Print
Email
Share
SUMMER’S HERE!!! and for the weekend beginning 9 May, here are the films in focus:
Speed Racer [rating: 10]
Forget all the curmudgeonly criticism that argues for this movie’s optical overload capacity - Speed Racer is a modern masterpiece
Candy colored dreams descend down physically impossible angles, shapes shifting across plains of apparent non-reality while simultaneously simulating real life. Cartoon icons come to life, reduced to clichéd contradictions in a classic tale of good vs. very, very evil. Family is the focus, but not to the detriment of all that effervescent eye candy, and modern technology never trumps the skills inherent in masterful moviemaking. This is what the Wachowski Brothers have created with their homage to the classic ‘60s anime series. Speed Racer is that kind of a thesaurus level triumph. One needs an extended vocabulary to work out the descriptions necessary to explain this amazing movie. read full review…
Young@Heart [rating: 9]
Young@Heart is a classic. May we all live to be so youthful in spirit and soul.
Aging in America is its own prison, a metaphysical place where family members forget their loved ones because the stench of mortality is too great to bear. Even worse, because of horrific diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia, the elderly are viewed moreover as ticking time bombs, burdens placed on relatives for reasons that are uncomfortable and unavoidable. It may seem like a trap, but the prison is more than reciprocal. So how refreshing is it to see a group of septa- and octogenarians expressing themselves in song as part of the community chorus. Even better, these good timing geezers use The Ramones, David Bowie, and Sonic Youth, as points of aural reference.read full review…
Surfwise [rating: 8]
(Surfwise) delivers facts with fanciful shading, sequences that explain the lure of the ocean with images of the vast waves washing over their would-be conquerors.
When it hit in the late ‘50s/early ‘60s, surfing symbolized youth and vibrancy, extreme sporting reduced to sun, fun, and lots of bikini clad babes. But on the fringes of the misdiagnosed fad (it had been around long before Jan, Dean, and the Beach Boys discovered it) were those who viewed the ocean as one big spiritual adventure, a karmic mountain worth climbing and conquering as often as possible. Such a seafaring sage was Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz. As one of the sport’s important pioneers, he left his job as a general physician (and a couple of bad marriages) to go on an odyssey of surf self discovery. And once he found his newest bride Juliette, he fathered a family of nine kids, raising them to be as free spirited and audacious as he.read full review…
Redbelt [rating: 7]
(S)omewhere in Redbelt‘s running time it a mean, lean extreme fighting machine desperate to get out of all the metaphors and machinations.
David Mamet - a name that means theater at its very best. With such plays as Sexual Perversity in Chicago, American Buffalo, and Glengarry Glen Ross, he has literally helped the arcane aesthetics of the stage to grow up and mature. With dialogue that crackles with witty profaneness and a keen ear for newfound colloquialism, his efforts are usually a feast for the ear, and the brain. And now, apparently, it’s time to address the brawn - at least, when it comes to his work behind the camera. As a director, Mamet has given us such complex fare as House of Games, Homicide, and Spartan. None would be considered films of far thinking physicality. His latest endeavor, Redbelt, juxtaposes Asian codes of honor and duty with the growing phenomenon of mixed martial arts. It makes for a sometimes sloppy combo. read full review…
Other Releases—In Brief
What Happens in Vegas… [rating: 3]
According to self-help gurus and others profiteering from the lovelorn and the lost, men are from Mars and women are from Venus. In this latest lame Romcom from Hollywood’s hopelessly quixotic hackworks, the cosmic realignment has put both parties squarely up Uranus. Making a pair of mismatched New Yorkers (she a power hungry professional, he a sarcastic himbo slacker) hook up over a Sin City shindig of too much booze and not enough brains is the very definition of a cliché. Having them win a $3 million dollar jackpot is aggravating icing on the cake. And let’s not even mention the court ordered six months of nuptials. Leave it to scorched Earth scribe Dana Fox to distill 100 years of he/she cinema into jokes about toilet seats and male horniness. She’s not helped by director Tom Vaughn. He relies on montages to get his mindless messages across, aiming for the cheap seats while never forgetting to pander, pander, pander. Luckily, stars Cameron Diaz and Ashton “I Have a Career, Why?” Kutcher keep things from meandering over into outright nausea. They salvage what little chemistry the movie can generate. The rest is just a pain in the asteroids
