TFC Journal at TheFilmChair.com

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)–***
Quickie Review

After being laid off from his job as a Boeing engineer, Steve Wiebe utilizes his obsessive personality and engineering-oriented mind to beat world champion Donkey Kong player Billy Mitchell’s high score. But Mitchell and his gang of devotees won’t let Wiebe take Billy’s record away that easily. An enthralling, emotional documentary, The King of Kong may be one of the best competition (sports?) films ever created. Rarely does any movie demand so much investment in its characters while so effortlessly telling their story. Sports genre techniques, flawless editing and a cast of characters too bizarre to be made up results in a cinematic gem you have to love.

Exiled (2007)–**1/2 

Johnnie To owes a debt to Sam Peckinpah. To’s film Exiled, which premieres in New York City today, is a more stylish, less substantive update of the Peckinpah classic The Wild Bunch. On first read, that last line doesn’t sound like a solid indictment of the film’s flash-over-substance mentality. For genre fans, it probably never will. What this film needed, however, was Peckinpah’s consciousness, if only to go beyond being simply an above average Asian crime film.

But Exiled is above average. The film follows five friends whose lives have been pulled in different directions. Two of the friends, Blaze (Anthony Wong) and Fat (Lam Set), are hired by the Hong Kong crime lord Boss Fay (Simon Yam) to kill Wo (Nick Cheung). Two other friends, Tai (Francis Ng) and Cat (Roy Cheung), are there to protect Wo.

Knowing that his life will soon be over, Wo decides to do one last job, be it a robbery or a hit, so that his wife and newborn child will have some money once Blaze does what he has to do. The gang of five go to get the orders, which turn out to be killing Macau’s crime boss Keung (Ka Tung Lam) for Boss Fay.

The gang doesn’t know who called the hit, so it’s a surprise when Boss Fay makes an unexpected appearance. And Boss Fay isn’t happy to discover that his own hit on Wo wasn’t carried out. After a severe gun battle, Boss Keung cedes power to Boss Fay in exchange for his life, while the new partners try to find and kill the men who have left them either powerless or wounded.

Exiled is set in Macau just prior to the former Portuguese colony’s return to China. As far as settings go, it fit Peckinpah’s Mexican westerns perfectly. What is missing is a sullenness of an era coming to an end. In all of the flash and elegance of the hyper-violent gun ballets, the setting is taken for granted.

Rather than establishing itself as a strong Chinese western, Exiled comes off as Tarantino-lite. Lucky for To, the film is still worth comparing to Tarantino. While there is much left to be desired in the story of Boss Fay’s Hong Kong invasion of Boss Keung’s Macau, the artistry in the gun fights, the intelligent, methodical choreography, helps Exiled shine.

I’m not inclined to like a straight Asian crime film, but genre fans are likely to enjoy the hell out of To’s film. I am, however, inclined to believe that in the hands of a stronger director, say a Martin Scorsese (The Departed, anyone?), Exiled could still result in a great American remake. Of course, that assumes you wouldn’t care to see The Wild Bunch – the great American original.

Everytime Jodie Foster is in a movie, Oscarwatchers take note. The 14-year-old Academy Award nominee turned two-time Oscar winner at 29 brings an intensity to even her more commercial roles in film like Flightplan or Panic Room. When Foster teams up with Neil Jordon, the Academy Award winning writer/director of The Crying Game, you have a bona fide contender on your hands.

The Brave One follows Erica Bain (Foster) on her quest to find the people who murdered her fiance. Not since Nell has Foster had a textured, meaty role worth nominating, but in The Brave One, Foster plays a vigilante that she herself is already comparing to Travis Bickle. Yes, the Travis Bickle from the film that made her famous, Taxi Driver.Sh

Short of saying none of the other films already released this year legitimate contenders, The Brave One has the added bonus (or pressure?) of being the first Oscar release of the season (Sept. 14).

Top 8 Chances
Does Jodie have the film, the role and the Academy support to make it to the Kodak Theatre? That question will remain for at least two and a half more weeks. But sight unseen, Foster looks like a solid contender in the Best Actress race (especially if the category turns out to be as weak as I’m guessing it will be this year). If Foster makes it, don’t be surprised if she carries one of her costars along with her. (Terrence Howard?) Of course, Neil Jordan or the screenwriters could also go along for the ride in the director and original screenplay categories, respectively.

TheFilmChair.com 2007-2008 Oscar Charts

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Year of the Dog (2007)–***
DVD Review

Mike White’s directorial debut Year of the Dog is definitely a Mike White film. The quirky, subtle comedy surprises the audience as it sneaks in alongside the tale of a tender, animal-loving secretary. More surprising, though, is seeing how much of White’s vision not only plays into this film, but also into the films he wrote before directing (The Good Girl, The School of Rock, Nacho Libre). I didn’t realize how much I loved White’s voice until I saw Year of the Dog.

Molly Shannon stars as Peggy, an executive assistant whose life revolves around her beagle Pencil. One night, Peggy lets Pencil outside but doesn’t wait for him to come back inside. She wakes to find her beloved pet in her neighbor’s yard, nearly lifeless, barely whimpering. Yes, Pencil dies.

Without an outlet for her love, Peggy takes an offer to adopt a pet from veterinary hospital receptionist Newt (Peter Sarsgaard). Newt opens Peggy up to the world of animal activism and veganism, but Peggy’s attempt to share her love for animals with others doesn’t turn out the way she plans.

Oh, how I loved Shannon’s performance as Peggy. It’s a far cry from the underarm-sniffing school girl of her Saturday Night Live past. Shannon, who has had wonderful turns with roles in Marie Antoinette and a short-lived Mike White sitcom, turns Peggy into a character with whom we easily empathize. Even her slip into the shallow waters of insanity seems forgivable when it occurs with such restraint and care.

White’s writing, more than Shannon, makes it easy to understand Peggy. As he tells this story, Peggy is surrounded by people whose own blind love makes them do or believe things that even the always-supportive Peggy sees as peculiar. We can laugh at the moments when Peggy’s sister-in-law (Laura Dern) won’t let her child have a cuddly stuffed toy because of the fibers in the toy’s fur or when Newt explains how his relationships with animals have always been better than his relationships with humans. Not once does it seem mean-spirited. We laugh because our own obsessions are probably just as silly to people looking in from the outside.

While I could have done without Peggy’s Chaplin-esque soapbox moment at the end of the film, Year of the Dog accomplishes what it sets out to do and does it while marching to the beat of a different drummer. What’s more, White shows that his writing, in his hands or anyone else’s, will always carry the quirky charm and humanistic tenderness that easily puts a smile on an audience’s face. What starts as a tragedy turns into a feel-good movie that few seem to appreciate (judging from the box office take), but most should.

Don’t miss these extras:

• Commentary with Mike White and Molly Shannon
• A Special Breed of Comedy: The Making of Year of the Dog
• Being Molly Shannon
• Mike White Unleashed
• Special Animal Unit
• Deleted scenes
• Insert reel
• Gag reel

Buena Vista Home Entertainment has officially announced that Disney-Pixar’s critically-acclaimed box office hit Ratatouille is coming to DVD and Blu-ray Hi Def on Nov. 6. Experience Paris from the unique perspective of a rat named Remy (Patton Oswalt), who dares to dream the impossible dream of becoming a gourmet chef in a five-star French restaurant. Bubbling over with bonus features, including an original animated short starring Remy and his brother, Emile, deleted scenes and more.

DVD Bonus Features Include:
• Deleted Scenes – With introductions by Ratatouille’s acclaimed screenwriter/director Brad Bird.
• “Your Friend the Rat” – Remy and Emile star in an all-new animated short film.
• Fine Food and Film: A Conversation with Brad Bird and Thomas Keller – Cuisine and cinema come together in this behind the scenes look at how master chef and restaurateur Thomas Keller brought his real life expertise to the table.
• Lifted – In Pixar’s latest short, Oscar nominated for Best Animated Short Film, a teen alien learns that failure is an option.

Ratatouille is written and directed by Brad Bird; the film is produced by Brad Lewis and executive produced by John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton. The voice cast includes popular stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt, Golden Globe Award winner Brian Dennehy, Emmy Award winner Brad Garrett, comic star and Emmy nominee Janeane Garofalo, Academy Award nominee Ian Holm and the legendary-time Academy Award nominee Peter O’Toole.

Resurrecting the Champ (2007)–**
Quickie Review

A fact-driven boxing beat reporter tries to break out of his famous sportscaster father’s shadow by writing a heartbreaking feature on a homeless man who claims to be a legendary boxer. An earnest, but unaffecting sport drama, this Rod Lurie picture has all the skill of the reporter this film follows; it’s a straight-forward, informational drama. Samuel L. Jackson is superb as the homeless boxer, as is Josh Hartnett as the reporter/father trying to impress his own son. Still, the audience would be better served reading the Denver Times Magazine articles on which this feature is based than watching the movie and all of its easy, over-sentimental drama.

A Portrait of Envy, a short dramatic movie by Enrique Garcia, is a subtly disturbing story about a timid, young woman and her obsession with her co-worker and his girlfriend. Starring Riley Rose, Kris Kjornes, and Jennifer Popagain.

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After watching 1998 Academy favorite Elizabeth on DVD last week, I realized there was no better film to start out an Oscar contenders series than its quasi-sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Cate Blanchett, who became an international star thanks to her first performance as the Virgin Queen, will reprise her role, along with Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush, in the follow-up to be released on Oct. 12.

There are other contenders to be released between now and the time The Golden Age hits theaters, but none of them look as Oscar-worthy as this film. Elizabeth, which like The Golden Age was directed by Shekhar Kapur, often felt like a brief moment in the life a a grand monarch, meaning Kapur and Blanchett’s Elizabeth deserves to be revisited.

Will The Golden Age be The Godfather, Part Two or will it be, well, The French Connection II? The chances are slim that The Golden Age won’t have some impact on the Oscar race; a shut out is almost unthinkable, sight unseen. The people are hunger for royalty, if Mirren’s award-winning turns in Elizabeth I (yep, same queen) and The Queen or Showtime’s The Tudors prove anything. With Clive Owen joining the cast as Sir Walter Raleigh, who was recently nominated for Closer, The Golden Age is getting an Oscar prince to join with this royal romp.

Top 8 Chances
Look for The Golden Age to play best in the Best Picture and Best Actress categories, though Clive Owen could sneak in under Actor or Supporting Actor. You might even see Blanchett’s fellow Aussie Abbie Cornish break out just as Cate did nine years ago. Outside of the Top 8, The Golden Age will easily shine, too.

TheFilmChair.com 2007-2008 Oscar Charts

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Superbad (2007)–**1/2

Superbad is certainly funny, uproariously so at times. In fact, the first 15 minutes of the film are a pleasant surprise, with pop culture references that would make Kevin Smith salivate and just enough raunch to counteract the smart dialogue. Once those 15 minutes are over, however, it’s a long way to the end of the Judd Apatow-produced teen comedy.

The film follows three teen misfits who have spent high school on the sidelines until finally deciding to get in the game during their last week as seniors. But Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) aren’t just looking to get a little bit of action. They are trying to start their summer on a high note, as it will be the last one they spend together before the longtime friends are separated by college.

With the help of the tragically unhip Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse ), who manages to get a fake I.D. (a Hawaiian license with the name McLovin’), the pair plan to provide a party with some adult beverages. Their hope is the girls they want to have sex with will be drunk enough to actually have sex with them. Sure cops, cars and hobos all stand in the way, but the biggest obstacle is the knowledge that, in a few months, they will be going in different directions.

It’s not that Superbad isn’t slightly sweet like the Apatow-directed films Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. It’s not that the film isn’t the immature funny producer Apatow has guided to near perfection in Talladega Nights. Superbad has the problem of being the first Apatow production to strike me as conventional.

The humor goes a long way, but most jokes barely go where no teen movie has gone before. (An exception of course the scene involving a “period stain,” but I won’t elaborate.) Shock value moments get less interesting when Evan and Seth become too bogged down in their own plot. The pair were the funniest when it was just them talking about Seth being the Orson Welles of sex. When they aren’t discussing similar topics, the teen comedy is on the level of American Pie.

Superbad should have been more like the Apatow television show Freaks and Geeks than an of the recent gross outs comedies I thought had been abandoned. Of course, it’s not just Apatow’s movie. Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) wrote the film with his childhood friend Evan Goldberg. It’s a script that they started writing when they were 14, and it has enough penis jokes to prove it. The pair certainly have the knack for comedy, especially writer/actor Rogen, who turns the film’s cop subplot into something funnier than it was written to be. What Rogen and Goldberg establish here is they have the chops to pull off a comedy better than the one we get with Superbad.

Rogen and Goldberg already have another script (The Pineapple Express) being developed for a summer 2008 release. It, too, is produced by Judd Apatow. Without having a whole sub-genre of raunchy teen movies to compare to, that film may turn out to be more impressive than Superbad. Until then, just be thankful Superbad manages to be funny beyond the penis jokes.

Your Mommy Kills Animals (2007)–***1/2 

Near the end of Your Mommy Kills Animals, a stunning thing happens. A lobbyist who speaks on behalf of food companies agrees with grassroots animal activist groups. They both recognize that organizations like PETA and Humans Society of the United States are corrupt, dangerous and greedy money-making schemes.

Sure, the rest of the time the lobbyist is calling groups like the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) a bunch of terrorists, but that moment of shared sanity elevates Curt Johnson’s unfortunately titled Your Mommy Kills Animals to an unexpected level.

The documentary follows the history of the Animal Welfare and Animal Rights movements from their early beginnings in 1820s England to today, where new federal laws allow organizers and activists to be prosecuted under terrorism legislation. Mostly confronting the issues of the contemporary movements, the film provides revelations and information that often go unseen by even an above-average concerned citizen.

Your Mommy Kills Animals succeeds in much the same way the Animal Rights group try to: by making the case that the subject goes beyond mere bunny hugging. One of the first stories we hear about is how, in the early 20th century, the ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) pushed for legislation that would eventually be used to help abused children, not just animals.

As the film progresses we are told the unbelievable story of the SHAC7, who are prosecuted under the above mentioned terrorism legislation. Your Mommy Kills Animals makes an easy case for supporting the activists on the principle of freedom of speech as they are not the ones doing any sort of illegal action. In the post-9/11 world, the cards are stacked against grassroots activists, making their ability to protest even more difficult. Animal Rights people are good at protesting, as the film illustrates by showing the other groups that use Animal Rights activists’ techniques (Cindy Sheehan, for example).

As I mentioned previously, the film has the unfortunate title of Your Mommy Kills Animals, which has a preaching-to-the-choir feel to it that could limit its appeal. While the name is borrowed from a satirical PETA comic flyer, using the comic and the name in the marketing of this film may be the biggest flaw, one so striking to me that I feel it’s important to mention in a review of the film.

You should see this film if you are a documentary fan, regardless of if the title makes it feel like an in-your-face indictment of all things non-vegan. It does its job and leaves the audience more informed than it was going into the film. Even the food company lobbyist has valid statements that are worth hearing.

Most of all, watch this film for what is says about the big animal protection groups that declined to be interviewed (PETA and HSUS). It may be the most enlightening moment I’ve had while watching a documentary in years.