1992

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June 17, 2009

Husbands and Wives

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1992, comedy, drama, entertainment, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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husbands and wives

Husbands and Wives is one of Woody Allen’s most fascinating pieces of work. A deeply engrossing documentary-style motion picture that examines marriage via two couples, this is a film as much about the process of keeping a marriage going as it is about the process of finding love in the first place. Allen dissects marriage brutally at times, offering a very cynical point of view that later floats on wings of hope.

Allen’s personal life hit the rocks as soon as Husbands and Wives was released in 1992, so there’s a lot of interesting subtext to look for here. Allen seems to make some discoveries along the way that might have helped him out, but part of the tragic lining of the movie is reflected in the director’s own choices. It doesn’t help matters that Allen also stars.

Our story revolves around two couples, both of which have been married for a long time. The first couple is Jack (Sydney Pollack) and Sally (Judy Davis). Jack is a businessman and is often out of town. They consider themselves to be very intellectual and very reasonable, although events throughout the movie reveal different sides to this perception. They are friends with the other couple in the story, Gabe (Allen) and his wife Judy (Mia Farrow). Gabe is an English professor at college and Judy works at a magazine with Sally.

Husbands and Wives opens with an event shot in frantic documentary style that sets the whole ball of wax rolling straight down hill and over everything in sight. Jack and Sally are splitting up and they approach the issue with such matter-of-factness that it disturbs Judy. She begins to question her relationship with Gabe, who in turn is drawn to a young student (Juliette Lewis). Judy becomes infatuated with a co-worker (Liam Neeson), but sets him up with the newly-available Sally anyways.

The magic to this film comes with watching the couples surround each other and weave in and out of each other’s lives. The combinations are endless, with each character meeting new love or finding love to be ultimately fleeting due to a variety of circumstances. While such a description might seem vague, Husbands and Wives is the sort of broad picture that teems with infinite possibilities.

Allen’s point about the durability of the featured “rational” relationships is not subtle. He removes certainty with consistency, telling us that the most “sensible” couples can often be the most fragile. If Jack and Sally can break up and face disaster, who’s really safe? The way the relationship disaster threatens Judy and takes her down with the ship is fascinating stuff to watch.

In the ultimate deconstruction, Husbands and Wives becomes more about self and less about relationships. It is about why we pursue what we pursue and the belief that relationships, especially those of the characters in the movie, are based on the desire to have the needs of the self met before meeting the needs of, well, the other. The failure comes not as the result of miscommunication or elemental disaster, but as the result of natural human selfishness.

The performances are terrific, especially that of Sydney Pollack. His ability to convey that sense of selfishness and absorption in the meeting of his desires is compelling, especially when his new relationship comes apart at the seams and undoes his limitations. Neeson does a nice turn here too, playing perhaps the only decent guy in the whole film.

Allen’s Husbands and Wives is one of his most fascinating character studies. His analysis of relationships as compartments of needs and conceptions of self might ring true to many viewers. Luckily, Allen doesn’t leave us wanting in terms of hope. The final frames of the picture are beautiful, with a sense of hope lining the screen with elegance.

9.1/10

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November 12, 2008

Porco Rosso

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1992, action, adventure, animated, drama, entertainment, fantasy, foreign, historical, movies, romance, trailers | Tags: , , |
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porco-rosso

Porco Rosso is a unique film in the canon of genius animator Hayao Miyazaki. The historical and geographical context of the movie is specific; there is no fantasy world or alternate universe in which the characters operate. Indeed, most of the story could have occurred in reality and within the context. The only element to the story that stretches our perceptions of reality, ever so slightly, is the titular character.

The story takes place during the 1920s between the two World Wars. The setting is Italy and fascism is rising. Blackshirts are everywhere and the “firm answer” of the fascist regime to the political turmoil in post-war Italy lays the backdrop to the picture. In many respects, Porco Rosso is Miyazaki’s most “adult” picture. It is entrenched with politics and world affairs, generating many of its more obvious plot points from the rejection of fascism.

We meet Porco Rosso, a man with the head of a pig, as he works as a bounty hunter guarding ships in the Adriatic Sea. He frequently combats pirates and defends other ships, yet there is a sense of camaraderie between the pirates and Porco. He is a legend in the area and has earned the respect of mostly everyone he comes into contact with. We are not told specifically how Porco wound up in the condition we find him in, although Miyazaki does include some hints that he became a pig after he left the Italian Air Force.

The film revolves around Porco’s relationship with Gina, a woman who runs Hotel Adriano in the Adriatic Sea, and his rivalry with American pilot Curtis. Curtis is attempting to gain employment with a gang of pirates and decides to directly challenge Porco as a way to boost his profile. When Porco heads to Milan to rebuild his plane, he comes into contact with young Fio and a group of fascists who smell bacon. Luckily, Porco has friends in the Italian Air Force who keep him ahead of the blackshirts and he is able to head back and properly challenge Curtis with a rebuilt plane (courtesy of Fio) and renewed energy.

The animation is typical Miyazaki, brimming with color, quality, and unbelievable detail. Miyazaki’s meticulousness is renowned and Porco Rosso is a marvelous example of this. His attention to detail is impeccable, especially in his presentation of Italy and the historical elements as they fit the context of the piece.

As Miyazaki’s sixth animated picture, this 1992 film demonstrates the director’s growth as an artist. It is often thought that Porco Rosso is his most personal work and that the character of Porco is loosely based on himself. Flight is a common theme in the films of Hayao Miyazaki, with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind featuring airborne armies and the title character’s glider and Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service flying around on her broomstick. There is a sense here that flight represents a form of ultimate freedom, as though Porco only feels safe and, perhaps, human in the skies.

The core of the film for some may well be Porco’s conflict with Curtis. It ends in a bruising fist-fight, the two characters throwing ideological punch after punch at one another. But for me, the core of Porco Rosso lies in Porco’s denunciation of everything that holds him down. He has literally been stripped of his humanity through circumstances we don’t understand. He may turn human again and he may not. For the time being, Porco finds his ultimate autonomy in the skies and in the dismissal of all that anchors him.

He is Bogart-cool, always on the move, always smoking, always prepared.

Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso is a delightfully animated, tenderly constructed, and magnificently frank piece of art. It is certainly his most adult work and little besides the protagonist’s facade seems launched towards younger viewers. A delicate masterpiece, Porco Rosso stands as one of Hayao Miyazaki’s most significant movies and as one of the most enjoyable, affecting animated films of all time. 

9.8/10

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September 21, 2007

Reservoir Dogs

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1992, crime, drama, entertainment, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |
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Reservoir Dogs

Quentin Tarantino’s debut film, Reservoir Dogs, is a classic independent film in every sense of the word. The film would lay the framework for a lot of the ideas that would later become Tarantino’s hallmarks, such as the non-linear story, interesting take on violence, and the dialogue. In order to make a name for himself, Tarantino begins his Reservoir Dogs by laying down some of that rich dialogue and, in a lengthly and engaging and REAL conversation around a table in a diner with a beautiful wandering and circling camera, we are introduced to Tarantino’s characters. And so it begins…

Reservoir Dogs focuses in on what happens before and after a botched jewel heist, letting the characters work themselves out and eliminating the need for a showy sequence involving the robbery itself. This is a smart move, right off the bat, because we know that Tarantino cares more about build and characters than he does about making a standard film. As the film unfolds, we know we’re witnessing something different. We know we’re seeing a unique cinematic vision, indeed. The structure of Reservoir Dogs is such that all of the conventional tactics for producing this type of film are obliterated in the opening moments.

The film stars Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Chris Penn, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Quentin Tarantino, and Eddie Bunker. The cast all works wonderfully, each filling out their characters with such depth through the expert delivery of Tarantino’s script. As Tarantino’s words pop off of the page and on to the screen, it is the actors that make the sparkling dialogue come to life in a dazzling and blistering tour de force.

The film was originally going to be made for about $30,000 courtesy of Tarantino and his friends. However, Harvey Keitel was involved in a relationship with producer Lawrence Bender’s acting class teacher and he discovered the script to Reservoir Dogs. Keitel agreed to act in the film and to co-produce it, so Tarantino suddenly had a larger bankroll. From that point, the filmmakers were able to raise about $1.2 million for the film, making it a high-budget film in the independent sense but still a very low budget film in the larger Hollywood sense. Regardless, Reservoir Dogs was on its way and Hollywood and the cinematic world would be in for a treat.

Reservoir Dogs, by Tarantino’s admission, was largely taken from Ringo Lam’s 1987 film City on Fire. Tarantino borrowed several key plot components from Lam’s film, including the “Mexican standoff” scene and the idea of an undercover cop with conflicting loyalties. A lot of Hong Kong influences can be seen in Tarantino’s film, in fact, and he makes no bones about borrowing from the films he sees. “Great artists steal,” he has said. Tarantino weaves Reservoir Dogs so tightly and with such epic precision that it ends up drawing attention to other films and upgrading the genre itself, which in my opinion is one of the greatest things that film can do.

What makes Reservoir Dogs so important in terms of modern cinema was its pacing and its style. Films never moved or came out in the same way after Tarantino hit the scene with his ideas. While never claiming himself as “original,” to deny Tarantino’s influence on the industry is to, in my opinion, have a fairly ignorant knowledge of film. This influence all started with Reservoir Dogs. The style of Tarantino’s description of the robbery gone wrong, the dialogue between characters and the way they work with one another, and the camera work all add up to create somewhat of a masterwork. While Reservoir Dogs would ultimately end up feeling too incomplete, its purpose served to shed a larger light on one of the most talented and influential filmmakers of our modern age and to introduce a new way to make movies with a reliance on character, story, and movement. Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs is not quite a masterpiece in and of itself, but as a component to a larger masterful body of work, it is an excellent piece of art.

8.5/10

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May 20, 2007

Army of Darkness

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1992, action, adventure, comedy, fantasy, horror, romance, thrillers | Tags: , , |
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Army of Darkness

Army of Darkness is a sequel to the Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 films. This comic action/adventure/horror film stars the wonderfully entertaining Bruce Campbell as Ash, the classic prototype protagonist. Directed by Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Spider-Man), Army of Darkness is a simple and highly entertaining cult classic. The film is the epitome of cult horror, featuring tag lines and catchphrases throughout that bring out the lively energy behind the film and its lead character. While Army of Darkness didn’t do particularly well at the box office, it is certainly a success in the home video and DVD market.

The film follows Ash (Bruce Campbell), fresh from his adventures of the Evil Dead films, as he gets sucked into a time vortex along with his Oldsmobile. He ends up in medieval times, around 1300 AD, and right smack dab in the middle of a conflict between two armies. Ash is thought of as the “Hero from the Sky” by the people, thought to be the one to save mankind from the “Deadites” or the undead armies that threaten the kingdom. This is explained somewhat in Evil Dead 2.

Instead, however, Ash is thought to be a member of one of the enemy armies and is brought to the village to be punished and executed. He escapes his execution and takes charge of the situation quickly with his “boomstick” and the action begins. Ash is enlisted to grab the Book of the Dead and fight off the skeleton army that he accidentally unleashes when he doesn’t get the sacred words right.

The character of Ash is the best thing about Army of Darkness, by far. Ash’s one-liners and catchphrases are tremendously entertaining, as is Bruce Campbell’s performance as the two-fisted hero. Army of Darkness excels in that it keeps things simple and fun, using lots of original set-ups for Campbell to deliver his character and using lots of broad action sequences to bring out some good fun. The film really is a good old-fashioned action/adventure romp led by good characters and good action, including a shotgun and a chainsaw. How much more can you ask for?

Raimi really makes the film work with its flow, however, as he never lets the audience up for air and never lets anyone relax too much. The action keeps coming, the comic blundering and gags keep flowing and the fun never stops. Army of Darkness is far from flawless, but that is where Raimi and the gang take their most intelligent cues. Some of the gags and in-jokes in the film make repeat viewing of Army of Darkness a must. The film works as a send-up and as an original work, all at once. It is satirical without being a satire and parodies swashbuckling epics without being disingenuous in its delivery. Truly, if more films like Army of Darkness took on the genre, we’d be in a better cinematic place.

Army of Darkness is the perfect B-movie, the perfect matinée fun-fest and the perfect film for viewing when you need a laugh, a smirk and a smile. Its stop-motion animation and sleight-of-hand techniques, perfected by Raimi in the Evil Dead films, draw big laughs and tons of gross-out camp all at once. Despite trying to find various ways to describe Army of Darkness, it all really comes back to finding the one word that sums up such a film: fun.

7/10

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May 15, 2007

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1992, drama, entertainment, fantasy, horror, romance, thrillers, trailers | Tags: , , , , , |
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Bram Stoker’s DraculaWell, you can never count me as one that doesn’t go against the grain. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is ranking at a whopping 85% over at Rotten Tomatoes. I, of course, managed to head in the opposite direction of the bulk of the critical consensus. It seems to be a delicious and unintentional trend lately, as my Bewitched review located below demonstrates. Honestly, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (if we can even attach Stoker’s name to it without cringing) is such a convoluted and bloated mess of a film that I can’t fathom how it received such positive reviews.

It should be noted that my wife is currently reading the book, so I had her pointing out the nuances of the film that were being grossly missed or grossly glossed over or just grossly fouled up. The problem arrives when a film attaches the name of the original author of the work to the film. It implies a certain sense of directorial license, as if Bram Stoker’s work is somehow going to be more accurately translated to the screen. When Peter Jackson did Lord of the Rings, the title cards never once read “JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings”. But here was, specifically, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. So why, then, does this film deviate so drastically from the original piece?

Francis Ford Coppola, the master behind The Godfather films and the epic Apocalypse Now (not to mention The Conversation), directs this film with such a flair for the immense that you forget he was ever responsible for two or three of the best films in history. As the scenes unfold, it becomes unclear as to his directorial vision. Some scenes seem ripe for camp value, intentionally, while others seem prepped for grand scale mysticism and erotic horror. The film appears to walk a tightrope between being blissfully self-aware of its own overabundance of camp and being hopelessly unaware of its own consistent misfiring on almost all of the levels that could make a film like this worthwhile. Coppola’s directorial confusion is apparent in the climax of the film, as we are thrust into such an awkward series of events that any rise in the action becomes laughable.

In terms of performances, we end up with one masterful performance that saves the film from utter despair and a slew of other performances that so grossly miss the mark with their portrayals that one starts to long for John Carpenter’s Vampires by the time the credits roll. The masterful performance is, of course, Gary Oldman as Dracula. He brings a class and dignity to Dracula that is often lost in a ghastly script and some strange sequences that are totally unnecessary. Still, Oldman is obviously trying his best and it shows. He brings the character some form of continuity despite all of the bloated confusion around him. Winona Ryder is Mina Harker, a character that is so bland in the opening moments and so overdone with moaning and cleavage-grabbing “action” in the final sequences that it becomes frightening. She doesn’t capture a transformation insomuch as she captures the confusion of the whole ordeal. If that was her goal, bravo for pulling off the performance of the century. Then there’s Keanu Reeves…..yep, Keanu Reeves.

The film elects to give Dracula a significant stake (pun intended) in the plot by giving him a backstory and constructing a new depth to his character while almost callously discarding any potential for depth through performance of the originally intended character. Part of the power of the character of Dracula lies in the mystery of the character, but that mystery is grossly and openly displayed like a magician revealing his trick to the audience before doing the trick. This is probably the most problematic deviation of Stoker’s work as it really only adds to the mess of the film and doesn’t really accomplish anything that couldn’t have been done better by electing to take a different course, ie. stick with the source material.

The whole Mina aspect of the film is delivered as a different path for the storyline to take, which in my opinion is also drastically convoluted and eerily arrogant in light of naming the film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula“. A lot of different “modern” depth is added to characters, too, as some are turned into erotic sexpots and others are turned into raving lunatics. Anthony Hopkins’ Van Helsing becomes all sorts of wrong in comparison to the character in the novel. I was hoping for more from that character, to be sure. The film’s obsession with Stoker’s lightly tread erotic elements also becomes paramount and likely drives the film’s success, but I found it to be schlocky and moronic. So be it.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula really doesn’t deserve the namesake because it does little to keep it. Coppola’s vision is often awkward and weird, always bloated and guided by problematic character changes and idiotic performances (save one) and so over-directed that it loses any and all primal focus. Instead, it’s a film that can’t make up its mind, doesn’t age well and feels silly in many moments. It is overacted and underacted, all at once, and scripted terribly. Only Gary Oldman saves this film from utter despair.

3/10

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