be had in this movie, and particularly in the first act that takes place largely in the future. Of course there are always a few moments of snickering at the way that a movie envisions a future that is, as of viewing the film, in the past. The 2015 of this movie is all self-lacing sneakers, hologram waiters, instant faxes, and fingerprint-activated doors. I thought that it hit a good sweet spot of not feeling like it was trying too hard to predict the future, while still having some fun with imagining it. (And also poking some fun at the perpetual nostalgia grind with an 80s themed cafe).

There’s also, as you’d expect, some nifty machinations with the time travel element. The events of the film take place in the present of the 1980s, the past of the 1950s, and the future of the 2010s. And this includes overlap with the events of the first film, so that Marty and Doc Brown must dance around their previous adventures. It all comes across pretty well in terms of keeping the causality fun and light.

But as the film went on, I have to admit to finding it less fun. There’s almost no character work, which is a shame because Fox and Lloyd are very likable in their roles. Heck, Fox plays Marty, Marty’s future self, and Marty’s future son. There are some brief moments where Doc expresses regret about having meddled in the past and future, but those moments aren’t well developed.

I also found that the antagonism between Marty and the various incarnations of Biff started to wear thin. Really thin. As with the first film, Biff’s aggression toward Marty’s mother (Lea Thompson) is the centerpiece of things. (Though in this go around we get a Marty who is fixated on his mother’s breasts and even feels the need to remark on them!).

The inclusion of the character of Jennifer is even more baffling. Within about 5 minutes, Doc knocks her out because she’s “asking too many questions”. He and Marty then leave her unattended and unconscious in an alley near where future-Biff’s gang of no-goods roams around. You know, the character whose defining characteristic is bullying and sexual aggression? The character isn’t really used in any capacity, and it feels like a waste of a performance.

So there’s good stuff here, but in emphasizing the twists and turns of the plot, the characters really slip away, especially leading into the last act.

[b]Back to the Future Part 3[/B, 1990

A direct continuation of the second film in the trilogy, Marty (Michael J Fox) heads to the 1880s in order to rescue Doc (Christopher Lloyd), who is stranded with a busted time machine. Marty must, of course, contend with the past iteration of his bully, this time as “Mad Dog” Tannen (Tom Wilson). But a further complication arises when Doc falls in love with a woman named Clara (Mary Steenburgen), which makes his choice to go back to the 1980s a difficult one.

While far more streamlined than its immediate predecessor, this conclusion to the trilogy plays a lot of the old hits to some diminished effect.

There’s definitely much less of a manic feeling to this movie, which spends almost all of its runtime in the past. There’s also an increased emphasis on the characters instead of just the time travel mechanics. Marty finally gets some sense knocked into him regarding his inability to walk away from conflict, courtesy of his ancestor Seamus. Doc also gets some good character work, with him deciding that he must destroy his time machine and his burgeoning romance with Clara.

Steenburgen is also a very welcome presence. I mean, she’s a woman in the Back to the Future franchise, so she naturally must be graphically sexually harassed, groped, and pushed to the ground. But at least she also has a personality, likes books and science. And, you’ll never believe it, she actually gets to do a few action-y things. She’s pretty well rounded, and it actually makes Doc’s conflicted feelings seem realistic.

The Wild West sets look pretty good, and there are some good gags, such as Marty impulsively taking the name “Clint Eastwood”, or the local funeral director taking Marty’s measurements in the moments leading up to a duel.

Ironically, what drags this one down a bit for me is the time travel stuff. It doesn’t feel fresh or innovative, and I found myself tuning out every time they started getting into the mechanics about how to get the car going the requisite 88MPH without the use of gasoline. The film felt about 15-20 minutes too long for my taste.

A decent end to the trilogy.

Yup; at any rate, while we're on the subject, what do you think about the other Batman movies you've watched?

I'm still posting February watches. I believe vampires enter the fray around April? Sorry!

I'm a very casual fan of Batman generally, though I ADORED the animated series growing up.

I have vaguely positive feelings toward Batman and Batman Returns, but haven't seen either in over a decade. I generally liked Nolan's trilogy (and was an extra in the third one, good times) but don't consider any of them favorites. I haven't seen anything with Affleck's Batman. Do you have particular favorites or favorite portrayals?

Time Lapse, 2014

Finn (Matt O’Leary) is a painter who makes his living as a property manager along with his girlfriend, Callie (Danielle Panabaker). They live with friend and roommate Jasper (George Finn). One day while doing a wellness check on a tenant, they discover a strange machine that seems to be able to take photographs of the future. While at first the trio is able to leverage their new knowledge to their own advantage, things soon begin to escalate out of hand.

While this film generates some interest in a few small departures from the sci-fi “curse of knowing the future” trope, it doesn’t quite justify stretching a TV episode premise into a feature length.

There’s a snarky line from (I believe) a Roger Ebert review, where he says that what happens in a certain movie will “come as a great surprise to anyone who hasn’t seen a movie before”. This really sums up how I felt about the events of this film. Had I not seen many, many iterations of this premise beforehand, I think I would have been much more taken by it.

What I did like about this variation of the story was the idea that the three central characters become fixated on the idea that they must perfectly replicate what they see in the camera’s images. If the photo shows that they are sitting on the couch in certain clothing, then they MUST sit on the couch in those clothes. It’s kind of a neat twist on the idea of magical thinking. They get it into their heads, due to the unfortunate demise of the machine’s inventor, that any deviation from the prediction could spell doom for them. A lot of movies about knowing the future center on the idea of determinism. Are things fated to happen, or can they be changed? Here the characters are so terrified of the consequences of breaking the rules that the question of fate and free will gets all jumbled up in their fear.

I also have to give credit for the way that the film handles a sci-fi story with essentially no special effects. There’s smart budgeting at play here, understanding that the future-predicting machine is simply a mechanism for the story, and thus it doesn’t need to be fancy.

But live by the sword, die by the sword. The strength of stripped down sci-fi is often the way that it functions as a character drama, and the problem here is that the characters are pretty hard to take. They are all pretty obnoxious, and not in ways that make them fun to watch or compelling. Finn is almost a parody of the whiny, self-involved artist. Callie is weird and passive-aggressive. Jasper is dumb as a bag of rocks. There’s this attempt at a love triangle between the three of them, but these moments serve only to exacerbate how awful they all are.

In other reviews, I see that some people were really impressed by the final moments of the film. I have to say I wasn’t. From a plot standpoint, it was something I anticipated from very early in the film. From a character standpoint, I didn’t find it very compelling. If you’re hoping that sitting through the film will be worth it for the final “twist”/plot resolution, I’m not sure that’s a good hope to have.

This is also a case where information learned in the last act (or really the last 10 minutes) raises a LOT of questions about what has come before it. It casts certain decisions and events in a very different light, and retroactively makes at least one of the characters even worse.

A decent execution of a classic premise, but ultimately kind of a let-down.

Naked Killer, 1992

Kitty (Chingmy Yau) is a highly spirited young woman with a particularly ruthless way of dealing with unsavory men who cross her path. After her father is killed by her step-mother’s lover, Kitty decides to kill the lover, which puts her on the radar of Sister Cindy (Wei Yao), a professional assassin. But Kitty and Sister Cindy’s glorious days of dispatching wicked men face complications in the form of a traumatized police officer named Tinam (Simon Yam) who has a crush on Kitty and a vicious former pupil of Sister Cindy’s named the Princess (Carrie Ng).

While there are definitely some early-90s elements that don’t play all that well to a modern eye, this is one heck of a fun romp wherein the main character repeatedly threateningly tells her friend “I’ll burst your ****!” and the handsome male lead vomits profusely every time he looks at a gun. Yeah, it’s good times.

The film is at its best when it leans into the overtly zany world it’s created where it seems perfectly reasonable that a woman would surprise a man by being nude in his shower, emerge somehow fully dressed seconds later, and then explode his head with two dumbbells. The action is wonderfully over the top and ludicrous, and the performances are a perfect fit.

Yau is so much fun as Kitty, one of those rogue characters that live by their own special moral codes. Shortly after flagrantly murdering a man, Kitty runs across Tinam, easily taking his gun from him. But when Tinam becomes ill at the sight of the weapon, Kitty gives him a little pep talk and also gives him back the gun. Yao’s Sister Cindy is also a ton of fun as a woman whose every move--seductive or deadly--is planned out to the letter. And while the evil lesbian trope might be a bit tired, Ng’s Princess is the perfect villain for the film, landing in a perfect place between evil and seductive.

For the most part, the movie also manages to land in the right place in terms of the sexy/erotic elements of the story. In every single sequence aside from one scene between Kitty and Tinam, sex is being overtly wielded as a deadly weapon. Whenever someone runs their hands down another person’s body, or slinks through a door in a skin-tight outfit, you’re just waiting for the cut of the knife or the snap of a bone. The women in the film are fully in control of their bodies--with one scene as an exception--and so the movie sidesteps most negative connotations of exploitation. Because the power plays exist almost exclusively between the women themselves (do you pass the Bechdel test if the conversations between women are largely about men . . . but also mainly about how to stab them in the genitals?), there’s not a sense of them being used just as bodies.

Where the movie loses some of its zest is in trying to shoehorn a conventional romance into the movie. The beginning of the relationship between Tinam and Kitty is actually a lot of fun. Framing the male half of the relationship as the more sensitive traumatized half and the female half as the more assured, authoritative part is a neat reversal of the usual dynamics. But as the film starts to push them together more seriously, it gets a bit boring. The female characters are so compelling and fun. Tinam is fun as kind of a doofus, but once the movie wants us to buy Kitty getting all hot and bothered over him it feels kind of dubious and in a different kind of wish-fulfillment lane.

It’s also the case that the over-the-top assassinations become less frequent as the movie goes on, and there’s a zest to the first third that the film doesn’t quite manage to hold onto in the later acts.

Still, this is a rollicking good time about some women whose love language is locking each other in a basement with slobbering sexual predators.

The Last Woman on Earth, 1960

Evelyn (Betsy Jones-Moreland) is on an island vacation with her husband Harold (Antony Carbone). One day, while scuba diving together and with Harold’s lawyer Martin (Robert Towne), they emerge from the water to discover that a short-lived, inexplicable lack of oxygen has killed off all of the air-breathing beings on the island (and maybe in the world). As the three work to survive in a suddenly very different existence, tensions arise.

With no sci-fi to speak of aside from the inciting oxygen deficit, this film settles into a locked-room style drama, with the titular last woman on Earth, Evelyn, as a prize in a game of posturing between the two male leads.

There are a lot of films that deal with the premise of a last person or small group of last people after some sort of event sees the rest of humanity wiped out. There’s always something interesting about pondering which of society’s rules a person or group might continue to adhere to, and which conventions might get shoved by the wayside.

Unfortunately, the film sets its sights on just one question, ie will Evelyn and Martin, like, do it? It’s maddening on a couple of levels. The first is that the film acts as if not having sex with a woman in your proximity is some kind of serious psychological torture. I’ve known people of all different genders and sexualities who have had to go long stretches of time without sex--for example during extended stays in a remote research station, or while running a field hospital--and they all survived just fine. At one point, Harold talks about the “two man, one woman problem.” But this feels incredibly presumptive and absurd. The trio doesn’t try to leave the island because Harold doesn’t like the look of the weather, and so they haven’t really explored whether there might be other survivors. For example, anyone receiving oxygen in a hospital, anyone else diving, anyone in an airplane, etc.

But even if we forgive the fact that the film and the characters seem to leap to this conclusion, it still creates a very frustrating dynamic. Harold is super controlling. Martin thinks they need to accept their situation and just do what they want. Evelyn is constantly framed as the prize for whichever man “wins”.

The problem is that both men are total duds in their own ways. Harold is, as mentioned, very controlling. This includes forcing himself on Evelyn when she tells him no and saying “my wife” the way someone might say “my car”. He doesn’t even seem to actually like her all that much. He rambles on and on and on about his work ethic and how he “made” himself.

Martin is framed more sympathetically. I mean, the bar is low, right? He . . . doesn’t put Evelyn down or sexually assault her, so by default he’s better than Harold. But Martin also doesn’t seem to care that much about Evelyn’s happiness. There’s one really strong, shattering moment where an excited Evelyn talks to Martin about the possibility of them having a baby together. Martin shuts her down immediately, saying that humanity is on the way out and there’s “no point” bringing a child into the world. The camera lingers a moment on Evelyn’s face. In thinking that she might escape Harold’s control, she’s ended up with yet another guy who wants to drag her along in his philosophy without any real conversation or compromise.

The last act is particularly maddening. Just a collection of stupid, stupid choices culminating in a moment that’s framed in a positive light but which I found really depressing. I do have to give the film credit for something we almost never see in a movie: showing a character having lingering effects of head trauma and those effects slowly worsening as time goes on.

And some of the dialogue is . . . woof. Consider the following conversation:
- I no longer see the reason for catching fish we'll never be able to eat.
- All right, Martin. What do you want to do?
- To look at many things, not just fish.
- You afraid if you look at a fish too long, you'll begin to look like one?
- Maybe, Harold, maybe that's exactly what I'm afraid of.
- Boy, oh boy, it's certainly a good thing the world ended when it did. You never would have made it, boy, never.
- Made what, Harold? A millionaire? Money? Money and fish, fish and money. Harold, if rotten money smelled like rotten fish, they'd have given you a bank to yourself.

There are a handful of moments with some nice grit, but overall it’s a wet squib of a love triangle drama.

Dinner Rush, 2000

On a winter day in New York, an older man named Enrico (Frank Bongiorno) is ruthlessly gunned down after dropping his grandchildren off after school. The rest of the film follows an evening, some time later, in the restaurant that is co-owned by Enrico and Louis (Danny Aiello). An eccentric group of characters are thrown together in the tumultuous evening, including high-strung chef Udo (Edoardo Bellerini), Udo’s screw-up sous chef Duncan (Kirk Acavedo), food critic Jennifer (Sandra Berhard), know-it-all bartender Sean (Jamie Harris), and mystery man Ken (Joe Corbett). But also present is loan shark Carmen (Michael McGlone), the man responsible for Enrico’s death and who threatens more violence if he’s not given part ownership of the restaurant.

Despite a handful of short sequences taking place in other locations, this is essentially a one-setting film and it manages to wring multiple brands of tension out of the various subplots taking place in this eventful evening.

It’s very much to the credit of the writing and the acting that, for the most part, the different plot pieces tend to be engaging enough that you’re never too impatient for it to get back to a certain thread. The highest stakes plot involves the attempted muscling in on the restaurant by Carmen and his equally threatening associate. This plot is further complicated by the fact that Duncan has placed a large bet with Carmen. The presence of a police detective, seemingly invited by Louis, further implies that things will not go over smoothly.

At the same time, you have Louis and Udo in a power struggle, as Udo wants to be a partner but Louis mourns the way that the restaurant has moved away from its family style roots and into a more “exclusive” experience. Of course every character needs at least two subplots, so we also get to see that Udo’s sort-of girlfriend, restaurant worker Nicole (Vivian Wu), is having an ongoing fling with Duncan.

When it comes to the upstairs of the restaurant, a sense of performance is present in all of the interactions. The dynamic between Udo, Jennifer, and another critic called the Food Nymph (Sophie Comet) is both performance and seduction. Udo is aiming for good reviews, but it’s clear that the Food Nymph has been more than taken by his food and his deferential attitude. At another table, an art collector (Mark Margolis) holds court to a table full of local artists hoping for a big break.

Across the board the acting is pretty good. The camera roams through the restaurant, giving a cluttered, intimate feel to the movie. The vibe is busy, dangerous, and mundane all wrapped together. Sitting alongside the romantic triangles and “what is art?” banter is always the threat of violence, but the film doesn’t rush to get there. It feels as if whatever happens must evolve naturally from the interplay between the characters.

I had very few issues with this film, aside from the fact that there are times when it starts to tip almost into farce territory. Jennifer first showing up in a horrible fake wig. The Food Nymph practically experiencing orgasm eating some of Udo’s food. The police detective and his wife eating dinner as the detective suspiciously eyes the other patrons. The film does mean to be funny, but at moments it pushes the viewer’s suspension of disbelief a bit far.

A neat crime/drama built from a solid ensemble.

Happy Together, 1997

Lovers Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung) and Yiu-fai (Tony Leung) arrive in Argentina as the launch to a new phase in their on-again/off-again relationship. Things sour as they run short on money and have a disastrous trip to see a waterfall. Broken up, but forced to continue to live in Buenos Aires due to a lack of funds, the two go their separate ways until Po-Wing is attacked and Yiu-fai agrees to let him stay at his place while he heals. The two continue a roller-coaster of intimacy and jealousy, drawn to each other yet driving each other crazy.

While most movies about seemingly-doomed romantic relationships make me want to run for the hills, this sweetly-observed story about two guys who tenderly dance one minute and steal each other’s passports the next had me enraptured and holding out hope that somehow they’d find a way.

There are multiple dimensions to a relationship---love, trust, sexual attraction, affection--and the great tragedy of the relationship between Po-Wing and Yiu-fai is that they can never seem to get all of their ducks in a row. Whenever they seem to have one element in sync (compassion, lust, etc), some other element drives them apart. At different points in the film we see the best of what the two men can be as a couple. But we also see them at their worst in ways that make you think that they’ll probably never get themselves sorted out.

A lot of movies about troubled romances tend to paint them as having one piece that works (like a great sex life) and then another piece that is totally incompatible. I really liked this film’s take on the characters, which is that they almost can’t seem to help sabotaging things when they are going right. Yiu-fai takes Po-Wing’s passport and refuses to give it back. Po-Wing gets unnecessarily hurtful in talking about how many guys he’s hooked up with since he and Yiu-fai split.

Both men are, at times, impulsive or petty or maddening. But the performances from Cheung and Leung are undeniably magnetic, so that even at their very worst I found myself wanting things to turn out okay for them. By the nature of the structure of the film, Leung’s Yiu-fai comes off as more sympathetic, partly due to a subplot about Yiu-fai befriending a Taiwanese man named Chang (Chang Chen) who dreams of traveling.

There’s also an incredibly appealing sensuality to the way that the film is shot, especially the scenes between Po-Wing and Yiu-fai. The romantic sequences between them contain lots of thrilling moments of incidental intimacy---such as the way that Po-Wing slips his hands inside the sleeves of Yiu-fai’s shirt as the two dance. There’s a comfort between the two characters (via the apparent comfort between the two actors) that gives the relationship a lived-in quality that you don’t often feel in romantic films. That awareness of intimacy/sensuality extends to the broader world, such as in a sequence where a lonely Yiu-fai finds himself surrounded by the nude bodies of his co-workers at a slaughterhouse. A series of scenes ranging from that locker room sequence, to a part where Yiu-fai seeks out anonymous sex at a porn theater, to a shot of Yiu-fai hosing blood off of the slaughterhouse floor is a heady mix of overt lust and implicit despair.

A fabulous drama-romance.

As Tears Go By, 1988

Wah (Andy Lau) is mixed up in debt collection with local criminal organizations. One day out of the blue he gets a phone call from his aunt that his cousin Ngor (Maggie Cheung) will be coming to stay with him as she pursues diagnosis for a lung ailment. Wah finds himself drawn to Ngor, even as his friend Fly (Jacky Cheung) digs them in deeper and deeper in debt and rivalry with other local gangsters.

Layering his typical existential romantic crisis over a small-potatoes crime plot, Wong Kar-Wai crafts a film far more interesting than it deserves to be, albeit one that doesn’t quite feel complete.

I read a review of a Wong Kar-Wai film that described his movies as portraying “the feeling of another life slipping away.” I mean, dang if that isn’t a PERFECT description of the sense I get from what I’ve seen of his work. Here it is Wah going through the motions, feeling like a big man, until Ngor’s gentle presence makes him realize just how empty his life is.

Lau makes for a strong lead, even if Wah is kind of a mess. He does a good job of portraying a kind of awakening inside of his superficially macho character. True to life, Wah doesn’t change who he is or drop everything for love, but instead begins to exist in a state of being unsettled. There’s something better out there, but what would it mean to reach for it?

Cheung is quietly charming as Ngor, even if she does come off at times as a bit too meek or too much of a Mary Sue. In an early sequence, literally the first night she stays in his apartment, Wah comes home drunk, trashes the place, breaks a bunch of glass, and then when she gently inquires about what’s wrong, he chases her down, pins her against a wall, and threatens her. And Ngor . . . just sort of shrugs this off? I mean, it’s one thing for a character to be kind and calm and compassionate. But it’s quite another for someone to meekly accept physical and verbal abuse as par for the course. She is very sweet and lovable, but her casual reception of Wah’s abuse feels like a big red flag.

Really, though, the main point of contention I had with this film was the character of Fly, who is just the worst. Every choice he makes is bad. Loyalty to your friends is great and all that, but watching Wah bail Fly out over and over and over just got maddening. As the film worked toward its final act and more serious conflict with the other local criminals, Fly’s actions started to feel too stupid, too contrived. At a certain point, the reality holding the romantic plot and the criminal plot together starts to thin out, and they don’t feel as if they belong in the same film.

The movie is undoubtedly visually stylish and dramatic. There are lots of moments of visual overlap and call back, such as Wah’s confrontation with Ngor mirroring an earlier confrontation Wah had with his ex-girlfriend. There’s a lot of overt drama with arguments taking place to a background of thunderstorms and stark angles. The soundtrack is also very in-your-face, lending the whole film a very heightened emotional tone.

A decent drama-romance that doesn’t quite cohere its elements as an overall story.

Yes, Madam!, 1985

Police Inspector Ng (Michelle Yeoh) must collaborate with UK Inspector Morris (Cynthia Rothrock) when a murdered undercover agent has his passport and some incriminating microfilm lifted by two small-time criminals Asprin (Hoi Mang) and Strepsil (John Sham). Unfortunately for all involved, shady businessman Mr. Tin (James Tien) will stop at nothing to get his hands on the microfilm.

A steady dose of fun action sequences makes this over-the-top crime/action/comedy an easy, breezy watch.

A lot of reviews of this film note that it kicked off a subgenre of women-led action films, and it’s easy to see why. Yeoh and Rothrock are a tremendous amount of fun every time they’re on screen, whether that’s Yeoh’s inspector making a memorable arrest in a bookstore or Rothrock’s enthusiastic investigator literally leaping at any chance to kick the bad guys in the face to some mix of amusement and concern from her Hong Kong hosts.

I’ll admit that I don’t have the best eye when it comes to things like stunt doubles being swapped in and out, but there are several sequences where it’s very clear that Yeoh and Rothrock are doing the physical work and they are both compelling action leads. This comes in moments small (like Yeoh spryly leaping over a guardrail at an airport) and large (like Rothrock making a wire-assisted kick off of a wall to down a baddie). They both espouse a kind of cool confidence in their abilities and that feeling helps the film transition from talking to action and back to talking. The final showdown with Tin and his various henchmen is all-out and a fantastic climax to the story.

I wasn’t nearly as taken with the comedy subplot about the doofuses who steal the microfilm and clumsily try to turn it to their advantage. Part of that was having to look at a real-life animal abuser for a fair amount of that subplot. Part of it was that those sequences seemed to linger on a bit too long. And part of it was just impatience in wanting to get back to Yeoh and Rothrock.

Overall a fun action flick that’s taken down a notch by its comedy subplots, yet lifted by a solid final action sequence.

The Left-Handed Gun, 1958

Billy the Kid (Paul Newman) is a young man who is illiterate and unmoored. He finds some mentorship in the form of a boss named Tunstall (Colin Keith-Johnston). But when Tunstall is murdered by a group of men--which includes a local sheriff--Billy swears bloody revenge. But a tentative amnesty is threatened by Billy’s violent spree, and his former friend, Pat Garrett (John Dehner) sets out to bring him to justice.

Some solid imagery run up against a borderline deranged protagonist makes this Western uneven but also compelling.

I don’t admittedly know very much about Billy the Kid, but I can’t help but wonder what inspired such a bizarre take on him in this film. We first meet Billy as he wanders through the desert, soon to be rescued and hired by Tunstall. Billy is disoriented, with simple questions like his name or where he’s from taking him moments to process and answer. But even after Billy is recuperated and rehydrated, he remains a character who seems in some way unattached to the world around him.

In some ways, this makes for an interesting dynamic. Billy has his own sense of honor and justice, and that sits uneasily alongside the fact that he can be impulsive and seemingly turn on a dime. There’s a scene in the movie where Billy and his friend Charlie (James Congdon) end up pinned down in a house in a shootout. Wandering too close to a window, Charlie is shot and begs Billy for help. Without going into more detail, what happens next is so strange and borderline inexplicable.

It’s a good thing that the film lays such a good groundwork of the relationship between Billy and Tunstall, because as the film goes on the viewer does want to see revenge. This impulse is constantly being challenged because of the way Billy goes about getting that revenge. There’s maybe some point where what he’s doing veers into the indefensible and unhealthy.

There is some really solid imagery here. A low-angled shot where a man suddenly looks up to see Billy holding a rifle aimed squarely at him is memorable, as is the immediate aftermath of the violence. The man is literally knocked out of his boots by the gunshot, something that happens right in front of a little girl. In another sequence, Billy returns to the shack where Charlie was shot, looking through the starburst shape of the shattered window.

Ultimately the film is both helped and harmed by its take on the main character. It’s so hard to get a handle on Billy that his moods and actions can feel random at times, disconnecting from a character arc. But I still found the character and the story interesting enough to stick with, helped by some memorable staging of certain sequences.

The Heroic Trio, 1993

In an urban landscape, a villain known only as the Evil Master (Shi-Kwan Yen) has a talented follower called Ching (Michelle Yeoh) stealing babies of wealthy, noble families in order to find a future king of China. On the case is Inspector Lau (Damian Lau), but the real heroes in this case are the wild Chat (Maggie Cheung) and the principled Tung (Anita Mui), who also happens to be Lau’s wife in disguise. As they come into conflict with each other, the three women must face a shared traumatic past.

With a delightfully incongruous mix of city thriller and fantasy combat, this melodramatic supernatural action flick keeps a solid momentum right up until its memorable last act.

The film kicks off with extravagant wire-work as a mysterious figure steals a baby and delivers it to her master. With that tone set, the entire narrative revolves around wonderfully over-the-top action setpieces, such as Chat dropping a rocket into a metal barrel, launching her into the air and into a building where she takes out a gang committing a robbery. Throughout the film the three women come together with or against each other, fighting over heir-apparent babies and conflicting loyalties.

Cheung’s black-leather clad, goggles-wearing Chat brings most of the comedy in the film. Mui and Yeoh hold things down on the drama front, especially Yeoh’s conflicted character who goes along with the Evil Master’s plan because she wants to protect a scientist (James Pax) who is working for the Evil Master perfecting a cloak of invisibility that Ching uses to steal the babies.

The tone of this film is all over the place, but it works? The action is outlandish, but the emotion stays grounded with the three protagonists. In a genuinely gasp-inducing turn of events, one of those outlandish action sequences results in some unexpected and upsetting consequences. There’s also a very endearing aspect to the unspoken romance between Ching and the Inventor that builds as the film goes on.

The only real downside to the film, for me, was that Ching’s motivations for staying with the Evil Master don’t totally wash. And unfortunately the film makes the mistake of letting her explain that motivation over and over, so that it rankles each time.

I have to say, however, that any complaints I had were absolutely power-washed away by that final action sequence, in which the Evil Master’s skeleton puppets Ching’s body, and there’s no way to describe it in words that can fully convey how awesome and bonkers it is.

Good times.

This is a fun, fun film. Michelle Yeoh is always superb.
Have you seen The Stunt Woman yet? I have that saved to watch soon.