Category: Directors Li

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006, Justin Lin)

Identifying the most interesting thing about The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift isn’t difficult. There’s so very little interesting about the film at all, anything slightly interesting becomes rather vibrant and engaging. Unfortunately, it’s the really weird treatment of girls in the film. Not women, but high school-aged girls. They are either mercenary or damaged and, since they’re not with leading man Lucas Black, their boyfriends try to kill them during car races.

It’s very strange. In the second instance, Nathalie Kelley is riding in Black’s car as her boyfriend, played by Brian Tee, tries to kill them. The first one has the girl in her boyfriend’s car and him just not caring about her safety in order to beat Black in the race.

Except Tokyo Drift takes a long time to establish Black can actually drive a car well. He races at the beginning and isn’t particularly impressive; then he goes to Tokyo and races and isn’t impressive there either. Not until Sung Kang comes along and teaches him how to “drift” is Black any good at driving.

Black doesn’t have much of a character to play. He says he can drive, the film doesn’t show it. He says he can fight, the film doesn’t show it. He seems to think he can treat Kelley right, the film doesn’t show it. They have zero chemistry. In one of his only good moves, director Lin decided not to force it.

Great editing, bad music, decent enough final cameo.

Rapid Fire (1992, Dwight H. Little)

Even with his silly, slicked back eighties cop hair, Raymond J. Barry is easily the best actor in Rapid Fire. His first appearance is delightful, as it washes away some of the film’s already very bad taste.

Rapid Fire is an action movie without any good action. Director Little’s terrible with actors and composition, but he also has a lousy crew. Ric Waite’s photography, while mildly competent, looks like he’s shooting the picture through bathwater. Gib Jaffe’s editing loses characters and he can’t figure out how to edit star Brandon Lee’s fight scenes. It’s okay, I guess, since Little can’t figure out how to shoot them. If the draw of Rapid Fire is supposed to be Lee’s martial arts abilities, actually showing them as something other than editing tricks would be helpful.

Besides Barry, only Tzi Ma makes any good acting impression… but it might be because Ma starts out opposite Nick Mancuso. Either Little told Mancuso to do a Sonny Corleone impression or Mancuso came up with it himself. Every moment Mancuso is on screen, whether playing with his hair or staring off into space, sears the reasoning parts of the brain. It’s laughably bad.

As for Lee? He’s not very good. It’s partially Little’s direction–and a lot of it is Alan B. McElroy’s terrible script–but he’s still not good.

Speaking of McElroy, he works numerous Chinese epithet to show Rapid Fire is socially conscious.

It’s an awful movie.

And Christopher Young’s smooth jazz score doesn’t help.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Dwight H. Little; screenplay by Alan B. McElroy, based on a story by Cindy Cirile and McElroy; director of photography, Ric Waite; edited by Gib Jaffe; music by Christopher Young; production designer, Ron Foreman; produced by Robert Lawrence; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Brandon Lee (Jake Lo), Powers Boothe (Mace Ryan), Nick Mancuso (Antonio Serrano), Raymond J. Barry (Agent Frank Stewart), Kate Hodge (Karla Withers), Tzi Ma (Kinman Tau), Tony Longo (Brunner), Michael Paul Chan (Carl Chang), Dustin Nguyen (Paul Yang), Brigitta Stenberg (Rosalyn), Basil Wallace (Agent Wesley) and Al Leong (Minh).

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Love’s Surprises (1915, Max Linder)

Calling Love’s Surprises a tepid comedy would be an understatement. Writer-director-star Linder fails to understand the very basics of drama, which puts the whole short in the dumps right off.

It opens with a dinner party. The three men at the party all run off to grab hidden flowers for a girl. Unsurprisingly, they’re all courting the same girl. Only, Linder never establishes why the men are sneaking out or why they wouldn’t admit association with her.

I guess the comedy’s supposed to be in the girl hiding them around her room in closets, pianos or just under a blanket… but it’s not funny. Surprises only comes alive at the end when the girl’s friend shows up and they abuse the hiding men.

For the finish, one of the men apparently “buys” the girl (who isn’t present) from his chums.

Surprises successfully mixes unfunny, odd, discomforting and weird.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Written and directed by Max Linder; released by Pathé Frères.

Starring Max Linder (Max), Lucy d’Orbel (Lili) and Georges Gorby.

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Slipstream (1989, Steven Lisberger)

A lot of Slipstream plays like The Road Warrior with gliders. In this post-apocalyptic wasteland, everyone flies around because of a jet stream ravaging the surface. It’s never clear where this jet stream is located and not, in a geographic sense, because they always manage to safely take off and land… while at other times it’s so bad it blows things apart.

Lisberger doesn’t know how to operate on a small budget; the film looks awful because of his composition. It doesn’t help his cinematographer, Frank Tidy, is incompetent. Long sequences are completely incomprehensible because Tidy doesn’t give them enough light and Lisberger doesn’t know how to shoot in cramped spaces.

But the big problem is Tony Kayden’s script. How a producer like Gary Kurtz didn’t know he had a bad script is beyond me. The dialogue’s so bad, it makes me wonder if it wasn’t intended to be a kids’ movie… only one rampant with Bill Paxton’s character’s misogyny.

The acting is, similarly, bad. I suppose Bob Peck is all right. His part is terribly written, but Peck’s abilities are enough he can turn in a dignified performance. Paxton is playing Hudson from Aliens again, just with long hair. Mark Hamill is hilariously bad. Kitty Aldridge and Eleanor David are weak too. Ben Kingsley’s awful in an unrecognizable cameo.

Even the Elmer Bernstein is bad—well, half of it. The other half is actually quite good.

On the other hand, the second unit shoots the Irish countryside beautifully.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Steven Lisberger; written by Tony Kayden; director of photography, Frank Tidy; edited by Terry Rawlings; music by Elmer Bernstein; production designer, Andrew McAlpine; produced by Gary Kurtz; released by Entertainment.

Starring Mark Hamill (Tasker), Kitty Aldridge (Belitski), Bill Paxton (Matt Owens), Bob Peck (Byron), Eleanor David (Ariel), Robbie Coltrane (Montclaire), Ben Kingsley (Avatar) and F. Murray Abraham (Cornelius).

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Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988, Dwight H. Little)

While still bad, Halloween 4 is better than I ever expected. It’s barely ninety minutes and forty or so minutes are of people in crisis, which passes the time fairly well.

It takes place in an interesting version of the original film’s town, where the moon (even when it isn’t full) is apparently so bright, it can light entire blocks and buildings. One of the plot points is the power being out, yet cinematographer Peter Lyons Collister always manages to locate a directional source.

Oh, wait, maybe Collister is just incompetent. That explanation makes more sense. Especially considering how almost every night shot is flooded with bright blue light.

The film’s a strange mix of character actors and ingenues, with the character actors the only reasonable actors. Donald Pleasence starts trashing his career legacy, but he’s not terrible. Beau Starr’s quite good.

As for the ingenues, they’re uniformly awful. Empirically speaking, director Little appears to have told Danielle Harris (the child in distress) to look like she’s holding in a fart. Her performance is terrible, though probably better than Ellie Cornell as her protector. Cornell lacks any affect whatsoever.

Little is an inept director, but not wholly incompetent. The real fault for Halloween 4 lies with writer Alan B. McElroy. McElroy can’t just not write dialogue, he can’t plot either. He also plagiarizes King Kong Lives‘s rednecks with shotguns subplot.

And then Little ruins McElroy’s one good scene.

It’s awful, but–again, shockingly–Halloween 4 could be much worse.

Batman: Year One (2011, Sam Liu and Lauren Montgomery)

Batman: Year One should be much, much better. As it stands, as animated adaptation of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s comic books, it’s a fantastic proof of concept. It’s no surprise, given much has already been adapted, albeit uncredited, into Batman Begins. I guess Christopher Nolan doesn’t know how to cite.

But co-directors Sam Liu and Lauren Montgomery are so reverential of the source material, they don’t seem to realize certain obvious things… like having a date appear every thirty seconds, as it does in some sequences, doesn’t work in a moving picture like it does in a comic book.

It’s a period piece, set in 1983 or so, which should be great, but the animation’s cheap and often lifeless. The car tires usually don’t move.

It should be better.

But it’s well cast for the most part. Bryan Cranston, as someday Commissioner Gordon, is amazing. He sells the first person narration and he sells the dramatic dialogue sequences. As Batman, Ben McKenzie’s earnestness works for the narration, though he doesn’t make the talking scenes work. Year One, as a movie or a comic book, isn’t about Batman talking.

Jon Polito and especially Fred Tatasciore are good as bad guys. Alex Rocco isn’t. Eliza Dushku’s Catwoman’s without presence (and her character has been whitewashed in terms of skin tone from the comic).

Christopher Drake’s music practically does the whole thing in occasionally.

The adaptation often reminds of the excellent comics. But as a standalone piece, Year One’s lacking.

21-87 (1964, Arthur Lipsett)

The title credit card of 21-87 is a human skull and the second clip (the film is a collection of somewhat unrelated clips edited together) is of an autopsy.

It’s hard not to think about mortality while watching it, especially once the accompanying soundtrack—usually interviews unrelated to the clips—starts talking about religion. The short enters its second part when one interviewee equates nature to spirituality. Of course, there’s no nature in 21-87, just city.

The short’s often disconcerting because many people stare directly into the camera, which makes one wonder about Lipsett’s filmmaking process, not what he’s trying to do with the presentation of the sound and image. He’s very successful in showing how sound is essential to taking an image in context.

He also has an excellent scene at a fashion show.

But he’s never able to force the viewer to suspend the process questions.

2/3Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Arthur Lipsett; produced by Tom Daly and Colin Low; released by The National Film Board of Canada.

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Max Sets the Style (1914, Max Linder)

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a silent comedic actor ever mug for the camera quite as much as Max Linder. In Max Sets the Style, he’s a bumbling (we assume… it’s never clear) fellow on his way to a party. It might be a wedding, but it seems more like a party. It’s unclear.

After setting his shoes on fire, he buys a pair off a bum. He then has to convince his girlfriend’s brother (or father; it’s not clear) his oversized shoes are the new style.

So it’s a nine minute short with something like fifteen events. Maybe twenty. It’s amazing how Linder paces Style, but it doesn’t work.

And his performance is uneven at best. He mugs when he’s not even in close-up, as if he forgot who he told the cameraman to film.

It’s not bad (it’s only nine minutes), but it fails to impress.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Max Linder; released by Pathé Frères.

Starring Max Linder.

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Very Nice, Very Nice (1961, Arthur Lipsett)

Very Nice, Very Nice is a collage of sound clips and photographs where Lipsett discusses the vapidity of an uninformed, disinterested populace. Of course, Lipsett made the film in 1961 and in Canada, but it’s just as relevant today as it was then… in fact, it’s probably timeless.

As an artifact, it goes to show the general public was ever really particularly more informed or interested in being informed than they are today.

Lipsett mostly uses stills, but does include some motion footage from an atomic explosion and a rocket firing into the sky. The atom bomb is, of course, a distressing image. But the rocket is not. In fact, it comes during Very Nice’s most upbeat moments, possibly because of the background music.

The short’s successful because Lipsett isn’t trying to put forth a thesis. He’s ruminating the modern condition. There’s no ominous or foreboding ending.

It simply stops.

2/3Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Arthur Lipsett; produced by Tom Daly and Colin Low; released by the National Film Board of Canada.

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All-Star Superman (2011, Sam Liu)

All-Star Superman, the comic book, is maybe the best Superman comic book. Based on empirical observation (i.e. the other animated DC Comics movies from Warner Premiere), I assumed All-Star Superman, the animated movie, would be awful.

I was wrong. It’s wondrous.

It’s not without its problems, of course. The movie is based on the comic, but it feels like one of the Superman movies. It needs better music. Christopher Drake has the chops to do a video game score, not this film.

Second, the character designs are often weak. Proportions are absurd.

Third, Alexis Denisof is terrible. He doesn’t have a big part, but he opens and closes the movie. It hurts.

Now, on the good stuff. All-Star Superman is about two things–Superman and Lois and Superman and Lex Luthor. About twenty-five minutes is just Superman and Lois having a date. Sure, she’s got temporary superpowers and they’re flying around, but it’s just a date. It’s lovely.

The Lex Luthor stuff comes later and is consistently entertaining.

James Denton is great. Anthony LaPaglia gives the film’s best performance. Christina Hendricks is all right (she’s best in her scenes with Denton, which is odd, since they probably didn’t record together). Everyone else is solid–Arnold Vosloo is excellent.

The script hurries a lot, but manages to sell every sequence, even if it starts problematically.

The movie does what the comic book did–it turns the traditional Superman story into a fable of unbridled enthusiasm.

It’s great.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Sam Liu; screenplay by Dwayne McDuffie, based on a comic book by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely and a character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; edited by Margaret Hou; music by Christopher Drake; produced by Bobbie Page and Bruce W. Timm; released by Warner Premiere.

Starring James Denton (Superman / Clark Kent), Christina Hendricks (Lois Lane), Anthony LaPaglia (Lex Luthor), Alexis Denisof (Dr. Quintum), Edward Asner (Perry White), Matthew Gray Gubler (Jimmy Olsen), Kevin Michael Richardson (Steve Lombard), Steve Blum (Atlas), John DiMaggio (Samson), Linda Cardellini (Nasthalthia), Arnold Vosloo (Bar-El), Finola Hughes (Lilo-El), Robin Atkin Downes (Solaris), Michael Gough (Parasite) and Frances Conroy (Ma Kent).

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