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Archive for January, 2010

Drive, He Said (1971)

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

It’s uncanny that while Easy Rider has oft been credited with orifice up Hollywood, its prime movers should subsequently have had such a stark time. But Hopper, Fonda and Nicholson all overreached next time entirely, and the fascinating Last Movie, Hired Pass on and Move, He Said each got pigeonholed - or shelved - as ‘failures’. Nicholson’s movie was nothing less than his own variant on W.R.- Mysteries of the Organism: a boldly-shot campus tall tale of basketball and lap turning on notions of Reichian union-pol. No way can it be said to het up b prepare, in defiance of the cast’s cultish distinction, but it still knocks most of its quasi-revolutionary contemporaries sideways as an index of doomed ’60s/’70s causes and confusions.

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Rolling Family (2004)

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Five years after his present-winning “Crane World” splashed young number one Pablo Trapero on carnival screens and “El Bonaerense” confirmed him as a major talent of new Argentine cinema, Trapero steps servants’ into a more exclusive but less original story with “Rolling Derivation.” An extended Buenos Aires family’s long caravan slip offers Trapero a chance to treatment his scripted-documentary nearer to instruct stories about fair people, but here the socio-political background that gave his previous films their edge takes a backseat to relations squabbles and love stories. Film’s too insolent setting coupled with an extremely leisurely pace will hamper offshore location.

Eighty-four-year-old Emilia (Graciana Chironi), the matriarch of a closely knit, four generation working class family, receives an invitation to be the matron of honor at a grandniece’s wedding, and her whole family crams into a makeshift mobile camper driven by Oscar (Bernardo Forteza) and heads for her hometown on the Brazilian border.

Her daughters (Liliana Capurro, Ruth Dobel) have a tiff over an old love affair involving one’s husband that gets rekindled. Her rasta-haired granddaughter, who just had a baby, gets back together with her violent biker boyfriend. Two young teens become kissing cousins, someone has a dental emergency and the camper breaks down, but they finally arrive in time for the festivities.

The film has humanity to burn, but its loose structure makes it hard to connect with the multiple characters. Much screen time goes by before some emotional pay-off arrives from the noisy, squalling family. The quickly sketched characters, played by a mixed cast of pro and non-pro actors, work best in a handful of comic situations.

Silk Stalkings - The Complete First Season (1991)

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010


Homicide: Spring on the Street

,

Law & Order

, or

NYPD Blue

, simply because the erotic tempt of

Silk Stockings

The primary reason that I found that this series didn't compare to other crime dramas was due to the cast. The two main characters are sergeants Chris Lorenzo (Rob Estes) and Rita Lee Lance (Mitzi Kapture). I found that these characters were not developed in a manner that I found appealing. For that reason, following them through twenty-two episodes simply wasn't exciting. Lorenzo is presented as a playboy, a pretty boy that almost no women can resist. Similarly, Lance is very attractive and could probably have any guy she wanted. The two use their physical characteristics during their investigations, which lead to a few kinky safe-for-television sex scenes. It also sets the foundation for the detectives' reputations. While they're not a pair of sex-starved detectives, their periodically "unethical" behavior during their investigations turns a few heads. We get to see this in the form of a conflict between Lorenzo and Lance with a couple of the district attorneys. Also, it becomes apparent that there's a lot of sexual tension between the pair. Sure they say that they're just best friends, but come on, turn on Barry Manilow and let the lovin' begin. Overall, I just didn't think that they were the most convincing pair to investigate murders.

Besides the very limited cast, I felt that the actual content of this season was not presented extremely well. The crimes of each episode generally revolve around passionate crimes of revenge, greed, jealousy, and lust. As well, these cases involve the more prominent residents of Palm Beach. These high-profile passionate murders are known as "silk stalkings". Each case promises to bring a basket full of snotty rich folks and plenty of scantly clad women in lingerie and other revealing forms of clothing. Of course, these are the same type of cases we see in other series, but the ways that they are presented just don't scream excitement. Because this series focuses upon high-profile crimes of passion, there isn't a great amount of diversity in each episode. We continually see them same thing in a slightly different context. While the repetitive angle can work with some series, it doesn't with

Silk Stalkings

.

This series also adds a mysterious appeal. Each episodes opens with the crime being committed. We see the what and the how, but the why and the who are left out. The missing answers are slowly revealed throughout the rest of the episode. However, there's more than one episode that the why and the who are a bit transparent. Before you know it, you're not longer watching the episode to find out the why and the who, but rather to confirm you're right. Ergo, the mystery element in this season isn't really strong. The further you get into the first season, the more it feels like each episode is lacking.

Furthermore, this series was once pretty risque. The erotic appeal of the show, with a lot of scantly clad women, was a key selling point of this series. I really used to enjoy its erotic appeal, not being afraid to show girls in skimpy lingerie, brazen bikinis, naked flesh, and bare bottoms. But the fact of the matter is that the erotic appeal just isn't there anymore. With television as it is, you can find the same thing on just about any channel. Thus the show loses its special appeal and is left with its actual content… a crime drama that I found to be slightly lacking in the entertainment department. The episodes are at best, good for a single viewing. However, the plotlines seem a bit too weak and a bit too much like the last. Fans of the series should be happy to see this pair back in action, but everyone else, if you're looking for a good crime drama, you'd better look elsewhere.


Episode Guide


1. Silk Stockings

2. Going to Babylon

3. S.O.B.

4. In the Name of Love

5. Dirty Laundry

6. Men Seeking Women

7. Hard Copy

8. Curtain Call

9. The Brotherhood

10. Blo-Dri

11. Intensive Care

12. Squeeze Play

13. Shock Jock

14. Witness

15. Domestic Agenda

16. Lady Luck

17. The Sock Drawer

18. Working Girl

19. Powder Burn

20. Internal Affairs

21. Basic Instincts

22. Good Time Charlie


The DVD


Video

:

The release of first season DVD release of

Silk Stalkings

is in its original television aspect ratio of 1.33:1 full frame color. I was happily surprised with the quality of the picture. It was substantially better than I remember when it aired on broadcast television. For the most part, there was very little grain in the picture. I also noticed that there were no issues with poor frame rate, color distortions, or compression artifacts. However, during the darker scenes (there are a lot of them) a distinct grain could be seen in the picture. But again, the quality is much better than its original presentation.


Audio

:

The audio track in this release is English 2.0 Dolby digital stereo sound. In terms of sound quality, it's pretty much similar to any other television release. The dialogue remains fairly flat. As well the music tends to feel the same way. Regarding the track's stereo capabilities, there is very little distinction between channels. Despite that, the audio track remains to be very clear and audible. For this release, it sounds very good. There are no subtitles with this release, nor is it closed-caption enabled.


Extras

:

There aren't a lot of special features with this release. There are a total of five interviews. The first four are separate interviews with Rob Estes, Mitzi Kapture, Ben Vereen, and Stephen J. Cannell. The final interview is with both Ben Vereen and Stephen J. Cannell. Together, these interviews make up for a little less than forty minutes of fun. They cover the very beginning of the series, the two main characters, general thoughts and impressions, etc. Some of the content mentioned was a bit interesting. I enjoyed Rob Estes' comments about his role, as he seemed to endorse my thoughts mentioned in the review. In general, they weren't too fascinating and probably aren't suited for more than a single viewing.


Final Thoughts

:

I remember

Silk Stalkings

being a very good series. I used to enjoy watching it in the past, but years later, my impressions of the series are much different. The entertainment value in the first season isn't really high. The episodes are at best mildly entertaining. They tend to be filled with a lot of repetitive content and in some cases the actual stories are a bit hollow. Overall, this first season release isn't a strong season. The episodes can make for some decent entertainment, but after you've seen an episode, you probably won't want to revisit it in the future. The bottom line is that this first season release would make for a decent rental, considering that you enjoy crime dramas with a slightly erotic appeal.

Agree? Disagree? You can

post your thoughts

about this review on the DVD Talk forums.

Across 110th Street review

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

“Across 110th Street” is not for the squeamish. From the onset it is a virtual blood bath. Those portions of it which aren’t bloody violent are filled in by the squalid unearthing sites in Stylish York’s Harlem or equally unappealing ghetto areas leaving no locum tenens from depression and tyranny. There’s not the score with a magical or romantic type dramatis persona or approach with a view audiences to illusion-empathize with. Boxoffice potential draw is only the violence which is likely to rotate more people away than on.

Technically, the Film Guarantors Inc. production, United Artists release, is well-made, realistic in presentation and effect with uniformly good portrayals from actors, but depressingly lacking in a sympathetic focal point for audiences to grasp. Possible moments for this necessary ingredients are only cursorily touched upon in the character make-up of three participants but are passed over and forgotten. Star Anthony Quinn and director Barry Shear were co-executive producers. Ralph Serpe and Fouad Said produced.

Shear’s direction of the Luther Davis script, based upon the novel, “Across 110th,” by Wally Ferris, is strong and relentless in its pursuit of violence. He incorporates side characters and situations into group scenes which give authenticity to the feel and moods of the overall production. Perhaps it’s too real.

With the knock-over by three Harlem blacks, Paul Benjamin, Ed Bernard, Antonio Fargas, of “the family’s” $300,000 take from the streets, Anthony Fraciosa, uncool son-in-law of org’s head, goes out to “teach them a lesson.” He smashes a glass in the face of Fargas, beats and tortures Bernard for info then drops him down 20 stories with sadistic grin.

Quinn, aging police captain on the take with a strange sense of responsibility to the law, is relegated to working with Yaphet Kotto, black lieutenant after captain’s bars and as yet, uncorrupt, as it seems every other cop is.

With the race on between cops and “family,” for third member of trio, Benjamin hides out in condemned building and is located when girlfriend Norma Donaldson brings his epilepsy medicine. Police arrive after he has given Franciosa and pals a few hundred rounds from machine gun. Before expiring from police bullets Benjamin tosses loot into ghetto schoolyard, returning it to the streets. Quinn gets his in the temple from sniper’s bullet as he stands over the body and the fade out is on the black hand of Kotto holding the white of Quinn’s.

Quinn’s performance is controlled, but the character is not clearly defined. Kotto relies on understatement for majority of film while Franciosa is bravura in a role written with paranoia overtones. Benjamin pulls for sympathy but is submerged in the violence. Richard Ward as a Harlem head for the “family” is a standout with extremely well modulated portrayal.

Lensing of Jack Priestley captures the squalor of every site utilized and Byron Brandt’s editing is tight and effective.

Goff.

Powered by a strong hip-hop-f…

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Powered by a strong hip-bound-flavored soundtrack, “Fakin’ Da Funk” is an energetic, highly likable comedy about the sparks that hindrance when an adopted Chinese kid and an Asian exchange student discovery themselves trying to authorize friends with the boyz in the hood. The over-abundance of mirthful moments helps keep writer-director Tim Chey’s crave-good report about racial agreement from meet too earnest, although the storytelling is a tad predictable. Chey’s introduction have a role is likely to assemble interest on the fest orbit, but it might not tease the requisite tea dance-worst moves to convince distribs to take a conceivably on it. Its funky charms may beget better on the small silver screen.

Tale begins with Joe Lee (Ernie Hudson) and Annabelle Lee (Pam Grier) freaking out as they learn that the baby they’re adopting is Chinese rather than black. The father, who is a preacher, dies while his adopted son, Julian (Dante Basco), is still quite young, and the family decides to pack up and move from Atlanta to L.A.

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Julian is an adolescent by now, and his new neighbors are more than a little perplexed by the new kid on the block who looks Asian but talks, acts and plays basketball like he has lived his entire life in South Central. In a parallel plot, foreign-exchange student May-Ling (Margaret Cho) is as perplexed as the Lee parents were at the adoption agency when she discovers that she is being housed with a black family in South Central.

Lion’s share of the running time is devoted to Julian and May-Ling’s difficult experiences adapting to their new environment. May-Ling’s cross-cultural hegira leans closer to straightforward comedy, while Julian’s difficulties are played somewhat more seriously. Julian also has to deal with the problems caused by his younger brother, Perry (Rashaan Nall), who has taken up with local gangstas led by Frog (Tone Loc).

Chey keeps it grooving along at a good pace with lots of laughs along the way, making for a fun, if fairly light, look at a complicated subject. The subplot involving Perry and the drug dealers works least well, serving only to clutter the last section of the film. Cast is uniformly strong, particularly Cho, who is frequently downright hilarious as the clueless but endearing May-Ling, and many of the smaller roles are also memorable, most notably Grier as Julian’s mom.

The upbeat soundtrack includes funk numbers, hip-hop tunes and occasional Asian instrumentals.

After the death of her father,…

Monday, January 18th, 2010

After the death of her father, Hannah (Maria Schrader) is worried by her mother Ruth Weinstein (Jutta Lampe)’s eccentric behaviour. There’s her quick conversion to the Jewish religion, insisting on the traditional 30 day anguish period for the whole family. She is disapproving of Hannah’s South American fiancé Luis (Fedja Van Huet), who had been her father’s protégé. Hannah heads as Berlin, where 90 year cast off Lena Fischer (Doris Schade), the mystifying woman in an old photograph motionless lives, to find discernible the truth near her mother’s past. As a young woman then in her twenties, Lena (Katja Riemann) and Ruth (Svea Lohde), then a child, met in the Berlin street of Rosenstrasse, where women were demonstrating against the deportation of their Jewish husbands.

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Waiting… review

Saturday, January 16th, 2010

POLITE APPLAUSE

Waiting: Comedy. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, Justin Long,
Luis Guzmán and Dane Cook. Directed by Rob McKittrick. (Rated R. 87 minutes. At
Bay Area theaters.)



“Waiting” is a film so devoid of structure that it actually seems to be flaunting its lack of a beginning, middle and end. The lowbrow comedy about
workers at a chain restaurant doesn’t have any more plot turns than the average
night shift at Chevy’s. By comparison, the events in “Old School” seem as
meticulously organized as “The Usual Suspects.”

This movie’s two goals are to be over-the-top funny and remind audience
members what it feels like to be in your early 20s without a plan, and it’s a
complete success in both areas. Give the makers of “Office Space” the bad news
– the residual checks may be getting smaller because “Waiting” is probably
going to play on an endless loop at Comedy Central for the rest of our lives.

It’s hard to explain “Waiting,” because it never gets past the set-up: A
bunch of characters at a restaurant called Shenanigans interact over a 24-hour
period.

If this comedy is about anything, it’s a treatise on hooking up,
contemplating your future and breaking the cardinal rule of restaurant
patronage: Don’t mess with the people who handle your food. To see the
behind-the-scenes desecration of meals in “Waiting” is to give up any plans to
visit Chili’s, TGI Fridays and especially Applebee’s for at least five months.

The Kevin Smith comedy “Clerks” is the obvious comparison, and “Waiting”
has its Dante and Randal characters, played by Justin Long as sensitive Dean
and Ryan Reynolds as wise-guy Monty. Dean is too smart for his job but too
scared to leave it, and Monty has found his true calling, as he demonstrates
spending most of the day training a scared young trainee named Mitch (played by
a mute-yet-hilarious John Francis Daley).

With no clear narrative, “Waiting” is heavily dependent on its screenplay
and casting. First-time director/writer Rob McKittrick uses the Monty/Mitch
relationship to give a disturbing-yet-hilarious tour of the depraved and
hygiene-challenged world of food service.

McKittrick’s humor is obvious but still original, and it’s unclear which
lines are going to become classics in this film because there are so many good
ones. (Nominees include “Push the fish, it’s about to turn,” “Welcome to
Thunderdome, bitch” and the Shenanigans birthday theme song — “The good news
is the dessert is free! The bad news is we sing off-key!” — which ends with
a child in tears.)

“Waiting” is an hour and a half long, but has more than a dozen memorable
characters who are divided into cliques and presented like zoo exhibits.
Included are the wannabe gangster stoner busboys, the uptight manager and the
psychopath cooks — depicted with an especially sick level of humor by Dane
Cook and Luis Guzmán — who spends most of the movie playing a surprisingly
complicated game that involves showing other men his genitals.

Depending on how depraved you are, you might want to wait for the Bigger,
Longer and Unrated DVD version of “Waiting,” or maybe just avoid the movie
altogether. Lots of people will leave screenings of this movie in disgust —
and laughter is the last thing they will hear on the way out.

– Advisory: This film contains profanity, crude humor, allusions to sex
with minors, alcohol use, drug use and frontal nudity. As totally funny as the
movie is, “Waiting” should be avoided by anyone who eats at Applebee’s more
than once a week. Particularly if you like to order the mashed potatoes.

E-mail Peter Hartlaub at phartlaub@sfchronicle.com.

Kurt and Courtney (1997)

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

British documentarian Appropriate Broomfield follows his lurid profiles of serial iceman Aileen Wournos and Beverly Hills madam Heidi Fleiss with this inept chronicle of the individual and end of sway falling star Kurt Cobain and his harpy woman, Courtney Love.

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The Milky Way (1969)

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
“Has some laughs mostly at the
expense of Catholic dogma.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Atheist Spanish expatriate director Luis Bunuel (”Un Chien Andalou”/”Nazarin”/”Simon
of the Desert”), who once said “Thank God I’m an atheist,” has some laughs
mostly at the expense of Catholic dogma in this anti-clerical, anti-militant,
anti-bourgeois, anti-hypocrite and anti-establishment satire. It takes
shape as a religious parable–instead of a Pilgrim’s Progress it’s more
like an Atheist’s Progress. It’s cowritten by the director and Jean-Claude
Carriere; it’s the first of four of his anecdotal films of his last years
that include: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise, The Phantom of Liberty
and That Obscure Object of Desire. 

The film is greatly influenced by the free-love and freethinking
mood set by the revolutionary actions of the French youth and the radicalized
workers of the late sixties, which had its messy and strident moments that
don’t go unnoticed by the filmmaker. Bunuel has stated the film is “neither
for nor against anything at all,” as he assumed the pose of an observer
vouchsafing his views of a disbelief in redemption as his modern-day narrator
vagrant pilgrim protagonists run into an anticlerical history of heresy
through the Christian ages. It’s the only Bunuel film made up entirely
of Catholic dogma itself, and proudly points out during the closing credits
that every quotation used is authentic. It expounds on the six ‘mysteries’
of Catholic dogma: 1-The nature of God (the three-in-one nature of the
Holy Trinity). 2- Christ (regarding his dual nature as God and man). 3-
The Virgin Mary (the credibility of the immaculate conception) 4-The Eucharist
(wonders whether or not the host is literally Christ’s body or merely a
metaphor). 5-Divine Grace (regarding the role of free will in a divine
order). 6-Evil (questions if God is omnipotent, how could there be sin
and temptation). Throughout the film there will be a running debate between
the the literal orthodox view and its heretical counterpart.

Two clownish, amiable, and blandly roguish rather than pious vagrant
Parisian pilgrims, Pierre (Paul Frankeur) and the younger and more skeptical
Jean (Laurent Terzieff), experts in just going with the flow in a deadpan
manner no matter what trouble befalls them, serve as the ‘everyman’ spokesmen
for the film. They journey through France on their way to the Spanish shrine
Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain (the cathedral holds the remains
of the apostle Saint James-another name for the Milky Way is the Way of
Saint James). They plan to make money begging for alms among the many affluent
tourists and pilgrims gathering there. They walk along the highway, as
they mostly fail to hitch rides. En route they meet various characters
that include (a caped God-like figure hiding a dwarf in his cape, questionable
priests, a crucified nun, blind men cured by the Lord, bully policemen,
the sadistic Marquis de Sade, stigmatic children, a Spanish inquisitor,
the Whore of Babylon, the Devil, the first Christian executed for heresy
(the fourth-century ascetic Priscillian, the Spanish bishop played by the
co-writer), Christ and the Virgin Mary) as they magically pass through
time-warps, space-warps, mythologies and other narrative digressions. 

The film’s unique narrative structure uses what the director calls
“discontinuous continuity,” whereby sequences never come together as a
whole as they constantly fracture into new developments. It’s a reversal
of how Bunuel formely told a story on film, but wasn’t perfected by him
until his outstanding film The Phantom of Liberty. 

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One of the film’s memorable scenes has an uppity mama’s boy Jesus
being talked out of shaving his signature beard by the Virgin Mary. Part
of the film’s fun is discovering on your own all of Bunuel’s digs at the
church as he tosses back at them their own words, his knack for coming
up with surprises and unusual images down every bend in the road, the eye-opening
display of human intolerances and a capacity for rigidity among the religious
folks that threatens the fun-loving pilgrims with serious consequences
if they make the wrong move, and all the meaty non sequiturs. Some critics
found this film not up to his best works, but I must differ with them.
It’s a personal Bunuel film that truly covers his lifetime concerns and
plays to his fan base; it also plays out as a pilgrim’s journey that becomes
a search for truth through fanaticism that is not only hilarious, edifying
and well-crafted, but in a surreal way might even offer one an ungodly
redemption from the ills of the modern world. However inaccessible some
might find it, it nevertheless invites discussion for those with open minds.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince review

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

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