The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (2005)

Neat little documentary about a man and his adopted parrots. Mark Bittner is a strange and intriguing man, and if the film (by design, it's ultimately revealed) doesn't seem to probe too deeply into some unspoken parts of his life, neither is it entirely a puff job. Ultimately, the film's job is to show us Bittner and the parrots. And there's a wealth of that. It turns up to have an unexpected emotional heft, too. Frederick Wiseman is probably screaming somewhere, but I think this is worth seeing anyway.

Grade: B+

The Toolbox Murders (2005)

Dumb as dirt, but also kind of endearing in its low-budget quirkiness and its let's-shoot-a-movie-kids! air. (The invaluable Angela Bettis keeps the film anchored during its less compelling moments.) And then there's the grisly third act, which is about as close to tour-de-force material as you usually find in the land of straight-to-video. There's no doubt that Tobe Hooper made one great film and has spent the rest of his career living it down, but there's also now no doubt that he's finally gotten out of the shadow of Chainsaw and is ready to start his filmmaking life anew.

Grade: B-

Seed of Chucky (2004)

Fifth series installment sees creator Don Mancini forgoing the insane Grand Guignol of Bride of Chucky for a more laid-back satiric approach. Mancini has something to say about gender identity, parental responsibility, the nature of fame, 12-stepping as a sort of self-denial and probably several other things as well; unfortunately, he tried to cram them all into an eighty-odd minute movie about killer dolls. It's fun for a while, until Mancini's ambitions overwhelm him and topple the apple cart; by the time the ending rolls around, the film has come apart at its seams. It was a nice try, and it does have its moments (Jennifer Tilly is, at the very least, a damn good sport). But it's as disposable as they come.

Grade: C+

Ley Lines (1999)

Another Miike gangster flick, this one about three young men on the fringes of the crime world. It's hampered by some strange character decisions, and the pacing is unsure. It never really seems to find its rhythm, but while the center struggles Miike's off drawing funny pictures in the margins and planning out his next stunning shot. For every weak moment, there's a great laugh or a beautifully staged bit of business. The climax pushes this into the realm of the recommended -- it's in the last fifteen minutes that the story finally finds its footing. It's worth a look.

Grade: B-

Rainy Dog (1997)

Monotone yakuza flick from Takashi Miike, who usually works with films that are far more interesting than this one. Don't know why the Miike cultists are up on this film's stick, unless it's been their secret desire to see the man badly imitate Takeshi Kitano. It might have helped if I got the impression that anyone involved with the production gave a shit. But I think the prevailing thought amongst the cast and crew was, "Get me the hell out of this rain, man."

Grade: C

Doppleganger (2003)

Not too bad for K. Kurosawa (one of the most frustrating filmmakers working today). The scenario allows Kiyoshi room to explore his favorite themes (isolation, dehumanization, things like that), but it's also fairly straightforward and involving, which is something new for this terminally vague filmmaker. Don't know what the hell happened with the third act (likely the script was written into a corner, which resulted in the application of the Hollywood solution); that final image is pretty unforgettable, though.

Grade: B-

Dead End (2004)

Haven't young filmmakers tired of rehashing this plot already? This one doesn't take itself too seriously, for which I am grateful, but seriously. There's no fun to be had in a film that, in trying to be tricky, tips its hand so baldly that the viewer can predict the ending right down to who gets to be the sole survivor. Also, a note to prospective horror directors: If I see another movie where the characters are made into unsympathetic jerks (presumably so we won't care about their deaths), I'll... well, I'll probably just roll my eyes and bitch about it until the credits roll. But I'm really sick of it. Stop it. Find something else to do if that's how you're going to write your characters.

Grade: C-

8 1/2 (1963)

If only everyone's masturbatory self-homages were as interesting as this Fellini classic. The self-indulgence does get to be a bit much, but there's a seemingly unending well of visual and auditory brilliance to compensate and keep interest from flagging. The scene with the harem: fucking perfect, man.

Grade: B+

Zatoichi and the Fugitives (1968)

Decent late-period entry in the blind swordsman series is distinguished by a harder-edged sensibility than most of its predecesors (Zatoichi actually gets his shit messed up good here). Noted actor Takashi Shimura classes up the joint in his supporting role, too. It's not the series's best moment, but it's good enough.

Grade: B

Sin City (2005)

This movie is 120 minutes of empty formalism. It's also striking, thrilling and completely fucking awesome. While I still think the idea of Robert Rodriguez is more important than the man himself, he's done pretty damn good work here. The ensemble cast is up to the various challenges set before them (Mickey Rourke continues his rehabilitation into one of Hollywood's most interesting character actors), the pacing is tight and the visual look is never less than enthralling. Who cares if it's hollow -- it's still pretty freakin' sweet.

Grade: B+

The Last Horror Movie (2004)

Surprise-free attempt at horror-movie provocation spends most of its running time stealing material from Man Bites Dog until the not-as-clever-as-it-thinks ending, at which point it changes gears and steals material from Funny Games. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem -- great cinema can involve a degree of theft, as Quentin Tarantino has repeatedly demonstrated -- except that director Julian Richards exhibits little of the materials that made his source materials so effective. His film lacks the absurd tonal perfection of Man Bites Dog, and his main character Max is devoid of the disquieting joviality (almost likeability) that made the Belgian film so much more than a serial-killer mock-doc. And as for the climax, Richards has neither the balls nor the formal and thematic mastery of Michael Haneke, and his go-for-broke gambit lacks the subtlety of Funny Games. (Think about that. This film is less subtle than Haneke's cinematic blunt instrument.) Where does that leave us? The proper answer to that question is, I believe, "covered in shit." Also Mister Richards, if you're going to try and exploit the premise you've conceived, be advised that it completely does not work on DVD. Also, it might have been a wise idea not cut immediately to credits after the final line of dialogue, as doing so destroys any kind of creepy vibe you were trying to leave the audience with, you talent-free fuckhead.

Grade: C-

Our Hospitality (1923)

Slow to start, but eventually cuts loose in grand fashion and joins the upper tier of Buster Keaton's work in the process. One of the things I love about Keaton's films is that there is always a logical purity in the way his gags and setpieces proceed. He starts in one place and builds and builds until the hair-raising climax, which at that point feels not only credible but inescapable. You can follow the line of logic, or you can simply sit back and laugh your fool head off.

Grade: A-

A Snake of June (2002)

In 1988, Shinya Tsukamoto made the cyberpunk salaryman-automaton cult classic Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and it was good. Fourteen years later, he revisits some similar material in what for all intents and purposes appears to be his attempt to remake One Hour Photo in the vein of Zalman King. It's not so good. In fact, it's fucking boring. Is Tsukamoto really this one-note and I just never noticed before? I remember liking Tetsuo II and Tokyo Fist, but maybe those opinions need to be revised.

Grade: C-

Tattooed Life (1965)

Dull, glossy melodrama from Seijun Suzuki, who appears to have had other things on his mind while directing this. He manages to rouse himself (and the film) from a stupor in the last ten minutes, which feature an exciting swordfight/rampage that Tarantino probably watched several times before filming the House of Blue Leaves sequence in Kill Bill, Vol. 1. But by then I was past giving a fuck. My mistrust of Suzuki's Technicolor films continues.

Grade: C-

Catwoman (2004)

This happens usually once or twice a year. The most egregious example I can think of offhand is Glitter, but there have been many others. Namely, this is one in a long line of critically-reviled movies whose major problem, as far as I can see, is that they aren't nearly bad enough. Okay, yeah, the dialogue is amazing in its blinkered awfulness. But come on now. This is, at heart, a silly assembly-line Hollywood product possessed of neither the imagination nor the ambition to be truly godawful. Calm the fuck down, fanboys. You don't know from real pain.

Grade: C-

Incident at Loch Ness (2004)

It's at times like this that I kind of wish I used the Charles Francois rating scale, because few movies deserve a B-/C+ more than this one. The veracity of the film is not really an issue -- I had it pegged for hooey during the opening party scene, which features Ricky Jay performing a card trick and Jeff Goldblum as "Jeff Goldblum." What's interesting about this film is that it uses the devices and structures of the mockumentary genre to examine the underlying struggle between truth and fiction in not only this weak-ass genre but, by extension, all "true-story" films. It constructs an artificial world (featuring a man who often delights in blurring the lines between true and false), but one that closely resembles ours to the point where the fantastical finale feels like it could have happened even if it clearly didn't. So where is the dividing line between true and false? Think about Incident at Loch Ness, and one must also consider Nanook of the North and Land Without Bread and Touching the Void and Dadetown, among others. That's the point: Can you trust your own perceptions when you are told something is "true?" So yeah, the subtext is there; shame, then, about the text itself. I submit that, if anyone else had written this, it could have been genius. But our scribe (and director) is Zak Penn, who on-screen quite happily crows about having written Last Action Hero and Suspect Zero. That should give you some idea about how clumsy and obvious a lot of this film is. It's intermittently interesting and occasionally quite funny. But it's still mock-clever, a Hollywood hotshot's atrophied idea of what a hoodwink should be. Werner Herzog, at least, is one hell of a good sport.

Grade: C+

Red Lights (2004)

Involving enough, yes, but the real tension isn't in the onscreen happenings (though those are gripping enough) but in the push-pull relationship between what the film appears to say and what it means to say. [By the way, we're entering SPOILER TERRITORY here.] Taken at face value, the film is a basic '70s-revenge flick, sort of a Straw Dogs of the mind. What I find fascinating is the way the film undermines this even as it brings it out. The discovery of the dead body and the revelation of rape (and therefore an unconscious revenging) result in a payoff for Antoine's constant belittling of himself as "not a man." By avenging, even unintentionally, the defiling of his wife, he becomes that macho macho man that he's been hungering to become. Yet, even as this is going on, the film has been re-feminizing him (as it were) in the character of the worried mother bird -- he runs around, making sure that the kids are okay and the spouse is taken care of and getting weepy and everything else stereotypically "feminine." This goes double if one accepts the film's insinuations that none of the revenging actually happened (that Antoine, in his inebriated state, more or less imagined everything after his wife disappears). If we strip that away from Antoine, he's not the manly man anymore... but his concern for all that matters to him belatedly marks him as better than that -- a good man. Even if I'm completely off track here, though, this remains one hell of a thriller. It's expertly made and wonderfully suspenseful. The acting is fine on all counts too. So it's worth a look either way. Is it just me, or does Vincent Deniard look more than a bit like Ben Affleck?

Grade: B+

The Kiss of Her Flesh (1968)

Whoa. This operates on a completely different plane than the other two films in the trilogy. Free from the shackles of having to wrap up loose ends from part one, the Findlays allowed their sick minds to run wild, and the result is one of the screwiest sexploitationers in existence. To give you an idea of how loony-tunes this film is... well, at one point, the psycho killer actually says "My poison sperm will take care of you!" Think about that. Poison sperm. Poison fucking sperm. The film is still bad (the Findlays, for all their chutzpah, are still pretty talentless when it comes to actually constructing a movie), but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't amazed anyway.

Grade: C+

Distant (2004)

Didn't care about the characters, didn't care about the setting, didn't care about the craft, just didn't care. Tried, but couldn't. Too minimalist and deadpan, even by my standards. Wake me when it's over, m'kay?

Grade: C

Touching the Void (2004)

Harrowing doesn't even begin to describe this semi-documentary about a rather nasty mountain climbing accident. Acutely painful is more like it. For all that, though, the film is above all a triumphant and life-affirming film. Through the agony, what burns clear is the body and spirit's unquashable struggle to survive at any cost. Which makes the film, I guess, kind of inspirational -- not in that sappy Hallmark way, but in a fuck-you defiant kind of way (what doesn't kill you and all that). It's definitely not easy to shake, but who wants easy anyway?

Grade: B+

Friday Night Lights (2004)

It's decent as these things go for a while, but then there's the climax. Oy. It pushes the underdog button too hard in all the wrong ways, so that my mind was actively rejecting the film even as I was involved in it. If you give a damn at all about football, this might be worth a look. Otherwise, who cares. For all the hot air this movie blows about winning and losing and as hard as it tries to be about something other than the sport, it's just another damn sports-cliche movie. At least there's Billy Bob, dependable as always.

Grade: C+

The Yakuza Papers, Vol. 2: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (1973)

Solid followup to Battles Without Honor or Humanity traffics in much the same type of material, yet somehow keeps from feeling like a rerun. No doubt, the presence of Sonny Chiba helps -- whenever the story slows down, he pokes his head into the frame and gooses the film. The approach here is also an intriguing one. Instead of the kaleidoscopic overview we got in the first film, this one chooses to center itself around the rise and fall of one unfortunate foot soldier. (Happily, it manages to avoid the traps that the tiresomely mordant Graveyard of Honor got itself into.) I'm impressed with this series so far.

Grade: B

Last Life in the Universe (2004)

Delicate, offbeat and thoroughly lovely story about a neat-freak Japanese librarian forging a tentative connection with a Thai waitress. This is miles ahead of director Pen-ek Ratanruang's previous 6ixtynin9, in no small part thanks to the incredible range of Tadanobu Asano (he takes a character who, in most movies, would be defined solely through his quirks and invests him with a soul); Christopher Doyle's extraordinary cinematography is also a major asset. A beautiful film, and thankfully not without a sense of humor. Can't wait to see what Ratanruang does next.

Grade: A-