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Film Review: "Man of Tai Chi"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 01 November 2013 00:15
- Written by Matt Oakes
"Man of Tai Chi"
Directed by Keanu Reeves
Starring Tiger Hu Chen, Keanu Reeves, Karen Mok, Simon Yam, Silvio Simac, Qing Ye
Action
105 Mins
R
Without exception, every time that Keanu Reeves's opens his mouth in Man of Tai Chi, I chuckled. And I wasn't alone. Every member of the audience was stifling giggles as Reeves stumbled his way through brief chunks of unwieldy dialogue. We burst into laughter when Reeves breaks the third-wall with a roar - teeth-bared and thrashing at the camera like a lion ripping at hunks of sirloin. It's as if the fog has lifted and Reeves recognizes just how awful an actor he truly is. Seeing Man of Tai Chi is like watching Reeve's B-list baptism, as the man onscreen embraces his goofy robotic persona to the fullest extent, milking all he can with self-deprecating automockery.
NYC Theater Roundup: “A Time to Kill,” “The Snow Geese,” “The Landing” and “Baden-Baden 1927”
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 01 November 2013 00:11
- Written by Kevin Filipski
A Time to Kill
Written by Rupert Holmes; directed by Ethan McSweeny
Performances through March 2, 2014
The Snow Geese
Written by Sharr White; directed by Daniel Sullivan
Performances through December 15, 2013
The Landing
Music by John Kander, book and lyrics by Greg Pierce; directed by Walter Bobbie
Performances through November 10, 2013
Baden-Baden 1927
Performances from October 23-29, 2013
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| Thompson, Thompson and Arcellus in A Time to Kill (photo: Carol Rosegg) |
John Grisham’s A Time to Kill, the best-selling author’s debut novel, is a rickety courtroom thriller that was turned into an overlong but engrossing movie in 1996 starring Sandra Bullock, Kevin Spacey, Samuel Jackson and Matthew McConaughey in one of his first lead roles as young lawyer Jake Brigance taking on a racially charged case in his home state of Mississippi. Since the movie just about covered everything in the book in 2-1/2 hours, was there any reason to bring it to Broadway at inflated prices, when people can see the movie basically for free?
Ethan McSweeny’s production, from an adaptation by Rupert Holmes, hedges its bets by trying to appeal to those familiar with the movie (actor Sebastian Arcellus is a dead ringer for McConaughey, at least in profile) while providing more bang for the audience’s buck. So James Noone’s courthouse set revolves throughout so we can watch the court proceedings from different viewpoints, as if a movie director was cutting between shots. And since the jury doesn’t appear, lawyers and judge speak directly to the audience as if we were in the jury box. Sometimes, the desperation shows—an actual burning cross appears, showing us and Jake that the Klan means business—but overall, the staging is slick and efficient.
The solid acting includes Arcellus’ effective Jake, Patrick Page’s gleefully slimy district attorney, Fred Dalton Thompson’s tart-tongued judge and John Douglas Thompson’s gripping dad on trial for killing the suspects of his 10-year-old daughter’s rape leads to him killing the suspects. As courtroom dramas go, A Time to Kill passes the bar.
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| Parker and Clark in The Snow Geese (photo by Joan Marcus) |
Mary Louise Parker, best known for the previous eight seasons of Weeds, hasn’t been on a New York stage since her ill-fated Hedda Gabler in 2009. Her other theater choices have been questionable, with the exception of her riveting Tony-winning performance in Proof in 2001: along with Hedda was Sarah Ruhl’s lame Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and now Sharr White’s faux-Chekhov drama, The Snow Geese. Set in a suburban Syracuse lakefront mansion in 1917, the play introduces widow Elizabeth Gaesling, dealing with the recent loss of her husband Theodore, her eldest son Duncan about to leave for Europe to fight in the Great War and her younger son Arnold discovering financial improprieties that led to the family’s downfall.
Also present is Elizabeth’s older—and religious—sister Clarissa and her husband, German doctor Max, who lost his practice due to nasty anti-German sentiment and a new Ukrainian maid, Viktorya, conveniently a veteran of the atrocities that overtook Europe. So we have Chekhovian allusions and obvious symbolism (the title, since the family comprises avid hunters) that clutters up what’s already a weak attempt to write something on the order of The Cherry Orchard.
Even a veteran director like Daniel Sullivan can’t transform such hackneyed material into a coherent drama, although John Lee Beatty’s extraordinarily detailed set—also seen from various angles like A Time to Kill—Jane Greenwood’s sumptuous costumes and Japhy Weideman’s evocative lighting somewhat compensate. Still, choppy pacing, anachronistic dialogue and a general sense that none of these people is truly fleshed out remain.
In a hard-working cast, only Danny Burstein’s likeable Max consistently rises above the material. Victoria Clark’s Clarissa has little to do but break into song occasionally, and the always adorable Parker’s Elizabeth is too contemporary, as are Evan Jonigkeit and Brian Cross’s sons. White has become a big shot playwright, but on the evidence of The Other Place and The Snow Geese, so far he's less than meets the eye. Will his next play, Annapurna, with Megan Mullally, change things?
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| Seratch and Hyde Pierce in The Landing (photo: Carol Rosegg) |
John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote many great musicals—starting with Cabaret and Chicago—and Ebb’s death robbed Kander of his valued collaborator. Kander’s first musical with someone else, playwright Greg Pierce, The Landing, isn’t just a step down from Kander and Ebb at their best: it’s several stories below.
The three one-acts that make up The Landing—Andra, The Brick and The Landing—are at best mediocre, but they do have incidental interest. Andra—in which a smart young boy bonds with his family’s handy man over astronomy until he discovers the man is sleeping with his lonely mom—is harmlessly forgettable, while The Brick—a surreal trip of a bored aunt ordering a tchotchke from a late-night TV ad which arrives in the form of a pinstriped gangster—drowns in cloying cutesiness. Only The Landing—in which a gay couple’s newly adopted young son turns out to be an angel of death sent to take one of them away—has some resonance, though how much is due to the others’ flimsiness is debatable. Maybe if The Landing itself was full-length, realistic characters and relationships would have made it memorable.
Pierce’s book and lyrics, except for rare moments of insight in The Landing, are pandering and pretentious. Kander’s songs, while never less than adequate, are unfortunately rarely more than that. Walter Bobbie directs adroitly, and his cast of four—Julia Murney, David Hyde Pierce, Frankie Seratch and Paul Anthony Stewart—is better than its material. Seratch is especially good at nailing the nuances of three different teens, while Hyde Pierce is funny in The Brick and touching in The Landing. But it’s not enough.
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| Rivera (left) in The Princess and the Pea, part of Baden-Baden 1927 (photo: Richard Termine) |
The enterprising Gotham Chamber Opera should be commended for Baden Baden 1927, its recreation of operas by Darius Milhaud, Ernst Toch, Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill, all premieres on the same bill at that city’s Festival of Contemporary Music 86 years ago. It’s too bad it wasn’t a strict recreation, but instead a quartet of cluttered contemporary productions by director Paul Curran, who decided that his cleverness would override anything intrinsic to the actual operas under the guise of “What Is Art?” (Answer: not these stagings.)
Milhaud’s playful eight-minute The Abduction of Europa passed quickly enough, but Toch’s magical The Princess and the Pea was turned into a tedious Kardashian-style reality show complete with distracting video cameras. After a merciful intermission, Hindemith’s paper-thin There and Back—in which the same events run forward and backward—started in monochrome and ended in color, with Andy Warhol inexplicably thrown in. The finale, Weill’s Mahagonny Singspiel, was played out among treadmills eye-rollingly visualizing its characters' own journeys.
Closing one’s eyes helped one appreciate the music, conducted sympathetically by Neal Goren, and performed by singers (foremost among them Maeve Hoglund in three roles and Jennifer Rivera in two) doing their best to overcome the onstage silliness. They only fitfully succeeded.
A Time to Kill
Golden Theatre, 252 West 45th Street, New York, NY
atimetokillonbroadway.com
The Snow Geese
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th Street, New York, NY
thesnowgeesebroadway.com
The Landing
Vineyard Theatre, 108 East 15th Street, New York, NY
vineyardtheatre.org
Baden-Baden 1927
Gotham Chamber Opera, Gerald Lynch Theater, New York, NY
gothamchamberopera.org
Film Review: "Last Vegas"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 01 November 2013 00:10
- Written by Matt Oakes
"Last Vegas"
Directed by Jon Turteltaub
Starring Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, Kevin Kline, Mary Steenburgen, Jerry Ferrara, Romany Malco
Comedy
105 Mins
PG-13
A kind of Expendables for Viagra-popping retirees, Last Vegas throws Hollywood golden boys Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, and, to a lesser extent, Kevin Kline at the screen amongst a scourge of dilapidated "We're old now" jokes. But instead of slipping in old catchphrases and nods to their former glory, the narrative hones in on a periodic nostalgia existing outside of the collective careers of these (re)tired bunch of 70-odds.
Arguably better than it has any right to be, Last Vegas dodges expectations of "phoning it in"with half-heartfelt performances from these behemoths of the silver screen. But try as hard as Douglas and crew do to make something with surface-level sincerity, cheese-ball direction from Jon Turteltaub preaches to the lowest common denominator of moviegoers as the ill-conceived script from Dan Fogelman begs for laughs like a dog for scraps. Like a spritz of water to your furry friend's face or aged bowels spontaneously releasing themselves, it's often embarrassing to behold.
October '13 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 28 October 2013 00:06
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Embrace of the Vampire
(Anchor Bay)
This isn’t the original 1995 cult “classic” with Alyssa Milano in her nude glory—instead, this loose remake stars equally attractive Sharon Hinnendael as the virginal teen caught up in sexual and violent shenanigans.
It’s as dumb as the original without Milano’s freshness, even if Hinnendael’s beauty also turns a few heads. What’s most problematic is the amateurish acting by much of the cast, which makes the original movie seem much better in retrospect…relatively speaking, of course. The Blu-ray transfer is solid.
(Vivendi)
In this dragged-out TV movie (an extended version of the original shown last month on Starz), it takes three hours to sort out a plodding sci-fi plot about the imminent destruction of the earth by a solar flare caused by a spaceship with the First Lady aboard.
As we watch a do-gooder in Afghanistan (Julia Ormond seems bemused by her thankless role), the president and his young daughter, and the renegade scientist who might be the planet’s only hope, all I can say is….zzzzzzzz. The hi-def images look fine.
I Married a Witch
(Criterion)
Although this 1942 fantasy demonstrates director Rene Clair’s droll comedic touch, it’s a resplendent Veronica Lake—a movie star who looks ravishing—who makes this humorous but slight comedy about a reincarnated Salem witch a true classic. Frederic March is perfect as Lake’s straight man, but it’s her show all the way.
The Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray includes a stellar hi-def transfer, while the extras are seriously skimpy for a Criterion release: there’s a Clair audio interview, and that’s it.
(Vinegar Syndrome)
In this disposable 1986 flick, segments from three unfinished films are cobbled together, which feature dismemberment, Russian roulette and other horrors, as God and Satan sit on a train discussing the characters’ fates. Although non-finicky gore fans might say otherwise, for most viewers, this will be a colossal waste of 90 minutes of precious time.
The Blu-ray looks OK despite the quality of the transfer; extras comprise a commentary, interviews with director/producer Jay Schlossberg-Cohen and editor Wayne Schmidt and a bonus film, Gretta, on the DVD.
Nikita—Complete 3rd Season
(Warners)
In a tense showdown, trained assassin Nikita Mears confronts the Division’s renegade Amanda after she blackmails her into attempting to assassinate the president of the U.S.
As always, the series’ plots are far-fetched, but when it’s been made with such slickness—and does anyone fill out a tight body suit while performing her own stunts like Maggie Q as Nikita?—then we have another successful 22-episode season. The Blu-ray looks terrific; extras include deleted scenes and gag reel.
(Doppleganger)
This bloody Australian comedy is shockingly empty at its core: although director-writers Colin and Cameron Cairnes think the over-the-top violence and sex is hilarious, the sad truth is, it’s not.
And that’s too bad, because at the center of this mess is an impressive and natural performance by Aussie actress Anna McGahan, who happily isn’t in the Naomi Watts-Nicole Kidman mold; instead, she’s more like Abbie Cornish, a chameleon who’s also a devastatingly understated and accomplished actress. The hi-def transfer is quite good; extras include featurettes.
Only God Forgives
(Anchor Bay)
After his overwrought Drive, director Nicolas Winding Refn returns with an insipid drama starring a nearly mute Ryan Gosling that makes the earlier film a model of restraint. In 90 minutes of unrelievedly violent scenes, Refn rips off everyone: Kubrick, Michael Mann, Malick, John Woo and Scorsese.
Even Cliff Martinez’s eclectic score, taken from Penderecki and Tangerine Dream, evokes Mann and Kubrick movies. The only reason to watch is Kristin Scott Thomas’s hammy turn as Gosling’s profane mom—but even her one-note acting palls quickly. The Blu-ray looks gorgeous; extras are Refn commentary and interview, making-of featurette and Martinez interview.
(Syfy)
From the creators of Primeval comes another series in which extinct creatures, mainly dinosaurs, travel through time and appear in Canada, where they are able to tear apart unsuspecting, defenseless humans.
The special effects are quite good, but a dull cast and uninspired plots make this hit-or-miss, even for sci-fi fanatics. The hi-def transfer looks great, even if this is no Jurassic Park; extras include interviews and 13 making-of featurettes—one for each episode.
DVDs of the Week
Call Me Kuchu
(Cinedigm)
This documentary could make a difference in a 24/7 world in which important issues fall through the cracks, showing how Uganda’s anti-gay crusade reached its zenith with a bill that made being gay a crime punishable by death.
Directors Katharine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall evenhandedly allow both sides to talk, but their overwhelming sympathy is with those on the right side of history; the senseless killing of gay rights advocate David Kato, which solidified international outrage against Ugandan homophobia, may have helped turn the tide. Extras are deleted scenes.
(Warner Archive)
Club Med, Bob Giraldi’s 1986 dud, finds little chemistry between Linda Hamilton and Jack Scalia as its romantic leads, but Hamilton’s frizzy hairdo is worth a chuckle, and an embarrassingly unfunny bit role for then-standup comic Bill Maher—yes, that Bill Maher some.
1993’s Fatal Deception, a TV movie starring Helena Bonham Carter as Lee Harvey Oswald’s Russian wife Marina, is worth seeing for her excellent performance and a chilling Frank Whaley as the assassin.
(available through WarnerArchive.com)
Dirty Wars
(Sundance Selects)
In his valuable reporting for The Nation magazine, Jeremy Scahill uncovers the covert operations of America’s military and intelligence forces—and this film, from his book of the same name, is 85 minutes of eyewitness accounts of the innocent victims of our ongoing “dirty war.”
As pertinent as this is, there are problems: Scahill, narrator and onscreen surveyor, is a blank, and the movie is simplistic and rather manipulative. Perhaps the book puts it all in context. The lone extra is a making-of featurette.
Virgin and the Lover and Lustful Feelings
(Vinegar Syndrome)
1970s B-movie resurrections continue with a pair of actual hard-core porn flicks: but in these days of easy-to-get internet porn, does anyone feel nostalgic for indifferently acted attempts to tell actual stories loaded with sexual activity?
Virgin and the Lover is a deadly mix of soft- and hardcore footage, but Lustful Feelings at least has Leslie Bovee, one of the sexiest of the vintage porn actresses. Bovee fans out there should pick this up immediately.
The Fall—Series 1
(Acorn)
This decidedly unglamorous police procedural features Gillian Anderson’s forceful portrayal of a British detective in Belfast tracking down a killer—and there’s also a persuasive performance by Jamie Dorman as the psychopath, as well as John Lynch and Archie Panjabi as colleagues.
The atmosphere conjured by director Jakob Verbruggen and writer Allan Cubitt helps make this five-episode mini-series the television equivalent of a page-turning novel. Extras include a behind the scenes featurette.
(First Run)
A century of the environmental movement, which began with John Muir against moneyed interests trying to make the Grand Canyon a playground for the rich and powerful, is surveyed in this educational overview, from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Love Canal to Greenpeace and the Kyoto Protocol.
Split into five sections, and narrated by Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, Van Jones, Isabel Allende and Meryl Streep, Mark Kitchell’s documentary is a call to action in this dangerous era of climate change denial.
Hart of Dixie—Complete 2nd Season
(Warners)
This series would probably be more accurately called “Pretty People”: Zoe (the always adorable Rachel Bilson), the Northeast doctor now acclimated to the small southern town to which she moved to open a practice, goes back and forth between George and Wade (played by the equally handsome Wilson Bethel and Scott Porter).
This 22-episode soap opera isn’t much as a drama or comedy, but it’s eye candy of the first order—and did I mention that Jaime King is also around?
(BBC Home Entertainment)
This long-running BBC sitcom about a group of longtime friends was filming its 27th season in 1999 when one of its stars, Bill Owen, sadly died: episodes had to be rewritten and reshot in order to continue as many storylines as possible.
It’s too bad that the series is basically foolish nonsense despite the solid comic actors involved, like Peter Sallis, Frank Thonton, Owen and his son Tom. Long-time creator Roy Clarke strains to find much invention or humor, but it seems that such humor doesn’t translate well crossing the pond. Or maybe it’s me.
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