Movies: August 2007 Archives

Exiled, Johnnie To's loping, episodic crime drama, is set in the Wild West of Macau circa 1998, just before the handover from Portuguese to Chinese authority. Gang activity is rampant; the cops are looking the other way. In this volatile environment, a visit from a creepily taciturn dude like Anthony Wong (pictured above) is likely not a social call. Jin (Josie Ho) figures that out right away when two parties of two thugs each show up on her doorstep looking for her husband, Wo. But if two of these gangsters are hit men, what are the other two up to? Turns out all five of these men have a history together -- two of the men mean to execute a contract on Wo's life, and the remaining two want to protect him. After the tension is released with a quick, inconsequential exchange of gunfire (these badasses would just as soon shoot up the furnishings as exchange dirty looks), Wo heads into the city with his four old friends in search of a big score. And before long, Fay (Simon Yam), the boss who ordered the hit, tears into the whole group.

As good as last year's James Bond reboot was, The Bourne Ultimatum may provide an even better action-espionage fix. Where Daniel Craig's Bond exuded a steely sex appeal, Matt Damon's Jason Bourne seems to run on the same grim resolve that drives 24's lonely man, Jack Bauer. Deprived of a past and stripped of his present (Bourne's only love interest was dispatched by an indifferent hit man in the previous film), there's nothing for this CIA-tuned killing machine to do except try to find out who made him what he is. And, because his CIA bosses are hunting him down at the same time he's looking for his own answers, the proceedings get brutal. Director Paul Greengrass (United 93) stages lively, intense action sequences, full of handheld camerawork and quick-cuts editing that would teeter on the edge of chaos if not for the tight coordination and choreography of each white-knuckle set piece--Bourne even boasts one of the most exciting martial-arts-style fight scenes ever concocted for an American film. (It's a sign of the times when the new Matt Damon movie has better fight choreography than the new Jackie Chan.)

Not just another blockbuster, Transformers is the Cadillac of dumb summer movies. Staccato spectacles like Armageddon and an ill-fated foray into more serious material, The Island, established director Michael Bay as the poster boy for attention-deficit filmmaking, but in his depiction of overgrown children playing war games with giant robots in middle America and in the sands of the Middle East, this auteur has, at last, found his métier. Although executive producer Steven Spielberg obviously had script approval (the story about a high-schooler who learns that his yellow Chevy Camaro is really a space robot is irresistible), Bay's set pieces never approach the standard set by Jurassic Park or War of the Worlds, and the script is pretty messy, losing steam as it progresses. (A scenery-chewing John Turturro hijacks the picture for an unnecessarily long sequence about an overzealous Men In Black-style government agency dealing in alien intelligence.) But what Transformers lacks in coherence and timing it nearly makes up in sheer spectacle. Bay's images have a relentless TV-commercial perfection, and Industrial Light + Magic's visual effects set a new standard for integrating computer-generated imagery with live action. Boom! Pow! If only this thing were 20 minutes shorter, it'd be huge fun. B-

Once is a moving indie film with the charm and ambition of a bittersweet pop song. Its only shortcoming is that, while a pop song lasts three or four minutes, Once stretches character sketches and slender narrative threads across a full hour and a half en route to a gentle emotional pay-off. This melancholy almost-love story stars Glen Hansard as an Irish busker with big ambitions--and a crush on a young Czech immigrant (Markéta Irglová) he meets on the streets of Dublin. Their tentative courtship takes the form of performance, with the film's memorable centerpiece set in the back of a musical-instrument store as the two of them bang out "Falling Slowly," the film's signature tune. The scene is a tour de force, partly because Once is as much about songs (these were written by the lead actors, who are both musicians) as it is story, but also because director John Carney understands how performance reveals character. (It reminded me a lot of Jonathan Demme's music videos and concert films, which benefit from their close readings of performers' faces.) It's a modest film, with DIY attitude barely masking threadbare production values, but a special one--an uncompromised, deeply felt movie musical that believes in the power of smart chord progressions and soaring, imperfect vocals in an era of superficial pop razzle-dazzle. B+

A version of this review originally appeared in the White Plains Times.

It's been decades since the Hollywood musical had any color in its cheeks. (Mostly we've seen pale, Oscar-glomming adaptations of stage hits that still seemed conceived for the proscenium arch rather than for the movie screen.) What a pleasant surprise, then, that Hairspray (an adaptation of an adaptation) makes such a great Saturday matinee. Ostensibly it's a starstruck, follow-your-dreams story of a chubby Baltimore girl who turns American idol by shaking her rotund groove thing on local television. But the third act is all about the function of R&B music as a vehicle for desegregation in the civil rights era. Some of this is in questionable taste--the racial stereotypes are cheerfully outrageous--which makes the film's evident bigheartedness all the more dazzling. Director Adam Shankman is an experienced choreographer who moves his song-and-dancers smartly through all three dimensions along with the camera. The attending grown-ups (John Travolta in fat drag, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah) lend an agreeably commercial appeal, but Hairspray is at its nimble best when the youngsters, led by exuberant newcomer Nikki Blonsky, are allowed to carry it. As long as the kids are on screen, it feels like the music never stops. B+

This review was originally published in the White Plains Times.