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Best of Schlock 2000

First-time director, but longtime FX guru, Michael Lantieri (Jurassic Park) and screenwriter Hans Bauer (Anaconda) both know the nature-run-amok formula well, but they extend this creature feature to a superior level of smaller-budget filmmaking. It’s the story of an island infested with 15-foot Komodos whose natural food sources died, leaving people as lizard chow du jour. No breasts. Five corpses. Six dead beasts. Station wagon munching. One doggie snack. Deadly drool. Best line is from young Patrick who isn’t hopeful about the dragons’ intentions, “I think they’re contesting our place on the food chain.” Highly Recommended.

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20th Century-Fox will be releasing onto disc actor David Arquette’s directorial debut, The Tripper, a phantasmagorical homage to 1960s exploitation druggie movies and 1980s slasher films. Showing a startling willingness to cast his undisciplined directorial net over a wide range of subjects, including the environment, conservative and liberal politics, and recreational drug use, Arquette creates an initially dazzling melange of seemingly disparate viewpoints, which unfortunately grind down to a rather conventional last act of slasher antics and broad, obvious politicizing. Always good to look at, The Tripper delivers the slasher gore goods, while hitting a few of its myriad, scattershot targets.

A group of modern-day “hippies” are on their way to a weekend “America Free Love Festival,” a rock concert up in the Northern California redwoods where the stoned group hopes to get even more stoned. Van driver and George Bush lover Joey (Jason Mewes), his girlfriend and George Bush hater Linda (Marsha Thomason), hard-core stoner Jack (Stephen Heath) and his seriously blasted coke-head girlfriend Jade (Paz de la Huerta), ineffectual hippie Ivan (Lukas Haas) and his sweet, emotionally damaged girlfriend Samantha (Jaime King) are the Mystery, Inc. drug addicts who respect nothing except a solid buzz. Before arriving at the campsite where the festival is being held, Ivan is struck by a beer bottle (shades of Hot Rods to Hell) thrown by some vicious rednecks, rednecks they later meet up with at a convenience store. Goaded into a fight by Joey, Ivan won’t fight until Samantha lands the first punch, but it’s local dimwit Gus (Christopher Allen Nelson) who ends the fracas, busting up the head yokel Muff (David Arquette).

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Arriving at the campsite where the concert is to be held, the group is warned of trouble by Dylan (Redmond Gleeson), the father of Gus and a crazy old coot who doesn’t like hippies in his woods (not to give too much away, but the film’s prologue establishes that not only was Dylan’s job threatened by “tree huggers,” but his wife died and his son became involved in a tragic incident, due to the interference of radical conservationists). Evidently, a hippie’s been gutted in the woods, and nobody knows who might have done it. Blowing him off, just like they blow off the hard-assed cop Buzz Hall (Thomas Jane) who also tries to warn them, the merry pranksters decide they’re going into the woods to get high and that’s that. But soon the body count starts to rise, and Samantha, the only responsible one in the group, is stalked by the killer, who wears a Ronald Reagan mask and tailored suit - along with a very big axe.

SPOILERS ALERT

For about the first half hour of The Tripper, I was quite astounded at the palpable atmosphere of giddy homage that Arquette was throwing around, with a seemingly sure handling of mixing 60s drug-out flicks like The Trip, with no doubt countlessly re-run showings of Friday the 13th and Halloween. Variations in film stock, unique lighting effects, and a marvelously assured feeling of place (the woods feel dangerous at first), made me sit up and take notice of this directorial debut. As well, the script showed genuine wit in the deliberately broad one-liners (Joey screaming, “What the f*ck is your problem, man!” as he looks at his chopped-off hand), as well as a deceptively even-handed approach to the political satire (an approach that quickly showed its true colors with an hard left to the left, even ending the film with a torturous audio clip of Robert Kennedy, Jr. droning on in a whine about something or other). The image of a Ronald Reagan clone, running around with an axe chopping up hippie and conservative alike, is a naturally funny iconographic moment; there was always something outsized and organically parodistic about that larger-than-life political character.

But eventually, the sight of Ronnie throwing out one of his catchphrases along with a deep blow to the chest of a screaming victim, wears thin - as do most of the increasingly strained political allusions in The Tripper. The originality of the first half-hour of the film is gradually overtaken with a tepid second act, where the mechanics of the various killings are worked out in the woods, followed by a final act that looks more like the films Arquette is supposedly parodying than he’d probably like to admit. I really admired Arquette’s frequently spookily-accurate approximations of 1960s drug exploitation flicks (Samantha’s wig-out in the woods after someone shoots acid at her looks and feels exactly like those drive-in classics of old), but soon, even his technique begins to wane in favor of obvious satirical shots. Worst of all, The Tripper can’t even get scary enough to gloss over Arquette’s rapidly diffused intent. The gore scenes are more than competent (I particularly liked the chainsaw-to-the-neck of the tree hugger at the beginning of the film), but The Tripper’s chills are strictly from hunger. And a slasher movie without genuine scares - even if it’s a parody - ultimately fails.

The DVD:

The Video:
The anamorphically enhanced, 1.78:1 widescreen image for The Tripper is quite dark and grainy. I received a screener copy of this film (complete with annoying 20th Century-Fox logos popping up in frame from time to time), so what I’m judging may improve with the street product - or it may be how Arquette wanted the film to look (I suspect the latter).

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English 5.1 audio mix is incredibly diverse, with ambient forest sounds popping up all over the place, and with full-bodied screams during the killings. English, French and Spanish subtitles are available.

The Extras:
There are quite a number of extras included on The Tripper DVD. First, a full-length commentary by Arquette, Richmond Arquette, Paul Reubens and Thomas Jane is included. Arquette sounds exactly how you’d think he sounds - odd. But he’s pretty honest about how the film turned out. Behind the Spleens, a ten-and-a-half minute behind-the-scenes featurette, interviews some of the cast and crew. The Making of Ronald Reagan is a ridiculously brief (less than a minute) look at the makeup effects used to create the Reagan clone. The Missing Finger Incident is a two minute look at how someone on the crew found a finger in the notorious Big Basin Redwoods State Park, where the film was shot (notorious because of the many serial killers who operated there, supposedly). A Sh*tty Situation is an under two minute look at the makeup used to make Paul Reubens look like he was covered in feces. The Tripper Presidential Campaign Tour is a six minute look at Arquette taking the film around the country, with the Presidential Campaign Tour Photo Gallery illustrating that trip. Deleted scenes are included, including what looks to be the original intent of having Joey survive his hand-chomping. They run six minutes. There’s a blooper reel, that runs seven-and-a-half minutes long, the original theatrical trailer, and other Fox trailers, as well.

Final Thoughts:
At times startlingly original in its spooky channeling of 60s drug films and 80s slasher flicks, The Tripper starts off quite wonderfully, with plenty of funny quips, a scattershot approach to the satire, and a teasingly opaque directorial intent - which all eventually goes south as director David Arquette gets bogged down in the actual mechanics of the killings, as well as mired in his increasingly pat political polemics. But he definitely has “an eye,” as they say in the business, and The Tripper being his first effort, he’s someone to watch. Not successful at the end, there’s plenty of interesting, entertaining elements in The Tripper to make catching it worthwhile. I recommend The Tripper.

Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a colleague of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.

The Fourth Season

Note: This review for 24: Season Four comes several months after the initial DVD release. The reason is that I have not gotten a chance to watch season four until now (I have a huge backlog of DVDs to watch, who doesn’t?) and I am reviewing a personal copy. Having just finished it, and with the DVD release of season five, hopefully, coming out at the end of the year, I thought I would share my opinions about season four, which are for the most part very positive.

For those who are not familiar with the series, 24 is a somewhat unique drama about a fictional government agency called the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU). Mostly set in the CTU Los Angles branch office, the CTU agents and computer savvy technicians sift through various leads and evidence to uncover and thwart potential and actual terrorist activity. CTU is a huge operation that interacts with other federal agencies like FBI, NSA, DIA, as well as local, county and state law enforcement on a daily basis. The series uses a unique format you will not find in most television programming. A single season consists of twenty-four episodes, with each episode counting for a single hour in the show’s universe. An entire season will span only a twenty-four hour period. During which, a lot of things can happen.

Headlining the cast is Kiefer Sutherland, who was recently awarded an Emmy for “Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series” for his performance in season five as Jack Bauer (he also had a nomination for season four, but lost to James Spader, Boston Legal). What the series does best is putting together an intrinsic, gripping, and engaging storyline with lots of twists and turns, high tech gadgets, intense gunfights and action sequences, devious good and bad characters, and an exposure to a dramatic, yet fictional world about the war on terrorism. For more details about the series please refer to DVD Talk’s reviews of 24 season sets.

In my review of 24: Season Three, I had a minor gripe about the series being slightly redundant and due to this reason, season three started off shaky. The fact of the matter is the redundant nature in Jack Bauer going through one day with nonstop action is what makes the series so compelling. I probably should have complained about how annoying Kim Bauer is or something along those lines. Regardless, season four sees no flaws in the redundant department. (Yes there is some redundancy, but what works, works). The issues with season four are more or less with its characters and some poor attempts with drama. We will get into this later.

Season four begins with Jack Bauer in a completely different position. In season three Bauer had to use heroin while undercover and he developed an addiction. Because of his addiction, the new CTU director Erin Driscoll (Alberta Watson) released him from his job. Eventually Jack finds himself as the special assistant to the Secretary of Defense James Heller (William Devane), who, by the way, is fantastic in his role. Life is completely different for Jack, working behind a desk in the nation’s capital. He also ventures into a love affair with Heller’s daughter Audrey Raines (Kim Raver), who is married, but separated from her husband Paul (James Frain). Audrey is a senior policy analyst at the Department of Defense and can be found by her father’s side more often than not.

On this particular day, a chain of terrorist attacks occur, starting with a bomb on a train that seems to have no purpose. Later in Los Angeles, Jack goes to CTU to confirm some budget related items while the secretary and his daughter make an impromptu visit to Heller’s son Richard. At Richard’s place, the secret service envoy is attacked and Heller and Audrey are kidnapped by terrorists with the intent to execute him on a live webcast over the internet. When the kidnapping occurs, Jack jumps back into his old position on a “provisional” basis, despite director Driscoll’s concerns about him. As the story progresses, old and new faces alike join Jack to stop the terrorists from reaching their ultimate goal. I won’t go into anymore details about the plotline, but let’s just say there is a lot of stuff to follow.

Some of the new characters include Edgar Stiles (Louis Lombardi), a talented computer technician who has to deal with his own personal problems while trying to provide continued support to the CTU field agents, Sarah Gavin (Lana Parrilla), a computer technician with an attitude, Curtis Manning (Roger R. Cross), CTU Los Angeles’ second in command, Bill Buchanan (James Morrison), the CTU regional director with a personal tie to Michelle Desseler, and Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin), the President of the United States who has a devious political mind. Some of the old faces include Chloe O’Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub), David Palmer (Dennis Haybert), Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard), and Michelle Desseler (Reiko Aylesworth).

The lead villain Harbib Marwan is played by Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy) and Vosloo makes an excellent bad guy providing his character a cool and almost charming demeanor. For strong supporting villains, the Araz family is also very strong in their roles. The Araz family moved to the United States and became naturalized citizens with intent of preparing for this one day. At the head of the family is Navi (Nestor Serrano), a father who believes his cause is more important than anything else. Dina (Shohreh Aghdashloo) is the striking woman married to Navi. She is strong, cunning, and devilish. The cause is important to her and she will kill anyone without hesitation who gets in the way. The exception is her son Behrooz (Jonathan Ahdout), who after witnessing his Caucasian girlfriend being murdered, decides killing thousands of people is not worth it.

Overall what works for season four of 24 is the nonstop action and the overly gripping storyline. How everything unfolds with lots of twists and turns make the season an exciting adventure you will not want to miss. However, while I praise season four, not everything is perfect. There are some elements that I think the season would have been a lot stronger without (or at least toned down). In an attempt to add relationship drama to storylines, there are two love triangles.

While these are great for soapy melodramas, they just did not seem to fit in right with the ambiance of 24. First of all, Jack loves Audrey, Audrey loves Jack, but she also loves her husband Paul, who loves her. There is an entire subplot that deals with this relationship. While it does add some drama to the events, sometimes it felt overplayed and hokey. The other bit of drama comes from Tony, Michelle, and Bill. The two guys both like Michelle and she likes them. It is a wishy-washy subplot that ends with butterflies and rainbows.

Some other points I did not care for dealt with the characters and their personal issues. For instance, Erin Driscoll’s daughter has severe medical problems and she is forced to decide what was more important, caring for her daughter or running CTU during the crisis. What I did not like about it was how Watson portrayed her character. She made a great director, very cold and distance, but when she tried to show compassion with her daughter, it felt all wrong.

Overall, season four of 24 presents a strong set of twenty-four episodes with a sadistic plot against the United States of America with only Jack Bauer and the valiant employees at CTU to save the day. If you have not had a chance to pick up this season set, I highly suggest you do. Within the first minute or two, you will be sucked in and forced to watch the entire season set nonstop! And thankfully when you are done watching the season episodes, there are a ton of special features to keep you in Jack’s exciting world.

Episode Guide
1. 7AM to 8AM
2. 8AM to 9AM
3. 9AM to 10AM
4. 10AM to 11AM
5. 11AM to 12PM
6. 12PM to 1PM
7. 1PM to 2PM
8. 2PM to 3PM
9. 3PM to 4PM
10. 4PM to 5PM
11. 5PM to 6PM
12. 6PM to 7PM
13. 7PM to 8PM
14. 8PM to 9PM
15. 9PM to 10PM
16. 10PM to 11PM
17. 11PM to 12AM
18. 12AM to 1AM
19. 1AM to 2AM
20. 2AM to 3AM
21. 3AM to 4AM
22. 4AM to 5AM
23. 5AM to 6AM
24. 6AM to 7AM

The DVD

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Following a spell in a hostel for the homeless after he is injured by a hit-and-add up driver, be in abeyance-eater Alex (Lavant) returns to his open-zephyr home on Paris’s oldest connect. There, besides his drugs supplier Hans (Gruber), he finds a young occupant: Michèle (Binoche), a middle-class technique student who has taken to the streets to as long as her weakness sight holds. Tentatively, Alex and Michèle enplane commence on a drunken, anarchic, mutually healing affair - but she is haunted both by the prospect of blindness and by a previous, assiduous flight of fancy, while he is increasingly consumed by jealousy. Set against the overpriced backdrop of France’s bicentennial shenanigans, Carax’s tale of amour fou is coextensive with bolder than Boy Meets Girl and Mauvais Sang. It’s filled with enraptured imagery which manages not to jar after the mettlesome realism of the primitive scenes, and constitutes a heady anthem to abstracted, balmy passion: at before a modern fairy tale and a cinephile’s folie de grandeur, frequently exhilarating but not ever wholly relieve of pretentiousness.

In Terminate

: Worth a look as a rental.

The Movie:

Although not always perfect, "The Wood" is an occasionally basic and diverting confabulation about a group of men who are moment grown up remembering the times they spent growing up together in "The Wood", under other circumstances known as Inglewood, California. In present day, we're introduced to Mike(Omar Epps), who tells us that his girl Roland, who is with respect to to be married, has gone missing. They in the near future experience Roland, who is played in a funny, entertaining performance by Taye Diggs from "Go". He's more than a little scared of getting married and well…more than a youthful juicer, so as the group prepares him to get married, we're introduced to more flashbacks about the group's high persuasion years.

Some of which is funny, some of which isn't. The majority of their teen years seems like it's spent in persuit of "grabbing booty" and irksome to get with girls. More again than not though, the film is an entertaining look at these characters growing up. The film skips stand behind and forth smoothly between present as the group gets ready and the ago best up to their current lives.

Although the film isn't at all times flawless, and it does go on a little bit longer than it should be experiencing, it to manages to soar along on charming performances from both leads in the lifetime and present scenes. It's a talking picture that made me laugh quite a few times and I'd perchance put forward it as a rental.

The DVD



SOUND

: The usual for a comedy; dialogue is pretty much the focus of the audio department, although the few songs on the soundtrack occasionally kick in a little bit of bass. Everything sounds clear and without problems and dialogue is clean and free of flaws. It gets the job done sound-wise.

MENUS:

: Basic, non-animated main menu that is easily navigated, and includes the trailer(there's no "special features" menu).

EXTRAS:

Just the trailer, which can be selected on the main menu, which I like. I hate it when you go to a "special features" menu and just set aside the trailer.

Final Thoughts

Enjoyable movie and a nice, although prime DVD. Recommended as a rental.


Film Group

The Film 75/C = (375/500 admissible points)

Stars: ** 1/2

DVD Grades

Video 91/A = (364/400 workable points)

Audio: 88/B = (352/400 plausible points)

Extras: 70/C- = (210/300 possible points)

Menus 75/C = (150/200 workable points)

Value: 83/B = (249/300 attainable points)

TOTAL POINTS:1700/2100

Average:81%/B

1.85:1

Region:1
LINKS TO ONLINE STORES:

THE MOVIE

You know a filmmaker has done his job when his movie appeals even to people who couldn’t care less about the subject. That’s “Through the Fire,” a generically titled but sincerely compelling documentary about basketball phenom Sebastian Telfair, a Coney Island kid who went straight from high school to the NBA in 2004.

I don’t follow basketball at all. I live two miles from the Portland arena where Telfair now plays and had still never heard of him. (Apparently the Trail Blazers suck. Or so say my sources.) I spent most of the movie not knowing whether he would be drafted at the end, something that’s common knowledge among most of the film’s viewers. So I’m not the target audience, but I found Jonathan Hock’s documentary engaging and robust anyway, even if I sort of zoned out sometimes during the clips of basketball games (which, I hasten to add, are very well-shot and edited).

The film starts in 2003, with Sebastian going into his senior year at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. Clean-cut, boyishly good-looking and ever-smiling, he’s already a local superstar. By October he has signed a letter of intent with the University of Louisville. But Louisville coach Rick Pitino isn’t stupid. He sees the NBA scouts circling like sharks around Sebastian, eager to have him skip college and go right to the pros.

Over the course of the season, Sebastian becomes New York City’s all-time top scorer; takes his team to Louisville for an exhibition game against the university team; becomes the first player in history to win three PSAL (Public School Athletic League) titles; and gets a Sports Illustrated cover story speculating on whether he’ll go pro.

Sebastian’s mother is seen in the periphery. Her heart was broken in 1999, when her older son Jamel Thomas was snubbed in the NBA draft. She doesn’t want to get her hopes up again, and rarely attends Sebastian’s games. For his part, Sebastian has the same goal cited by so many urban kids with big dreams: to buy his momma a house and get her out of the projects. After two crucial victories in the film, the first thing Sebastian wants to do is hug his mom.

Sebastian has another older brother, Daniel, who’s an assistant coach on Sebastian’s high school team and keenly aware of how important the boy’s future is for the financially strapped family. When Jamel didn’t make the NBA, he opted to support the family by playing professionally overseas. And a little brother, Ethan, all of 8 years old, is already being trained by Daniel to give it a try if Sebastian fails, too.

The film doesn’t spend a lot of time on the family dynamics, but it devotes just enough to show the love and loyalty that keep them together. After deciding to go pro, Sebastian goes to Greece to train with Jamel and clear his head, while the media back in the U.S. — the same people who kept baiting Sebastian in the hopes he would join the draft — now say it was a bad move, that he’ll never make it. (You can see why I was in suspense over the outcome.)

Hock, who has years of experience as a sports filmmaker, captures the excitement of Sebastian’s games more than adequately. But he also conveys real emotion with the off-court stories. Sebastian’s fame and success do start to go to his head, and Hock wisely avoids having friends and family comment on it — all the better to let the viewer notice it, you know? The finale, when the NBA draft picks are announced on ESPN, is a supremely joyful event. Seeing Sebastian and his loved ones crying with happiness is a marvelously satisfying way to end the film.

Telfair hasn’t exactly been a breakout star with the Blazers, and a recent gun charge isn’t helping his image (which was very important to him when he was in high school). So the film is a time capsule of sorts, showing the promise and hopefulness of a young man whose whole career still lay ahead of him. It’s an excellent behind-the-scenes documentary as well as an above-average sports film.

THE DVD

There are optional English, French and Spanish subtitles. There are no alternate language tracks.

VIDEO: It’s widescreen (1.78:1), but not anamorphic. It was shot mostly on hand-held cameras on digital video without artificial lighting, so you get what you get. It looks pretty sharp, though.

AUDIO: Dolby Digital Stereo, which sounds quite good. They managed to have a microphone on Sebastian even when he was on the court in the middle of a game, so they capture some pretty intimate moments, all of which sound crystal clear.

EXTRAS: A wealth of deleted scenes (14:21 total) offer a little more insight into Sebastian’s character — especially his cockiness, which emerges slightly in the film but is on display a lot more in these scenes, which cover the 2004 New York State finals, the 2004 McDonald’s High School All American game, and Sebastian’s trip to Greece.

The extended interviews — with Louisville coach Rick Pitino, Sebastian’s brother Jamel Thomas, his high school coach Tiny Morton, and Sebastian himself — are insightful, but poorly assembled. Pitino (4:21) and Thomas’ (6:35) “interviews” are underscored with distracting cheesy music and aren’t interviews at all: They’re just a series of responses to unheard questions, broken up into little segments.

Morton’s (3:15) is more of an interview, except instead of hearing the questions, we see them written on the screen. The awful music continues. Morton talks about his coaching style vs. Pitino’s style, and about Lincoln High School’s game against Edgewater.

Sebastian has three interviews, two of which are in the same style as Morton’s (i.e., questions appear on the screen, and then we cut to his edited responses). The first one (7:13) was conducted before the Edgewater game and covers familiar territory: what Coney Island means to him, how his brother Jamel influenced him, etc. The segment “Prospects on the NBA Draft” (7:32) focuses on his anticipation of the upcoming draft and reflects a little on the McDonald’s All American game.

Finally, his interview with ESPN (3:00) is an actual interview, conducted via satellite with two anchors. It aired just before the McDonald’s game and, much to Sebastian’s irritation, focused on his Louisville-vs.-NBA prospects, and not about the upcoming game.

You want some game highlights? You’re in luck, dawg. The senior year segment (4:25) offers clips from Sebastian’s final year in high school.

The 2004 McDonald’s All American Game (10:10) is an ESPN package that condenses key moments from the game. Sebastian wasn’t a stand-out in the game, and the package doesn’t focus on him particularly.

Lincoln vs. Edgewater (13:09) was televised on ESPN2, and the footage is courtesy of the network. Like the previous one, it’s a condensed view of the game, complete with color commentary.

The New York City playground clips (3:25) offer a less produced, more raw look at Sebastian and his fellow non-professionals hoopin’ it up on the streets and in the gyms.

An excerpt from “The Life” with Stephon Marbury (Sebastian’s cousin) (5:45) is superfluous. Stephon is not the subject of “Through the Fire,” and is mentioned in it only briefly. So why spotlight him on the DVD? This belongs on the Stephon Marbury DVD, not the Sebastian Telfair one. The good news is, if you hadn’t heard quite enough of Sebastian talking about how much he loves Coney Island, now you can hear Marbury say the same thing.

The Q&A with Sebstian Telfair (6:27) is footage filmed after the movie’s premiere at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, in which he and director Jonathan Hock field questions from the audience.

Finally, Hock and cinematographer Alastair Christopher provide a great commentary in which they discuss the surprising turns the film took. When they started, of course, they didn’t know they were making a movie about a high schooler who went pro; they were making a movie about Lincoln High School basketball, which was on its way to being the first team ever to be three-time city-wide champs. Only over time did Sebastian’s career become the focus.

They also tell some interesting stories about re-editing the film from its initial cuts, including moving Jamel’s story to the beginning and structuring the film to make the point that Sebastian is working toward the draft out of love for his mother. They both reflect on the tear-jerker finale, when Sebastian is drafted and his friends and family erupt into frenzied joy. “I’ve been in the clubhouse after the Yankees won the World Series, I’ve in Super Bowl locker rooms,” Hock says. “I’ve never been anywhere where I felt this kind of emotion.”

Christopher says simply, “Every time I watch it, it breaks me up.”

Ditto.

IN SUMMARY

For basketball and/or Sebastian Telfair enthusiasts, the film and its DVD presentation are a must-have. But take it from someone outside the target market: It’s an expertly made documentary and a stirring story regardless of your interest in sports, and the DVD more than does it justice.

Chicago lawyer John Clark (Richard Gere), is bored with his life. On the retinue tellingly one end of day, he catches sight of a bride at the window of Oversight Mitzi's ballroom dance prepare - and looks fitting for her again. Finally he takes the step to get mouldy the train and go up to the gambol elegance, enrolling with the beautiful Paulina (Jennifer Lopez), who works there. He tries keeping his dancing lessons a secret from his wife Beverly (Susan Sarandon) and daughter Jenna (Tamara Hope), as does his balding co-worker Link (Stanley Tucci), who reinvents himself by night as a spirited Latin dancer. John's changed behaviour arouses suspicions at home and Beverly hires a sneakily sensitivity (Richard Jenkins), who reveals the accuracy. Interval, John's fascination with Paulina is unresolved and her give someone his of a dinner invitation energises him to take the dancing seriously. Miss Mitzi (Anite Gillette) signs him up allowing for regarding the Chicago Crystal Ball Dance Meet - and his wife and daughter sneak in to attend. With overdone results.

This capital and acclaimed eject is shoved into a screen whose screenplay should play a joke on alerted them that it's not ready to go preceding the time when the cameras. Swirling with good ideas, the libretto is a fancy. It's a frothy estimation that isn't even at pitching make up. Simplistic and lacking any pathos, the script tries to rework the 1997 genuine by Masayuki Suo, without success. In Suo's work, the cultural setting was crucial: Japanese strangers don't hold each other while persuasive to music - and the treatment of the life story was subtle. But beyond everything all, the middle character's exploration was far more nuanced and tentative. Like too many brash American movies, Shall We Dance 2004 is overstated in every department, far fetched in many, foolish shoals in most.

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There are a handful of earnest laughs, moments of character point of view and even some genuine sentiment, but distant too few and transcend too barely. The bop scenes try hard but don't from A to Z mother the emotional temperature as much as we would like. We are told that Richard Gere's John Clark (whose ceremonial give utterance over upon his work as a attorney-at-law plateful people write their wills is pretentious) is bored by two or three shots of him riding about in visor hour on Chicago's El train, looking forlorn. His relationship with Beverly is treated perfunctorily and without depth or insight. Susan Sarandon is without exception well-behaved as a teary, impair and complex woman, and she brings credibility to a character that doesn't continue on the page.

Jennifer Lopez is dressed and photographed beautifully, but her character is stunted. Her Paulina's relationship with John Clark is unsatisfactory in dramatic or romantic terms, and the filmmakers' reluctance to have John look his lust for Paulina seems like a notable cop out that emasculates this film's power. When he confides in his wife that he hasn't told her how bored he is because he loves her, we recognise a failure of the poetry, not a failure in the connection.

The dance classes and the little character portraits of the students and the lecturer are slight and the sweetness of the concept is turned into mush. Indeed, by the end, it's spruce up schmaltz, on supreme of straight bland.

Review by Louise Keller:

The clothes Jennifer Lopez wears are to weaken for - from the sheer, yellow dazzler held together by a be so bold as, to the nefarious, clingy backless number that hugs every curve. And Lopez looks sensational as she pouts, arches her move in reverse and submits to the rhythms of dance. Set on a backdrop of ballroom dancing, Shall We Hop is a story about passions and dreams.
A remake of the enchanting 1997 Japanese film of the same name, the yarn line may be similar, but the nuance is remarkably distinguishable. In the original, the formalities of Japanese refinement forge their own dynamic, as the notion of being seen in acknowledged in the arms of a woman is considered scandalous. So the selfsame outlook of the protagonist enrolling in a hoof it distinction is pretty much mind-boggling. When you change the culture, you change the obscure, and while this slick Hollywood translation is entertaining enough, largely merited to its charismatic cast, it lacks the pathos and earnest sweetness of the original.
Director Peter Chelsom is rather esoteric handed in the storytelling, never relying on nicety, but insisting on spoon-feeding us every detail. For example, Rodgers and Hammerstein's commotion reference from The King and I, as a remedy for the film's crown, is unfortunately rammed down our throats. The flap, the lyrics and the title. It's a shame, because the performances are compelling. Not lengthy after prepossessing off his Chicago tap-shoes, Richard Gere spies Lopez' appealing and sober silhouette in the upstairs window of Mitzi's Dancing Studio from his train window and becomes obsessed. Dancing opens a door to self-pathos and freedom, and suddenly he is practising his romp steps under the desk, on the footpath, in the loll dwell.
There's plenty of life in the Studio: Lisa Ann Walter's undiplomatic, buxom blonde Bobbie is a scene stealer, and Stanley Tucci's Link, the closet dancer who dons white false teeth and a Fabio-style wig, is a riot. Vern (played by Omar Benson Miller) is most appealing as the mountain of a retainer with a perspiration problem, who has enrolled in order to bow to substance.
The gad about from clumsy beginners to highly trained dancers is fast and unbelievable, but more importantly, John's relationship with his old lady Beverley (Susan Sarandon) is never properly established. Because we never invest in their relationship, there is no emotional reciprocate-off, when they re-establish their connection.
The dance sequences are colourful, and Lopez makes us care for her lonely Paulina. But this sentimentalist comedy is less than satisfying, and only on the undemanding. I wanted more.
0
1
1

SHALL WE DANCE (2004)

(M)
(US)

CAST:
Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Lisa Ann Walter, Anita Gillette, Tamara Hope, Bobby Cannavale, Omar Benson Miller, Richard Jenkins, Nick Cannon

PRODUCER:
Simon Fields

CHAIRMAN:
Peter Chelsom

ORGANIZE:
Audrey Wells (1997 screenplay Masayuki Suo)

CINEMATOGRAPHER:
John de Borman

EDITOR:
Charles Ireland

MUSIC:
John Altman, Gabriel Yared

PRODUCTION DESIGN:
Caroline Hanania

RUNNING TIME:
106 minutes

AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTOR:
BVI
AUSTRALIAN RELEASE:
October 21, 2004

Makin’ Loooove, Like It Was Nothing at All ….

Clerks II

/ Dustin Rowles

|
July 21, 2006 |

Maybe more than any other filmmaker working today, Kevin Smith is a generational director. I think you had to come of age at a certain time to understand his comedic sensibility, to really get his brand of self-deprecating post-collegiate juvenility. It’s almost ironic, in fact, that most critics around my age have little tolerance for the current ilk of sophomoric humor pervading Hollywood — which relies largely on different variations of homoerotic taunts and “yo mama” jokes — yet Kevin Smith remains the exception to the rule. Not, perhaps, because the stink palm or inadvertent necrophilia is that much funnier than


You, Me and Dupree


or

Grandma’s Boy,

but because Smith actually sticks his puerility to some real-life substance, like the banality of a minimum-wage job, the illogic of religious doctrine, or even a lesbian suffering from a sexual identity crisis.

But more than that,

Clerks

gave Kevin Smith some fucking cachet. For a lot of folks who were between the ages of 18 and 24 in 1995, Smith’s debut effort was our first real introduction to the kind of low-budget independent fare that actually spoke to people our age.

My Left Foot

or

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

may have been decent films, but what the hell did they have to do with us? Kevin Smith, on the other hand, transformed our late-night drunken conversations, our overgeeked celebration of pop culture, and our sexual insecurities into films that not only appealed to us but, in a way, made us feel cool, because his characters were speaking our goddamn language — and the fact that 90 percent of America didn’t understand it just made it that much more appealing. It was revelatory, a cinematic epiphany and, arguably, without

Clerks

, websites like ours would never exist.

Of course, Smith followed up

Clerks

with the sorely underrated

Mallrats

, which slightly overshot the mark, relying too heavily on the puerile, and then

Chasing Amy

, which undershot, dismissing much of his jejunity in favor of heavy-handedness.

Dogma

, aside from a ridiculously contrived and over-long conclusion, did, at times, manage to fully recapture the Smithian magic, while

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

was one extended, hit-and-miss in-joke with View Askew fans, but the hilariously meta wink scene between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon easily made up for the rest of the film’s failures.

And then there was

Jersey Girl

, Smith’s godawful, misguided attempt to leave Jay and Silent Bob behind, which wouldn’t have had a chance even if

Gigli

had not doomed it months before its release. But in a way, I think Smith

needed

a film like

Jersey Girl

to really illustrate the importance of Jason Mewes to his success — he is the Willie Aames to Smith’s Scott Baio — and remind Smith of what it was about his films that we loved. Moreover, even where all the other elements of a successful film were there, it was Mewes’ unhinged, meth-fueled kinetic energy that really sold it, just so long as he was relegated to a scene-stealing subplot and not given enough screen time to push us to the brink of annoyance.

I could write about Kevin Smith and his contributions to both film history and the careers of Mewes, Affleck, and Jason Lee for another 2,000 words, and I no doubt would, if not for the need to review

Clerks II

. And what of the sequel? Well, to put it in terms a Kevin Smith fan might readily understand, the original

Clerks

was the equivalent of a cinematic cherry-popping. It was ugly, awkward, a bit uncomfortable, and at times tried a little too hard, but it felt so goddamn good that you could overlook its imperfections.

Clerks II

, on the other hand, feels more like your 10th time: The thrusting is more rhythmic, it’s more artistically adept, prettier, more fluid and self-aware, and very nearly as amusing as the original, but the allure and mystery is gone; that overriding sense of discovery is lost. But, really, 10th time or first: you’re still getting laid and, while the lust may have faded a bit, adoration and affection have sprung in its place.

Clerks II

picks up about 10 years after that night in the Quick Stop that should’ve set into motion some change to the lives of Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randall (Jeff Anderson). The convenience/video store has recently burned down, but nothing else has really changed: D & R are working at Mooby’s, a burger-flipping fast-food joint, and both are still struggling to make sense of their lives beyond their minimum-wage gigs. Dante is once again faced with a romantic struggle, though this time he is engaged to

Clerks II

’s version of Caitlin, Emma (Mrs. Smith), while his Veronica, Becky (Rosario Dawson), is working right under his nose. Randall is mostly the same, but even he is questioning his lot in life. And Jay and Silent Bob are back again, planted in front of Mooby’s after their return from rehab, where they both found God. They still sell weed, of course, but thanks to the Power of the Lord, they’re not smoking it — and Jay (Mewes) wears a beautiful “Got Christ” wife-beater that is nothing if not classy. It is also supposed to be Dante’s last day before he moves to Florida with Emma, where he will be taking over his soon-to-be father-in-law’s car wash.

But like any Kevin Smith flick, the plot points are almost irrelevant; it is the fast-talking, dense, vitriolic rants that we want, and

Clerks II

delivers in heady offensiveness. Again, nothing is sacred: Anne Frank, Helen Keller, unnaturally large clits, ass-to-mouth, pussy trolls, the semantics of racial slurs, pickle fucking, and — of course — interspecies erotica, which also doubles as the film’s crisis point. And in a way, I suppose, I can see how Joel Siegel might have walked out, but his umbrage comes from a place of misunderstanding — Kevin Smith films were not written for pun fuckers, after all, they were directed at those of us who find little sacrosanct after a few beers and in between commercial breaks.

But underneath the donkey shows, the Transformers blasphemy, and the

Lord of the Rings

vs.

Star Wars

tirades, there is a

Chasing Amy

sweetness to

Clerks II

that Smith sought so unsuccessfully in Jersey Girl. There is so much subtext to the major players — and even the usual cameos — that it’s difficult not to fall for the film’s sugariness. For many of us, it is these people that represent the last decade of our lives, and — in that context — even Ben Affleck can be endearing again.

I know I’m not speaking for the majority of filmgoers, but I do think there is some kinship among many of us who think of Kevin Smith as our Grateful Dead — and my lack of objectivity might be troubling for those of you seeking “

Scathing Reviews

for Bitchy People.” But that scathe, and the reason many of you like it, derives in some small part from Kevin Smith and his work. And while

Clerks

may have been the best goddamn one-night-stand of our lives,

Clerks II

represents the morning after, when we find that we’re not so quick to chew our arms off and flee, because in the sober light of day, it may just be that we’ve fallen in love.

Dustin Rowles is the publisher of Pajiba. He lives in a blue house with his wife in a hippie colony/college town in upstate New York. You may

email

him, or leave a comment below.

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