March 18, 2024

DRIVING MADELEINE: Bring Some Tissue


DRIVING MADELEINE (Blu-ray)
2022 / 90 min
Review by Stinky the Destroyer😹

In some ways, the Belgian film, Driving Madeleine, is what I first expected. In others, I was thrown for a loop by a few of the narrative turns. Either way, one of this disc’s bonus features should be a box of tissues. By the end of this thing, I was in tears (which doesn’t happen often). Hell, I was damn close to ugly crying.

The basic plot is fairly straightforward. Middle-aged, financially struggling cab driver Charles (Dany Boon) is hired to take a passenger to the other side of Paris…a lengthy distance, but a potentially lucrative fare. The customer is Madeleine (Line Renaud), a 92 year old woman being forced to move into a nursing home. In no real hurry, she requests a few stops at places she recalls from her past - including the old neighborhood - while opening up about the pivotal moments in her life. To his surprise, she’s also genuinely interested in his life.


Initially, Charles doesn’t care about her stories and is reluctant to open up to her. But as the journey continues, Madeleine is increasingly candid about her tumultuous past. Depicted through artfully conceived flashbacks, the love of her life was an American GI she met near the end of World War II, with whom she had a son. However, once he shipped back home, she never saw him again. She later ended up in an extremely abusive marriage with violent drunk Ray. Since abuse wasn’t grounds for divorce back then, her gruesome solution to the problem, while justifiable (and potentially audience pleasing), alters the trajectory of her life and relationship with her son.


Looks like Charles will be putting in some overtime cleaning ice cream off his upholstery.
During the cab ride, Charles and Madeleine form a friendship that’s frequently charming, funny and ultimately heartwarming. Through much of Driving Madeleine, I could kinda tell where the narrative was heading. But by the third act, I was so invested in these two characters that part of me was really happy it did play out as predicted, because the emotional payoff is huge. However, this isn’t just a French Driving Miss Daisy. There are jarring tonal shifts between their conversations in the car and the increasingly harrowing flashbacks, the latter of which contributing greatly to our admiration of Madeleine, as well as a few personal epiphanies experienced by Charles.

By the time the end credits rolled, I was emotionally exhausted. But it was the good kind of exhaustion. Driving Madeleine takes the viewer on an entertaining - often revealing - personal journey of two wonderfully realized characters. With a perceptive screenplay, fluid direction by Christian Carion and affecting performances (including Alice Isaaz as young Madeleine), this is the best disc I’ve reviewed so far this year.


EXTRA KIBBLES

INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR CHRISTIAN CARION - An enjoyable Zoom-type interview. Surprisingly, Carion reveals one of his inspirations while making this film was Steven Spieberg’s Duel.

TRAILER


March 17, 2024

SHADOW MAGIC: More Heartfelt Than Historical


SHADOW MAGIC (Blu-ray)
2001 / 116 min
FROM SONY
Available at www.MovieZyng.com
Review by Pepper the Poopy😺

Released in 2001, Shadow Magic makes few claims of historical accuracy. However, some of the characters are based on real people who were key figures in the making of what’s widely considered China’s first film…way back in 1905. 

Taking place a few years before that, Liu Jinglun (Xia Yu) is a young photographer who’s fascinated by western technology, to the chagrin of his boss, Master Ren (Liu Perqi), and father (Jingming Wang), both of whom are Chinese traditionalists. When enterprising Englishman Raymond Wallace (Jared Harris) arrives with moving picture cameras and projectors, Liu is intrigued. Others, including snobbish opera star Tan Linmei (Li Yuheng), are dismissive of this ‘shadow magic,’ thinking it will ever catch on.


Tan is wrong, of course. When Liu and Wallace partner up and open a little movie house, the locals show up in droves, entranced by what they see. However, not only do a few incidents hamper their success, Liu is eventually ostracized by others for abandoning traditions and defying his father, the latter of which is exacerbated by his refusal to marry a rich widow (at Dad's behest) because he’s in love with Tan’s daughter (Xing Yufei).


"Our new movie needs dinosaurs...go wrangle a few."
Despite the historical context, much of the film covers familiar narrative ground. While well done and often interesting, the emotional heart of the story is the relationship between Liu and Wallace, which grows into a close friendship that contributes greatly to the affecting climax & denouement. Elsewhere, the sequences depicting filmmaking in its infancy - as well as its presentation - are fascinating.

Though leisurely paced and maybe a little overlong, Shadow Magic boasts a charming story with two likable main characters, both earnestly portrayed by Yu and Harris. And while film may not exactly be a history lesson, the attention to period detail related to movie making certainly feels authentic. 


EXTRA KIBBLES

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By director Ann Hu

TRAILER


March 15, 2024

Revisiting WITNESS


WITNESS (Blu-ray)
1985 / 113 min
FROM PARAMOUNT
Available at www.MovieZyng.com
Review by Stinky the Destroyer😺

Considering Witness was just recently restored and released by Arrow Video on Blu-ray & 4K, both loaded with supplemental material, it seems odd to be getting a Paramount reissue of a previous bare-bones edition. On the other hand, if all you care about is the movie without bells & whistles, this one's a little easier on the wallet.

For those too young to recall, Witness was a huge hit in the ‘80s and arguably the first movie where Harrison Ford was taken seriously as an actor. He even earned an Oscar nod for his performance as Philadelphia detective John Book, tasked with protecting an Amish boy who witnesses the murder of an undercover cop. Surrounded by corruption in his own department, Book, the boy and his mother, Rachel (Kelly McGillis), go into hiding in the family’s village, where he learns the Amish ways to fit in.


The best kittens are Free Kittens.
Ford’s still a lot more fun when punching Nazis or running from Tommy Lee Jones, but he’s certainly the best part of this film. Storywise, we’ve seen a lot of it before…the fish-out-of-water story, the cop who falls in love with his witness, etc. But Ford’s performance keeps it interesting, probably because we hadn’t seen him in a role like this before. At the very least, he’s more engaging than catatonic co-star McGillis.

Behind the camera, Peter Weir brings visual freshness to all the familiarity and keeps the story moving along efficiently. While not his best film, Witness was the one that elevated him from respected Australian director to Hollywood A-lister. Elsewhere, one of the fun things about revisiting old films is catching now-famous actors in small early roles. In this case, look for Danny Glover as a corrupt killer cop and Viggo Mortensen in his film debut as one of the Amish.


Overall, Witness has aged pretty well for a nearly 40-year-old movie, with only Maurice Jarre’s atypically terrible score serving as a reminder of the decade in which it was released. The film walks a familiar narrative path, but did give Harrison Ford the chance to try something different at the time, and he made to most of it.

March 14, 2024

ONE-PERCENT WARRIOR: Meta Mayhem


ONE-PERCENT WARRIOR (Blu-ray)
2022 / 85 min
Review by Mr. Bonnie😼

Tak Sakaguchi is evidently a big deal in his home country of Japan. On this side of the pond, he’s probably most known for the cult film, Versus, but the only thing I remember him from is Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1. Boasting a 77-minute fight scene, it was gimmicky, monotonous junk that played more like a live-action first-person video game than a movie.

The good news is One-Percent Warrior is better than that, with an actual story that begins pretty cleverly. Tak plays a thinly veiled version of himself as Takuma Toshiro, an action star who once made a classic film, but his obsession with “authentic” action & fighting has since made him almost impossible to work with. 10 years later, he has trouble even landing roles as an extra.


Mr. Badwrench
So with apprentice & only fan Akira (Kohei Fukuyama) in tow, Takuma decides to put together a real action movie with some financial backing. But the action becomes very real when he and his crew arrive at the shooting location - an abandoned factory on a remote island - at the same time as two warring Yakuza clans. Seeing this as an opportunity to show off his skills in a real situation, Takuma goes to work while Akira films it all.

It’s more-or-less at this point that One-Percent Warrior turns into an extended brawl, allowing Sakaguchi ample opportunities to demonstrate his formidable fighting abilities. But however impressive, a little of this goes a long way. The action grows increasingly repetitious and at no point is the outcome ever in question. 


It’s ultimately the meta aspects of the film that work best, along with Sakaguchi's apparent willingness to poke fun at himself. Hence, the early scenes tend to be more engaging. The rest of One-Percent Warrior should keep hardcore fight fans amused.

EXTRA KIBBLES
MAKING-OF FEATURETTE - At 25 minutes, it's much more substantial than the usual promos included by Well Go.
TRAILER

March 13, 2024

THE 355 (4K): "Weren't We Gonna See That Once?"


THE 355 (4K UHD)
2022 / 124 min
Available at www.MovieZyng.com
Review by Mr. Bonnie😽

I vaguely recall seeing the trailer for The 355 when it was first released. It was my wife who fleetingly mentioned, “That might be fun,” to which I nodded in agreement. Every now and then, we enjoy taking-in a big, loud action flick at the movies. But we never got around to it, either because we were too busy or the movie came and went so fast in theaters that we simply forgot about it.

Sometime later, when the wife and I were browsing through Netflix or Prime, The 355 popped up. “Hey, weren't we gonna see that once?” she said. “That might be fun some night.” I nodded in agreement and stuck it on my watchlist because sometimes it’s great just to vedge on the sofa with a movie that doesn’t require a lot of brain power. But again, I never got around to it, probably because I generally spend more time looking for something on Netflix than actually watching something on Netflix. With the billion other things I had on my watchlist, I guess it just got lost in the shuffle (if it’s even there anymore).


When it arrived on 4K for review, I said to my wife, “The 355…didn’t you want to see that ?” She shrugged indifferently, either because she forgot or was no longer interested. At any rate, I was flying solo for this one, and after watching it with the lights down and the volume cranked, it’s exactly the movie I thought it would be. The 355 is a big, loud actionfest that seldom engages the brain, and unless you’ve never seen a single 21st Century action movie, offers no surprises whatsoever.


"You rode shotgun last time. My turn."
Which isn’t necessarily intended as criticism. Like going to McDonald’s, sometimes you just want simple comfort food. And it doesn’t get much simpler than four international agents (and another forced to go along for the ride) chasing down a MacGuffin around the globe while clashing with a gaggle of ruthless bad guys. In this case, it’s five women who must overcome their initial distrust to team up for a common goal. The MacGuffin is a hard-drive that can take control of any digital system. As for the ruthless bad guys…well, there's a ton of ‘em. Some we meet in the first scene, others are later revealed as bad guys in a shocking plot twist (though it won’t come as much of a shock).

With a frenetic pace and action sequences that tend to gloss over most of the story implausibilities, it’s fun watching these women trot the globe and kick-ass. There’s a plethora of bullets, bombs, brawls and broken glass, all of it well shot and choreographed. An impressive ensemble cast of leading ladies (Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, Penelope Cruz, Lupita Nyong’o, Bingbing Fan) make the main characters more interesting than the screenplay actually does. The even bigger batch of antagonists are strictly standard-issue, though Sebastian Stan appears to be enjoying himself as a double-crossing CIA agent.


Both narratively and technically, there isn’t a single aspect of The 355 that's particularly original, complex or all that memorable. But hey, it’s certainly fun in the moment and seldom boring. If the wife ever does decide to finally watch it, I might be up for another round. The film bombed in theaters and was quickly forgotten, so I don’t know how many were pining for a 4K upgrade, but it looks and sounds terrific (as does the accompanying Blu-ray).


EXTRA KIBBLES

4K, BLU-RAY & DIGITAL COPIES

FEATURETTES (all carried over from the original Blu-ray) - Chasing Through Paris; Action That Hurts; Reconstructing Marrakesh; Chaos at the City of Dreams; VFX Breakdown. These featurettes run around 5 minutes each and are mostly focused on locations and technical aspects of the film.

DELETED SCENES


March 12, 2024

Family Movie Night with POOR THINGS


POOR THINGS (Digital)
2023 / 142 min
Review by Mr. Bonnie😺
Poor Things is also available on Blu-ray on DVD

In the end, I’m glad I waited as long as I did to watch Poor Things.

Both of my daughters were very interested in seeing it as well, so when it was made available to review, I extended them an invitation. The challenge was picking an evening we were all free and up for a movie. Finally, with the Academy Award broadcasting the next day, I couldn’t wait on them any longer. Since the Oscars are sort of like the Super Bowl for me, it’s important to see as many of the major nominees as possible before the statues are handed out.  


And thank God I ended up watching it alone, because even though both daughters are more or less grown up, I’m still uncomfortable watching movies with them that contain explicit sex or nudity…of which Poor Things has gobs. There are enough naughty bits on display for two Ari Aster movies. 


But like Aster, there’s a twisted rationale behind these scenes, particularly in relation to the themes of female empowerment, sexual liberation and independence. So while graphic and plentiful, I’d stop just short of labeling them gratuitous, though lead actor Emma Stone certainly goes all-in with her character (in more ways than one) and demonstrates a ton of bravery.


Emma cosplays as a croissant.
Now having seen it, did she deserve the Oscar for Best Actress? Perhaps I should reserve final judgment until seeing Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon, but Stone certainly provides a strong case for herself as Bella Baxter, resurrected from the dead by kindly-but-deranged doctor Godwin (Willem Dafoe, in yet another wonderfully eccentric performance). I’m gonna refrain from discussing any more of the plot because I went into the film relatively cold and can attest that much of what keeps Poor Things’ episodic narrative compelling is having no idea what it’s gonna throw at you next (though I will say the whole thing does carry on longer than it needs to).

The film certainly deserved a lot of its other Oscar wins, especially the production design, which is a knock-out. More so than any previous effort by director Yorgos Lanthimos, virtually every shot is an elaborate, imaginative work of surrealist art, alternately oppressive & whimsical, drab & vivid. And even though he didn’t win, Robbie Ryan’s cinematography brilliantly enhances the mood of each scene. I especially liked the use of black & white to reflect Bella’s confinement in Godwin’s house, while her journey of self-discovery is bursting with color. In addition to Stone & Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo and Ramy Youssef are excellent in key supporting roles.


Like every Lanthimos film, Poor Things will be a little too “out there” for some tastes and a twisted breath of fresh air for others. Either way, there hasn’t been another Oscar nominee quite like it. With equal measures of comedy, fantasy, pathos, sexuality and no small amount of cultural commentary, it’s Lanthimos’ most accomplished film.


As for my two girls...they later watched Poor Things on their own. Both liked it, but concurred it wasn't something they needed to experience with Dad.


EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTE - Possessing Beauty: The Making of Poor Things (running 21 minutes, this features interviews with the primary cast & crew).

3 DELETED SCENES


March 11, 2024

THE COLOR PURPLE: Not Quite a Remake


THE COLOR PURPLE (Blu-ray)
2023 / 141 min
Review by Pepper the Poopie😺

From a certain perspective, The Color Purple is a historical first. Until now, no other Steven Spielberg-directed movie has ever been remade. I suppose it was just a matter of time and I’m actually surprised it hasn’t already happened.

But one could easily argue that the film isn't really a remake. Sure, the characters and story are more-or-less the same, but this is primarily an adaptation of the 2005 stage musical that had a couple of lengthy Broadway runs over the years. Still, I suppose some comparisons are inevitable. 


I gotta say I found Fantasia Barrino much more appealing as Celie than Whoopi Goldberg was, and even then, both Danielle Brooks (as Celeie’s feisty friend, Sofia) and my secret crush Taraji P. Henson (as sultry singer Shug Avery) manage to steal a few scenes for themselves. Like in the original, this trio is the crux of the story, forming a bond over the years as Celie grows to become independent of her abusive husband, Mister (Colman Domingo).


With the color purple comes allergies.
While the performances are earnest and exuberant, the characters aren’t as complex as their 1985 counterparts (a few border on being caricatures). The same could be said about the story. The novel’s themes are still present, but a lot of the film takes a back seat to the musical sequences, some which are genuine showstoppers. Standout numbers include Sofia’s sassy “Hell, No!” and Shug’s playful “Push Da Button.” I also appreciated Celie and Shug’s charming, fantasy tinged “What About Love?”, which includes imaginative production design.

Considering the amount of down time between musical numbers and our anticipation of some good ol’ fashioned karma being dished out, The Color Purple is a little too long for its own good. But despite a bit of overall aloofness, the film is ultimately rewarding and a solid musical adaptation of a classic novel. And I guess if you had to rework a Spielberg movie, better this than Jaws.


EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTES - Creating The Color Purple: A Bold New Take on a Beloved Classic; Hell, Yes! - The Iconic Characters of The Color Purple; A Story for Me: The Legacy of The Color Purple. Each of these run 6-7 minutes.

MUSICAL MOMENTS - This lets you skip straight to the musical numbers.

DIGITAL COPY


March 10, 2024

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM: Surprise-Free Spectacle


AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM (Blu-ray)
2023 / 124 min
Review by Stinky the Destroyer😾

Throughout much of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, I felt like I was watching a cartoon. Granted, a very nicely animated cartoon, but even more so than the first film, the overall aesthetic reeks of artifice. Rarely did I feel like the performers were ever interacting with their environment.

CGI runs rampant in nearly every scene, with action sequences so busy that they cease to be logistically convincing. Elaborate new worlds, machines and creatures are obviously intended to instill awe, but we’re mostly impressed with the technology that created them. Special effects shouldn’t call this much attention to themselves, especially if they don’t depict anything we haven’t seen before (and are used more sparingly). Visually, there ain’t a lot of difference between Atlantis and the Land of the Dead from Coco.


Storywise, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom offers no real surprises. Having defeated his tyrannical brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) in the first film, Arthur curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa) is now the ruler of Atlantis. He doesn’t particularly enjoy being king, preferring to spend time on land with Mera (Amber Heard) and their new son, Arthur Jr. 


"Yeah, it was me...I stole your shirt."
Meanwhile, David Kane/Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is still obsessed with avenging his father’s death by killing Aquaman, only now he has a new crew of henchmen and a supersub equipped with ancient Atlantean technology. After finding a trident that once belonged to Kordax, the ruler of the lost kingdom of Necrus, he becomes possessed and empowered with strength that equals Aquaman’s. Adding apocalyptic implications to the narrative is the fuel required for Manta to hatch his plan, which is environmentally devastating. In true supervillain fashion, he isn’t concerned with such trifles…

…which is part of the problem. Mantas is so single-minded and hateful that there’s little Abdul-Mateen can do with the character but glower and rage. He’s more of a video game villain than a dynamic antagonist. Elsewhere, many returning characters are given little to do that significantly impacts the narrative, especially Mera, who’s almost persona non grata until the climax. Fortunately, Arthur is forced to tap his incarcerated brother for help defeating Manta because the scenes they share nearly save the movie. Not only is their antagonistic brotherly banter pretty amusing, Momoa and Wilson’s performances manage to stand out amid all the spectacle.


For the most part, however, Aquaman and Lost Lost Kingdom is emblematic of many recent superhero movies…watchable without ever being engaging, with no attempts to bring anything new to an increasingly rote formula. The film is pretty, but also pretty redundant.


EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTES - Finding the Lost Kingdom (the most substantive of the bonus material, featuring Jason Momoa, director James Wan and other cast & crew); Aquaman: Worlds Above and Below; Atlantean Blood is Thicker Than Water (the history of Arthur & Orm); It’s a Manta World (about the primary villain, featuring interviews with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II & others); Necrus: The Lost City; Escape from the Deserter World; Brawling at the Kingfish’s Lair; Oh, Topo! (brief segment about the scene stealing octopus.

DIGITAL COPY