jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Since I’m behind the curve on most items in this Konsum roundup, the soundtrack for today’s post is provided by Talking Heads, performing “The Great Curve” in Rome in 1980. You can download a DVD of the entire show from Dimeadozen.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
As apparently the last critic in New York City to see the freshly Academy-snubbed 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, I don’t have much to add to the universal acclaim the film has garnered — only this: if you take a look at the Rotten Tomatoes page, you’ll see adjectives like “excruciating,” “harrowing,” “wearing,” “wrenching,” “bleak,” and “unblinking.” All of those fit, but it seems to me the terminology applied to blockbusters like The Bourne Ultimatum isn’t inappropriate, either: 4 Months is also an edge-of-your seat thriller.
4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile. Cristian Mungiu, 2007. ****

Woman on the Beach
My favorite at NYFF06 — at least until INLAND EMPIRE showed up — is currently playing at Film Forum. Reason enough to take another look. Lo and behold, it’s still a wonderful film. J. Hoberman.
Haebyonui yoin. Hong Sang-soo, 2006. ****

The Duchess of Langeais
An About.com review of Rivette’s Balzac adaptation starring Jeanne Balibar and Guillaume Depardieu is forthcoming.
Ne touchez pas la hache. Jacques Rivette, 2007. ****

The Wire, Season 1
Yes, we’re ridiculously far behind, so I can barely participate in the conversation at this point. Anybody who’s been following this blog knows that I’m a sucker for structure, and The Wire’s intricate plot lines left my head spinning. Looking forward to catching up with the remaining four seasons, like, this weekend. ****

30 Rock
I love every single character on Tina Fey’s show, from Alec Baldwin’s head of TV and microwave programming to nutso Tracy Morgan and Kenneth the Page, and I haven’t seen a TV show that delivers as many smart laughs per minute since the first season of Arrested Development. 30 Rock makes me happy. ****

Californication
Thoroughly enjoyable HBO series about a sex-and-booze addicted writer (David Duchovny) who is still in love with his ex-wife (Natascha McElhone), and whose novel God Hates Us All was adapted into the “Tom and Katie” vehicle Crazy Little Thing Called Love. ***

Cops, killers, bandits and the media clash in a Hong Kong apartment complex full of hostages, hand-grenades and Internet hookups. Johnny To’s (Triad Election, PTU) 2004 thriller begins as a straightforward police adventure but complicates our shifting sympathies between the hard-nosed inspector (Nick Cheung), the pretty commissioner (Kelly Chen), and the savvy gangster (Richie Ren) with a taste for explosives. Satisfying.

Daai si gin. Johnny To, 2004. ***

I wish I’d seen this sooner because it’s old news now: Infernal Affairs is much better than Marty’s Oscar-winning remake, The Departed. There are about 49 reasons why this is so, but here are just two: it’s only half as long, and the Hong Kong waterfront is twice as dramatic as Boston’s.

Mou gaan dou. Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak, 2002. ***

• Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

The trailer:

How not to do local color, y’all. Director Jim McBride lays on the Louisiana stereotypes in this Southern cop romance. From the first “Where are you at?” to the last gumbo party, the New Orleans details feel second-hand to me–and I’m just a German boy who happened to live there for a little while. I do know what Tipitina’s looks like from the inside, and that studio set wasn’t even close.

No matter. A Disney World version of New Orleans will serve just fine as backdrop for a steamy 80s love affair. Ellen Barkin, that strange and fascinating creature, plays a principled but inexperienced prosecutor who comes to investigate corruption in Dennis Quaid’s NOPD. There are murders to be solved, but never mind the plot. Quaid is all easy come-ons and grins as wide as Lake Pontchartrain, and you can’t wait for Barkin to let down her hair and be seduced while the Neville Brothers sing. With John Goodman, Ned Beatty, and Grace Zabriskie as “Mama.”

The Big Easy. Jim McBride, 1987. ***

• The Big Easy at Wikipedia
• Movie Screenshots has an entire series of Ellen Barkin’s sweaty Iko Iko run by the canal.

More amusing silliness from the guys who made Shaun of the Dead. After demolishing the zombie film, Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost are taking aim at the Jerry Bruckheimer action flick, and they’ve set it in the picture-postcard English countryside. Bobbies with firearms–what’s not to like?

Simon Pegg plays Sgt. Nicholas Angel, a London supercop who is sent off to the provinces because he’s making everybody else on his team look bad. In sleepy Sandford, the only available heroics consist of chasing underage kids out of the pub and catching runaway swans. Angel’s new partner PC Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) is an action-movie fanatic whose dearest wish is to fire a gun while jumping through the air in slow motion. But ah, evil lurks in Sandford, and Danny might get his wish after all….

It takes a while for Hot Fuzz to ramp up the action, but in the meantime, the spectacular supporting cast keeps things very entertaining: Jim Broadbent, Timothy Dalton, Paddy Considine, Bill Nighy, and a slew of other familiar faces populate the town with characters that range from oddly endearing to cheerfully creepy. My patented scientific method for objectively judging comedy reveals a favorable chuckle-to-groan ratio, one dozen solid out-and-out laughs, four roll-out-of-your-seat moments of uncontrollable hilarity, and a steady state of hearty bemusement. For a 120 minute film, that’s not bad at all. Hot Fuzz opens on April 20th.

Hot Fuzz. Edgar Wright, 2007. ***

• The trailer

I’m having a hard time putting my finger on exactly what Bong Joon-ho is doing with genre, but that’s the thrill of it: in The Host, he’s transcending the monster horror formula, and this previous movie is a police procedural that’s equally infused with dark humor, outbursts of violence, and human moments that are all the more touching because you didn’t see them coming. Byeon Hie-bong, who played the slacker father in The Host, is a small-town cop trying to solve Korea’s first serial murder case. It all starts like any episode of Prime Suspect, but somehow the cops keep falling down, they can’t keep farmers from running over the evidence with tractors, and they’re not above beating confessions out of retards. Shot as beautifully as The Host and every bit as unpredictable, Memories of Murder isn’t exactly a deconstruction of the whodunit, but a strange and beautiful mutation. I want to see it again soon.

Salinui chueok. Bong Joon-ho, 2003. ****

• There’s a spoilerish trailer on YouTube.

Like a distant cousin of Le Petit Lieutenant’s Nathalie Baye, Helen Mirren plays a determined female  detective in this BBC cop show. The series starts in 1991 when DCI Jane Tennison gets her first murder case; there are six more installments before the 2006 “Final Act.” The murders are grisly, London’s wet and gray, and her all-male colleagues won’t respect her, but Helen Mirren lights up the drab interiors with acting every bit as accomplished as the role she just got an Oscar nomination for.  I’m no expert on police procedurals–I’ve never seen a single episode of CSI: Anywhere–but the intricate and reversal-rich plotting of this first four-hour part is full of surprises. I particularly liked the extended focus on the suspect and his family, which creates something akin to what Karen Moncrieff, talking about The Dead Girl, called “the community of murder”–people brought together by crime. It’s also fun to spot future giants of English acting in minor roles. Ralph Fiennes, decked out in leather duds, is interrogated about a murdered prostitute, and Tom Wilkinson plays Mirren’s boyfriend, who expects her to solve the case and have the avocado dip ready for the dinner party, too. ****
[tags]helen mirren, ralph fiennes, tom wilkinson, crime, cops, murder, 4 stars, tv, london, nathalie baye, karen moncrieff[/tags]

Atrocious. If we’d seen it in time, this movie would have been assured one of the top spots on the list of worst movies of 2006. It’s not just that Scarlett Johannson and Josh Hartnett are fatally miscast–nobody here is pulling off the 40s tough guy/dame thing. Hillary Swank does a mediocre Kate Hepburn impersonation, Aaron Eckhard flounders, and Scarlett certainly ain’t Lauren Bacall. It’s like watching Brick–or Bugsy Malone–except that nobody bothered to clue in the actors. The only scenes that aren’t flat-out laughable are the black-and-white bits with Mia Kirshner.

The Black Dahlia. Brian De Palma, 2006. *

• Rotten Tomatoes: 36%
• Matt Zoller Seitz finds plenty to admire

[tags]noir, thriller, murder, brian de palma, prostitution, cops, los angeles, film, 1 star, hillary swank, katherine hepburn, aaron eckhard, scarlett johannson, lauren bacall, josh hartnett, james ellroy, mia kirshner[/tags]