• Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000, Bong Joon-ho)

    Bong’s first film is unique, not just of Korean cinema, but of most. It’s a mostly lyrical piece–lyrical in the storytelling sense, not the filmmaking (there are only a couple of stylized moments in the film)–juxtaposing Lee Sung-jae and Bae Du-na. Lee’s a grad student trying to become a professor, Bae’s an office assistant in his apartment complex. Bong ties them together–and relates to the film’s title–through the incidence of a missing dog. (Lee took it–for barking–and Bae’s trying to help find it). But Bong also ties them together through the film’s tone. It’s an examination of listlessness and unnamable wishes. The film’s incredibly delicate for how outrageous it occasionally gets and some of Bong’s conclusion nears Danny Rose caliber, which is rather high for a first time filmmaker.

    Although Lee’s ostensibly more the main character, the film rests with Bae. She carries it, especially through the sections where Lee is after one dog or another (the barking is irritating him). Bae maintains a tranquility as the story occasionally goes crazy around her. Bong’s tone helps a lot, of course, but Bae’s silence–much like Lee’s wife (finding the actors names–on an English page anyway–for the film is proving impossible)–often does a lot more than talking would accomplish.

    Googling around, looking for those names, I’m seeing Barking Dogs Never Bite described as a black comedy. The label works to some extent, but about halfway through, it stops applying… Bong takes the film to a further level (that one evoking Broadway Danny Rose). For example, as funny as one long sequence about a ghost in the boiler room gets, it’s nowhere near as effective–in terms of triggering the viewer’s imagination–as a sequence involving a bet and a roll of toilet paper. Similarly, while Lee spends lots of his time alone and his wife doesn’t–from my bilingual fellow Korean film enthusiasts–merit a name transliteration, the relationship between the couple (she’s pregnant and working) is the spine running through the film. At the beginning, Bong doesn’t establish Lee as married and the marriage’s importance becomes gradually lucid even after it’s introduced… it’s another one of the film’s delicacies.

    Bong ends the film well after a possibly rocky third act. It’s a deft save, when he brings in a little stylization and hits that Danny Rose moment. I keep trying to come up with a sentence to capture both its impressiveness as a first film, but also to disregard that impressiveness since the compliment seems like it’s qualifying the film’s quality, which I do not want to do.

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  • Justice League: The New Frontier (2008, Dave Bullock)

    In terms of ambitiousness, Darwyn Cooke’s The New Frontier is in many ways as ambitious as a superhero comic book can get. Cooke tied DC Comics superheroes to the American political landscape of the 1950s and, while he didn’t have an absolute success, he did just fine, never losing the zeal (occasionally letting it go too far even). Now, as Warner Bros. has finally sunk low enough to do direct to video movies–some of these being animated superhero projects–a bunch of unambitious cartoon guys (and I say cartoon guys as a pejorative–I mean, the animation in The New Frontier is barely on the level of the “G.I. Joe” cartoons I saw as a kid) decided to adapt it. In doing so, shaving Cooke’s 400 plus page comic book down to seventy-five minutes, they haven’t just missed the point, they’ve also turned Cooke’s ambitious work into a low-rent Independence Day rip-off with superheroes. Maybe that element was always a little part of Cooke’s comic, but with the movie, it’s the most important part.

    The problem with The New Frontier–and with the idea of it in the first place–is the medium. It doesn’t lend itself to a cartoon and the cartoon guys do nothing to make it excite the medium’s possibilities (like I said, it’s less ambitious than a “G.I. Joe” cartoon, so comparing it to Sleeping Beauty would just be silly). It’s only a cartoon because… well… it’s a toy commercial. There are New Frontier action figures and all of this hoopla is a toy commercial.

    Oddly, it’s pretty watchable. Throughout three-quarters, it’s almost good. There’s a speed to it in the good parts and a car wreck quality in the bad parts. It’s offensive, for example, when they use the JFK speech at the end (the title comes from the speech). Cooke’s comic book was ambitious enough, even with a bad ending, it had the bedrock to print the speech. As the movie is an unambitious, trite flop, it’s stunningly inappropriate.

    Of the voice actors, only Jeremy Sisto is actually good. Neil Patrick Harris and Miguel Ferrer come close. David Boreanaz is particularly awful. Lucy Lawless is a bad Wonder Woman and Kyle MacLachlan an ineffective Superman, but a lot of those problems have to do with Stan Berkowitz’s execrable script. And Keith David as the movie’s bad guy, a giant monster–a misfire going back to the comic book–is terrible too, but the whole thing is dreadfully handled, but in terms of visualization, dialogue and filmic conception. Berkowitz’s dialogue’s dumb and bad; Kevin Manthei’s music not fit for an elevator to Hell. Besides some of the female characters, all the artwork is bad (for whatever reason, only the female characters retain any of Cooke’s style).

    I can’t stand cartoon storytelling–that lowest common denominator storytelling for the kid who can’t even read the TV Guide to see what’s on, but can still tell his mom he needs the action figures–so I can’t blame watching The New Frontier on anyone but myself (the short running time and, possibly, the knowledge I’d be writing about bad it turned out… didn’t expect how offensive the JFK use would come off though). I also didn’t expect to run out of synonyms for bad, but I did.

    The funniest part comes at the end. Cooke, in the comic book, ripped the volunteers moment from Pearl Harbor and did it with superheroes in a sequence of still images and got the same effect. For some reason, with motion and audio, the clowns behind The New Frontier can’t get it right.

    0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

    CREDITS

    Directed by Dave Bullock; screenplay by Stan Berkowitz and Darwyn Cooke, based on the comic book by Cooke; edited by Elen Orson; music by Kevin Manthei; produced by Berkowitz, Cooke and Bruce W. Timm; released by Warner Premiere.

    Starring David Boreanaz (Hal Jordan/Green Lantern), Miguel Ferrer (J’onn J’onzz/Martian Manhunter), Neil Patrick Harris (Barry Allen/The Flash), John Heard (Ace Morgan), Lucy Lawless (Wonder Woman), Kyle MacLachlan (Superman), Phil Morris (King Faraday), Kyra Sedgwick (Lois Lane), Brooke Shields (Carol Ferris), Jeremy Sisto (Batman) and Keith David (The Center).

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  • The Black Dahlia (2006, Brian De Palma)

    The Black Dahlia really ought to be a lot better. The film’s problems vary from the slight to the significant, but for some reason, the James Ellroy plot keeps things going. The film ends on a problem too, which makes writing about it immediately following a pea in the bed–and the last act is a rush to the finish (a longer running time would have helped a lot) filled with conveniences… but it’s hard to be disappointed in the film.

    I remember the trailer–The Black Dahlia being one of those long-delayed, both in development hell and then getting its actual release (Universal only released it, didn’t produce it), I hadn’t seen anything until the trailer–having some awful narration from Josh Hartnett. The narration, ranging from bad to decent–apparently straight from the source novel–is in the film, but not omnipresent. It actually makes a lot of the film work, since Dahlia has those wonderful Ellroy cops–the one who thinks he’s smart who actually isn’t and the one who isn’t smart who occasionally does smart things (the corrupt cop gets mixed into one of the others)–and Hartnett plays the dumb cop really well. In fact, Hartnett’s so good, he makes Aaron Eckhart background. The problem lies with their acting styles–both give unaffected performances, but Eckhart’s character needs something more since he’s not the protagonist and Eckhart doesn’t bring anything. At times, it’s hard to remember there’s supposed to be two of them.

    Before getting to the other actors, I need to get the production end out of the way. De Palma’s got Vilmos Zsigmond shooting this one. It’s some of Zsigmond’s least impressive work–partially due to the Bulgarian sets (though, oddly, the alleys are great) and mostly due to De Palma’s framing style here. In the age of 16:9 HD, De Palma shoots Dahlia for pan and scan, just like he did with his other famous period crime film, The Untouchables. When De Palma and Zsigmond get together, they can make visual feasts like Blow Out, but apparently De Palma’s lost the sense for visual storytelling. Dahlia isn’t boring–except during the revelation scenes (which comprise the last act)–but it has an obviously disinterested director. Even when De Palma tries to shock, he fails… unless one counts k.d. lang’s idiotic cameo, but I doubt De Palma was going for being neon cheap.

    On to the acting… I’ll get Scarlett Johansson out of the way first. Johansson’s performance in The Black Dahlia should be the end of her career. It ought to whoever cast her’s career too, but whatever. Johansson is awful. She can’t even manage to sit still well. Luckily, she’s absent for the majority of the second act and when she does come in, when it’s important, Hartnett’s carrying to scenes well enough. Hilary Swank is okay as a ludicrous, overdone Ellroy femme fatale. She has a really affected tone going, which is irritating, so it’s surprising she doesn’t completely fail. She’s fine. The real surprise is Mia Kirshner, playing the titular victim in screen tests. She’s excellent. The supporting cast varies–Mike Starr and John Kavanagh are both good, but Fiona Shaw (in a crucial role) is cartoony. Gregg Henry’s got a really small part at the beginning (The Black Dahlia begs for a longer version) and I kept hoping he’d show up again, but he never did. Kevin Dunn’s got an uncredited cameo and he’s great.

    So, in general, The Black Dahlia is a passable attempt (though I could have given a paragraph to Mark Isham’s awful score). It ends better than one would think at the beginning, it keeps interest up throughout, and it does develop a character. But the most interesting details are only inferred, maybe mentioned in dialogue or narration. Even without technical or script changes though, Johansson’s terrible performance keeps the potential down. Hartnett’s performance is excellent (but only surprising given that awful trailer) and the character’s arc is excellent, but there’s such a disconnect with between the actors and the script (some of them anyway), the script and the director and the director and the actors, I wonder if De Palma even read Ellroy’s novel. Actually, given the film’s focus at the beginning–regardless of his oeuvre’s quality and his place in the film medium, De Palma knows something about how to make a movie by now–and the plot developments and the end, I wonder if De Palma even read the script in its entirety before filming.

    2/4★★

    CREDITS

    Directed by Brian De Palma; written by Josh Friedman, based on the novel by James Ellroy; director of photography, Vilmos Zsigmond; edited by Bill Pankow; music by Mark Isham; production designer, Dante Ferretti; produced by Art Linson, Avi Lerner, Moshe Diamant and Rudy Cohen; released by Universal Pictures.

    Starring Josh Hartnett (Bucky Bleichert), Scarlett Johansson (Kay Lake), Aaron Eckhart (Lee Blanchard), Hilary Swank (Madeleine Linscott), Mia Kirshner (Elizabeth Short), Mike Starr (Det. Russ Millard), Fiona Shaw (Ramona Linscott), Patrick Fischler (Deputy DA Ellis Loew), James Otis (Dolph Bleichert), John Kavanagh (Emmett Linscott), Troy Evans (Chief Ted Green), Anthony Russell (Morrie Friedman), Pepe Serna (Tomas Dos Santos), Angus MacInnes (Capt. John Tierney), Rachel Miner (Martha Linscott), Victor McGuire (Sgt. Bill Koenig), Gregg Henry (Pete Lukins), Jemima Rooper (Lorna Mertz), Rose McGowan (Sheryl Saddon) and Kevin Dunn (Mr. Short).

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  • Suspended Alibi (1956, Alfred Shaughnessy)

    Seeing as how I’ve actually written a scholarly paper on the British film industry (not of Suspended Alibi‘s era, but the early silents… and the observations, unfortunately, still hold), it’s sort of nice to be able to put some of the experience to use. As a country, Britain has produced a wealth of fine actors and–in modernity, some great filmmakers–but it’s a shock how awful the British can make films. It’s a question of competence in Alibi‘s case and the utter lack of it in some essential areas.

    First, the director. Shaughnessy holds his shots forever, cuts (badly) to atrocious one shots, and makes bad camera moves through the terrible sets. The set decoration, something I almost never notice failing, is terrible. The wallpaper design does not film well on one of the main sets and, as for some of the less used ones, it’s even worse. One of the apartments looks like a hospital room. Amusingly, when they leave the room, there’s a jarring cut as the camera moves to what appears to be a real apartment building hallway. Shaughnessy can’t frame over the shoulder shots and his actors tend to stand around waiting for something to happen–but nothing ever does.

    Second, the actor. Patrick Holt has to be one of the worst leading men I can think of (he’s not one of the wealth of British actors). Even though he’s playing an unlikable adulterer, Holt takes it to the next level–the film would have been far better if he’d been murdered instead of his false alibi. The rest of the cast, with some exception, is generally fine. Honor Blackman, as the ludicrously supportive wife, is actually quite good.

    The movie opens with a neat trick–Holt’s creeping through the opening credits with a gun drawn only for a curtain to pull and reveal he’s playing cowboy and Indian with his son (in England?)–and I hope a better film stole it because it’s a reasonably deft move. But as far as film noir goes–bad film noir–the incompetent direction disqualifies Suspended Alibi. Even from the label.

    0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

    CREDITS

    Directed by Alfred Shaughnessy; written by Kenneth R. Hayles; director of photography, Peter Hennessy; produced by Robert Dunbar; released by J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors.

    Starring Patrick Holt (Paul Pearson), Honor Blackman (Lynn Pearson), Valentine Dyall (Inspector Kayes), Naomi Chance (Diana), Lloyd Lamble (Waller), Andrew Keir (Sandy Thorpe), Frederick Piper (Mr. Beamster), Viola Lyel (Mrs. Beamster) and Bryan Coleman (Bill Forrest).

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  • As Good as It Gets (1997, James L. Brooks)

    As I recall, there were lots of production issues with As Good as It Gets, specifically in terms of boosting Cuba Gooding Jr.’s role (after winning his Oscar) and maybe shortening Skeet Ulrich’s. It all shows, as does the uneasy rewrite Brooks did of Mark Andrus’s script. I have no idea what Andrus’s original script read like, but the filmed version is a confused mess. A lot of As Good as It Gets feels like the filmmakers grafted the Helen Hunt character and plot on to the Jack Nicholson, Greg Kinnear, and cute dog plot–especially given how there’s a natural flow to that plot, but not a natural one to the romance. The final scenes with Kinnear and Nicholson play really well, while the final scene with Nicholson and Hunt plays like a romantic comedy unsure how to finish and doing the best it can.

    The problem with As Good as It Gets–one encompassing the script problems too–is the lack of atmosphere. It’s competently directed, but artlessly made (John Bailey’s photography is dull and Hans Zimmer’s score is trying for cute). A lot of it filmed in California–sitting in for New York–and while it doesn’t quite show, the tone is wrong. It feels like a sitcom, especially in the first hour with the scenes at the restaurant. It’s as real as an episode of “Friends” and a lot of the pseudo-quirky casting lends itself to that tone–Jamie Kennedy in a practically dialogue-less role, Harold Ramis popping in (even if Ramis is really funny). And the lack of weight to Hunt’s kid’s medical problems. Seven and a half years of dire medical problems get wiped away in order to make for an easy movie. The lack of any real medical reasoning for Nicholson’s condition (he’s a bigot, where’s he get the pill to fix that one?). The absence of resolution to Kinnear’s assault… As Good as It Gets wipes them all away.

    The (very) general filmmaking competence and good performances carry it. Gooding is a lot of fun and any additional scenes for him are welcome. Ulrich is awful, but he’s barely there. The Oscar-winners… well, neither of them deserved them, especially not Hunt. She’s fine, but all of her acting tricks are the same she used on “Mad About You.” And her sometimes implied Brooklyn accent is mistake. Nicholson’s good, but it’s kind of pointless. It’s not an ambitious performance for him–and the scene where he talks about playing the piano, bringing up Five Easy Pieces, just reminds he should have been doing something much better. Then there’s the one who didn’t win, Kinnear, who certainly deserved it. Kinnear’s performance is fantastic, as he brings this cookie cutter character to a real level. Only Kinnear manages to convince he’s not a sitcom character.

    Given James L. Brooks’s pedigree, As Good as It Gets ought to be a lot better. But it’s amiable and well-paced for two hours plus and occasionally real funny. And a lot of the acting makes it worthwhile… but it’s a shame about Brooks.

    2/4★★

    CREDITS

    Directed by James L. Brooks; screenplay by Mark Andrus and Brooks, based on a story by Andrus; director of photography, John Bailey; edited by Richard Marks; music by Hans Zimmer; production designer, Bill Brzeski; produced by Bridget Johnson, Kristi Zea and Brooks; released by Tri-Star Pictures.

    Starring Jack Nicholson (Melvin Udall), Helen Hunt (Carol Connelly), Greg Kinnear (Simon Bishop), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Frank Sachs), Skeet Ulrich (Vincent), Shirley Knight (Beverly), Yeardley Smith (Jackie) and Lupe Ontiveros (Nora).

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