– Okay, my
socks have officially been knocked off. Zhang Yimou, whose Hero
was just released two weeks ago, is back with a vengeance with
this gorgeous stunner that made me race back to my hotel room so
I could cry for a half-hour. The chop-socky I expected. The
swooning romance I did not.
Daggers is set in the 9th century, where a
band of Robin Hood-esque rebels called the Flying Daggers are
pissing off an already weak emperor. Two of the emperor’s
captains (Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro) are assigned to take
down the FD’s new leader, who is rumored to have an agent
working at a brothel (the absolutely frigging radiant Zhang Ziyi).
Sides are switched, roles are reversed and crosses are doubled.
Most of Daggers takes place outdoors, in the most
colorful forest you’ll ever see without the aid of LSD. It
glows, as does Ziyi, who gets to wear all manner of cute little
hats. While there are a few great set pieces involving martial
arts (the Echo Drum made me hold my breath for about five
minutes), it doesn’t take over the film, and there is no crazy
wire-fu finale, either. Just the gut wrenching, and the running
back to the hotel (yeah, I’m a pussy).
The Intruder – Maybe I wasn’t
on top of my shit when I saw Claire Denis’ latest (or maybe I
was still shook up from Daggers), but I just couldn’t
get into it. When I stopped caring, it became a confusing as
hell. At one point, I was convinced the projectionist was
showing the reels out of order. There’s barely any dialogue,
but that’s the beauty of something photographed by Agnès
Godard – you can just sit back and watch her and Denis make
with the pretty. The pretty, in this case, revolves around an
old man (Michel Subor) who does a lot of weird stuff in a lot of
different countries. And he has some dogs.
The Motorcycle Diaries
– Y tú mamà tambien’s
Gael Garcia Bernal is back on the road in Walter Salles’
latest, which tells the story of the young Ernesto Guevara, who
you may remember from such revolutions as "The Cuban"
while he was operating under the name Che. I didn’t know much
about Guevara before I saw this film, other than the impact he
had on the stoner t-shirt and poster market. But I can tell you
this: Aside from not being an English-language film, Diaries
walks and talks like a genuine Best Picture nominee.
Diaries, which Bernal narrates (almost as if reading from
some kind of…diary), shows the journey 23-year-old Guevara and
friend Alberto Granada (Rodrigo de la Serna, who is actually a
relative of Guevara) take in early 1952. Their trip is supposed
to take them through all of South America, eventually landing
them in a Peruvian leprosy farm, where the two plan to spend
three weeks furthering their medical studies. But, like the
shooting of Apocalypse Now,
the voyage takes much more time and much more money than either
of them planned.
There’s trouble with the weather, the locals, and their
broken-down motorcycle, not to mention the spats Ernesto and
Alberto have amongst each other. The two young men are forced to
rely on the charity of others, and often have to lie to
accomplish this task (it’s kind of like being on The
Amazing Race). But once they hit the Andes, the
asthma-afflicted Ernesto starts to see a different side of his
continent. He literally starts to see things in black and white
for the first time, and when that happens, we get to see the
origin of his political roots.
Laced with the perfect amount of drama, humor, history and
lack of forced romance, Diaries is far from being
flawless. It does, however, cover all of the bases in terms of
being an Oscar contender (especially the ending). You can pencil
in de la Serna for a Supporting Actor nod, too – this role has
nomination written all over it. Bernal is less successful, but
by no means less than acceptable. Plus he has Bad Education
coming out (look for that review tomorrow).
A Dirty Shame – There’s
a battle happening on Hartford Road (and the Hartford Road
area). It’s a battle between the Neuters and the Sex Addicts.
There’s no middle ground, people. Pick a side.
Sylvia Stickles (Tracey Ullman) is a stone cold prude until
she takes a blow to the head that turns her into a sex-crazed
lunatic (and Cunnilingus Bottom). Her guide through this
unfamiliar world is Ray-Ray Perkins (Johnny Knoxville), a sexual
Jesus with a hard-on of gold who makes Sylvia one of his
apostles for an upcoming resurrsextion in which a completely new
sex act will be discovered. The trouble is, whenever Sylvia or
anyone else in the Hartford Road area gets bonked on the head,
they switch sides. That goes for Sylvia’s overly buxom
daughter (Selma Blair) or her shocked-beyond-belief mom (a
hysterical Suzanne Shepherd, who gets to run around screaming
stuff, like, "You let a man put his germ-filled mouth on
your uterus?").
This isn’t high-brown Huckabees
humor here. But John Waters’ Shame is a welcome breath
of fresh air, especially after seeing John Sayles’ slightly
heavy-handed Silver
City last night. Both pictures rely on the big Right vs.
Left battle, but Waters handles it in a much more subtle way:
Through trash, sex and naughty language. The Neuters are
fighting for an end to tolerance, diversity and homosexuality.
And dildos in birdbaths.
The Raspberry Reich
– If you didn't get your fill of gun fellatio from that Six
Feet Under episode where David was kidnapped, then step
right up to Bruce LaBruce's Reich. It's a cross
betwewn a crazy-political Godard film and a full-on porno, with
full penetration shots of both hetero and homo lovin'. We
learn important things, like that "masturbation is
counter-revolutionary" and "you can be a terrorist and
and claustrophobic." Good to know. Beyond that,
Reich is just an excuse to watch smut and not feel like a
perv.
