A better name for this issue might be "Capsule Film Reviews by Tony Porco and whoever else he can round up to write reviews for him," because fully two-fifths of this issue was done by guest writers: David Lichtenstein braved Knock Off (the exegesis below, by the way, had me rolling on the floor!), and Jill Hendricks took a long look at Beyond Silence. As these submissions illustrate, I am interested in just about anything anyone has to say about a movie they've seen, mostly out of a laziness-motivated desire to pad this newsletter; please feel free to send things my way, either by electronic or postal mail...
ON FILM:
KNOCK OFF: Once more, I have sacrificed myself to the theater gods in the hope that you will be spared their wrath. If I'd had any clue that Knock Off would be such a lump of corrosive slag, I never would have gone at all. Alas, I found myself trapped in the darkened movie-house with a 45 minute drive home. Again, I should have fled, but I thought:'why not stay for the free movie since I'm already here?' My sanity has paid the price for that decision. The first thing you need to know about this movie is that it is dubbed. I think the film was originally in English, but instead of using subtitles (as I prefer), the editors chose to dub the voices into our accent instead. The second thing you need to know is that the villains and most of the minor characters are either from Hong Kong or Russia. This makes it all the more jarring when they speak in Bostonian tones. I can live with dubbing; after all, most martial arts films from Asia get dubbed when they travel to America, and this is just a modern martial arts flick. Sadly, the producers, directors, and editors seemed to be under the impression that it was True Lies instead. They are not even close.
The script is horrible. I was not surprised at this revelation, and neither should you be. What surprised me was how much worse the influence of the directors and editors could make it. Van Damme has the acting ability of a cabbage. But the directors seemed to have a hard time finding space in the frame for his whole head (cabbage heads can get rather big, after all--Ed.). Sometimes, they would focus the camera on his foot instead. The editors made sure that only the blurriest shots and dizziest pans made it into the final film. Knock Off has redefined for me the definition of 'schlock'.Still, I survived the experience and hope that I'll be around when the folks from Best Brains give it the full MST3K treatment it deserves!
CITY OF ANGELS: This one relates a rather improbable (to put it mildly) love between a benevolent angel of death (Nicholas Cage) and a real-life human being who happens to be a surgeon and career climber working the same shift (Meg Ryan). Interestingly enough, I was expecting a thoroughly commercial three-hankie chick flick, but I was rather surprised to find a fairly surreal and even tragic tale. The central question of the film is whether or not Cage (who convinces us that he really is experiencing these alien feelings) will exercise his heavenly option of descending, or falling, in order to win Ryan's heart. The believability of this won't charm everyone, but Dennis Franz, playing an already-fallen angel (isn't that great casting?) who educates Cage, just might. Cage adds another item to his resume of eccentric characters, while Ryan similarly notches up yet another "girlfriend" role, although not a wholly undynamic one. The special effects are actually worth mentioning in a review, for once. The overly set-up ending really turned me off, however, and is perhaps the film's weakest point. Andre Braugher--the Shakespearean actor best known for being Detective Pembleton on Homicide--has a role as a fellow angel, but is not given nearly enough to do.
BEYOND SILENCE:, a German film subtitled in English, conveys the experience of what it is like growing up as a hearing child of deaf parents. The deaf community refers to these people by the acronym CODA, children of deaf adults. We view how the film's main character, Lara, superbly played by both a younger child actor and an older teenager, experiences her parents' deaf world and the outside hearing world and of how she reconciles her identity in each one over time. Lara's aunt, Christina, her father's sister, realizes that Lara has talent playing the clarinet and encourages her to develop her ability. Martin, Lara's father, ably portrayed by deaf actor Howie Seago (who is referred to by some as "the deaf Marlon Brando"--Ed.), does not approve of this as he feels that Lara's pursuit of music training will cause them to grow apart just as he felt had occurred in his relationships with his sister and his father over the years. Martin feels that Christina encourages Lara to develop her clarinet playing ability to draw her away from the deaf world in which she grew up and he does not want to lose her.
In many ways, this movie's themes transcend the deaf experience to touch on universal themes familiar to viewers, such as family relationships, the pain of separation and letting go in the pursuit of developing one's adult identity, and themes of love and loss, whether or not viewers are familiar with the deafness-related themes in the movie. This is good because it broadens the movie's appeal to a wider commercial market than solely the deaf community. Beyond Silence educates viewers about what it's like to be deaf in a hearing world, such as showing the deaf parents using a TTY, a teletype text telephone for the deaf. The director does an especially good job at conveying the experience that CODAs have of navigating between the deaf and hearing worlds and trying to establish their identities in each of these very different cultures. Good examples of this are several scenes in which young Lara interprets for her parents as they meet with her teacher or conduct bank-related business. These scenes that show realistic slices of CODA life make this film well worth seeing above all else. Highly recommended.
ON TAPE:
LOVE SERENADE: An abrasive celebrity DJ escapes a divorce by moving to a small industrial town in the Australian outback; next door are two sisters who are all that is left of a dysfunctional family. Bossy Vickie Ann immediately falls for the famous stranger, never letting him have a moment's peace, but he seems more interested in her shyer sibling, the aptly named Dimity (Miranda Otto, the only name I wrote down, who uses her expressive face in wonderful ways). The director and screenwriter show great talent for setting up impossibly awkward situations (tea kettles scream during the sisters' arguments, and an obsequious Vicki Ann presents the DJ with a fish so freshly caught that it's still covered in blood). After one awkward scene too many, it gets old; we really don't need as much elaboration on the sister's desperate and dorky status as we're given. What we could use is an explanation of why they continue to be interested in the unbelievably tiresome old lecher that is their neighbor. Nothing ever gets us more than passingly interested in him, or in them, for that matter. The thoroughly perverse ending throws almost everything that has been built so far on its head--and is, therefore, thoroughly welcome. A scene in which Dimity's boss, a Chinese restauranteur, chops the heads off a large number of skinned chickens will be either the most disgusting or the funniest scene in the whole movie, depending on your intestinal fortitude.
JUMANJI: A young boy and girl in an idealized New England town discover a strange, Ouija-like boardgame, named exactly what you think, on a construction site where it had been buried a century before. Unbeknownst to them, the game contains incredible powers, among them the ability to conjure random African animals and trap players in extradimensional jungles. The boy ends up trapped in the game in this manner until two contemporary children find the game and start playing twenty-five years later--at which point he emerges as a grown-up jungle man (Robin Williams). Sound like a silly excuse for lots of special effects? I assure you it is, but the least the filmmakers could do is give said effects a bit of realism--they all look like precisely what they are (computer graphics, of course). Meanwhile, the usually-irrepressible Williams coasts by, doing lots of trademark Williams-isms instead of developing a believable character. Adding insult to injury, every point the script has to make is made in the least subtle manner possible, proving nothing except the utter commerciality of this film (and speaking of insult, David Allen Grier is wasted in a slightly degrading comic-relief role). I looked hard for a good point, and found at least one--Bebe Neuwirth does a pleasing, if not star-turning, job as the adoptive mother of the modern children. (Hey, this gives me the opportunity to end this review, and this newsletter, with a trivia question: what is the network TV role that introduced Ms. Neuwirth to the world?)
Until next time...
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TONY