Thursday, December 31, 2015

Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

I confess I don't watch many martial arts movies. Even the popular ones rarely rise above average in my estimation, because they tend to have all the plot complexity of an '80s video game. They're almost a kind of porn that substitutes fighting for sex. But they don't hurt to watch once in a while, and I get curious about artists I haven't seen before.

In this case, the director and main actor is Stephen Chow, known for comedies first and foremost. Indeed, this one isn't just on-and-off humor like The Legend of Drunken Master; it tries to be funny pretty much all 99 minutes. And the loose physics and mysticism go beyond Zhang Yimou-style wuxia and straight into cartooniness. Bill Murray praised it supremely on this score.

Before I get into those details, I might as well describe what plot there is. In a stylized version of the '40s, Sing, a young man disillusioned by his childhood attempt at heroism, wants to join the Axe Gang, who reign over all but the poorest neighborhoods of Shanghai. While amazing at picking locks, he and especially his buddy are incompetent at acting like thugs. Sing draws the attention of the real Axe Gang to deal with a slum that won't respect them. Fortunately, the slum has a few excellent fighters to oppose them. It becomes increasingly apparent that Sing will revise his idea that bad guys always win -- and will then discover his untapped potential.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Hell Is for Heroes (1962)

Have you ever marked a Netflix suggestion "Not Interested" and later changed your mind? I have several times, but this may be the first time I've gone ahead and watched such an entry on my list. The very title both catches my eye and repels me, but then, isn't that what war movies are supposed to do? Besides, it formed the basis of a popular "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode, so it had to offer something.

Steve McQueen headlines as John Reese, a WWII master sergeant demoted to private who still acts too much like an authority for comfort. More surprising are the castings of Bobby Darin as the second most prominent private and, in his silver screen debut, Bob Newhart as a military typist who winds up on the battlefield by accident. There's not much to the premise: A U.S. squad, having mistakenly thought they were about to go home, must hold off a German assault across the Siegfried Line despite the Allied forces being spread too thin.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

I know what you're thinking: "What a follow-up." I may be the only person in the world to have chased The Force Awakens with one of the least popular Star Trek films. Why did I? Mainly because I was donating platelets and had only so many options for viewing on the portable screen.

This is not to say that I'd never have seen it otherwise. Sure, it was the Die Another Die of its franchise, breaking the pattern of esteemed even-numbered entries and precipitating a longer hiatus than usual followed by a reboot. But I didn't feel like I wasted my time watching DAD, and my taste in Trek fare differs from most who watch a lot of it; The Wrath of Khan, for instance, appealed to me less than Insurrection did. (How many brains just popped?) I couldn't help feeling a tad curious.

Continuing with the "Next Generation" crew under Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Nemesis sees them on an unexpected mission to head to previously verboten Romulan Empire space for an announced peace treaty. Given the misadventure in Star Trek VI with the Klingon pact, I don't blame several key crew members for having their doubts. But neither Klingons nor Romulans form the main threat this time; in fact, a young villain named Shinzon (Tom Hardy) hates the Romulans above all, for personal reasons. So why should the Enterprise crew intervene, apart from, y'know, heroism? Because Shinzon has a keen interest in Picard for other personal reasons, which I spoil below.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

I considered skipping this review, because it's quite likely that you've already formed your opinion from multiple other reviews if not the movie itself by now. But it's also quite likely that you'll take more interest in this subject than in my usual fare, so why not? And it's not like I never read what other people say about what I've already seen.

In a way, TFA is inherently sad from the get-go: Only a generation after the end of the Empire, the galaxy faces an equal if not worse threat called the First Order. General Leia (no longer going by "Princess") naturally leads the Resistance, but Luke Skywalker has lain low for so long that many think him a mere legend, Han Solo and Chewbacca have been up to their old smuggling and other shenanigans more than heroism, R2D2 has been inert in Luke's absence, and C3PO is only so useful without R2. Taking more of the spotlight now are Rey, who resembles a young female Luke with a bit more fire; FN-2187, nicknamed Finn, a rookie stormtrooper disenchanted with the First Order's cruelty; BB-8, a diminutive droid carrying an important map; and Poe, a pilot and BB-8's master. The most prominent villain for now is Kylo Ren, an open Darth Vader wannabe who may actually outdo Vader's command of the Force. Where is the Jedi who can hold his or her own against him?

Saturday, December 26, 2015

My Life as a Dog (1985)

Although the Netflix summary mentions only summer, I recalled from what little I had already seen of this movie that it gets snowy -- not a surprise for Sweden. It turns out that we hear the characters preparing for Christmas near the end, so I was not remiss in my timing of this viewing.

Not that the mood is especially upbeat. A slice of life based loosely on the writer's real life, it follows preteen Ingemar during his mother's severe illness and beyond, which he first understands as a nervous breakdown from having to deal with him and his older brother fighting. Each brother is sent away to extended family; their dog Sickan (no pun intended, I presume) is said to go to a kennel, but Ingemar grows increasingly suspicious of her fate. At his most frustrated, he has his own sort of breakdown, exhibiting canine behaviors that explain the title, albeit not for much screen time.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)

Many movies and shows stop streaming on Netflix on January 1. This one stops on December 31 for some reason, so I gave it priority. At least I won't take as long to decide what to watch for the next week or so.

Set in Ireland in the early '20s, the plot moves from one war (of independence) to another (civil) so swiftly that I didn't immediately realize there was more than one. For the first, brothers Damien and Teddy become inclined to fight the British when some Black and Tans kill their friend for little reason. For the second, they are on opposites sides regarding whether to accept the compromise of the peace treaty until a better time to push for more rights. I might as well tell you now: It does not end well for them.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

The Legend of 1900 (1998)

Netflix gives the length of this Italian-made English-language film as 170 minutes, while IMDb gives it as 165 -- until you poke around the latter site and find that the international version runs 123. When I watched, the end credits stopped at 125. That annoyed me, as I'd set it aside for a time that I could afford (and stand) to watch another 45 minutes, but it beats the opposite confusion.

Anyway, the title refers to Danny Boodmann T.D. Lemons 1900 (played in adulthood by Tim Roth), named by an eccentric stoker (Bill Nunn) who found him abandoned in infancy on an ocean liner on January 1, 1900. The stoker decides to raise him right there on the ship, hiding him from authorities for the time being. Even after his de facto godfather's death, 1900, who rarely goes by any other name, opts to stay on board at all times, a boy/man without a country or much else. What he does have in abundance is piano talent, which gets him the attention needed to become a legend. The narrator for most of the movie is a trumpet player, Max (Pruitt Taylor Vince), who knew 1900 for years.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Liza, the Fox-Fairy (2015)

This rivals Son of Saul for the year's most popular Hungarian film. I don't think I ever saw one before. But in light of (heh) its dark comedy status, I might have skipped it at a European Union showcase anyway, if not for a Meetup invitation and my dad's interest.

The setting is a fictional variant of 1970s Budapest, for reasons still not clear to me. On the surface, the story could take place almost anywhere and at any time. Liza (with a long E sound for the I) starts out as a nurse for a Japanese ambassador's widow, both of them fond of the music of dead J-pop singer Tomy Tani. Liza actually sees an ethereal Tomy before her, mistaking him for an imaginary friend while the on-and-off narrator identifies him as a ghost. More importantly, he's a sort of grim reaper, taking the shape of whatever his victim desires. You don't want someone like that to develop a crush on you.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Friendly Persuasion (1956)

William Wyler was an unusual director, in that he made many hits and I've seen nearly half his body of work, yet I can hardly characterize his style. He did mostly drama, with perhaps greater overall emphasis on women than other directors did, but could excel in multiple genres. That explains why I keep forgetting -- completely -- which movies he directed, even after reviewing two of them on this blog.

In this case, I think I was drawn in less by the credit to Wyler and more by the plot summary. Based on a book by Jessamyn West, it details the Birdwells, a family of five Quakers in rural Indiana during the War Between the States. Their faith solidly supports abolitionism but forbids fighting in its name, or even in self-defense. But several factors weaken their convictions during the story, and not just regarding violence. Eliza (Dorothy McGuire), the mother, remains the most devout and thus the most upset by the changes, while father Jess (Gary Cooper) and elder son Josh (early Anthony Perkins) face building pressure to take up arms. Yeah, that's kind of a running theme in Cooper's acting career.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

I was not pleased when Sony announced the release of another Spider-Man origin story only ten years after the last. It's not that focuses on origins always bog down superhero movies -- Batman Begins and Iron Man are among my favorites -- but it sounded utterly unnecessary. If Spider-Man 3 was bad enough to induce a reboot, why not try showing him at a later point in his life, like most of the franchise outside cinema? Nevertheless, when I found this title on the library shelf, I got curious to see what changed.

I hope you don't mind heavy, albeit spoiler-free, comparisons and contrasts to Spider-Man (2002) and, to a lesser extent, Spider-Man 2 (2004). It's a bit hard for me to think about the reboot on its own terms, because the original series is something of a sore spot for me. Despite usually liking popular or even middling adaptations from comic books, and despite liking Spidey at least in concept, these entries utterly failed to take my breath away. No way would I check out the threequel. TAS-M has slightly lower ratings across the usual sites, but I knew that I might well beg to differ.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

The Scarlet Empress (1934)

I had known next to nothing about Catherine the Great, and what I had learned of her was not from school. I couldn't have told you that she lived in the 18th century. I might not even have remembered that she ruled Russia. This alone was enough to justify my viewing, but it's not the only justification.

The film starts in her youth as German Princess Sophia and ends with her becoming the Russian empress. In adulthood, she is played by Marlene Dietrich. The focus lies primarily on her disenchanting arranged marriage to unhinged Grand Duke Peter (Sam Jaffe in his silver screen debut), her mother-in-law Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (Louise Dresser) demanding that she be fully dutiful and bear a son, and her unstable adulterous feelings toward Count Alexei (John Lodge). You may well imagine how the tension builds within the royal family -- and what happens after Elizabeth passes away.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

A Perfect Day (2015)

Now here's something I didn't expect: a movie shot in Spain by a Spanish director and crew, but set in Bosnia and with mostly English dialog. While director Fernando León de Aranoa didn't make anything that I'd heard of before, he must have some overseas pull, because the cast includes Benicio Del Toro and Tim Robbins.

Nor did I expect such a conflict to carry a whole movie: Back in the '90s, a group of volunteers tries to pull a body out of a well. Sounds easy, but in a wartorn mountain nation, it's not easy to find available rope or travel to reach it. Obstacles include poverty, hostility, evidence of mines, and bureaucratic UN workers being frustrating if not worse than useless. And the dead man isn't a minor issue; he could start an epidemic if not extracted in time, which was probably the intent of whoever dropped him in.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (2009)

Yes, that Ben Carson. I hadn't heard of him before he entered the presidential race, but his past as a neurosurgeon is worth knowing. Since this TV movie predates his political career, I could count on it not to carry a political bias one way or another.

The biopic looks back as far as 1961, when Ben was in fourth grade -- and bombing at it, until his mother (Kimberly Elise) put his nose to the grindstone. We then see segments with him in eighth grade, when he had a violent attitude problem; and at Yale, where he started feeling like an underachiever all over again. About half the 90 minutes show him in adulthood, played by Cuba Gooding, Jr. He still faces tough challenges at that point, but they tend to be rarer, such as the need to perform a hemispherectomy. And his 1987 crowning medical achievement, previewed at the start: the first-ever separation of babies joined at the cranium with both surviving. (He had a large team, but he thought up the approach and directed their actions.)