Passion in the Desert (1997)
“Passion in the Desert,” which opens today, is about a guy who
does just that. He’s a soldier in the French army, storming through
Egypt in 1798. He can’t find his regiment. He can’t find water. All
he can find are scorpions, rattlesnakes and a bad time. As presented
here, getting stranded in the desert has to be the loneliest thing
imaginable.
The film, based on a novella by Honore de Balzac, begins with the
soldier (Ben Daniels) escorting an eccentric French artist through
the desert. Michel Piccoli, in a relatively small role, makes a vivid
impression as the artist, who goes through life at a cold remove.
Minutes after a battle between Egyptian and French armies he appears
on the field painting the carnage, using the fresh blood as paint.
BY HORSE AND BY FOOT
Obviously, the artist isn’t much company, but things get worse for
the soldier after they separate. First he’s alone, riding through the
desert on his horse. Next he’s on foot, thinking about all the fun
times he had before his horse died. He climbs up and down sand dunes,
looking way overdressed in his blue infantry uniform.
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The leopard enters the picture like a breath of hot air. The
soldier, chased by angry Egyptians into a mountain cave, suddenly
sees two
eyes glowing in his direction. “Passion in the Desert” is at its
best in the scenes in which the leopard and the man are testing each
other.
The leopard, a female, is a magnificent creature, looking not
unlike a short-haired domestic cat, only bigger, and with none of a
house cat’s insecurity over its inability to open cans of food. The
leopard opens necks. In one scene, she goes to work on a man’s head
as if munching celery.
LAND OF PARABLE
The leopard becomes a valuable friend — she knows the best food,
where to find it, how to catch it, where to eat it. Once the leopard
decides that the soldier is OK, he has it made, but that’s just where
the movie starts to go: We leave the land of interesting and enter
the land of parable.
The soldier and the leopard are two lonely creatures who come
together to the benefit of both. The leopard, living a solitary,
meal-to-
meal existence, has someone to play with, and the man has someone to
support him while he walks around nude, paints his face and goes
native.
There are domestic tribulations; there are bound to be in any boy-
girl, man-leopard relationship. But after the struggle for survival
that went before, domestic spats seem trivial, even when one of the
partners has fangs.
The Messengers review
This is a movie that features former “Sex and the City” hunk John Corbett
looking more like David Crosby than you can possibly imagine and “The Practice”
lawyer Dylan McDermott as a sunflower farmer. Both are subjected to humiliating
attacks by flocks of angry crows.
If that sounds like fun, be warned that most of the rest of the film is
extremely boring. It’s as if someone took the worst 54 minutes of “Places in
the Heart” and spliced it with the worst half-hour of “The Grudge 2.”
Hopefully, this is both the beginning and the end of the agricultural horror
genre.
McDermott makes a decent Secret Service agent and a convincing cutthroat
attorney. He would probably be a good TV series doctor and could easily pull
off a professor or a corporate accountant. But as much as the actor looks good
hailing a taxi, he’s completely out of place trying to repair a tractor.
Roy (McDermott) has just moved from Chicago to rural North Dakota with his
wife, teen daughter and toddler son. It’s not a very fun trip, because his
spouse (Penelope Ann Miller) is a bit of a shrew, his daughter is a drama queen
and his son sees dead people. Corbett adds a little fun when he shows up as a
ranch hand, if you can resist the urge to break into “Almost Cut My Hair.”
The ghosts in “The Messengers” sneak around Roy’s new home, an old
fixer-upper that looks like it was designed by “The Amityville Horror” house
architect. But this is no old-school haunting — the Pang brothers have built
one of those “Grudge”-”Pulse”-”Ring” universes where anything goes, whether
it’s black ooze in the basement, crows in the station wagon or scary pale
humanoid things skittering across the ceiling. Most of the scares are generated
by the soundtrack, which is mixed way too loudly and has sort of a bludgeoning
effect that is more annoying than frightening.
Screenwriter Mark Wheaton includes a lot of minutiae about sunflower
growing, but he doesn’t bother to give the ghosts in “The Messengers” much of a
reason for existing. Usually in a movie like this, there’s an Indian burial
ground that has been violated — or at least a scene in the last 10 minutes
where a main character sifts through newspaper clippings at the library,
unraveling a horrible story about a parent who killed his kids.
Instead, we get crows with no motivation, except to make the actors
they’re attacking look ridiculous. If Tippi Hedren taught us nothing else in
“The Birds,” pulling off a big-screen bird attack is about more than screaming
really loud and flailing your arms.
– Advisory: This film contains profanity, violence and a few loud
scares. There’s also a scene where Roy tries to feed his toddler whole carrots,
which is a serious choking hazard for a 2-year-old.
Curse of the Pink Panther (1983)
An bottomless cash-in from a batch of people who really ought to obtain known gambler. The Pink Panther diamond has been stolen again, and with Inspector Clouseau missing (Peter Sellers was deceased), a computer conducts a search to find a detective skilled satisfactorily to track him down. Twitchy prehistoric boss Lom has nobbled the technology, however, so that the world’s worst sleuth is selected, whereupon Wass makes the mutation from TV’s Soap for a charisma-voluntary turn as bumbling NYPD man Clifton Sleigh. Chicanery continues apace, with tedious complications and steppes slapstick taking in a roster of the series’ former stars doing tired out cameos. A frail Niven made a pattern screen appearance.
Invictus
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind review
“‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
________- Alfred Lord Tennyson
Maybe.
Whether you’re currently in a successful relationship or in-between attempts, chances are you’ve met a special someone during your lifetime. Romantic relationships have the unfortunate task of providing extreme highs and lows for those involved, and rarely play out in the ways we’d hoped they would. Still, for most people, life would be incomplete without the pursuit of love. To make a long story short: a great relationship can be the best thing in the world, while a failing one can be the exact opposite.
Now, imagine your most recent relationship didn’t end so well. If you had the ability to erase all memories of that relationship…would you?
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To get straight to the point, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is certainly up to the task of debating the opening quote. Among other things, it’s an honest look at the strange side of human relationships…with an extreme emphasis on strange. Followers of director Michel Gondry will recognize his careful use of visual effects and jarring illusions, while followers of writer Charlie Kaufman…well, they know what they’re in for.
It’s incredibly tough to describe a film like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and do it justice, but here goes: Joel (Jim Carrey, at top) is a mess after a recent breakup with Clementine (Kate Winslet, seen above), especially after learning she’s undergone an experimental “memory erasing” procedure. In essence, he’s gone from her life entirely. Not surprisingly, he attempts to undergo the same treatment, but a funny thing happens during the procedure: he changes his mind. The emotional bulk of the story revolves around his memory hallucinations during the treatment, as his life’s recollections violently collide with one another. It’s a truly odd premise that makes for a very entertaining film, and firmly establishes Michel Gondry as a director to keep your eye on.
Still, it’s more than the directing that makes Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind work so well. Among other highlights, the film features top-notch performances, most notably in the two leads. Jim Carrey retains his charisma without going over the top, resulting in one of his best performances to date. Kate Winslet also proves to be the perfect choice for Clementine, bringing the necessary amount of spark and honesty to her important role. Although slightly more buried in the background, Mark Ruffalo and Kirsten Dunst are also noteworthy (as is Elijah Wood, who has thankfully avoided typecasting after his Lord of the Rings role). The film’s creative blend of music is another highlight—though it’s no surprise, given the director’s experience with music videos. Last but not least, the film is absolutely bursting with creative visual effects and set designs, something of a trademark for director Gondry. First-time viewers will do more than one double-take, while those who’ve seen it multiple times may still be caught off guard.
With all of these positive elements, it should come as no surprise that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was one of my favorite films of the year, and a true cinematic breath of fresh air. It’s not your typical romantic comedy, to be sure…but if you’ve seen what passes for “romantic comedy” these days, this proves to be its greatest strength. It’s a rare film that’s equally enjoyable with that special someone…or all by yourself.
Anyway, enough gushing. After a short run at the domestic box office, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has been rushed to DVD courtesy of Focus Features (and Universal, of course). It’s a solid DVD effort that doesn’t necessarily knock one out of the park, but it’s a respectable treatment for a deserving film. With that said, let’s see how this one stacks up:
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Marie Antoinette review
You have to give writer/director Sofia Coppola points for originality. Her Oscar-winning
Lost in Translation
about a bored American actor stuck making a commercial in Japan turned into a deservedly critical and popular hit. Now, for her follow-up, she tackles the 18th century teenaged queen who found herself trapped in the virtual museum known as Versailles, unable to live the kind of normal life teens with hoop dresses and 6 foot tall wigs apparently craved in those days. That's at least according to this cotton candy account that plays loosely with the truth in trying to be hip, contemporary and pink (look closely and you will see a pair of Nike sneakers(!) just that color in her closet). According to legend (as filtered thru Coppola), Marie (Kirsten Dunst) was just like any other kid who wanted to party, but was virtually entombed like a girly King Tut in her palace. Stuck in a passionless marriage to King Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman) who couldn't get a hard-on for seven years, Marie became the subject of gossip that she would never be able to produce an heir to the throne. Much like Princess Diana, she was plagued by endless scandals and hated by certain members of the French Royal Court who tried to make her their scapegoat for a poor society ready to erupt into a revolution. What she really wanted was just to "fit in." Coppola, actually shooting on real locations in France, has made a movie designed to relate to today's disaffected youth and should be given a good degree of credit for taking a stodgy, overstuffed period costume picture and cleverly scoring it with songs like Bow Wow Wow's
I Want Candy
. Sure to be pounded on by some critics for her audacious, if uneven approach in breathing life into this genre, Coppola's own maverick attitude toward naysayers might mirror the famous line Marie is reported to have uttered about
her
detractors. "Let them eat cake!"
Warriors of Heaven and Earth review
The Cinema:
If you’re a fan of Asian Cinema and own a Blu-ray player you’re probably looking for something fun to watch. Sadly apart from a few other titles there just isn’t a lot to pick from unless you’re looking to import something. In that regard Warriors of Heaven and Earth comes out at a point in time where films from over seas are something of a rarity for the format. With slim picking for Asian Cinema on the market, is Warriors of Heaven and Earth worth going gaga over?
Directed by He Ping, Warriors of Heaven and Earth was produced in 2003 and released internationally the following year. The film features Jiang Wen, Kiichi Nakai, Wang Xueqi, and Zhao Wei playing through a story that takes place in the Golden Age of China. On some levels the picture is successful and can be quite captivating but it’s not an entirely solid experience.
When Warriors of Heaven and Earth begins we are introduced to the character of Lai Xi (Nakai). He is a Japanese native who was assigned to the Emperor of China as an emissary when he was a young boy. It has been over twenty-five years since he has seen his family so needless to say he’s feeling a little homesick. The Emperor promises Lai Xi that his servitude will end after one more mission which is to eradicate bandits along the Silk Road. Just when his dubious task is near completion he is assigned a final mark; former lieutenant Li (Wen).
Once Li’s character is introduced the attention of the film splits between he and Lai Xi. While Lai Xi travels with Wen Zhu (Wei) in search of the bandit, Li struggles to survive in the Gobi Desert. He happens upon a Buddhist caravan in the midst of a sandstorm and barely survives the experience. His life is saved by a soldier and in order to repay the favor Li agrees to accompany the caravan to their destination.
In good form Li and Lai Xi bump into each other but when Li explains his situation, Lai Xi accepts his terms. Basically Lai Xi lets Li and his men go with the caravan until they reach the capital, at which point they will fight to the death. This creates an interesting relationship between the two that is played with throughout the picture. It’s a little silly that Lai Xi and Wen Zhu ride together as enemies with the caravan but I suppose it was an inevitable plot device.
Quite honestly, I was perfectly happy with Warriors of Heaven and Earth following the tale of the two men but apparently He Ping was not. During the film it is revealed that the caravan is carrying a mystical Buddhist artifact. This supernatural trinket is the reason our heroes find themselves attacked at every turn by tireless and numerous bandits. With the artifact the Turks could control the Buddhist territories and overthrow the Tang Empire. It adds a silly spin on an otherwise serious and interesting character piece.
While the artifact certainly spoils a good majority of the tale it’s not the only sore spot. Some points of the film feel needlessly dragged out and in all fairness could have been cut. Also, there is essentially no rhyme or reason behind the villain’s presence other than to create a common enemy for Lai Xi and Li to bring them closer together. He appears at points in the film where Ping felt action needed to be inserted and disappears just as randomly. Equally silly are his mannerisms which make him a force destined to be laughed at, not reckoned with.
In the end is Warriors of Heaven and Earth a bad film? No, not really. It’s a flawed and unbalanced film, but not necessarily poor. There are some great performances, memorable characters, fun battle scenes, and decent development throughout. If you can look past the tacky magical Buddhist powers, pointless villain, drawn out scenes, and abrupt, unexplained ending then you’ll find a trip worth taking but maybe just as a rental.
The Disc:
Video:
Warriors of Heaven and Earth is presented on a 50GB dual layer blu-ray disc with 1080p HD resolution and MPEG2 encoding. Compared to the standard definition release from 2004 the blu-ray features noticeably better quality all around and might be worth an upgrade if you’re a fan.
One of the crowning achievements for Warriors of Heaven and Earth is the cinematography which captures some truly beautiful moments. With this HD presentation they appear flawlessly and frankly are about as vivid as you could possibly get. The coloration in the film remains vibrant throughout with natural hues and fine contrast. There are a few points during the movie where film grain is noticeable but it doesn’t really detract from the experience. The same can be said for the sharpness of the picture which can be a little on the soft side here and there. Overall this is a great looking movie and it’s safe to say that the aesthetics outshine the quality of the script.
Audio:
Warriors of Heaven and Earth presents a slew of audio selections for you to sink your teeth into. My personal favorite was the uncompressed PCM 5.1 Mandarin though I tend to be a stickler for original languages. Fortunately the uncompressed PCM 5.1 English, and 5.1 tracks for Mandarin, English, and French are high quality as well so you’ll definitely be able to find something that suits your taste.
Each of the 5.1 selections offers a decent amount of immersion with the rear channels picking up ambient noise and prominent sound effects. During battle is where you will notice the rear channels the most considering they come to life with every clang of the sword of hit of an arrow. Compared to the relative starkness of the picture the sound effects are almost a little too pronounced but it’s nothing that detracts from the experience. The sound quality is still very good with a clean presentation that makes full use of the soundstage.
Extras:
Warriors of Heaven and Earth includes two features that have been ported over from the standard definition release of the film. The first is a pointless music video that may be entertaining to watch but provides little more than what you’d expect. On the more impressive side of things is a documentary about the making of the film. With an English narrative this feature takes a behind the scenes look at several moments of shooting. Different action scenes and points of locations are included and if you’re a fan of the film you’ll find some of the commentary to be interesting.
Irrefutable Thoughts:
Warriors of Heaven and Earth was a mixed bag of quality in my opinion. The video and audio qualities were phenomenal but the actual content of the film left me wanting. I appreciated the strained relationship between Li and Lai Xi as they journeyed with the caravan to the capitol but most every other facet of the script failed. The antagonist of the two adds little to the story and the mystical Buddhist artifact takes away from the serious tone. This leaves Warriors of Heaven and Earth feeling poorly balanced and lacking direction. There are some moments where the potential of the picture is shown but they are fleeting at best. Rent It
Blood for Dracula review
Andy Warhol collaborator Paul Morrissey followed up on the international success of FLESH SUITED FOR FRANKENSTEIN with his unrivalled understanding of another archetypal movie lusus naturae. In this kind, Dracula travels to Italy in search of a virgin bride. The great Udo Kier (Frankenstein in Morrissey’s FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN) plays the count as a sickly and hypersensitive shut-in who stumbles across the supposedly virginal DiFiore family with the help of his domineering assistant, Anton. Unfortunately, the DiFiore daughters are less than virginal because of Mario the servant’s (Joe Dallesandro) unflinching efforts. While the sets and cinematography are beautiful and evocative, Morrissey brings his unsteady, Warholian type to the create (which was written as the film was shot) and the acting (each actor has a special accent and most lines are read in a stupid and drawling deadpan). The coupling and bestiality are tinged with ironic humor as Kier goes from bromide daughter to the next, dangerous proper for the virgin blood he needs to bail someone out his life. Some not-so-arcane collective commentary is interwoven as the DiFiore parents care less for their daughters’ future-by a long way being than for the survival of their own assets and palatial resources. The shocking sex- and gore-filled ending neatly closes Morrissey’s strange-fangled fiendishness diptych and cements his place as a cinematic inventor.
Friends, in fact, not sisters….
Friends, in fact, not sisters. But Suzette (Hawn) and Vinnie (Sarandon), the original rock groupies, were nicknamed as such in their youth by Frank Zappa, or so this story goes. Those days eat one’s heart out gone, but Suzette is still tending bar at the venue of her greatest memory - Jim Morrison passing out covered by her in the lavatory - wearing her rock chick clothes and silicone breasts well, while in the absence of to notice times acquire changed. Vinnie, though, has moved on. She’s now Lavinia with lavish house, two teenage daughters and a counselor-at-law hubby ignorant of her past. When Suzette gets fired and needs money, she turns to Vinnie in return helper; but the mould love Lavinia wants is Suzette showing up unannounced and exposing her former uncultivated ways. No prizes for guessing that, from one end to the other their differences, Suzette and Lavinia learn prevalent themselves. Once you’ve reined in any major expectations of this very mainstream comedy, and pushed aside the slightly leftover job of Hawn playing a grown-up Penny Lane (daughter Kate Hudson’s character in Almost Illustrious), the film’s actually quite waggish.
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Interkosmos review
A delightfully tongue-in-cheek respect to a made-up East German space project, Jim Finn’s “Interkosmos” uses recreated newsreels combined with musical interludes to resuscitate the ’70s in all its Brezhnev-days excellence. Almost identical in its mockumentary technique to “First People on the Moon” but with a broader sense of wry fun, pic uncannily captures the self-glorifying hyperbole and straight-faced seriousness of the Communist bloc’s attempts to make a splash in the race to elbow-room. Audacious fest auds pass on best appreciate this genuine crowd-pleaser.
More a series of similarly-themed sketches than a cohesively flowing unit, pic imagines East Germany leading the way in efforts to colonize the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Participating in the grand scheme for the betterment of an anti-capitalist world are cosmonauts Seagull (Nandini Khaund) and Falcon (helmer Finn), whose hesitant space romance, over intergalactic static, forms the core — a deadpan recitation of “The Trolley Song” is priceless. Color footage is suitably tinged orange-pink with age, and music and art direction are impeccable; as a final tease, exit music is longer than in “Gone With the Wind.”
Like Water for Chocolate (1992)
LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE
(Como Agua Para Chocolate)
Rating
:
½
Mexico. 1991.
Director ? Alfonso Arau, Screenplay/Based on the Novel by Laura Esquivel, Producers ? Alfonso Arau & Emilia Arau, Photography ? Steven Bernstein & Emmanuel Lubezki, Music ? Leo Brouwer, Handiwork Design ? Marco Antonio Arteaga. Production Visitors ? Cinevista/Fonatur/Fondo de Fomento a la Calidad Cinematográfica/Gobierno del Estado de Coahuila/Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía/Arau Films Internacional/Aviacsa/Secretaria de Turismo.
Colouring
:
Lumi Cavazos (Tita de la Garza), Regina Torne (Elena de la Garza), Marco Leonardi (Pedro Muzquiz), Mario Ivan Martinez (Dr John Brown), Yareli Arizmendi (Rosaura de la Garza), Claudette Maile (Gertrudis de la Garza), Pilar Aranda (Chencha), Ada Carrasco (Nacha)
Plat
:
Mexico at the go bottoms up a surface of the century. Widowed landowner Elena de la Garza informs her daughter Tita that being the youngest offspring that she be obliged according to order tradition splash out the rest of her life serving her. Tita is heartbroken when Pedro Muzquiz who is deeply in charge from with her, comes to ask her hand and her innate insists that he fuse her sister Rosaura in preference to. Self-conscious to be her mother?s amah, Tita?s repressed emotions come to express themselves through the scoff she cooks.
Like Not wash lavishly seeing that Chocolate
comes in the unique Latin American literary tradition of Magical Realism. In this tradition the magical and devotional blends with real life in a way that is entirely enchanted for granted (unlike the emphasis of the disjunct that is a feature of Anglicized fantasy).
Like Water for Chocolate
stirs an appealingly wanton graduate of magic and fervent emotion. Liking is talked of in a way that is total, absolute and all-consuming. The spiritual cooking set-pieces are wonderfully done ? the mixture cake of sadness for the same?s true love lost; and especially the sequence with the quails cooked in rose petals that put aside the two separated lovers to remotely express their suppressed passion for one-liner another by one of the other sisters, culminating in the wonderfully surrealistic image of a shower bursting into warmth as the sister bathes and the aroma carrying to the bandit who snatches her up onto his horse as she runs out into the due naked. There is an amazing paramount ending ? where the two tragic lovers finally arrive to at their love together and their pent-up passion causes the bed to shoot full of holes into sweetheart and drink up them, they reuniting in a enthusiastic Channel Tunnel into the hereafter where their lives make be able to be lived as they should have been.
Unfortunately in between the cooking wonted-pieces, the dim gets dragged off into a long and drawn-out family drama. Too much over and over again is prostrate on the subplots dealing with the lives of the other several family members, while the subplot about Regina Torne?s uncanny get even for and the apparition pregnancy drags the film out far longer than it should.
Equal to Hose for Chocolate
needed to be shorter, sharper, less tired out ? it could have benefited from easily half-an-hour less running time. The film should have been built up around each meal and tends to lose it in these long stretches.
Like Water for Chocolate
is nevertheless a entirely-made cover with okay acting from the sound cast, especially the delightful Lumi Cavazos and Regina Torne as the iron-willed matriarch of the family.
The essence of transcendental cooking first appeared in
Babettes Feast