Category: Directors Na

The Flash (2014) s06e08 – The Last Temptation of Barry Allen, Pt. 2

So unlike previous seasons, the CW “Arrowverse” showrunners—at least on “Flash,” “Supergirl,” and to some extent “Batwoman”—are doing a pre-Crisis arc and a post-Crisis arc, which might end up making a lot of sense depending on how Crisis goes… so this episode is the big finale to the comically godawful Sendhil Ramamurthy arc. He gets to turn into a big skull-faced Venom CG monster at the end, but the monster still has his voice so even if the CG is bad, Ramamurthy is able to make it even worse with his performance.

Also with the end of the arc thing there are big action set pieces, except they’re not big. They’re fake big. There’s a zombie apocalypse as Ramamurthy infects people in Central City with brainwashed “Dark Flash”’s help. We don’t get to see the apocalypse because budget; instead it’s Candice Patton and Carlos Valdes arguing about what to do next. As Grant Gustin left Valdes in charge (for after Gustin dies in Crisis), Valdes thinks he’s got the best plan. Meanwhile Patton has a different plan, one where Gustin’s not acceptable collateral damage.

Both plans are stupid because the script’s stupid but Valdes’s performance is so lousy, it’s impossible to side with him. He and Danielle Panabaker desperately need to get off this show, both for the show and for themselves. Panabaker at least has some okay moments as (don’t call me Killer anymore) Frost, but when she reverts back to regular Caitlin she’s bad. Not sure why. It’s obvious why she doesn’t use her powers against the zombies when she and Jesse L. Martin go out to the street to fight them. Because budget. But why’s Panabaker so thin playing her regular role? Maybe because she’s so bored with it they had to make her a different character to keep her on the show?

As for Gustin, who last episode went over to the dark side, possibly willingly, he doesn’t get anything to do until the end of the episode when they’re all sitting around moping about Crisis. It’s a terrible scene, though possibly better than the previous episode where he frets about his mortality. I foolishly thought the show might have some good “Road to Crisis” stuff but it’s all crap. It’s not exactly disappointing but it’s surprisingly poorly executed.

The one technically good thing in the episode is when Cecile (Danielle Nicolet, who’s all the show’s got going on anymore) and Victoria Park have to escape from a building overrun with zombies. Nicolet uses her psychic abilities to sneak them out in a long “continuous” shot sequence, which is technically proficient but still bad.

Because budget.

It’s probably not a good idea the show set its whole season up as a jumping off point for after the crossover, but unless they clean house on the cast and get some better writing, “The Flash” has run out of steam.

Tom Cavanagh sucking the season certainly doesn’t help things.

Once Upon a Spy (1980, Ivan Nagy)

Once Upon a Spy is a strange result. I mean, it’s a TV movie (pilot) for a spy series, complete with a kind of great James Bond-lite seventies music from John Cacavas, Christopher Lee in a electronic wheelchair with a rocket launcher, spy mistress Eleanor Parker working out of a secret headquarters in the Magic Mountain amusement park… oh, and leads Ted Danson and Mary Louise Weller bicker adorably. And Welsh writer Jimmy Sangster makes American Parker say “bloody” a lot because he doesn’t care what Americans sound like.

I’m getting ahead of myself because there are two things to examine and the rest of it all makes sense.

First, Sangster’s script. It’s boring–I can’t imagine not changing the channel from Once Upon a Spy on a relatively temperate Monday night in February 1980. There’s no chemistry between the characters. Sangster can’t even try to figure out how to force it into the script. There’s some attempt to address sexism–though Danson’s dorky computer guy (who all the ladies love–literally, two attempt to grope him) doesn’t know anything, he ignores everything Weller’s super spy tells him. Because, as it turns out, Danson’s the one evil mastermind Lee is really after. Danson beat him for the “Einstein Award for Smart People” once and Lee has never forgotten it.

Really.

But if there were chemistry–if Lee and Danson facing off actually did anything, if Danson had an iota of charm outside the strange experience of seeing him so completely without the thing his career’s based on, if Weller’s finale outfit didn’t go through three changes (from cleavage to no cleavage but leather cords wrapped around her legs to a version where it’s no longer a jumpsuit), if Nagy actually had any concept of how to pull of a spy movie based on charm–well, if any of those things, Once Upon a Spy might be somewhat successful.

Instead, Danson comes off like a wooden plank. Despite a little bit of a belly, he’s clearly a physical guy. He’d need to be to have the endurance for all the women falling over him. He doesn’t play computer nerd well, he doesn’t banter with Weller well, he doesn’t banter with Lee well, he doesn’t banter with Parker well. Maybe there are three big problems with Spy–Sangster, Nagy, and Danson. Maybe it’s not just Nagy’s lack of direction to his actors or Sangster’s lame writing, maybe it’s Danson himself. But with the direction and writing being so problematic, it’s impossible to know.

It’s concerning ABC let this one get made with such a dearth of chemistry between its leads. Even if it was in 1979… because there’s nothing there and it wastes Weller’s time. And she’s pretty good, all things considered. Once Sangster’s got her established as overcoming polite sexism to become a super spy, he’s got nothing else for her to do except babysit Danson. Her relationship with Parker is cold because Sangster writes Parker’s character so badly. Maybe if the character were exaggeratedly British, but instead it’s just Parker in a conference room all to herself with nothing to chew on. Nagy’s got no idea what to do with actors.

After Weller, the best performance is probably Lee. If only because he’s a mad scientist who has created a shrinking ray and has to pretend Ted Danson is a worthy intellectual nemesis. Then Parker, who has nothing to do, but does it with professionalism and dignity and as much style as she can get away with given the lame script and direction.

Once Upon a Spy is disappointing. It just needed to be cute and fun. Still, it’s competent as far as most television movies go and Weller’s likable. And that music’s all right.

Captain America II: Death Too Soon (1979, Ivan Nagy)

Captain America II: Death Too Soon, although it actually doesn’t have an onscreen subtitle, could just as well be called Captain America II: The Show No One Wants to See. I don’t even mean the eventual show (Death Too Soon is the second, Reb Brown-fronted CBS pilot), I mean this pilot movie, which retains executive producer Allan Balter and a lot of the crew from the initial attempt. It’s a complete wreck.

First example: Len Birman. Awesome co-star of the previous pilot movie. Given nothing to do outside some exposition, which he handles admirably. Except perving on Connie Sellecca, who does not give a good performance as a trouble-shooting super-scientist. She doesn’t. But she does start an actual subplot with her boss, Birman, sniffing her hair. It’s weird. What’s weirder is it doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t exactly get dropped, there just isn’t anymore character development for the characters. At first, I thought it was star Reb Brown sniffing her hair, but he’s actually got an entirely separate love interest.

Brown, or Captain America, is in love with his painting. Writers Wilton Schiller and Patricia Payne can’t stop having people talk about Brown and his stupid painting. He paints portraits of old people, cats, women on horses. He just loves painting. And maybe he should, but Death Too Soon doesn’t develop Brown’s protagonist either. Instead, it runs him around in a dumb costume for desperate action sequences. There’s obviously some significant spending on this second attempt, but Balter doesn’t use it well. It’s too cheap on the character stuff, too focused on motorcycle stunts and awful fight scenes; Death Too Soon amps up the previous pilot’s “Wonder Wonder”-wannabe syndrome. Everything good in the previous pilot gets flushed for everything bad in it.

There’s one good segment in Death Too Soon. Otherwise, director Nagy alternates between atrocious and incompetent. He’s never even pedestrian. It’s a poorly directed pilot. Except one chase sequence where Captain America’s motorcycling on a dam. It doesn’t even end well. But it’s really well done before it goes bad. It’s incredibly out of place.

Christopher Lee and Stanley Kamel play the villains, along with Lana Wood (who’s awful). Lee and Kamel are fun together, with Lee turning in a mostly awesome performance. He doesn’t class it up though, he just excels in his own role. It’s kind of cool, actually. He protects his brand.

Okay supporting turn from Katherine Justice as Brown’s human love interest. John Waldron’s obnoxious as her kid though. And Ken Swofford’s awful as a government stooge.

Death Too Soon also has this really weird “pro-gadget, anti-science” thing going on, which should–combined with being a failed “‘Wonder Woman’ for boys” TV pilot, Lee, Brown’s desperately lighted blond hair, experimenting on babies, Birman’s perving, Justice’s too tight jeans–make it a lot of bad camp fun. But it doesn’t, instead it’s just awful. It’s a poorly produced television pilot. It fails.

Except the dam. And, at some point in the production, someone did come up with some all right ideas. Mostly involving Lee’s character. Nagy just couldn’t execute any of them.

Kiss of the Dragon (2001, Chris Nahon)

I wonder how long it takes Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen to script their action movies. None are ever very long (or very good—for the most part) and they’re all exceptionally simple. Maybe they have some kind of fun method to it, like they get a Domino’s pizza and write one in a night, maybe even acting the scenes out while someone transcribes it all.

Kiss of the Dragon’s got some awful dialogue, mostly because they try to be serious and show how difficult life is for Bridget Fonda. She’s an American farm girl turned heroin-addicted Parisian streetwalker. It’s unclear how she made the transition… something the script touches on, then avoids because it seems too difficult.

Fonda is all right—she has the film’s worst lines. She’s never quite believable, but she’s always too good for the script.

Jet Li’s solid in the lead role (though he’s asexual as always, which severely cuts into Dragon’s realism at times). Tchéky Karyo has a great time as the villain, though Besson is sort of redoing Leon, only with a Chinese guy in Paris instead of an Italian guy in New York.

The cultural thing is a little strange—Besson and Kamen portray the French police as corrupt murderers, while the Chinese are the good guys. The Chinese government banned the film, apparently not taking the compliment.

Craig Armstrong’s score is pretty, but isn’t well-suited.

Nahon’s direction has good moments. Dragon is always watchable, even if it’s stupid.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by Chris Nahon; screenplay by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, based on a story by Jet Li; director of photography, Thierry Arbogast; edited by Marco Cavé; music by Craig Armstrong; production designer, Jacques Bufnoir; produced by Besson, Steve Chasman and Happy Walters; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Jet Li (Liu Jian), Bridget Fonda (Jessica Kamen), Tchéky Karyo (Insp. Richard), Max Ryan (Lupo), Ric Young (Mister Big), Burt Kwouk (Uncle Tai) and Laurence Ashley (Aja).

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Blood: The Last Vampire (2009, Chris Nahon)

What a disaster.

It seems like it should be a good idea… wait, no, it doesn’t. The only time Blood: The Last Vampire works is when it’s a homoerotic romance between Jun Ji-hyun and Allison Miller. The film never recognizes this element, but there’s so much of it, it must have occurred to someone. Jun plays the tortured half-human, half-demon who desperately tries to attain humanity and Miller’s the girl who loves her for it. It’s no different, in the way it plays, than any vampire or werewolf or demon movie with the Romeo and Juliet thing going on.

And it works on that level.

The rest of it is a mess. The script’s awful, the cast is the finest mediocre British actors playing American I can think of (it’s like if the British produced Sci-Fi original movies).

The direction’s occasionally solid. The fight scenes are well choreographed and never too self indulgent. To work, one has to be interested in seeing Jun defeat a bunch of demons. And it does work.

Jun’s a famous (and excellent) Korean actress and Blood‘s her English-language debut. When she isn’t talking, just acting, she’s good. When she’s protective of Miller, she’s good. When they’ve got her talking, it never quite works.

There’s also the seventies setting. It’s a cool idea, but the film doesn’t really do anything with it.

And the end, when the film really could turn around with the big handholding, hug or kiss, really bombs.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Chris Nahon; screenplay by Chris Chow, based on the character created by Kamiyama Kenji and Tereda Katsuya; director of photography, Poon Hang-Sang; edited by Marco Cavé; music by Clint Mansell; production designer, Nathan Amondson; produced by William Kong and Abel Nahmias; released by Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Starring Jun Ji-hyun (Saya), Allison Miller (Alice Mckee), Liam Cunningham (Michael), JJ Feild (Luke), Koyuki (Onigen), Yasuaki Kurata (Kato Takatora), Larry Lamb (General Mckee), Andrew Pleavin (Frank Nielsen), Michael Byrne (Elder), Colin Salmon (Powell), Masiela Lusha (Sharon), Ailish O’Connor (Linda) and Constantine Gregory (Mr. Henry).

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Seoul (2002, Nagasawa Masahiko)

An action slash thriller requires a couple things… action set pieces and, well, thrills. Seoul‘s got a couple action set pieces, beginning and end, and not much in the way of thrills. There’s a mystery angle and there are scenes with the cops inspecting crime scenes, but there’s no real investigation at any point. Both the main characters sit and deliberate on the case at hand, but never come to any realization until, obviously, the last possible moment. It’s okay, actually, since Seoul‘s a fish out of water, cop comedy… kind of like a tame Beverly Hills Cop.

Young Japanese cop Nagase Tomoya, who’s all exuberance and little else. I suppose he’s a good shot, as the lack of investigative success certainly doesn’t show any detection prowess. The boss in Korea–so, following the simile, Japan is Detroit and Korea is Beverly Hills–is played by Choi Min-su, who’s the haunted, seasoned cop who’s seen it all. Will the goofy cop make the haunted one laugh again? No. In fact, the film never really gives in on the Choi as a hard-ass front, which was surprising until I realized there wasn’t time for them to do it, since the film’s focus for the first hour is on Nagase hanging out with a Korean noodle-peddler and his nephew. There’s also some hints at investigation and a lot of comedy, but whatever… the most resonant scenes are the noodle-stand scenes, just because Nagase’s a great lead and those scenes give his character a chance to relax and listen and develop.

Seoul‘s a pleasant experience throughout, it just doesn’t have much going in any particular direction. It’s not action-packed, it’s not a straight comedy, it’s not a mystery. I was expecting a romance, but no, not a romance either. It’s a pleasant package. Choi spends most of the film sitting around and looking grim, when it’s apparent he’s a charismatic actor (which he eventually gets to show off, but it takes a long time).

The end gets long fast, as it gets real self-important being about Japanese and Korean foreign relations (in an earlier scene, while Nagase is waxing on about the same thing, the nephew whacks him in the head with a basketball to shut him up), and it seems in danger of losing the comedic aspect. It doesn’t, but it gets it back in frugal way. But still, it’s a pleasant diversion.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Nagasawa Masahiko; written by Hasegawa Yasuo; director of photography, Yamamoto Hideo; edited by Okuhara Yoshiyuki; music by Sumitomo Norihito; produced by Kotaki Shohei, Matsuno Hirofumi and Ogoshi Hirofumi; released by Toho Company Ltd.

Starring Nagase Tomoya (Hayase), Choi Min-su (Kim), Kim Ji-yuon (Yun), Jang Hoon (Min-Cheol), Choi Seong-Min (Kang) and Choi Sung (Lee).

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Mozart and the Whale (2005, Petter Næss)

I’ve only been looking forward to this damn movie for two years. It missed its theatrical release date, but there’s probably a DVD on the way (which would have been the source of my illicit copy). It’s perfectly understandable why the film missed the date… it lacks any relatable center. My fiancée just said she wants a movie that shows the real difficulties of autism–Mozart doesn’t, because you can’t center a movie around someone operating on such a different level. The result, for Mozart and the Whale, is that Josh Hartnett isn’t really that bad… neither’s Rahda Mitchell. Their problems aren’t autism problems, they’re romantic drama-lite problems….

Mozart and the Whale was going to be the comeback of Ron Bass, who got a lot of work from the late 1980s through the late 1990s, when people finally got sick of him. He probably shouldn’t have staked it all on a Demi Moore vehicle (Passion of the Mind). It’s a shallow film, weighing in at ninety minutes. Many of these minutes are filled with music montages (not score, unfamiliar, but pleasant, songs). I spent the first half of it waiting for something to happen (hoping that Gary Cole was going to be Hartnett’s father and there’d be some more meat to the conflict)… but no. There’s no real conflict in Mozart, which would have been fine, it’s just that there was an attempt at it. A weighty attempt at it. Bass is famous for empty, dramatic endings and Mozart is no different.

It’s too bad, because Næss is an interesting director. Mozart doesn’t look like anything except itself, which is a lovely thing to be able to say about a newish director. He’s from Norway, so maybe that played a part… Oddly, for a film without a US theatrical release and a ninety minute running time, Mozart actually shot in the US. You can tell it throughout (I didn’t know where the location was–it’s Spokane) and the film has a nice feel.

The acting in the film is difficult to discuss–my fiancée gleefully pointed out I’d no longer be able to say Hartnett’s his generation’s finest actor, but he gives a great supporting performance in Mozart. If Mozart and the Whale had been about Billy Crudup banging his autistic brother’s girlfriend or something, Hartnett’s performance would have been extraordinary. It’s a character part in the lead… Mitchell (who I was really looking forward to seeing after Melinda and Melinda) ranges. The film misses her character’s best opportunity.

I wonder if there is a longer, better version of the film out there–there are a few moments, jumps in visual continuity, that certainly suggest it. But I’m not sure it would make much of a difference.

The Graduation (2002, Nagasawa Masahiko)

I try not to spoil things here on The Stop Button, but I’m going to make an exception for this film. It’s a fine example of what not to do….

Mayama is a psychology professor at a college. He is socially inept (the closest comparison is Montgomery Clift in Wild River, only more). He does not talk and he’s unable to make decisions. He’s also forty-one. He’s got a girlfriend who wants to marry him, but he hasn’t asked… Then, his long-lost daughter appears, only he doesn’t know she’s his daughter or that he even has one. She’s been stalking him for months, then they finally meet and her influence–while never telling him she’s his daughter–changes his life for the better.

The film’s about the two of them, then pretends to be about him and the girlfriend, invalidating the whole damn point of it. I’m kind of pissed off, not just because I need to get up at 4:30 in the morning and stayed up watching this one, but because it’s a well-made film. The guy who plays Mayama (Tsutsumi Shin’ichi) is amazing. So amazing I looked up his name.

The film just doesn’t know how to end… though I suppose having three screenwriters doesn’t help anything.