Wassup Rockers

By now most film audiences have made their peace with Larry Clark as a voyeur pedophile living out his sexual fantasies from behind the relative safety of a movie camera where he can somehow avoid arrest. The maker of such stinkers as "Kids" and "Bully" slightly rebounds from his notoriously graphic banned film "Ken Park" with a conspicuously manufactured story about a group of teenage Latino boys from South Central. When they’re not playing hardcore punk music together in their garage band, the boys go on a skateboarding expedition to Beverly Hills where they clash with cops and are invited into rich homes to bed the bored mothers and daughters of the entitled class. Boredom is the loftiest running theme in Larry Clark’s films, and "Wassup Rockers" (imagine asking to buy a ticket for that title) takes dullness to a new low. Special features include a commentary track by Larry Clark and deleted scenes. Aspect ratio is 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with sound processed in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. (Movie – One Star, DVD features – Zero Stars) Rated R, 99 mins. (First Look Home Entertainment)

The King (DVD)

By Cole Smithey

James Marsh’s slow-burn meditation on the long term potentially violent effects of child abandonment, military discipline, religious obsession and attempted familial reconciliation is like a social abscess that the director barely pokes at before allowing the narrative to simmer to its inevitable climax of destruction. Gael Garcia Bernal gives a knockout performance as Elvis Sandow a 21-year-old man recently discharged from the Navy who returns to his childhood home in Corpus Christi, Texas to reconnect with his father David (William Hurt) who abandoned him and his mother more than 20 years ago.

Speaking with a perfect English accent Bernal embodies his troubled and opportunistic character with a seductive quality that lures the viewer into siding with his volatility before trapping you in his perilous clutches. Elvis approaches David, now the Baptist pastor of a local church, and identifies himself as the man’s bastard son. Caught off-guard, David tells Elvis to call him later so he can have time explain the situation to his picture-perfect suburban family. However, Elvis is more interested in seducing his 16-year-old alleged stepsister Malerie (Pell James) whom he neglects to tell of his relationship to her father. Elvis baneful intentions quickly escalate as he ingratiates his way into the home of the family he detests with a pitch-black passion. This unsettling and daring movie regards American narcissism with a cold eye.

Special features include a commentary track with James Marsh and co-screenwriter Milo Addica, deleted scenes, and a rehearsal reel. Aspect ratio is 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, with sound quality processed in Dolby Digital 5.1, with Dolby 2.0 stereo track optional along with Spanish subtitles.

Rated R, 105 mins. (B)

Find Me Guilty

Director/writer Sidney Lumet comes full circle on a distinguished career punctuated by powerful films concerned with America’s legal system ("12 Angry Men," "Serpico," "The Verdict"). Vin Diesel reveals his convincing acting abilities as Lucchese crime family mobster Giacomo "Jackie Dee" DiNorscio in Lumet’s brisk courtroom drama about the longest criminal trial in U.S. history. If watching a jury disregard mountains of damning evidence in favor of a charismatic gangster who calls himself a "gagster" seems a morally challenging proposition, well that’s all part of the bargain in Lumet’s topical drama. Special features include English and Spanish subtitles and a making-of Q&A featurette with Sidney Lumet. Aspect ratio is 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with sound quality processed in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.

(Movie – Three Stars, DVD features – Two Stars) Rated R, 124 mins. (Fox)

Tsotsi

Best Foreign Film Oscar winner "Tsotsi" is a solid-if-predictable drama set in the ramshackle townships of Johannesburg, South Africa where Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae), a young thug, gets more than he bargains for when he car jacks a BMW with an infant in the backseat. Tsotsi struggles with keeping the baby alive as he desperately attempts to reconcile his life of crime with the newfound respect for life he learns from the woman that he enlists to help take care of the baby. Writer/director Gavin Hood shows great promise with a socially relevant drama that could just as easily take place in America. Special features include a director’s commentary track, three alternate endings with director’s commentary by the director, deleted scenes with optional director’s commentary, a making-of featurette, a music video, and a short film by Gavin Hood. Aspect ratio is 2.35:1, with sound quality processed in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.

(Movie – Four Stars, DVD features – Three Stars) Rated R, 94 mins. (Buena Vista Home Video)

Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing & Charm School

Yet another ballroom dancing movie presents dance as a universal balm that heals life’s problems in this mildly inspired dramatic comedy. A lonely widowed Frank Keane (Robert Carlyle) witnesses a car wreck and takes instruction from accident victim Steve Mills (John Goodman) to meet the dying man’s childhood love at Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing and Charm School, 40 years after the date was made. Frank discovers more than he bargained for in the alien environment of ballroom dance where a young woman named Meredith (Marisa Tomei) possesses a romantic glow. Special features include a commentary track with by writer/director Randall Miller, co-writer/producer Jody Savin, and actor Eldon Henson, and the original short film upon which the movie was based. Aspect ratio is presented in choice of widescreen 2.40:1 anamorphic or a "pan-and-scan version," sound quality is processed in Dolby Digital 5.0.

(Movie – Two Stars, DVD features – One Star) Rated PG-13, 103 mins. (Sony Pictures)

16 Blocks

Bruce Willis dons yet another hairpiece toward reprising his more hirsute era during the box office heydays of his trio of "Die Hard" movies. "16 Blocks" is a sporadic chase sequence set around petty crook Eddie Bunker (Mos Def) who needs to be transported from his jail cell to Manhattan’s main courthouse, 16 blocks away, to give crucial testimony in a grand jury case that could end the careers of many dirty police officers. Alcoholic NYPD veteran Jack Mosley (Bruce Willis) is coming off of a long night shift when he’s relegated to chaperone Eddie to his 10:00 a.m. court appointment. Every dirty cop in town comes to the aid of head police baddie Frank Nugent (David Morse) in attempting to catch or kill Jack and his handcuffed ward before they reach the courtroom. Mos Def makes the most of his valuable co-star screentime by creating a humorous character that periodically elevates the strictly formulaic script. Special features include an alternate ending (optionally viewed separately or as part of the movie, a deleted scenes featurette with commentary by director Richard Donner and screenwriter Richard Wenk, and the film’s theatrical trailer. Aspect ratio is 2.35:1 encoded in HD DVD, with sound quality processed in Dolby Digital Plus 5.
(Movie – Two Stars, DVD features – One Star) Rated PG-13, 92 mins. (Warner Brothers)

August 4, 2006 in Action/Adventure, Drama | Permalink

Annapolis

"Annapolis" is a boxing movie cloaked as a feature-length commercial for the famous Naval Academy training facility. Chiseled actor James Franco and ultra-cutie Jordana Brewster exemplify a handholding union between officer and recruit even if fraternization between plebes and their superiors is in fact prohibited. Screenwriter Dave Collard takes dramatic mockery further by neglecting any reference to America’s dicey political and military status. Jake Huard (Franco) is a naive blue-collar steelworker whose low self-esteem prevents him from aspiring beyond the military base across the river from his hometown. Huard’s average grades have relegated him to the Sisyphean status of "wait-lister" which commanding officer Cole (Tyrese Gibson) hones in on as a weakness to make or break Huard once he enters the hallowed gates of Annapolis. The combative relationship that develops between Cole and Huard culminates in a brutal boxing competition called the Brigades. Character development and narrative substance are absent in this wispy movie about beefcake and getting a knack for teamwork in an oppressive atmosphere. Special features include a commentary track with director Justin Lin, screenwriter Dave Collard and editor Fred Raskin, two making-of featurettes, and seven deleted scenes with optional director’s commentary. Aspect ratio is anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1, with sound quality processed in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound.
(Movie – Two Stars, DVD features – Two Stars) Rated PG-13, 113 mins. (Buena Vista Home Video)

July 31, 2006 in Drama | Permalink

Eight Below

Esteemed director/producer Frank Marshall (director on "Alive," producer on "Raiders Of The Lost Ark") successfully retools a story suggested by the Japanese movie "Nankyoku Monogatari" ("Antarctica"). At a bottom-of-the-world U.S. National Science Research Base in Antarctica, resident guide Jerry Shepard (Paul Walker – "2 Fast 2 Furious") cares for his prized team of 8 sled dogs—6 Huskies and 2 Malamutes. The dogs’ remarkable acting abilities admirably serve the bulk of the movie after a severe blizzard sends Jerry and his research team comrades on an evacuation that necessarily leaves the dogs behind to fend for themselves. Special features include a commentary track with director Frank Marshall and producer Pat Crowley, a commentary track with Paul Walker and director of photography Don Burgess, a making-of featurette, and five deleted scenes. Aspect ratio is 2.35:1, with sound quality processed in Dolby Digital 5.1. (Movie – Four Stars, DVD features – Three Stars) Rated PG, 120 mins. (Disney)

July 1, 2006 in Drama | Permalink

Syriana

"In the CIA, as elsewhere in the federal government, you’re innocent until you’re investigated." That line, from former CIA operative Robert Baer’s source material memoir "See No Evil," sums up the ambiguous conduct of characters in writer/director Stephen Gaghan’s worldly movie about the corruption and greed underlying the geopolitical system’s myopic focus on oil. The title takes its name from a think-tank term for a reconfigured Middle East in the same way that "Chinatown" represented a kind of corrupt limbo. Gaghan zooms in and out of four intertwined stories with breathtaking precision toward a gut-wrenching denouement. It’s an interactive political thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat attempting to gauge every opposing character’s clandestine motives and their kinship to real life Texas oilmen, Gulf emirs, Islamic terrorists and White House wonks. Special features include English, French and Spanish subtitles, a George Clooney interview featurette, three deleted scenes, an ecology featurette, and the film’s theatrical trailer. Aspect ratio is 2.35:1, with sound quality processed in Dolby Digital 5.1. (Movie – Four Stars, DVD features – Two Stars) Rated R, 128 mins. (Warner Brothers)

July 1, 2006 in Drama, Suspense Thriller | Permalink

Hustle & Flow

Terrence Howard makes an indelible mark as Djay, a low down Memphis pimp and drug dealer making a last ditch effort to turn his life around with rap music, is steeped in American values of redemption and ambition. Writer/director Craig Brewer crafts a multi-faceted drama that identifies subtle areas of American existence that are rarely exposed in the media or Hollywood films. Brewer does so with such a highly developed sense of detail and loving regard for his characters that the film lifts the audience in a deeply emotional yet unsentimental way. The gritty raps that Djay writes and records are unexpectedly catchy and stay with you long after the movie is over. "You know it's hard out here for a pimp, when he's gotta get the money for the rent." It might not sound like much on paper, but the song really moves. "Hustle & Flow" is a perfect example of an American independent film that boldly embraces its rarefied subject and squeezes out sparks from every scene and every line of subtext-rich dialogue. Special features include commentary by Craig Brewer, four engrossing featurettes and 6 television promo spots. Aspect ratio is 16:9 widescreen, with sound quality processed in choice of Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0 Surround. (Movie - Five Stars, DVD features - Four Stars) Rated R, 115 mins. (Paramount)

February 1, 2006 in Drama | Permalink

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