The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: Foreign
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Gance has a real problem with Lucrezia Borgia… none of his characters are likable. Even Antonin Artaud, playing a friar who rallies against the Borgia regime, is unlikable and he’s the film’s closest thing to a good guy. Gance shoots Artaud like a lunatic. It’s also not a film about Lucrezia Borgia, it’s a film…
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Gance is very ambitious with La roue, only not so much technically. Even the second half of the film, which opens up considerably (the first half takes place in a train yard, mostly on one set, while the second half moves the action to a idyllic mountaintop), Gance is far more concerned his protagonist’s internal…
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Usually when I say Korean films effortlessly mix genre, I mean it in a good way. It’s still impressive in Murder, Take One; director Jang definitely makes the final ingredient a surprise, but it’s a questionable choice…. The majority of the film—albeit on a reduced budget—is successful. It’s a police procedural with one caveat, the…
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For a “revealing the secrets of a small town” thriller, Moss has a number of problems. The first one might just be me. The town has six residents. It’s not a town in my American understanding. A viewer with more cultural knowledge might experience it differently. Second, and more to the point, it’s just too…
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Castaway on the Moon explores one of those great urban questions… could you ever get stuck on one of those conservation islands in a city’s river? Despite being a South Korean film, it’d be hard to find a more universal story—deeply indebted Jeong Jae-yeong throws himself off a bridge after his girlfriend’s dumped him and…
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The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec is almost too precious for its own good. It’s so enraptured with the world it creates–Paris in 1911, where pterodactyls and mummies can come back to life–it sometimes forgets to get the viewer as involved. Besson does a fantastic job bringing that world to life and a lot of…
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Wow, it ends with Godzilla and Minya (Godzilla’s son for those unfamiliar–there’s no mama; I’m pretty sure Godzilla’s asexual) waving to the camera. How sweet. Destroy All Monsters is barely a Godzilla movie, really. The monster only shows up at the beginning for the establishing of the ground situation–the narrator explains it is a near…
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So… Godzilla dances in Invasion of Astro-Monster. He also boxes a little. Unfortunately, the boxing part does little to liven up the last half, which is incredibly tiring. The dancing comes earlier—though not by much, but enough to “help.” Godzilla doesn’t appear in the film until the middle mark. Instead, the film’s about astronauts Nick…
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The end of Rodan makes the monster’s death tragic—there are two Rodans (giant pterosaurs) and one commits suicide after its mate dies in volcano fumes. Even more tragic is the Japanese defense force hounded these big dumb birds until they intentionally attacked populated areas and those volcanic fumes? The defense force, advised by a rather…
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I’ve lost the desire to visit South Korea. I’m not sure how to describe Attack the Gas Station! I suppose it’s a crime comedy, except the audience is supposed to laugh at the victims. The film lionizes its criminals–who spend the near two hour running time assaulting children, attempting the occasional rape and generally humiliating…
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I’m having a hard time reconciling the Robert Rodriguez who made El Mariachi with the Robert Rodriguez who made anything after it. Obviously, some of the filmmaking choices are due to the low budget, but the film’s frantic style–something owed far new to early Sam Raimi than John Woo–creates a hyper-reality. It, and some of…
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Given Korean film sort of resurrected the melodrama as a viable genre (I can’t believe I’m arguing for melodrama, but I guess if you like cinema, you sort of have to accept it–and I mean melodrama in a neutral sense… not as a guaranteed pejorative), I was curious to see how they’d do a disaster…
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The revenge thriller isn’t a new genre. Even if it only got mainstream popularized in its current (and lengthy) violent incarnation with Death Wish, one can look back to the beginning of cinema for entries. In other words, The Outlaw‘s nothing new… at all. But the particular Korean filmmaking sensibilities added to this particular revenge…
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This film reminds me of one of Quentin Tarantino’s Rolling Thunder Pictures presentations from the nineties. Sometimes they were good films. Sometimes Tarantino was just friends with the filmmakers. He has a small role in Sukiyaki Western Django. It’s a joke as a concept picture–what if you made a Western, set in Nevada, starring Japanese…
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Kong has definitely seen Apocalypse Now–to the point he pays homage–and Full Metal Jacket–to the point he doesn’t really pay homage, but kind of just lifts moments and shots. I guess a horror movie set during the Vietnam War’s a good idea. I mean, there’s a lot of history, a lot of possibilities for ghosts–one…
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At the end of Mother, there’s the moment where the film’s got the big moment where Bong’s either going to make something transcendent or something simply excellent. Not a strange moment, lots of films have this moment. Throughout, especially in the second and third act, Bong ratchets it up a notch or two, making these…
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The most surprising thing about Godzilla 2000 is learning the director had made other moves in the series before this one. The writers too. It’s a little surprising, since it’s so full of lame lifts from American blockbusters (including Independence Day, which seems a little strange, given Toho made Godzilla 2000 after the American bungling…
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I read somewhere the Japanese started producing anime because there was no way to combat live action American imports. With its narration and lame plotting (it somehow isn’t epical–maybe because Tomb of Dracula was produced for television, complete with convenient commercial breaks), it’s an awful way spend ninety minutes. Unfortunately the entire cast isn’t credited,…
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I read somewhere the Japanese started producing anime because there was no way to combat live action American imports. With its narration and lame plotting (it somehow isn’t epical–maybe because Tomb of Dracula was produced for television, complete with convenient commercial breaks), it’s an awful way spend ninety minutes. Unfortunately the entire cast isn’t credited,…
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Battle Royale has to be seen to be believed. It shouldn’t work–a film about teenagers killing each other (under a government mandated law) played as a sweeping melodrama, but it does. It’s somehow brilliant, all thanks to director Fukasaku. The action takes place on this tropical island and Fukasaku fills it with beautiful shots and…
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I’m getting sick of running zombies. Did 28 Days Later… start the running zombies or was it the Dawn of the Dead remake? Whichever, it’s gotten to the point where it’s just too boring. Kind of like how bullet-time, by the second Matrix film, was already rote. Dead Snow is a concept zombie movie, with…
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Bolivia didn’t do Butch and Sundance any favors and it doesn’t do Che any either. Che: Part Two isn’t just a downer for Del Toro’s franchising revolutionary (he’s bringing the revolution to Bolivia, whether they want it or not), but it’s an entirely depressing film too. There’s probably not a positive way to tell this…
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There’s a majesty to Che: Part One, the endless, blue Puerto Rican (I think) sky standing in for Cuba. Soderbergh loves that sky. Soderbergh’s Panavision frame doesn’t allow for much in the way of lyricism–I think the first shot of that nature comes in the last twenty minutes of the film. It’s a great looking…
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Taxi 3 starts with a superior set-up, a James Bond-esque chase scene through Marseilles, the good guy on a bicycle, running from the bad guys (on rollerblades). It’s goofy and funny–the best part being the bad guy running into a plexiglass (being carried on the street, a riff on the standard glass) and bouncing off…
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Intimate Enemies, quite unfortunately, follows the American Vietnam war movie formula. There’s the world-weary sergeant (Albert Dupontel), the green and idealistic new lieutenant (Benoît Magimel)–will the lieutenant eventually become just the thing he hates in all the other men? Of course. It isn’t even interesting when he gets there, since Enemies doesn’t just make the…
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Tedious and self-indulgent mystical-ish ghost story about psychologist Angelica Lee taking a hypnosis drug and seeing, you know, ghosts. Lots of underwear stuff because her dude (Guo Xiaodong) is an underwater photographer. (Writer-director Hark can’t shut up about the water in the bad narration). Okay time killer until the third act, when it all falls…
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The Good, the Bad and the Weird, if the title is any hint, is an homage to Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. Kim Ji-woon borrows liberally from all three of the Clint Eastwood films, taking a scene from one then, a little later, one from another. He takes it further than just a cheap reference–at one…
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I can’t figure out who Renoir had in mind when he made Grand Illusion. It goes without saying he placed incredible trust in his audience, but his expectations are somewhat beyond anything else I’ve seen. Grand Illusion is a film with events–momentous, important events–but they pass without comment, without any recognition or identification. The events…
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There’s something rather deceptive about A Man Who Was Superman. It opens as a comedy drama. Reality TV segment producer Jun Ji-hyun’s disillusioned with her job, sick of people, and longing for her absent boyfriend. In short, she’s basically a female version of any late twenties, early thirties male professional in a movie (well, movies…
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Awkward failure about a knife thrower (Daniel Auteuil) and his target (Vanessa Paradis). They meet when he saves her from jumping off a bridge (hence the title) and soon bond. The knife-throwing becomes a metaphor for their “romance,” though Paradis takes various lovers, which drives Auteuil nuts. Charming leads, glorious black and white photography, and…
The Stop Button 