Devdas
REVIEWED 09/02, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Holy cripes. Bursting off the screen in a wild torrent of vibrant colour, this fairly lengthy melodramatic epic grabs you by the collar and yanks you willingly through a Shakespearean-like kaliedoscope of mesmirizing emotion.

It's the 1920's, and Devdas Mukherjee (brilliantly portrayed by Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan) has returned to India a London-schooled lawyer and fully grown man. Well, physically anyways. He's still arrogantly incapable of fully appreciating the depth at which Parvati, his childhood sweetheart transformed in to the absolutely gorgeous actor Aishwarya Rai, has galvanized her timeless passion for him during his ten-year absence. So, when a pernicious relative easily poisons his society-conscious parents against their marriage plans, Devdas is irreconcilably wounded and is eventually pushed to the brink of self-destructive madness. Turning to alcoholism, and stumbling in to the unrequited arms of the incredibly beautiful and head-strong courtisan Chandramukhi (Madhuri Dixit). Every hopeless fool should be so lucky, the silly git.

Frankly, I was blown away by this three-hour movie. Sure, aside from the occasional period prop, it tended to forget what era it was presenting. A few of the supporting players are gushingly over-emoted for the camera, as well. And, I'm pretty sure that the poignancy of some of the dialogue and lyrics (yeah, people explode into heavily choreographed singing half a dozen times) was lost in it's subtitled translation from Hindi to English. However, the powerful acting and grandios cinematography throughout seamlessly transcends all of these minor glitches. What you see on the screen as these doomed characters repeatedly fling themselves from the heights of intoxicating joy to the abyss of gut-wrenching agony is truly astounding and riveting, and is as thoroughly satisfying as any of this flick's Western dramatic counterparts. Wow.

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Die Another Day
REVIEWED 11/02, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Rising from the ashes of a rigorously destructive failed mission in North Korea that had left him half-alive and stripped of his license to kill, James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) uses his long-standing connections and wiley experience to make himself useful to British Intelligence once again by hunting down Tan Ling Zao (Rick Yune), a scarred and ruthless Asian henchman who can lead him to meting out vengeful justice against the unknown traitor who blew his cover fourteen torturous months earlier.

Bond's blood oath quest leads him from Hong Kong to Havana, with little more than a forged passport and a tailored tuxedo, where he initially encounters the sexy, Lara Croft-like NSA agent Giacinta 'Jinx' Jordon (Halle Berry) while tracking Zao to an offshore clinic that secretly specializes in DNA replacement therapy (the 21st Century's version of plastic surgery, I guess). Left bald and blue-eyed from already making it halfway through his futuristic metamorphosis, 007's feroceous prey barely escapes capture but leaves behind a vital clue: Perfectly cut diamonds etched with the jeweller's mark of an Icelandic mine owned by billionaire playboy and media savvy philanthropist Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens). Strange thing is, these precious gems' genetic structure exactly match that of contraban war diamonds the MI6 assassin had previously intercepted near the DMZ - piquing our favourite gentleman spy's interest in confronting Graves with sharp determination. Duelling him with medieval swords in the heart of London, and deftly stabbing into his megalomaniacal secret hidden within the bowels of an insect-like ice palace. Eventually flushing out his two-faced betrayer, while quickly finding that he has a battle-worthy ally in Jinx.

Well, what can I say? This fantastic nineteenth offering (twentieth, if you include the 'Thunderball' remake 'Never Say Never Again', and twenty-first if you want to add the embarassing farce 'Casino Royale') from the world's oldest and most-copied cinematic franchise cocks and hammers the competition into oblivion. Here, the one true king of this genre has returned, vanquishing all of his pretenders. This is a grittier, more complete James Bond, that we haven't seen since the days of Sean Connery. Tough as nails, and satiny smooth. Along with some incredible gob-smacking action sequences, and it's decidely breakneck look and pacing, this 40th anniversary celebration is also a playfully wry delight for trivia fans. His updated silver Astin Martin. The bygone props in Q's (John Cleese) menagerie of weapons. Jinx's Honey Ryder-like emergence from the sea. The birdwatcher's book, authored by the real guy who's name Ian Fleming's original kiss-kiss bang-bang novels made legendary. Sure, love it or hate it, this unabashedly innuendo-drenched and gadget-bloated plot-driven adventure is exactly what everyone expects, with a couple of familiar twists and a few story surprises woven in. I thoroughly enjoyed it as being one of the absolute best from these entertainingly lexiconic sequels the Broccoli empire has dispatched worldwide since the 1962 theatrical release of 'Dr. No'.

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Daredevil
REVIEWED 02/03, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Well, this is definitely an unabashed superhero movie. Based on arguably the last of Marvel Comics' worthwhile death-defying do-gooders in tights. Originally created by Stan Lee and Golden Age great William Blake Everett (related to literary crazy man William Blake, and more notably the creator of one of comics' first anti-heroes: 'Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner' in 1939). First hitting drugstore stands as a horned yellow and brown-clad crime fighter (changed to his more recognizable red costume for Issue Seven, by Wally Wood - another industry legend) in his own bi-monthly series in 1964, this altruistic lawyer by day/tenacious vigilante by night is probably the most human of the bunch. Daredevil doesn't have any cliché other worldly or super-strength powers. He metes out Batman-like vengeful justice on criminals who slip through the court system, aided only by his acrobatic fighting skills, as well as his extraordinarily heightened sense of touch and hearing. See, initially inspired by his young daughter's clinical diagnosis, Everett made Matt Murdock (aka Daredevil) blind. Having this bookish boy lose his sight through a freak accident at the age of twelve, while saving an elderly stranger from being hit by a truck carrying radioactive material through his New York City neighbourhood known as Hell's Kitchen. He also grew up on the streets. Losing his single parent father, prizefighter Jack 'The Devil' Murdock, soon after Matt's tragic accident, to thugs hired to off Jack for not throwing a crookedly run boxing match. This guy has faced a lot of hardship and pain, but instead of becoming a victim, he goes so far as to adopt the nickname his childhood bullies taunted him with for promising his beloved Dad to avoid schoolyard trouble while getting straight A's, as his alter ego's moniker: Daredevil. The man without fear.

History is slightly revised in this big screen version. A dockside toxic waste spill replaces the street side radioactive accident, for instance. However, grown up Matt (Ben Affleck) is still the personably edgy partner at Murdock and Nelson, a smalltime law firm in Hell's Kitchen that barely makes ends meet arguing cases for those who can't afford pricey legal representation. Donning his intimidating red leather outfit and ghoulish cowl by nightfall, relentlessly delivering his decidedly Old Testament (read 'An eye for an eye') brand of punishment upon the scourge of the city. In his own words, he's "A Guardian Devil", finding momentary sanctuary from the outside cacophony in a high-tech isolation tank, and tenuous solace within the pillared halls of the local church run by Father Everett. Soon after being dumped by his fed up girlfriend Heather - a character borrowed from the comic book, but never seen here - Elektra Natchios (Jennifer Garner), daughter of disgruntled Billionaire associate with the powerful Fisk corporate (and underworld) empire, unexpectedly enters his life. Mutual intrigue quickly turns to love between Murdock and Elektra, after a rather silly and heavily choreographed fistfight flirtation, but almost as quickly unravels into mortal rivalry when Daredevil is implicated in the brutal murder of Elektra's father by Bullseye (Colin Farrell), a sociopathic killer hired by Wilson 'Kingpin' Fisk (Michael Clarke Duncan). A rivalry that inevitably destroys all concerned.

So, if you weren't familiar with this comic book character, you now know his history. I've also just given you a brief synopsis of 'Daredevil', the movie. All that's left is to tell you not to bother with this disappointing stinker. Sure, Frank Miller's and Ann Nocenti's versions of Daredevil were a steady mainstay of thought-provoking enjoyment for me when I was younger, but I'm hardly a purist. The originally Caucasian Sumo Wrestler-like Kingpin being somewhat unceremoniously retooled into a muscular yet pot-bellied African-American CEO doesn't bother me. Just as Matt's relationship with his associate 'Foggy' Nelson isn't really fleshed out, the extent of Fisk's criminal malevolence isn't pursued at all, however. Weakening an already undeservedly pedantic script from the outset. Ironically, it's because this hero and his life are presented much like every other comic book icon being tarted up and trotted out for Hollywood these days that this flick is such an embarrassing disaster. After almost seven years and several tries by various parties to get this feature made, and considering the wealth of cameos by some of it's series' writers (such as Lee, Miller, and Kevin Smith [as city morgue worker Jack Kirby]), you'd expect someone to realize that the captivating aspect of the Daredevil story isn't that he can 'see' by sound and does high velocity backflip kicks in a blood red suit, but that he's a continuously tortured soul battling against a host of internal and external demons. A good man, who constantly finds himself having to fight evil with evil for the sake of what is morally right. In both arenas of his double life. As it is, this crew merely attempts to transplant the box office success of last year's Spidey picture in a slightly darker vein, forgetting that Murdock isn't Peter Parker, and ignoring that a paying audience needs more than a bunch of lazily shot rehashed martial arts tricks edited with a load of vacuously caricaturistic emoting to keep them interested. Truly a shame, that.

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Dreamcatcher
REVIEWED 06/03, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Do you remember what you were doing, an hour or so before you planned to see the latest big screen release from Hollywood? How about as recently as 1999? What if the movie was 'The General's Daughter', starring John Travolta? Would you remember? Well, if you're famed horror writer Stephen King, who's first published novel 'Carrie' was adapted into the twice Oscar-nominated gorefest featuring Travolta's 1976 debut performance in an American movie, you were laying beside a gravel road in Maine. Your right hip and knee and lower leg were shattered. Your spine had been chipped in eight places. Four of your ribs were broken, and you had a gash in your head requiring at least twenty stitches. And, your glasses were where they had been thrown: Bent and bloodied, sitting on the front seat of the light blue Dodge van that had hit you dead-on. King (who's middle name is Edwin) was taking his usual four-mile walk near his wooded home after a small family reunion, when the van he would later purchase for $1500 cash from its owner, Bryan Edwin Smith, slammed into him. Smith was given a year's suspension of his driver's license by the court, and was found dead from undetermined causes (probably an overdose of anti-depressants) in his trailer home a few months after the trial. In his own words, from his book 'On Writing', King wrote, "On 24 July, five weeks after Bryan Smith hit me with his Dodge van, I began to write again." The manuscript he worked on - an hour at a time, due to extreme discomfort - while recuperating at home was 'Dreamcatcher'.

Six months after mysteriously walking into the middle of busy traffic and being hit by a car, Harvard University Professor Gary 'Jonesy' Jones (Damian Lewis) is reunited with his boyhood buddies at their annual Winter cottage retreat. There's a special bond between these four men, which goes back twenty years. To the day they rescued a frail boy with Downs Syndrome named Douglas 'Duddits' Cavell (Donnie Wahlberg) from three bullies behind the old deserted Tracker Brothers Warehouse in their hometown of Derry, Maine, and their lives were changed forever. See, Duddits (as he calls himself) was a gifted child. Possessing astounding paranormal abilities, and the knowledge of a terrible future for Mankind at the hands of Mister Gray. So, the boy gave Jonesy, Henry (Thomas Lane), Jim (Jason Lee) and Pete (Timothy Olyphant) psychic powers to help him save the world when the time came. Guess what? Two decades later, that time has come. Enter Col. Abraham Curtis (Morgan Freeman), the pathologically crusty commander of Project Blueboy. Just as Ojibwe women have traditionally crafted willow and woven fibre dreamcatchers for Centuries on behalf of the animal spirit Asibikaashi (the spider woman) to protect their clans people from evil dreams, this covert squad of military men have spent the past twenty-five years protecting the world from extra-terrestrial invaders and the reddish fungus (nicknamed 'Ripley') that infests anyone it touches. Curtis doesn't know about the malevolent and newly arrived Mister Gray, but Jonesy will. He's about to meet him, and the bloodthirsty shark-like worm that's surreptitiously found it's way into his cosy secluded cabin in the woods.

What a clumsy disappointment, and an incredibly stupid ending. No, not my review. This movie. It's badly edited, full of really dumb scenes, and is just plain goofy. In a bad way. You're given this labyrinthine storehouse of memories locked inside Jonesy's head that probably makes a lot more sense when read about in a book, but fails to have any useful function on the screen - except to confuse the audience. You've got these nasty beasties that pop out of their hosts' bums, hacking and slashing with razor-sharp talons and multiple rows of teeth, without any explanation for why they exist. And then, there's the climactic alien battle that pretty well rivals 'Signs' in the Crappy Cheeseball Effects category. All I can say is King should return the dollar he sold the film rights to this one for, chalk it up to too many painkillers, and get well soon. Pure junk.

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Down With Love
REVIEWED 05/03, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Not so cunning linguists half-cocked. When Maine keystroker Barbara Novak (Renée Zellweger) ecstatically rides the sudden penetrating thrust that her perky pink book spreads to titillated readers everywhere, Pulitzer Prize-winning Men's magazine reporter and hardcore womanizer Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) rises to the challenge by working his impressive organ long and fast to repeatedly poke at and nip her passionate 'sex without love' cries firmly in the blossoming bud. His dirty debriefing tricks include slipping in a private dick behind her arching back, while this top down lady-killer gets a nibble stripping and contorting himself to become Novak's perfect fit from the bottom up. Kept abreast of Block's full frontal probing is his flaccid little buddy and head editor Peter MacMannus (David Hyde Pierce). Peter throbs for Vikki, while Vikki (Sarah Paulson) - Barbara's smoking literati - casually toys with Peter and continues tickling her girl's delicious success from the loins of Manhattan to the bosom of Naples. However, things get rather sticky as Block stops feeling himself as a premature climax of his stiff exploratory pushing deeper into this blonde's tender underbelly...

Rife with droll double entendre revived by the Austin Powers movies, this irreverent spoof of 1950-60's tongue in cheek farces made famous by Doris Day and Rock Hudson in the US, and the Carry On Gang in the UK, has it's moments, but quickly gets tiring and boring after the first few belaboured jokes. Sure, this romantic comedy is bright and bouncy and full of saucy banter intended to keep the audience amused, however it's all been done before by much better actors and more talented writers bypassing strict morality guidelines over forty years ago. And, apart from the incredibly stupid plot twist at the end, that's the main problem with this flick. It's dated and hokey. Zellweger and McGregor are pure hamburger, basically ignoring their campy mentors' lessons and oafishly laughing at their own locker room one-liners instead of playing it straight. Hyde Pierce comes close to emulating the part mastered by the likes of Tony Randall - probably because Randall is there, in a totally miscast role as the crotchety boss of Banner House Publishing - but it's not enough to keep this turkey in the air. Frankly, if you like this sort of stuff, you'd still be far better off getting your money's worth renting 'Pillow Talk' (1959) or pretty well anything featuring Syd James. This one's just embarrassing.

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The Dancer Upstairs
REVIEWED 05/03, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Macabre snoozer misses beat. In this adaptation of the same-entitled book's author Nicholas Shakespeare's screenplay, former law firm junior partner turned police investigator Agustin Rejas (Javier Bardem) meticulously lopes along on a slothful manhunt for the enigmatic leader of a Shining Path-like guerilla revolution that is gripping his unnamed Latin American country. Purely by accident, Rejas met this shadowy puppet master of seven year-old suicide bombers and Uzi-toting schoolgirls five years earlier. Unknowingly taking the only reliable photograph of Ezequiel Durán (Abel Folk) - an ex-University philosophy teacher and the self-professed 'Fourth Flame of Communism' - that would later be used on daunting blood-red posters during the final days of this murderous People's Revolt. Just as slowly, Agustin's romantic attentions begin to shift from his vacuously self-obsessed wife to Yolanda (Laura Morante), his prepubescent daughter's fatalistically captivating dance instructor, who desperately hides a foreboding secret.

I can see what actor John Malkovitch, in his directorial debut, was trying to do with this annoyingly internalized and esoteric drama. The problem is, so much of what you're given is contrived or inaccessible or clumsily presented that it's difficult to stick with the snail's paces plot. Sure, Bardem's natural screen presence and enthusiastic performance are the best parts throughout, but because you're never really pulled in to the big picture of what's going on around him, his character's actions feel almost wooden and distant for the most part. As though he's ambiguous about the horrific violence that's thundering through the poverty-stricken streets. I realize that Malkovitch didn't want to follow the usual Hollywood template of having his star cop become self-destructively obsessed by his prey, but he's let the pendulum swing too far the other way, having the guy passively washing dinner plates and internalizing almost every scene while dead dogs hang from lamp posts and fireworks continuously burst messages of doom outside his kitchen window. It's passionless. Otherwise, this would've been a far more interesting movie. As it stands, 'The Dancer Upstairs' is a disappointing art film that unfortunately never truly hits its stride.

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Le Divorce
REVIEWED 08/03, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Isabel Walker (Kate Hudson) moves to Paris and becomes the American mistress of her much older French Uncle-in-law, Edgar de Persand (Thierry Lhermitte). This doesn't seem to be a problem for her at first, but as the sudden break-up of her ex-patriot Poetess sister Roxeanne's (Naomi Watts) marriage to philandering artist hubby Charles-Henri (Melvil Poupaud) becomes progressively destructive and embarrassing in the mind of the meddlesome de Persand matriarch, young Isabel slowly realizes that she's merely another notch on the bedpost and in the midst of a silly Springtime fling. One that's habitually bookended with an expensive red leather purse gift at the beginning, and a luxurious silk scarf parting thank you a few short months later. At the same time, just as all eyes turn to the highly appraised value of the Walker family's 17th Century painting of St. Ursula - the Patron Saint of Schoolgirls - that's kept in increasingly pregnant and upset single Mom Roxy's modest Parisian home, and both families meet under the conspiring machinations of Charles-Henri's mother, the wildly jealous US husband (Matthew Modine as Tellman) of Roxeanne's ex's flaky Russian lover suddenly appears out of nowhere. Desperate to have it out with the elder Walker sister, at a cozy bookshop poetry reading organized for her by famed writer abroad and Isabel's wily temporary employer Olivia Pace (Glenn Close), and at a quaint little baby boutique that Roxy just happens to wander in to. Until a crazy-eyed crime of passion leaves Isabel staring down the barrel of a smoking gun...

Well, this aggravatingly meandering light comedy does have it's moments throughout, but it really did feel as though I was sitting through almost two hours of an unfinished screenplay taken verbatim from author Diane Johnson's novel of the same title. Most of the characters are fairly one-dimensional, with little more than the actors' screen presence used here to carry the gnarled mass of somewhat vacuous intermeshing storylines to the end credits. To that end, this is really a Glenn Close flick, considering her supporting character role is far more interesting and maturely captivating than anything offered by the main cast. The primary problem with this movie is that the audience isn't given an actual main story to follow along with, and is instead lazily lead through several equally established subplot-like tales without knowing whether Hudson's paramour dabblings or Watts' crumbling life or that damned painting's eventual auction pricetag is the focal point of the script. As though this unabashed 'Chick Flick' is simply a visual representation of a pithy light read that you can gobble up during an hour-long train ride without taxing your brain too much. Which is fine for a book, but fails miserably on-screen, because there's not a whole lot that happens with any real memorable caché as each new peripheral player bounces their tritely-written dialogue off of this or that person during any number of fairly contrived and suspiciously connected scenes. I wouldn't say 'Le Divorce' is a completely sloppy mess, but I certainly wouldn't recommend you waste your time with this one unless you're fanatical about all things French. Pour moi, çe toute le boring.

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Dirty Pretty Things
REVIEWED 08/03, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Working two dead-end jobs as a dubiously licensed Mini Cab driver by day and a graveyard shift hotel clerk by night, the last thing Nigerian illegal Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) needs is to find love amongst the bleary-eyed squalor at the edge of grey old London, England. Well, he finds a symbol of love at first. In the form of a bloody human heart he finds clogging the toilet in Room 510, near the end of his nightly gig at the rundown Baltic Hotel. Then, our shyly strong-willed ex-doctor on the lam recognizes that real love is blossoming between him and Senay (Audrey Tautou), the rather girlish yet realistic Muslim Turkish immigrant he inconspicuously borrows a few hours' sleep on her tiny flat's couch from. Senay dreams of joining her cousin in New York, opening a café there, and leaving her miserable life as a lowly paid chambermaid at the Baltic for good. However, she needs cash. Lots of it, despite still being on six months' probation with the Immigration Office and repeatedly hounded by a couple of sleazy investigators for possibly having an income outside the law. So, when she decides to sell her kidney to the hotel's malevolent Black Marketeering concierge Juan (Sergi López) for a few thousand American dollars to buy her way to freedom with family, Okwe is forced to face his tumultuous past as a war torn physician - including the untimely death of his wife that sent him on the run, leaving his young daughter behind - and perform the operation himself in that fifth floor suite, or let his new-found naive love suffer excruciating pain and probable death before she ever makes her flight.

Well, this BBC Film certainly tries to be an offbeat suspenseful drama. Problem is, most of this screenplay takes too much time focusing on peripheral character development for the story to have a chance to get going. The pacing is annoyingly slow at times, as you're made to wait for anything to happen. And, a lot of the time, you're not really sure if whatever's taken place has anything to do with the main plot when it does happen. For instance, when Okwe first finds the heart, that fairly bizarre and unsettling event is consequently downplayed so much that it's as though discovering discarded organs in the loo is an ordinary everyday thing for UK hotel staff. The entire movie is like this, as it lopes along without really paying much attention to making each strange or upsetting or tragic consequence believably strange or upsetting or tragic for the audience. As though the main cast are little more than jaded sleepwalkers that you're supposed to care about simply because they exist. Sure, both Ejiofor and Tautou do a pretty good job at initially filling their realistic roles. Fact is, just like the film itself, even these two fine talents quickly run out of steam under the burden of the script's emotionally detached malaise, sparking one or two disappointing turns at some slightly amateurish overacting from this troupe. With a couple of polished tweaks, this could have been a far better picture. As it stands, 'Dirty Pretty Things' is simply Made-for-TV suppertime theatre that's no better than a sobered upped but still unimpressive episode of 'Coronation Street'. Too bad.

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Dirty Dancing 2
REVIEWED 03/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

While others in her soon-to-be graduating Class of 1958 were looking forward to becoming happily married homemakers or entering University back home, bookish teen Katey Miller (Romola Garai) was dragged out of school with her young sister Susie (Mika Boorem) to Havana by their father Bert's (John Slattery) sudden promotion to Ford's Cuban office. Their mother, Jeannie (Sela Ward), seems right at home in the luxurious country club-like setting they've moved in to - despite growing anti-Presidente Batiste revolutionary rumblings just beyond their safe Americanized hotel surroundings. However, Katey can't quite acclimatize herself to the somewhat snobbish lifestyle that her family and new classmates have adopted, and becomes enamored with the simple lives of the people outside this bubble she's forced to accept. Particularly, the sultry Latino-tinged music that she's never heard before. And, the dancing she catches glimpses of in the dusty streets. Quite different than her formal training in ballroom poise or the romantic competitive dance that her parents once enjoyed in their youth. The rhythm awakens something within this blossoming statuesque blonde, and she soon elicits the help of local poolside waiter Javier Suarez (Diego Luna) and the hotel's enigmatically charming dance class teacher (Patrick Swayze) to learn moves that will eventually lead to Katey and Javier entering into the annual dance competition slated in two weeks. The problem is, not only would her parents forbid her sneaking off to the seedy part of town for late night practice at the Rosa Negra Club if they knew, but she also has to contend with overtly amorous James (Jonathan Jackson) whose jealousy could ruin any hope of winning the contest's $5000 prize.

Well, I sure didn't have the time of my life with this hokey stinker. A sequel to the acclaimed 1987 Patrick Swayze/Jennifer Grey blockbuster in name alone (the now alcohol addiction ravaged Swayze reportedly turned down a $6 million offer to reprise his role as the dashing black-clad Johnny Castle years ago, and is merely cast in a speaking cameo as 'Dance Class Instructor' here), this fairly low budget contrivance claims to be based on the life story of choreographer and co-producer Jo-Ann Fregalette Jansen while she and her family were in Cuba during that politically tumultuous time. Frankly, all of that merely serves as a dubious backdrop while Garai and Luna basically play starry-eyed teenaged caricatures torn straight from the pages of a Harlequin Romance novel here. It's a simple story that's badly cobbled together, as though shot by an amateur videographer, no-where near Cuba. Sure, the various dance sequences set to a contagious beat are fun, but that's partly due to them being enormously welcome respites from the gobs of sometimes coma-inducing dialogue and agonizingly lousy acting you're forced to sit through for the most part. Why this hour and forty-five minute disaster was made in the first place obviously had more to do with cashing in on moviegoers' enjoyable memories of that seventeen year-old big screen Oscar-winning musical than with director Guy Ferland or writer Peter Sagal seriously wanting to give a paying audience anything worthwhile. There were a half dozen people at the screening I attended and I guess their Snapple was laced or they sat in super strong adhesive, because my wanting to endure through this junk to give a proper review was the only reason I didn't walk out for my money back while I still had the chance. It's that awful, folks. Do yourself a huge favour and two-step straight past this floundering turkey, and just rent the first one. Again.

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Decoys
REVIEWED 03/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Saint John's College senior Luke Callahan (Corey Sevier) suspects there's something strange about Lilly Vincent (Stefanie von Pfetten) and her friend Constance (Kim Poirier), the two gorgeous first year Pre-Med students he and goofball dorm mate Roger Reynolds (Elias Toufexis) recently met in the campus' basement laundry room. See, when Luke found himself in the girls' sparse and chilly room that night, after trying to return a roll of quarters that overly flirtatious Lilly had left behind, and subsequently hid in their closet while they came in and changed, well, they changed alright. Callahan watched in amazed horror from the shadows of their silky lingerie as Constance engulfed Lilly's lithe body in a fog of liquid nitrogen, while that tall blonde sorority sister sprouted a writhing mass of ghoulish tentacles from a strange red spot beneath her heaving perky breasts. Whoa, freaky dude. Of course, nobody believes him. Even after the first one or two grotesquely distorted corpses are found - frozen from the inside out, according to the coroner - shortly after spending time alone with those seductive 'girls', no one is willing to swallow Luke's frantic cries of an impending and dire inter-galactic conspiracy. Hard-nosed police Detective Francis Kirk (Richard Burgi) included, clearly and condescendingly suspecting that prime suspect number one Callahan is behind these grizzly murders. It's only a matter of time before the truth comes out. However, Roger has become increasingly smitten with sumptuous (and belly buttonless) Constance, and Luke sets out with his friend Alex (Meghan Ory) to put together enough evidence to prove there's a hottie invasion force in this sleepy college town, before his romantically blinded buddy - and human civilization as we know it - ends up very frigid and very, very dead.

The funny thing about this altogether cheesy mess of amateurishly cobbled together sex-tinged horror from co-writer Tom Berry and co-writer/director Matthew Hastings is that a few elements resemble a late 1990's adults-only small press comic book from Montreal's now defunct Scarlet Rose Productions that I recall seeing on shelves here in Ottawa at the time. However, creative synchronicity aside, 'Decoys' is predominantly a terrible movie that was obviously shot on location in and around the Nation's Capital and Kingston on what appears to have been a shoestring budget and a couple of two for one coupons. Former model turned actress Kim Poirier seems to be the only cast member here with any sort of onscreen talent or presence. Sure, it's fun spotting homegrown scenery poking out from behind the sometimes inexcusably sloppy camerawork. And, most of the CGI alien effects are surprisingly impressive to the point of not really fitting in with the majority of incredibly lame and disjointed live action scenes. Most of these frumpish players basically stumble around mugging for the lens, apparently unsure if this flick is supposed to be a cult scare fest, a campy rip-off of actor Bruce Campbell's humourous 'The Evil Dead' (1983) quips, or merely an embarrassingly lazy meal ticket 'til the next CBC casting call. Even the basic continuity is clunky, as though the following day's script pages were feverishly scribbled down and photocopied shortly after Hastings sat through the daily rushes and realized he'd missed a few important details - unable to go back and reshoot anything - ending up relying heavily on fixing things in post-production. To that end, this is a typical Canadian triumph (with a sequel already in the works for a 2005 release, curiously) that's not worth the celluloid it's filmed on. 'Decoys' is an under cooked turkey, put together haphazardly with mismatched parts sticking out every which way. It's pathetic, really.

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Dawn of the Dead
REVIEWED 03/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Something horribly wrong has happened. Overnight, and without any sort of official explanation, people of all ages from around the world are suddenly dying at an epidemic rate; awakening as the undead. Gruesome and ferociously hungry for human flesh. Turning the confused and unwitting living into little more than The Walking Lunch. Wisconsin nurse Ana (Sarah Polley) didn't see the initial televised bulletins, having come home to her hubby Lewis after a thirteen-hour shift at the local hospital the night before, but was hit full force by the terrible truth when a ghoulishly toothy little girl terrorized their house. Sending this young women fleeing from a bedroom bloodbath, and careening her car through the chaotic scene of brutal carnage that has now gripped her tidy suburban community. Ana soon meets police officer Kenneth (Ving Rhames) and, with a few other traumatized First Day survivors, finds tenuous safety at the nearby Crossroads Mall. Joining forces with a trio of holed up security guards on the second floor, trying to avoid killing each other out of fear and panic as tensions flare. "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth," a televangelist soberly preaches from a storefront bank of screens, before scattered news reports of the far-flung disaster are replaced by the shrill electronic pulse of the emergency broadcast system. And then blink out, as all forms of communication break down. Problem is, that growing horde of latter day zombies appears to be making its way to the mall as well. As a glimmer of their former habits, perhaps. Barricading all exit points with their lumbering numbers, eventually swelling the outdoor parking lot to capacity in their mindless hunt for food, and sending this small band to the roof in hopes of rescue. It doesn't come. More people join them, but that merely frustrates their dwindling attempts at fortifying any real chance of seeing this nightmarish plague through. Remaining there quickly becomes futile. So, spurred on by ingenuity and the promise of finding someplace free of these relentless menaces slamming themselves against the shatterproof doors, natural born leader Michael (Jake Weber) brings the group together and plans a harrowing escape through that grizzly sea of gaping rotting mouths - just as Ana realizes that not everyone will make it out alive...

It's unlikely that horror meister George A. Romero had any idea just what an impact his gory small-budget black and white 'Night of the Living Dead' (1968) would make to this genre, spawning two decidedly ghoulish sequels - each coining snarky phrases that have since become rather base everyday sayings, and inspiring a throng of gut-retching (and often silly) flesh-hungry walking undead movies to be made worldwide. Director Zack Snyder's remake of Romero's first follow-up, 'Dawn of the Dead' (1978), apparently remains faithful to the central idea that more is better when dunking back-talking trigger-happy oddballs in to festering vats of virulent blood and stinking meat. This version cranks up the mayhem by transforming those cheesy old gnashing and loping undead blindly groping from the shadows, into cheesy new gnashing and loping undead that suddenly leap at their victims with frenzied velocity. It's clear that James Gunn's updated screenplay pays equal homage to the original and to the pumped up Brit gore fest '28 Days Later' (2003) here. Which is great, because running from those bygone people-eaters always looked like our heroes might as well have been fleeing from a two-foot an hour lava flow that sometimes snuck up on them. Sure, this fairly non-scary yet intensely disgusting flick is still wildly ridiculous at times, bloated with campy dialogue and dangerously skirting the line between macabre entertainment and a hokey arcade game, but the effects and editing are impressive throughout. Primarily shot in suburban Toronto, glimpses of reasonable performances do actually slip in from this cast as well. Let's face it, though. When Rhames holds up a handwritten sign to Andy the gun store owner and sharpshooter across the street, to pass the time picking off celebrity look alikes mindlessly milling around below them, high drama obviously isn't what this picture's about. Don't kill yourself expecting too much from this humourously sick reprise, but it's sure to be a fun escapist rental for horror fans on a dark and stormy night.

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Dogville
REVIEWED 05/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Just up the winding dusty road from Georgetown, on the old silver mine hill overlooking an orchard field that's still ripe with apples every Spring during the pique of this Depression era, sits the American hamlet of Dogville. Small would be an overstatement in describing Dogville. Its dead end, misnamed Oak Street of a half dozen houses is barely worth a second glance. For years, Dogville's most vocal dreamer young Tom Edison Jr. (Paul Bettany) has pontificated to this town's handful of citizens at the Pastorless Mission House towards their betterment, secretly praying that something - anything - would happen to inspire the best that he's convinced is in each and every person there. It was about that time, while idealistically pondering this again, as well as ruminating his greatest unwritten novel and all of the other important things on his meandering mind, that Tom heard the distant gunshots. Ominous echoes, soon followed by the skulking appearance of Grace Margaret Mulligan (Nicole Kidman), a lithe blonde refugee of the city in flight from an intimidating black car carrying the faceless mob boss who would later roll in to Dogville citing a reward for her swift recovery. Seeing this as an enormous opportunity to illustrate his hopes for that ramshackle community, Edison convinces Grace to barter her help to each family in lieu of safe sanctuary. A difficult task, but it works. Even though nobody seems to initially have anything that needs done, Mulligan's days quickly become filled with ever-increasing chores. Tending to old Doc Edison Sr's (Philip Baker Hall) ailment concerns. Spending time in conversation with lonely Jack MacKay (Ben Gazzara). Assisting school teacher Vera's (Patricia Clarkson) brooding husband with the upkeep and harvest of the orchard below. However, when the not-so local authorities post a notice claiming that Grace is a dangerous bank robber wanted by the city police - despite those supposed crimes being committed while she was toiling for their trust and protection - their charitable nature slowly begins dissolving in to something far less altruistic, and Tom's naively optimistic experiment ends up becoming detrimental for this woman. Especially when she tries to leave...

Frankly, I knew this was an 'Art Film' going in. Writer/director Lars von Trier, co-founder of Dogme 95's 'Vow of Chastity', a fairly bare bones anti-bourgeois manifesto for independent movie makers penned in Copenhagen that year, is renowned for his unorthodox approach to cinema. This time out, he does away with all but the barest of scenery and props, basically defining this town with a life-sized architectural schematic of buildings on a large - yet eerily claustrophobic - Swedish sound stage, shooting this theatrically-inspired effort with handheld cameras throughout. Visually, this 2003 Cannes' Golden Palm nomination is definitely a wonderful exercise in Minimalism that strangely harkens back to vintage television work by the CBC and elsewhere, where mainly Shakespearean classics were performed in close-up by sparsely-lit actors for broadcast and (I guess) posterity forty or so years ago. On the other hand, maybe Trier's chosen techniques are merely gimmicks, since virtually nobody from this picture's cast seemed particularly equipped to lift this rather distant and esoteric morality tale for a contemporary big screen. The characters' lifeless dialogue and the continually intrusive narrative by John Hurt are primarily affected and unconvincing, and the over-all pacing is dreadfully slow for its approximately two-hour and fifteen minute runtime. Kidman obviously tries unsuccessfully to carry the weight by relying on natural charisma, but it doesn't quite match her role as a progressively weary symbol of self-serving piety often brutally dragged down to the level of Bettany's cowardly dreamer and these desperately small-minded opportunists. Sure, the idea for a potentially great flick is there. And, it could have possibly manifested itself with memorably accessible force for general moviegoers if 'Dogville' wasn't such a boring theatrical experiment imaginatively recorded on celluloid, featuring otherwise capable movie actors attempting to stretch beyond their abilities in some cases. I'd have preferred to sit through the live show, or the fifty-two minute behind-the-scenes documentary aired in limited release, instead.

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The Day After Tomorrow
REVIEWED 06/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Riding an impressive wave of hype over the past six months, co-writer/director Roland Emmerich's approximately two-hour movie pretty well turns out to consist of Americans being swallowed up or running away from extreme Earth-engulfing bad weather. Or, chased by wolves. Sort of. Apparently inspired by UFO proponents Art Bell and Whitley Strieber's prophetic two hundred and seventy-two page 1999 book 'The Coming Global Superstorm' that cites the next Ice Age, 'The Day After Tomorrow' begins with passionately outspoken US government climatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) warning a scientific conference about how steady polar thaws will eventually alter this planet's environmental conditions on a massive scale. Scotland-based oceanographic monitor Terry Rapson (Ian Holm) agrees, but they soon discover that Mother Nature has dramatically compressed the expected hundred year timeline into days - unleashing voracious hurricanes, gigantic tidal waves and intense temperature shifts upon unsuspecting major cities within hours - and sending Hall on a two hundred mile cross-country rescue mission from Washington to Manhattan in search of his son, Sam Hall (Jake Gyllenhaal). While measurably packed with some outstanding CGI effects throughout, Emmerick's and co-writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff's rather dull and plodding script fails to give a paying audience reasons to care what happens to any of these overwhelmingly uninteresting characters, or to feel any sense of concern over nature's scornful decimation of modern civilization as depicted here. Unlike in Emmerich's slightly similar yet hugely entertaining 'Independence Day' (1996), this flick also seems burdened by an ensemble cast incapable of even lifting their individual stories or captivating your attention with their screen presence. Resulting in you grating your teeth to avoid slipping into a coma while sitting through scene after scene of dreadfully boring dialogue and anti-climactic plot contrivances, secretly wishing for those alien invaders of eight years ago - or at least more hungry wolves - to come pick up the pace and keep you awake, until the closing credits bring ultimate freedom from this disappointing silly turkey. Save yourself the aggravation, and steer clear of this time-wasting cinematic disaster.

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Dodge Ball
REVIEWED 06/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Rumpled under achieving Average Joe's Gymnasium owner Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn) hesitantly ends up being roped into playing for the fifty thousand dollar American Dodgeball Association of America prize in Las Vegas with his small team of disheveled gym mates, after nearby high tech Globo Gym owner White Goodman (Ben Stiller) maliciously buys up La Fleur's second mortgage and threatens to turn his rundown tax shelter into a parking lot. Former 'Brady Bunch' television eldest Christine Taylor co-stars as bright love interest bank lawyer Kate Veatch, virtually single-handedly lending a much-needed dose of sanity to this ridiculously offbeat hour and a half farce that's packed with double entendre and goofy caricatures. Stiller's obviously still lost in the Seventies here, after his recent starring stint in 'Starsky and Hutch' (2004), embodying the epitome of that sexed-up era in this modern comedy as the feathered hair styled antagonist cranking out endlessly stupid funny jive-talking quips such as, "Turn that Frankenstein into a Franken Fine!" Most of the best lines come from him, and his irreverently greasy sidesplitting performance is worth the price of admission on its own. Unfortunately, Vaughn tends to walk through his scenes with a glassy-eyed low-key demeanor that doesn't quite fit and becomes distracting to this picture's fairly tight pacing. It's really Taylor's efforts, in an interesting tilted straight gal part that could have easily been fleshed out more fully as a truly captivating leading role - along with Rip Torn, playing their curmudgeonly gruff self-appointed coach Patches O'Houlihan - that keeps writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber's reasonably good and oftentimes outlandishly crass script's momentum going throughout. Actors Stephen Root, Justin Long, Joel Moore, Alan Tudyk and Chris Williams round out the supporting cast as little more than human cartoons given some plot-important back stories but sadly mildly amusing dialogue, with cameo surprises from William Shatner and Hank Azaria punching up the laughs when Stiller isn't stealing the show. Sure, 'Dodgeball' is primarily a sight gag cliché-crammed romp desperately suffering from bouts of overtly pedantic sophomoric humour (queue the couple of dumb Canadian jokes, that garnered agonizing silence at the local screening I sat through), but the over-all level of relentless oddball hilarity rivaling slightly similar 'Airplane!' (1980) or 'The Waterboy' (1998) definitely makes this one a fun ride. Check it out as a surprisingly entertaining, sit back and switch your brain off snack that's rife with truly satisfying laughs throughout. Good stuff.

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The Delicate Art of Parking
REVIEWED 07/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Toronto-born, Seth Green look alike Dov Tiefenbach stars as BC-based struggling and jaded independent documentary producer Lonny Goosen, in this sometimes outrageously hilarious award-winning 'mock-doc' that strangely mirrors the real-life aggravation of this feature's co-writer and debuting director Trent Carlson getting parking tickets. See, the annoyance felt by Goosen in trying to get his station wagon out of a local Vancouver impound yard while coyly avoiding paying the several thousands in parking fines he's racked up, sends him and his small film crew that's comprised of cameraman Gus Morski (voiced by Andrew McNee) and Gus' Russian cousin Olena Polapov (Diana Pavlovská) as sound recorder into the often maligned world of U-Fine Parking Enforcement Officer Grant Parker (Fred Ewanuick) and his quirky menagerie of uniformed co-workers. Ewanuick easily steals the show here, as this rather geeky and intensely serious seven-year veteran whose job-obsessed mindset and unquestioning professional admiration for sole Golden Ticket Book holding, company Training and Safety Steward Murray Schwartz (Gary Jones) eventually leads him and Lonny's exasperated team on an unexpected reputation-saving trail of oddball on-camera sleuthing after seventeen-year legend Murray suddenly ends up in a work-related collision-induced body cast and coma. Sure, while Carlson's and co-writer Blake Corbet's conspicuously improvised-upon script does tend to run out of gas whenever it tries too hard to feel real; despite the audience already knowing from the outset that every aspect of the main story and its subplots is completely fictitious while shot and edited together in a totally convincing from-the-hip manner, this West Coast hometown-acclaimed and Montréal World Film Festival 2003 Best Film from Canada winner wonderfully succeeds in offering up a wealth of truly fresh laughs spun from its thoroughly capable cast's well-developed characters throughout. This flick could have easily spent more time with most of these delightfully irreverent stereotypes - from Parker's lovably simple-minded tow truck driving pal Jerome Huot (Tony Conte), to gruffly antagonistic pro-gun street meter monitor Harriet Sharpe (Nancy Robertson) - with equally impressive, side-splitting results. Favourites definitely include a tour of insanely dedicated Schwartz's basement apartment - taken after they sit through his surreal 'Taking it to the Streets' instructional video - that's packed from floor to ceiling with posters and bedposts of parking meter memorabilia. If you've enjoyed the immensely satirical behind the scenes clips from 'A Mighty Wind' (2003) or 'This is Spinal Tap' (1984), this decidedly small yet hugely entertaining romp will absolutely have you roaring out loud with laughter. Do yourself a big favour and check out this surprisingly worthwhile English language Canadian comedic gem.

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The Door in the Floor
REVIEWED 07/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Reportedly based on the first third of 'A Widow for One Year', best-selling novelist and Oscar-winning screenwriter John Irving's five hundred and seventy-six page 2003 book about fictional successful novelist yet social failure Ruth Cole's rather tumultuous life during her early childhood in 1958 through to maturity at age forty-one, award-nominated writer/director Tod Williams' contemporary retooling mainly focuses on four year-old Ruth's (Elle Fanning) emotionally damaged parents Ted (Jeff Bridges) and Marion (Kim Basinger) in the last days they tenuously spend together at their sprawling beachside Long Island property. The Coles are in the throes of a trial separation, and somewhat eccentric philandering Ted continues to be a brooding, mildly disinterested "entertainer of children, who likes to draw" former novelist now writer of fairly dark and unsettling kids books, who hires sixteen year-old Eddie O'Hare (John Rothman) to be his eager assistant and driver that overcast and bleak summer of their lives. However, Eddie soon loses interest in his employer's odd habits, in favour of a growing teenaged passion for hauntingly charismatic Marion - who still deeply suffers over the sudden loss of her two sons in a freak accident years ago. Wow. While there's a lot about this heavy angst-riddled movie that felt overtly drawn out and peppered with silly gratuitous nudity, this main cast of players pull in some of the best performances seen from them in a while. Basinger is absolutely stunning, in a kind of wounded sparrow version of Anne Bancroft's Mrs. Robinson role from 'The Graduate' (1967) opposite Rothman's wonderfully evolving virtuous shyness to sexually-driven self-assuredness here, with Bridges brilliantly cast as their bombastic self-destructive antagonist rolling brittle poisonous barbs off his furry silver tongue at almost every turn. All gorgeously-crafted satellites orbiting young Fanning's endearing precociousness; All richly layered and spiraling on disastrous trajectories, while carefully averting their sinful dark sides from her unspoiled light. Outstanding. Irving has apparently applauded Williams' efforts in this, his second picture to date, calling this quirky and often dramatically touching cinematic portrait a true word-for-word faithful adaptation. Almost immediately, you can see why. Just the shot of Marion's cashmere hand-knit cardigan seductively left on the bed for Eddie to find is an artful piece of genius that speaks volumes. Cinematographer Terry Stacey also captures so much important, intrinsically human emotion conveyed by Bridges' and Basinger's facial expressions. Letting those moments systematically grab you with such an overwhelming intensity, that's then punctuated by their marvelous dialogue in ways that a paying audience can't help but be willingly destroyed by. In many ways, 'The Door in the Floor' is a masterpiece, folks. Why all of that needed to be ruined by lesser distractions, such as having ever-voluptuous Mimi Rogers unnecessarily revive memories of her direct-to-video soft porn 'Full Body Massage' (1995), is anyone's guess. Minor quibbles, though. If you're up for a thoroughly satisfying adult offering packed with what could easily be considered Academy Award contending efforts, definitely check out this masterfully awesome R-rated summer gem.

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De-Lovely
REVIEWED 08/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

An old, curmudgeonly Cole Porter (Kevin Kline) is magically introduced to a theatrically-tinged homage to his famed and flamboyant life in this somewhat meandering, musically-highlighted hundred and twenty-five minute offering from director Irwin Winkler. My main problem with this fairly slow and slightly morose film is that it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, switching from being a dramatic story about hugely prolific Grammy-winner Cole Albert Porter's (1891-1964) tumultuous rise from precocious stage score prodigy to hesitant Hollywood celebrity, to doing little more than a heavily costumed series of music video clips gutting his life for the few anecdotal moments that could lazily be worked in as contrived segues between each memorably renowned song he'd penned that's included here. Several wonderful singers lovingly cover his tunes on screen throughout. Let's Do It (1928) from Alanis Morissette, Love For Sale (1930) by Vivian Green, and Begin the Beguine (1935) from Sheryl Crow are just some of the fun high points, and Kline and Ashley Judd (as his adoringly manipulative wife Linda Lee Porter) obviously do attempt to give this one reasonably good performances, yet it's easy for a paying audience to feel as though a lot of the far more captivating moments were left out. Simply because (I guess) such things as how the childhood passing of his two siblings and the subsequent 1952 death of Porter's devoted mother probably affected him deeply, that Porter was actually stationed as an attaché in Paris during World War One, and that his and Linda's lavishly riotous parties were reportedly held on a floating night club built at their Venetian home in the early 1920's didn't fit within this picture's overwhelmingly unsure structure. It's too bad this is such a paltry story for such a robustly talented showman. 'De-Lovely' could have been a far superior delight harkening back to the Golden Age of Musicals, or an incredibly insightful biography of this gay man in his professional marriage letting his appetites and insecurities ultimately sabotage his insatiable quest for happiness. What you get is a confusing mash of coma-inducing and whiplash-resulting scenes that sometimes try to be both, and that fail miserably. Sure, Jay Cocks' screenplay does eventually decide to let you in on what he's attempting to do here in a marvelously clever cinematic ode to Be a Clown, inviting you to snicker at Cole's dagger-like lyrics cleverly disguised as frivolous humour, but it's too late and not enough to keep you interested. I spent most of my time sitting through this turkey trying to figure out how it should have been constructed, which is normally a bad sign and something I end up resenting paying for with my spare time and sparse box office dollars. Even if Winkler had played it seriously with a more fully researched script of captivating dialogue for these otherwise capable actors to sink their teeth into, with the soundtrack adding a wry intelligent layer to some of Porter's real life tribulations, 'De-Lovely' would have hit the mark without question. Porter's music definitely deserves to be pulled together and put into perspective within the context of his life, after having been used in countless films over the decades, from 'The Gay Divorcee' (1934) to 'Bride of Chucky' (1998), but I'd be more inclined to suggest you rent those rather forgettable flicks than bother with this incredibly disappointing disjointed experiment. Just buy the soundtrack.

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Damage
REVIEWED 12/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

There's something wrong with the house. Ever since teen swimmer Regina (Oscar-winner Anna Paquin; 'The Piano' (1993), 'X-Men 2' (2003)) emigrated from the States to live in this secluded wooded patch of Spanish countryside with her young brother Paul and their busy parents, she's felt that something was wrong with this strange old house they moved into three weeks ago. Its dim, narrow hallways papered in a thick and musty scale-like pattern. She still hasn't unpacked. Its oddly-shaped spaces, and weirdly-marked ceilings that fresh paint won't cover over. Small handprints. Night shadows that watch and wait. Mark (Edinburgh's Iain Glen; 'Gorillas in the Mist' (1988), 'Resident Evil: Apocalypse' (2004)), her Dad, is off his medication and acting moody again. On edge. Obsessive. Even the air hangs with the haunted sound of tortured voices and the sense of impending doom. The blackouts aren't the worst of it, though. It's the bruises that begin to appear on an increasingly fearful Paul (first timer Stephan Enquist) each morning that are most worrying. Their mother Maria (Lena Olin; 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' (1988), 'Hollywood Homicide' (2003)) just blows them off, but Regina can sense it. She can almost feel that something else lives there. Inside their new home. Something evil. Hidden. Waiting. Ever since an horrific filicidal ritual of terror and blood and death stained this house forty years ago. When seven children were brought to this place to die. When a pale Moon slipped across the morning Sun and cast the Earth in shadows. When six were lost, but one managed to escape to safety, putting that unholy feast on hold. Waiting, until the eclipse returns. Hidden, until the rite can be completed and something evil can finally step out of the darkness.

Frankly, this visually impressive yet disappointing 2002 horror primarily shot in Cataluña, Spain feels more like an over-long promotional reel, rather than a completed movie in and of itself. Scene after scene of celluloid-wasting moments that at first seem to be building up to a cataclysmic finale irreparably bloat and sabotage this meandering feature for no reason. As though co-writer/director Jaume Balagueró ('Los Sin nombre' (1999)) was attempting to make a psychological thriller but had all of these irresistibly cool ideas about phantom children tormenting the living, an ancient temple recreated in modern architecture, a spooky old photo of three weird hags, and a strange guy standing roadside under an umbrella in relentless rain storms, that the subtle nuances of truly spine-tingling terror end up becoming sidelined here. It's not scary. There's no pay off. The pacing slows to a dull stand still, until all a paying audience is really left with is seeing Paquin jiggle up and down a creaking staircase while her visibly unmotivated co-stars sluggishly munch on their low grade dialogue. Additionally, so much potential for an incredibly satisfying scare fest is totally ignored by Balagueró's, Fernando de Felipe's and Miguel Tejada-Flores' ('Revenge of the Nerds' (1984), 'Screamers' (1995)) screenplay because a lot of what's happening is never fully explained. Are the ghosts causing the electricity to flicker out? If so, why? Are the unexplained hags in that faded photograph causing Mark to go berserk? How? Why is his wife so unmoved by all of these paranormal events that are beating up her young son and throwing Regina into a teeth clenching froth? Ughh. Given its estimated $12 million budget, 'Darkness' is such a great-looking flick thanks to cinematographer Xavi Giménez's keen eye that it's agonizingly numbing watching this one slowly rot like a festering turkey under the weight of such a lazy script. Sure, I realize that this genre will always demand characters to defy logic by entering scary dark rooms and sticking around inside cursed houses as little more than human entrees for The Damned. Horror movies would be over in three minutes, if everyone simply gave their head a shake and ran away at the first sign of awaiting danger. In this case, if more thought had simply been put into clearly demonstrating how this family was being toyed with - by unseen forces that actually did more than bump around, and were given a back story for nail biting viewers to chew on - this outrageously boring, hundred and two-minute feature could have easily become a worthwhile time. It's truly unfortunate, but steer clear of this vapid, beautiful-looking US/Spanish co-production that's apparently taken its sweet time on the European theatre circuit before finally reaching North America.

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Diary of a Mad Black Woman
REVIEWED 03/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

"Dear Diary," the words for Helen McCarter's (Kimberly Elise; 'Bait' (2000), 'The Manchurian Candidate' (2004)) personal journal's new entry curl and purr in her mind to the slow Jazz stylings washing over her in Chandra's nightclub. "This man is fiiine." A small handful of months ago, this man, Orlando ('The Young and the Restless' co-star Shemar Moore; 'The Brothers' (2001), 'Greener' (2004)), had been little more than a stranger, driving the U-Haul truck callously packed with Helen's boxed up belongings on the night of her eighteenth wedding anniversary to successful self made Atlanta defence attorney Charles McCarter (Steve Harris; 'Minority Report' (2002), 'Bringing Down the House' (2003)). This fine Black man had seen Charles throw Helen out of their sprawling upscale mansion. He had seen her kicking and screaming at her home's heavy wooden door, followed by her reduced to tears on that lavish courtyard's stone steps. The night, that night, when her marriage came to an end and she was left with nothing to show for it, except for the dress on her back - picked out by and intended for her cruel husband's long time mistress Brenda (Lisa Marcos), the mother of his two young sons. Charles had been Helen's world, and he had destroyed it. And, her. That night, Orlando had offered to take Helen anywhere she needed to go. Ending up being dumped at the side of the road, as Helen drove off to the only refuge that she could think of in her state of distress: To the house of her sixty-eight year-old grandmother, Margaret 'Madea' Simmons' (Tyler Perry; stage to video 'Madea's Family Reunion' (2002), 'Madea's Class Reunion' (2003)). Only to have Madea drag Helen slamming through the mansion's security gate and into a vengeance-fuelled rage of destruction - mainly that of gun-totin', straight-talkin' and mad as hell Madea - to face off against Helen's smug and less than better half. All of that seems so long ago now. Here, after a quiet pleasant dinner at Chandra's. Swaying, relaxing to music in the strong and tender arms of this fine, gentle man. Where nothing else, and nobody else, matters in this perfect fairy tale moment that she and Orlando desperately want to last forever. However, when a court case later goes terribly wrong for Charles, and the doctors aren't sure if he'll ever move his arms or legs again, Helen is forced to make the most difficult decision of her life.

Wow. Based on New Orleans' rags-to-riches Gospel playwright/co-lyricist/writer Tyler Perry's successful, same-titled 2001 touring stage play, 'Diary of a Mad Black Woman' crackles with raw, unabashed truth from beginning to closing credits. Director Darren Grant's and editor Terilyn A. Shropshire's combined sense of pacing is superb. While clearly a contemporary urban drama, Perry's astounding screenplay easily balances a rich assortment of introspective and heart wrenching emotions with hilarious irreverence for this incredible cast of players to tap from. Wonderfully fresh performances from Elise and Moore immediately captivate a paying audience, sustaining your need to see their believable characters make it through each crisis and uncertainty that arises throughout. Sure, slight shades of television's 'Sanford and Son' (1972-1977), as well as cinema's 'Mahogany' (1975), 'An Officer and a Gentleman' (1982) and 'Bridget Jones' Diary' (2001) are clearly evident here, but the main story arc somewhat echoed by the peripheral plot revolving around Helen's cousin Brian (also played by Perry) and his junkie wife Debrah (Tamara Taylor) truly is both fascinating and satisfying on all levels. Helen almost magically blossoms before your eyes, from a broken lost wreck into a beautifully confident woman of self-realized infinite strength. This cinematic triumph is an inspiration, aside from its slightly heavy dose of Baptist faith. Even that aspect plays out extremely well. What's most amazing is this hundred and sixteen-minute movie's seamless adaptation from stage to screen, with Perry casually stealing every scene as his reportedly popular, sassy bulldozing flip out of an alter ego Madea - a starring role he's apparently played for almost all of his live theatre shows, from 'I Can Do Bad All By Myself' (1999) to the currently running 'Madea Goes to Jail' (2005). Frankly, I was thankful that he chose to introduce 'her' as a supporting force of nature within the much larger scheme of this thoroughly impressive debut offering, just as I was equally glad to read at Comingsoon.net (http://www.comingsoon.net/news/dvdnews.php?id=8561) that Madea is due to return to the big screen sometime next year. Awesome. Absolutely do yourself a huge favour and check out this incredibly worthwhile, infectious mature romantic chick flick tinged with riotous comedy for a completely enjoyable time.

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Downfall
REVIEWED 04/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Secretly led on foot by armed soldiers under the cover of night through the misty trees of Berlin's ornamental gardens in 1942, wide eyed twenty-two year-old Gertraud 'Traudl' Humps (Alexandra Maria Lara; 'Der Tunnel' (2001)) had no clear idea of what lay ahead for her and the four other women nervously waiting in that cold grey underground bunker. People disappeared all the time. Was this how it happened? Were those people brought here, to be lined up and visually inspected as they were by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) (portrayed by Bruno Ganz; 'The Boys from Brazil' (1978), 'The Manchurian Candidate' (2004)) himself? Summarily picked out as she was, and invited into his small office to type his dictated letter? Well, no. This was a job interview to fill the position of his fourth secretary. One that Traudl would have from that moment, safely housed and on twenty-four hour call at that re-enforced concrete epicentre of der Führer und Reichskanzler's brutally expanding Nazi regime, until disloyalty and defeat and death freed her from his employment. For three years, she saw the war take its toll on this self appointed savior of the Aryan Race. She saw the uncertainty brewing in the eyes of his battle weary generals beckoned to hold conference with this great orator and honoured leader of the German people. She witnessed how Herr Hitler's superior mind forged ahead with his visionary three hundred-year reign by mercilessly crushing the Allied Forces of America, Britain and the Soviet Union - as cleverly reported every day by his trusted Propaganda Minister, Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels (Ulrich Matthes) - while showing fatherly care for her, for his personably regal mistress Eva Braun, and for his close friends during these trying times. Even though she knew that everyone ignored his orders by smoking cigarettes, dining on meat and drinking alcohol in abundance, Humps thought it inconceivable that the dream of a Utopian Germania would come to an end so quickly under the heavy artillery barrage of approaching Russian troops laying waste to every social reform and architectural triumph that Hitler's rule had carved...

Reportedly based on Hitler historian Joachim Fest's books, and the published memoir Bis zur letzten Stunde (translated in 2004 as Until the Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary) co-written by Traudl Junge (1920-2002), 'Der Untergang' (its original 2004 German title) doesn't quite hit the mark that director Oliver Hirschbiegel was apparently aiming for. It's clear that Ganz attempts to somewhat deeply personalize his starring role here, but excessive, surprisingly unrevealing focus on his physical presence during the first half of this subtitled hundred and fifty-six minute Oscar nominee hardly seems necessary for the most part. There's really nothing new here, except that you get to see a European actor sporting a familiar moustache frothing at the mouth in a childish rage. Sure, Bernd Eichinger's screenplay is primarily interested in how one of the 20th Century's most reviled personifications of evil effected those bunker-huddling high ranking soldiers, notable followers and faceless civilians during that time, but it's all shown from a strange distance. While this notorious sociopath's disillusioned tyranny turned suicidal madness rubs off on Braun, Goebbels and his icy wife Magda (played by Corinna Harfouch), and Humps in different ways throughout, those otherwise intriguing stories aren't afforded enough consistent attention to keep you interested in them either - except as fodder for speculation after the closing credits. I'd also read that 'The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich' (its US title) claims to be an accurate, factual interpretation of events. This is despite Humps' thirteen month marriage to SS Officer Hans Hermann Junge and her swift post-defeat capture by the Russians being completely ignored during this picture's time line, and dubious scenes featuring Hitler suffering from what looks like the early stages of Parkinson's Disease - a diagnosis never irrefutably confirmed in reality. So, what's a paying audience left to sit through? Well, basically this visually stark, sporadically artful effort is a selective re-enactment of the Fall of a Latter Day Roman Empire that's been more fully documented ad nauseum on the big screen and television in the past. Making it little more than an over long showcase of briefly inspired, anecdotal acting branded with Hitler's name in order to (I guess) rekindle lingering controversy and fill theatre seats, without really justifying its existence in the first place. The closing scene, apparently edited from the award winning documentary 'Blind Spot. Hitler's Secretary' (2002) in which eighty-two year-old Traudl Junge (nee Humps) suspiciously insisted she knew nothing of Nazi atrocities such as the Holocaust while typing out Hitler's regular orders until after V.E. Day, seems to prove that. Sadly, there's really nothing here worth checking out unless you've never seen or read anything historically reliable about Hitler or the Allies winning WWII in Europe and you're looking for a starting point towards further research.

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Dear Frankie
REVIEWED 04/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Had we never loe'd sae kindly, Had we never loe'd sae blindly, Never met - nor never parted - We had ne'er been broken-hearted. Famed Scots poet Robbie Burns' bittersweet song Ae Fond Kiss surely must've been on Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Morrison's (Emily Mortimer; 'The Ghost and the Darkness' (1996), 'Formula 51' (2001)) mind as she, her nine year-old son Frankie (Jack McElhone; 'Young Adam' (2003)) and her chain smoking Mum Nell (renowned UK radio drama voice Mary Riggans) once again unpacked their meager belongings from rolled newspapers and cardboard boxes while settling in to their small Inverclyde apartment huddled a mere twenty-five miles west of their turbulent lives in Glasgow. This wasn't the first time that they'd up and gone at a moment's notice, when Morrison's abusive ex-husband Davey's family had tried to find them. It's unsettling, but necessary if Frankie ever hopes to lead a happy normal life while dealing with his deaf and near-mute condition. He's never really known his Dad, but still thinks of him often as this bright lad daydreams in his room under a wide blue map dotted with red-tagged pins plotting the various journeys that his father's sea bound freighter, the Accra, has seen. Frankie also writes to his beloved yet estranged parent, ensuring that his slightly awkward penmanship is clear enough on each eagerly mailed envelope that is posted to a central depot before making its way to Frankie's endearing pen pal. Of course, the real Davey never receives those letters. Lizzie does, quietly taking the bus in to town, retrieving them from the post office box that she's visited several times over the years, and then replying to her son with imagined tales of the oceanic voyages that this made up distant surrogate Dad has traveled. Frankie's tin box brims with this mail, and his stamp collection is full of worldly, small glued treasures that his mother has bought at Buchanan Street Stamps and sent to him on behalf of this non-existent sailor. And, she plans to continue doing this for as long as it makes her boy happy. That is, until the real Accra is due to set port nearby and social pariah Lizzie desperately needs to find somebody who will pretend to be Frankie's father for a day...

Feeling vaguely familiar, this hugely entertaining and heartwarming 2004 Scottish gem from cinematographer/director Shona Auerbach is definitely a must-see family friendly flick. Admittedly, London-born Mortimer is one of my favourite Brit actresses - even though I've rarely liked the films she's appeared in - and she proves her outstanding talent by delicately under playing this role with wonderfully fresh unspoken sub text while performing opposite the swarthy screen presence of her boy's uneasily chosen father figure, played by Glasgow's Gerard Butler ('Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life' (2003), 'The Phantom of the Opera' (2004)). It's funny and touching, lovely to watch, and over-all amazing. Full marks also go to McElhone, who beautifully expresses a wide range and depth of emotions throughout this hundred and five-minute crowd pleaser without uttering more than a handful of words. What makes Andrea Gibb's screenplay such an overwhelmingly delightful discovery is that each of these characters, as well as those of the primary supporting cast, are based in some semblance of truth. You can see it on the screen. You can see that Lizzie is trying to do right by her son, protecting him without coddling him, despite whatever consequences to and narrowing of herself that brings about. Emotionally, she's broken and exhausted on the inside, while still personably functioning on the periphery of life. A paying audience can't help but ache for her, as well as cheer out loud on cue whenever McElhone's character wins each minor schoolyard victory. Making the dynamics between Lizzie and this stand in Davey she's hired all the more electrifying as they're drawn closer through their caring for Frankie. This picture easily wins my vote for the best agonizingly paused on screen kiss seen in a long time, that will probably keep tissue manufacturers in business for years to come. Awesome. Absolutely do yourself a huge favour by checking out this thoroughly exceptional masterpiece from Scottish Cinema that's definitely well worth taking in at the big screen if you get the chance.

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Darwin's Nightmare
REVIEWED 05/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

There's a particular scene in this fairly stark and somewhat plodding hundred and seven-minute, subtitled 2004 documentary, during a conference of The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) - the fifty-seven year-old Swiss-based bureaucracy more readily known as The World Conservation Union - where friendly, politicized bickering erupts over how a video explaining Victoria Lake, Tanzania's steadily eroding, fragile ecosystem fails to cite any positive aspects to balance its resounding negative facts. See, while predatory Nile Perch that were apparently introduced in the 1940's to this second-largest lake on the planet have systematically eradicated the indigenous aquatic species, fish trade with Europe has become this famine-stricken country's single highest export, employing thousands who leave their farming ways in search of work in ramshackle fishing camps and sterile packaging plants. The economy is booming. "We're here to sell fish," the IUCN member bluntly tells the Chairman. People here are also dying at an alarming rate, from poverty and disease. Writer/cinematographer/director Hubert Sauper's efforts to examine this distopian reality begins with a Russian cargo plane roaring onto the dusty, lakeshore airstrip of Mwanza Airport, ready to haul away another fifty tons of fillets. Interviewing the crew, the local girls they party with, the fishermen and the street kids orphaned by what appears to be a globalization experiment gone terribly wrong, Sauper reveals how very few benefits are actually realized by the residents of 'Fish City'.

The best part about this award-winning film is the oftentimes wonderful candidness in which these subjects discuss and present their lives. Marcus, the plane's sporadically bombastic radio engineer, awkwardly vacillating between the good work that he does and the fairly shady business that he's in. War veteran Raphael, paid the equivalent of a dollar a day to guard this squalid city's National Institute of Research compound, pleasantly hopeful yet painfully melancholy about the future. Jonathan, whose colourful drawings depict the desperate brutality of his former life of childhood homelessness that still exists for the pockets of pre-teens scavenging for food and sniffing liquefied plastic to deal with their unending fates. This feature takes great pains to expose how progress has essentially pillaged this country, turning its people into prostitutes and carrion-eaters while many of them consciously ignore the bigger issue of what those steady, unscheduled European flights are bringing in for the arms dealers who've turned this social catastrophe into easy money abroad. Yes, arms dealers. That's the weak side of 'Darwin's Nightmare'. The hard hitting revelation that Victoria Lake's fish industry acts as a front for weapons delivery to Africa's war torn nations is never fully examined, so it feels more like a coy tease to keep a paying audience motivated to sit through eventually desensitizing images of gaunt and crippled faces of Tanzania's working poor. The notion of you wanting to be told the entire truth becomes lost to the emotion-tugging, passive style of Sauper's amateur journalist lens. As though visas ran out before much-needed footage could be shot. Definitely check out this unevenly slow but personably insightful cinematic exposé if it airs on Public Television, but be prepared to feel as though further research and a more proactive approach to unearthing cited facts could have made this one a far more evocative gadfly against corporate greed destroying this country's soul.

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Dark Water
REVIEWED 07/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Dahlia Williams (Jennifer Connelly) wasn't going to get away with it so easily. She had humiliated Kyle (Dougray Scott). She had kicked him out of their comfortable Manhattan home, had openly accused him in front of the city's appointed divorce mediators of cheating on their now-destroyed marriage, and was planning on stealing away his beloved little daughter Cecilia 'Ceci' Williams (Ariel Gade; 'Envy' (2004)) by moving onto the relatively secluded, fortress-like Roosevelt Island outside of town. He hated everything that had happened. Clearly, she's unstable. Just like her cruelly indifferent mother was. Dahlia had obviously let her over reactive imagination go wildly out of control - again - and Kyle wasn't going to stand for it. Not if it meant enduring that grey moat-like river and any kind of unexpected danger put in Cecilia's way beyond his control to protect her. Yes, apartment 9F was a bothersome disappointment to Dahlia and her daughter when the owner Mr. Murphy (John C. Reilly; 'Chicago' (2002), 'The Aviator' (2004)) showed them the place, but Ceci's sudden change of heart after wandering up to that ten story building's rooftop and discovering that bright pink nap sack containing a lovely new Barbie doll at the foot of the old wooden water tower that loomed overhead seemed like a good omen. That entire incident was scary, but no harm was done and - to Cecilia's delight - superintendent Veeck did promise to hand over the toy if nobody claims it. Besides, this rain drenched and brooding island of meagre sanctuary that offered a brief shard view of the outside world was the best that they could afford. She also secretly enjoyed how their new home's location sent Kyle into apoplectic fits of frustrated rage. Perhaps he'll behave less indifferent and more nicely from now on - despite him demanding that she get a good lawyer, slipping by the front desk and leaving a harsh note under their door unannounced. Worse still, that ugly water spot has returned over Ceci's bed and Dahlia can hear far too much noise coming from the supposedly abandoned suite directly above them. Both become too unbearable for Dahlia to wait for Murphy to get his act together, and then she's further unsettled after knocking at 10f's door only to find it unlocked and that fully furnished upstairs apartment of family photos and dark memories eerily flooded by a rippling lake of deep, black water that almost reaches her knees. Her bad dreams have also gotten worse, and Cecilia has just recently conjured up an imaginary friend named Natasha (Perla Haney-Jardine; 'Kill Bill: Vol. 2' (2004)), who desperately misses her mother and knows all about the bright pink nap sack that Veeck quietly gets rid of - but mysteriously reappears.

My, what a strangely intriguing Hollywood horror tale that somehow doesn't mind that it lacks gruesome body parts or particularly frightful scares. Award-winning director Walter Salles' ('Central do Brasil' (1998), 'Diarios de motocicleta' (2004)) delicately artful, character driven remake of Japanese director Hideo Nakata's ('The Grudge' (2005), 'Ringu' (2000)) film 'Honogurai mizu no soko kara' (2002) - itself adapted from the same titled short story from novelist Kôji Suzuki's compilation reportedly translated into English as Dark Water in 2004 - is actually a surprisingly enjoyable suspense yarn that oftentimes feels updated from a mediaeval folk tale that could have easily inspired the back story for Cinderella. It's a good psychological suspense flick because you're never really sure how much of the shenanigans that embittered divorcee and beleaguered mother Dahlia Williams (Jennifer Connelly; 'A Beautiful Mind' (2001), 'House of Sand and Fog' (2003)) has to deal with are being caused by the lonely machinations of a little girl's spectre living upstairs, or are spun from the seemingly bipolar mind of Dahlia's ex-husband Kyle (Dougray Scott; 'Ever After' (1998), 'Enigma' (2001)). Both are obviously at work here, but Rafael Yglesias' screenplay marvelously confounds a paying audience's amateur sleuthing genes long enough for the story to unravel at its own deliciously maudlin pace. Sure, shades of 'The Ring 2' (2005) do peek through, but evil doesn't lunge at you from the shadows here, it smiles at you with a familiar face while its poison coldly seeps into your pores. Good stuff. Connelly is superb throughout, beautifully allowing her fragile character to struggle with bravery while precariously teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown until she finally collapses into momentary madness over the bizarre happenings that confound her attempts to regain some semblance of normalcy with her precocious little daughter Cecilia (Ariel Gade). Every aspect of tangible atmosphere in this hundred and five minute feature is brilliantly thick with impending doom, from the dilapidated apartment building's architecturally Brutalist style - which is fairly gloomy and intimidating on the sunniest of days - to the relentless rain appearing to consciously want to invade their one bedroom suite. Awesome. Cinematographer Affonso Beato gets it dead on in every scene. However, 'Dark Water' does have its share of problems, regardless of whether or not you want to think of it as either a failed chiller or an intelligent drama haunted by ethereal torment. As notably satisfying as the story is in the latter case, it only marginally navigates through a path of unfulfilled plot holes. For instance, you see Kyle covertly chatting with a couple of teenagers who crusty building superintendent Veeck (Pete Postlethwaite) squarely blames for some of Mrs. Williams' woes, but it's never revealed what that was about. It's also never explained why Dahlia's curiously dishonest lawyer Jeff Platzer (Tim Roth; 'Reservoir Dogs' (1992), 'Nouvelle-France' (2004)) is so handy with his cell phone camera. Perhaps Nakata's original movie spawned a sequel, and the intention was to set you up with those annoying loose ends for the remake of that, but they do somewhat deflate an otherwise beautifully memorable ending. 'Dark Water' will definitely leave you cold and miserable if you go in expecting a horrifying gore fest or a fun, edge of your seat big screen screamer, but you'll undoubtedly discover a wonderfully fresh slant to the horror genre that's akin to the scandalously overlooked 'One Hour Photo' (2002) if you're patient with the soft yet thoughtful script and this astounding main cast of well chosen talent.

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Dus
REVIEWED 07/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

The dangerously puzzling deadline hangs like the heavy blade over Indian Department of Security's Mumbai-based, highly trained Anti-Terrorist Cell (ATC) director Siddhant Singh (Sanjay Dutt). Something big is planned to kill thousands of innocent civilians on May 10th, leaving him and his elite team seven short days to sift through every clue, haul in and interrogate every suspect, and exhaust every possible scenario towards stopping a mercurial criminal mastermind known as Jambwal. The poisonous tendrils of this unseen terrorist run deep and wide through every level of society, threatening to undermine Singh's investigation at every turn, just as Head Office suspiciously announces the summary dismantling of his squadron. Siddhant continues to struggle off the record with the case, aided by his fairly unorthodox key specialists Alisha (Shilpa Shetty; 'Dhadkan' (2000), 'Phir Milenge' (2004)), Aditya (Zayed Khan) and Singh's younger brother Shashank (Abhishek Bachchan), fighting his frayed nerves over the uncooperative smugness of their only potential informant and compelling evidence that a spy has breached his own high tech headquarters. Time that he can't afford to waste uncontrollably slips through his fingers, until luck points his attention to Canada and an unassuming money man named Himmat Mehendi (played by Pankaj Kapoor) who Aditya and Shashank - both embittered by a personal grudge regarding Singh's betrothed sister Anu - are quickly dispatched to capture. However, their lives are jeopardized as soon as their Air Canada flight lands and it's discovered the car left by their sassy contact Neha (Esha Deol; 'Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe' (2002), 'Kaal' (2005)) has been rigged with a bomb set to explode if they stop driving at high speeds through the busy streets of Calgary. Plain clothes Canadian Police Officer Dan (Sunil Shetty) gives chase, but ends up wounded in the crossfire when our heroes' kidnapping of Mehendi leads to a deadly ambush by Jambwal's gun toting mercenaries. Meanwhile, Siddhant faces another blow when an unseen caller informs him that Anu and her new husband have been taken hostage and will be killed if his informant prisoner isn't handed over. Time is running out, and everyone is under suspicion as this unthinkable conspiracy of mass murder draws closer to terrifying fruition.

Well, at least the soundtrack is good. Super charged with a bizarrely childish reliance on vacuous, pyrotechnic photo shoot posing in fashionable knock-offs, this relentlessly aggravating subtitled live action cartoon half filmed in Alberta is a complete waste of its otherwise proven Bollywood talent throughout - except for Pankaj Kapoor's ('Gandhi' (1982), 'The Burning Season' (1993)) performance, which is quite mesmerizing. Quite literally, 'Dus' rates a ten on any sort of scale where the highest mark reflects a resounding inability to justify cluttering up the big screen with this celluloid mess of disproportionately bad acting and over-all lousy dialogue, dreadfully cheap effects and its painfully goofy story of a strained Mumbai anti-terrorist unit attempting to solve a muddled conspiracy to blow up Calgary's Mac Mahon Stadium during a crowded goodwill soccer match celebrating trade relations between India and Canada. Huh? Shades of John Woo abound, but this one's laughably ridiculous - to the point of being so cheesy and overwhelmingly amateurish that it's almost enjoyable at times - as a cult turkey. For instance, when our heroes are surrounded by gunmen on a lone bridge, one of them slips over the railing, scales behind that gauntlet of flying bullets and up the girders unseen, and then jumps onto a car's roof to stylishly fill the baddies full of lead. Applying logic to 'Dus' is futile, just sit back and let the violence-is-fun weirdness entertain you. At a hundred and fifty-two minutes in length, it's also physically exhausting for a paying audience to endure sitting through as anything other than an unwittingly silly B movie groaner. One couple later discovers a bloody corpse in the car's trunk, so they almost immediately begin lyrically fawning over each other with such artful phrases as, "Let your fragrance mingle with my breath until the last drop". Uh, okay. Good luck with that. It's as though co-writer/director Anubhav Sinha ('Tum Bin' (2001)) was on vacation here, basically allowing stars Abhishek Bachchan ('Dhoom' (2004), 'Sarkar' (2005)), Zayed Khan ('Main Hoon Na' (2004)), Sanjay Dutt ('Vaastav: The Reality' (1999), 'Mission Kashmir' (2000)) and Sunil Shetty ('Dhadkan' (2000), 'Paheli' (2005)) free rein to run riot in front of cinematographer Vijay Arora's clearly disinterested lens. I wouldn't be surprised if the scenes were written a cocktail napkin or two ahead of being shot. Sure, this cast's individual natural presence is available for fans to tap into, but their resulting efforts are hardly enough to make you care about what happens to any of these cardboard finger puppets furiously waiving around their hair triggered arsenal and lazily exercising little more than their eyebrows in lieu of dramatic acting. And yes, the four or five songs that are awkwardly rammed into this picture are high points that definitely slap you out of your drooling coma with contagiously toe tapping flare, but even those obviously lip synched Masala moments feel unnecessarily long and borrowed from elsewhere for the most part. You've likely seen far superior Hindi hits from this talented lot, so get the impressive soundtrack, but you're better off simply avoiding ruining those good memories by steering clear of this incredibly disappointing pile of vapid and noisy nonsense.

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The Dukes of Hazzard
REVIEWED 08/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Days before the Annual Hazzard County Rally that crazy young cousins Bo (Seann William Scott) and Luke (Johnny Knoxville) Duke plan to win for the fifth time in a row, they're faced with a tough problem. It's not that renowned Nascar champ Billy Prickett (James Roday; 'Believe' (2000), 'Showtime' (2002)) has come home to this back water patch of Georgia to reclaim that prized silver cup for himself. No, the good hearted country boys could race circles around Prickett with their eyes closed and their hands tied behind their backs. That is, once Cooter (David Koechner) fixes the "mostly cosmetic" damage from their last gunshot riddled run. The Dukes' problem is that Mayor Jefferson Davis 'Boss' Hogg (Burt Reynolds) and his crooked stump Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (M.C. Gainey; 'The Mighty Ducks' (1992), 'Sideways' (2004)) have taken over their farm. Heck, that moonshine equipment piled up in their decrepit old barn wasn't even theirs - Uncle Jesse's (Oscar and Grammy nominated Willie Nelson; 'The Electric Horseman' (1979), 'Wag the Dog' (1997)) trusty copper still is hidden in the house, and their small time home made white lightening making business has always been kept one step ahead of the law - but, the property was seized anyways. It was just plain rude. However, what's more troubling is the mess of earth moving machinery that Bo and Luke stumbled upon over at a neighbour's field and, after a little help from tobacco chompin' Sheev's (Kevin Heffernan; 'Super Troopers' (2001), 'Sky High' (2005)) hobby dabbling in high explosive out back of his broke down bait and tackle shop confirms a shady double crossin' conspiracy that threatens the entire town, the Dukes burn screeching rubber in a break neck race against time to save their land, rescue their kidnapped Uncle, win the rally, and foil Boss Hogg's dastardly money grubbin' schemes to turn the lush woodlands of Hazzard County into a strip mined crater. All this excitement is almost enough to make Sheev put on some pants...

Feeling a lot like a big screen episode of the infamous good ol' boy American TV series of the same name that ran from 1979 until 1985 and spawned a forgettable spin-off and a bloated warehouse of swap meet merchandise, two made-for-television specials and three computer games as of 2004, this updated movie version from director Jay Chandrasekhar ('Super Troopers' (2001), 'Broken Lizard's Club Dread' (2004)) is as inane as the original show was in every detail except for the car stunts. They're much better this time. Unfortunately, a paying audience is forced to endure sitting through all of the comparably unimportant stuff featured in writer John O'Brien's ('Cradle 2 the Grave' (2003), 'Starsky & Hutch' (2004)) screenplay, such as Seann William Scott ('American Pie' (1999), 'The Rundown' (2003)) and Phillip John Clapp (aka Johnny Knoxville; 'Men in Black II' (2002), 'Lords of Dogtown' (2005)) mercilessly reviving the fictitious Georgia backwoods cousins Bo and Luke Duke first played by reportedly uncredited 'Smokey and the Bandit' (1977) extra John Schneider ('Snow Day' (2000)) and spotlight dropout Tom Wopat over two decades ago. Music star Jessica Simpson also makes a much hyped debut that plays out more like a series of gratuitous cameos basically exploiting her obvious beauty as the family bimbo with brains but mostly, uh, curves, Daisy Duke, as though O'Brien really didn't know what to do with her but felt pressured to somehow include that sexually charged character made famous by Catherine Bach ('Thunderbolt and Lightfoot' (1974), 'The Nutt House' (1992)) and a particularly tight fitting pair of cut-off jeans primarily replaced by Simpson in tight pants or a bubble gum pink bikini. That's fine... just don't ask me what colour Jessica Simpson's eyes are or if she can act, because they were tough to notice. Sure, 'The Dukes of Hazzard' does attempt to not-so subtly explain some of the things that the original hundred and forty-five episode show was renowned for, such as how those moonshine runnin' hillbillies took up shootin' them thar arrows and why they always jumped into their car through the windows instead of merely opening the doors, as well as answers the burning question of how they manage to own such a finely tuned, high octane auto-mo-beel in the first place while makin' their way the only way they know how as modern day Robin Hoods. It's not really enough to sustain an entire film that runs an exhaustive hundred and six-minutes, but at least most of the script's vaguely clever details are reserved for that legendary suped up orange '69 Dodge Charger, named General Lee - easily in the same inspired league of classic fantasy roadsters as the Red Ford Torino from 'Starsky and Hutch', and the Batmobile - and avoids attempting to flesh out the live action cartoon roles of this otherwise talented cast apparently having a sporadically tepid blast unimpressively portraying the love children of Dolly Parton and the banjo player from 'Deliverance' (1972). Even Burt Reynolds' ('The Cannonball Run' (1981), 'The Longest Yard' (2005)) part as Boss Hogg is equally goofy but fairly forgettable. All of the enjoyable aspects either star an unseen army of stunt doubles listing as long as the on-screen players given dialogue, or have to do with how Chandrasekhar carefully ensures that this movie seamlessly imitates the original series through editing tricks and copious lame punch lines throughout. Everything else is plainly filler. It's definitely a switch off your brain and enjoy the eye candy type of screening that you'll either love as the noisy, dumbed down guilty pleasure it's meant to be if you loved the television show, or you'll loathe with an indignant sneer if you felt the same way about its twenty year-old small screen namesake apparently still airing in syndication. I suppose it's only a matter of time before practically every other remotely successful show from a generation ago gets the Hollywood revamp for no other reason than perhaps Tinsel Town actually is quickly running out of fresh ideas. Do I really need to tell you to save your time and box office cash on this one?

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Deuce Bigalow 2
REVIEWED 08/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Former Sea World janitor, ex-male prostitute and pitifully lonely widower Deuce Bigalow (Rob Schneider) is invited to drink in the richly historic Dutch ambience of Amsterdam first hand by his old friend and ex-patriot pimp Tiberius Jefferson 'TJ' Hicks (Eddie Griffin). So, with nothing better to do but pine at the prosthetic leg centrepiece of his home made shrine to Deuce's wife - eaten by sharks on their Mexican honeymoon in a freak lettuce accident - and evading local authorities after his beachside sonic experiment unwittingly turning nearby dolphins against a group of blind geriatrics made the headlines, Bigalow packs up his gear and his leg for a pleasantly relaxing European vacation. However, Hicks has other, far more (expletive) plans. A faceless (expletive) has sent a chill through the seedy (expletive) sex trade over there. (expletive). It's killing the (expletive) business enjoyed by TJ's (expletive) roster of (expletive) (expletive) (expletive) male prostitutes, by literally (expletive) killing the most (expletive) elite from that (expletive) world of (expletive) (expletive) for hire. Even the (expletive) from the Royal Order of European (expletive) are afraid to (expletive), (expletive) or simply (expletive) in a wooden shoe while the threat of (expletive) death threatens their (expletive) livelihood. What's worse, Hicks ends up as (expletive) prime suspect number (expletive) one, hiding in (expletive) disguises from (expletive) Police Inspector Gaspar Voorsboch (Jeroen Krabbé; 'The Fugitive' (1993), 'Ocean's (expletive)' (2004)) while Deuce is forced to hit the streets and (expletive) clients to uncover this (expletive) mystery and (expletive) the real (expletive), days before the Order's forty-second Annual Golden (expletive) Awards Gala honouring the best (expletive) and the most (expletive) member's (expletive) airs on national (expletive) television. This is one screwed up (expletive).

Well, this one from director Mike Bigalow (?) could have been a worthwhile movie if actor/writer Rob Schneider's, David Garrett's and Jason Ward's disjointed campy screenplay hadn't felt like a load of half baked skits and unfunny sight gags loosely strung together by this fairly childish, mature themed story. 'Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo' (its complete title) gives the impression that it wants to be an outrageous sex farce akin to 'Eurotrip' or anything from National Lampoon or The Carry On Gang, but because nothing particularly new is offered and this cast seems overtly disinterested in the material, sitting through this eighty-three minute turkey is a disappointing chore for the most part. Schneider, who awkwardly carries over his starring role from the measurably funnier 'Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo' (1999) in this contrived caper to solve the systematic murder of Amsterdam's elite male prostitutes and save his former pimp friend Tiberius Jefferson 'TJ' Hicks (Eddie Griffin; 'Undercover Brother' (2002), 'My Baby's Daddy' (2004)) from a fairly lazy manhunt fingering him as the killer, simply isn't empathetic or likable enough to hold the attention of a paying audience. All of his scenes seem desperately needy, without arming him with enough jokes or dialogue or direction to turn that lost puppy dog affectation into something funny. He plays a goofy straight man surrounded by this crowd of terribly cobbled together, worn out stereotypes all pulling faces and silly accents for the camera. Disastrous. And then, just when you hope to be rewarded with a rollicking display of last-minute comedic inspiration for slogging through this dreary parody, the script chucks the entire premise in favour of a drawn out speech espousing the virtues of what (Bigalow declares) these female clients really want from their, uh, hired hands. Yawn. Sure, a small number of marginally humourous laughs do sneak in - I laughed at two brief moments - but you've seen most of them in the ads and trailers leading up to this picture's release: The giant lady's baby fetish. The crotch-chomping cat. The sailor suit midget. Every opportunity to develop any of those potentially clever asides into something that lifts 'Deuce Bigalow 2' as a whole is quickly abandoned to waste time with the dull romantic sub plot featuring former Dutch Elite model turned 'Top of the Pops' host Hanna Verboom ('Snowfever' (2004)) as sweetly obsessive compulsive love interest Eva. Why bother? What were they thinking? Were they thinking? Awful.

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