Huevos de Oro (Bigas Luna, 1993)

I am a pretty big Javier Bardem fan, especially when he's in comedies (Alex de la Iglesia's Perdita Durango is Bardem at his most hilarious). I rented Huevos de Oro expecting a comedy, but instead got an occasionally funny, mostly melodramatic and overwrought story of a man who puts success before anything else in his life. The story revolves around Bardem's character Benito, who has big dreams of getting out of his small town and becoming a construction mogul. After his serious girlfriend cheats on him, he goes to Madrid and achieves that dream, only after using his mistress to seduce possible investors and eventually marrying the banker's daughter to ensure funding for the Gonzalez tower (complete with strip club!). The two women (Maria de Medeiros of Pulp Fiction and Maribel Verdu of Y Tu Mama Tambien) eventually meet up and become close, but what could have been an interesting turn (a three-way relationship?) is dashed in a melodramatic car accident. After the accident, Benito becomes an invalid who realizes that his whole life has been devoted to numbers (money and even the weights of the women he is with) instead of people. Gag. Bardem gives a good performance as Benito, who could have been a great antihero. He's a guy without morals, who uses everyone and everything in his path to achieve his own greatness. He's not above the most petty revenge, as he shows when his first love shows up to ask for money. But Bigas Luna, who directed and also co-wrote the film, makes a turn to sloppy, sentimental moralism that doesn't work for the character or the story. Luna could have made his same point without the cliched fall from grace, but he takes the obvious route. And then there are all the ridiculous phallic/building visual metaphors. At times, I wanted to scream, as they were so obvious and not particularly necessary. But even with all these flaws, a good Javier Bardem performance is worth seeing, so I recommend this to his fans and his fans alone. 5/10

Stumble It!

The Untold Story (Danny Lee, 1993)

Netflix describes The Untold Story as "dark and powerful." I would call that an understatement. Instead of the deep psychological drama you might expect (although there is some of that), there's a lot of violence and some goofy humor. Anthony Wong (truly an awesome performance) plays Wong Chi Hang, a Hong Kong restauranteur who took over his Eight Immortals Resturant only after the previous owner and his entire family mysteriously disappeared. Employees of the restaurant keep disappearing, too, esepcially after they find out about Wong's propensity for cheating at mahjongg. Wong (the actor) does a good job of portraying this truly crazy man, who, while being a psychopath, is actually sort of likeable, in that intensely frightening way. The local police, who are a bunch of yokels and held together only by their commanding Officer Lee (Danny Lee, who also directed), catch onto Wong's plan, and take him in for the murders. He will not admit anything, however, and we're treated to a solid twenty minutes of various tortures, which I won't describe here so as not to ruin their reveal. When Wong finally describes what actually happens that night, it's truly chilling, one of the more upsetting death scenes I've seen. I'll just say that Lee breaks the cardinal rule of never showing a child murdered onscreen. While my description of the film may make it seems like a constant gorefest, it's really surprisingly not. There is definitely some violence, both murders and dismembering of corpses, but nothing that made me want to look away (but remember how desensitized I am!). And then there's the issue of Wong's barbecue pork buns, which makes me never want to eat Chinese food again. At least I don't eat meat. But the overall dark tones of the film are lightened up, although not very humorously, by the antics of the local cops, who are male chauvinist pigs and a woman in love with Officer Lee. While it's for the most party really unfunny, it's kind of nice to have the intensity of Wong broken up every once in a while. 7/10 RIYL: Takashi Miike And in other news: first, happy holidays! I hope everyone has/is having a great one with people you love. A new year is almost upon us, so I'll be doing my year-end top 10 or 15 before December 30th, when I leave town for a few days. Also, I've been thinking of a few new year's resolutions for this little blog of mine, and I think I am (finally!) going to write about my all-time favorite films, along with stuff about any interesting film news I come upon and/or read about (like this RW Fassbinder bio I finished today, which I will probably post about soon). So, while my main focus will still be reviews, I'm interested in branching out, and think I've already been doing that a little in my more philosophical reviews. I'm always interested in feedback, either here or via email. Thanks for reading!

Stumble It!

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Gus van Sant, 1993)

Gus van Sant is a filmmaker I really have issues with. I respect him very much, I really like some of his movies (Elephant is probably my favorite), kind of like some others (My Own Private Idaho, which really thought it was way better than it actually was, although there are some amazing moments), and hated some more (Last Days was one of the most pretentious, boring films I saw this year). I was excited to watch this film, as it promised a great premise (I know a lot about Tom Robbins, although I haven't ever read him) and a pretty good cast - Uma Thurman (who is really hit and miss), along with smaller roles by Keanu Reeves (whom I adore, no matter what), Crispin Glover, and Lorraine Bracco, among many others. The first half of the film really impressed me, while the second left me a bit cold. However, the visuals really overrode any flaws in the script/acting, as has happened with other van Sant films, and really make this a film worth seeing. Uma Thurman plays Sissy, a lady blessed (or cursed?) with abnormally large thumbs that make her the best hitchhiker in history. She eventually joins up with the lesbian separatists at the Rubber Rose Ranch, who are protecting a group of herons they've given peyote. Yep. Lots of other stuff happens, but most of it is pretty inconsequential, if not entertaining. The performances are all pretty good, and right for the characters, save Rain Phoenix, who, in her first leading adult performance, is pretty stiff and uncharasmatic as the (supposedly) incredible cowgirl leader Bonanza Jellybean. Most of the critiques I have read of the film are critical of the film's "antiquated" view of feminism, but it seems that most of these critics forgot that this film takes place in the early 1970s, a time where separatist movements were just coming into vogue, and radical (lesbian) feminism was beginning. These cowgirls are really radical, whether they seem so anymore or not. As I said earlier, this film is definitely worth a view, if only for the incredibly visuals - the movie is oftentimes hallucinogenic and surreal, which is only fitting for the subject matter. It's not a great movie, but it certainly doesn't deserve its reputation as one of the worst films ever made, either. 6/10 RIYL: Gregg Araki (another queer filmmaker with a similarly outrageous aesthetic)

Stumble It!