The Last Few Days
Now Playing: Stuff I've seen, on screens big and small
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005, Ridley Scott)- a Crusades epic that's not as rousing as expected, but that's not really the point- yes, the battle scenes are well-done, but the film's heart is in those scenes that problematize the impulse to fight in the name of God. The warmongering types in the film use religious divisiveness as a ruse to mobilize their followers, while the peace-lovers acknowledge the need to live alongside those who believe differently. Naturally, there's no way to make a Crusades movie nowadays without drawing parallels to the war in Iraq, what with the Europeans claming "God wills it!" (he's on their side, you might say), but the film doesn't force the point too much. Still not sure if Orlando Bloom can really carry a movie (I'll hold out judgment until ELIZABETHTOWN) but he's as good as anyone of his generation at onscreen swordplay, and he's backed up capable supporting actors like Liam Neeson, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Eva Green (who sadly declines to get naked), and especially Ghassan Massoud as Saladin, general of the Muslim army. Rating: **1/2.

SCHULTZE GETS THE BLUES (2004, Michael Schorr)- the most interesting element of this film is the stylistic gambit wherein the camera remains still while Schultze is in Germany (with one notable exception) and moves quite a bit when he's visiting the U.S., as effective a way as any to convey the newness of this experience for him. The deadpan comedy on display recalls Kaurismaki to a certain point, although Schultze is much too ingratiating a protagonist to fit into Kaurismaki's vision, and the film's less effective moments (the radio that talks back, Schultze in a speedo) are generally the more audience-grabbing ones. Much more effective are scenes like the one where Schultze, attending a polka festival in Texas, stands at rigid attention as the band plays "Deutchland Uber Alles." Rating: **.

F FOR FAKE (1975, Orson Welles)- Welles' examination of flim-flammery begins as a portrait of two famous frauds: Elmyr (a highly accomplished art forger) and Clifford Irving (who wrote a falsified memoir of Howard Hughes). Yet Welles isn't content to stick to the subject, but instead expands the film's scope to examine people's fascination with fakery, especially as a facet of showmanship. Much of Welles' genius (his inventiveness as a director, his interest as a performer, and so on) came from the fact that he was a consummate showman, and in many ways F FOR FAKE may be Welles' most overtly autobiographical film (he integrates his beginnings in show business and his infamous WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast into the film). F FOR FAKE places Welles front and center in the film, not just as an onscreen presence in his black cape and fedora, but also as a director, continuing to experiment with style and form even in his final completed feature. Rating: ***1/2.

STAR 80 (1983, Bob Fosse)- the less-than-stellar rep for Fosse's final film led me to expect a misguided effort that exploited the still-recent memory of Dorothy Stratten's killing. But watching it, I realized that the real reason for the ire is the film's refusal to turn her into a simple martyr to show business success, to say nothing of the fact that Fosse invites the audience to identify with her husband and killer, Paul Snider (played by Eric Roberts), who to put it mildly was quite a piece of work. Snider was a sleazeball and a money-grubbing opportunist, latching into Dorothy even before she was famous in the hope of basking in her eventual fame, but Fosse and Roberts generate a certain degree of pathos through the character- he seems to legitimately care about Dorothy (Mariel Hemingway), and once he arrives in Los Angeles, his smirky snake-oil-salesman personality and tendency to suck up to celebrities makes him something of a pariah in the Playboy mansion, where Dorothy has become the hot new thing. Fosse also refuses to eroticize Dorothy's (inevitable) nudity, flashing forward to images of the murder throughout the film, and even the climactic killing scene is handled in a fairly restrained manner, which given the details of the real-life crime is something of an achivement. Rating: ***.

SECRET CINEMA- once again throwing Wexner audiences a curve, this month's selection turned out not to be movies but rather a few classic television shows projected on film, which was something of a surprise but not a bad one. Both selections were Alfred Hitchcock shows, the first being from ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, the second from the ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR, with the original PSYCHO trailer programmed between them. I particularly enjoyed the first episode, entitled "Breakdown," starring Joseph Cotten as an rich industrialist who is paralyzed in an out-of-the-way auto accident. The episode, directed by Hitch himself, toys with the audience by keeping the focus on Cotten in the car, as his wait to be rescued becomes almost unbearable until he discovers that he is capable of moving one of his fingers (Tarantino is a fan, of course). The longer second episode is entitled "The Unlocked Window," starring Dana Wynter is an absentminded nurse hiding from a nurse-killing psycho. This episode is less suspenseful than "Breakdown" (it was directed by Joseph M. Newman rather than Hitch himself), and there doesn't seem to be quite enough material to stretch over the longer running time, but the technical credits are impeccable, with Stanley Cortez behind the camera, Bernard Herrmann writing the music, James Bridges writing the teleplay, and the house from PSYCHO serving as the exterior.

Weekly update
Now Playing: Stuff I've watched on the company's dime
THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (2005, Garth Jennings)- pretty disappointing, but not terrible. Being a fan of this book for roughly half my life, it would've taken a work of pure genius to satisfy me, but what's onscreen is a dilution, albeit one that's mostly harmless (sorry). Douglas Adams' style, which was less concerned with plot and character than with witty story diversions, doesn't translate well into Hollywood moviemaking, so the film doesn't quite work as a whole. Much of the blame has to go to Jennings, who directs like he's making a slam-bang action-adventure rather than an absurd Brit-com in space- could've been a slamdunk with a filmmaker like Gilliam, who flair for mind-bending comic flights of fancy and coherence-be-damned storytelling style hew fairly close to Adams. The cast is mostly game, with Mos Def proving a wryly inspired choice as Ford Prefect, Martin Freeman as the ideal Arthur, and Sam Rockwell predictably awesome as Zaphod. Rating: **1/2.

xXx: STATE OF THE UNION (2005, Lee Tamahori)- junky and ridiculous as an entertainment, but fascinating as cultural anthropology. The film's subtext is that African-Americans who want to get things done need to do things their way, outside out of the white man's system- Ice Cube as the new XXX is much chummier with Samuel Jackson's Gibbons than Vin Diesel ever was, and when he needs backup, he doesn't recruit from the Army but rather enlists his old chop-shop cronies. Lots of smaller plot points provide food for thought: the rich blonde as double-crossing temptress, XXX and Gibbons' long-standing animosity toward general-turned-Secretary of Defense Willem Dafoe, the president's (unknowing) quoting of Tupac on national television, and (my favorite) the film's clever tweaking of the agent-infiltrating-high-class-party scene, wherein Cube dons a tux to attend a Capitol Hill shindig... as a waiter. I can't in good conscience recommend this to any self-respecting filmgoer, but I certainly enjoyed the film more than the first xXx, and was entertained more than I really ought to have been. Also, was Nona Gaye always this hot? Rating: **.

DALLAS 362 (2003, Scott Caan)- admittedly, some of my enjoyment for this film comes from my shock that Scott Caan actually is a talented filmmaker (I certainly prefer him to, say, Zack Braff). But the film works on its own merits, as a portrait of a young man (Rusty, played by Shawn Hatosy) who maintains a long-standing friendship with Dallas (Caan) in spite of the fact that it's holding him back- from adulthood, from happiness, and so on. Caan's writing and direction here hearken back to scruffy 70s filmmaking- the kinetic camera feels like Scorsese, but the character dynamic is closer to MIKEY AND NICKY. I was particularly grateful for the scenes between Rusty and his shrink/mom's boyfriend (Jeff Goldblum, the best he's been in ages), which begins as standard analysis but later shifts gears into a real attempt to reach out and understand each other, more or less around the time Goldblum breaks out a joint. Rating: ***.

The Great Desplechin
Now Playing: Arnaud Desplechin retro, plus one much-needed rimshot
Well Wexner buds, you've done it again. You've booked a retro for a filmmaker with whom I was previously semi-familiar and made me a believer. Good job. Starting with his latest, the masterpiece KINGS AND QUEEN (click HERE for my thoughts), was a good call- after checking it out, I was signed on for the duration. I didn't LOVE the rest quite as much as KINGS AND QUEEN, but that's like faulting everyone else in the NBA circa 1990 for not being Michael Jordan- there's no shame in being merely awesome. And I'd say that pretty much anything Desplechin does qualifies as awesome.

From his first film, the just-short-of-an-hour LA VIE DES MORTS (1991), Desplechin had a keen eye for messy intrapersonal dynamics and a fascination with death and the darker aspects of the soul. In this film, an extended family comes together to await the death of an unseen cousin, who has recently shot himself. In the course of the film, we discover that the family has a long history of tragedy, and as the family members interact and try to take their minds off the tragedy at hand, a pall hangs over the proceedings. Desplechin's style isn't quite fully-formed in LA VIE DES MORTS, but his sensibility is, and the jolting moments that would distinguish his later work are here as well, notably an early scene that introduces Marianne Denicourt's character.

LA SENTINELLE (1992) is Desplechin's first feature-length film, a low-key post-Cold War thriller involving a French pathology student who finds a disembodied head in his luggage upon moving from Germany. Giving a new meaning to the phrase "morbid curiosity," our protagonist (played by Emmanuel Salinger) neglects to turn the head into the authorities, instead examining it covertly, after-hours in the lab where he's interning. The film is set amidst the less-glamorous-than-expected world of the French intelligence community (the hero's roommate and many of his friends work as agents), but the genre aspects of the film are less interesting than the approach it takes to its lead character, an early prototype for the somewhat socially-dysfunctional characters of his subsequent films.

When I say that MY SEX LIFE... OR HOW I GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT (1996) made me highly uncomfortable in spots, rest assured that I mean this in a completely positive way. Paul (Matthieu Amalric) is going through a transitional period in his life much the way I currently am- in his late 20s, he's in much the same spot he was years ago, watching his friends move forward with their lives while he mostly treads water. I was even taken aback by his relationship with Valerie (Jeanne Balibar), a brash and difficult woman who reminded me of an ex-girlfriend of mine, at least personality-wise. To be completely honest, if I was to properly review this film (aside from the identification factor) I'd need to see it again. All I can say is that I reacted very strongly to the film in a way that I rarely do anymore. And that I came out of the film wanting to cuddle with Emmanuelle Devos' character.

The only Desplechin film I had seen prior to the retrospective was ESTHER KAHN (2000), his English-language debut, showing here in its longer European cut. In my original review I wrote that it contains "some interesting insights into acting, but I wasn't quite feeling it... part of the problem is the inert title character." Hey 2002 me bud, that's the point of the movie. Esther has made herself unknowable to those around her, and Desplechin and his lead actress Summer Phoenix purposely extend this to the audience- early scenes involving her poor Jewish family would normally provide psychological insight into the character, but such reductiveness feels out of place here. Does Esther act to escape herself, or to provide an outlet for emotions and behaviors she otherwise bottles up? The film isn't telling, and it's this very elusiveness that makes it magical.

Finally, PLAYING "IN THE COMPANY OF MEN" (2003) is a fascinating, though not-altogether-successful adaptation of an Edward Bond play, with Ophelia from HAMLET thrown in for good measure. What Waz said, pretty much. As the troubled servant Jonas, Bakary Sangare is a fascinating presence.

So when is Desplechin's next film coming out already?

Ratings-
MY SEX LIFE and ESTHER KAHN: ***1/2.
LA SENTINELLE and LA VIE DES MORTS: ***.
PLAYING "IN THE COMPANY OF MEN": **1/2.

Getting Paid to Watch
Now Playing: Hollywood spring offerings give me a headache
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005, Andrew Douglas)- substituting sub-RING stingers for real scares, the film pretty much evaporates on contact, leaving little more than the vague feeling that you've kinda wasted your time. Mostly serves as a concrete example of a cinematic pet peeve of mine- anachronistic anatomy. To wit: the film takes place in the seventies, yet not only does Ryan Reynolds have uber-defined abs, but his chest is completely hairless in the heyday of chest hair. If you're not going to stick to the time period, why bother setting it there at all, hilarious "based on a true story" attribution aside? Still, fairly inoffensive stuff compared to the outrage of TEXAS LAMESAW, and Melissa George and Philip Baker Hall are pretty good here. Rating: *1/2.

KING'S RANSOM (2005, Jeff Byrd)- pretty much a textbook example of a Film That Wasn't Made For Me. The characters here are all cartoonish morons, but many of the digs are reserved for white people, particularly Jay Mohr's pushover of a kidnapper. I wasn't offended so much by the fact that white people in general were made the butt of jokes (heaven knows that African-Americans have been the butt of white jokes for centuries) as I was by how deeply unfunny the film is. I laughed not a single time, to be honest. Luckily for me I was getting paid to watch. Rating: 0 stars.

THE INTERPRETER (2005, Sydney Pollack)- works all right as a thriller, with an effective suspense sequence aboard a city bus, but this is a middling effort from a filmmaker who has fared well with thrillers in the past. The UN here is painted less as the semi-listless organization our current administration have turned it into as an idealistic school-kid's image of a one-stop diplomacy shop, enforcing international law and bringing genocidal leaders to justice. Kidman and Penn underplay effectively, but Pollack's uninspired direction betrays them somewhat, luxuriating too much in closeups that emphasize Kidman's bangs or Penn's actorly stylings. Likewise, the "shock" in the climactic sequence hardly registers, not least because Pollack tips his hand, but also because audiences have become suspect of major characters who disappear for extended periods of time. Rating: **.

It's that time of year again
Now Playing: Cannes Competition Slate announced
Full list can be found over here. Here's the main competition slate:

David CRONENBERG - A History of Violence
Luc and Jean-Pierre DARDENNE - The Child
Atom EGOYAN - Where the Truth Lies
Amos GITAI - Free Zone
Michael HANEKE - Hidden
Hsiao-hsien HOU - The Best of Our Times
Jim JARMUSCH - Broken Flowers
Tommy Lee JONES - The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Masahiro KOBAYASHI - Bashing
Arnaud and Jean-Marie LARRIEU - Peindre ou Faire l’Amour
Frank MILLER and Robert RODRIGUEZ - Sin City
Dominik MOLL - Lemming (Opening Night Film)
Carlos REYGADAS C. - Battle in Heaven
Hiner SALEEM - Kilometer Zero
Johnnie TO - Election
Marco TULLIO GIORDANA - Once You’re Born You Can No Longer Hide
Gus VAN SANT - The Last Days
Lars VON TRIER - Manderlay
WANG Xiaoshuai - Shanghai Dreams
Wim WENDERS - Don’t Come Knockin’

I tried my hand at predicting this year's competition films, and I ended up doing pretty well (the ones I predicted are italicized above).

My thoughts on the competition slate: some interesting choices, with lots of Cannes veterans in competition, and even a few past winners (Wenders, the Dardennes, Von Trier, Van Sant). The fact that Tommy Lee Jones has made a film is intriguing to say the least, if for no other reason than to see why he's been taking paycheck jobs in stuff like MAN OF THE HOUSE lately (lately? Try for the past ten years or so). Also, SIN CITY and the Johnnie To film prove that last year's genre-friendly Cannes wasn't a fluke.

Who are the frontrunners?: with Jury prez Emir Kusturica, it's hard to tell. His vision is strange, to put it mildly, and I'm not sure how he'll respond to many of the filmmakers here. It's unlikely that Van Sant will win the Palme again, having won just two years ago, unless the film is a world-beater, but really who knows. Wenders may have a shot, since the film could be a comeback for him, and Cannes regulars Jarmusch and Haneke haven't won yet, so it might be his time. But no one knows anything until the films actually screen.

Unscientific and purely subjective
Now Playing: The Film Journal's Directors Poll
Over at The Film Journal they recently conducted a poll that asked the participants to submit their 25 favorite filmmakers. I was able to participate, and was happy to see that a number of my favorite were popular among the other participants as well. I had hoped to make time to print my list here with commentary, but I haven't been able to as yet, so here it is, with comments (maybe) to come.

All lists are in alphabetical order.

My top 25:
Robert Altman
Ingmar Bergman
Robert Bresson
Luis Bunuel
John Cassavetes
Jean Cocteau
Jacques Demy
Jean-Luc Godard
Alfred Hitchcock
Buster Keaton
Krzystzof Kieslowski
Stanley Kubrick
Akira Kurosawa
Sergio Leone
Richard Linklater
David Lynch
F.W. Murnau
Michael Powell
Jean Renoir
Jacques Rivette
Martin Scorsese
Andrei Tarkovsky
Jacques Tati
Jean Vigo
Orson Welles

Just missed the cut

Classical filmmakers:
Charlie Chaplin
Stanley Donen
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Federico Fellini
Howard Hawks
Chuck Jones
Fritz Lang
David Lean
Sam Peckinpah
Maurice Pialat
Preston Sturges
Francois Truffaut
Billy Wilder

Contemporary filmmakers:
Woody Allen
Claude Chabrol
David Cronenberg
Brian DePalma
Terry Gilliam
Jim Jarmusch
Aki Kaurismaki
Spike Lee
Mike Leigh
Terrence Malick
Mayao Miyazaki
George Miller
Errol Morris
Nick Park
Roman Polanski
Eric Rohmer
Steven Soderbergh
Lars Von Trier
Agnes Varda

Inconsistent, but intermittently awesome:
John Carpenter
Joel Coen
Francis Coppola
Joe Dante
Clint Eastwood
Philip Kaufman
Sidney Lumet
Mike Nichols
George A. Romero
Wim Wenders
Robert Zemeckis

Missing In Action:
Michael Cimino
Elaine May
Nicholas Roeg

Need to see more before I cement my opinion :
Chantal Akerman
Robert Aldrich
Pedro Almodovar
Roy Andersson
Theo Angelopoulos
Michelangelo Antonioni
Dorothy Arzner
Bernardo Bertolucci
Budd Boetticher
Stan Brakhage
Charles Burnett
Marcel Carn?
Henri-Georges Clouzot
George Cukor
Terence Davies
Jules Dassin
Vittorio De Sica
Alexander Dovzhenko
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Sergei Eisenstein
Victor Erice
Jean Eustache
Louis Feuillade
John Ford
John Frankenheimer
Sam Fuller
D.W. Griffith
Werner Herzog
Hou Hsiao-hsien
King Hu
Shohei Imamura
Joris Ivens
Ken Jacobs
Elia Kazan
Abbas Kiarostami
Richard Lester
Jerry Lewis
Ernst Lubitsch
The Lumi?re brothers
Ida Lupino
Alexander Mackendrick
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Louis Malle
Chris Marker
The Maysles brothers
Georges M?li?s
Jiri Menzel
Russ Meyer
Vincente Minnelli
Kenji Mizoguchi
Max Ophuls
Nagisa Oshima
Yasujiro Ozu
Sergei Paradjanov
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Otto Preminger
V.I. Pudovkin
Nicholas Ray
Satyajit Ray
Carol Reed
Alain Resnais
Roberto Rossellini
Martin Ritt
Ken Russell
Michael Snow
Aleksandr Sokurov
Jean-Marie Straub and Dani?le Huillet
Josef Von Sternberg
Erich Von Stroheim
Seijun Suzuki
Bela Tarr
Hiroishi Teshigahara
Jacques Tourneur
Edgar G. Ulmer
Paul Verhoeven
Dziga Vertov
Luchino Visconti
Raoul Walsh
Peter Watkins
James Whale
Frederick Wiseman

Possible contenders in a decade or so:
Paul Thomas Anderson
Wes Anderson
Olivier Assayas
Brad Bird
Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Claire Denis
Arnaud Desplechin
Atom Egoyan
Jonathan Glazer
David Gordon Green
Michael Haneke
Todd Haynes
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Hong Sang-soo
Peter Jackson
Guy Maddin
Takashi Miike
David O. Russell
Quentin Tarantino
Tsai Ming-liang
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Wong Kar-wai

Sweet Jesus!
Now Playing: KINGS AND QUEEN (2004, Arnaud Desplechin) [seen in theatre]
24 hours later, and I'm still trying to sort out my thoughts about this, the most exciting new film I've seen in ages. It's been a long time since I was able to completely surrender myself to a film, to allow it to carry me away on its shoulders so that I would forget that my moviewatching butt was planted in a seat, so it was no small feat that the film left me, quite frankly, gasping. I credit Desplechin's direction fully for this- his command of the medium here is staggering, and he's able to carry the audience in the palm of his hand even while careening through the ever-shifting tone of the film. It's these tonal fluctuations that are at the heart of KINGS AND QUEEN, which pulls off much more successfully what Woody Allen attempted with MELINDA TIMES TWO- comedy and tragedy, side by side, each playing off the other. Here, rather than attempting to unfold one premise in two different ways as Woody did, Desplechin introduces two very different characters and allows their personalities to dictate the tone of their respective storylines. Where Nora (Emmanuelle Devos), a single mother whose life has been touched numerous times by death- her first husband, and now her father, who has been diagnosed with cancer- has a tendency to bottle up her emotions to maintain the appearance of dignified strength, her second husband Ismael (Matthieu Amalric) has (in spite of being somewhat nuts) had a relatively good life, in that most of the unfortunate business that has occurred has been of his own doing. The two storylines exist largely independent of the other, intersecting only when Nora, worried about her own mortality, goes to convince Ismael to adopt her son in case she dies. Desplechin cuts back and forth between the heavy dealings in Nora's life and the more rambunctious action of Ismael's to shocking effect, subverting conventional emotional trajectories in favor of keeping the audience on edge, and it's breathtaking to behold- one minute, we bear witness to a heartbreaking scene involving Nora and her dying father (the skeletal Maurice Garrel), the next we see Ismael, slightly unhinged but resilient all the same, once again getting into ornery misadventures at the mental hospital. The film sails into the stratosphere, however, in the extended epilogue, in which (not to give too much away) Matthieu imparts some hard-earned wisdom to Nora's son- this sequence got me choked up, not least because Matthieu could just as easily have been talking to me when I was the boy's age. KINGS AND QUEEN is sure to have its detractors (any film that so stubbornly refuses to coddle the audience is bound to), but to my mind, it's alive in a way too films are anymore, and I'm excited to familiarize myself with the rest of Desplechin's work. So yeah, it's a masterpiece.

Rating: ****. Awwwwwwww yeahhhh boyeeeeeeee.

P.S.: In my excitement, I completely neglected to mention two points. First is the rating, which I've added above. Second, and more importantly, Catherine Deneuve, only my favorite actress EVER, has a supporting role as a shrink at the hospital where Amalric is being held. She only has a few scenes, but at least one of them- the one where he declares that "women have no soul"- is pretty classic.

24 1/2 Hours That Rocked My World
Now Playing: MILLIONS, KUNG FU HUSTLE, and DOWNFALL (all 2004)
It can be a frustrating life, the life of a film nerd. One sees one movie after another, observing those around him enjoying the action onscreen, only to be the killjoy when it's over when he proclaims "it was OK, but..." or something like that. Still, the true believers press on, and occasionally are rewarded by an unlikely run of awesomeness, which reaffirms their faith even while serving as the exception that proves the rule (the rule being that most movies aren't all that good). Well, let me say that this happened to me over the course of the last day or so- three films that ranged in quality from wonderful to astounding, leaving me (pardon the pun) reeling.

It began last night, at the end of a rough day in which I was sick to my stomach and spent most of my time in bed. Finally feeling better, I decided to catch Danny Boyle's MILLIONS, which was playing a few blocks from my house. The film ended up being exactly what I needed, a refreshing tonic to cutesy children's fare from a filmmaker generally associated with more adult-oriented work. MILLIONS is a lovely film about youthful idealism untainted by the compromises and pragmatic decisions that adults have to make. Damien (Alex Etel) is a good kid who idolizes the saints much like his classmates look up to football stars (he knows their dates of birth and death, as well as what they're the patron saints of), and when a bag of money falls seemingly from the sky, he takes this as a sign that God intends for him to work miracles. Some of the film's plot elements feel a little off-the-rack (such as the robber subplot) but the film is effective and moving as the portrait of a boy whose innocence and innate goodness are at odds with the world around him. Boyle's direction is stellar here, with some creative sequences (the building of the house sticks out in my mind), and the cinematography by the sinner Anthony Dod Mantle is shimmering, a 180-degree turn from his work with Lars Von Trier.

Now get this- of the films I've seen since last night, MILLIONS is my LEAST favorite.

This morning I had the pleasure of screening Stephen Chow's KUNG FU HUSTLE, an uproarious martial arts comedy that's leaps and bounds over Chow's last work, the diverting but somewhat uninspired SHAOLIN SOCCER. With KUNG FU HUSTLE, Chow pulls off an extremely delicate balancing act- he manages to make a film that pokes fun at the martial arts genre while also working as an exciting kickass action flick. That it works is all the more startling since the film is basically a live-action cartoon- the action scenes are heavily augmented with CGI to the point where the kung fu "masters" onscreen are capable of anatomically and physically impossible feats. The story begins as a war between an all-powerful gang and a slum ruled by martial arts masters in hiding, but it quickly becomes a riff on the "tournament" films like Bruce Lee made, in which great martial artists from all around face off for ever-rising stakes. Chow gives himself less of a central role this time out, and his direction here is a revelation, turning on a dime from broad parody to minute plot-oriented detail at the edge of the frame, sometimes within the same shot (for example, during the scene where he rescues "The Beast"). I won't say much more, since this film is best experienced without knowing much beforehand, but let me say this- about half an hour in, after the coolie, the noodle maker, and the sissy tailor fight off the gang, I thought there was no way the movie could get any better. And oh man, was I wrong.

The last awesome movie I caught couldn't be more different from KUNG FU HUSTLE. That film was DOWNFALL, a harrowing re-creation of the final days of the Third Reich. The film is anchored by a tour de force performance by Bruno Ganz, who plays- nay, embodies- Adolf Hitler with such conviction and skill that he disappears completely into the role (he's the first actor that I've seen who didn't play the role as a stunt). Ganz's Hitler is a man at the end of his tether, alcoholic, delusional, screaming at his officers, and the characters in the film can be divided into two camps- those who abandon Hitler to save their own hide, and the true believers in National Socialism, who stick by their leader and would commit suicide rather than betray him. The story is seen largely through the eyes of Hitler's personal secretary Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara), and director Oliver Hirschbiegel uses her and several other supporting characters as audience surrogates in order to navigate through the chaotic surroundings- a seemingly endless parade of advisors and generals, an ever growing number of soldiers getting drunk off the Fuhrer's booze, and various other characters who appear on the scene and disappear almost as quickly. It's an incredibly ambitious work, and a stunning achievement, with a number of scenes that linger in the memory- Hitler pinning medals on a group of heroic soldiers comprised largely of middle-school-aged teens, Speer's admission of disobeying orders, Hitler's divulging of his final plans to the soldier guarding his bedroom, and many more. Who knows what cinematic marvels tomorrow might bring?

Ratings:
MILLIONS: ***.
KUNG FU HUSTLE: ***1/2.
DOWNFALL: ***1/2.

Gah!!!
Now Playing: ...Catch-up on my reviewing duties
FEVER PITCH (2005, Peter and Bobby Farelly)- Amiable but slightly disappointing offering from the Farelly brothers, who get to indulge their love for the Sox and all things New England. I hate to be the kind of churl who takes the guys to task for making a movie that's "not funny enough," but right now I gotta be that churl- sure, the film's message that couples have to compromise and find room for each other's passions is a worthwhile one, but their previous film, STUCK ON YOU, was able to more adeptly balance warm observation and laugh-out-loud scenes of bizarre comedy. Also, this might have worked better at greater length, since the feeling of the year dragging on for the principal characters didn't really come across in the film at its present duration. Still, Fallon proves surprisingly charming, and Drew less surprisingly does her thing well. Rating: **1/2.

SAHARA (2005, Breck Eisner)- pretty stupid in spots, but with a real laid-back charm, inspired no doubt by the presence of McConaughey. Also, it's hard to hate a movie that twists itself in knots just to (SPOILER) pit a small army (tanks, choppers, etc.) against a Civil War-era cannon in the climactic scene (c'mon, you had to see that coming). Time for a moratorium on French villains played by Lambert Wilson though. Rating: **.

THE UPSIDE OF ANGER (2005, Mike Binder)- highly entertaining throughout, but also quite perceptive about its characters, even the most pathetic ones (as when Binder's lecherous deejay gets a chance to explain his preference for young ladies). Allen can play this character in her sleep, but she does it well, and Costner plays it loose to great effect. I loved the un-rushed way in which individual scenes were permitted to play out at their own pace, quite a contrast to most Hollywood offerings, which plow through the story to get to the end. And speaking of the end, I won't give it away except to say that it worked for me because of how it cast Terri's anger in a different light by removing the primary reason behind it. Rating: ***.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (2004, Michael Radford)- Radford doesn't so much avoid the troubling racial politics of the play as simply explains them in terms of their historical context. This, combined with Pacino's Shylock, which is a sympathetic portrayal largely because of the actor's innate fierceness, is why the film (mostly) works- up until the unavoidable climactic courtroom scene, in which Shylock either gets what's coming to him (the prevailing view in Shakespeare's time) or is made the victim of racial persecution (more likely to be the prevailing view now). Either way, the lightly comic follow-up sequence involving a pair of rings feels anticlimatic and unsatisfying nowadays. Rating: **1/2.

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1998, Terry Gilliam)- the more I watch this film, the less I enjoy it in a traditional sense, and the more I realize that I'm not really supposed to. It's best that the book couldn't get made into a film until decades later, in retrospect, since this film uses hindsight to posit the story as a portrait of a time when the idealism of the 60s had fully disintegrated (hence the San Francisco flashback) but the fallout from the tumultuous times (distrust of youth, the ever-impending culture wars) had just begun to spread. Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo's over-the-top attempts at hedonism are largely joyless, and purposely so- they can't keep the spirit alive, much as they try, when the rest of the world (particularly Vegas, which traffics in hedonism of a much more red-state stripe) refuses to join in. Rating: ***.

Also, I just saw a Sierra Mist Free commercial with Fred Willard and Michael McKean. Calling Christopher Guest! These guys need something better to do with their time.

Time Warp
Now Playing: The 2005 Sci-Fi Marathon
Due to an irregularity in numbering, no one could agree whether this was the 15th or the 22nd annual 24 Hour Science Fiction Marathon that transpired this weekend at the Drexel Grandview theatre. Personally, it was my fourth, and that there were people there who have been going for much longer than I have is enough explanation for me. The marathon kicked off, as usual, with DUCK DODGERS IN THE 24 1/2 CENTURY, which of course needs no introduction.

The first feature on the program was the original MOTHRA, which I enjoyed a little less than I should have probably because I saw the original GODZILLA on Friday night. Still, I was entertained by it, particularly by director Ishiro Honda's critique of America's plundering of world culture, as manifested in the film's Caucasian-looking villain, who steals two "tiny beauties" from a Pacific island and forces them to sing for big crowds, incurring the wrath of the title creature. Rating: **1/2.

PRIMER was the marathon's second feature and, to my mind, easily the best I saw there. In fact, I'd go so far as to call it the best sci-fi in years, in no small part because the science of it is completely convincing, in its own way. The film's storytelling is a little unclear in spots, but that's the point of the film, since the main characters (who essentially tie time in knots) are never quite clear about what's going on either. All I can say is that I was captivated throughout, and I'll write more on the film when I see it again, which will be as soon as possible. Rating: ***1/2.

STEAMBOY was the first disappointment of the day, an ambitious animated adventure that failed to sustain my interest. I enjoyed Otomo's AKIRA, but here he bites off too much, lavishing all his attention on re-creating a Victorian England in which some scientists might have considered steam a viable alternative to coal-burning, but bogging down the images in a plot that drags on and on. Also, points deducted for the supremely annoying supporting character of a young rich girl who always manages to pop up at inopportune moments. Rating: *1/2.

In the dubious tradition of ROBOT MONSTER comes FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE, a bargain-basement adventure story about a group of astronauts landing on a planet peopled by escapees from Atlantis, all of but one them attractive young women. The film doesn't even try to disguise its male fantasy aspects (an early scene pauses the action to follow a female secretary walking out of the room) or its no-budget production values (some of the insert shots are still photographs), but while it's not as awful as ROBOT MONSTER, it's nowhere near as bizarrely memorable either. Rating: *.

Next came the classic fiasco THE APPLE, a kind of death-of-disco-era FAUST set in 1994. What begins as a crazed extravaganza in the vein of XANADA turns out to be a disco-sucks movie, in which pop success comes from selling one's soul to a diabolical super-agent, and the protagonists end up finding salvation by hiding out with hippies. The songs are awful, the direction is terrible, and the performances generally range from forgettable to shrill, but the film is memorable as a warped Euro-trash vision of American pop culture. Rating: *1/2.

Michael Winterbottom's CODE 46 was a decidedly audience-unfriendly choice for a middle-of-the-night spot, not just because it's only slightly less action-packed than PRIMER but also because it's a fairly mediocre film. Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton are pretty good as a professional empath and the document-forger he loves, and Winterbottom's vision of a more culturally-integrated future world is certainly thought-provoking. However, the film doesn't really take off from the promise of its performances and setting, and the affair between the two principal characters (complete with a gratuitous closeup of Morton's genitalia) isn't particularly compelling. File this under "missed opportunity." Rating: **.

Due to print problems, the marathon's scheduled screening of the original ROLLERBALL was cancelled, and the last-minute surprise replacement was THE ABYSS. Thankfully, I like THE ABYSS and it's been a while since I watched it, so I didn't mind too much. In some respect, THE ABYSS is James Cameron's most mature work, utilizing Michael Biehn's crazed Navy SEAL villain as a critique of Cameron's tendency towards type-A macho action heroes. At the same time, the "NTIs" in the film feel like a manifestation of Cameron's own scientific curiosity, the hoped-for outcome of his undersea exploration and the stint on MIR that he hopes to take in the future. Also, Ed Harris' performance holds up very well. Rating: ***.

AT THE EARTH'S CORE was the final film I stayed for, although I nodded off in a few parts so I can't give a full assessment. What I saw was pretty uninspired, with hero Doug McClure and sidekick Peter Cushing burrowing down in the Earth and finding a civilization of humans enslaved by pterodactyl-like captors. Pretty much your basic paint-by-numbers adventure, with McClure uniting the warring tribes, fighting laughable-looking monsters, falling in love with a beautiful princess, and generally saving the day.

I left about ten minutes into the MATRIX spoof THE HELIX LOADED, a dirt-cheap parody full of stoner humor that didn't generate a single laugh from me the whole time I watched it. Still to come were SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, which I've seen, and FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, which didn't sound interesting enough to make me stick around.

All in all, a pretty good marathon, but with a bit too much schlock and not enough real classic sci-fi to balance it out. Still, the only real disappointment for me was that they couldn't show the marathon favorite GRAVITY. Ah well, I've seen it enough, I suppose.