Mini-Review | The Movie Rat

Mini-Review: Black Death

Posted on July 25, 2014 by bernardovillela

Introduction

This is a post that is a repurposing of an old-school Mini-Review Round-Up post. As stated here I am essentially done with running multi-film review posts. Each film deserves its own review. Therefore I will repost, and at times add to, old reviews periodically. Enjoy!

Black Death

This is a tale of knights in England during the outbreak of the Bubonic plague seeking a village in which the plague has not come yet and there are rumors of necromancy.

The time of the Black Death always has been and I believe always will be an era which is rife with story possibilities and has to this date been under utilized. This film not only features stellar performances but takes even-handed swipes at all religions and uses their precepts very astutely in building this tale. It’s very intelligently done.

9/10

Mini-Review: Hobo with a Shotgun

Posted on July 24, 2014 by bernardovillela

Introduction

Hobo with a Shotgun

I can’t say it better than a newspaper headline in the film does: Hobo stops asking, demands change.

There’s a lot to love in this film and the first thing you have to realize going in is that it’s outlandish grindhouse to the nth degree. If that redundancy didn’t make it sink in nothing will. The dialogue is frequently absurd and well-delivered. The cinematography is fantastic and the images are brilliant and saturated. There’s just one major story element which just didn’t work for me at all but I’ll leave it at that. Standout performances by Rutger Hauer, Molly Dunsworth, Gregory Smith and Jeremy Akerman, who will always be Mr. Frawley from Pit Pony to me.

9/10

Mini-Review: Heartbeats

Posted on July 23, 2014 by bernardovillela

Introduction

Heartbeats

Director Xavier Dolan’s sophomore effort about a love triangle where a young man is the prize for a gay man and his girlfriend is a rumination on unrequited love and love in general.

I can see why this didn’t get the fanfare that his first film, J’ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother), did but in it Dolan proves himself to be a flat-out artist. He not only acts in it but directs it with a steady hand. The only things that hold it back is a conceptual/intellectual disconnect with how the material is rendered but there is an absolute certainty to how he does things. The cinematography is brilliant and vibrant throughout; the framing precise, the edit is good. The use of slow-motion is at times inspired and his affinity to source music rivals Tarantino. It’s not the greatest script but it is perhaps the best treatment that script could’ve gotten.

7/10

Mini-Review: Even the Rain

Posted on July 22, 2014 by bernardovillela

Introduction

Even the Rain

This is an interesting tale about a Spanish film about Columbus in the New World being shot in Bolivia during civil unrest regarding price gouging for public water.

The film-within-the-film does fade into the background but there is a fantastic moment of symbiosis. There are some fantastic performances in this film and when the most notable one isn’t by Gael Garcia Bernal you’ve got a pretty good film on your hands.

Political sentiment pervades this film in a way that are not detrimental to enjoying it but rather necessary.

9/10

Mini-Review: The Brotherhood

Posted on July 21, 2014 by bernardovillela

Introduction

This is a film about a fraternity initiation ritual gone terribly wrong.

This is one that starts off very strangely but do stick with it. There are surprising and intriguing plot twists in store and in a situation that’s extremely tense throughout there’s some really great acting especially the performance by Trevor Morgan who has the talent to become a breakout star but just hasn’t had that one project yet.

I got this film from Netflix and actually watched it twice in two days. It’s the standout of the bunch.

Here was my reaction to it upon further reflection at year’s end:

Who saw this movie? In all likelihood practically no one, which is why it had to show up here. Perhaps the biggest mantra of my year-end write-ups will be advice for film enthusiasts: “Seek and ye shall find.” With almost as many distribution paths as there are films now, it is likely something you’d be inclined to enjoy will slip through the cracks. I had to confirm what this film’s release date was on IMDb and got the disc from Netflix. Aside from my mini-review round-up post I never saw it elsewhere but essentially this film is part suspense, part horror, part tragedy and part comedy. It takes a commonplace situation and exploits it to its fullest potential and thus has been very memorable to me and could easily have finished higher.

It is a film well worth seeking out.

10/10

Tarzan Thursday: Tarzan the Fearless (1933)

Posted on June 26, 2014 by bernardovillela

Introduction

In 2012 the character of Tarzan celebrated his 100th year in print. A serialized version of the story first appeared in 1912. A hardcover collection of Tarzan of the Apes first appeared in 1914. Being in the middle of the Tarzan centennial period it’s an opportune time to (re)visit many of the screen renditions of the character. Previous posts in this and other series can be found here.

Tarzan the Fearless (1933)

So, here we have another truncated bit of storytelling which renders this film quasi-cinematic at best. This film follows a somewhat different path to last week’s installment inasmuch as it was made at a far earlier date.

Here again the producer is Sol Lesser. This time the company releasing it is a Poverty Row outfit. However, the tale is not structured out of the whole 12-episode run of the serial but rather just the first four.

The IMDb offers additional insight on this structural quirk:

In addition to the 12-chapter serial, producer Sol Lesser edited the first four chapters into a 1933 feature film, with a trailer announcing future chapters at the theater weekly. However, some theaters did not show the trailer, causing confusion about the abrupt ending of the movie.

The one positive note is that I was viewing the 86 minute British release which does give a much fuller account of the narrative than the 61 minute US film. That at least gives some sense of what it could be. Sadly, the serial version is considered a lost film. This is sad not just because any film being lost is a bad thing but because Buster Crabbe is at his best over a long format and may have had a chance to more firmly assert himself as Tarzan given the full intended scope of the project.

This is another case of buyer beware and a good indicator as to why this film will typically be found in discount box sets.

Too much further commentary is almost unnecessary as it feels the most robbed of a chance to be notable as my notes on the title were scant since I felt like I had watched this film before as it had that similar disjointed and incomplete feeling as the others that were similarly fashioned.

2/10

Tarzan Thursday: Tarzan and the Green Goddess (1938)

Posted on June 12, 2014 by bernardovillela

Introduction

Tarzan and the Green Goddess (1938)

This is, not unlike many of these Tarzan films, is a composite serial. This is actually the first topic I wrote about on this blog, not a “blockbuster” topic to tackle but it was a buyer beware kind of tale. What happened was I got a serial I loved in a condensed version, which I didn’t want, but I also didn’t know such a thing existed.

Since then I’ve only gone into such ventures knowingly. This film is a shortened version of the 1935 serial The New Adventures of Tarzan. The opening voice over narration cuts through at least one chapter (15-20 minutes) of the serial story. This was apparent before the IMDb confirmed that this is composed of chapters 2-12. Cutting through the stasis straight into the thick of things makes identification and investment in these characters, and joining this world a chore.

This is a film, and its serial predecessor, was produced by Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises. This was a Poverty Row outfit that was created to create a truer film version of Burroughs’ character.

There are some decisions to me that seem odd based on other versions, but it’s hard to tell how effective this would be in its serial form, which is an entirely different beast. This film with Herman Brix does feature a more literate and eloquent Tarzan than most, though perhaps not the most ever; it also features a far more in shape Tarzan than many of these films have at times. I could continue nitpicking things like the call, which is unmusical and amelodic here. What’s most curious is that the setting is cited as Guatemala and filmed near Tikal but the ecosystem, in zoological terms, is still quite African.

One of the more interesting techniques this film presents is that it employs sped-up film cleverly in a naturalistic fashion to aid the fight choreography. This and other composites lack the cliffhanger aspect that are the trademark of serials. This makes for fairly abominable pacing.

Ultimately, it’s hard to grade. The original serial exists and it may be interesting to visit.

3/10

Poverty Row April: One Year Later (1933)

Posted on April 28, 2014 by bernardovillela

Introduction

This is a post that is a repurposing of an old Poverty Row April post. As stated here I am essentially done with running multi-film review posts. Each film deserves its own review. Therefore I will repost, and at times add to, old reviews periodically depending on the theme. Enjoy!

One Year Later (1933)

Every once in a while there is a film that will have you firmly ride the fence for a while. I usually like to give myself time to digest and think about a title. There have been quite a few titles that were about nothing or next to nothing in this theme (and that was not unexpected). This film is clearly not in that category, but it does have its issues, and plays a little coy with the details of the drama unfolding.

Ultimately this title gets a pass for a few reasons: while it doesn’t use a lot of voice over or flashbacks, the combination of audiovisual cues was still new film grammar at the time, it does tell a tale of fractured chronology, which is rather different than most of the fare thus far. Though it plays a little hard to get and does time-wasting tactics, it is also playing subtext while skirting what precisely happened in the year of the story that intervened. The events that escalate towards the film’s climax don’t click as well as they could, but they all make sense. I had a concentration lapse that cost me not to fully account motivations at first; I’ve bridged those gaps. It’s a film that is well-made, takes interesting story paths and for the most part stays engaging, despite its hiccups and difficulties.

6/10

Poverty Row April: Phantom (1931)

Posted on April 8, 2014 by bernardovillela

Introduction

Phantom (1931)

Of all the four films being added to this post today this one is the most debilitatingly dull. As will become a theme, there is a criminal here referred to as The Phantom. Here, however, it’s an escaped con. The set-up is a bit clunky and awkward, whether just establishing facts or in attempting misdirection. The angering thing here is that this film takes a nosedive in pace from the mid-point forward, and completely disengages.

2/10

Mini-Review: Room 514

Posted on March 3, 2014 by bernardovillela

Room 514

This film contains one of the slyest, most telling pieces of foreshadowing I’ve seen in some time. I won’t give it away, but as I reflected on this film it seemed to me to be a modern, Israeli-set version of A Few Good Men. The drama is more intimate and behind closed doors, but what the film is about is the people and how they react in a given set of circumstances rather than what the consequences for said action is. The comments both societal and militaristic have been made and the story is at an end. The outside world may never feel any ramifications or repercussions from what occurred, but those behind said closed doors do.

What director Sharon Bar-Ziv achieves is an intimate tale not only in terms of the number of participants but also in the frame. There are many times where there is scarcely background to be spoken of as two faces, within very close proximity to one another, dominate our view. Their is an intense focus on the characters studying one another and we in turn study them and not only how they react to one another but also what they are saying.

For a film of this nature to achieve maximum effectiveness it needs great acting and it gets that from its three main players: Asia Naifeld, Guy Kapulnik and Udi Persi. Neifeld plays Anna the Military Police interrogator at the center of virtually every scene and her performance is a veritable tour de force. Her choices as an actress are as clear as the convictions of her character and really help bring this film home. It’s a fascinating tale that is worth your time as it really and truly engages you.

Room 514 will be available on home video from Film Movement on 6/18.

9/10