Archive
LUST CAUTION – Alexandre Desplat
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
There’s been quite a bit of controversy surrounding Lust Caution, the latest film from director Ang Lee. The winner of the prestigious Golden Lion at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival, the film tells the story of the dangerous, passionate relationship between a young woman named Wang Jiazhi (played by Wei Tang), and a shadowy political named Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), who may or may not be involved in espionage for the Chinese government in 1940s Shanghai. The controversy of the film lies not in its politics, but in its raw and realistic depiction of the sexual relationship between Wang and Yee – the MPAA slapped an NC-17 rating on the film following rumors that their lovemaking scenes were NOT simulated. Never afraid to shy away from difficult subject matters – as Brokeback Mountain attested – Ang Lee seems to be molding himself into a modern day version of Nagisa Oshima, whose equally controversial film In the Realm of the Senses polarized cinema-goers in 1976. Read more…
THE KINGDOM – Danny Elfman
Original Review by Clark Douglas
Peter Berg’s “The Kingdom” is a strange animal. It’s not really much of a thriller, or an educational film about another culture, or a slice-of-life movie, or a political sermon… and yet, there’s plenty of action, explosions, foreign locations, and sermonizing. The movie doesn’t quite work on any level, and yet it’s difficult to pinpoint where exactly everything went wrong. The movie fails by not succeeding, rather than by any major slip made along to road.
Danny Elfman’s score is unfortunately as underwhelming as the film itself, and also fails simply by not succeeding. Elfman manages to avoid all the usual clichés of middle-eastern scores… wailing women, duduks, and so on… but the generic thriller music he provides has very little of Elfman’s own voice Read more…
THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD – Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The notorious American outlaw Jesse James was a living legend by the time he was 30, famous for his exploits as a civil war hero, and later as a train robber and a bank robber. James, while still on the run from the law, was killed by Robert Ford, a member of his own gang, at the age of 34 in 1882, thereby cementing his place in the folk history of the American west. James’s life, and death, is examined in director Andrew Dominik’s dark, contemplative film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which stars Brad Pitt as James, Casey Affleck as Ford, and has a sterling supporting cast comprising the likes of Mary-Louise Parker, Sam Shepard and Zooey Deschanel. Read more…
INTO THE WILD – Michael Brook and Eddie Vedder
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
An acclaimed drama directed by Sean Penn, and based on a true story, Into the Wild charts the life of Christopher McCandless, a privileged upper-middle-class American kid from a wealthy family who, despite graduating from University as a top student and a gifted athlete, abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness – and in the process became the poster child for anti-establishment anti-materialists across the world. Penn’s film stars Emile Hirsch as McCandless, Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt as his parents, and Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn and Hal Holbrook in supporting roles. Read more…
THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB – Aaron Zigman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Ah, Jane Austen. She of the manners and etiquette, the unrequited love, the stoic heroes, the flighty maidens, the English countryside. Love her or loathe her, the work of popular English novelist has become a part of the modern literary – and cinematic – language through the popularity of titles like Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, and Emma. Robin Swicord’s film The Jane Austen Book Club, based on the novel by Karen Joy Fowler, tells the story of six romantic misfits who come together to read and discuss one Austen novel per month ion the hope that it will bring some sparkle back into their lives, only to find that their relationships – both old and new – begin to resemble 21st century versions of her novels. Read more…
RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION – Charlie Clouser
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
After three movies, the Resident Evil franchise is still – amazingly – still going strong, with Milla Jovovich still kicking mutant ass as freedom fighter Alice, who has made her way to what remains of Las Vegas and trying to stay alive and stay out of the way of the evil creatures that now roam the earth, following the catastrophes of the first two films. Extinction is directed by veteran Russell Mulcahy, and also stars Oded Fehr, Ali Larter and Iain Glen.
After efforts by Marco Beltrami, Marilyn Manson and Jeff Danna, this movie features a score by the inexplicably popular Charlie Clouser, hot of his success on the similarly-grotesque Saw franchise. True to his roots as a former member of the metal rock band Nine Inch Nails, the score is entirely synthesized, performed by Clouser himself and his former band mate, guitarist Danny Lohner Read more…
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE – Elliot Goldenthal
Original Review by Clark Douglas
Full disclosure: I love The Beatles. Also, I love Julie Taymor (if my wife or Elliot Goldenthal are reading, I only love her in the artistic sense). So, when I heard about Julie Taymor (“Titus”, “Frida”) was directing a musical centered around songs of The Beatles (Greatest Band Ever), I was pretty thrilled. Of course, as a big Beatles fan, I approached the film with a certain amount of caution, too: though I was likely to enjoy the movie more than the average person, I was also more likely to be disappointed by the songs if they turned out to be bad covers of the tunes I loved. Beatles musicals of the past (most of which starred The Beatles) were giddy, silly, joyful affairs full of campy comedy and terrific music… unless you count “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, which was bad comedy and terrible music. Taymor’s approach to creating a musical centered around the songs is considerably different. She attempts to make her film intensely dramatic, and in doing so puts her attention a bit more on the later, more ambitious (and more drug-fueled) Beatles songs. The approach works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s certainly a very compelling idea. Read more…
THE BRAVE ONE – Dario Marianelli
Original Review by Clark Douglas
While I was quite bothered by the way audiences responded to Neil Jordan’s thoughtful thriller “The Brave One”, it didn’t keep me from admiring the film for a number of reasons. It’s a well-crafted film with several three-dimensional characters and a story that doesn’t allow reality to slip away during the difficult moments. Jodie Foster turns in one of her best “victimized woman” performances, and Terence Howard adds some very solid support as the police officer who befriends/investigates her. The film is essentially a much more thoughtful take on “Death Wish”, a revenge thriller in which the heroine actually has to deal with the moral murkiness of her actions. Read more…
DRAGON WARS (D-WAR) – Steve Jablonsky
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A very silly Korean monster movie directed by Hyung-Rae Shim, Dragon Wars (or D-War as it is alternately known) stars Jason Behr, Amanda Brooks and Robert Forster, and is based on an old Korean legend about mythological creatures called Imoogi, who every 500 years or so emerge from their hiding places, transform into enormous dragons, and do battle over the ownership of a mystical power source. Caught up in the middle of this ancient conflict is Ethan (Behr), a Los Angeles-based photojournalist who in a past life was a noble warrior in feudal Korea, and Sarah (Brooks), who is the reincarnation of the warrior’s love, and who (inexplicably) is the also guardian of the power source the dragons desire. Read more…
EASTERN PROMISES – Howard Shore
Original Review by Clark Douglas
In the humble opinion of yours truly, David Cronenberg is one of the most interesting directors working in cinema today. His films are frequently daring and creative, unafraid to crawl into the dark corners of the soul that are usually left ignored. By Cronenberg’s standards, “Eastern Promises” is a more accessible, less peculiar movie, but that doesn’t mean it’s of any less value than something like “Naked Lunch”. “Eastern Promises” is a superb thriller and an even better character study, featuring award-worthy performances from Viggo Mortenson and Armin Mueller-Stahl. Read more…
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH – Mark Isham
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Paul Haggis has grown increasingly bold as a filmmaker, but somehow less controversial with critics. The Haggis screenplay for “Million Dollar Baby” was terrific, and he collaborated with director Clint Eastwood to make the best film of 2004. In 2005, Haggis made another big impression with “Crash”, which certainly did some emotional button-pushing but was nonetheless a superb film. After the heavy-handed symbolism of the Haggis screenplay for “The Last Kiss” comes the even more heavy-handed “In the Valley of Elah”, which Haggis wrote and directed. The film benefits hugely from a superb Tommy Lee Jones performance before slipping into almost mind-bogglingly shameless emotional manipulation in the final act. Haggis was never a subtle artist, but I feel that he’s simply gone too far lately, and needs to restrain himself a little bit. Read more…
SILK – Ryuichi Sakamoto
Original Review by Clark Douglas
No less than nine years after winning acclaim for “The Red Violin”, director Francois Girard has finally returned to the world of cinema. His latest effort is “Silk”, based on the much-lauded book of the same name by Alessandro Barrico. The main character of the story is Herve Joncour (Michael Pitt), a French silkworm merchant traveling through Japan with his wife (Keira Knightly). While in Japan, the merchant falls in love with the mistress (Sei Ashina) of a fearsome Japanese overlord (Koji Yakusho). Of course, suspicions begin to arise on both sides and unsuspected plot elements begin to unfold. It’s a rather promising set-up, but most critics were quite underwhelmed by the story, saying it lacked passion and coherent plotting. Also, the lead performance of Michael Pitt was savaged by most, as many felt he lacked the emotional skills required to play such a role. Read more…
3:10 TO YUMA – Marco Beltrami
Original Review by Clark Douglas
There haven’t been many western films in the past couple of decades, something that many fans of cinema (including myself) have bemoaned. The few westerns that have appeared, good as they may be, seem to be carrying a lot of weight on their shoulders… they have the pressure of “reviving the cinematic western” hanging over them. With “3:10 to Yuma”, we are given an extraordinarily rare sort of western film… one that doesn’t seem to realize that the western is dead. It’s a lively, sad, rousing, funny motion picture that provides intelligent, but unpretentious entertainment from start to finish. Read more…
THE BROTHERS SOLOMON – John Swihart
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
An oddball movie starring Saturday Night Live veterans Will Arnett and Will Forte, The Brothers Solomon was a film about getting pregnant – or, more specifically, the Solomon brothers getting someone else pregnant. The Wills star as John and Dean Solomon, a pair of well-meaning, but socially inept brothers who, in order to provide their dying father (Lee Majors) with a grandchild, embark on a quest to find their perfect mates – two women who will, as the movie’s tagline suggests, be amenable to the brothers “putting a baby in them”.
This peculiar, slightly sinister-sounding movie was scored by up-and-coming comedy composer John Swihart, whose career has been in the ascendancy since he wrote the music for the cult hit Napoleon Dynamite in 2004 Read more…
THE HUNTING PARTY – Rolfe Kent
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The aftermath of the war in Bosnia still lingers, twelve years after the conflict officially ended. People there still remember the atrocities committed by the combatants, and some of the individuals who took part in them are still at large. This difficult political situation is the jumping off point of director Richard Shepard’s action/drama/thriller The Hunting Party, which stars Jesse Eisenberg, Terrence Howard and Richard Gere as a trio of journalists who, without the knowledge of the US government, embark on an unauthorized mission to Bosnia to find The Fox (Ljubomir Kerekeš), a notorious war criminal who remains free somewhere in the former Yugoslavia. However, once in the Balkans, the group finds itself in danger when they are mistaken for a CIA hit squad, and The Fox decides to wipe them out before they can find him. Read more…
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