Stepmom (1998): United States – directed by Chris Columbus

Rated PG-13 by the MPAA – contains some profanity and mature themes

Stepmom begins as a perfectly mediocre family drama.  There are the essential characters, the dysfunctional family, and the morphing relationships that provide drama and emotion.  And then there’s cancer, that great MacGuffin of familial dramas.  Cancer provides the necessary tears to make the audience cry, whether they feel they should or not.

But then, halfway through the film, it appears as though the filmmakers decided the movie was not long enough and added a large amount of random filler.  The story becomes jumbled, the characters switch personalities rapidly, and the cheese is pumped in at an increasing rate.  And then the film has the gall to throw in a couple scenes at the end that would make a hard boiled cynic cry, if they weren’t laughing from the cheese.

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Protégé (2007): Hong Kong – directed by Tung-Shing Yee

Rated R by the MPAA – contains drug content, some violence, some sexual content, and some disturbing thematic elements

Protégé follows in the style of Hong Kong cop films like Infernal Affairs, with a hint of the melodrama that John Woo added to most of his Hong Kong movies.  Except that here the sadness and melancholy are oftentimes brutal and difficult to swallow.  Protégé follows an undercover narc, Nick (played by Daniel Wu), as he attempts to work his way higher in the drug organization headed by Lin Quin (played by Andy Lau, who, incidentally, was in Infernal Affairs).  Nick’s supervisor wants him to remain undercover long enough to unearth the supplier of the gang in order to take down the entire group.  Nick doesn’t mind; he doesn’t have much else going for him.

He sees the effects of the drugs on his neighbor Jane (Jingchu Zhang), a young woman who has hidden from her husband with her young daughter.  She’s a junkie, blaming her husband for getting her started.  Unfortunately, her daughter Jane-Jane is probably the cutest little girl to grace a movie screen in quite some time.  She is also quite the little actress, provoking a very strong emotional reaction every time her mother’s drug problem cause the small family to go hungry.  This is how Nick first gets involved; Jane asks to borrow some food and proceeds to stuff bread into both of their mouths.  The scene is rather moving as Nick struggles to deal with her problems, keep the kid alive, and still maintain his ruse as an up and coming drug dealer.

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Between the last day of December, 2009, and February 20th, 2010, I managed to post a review every day, except when I posted my Top 10 Films of 2000-2009.  I am now a bit busier than I was during that period, so I’m afraid I will have to slow down a bit, and will probably only be able to review three or four films a week.  Some of them are old reviews from the days of the Piradical Productions message board, but many of those old reviews require a great deal of editing to meet my standards.

In the meantime allow me to leave you with a couple of truly awful VHS covers.  I hope to be able to review both movies in the next month or so.  The first is The Mad Butcher, sporting one of my favorite covers/posters of all time.  The absurdity of the situation depicted is hilarious, as are the odd proportions involved.

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001): United Kingdom – directed by Chris Columbus

Rated PG by the MPAA – contains some violence

Note: This review was originally published 7.9.09, before I had seen any of the other Harry Potter films.

I had never been interested in anything to do with Harry Potter until my wife got the first audio book out of the library.  She figured that if she forced me to listen to the first book, I’d be hooked and we would end up reading and watching through the entire series.  She was right.  And even if Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is not great literature, it is a fun story that had you caring about the characters and rooting for Harry.

I’ve always wished I could experience things two ways; once reading the book first, then watching the movie, then again a second time experiencing the movie first and then reading the book.  Alas, I am but one person and one experience, so I must do experience everything linearly.  As a result I try to briefly analyze the differences between the book and the movie, and also merely judge the movie on its own merits.

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The General (1926): United States – directed by Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton

Not rated by the MPAA – contains a little violence

The General is often regarded as a high point in silent cinema, and rightly so.  The entire production is awe-inspiring, with fantastic set pieces and thrilling stunt sequences, topped with an impressive battle sequence.  At the core, however, is the tale of a small, meek man desperately fighting for his woman, his country, and his train engine.

Buster Keaton, in addition to his co-writing, co-directing, producing, and co-editing responsibilities, stars as Johnny Gray, a train engineer working in Georgia as the war between the states is about to begin.  He loves his train engine and his girl, Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack).  His amorous advances take a sour turn when her father learns that Fort Sumter has been fired upon, rushing out with her brother to enlist.  She asks why Johnny doesn’t enlist, so he rushes to the recruiting office, where he is promptly declined; he is too valuable as a train conductor.

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While You Were Sleeping (1995): United States – directed by Jon Turteltaub

Rated PG by the MPAA – contains some mild profanity, some mild sexual references, some mild violence, and some extreme contrivances

Rarely do you find a film that is entirely constructed out of coincidental plot contrivances, but While You Were Sleeping might be that rare picture.  Not a single element of the story transpires because of anything that a normal person would do; the entire plot is contrived and absurd.

The film is not helped by some awful dialogue.  There are maybe five humorous lines in the movie, and some truly awful ones (“I don’t drink anymore.  I don’t drink any less, either.”)  There is some chemistry between the leads, and Sandra Bullock is likable, but these small bright spots are not enough to save the picture.

While You Were Sleeping begins with Lucy Eleanor Moderatz (Bullock) delivering a short and ultimately pointless monologue about the sad state of her life and some happy times in her past.  She soon reveals that she works for the Chicago Transit Authority collecting train fares.

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Wandering Ginza Butterfly 2: She-Cat Gambler (1972): Japan – directed by Kazuhikio Yamaguchi

Not rated by the MPAA – contains bloody violence and some brief nudity

With the sequel to 1971’s Wandering Ginza Butterfly [review here], the story stays rather similar, but with Sonny Chiba added to the mix and gambling taking the place of hustling pool.  Nami (played again by the iconic Meiko Kaji) is once again wandering around Tokyo and the surrounding areas.  She is a professional gambler, following in the footsteps of her wrongly murdered father.  Her first act in She-Cat Gambler is to save a girl sold into prostitution.  She rescues her and takes her back to Tokyo to work as a hostess (without the sex) at a club run by an old friend of Nami’s.

Nami also runs into a no-good gambler thug and helps him out, putting him forever in her debt.  Then she runs into Ryuji (Sonny Chiba), a different character from the first film, but with the same name.  He runs the only other prostitution ring outside of the Aoshida Company, which is the evil corporation of Yakuza.  In spite of his questionable line of work, Ryuji is a decent fellow, and very kind to his girls.

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Julien Donkey-Boy (1999): United States – directed by Harmony Korine (uncredited)

Rated R by the MPAA – contains language and disturbing themes and content

Julien Donkey-Boy, Harmony Korine’s second feature after Gummo [review here] is rather different from his debut.  It’s interesting to note that it is also called Dogme #6, the sixth of the Dogme films.  It has a certificate at the beginning certifying that it’s a Dogme film.  Dogme films were created by a couple Dutch filmmakers, Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vintenberg, and the goal was to reduce film to its most essential elements.  No props were to be brought in, no artificial light could be used, only diagetic sound (ie. no soundtrack, all sound and music is happening on the screen) only hand held cameras, etc.  The concept is interesting, but the execution is usually less than engaging, although the first Dogme, Festen (The Celebration), has a powerful story backing up its unique production.

With Julien Donkey-Boy Korine opted for low-quality cameras, most of them handheld, and the film looks terrible.  Many of the images are so out of focus or fuzzy that they merely suggest what is happening and the viewer’s brain has to fill in the pieces.  This isn’t a bad technique for experimental short films, or Stan Brakhage’s work, but it is distracting and detrimental to a feature film.

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Gargoyles (1972): United States – directed by Bill L. Norton

Not rated by the MPAA – contains some violent content

One might be forgiven for not having heard of Gargoyles, and their ignorance would be understandable.  Gargoyles is a made-for-TV movie, not a category that I will generally review.  But in this case Stan Winston is responsible for the gargoyle makeup, and it is certainly interesting to see where a legend got his start.

And, while the film is not particularly good, it is a mere 74 minutes long.  One of the most interesting parts of the film is the opening credits, which look like they belong in a Simpsons Halloween special, made of goofy, gooey green letters.  Unfortunately, most of the rest of the film is dreadful.

The movie starts with a girl getting off a plane.  Her outfit is strange, with a bikini-like top thing similar to what it looks like when you take the middle of the bottom of your shirt and tuck it into the neck so as to pretend that it’s a bikini.  It just seems a bit odd, and it is a bad sign when one of the film’s most memorable moments has to do with a strange wardrobe choice.

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The Second Chance (2006): United States – directed by Steve Taylor

Rated PG-13 by the MPAA – contains some drug content, mature themes, and some mild language

It might be fairly obvious that The Second Chance is a Christian film.  There’s no denying that, though the religious content isn’t dramatically overt.  However, the film is also a not-so-bad drama, with some interesting characters.  The story involves some rich white people who have a fancy church in the suburbs.  Their pastor, Jeremiah Jenkins (J. Don Ferguson) has founded a church in the inner city, but is now lead pastor at a suburban mega-church.  The new pastor of the inner city church is Jake Sanders (Jeff Obafemi Carr).  Jake is black, grew up in the hood, and knows the streets.  Ethan Jenkins (Michael W. Smith), Jeremiah’s son, is the associate pastor of the mega-church, and he’s being groomed to take over when his father is ready to retire.

Ethan gets into trouble with the board when he ad libs a few lines one Sunday morning, deviating from their strict TV script for the services.  Ethan lets Jake say a few words about the donation the church is giving to the inner city church (called Second Chance), but this behavior crosses the line.  Jake is a bit of a loose canon, and after begging the rich folks to give their time to help out his church he tells the suburbanites to “keep their damn money.”  Ethan’s decision to give him the microphone convinces the board that he needs to spend some time away.  They send him to work at the inner city church.

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