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DAY WATCH (DNEVNOY DOZOR) Timur Bekmambetov (2007)

May 30th, 2007 by Scott Marks

DAY WATCH

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Day Watch (Dnevnoy dozor /2006)

Directed by: Timur Bekmambetov

Written by: Timur Bekmambetov, Sergei Lukyanenko

Genres: Action, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Cast: Konstantin Khabensky, Mariya Poroshina, Vladimir Menshov, Galina Tyunina, Viktor Verzhbitsky, Zhanna Friske, Dmitry Martynov, Valeri Zolotukhin, Aleksei Chadov, Nurzhuman Ikhtymbayev, Aleksei Maklakov, Aleksandr Samojlenko, Yuri Kutsenko, Irina Yakovleva, Yegor Dronov

Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

“Night” gives way to an even more ominous “Day” in this bloody sequel to Russia’s biggest box office grosser of all time.

Being sick the week Night Watch opened, a pre-sequel DVD viewing was definitely in order. First impression: the Russkies are just as capable of producing incomprehensible, effects-driven vampire comic books as any teenage American boy.

Thank heavens an explanatory preamble was provided; it took the first five minutes of the sequel to make sense of the original. We’ll probably have to wait for the third installment’s pre-game summation to discover the finely-tuned narrative underpinnings of part two.

Both films begin with flashbacks to medieval times and follow an identical structure. For centuries the mystical forces that control light and dark maintained a wobbly ceasefire. Night Watch introduced us to Anton (Konstantin Khabensky), a vampire trying to save his son from the forces of darkness.


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May 30th, 2007 by Scott Marks

Didn’t Bob Hope star in this? And was The Nazis Until Late 1942 a co-feature?

Like grandfather like grandson…


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OFFSIDE / Jafar Panahi (2006)

May 29th, 2007 by Scott Marks

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Offside (2006)

Directed by: Jafar Panahi

Written by: Jafar Panahi & Shadmehr Rastin

Cast: Sima Mobarak-Shahi, Ayda Sadegi, Shayesteh Irani & Golnaz Farmani

Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1

Running Time: 93 min.

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Feminist, Anti-Sports

Rating: ★★★★½



The majority of the action in this Iranian comedy/drama takes place in two locations. For the first two-thirds we observe a makeshift military holding center in the upper corner of a bustling soccer arena where women, prohibited from watching the game, are held.Once the match ends, we ride with several of the detainees on the way to the police station.

That’s it.

93 minutes and not one special effect. The cast is filled with unfamiliar faces, none of whom are ever called by name. Even though filmed at the Azadi Stadium in the middle of a World Cup match between Iran and Bahrain, we never spend more than five minutes inside of the arena. And unlike We are Marshall, Friday Night Lights or Invincible, the film does not conclude with a sporting event.

If there is a sharper, more compassionate and better made film to play San Diego this year, shoot off a flare to alert the film community.

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GOOFY GOOFY GANDER / Bill Tytla (1950)

May 29th, 2007 by Scott Marks

Little Audrey

Goofy Goofy Gander (1950)

Directed by: Bill Tytla

Written by: Isadore Klein

Cast: Mae Questel

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

Genres: Animation, Short

Rating: ★★½☆☆

Bored to distraction by a classroom lesson in Mother Goose, Little Audrey pulls out a copy of “Phony Funnies” to take the edge off.

We follow a few panels of Pinhead and Bird-Brain as they attempt to knock over Fort Knox before LA is called upon to read by her extremely hot teacher, Instead of Dick & Jane, Audrey hits her with a few lines of comic book noir. Donning a dunce cap, Audrey is placed in the corner where she sits and daydreams.

The differences between Audrey (Famous Studios) and Ralph Phillips (Warner Bros.) are incredible. Ralph daydreams to escape, while Audrey’s teacher becomes Mother Goose and acts as her tour guide. Ralph’s daydreams are fueled by his own imagination, not some cheap comic book device geared to capitalize on a national craze.

The rest of the short finds Audrey and Mother Goose flying above storybook land, the latter singing nursery rhymes as they watch the locals enact lame puns. One amusing moment has a 20-something Mary dancing over to the jewelry store with a seventy-something sugar daddy, complete with shopping cart, in tow. The fact that Audrey knows enough to find this funny is rather telling.

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BORN TO BE BAD / Lowell Sherman (1934)

May 29th, 2007 by Scott Marks

Lowell Sherman’s BORN TO BE BAD (1934)
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Born to Be Bad (1934)

Directed by: Lowell Sherman

Written by: Ralph Graves, Harrison Jacobs

Cast: Loretta Young, Cary Grant, Jackie Kelk, Marion Burns, Henry Travers, Paul Harvey, Russell Hopton, Harry Green

Aspect Ratio: 1.37 : 1

Genres: Drama, Romance, Adoption

Rating: ★★★☆☆

The theme of marital accord through adoption was very popular throughout the thirties (orphans) and especially the fifties (adoptive families) when the practice began gaining public acceptance.

If memory serves, Gloria Swanson was the first celebrity to publicly adopt a child. Prior to this a single mother in Hollywood meant one of three things: widowed, tied-tubes, or harlot. A formulaic offshoot of the genre frequently offered its heroines salvation through rejection: dump the kid, suffer the guilt and move on. Three years after Bord to be Bad, King Vidor would push melodramatic limits with Stella Dallas, the consummate orphaned mother melodrama.

Letty Strong (Loretta Young) is a “model” entertaining out of town buyers for clothes rep Steve Karns (Russell Hopton, a poor man’s Lee Tracy). At a ritzy nightclub, neighboring revelers misread her well-heeled veneer for that of a fellow socialite. In reality she’s a negligent single mother dealing with her seven-year-old delinquent son Mickey (Jackie Kelk).

As with so many child actors of the period, Kelk is all ears, freckles and urban earnestness. Even though the theme from The Babe Ruth Story is played towards the end, there’s nothing particularly sentimental about this mother and son relationship. Nor is the kid overly precocious. Instead of coming off as a hooligan, Kelk seems more a target for schoolyard bullies. It’s almost a relief when Malcolm Trevor (Cary Grant) runs him down with his milk wagon.

The scene is very effectively played out. From the point-of-view of Letty’s upstairs window we watch Mickey, on skates, hitch a ride off the back of a truck. Instead of faking it by using a midget stunt man or, worse yet, undecranking, Sherman blocks Young’s slight move left to obscure our view of the impact.
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Hey, how ’bout a birthday tribute to that violently insane psychopath Bob Hope?

May 27th, 2007 by Scott Marks

 


“Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is Bob ‘For Texaco’ Hope coming to you live from the Rubal Khali Hilton in Oman. Hey, how ‘bout these human Sani-Towel dispensers, huh? I haven’t seen a gathering like this since I took a leak at the University of Michigan. Just make sure that I have enough gas in my golf cart to navigate Apache Wells. And what’s with that cat in the black coat? He thinks he’s still at King Fahad International Airport picking up Crosby. Buy Easter seals, folks. They help crippled kids. G’night!”

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