Hoodwinked

voices of many many people you know and love. The Weinstein Company and Kanbar Entertainment. 2005.

Several things I like about this film, and one of them is that it's from a company you've never really heard of, and yet it got some attention close to the same level as the HUGE production company mega-pics. So that's interesting.

Thematically: basically this is your sassy-talkinganimal type feature, with the inevitable "twist on the old fable" motif.

However, what's very exciting from a literary aspect is that it uses the uncommon theme of telling the same story over and over again from different points of view, i.e. each character involved. This element actually could have been done with much more effect, such as pushing the envelope to show a vastly different interpretation of the same events, to reveal the inner workings of the minds of each character, but hey, since we're talking about talking animals here, I'm satisfied with what we got, which is, that each story told from the different slant pretty much simply fills in details that the other versions don't have.

Toward the end the entire things decays into a mad-scientist theme - standard fare, but hey, by this time, I thought Granny was so cool that I could stand to watch her Jiu-Jistu whuppin' on the bad guys, no prob.

And of course we have the obligatory SPAZZ ANIMAL, herein named "Twitch" (appropriately enough!) who talks a million miles a minute and of course is the one character that all the kids want to emulate!!!


VG

Cursed

Christina Ricci. Wes Craven, dir. Dimension Films.

Excellently written and wonderfully executed - this movie had precisely the right balance of humour and scare tactics. Granted, this generation of horror movies absolutely does not take itself seriously, and most rely on satirizing old horror movie styles rather than coming up with something truly fightening and new, but this film does more than just that - it actually has some decent social commentary.

12-15-06
I feel terrible, b'c I left this review standing for 7 months, this has been in draft form since May and I really should have finished it and published it. One of my problems is completion . . . and focus.

But, suffice it to say, and kudos to this film, is that I still remember a vast majority of it, even after all this time. Usually the movies I watch simply sift into a batch of incoherent images, one scene sliding into another and characters being intertwined. But Cursed still stands very nicely.

Good scenes: Ricci's character's brother on the front porch, confronting the school bully who has come to terms with his own homosexuality. The brother is trying to come to terms with his werewolfism, and the exchange that they have regarding the disparate, but similar, issues is one of the best dialogues I've heard in teenage-centered cinema.

Also, the climactic scene of the movie, the face-off with the "primary" werewolf, was a pleasant surprise and continued the humour without shedding the sense of real danger.

Now, if I can just get my other drafts completed.

Wish me luck, friends and companions!

VG

Avalon

Malgorzata Foremniak. Mamoru Oshii, dir. 2001.

This is the director who make Ghost in the Shell, and whereas the theme of that movie is "what does it mean to be human?" the theme of this one is, "what is reality?"

Pretty heady stuff. Basically, this movie is a fantastic collection of photographic stills. You have your basic "bleak" future world, where people escape into this addictive VR game and sometimes wind up blowing their minds out - to become gibbering vegetables. So, rock cocaine for the video game junkie, OK, got it.

Like I said: visually, this movie is stunning. I don't care much for the writing, as it seems that some scenes could easily be avoided. For example, why have a flashback to the opening sequence when we're just 20 minutes into the movie? I can't have nostalgia that early, sorry. Give me at least an hour of film time and then I'll wax nostalgic about the previous time.

Of course, there will be Matrix references: those would be unavoidable. Personally, this movie reminded me of "Jacob's Ladder" and Alex Cox's "Death and the Compass" - it had that kind of hallucinogenic world view, as though all of life were some lugubrious somewhat-bad dream.

However, when Ash finally makes it to the final level of the game - I must admit THAT blew me away. And I'm going to be spoiler here so you might want to avert your eyes if you want to see the movie and experience it the way it's meant to be:

the explosion of colour. Sepia and chiaroscuro swiftly drains away as her face opens the door on a bright fresh world full of colour and people and light and smiles. Gone are the huddled figures standing solitary on lonely trains; here now are vibrant streets with buses and couples holding hands and laughing and talking in animated conversations.

At this point, the movie could even become an allegory about the difference between Soviet Bloc nations and the more vibrant and lively Western Europe. In fact, I did rather have a question as to why this Japanese director chose a Polish cast. Perhaps this was Oshii's real point, rather than simply "what is real?" but to create the contast between the dismal communist empire and now, when the former bloc nations are inundated with Western culture and tourism. Who knows? It would probably take a true film critic to sort that out.

But all in all, a satisfying movie, even with some points hammered home. And again: the cinematography FAR overshadows the writing. Heck, I'd rather see a collection of stills from the film rather than read the screenplay.

And that's saying something!

VG

Urban Legends: Final Cut

Columbia Pictures, 2000.

The main character looks like Julia Stiles, and I actually thought it was throughout most of the movie.

Just thought I'd say that.

Anyway, this is pretty much your standard horror film of these days, in that it relies a lot on spoofing of the genre, it's imbued with more humour than a horror film really SHOULD have, and a paper thin plot about who this serial killer really is.

"Final Cut" refers, obviously, to the fact that these people are film students, so there are a lot of gratuitous references to directors (namely Hitchcock and Truffaut), that, made early on, make one think that perhaps this film might have something more in store, such as an homage, or perhaps be a standard horror flick that actually takes on the storytelling techniques of, say, Hitchcock . . . like the "wrongly accused person" or a study in paranoia, as one film professor states.

But, alas, no. Never happens. Just some comedic references, such as a security guard who loves Pam Greer films, and the comedic-relief duo of prop designers whose Lord is Lucas . . . that's about as far as characterisation goes.

What I gleaned from the Hitchcock references is that the screenwriters WISHED that they were writing a screenplay of that calibre . . . instand of this standard pop fare.

Oh well. I suppose they make a living.


VG

Enemy of the State

Will Smith, Gene Hackman. Tony Scott, director. Touchstone Pictures, 1998.

Actually, I'm surprised by the year (1998) - I would have thought that this movie was daring, in bringing out such a "government-questioning" flick in this post-911 world (in which we are not supposed to question government's motives regarding anything labelled as "anti-terrorist" !!) but then, I suppose I'll just consider the movie prophetic.

This movie is one of the most fantastic flicks I've seen, and well-deserving of all those heaps of excessive praise that are always plastered over the DVD box. WEll-written, well-acted, well-edited. This is indeed a story well-told.

Basic plot: Smith gets involved in a small government official's murder of a big kahuna, and then is hunted by the best covert ops that the USA gots! Best aspect to the movie has to be the geeks who follow Smith throughout the city. They lend a sense of humour to the action, and sometimes you actually find yourself rooting for them, just because they're so . . . cool!

Other than that, there's really not much to tell (which is unusual for me, I know) but suffice it to say that, simply put - you MUST see this film. I'd even suggest it as a film for several close friends, getting some popcorn and just killing an evening watching this thing.

Enemy of the State is near-perfect storytelling. Full stop.

VG

Memoirs of a Geisha

The film relies heavily on the cinemetography as much as the dialogue in order to continue the plot, and there are some really good "film" moments in this. Not as self-absorbed as I thought it would be, but it still has that "grand scale" feel like Empire of the Sun or something of the same line that makes it more grandiose than comfortable. To me, it feels slightly overdone.

Of the good moments that I was talking about - the way in which the owner of the "house" checked the geisha to see if she had been with a man. Without words, the scene conveyed a more complete sense of how their bodies truly were not their own, but instead were the property of someone else.

Another memorable scene: the way in which the geisha caught the interest of the ex-military man who preferred sports to women. Demonstrating the true nature of what it means to be "geisha" - that is, to use conversation to entrance, she adeptly countered his argument and mixed both sports and dance metaphor, thus to build a bridge between what he liked and what he thought he did not like. In this short scene, she entrances him by letting him know that she can speak his "language" as well as her own.

And although I shouldn't have been I was suprised to find out that the action was taking place during WWII, and the moment that the war invaded their lives was when the planes suddenly flew overhead - the world turns upside down and the way of the geisha (in this sense - a metaphor for Japanese culture) is suddenly gone. What was truly intriguing about this scene is that we get a sense that the moneyed elite (males) in this town had been part of the Japanese war machine, as they make reference to their factory, and although not stated specifically, it most likely (to provide that amount of wealth in that time) probably had built armaments.

Very good movie. As a sidenote my wife has just finished the book and claims without shame that the movie was far better than the book, which apparently is dull, lifeless, plodding, and nothing more than completely boring.

Dang. Think I'll stick with the film.


VG