modern-day cavemen

Do you want to know what modern-day cavemen look like? Look no further:

Cavemen

film review: indiana jones and the bag of mixed results

How weird is it to be thrilled AND disappointed at the same time? So Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull isn't a great Indiana Jones movie, or even, necessarily, a great movie. It's like the Fantastic Four of Jones; totally insubstantial, but goofy and fun nonetheless.

Indiana Jones and the Bag of Mixed Results

or

www.inkandashes.net

capsule review: lust, caution

The only description I had in my mind about Lust, Caution involved the words "espionage thriller" and the flashing red lights of the dreaded NC-17 rating. As it turns out, the film is a quiet, sensitive, and downbeat character piece that slowly unwinds deception laced with the sinister machinations of espionage and assassination set amidst the World War II occupation of China by Japanese forces. It's the tragedy of the spider becoming entangled in its own web. If the movie fails, it is for the same reason it succeeds: the characters act in a fragile, easily disturbed emotional limbo. With the line between truth and deception almost impossible blurred, it's difficult to get past overly low-key characterizations, whose subtlety may mask an absence of dimension, to really dissect the characters. But the film is moving, with the characters' disorientation lingering long after Ang Lee's odd, but appropriate, choice of final shot.

film review: the forbidden kingdom

Oh yes, everybody IS kung fu fighting, especially when Jackie Chan and Jet Li mix it up. My review of The Forbidden Kingdom - I know, I know, it's giving way to the next batch of blockbusters in theatres - has posted:

The Forbidden Kingdom: One Heck of a Popcorn Popper

or

www.inkandashes.net

pre-review: indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull

When The Last Crusade was released waaaaaay back in 1989, Indiana Jones left behind a rather big hat to fill. Plenty of films tried to put on that ever-familiar fedora, but even the most successful old-school adventures hasn’t quite achieved the iconic status of Jones. No, not even Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft. And now comes The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Plot details were kept under wraps, critics were kept at arm’s length…the secrecy has been seen as a bad sign - only studios with something to hide keep screenings to a minimum. The biggest worry: the fourth film would be to the previous three was the Star Wars prequels are to the original trilogy.

There have been early reviews. “Mixed!” cries a headline on Yahoo! News. A few pubs like IGN ranked the film as third best in the series. And so the hype is deflated. Or is it? The tomato meter stands at 78%, hardly a number to scoff at.

As I look forward to the film, however, I can’t say I’m either beside myself with hype or beating myself up with skepticism. My guess is that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull won’t achieve the impossible, namely, to rouse us the way Raiders of the Lost Ark roused audiences back in 1981. But I fully expect it to continue where The Last Crusade left off and deliver a solid crack of the whip. In other words, it should be fun, which is really all I’m looking for in an Indiana Jones film.

theatre review: two unrelated plays by mamet

-It’s posted.
-Posted?
-Yes. My review posted.
-What review?
-Of David Mamet’s Two Unrelated Plays
-Your review…
-Has posted. Yes.
-Plays.
-That’s right. At the Kirk Douglas Theatre.
-Two plays at the Douglas…
-The Duck Variations and Keep Your Pantheon.
-Keep my pants on?
-Yes, your…
-Pantheon. I get it. Duck!
-Duck? (gets hit in the head)
-You poor bastard.

A Double-Dram of David

capsule review: the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford

Cinematographer Roger Deakins, hand in hand with director Andrew Dominick (in an amazing sophomore effort) outdoes his work in No Country for Old Men with The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Artistic without the artiness that comes with overreaching or the contrivance of using style as a sales pitch, the film is gorgeously rich with the quality of fine art.

And the story, perfectly paced to with the natural rhythms of dialogue - the words themselves and those telling silences filled with expressive facial and body language - is riveting. Far from indulging the romance surrounding the legend of Jesse James, the story offers a genersouly multifaceted character study where media spin collides with the morality and the politics of the personal. James, solidly portrayed by Pitt with a curious mixture of cruelty, melancholy, ruthlessness, tenderness, and a streak of instability, remains enigmatic to the end. But it is Ford who is the real subject of study. Casey Affleck certainly deserved an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a character who, though branded a coward, possessed considerable complexity. One might very well ask whether the dreaded yellow word was as deserved by Ford as James deserved to be spun as the Robin Hood. With Jesse's psychological terror at the center of a violent web, Ford's conflicting motivations - fame, fortune, fear, revenge - are magnetically rendered.

It's amazing to think that this Andrew Dominick's second film, after Chopper starring Eric Bana. (Never heard of it until looking up Dominick's IMDB entry.) Not only does the film show him capable of playing in the same league as the Coen Brother and P.T. Anderson, I'd go so far to say that The Assassination of etc, etc. was a worthier opponent to There Will Be Blood than No Country for Old Men. Better characters, a better story, equally great performances and direction...I regret having missed it while it played in theatres.

film review: crap shoot

My review of Crap Shoot, a funny quasi-documentary distributed by Echelon Studios, posted today at the Front Page Online and my website:

Better Than Even Odds in "Crap Shoot"

or

www.inkandashes.net

book review: 20th century ghosts

My review of Joe Hill's short story anthology, 20th Century Ghosts, has posted at Morbid Outlook. I'm almost tempted to seek out Heart-Shaped Box...but I think I'm happy to stick with the short stories. The ol' book stack is piled high enough as it is.

You should also check out some of those tasty drink recipes; the link is on the home page.

Mmmm. Alcohol.

capsule review: severance

Severance is a 2007 British horror-comedy in the vein of Shaun of the Dead. Black, often gruesome comedy coexists with slasher-style survival horror in a surprisingly effective way, all the while taking the opportunity to satirize clichéd genre tactics like getting girls naked and firing guns.

It’s a slasher film, all right, although much of the really gory violence is kept off-screen. When a female protagonist fights off a rapist, her revenge consists of knocking him out and dropping a very heavy stone on his head. Can we say watermelon? We sure can, but a wet, squishy, vaguely crunchy sound effect is all director Christopher Smith gives us. Other kills are a bit more graphic, but it’s refreshing to watch a film that doesn’t feel compelled to linger lovingly on the anatomical details…which isn’t to say that the deaths aren’t horrific. They are, proving that implication can be even more effective and insinuating when not blotted out by nausea.

The film’s pretense of pitting the employees of a weapons manufacturer out on a team-building exercise against war criminals somehow associated with the misuse of the manufacture’s weapons is, of course, one-note irony. Oh look! Minions of Evil, Inc. are harvesting the bitter fruit their own company sowed. Beyond the moral of the story, never go looking for lodges or hostels in the creepy corners of Eastern Europe, the aspiration to delivering a profound allegory is more an excuse to bring together a bunch of characters and kill them off rather than a serious essay on war corporatism. But Smith and Loman’s script, hand-in-hand with a cracking good cast, actually succeeds in creating characters with more dimension. Severance is by no means a character study, but there are some good character moments, some noble deaths, some good gags, that pump enough blood to the film’s heart. Is it Shaun of the Dead? No. It’s not Office Space either. But it is a sharp little dagger with an ending that doesn’t cop out, and that’s enough for a good time.

column: questioning that old ultra-violence

The release of Grand Theft Auto IV and the accompanying controversy over its violence led me to thinking about how violence entertains us. While I don't think there's a correlation between watching violent movies or playing violent video games, and committing acts of violence, I can't help but wonder what it means to be entertained by violence. That's the topic of this week's column over at The Front Page Online:

Questioning That Old Ultra-Violence

Iron Man review

My review of Iron Man, or "Irony Man" as I've come to think of it given the film's strange propagandistic context and its undeniable cool-factor, has posted:

Iron Man: Cool, Exciting...and Ironic (The Front Page Online)

or

www.inkandashes.net

new column: a solution to high gas prices

I couldn't quite use the precise turn of phrase I wanted in proposing my solution to oil companies making obscene profits while us working stiffs pay through the nose (and other orifices) at the pump. The Front Page Online is an all-ages paper after all, and I completely respect that. But here in my blog, I'm under no limitations. Hence, my three-word solution to oil company exploitation: tax the motherfuckers. Read the full rant, include a detour into that bitter wasteland we call the primaries, here:

Gas Price Salvation, Or How to Play in the Little Leagues.