Movie Review: Eros

Eros (2004) 

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Michaelangelo Antonioni, Wong Kar Wai

Written by Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh, Torino Guerra

Starring Gong Li, Chang Chen, Alan Arkin, Robert Downey Jr, Regina Nemni 

Release Date April 8th, 2005 

Published August 18th, 2005 

Three brilliant directors come together for a series of short films under the title Eros. Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michaelangelo Antonioni contribute short films to a trilogy that via the title Eros are about sex... or are they.

The Hand, Mr. Wong's contribution, is sexual in subtext but seems more about an unusual and somewhat disfunctional connection between two strangers. Chang Chen plays a tailor, a mere apprentice when we first meet him, who is assigned to make a dress for a high class prostitute, Ms. Hua played by Gong Li. In their first meeting Li's prostitute sexually humiliates the tailor. She claims it will make him a better tailor and she's right.

Soon he is inspired and continues for a number of years crafting beautiful outfits for the prostitute. The nature of the relationship is mostly business but as time passes and the prostitute falls on hard times she finds that the tailor, though he has never touched her, is the only man who has ever really known her body. The two have an erotic connection through the clothing that is more powerful than other relationship either has ever had.

I love the way Wong Kar Wai uses slow motion. By simply slowing the frames by a fraction and showing his actors moving at just slightly slower rate of speed he gives the impression of a montage without edits. The slow motion marks the slow passage of time. The film covers this relationship over a number of years and they pass in dreamlike fashion.

The Hand is unquestionably the best of the three films in Eros.

Steven Soderbergh's contribution to Eros is called Equilibrium and it stars Robert Downey Jr. as an ad executive and Alan Arkin as his shrink. Shot mostly in black and white the film has the look of a noir detective story with rascotro lighting, Downey wearing the traditional private dick garb, the fedora and trenchcoat and there is a mystery albeit one from a dream.

In the dream there is a beautiful naked stranger, a nondescript hotel room and a ringing phone. Dream analysts I'm sure could have a field day with this scenario however neither we nor Mr. Soderbergh is as interested in the dream as we are in the bizarre behavior of Arkin as the shrink. While Downey lays on the couch with his back turned and his eyes closed, Arkin is frantically trying to get the attention of someone outside his office window. What was the point of this film? I have no idea. I know it's exceptionally well shot. The look is beautiful and every angle Soderbergh chooses is very eye catching, often distracting from the somewhat meandering plot.

Equilibrium is an interesting exercise in filmmaking technique and maybe if you are more observant than me you can glean some hidden meaning from it. On that basis I recommend checking it out.

You however might as well skip Michaelangelo Antonioni's contribution to Eros, an Italian exercise in softcore porn called  The Dangerous Thread. The film is a pointless and painfully protracted exercise in female exploitation. As a couple argues about the end of their relationship, they pass a beautiful woman in a restaurant. The man asks if his soon to be ex knows the woman and she does. The woman lives in a castle just a few miles away. The man visits this beautiful stranger and with a few words they are in bed. Then the beautiful woman and the ex girlfriend each go for a walk on the beach in the nude. They meet somewhere in the middle and simply regard each other for a moment and the film ends.

I must say that Mr. Antonioni is a legend. I have seen his L'Avventurra and was blown away by its beauty. But now at more than 90 years old the master has become nothing more than an ogling old man. That is fine in private but on film it's rather tedious.

Movie Review: Curse of the Golden Flower

Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) 

Directed by Zhang Yimou 

Written by Zhang Yimou 

Starring Chow Yun Fat, Li Gong, Jay Chou 

Release Date December 21st, 2006 

Published January 3rd, 2007 

Director Yimou Zhang is an extraordinary talent whose work in the movies House of Flying Daggers and Hero is a wondrous combination of poetry, romance and awesome visual splendor. Zhang's attention to period detail and fluid, langorous camerawork create a visual tapestry unmatched by any of the greatest directors working today.

His talent for visual splendor is certainly on display in his latest film Curse of the Golden Flower. Unfortunately, in recreating China's Tang Dynasty circa 928 A.D, Zhang neglected his storytelling in favor of the most lustrous visuals he has yet brought to the screen. Curse of the Golden Flower is a feast for the eyes but in story terms, your average soap opera has less drippy, high falutin' melodrama.

Emporer Ping (Chow Yun Fat) has been plotting to eliminate his unfaithful wife, Empress Phoenix (Li Gong), for months; since he found out that she was having an affair with his oldest son Prince Cheng (Qin Jungjie). Prince Cheng who happens to be carrying on an affair with the daughter of the Emporer's medicine man who happens to be in charge of the Empress's daily medicine which is being spiked by the emporer with a poison that will slowly drive the empress insane.

Meanwhile the middle son of the clan Prince Jai has returned to the kingdom. He is to replace his weak willed older brother as the next in line for the throne but before he learns of the honor, he discovers his father is trying to kill his mother and decides to join the coup she has been planning for months. Oh, I mentioned Prince Jai's older brother, actually Prince Cheng is only his half brother, hence the affair Prince Cheng had with the empress wasn't really incest, though that incest ship hasn't sailed just yet, but I will leave that one for you to discover on your own.

Indeed, the plot of Curse of the Golden Flower does read like your average New York gossip column or bad episode of Melrose Place. And unfortunately the actors play the material to that same pitched melodramatic level. Gong Li, beautiful as ever as the empress, vamps like she graduated from the Joan Collins school of drama. The usually reliable Chow Yun Fat delivers a couple of badass moments but for the most part is stiffer than John Forsythe's corpse. (Is John Forsythe dead? Just checking)

Director Zhang Yimou adapted the screenplay from a popular Chinese stage play Yu Cao and retains some of the same broad theatrical beats in the direction of his actors who tend to belt each emotion to the back of the room as if in a large playhouse as opposed to a movie set with mics and sound techs. Still, Yimou's visual signatures are in place and that goes along way to making Curse of the Golden Flower passably entertaining.

All of the appeal of Curse of the Golden Flower comes from the visual wonders created by Zhang Yimou and his team including cinematographer Xiaoding Zhao and production designer Tingxiao Huo both of whom worked on Yimou's ostentatiously beautiful House of Flying Daggers. Because of the extraordinary work of these artists, Curse of the Golden Flower could be presented as a work of art, were it brought forth as a silent film without subtitles.

The eye popping production with it's massive ornate sets, and costumes that would put any Milan fashion show to shame, became the most expensive film in the history of China's movie industry, well over 100 million dollars American. The film is already profitable in the country and around the rest of the globe though it's American release has been something of a non-starter.

Curse of the Golden Flower is without a doubt a visual masterpiece, something that Hollywood studios likely feel won't appeal to American audiences. They might want to try selling the outlandish melodrama of the story. Why, I could see a marketing campaign that could turn ancient China into an old school wisteria lane, that sure seems to be what director Zhang Yimou was going for.

With it's opulant sets and breathtaking costumes,Curse of the Golden Flower is truly a feast for the eyes. The great visuals make the film that much more disappointing. Where his Hero and House of Flying Daggers were poetic, romantic and mostly silent, but also visually stunning, it is shocking to watch director Zhang Yimou deliver a film so tone deaf in its drama.

As a visual work of art, Curse of the Golden Flower is awesome eye candy. As a movie it's an irritating caricature of haughty night time soap opera melodrama.

Movie Review Hannibal Rising

Hannibal Rising (2007)

Directed by Peter Webber

Written by Thomas Harris

Starring Gaspard Ulliel, Rhys Ifans, Dominic West, Gong Li, Kevin McKidd

Release Date February 9th, 2007 

Published February 9th, 2007

Writer Thomas Harris is wildly popular and tremendously overrated. Though Harris is the creator of the iconic serial killer Hannibal Lecter, the character only gained its legend through the skilled performance of Sir Anhony Hopkins in 1989's Silence Of The Lambs. Harris has a taste for the macabre and knows how to set a gory scene but as demonstrated in Hannibal Rising, his true talent lies in cannibalizing his past success.

Hannibal Lecter (Gaspard Ulliel) lost his parents to world war 2; but lost his little sister Mischa to murder. Her killers were thieves and opportunists who also looted Hannibal's home after his parents death. Led by a vicious, cold blooded man named Vladis Grutas (Rhys Ifans), this brutish lout did unspeakable things to survive the war but what they did to Mischa is too horrifying to recount.

Vowing revenge on his sister's killers, Hannibal fought his way out of captivity in a russian orphanage and made his way to France where his uncle has passed away but left behind the last shred of family Hannibal has left. His aunt is a beautiful asian woman, Lady Murasaki (Li Gong) who immediately takes to the troubled young teen. 

Hannibal is quick to fall for his aunt and when she is insulted by a butcher at an outdoor bazaar, Hannibal takes a swift and horrifying vengeance. Thus begins the life of one of the most bloody and terrifying killers in history. As luck would have it, the men who killed Hannibal's sister happen to have come to France. What luck.

Directed by Peter Webber, who made the sumptuous period romance Girl With A Pearl Earring, Hannibal Rising is gorgeously crafted. The sets, lighting and period details are spot on. The problems lie in Thomas Harris' script, a truncated version of a book that was truncated in its own right. The story lacks depth, it lacks character detail. The entire story trades on the legend we know from Silence of the Lambs and our fascination with the Hannibal Lecter character created by Anthony Hopkins.

Young French actor Gaspard Ulliel struggles mightily in the role of young Hannibal Lecter. Because Hannibal Rising exists to cannibalize the legend of Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, Ullel is forced to suffer the comparison and he fails miserably. Ulliel is a slight, pale, almost ghostly presence who shows none of the charismatic menace necessary to bring the great Hannibal Lecter to life.

You can't blame the young Frenchman, he was in an untenable situation. No actor could have taken this role and made it work as it's written. This take on the life of Hannibal Lecter that attempts to take one of the screen's most terrifying villains and turn him into some comic book avenger hero, is a complete misfire. Part of the excitement and kink of Dr. Lecter was not knowing why he did what he did. That Lecter might kill a man for offending his taste is horrifying and exciting at once.

Rationalizing Hannibal and applying pseudo-psychology to his actions removes the kink that gave that edge to Hopkins' Lecter. Now, the easy response to that complaint is that this is not Hopkins' Lecter. My response to that is that if you make a Lecter movie it becomes about Hopkins' Lecter, especially when your story has little else to build around.

Hannibal Rising does a disservice to the legend of one of the screen's greatest villains. An almost whiny ringing of hands over the history of Hannibal Lecter, Hannibal Rising trades on the character's history at the expense of his legend. To fault Hollywood for grabbing at cash is a waste of time but when the artists start grabbing at the big money the way writer Thomas Harris has, that is when the art truly begins to suffer.

Movie Review Miami Vice

Miami Vice (2006) 

Directed by Michael Mann 

Written by Michael Mann 

Starring Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Gong Li, Naomi Harris, Ciaran Hinds, Justin Theroux

Release Date July 28th, 2006 

Published July 27th, 2006 

Miami Vice the movie bares little resemblance to Miami Vice the TV show. Gone are the warm pastel colors, the linen suits and the alligators kept as pets. The trivial elements of the TV show are gone, replaced by a gritty sense of reality. Director Michael Mann, who created the TV show back in 1984, has eliminated the cheese factor of the TV show but in doing so also jettisoned the shows sense of humor and fun in favor of a grim belabored police procedural that is so consumed with presenting a realistic portrayal of the inner workings of being an undercover cop that it forgets to be entertaining.

Not that Miami Vice is a bad movie, hardly. In typically Michael Mann fashion, Miami Vice is sexy and violent with an air of undeniable cool.

Sonny Crocket (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) are partners who, when we meet them, are about to take down a prostitution ring. Before the bust can go down however, Crockett gets a call from a frantic former informant, Alonzo (John Hawkes), who babbles about not having given up Crockett and Tubbs. Having given Alonzo to the feds, Crockett and Tubbs know that something bad is about to go down.

A group of white supremacists, cutting deals with Colombian drug lords, used Alonzo to ferret out FBI undercover agents and have killed them. Now only Crockett and Tubbs can go undercover and take down the supremacists and the Colombians headed up by Jose Yero (John Ortiz) and his partner Isabella (Gong Li). They work for another man, an untouchable named Arcangel (Luis Tosar). The game Crockett and Tubbs run involves inserting themselves into the transportation operations of the Colombians using high speed boats and planes.

The plot of Miami Vice is typical cops and criminals stuff that many other directors have presented before. Mann's only real twist on it is in indulging his love of the procedure of being an undercover cop. Mann loves the planning that goes into an undercover operation, he loves the execution and conclusion. Unfortunately his love only extends to a mere presentation of the facts of procedure. He fails to make these procedures come to life in an engaging and entertaining way.

Miami Vice is as slick and stylish as the TV series ever was. The difference comes in the general tone which is not merely serious but rather angry. Farrell and Foxx play Crockett and Tubbs as scowling, grim faced thugs with zero humor who only become human when they are bedding beautiful woman, Farrell bedding down the lovely Gong Li in a passion free subplot and Foxx in a simmering scene with a fellow undercover officer played by Naomie Harris.

Colin Farrell continues his war with stardom in Miami Vice by delivering yet another glum charisma free performance. Like his Alexander The Great, Farrell's Sonny Crockett is a mumble mouthed downer who barely sparks to life even when bedding a beautiful woman. His intensity does pick up near the end during a climactic gun battle but for most of the film Farrell is pissed off at some point in the distance that he keeps staring at.

Oscar winner Jamie Foxx deserves better than a role that has him playing second fiddle to Farrell. Where Farrell is mumbling and charisma free, Foxx gives a charge to his few featured scenes. There is simply no explanation why Michael Mann gives most of the movie away to Farrell while keeping the multiple Oscar nominee Foxx in the background. More Foxx, less Farrell, better movie.

One of the few things that Mann's Miami Vice movie excels in is hot transportation. The boat, the Donzi triple engine ZF -one of two different boats used in the film- is pure speed on water. The plane, the Adam A500 twin engine, is state of the art with props on the front and back for speed and maneuverability. And, of course the cars are hot and make you wonder just how police departments are spending your tax dollars. The Bentley that gets blown to smithereens certainly would set the average undercover unit back a pretty penny

Regardless of the many problems with Miami Vice there is still much to enjoy about the film. Michael Mann's direction is typically assured and his violence is first rate. Watch for a standoff scene between the Vice squad and some trailer dwelling white supremacists. Actress Elizabeth Rodriguez stars in this scene delivering a very quick, very powerful monologue before dispatching the scene with a violent flourish.

For Michael Mann violence is like a symphony building to grand awesome crescendos. From the street gun battle in Heat to Tom Cruise's charging nightclub chase in Collateral to the final gun battle in Miami Vice, Michael Mann proves himself a master conductor of screen violence. The action in Miami Vice is quick and visceral like a concerto at 33 rpm's. The blood that is spilled is spilled quickly and splatters with the explosive power of real bullets.

The look of Miami Vice, grainy, gritty digital video, bathes the picture in a documentary realism that is at odds with the mundane presentation of the plot. Michael Mann's obsession with the behind the scenes of an undercover cop plot never really gets any entertaining momentum. When Farrell, Foxx and their team are planning the next phase of their operation the film lapses into serious tedium that lasts even as they begin to get into the action where Mann excels.

Deeply flawed as an entertaining action movie, Miami Vice is undeniably artful and even at times very cool. With a more charismatic lead performance, a little more Jamie Foxx, and a little less of the inside baseball on being an undercover cop, Miami Vice could have been quite an awesome picture. As it is I recommend it for fans of Michael Mann, women who love to ogle Colin Farrell, and fans of screen violence.

For everyone else Miami Vice is just another TV spinoff.