By Joe Bendel. Communism ripped apart scores of German families. Perhaps the Hillers were one of them. Aimless twentysomething Mike Hiller cannot say, because his mother refuses to speak of his late father’s shadowy past. The murky ambiguity of the former East German elites’ post-reunification experiences are explored in Marc Bauder’s intriguing thriller The System (trailer here), the opening film of Disappearing Act IV, the annual New York showcase of European films unjustly overlooked after their well received festival runs, co-presented by the Czech Center, the Romanian Cultural Institute, and the Group of European Cultural Institutes.
Mike Hiller suspects his father’s death was no ferry accident and his mother’s silence only stokes his resentment. Still, as a former low level Stasi clerical worker, she has her reasons for reticence. She was married to Rolf Hiller, a hotshot confidential operative charged with acquiring hard currency for the state through dodgy international transactions. Ironically, he would have been one of the few East Germans well positioned to prosper after the fall of the Wall, just like his ex-partner, wheeler-dealer Konrad Böhm. When through the machinations of fate Böhm interrupts Hiller and his punk buddy burglarizing his home, he decides to take the young underachiever under his wing, out of respect for his late father. Or perhaps he is just playing Hiller.
Quickly Hiller is immersed in the world of Russian pipelines, kickbacks, and blackmail. Yet, it is clear East Germany’s corrosive Communist past eats away at the characters in the present, like a lingering toxin. Intelligently written by Dörte Franke (who will take Q&A with Bauder after the screening) and Khyana El Bitar, System’s storyline is often murky and morally ambiguous, but never overly complicated in the obscure Le Carré tradition. Frankly, it critiques crony capitalism as much as it does Soviet era socialism, explicitly linking the two.
From "The System."
Jacob Matschenz (outstanding in the inter-connected Dreileben trilogy) is certainly convincingly petulant and rebellious as Hiller, sometimes at the risk of overdoing the Holden Caulfieldisms. However, Bernhard Schütz is totally riveting as the manipulative and mercurial Böhm. Watching him spar and toy with Matschenz’s Hiller is jolly good cynical entertainment. Yet, there is an ethical center to the film represented by Jenny Schily, quite compelling as Hiller’s widowed mother, always a victim of circumstances beyond her control.
It is rather bizarre this will be The System’s premiere American screening, because it is the sort of smart, sophisticated political thriller that ought to have been a cinch for mucho festival play. Of course, Disappearing Act is all about catching up with such inexplicably neglected films. Enthusiastically recommended, The System will be the only paid admission during Acts IV when it opens the festival-showcase this coming Wednesday (4/11) at the IFC Center. All other selections are presented free of charge, including Mila Turajlic’s Cinema Komunisto, a fascinating documentary survey of Yugoslavian cinema under Tito, screening at Bohemia National Hall this coming Thursday (4/12).
By Joe Bendel. It was a dark and stormy life. Just as the Pick family was haunted by their psychological torments in life, so are they still in death. Yet, their gangster father Ulysses Pick has returned to his haunted home for a sort of exorcism/intervention – and perhaps a spot of redecorating – in Guy Maddin’s Maddinesque Keyhole (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.
The police have the house surrounded, but the Pick Gang shoots their way in anyway, much to the consternation of his henchmen. Their griping means little to Pick, arriving through the backdoor with Denny, a waterlogged psychic slung over his shoulder. She is to help him reach some sort of spiritual rapprochement with the ghost of his wife Hyacinth haunting the floor above with the spirit of her naked father chained to her bedpost.
To reach his wife Pick will have to pass through door after door of their Escher house, accompanied by Denny, while dragging the man his gang just kidnapped, lashed securely to a chair. That would be Pick’s youngest son Manners, but for some strange reason he does not recognize him as such, despite the efforts his increasingly restive men made to get him. Then things get a little surreal.
From "Keyhole."
Keyhole is definitely a Guy Maddin film, which is cool, because the Canadian auteur might be the single most distinctive visual stylist working in film today. True, events in Keyhole do not always make strict logical sense, but it is consistently rewarding just watching Maddin subvert and reinvent Old Dark House movie motifs. Even Manners Pick’s name pays homage to David Manners, the blue-blooded Canadian actor remembered as the ineffectual protagonist of Universal’s original Dracula and The Mummy features.
Considering how important the look and atmosphere is to Keyhole’s overall viewing experience, Maddin’s’ gets some critical assists from his crew. Benjamin Kasulke’s shimmering black-and-white cinematography is quite Maddin-worthy, but also true to the wonderful 1930’s and 1940’s bump-in-the-night films that inspired Keyhole. Production designer Ricardo Alms and set decorator Matt Holm have also created a richly detailed and thoroughly spooky environment, generously appointed with Freudian knickknacks throughout.
Jason Patric plays the Homeric gangster with perfectly steely resolve and world-weary resignation. However, it is a bit difficult to see him and Isabella Rossellini as a couple, though their awkward chemistry is rather appropriate given the dramatic context. Frankly, by its nature Keyhole is not an actor’s film per se, largely using its supporting cast more as props than as flesh and blood characters. Yet Brooke Palsson somehow conveys something human and vulnerable about Denny, before Maddin completely pulls the rug out from under everyone. To the joy of genre fans everywhere, Lars Von Trier and Uwe Boll regular Udo Kier is also on-hand, actually taking a straight and effective dramatic turn as the grieving Dr. Lemke.
If you like Maddin’s work (and you should), than you will like Keyhole. However, it is probably not the best starter film those previous unfamiliar with his bizarre quasi-genre fabulations (check out the often brilliant My Winnipeg first). Maddin is one of the few filmmakers with a genuinely unique vision and there are an awful lot of his visions in Keyhole. There is plenty of storyline as well, that is mostly linear and easy to follow, even if it does not completely fit together. Still, audiences should not sweat the details here. Keyhole is enthusiastically recommended to anyone looking to take a fever-trip on a cold winter’s night. A film for a real movie screen, Keyhole opens this Friday (4/6) in New York at the IFC Center.
By Jason Apuzzo. I come to praise Sword & Sandal movies – not to bury them.
But with Wrath of the Titans and the Sword & Sandal/sci-fi mash-up John Carter not exactly setting the world on fire – along with recent disappointments like Immortals and Conan – it’s getting more difficult by the day to believe that the Sword & Sandal movie can survive the recent fumbling of this otherwise great genre.
And that’s a shame, because the Sword & Sandal movie – known for its gladiatorial games, pagan orgies, depraved emperors, and the occasional snarling cyclops – may represent the most colorful and enduring movie genre of all time.
Like its cousin the Biblical epic, a Sword & Sandal movie – or ‘peplum,’ named after a type of ancient Greek garment – is typically set in the ancient Mediterranean world, and dramatizes the fight for freedom. Think of Kirk Douglas fighting to free slaves in Spartacus.
Sam Worthington as Perseus in "Wrath of the Titans."
The hero of a Sword & Sandal movie is usually muscle-bound (think Steve Reeves) and able to deliver passionate speeches about freedom (think Charlton Heston). The villain is normally a wicked tyrant, preferably played by a silky British actor (think Christopher Plummer) – and the hero typically has a few slave girls, wicked queens or curvy sorceresses thrown his way before he settles down with his true love, often played by an Italian brunette (think Sophia Loren).
From as far back as 1914’s Italian epic Cabiria – the first movie ever screened at the White House – Sword & Sandal movies have been delivering huge entertainment value with their muscle men, exploding volcanoes, sacrifices to Moloch and marching Roman armies.
Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith took the genre to its early heights from the 1910s-1930s, with spectacular films like Intolerance (1916) and Cleopatra (1934). In the years before the Production Code, these films often pushed the boundaries of sex and carnivalesque violence. In DeMille’s infamous The Sign of the Cross (1932), for example, Claudette Colbert takes a sexy milk bath (see below), and the film wraps with a lurid finale featuring Amazon women fighting pygmies, and nubile Christian martyrs (including one played by burlesque queen Sally Rand) served up to gorillas and crocodiles.
Hail Caesar!
Claudette Colbert in "The Sign of the Cross."
The genre’s heyday, however, was in the 1950s and early ’60s – the era of ‘Hollywood on the Tiber,’ when the studios decamped to Rome to recreate the ancient world. This period was dominated by American-made Biblical epics and Italian-made serials about Hercules or other burly, mythical heroes like Maciste. Lavish spectacles like Ben-Hur, The Robe and Quo Vadis saved Hollywood from the economic encroachments of television, and minted a new generation of masculine stars like Charlton Heston, Kirk Douglas and Richard Burton. And the movies themselves got bigger, with new formats like CinemaScope and VistaVision filling movie houses with sumptuous panoramas of ancient lands.
Capping off the era was Elizabeth Taylor’s magnificently grandiose Cleopatra (1963), a movie so big that today it would’ve cost over $330 million to produce – possibly because the film’s dubious Italian accountants claimed Liz Taylor ate twelve chickens and forty pounds of bacon each day for breakfast.
Nothing about peplum movies – not even their catering – is small.
Russell Crowe (right) in "Gladiator."
After a long drought, broken by only a handful of films like Ray Harryhausen’s magical Clash of the Titans (1981) – and Conan the Barbarian (1982), featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the bone-crushing Cimmerian warlord – the Sword & Sandal genre was revived splendidly in 2000 by Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe in Gladiator. Gladiator took advantage of new digital technology to convincingly recreate the ancient world in telling a blood-soaked tale of Rome’s slide into imperial tyranny. Frank Miller’s 300 then ‘modernized’ the genre in 2006 – recreating the Battle of Thermopylae with video game-style action, post-9/11-style speeches about the value of freedom, and Gerard Butler providing the most impressive display of abs since Franco Columbu was Mr. Olympia.
Fortunately, although recent projects like Wrath of the Titans and John Carter are doing little to build off the momentum of those films, Hollywood still seems to have confidence in peplum movies. Brett Ratner and The Rock are plunging ahead with their adaptation of Hercules: The Thracian Wars, and Russell Crowe recently signed to star in Darren Aronofsky’s Sword & Sandal-esque movie about Noah. The 300 prequel Battle of Artemisia still moves forward, and Wrath of the Titans director Jonathan Liebesman wants to direct movies about Julius Caesar and Odysseus. Plus Mel Gibson’s Maccabee movie is still in development (a bit awkward, that one), Ridley Scott and Paul W.S. Anderson are both doing Pompeii projects, Angelina Jolie is still circling around an expensive Cleopatra film – and Steven Spielberg is even considering directing Gods and Kings, an epic telling of the life of Moses.
While it’s heartening that these projects are still going forward, no one wants them to suffer the same fate as John Carter or other recent, lackluster efforts. Audiences probably deserve better than what they’ve been getting, so with that in mind it’s time to take an unflinching look at what’s working – and not working – about this latest crop of Sword & Sandal movies.
Kronos gets fired-up in "Wrath of the Titans."
WHAT’S WORKING ABOUT THE NEW SWORD & SANDAL MOVIES:
1) Boffo Digital Creatures
Movie creatures haven’t been quite the same since Ray Harryhausen retired, but his legacy is still alive and kicking (and growling) into the digital age. Recent creatures like Wrath of the Titans‘ Kronos or the club-wielding cyclops, or the White Apes in John Carter, are awesome beasts to behold – especially in IMAX 3D and 7.1 channel sound. And whereas back in the 1950s and ’60s only Harryhausen’s movies had credible creatures (even the wonderful Italian peplum movies so often got dragged down by paper mache dragons and rubber lizards), nowadays most Sword & Sandal flicks can be expected to feature a decent mythical beast or two.
2) Great Use of Weaponry
Today’s Sword & Sandal stars like Conan‘s/Game of Thrones‘ Jason Momoa or Immortals‘ Henry Cavill (who’s also the next Superman) really look like they can fight, or at least like they’re trained and know their way around weaponry. And while that isn’t a prerequisite for peplum heroics – Tony Curtis never needed it – the ability to use a sword, spear or hammer axe convincingly is one of the key selling points of any Sword & Sandal hero.
Wild costume and production design in "Immortals."
3) Bold Costumes & Production Design
Tarsem’s Immortals featured some wildly imaginative costume and production design, blending North African, Indian, Persian and Greek influences that enlivened the look of Sword & Sandal cinema for the first time in years. Plus, Disney’s John Carter managed some fabulous retro/19th century sci-fi designs, for the few people in the audience still awake after the first hour.
4) British Accents
Let’s face it: the Brits, along with the Aussies and the Irish, just sound better doing this stuff right now than their American counterparts, and are saving a lot of otherwise sub-par films. In Wrath of the Titans, for example, stodgy dialogue is routinely rescued by the redoubtable Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes – both of whom could probably make an ad for shaving cream seem portentous.
5) 3D & IMAX
When it comes to Sword & Sandal movies, size really does matter. And while today’s 3D/IMAX-sized movies can’t compare in scale to films like Howard Hawks’ 1955 CinemaScope epic Land of the Pharaohs (one scene in that film featured over 9,000 extras), new films like the IMAX 3D version of John Carter still offer a reasonable facsimile of what those widescreen spectacles of old were like.
WHAT’S NOT WORKING ABOUT THE NEW SWORD & SANDAL MOVIES:
Sophia Loren in "The Fall of the Roman Empire."
1) Where did all the Love Goddesses go?
Easily the biggest problem with today’s Sword & Sandals movies – although this is less of a problem on cable TV shows like Spartacus or Game of Thrones – is the lack of good female characters. The wicked queens, love goddesses and slave girls that once made peplum movies so famous (and scandalous) are almost completely gone – leaving little for the men in these films to do other than chop each other to pieces. No more dancing girls, pagan orgies, or virgin sacrifices – what fun is that? In the ’50s and ’60s, tantalizing (and usually Italian) women like Sophia Loren, Rossana Podesta, Gina Lollobrigida and Sylva Koscina appeared routinely in Sword & Sandal epics and made life exciting for the gods and mortal men who coveted them – or feared them. They should be welcomed back.
2) Spoiled Heroes with Super-powers and Abs
The big new trend nowadays – from peplum films to comic book movies – is to have annoying, demigod heroes with abs who fret over their supernatural powers. Petulant guys like John Carter or Perseus in Wrath or Theseus in Immortals who can’t decide whether the world is cool enough for them to save. It’s tiresome. Kirk Douglas didn’t fret over his ‘powers’ or his abs in Spartacus, Ulysses or The Vikings, probably because he didn’t have any – he just had courage (also the cinema’s best chin). Today’s peplum heroes should have fewer powers and flabbier abs (like Victor Mature), and more backbone. They should be more stoic, and stand for something beyond their own narcissism – like freedom.
Another fake digital army in "Immortals."
3) Fake Digital Armies
You know the kind I’m talking about, because they’re in every new Sword & Sandal film: the fake digital armies, with endless rows of digital soldiers wearing digital armor – marching and grunting into battle as one. They always appear in a scene that’s supposed to be ‘awe-inspiring,’ but that instead comes across as software-driven and phony. Memo to Hollywood: spend the money and hire some real extras.
4) Characters Who’ve Never Taken a Bath
In an effort to create ‘edgier,’ more ‘realistic’ Sword & Sandal movies, some filmmakers have come up with the idea of populating the ancient world with guys who’ve never bathed, shaved, or washed their clothes. Wrath has one such guy, an unshaven dude with matted hair named Agenor, who looks like he spent the last six months occupying Zuccotti Park. He actually gets more on-screen time than actress Rosamund Pike (seemingly the only female cast member), who plays the film’s pretty blonde heroine. A related idea in today’s peplum cinema is to have everything – buildings, armor, vegetable stands – sprayed with mud and dirt for that ‘authentic,’ antediluvian feel. It may come as a shock to some filmmakers to learn that people in the ancient world actually had access to water, and were able to wash themselves.
5) Movies That Skimp on the Big Themes: Freedom, Romance, Religious Faith
Here’s the key to a good Sword & Sandal movie: it wears its heart on its sleeve. Classics like Robert Wise’s Helen of Troy, Kirk Douglas’ Ulysses or Anthony Mann’s The Fall of the Roman Empire not only had more intelligent, literate scripts; not only were they better researched, and more faithful to the spirit of their original stories. There was also an element of sincerity and passion to them in how they depicted the big Sword & Sandal themes of freedom, romance and religious faith. In more recent years, for example, a film like 300 took the theme of freedom seriously, and cleaned-up at the box office. By contrast, I read recently that in Disney’s early meetings on John Carter, the first things executives discussed about the film were … the merchandizing and the sequels. It showed.
Chalton Heston in "Ben-Hur."
THE BOTTOM LINE:
While today’s 3D/IMAX-sized Sword and Sandal movies have modern technology and other advances going for them, they don’t always understand the human element that made classics like Ben-Hur or Spartacus work. Of course, assuming Hollywood doesn’t want more $200 million write-downs on its books, perhaps that will start to change.
The good news is that when Sword & Sandal movies are done right, people still love them. Movies about the ancient world stir our imaginations, and give us a sense of continuity with the past. They also speak to our most cherished values of liberty and faith – often while providing scandalous fun. Hollywood is right to believe in these projects – Cecil B. DeMille did, and made a career out of them for 40 years – so let’s hope filmmakers can up their game over the next few years, and make the ancient world as exciting as it used to be.
By Patricia Ducey. Now that the trailer for the remake of Total Recall is out, I thought about Colin Farrell and the trajectory of his career – how the actor once more famous for his partying than his acting climbed his way back to blockbuster status again, now reprising Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic role. How did he get from Alexander to Quaid? [See Colin Farrell discuss the new Total Recallhere.]
Farrell’s international career ignited when he, a Dublin native and actor in both Ireland and on the BBC, was cast by Joel Schumacher in Tigerland (2000) as Bozz, an edgy Texan army recruit. His smoldering good looks and credible Texas twang in the film made Hollywood sit up and take notice. With his Irish charm, his reputation for four letter words, and rebelliousness — plus his nudity in Tigerland — Farrell soon became known as much for his off-screen antics as for his roles, and for a while he was the enfant terrible of the film world. A blur of big roles followed Tigerland: he co-starred opposite Bruce Willis in Hart’s War, played Jesse James in American Outlaws, and worked with Steven Spielberg on Minority Report. He shot to the top of the acting world, and landed the cover of Vanity Fair — all before he was 25.
Colin Farrell in "Tigerland."
Then Farrell donned that platinum blond wig (but kept his Irish accent) for the title role in Oliver Stone’s unfortunate Alexander in 2004. Nominated for six Razzies, the movie was rejected by critics and moviegoers alike. He quickly went to work on a remake of Miami Vice, then collapsed at the wrap party and checked into rehab. Miami Vice collapsed, too.
Farrell had offended the lords of fame and cinema: his movies bombed, and his x–rated exploits felt, well, exploitative. He didn’t work much. And although many Hollywood notables who burn the flame at both ends never make it back (like Stone himself, still wandering in the desert after Alexander), Farrell did. In a series of small but memorable roles over the past five to six years, Farrell worked steadily and garnered attention for all the right reasons. By honing his affecting acting skills and leaving the bad-boy persona behind, he moved forward.
In four roles, especially — John Smith in The New World, Ray in In Bruges, Valka in The Way Back, and as Bobby Pellitt in Horrible Bosses — Farrell played against his good looks and roguish charm (and his much ballyhooed craic-loving ways) to create indelible characters instead.
When he read the script to In Bruges, for instance, he loved it. But he warned Martin McDonagh, the director, “I don’t think you should hire me. I come with a certain amount of baggage that has been well earned through the years and this piece is so pure, I would love the audience to not have too much of a relationship with any of the actors.” Luckily, McDonagh disagreed and hired him. The result is the character of Ray, a hit man who violates his own moral code by killing an innocent and who spends the rest of the film trying to expiate his guilt. Strangely, and thanks to Farrell’s portrayal, we root for him to do just that.
After Bruges Farrell played Valka, a Russian gangster in The Way Back (a film often written about here at Libertas, see here and here), another “minor” character with a believable, multifaceted identity. Valka admires toughness and demands it of others. With a tattoo of Stalin on his chest to honor one of Russia’s “tough men,” he eschews self-pity — “grateful is for dogs” — and doesn’t quit until he reaches the border. Turns out he is not so tough after all, though. At the border he realizes he can’t leave Russia, his beloved homeland – and as for freedom, he “wouldn’t know what to do with it.” Another deftly created character with just the right touch of saint and sinner.
Farrell in "The New World."
On the comedic side, in Horrible Bosses Farrell undergoes a complete physical transformation as Bobby Pellitt, the obnoxious son of the boss. Vanity be damned, Farrell morphs into one of the most comically unlikable characters ever, yet the fierceness of Bobby’s lust for power (plus an almost heroically bad comb-over) earn our admiration.
But the first I saw of Farrell after his burnout was his role as Captain John Smith in Terrence Malick’s The New World. I was frankly surprised by the seriousness of his work – and his willingness to subsume himself into Malick’s ensemble – instead of dominating the screen. This was definitely not a star turn. In New World Farrell captures us without speaking — dialogue is always sparse in a Malick film — first as the rebel explorer, and then as Smith the man in love. I sought out Farrell’s films after that, and the string of memorable portrayals continued.
I’ve enjoyed him so much in these “supporting” roles that I almost hate to see him in the lead – of a blockbuster, no less – once again. Almost. By now he’s tucked the baggage away and earned his standing as a leading man. In the new trailer we can guess that his Total Recall is going to be different, with a vulnerability and emotional depth as evident as in his previous work. There’s a soul, not a cyborg, behind those eyes — and somehow I don’t think the stardust will blind him this time.
By Joe Bendel. Some things never change. In the late 1970’s, Chicago was home to musicians who played the blues and crooked politicians who gave them, just as it is now. For his feature directorial debut, future Fugitive helmer Andrew Davis captured the vibe of his hometown in the hip musical drama Stony Island (a.k.a. My Main Man from Stony Island). Despite the talent involved in the production, it has been nearly unseen for decades, known mostly to diehard record collectors familiar with the smoking hot soundtrack LP. Happily, this will soon change. Stony Island screens this Wednesday and Thursday at Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center, in advance of it April 24th DVD release from Cinema Libre.
Guileless guitarist Richie Bloom has come to Chicago with a dream. He wants to start a band, so he does with the help of his vocalist Stony Island neighbor Edward “Stoney” Robinson and Percy Price, a beloved tenor sax veteran of the Chicago music scene. Slowly, they piece together a grooving big-funk band, but just as it all starts to click, Price, their spiritual leader, tragically dies. With their first big gig on the horizon, the Stony Island Band must pull together to find a way to give the destitute Price a proper send-off.
Comprised largely of tunes arranged and composed by David Matthews (the CTI Records house arranger), the Stony Island soundtrack should have been more sought after by vinyl hounds. Though ostensibly R&B, the Stony Island Band often plays more in a greasy soul jazz bag, which is very cool. A lot of great musicians’ musicians appear in the film, such as Chess Records mainstay Gene Barge, making a strong impression as Price. Those heard but not seen include studio warriors like alto saxophonist David Sanborn (during his groovy CTI, pre-smooth days), guitarist Hiram Bullock, and bassist Mark Egan.
Some of Island’s musician-actors are a bit awkward on-screen, but they always mean well. In contrast Barge gives a fantastically soulful and assured performance as Price, the Obi-Wan Kenobi of funk. Likewise, Ronnie Barron, a onetime sideman to just about everyone from New Orleans, brings the film a fresh jolt of energy as keyboard player Ronnie Roosevelt. His NOLA arrangement of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” is also one of the film’s highlights.
Viewers should keep an eye out for jazz vocalist Oscar Brown, Jr. in a nonmusical role as the corrupt Alderman Waller. Ironically, a young Rae Dong Chong has a mostly musical rather than dramatic part, appearing as Janetta, a back-up vocalist. Likewise, Susanna Hoffs, the future Bangle and daughter of co-writer-co-producer Tamar Hoffs, never sings a note as Bloom’s girlfriend Lucie.
Even more than his crime dramas like Code of Silence, Davis vividly conveys to viewers of Island a sense of Chicago, soaking up its distinctive sights and sounds. He even uses Daley Sr’s real life funeral as a surreal backdrop. Considering the future big name stars appearing here early in their careers (Dennis Franz as a sleazy hustler? You bet) and the highly regarded (if not exactly world famous) musical talent heard throughout, it seems downright bizarre the film was not reissued far earlier. Cheers to Cinema Libre for getting it.
Granted, the let’s-get-a-band-together story is a bit predictable, but its earnest enthusiasm is endearing. Sentimental in the right way, Island feels like the last gasp of big city innocence. Featuring a swinging, funk-drenched soundtrack and a wonderfully humane supporting turn from Barge, Island is a criminally neglected movie musical gem. Highly recommended for blues-funk-R&B-soul jazz fans, Davis will personally present both screenings at the Siskel Center this Wednesday (4/4) and Thursday (4/5), with the mother and daughter Hoffses set to attend both nights and the great Barge also scheduled to appear at the first screening. For those outside Chicago, it releases nationwide on DVD and screens at Los Angeles’ American Cinematheque on April 24th.
By Joe Bendel. It was smoking that brought together Cherie Yu and Jimmy Cheung, but it might be everything else in life that splits them apart. They met during cigarette breaks soon after Hong Kong workplaces went smoke-free in Pang Ho-cheung’s Love in a Puff. Unfortunately, work and time undermine their romance in Pang’s completely stand-alone sequel Love in the Buff, which opened this Friday in New York.
It seems the couple has quit smoking to judge from Buff, but that might be the only responsible thing Cheung has done in his personal life. He has gotten serious about his career, but at the cost of his relationship with Yu. She is something of his mirror image, ready to make a commitment to him, but sleepwalking through her days working retail for Sephora. Eventually, they break-up, with a shrug rather than a bang. That lack of definitive closure will become an issue for them both when they later cross paths again in Beijing.
Transferred by their companies (for very different reasons), the ex-lovers planned to start fresh on the Mainland. Each will find a significant other who would seem much better suited to their respective temperaments. Yet before long, they have reverted to form, sneaking around with each other behind their partners’ backs.
From "Love in the Buff."
Do not get the wrong idea. The “Buff” in the title is only really there because it rhymes with “Puff.” In truth, Buff is about as risqué as an average episode of Friends, perhaps even less so. Yet it is definitely a film for adult sensibilities (in the best sense of the term). In fact, Pang’s treatment of their relationship issues and dynamics is brutally honest and at times rather caustic.
As a result, viewers will feel acute sympathy for the deceived lovers. Indeed, the earnestness of the beautiful Shang You-you and Sam, the gentlemanly divorcee, will make viewers want to see them get together instead. However, Buff is too sincere for such “change partners” gimmicks (though there are a number of novelty cameos from Chinese/HK celebrities that will be largely lost on American audiences).
Instead of trying to be compulsively likable, Miriam Yeung and Shawn Yue are consistently maddening in a very realistic, down-to-earth way as Yu and Cheung, respectively. They really convey a sense of flawed chemistry that is central to the film. Not simply set decoration, Mimi (Mi) Yang projects a tangible, needy vulnerability that should have quite the effect on audiences. As for Xu Zheng’s Sam, well okay, he is rather likable.
At times Buff approaches the edge of melodrama, yet always pulls back at the last minute, just in the way people do in real life every day. Altogether it is a well-written look at the pitfalls of romance with a highly attractive cast and an appealingly swinging soundtrack. Recommended for movie-goers looking for something smart but not too heavy, Love in the Buff opened this past Friday in New York at the AMC Empire and AMC Village 7 as well as in San Francisco at the AMC Metreon, courtesy of China Lion Entertainment.
By Joe Bendel. Communism ripped apart scores of German families. Perhaps the Hillers were one of them. Aimless twentysomething Mike Hiller cannot say, because his mother refuses to speak of his late father’s shadowy past. The murky ambiguity of the former East German elites’ post-reunification experiences are explored in Marc Bauder’s intriguing thriller The System (trailer here), the opening film of Disappearing Act IV, the annual New York showcase of European films unjustly overlooked after their well received festival runs, co-presented by the Czech Center, the Romanian Cultural Institute, and the Group of European Cultural Institutes.
