Hawaii Five-O: The Flip Side is Death

June 30, 2010

Trust the Man: Romantic comed…

Filed under: Uncategorized — hawaiifiveotheflipsideisdeath @ 4:18 pm

ALERT VIEWER

Trust the Man: Romantic comedy. Starring David Duchovny, Julianne
Moore, Billly Crudup, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ellen Barkin. Directed by Bart
Freundlich. (R. 103
minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)


Director Bart Freundlich has gamely taken over the territory deserted at least
temporarily by Woody Allen. In “Trust the Man,” Freundlich’s superficially
entertaining romantic romp, the streets of New York exude urban sophistication.
Square mile for mile, they’re as enticing as they ever looked in “Annie Hall”
and “Manhattan.”

But “Trust the Man” is on shakier ground inside the offices of numerous
therapists where the main characters unload their relationship problems. It
isn’t just that Allen brought subtle humor to the process of baring one’s
psyche while these sessions are mostly silly. A bigger problem is that
psychotherapy itself seems so 20th century.

When Tom (David Duchovny), an adman who’s quit his job to stay home with
the kids and be supported by his actress-wife Rebecca (Julianne Moore), attends
group therapy for sex addicts, you think: Do people still do that? And when
Rebecca’s ne’er-do-well brother Toby (Billy Crudup) bemoans to his shrink that
what’s the point of anything when we’re all going to die anyway, it literally
stops the action. Manhattan may be available for lease, but Allen owns death
outright. Even the usually resourceful Crudup can’t make expressions of
existential angst sound anything other than imitative.

The movie’s symmetry strains credibility. Besides their in-law status, Tom
and Toby also happen to be best buddies, while Rebecca is chummy with her
brother’s long-suffering girlfriend Elaine (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

But the cast is fun to watch, especially Duchovny, whose comic timing
couldn’t be better. They’re all adept at repartee, a good thing considering how
these couples natter on. Moore, who is married to Freundlich and has worked
with him twice before, obviously gets his drift, and she brings genuine emotion
to Rebecca’s speech about the sanctity of love.

There are enough funny moments that you won’t be bored. My favorite is
when Tom brings a porno tape to bed and asks his wife to tell him everything
she sees while he closes his eyes and pleasures himself. She spends rather more
time describing the porn star’s wax job than he might desire.

True to the romantic comedy formula, conflict soon arises. On a blustery
winter night, Elaine and Toby go searching for their auto only to discover it’s
been towed. The weather cleverly mimics the chilliness between the two.
Frustrated at her boyfriend’s resistance to marrying and starting a family,
Elaine breaks up with him right on the spot where the car should be. The first
person she calls with the news is Rebecca, who soon after throws her husband
out of the house for having an affair, whereupon she and Elaine soak away their
sorrows during a pedicure.

In an apparent attempt to humanize these ultra sophisticates, Freundlich
brings them down a notch. Tom has gone from creating the “Got Milk” ad campaign
to organizing his days around picking his son up from school. Rebecca is
returning triumphant to the New York stage after becoming famous in movies. Yet
nobody pays any attention to her on her wanders around town. That they’re just
ordinary folks is reinforced by having them throw up and discuss bodily
functions, which turns out to be more than you care to know about them.

“Trust the Man” has a sketchy overall feel, as if Freundlich didn’t finish
thinking it through. For instance, Elaine is consumed with finishing her first
book, an illustrated children’s story. A hotshot publisher (Ellen Barkin, in a
funny turn) invites her to lunch ostensibly to discuss the project. Afterward,
she comes on to Elaine, then vanishes from the movie, along with any further
mention of a lesbian relationship or publication of her book.

The film also suffers from not knowing when to end. An obvious grand
finale set at Lincoln Center is followed by two more endings that feel tacked
on. Fortunately, neither takes place in a shrink’s office.

– Advisory: Sex scenes, sexual references and language.

E-mail Ruthe Stein at rstein@sfchronicle.com.

June 29, 2010

Snatch (2001)

Filed under: Uncategorized — hawaiifiveotheflipsideisdeath @ 12:18 pm

Much could be said of British writer/director Customer Ritchie that has already been said of American writer/director Quentin Tarantino. While certainly far from a copious filmmaker, Ritchie has managed to engender two of the most comic, self-indulgent paced, action-crammed, cool and comedic touch rides I have till doomsday seen on dim. Precisely when I think that the violation genre has been dug into the set, Ritchie manages to put a new jaunt on it. Like Tarantino’s Levigate Fiction, Snatch is a masterful hybrid of distinct styles of filmmaking. It is almost as if Ritchie has taken elements from numerous genres, stuffed them into a blender, and created an peerless fade away from the mix. This is typically a formula for blow, but Ritchie’s unique concoction has a confidence and chic that makes it overriding.

So, what is Remove all yon? In honoring the frenetic cosmopolitanism of the film, dissemble me see if I can sum it up in one long, run-on sentence. Snippet follows the plot of unlicensed boxing promoter, Turkish (Jason Statham), and his bumbling sidekick, Tommy (Stephen Graham), who become indirectly caught up in a diamond heist executed by Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro), a criminal with an insatiable voracity for gambling, a vice that causes him to ripen into kidnapped by three pint-sized-mores thugs, Vinny (Robbie Gee), Sol (Lennie James), and Tyrone (Ade), who are working notwithstanding Boris the Blade (Rade Sherbedgia), a deranged Russian with an unusual immunity to death and a conniving nature that leads him to conspire against Doug the Head (Mike Reid), the Jewish wannabe who plans to device the stolen diamond inferior to orders from Cousin Avi (Dennis Farina), an American hothead who is forced to fraternize to London from Late York when he finds that the diamond has fallen into the inappropriate hands, only to become wrapped-up in the madcap lunacy of London’s gangster underbelly, which leads him to rent Bullet-Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones), a guttural hit man whose evil is alone superceded by Chum Complete (Alan Ford), the municipal underworld kingpin who often tortures his victims with a peck of pigs, and who, by hook or by crook, will successfully rig a boxing join with the help of Mickey (Brad Pitt), a bald-knuckle boxing Irish gypsy (or Pikey) who speaks with a mutated Irish underline that is only understandable about 50 percent of the anon a punctually. And, oh yes, there is a dog centrally tortuous in all of this too.

Is any of that clear? It may resound get pleasure from Mickey’s indecipherable Pikey vernacular, but Rescue is in point of fact quite easy to follow thanks to skilled direction and a tightly crafted arrange. The characters are innumerable, but a hip melodic label introduction at the beginning of the film assures that each is properly introduced and accounted for before the twisting story begins. The film is full of sardonic methods that keep the interconnecting story lines tightly woven and a smile plastered to the viewer’s face. One minute in outstanding, consisting of simultaneously occurring car crashes, is executed in a freedom that takes the reaction behaviour, humor, and eccentricity to an all time high. Every performance in the film is a happiness to behold, thanks to irrepressible actors and a design full of fresh and quirky dialogue. Ritchie’s delightful screenwriting has given each of these characters such dissimilar personalities that it is impossible to dislike even the most nefarious villains.

Much condemnation has been made that Snatch is solely a rehash of Ritchie’s first vapour, Lock, Begetter, and Two Smoking Barrels. I have to admit that I agree with these complaints. While both films are a breath of fresh feeling amidst a hackneyed old brand, Snatch is so correspond to in style and story to LS&TSB that it almost feels as if Ritchie was trying to remake a film that was near unimpeachable. As Ritchie’s films are few and far between, I certainly faith that this is no signal that his talent has already gone antiquated. To this day, regardless of similarities to its predecessor, it is my chargeability to review Remove as a standalone film, and as such, it is reeling entertainment. Get off on the cinematic equivalent of a roller coaster, it is a fun-filled ride that, while a no bumpy along the street, is ultimately stirring. Notwithstanding that not a through large screen, I am honestly hard pressed to find any flaws that queer its potency. It is unquestionably a sign of great filmmaking when any problems with a film are unambiguously negated by its entertainment value.

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June 26, 2010

The Ice Storm (1997)

Filed under: Uncategorized — hawaiifiveotheflipsideisdeath @ 9:53 pm
“Lee was born in Taiwan and
did not live here until 1978, yet he is able to capture a slice of Americana
in the early ’70s and what it was like to be a rich American in the middle
of such great social change.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

The story takes place in the wealthy WASP-ish ‘burb of New Canaan,
Connecticut, on Thanksgiving week, 1973, when there is an ice storm and
a catastrophe is to follow that shakes up this upscale town. It is through
the eyes of two families who are friends and neighbors that we follow the
events leading up to the tragedy. The first family consists of Ben (Kline)
and Elena Hood (Joan) and their children, the sexually curious 14-year-old
Wendy (Ricci) and the 16-year-old preppie Paul (Tobey); the other family
consists of Jane (Sigourney) and Jim Carver (Jamey) and their boys — the
brilliant high school student Mikey (Elijah) and the younger son, the troubled
and introverted Sandy (Adam).

This drama is played out against the negativity of the current Nixon
administration as viewed on many campus’ across the country, with some
of the teens reflecting their parents’ conservative political views and
others vehemently on the opposite side. This is also a film about the parents’
dissatisfaction with their empty lives. This dissatisfaction makes it possible
for an affair between Ben and Jane to take place. But even that affair
is stale (he can’t stop talking in bed and she chillingly tells him to
keep quiet, “You are boring me, I have a husband and I don’t need another
one”).

The lives of the children are scrutinized in the same way their parents’
lives are, and the results are almost identical. The children despite some
of them being discontented with the outside world are almost mirror images
of their parents — unwilling to be honest with themselves, or too honest
with themselves for their own good. Meanwhile, for most, the revolutionary
spirit of the times seems to be passing them by.

Tobey struggles to relate with girls as he is awkward and unsure
of what to do or say. He is at the phase of his life where he is experimenting
with drugs in the stupidest of ways; Wendy is unwisely looking to explore
sex, but unaware of the consequences of her decisions; Mickey is reckless
and unsure of how to handle his playful sense of adventure and freedom;
Sandy is all bottled-up inside, wanting to love and be loved, while at
the same time being full of anger.

The introduction of nature into their lives brings about a stark
reality, as it comes in the form of the Thanksgiving ice storm. The ice
storm is magnificently opulent in its whitish, bluish, and gray colors
(the ice was artificially made, but it looks only too real). It symbolically
represents the truth that can’t be denied, no matter what games the adults
(wife-swapping) and children (touching their private parts) play. The beauty
of the ice storm is even more menacing and attractive when it is added
to the more placid beauty of the town’s countryside; but it is also dangerous
as we see how the one suburbanite truly influenced by the beauty of the
storm, also succumbs to it.

Lee was born in Taiwan and did not live here until 1978, yet he is
able to capture a slice of Americana in the early ’70s and what it was
like to be a rich American in the middle of such great social change. It
is amazing that this film was made by a foreigner (It still surprises me,
though Hollywood has a rich history of foreigners doing just that; examples
would be, messieurs Lang and Sirk).

The characters are intricately drawn together; each is complex and
not reduced to caricature. Kline’s performance is central to the film,
he reflects on who he thinks he is supposed to be and why his marriage
has gone cold (he’s a metaphor for the white middle-class male). While
Ricci’s performance is simply breathtaking, as she appears to be the only
one of the teen group who really feels what is going on politically and
socially.

These are successful people, and there is a reason why they are successful.
We see how they are able to go after what they want and get it, the only
thing that seems to be alluding them is peace of mind.

State of Play full movie dvd

This film is to be admired for its icy observations of suburban life,
and in letting us clearly see the intensity and restlessness that lies
behind the carefully manicured personas of the rich. Its use of the ice
storm’s raw power, in all its beauty and danger, as a metaphor on the characters’
liabilities was both well-utilized and, at the same time, utilized too
much. The film can be slightly faulted for putting too much weight on the
ice storm and its symbolical message and for trying to make too much of
the comparison between the children and the parents as if they all were
similar types, thereby not doing enough justice to either characterization.

June 25, 2010

Alex Cox's anarchic homa…

Filed under: Uncategorized — hawaiifiveotheflipsideisdeath @ 7:28 am

Alex Cox's anarchic homage to the spaghetti western featuring Joe Strummer, Courtney Love, Dennis Hopper and The Pogues

Rating: 0 Star

Anne Hathaway plays a bitterly troubled drug addict who steps right out of rehab and into her sister's wedding in Jonathan Demme's home movie-style look at family life

Rating: 2.5 Star

Two straight friends in search of easy women accidentally book on to a gay cruise. Unfortunate farce starring Cuba Gooding Jr and featuring Roger Moore

Rating: 1 Inimitable
review


Get

Real (1998) – Film Review from Film4

1998

The world seems a bad place to Steven, a school kid in love with the head boy, until the head boy falls in love with him. Romantic comedy drama

Rating: 3.5 Major
talk-to-me-2007-01
review

Talk To Me (2007) – Film Review from Film4

2007

A colourful biopic of Petey Greene, an irreverent black ex-con who becomes a popular Washington DC disc jockey during the turbulent 1960s

Rating: 3.5 Star

i_cant_think_straight_2007_01
review

I Can't Think

Straight

(2007) – Film Review from Film4

2007

A soapy multicultural lesbian drama from first-time writer-director and winner of an International Lesbian/Bi Woman Of The Year Visibility Award, Shamim Sharif

Rating: 1 Star

film4-default-image
feature

Will

Get

Fooled Again – Film4

Freddy Vs. Jason – high-brow, postmodern horror? No, just utter crap.

film4-default-image
review

Hanzo The Razor: Who's

Got

The Gold? (1974) – Film Review from




1974

Round three in the cult samurai series and Hanzo is out to expose a loan shark racket at the Shogunate treasury. This final entry trades blood and sex for wider political intrigue

Rating: 3 Star

film4-default-image
promote

Quentin Tarantino on Kill Bill – Film4

How the spirit of a martial arts maverick came back from the dead and assured Tarantino that his condoms full of blood would explode correctly

film4-default-image
feature

Spice Factory: A British Miramax? – Film4

From humble beginnings, Brighton-based production outfit Spice Factory have set their sights on becoming the UK's Miramax, and are now making movies with Al Pacino and Charlize Theron. We meet the founders.

June 23, 2010

The second film in Siegel’s ro…

Filed under: Uncategorized — hawaiifiveotheflipsideisdeath @ 2:34 am

The help film in Siegel’s rogue cop cycle, this falls between Madigan and Dirty Harry. It’s about an Arizona replacement sent to New York, stetson, boots and all, to beau a also gaolbird home; the prisoner escapes, and Coogan (Eastwood) roams Unfledged York, cowboy in the big burg, until he eventually recaptures the hippy internee and returns home. Siegel’s handling of this conflict between the self-reliant Westerner and the outstanding-city find book is predictably entirely funny, and he is aided by a greatly tight book as well as a mercilessly sarcastic accomplishment from Cobb as Coogan’s New York superior. Sober-sided Siegel’s somehow off-middle treatment of New York hippiedom is intriguingly fey.

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