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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 02:45 |
Nevertheless, living, breathing creatures from a child's bedtime story lurk within its confines. Working with a very talented cast and a strong visual design engineered by cinematographer Christopher Doyle and designer Martin Childs, Shyamalan does project genuine menace and suspense into this mundane location, especially in nighttime scenes. But the magic that would transport you from reality into fantasy is missing. The particulars of the fairy tale are simply too sketchy and convoluted to inspire confidence in its mythology.
Shyamalan's films, taking place in twilight zones far afield from all other Hollywood science-fiction, fantasy and horror, have earned $2 billion in boxoffice and video sales. So clearly there is something about his vision that resonates with audiences. Consequently, "Lady" should open strong, but the lack of any genuine frights or thrills may not sustain a long run.
Paul Giamatti plays the kind of character he does best -- Cleveland Heep, a guy hiding out from life as a caretaker/manager of the Cove Apartments. Lately, from his cottage near the pool, he suspects someone has been swimming in the pool at night against regulations. Pursuing this intruder one night, Cleveland falls into the pool and is rescued by a nymph-like female (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is very quiet and frightened and calls herself Story. She insists she comes from the world of water and that fierce beings want to prevent her return to that world.
One of the movie's conceits is that the Cove is more multi-ethnic than the U.N. So it is from a Korean tenant (June Kyoko Lu) -- whose hip and scantily clothed daughter, Young Soon (Cindy Cheung), provides the translation -- that Cleveland learns of a tale "from the East" that fits the particulars of the water nymph's situation.
Story is a "narf," a creature from the water, and her vicious adversary is a "scrunt," which when it finally becomes visible is a cross between a hyena and wild boar with matted, spiky fur and a really bad temper. The bedtime tale insists that several humans in the area where the narf appears have powers, unknown to themselves, that will enable them to protect and guide her to her destination.
So Cleveland, who buys into this fairy tale without a moment's hesitation, rushes among the tenants to determine which ones fit the necessary roles. His reluctant mentor is the newest tenant, Mr. Farber (Bob Balaban), a prissy and cynical book and film critic, who because he knows every possible plot devise and character thinks he can determine the obvious candidates. (This character must certainly be Shyamalan's revenge against his less friendly critics, but the character nevertheless is a hoot in his icy arrogance.)
Is Mr. Dury (Jeffrey Wright), a loving father with an aptitude for crossword puzzles, the Interpreter of Signs? Is Mrs. Bell (Mary Beth Hurt), a lover of animals, the Healer? Cleveland thinks he may be the Guardian. But how does the unusual bodybuilder Reggie (Freddy Rodriguez), the intellectual but remote Mr. Leeds (Bill Irwin) and an Indian writer and his sister (Shyamalan and Sarita Choudhury) fit in? One very curious thing about all these tenants is that when Cleveland comes to them with his tale of narfs and scrunts, no one looks at him and says he should check into a mental hospital. Not one.
If you take a stab at film fantasy at the level of such Shyamalan favorites as "The Wizard of Oz" and "E.T.," then you must be clear about your other worldly creatures and their goals. Here the film utterly fails. It never quite takes that very necessary step into the wardrobe as "Narnia" most recently did.
This bedtime story comes at a viewer too sporadically and the goals of the opposing forces are too vague. If a narf is a creature of the water, then why should she be rescued by an eagle from the air? If the mere appearance of Farber is enough to stop an imminent attack by a scrunt, then why should the scrunt assault Farber the next time it sees him? What are the rules of engagement here? Where is the jeopardy to the world of humans?
Giamatti is marvelous as a tortured soul whose damaged life may get resuscitated in this close encounter with a narf. Howard makes a beguiling, sculptural, waif-like being, but the role is more ephemeral than her one in Shyamalan's "The Village." All the other character actors are splendid but Cheung does stand out as a human who also exists in two parallel worlds, her mother's traditional home and the All-American life she embraces with such alacrity.
Screenwriter-director: M. Night Shyamalan
Producers: Sam Mercer, M. Night Shyamalan
Director of photography: Christopher Doyle
Production designer: Martin Childs
Music: James Newton Howard
Creature designer: Crash McCreery
Costume designer: Betsy Heimann
Editor: Barbara Tulliver
Cast:
Cleveland Heep: Paul Giamatti
Story: Bryce Dallas Howard
Mr. Dury: Jeffrey Wright
Farber: Bob Balaban
Anna Ran: Sarita Choudhury
Young-Soon Choi: Cindy Cheung
Vick Ran: M. Night Shyamalan
Reggie: Freddy Rodriguez
Mr. Leeds: Bill Irwin
Mrs. Bell: Mary Beth Hurt
Joey: Noah Gray-Cabey |
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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 02:43 |
Audiences certainly appreciated the change in scenery and approach Allen took in "Match Point" ($23 million domestic boxoffice). Focus Features should expect more of the same with this amusing if minor work that delivers many of the hallmark Woody Allen pleasures.
Not that one doesn't miss the sharp asides from his best comedies. ("We can walk to the curb from here" or "I have to go now, Duane, because I'm due back on the planet Earth" from "Annie Hall," for instance). There are a few here. One of the best has Allen declare he was born to the Jewish persuasion but later converted to Narcissism. Otherwise, the dialogue is more prattle than zingers.
Allen, long fascinated with encounters with death, imagines that a crack Fleet Street journalist, Joe Strombel (McShane), gets a hot tip from a fellow passenger on a boat ride to the Afterlife. Slipping away from death, he is determined to work the story from beyond the grave.
At this same moment, a third-rate (to be generous) magician named Splendini, who actually is Sid Waterman from Brooklyn (that would be Allen, of course), is performing his act in London. A young American journalism student, Sondra Pransky (Johansson), is plucked from the audience to be placed inside the "De-Materializer." To her astonishment, when the door shuts, Joe's spirit appears to her and quickly fills her in on his big scoop.
This metaphysical event sends Sondra and Sid into the streets of London and surrounding countryside in pursuit of the "Tarot Card Killer." Joe's tip is that the serial killer might be British aristocrat Peter Lyman (Jackman).
Allen plays his stereotypes to the hilt. Sondra is a clever but ditzy American blonde, who immediately falls for the suave charm of her prey. Sid is an old wind-bag, who talks in trite phrases -- "from the bottom of my heart" and "with all due respect" -- and treats everyone he meets as an audience. Peter oozes upper-class allure and glamour with small hints that darkness may lurk beneath this too-smooth exterior.
Meanwhile, the detective team of Waterman and Pransky is unimaginably bad. Their idea of looking for clues is to shuffle through Peter's briefcase. Sure, serial killers always leave major clues in briefcases. Naturally, the two actually do find clues in odd, casual places.
Also their roles switch. At first, Sid is certain they have the wrong man. Peter doesn't act or look like a serial killer. "I'd be very surprised if he killed one person," he declares. (Come to think of it, that's not a bad aside.) Then Sondra, besotted with love, wants to exonerate Peter and it's Sid, egged on by the diaphanous Joe, apparently no longer needing the De-Materializer, who is certain Peter is a killer.
"Scoop" flies by in a snappy, well-paced 96 minutes, but you can't help noticing that Allen is recycling his old movies. Along with the fascination with things metaphysical ("Alice," "The Purple Rose of Cairo," "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion") and the dregs of show business ("Broadway Danny Rose") and Bob Hope-style murder mysteries ("Manhattan Murder Mystery"), there even is the use of a coincidence in which a woman spies her man, supposedly out of town, across a crowded street ("Husbands and Wives"). Nothing wrong with that but these things were often sharper and funnier the first time.
With the aid of accomplished cinematographer Remi Adefarasin and designer Maria Djurkovic, Allen romanticizes London and environs just as he did so many for Manhattan. This is an ideal England with pleasing interiors and gracious exteriors, often gardens or parks, where everyone moves to the sounds of classical music. |
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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 02:42 |
While this particular hook involves electronically grafting Marlon Wayans' animated mug onto the 2-foot, 6-inch body of a 9-year-old actor, it's really just the latest opportunity for the Wayans boys to dish out the same sort of bodily function-driven outrageousness that they've been lobbing at appreciative movie audiences since 1995's "Don't Be a Menace."
Although you'll likely hate yourself in the morning for having succumbed to the sophomore silliness of it all, at the time resistance proves ridiculously futile. It might never make an AFI list, but the picture generates sufficient blasts of laughter to ensure brisk crossover business for Sony.
Bugs Bunny buffs will recognize the premise as a riff on the 1954 cartoon short, "Baby Buggy Bunny," in which pint-sized gangster Baby Faced Finster passes himself off as an infant after stowing his bank job booty in a runaway baby carriage.
Here, Marlon Wayans (at least his noggin anyway) plays freshly paroled jewel thief Calvin Sims, who, along with his normal-sized buddy Percy (Tracy Morgan) has one last heist in mind involving an awfully large diamond.
But when things don't go as planned, Calvin stashes the gem into a purse belonging to Vanessa Edwards (Kerry Washington), a recently promoted advertising exec whose husband, Darryl (Shawn Wayans), is ready to start raising a family.
Needing to get easy access to the Edwards home in order to reclaim the stolen prize, Calvin shows up on their front porch disguised as an abandoned toddler.
Unfortunately, Calvin's plans to make a clean getaway are thwarted when the surprised couple prove to be quite taken with their decidedly advanced bundle of joy.
As directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans, who co-wrote the script along with Shawn and Marlon, "Little Man" scurries around serving up the anticipated pee-pee/poo-poo platter of gags, but once the initial round of breast-feeding and rectal thermometer bits is fired off, the picture starts to give off the funky whiff of unattended Pampers.
But while the Wayanses seem to be aiming for the record books in terms mining laughs out of shots to the crotch (according to preliminary estimates, there is a blow to the gonads roughly every 8.5 minutes), they admittedly get a lot of comic mileage out of the juxtaposition of Marlon's face on that little body.
Granted, they could have saved a bundle on the FX budget if they simply had hired "Bad Santa's" Tony Cox to do the honors, but baby-pussed Marlon, backed by about 1,000 visual effects shots, really works it, rivaling Jim Carrey in the facial elasticity department.
Props also to costume designer Jori Woodman, whose wildly over-the-top, Gymboree-on-acid baby frocks whimsically inform a vintage Looney Tunes fashion sense with "In Living Color" Men on Film street cred.
Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans
Producers: Keenen Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Rick Alvarez, Lee R. Mayes
Screenwriters: Keenen Ivory Wayans & Shawn Wayans & Marlon Wayans
Director of photography: Steven Bernstein
Production designer: Leslie Dilley
Editors: Nick Moore, Mike Jackson
Costume designer: Jori Woodman
Music: Teddy Castellucci
Cast:
Calvin Sims: Marlon Wayans
Darryl Edwards: Shawn Wayans
Vanessa Edwards: Kerry Washington
Pops: John Witherspoon
Percy: Tracy Morgan
Greg: Lochlyn Munro
Walken: Chazz Palminteri
Soccer Mom: Molly Shannon |
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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 02:40 |
Kate Hudson is every shade of winsome and adorable, while Matt Dillon as her newlywed husband morphs believably from likable, stand-up guy to anal-retentive jerk. Owen Wilson is most definitely a slacker's slacker, and Michael Douglas is up to old tricks as a wily father-in-law with an agenda.
So Universal can look forward to an above-average opening, attracting largely female audiences. But the movie loses focus about halfway through, so boxoffice will probably level off around the $50 million range.
There is something about the "situation" in this situation comedy that rings false. Molly (Hudson) and Carl (Dillon) return from a Hawaiian wedding and honeymoon to discover that Dupree (Wilson), Carl's best man and pal since apparently kindergarten, is suddenly broke and homeless. Naturally, Carl offers to let him stay at his house for "a couple of days" -- without consulting his new wife -- and you can pretty much tell where the rest of the movie is going.
One problem, though, is the house itself. Carl works for Molly's dad (Douglas), a real-estate tycoon, in a lower echelon job, but he and Molly have a dream home. Who paid for it? If dad paid for it, there is nary a hint in the complicated dynamics among father, daughter and son-in-law that will occupy much of the movie to suggest that he did. If he didn't, then the well-to-do couple can afford to send Dupree to a motel for a month or two while he gets his act together rather than let him single-handedly destroy their marriage through his adolescent antics.
But no, the movie wants to explore the many ways a thirtysomething male, who has "never truly been domesticated," can screw up a seemingly solid, healthy, loving marriage. None of these shenanigans, which you have seen many times before, is the least bit interesting. Indeed, Le Sieur's script strains to come up with improbable acts for Dupree to commit.
Mostly, the movie, indifferently directed by the brothers Russo, must rely on the performing skills of an excellent cast. They do as well as the story will allow. Wilson can play a goof like nobody's business, so he puts terrific physical clowning into the role.
The Hudson-Dillon relationship is more interesting for what the movie leaves out than what it portrays. They seem ideally unsuited to each other, but then opposites do attract, so the relationship is ripe with possibilities the movie fritters away. And the fact that Carl has married the boss' daughter yet can barely get past a scowling office security guard (Sidney Liufau) each day speaks volumes about the two men's relationship.
Douglas, letting his hair grow magnificently white, is "Wall Street's" Gordon Gekko grown older and mellower into a figure of comedy. Again, this is ripe territory, which the movie mostly ignores for jokes about backed-up toilets and skateboarding accidents.
Some of the comedy just doesn't play. Carl can't possibly think Dupree, who is nothing if not loyal, is hitting on his wife. After all, Carl was the one who came home late, leaving Dupree and Molly to share an intimate dinner for two. And would Carl really keep his old porn collection lying around the house? And if he would, what does that say about him?
The production feels overly calculated, with costumes and design elements to "indicate" how you are supposed to feel about characters and extras and kids to populate the newlyweds' street, who seemingly swing into action at the sound of a clapboard.
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Writer: Michael Le Sieur
Producers: Owen Wilson, Scott Stuber, Mary Parent
Executive producers: Michael Fottrell, Sean Perrone, Aaron Kaplan
Director of photography: Charles Minsky
Production designer: Barry Robison
Music: Rolfe Kent
Costume designer: Karen Patch
Editors: Peter B. Ellis, Debra Neil-Fisher
Cast:
Dupree: Owen Wilson
Molly: Kate Hudson
Carl: Matt Dillon
Mr. Thompson: Michael Douglas
Neil: Seth Rogen
Annie: Amanda Detmer
Toshi: Ralph Ting |
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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 02:38 |
Anticipation is huge for the middle film in this projected pirate trilogy, so "Dead Man's Chest" should equal if not surpass the $656 million worldwide gross of 2003's "The Curse of the Black Pearl." Most of the crew has reunited under the helm of producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski, including Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, as the second and third films were shot simultaneously in Caribbean locales.
Depp is less a swashbuckler than a swishbuckler as he prances and preens through the movie with a bemused scowl on his face and the devil-may-care attitude of a hero who knows things will turn out well. He is the comic gel that holds the whole enterprise together. The performance is a total delight that somehow combines Bugs Bunny, Peter Pan and Charlie Chaplin.
"Dead Man's Chest" revolves around a blood debt Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) owes to Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), the legendary fiend aboard his ghostly ship, the Flying Dutchman. To escape this fate, Captain Jack must recover a key that will open a buried chest containing his nemesis' still-beating heart.
Others want to seize this chest, however, most particularly the East India Trading Co.'s Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander). He imprisons Will Turner (Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Knightley) before their wedding on trumped-up charges so that Will is motivated to beat Captain Jack to the prize. Along the way are encounters with Will's father, Bootstrap Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), who long ago lost his soul to Davy Jones; a blackened-tooth Jamaican soothsayer, Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris); and Mercer (David Schofield), Beckett's informer in ne'er-do-well disguise.
Many characters are unearthly creatures with extreme physiologies -- essentially bloated, decaying, barnacle-encrusted corpses of dead sailors arisen zombielike to terrorize the sea. Their leader, Davy Jones, is the movie's most amazing creature. His head is that of an octopus whose many tentacles wiggle, glower and reach out ominously as he rages against all living beings. This imagery gets repeated in his pet sea monster, Kraker, a giant version of his head.
Nighy does a great job of getting across his tormented character despite his face being hidden behind special effects. Knightley, who gets lovelier with each picture, makes a stout-hearted heroine, adept at physical action yet demure when need be. Bloom, though, is too much in earnest as if he were playing Errol Flynn rather than a comic version of same.
If one wants to carp about such things, this family adventure has morphed into something decidedly odd, though perhaps it fits the zeitgeist: The film overflows with as much gleeful sadism as a PG-13 rating can contain. Birds pluck eyes from living captives, a father must whip the flesh from his son's back, Captain Jack is prepared for roasting, and the threat of rape clearly looms over Elizabeth as she languishes in prison.
The whole pirate stew is flavored with moral fuzziness. The movie views pirates, who rob and murder on the high seas, as exemplars of fun-loving freedom; the East India Trading Company -- admittedly an imperialistic global corporation but nevertheless one that wants to rid the seas of homicidal criminals -- represents the forces of repression.
This production is a vast, expensive, sprawling affair that never feels out of control thanks to Verbinski's assured direction. Dariusz Wolski's cinematography superbly admires Rich Heinrich's lavish sets, while Hans Zimmer's busy though effective score -- he makes nice use of organ music -- pumps the action.
The film also marks the debut of a snappy new logo for Walt Disney Pictures that gives Sleeping Beauty's Castle a glittering cityscape in which to shine.
Director: Gore Verbinski
Screenwriters: Ted Elliott, Terry Russio
Based on characters created by: Ted Elliott, Terry Russio, Stuart Beattie, Jay Wolpert
Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer
Executive producers: Mike Stenson, Chad Oman, Bruce Hendricks, Eric McLeod
Director of photography: Dariusz Wolski
Production designer: Rick Heinrichs
Music: Hans Zimmer
Costume designer: Penny Rose
Editors: Craig Wood, Stephen Rivkin
Cast:
Captain Jack Sparrow: Johnny Depp
Will Turner: Orlando Bloom
Elizabeth Swann: Keira Knightley
Norrington: Jack Davenport
Davy Jones: Bill Nighy
Gov. Swann: Jonathan Pryce
Pintel: Lee Arenberg
Ragetti: MacKenzie Crook
Lord Beckett: Tom Hollander
Bootstrap Bill: Stellan Skarsgard
Tia Dalma: Naomie Harris |
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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 02:36 |
At the helm, Dinello finds the right note of cheesy bathos for a takeoff on after-school specials that dares to ask, "Can we change?" But even given the essential goofiness of the premise -- and the 10-minute cut since "Strangers" premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival -- the story line is thin, the execution uneven and some of the gags repetitive. Fans of the 1999-2000 series will flock to this low-budget limited release, but many will be disappointed, as will the avid audience of "The Colbert Report," accustomed to that show's nightly dose of satirical brilliance.
In garish makeup and professional golfer's hairdo, Jerri returns home after 32 years of hard knocks, in and out of prison, to pick up where she left off -- as a student at Flatpoint High. But the halls of Flatpoint are at least as cruel as lockup. On the home front, Jerri's stepmother (Deborah Rush) and half-brother (Joseph Cross) greet her with instant enmity, while her father (Dan Hedaya) lies -- and, when propped up for company, sits -- in a coma.
As bad teledrama would have it, a challenge presents itself as an opportunity to solve just about everyone's problems: the fast-approaching science fair. In order to prove that there is some learning going on at Flatpoint, principal Blackman (series regular Gregory Hollimon), who is corrupt and inefficient, desperately needs the school to win the fair in order to save his funding, threatened by two unamused members of the school board (Allison Janney, Philip Seymour Hoffman). Jerri, naturally, sees a trophy as a surefire way to inspire her daddy back into consciousness. Spurned by the popular kids, she teams with smitten Indonesian science geek (Carlo Alban) and a studious redhead (Maria Thayer) who provokes some prison-perfected extracurricular notions on Jerri's part.
Bible-thumping science teacher Chuck Noblet (Colbert) is no help to Jerri on her quest; offering a kinder, gentler but no more effective touch is the art teacher of Noblet's in-denial affections (Dinello). Deadpan turns from Janney, Hoffman and Ian Holm heighten the absurdity by way of contrast with Sedaris' intentionally over-the-top Jerri, while Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker deliver a couple of delicious characterizations -- he as a science-fair impresario who drags around his very own Boswell, she as a grief counselor whose chief tools of the trade are a timer and a tip jar.
As a sendup of teen-centered melodrama, "Strangers With Candy" is often on target, with savvy production design, costumes and music enhancing the effect. But though this film simmers with pitch-perfect observations, particularly about self-absorbed adults, it struggles to sustain the hilarity.
Director: Paul Dinello
Screenwriters: Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello, Amy Sedaris
Producers: Mark Roberts, Lorena David, Valerie Schaer Nathanson
Executive producers: David Letterman, Rob Burnett, Fred Nigro
Director of photography: Oliver Bokelberg
Production designer: Teresa Mastropierro
Music: Marcelo Zarvos
Co-producer: Stephen Colbert
Costume designer: Victoria Farrell
Editor: Michael R. Miller
Cast:
Jerri Blank: Amy Sedaris
Chuck Noblet: Stephen Colbert
Geoffrey Jellineck: Paul Dinello
Sara Blank: Deborah Rush
Megawatti Sacarnaputri: Carlo Alban
Tammi Littlenut: Maria Thayer
Principal Onyx Blackman: Gregory Hollimon
Guy Blank: Dan Hedaya
Derrick Blank: Joseph Cross
Roger Beekman: Matthew Broderick
Dr. Putney: Ian Holm
Peggy Callas: Sarah Jessica Parker
Alice: Allison Janney
Henry: Philip Seymour Hoffman |
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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 02:34 |
The lately ubiquitous Laurent Lucas ("Lemming") plays the hapless victim, Marc Stevens, a low-rent traveling singer whose van breaks down on a proverbial back road. After first coming into contact with a deranged looking man claiming to be looking for his lost dog, Marc happens upon a cozy inn, run by the deceptively friendly Bartel (Jackie Berroyer).
The inn¬keeper, clearly bereft after having been left by his wife, cautions Marc not to wander down into the village. But of course the young man ignores the warning and to his horror comes across a scene in which it's made clear the sexual predilections of the male villager tend toward bestiality.
But that is just the first of the horrors awaiting Marc, as it soon becomes clear that Bartel intends to make his latest guest a handy substitute for the wife who left him.
Director/co-screenwriter du Welz uses a slow, subtle approach in the beginning, carefully laying the groundwork for the more explicit horrors that are to come. But by the time it reaches its final act, the film rivals its American counterparts in intensity if not quite in explicit violence. |
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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 02:33 |
Michael Pitt ("Last Days"), whose angelic good looks are well suited to his role as the young man who becomes catnip to his cellmate, plays Randy, who's been sentenced to 25 years for the minor crime of vandalism. He finds himself locked in with Jake (Stephen Adly Guirgis, better known as an acclaimed off-Broadway playwright), who casually informs him that he's in jail for slitting his wife's throat after she cheated on him.
It isn't long before Jake's initially friendly overtures take on a far more menacing edge, with the inevitable mind games and physical threats geared to making Randy his sexual slave.
Thanks to the innumerable similarly themed stage and film dramas that have preceded it, not to mention the multiple seasons of HBO's "Oz," there's little here that's unfamiliar, and writer-director Leonard is unable to provide any fresh variations. While the stars deliver highly committed performances, the static nature of the proceedings ultimately defeats them. The film is perhaps most effective as a cautionary tale regarding California's controversial "three strikes" law, but even on that front it seems heavy-handed. |
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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 02:32 |
Reprising the role he originated in "Third Man Out," Chad Allen stars as the central character, here hired by a young man who almost immediately turns up dead. Investigating the suspicious suicide at the behest of the victim's mother (a well-preserved Morgan Fairchild), Strachey goes undercover to pose as a patient at the Phoenix Foundation, a gay conversion clinic led by a charismatic but shady doctor (Michael Woods).
While the idea would certainly seem to hold promise for interesting social commentary, the script by Ron McGee lacks the necessary bite, as does the rote direction of Ron Oliver. As with many mystery films, the convoluted plot is ultimately less interesting than the gallery of supporting characters, which here include Strachey's loving boyfriend (Sebastian Spence) and enthusiastic assistant (Nelson Wong).
Not helping matters is the earnest but not terribly interesting turn by Allen as the gay shamus. Clearly reluctant to invest the character with any possibly stereotypical attributes, the actor instead delivers a performance that is as bland as the film's outdoor locations. |
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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 02:31 |
Unfortunately, while the film -- which Russo produced, directed, edited and wrote -- has some fascinating and compelling arguments, it quickly assumes the tone of an angry diatribe rather than a well-reasoned political discussion.
It is most effective in its first half, when the Libertarian filmmaker methodically examines the controversies surrounding the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, most notably its lack of legal specificity when it comes to actually collecting tax revenue. Utilizing interviews with a variety of expert witnesses, including a Texan congressman, a former IRS commissioner, former IRS agents, attorneys, authors, etc., Russo makes provocative, albeit scattershot arguments about the system.
Unfortunately, the film's passionate arguments are undercut by its general air of hysteria, and matters are not helped by a free-form second half in which Russo attacks a wide variety of targets, including the Federal Reserve System, election laws, the Patriot Act, the proposed national identity card and even the abolition of the gold standard.
Russo is an ingratiatingly folksy on-camera presence, though clearly not lacking a hard edge when it comes to making his case. But while the ideas his film brings up are more than worthy of serious discussion, one gets the feeling that they require a more analytical, objective approach than they receive here.
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