Review: "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" is Still Fresh and Vibrant

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 38 of 2022 (No. 1850) by Leroy Douresseaux

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
Original title: Mujeres al borde de un ataque de "nervios"
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Spain; Language: Spanish
Running time:  89 minutes (1 hour, 29 minutes)
MPAA – R
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Pedro Almodóvar
PRODUCER:  Pedro Almodóvar
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  José Luis Alcaine (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  José Salcedo
COMPOSER:  Bernardo Bonezzi
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/COMEDY

Starring:  Carmen Maura, Antonio Banderas, Julieta Serrano, Rossy de Palma, Maria Berranco, Kiti Manver, Guillermo Montesinos, Chus Lampreave, and Fernando Guillen

Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios is a 1988 Spanish comedy and drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar.  The film is also known by its English release title, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (the title I will use for this review).  The film focuses on a television actress who encounters a variety of eccentric characters as she tries to make contact with her lover who recently and abruptly left her.

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown introduces television actress, Pepa Marcos (Carmen Maura), who was recently dumped by her lover, Ivan (Fernando Guillen).  They are both voice actors who dub foreign language films into Spanish, and Ivan's sweet-talking voice is the same one he uses in his work.  Pepa knows that Ivan is about to leave on a trip … with another woman.  He has even asked Pepa to pack his things in a suitcase that he will pick up later.

However, Pepa just wants to talk to Ivan.  She really needs to talk to him, but he seems to be avoiding her.  She never catches him at home and leaves messages on his telephone answering machine.  He leaves voice messages on her machine, always seeming to call when she is unavailable.  Her life is spiraling out of control, especially as an ever increasing number of eccentric characters, some connected to Ivan, start gathering around her.  Their lives are apparently spiraling out of control, too.

There is her friend Candela (Maria Berranco), who is afraid of the police because she had a brief sexual encounter with a man who turns out to be a “Shiite terrorist.”  He later returned to her, bringing a few terrorists colleagues, and they are planning a terrorist attack.  Candela is more afraid of going to jail than having had a sexual relationship with a terrorist.

Ivan's son, Carlos (Antonio Banderas), arrives at Pepa's penthouse, with his snobbish fiancée, Marisa (Rossy de Palma).  They are apartment-hunting and are interested in Pepa's place.  Pepa meets the feminist and lawyer, Paulina (Kiti Mánver), who has a past with Ivan's family and may be connected to them now.  Carlos describes his mother, Lucia (Julieta Serrano), Ivan's previous lover, as “crazy,” and she is apparently out of her mental hospital and on the way to Pepa's for a confrontation.  Meanwhile, what is Ivan up to?

The original Spanish title of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown – Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios – is evidently not about a “nervous breakdown.”  The “ataque de nervois” is more about women showing excessive negative emotions via panic attacks, fainting, and bodily gestures when they get upsetting news or see something that disturbs them.  This is about agitation and stress instead of a full breakdown, which actually seems possible with some of the film's characters.

I can see why so many film critics, fans, and audiences were taken with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown at the time of its original release.  There was nothing like it in U.S. contemporary film at the time.  Its costumes, art direction, and set decoration have stylish references to the past and present and hints at the future.  If one ignores such things as the types of telephones and answering machines and the operation of the airport, the film does not seem to be set in any particular time, past or present.  The decorations in Pepa's penthouse and all the characters clothing are a riot of beautiful colors and color design.  However, things like the taxi cab that Pepa frequently uses and its lovable driver (Guillermo Montesinos) add an earthy street-level touch to the film.  Even Pepa's menagerie of animals (chickens and rabbits) are a nice addition to the film's oddness

For most of the 1990s, there were rumors of an American remake of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, with Jane Fonda often listed as a potential cast member (as I remember it).  I am not surprised that American actresses would be attracted to this kind of film.  Even with Pepa as the lead, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown has five supporting female roles with significant speaking parts, to say nothing of a few smaller parts that all actresses to show themselves.

No one female character is like another, and each woman has her own reason for “ataque de nervois.”  Pepa and her eccentric friends and acquaintances are a delight, and the actresses make the most of their time on screen.  They turn their character types into showy, gaudy, and captivating women, and I wanted more of them.  Also, a young Antonio Banderas, as Carlos, deftly fits in with all these females, never dominating the screen, but always complimenting with uncanny skill.

I have seen Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown described as a black comedy.  It is too wildly exaggerated to be anything but a farce.  For Pedro Almodóvar, it was his calling card that introduced him to a wider audience outside of both Spain and of the devoted international film audience that already knew him.  I like it as a comedy, but I am really fascinated by its characters and the actors playing them.  The women on the verge of a nervous breakdown are some amazing women indeed, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is an amazing film.

9 of 10
A+
★★★★+ out of 4 stars


NOTES:
1989 Academy Awards, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Foreign Language Film” (Spain)

1990 BAFTA Awards:  1 nomination: “Best Film not in the English Language” (Pedro Almodóvar)

1989 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Foreign Language Film” (Spain)


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Review: "RESIDENT EVIL: Welcome to Raccoon City" is Scary as Hell

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 13 of 2022 (No. 1825) by Leroy Douresseaux

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Canada/Germany
Running time:  107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence and gore, and language throughout
DIRECTOR:  Johannes Roberts
WRITER:  Johannes Roberts (based upon the video game, Resident Evil)
PRODUCERS:  Hartley Gorenstein, James Harris, and Robert Kulzer
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Maxime Alexandre
EDITOR:  Dev Singh
COMPOSER:  Mark Korven

HORROR/SCI-FI/ACTION

Starring:  Kaya Scodelario, Robbie Amell, Hannah John-Kamen, Tom Hopper, Avan Jogia, Donal Logue, Neal McDonough, Marina Mazepa. Janet Porter, Holly De Barros, Chad Rook, Nathan Dales, Daxton Grey Gujral, and Lily Gail Reid

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is a 2021 science fiction, action, and horror film from writer-director Johannes Roberts.  It is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil film franchise and a reboot of the franchise, which is based upon the Capcom survival horror video game series, Resident Evil.  Welcome to Raccoon City is set in 1998 and focuses on a small group of people trying to survive a zombie outbreak in a small town.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City opens sometime in the 1980s in the small town of Raccoon City.  The Raccoon City Orphanage is the current home of orphaned siblings, Claire Redfield (Lily Gail Reid), and her brother, Chris (Daxton Grey Gujral).  The children are subject to being experimented on by Dr. William Birkin (Neal McDonough), an employee of the Umbrella Corporation, the world's largest pharmaceutical company.  Eventually, Claire manages to run away.

On the rainy night of September 30, 1998, an adult Claire (Kaya Scodelario) returns to Raccoon City.  She hopes to convince her estranged brother, Chris (Robbie Amell), who is now an officer of the Raccoon City Police Department (RPD), that Umbrella is experimenting on the people of the city.  However, Chris is not happy to see his sister, nor does he believe what she tells him about Umbrella's activities.

In fact, Umbrella Corp. has pulled out of Raccoon City, turning it into a ghost town.  The only people still in town are a skeleton crew of the corporation's last employees and those who are too poor to leave.  Before Claire can convince anyone of anything, Raccoon City's remaining citizens start getting sick and eventually, they begin turning into hungry zombies.  Soon, Claire and Chris are each leading a small group of police officers on a quest to escape the city with neither knowing that they are rapidly running out of time.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City was not a success at the box office, which is a shame.  As the first entry in a new series of films, it is superior to Resident Evil, the 2002 film that kicked off the franchise.  I will be honest.  The characters are shallow, but character development and motivation are not the most important things in Welcome to Raccoon City.  The scares are.

To that end, it is very successful.  Writer-director Johannes Roberts turns in a film that makes superb use of nighttime settings, shadows, darkness, and a rainy night.  With film editor, Dev Singh, Roberts strangles his audience with fearsome sequences of zombies and monsters jumping out of every darkness.  There is a scene in which Chris Redfield has to ward off zombies with very little light.  Every time, he fires his weapon, there is a flash that briefly illuminates an attacking zombie.  In fact, Welcome to Raccoon City's zombies may be twenty-first century's scariest.  I felt that with every bump and thump in the night my blood was freezing.

I hope that Johannes Roberts gets a shot at making a sequel to Welcome to Raccoon City.  Online and especially on social media, I have come across complaints about this film, but these complainers must be jaded.  In the blended genre of survival horror and zombie films, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is quite an achievement.

7 of 10
A-

Thursday, March 10, 2022


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Review: Vincent Price Does Killer Shakespeare in "THEATRE OF BLOOD"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 10 of 2022 (No. 1822) by Leroy Douresseaux

Theatre of Blood (1973)
Running time:  104 minutes (1 hour, 44 minutes)
DIRECTOR:  Douglas Hickox
WRITERS: Anthony Greville-Bell (based on an idea by Stanley Mann and John Kohn)
PRODUCERS:  John Kohn and Stanley Mann
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Wolfgang Suschitzky (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Malcolm Cooke
COMPOSER:  Michael J. Lewis

THRILLER/HORROR with elements of comedy

Starring:  Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Ian Hendry, Harry Andrews, Robert Coote, Michael Hordern. Robert Morley, Coral Browne, Jack Hawkins, Arthur Lowe, Dennis Price, Milo O'Shea, and Eric Sykes

Theatre of Blood is a 1973 British horror-thriller and dark comedy from director Douglas Hickox.  The film stars Vincent Price as a scorned Shakespearean actor who takes revenge on his critics using the plays of William Shakespeare as reference for his diabolical methods of murder.

Theatre of Blood opens with a murder.  “Theatre Critics Guild” member, George Maxwell (Michael Hordern), is repeatedly stabbed by a mob of homeless people turned murderers.  Maxwell and his fellow guild members recently humiliated Shakespearean actor, Edward Kendal Sheridan Lionheart (Vincent Price).  He was thought to have committed suicide by jumping from the balcony of the guild's headquarters.  Instead, Lionheart was rescued by the very vagrants and homeless people that hehas  recruited to his cause – revenge against the critics who failed to acclaim his genius.

Now, Lionheart has targeted the eight remaining members of the Theatre Critics Guild, designing their deaths using murder scenes from the plays of William Shakespeare.  The police are trying to discover the identity of the killers, and even after they do, they still can't seem to stop him.  Only one of his targets, critic Peregrine Devlin (Ian Hendry), seems smart enough to foil Lionheart.  However, Devlin has no idea just how obsessed and focused Lionheart is.

Vincent Price (1911–1993) was an American actor and a legendary movie star, in addition to being an author and art historian.  Price was and still is best known for his performances in horror films, although his career spanned other genres.  Price appeared in more than 100 films, but he also performed on television, the stage, and on radio.

I am currently reading the wonderful comic book miniseries, Elvira Meets Vincent Price, which is written by David Avallone, drawn by Juan Samu, and published by Dynamite Entertainment.  The series will end shortly, and because I have enjoyed reading it so much, I decided to watch and review a Vincent Price movie.  The first Vincent Price movie that I can remember seeing was Theatre of Blood (known as Theater of Blood in the United States).  As I haven't seen it since that first time, I decided to watch it again.

I remember really liking this movie the first time I saw it, and I enjoyed it watching it again.  Theatre of Blood is both a horror-thriller and a dark comedy, something I did not get watching it as a youngster.  Truthfully, however, Theatre of Blood is a monster movie – a Vincent Price monster movie.

At first, I found myself enjoying Edward Lionheart's revenge and the games of death he plays with his enemies, the critics who would not give him the honor he believes he is due.  Then, I noticed that Lionheart's murderous crusade drags in an ever growing number of innocents and collateral damage.  At that point, I was forced to realize that the beguiling Lionheart is a deranged maniac and probably has been one for a long time.

After I accepted that Lionheart was neither hero nor anti-hero, but was instead a lunatic, I began to enjoy Price's not-quite-over the top performance, with its alternating layers of madness, subtlety, elegance, and maniacal glee.  By the time, I finished Theatre of Blood, I realized a few things.  One is that I need a regular dose of Vincent Price cinema in my life.  Another is that I will absolutely recommend this movie to you, dear readers.

8 of 10
A

Wednesday, March 2, 2022


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Review: Jackie Chan Really Rumbles in "RUMBLE IN THE BRONX"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 53 of 2021 (No. 1791) by Leroy Douresseaux

Rumble in the Bronx (1996)
Running time: 90 minutes (1 hour, 30 minutes)
MPAA – R for some language and violent sequences
DIRECTOR:  Stanley Tong
WRITERS:  Edward Tang and Fibe Ma
PRODUCER:  Barbie Tung
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Jingle Ma
EDITOR:  Peter Cheung
COMPOSER:  J. Peter Robinson

MARTIAL ARTS/ACTION/COMEDY

Starring:  Jackie Chan, Anita Mui, Francois Yip, Bill Tung, Carrie Cain-Sparks, Morgan Lam, Marc Akerstream, Garvin Cross, Alf Humphries and Kris Lord

[Destin Daniel Cretton, the director of Marvel Studios' “Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings,” has said in interviews that the films of Jackie Chan heavily influenced his Marvel film.  I decided to go back and take a new look at the first Jackie Chan film I saw, “Rumble in the Bronx.”]

Rumble in the Bronx is a 1995 Hong Kong martial arts film starring Jackie Chan and directed by Stanley Tong.  Both Chan and Tong directed the film's action choreography.  Rumble in the Bronx was released in Hong Kong in 1995.  New Line Cinema released an English-dub version of the film with a shorter run time than the original version in February 1996.  The film also introduced Jackie Chan to a mainstream audience in the United States.  Rumble in the Bronx focuses on a young man from Hong Kong who uses his martial arts skills to take on a street gang and murderous mobsters while visiting his uncle in New York City.

Keung (Jackie Chan) comes to New York City to attend the wedding of his Uncle Bill (Bill Tung) to his bride-to-be, Whitney (Carrie Cain-Sparks).  Uncle Bill, who lives in the Bronx, is also about to sell his grocery store, “the Wah-Ha Supermarket.”  Keung meets Elena (Anita Mui), the woman who is buying the supermarket, and he ends up agreeing to stay in the U.S. a little longer to help Elena with the transition of ownership

What Keung does not know is that his uncle's store and this Bronx neighborhood is plagued by a street biker street gang led by a man named Tony (Marc Akerstream).  Keung thwarts the gang members the first time he meets them, but he also meets a Danny Chan (Morgan Lam), a disabled Chinese-American boy whose sister, Nancy (Francois Yip), is a member of the gang.  Keung attempts to help Danny and Nancy, while in constant battle with Tony and his crew.  However, neither Keung or Tony know that they are about to become entangled with a vicious crime lord, White Tiger (Kris Lord).

I had heard of Jackie Chan by reputation long before I had a chance to see Rumble in the Bronx.  Prior to the release of that film in 1996, Chan was an international movie star, but only had a cult following in the U.S.  I do remember that a friend of mine at the time was a huge Jackie Chan fan and went out of her way to see his films.  Also, the fact that Rumble in the Bronx was set in New York City, but was actually shot in and around Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada fascinated some commentators.

The truth about most Jackie Chan films is that they are not about the plot, but are an excuse to show the amazing martial arts, acrobatic, gymnastic, and stunt skills of Jackie Chan.  Chan is an amazing performer and a charismatic movie star, even when speaking in what is not his first language, English.

At the time of the U.S. theatrical release of Rumble in the Bronx, I read an article that said that Chan had been seriously injured while performing his own stunts over forty times.  For much of his career, Chan has done most of his own stunts, and Rumble in the Bronx shows Chan in all his glory.  Watching it, I saw many instances in which he did things that could and should have killed him.  But Chan is like a real-life superhero, getting up every time he is knocked down.  Once I started watching Rumble in the Bronx this most recent time, I had a hard time stopping for anything.  Chan moves so fast that it makes the film seem to be shorter than it actually is.

Rumble in the Bronx is also a bit odd beyond Chan's act.  The film is surprisingly humorous, making it a delightful action-comedy, but it is also unexpectedly violent, including depicting a brutal kind of murder that one would not expect in this film, considering its humorous slant.  However, Rumble in the Bronx also includes one of my favorite Jackie Chan stunts, the scamper through the grocery cart.

Rumble in the Bronx is not a great Jackie Chan film, but truthfully, it was the perfect film in which to introduce mainstream American audiences to one of China's greatest movie stars.  And, also truthful, Rumble in the Bronx is quite enjoyable.

6 of 10
B

Thursday, September 2, 2021


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Review: Mads Mikkelsen is the Best Reason for "ANOTHER ROUND"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 35 of 2021 (No. 1773) by Leroy Douresseaux

Another Round (2020)
Original title: Druk (Denmark)
Running time:  117 minutes(1 hour, 57 minutes)
MPAA - not rated
DIRECTOR:  Thomas Vinterberg
WRITERS: Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm
PRODUCERS:  Kasper Dissing and Sisse Graum Jørgensen
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Sturla Brandth Grøvlen
EDITORS:  Janus Billeskov Jansen and Anne Østerud
Academy Award winner

DRAMA with elements of comedy

Starring:  Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang, Lars Ranthe, Maria Bonnevie, Magnus Sjørup, Silas Cornelius Van, and Susse Wold

Druk is a 2020 Danish drama film from director Thomas Vinterberg.  Druk is also known by its English title, Another Round, the title to which it will be referred in this review.  Although the film is an international co-production between Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden, Another Round won the “Best International Feature Film” Oscar at the recent 2021 / 93rd Academy Awards as a representative of Denmark.  Another Round focuses on four high school teachers who binge drink alcoholic beverages to see how it affects their lives and work.

Another Round opens in Denmark and introduces Martin (Mads Mikkelson), a middle-age high school teacher.  He is married to Anika (Maria Bonnevie), and they have two teenage sons, Jonas (Magnus Sjørup) and Kasper (Silas Cornelius Van).  Martin is a close friend of three of his colleagues:  Nikolaj (Magnus Millang), Peter (Lars Ranthe), and Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen) at a gymnasium school in Copenhagen.  All four men struggle with unmotivated students, and each feels that his life has become boring and stale, especially Martin, who is the instructor for senior history.  In fact, his students and their parents are so concerned that he is not preparing them for their graduation exams that they meet with him.  Martin is also depressed because of troubles to his marriage to Anika.

At a dinner celebrating Nikolaj's 40th birthday, the four men begin to discuss Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud (a real-life person).  The “Skårderud hypothesis” says that man is born with a deficit of 0.05% blood alcohol content (BAC).  A 0.05 BAC makes a person more creative and relaxed.  Thus, Nikolaj suggests that the four of them engage in an experiment to test the Skårderud hypothesis.  The experiment will involve the four of them consuming alcohol on a daily basis in order to make sure that their BAC should never be below 0.05.  The initial results are good, especially for Martin, but will flirting with alcoholism always yield good results?

If Danish actor Mads Mikkelson is not an international movie star, he should be.  He career includes appearances in several Danish Oscar-nominated foreign language films, besides Another Round, and those are After the Wedding (2006), A Royal Affair (2012), and The Hunt (2013).  He has also made appearances in some Hollywood big-budget event movies, including the James Bond movie, Casino Royale (2006); the remake, Clash of the Titans (2010); and Marvel Studios' Doctor Strange (2016), to name a few.

Mikkelson's Martin defines the themes of Another Round that deal with the midlife crisis, marital strife, family discord, and professional dissatisfaction.  His costars give good performances, but Mikkelson is the star here.  His nuanced and layered performance as a man in full midlife depression is radiant, and the story seems to lack quite a bit of energy whenever he is not on screen.

As films about midlife crises go, Another Round is enjoyable, and it is quaint compared to the lurid American Beauty (1999), a “Best Picture” Oscar winner that is as pretentious as it is salacious.  Truthfully, neither film really excites me, as I could give a crap about middle crises.  I can't see myself recommending Another Round except to Americans who enjoy “international films.”  Still, Another Round has Mikkelsen, and if it must be remembered, it should be remembered as an entry in his exceptional filmography.

7 of 10
B+

Tuesday, May 18, 2021


NOTES:
2021 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best International Feature Film” (Denmark) and 1 nomination: “Best Achievement in Directing” (Thomas Vinterberg)

2021 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination:  1 nomination: “Best Motion Picture - Foreign Language”

2021 BAFTA Awards:  1 win: “Best Film Not in the English Language” (Thomas Vinterberg, Sisse Graum Jørgensen, and Kasper Dissing); 3 nominations: “Best Leading Actor” (Mads Mikkelsen); “Best Screenplay-Original” (Tobias Lindholm and Thomas Vinterberg), and “Best Director” (Thomas Vinterberg)

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Review: "SON OF SAUL" is Powerful and Unforgettable

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 25 of 2021 (No. 1763) by Leroy Douresseaux

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

Son of Saul (2015)
Saul fia – original title
Country:  Hungary

Running time:  107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)

MPAA – R for disturbing violent content, and some graphic nudity

DIRECTOR:  Laszlo Nemes

WRITERS:  Laszlo Nemes and Clara Royer

PRODUCERS:  Gábor Rajna and Gábor Sipos

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Mátyás Erdély

EDITOR:  Matthieu Taponier

COMPOSER:  Melis László

Academy Award winner

DRAMA

Starring:  Geza Rohrig, Levente Molnar, Urs Rechn,Todd Charmont, Jerzy Walczak, Sandor Zsoter, Istvan Pion, Amitai Kedar, Juli Jakab, Gergo Farkas and Balazs Farkas

Son of Saul or Saul fia (original title) is a 2015 Hungarian historical drama from director Laszlo Nemes.  The film is set in a concentration camp and focuses on a prisoner who tries to save his son's body from the crematorium.  The film won the Oscar for “Best Foreign Language Film of 2015.”

Son of Saul opens in the Nazi extermination camp, Auschwitz, in October 1944.  Jewish-Hungarian prisoner, Saul Ausländer (Geza Rorig), is a member of Sonderkommando.  This unit is made of Jewish prisoners who herd other Jews into the showers where they will be gassed to death.  Afterwards, Saul and the other Sonderkommando remove valuables from the clothes of the dead, drag the dead from the gas chambers to the crematoria so they can be burned, and finally clean the killing floors.

Saul carries out his dreadful task with a stoic and impassive expression upon his face.  One day, however, Saul recognizes a boy removed from the gas chambers.  He believes the boy is his son, so he begins a desperate, furtive campaign to save his son's body from the flames of the crematoria.

I have seen many films and television programs that are partially set in concentration camps and films that directly or indirectly concern the Holocaust.  I think that Son of Saul is only one of a few films that I have seen that are set entirely or almost entirely in a Nazi extermination camps.  The most obvious example is the Oscar-winning Schindler's List, which was directed by Steven Spielberg.  In some ways, Spielberg presented Schindler's List as if it were something out of time, a film from the Golden Age of Hollywood, in terms of acting and staging.

With Son of Saul, director Laszlo Nemes makes no attempt at the artifice of prestige Hollywood cinema.  Stylistic and stylish choices are used to make clear to the audience that the situation in which Saul Auslander lives is entirely bleak and without hope.  This Nazi machine to kill Jews that we call the Holocaust is an industry, and its factory workers are dead men and women walking.  You do whatever you need to get the job done, even if you have to shoot prisoners one by one and dump their bodies in pits because the machinery is temporarily clogged or the backlog of those to be processed is too long.

Saul's desperate plot to save the boy-who-could-be-his-son's body is only that – an act of desperation.  It is something a dead man does so that at least one of his last gasps will taste sweet.  Saul and practically all the other Jewish prisoners are already dead.

Son of Saul is a damning work of art.  This is high art as a cave painting on the consciousness of lovers of cinema and movie buffs.  Son of Saul is a recreation... or is it a reminder of a time so terrible that it haunts the past, present, and future of our species.

9 of 10

A+

Saturday, October 29, 2016


NOTES:
2016 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Foreign Language Film of the Year” (Hungary)

2016 Golden Globes, USA:  1 win: “Best Foreign Language Film” (Hungary)

2015 Cannes Film Festival:  4 wins: “FIPRESCI Prize-Competition” (László Nemes), “François Chalais Award” (László Nemes), “Grand Prize of the Jury” (László Nemes), and “Vulcain Prize for the Technical Artist” (Tamás Zányi-sound designer for the outstanding contribution of sound to the narration.); 2 nominations:  “Golden Camera” (László Nemes) and “Palme d'Or” (László Nemes)

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Review: "THE SWORD OF DOOM" is a Thrilling Jidaigeki

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 24 of 2021 (No. 1762) by Leroy Douresseaux

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

The Sword of Doom (1966)
Dai-bosatsu tôge (original title)
Running time:  119 minutes (1 hour, 59 minutes)
DIRECTOR:  Kihachi Okamoto
WRITER:  Shinobu Hashimoto (based on the novel by Kaizan Nakazato)
PRODUCERS:  Sanezumi Fujimoto, Konparu Nanri, and Masayuki Satô
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Hiroshi Murai
EDITOR:  Yoshitami Kuroiwa
COMPOSER:  Masaru Satô

MARTIAL ARTS/ACTION/DRAMA

Starring:  Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Yuzo Kayama, Yoko Naito, Kei Sato, Tadao Nakamaru, Ichiro Nakaya, and Toshiro Mifune

Dai-bosatsu Tōge (The Pass of the Great Buddha) is a 1966 Japanese period drama (a “jidaigeki”).  Also known by the titled, The Sword of Doom (the title by which I will refer to this film for this review), the film is directed by Kihachi Okamoto from a screenplay by Shinobu Hashimoto and is based on a novel written by Kaizan Nakazato.  The Sword of Doom focuses on a sociopathic samurai who relishes killing people.

The Sword of Doom introduces Ryunosuke Tsukue (Tatsuya Nakadai), a master swordsman with an unorthodox fighting style.  Amoral and ruthless, Ryunosuke believes that one's sword is one's soul.  We see him kill an elderly pilgrim; needlessly kill a man in a duel; and kill several of that man's clansman who ambush him shortly afterwards.

To make a living, Ryunosuke joins the “Shincho Group,” a rogue band of ronin who take it upon themselves to murder and assassinate for whatever reason they decide.  However, the wanton murders and other unconscionable acts he has committed have created a trail of vendettas that follows Ryunosuke closely.  He has also drawn the notice of two people in particular:  a young man, Hyoma Utsugi (Yuzo Kayama), whose brother Ryunosuke killed, and Shimada Toranosuke (Toshiro Mifune), another master swordsman, whose skill unnerves Ryunosuke.

First, I feel obligated to give you a warning, dear readers.  The Sword of Doom ends abruptly during the middle of a fight between Ryunosuke and dozens of assassins in a burning courtesan house.  It leaves many plot elements and subplots unresolved, including those involving Hyoma Utsugi and Shimada Toranosuke.  Apparently, Kihachi Okamoto, the director of The Sword of Doom, planned to adapt the novel upon which the film is based as a trilogy, but the other films were never made.

That said,  I think that The Sword of Doom is a tremendous samurai film, and, while I have not seen that many samurai films, it is one of the best I have ever seen.  There are three things that draw me to this movie.  First, I like the way the film focuses on Ryunosuke.  It is as if Okamoto points his camera through Ryunosuke's flesh and blood and into his soul.  This film is an examination of an amoral man's interior life; it is an investigation of how such a man lives with and justifies himself.  While Ryunosuke may act as if he does not care about anyone, as the film goes on, he clearly cannot deal with a reckoning – odd for a man who acts as if he is above it all.

The second element that makes me really like this film are the sword duels and group battles.  The battle between Ryunosuke and his victim's clansman at the end of the Spring 1860 segment is bracing, while the duel that initiates this battle is a feast of anticipation.  The fight at the end of the film is just crazy, mad, and crazy-mad-good; seeing Ryunosuke hack, slash, and stab so many of the men trying to kill him made me fell almost delirious or almost sick.  However, I think the best fight in this movie involves the character played by one of my favorite actors.

The late Toshiro Mifune could have made a toilet paper commercial exciting filmed entertainment.  His mere presence in The Sword of Doom elevates the film.  It is as if Mifune first appears in this film to let the viewer know that this movie has a higher purpose than being just another jidaigeki.  When Mifune's Toranosuke kills the perpetrators of a botched assassination attempt, he defines this movie as both a rumination on the evil actions of an evil man and as a tale about the kind of bold men who must fight powerful evil men.

The Sword of Doom is about the struggle of good men of good action against men with evil minds and evil swords.  If not for the abrupt ending, I would say that The Sword of Doom is a perfect film.

8 of 10
A

Sunday, October 22, 2017


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#28DaysofBlack: "DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE" Chronicles Ongoing Rape of Africa's Natural Resources

[The continent of Africa – and yes, it is a continent – has seen a large amount of its natural resources exploited by Western Europe and the United States.  That includes people, fossil fuels, minerals, and food, with western corporations joining the exploitation fray.  However, neither the exploitation nor sale of Africa's natural resources has helped poor Africans escape poverty.  Sometimes, the situation becomes a horror movie scenario, as seen in the Oscar-nominated documentary, “Darwin's Nightmare.”]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 100 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Darwin’s Nightmare (2004)
COUNTRY OF ORGIN:  Austria, Belgium, France, Canada, Finland, and Sweden; Languages: English, Russian, Swahili
Running time:  107 minutes
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Hubert Sauper
PRODUCERS:  Barbara Albert, Martin Gschlacht, Edouard Mauriat, Hubert Sauper, Antonin Svoboda, and Hubert Toint
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Hubert Sauper
EDITOR:  Denise Vindevogel
2006 Academy Award nominee

DOCUMENTARY

Starring:  Hubert Sauper, Raphael, Dimond, and Reverend Cleopa Knijage

Darwin's Nightmare is a 2004 documentary film written and directed by Hubert Sauper.  It was a multinational production, mainly Austrian, French, and Belgian.  The documentary examines the effects of fishing the Nile perch, a predatory fish, in Tanzania's Lake Victoria, which leads to food insecurity for many Tanzania families.

In his Oscar-nominated documentary, Darwin’s Nightmare, director Hubert Sauper portrays an Africa where the fittest thrive and the weakest starve and die of disease.  The film is set in Tanzania, in the Mwanza City, one of the cities on the shores of Lake Victoria.  European interests make huge profits from the local fishing industries, feeding approximately two million Europeans per day while the locals around Lake Victoria starve.  The Tanzanians fend for themselves on fish heads and scraps, while their waters are emptied of perch – an example of globalization feeding foreign markets while locals starve.

Lake Victoria, which stretches over the Tanzanian plains, is struggling.  In the 1960’s, a scientist introduced the Nile perch into the ecosystem.  An enormous variant of the American perch, the Nile perch devour the other fish, practically wiping out all other life in the lake.  This was and remains a disaster for the local communities, but the multinational fishing factories thrive from this ecological disaster by processing and shipping abroad thousands of tons of perch every month.  While the planes leave loaded with fish, they don’t return with food and clothing for the needy.  Instead, they bring more weapons for the various wars and strife in Africa.  Meanwhile, Tanzania teeters on the brink of devastation and war.

Darwin’s Nightmare is grim, and in a sense it is one of those “important films,” a movie that seeks to inform viewers about issues and situations about which they should want to know.  The film covers how globalization harms local economies and depicts how the introduction of a single new element into an ecosystem can be disastrous.  On the other hand, Sauper’s film was hugely controversial in Tanzanian and in some quarters of Europe.  Tanzanian officials found the film’s portrayal of extreme poverty in Mwanza City exaggerated, and some claimed that a greater portion of Lake Victoria’s Nile perch was consumed locally and within Tanzania.  The controversy over the film even resulted in a book, The Other Side of Darwin’s Nightmare, by Francois Garcon.

The film is occasionally hard to watch, but riveting.  Also, listening to all the interview subjects who speak horribly broken English is distracting and occasionally aggravating.  Sauper’s lack of balance is too evident, and the film also lacks a broader context.  Sauper doesn’t interview academics or experts on any of the topics this film covers.  Where are the government officials, aid workers, and a wide range of representatives of the fishing industry?  Because of Sauper’s focus on prostitutes, glue-sniffing street kids, impoverished fisherman, the sick, and the family members of those who’ve died of HIV and AIDS, Darwin’s Nightmare comes across as a trip through a nightmare land created by Hieronymus Bosch.  It’s a spellbinding trip, but what Sauper excludes keeps a very good film from becoming a great documentary.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
2006 Academy Awards:  1 nomination:  “Best Documentary, Features” (Hubert Sauper)

Saturday, June 30, 2007
REVISED: Tuesday, February 16, 2021


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Review: Her Performance in "Nina" Means Zoe Saldana Has No Reason to Cry

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 16 (of 2020) by Leroy Douresseaux

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

Nina (2016)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  United Kingdom
Running minutes:  90 minutes (1 hour, 30 minutes)

WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Cynthia Mort
PRODUCERS:  Ben Latham-Jones, Stuart Parr, and Barnaby Thompson
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Mihai Malaimare Jr.
EDITORS:  Mark Helfrich, Susan Littenberg, and Josh Rifkin
COMPOSER:  Ruy Folguera

DRAMA/BIOPIC/MUSIC

Starring:  Zoe Saldana, David Oyelowo, Ronald Guttman, Mike Epps, Keith David, Ella Joyce, Stevens Gaston, Jessica Oyelowo, Kevin Mambo, and Yasmine Golchan

Nina is a 2016 biographical dramatic film written and directed by Cynthia Mort.  The film offers a fictional account of Nina Simone, the Black woman who was an American singer-songwriter, jazz musician, classical pianist, and Civil Rights activist and whose career began in the late 1950s.  Nina takes place over a decade late in her life and examines her relationship with the young man who is suddenly thrust into the position of being her manager.

Nina opens in 1988 and finds beloved singer Nina Simone (Zoe Saldana) alcoholic, mentally unstable, and financially shaky.  After an incident involving a gun, Nina is committed to a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital.  There, she befriends a young nurse, Clifton Henderson (David Oyelowo), who is also a fan of hers.  When she leaves the hospital, Nina hires Clifton as her personal assistant, and he accompanies her back to her home in Bouc-Bel-Air, France.

Once there, Clifton discovers that Nina is not only difficult and confrontational, but that she also refuses to take her medication and prefers drinking alcoholic beverages over eating.  Clifton attempts to salvage Nina's career, but her decades of ill will and a bad reputation among music business players and heavy hitters may derail Clifton's plans for a Nina Simone comeback.

Simply put, Nina is a poorly written movie.  Ostensibly, it is one of those stories about a great, famous, or important person who salvages the wreckage of her life to rekindle an famous public career.  What we get is mostly Nina Simone being stubborn and self-destructive with Clifton Henderson standing by her side, looking sad, angry, or exasperated.

I think Zoe Saldana gives a great performance as this film's Nina Simone.  I say “this film's Nina Simone” because there was a lot of controversy about her casting – especially concerning Saldana's skin tone and physical appearance compared to the real-life Nina Simone's physical characteristics.  Saldana seems to bury her true self in the make-up in order to become a dark-skinned Black woman and emerges as a character who is a fighter fiercely protecting what she believes she has left of herself.  Whatever one might say of this film, I think that there is no doubt that Saldana proves that she is an actress capable of playing the “great roles.”

The problem is that this role is not great, mainly because the writing and directing can only deliver what is barely an average film.  Writer-director Cynthia Mort even finds a way to waste the highly-skilled actor, David Oyelowo.  The passion, artistry, and professionalism he brings to his performances are absent here mainly because Clifton literally just waits around for Nina to throw an over-the-top tantrum.  The screenplay gives Saldana enough material to really be showy with Nina, but that same script gives Oyelowo very little he can use to show off.

I am not a Nina Simone expert, but I know enough about her to know that she is hugely respected and much beloved among music fans, historians, and critics.  In no way does this film come close to doing this kind of woman justice.  Watching this film, I have to wonder what the filmmakers of Nina were thinking.  Luckily, the passion that Saldana obviously brings to this project results in a performance that makes Nina worth watching.

5 of 10
C+

Sunday, November 13, 2016


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Review: "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter" is a Fine "Final" Chapter

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 9 (of 2017) by Leroy Douresseaux

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: France/Canada/Germany/Australia
Running time:  106 minutes (1 hour, 46 minutes)
MPAA – R for sequences of violence throughout
DIRECTOR:  Paul W.S. Anderson
WRITER:  Paul W.S. Anderson (based upon the video game, Resident Evil)
PRODUCERS:  Paul W.S. Anderson, Jeremy Bolt, Samuel Hadida, and Robert Kulzer
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Glen MacPherson
EDITOR:  Doobie White
COMPOSER:  Paul Haslinger

HORROR/SCI-FI/ACTION

Starring:  Milla Jovovich, Iain Glen, Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Eoin Macken, Fraser James, Ruby Rose, Lee Joon Gi, Mark Simpson, and Ever Anderson

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is a 2017 science fiction, action, and horror film from writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson.  It is the sixth installment in the film franchise based upon the Capcom survival horror video game series, Resident Evil.  This film is a direct sequel to the fifth movie, Resident Evil: Retribution.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter opens with a history of the Umbrella Corporation, its founder, Dr. James Marcus (Mark Simpson), and his daughter, Alicia Marcus (Ever Anderson), a girl dying of premature aging.  This company and the father and his daughter are the catalysts for the creation of the “T-virus,” which creates a plague that has turned most humans into the flesh-eating zombies.

Three weeks after the events depicted in Resident Evil: Retribution, Alice (Milla Jovovich) awakens in the ruins of Washington D.C.  While searching the city, Alice is contacted by her nemesis, the Red Queen (Ever Anderson), who has an offer for Alice.  If she returns to the site of Raccoon City, where the T-virus plague began, Alice will find an airborne anti-virus that will kill every organism infected with the T-virus.  Standing in her way is Dr. Alexander Isaacs (Iain Glen), co-owner of the Umbrella Corporation, and the fact that Alice's body also contains the T-virus.

I wouldn't quite say that Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is “saving the best for last,” but it is as good as the original 2002 film and the 2010 fourth film, Resident Evil: Afterlife, the two previous high water marks in the Resident Evil film series.  This new film is visually close to Resident Evil: Apocalypse (the second film) and Retribution, but, in terms of Alice as an action hero, is like Resident Evil: Extinction (the third film).

If I am honest with you, dear reader, I have to admit that I really enjoyed Resident Evil: The Final Chapter because it is an Alice-kick-butt movie.  It's stripped-down and lean-and-mean, even with all its CGI set pieces.  The film focuses on Alice kicking butt and killing with her guns, knives, hands, and anything she can turn into a weapon of individual destruction.  There are supporting characters, like Ali Larter's Claire Redfield, but this is not the ensemble film that most of the previous films were (to one extent or another).  I like this film's mostly tight focus on Jovovich/Alice, and it seems as if this was really the first time that we saw Alice's potential play out fully.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson's love letter to fans of this film series, especially those of us who have loved every minute of Milla Jovovich as Alice.  Even when the Resident Evil movies were not at their best, Jovovich was always in fine form.  I guess one might say that Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is also Anderson's love letter to Jovovich, who has been his wife since 2009.  As far as I'm concerned, I would like more Anderson-Jovovich love letters.

7 of 10
A-

Tuesday, February 7, 2017


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Review: Halle Berry Stellar in "Frankie & Alice"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 7 (of 2016) by Leroy Douresseaux

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

Frankie & Alice (2010)
Running time:  101 minutes (1 hour, 41 minutes)
MPAA –  R for some sexual content, language and drug use
DIRECTOR:  Geoffrey Sax
WRITERS: Cheryl Edwards, Marko King, Mary King, Jonathan Watters, Joe Shrapnel, and Anna Waterhouse; from a story by Oscar Janiger, Philip Goldberg, and Cheryl Edwards
PRODUCERS:  Halle Berry, Vincent Cirrincione, Simon DeKaric, and Hassain Zaidi
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Newton Thomas Sigel (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  David M. Richardson
COMPOSER:  Andrew Lockington
Golden Globe nominee

DRAMA/BIOPIC

Starring:  Halle Berry, Stellan Skarsgard, Phylicia Rashad, Chandra Wilson, Alex Diakun, Joanne Baron, Brian Markison, Matt Frewer, and Scott Lyster

Frankie & Alice is a 2010 Canadian drama from director Geoffrey Sax and starring Halle Berry.  The film received a limited theatrical release in 2010 in order to qualify for the 2010-2011 movie awards season.  It did receive a wider theatrical release in August 2014.  Frankie & Alice follows a go-go dancer with multiple personality disorder and the psychotherapist who tries to help her.

Frankie & Alice opens in Los Angeles in 1973 where we meet Francine “Frankie” Lucinda Murdoch (Halle Berry), an African-American female go-go dancer.  During an attempted sexual encounter, Frankie experiences a personality change that throws her life into chaos.  Eventually her manic episodes land her in a mental care facility.  Frankie meets Dr. Joseph “Joe” Oswald (Stellan Skarsgard), a.k.a. “Dr. Oz.”

Dr. Oswald believes that Frankie suffers from multiple personality disorder (now known as “dissociative identity disorder”).  He identifies that Frankie has two other personalities:  “Genius,” a seven-year-old child; and “Alice,” a Southern racist White woman.  “Genius” and “Alice” are aware of each other, but Alice wants control of Frankie.  In order to discover a way to help Frankie, Dr. Oswald must uncover a terrible trauma in Frankie's past that is either forgotten or kept secret.

Halle Berry had apparently been trying to get Frankie & Alice produced since the 1990s.  Serious movement began on the film around 2004, apparently, but it was another six years before the film saw even a limited theatrical release.  That was reportedly almost two years after the film had finished production.  That is a shame really, because Frankie & Alice is a good movie.  In this film, Berry gives one of the best performances of her career, one that I think is on par with her Oscar-winning turn in 2001's Monster's Ball.

As a film, Frankie & Alice is not a fancy, big, prestige biographical drama in the tradition of such films as A Beautiful Mind and The King's Speech.  However, it is not quite one of those infamous disease-of-the-week made-for-television movies.  In some ways, the film is similar to a two-actor stage drama, focusing on the characters that Berry and Stellan Skarsgard portray.  Although he delivers a nice performance, Dr. Oswald is not close to Skarsgard's best work, and that is mainly because the character is not that well developed.  The movie gives us glimpses into him, but that is as far as that goes.

Watching the film and trying to follow its story, it is easy to see that eight different writers worked on it over the course of many years.  Frankie & Alice does have a patchwork feel to it.  There are so many other good characters with small roles, like Frankie's mother, Edna (Phylicia Rashad), and sister, Maxine (Chandra Wilson).  These two characters could have enriched both their stories and Frankie's.

Still, Halle Berry, of whom I am a huge fan, is so good here.  She carries this movie in a way that engages the audience with Frankie, but also with the characters, “Genius” and “Alice.”  Quite frankly, Berry should get credit for giving three excellent performances.  Her turn as the troubled and brittle “Alice” is superb; she sells that character as genuine, but she makes you believe that “Alice” could be a menace to Frankie.  Her turn as the sweet, but fearful “Genius” is heartbreaking and borders on brilliant.

Berry does not give one of those showy performances that cries out for an Oscar nomination, which she deserved, but did not get for this film.  She honestly plies her craft as an actor, and delivers a brilliant performance as an artist.  In fact, whatever faults it has, Frankie & Alice is still a quality drama because Berry is at its center delivering stellar work.

7 of 10
B+

Saturday, December 19, 2015


NOTES:
2011 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Halle Berry)

2011 Image Awards:  2 wins: “Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture” (Halle Berry) and “Outstanding Independent Motion Picture;”  2 nominations: “Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture-Theatrical or Television” (Mary King, Jonathan Watters, Cheryl Edwards, Joe Shrapnel, Marko King, and Anna Waterhouse), and “Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture-Theatrical or Television” (Geoffrey Sax)

The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Ex Machina" More Proof of Alex Garland's Talents

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 40 (of 2015) by Leroy Douresseaux

[A version of this review first appeared on Patreon.]

Ex Machina (2015)
COUNTRY OF  ORIGIN: UK
Running time:108 minutes (1 hour, 48 minutes]
MPAA – R for graphic nudity, language, sexual references and some violence
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Alex Garland    
PRODUCERS:  Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich, and Ben Salisbury
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Rob Hardy
EDITOR:  Mark Day
COMPOSER:  Geoff Barrow

SCI-FI/DRAMA with elements of a thriller

Starring:  Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Sonoya Mizuno, and Oscar Isaac

Ex Machina is a 2015 science film from writer-director Alex Garland.  The film focuses on a young programmer chosen to evaluate a female A.I. on her human qualities.  Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin is one of this film's executive producers.

Ex Machina introduces Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson),  a programmer working for Bluebook, the world's most popular search engine.  Caleb wins a company-wide contest to visit the company's CEO, Nathan (Oscar Isaac), at his secluded home and research facility.

Shortly after he arrives, Caleb learns that Nathan has built a humanoid robot (or android) named Ava (Alicia Vikander) that possesses artificial intelligence (A.I.)  Nathan wants Caleb to administer “the Turing test” to Ava.  This test is designed to measure an A.I.'s ability to persuade the tester that it is human.  Ava is breath-taking in appearance, and Nathan discovers that he can relate to her despite knowing that she is artificial.  Ava may be an android, but her feminine wiles prove to be more formidable than Caleb could ever imagine.

Alex Garland has proved to be a talented novelist and filmmaker.  His wrote the screenplay for the film, Dredd, one of the best film adaptations of a comic book to be released this decade.  In Ex Machina, he makes use of special effects in subtle ways, and that serves to make this film seem both plausible and tangible.  Like Spike Jonze's Her, Ex Machina seems to be set in some near-future, a decade or so from now.  The manner in which Garland presents Ava makes it seem as if a sentient android A.I. is just a few years from appearing.  In fact, this movie makes me believe that somewhere in our world, in a hideaway compound, nestled in the mountains, a billionaire tech genius is probably halfway to making his own Ava.

Ex Machina is stylish, but substantive, but where it is spare, beauty comes through.  It is as if Garland uses an eye-candy aesthetic to spin his ideas and theories.  He shrewdly intertwines romance, character melodrama, dramatic conflict, and pulp thrills while composer Geoff Barrow's score enhances everything to great affect.  In fact, Barrow has invented a “soundscape” that makes Ex Machina less ethereal and speculative, but more vivid and life-like.

This shrewd, speculative science fiction film could not work without high-quality performances from its actors.  It should be no surprise that Oscar Isaac delivers a complex man who is maddeningly fascinating and repulsive in Nathan.  Isaac's presence is so strong that it is hard to believe that Nathan is apparently a “supporting character.”  Isaac is about to blast off into wider fame in the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and so is his costar, Domhnall Gleeson, who is also appearing in the seventh installment of the Star Wars film franchise.

Gleeson delivers a complicated character in Caleb.  Other than realizing that he is smitten with Ava, the viewer might find Caleb hard to figure out.  The character is well written, and Gleeson translates that into a character that, like a real person, hides so much behind the facade of his face.

Alicia Vikander also seems to be close to being a breakout actress, but perhaps she will prove to be a fine dramatic actress instead of merely being a pretty face who is cast in splashy Hollywood flicks for a few years.  Her layered, textured performance makes Ava seem spare, aloof, mysterious, and even cold.  However, Vikander makes you believe that there is so much more to Ava, more than anyone, even her creator, can ever know.

With its themes that recall Frankenstein, Ex Machina is a sleek film with both Gothic and futuristic sensibilities.  As much as I like it, I find the last 10 minutes of the film to be flimsy because the ending seems tacked on more than it seems predictable (which it is).  Despite that, I still think that Ex Machina is an exceptional science fiction film that is worth watching.  Consider it a cautionary tale about our future or perhaps, consider it a sign post along the road to the Twilight Zone.

8 of 10
A

Tuesday, August 18, 2015


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

Review: "The Great Beauty" is" La grande bellezza"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 38 (of 2015) by Leroy Douresseaux

[A version of this review was first posted on Patreon.]

The Great Beauty (2013)
La grande bellezza – original title
Country: Italy/France
Running time:  141 minutes (2 hours, 21 minutes)
Not rated by the MPAA
DIRECTOR:  Paolo Sorrentino
WRITERS:  Paolo Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello; from a story by Paolo Sorrentino
PRODUCERS:  Francesca Cima and Nicola Giuliano
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Luca Bigazzi
EDITOR:  Cristiano Travagl
COMPOSER:  Lele Marchitelli
Academy Award winner

DRAMA

Starring:  Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Buccirosso, Pamela Villoresi, Galatea Ranzi, Franco Graziosi, Giorgio Pasotti, Sonia Gessner, Luca Marinelli, Serena Grandi, Vernon Dobtcheff, Giovanna Vignola, Isabella Ferrari, and Giusi Merli

La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty) is a 2013 drama from director Paolo Sorrentino.  The Great Beauty is an Italian and French co-production, and as a representative of Italy, it won the Oscar for “Best Foreign Language Film of the Year” for the year 2013.  The film was released to U.S. theaters in 2014.  The Great Beauty follows a writer through timeless and beautiful Rome as he takes stock of his life after he receives a shock from the past.

The Great Beauty focuses on Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo), a journalist and socialite living in Rome.  He has lived a lavish life in Rome since he moved to the city as a 26-year-old.  Once upon a time, Jep wrote an acclaimed and well-received novel, The Human Apparatus.  While people awaited a second novel, Jep lived a comfortable life of writing about about celebrities and of throwing parties for celebrities and socialites in his fancy luxury apartment.

After his 65th birthday, Jep receives some shocking news about an old girlfriend.  He walks through the side of Rome that is a timeless landscape of absurd beauty and exquisite antiquity.  He reflects on his life and the sense that he is unfulfilled, as he encounters various characters.

The Great Beauty is indeed a great beauty.  The audience follows Jep Gambardella through parts of Rome that are tourist destinations or are either museums or sections of palatial estates.  I could recommend The Great Beauty for the absurd beauty of the film's settings and locales, alone.

As for the film's narrative:  it would be too easy to say that the specter of death hangs over the film.  The theme of growing old permeates the film, and also most of the characters seem to be yearning for more of something in their lives, even if more of what they want is bad for them.  Their lives are emotionally and spiritually empty.  I think the idea is that Jep has drifted through the last four decades of his life without realizing that he needs to establish roots.

I think that The Great Beauty encourages people to realize that beauty comes in fits and flashes between long stretches of what is ugly and banal in life; don't chase the superficial prettiness could be a tag line for the movie.  Still, the parties depicted in this film look pretty good, and the apartments and houses are just lovely.  I enjoyed Jep Gambardella's journey, although it meanders at times, but once again, the beauty in The Great Beauty is just so... beautiful.  This visual splendor alone makes this a truly exceptional film.

9 of 10
A+

Friday, July 31, 2015


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

NOTES:
2014 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Foreign Language Film of the Year” (Italy)

2014 Golden Globes, USA:  1 win: “Best Foreign Language Film” (Italy)

2014 BAFTA Awards:  1 win: “Best Film not in the English Language” (Paolo Sorrentino, Nicola Giuliano, and Francesca Cima)

2013 Cannes Film Festival:  1 nomination: “Palme d'Or: (Paolo Sorrentino)

Review: "Transporter 2" Offers Good Fight Scenes, Little Else

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 141 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Transporter 2 (2005)
Running time:  88 minutes (1 hour, 28 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for intense sequences of violent action, sexual content, partial nudity, and brief language
DIRECTOR:  Louis Leterrier
WRITERS:  Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen (based upon characters created by Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen )
PRODUCERS:  Steve Chasman and Luc Besson
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Mitchell Amundsen
EDITOR:  Walter Mauriot, Christine Lucas Navarro, and Vincent Tabaillon
COMPOSER: Alexandre Azaria

ACTION/MARTIAL ARTS/THRILLER

Starring:  Jason Statham, Alessandro Gassman, Amber Valletta, Katie Nauta, Matthew Modine, Jason Flemyng, Keith David, Hunter Clary, Shannon Briggs, François Berléand, and Raymond Tong

Transporter 2 is a 2005 French action thriller from director Louis Leterrier and maestro Luc Besson and stars Jason Statham in the title role.  It is a sequel to the 2002 film, The Transporter.  In Transporter 2, mercenary Frank Martin is in Miami, Florida where he is implicated in the kidnapping of  the young son of a powerful U.S. government official

Transporter 2 is set in Miami, Florida.  There, ex-Special Forces operative, Frank Martin (Jason Statham), lives in retirement, but is still providing services as a transporter.  Martin is a professional driver with almost-supernatural driving skills in a supa dupa car who can transport anyone or anything – no questions asked.  For the past month, Frank has been the driver for the wealthy Billings family, driving young Jack Billings (Hunter Clary) back and forth to school.

When Gianni (Alessandro Gassman), a powerful gun-for-hire and criminal operative, has Jack kidnapped, Frank rushes to the rescue.  However, Jack has been injected with a deadly virus as a ploy to poison his father, Jefferson Billings (Matthew Modine), and in turn spread the deadly virus, killing Mr. Billings’ government and business associates.  Frank defies and eludes the FBI, who believes that he is behind the plot, while he tries to uncover Gianni’s master plan and stop a disastrous epidemic.

There was no reason for a sequel to 2002’s The Transporter, other than that it was an international box office hit.  Transporter 2 is not as good as the first, mainly because the original had Frank Martin in a romantic entanglement that was the humanizing element of the film against its manic martial arts-inspired fight sequences and unrelenting gun violence.  Corey Yuen, the director of the first film, is back for Transporter 2 only as the fight choreographer, and while his successor, Louis Leterrier, benefits from Yuen’s work on the fight scenes, Leterrier didn’t inherit anything else from the original.  Thus, Transporter 2’s fight sequences are excellent in keeping with the spirit of The Transporter, but there just ain’t no soul.  I was only mildly entertained with this as a movie, but I bet electronic games fans would get a kick out of this as a video game.  We shouldn’t buy tickets to the cinema to see a flick and get instead a video game.  The child character, Jack Billings, could have been the soul of this film, they way the love interest was in the original, but Jack is just the object that starts the ball rolling towards a series of violent, supernatural, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/Hero martial arts fight scenes.

Jason Statham has a nice film personality, but this time he wears Frank Martin as if he’s just a video game character and Transporter 2 is just the latest installment in a video game franchise.  If you waited to see the first film on home video, it would only be right to wait for Transporter 2 on DVD and home video, as it is inferior and should not be honored with the movie ticket purchase you didn’t give the first film.  This might sound nerdy and pretentious, but Transporter 2 is a pedestrian fight movie with great fights, but the kind of story that shows up in made-for-cable action movies.

5 of 10
C+

Revised: Thursday, September 3, 2015


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for reprint syndication rights and fees.

Review: Original "Mad Max" Still Motoring

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 35 (of 2015) by Leroy Douresseaux

Mad Max (1979)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  Australia
Running:  88 minutes (1 hour, 28 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR:  George Miller
WRITERS:  James McCausland and George Miller
PRODUCER:  Byron Kennedy
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  David Eggby (D.o.P.)
EDITORS:  Cliff Hayes and Tony Paterson
COMPOSER:  Brian May

ACTION/CRIME/THRILLER

Starring:  Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Steve Bisley, Tim Burns, Roger Ward, Geoff Parry, Vince Gil, John Ley, and Brendan Heath

Mad Max is a 1979 Australian near-future action movie and crime thriller from director George Miller and starring a young Mel Gibson.  Mad Max was the first movie in what is, to date, a four-film franchise.  This movie's story was originally conceived by the film's director (George Miller) and producer (Byron Kennedy).  Mad Max focuses on an Australian police officer who must eventually avenge the lives of his wife and toddler son and also the cop who was his partner.

Mad Max opens in a dystopian future that takes place “a few years from now.”  The roads of Australia are plagued by motorcycle gangs and other high-speed drivers.  Trying to keep the roads safe are the police officers of the MFP – Main Force Patrol – who pursue reckless road criminals.  The top pursuit-man is Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson).

Max has an encounter with a gang member known as the “Nightrider” (Vincent Gil), in which Nightrider is killed.  The vicious and cruel Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) leads “The Acolytes,” Nightrider's motorcycle gang, and the gang seeks payback against the MFP.  Their actions against Max's family and colleagues sets Max on a mission of vengeance against Toecutter.  In his supercharged Police Special, Max goes on hot pursuit with killing on his mind.

Mad Max is one of those rare films that has the misfortune living in the shadow of a better-known and more popular sequel.  1981's Mad Max 2 (known in the United States simply as The Road Warrior) was a huge hit when it was originally released in the U.S. in 1982.  The second film had an influence on American pop culture and references from and homages to the film continue to appear decades after its initial release.

Still, the first Mad Max remains both a unique and an exceptional film.  It is also darn-good fun to watch, and I wish that at least one of the Mad Max sequels was more like it.  Max Max seems to blend 1950s Film-Noir crime films (especially those about street cops) and 1970s action-movies about cars and motorcycles with the kind of dystopian science fiction films that defined the 1970s.

The result is a fast and efficient film with power that belies its size.  Mad Max is cool without being slick and pretty.  It is one of the few science fiction films that are entirely plausible or close to it.  Mad Max is also timeless, although its future scenario originally took place only “a few years” from 1979.

Director George Miller has apparently stated that the filming of Mad Max was unpleasant for him.  From his suffering came cinematic art, and a movie star was born.  Yes, Mad Max introduced the world to Mel Gibson, who would go on to be a fine actor, a worldwide movie star, and an award-winning filmmaker before his public behavior and private comments seemed to derail his career (at least as of this writing).  Before that however, the legend of Mad Max carried us deep into the Outback, and we were in the passenger seat with rising star.

8 of 10
A

Tuesday, May 26, 2015


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-------------------------------

Review: "A View to a Kill" Still Has its Charm 30 Years Later

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 34 (of 2015) by Leroy Douresseaux

A View to a Kill (1985)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: U.K.
Running time:  131 minutes (2 hours, 11 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR:  John Glen
WRITERS:  Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson (based on the character created by Ian Fleming)
PRODUCERS:  Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Alan Hume (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Peter Davies
COMPOSER:  John Barry
SONG:  “A View to a Kill” performed by Duran Duran
Golden Globe nominee

SPY/ACTION/ADVENTURE

Starring:  Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones, Patrick Macnee, Patrick Bauchau, David Yip, Fiona Fullerton, Manning Redwood, Alison Doody, Willoughby Gray, Desmond Llewelyn, Robert Brown, Lois Maxwell, Walter Gotell, and Daniel Benzali

A View to a Kill is a 1985 spy and adventure film from director John Glen.  It is the 14th entry in Eon Productions' James Bond film franchise, and it is also the seventh and last time that actor Roger Moore played James Bond.  2015 also marks the 30th anniversary of A View to a Kill's original theatrical release (specifically May 1985).

A View to a Kill takes its title from the short story, “From a View to a Kill,” which first appeared in the 1960 short story collection, For Your Eyes Only.  A View to a Kill the movie finds James Bond investigating a horse-racing scam perpetrated by a power-mad French industrialist, who also has his eye on monopolizing the worldwide microchip market.

A View to a Kill opens with M16 agent James Bond (Roger Moore) locating the body of agent 003 in Siberia.  From the body, Bond (agent 007) recovers a microchip originating from the Soviet Union.  The microchip turns out to be a copy of one designed to withstand an electromagnetic pulse, and one made specifically for the British government by a private contractor, Zorin Industries.

Bond discovers that Zorin Industries' owner, Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), breeds racehorses and may be cheating by drugging his horses.  Bond travels to Zorin's palatial estate outside of Paris and pretends to be a prospective buyer of thoroughbred horses.  Bond learns, however, that Zorin has even bigger plans on the west coast of the United States, specifically Silicon Valley in California.  Before Bond can uncover Zorin's diabolical plot, he will have to survive Zorin's Amazon-like body guard, Mayday (Grace Jones).

Roger Moore was the first actor I saw portraying James Bond, and it only took a few Bond films with Moore before the actor imprinted upon my imagination as being the quintessential James Bond.  Over the years, I have pretended, a few times, that I preferred Sean Connery as Bond, especially when I was with friends who claimed that they preferred Connery as Bond.  I have even been in the thrall of the three actors who have, to date, succeeded Moore as Bond:  Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig.  I do think that Dr. No, the first film featuring Connery as Bond, remains the blueprint for both a Bond movie and for a secret agent movie.  Still, I come back to Roger Moore as Bond.

The past few years, I have revisited the two James Bond movies that I first saw while in high school, For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Octopussy (1983).  I recently revisited A View to a Kill, and after this nostalgic mini-Bond film festival, I am sure of my love for Roger Moore as my cinematic James Bond.

Now, I won't pretend that A View to a Kill is a great film or that it is even the best of Moore's Bond filmography.  For one thing, the entire horse-racing subplot feels like padding to make the story longer, but it is fun.  Christopher Walken is an engaging Bond villain, and Grace Jones is a delightful riot as his bodyguard, Mayday.  Thus, any subplots and story that give them even more screen time is perfectly good padding.  In fact, the horse-racing section of the film is the reason we get to see actor Patrick Macnee as Bond's partner, Sir Godfrey Tibbett.

After 12 years as Bond, Moore was, by 1985, the oldest actor to play Bond, being 58-years-old when he retired after A View to a Kill was originally released.  He definitely shows his age in this film.  Maybe, it was time for him to retire, but, at least, his last film was fun, even if it wasn't outstanding.  Yes, Tanya Roberts delivers an awful performance as Bond girl, Stacey Sutton, but Roberts is likable.  She puts out the effort, and that is worth something even if the result is pitiful.

Besides, Tanya Roberts helps Roger Moore go out with a bang, as she is the last of the three women he beds in this film (including Mayday).  A View to a Kill certainly delivers what we like about Roger Moore as James Bond, and it makes me appreciate him all the more.

7 of 10
B+

Tuesday, August 25, 2015


NOTES:
1986 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Original Song - Motion Picture” (John Barry and Duran Duran for the song "A View to a Kill")

1986 Razzie Awards:  1 nomination: “Worst Actress” (Tanya Roberts)


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