Way Too many Movies, Part Two

There's hardly been a night during the past two weeks that I haven't been at a fest movie... except one night when I attended a book reading and signing by Sarah Vowell (you MUST read "Assassination Vacation", as well as her other three books), so there's been precious little time to write any reviews, as a result of which you have even more movies to deal with in this column that in "Part One." I hope I can keep the comments shorter this time... and I'll bet you do, too.

1. "McDull, Prince De La Bun." A delightful animated film from Hong Kong. A follow-up to the even more delightful "My Life As McDull" from two years ago, this MSPIFF festival entry is a series of episodes in the life of a young pig (yes, I said pig) and his single mother and their day to day lives in modern Hong Kong as young Mcdull attends classes in one of the strangest public schools you'll ever see, faces (along with his mother) the demolition of their run-down apartment building in an urban renewal project, and listens to a peculiar fairy tale his mother has written after reading too much "Harry Potter", a story which turns out to be a thinly-disguised attempt at filling McDull in on his father, whom mom had never talked about before. While not QUITE as effective as the earlier film due to its lack of one single unifying story, it still has charm, humor and warmth to spare. For anyone who THINKS Hong Kong movies are only about Kung Fu.

2. "Hari Om." Another MSPIFF entry, this film from India tells of a rickshaw driver who runs afoul of some thugs trying to take over his route and figures getting out of town for a while couldn't hurt. At the same time he meets a beautiful young French woman abandoned by her workaholic boyfriend and agrees to take her on an extended tour around the countryside. Many cultural barriers are crossed and a greater undestanding is established in a story with much to recommend it, but which is also sabotaged a little by its insistence on the two getting involved in a very predictable and formulaic not-wuite-love-affair. It's not enough to ruin the movie, but it does make it a little less effective than it could have been.

3. "Zaman, Man From The Reeds." Iran has become one of the main centers of world cinema over the past decade or so, but there's hasn't been a film made in Iraq for more than fifteen years... until "Zaman, Man From The Reeds", which was completed just a few months before the recent war and occupation. A man in an isolated rural community, whose wife has become seriously ill and in need of a medicine that can only be obtained in Bagdad, travels to the city for the first time in years to obtain it, and finds himself facing a bureaucracy so senseless and rules with so little logic that you might think you were still in the USA.
A fascinating reminder that people are pretty much alike everywhere, with the same hopes, dreams, frustrations and moments of joy. Also containing a powerhouse of an ending. Should you ever get a chance to see this MSPIFF fest entry, you should do so.

4. "The World." Still another MSPIFF entry (see, I meant what I said at the start of this column). This one is set in an unusual amusement park in Beijing, China... a theme park in which famous locations from around the world such as the pyramids and the Eiffel Tower are all recreated in this one spot so that citizens can "travel the world" without every leaving their home town. Some effective points are made about consumer culture, but once past that point the film doesn't really have much of a story... which might not have been as noticeable if it didn't run on for two and a quarter hours. Still entertaining viewing at least for a while, it begins to drag at around the halfway point and never quite recovers.

5. "Fever Pitch." WOW... this one wasn't part of the festival!! Amazing!
Drew Barrymore, a workaholic executive, falls in love with a sensitive young teacher played by Jimmy Fallon. He seems perfect until she begins to realize the depth of his obesssion with the Boston Red Sox... and I DO mean OBSESSION. Directed by the Farrelly Brothers in a toned-down style that makes it nearly impossible to believe these are the same guys who gave us "There's Something About Mary," this piece of fluff still has a surprising amount of effective (and funny) moments, Barrymore (whom I don't always enjoy) is a delight here, and Fallon at least doesn't embarass himself too badly. The ending, in keeping with romantic comedy tradition, relies on both major characters acting in ways that totally contradict what we've been learning about them all the way through the movie, and that brings the film down a bit, but still, it works more often than it probably has a right to. It's certainly no classic, but it gave me more than I was expecting, and how often does that happen?

6. "Melinda And Melinda." Another non-fest offering. Woody Allen's latest opens up with a group of playwrite friends at lunch in a New york restaurant, debating whether life is basically comic or tragic. To prove their respective points, a comic and a dramatic playwrite each the same central character and basic premise, and spin it off into a story in their particular style. The film isn't so much actively bad as just bland, with not all that many laughs in the "comedy" section (starring Will Ferrell doing a blatant Woody Allen impersonation, which doesn't help) and a not especially effective or very tragic "tragedy"segment. Allen tackled much the same question in a much more effective way back in 1989 with "Crimes and Misdemeanors", one of his very best films. "Melinda and Melinda" just isn't in the same league.

7. "Sahara." DEFINITELY light years away from being a MSPIFF movie. Mathew McConaughey stars as adventurer Dirk Pitt in an adaptation of one of the popular series of novels by Clive Cussler. In the course of the story, Pitt and his two colleagues (played by Penelope Cruz and Minnesota's own Steve Zahn) trek across the Egyptian desert in seach of a buried treasure contained inside an old battleship from the American Civil War (trust me, it's not worth going into here how a Civil War battleship got buried in the Egyptian desert), and of course they're not the only ones after it. The story if pure hokum from the first frame, a lot of chases and fights and a few explosions from first to last, only occasionally interrupted for a bit of plot. Still, it does have a good cast to recommend it: McConaughey is refreshingly non-macho in the lead, Penelope Cruz show more toughness and self-reliance than your normal action movie leading lady, and Steve Zahn provides great comic relief. If you have a slightly higher tolerance than me for movies that sacrifice action for plot you'll probably love it. As it is, even I enjoyed BITS of it.

8. "Clean." And now, back to MSPIFF. This French-made film, in which the action shifts back and forth from the USA to London to Paris, stars one of the world's best actresses, Hong Kong's Maggie Cheung, who won a "Best Actress" award at Cannes last year for her role here. She plays a drug-addicted would-be musician, whose addictions (and imprisonment because of them) caused her son to be put into the care of her mother- and father-in-law. When her husband dies of an overdose, she finally straightens out herself and tries to get her son back, but faces a considerable struggle with people who aren't ready to believe she's really finally "clean." The film isn't quite as powerful as it ought to be given the potent subject matter, but it's elevated considerably by Cheung's deservedly award-winning performance, as well as that of Nick Nolte as Cheung's father-in-law, a character faced with a dilemma that forces him to make some choices any one of which is going to hurt someone he loves. "Clean" is a perfect lesson in how a good-but-not-great movie can become, if not a great one, at least a very good one as a result of terrific acting.

9. "Crash Test Dummies." Another MSPIFF film, of course, this one from Romania. A young couple travel from Romania to Austria to make some quick bucks bringing a stolen car back home. When they find the car isn't quite ready yet, they have to stay in town a few more days, having a series of misadventures in a world very much unlike the one they've known. A very low-key, deapan style of humor is used to tell a darkly comedic satire of consumer society, the old Europe vs. the new, and assorted other subjects. Not exactly a knockabout farce, but quite effective at both making its points and making the audience laugh.

10. "Seven Times Lucky." Still another MSPIFF movie? Why, yes, funny you should ask. This one is from Canada, and stars Kevin Pollack as a down-on-his-luck con artist in debt to the wrong guy (that is, one who will break most of the bones in his body if he doesn't pay up), forced to resort to a very risky scheme with his two partners to come up with the cash in time. In addition to "puzzle" movies (see my review of "The Jacket") one other genre of movie I have a definite consistent attraction for would have to be complicated, twisty-plot-turns-around-every-corner stories about con artists where the audience isn't sure who's conning who until the last scene. "Seven Times Lucky" is a very worthy addition to that genre, with the usual comedic Pollack helping to bring a welcome sense of humor to this often somber style of film. It's a pleasure to be conned by a master in the safe, secure setting of a movie theatre, and "Seven Times Lucky" provides that pleasure in spades.

11. "Two Harbors." This made-in-Minnesota digital video feature was one of the most popular attractions at the MSPIFF festival. Twin Cities comedian (and actor) Alex Cole stars as a cynical smart mouth type who sells antiques in a local antique mall and spends most of his off-time in his gadget-filled trailer, sending radio signals that he hopes will be intercepted by some alien intelligence who will then respond to them. He becomes convinced that a young woman also working in the same antiques mall is the key to his success at this communication, and a very strange relationship forms. It's just about impossible to convey in words the atmosphere of this black-and-white feature and why it works as it switches from snappy one-liner-filled comedy at the beginning to deep tragedy to something almost out of David Lynch (if Lynch knew what he was doing), but I was impressed with the result. A strange little movie that I liked for that very strangeness, and for its pair of very effective lead performances, as well as some expert work from its director, making his feature debut here.

12. "In My country." Another NON-MSPIFF movie. This film takes as its subject the Truth & Reconciliation Hearings of 1996, when the new, nelson Mandela-led South African government offered amnesty to those who had performed attrocities under the old regime, provided they made a full public confession and convinced the committee that their actions were politically motivated. Juliette Binoch plays an Afrikaans reporter covering the hearings, and Samuel L. Jackson is a reporter from the Washington Post with the same assignment. There is a very, VERY ill-advised attempt at a romance between the two that comes out of another movie altogether, one much less effective than this one. Luckily, this takes place late in the film and isn't enough of a major plot point to weaken a very strong film that makes some uncomfortable but important points very effectively, and while not trying to provide any easy answers to its complicated questions, certainly makes you think about them... could you ever forgive such people even if they did confess? The poster features an admiring quote from Mandela himself, praising the way the film brings its message home with such impact. If you leave out the romantic sub-plot, he's right on target. Maybe he should review films more often?

13. "Anytown, USA." A very interesting and unusual documentary entry in this year's MSPIFF. It's the story of a small New Jersey town whose citizens are outraged at their incumbant Republican mayor and want to oust him... except that his Democratic challenger (referred to by many as like a character out of "The Sopranos") isn't any improvement. BUT THEN... enter the legally blind, very colorful independent write-in candidate. Things start to get very interesting, especially when Jesse Ventura's former campaign manager comes aboard to assist said write-in's campaign. A very informative and insightful look at the machinations of local politics (though, as it reminds is, "All politics is local") that also manages quite often to be very funny. Depending on how cynical you are about the subject, it could make you determined to either avoid ever becoming politically involved (huge mistake) or follow the example of Dave Musikant and dive right into the fray. I have no doubt which of these options the film's makers are advocating, and it isn't the path of cynicism. Recommended for anyone with an interest in any aspect of the subject matter.

14. "Crying Ladies." MSPIFF again, how'd you guess? This film from the Phillipines certainly isn't about a subject you're likely to have ever seen any other film about. In it, a trio of women who, several years ago used to make their living as "Crying Ladies" (mourners hired to wail at the funerals of strangers so the gods will be impressed by the size of the funeral turn-out and it will be easier for the deceased to get into heaven) are brought back to their old line of work by the very well-paying request of a very traditional local man who wants to hire them for the funeral of his father. Though it may be difficult to believe based on the subject matter, this is actually a very pleasant light comedy, with some very amusing performances and an interesting look at a subject I can honestly say I've never seen used as the basis for any film I've ever seen before. I always enjoy when a film can take me somewhere I've never been and show me something I've never seen. "Crying Ladies" not only does this, it provides more than its fair share of laughs along the way. Not a bad accomplishment.