weimingwang2 Reviews

Chicago (2002)

Perfect Example of What America Is All About.

[8 April 2003]

Having heard the original musical, I am still impressed by this stage-to-screen adaptation. I have long been assigning the musical in my American music history class to introduce the world of vaudeville acts of the 1920's. This year, many of my students get a kick out of the movie version and see it as a perfect example of what America is all about.

My favorite character is Mama (Queen Latifah), who runs the prison and 'does favors' for her inmates in exchange for her own profit. With Mama's 'help' Velma (Zeta-Jones) and Roxie meet the lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere). For them, he is their ticket to freedom. Yet it is not about freedom, justice or love; only money matters. EVERYONE is trying to profit from others.

Ironically, how's that for the so-called Iraqi interim authority set up and run by George W. Bush? Companies from all over the U.S. have secured lucrative contracts to 'liberate' Iraq. America does not hesitate to take the lion's share and benefit. However, the plot of 'Chicago' ends with a cheerful finale, in which they all seem to get what they want. Will the 'Gulf War Episode II' have a happy ending? Let's wait and see.

Hero (2002)

New Dimension within Old History

[1 February 2003]

Hero (Zhang Yimou)

If you love big, dull, empty no-brainers, you may find Zhang Yimou's HERO too self-indulgent in a kind of Oriental fantasy. If you come to look for hand-to-hand fight in the mortal-combat style, you will surely be disappointed. It requires understanding of Chinese culture in order to appreciate the fictional world in HERO.

The plot is about some assassins who are out to kill a real emperor in history, who finally build the Great Wall. The director can not change the history, but he adds so many dimensions in this supposedly predictable plot. There are several symbolic persons in HERO. Among them, Flawed Sword and Flying Snow are played respectively by Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Maggie Cheung. Leung plays a role somewhat reminiscent of his role in the charming Tian Xia Wu Shuang. Cheung apparently ripens with age and really lights up the screen. The dialogue (the translation's rather bad) between these persons makes clear that reality doesn't matter in this film, but philosophical and aesthetical details do.

I wonder what kind of message a Westerner would get from HERO. The Qin Emperor wants unchallenged leadership, not unlike what Bush's after. He is a powerful bully in history; Bush has been described the same way. His armies look frightening; Bush's armies will not be any less. When Jet Li has a chance to finish off the emperor, he spares his life because personal opinions and feelings should be set aside for the greater purpose; that is what Bush's been telling us. The Qin Emperor wants people to believe that wars are necessary to bring peace; that again reminds us of Bush. In this sense, Noam Chomsky's "Rogue States" may serve better to accompany the movie than the original novel.

Come Undone (2000)

Love alone is not enough to conquer all.

[25 November 2001]

A sulky teen with an equally sulky sister and an ill mother who's abandoned by husband, and we have a perfect set-up for depression, which pieces together an interesting plot. Another teen shows up at the right time and soon the two boys are romping about town together. Unfortunately, sometimes love alone is just not enough to conquer all.

With subtle details, a dead bird at the beginning or a cat toward the end for example, directer Lifshitz captures a wide spectrum of feelings of teenagers. You will really care about what happened with these boys. The jumbling chronology or the unclear ending is a French signature. Only Hollywood would make up a definite conclusion for erery story.

The actors are superb and make you find yourself more than ready to pat on the shoulders of these lonely teens. Great arts, such as this film and the Chopin Concerti (Evgeny Kissin) I am listening to, always get my blood going,

Intimacy (2001)

Incompetence

[23 November 2001]

I went to see Intimacy because of awards at the Berlin Film Festival. Unfortunately, it is a mess. Here is another of those art house movies where there's an interesting title, a promising subject (obsessive relationship) and a good lead (Mark Rylance), but incompetence everywhere else. The screenplay spells out everything but fails to draw the audience into the lives of the leads. The director says too little with too much. He takes this film too seriously when it's only average, as one reviewer has pointed out. London may be full of boring people searching for meaning, and this is what the film has become.

Skin Gang (1999)

Skinheads are victims of their misdirected guilt.

[26 September 2000]

Opening with a couple of black-and-white scenes of skinheads at play (including Steve Masters and Eden Miller beating up some guy) we return to color to see Tim Vincent getting off on Hitler's "Mein Kampf." They are joined by Ralph Steel, and soon Steve Masters gets off with Eden Miller on a British flag.

Later, Jens Hammer has dinner with Bastian, a Brit Black. LaBruce establishes them as "guppies" by showing them eating sushi and equipping their room with books on Robert Mapplethorpe.

The story culminates in the gang's decision to break into the guppies' apartment, vandalize it and terrorize the two occupants. They sexually overpower Bastian, noting "I've never f**ked a 'monkey' before." We're aware of the racism of this remark, which is emphasized as the gang chants "F**k the monkey" repeatedly. However, the violence looks so fake that the whole thing seems rather surreal.

Finally one of the guppies kills Eden Miller and turn the tables, forcing Steve Masters at gunpoint to undergo his own humiliation. The film interestingly ends as Bastian checks out one skinhead on a sidewalk.

LaBruce's point appears to be that the skinheads are victims of their misdirected guilt. He declines to go the traditional route of fetishizing fascist thugs through S&M games. Instead, he depicts his gang as exuberant in their homosexual enjoyment but disdainful of homosexuality.

LaBruce explores some of the contradictions of the skinhead lifestyle in interviews with the characters. One of them tries to hide the fact he's Jewish. Another sings the Austrian national anthem. While this film is not supposed to be taken too seriously, it provides something to think about afterwards.

A Matter of Taste (2000)

Do not waste your time.

[14 September 2000]

This is a story of a beautiful innocent young man destroyed by a rich old geezer. What exactly leads to our little pal's doom? Maybe he's destroyed by his Dorian-Grayish self? I don't know, and I doubt anyone would sympathize with the characters and learn a lesson or two. This movie is too weak to be a thought-provoking fable. It's not even intense enough to pass as a second-rate crime thriller.

What distinguishes it from a Hollywood psycho flick is the French gourmandism. The food here could have been effectively symbolic. Unfortunately, the camera does not linger long enough to let it speak for itself.

It's not that the director favors his actors. Giraudeau has one facial expression throughout, and Lorit two---happy and unhappy. What a waste of such a fine actor, who has done much better in Kieslowski's Red? The rest of the characters function no more than a walking tree in your high school musical.

I adore French films, but this one is a downer. If you want to see a film about unspoken homosexual relationship, there's "Beau Travail." If you want to see a film about a lonely human being who does not get sexual fulfillment, there's Catherine Breillat's "Romance." If you want to see a film in which the main character's inner self comes alive on screen, there's Philippe Harel's "Whatever.' If you just want to get a kick out of knowing who kills the ol' villain, any Hollywood thriller will do. Do not waste your time on "Une affaire de gout."

The Devil and Ms. D (1999)

One of the greatest movies in years

[10 September 2000]

Til Schweiger's acting is so excellent that his facial expression alone is often able to bring out the intensity of the plot. How come this wonderful actor is relatively unknown at the other side of the Atlantic? Instead of telling a story a la Hollywood, the director takes advantage of film-making and let music and images speak for themselves. This movie makes me wanna do two things---collect all Callas' recordings and learn German.