Movies Excellent: National Lampoon's Animal House Good: Old School Okay: Revenge of the Nerds Bad: PCU No stars: National Lampoon's Dorm Daze
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Kung Fu Hustle
(☆☆☆)
R, 99 minutes South Wind 12
The setting is Shanghai in the 1940s, "a time of social disorder and unrest," when the Axe Gang, dressed in bow ties and top hats, rules the city. The gang receives its comeupmean from a batch of retired warriors hiding in a slum named Pig St Alley. There, we meet the Landlady, a middie-aged shrew who chain smokes and beats her husband. We also meet a hair-dresser whose butt is always hanging out and a shopkeeper named Donet.
Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle is the best live-action cartoon since the Coen Brothers' 'Raising Arizona'. It's funny, ultraviolent and, yes, a little exhausting.
In his native Hong Kong, Chow has developed a reputation as the next Bruce Lee. His seven features as director and star—among them 2001's Shaolin Soccer—show a slapstick comedian as much as a martial-arts master. He's also a fluid and energetic filmmaker, virtues evident in nearly every scene of Kung Fu Hustle.
Then there's Sing, played by Chow, who lives a life of petty crime but is destined to become a great warrior. We know this because when Sing was a kid an old man stopped him on the street and declared him a "one in a thousand kung-fu genius." He should all be so lucky.
Chow piles on visual gags that defy the laws of nature, lending the film a kind of breezy comic anarchy. People get their faces and feet smashed in, but live to fight another day, while a chase on foot looks like it was taken right out of an old "Road Runner" cartoon.
As silly as it is, Kung Fu Hustle showcases exhilarating fight scenes filled with wall-to-wall destruction and state-of-the-art special effects. This innovative mix of the absurd and the savage leaves the viewer worm out but doubly entertained.
—Stephen Shupe
The Interpreter (★★★)
PG-13, 128 minutes South Wind 12
If anything, The Interpreter is authentic. It is the first movie ever to be filmed inside the actual United Nations building in New York. Director Sidney Pollack uses the authenticity to create a tense thriller that builds interest with every scene.
The film stars Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, both bringing depth and realism to their characters. The film focuses around Slivia Brome, a U.N. interpreter from an African country, in one of those scenes where the main character goes back to the office late at night when seemingly nobody's around, she overhears a conversation revealing a plot to kill Matobo's corrupt and genocidal president. Enter Tobin Keller, a secret service agent assigned to the protection of foreign dignitaries on U.S. soil. Penn's character carries with him a painful secret that isn't revealed until halfway through the movie. Pollack uses this secret to bring his two main characters closer together, not as lovers, but as people who need someone to confide in and trust. He balances moments like this with the tenser ones well.
Pollack knows how to build tension.
Take for example the sequence where three suspects are being tailed throughout New York City at the same time, and all end up on the same city bus. Pollack lets each of these characters movements play out in front of the audience and lets the suspense build until all of the pieces fall into place.
Penn and Kidman have exactly the right chemistry for their characters. Penn in particular shows a good range, going from distrustful of Kidman's character to an overprotective father figure to a close friend.
—Jon Ralston
The Interpreter uses those scenes inside the U.N. to full effect, helping add to the realism and tension in this solid thriller.
Melinda and Melinda ( ☆ ☆ )
PG-13, 100 Minutes Liberty Hall
Does the world need another Woody Allen movie? Casual filmgoers may think of Melinda and Melinda as "that new Will Ferrell movie," but make no mistake — Ferrell is not the story here, Allen is. Woody Allen is one of the great American auteurs, and he has written and directed nearly 40 films in his career. But his career trajectory has gone from zany (Bananas) to sublime (Annie Hall) to serious (Crimes and Middemanors) to huh? (Melinda and Melinda)
I use the term "huh?" to describe this film because it seems so unnecessary. Allen has nothing to prove, so why does
he keep churning out mediocre films? He made his last meaningful work (Mighty Aphrodite) 10 years ago. At this point, it seems like he's losing control of the craft. The dialogue is better suited for a high school play, and the actors don't move naturalistically through the screen at all.
There is no
shortage of talent here though, mu-
bec most actors would give
years of their life to work with Aller
even legitimate talents such as Fa Chloe Sevigny, Radha Mitchell, Am Peet and Wallace Shawn can'
through the wooden script.
The plot centers around a dinnerversation between a group of friends. One asks whether life is comic or not. In order to spark debate, he furnishes tale about Melinda, a divorced man who returns to New York. The frighten then take turn telling Melinda's story either a tragedy or comedy. Two rate scenarios unfold — one Melinda as a pill-popping, suicidal and the other with Melinda in the cove of a cute love triangle.
At times Allen's trademark wit is through. But all too often the plot looks like a boring soap opera. The characters are so self-absorbed it is impossible invest emotionally in the outcome of film. And while this film is purpose about the interplay of comedy tragedy, the comedy is nowhere Allen's potential, and the only trage that a master filmmaker's abilities to have diminished so much these