my name is fame

a star is born...



poon ka fai (lau ching-wan) is an actor with a reputation; having won the 'best newcomer' award, in his twenties, fai's love of acting and refusal to accept second best, has resulted in him being labelled as a talented, but awkward, and he now finds roles increasingly hard to come by. faye ng (fok sze-yin) is at the other end of the acting spectrum; she has recently moved from the mainland to hong kong but, despite having some natural talent, lacks direction and is currently making do with as many minor roles as she can come by.

when fai's ex-fiance, casting agent qiqi (candice yu), has problems finding a chaperone for faye, fai steps in and takes her to the shoot. when he sees her struggling with the role, he can't help but give her guidance; this sparks off a relationship between the two, with fai mentoring faye in the art of acting. will fay have what it takes to succeed and is fai resigned to the fact that his career, as an actor, may be over or will he find this experience rejuvinating?

essentially, this is an update of the 'a star is born' story, but transplanted to hong kong and including some musings on the nature of its film industry. and, who better to play the role of a talented character actor, who doesn't seem to get anywhere near the recognition which he deserves, than lau ching-wan; who, ironically, received his first hong kong film academy 'best male actor' award (the eighth time he'd been a nominee) for the role.

lawrence lau manages to craft an engaging, likeable drama, which isn't short on comedy, some romance and still manages to avoid the pitfalls which can beset such an underdog tale. alongside lau, thanks for this, must surely go to the two leads; lau ching-wan and fok sze-yin (even if she is clearly dubbed throughout), who manage to flesh out their characters and, more importantly, make you want them to succeed. alongside lau and fok, are a host of other familiar faces, in a film which is littered with cameos; from gordan chan, fruit chan and anne hui, to tony leung, ekin cheng and fiona sit, to name but a few.

so, there you go, a quality cast, script and direction, making for a quality film...

great stuff...

the dvd is hk$102 from buyoyo.com

i shot andy warhol

you spend one day with the hippies, and you realize how truly refreshing and unpretentious, hard core, new york degenerates are...



the story of valerie solanas (lili taylor); a radical feminist thinker and writer, who eeked out a living in new york, working as a prostitute, whilst trying to get her writing published and have andy warhol (jared harris) produce a play that she has written. valerie is a pretty abrasive personality, who soon finds andy's fleeting interest in her waning and a lack of interest in her 's.c.u.m. manifesto' (society for cutting up men), leading her to take more radical action...

the main reason for me getting this, was mary harron; she directeed 'american psycho' and seems like an, all round, good egg. you can draw parallels with 'american psycho', in terms of location, character and a narrative which has its main protagonist descend towards some kind of madness, but i shalln't. perhaps the main thing to say, is that lili taylor puts in a cracking performance and the film is, on the whole, an interesting and very watchable affair.

good stuff...

the dvd is £5.99 from hmv.com

public access

what's wrong with brewster?



whiley pritcher (ron marquette) drifts into the small town of brewster, rents a room and buys himself a slot on the local public access tv station; 'our town'. when whiley opens up the first show with the question; 'what's wrong with brewster?', callers begin to start making petty complaints, but the problems that people raise soon escalate and hint at a darker underbelly, lying beneath brewster...

well, i thought i'd give this a watch, as it was £2 and it's a bryan singer / christopher mcquarrie collaboration, their other notable work being 'the usual suspects'. i first heard it mentioned on their commentary for 'the usual suspects', but never heard anything else about it until i saw it going cheap. despite singer's success, 'public access' has remained confined to bargain bins and not been pushed into the limelight; this should give you an idea of its quality. it isn't very good...

ron marquette is pretty watchable and there's some nicely stylised cinematography, here and there, but, whilst a bigger, more interesting narrative is hinted at, we never get to see it. what we get is an increasingly implausible narrative arc, which disappoints as it reaches its conclusion. in the end, you get a pretty unlikable film, about a pretty unlikable character, in a pretty unlikable town.

not really worth watching...

the dvd is £5.09 from blahdvd.com

mr cinema

i really should watch 'shaolin temple' again...



kong (anthony wong) and his wife, ying (teresa mo), live in a tiny house (a shack) on top of a building and they have a son, chong (ronald cheng). the film covers the fourty years of hong kong, leading up to 2007, charting the relationship between, cinema projectionist and staunch patriot, kong, ying and chong, who's rejection of his father's ideals lead him into many doomed get rich quick schemes, whilst he fails to express his love for min (karen mok), the daughter of his next-door neighbours...

well, as i was watching this, i began to think that it was like 'golden chicken', but with a slant towards the relationship with hong kong and china thrown in. thus, it came as no surprise to discover that samson chiu was the director of both films. chiu's style is evident; fragments of the character's lives are played out against a backdrop of social, cultural and political events.

the film isn't as enjoyable as 'golden chicken', but chiu still manages to get good performances from wong, cheng, mo and mok, plus there's a good supporting role for john shum, who we don't see much these days. with mixed messages and mixed success, the film goes through its paces in a relatively engaging and entertaining fashion, but it only really gets as far as good and no further.

reasonable stuff...

the dvd is hk$78 from buyoyo.com

sinbad and the eye of the tiger

that's not a bee, it's a mosquito...



when prince kassim (damien thomas) is transformed into a baboon, by the evil zenobia (margaret whiting), princess farah (jane seymour) asks her boyfriend, sinbad (patrick wayne), for help. sinbad and his crew set out to find a famous wise man, melanthius (patrick troughton), who can help them break the spell and stop zenobia...

the third, and final, of the charles h. schneer and ray harryhausen sinbad films; it's good, but still probably the weakest in the series. sure, it has adventure, dynamation and opening credits that change colour, but it kinda feels like a mish-mash of the other two films and it doesn't have a sword-fight against a six-armed statue. what it does have, which makes everything better, is jane seymour being generally lovely...

good stuff...

the dvd is available, as a triple pack with 'the seventh voyage of sinbad' and 'the golden voyage of sinbad', for £6.99 from hmv.com

the golden voyage of sinbad

for one who enjoys the hashish, you should be more at peace...



when sinbad (john phillip law) comes into the possession of a strange golden amulet, strange things start to happen and, after a dream featuring a mysterious girl with an eye tattooed on her hand, his ship ends up on a strange island. upon landing, sinbad is attacked by koura (tom baker), an evil prince who practices the dark arts and wants the amulet for himself! still, sinbad uses his cunning to escape koura and finds himself joining forces with vizier (douglas wilmer), the rightful heir to the throne of this mysterious island and the owner of an amulet which links to sinbad's. sinbad and vizier, along with margiana (caroline monroe), a servant girl who has an eye tattooed on her hand, set out to solve the riddle of the amulets before the evil koura...

as much as i like 'the seventh voyage of sinbad', this is just better; sinbad has more roguish charm, there's more dynamation, more adventure and some amusing dialogue. there's also tom baker, in fine villainous form, and caroline munro, who is a fine form! (apologies for that one...) yep, there's no complaints from me. harryhausen's contribution to this is greater and of a higher quality, particularly the homunculus (little flying demon thingy) and the eight-armed statue of kali.

good stuff...

the dvd is available, as a triple pack with 'the seventh voyage of sinbad' and 'sinbad and the eye of the tiger', for £6.99 from hmv.com

control

tell me about macclesfield...



the story of ian curtis (sam riley), through his days of stealing prescription drugs from old women, his relationship and marriage with deborah (samantha morton), warsaw, joy division, epilepsy, his affair with annik honoré (alexandra maria lara) and, well, you probably know the rest...

well, i like joy division, in fact, i like them a lot and, i suppose, i was quite looking forward to this. from reading bits and having watched 'twenty-four hour party people', i knew the bare essentials of mr curtis' existance and was interested to see what else this film brought to light. i kinda wish i hadn't bothered...

'control', although very nicely photographed (even if they do ram it down your throat, at times) is pretty bland, superficial and a little annoying. corbin, despite being an accomplished photographer and having directed a few decent music videos, isn't the greatest feature director. there's such a sense of this being some kind of ode to a tortured, troubled, young man, that it kind of loses any impact and, in the end becomes trite. i think i actually tutted at the final shot of the film and probably thought something along the lines of 'self-indulgent wank'; one of my pet hates is people trying to be profound, this was a prime example of this.

that's not to say that the film was a complete loss (and maybe i'm being deliberately harsh, for the sake of it?); as well as the nice cinematography, toby kebbell did a great job as rob gretton and there were a few decent laughs. still, that's hardly a glowing commendation: i'd rather have just listened to joy division for a couple of hours and not bothered...

the film is currently on general release...

the seventh voyage of sinbad

i bid you, genie, now appear...



sinbad (kerwin mathews) is returning to bagdad (sic) with his bride to be, princess parisa (kathryn grant), however their ship has become lost in a thick fog. when they stumble upon a strange island, sinbad and his men go in search of food and water, but soon find themselves being pursued by an angry cyclops. luckily, the mysterious magican sokurah (torin thatcher), assisted by a lamp dwelling genie (richard eyer), comes to their aid and they escape, even though they leave the magic lamp behind. when they arrive in bagdad, sokurah hatches a plot to get back to the island, so he can get his hands on the lamp...

this is the first of three sinbad movies that ray harryhausen worked on and it provides a good introduction to the delights of dynamation. it's a simple tale of good against evil, with adventure, mystery and magic thrown in; what more could a growing boy (or adult) want? well, maybe caroline munro, from 'the golden voyage of sinbad', or jane seymour, from 'sinbad and the eye of the tiger'. all in all, this is a prime example of harryhausen's work, even though he would soon top it, and is a prime slice of adventure to be enjoyed by everyone.

good stuff...

the dvd is available, as a triple pack with 'the golden voyage of sinbad' and 'sinbad and the eye of the tiger', for £6.99 from hmv.com

willard

all my life I could smell mice...



willard (crispin glover) has a pretty crappy life; he lives with his bedridden, overbearing mother and works for frank (r. lee ermey), who runs and owns the business that willard's dead father started. one day, willard begins investigating the rat infestation, in his basement, and he strikes up a friendship with a white rat, who he names socrates.

willard discovers that he can communicate with socrates and another rat, named (big) ben. with his new found friends, willard decides he's going to take revenge against frank, but he soon discovers that his relationship with the rats isn't as straightforward as he thought...

this is a strange film, a remake of a seventies film of the same name, which plays out like a long episode of 'the twilight zone' or 'the outer limits. in my mind, this is a good thing. there are elements of horror, but this is, predominantly, a dark comedy, which is made by crispin glover and the rats. it is a strange tale, but very watchable and entertaining with it and, for most of the film, i had a smirk on my face. the film also looks pretty great, the set design is very nice, particularly willard's house, and the plethora of rats seem to act very well. for rats...

good stuff...

the dvd is £4.99 from hmv.com

night watch

the international cut...



anton gorodetsky (konstantin khabensky) was once an average joe, who was driven to a witch like woman in an attempt to save his marriage. as a resulted anton is introduced to the "others"; people with special powers who have been engaged in a good versus evil struggle for years. realising he is "other", anton joins the night watch; a group who attempt to maintain order and keep the members of day watch in check. when anton sets out to stop an unlicensed killing of a young boy, it would appear that a chain of events, which could lead to a final battle between good and evil, are set in motion...

well, i've been a fan of this film for a while, but i'd never watched the 'international' cut until now. sure, there's a lot less ambiguity in the subtitles and the expanded narration spells a lot of things out for the audience, but it gets to the point where it began to annoy me. sure, the original russian disc doesn't have the best english subtitles but, after a couple of watches, you can pick up nearly all the subtleties of the plot, which has also been simplified in this cut.

the film, itself, still looks great and has lots of interesting bits, even if it isn't as good as its sequel. hopefully, when fox searchlight have finished milking all they can from this, 'day watch' and the forthcoming 'dusk watch', they'll see fit to release the original version with a decent set of subtitles. until this happens, i'll stick with the russian disc...

good stuff...

buy the original russian version, on dvd, for $23.99 from dvdigitall.com

lust for life

you paint too fast...



vincent minnelli's adaptation of irving stone's novel, of the same name; a fictionalisation of the life of vincent van gogh, based roughly around the letters that vincent sent to his brother, theo...

vincent is played by kirk douglas, with a degree of intensity which makes you think two things; either douglas is over-acting or it's perfectly understandable that pretty much everyone he knew argued and fell out with van gogh. i'll go with the latter. alongside douglas, minnelli creates an interesting narrative, uses great colours, locations, sets and creates a very watchable, if slightly odd, film.

good stuff...

the dvd is £3.99 from hmv.com

ride the high country

you red-necked peckerwoods...



steve judd (joel mccrea), an aged, ex-lawman, has been hired by a bank to escort gold from deep in the mountains, back to the bank. judd recruits an old friend, gil westrum (randolph scott), and his young partner, heck longtree (ron starr), to accompany him on the job, unaware that they are secretly plotting to steal the gold. still, everything becomes a lot more complicated, when a young woman, elsa (mariette hartley), joins their ranks...

a relatively interesting film, made all the more entertaining by the presence of mccrea and scott, who carry it on their shoulders. the narrative is pretty straight forward, even a little clunky at times, and most of the dialogue is pretty sedate, but the themes of ageing, betrayal and responsibility add some more depth to the affair.

reasonable...

the dvd is £9.99, as part of the 'sam peckinpah's legendary westerns collection', from hmv.com