Archive for January, 2007

ICurse of the Golden FlowerI half succeeds in its visual display, which sustains the audience for the first 20 minutes. The high production value provides a glimmer of hope that Zhang would pull off the much anticipated Chrysanthemum Festival climax, but Zhang remains consistently mislead in his direction and the climax fizzles with the pop of a bottle rocket, rather than the boom of a cannon.

Its safe to assume that Alba and her no-nudity clause will be back as Nancy, a shame since she was the only blemish on the otherwise fantastic first movie. Im not sure what Rodriguez was thinking with that casting, but his decision may prove to be the lead weight which drags an otherwise fantastic, burgeoning franchise right down.

Character dialogue is spoken as if Luc Besson had some sort of minimum word count requirement while writing it, and so whipped out a dictionary to pad every sentence with as many extraneous and irrelevant words as possible. Except when they got on set and tried to film it, someone realized that there was way too much dialogue and rather than paring it down to something that sounded a little more realistic, they simply instructed all the actors to speak their lines really really fast.

Like any number of Chinese films that make the festival rounds, “Dam Street” offers a portrait of alienation in a post-Mao world as believable as it is grim, grim, grim.

Azazel Jacobs’s unexpectedly beguiling romantic comedy, “The GoodTimesKid,” finds poetry in wordless scenes of observation.

Writer and director Eric Nicholas’s latest film, “Alone With Her,” is a voyeuristic thriller that is fiendishly assured yet ultimately less than the sum of its parts.

Alex Fletcher Hugh Grant is a washed-up 80s pop star whos been reduced to working the nostalgia circuit at county fairs and amusement parks. The charismatic and talented musician gets a chance at a comeback when reigning diva Cora Corman invites him to write and record a duet with her, but theres a problem Alex hasnt written a song in years, hes never written lyrics, and he has to come up with a hit in a matter of days. Enter Sophie Fisher Drew Barrymore, Alexs beguilingly quirky plant lady, whose flair for words strikes a chord with the struggling songwriter. On the rebound from a bad relationship, Sophie is reluctant to collaborate with anyone, especially commitment-phobe Alex. As their chemistry heats up at the piano and under it, Alex and Sophie will have to face their fears and the music if they want to find the love and success they both deserve. The film co-stars Brad Garrett as Alexs steadfast manager, and Kristen Johnston as Sophies sister, Rhonda. Newcomer Haley Bennett plays young, pop-princess Cora Corman.

Following in the footsteps of IMean CreekI and IBullyI, writerdirector Nick Cassavetes delivers IAlpha DogI, an effectively grueling expos about a disturbed group of young adults getting stoned, laid and arrested in Southern California. The film, hard to stomach and equally as hard to look away from, is a startling, hypnotizing ride full of surprises.

"God Grew Tired of Us" is a sober, uplifting documentary that follows the resettlement in the United States of three young men uprooted as children by the civil war in Sudan.

There may be crazier movies than this Thai cowboy melodrama of betrayal and forbidden love, but I can't think of one that is quite so mad about its own craziness.