Mixed Reviews for A Summer in Genoa

The first thing reviewers can’t seem to agree on is whether it’s Genoa or Genova.  Actually, it’s not their fault.  Some reviewers got to this while it was on the international festival circuit as Genova, Italian spelling.  Others got to it upon its stateside DVD release, taking on the new title with the American spelling, A Summer in Genoa.  Their other division are a bit more significant.

Eugene Novikov of Cinematical has nothing but praise for the film, calling director Michael Winterbottom’s (A Mighty Heart, 24 Hour Party People) portrait of a grieving family “…understated, down-to-earth, quietly sad…” and “one of the highlights of [Winterbottom's] career.”  While DVD Verdict’s Clark Douglas appreciates the film’s lack of sentimentality, he laments, “Winterbottom hasn’t provided anything interesting in the absence of clichéd melodrama,” and declares the film “an empty cinematic experience” with “glimmers of quality.”  Angie Errigo, writing for Empire, falls somewhere in between:

Michael Winterbottom is one of the foremost exponents of the documentary-drama style, and he makes good use of his technique in this intensely intimate piece, while the cast achieve a degree of realism…But these people still seem detached, sketchy, and too many incidents seem routine.

A Summer in Genoa stars Colin Firth, Catherine Keener, Perla Haney-Jardine, and Willa Holland.  It’s available now.

Game of Death Reviews: Too Much Game, Not Enough Death

Reviewers seem to more or less agree that the latest film from incarcerated action star Wesley Snipes is an at-best-mediocre action flick ruined by overdirection.  Brian Orndof at eFilmCritic says director Giorgio Serafini:

…aims to beef up meager ingredients with his useless ornamentation, eager to wring suspense out of thin air by tinkering with hallucinogenic cinematographic escapades, with every last trick intrusive, interfering with the brute force the film conjures up through feisty choreography that plays to the natural martial art abilities of the actors.

Beyond Hollywood’s Gazz Ogden agrees, adding, “Each fight scene is ruined by insanely choppy editing, stupid black and white inserts, epileptic white flashes and pointless double-vision overlays.”

David Johnson at DVD Verdict isn’t nearly as bothered by the effects, asserting that Serafini “…wisely opts to shoot straight up so we can at least see what’s going on (I’m not sure I’m as much of a fan of the quick cutting black and white video effects that sporadically pop in during gunshots and face punches).”  He seems more troubled by how forgettable the whole affair is, noting “…nothing happens here that you haven’t seen before or that you’ll scramble to tell your friends about.”

Game of Death also stars Zoe Bell, Robert Davi, Gary Daniels, Aunjanue Ellis, and Ernie Hudson.  It’s available now on DVD and Blu-ray.

Barbie: A Fairy Secret Reviews: Harmless or Shameless?

The latest entry in the Barbie sub-genre of clearly-influenced-by-the-success-of-the-Tinkerbell-franchise fairy films is Barbie: A Fairy Secret.  The few reviews that exist seem split on the question of just how harmless it is.  In this installment, Barbie enlists the help of her fairy fashion assistants to help rescue Ken from a forced fairy marriage.  Tons of product placement and suggestions to go shopping ensue, none of which is lost on Common Sense Media reviewer Joly Herman, who notes:

Parents need to know that fashion and shopping are the main attractions in this Barbie story. Not only are the fashion items shown in the movie available for purchase in the real world, but role model characters encourage the Barbie characters to shop as both a form of entertainment and a way to save a friend.

The Dutch website movie2movie posts this review by Monica Meyer, which also notes the consumerist bent, but goes on to find fault with the narrative itself.  Even in broken Google translate English, the phrase, “The story of ‘Barbie: The Mystery fairy’ is a mess.” seems unmistakable.

Finally, David Johnson over at DVD Verdict doesn’t seem put off by any of this, simply noting that while it’s certainly not his cup of tea, the demographic it’s aimed at, young girls, should find it entertaining, and what’s more:

…as the father of soon-to-be young girl, I am happy to report there is absolutely nothing edgy at work here; no questionable undertones, no Bratz-like starter-slut shenanigans, just some goofy cartoon dolls flying around with pixie wings. Even Barbie’s proportions aren’t self-esteem-punchingly out-of-whack.

Barbie: A Fairy Secret is available now.

The Man From Nowhere Reviews: Oustanding, If Unoriginal

While reviewers don’t consider The Man From Nowhere to be the most original “bad-ass goes on a tear to get revenge/save the girl” flick (Taken, Man on Fire, and The Professional are invoked frequently), they do agree that it’s one of the best.

Twitch’s Todd Brown notes:

Writer-director Lee [Jeong-Beom] is clearly a student of the heroic bloodshed film and though his picture is arguably a touch longer than it needs to be with a script more convoluted than it needs to be and with certain elements that are a touch overly familiar, his command of character and genre conventions make this the best, most satisfying entry in the genre from any nation since A Bittersweet Life.

Kudos go out to the lead, Bin Won, whom you may remember as the mentally challenged son of Mother, playing pretty much the polar opposite here.  Beyond Hollywood’s Nix raves, “A physical and convincing Bin Won clearly carries the movie,” while Matt Singer of IFC calls him “tremendous,” adding “This is an angry movie about an angry man, but the intensity of Won Bin’s performance makes [his character] an easy guy to root for.”

Another commonly praised denominator seems to be the action, especially the climactic knife fight which Film School Rejects’ Rob Hunter calls, “one of the best on film.”

The Man From Nowhere arrives March 8th on Blu-ray and DVD.

Generally Meh Reviews for Role/Play

Role/Play, the new romantic comedy from writer/director Rob Williams (Make the Yuletide Gay) is getting a tepid response from critics.  In the film, a recently outed soap opera star (Steve Callahan) goes to a resort and meets a gay marriage activist (Matthew Montgomery) headed for divorce and the usual fighting with and falling for each other ensues.

eFilmCritc’s Charles Tatum gives the film two stars, stating:

“Williams’ direction is as static as his screenplay, which seems more like an aborted stage production than a filmed comedy-drama . . . Both main characters discuss the price of fame ad nauseum, and I was eventually turned off by the whining quality of some of the klunky dialogue.”

As part of a dual review with BearCity, Jonathan Youster of Sound on Sight cites both films as evidence of the sorry state of gay romantic comedies:

“However, for whatever merit they may have, the films unfortunately come wrapped in such formulaic scripts and pedestrian execution that the finished products are, at best, passable date movies, and, at worst, guilty of committing what is an unforgivable sin for any movie, gay or straight: being bland and dull.”

This Week in Texas’ Duane Simolke has kinder words for the film, saying, “Even amid the fighting, the chemistry between real-life couple Montgomery and Callahan comes through on the screen. They both work well as romantic leads,” while admitting, “In a few spots, those debates drown out the natural rhythms of story-telling, and the two lovers sound like they’re reading essays out loud, instead of carrying on a conversation.”

Oh, and it has Jim J. Bullock.

Farm Girl in New York Reviews: Schlock or Not?

Critics—at least the two who bothered to review it—are split on Farm Girl in New York, the directorial debut of Broadway star J. Robert Spencer (Jersey Boys, Next to Normal).  In the film, a couple of guys (Jeffrey Schecter and Joshua Wade, who co-wrote the screenplay with Spencer) move to New York and hold auditions for a play that doesn’t exist in order to meet women.  Then, as is wont to happen when you hold fake auditions, they fall for one of the dupes (Allison Munn).

Noralil Ryan Fores, writing for ShortEnd Magazine, calls the film “24 frames per second schlock,” adding:

While conceptually strong, Farm Girl in New York‘s writing in the hands of Spencer, Schecter and [Joshua Wade] Miller lacks development and depends heavily on schmaltzy cinematic structures and beats that undermine the high concept.

The anonymous review at Videoviews has an opposite take, calling the film “well-written” and complimenting the director on “keeping the film moving at a fast pace and mixing the comedy with the romance,” as well as praising all the actors, especially Wade who “steals every scene he is in.”

IMDb has only 14 votes in so far, but they place the film at 6.4 out of 10 stars.

Open Season 3 Reviews: If You Liked the First Two…

If reviews are any indication, liking Open Season 3 is predicated upon liking (or at least having seen) Open Season and Open Season 2.  Both Brian Orndorf of Brianorndof.com and Valkor at The Other View think this may be the best installment, and both have seen and enjoyed the first two.  Ordndorf raves, “The efficient direction and sillyhearted screenwriting supplies a direct shot of animated comedy, with the production piping in the proper amount of silly business to keep viewers on their toes,” while Valkor enthuses, “Overall, Open Season 3 is a winner in my book, featuring a great cast, animation, story, and voice acting makes this one a must see for fans of the previous films, but newcomers are welcome to enjoy it as well.”

Not all newcomers are as impressed.  Clark Douglas at DVD Verdict, who has only “sort of seen” the original, says, “This tiresomely predictable tale exemplifies everything that’s wrong about straight-to-DVD animated sequels to big-budget mainstream films: the plot is utterly predictable and rehashes a lot of beats from the original effort…”

IMDb users fall somewhere in between.  They give the film 5.1/10 stars with 607 votes in.

Bonded By Blood: The Straight2DVD Review

Bonded by Blood chronicles the rise and fall of The Essex Boys, brutal British drug dealers who reigned over the local trade in the mid-90′s.  This is not the first time their story has been told.  Essex Boys, with a considerably higher profile cast that included Sean Bean, Alex Kingston, and Tom Wilkinson, went straight-to-DVD in the States in 2001, but if Rotten Tomatoes is any indication, this version is much, much better.

The film opens with the assassination of Darren Nicholls (Adam Deacon) who, in flashback, we see become a low level operative in the criminal underworld.  He meets two of the major players, Mickey Steele (Vincent Regan) and Patrick Tate (Tamer Hassan) in prison, and when he gets out he goes to work for Steele, who controls the ports that allow Tate and his compatriots Tony Tucker (Terry Stone) and Craig Rolfe (Neil Maskell) to import all sorts of drugs to a network of British nightclubs.  All seems well until a romantic conflict drives a wedge between Steele and an increasingly violent and unpredictable Tate.  Nothing surprising if you’ve ever seen a crime drama ensues.

Which is not to say that Bonded by Blood isn’t entertaining.  The true crime feel is palpable—an exciting, voyeruestic glimpse of the lavish-yet-grimy world of scumbags who do what they want when they want.  And the performances are all top-notch.  Hassan in particular seems to find the relish his character takes in bad behavior while still revealing glimpses of the insecurity beneath.

Sacha Bennett’s direction is kinetic without becoming unfocused, bolstered by a techno-driven, pulse-pounding soundtrack.  The screenplay, co-written by Bennet and Graeme Muir, keeps the pace moving while still taking a moment here and there to help us get to the know the men behind the brutes.

While Bonded by Blood never really elevates the genre to the levels of art mastered by Scorsese and Coppola, or even Meirelles and Audiard, it still delivers a satisfying, if by-the-numbers, retelling of a violent chapter in British criminal history.

By the way, if you have any aversion to the c-word, avoid this movie at all costs. It is repeated as much as the f-word is in Goodfellas.  It is in it so much that there is a special feature devoted to it on the DVD.  Fair warning.

Bonded by Blood arrives on DVD and iTunes on February 1st.

Death Race 2: The Straight2DVD Review

In 1975, Death Race 2000 was released. It starred David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone (pre-Rocky), and it is a dark, fun film full of political satire in that way that only dystopian movies from the 1970s can be. 2008′s Death Race (DR1) was basically a remake, and Peter Hartlaub in the San Francisco Chronicle wrote a great review comparing it to the original. Basically, the remake was nowhere near as creative.

This week saw the straight-to-DVD release of Death Race 2 (the unrated version) (DR2), and I watched the previous two films to prepare myself.

Where I get confused is why director Paul W.S. Anderson says in his DVD commentary of DR1 (according to Wikipedia) that DR1 is a prequel to the original Death Race 2000. Does he foresee a string of Death Race movies? What’s more confusing about this week’s release of DR2 is that it is a prequel to DR1. Therefore, it’s a prequel to a prequel. Is that like if George Lucas had released Attack of the Clones before The Phantom Menace? I  guess the idea is that after two films where the Death Race is confined to a prison, the third film can introduce the original film’s idea of a cross-country race. Why they took this long to return to the original film’s idea, I don’t know.

DR2 is the origin story of the Death Race racer known as Frankenstein, though originally his name was Carl “Luke” Lucas (played by Luke Goss)… because apparently in today’s cinema, we require origin stories of our heroes and villains. I actually don’t know who the heroes or villains are in this film as everyone seems to be either a convicted criminal or just a terrible person. In DR1, Jason Statham’s character was framed for his wife’s murder, incorrectly imprisoned, and just wanted to get back to his daughter. In this movie, well, you’ll see.

In the pre-credit titles (0:47 seconds in), we are told that the “Weyland Corporation” owns the Terminal Island Penitentiary. Okay, I’m just going to stop you right there. I am really tired of screenwriters mining the Weyland-Yutani Corporation name from the Alien franchise as some sort of in-joke in their screenplays. Stop it. No one thinks you’re clever.

ANYWAY, DR2 starts like DR1 with a riot and a brutal police response. Except in the first film, it was a bunch of upset factory workers who weren’t being paid enough for being overworked, and in DR2, it’s just a bunch of prisoners fighting in the prison yard. So right there, you’ve got a much different feeling to the start of the film.

Sean “I’m-just-here-for-a-paycheck” Bean plays crime boss Markus Kane who wants henchman Luke to rob a bank. There’s a moment where Kane is an ass to his girlfriend/wife and Luke just looks away, which might have been saying something about our aversion to confronting the poor treatment of women or something, but that idea never really carries forward. I guess Luke thinks Kane is too powerful. The girl just smiles and leaves the table anyway, so I guess no harm was done.

Kane gives Luke a brand-new Ford Mustang (known as the hero’s car from the first film) to use as the getaway car. Did Ford pay for the product placement? Just wondering.

ANYWAY, The bank robbery goes poorly and Luke kills a cop. Now, there is a moment here that’s basically Luke realizing what he did was wrong. Time slows down and the camera catches his “oooooooh ffffuuuuuuddddggggeee” expression, but through the rest of the film, his feelings of guilt (if he has any) are never explored. It’s basically just a way to get him to Terminal Island.

Meanwhile, Ving “I’m-also-just-here-for-a-paycheck” Rhames plays Mr. Weyland, the head of the corporation that runs Terminal Island, and all he cares about are the ratings of the precursor to Death Race, called Death Match, which is hosted by Ms. Jones (Lauren Cohan), a former Miss Universe (who lost her crown when it was revealed that she slept with all five judges). I am not making this up. The obvious joke would have been “All at once?” but no one seems to find it funny. The point is, she’s got no conscience.

So we’re on the island. And Lists (Frederick Koehler) is back! Oh how I liked him from DR1. Not really. In DR1, we didn’t learn what his crime was to end up in a maximum security prison, and considering how mousy he is, I was a little scared that he was some sort of serial killer. But in DR2, at 38:38, an onscreen graphic identifies his Criminal History as “matricide.” So he killed his mom. So that’s not so bad, right? OMG, is this film having an effect on me?! Did he kill just his mom, or many moms?

We find out that Death Match is basically the same as Death Race with its power-up pads (think Mario-Kart. No, seriously.) and need for contestants to kill one another. But there’s no racing. Or cars (except a bus in the middle of the ring that contains the power-up weapons). And if you don’t kill your opponent or get them to submit, then you both die. What kind of crap rule is that? What if you simultaneously knock each other out? Do you both wake up and see Saint Peter?

The warden is a kind, old fart who is afraid to put (our hero) Luke on the Death Match show because he’s afraid that once Kane knows where Luke is incarcerated, then he will have people kill Luke, and the warden wants his inmates safe (except for those that are put in the Death Match by Ms. Jones). See, Luke didn’t snitch on Kane when he was caught, but Kane is worried that after a month or so of prison life, Luke will sing like a canary.

Script-wise, the issue is that we already know that Kane knows that Luke is on Terminal Island from an earlier scene, so there’s no tension in putting Luke in a Death Match. All it does when Luke appears on the television is make Kane realize that Luke hasn’t been killed yet because his henchmen have enacted a plan that won’t take effect unless Ms. Jones and Mr. Weyland turn Death Match into Death Race… oh… I see now. Those two henchmen could see into the future when (SPOILER) their psychopathic killer on the inside would just happen to be on Luke’s pit crew for the Death Races and thus able to sabotage his car during the second race. Yeah, that makes perfectly no sense. It’s made clear that Luke can handle himself in hand-to-hand combat, so in the end, what harm would the rotund inside man have accomplished if the Death Race had never been conceived? He was no match for Luke. (END SPOILER)

ANYWAY, getting back to narrative tension, as with any prequel, you run the risk of having characters (who were in the first film that takes place after this film) in life threatening situations that you know they’ll survive, so the audience gets bored because they already know the outcome! List and 14K obviously survive to see the next film, so any scene with them in peril is a waste. (SPOILER) On the flip side, Goldberg (played by everyone’s favorite, Danny Trejo) survives the entire film, but in the next film appears to be replaced by Ian McShane as pit crew leader with no explanation. (END SPOILER)

And finally…

Should you see it? See, if this film were more like Death Race 2000 with a political satire bend, then yes. Or, if this film had amazing racing sequences, then maybe. But this film has neither and just plods along until the last 10 minutes which are basically the only scenes that this entire movie exists for: how Frankenstein was disfigured and then created. And if you saw the end of Revenge of the Sith, there you go.

Rent Death Race 2000 instead of either DR1 or DR2. You’ll have a much better time.

Coopers’ Christmas Reviews: Refreshingly Lowbrow

The reviews for the Jason Jones co-scripted holiday romp Coopers’ Christmas applaud the decidedly lowbrow take on the genre. DVD Verdict’s Paul Pritchard calls it “a refreshingly un-PC antidote to the saccharine sweet Christmas movies we get year after year.” The film stars Jones as the patriarch of the eponymous clan whose myriad dysfunctions are laid bare in a found video of their 1985 Christmas holiday. The gutter nature of that dysfunction is something HK Film News’ Porfle highlights, noting that the film “just might become a holiday tradition for those who find the adventures of Clark Griswold and his family too highbrow and sophisticated.” The Toronto Star’s Bruce DeMara, writing about the film when it was released in the Great White North as Coopers’ Camera, gives the film 2.5/4 stars, noting that it…

“…is unlikely to join the pantheon of treasured holiday classics. But for those who like their season of red and green to have a little black and blue, this film just might be a welcome gift.”

The film also stars Jones’ wife and Daily Show co-star Samantha Bee, Dave Foley, Mike Beaver (the other co-writer), Jayne Eastwood, and Peter Keleghan.

Coopers’ Christmas is available now.

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