Reel Thoughts: On Dublin Time

Ireland’s financial collapse destroyed a crazy economic bubble known as the Celtic Tiger. Writer/Director Brian Lally uses this as a backdrop to set his big screen soap opera 8.5 Hours (now available on DVD), about four office workers who are having the worst Monday ever.

Rachel (Lynette Callaghan) is desperate to buy an overpriced Dublin condo, despite breaking up with the boyfriend who was going to make it affordable. Eoin (Victor Burke) is neck-deep in expensive wedding plans, even though he’s hiding his bisexuality from his bride-to-be. Tony (Jonathan Byrne) is a coke-sniffing womanizer who is getting weird hate mail threatening that judgment is upon him. Finally, Frank (Art Kearns) is reeling from finding his neglected wife in bed with his best friend. Each character’s back story is shown as their lives shatter, just like the company they work for and the country in which they live.

8.5 Hours is an engaging melodrama that reveals the dark sides people try to hide from the world. Each person has sympathetic characteristics except for Tony, but it is hard to cheer on their choices. Rachel blackmails her smarmy boss over his on-the-down-low lifestyle, while Eoin cheats on his fiancée while continuing to let her play 'Bride Beautiful'. A creepy element enters the story when a mysterious old woman begins accosting Tony for a sin he committed years before. She makes Carrie’s mother look like Mary Poppins. The acting is well done and Callaghan, in particular, shines as the shifty Rachel.

This isn’t a film where you’ll find positive gay role models, but 8.5 Hours does reveal a segment of Irish culture that ferments the secretive behavior of its bisexual characters. Rachel is more than punished for her ruthless ambition and misdeeds, but women viewers may find the film offensive overall for its depiction of its female characters. Overall, 8.5 Hours doesn’t succeed as the cultural indictment it wants to be, due to an over-reliance on melodrama. As an entertaining soap opera about Dubliners behaving badly, though, it can’t be beat.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Reel Thoughts: Die, Die, My Darling

Let Me Die Quietly (now available on DVD) has a lot in common with Seeing Heaven, the British movie about a street hustler who sees visions of murder when sexually engaged. Writer Charles Casillo (The Marilyn Diaries) stars as Mario, a haunted sex addict who sees visions of murder victims but can’t help them. While Seeing Heaven was wrapped in the porn world, Let Me Die Quietly is more of a thriller with a twist ending.

Mario meets another psychic, Gabrielle (Dana Perry), who tells him that she has the same kind of visions, and she hopes that they can make sense of them and help stop a serial killer. As Mario’s narration shows, he knows that to intervene in this murder may mean his own demise, but he is so roused from his fatalistic lifestyle, he can’t help himself. This is pure film noir shot on a shoestring budget, with a level of acting that sometimes lets the story down. The pacing is very slow and deliberate, but if you give it a chance, you’ll be rewarded with an unusual thriller with a lot of twists.

Casillo is handsome but a little bland and unfocused. Perry is much more engaging, and once the pair start trailing the man they think killed a Hell’s Kitchen hustler, their chemistry improves the film. Ian Tomaschik, as Mario’s psychiatrist, is the one glaring bad casting decision. Who would see a therapist who so clearly sounds and acts like a psycho? The character has been helping Mario with his “gift”, so we are misled if we don’t like him and root for him to help Mario.

One of my pet peeves in movies and television is people who have psychic powers that never help them, and instead just move the plot along. Let Me Die Quietly suffers from that affliction big-time, but it makes sense as the film wraps up. It is intriguing that Mario finds himself seduced by Gabrielle in every way, despite him being gay. This may be hard for audiences to buy, but in the film’s world, it works.

Let Me Die Quietly is more like “Let It Play Slowly”, but it has received a lot of love on the festival circuit, so you may find it an engrossing thriller.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Reverend's Reviews: Heaven & Hell

I don't think I've ever watched two such diametrically opposed films, in terms of both content and craftsmanship, in the same week as I Saw the Devil and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Apart from being made by equally adept Asian writer-directors and delving into arguably-theological waters, these movies (which open today in Los Angeles and New York) have virtually nothing in common. And, as Martha Stewart might say, that's a good (or at least an interesting) thing.

Uncle Boonmee arrives on US shores bearing the 2010 Palme d'Or medal from Cannes, that festival's highest honor. It is a leisurely, downright meditative tale — which some will no doubt label "slow paced" — about a terminally ill man reflecting on his present and previous lives. Steeped in Buddhist tradition and theories of transmigration (by which humans, animals and even plants may share their essences with one another), Uncle Boonmee is a strange and challenging but not unrewarding experience.

In the process of reviewing his lives, Uncle Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar, who is better known as a roof-welder in Thailand than an actor) and his current family are visited by the ghost of his previous wife and by his long-absent son, the latter of whom has undergone a strange transformation. Boonmee's son has become a "monkey ghost," several of which are present throughout the film and are its spookiest element, especially given their glowing, eerie red eyes. Between his acute kidney failure and spiritual visitations, Boonmee declares at one point "This is a result of my karma; I've killed too many communists."

Uncle Boonmee is written and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who previously made the somewhat gay-themed 2004 movie Tropical Malady. His new film's plot and pacing may confound Western audiences, especially during an extended sequence in which a disfigured princess has sexual relations with an enchanted catfish. The movie culminates in a dramatically effective family trek to Boonmee's ancestral cave, but ultimately ends on an odd note that can be interpreted as critical of what Weerasethakul considers a contemporary disconnect between nature or spirit and technology. While it doesn't translate into the most persuasive filmmaking, he may well have a point. Weerasethakul also writes perceptively in the film's press notes: "The film reinforces a special association between cinema and reincarnation; cinema is a man's way to create an alternate universe, and other lives."

I Saw the Devil, by Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters), is the vicious antithesis to sweet Uncle Boonmee. In its first thirty minutes, a young, pregnant woman is abducted, tortured, murdered and dismembered by a remorseless psychopath. I was tempted to give up on it at that point but I hung in for two more hours through the film's wicked, nail-biting conclusion and, in general, I'm glad I did.

The murdered woman's fiancé, an elite special agent, takes it upon himself to hunt down and punish the killer. In so doing, he naturally risks becoming a monster himself. Attractive Korean superstar Lee Byung-hun, who was also featured in the US production G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, is excellent as the grieving husband-to-be out for revenge.
Between his performance and the screenplay, I Saw the Devil illustrates well how easily regret can morph into retribution.

One can argue that the agent tracks the serial killer and confirms him as his fiancée's murderer a bit too easily, but I Saw the Devil is otherwise intelligent and engrossing though definitely not for the faint of heart. Choi Min-sik (a popular figure in this genre thanks to his role in 2003's similarly brutal Oldboy) is chilling as the Hannibal Lecter-esque villain, who relishes the cat-and-mouse game that develops between himself and his victim's fiancé. Kim Jee-woon's taut direction is superior to many of his international contemporaries, but the film's single best attribute may be the fantastic lighting (especially during a greenhouse confrontation between hunter and prey) and camera work devised by cinematographer Lee Mogae.

Still, it's hard to justify the gruesome carnage that flows throughout I Saw the Devil. As Nietzsche wrote, "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster." Filmmakers as well as those dedicated to punishing criminals should follow Nietzsche's advice.

Reverend's Ratings:
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives: B
I Saw the Devil: B+

UPDATE: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is available on DVD and Blu-ray and I Saw the Devil is available on DVD and Blu-ray now from Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Blade California.

Reverend's Preview: Ease on Down to Fusion 2011

A disco-era movie musical featuring a late pop icon will kick off the 2011 edition of Fusion: The Los Angeles LGBT People of Color Film Festival this Friday. The relatively brief but always significant and enjoyable annual fest will run through Saturday March 5 at various venues in Hollywood.

The Wiz, Sidney Lumet's 1978 adaptation of the Broadway hit, stars Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow and diva/icon Diana Ross as Dorothy in an African-American re-telling of The Wizard of Oz. The expensive movie received a mixed critical reception and was a box office flop at the time of its release, but it received four Oscar nominations and has gained fans over the years through television airings and home video. Jackson's untimely death in 2009 and subsequent revival of interest in all things related to "the King of Pop" have also drawn renewed attention to the film.

The Fusion screening will provide a rare opportunity to experience The Wiz on the big screen. It will also be a "Sing-Along" event, with audience members encouraged to join the cast in performing hit songs from the movie including "Ease on Down the Road," "Home" (sung by the legendary Lena Horne), "You Can't Win," the Wicked Witch's anthem "Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News" and the climactic, celebratory "A Brand New Day." Song lyrics will be projected as subtitles during the film's musical numbers.

Saturday's Fusion events will include a screening of Hooters: The Making of Older, Wiser, Lesbian Cinema. A documentary shot behind the scenes of last year's festival hit, The Owls, director Anna Albelo captures the creativity, difficulty and comedy of filmmaking. It will be followed by a sneak peek at Pariah, which was one of the hits at this January's Sundance Film Festival. Long Beach-based filmmakers Dee Rees and Nekisa Cooper expanded their 2007 short film of the same name about a teenaged African-American girl's difficult coming out process into a feature. Executive Produced by Spike Lee, Pariah was picked up at Sundance by Focus Features and will be released theatrically later this year. Rees and Cooper will be present at the Fusion fest to discuss the challenging process of expanding, filming and selling their labor of love.

Men will be interested in Fusion's special Legacy Project Screening of the 2004 gay-themed film, A Thousand Clouds of Peace. It will be shown on Saturday. Shot in dramatic black and white, it follows a gay teenager who roams the streets of Mexico City searching for the secret behind his ex-lover's decision to break up with him. The movie was an official selection at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and won the Teddy Award for best gay-themed film at the Berlin International Film Festival. A Thousand Clouds of Peace will be followed by the GLBT-inclusive Fusion Shorts Program.

Each year, a deserving person of color in the GLBT film industry is presented with the Fusion Achievement Award. The 2011 recipient will be British writer-actor-director Rikki Beadle-Blair. Best known in the US as screenwriter of the 1996 movie Stonewall and for his wonderful 2002 BBC series Metrosexuality, Beadle-Blair will be presented the award on Saturday, just prior to a gala screening of his latest film, Fit. Fit is described as "an exuberant and funny look at gay and straight love among the new millennials." Fusion 2011 will close that night with an after party in the courtyard of the Egyptian Theatre.

For full Fusion details and to purchase tickets, please visit their official website.

Preview by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Blade California.