Screengrab Fall Preview: Leonard Pierce's Picks

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:30:00 GMT

So,my fellow Screengrabbers have thrown down the gauntlet, and once again, I gotta clean it up. What movies am I really looking forward to this fall? Burn After Reading, The Road and Synedoche, New York, among others. But thanks to the quirky rules we set up just to get on each other's nerves, we're trying not to repeat ourselves, so I've chosen to focus on a few films that have gone unmentioned by my beloved associates.

Of course, there's plenty to look forward to in theaters this fall above what's on my top three list below. The indie film about an Arab-American teenager's crisis of conscience, Towelhead; the wide release of the clever Assassination of a High School President; the American big-screen debut of Wong Kar-Wei's breathtaking Ashes of Time; and the mainstream debut of the sparkling Lily Rabe in the otherwise uninteresting What Just Happened are all enough to put your butt in a padded theater chair if you're a film fan. But beyond that, there's the movies I'm most -- and least -- looking forward to, beneath the cut.

3 UP

Milk: The story of San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California history, would be compelling enough, but with the sporadically brilliant Gus Van Sant behind the camera and three terrific actors playing the key roles (Sean Penn as Milk, the always-compelling Victor Garber as Mayor George Moscone, and Josh Brolin as the homophobic ex-cop who becomes their assassin), this is one I'm going to look forward to until its opening night.

Miracle at St. Anna: Will this World War II epic be directed by the good Spike Lee or the bad Spike Lee? A pointless feud with Clint Eastwood during production suggests the latter, but the screenplay (by the book's author), a cast mixing young newcomers with skilled veterans, and the fact that Spike's movies are never less than interesting even when they're not great pull me towards the former and ensure I'll be in line to see this come Christmas.

Lakeview Terrace: Much like Spike Lee, Neil LaBute can deliver precise hits and broad misses. But this story about racial tension in Los Angeles is right in his wheelhouse, with its themes of hidden anger, authority abused and real ugliness burbling under residential bliss. And a menacing Samuel L. Jackson is a good Sammuel L. Jackson, as Grand Theft Auto fans can testify.

3 DOWN

Beverly Hills Chihuahua: It's a tiny little CGI dog! Who hobnobs with the rich and famous! In Hollywood! And it's got...attitide! And sass! If you need me, I'll be over here in the corner, killing myself.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: From the asinine title to the 'gosh-isn't-New-York-uniquely-wonderful' feel to the promise of a soundtrack filled with precious tunes by indistinguishable groups of mildly sad white people to the calculated air of cuteness to the presence of one-note Hollywood darling Michael Cera, there's pretty much nothing about this movie that doesn't make me want to punch somebody.

Punisher: War Zone: Sick of superhero movies? Waiting for a real stinker to come out so that everyone will just shut up about them already? This oughtta do it.

WILD CARD

The Spirit: In the world of comics, Frank Miller -- in recent years, at least -- has developed a reputation as an exquisitely skilled artist, a craftsman nonpariel, but also a man who increasingly takes less and less care with this plots and stories, which grow ever more abstract and nonsensical as his art gets better. Which one will show up behind the camera for The Spirit? I'm afraid it'll be both, but there's no denying the appeal of the project, so I'll be taking a chance.

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Take Five: Wong Kar-Wai

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:45:00 GMT

With My Blueberry Nights getting a limited-release opening in major cities across the country this weekend, Hong Kong legend Wong Kar-Wai will finally make his English-language feature film debut, and, after twenty years of building his reputation as a filmmaker, get a shot at the cherished American audience that can make or break a director. The only question is, will My Blueberry Nights be his Fritz Lang moment or his John Woo moment? Early reviews indicate that it might be the latter; the movie wasn't especially well-received when it opened Cannes last year, and producer Harvey Weinstein's drastic cut is said not to have helped matters any. The jury, likewise, is still out on whether or not Norah Jones can act, but the testimony onscreen is said to be pretty damning. If it turns out that it's a stiff, it might be all to the good and he can return to the environment in which he did his greatest work; and regardless of its quality, we're all geeked about his upcoming remake of Orson Welles' The Lady from Shanghai. We'll have to wait and see, but even if it turns out that My Blueberry Nights is Wong Kar-Wai's first major dud, he's still one of the most innovative, fascinating and consistently talented directors in contemporary film. Here's five movies that prove it.

CHUNG KING EXPRESS (1994)

Although he'd shown flickers of brilliance before (and already begun his tradition of naming his films after pop songs with his 1988 directorial debut, As Tears Go By), Chung King Express is the movie that established Wong Kar-Wai as a director capable of legitimate greatness. The highly stylized film, about a heartbroken Hong Kong cop on the prowl who falls in with a gorgeous and mysterious young woman in a drug gang, so impressed Quentin Tarantino that he invested a chunk of his own money to get this and Wong Kar-Wai's other films released in the United States. Even now, after he's stretched substantially, this is still a stunning film, chock full of quirky moments, philosophical speculation on the mediated life, and his ability to coax stellar performances out of his actors. A Godardian triumph.

ASHES OF TIME (1994)

Years in the making, and based on a highly popular Asian epic novel, it would have been easy for Ashes of Time to be a major step back in the career of Wong Kar-Wai. (Some critics, indeed, think it was.) After having established that he was a director of skill, ambition and daring, it seemed unusual for him to take on that classic Hong Kong trope, the martial arts epic — but as it happened, there was nothing to fear. He approached it with his typical attitude, sacrificing not a whit of artistic integrity, and the result is one of the most thoughtful, surreal, philosophical action epics ever put on screen. Wong Kar-Wai takes what could be a by-the-numbers swordplay drama and turns it into something bizarre, achronal, and transcendental — a wonderful movie that's hard to follow, but impossible to forget.

HAPPY TOGETHER (1997)

Althought it wasn't quite as well received as his previous spate of films — at least partly because of the controversial nature of its subject matter in his homeland of Hong Kong — Happy Together is still a highly rewarding addition to Wong Kar-Wai's body of work, and the first movie in which he begins to seriously mine the themes of thwarted passion and self-nullifying ennui that would shape his finest work to come. Bouyed by two fantastic performances in the lead roles by Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung, Happy Together follows the unconventional relationship between two expatriates from Hong Kong as they take a typically surreal and eventful road trip through Argentina. It's a passionate, sexy, and sometimes ridiculous movie, with gorgeous cinematography by Christopher Doyle, and a taste of greatness to come.

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000)

Finally putting to bed his penchant for hip-pocket surrealism, Wong-Kar Wei finally plays it straight with this utterly beautiful, incredibly heartbreaking story of doomed romance set in the Hong Kong of the 1960s. Everything about it is pitch-perfect, from the stunning cinematography to the breathtaking costumes to the quiet, naturalistic screenplay, which makes its points with subtlety and grace rather than noise and distraction. The lead performances by Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung — some of the most controlled, precise, and yet emotionally engaging screen acting in decades — help further elevate the story of two unrequited lovers who, alone in a city of millions, reenact a sort of sham shadowplay of the illicit affair their spouses are having with one another, from good to great.

2046 (2004)

It was a risky move to create a sequel to a movie as distinct and delicately perfect as In the Mood for Love. It was an even riskier move to create a sequel that returned the more avant-garde elements of Wong Kar-Wai's filmmaking style — chronological jumps, elements of surrealism, non-linear storytelling, and bits and pieces of science fiction and fantasy — to the mix. But if anyone could pull it off, he could, and he did, with a sequel that may not precisely follow the tone of the previous film, but captures its mood and spirit exactly. In 2046, we follow Tony Leung's character from In the Mood for Love after Maggie Cheung has left his life — he's a more bitter figure than before, but still filled with romantic longing, which he now attempts to sublimate into a science fiction novel he's writing. While it's not quite the instant classic that its predecessor was, it's still a very worthy film that shows how adept Wong-Kar Wei is at blending his ruling passions as a filmmaker.

The Screengrab : ashes of time

Screengrab Fall Preview: Leonard Pierce's Picks

Take Five: Wong Kar-Wai