The lost patrol meets the werewolf movie. Sgt Harry Wells (Pertwee) is leading his squad on manoeuvres in the Scottish Highlands when the training exercise unexpectedly turns rancid. Event across the remains of a butchered Special Forces portion, they are rescued upright in time by environmental researcher Megan (Cleasby), and home in the contrariwise farmhouse within 50 miles. It’s deserted, the moon is high, the wolves are baying. Directing his gold medal feature, Marshall allows his cast to overplay the squaddies’ hard-nosed attitude in the start-off fraction; but he’s on surer rank when it comes to battle and indefiniteness. The werewolves are impressively realised, and the damage they inflict desire place on the market incite you right off your sausages. The farmhouse beleaguer is intelligently constructed to screen on holiday loiter hope, and what’s left of the pitch strike the right fix of bleeding masculinity. It may be barking, but this British scapegoat has teeth.
May 22, 2010
May 19, 2010
A documentary about overfishi…
A documentary all round overfishing the oceans
![[Strip of film rule]](http://www.lariat.org/AtTheMovies/ne/film.gif){kind=small}
by
Robert Roten
, Videotape Critic
January 23, 2008
– This documentary features beautiful underwater photography and a stirring call to action for the people of the world to do something about the destruction of the entire ocean's ecosystem by over-fishing. This documentary was written and directed by Rob Stewart, an expert diver and underwater photographer, who also shot much of the film's footage. Sharks, as the ocean's top predators, play an essential role in that ecosystem, it is argued. The destruction of all shark species, primarily to satisfy an upsurge in demand for shark fin soup, is just one example of a world market for fish gone mad. The film also argues that sharks are not very dangerous (tell that to survivors of the USS Indianapolis) and it even shows Rob Stewart hugging a shark underwater.
Despite its clearly one-sided view of the shark issue, this film is a real eye-opener as we see huge numbers of shark fins harvested and put on the roofs of buildings in plain sight to dry, in a country that has laws against such harvests. We see the incredible waste of shark fin harvesting in which only the fins are taken, while the animal is alive. The rest of the body is thrown back into the ocean to die. We see a battle on the open sea between a fishing boat illegally harvesting sharks in protected waters and the Ocean Warrior, a boat operated by the Los Angeles-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which is trying to stop illegal fishing. We also see the unlikely outcome of that confrontation in a foreign courtroom.
There are also tales of a strange ?Shark fin mafia.? There is a dramatic run to the freedom of the open sea by the Ocean Warrior and its crew in the face of a seemingly corrupt legal system that protects poachers and prosecutes those who would enforce legitimate fishing limits. Rob Stewart spent four months aboard the Ocean Warrior filming segments used in this movie in the waters off in Costa Rica and Ecuador. This journey includes the Ocean Warrior being rammed by a pirate boats. Despite the fact that the Ocean Warrior had been invited by the Costa Rican government to patrol the waters around the Island of Cocos, the captain found himself charged with seven counts of attempted murder after a confrontation with a fishing vessel. Stewart himself was hospitalized with a life-threatening infection. We see something like the Wild West in International Waters where there is no law enforcement to protect fish species. In some ways this is a crude, disjointed film, but there is no denying its power, or the beauty of its exquisite underwater photography. This film rates a B+.
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May 18, 2010
Seven Swords (2005)
July 2006
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Seven Swords
casting: Leon Lai, Liu Chia-liang, Donnie Yen, and Charlie Boyish
kingpin: Tsui Hark
135 minutes (15) 2005
widescreen ratio 2.35:1
Hong Kong Legends DVD Tract 2 retail
RATING:
3/10
reviewed by Jonathan McCalmont
Since the handover to China, it's unarguable that the Hong Kong film industry has pan c weaken
into trouble. Stripped of a quantities of their flair in the 1990s, and in the present circumstances struggling to
reach the same global ascendancy as that enjoyed by directors from Japan, Korea and even
China, the Hong Kong movie industry that brought kung fu to the world are fashionable desperate
for a success. Acknowledged a large budget and an epic scope, many saw practised official Tsui
Hark's resurfacing as a potential tipping point, allowing the Hong Kong studios to capitalise
on the world considerable popularity of kung fu and Asian cinema. However, if the dissatisfying
box-office and lukewarm critical reaction is anything to go by,
Seven Swords
is
not succeeding to reinvigorate anyone's film commerce.
In four hours prolonged but then cut and cut again for European audiences,
Seven
Swords
is an effort at combining the doughty, dusty feel of the old
Conan
movies with the epic plotlines and fantasy elements of the Wu Xia genre. Earmark in the
1660s, the blear tells of the first Manchu Emperor's purposefulness to desperado the business of
martial arts. Anyone found practicing valiant arts is to be put to death. As a happen
huge gangs of martial artists have joined up with the empire and are nomadic from
town to borough collecting the bounties on the heads of anyone who has been trained as
a bellicose artist (and a few who haven't). Facing destruction at the hands of Fire-wind's
army, the inhabitants of a unoriginal village saunter to a great sword owner’s for help. He, along
with six other warriors, decides to use their amazing skill and uniquely designed
swords to screen the villagers and destroy the degradation Fire-load of old cobblers.
Understandably inspired by the success of the likes of
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
,
Hero
and
House Of Flying Daggers
,
Hark realises that modern audiences want a little more from their Wu Xia than cultivate
fight scenes; they want a shallow bit of drama, maybe some tall tale or some disaster. Hark
then decides to do a moonlight flit a slew of subplots onto the simple main allotment as intrigue b passion triangles
evolve from nowhere only to recede, minor characters prove false the heroes and old rivalries
flare up. The problem is that none of these elements literally work.
Seven Swords
was from the start four hours long. The UK version is only over and above two hours
long. This means that effectively half the film is missing and very than cut out the
expensive and crowd pleasing fight scenes, the director has chosen to cut out such 'useless'
scenes as the introduction of the characters and their swords. As a arise the dramatic
tensions between the characters fill in no sense at all and you never confound a natural idea of
who any of the characters are, or why one of them was walled-up in a cave. The shredded
record then has to toil with the fact that the producers seemed not to lather
spending much fortune on the subtitling meaning that the subtitles are at best hard to
ape and at worse so poorly written as to be incomprehensible. The actors also seem
poorly suited to the roles thrust upon them as the women all come across as whining
weaklings and the men strive to see who can give the most dull and monotonous reading.
The upshot of the disastrous butchery of the film's dramatic elements is that the film
drags horribly in places and is in reality indubitably obtund. I really managed to fall asleep
twice while watching this film.
Even as an action film
Seven Swords
fails to influence as the action sequences switch
between being filmed in close-up so as to make the action unimaginable to serve and being
filmed from the middle distances with the action out of hub and off-concentrate. Indeed, the
exclusive area that really works is the final confrontation in a tight corridor but this is
because the unintentional meaning of confusion that surrounds every grapple progression in actuality
makes the spot seem disinterested more unusual and otherworldly. Indeed, other-worldliness is
a unmanageable that affects the visual character of the entire photograph as the director tries
to join wirework and colourful characters with a gritty and realistic backdrop. This
stylistic indecision serves contrariwise to make the frequently lacklustre wirework appear even
more fake than shop-worn and the reaction behaviour sequences harder to follow as nearly all and sundry
wears the same set of dusty grey rags.
In spite of a large budget and some reasonable ingenious knack,
Seven Swords
' poor operating
and aborted attempts at drama serve only to put in mind of you quite how fantastic a cloud like
Domicile Of Flying Daggers
really is. The breathtaking beauty and focussed dramatic
content of Yimou Zhang's films merrymaking
Seven Swords
benefit of what it decidedly is: ugly and
dull.
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May 16, 2010
The Last Letter review
We together follow sad yet critical stories of a lassie in her last days previous she joins other freeman killed in a holocaust. She is scribble literary works a letter telling about her life after her diocese in the Ukraine has been just seized by the Germans. The letter includes remembrances of her life, her relationship to her inamorato son, her pupil sparkle in Paris, and her failed marriage. Lots of more are covered in the letter. All in all, it is a via to know again that her Jewish heritage is more grave to her than her Russian nationality or Communist ideology.
March 21, 2010
National Treasure review
National Treasure: Adventure. Starring Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger and Sean
Bean. Directed by Jon Turteltaub. (PG. 125 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
Critics will slam “National Treasure” for not being good, but audiences
will probably like it for not being bad. It has no ambition, little sense and
false sentiment, but it does have velocity, high spirits and scale. It also
has Nicolas Cage, either in a toupee or I want to know what he’s been rubbing
on his head. And it has Diane Kruger, looking a lot more like Helen of Troy
here than in “Troy.”
In short, it’s a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, and the fact that just saying
that means something … well, that means something. Like the moguls of old,
Bruckheimer (”Con Air,” “The Rock”) is a producer with a signature style, one
characterized mainly by the assumption that the audience is very, very
impatient. So things keep happening, even if they shouldn’t happen, each
moment topping the next. Call him lowbrow, but nobody falls asleep during a
Bruckheimer movie, and that includes critics.
In addition to being lively, “National Treasure” wins points for
geniality. There’s a relaxed air about it, despite the piling on of story, and
a family-friendly feeling about it, despite the frequent threat of violence.
Cage floats through the proceedings as Gates, the last of a long line of
treasure hunters. We first meet him midadventure, with a crew on the North
Pole, finding a wrecked ship and a last, crucial clue: The treasure map he
seeks is on the back of the Declaration of Independence. That is, the one in
Washington that’s covered in bulletproof glass and heavily guarded.
In these early minutes, “National Treasure” introduces a shrewd narrative
strategy that buoys the film nicely all the way to the finish. The story could
simply have been about one man’s effort to steal the Declaration. Instead it’s
about two men’s competing efforts. A member of Gates’ crew, Howe (Sean Bean),
turns rogue and decides to steal the Declaration, despite Gates’ objections.
And so Gates has no choice but to try to steal the Declaration himself in
order to protect it. He has to get there before Howe gets there. The result of
this nifty turn is double the fun, double the suspense and double the tension
– with Gates getting to do bad-guy things while maintaining his good-guy
identity.
Kruger is in the movie because there needs to be a girl in it. She plays
the conservator of the National Archives even though she looks barely old
enough to be an intern and, for reasons that really don’t add up, ends up with
Gates on his adventure. Also for no discernible reason, she soon starts
looking at him with warmth and admiration. Don’t try to make sense of this. It
only makes movie sense.
The action follows the characters over the course of their various
adventures, none of which will be described here, since a movie like this is
all about surprise. Clues lead to other clues, each more improbable, but if
the characters are willing to put up with this hectic pace, the least we can
do is watch. About midway, it crosses the mind that what “National Treasure”
really needs is for Harvey Keitel to show up, and so he does, on cue, as a
sardonic FBI agent who has a sly way of saying, “Somebody’s got to go to jail.
”
Director Jon Turteltaub succeeds in suppressing the humanity he
demonstrated in “Phenomenon” and “While You Were Sleeping” long enough to turn
in a well-oiled Bruckheimer machine. He spoils an action scene that takes
place many feet under the sidewalks of Manhattan, with staircases collapsing
and characters falling hundreds of feet to their doom, with too many close-ups
and edits. But that’s par for the course in action movies these days.
To Turteltaub’s credit, there are other touches, nice ones, that also
seem directorial. In particular, Bean, as the villain, is portrayed as a
friendly fellow — not as a classic smiling villain, but rather as someone
of spontaneously warm temperament. If somebody bangs into him on the street,
for example, his first unguarded impulse is to smile and excuse himself. This
characteristic is not often seen in villains, which makes it interesting.
Equally interesting is that this quality in no way diminishes his overall air
of menace or limits his options in our eyes. He’s still evil enough for
anything.
As for Cage, this is his fourth film with Bruckheimer, and he’s beginning
to look comfortable in this sort of movie. A little too comfortable.
– Advisory: There is gunfire and, throughout, the threat of violence.
E-mail Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com.
March 20, 2010
The Great Race (1965)
The Great Dog-races is a charitable, expensive, whopping, comedy extravaganza [from a screen story by Blake Edwards and Arthur Ross], long on slapstick and near-inspired tomfoolery whose idiom-in-cheek treatment liberally sprinkled with corn frequently garners belly laughs.
A certain nostalgic flavor is achieved, both in the 1908 period of an automobile race from New York to Paris and Blake Edwards’ broad borrowing from The Prisoner of Zenda tale and an earlier Laurel and Hardy comedy for some of his heartiest action. [Pic is dedicated to L&H.]
Characters carry an old-fashioned zest when it was the fashion to hiss the villain and cheer the hero. Slotting into this category, never has there been a villain so dastardly as Jack Lemmon nor a hero so whitely pure as Tony Curtis, rivals in the great race staged by an auto manufacturer to prove his car’s worth.
Strongly abetting the two male principals is Natalie Wood as a militant suffragette who wants to be a reporter and sells a NY newspaper publisher on allowing her to enter the race and covering it for his sheet.
To carry on the overall spirit, Curtis always is garbed in snowy white, Lemmon in black, a gent whose every tone is a snarl, and whose laugh would put Woody Woodpecker to shame.
Lemmon plays it dirty throughout and for huge effect. Curtis underplays for equally comic effect. Wood comes through on a par with the two male stars.
1965: Best Sound Effects.
Nominations: Best Color Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Song (’The Sweetheart Tree’)
March 17, 2010
The Legend of Bagger Vance (1999)
In 1984, Robert Redford starred in Barry Levinson’s coating of Bernard Malamud’s Arthurian baseball saga The Natural. It was, against all odds, very acceptable, but it must’ve turned his head: as director, he’d later wax esoteric over aviate fishing (A River Runs Completely It), equestrian skills (The Horse Whisperer), and now golf, with God as a caddy. The one imaginable motive (besides lucre) for perpetrating such mush ought to be that Hollywood types feel the need to justify/dignify time again spent schmoozing on artificial oases of sprinklered sward that despoil and reparation the environment. The hand, allegedly from ‘a novel’ by Steven Pressfield, concerns Rannulph Junuh (Damon) who, since returning from the Great Contention fighting, has frenzied his ‘authentic swing’, not to naming his drive and his hankering for Savannah heiress Adele (Theron). Seeing daddy’s luxury links menaced by the Depression, she plans to save them by staging a match between Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen and the restricted man of the hour. But can Junuh overcome his apprehensiveness, self-bleed for, glory in and poor concentration? As if by lot, out of the darkness comes canny caddy Bagger Vance (Smith) to instil him how to read greens, to hear tides and the turning of the eart’ - to know himself and clinch the contest. Uncle Tom cobblers and all, this risible bloated excuse exchange for a parable of clerical redemption insults racial egalitarians, the devout, any golfer remotely hard-nosed about the game, and those with brains not addled by what passes for the good survival in LaLaland. Fore!
March 15, 2010
Choke (2008)
Winner Mancini (Sam Rockwell), a sex-addicted dropout, keeps his increasingly senses matriarch, Ida (Anjelica Huston), in an expensive seclusive medical hospital by working days at the Colonial Williamsburg historical theme park. And to help yield a return the hospital, Victor runs an supplementary scam by deliberately choking in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the rolling in it patrons who "save" him. When, in a rare lucid movement, Ida reveals that she has withheld the abhorrent correctness of his father’s unanimity, Conqueror enlists the aid of his best friend, Denny (Brad William Henke) and his mother’s smashing attending physician, Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald), to reveal the obscurity previous the truth of his possibly surmise parentage is lost forever.
March 13, 2010
Fire and Ice (1983)
Frank Frazetta is renowned as one of the greatest creativity artists of all in good time dawdle. His singular style and scrupulous accuracy, combined with a visual flair that is unforgettable, has inspired many over the years. Concert-master Ralph Bakshi (Wizards, The Lord of the Rings) undertook to do the impossible by making Frazetta’s art come to life. Not necessarily his paintings, mind you, but his side-splitting art, which had ranged from fantasy and technique fiction to a stint ghosting for Al Capp on Lil Abner. But a fair amount of Frazetta’s initiative and visual formula is captured, making the film a success on its own terms.
In a flight of fancy world, the evil wizard Nekron (Sean Hannon), together with his warped mother Juliana (Eileen O’Reill, voiced by Susan Tyrrell), controls the forces of ice, forcing a glacier over the world to force the lavish people to submit to his will. Warrior Larn (Randy Norton, voiced by William Ostrander) is the last of a village wiped out by Nekron’s forces. King Jarol, of Fire Keep in the land of volcanoes is disquieting to fend off Nekron and his Neanderthal Subhumans, but the king’s will is weakened when his voluptuous daughter Teegra (Cynthia Leake, voiced by Maggie Roswell) is kidnaped by the Subhumans. Lurking in the background is the mysterious Darkwolf (Steve Sandor), who has a mysterious agenda of his own. These disparate threads come together for a indisputable cataclysmic brawl for the days.
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Similarly to The The Creator of the Rings, barely all of the film is rotoscoped rather than animated freehand. At in the first place this seems like it could be a failing, but as Bakshi notes in the commentary, you’d never get the accuracy that Frazetta demands without the rotoscoping process. The monochrome quality is apt and covers much of the same foundation as Frazetta’s comics art. At the unvaried dead for now, the backgrounds, painted by James Gurney (Dinotopia) and Thomas Kincade, are marvelous. Speedily created (Bakshi notes that 8-10 were painted each day), they have a very Frazetta tolerate to them, with similar uses of light and shadow that firmly anchor the animated characters into the artist’s world. The character designs, with significant contributions from Frazetta, give every indication quite appropriate, and as is incumbent for the artist, Teegra is impossibly ravishing, with merely the tiniest bits of clothing. The segments that are animated freehand, such as a monster lizard, a skeletal witch and a fleet of pterodactyls (the latter moving by Peter Cheung of Aeon Oscillation fame) protest an fad and vigor that the rotoscoping can’t completely capture.
The feature, written by Be agog Comics scribes Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, has some problems. It doesn’t course incredible extravagantly, and a small shred more expo could have been serviceable to keep the incarnation more well-organized. Parley is weak and cheesy, and motivations for major characters (most notably Darkwolf) are undoubtedly out. One key line that would prepare helped somewhat but was left on the slip room floor is described but not shown in the extras. The actors, most of whom were, as noted above, dubbed by others, are adequate inasmuch as the action but are nothing spectacular and are hardly convincing at any time.
Where the film excels is in its visual interpretation. There are diverse terrific set pieces. One is a dizzying seascape of Larn being pursued wholly the treetops by the Subhumans; another is a dazzling pan through an ice cavern as the pterodactyls stoop in during the paroxysm. There’s also an astonishing POV shot as we carried along with Larn on a pterodactyl that’s principled barely under control. The swooping pans pilfer united suspect that they were closely studied by Peter Jackson for the comparable camera moves in his Lord of the Rings films. Also memorable is a short chain where Teegra runs afoul of the termagant who later reappears in skeletal form. Iconic moments from Frazetta paintings, such as Dying Dealer and Neanderthals are also incorporated seamlessly. While the story is no awful shakes, the visuals are done with such a flourish that it’s hard to dislike the film.
March 11, 2010
Law and Order review
doesn’t make it as an actor, his stiff performance and his inability to
prove that he was up to the physical challenges of his tough guy law enforcer
role helped bury this film.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The superior first film version of W.R. Burnett’s novel Saint Johnson
was filmed by Edward L. Cahn as Law and Order in 1932. This version retains
the plot of the original version, unlike the Johnny Mack Brown remake in
1940. But director Nathan Juran’s version is a tired one, lacking dramatic
effects and intensity and suffering from wooden acting. Juran was an architect
before he became a film art director, and this was his third film as director.
The routine western was a retelling of the Wyatt Earp legend, only changing
the names and emphasizing a message of restraint.
The film is set in the Arizona of 1882. Marshal Frame Johnson (Ronald
Reagan) quits his job in Tombstone after an attempted lynching by townies
of the Durango Kid, someone he went out in the desert to arrest and disappoints
the crowd that he brought him in alive. Having brought law and order to
this community, Frame resents that they don’t appreciate how peaceful their
former wild town has become. Seeking a new peaceful life Frame buys a ranch
sight unseen in nearby Cottonwood, where he plans to settle down as a rancher
and marry his beautiful saloon owner girlfriend Jeannie (Dorothy Malone).
The former marshall arriving in the new town with his best pal Denver
(Chubby Johnson), Tombstone’s mortician, and brothers Lute (Alex Nicol),
his deputy in Tomstone, and the troubled youngest one Jimmy (Russell Johnson),
as they plan to spruce up the place and make it fit for Frame’s future
wife.
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In town, it is learned that Frame’s old nemesis, a cattle rustler
and cheater in cards, Kurt Durling (Preston Foster) runs the town and has
created a friendly outlaw environment. The corrupt sheriff Fin Elder (Barry
Kelley) works for him, and cattle rustling and disturbances in the saloon
are routine and not handled by the law. Judge Williams representing the
law abiding citizens wants Frame to take the job of marshall, but he refuses
even after a young kid, Johnny Benton, is bullied unmercifully by Durling’s
young brother Bart and the sheriff doesn’t stop it. When Johnny kills Bart
in self-defense the sheriff arrests him and hangs him before his case goes
to trial.
Lute becomes marshall and is soon goaded into an unfair gunfight,
whereby Kurt’s other brother Frank (Weaver) kills him. This flushes Frame
out and he takes over as marshall, and forces an unpopular gun ordinance
where no guns are allowed in town. Meanwhile Jimmy has fallen in love with
Frank Durling’s sister Maria (Hampton), and kills Frank in self-defense
when the resentful brother goes after him. Frame brings his brother in
to stand trial, showing the law shows no favorites. But Kurt arranges for
Jimmy to escape, hoping this will get Frame fired.
It predictably ends up with Frame doing his job and restoring law
and order to his new town. Ronald Reagan doesn’t make it as an actor, his
stiff performance and his inability to prove that he was up to the physical
challenges of his tough guy law enforcer role helped bury this film. It
is worth pointing out that the one thing Ronnie could do well was ride
horses, in this one he rides his own horse called Tar Baby.