Rick's Flicks Picks on AWN

This is epic filmmaking at its best. Visual stunning. Highly dramatic. Poetically told. Director Yimou Zhang has done it again. Not since… well… Yimou Zhang’s HERO earlier this year has the screen become so fantastical.

Set at the end of the Tang Dynasty, the government has become corrupt and a rebellion has begun. The chief rebels are the House of Flying Daggers, a band of assassins who weld deadly accuracy with knives. Two police deputies Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro, RETURNER) and Leo (Andy Lau, 1993’s STREET FIGHTER) suspect that a new blind showgirl Mei (Ziyi Zhang, RUSH HOUR 2) at the brothel may be an assassin. Eventually, Jin poses as a rebel and frees Mei from prison, so that she will lead him to the new leader of the House of Flying Daggers.

Director Michael Ritchie (DIGGSTOWN) takes a very Robert Altman-approach to this fly-on-the-wall look at a Senatorial campaign. Marvin Lucas (Peter Boyle, TAXI DRIVER) is a top campaign advisor for the Democratic Party, who convinces civil rights attorney Bill McKay (Robert Redford, THE STING) to run against Republican incumbent senator Crocker J. Jarmon (Don Porter, TV’s GIDGET).

Lucas convinces McKay to run on issues, because Jarmon is a shoo-in to win. McKay takes the bait. We discover that McKay is also the son of a popular former Californian governor John J. McKay (Melvyn Douglas, BEING THERE). Bill McKay is pretty liberal and Jarmon is pretty conservative. Jarmon is a very polished politician while McKay is a bit rough around the edges.

Nick Broomfield is a fearless documentarian, who asks the tough questions and puts himself on the line for his work. In 1992, Broomfield made the powerful film AILEEN WUORNOS: THE SELLING OF A SERIAL KILLER, which chronicled how the famed serial killer Aileen Wuornos was used by many people in her life that tried to cash in on her infamy. AILEEN: LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIAL KILLER come out to coincide with the release of the fictional version of Wuornos’ story, MONSTER. LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIAL KILLER serves as part sequel- part re-envisioning of the original film.

The new film, which was co-directed by Joan Churchill, recaps the findings of the first film as well as fills us in on what has happened since. The new film recaps Wuornos’ life in brief much like an A&E biography would. The rest of the time the film takes advantage of Wuornos’ trust of Broomfield, giving him exclusive interviews.

The film gets past its Disney-fied moments with a wonderfully burly performance by Kirk Douglas and the inherent intrigue of the Captain Nemo character. Set in the 19th century, rumors of a giant sea monster wrecking ships are flying fast and furious. Prof. Pierre Arronax (Paul Lukas, THE LADY VANISHES) is skeptical, but won’t write off the possibility of a sea monster existing. His dutiful assistant Conseil (Peter Lorre, CASABLANCA) is a little more reluctant to voice his opinion, especially in front of reporters. Ned Land (Douglas) is a veteran whale hunter, who is hired to look for the sea monster. He, however, does not believe in the monster at all.

The three set out to find the monster and what they find is a technologically advanced submarine, helmed by Capt. Nemo (Jason Mason, LOLITA). After Arronax’s ship is sunk by Nemo’s Nautilaus, Nemo takes Arronax, Conseil and Land on board. Nemo’s ethics and lack of faith in humanity disturb Cornseil and Land, but the Prof. falls under the Captain’s spell, intrigued by the science that Nemo has discovered.

The first PINK PANTHER film was good, but uneven. The second is great. It’s one of the most consistently funny films I’ve ever seen. And that is mainly due to the pitch perfect performance from Peter Sellers (BEING THERE) as the determined, but dimwitted detective Jacques Clouseau.

The first film lost focus because it dealt with the David Niven character too much when Sellers was stealing the show. A SHOT IN THE DARK puts Sellers’ Clouseau smack in the center where he belongs. The film starts with an elaborate sequence where various people in a mansion sneak off in the middle of the night to different rooms to have affairs. The sequence ends with a murder. The crime seems pretty much cut and dry with the maid Maria Gambrelli (Elke Sommer, 1979’s THE PRISONER OF ZENDA) discovered with the gun in her hand over the dead body. But with bumbling Clouseau on the case nothing is as easy as it should be. All of this happens to the dismay of police chief Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom, SAPRTACUS).

This film started out as a throwaway horror/sci-fi flick and has grown into a cult hit. Vin Diesel (XXX) stars as Richard B. Riddick, a savage convict who has the ability to see in pitch back. And that will come in handy.

A spaceship crashes on a deserted planet. Capt. Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell, FINDING NEVERLAND) tries to figure out a way for the survivors to get back home and struggles with the moral decisions she made during the crash. William J. Johns (Cole Hauser, TEARS OF THE SUN) is the bounty hunter that is transporting Riddick. He has a secret he’s keeping from the others and his hatred of Riddick is great. Leading a group of young Muslims to New Mecca is Adbu “Imam” al-Walid (Keith David, PLATOON). There’s also a young orphan named Jack (Rhiana Griffith, TV’s HOME AND AWAY), who grows to idolize Riddick.

This film is a brutally honest look at how couples verbally wound each other when they can’t handle the emotional situation in front of them. Jack (Mark Ruffalo, 13 GOING ON 30) is married to Terry (Laura Dern, BLUE VELVET), a stay-at-home mom who drinks in the middle of the day. Jack is sleeping with his friend Hank’s (Peter Krause, TV’s SIX FEET UNDER) wife Edith (Naomi Watts, 21 GRAMS).

Both Jack and Hank are professors at a small college in Oregon. They’re the type of men that live in their heads all the time. They don’t feel; they analyze. I felt the fact that the two men were awful husbands, but weren’t awful fathers was very honest and interesting. It’s these complex details that amazed me.

This film follows the drug trade from the human mules point of view. Dealers in places like Colombia pay girls to ingest drugs packaged in latex gloves and smuggle them into the U.S. The drug dealers pay more money than these girls could make in a lifetime. Plus, they get free trips to the U.S. The sales pitch seems so wonderful, but the risks and complications are extremely dangerous.

This film follows how a 17-year-old girl named Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino Moreno, first screen performance) becomes a drug smuggler. Maria works as a de-thorner at a flower plantation to help support her family. She resents this greatly because the job is terrible, her boss is uncaring and her older sister Diana (Johanna Andrea Mora, screen debut) has had a baby and doesn’t have to work. Maria has a boyfriend named Juan (Wilson Guerrero, screen debut), who is anything but a great boyfriend.

ELF is a good family film. It’s not the greatest holiday flick, but it warms the heart nonetheless. The ever-talented Will Ferrell plays Buddy, a human who as a baby accidentally wanders into Santa’s bag and gets taken to the North Pole. Upon discovering the boy, Santa (Ed Asner, TV’s THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW) decides to keep the orphan and allow Papa Elf (Bob Newhart, TV’s NEWHART) to raise him as an elf.

Buddy clearly does not fit in being over six feet tall. At 30, Papa Elf reveals to Buddy that he is indeed a human and that his biological father, Walter (James Caan, THE GODFATHER), lives in New York City, but doesn’t know that Buddy exists. Buddy with his childlike optimism heads off to meet his dad and start a glorious relationship from the moment they meet. But what Buddy discovers is that Walter is “on the bad list.” Eventually Buddy meets his stepmother Emily (Mary Steenburgen, WHAT’S EATING GILBERT GRAPE?) and stepbrother Michael (Daniel Tay, AMERICAN SPLENDOR). It takes them a little while to warm up to Buddy in his elf clothes, but they soon fall for his charm, as does Gimbel’s employee Jovie (Zooey Deschanel, THE GOOD GIRL).

A Michael Mann film is usually always a treat. COLLATERAL is not a let down. It works both as an actioner and as a character study.

Max (Jamie Foxx, RAY) is a cab driver in L.A. He picks up Vincent (Tom Cruise, MAGNOLIA), who offers him $600 dollars for the whole night if he drives him to five locations. After the first appointment ends in a man falling onto the roof of Max’s cab, the film kicks into high gear.

The film deftly balances between action sequences and character building moments. Max has been a cabbie for 12 years as he nitpicks over the details of setting up his own limo service. He’s a neat freak, meticulous and doesn’t take risks too often. Vincent couldn’t be anymore different. He’s a great risk taker and has philosophically come to terms with his occupation as a hired killer. The world doesn’t care about him, so he doesn’t care about the world.

Matt Damon has gotten himself a nice little franchise with the Jason Bourne character. I was quite surprised with the original – THE BOURNE IDENTITY. The new film picks up where the first one left off. Jason Bourne (Damon) and his girlfriend Marie (Franka Potente, RUN, LOLA, RUN) have been running around the world trying to keep away from the CIA. Russian businessman Gretkov (Karel Roden, HELLBOY) sends an assassin named Kirill (Karl Urban, LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS) to set up Bourne and kill him, so Bourne must set out to find the truth.

Meanwhile, new CIA director Pamela Landy (Joan Allen, THE ICE STORM) is convinced that Bourne is behind the recent assassinations in Germany and enlists other CIA agents – Ward Abbott (Brian Cox, 25TH HOUR), Danny Zorn (ABANDON) and Nicky (Julia Stiles, SAVE THE LAST DANCE) – who have dealt with Bourne in the past to aid in her search. Bourne doesn’t hide from CIA agents, drawing them out to discover why they are after him.

Wanna know why George W. Bush won the election? Watch this film. The film looks at the work of Bush’s senior advisor Karl Rove. Based on the best-selling book, the film lays out pretty much the same information. The talking heads in the film make a strong case for how Rove will try to win at any cost.

From bugging his own office to starting whisper campaigns about Texas governor Anne Richards being a lesbian and senator John McCain having a black love child, his fingerprints seem to be clearly on all those occurrences. The wealth of similar actions in every campaign that he is involved in begs to say that he is behind these actions.

The worst information the film issues is the man’s determination to destroy people who cross him. It seems clear that he did this to agriculture officials in Texas, which looks similar to the CIA leak in the White House. He was kicked off the Reagan-Bush campaign for linking info.