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Feel that heat? Summer is really starting to fire up. For 6 June, here are the films in focus:
Kung Fu Panda [rating: 8]
If the Shaw Brothers had access to CGI and the post-modern voice talent, Kung Fu Panda would have definitely been part of their stable of wuxia epics.
It’s been interesting to watch the youth-ification of martial arts. Sure, kids have always been the major market when it comes to karate lessons, video games, and other media oriented kung foolishness, but it seems slightly surreal that the under 10 set would be the primary demographic for such obviously adult aggression. Remember, for every lesson about loyalty and duty, there’s a series of roundhouse kicks and face-destroying punches provided. While it preaches an anti-antagonism stance, violence still sells these spectacles. It’s the same with the latest CGI effort from Dreamworks and Paramount. Entitled Kung Fu Panda, this candy coated compendium of cartoon idioms may look loveable, but it’s all about the butt kicking in the end. read full review…
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan [rating: 7]
From the wholly insular and yet perfectly realized fantasy world it creates to the nonstop barrage of ethnic slams, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is a comedy of contradictions..
Jewish humor has driven American mirth for as long as their have been baggy pants burlesque comics and joke-stealing vaudevillians. Update it to the pre-modern mirth of Mel Brooks and the post-modern mensching of Woody Allen and you’ve got the current concept of wit in both of its ethnic excesses. But is there such a thing as plain old ‘Jew’ humor, that is, satire based solely on the notion of what an entire race of people find culturally significant and outwardly uncomfortable. Or for that matter, can the entire Middle East crisis be summed up in a series of slapstick sight gags and borderline racist rejoinders? Adam Sadler wants to find out, and he’s bringing along that fascinating flavor of the moment Judd Apatow with him. read full review…
Mother of Tears: The Third Mother [rating: 8]
Hitting the ground running and never giving up for 90 nasty minutes, Mother of Tears is Dario Argento’s final statement on his precedent as the definitive Delacroix of dread..
Fright fans have been waiting for this event for nearly three decades. After 1980’s Inferno introduced the concept of a continuing saga about the infamous Three Mothers, and the possibility of the ultimate horror trilogy, those who’ve followed Dario Argento’s career have wondered when he would finally deliver the last act of his terror triptych. Suspiria has long been considered a macabre masterpiece, the kind of unbridled moviemaking genius that ushered in copycats, great expectations and the possibility of even better things to come. The Italian auteur’s follow up was crucified, critics and audiences both startled by its dissimilarity to its source, as well as its purposeful sense of style over substance. Now comes Mother of Tears: The Third Mother, and again, Argento is defying convention to deliver another totally unique take on his previously forged black magic reality. read full review…
