Reviews Written by sabu
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June 28, 2006
Richard III 1995
Pros: One of Shakespeare's early historical tragedies from the late 1500's that is seemingly timeless as the tyranny and corruption that will do anything to gain public office and power-over an empire.
Cons: I cannot remember any that stand out, at this time.
DVD 2000
The British Monarchy has its darker sides in history. William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English poet and playwright, composed "Richard III" before he joined Lord Chamberlain's company in 1594. Since many of his texts did not completely survive, I can only estimate, due to the plague, that it was written between 1592 and 1594 while the poet and playwright was coming into fame and was composing his historical cannon of the British Monarchy.
The story was entitled by Shakespeare, "The Tragedy of Richard the Third." It follows directly after "Richard Duke of York," and that play's closing scenes, in which Richard of Gloucester (Richard III) expresses his ambitions for the crown, suggests that Shakespeare had a sequel in mind. There's no record of the first performance of "The Tragedy of Richard the Third," but guessing, it was probably outside London (where the plague was serious) in late 1592-93. The play first printed in 1597 and there were five reprints before it was included in the 1623 Folio.
The primary source of the history of Richard III that was available to Shakespeare was Sir Thomas More's "History of King Richard III. It was incorporated in chronicled histories by Edward Hall (1542) and Raphael Holinshed (1577, revised in 1587). In my opinion, Shakespeare seems to have profited from both.
Now to the show: In this DVD Shakespeare demonstrates a more complete artistic control of his historical material than its predecessors; Richard (Sir Ian McKellen) himself is a more dominating protagonist any of his others in his earlier plays. Historical events are manipulated, perhaps for the sake of an overriding design. The show's English is more highly poetically patterned and rhetorically unified.
That part of the film which shows Richard of Gloucester's violent, non-stop, bloody progress to the throne is based on the events of twelve years. The remainder (mostly of his reign covers only two years. So the film's focus is on the ruthless Richard of Gloucester who killed nearly every one in the monarchy to get to the throne.
The characterization of Richard III as a self-indulging ironist builds throughout the show. This updated version of Shakespeare's historical tragedy sets the story in 1930's Europe. Sir Ian McKellan plays Richard of Gloucester, the ruthless, crippled, power-hungry, and violently out of control mass murderer who killed nearly everyone in his path to get to the throne to become Richard III. A classic, not simply because of the script, but also because of the magnificent characterizations by Sir Ian McKellen and Annette Benning. m_d.md.m_d ... -
June 28, 2006
Paris is Burning 1990
2 of 2 Yahoo! Users found this review helpfulPros: The real lives of Harlem New York's gay, bisexual, transgender, and male woman transsexuals are revealed for the first time by them and from their point of view.
Cons: A little more explanation would have been helpful to those who are clueless about the interactions of gender and sexual supremacism and how they impact people's lives financially. That point needs desperately to be brought out by the community that lives it.
DVD 2005
In Harlem, New York, in the 1980'2, primarily black younger gay and transvestite men have come up with a way to overcome their deep depressions due to social ignorance, gender and sexual supremacism, and poverty: it's called "voguing."
Dorian Corey, a legendary drag queen, narrates and stars in this historical GLBT work of art. We see he/r using typical drag queen techniques to make up he/r face, lift he/r skin, and virtually turn he/rself into a male woman transvestite (transvestite meaning for a fun temporary period of time; rather than transsexual, meaning all the time, and quite seriously so).
We learn that in NYC and Harlem there are so called "Houses": The House of Xtravaganza; The House of Pendarvis; The House of St Laurent; The House of Ninja; and the House of Labeija. Each house is named after a famous voguer or transvestite, whose style must be nearly perfected by the voguer in order to be part of the house that competes in vogues, or modeling, or dancing competitions of handmade extravagant clothes. The art that goes into designing and making the clothes is remarkable and demonstrative of the talents of the participants.
Voguing doesn't necessarily cross genders. A poor man may vogue as a rich man which has nothing at all to do with gender or sexuality. It's about transcending status. Voguing is striking a pose (as Madonna says and does); putting on a silent dance routine to background music; sometimes in outlandish clothes and other times in typical street attire; and especially bringing honor to the House the voguer is affiliated with. It's much like being in part of a Scottish clan, for example. The more contest winners the house produces the higher its status.
What is refreshing about "Paris is Burning" is that these men take their aggressions out on each other and society through amazing gentle series of arts. They channel their attitudes into the ones that match the Mother of their House. We learn words like "Shade" which is an attitude these guys use to put each other down, within the acceptable bounds of their Houses. No one gets hurt. Surely, being shaded will only fuel the voguers to compete with each other during the next contest. Instead of drugs and guns there are fabrics and sewing machines. And a host of rules for the competitions.
In the early 1990's when "Paris [a Harlem bar]is Burning" came out, the show received 8 major awards including the NY Film Critics, LA Film Critics, the Sundance Film Festival Grand Prize; was voted one of the ten best films of the year by Time and US Magazines, The Fresno Bee, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Dayton Daily Times, and scores more. No doubt because the theme of the show is dealing with being socially under-statused.
There is no doubt in my mind that voguing was the answer in Harlem during the 1980'2 to extreme social conservative violence, rivalry among clothes designing men, and man transvestites. It is rare to actually hear the narration by Dorian Corey about how voguing became a major alternative to lowered self-esteem, poverty, hopelessness, boundryless values, living on the streets with nothing to look forward to, all transformed into a series of competitions which gave voguers a great deal of pride.
Plus, belonging to a House meant you were part of a family. One that wouldn't reject you for being gender or sexually different. m_d.md.m_d ... -
June 28, 2006
Monster 2003 DVD w/Charlize Theron
Pros: Charlize Theron's characterization of Aileen Wuornos reveals the talent of the actor par excellance.
Cons: This film is so unbalance and un self-critiquing that "it fails miserably to look at the sexual roles the brutal, cheating, adulterous men are playing in the tragic story of Aileen Wuournos."
Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron) and Selby Wall (Christina Ricci) become pseudo-'lesbian'
; lovers in this true story about a prostitute (Wuornos) who hates and kills six either brutal, married, cheating, or adulterous men between 1989 and 1990.
This show angered me because to call the relationship between Wuornos and Wall lesbian is a false representation of lesbian relationships, in general. The real and show relationship between the two women doesn't resemble the commits made and responsibilities taken in the vast majority of same-gender, long-term woman relationships. That is why I didn't count this portrayal as excellent, even though Charlize Theron delivers a riveting performance of the late 20th century wife beaten, cheated by numerous adulterous 'men', serial killer.
Though Charlize is a raving beauty out of character, in the Wuournos character she was transformed into an atrocious woman who just couldn't cut it in real life society. Though she did try.
Wuournos is repeatedly humiliated as she tries to get honest job after job. She lacks skills and training at every turn and seems dyslexic. Plus, as a violently abused prostitute, she undoubtedly suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. So this rejection and humiliation only heightens her senses of self-worthlessness and compulsive violence.
After her first John (after being with Selby) beats and rapes her, she kills him in self-defense. It comes to her as a shock that she does it. Once she got the sweet taste of revenge she couldn't stop robbing and murdering the male brutes, sluts, and adulterers who hired her for quick and secret sex as they expected it. Though no one deserves to be murdered, Wuournos was by the state. Almost all the men she murdered were made out to be victims and saints, who were 'just being typical men by hiring a prostitute . . .' .
I also didn't give this story line an excellent rating because it fails miserably to look at the sexual roles the brutal, cheating, adulterous men are playing in the tragic story of Aileen Wuournos. Rated R and a half, this one's not even for pre-teens or young teens. It's an adult film that one should go into with a critiquing mind of the men's roles and mischaracterizations as "victims." m_d.md.m_d ... -
June 28, 2006
Monster-in-Law DVD 2005 w/ J. Fo. & J. Lo.
Pros: J.Fo.'s (Jane Fonda's) return to film after a 14 year vacation playing her own real age was risky and sets her apart from many of her contemporary actors. She sole the show!
Cons: J. Lo.'s (Jennifer Lopez's) doesn't measure up at all to the acting ability of J.Fo. It's like cute screen twinky meets the real well studied and shere talent of a true Hollywood star. J.Lo., as an actress is diminished in the same show as J. Fo..
"[T]he juxtaposition of Fonda with Lopez, now a star of comparable stature is shrewd..." Sight and Sound - Samuel Wigley (08/01/2005); I';ll not agree with Wigley's critique because the balance between one hot long-standing star and one hot relatively new one could is not of comparable stature: J. Fo. steals the show!
I'm a big time Jane Fonda (J.Fo.) fan, the young lady who had to find her own way out from beneath her father's (Henry Fonda) gigantic shadow at a time when Hollywood was the valley of the dolls and drenched in drugs and liquor. "It's a hoot to watch Fonda cut loose and mix it up with J.Lo....Knockabout comic is just the latest incarnation in Fonda's life so far. Let her rip." Rolling Stone - Peter Travers (05/19/2005), seems to agree with me.
Who would have guessed that Jane Fonda would play her own age as mother-in-law so comically, when her acting history is not especially known for sharp witted comedy? J.Fo. you're still hot to trot! "Monster-in-Law" is Jane Fonda's ever so successful return to the big screen after a 14-year, well deserved, vacation. ...
The story line begins when waitress Charlie (J.Lo.) is searching for a nice guy to marry. She wants him to share her own wide variety of interests. Keith (Michael Vartan) seems to be her ideal match. Up to this point the story line is dull, unless you consider J.Lo. cute enough to make the story line something that doesn't matter; all too typical boy-meets-girl, marry, and breed like different-gender rabbits in a locked cage. Wanting to marry Charlie, Keith proposes. All too predictably dull.
However, his legendary television journalist mother, Viola (Jane Fonda, J.Fo.), who has an on-air breakdown after being replaced by a much younger woman, enters Keith's mind as a nightmare. Since her career is apparently over, for Viola, her energy is spent making the sun rise and set in Keith. All of her eggs in one son of a basket case.
Of course, with such high falutin standards of excellence combined with histrionic outbursts, Viola becomes determined to prove to Keith that Charlie is not of his caliber. Enter bluntly truthful Ruby (Wanda Sykes), Viola's assistant. And what we've got is a hilarious cauldron brewing to drive Charlie nuts.
Viola and Ruby use every antic any dubious mother-in-law has schemed, but she sorely underestimates Charlie's fight to let go of Keith and their future together. m_d.md.m_d -
June 28, 2006
Weapons of Mass Deception DVD 2005
Pros: Exposes the ultra-conservativeness of the mass media as it becomes a pool of subservients to the Bush regime.
Cons: Maybe in his next film Schecter could do a few more polls to to give us some stats to review.
Available from Link TV, which is an activist and authority questioning channel mostly anchored by Amy Goodman, "Weapons of Mass Deception" scrutinizes the mass media about its overwhelming advertisements, propaganda, and sentiments for the war against Iraq. Of course, now, most of the major media conglomerations are apologizing for becoming neutured mouth pieces for the Bush adminstration's propaganda against Saddam Hussein. But as Amy Goodman points out in this show, those apologies are little blurbs buried on page 7, and don't go into the real details about how almost all of the US media walked like following cows behind the Bush regime's fear-based plays with scare tactics.
Danny Schechter became one man who questioned about the deployment of military forces in Iraq. Schechter spent countless hours studying, documenting, and scientifically scrutinizing mass media coverage of the war. He found that around 70 percent of the media were pro-war while it was just about the reverse, 70 percent of the American public was against the war. Who were the US politicians representing? Themselves or us? That answer is patently clear: themselves. This is not the only question that comes out of his studies. One of his main focal points was on the media's portrayal of the war. Using footage from Iraq to look at the disparity in the media's presentation of the war compared to the actual events as they unfolded, Schechter has braided a blanket of facts and figures, to help viewers question the "facts" that have been presented to them through the major news agencies.
"Weapons Of Mass Deception" is one media loving man's personal crusade against the misrepresentations he documents with which the American media has betrayed the general public. Watching this film and "Fahrenheit 9/11" back to back really opened my eyes and made me more of a literary and cultural critic than I used to be. m_d.md.m_d ... -
June 28, 2006
Crash 1997 by David Cronenberg
Pros: A Cronenberg directed film is one that tends to deal with quite unusual topics, as this DVD does.
Cons: Since the show is graphically sexual and quite kinky at that, parents should be warned that this one is R+++ and adults only.
This older version of "Crash" by Canadian director David Cronenberg won an award for "originality, audacity and daring" at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. I'll agree with all of that. And I'll also agree with this Variety Magazine critique of the film and its director: "...Cronenberg is a master of creating and sustaining a mood of insinuating cool and dark allure..." - Todd McCarthy.
This strange movie is about fetishists who get off on being in and reproducing famous car crashes. The Jimmy Dean one, and the Jane Mansfield one are both examples that the film portrays.
"Crash" (1998) is based upon the novel by J.G. Ballard, who is also the lead actor in the show played by none other than a very sexy slimmer James Spader.
The show begins in a private airplane hanger with a beautiful blonde, Deborah Unger leaning forward over an airplane while an unknown man steps out of an elevator and begins having sex with her. (This is the time you take the kids and run out of the movie theater or turn the DVD off!) Ballard (Spader), is in his office, also having sex over his desk with an Asian looking woman, while his name is being called to be the director on the set. Right off the bat, you know this film is graphically sexual in the first two scenes.
Then, we realize that Unger and Spader are an item when she's standing in a most provocative position staring at traffic leaning on the balcony rail, while he asks her how her fling in the hanger went. They both said they were interrupted and began to finish off what had been started with other people. This sets the tone of the entire flick. Monogamy is not a family value in this film either.
After Ballard (Spader) survives a head-on car collision with Holly Hunter that triggers a sexual heightening, the nihilistic television producer gathers round him other sex-and-death-by-crash nihilists. Their car crashing fetishes are as kinky as it gets. What is erotic to them is skid marks, scars, crumpled metal, leather bindings for broken bones, live reproductions of and films of car crashes. This story seriously questions what is erotic? And, who says?
If you're looking for a really steamy and yet not quite pornographic show with stars like Rosanna Arquette being extremely sensuous, "Crash" by Cronenberg is the best. Rated R+++ and a half! m_d.md.m_d ... -
June 28, 2006
The Birdcage w/Robin Williams DVD 1997
Pros: Williams', Lane's, & Azaria's interactive performances of three types of gay men dismiss the myth of their being one stereotype, or sex being a central concern in a gay couple's life.
Cons: Gene Hackman & Dianne Wiest fell way short of portraying the real violence of bigotry, discrimination, and supremacism that conservatives would have surely confronted obviously gay men with. The ending is unrealistic a fantasy.
"The Birdcage" is director Mike Nichols's hysterical replication of Broadway's smash hit comedy of 1978, La Cage Aux Folles. This time, comedian and actor Robin Williams is Armand Goldman and Nathan Lane is Albert, Goldman's long time gay partner. Goldman owns a gay cabaret that he and Albert live above in South Beach, Miami. Albert is Armand's's leading transvestite show diva at the club.
When Armand's son, Val (Dan Futterman) comes for a visit, he announces that he's getting married to a conservative Senator's (Gene Hackman) daughter (Calista Flockhart). Val asks his parents, Armand and Albert, to pass as a typical couple when the prospective in-laws come for dinner. Even though Val is very accepting of both of his parents, and views Albert as his mother, and Armand as his father, Val demands that they go in the closet for his girlfriend's parents visit (mother is Dianne Wiest).
Armand and Albert learn that Val's prospective in-laws are a political couple running on a so called "family values" ticket. Albert's hysterical attempts to act straight and "manly" combined with Hank Azaria's t-totally out and flamboyant houseboy, Agador, are showstoppers of the film. Williams (Armand) is the understated one of the queer trio Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest play the square in-laws to a T until the media catches them socializing with the couple who live above, owns, and stars in the gay cabaret. I won't give away the ending because it's too cute! m_d.md.m_d ... -
June 28, 2006
The Little Foxes 1941 DVD 2001 w/Bette Davis
Pros: A brilliant screenplay delivered perfectly by Bette Davis that made Lillian Hellman a legendary 20th century playwright.
Cons: Even seeing the overpowering of people of color in a Southern plantation is ugly, especially when I know a host more in the film are being expoited as cotton pickers for the rich.
Superb playwright, Lillian Hellman (1905-84) wrote this screenplay for "The Little Foxes," saying that she "wrote her 'angry comedy' based on her own family's biannual dinner at which people drew lots for a diamond that had been left in her great-grandmother's estate." Hellman's first play for Samuel Goldwyn was "The Children's Hour." This hit script and film was based upon a 19th century case of two girls' school mistresses whose reputations were ruined when their pupils accused them of lesbianism.
After a poor showing of Hellman's "Days to Come" in 1936, about labor struggles in an Ohio town, Hellman said she "was so scared [that she] wrote "Little Foxes, 1939, nine times." This is the script that made her famous.
"The Little Foxes" is a vivid portrayal of sibling rivalry, Southern plantation slavery and greed in the Hubbard family of Alabama. The story takes place at the turn of the 19th-20th century, in the deep South of Alabama where the Hubbard siblings are involved in their own brand of a power-hungry civil war. Who better to play the reigning schemer Regina than Bette Davis, the Hubbard sibling who commands ownership of a cotton mill that exploits slaves while yielding millions of dollars on their bent backs? Davis is the Oscar winner alright, leading a near perfect cast through a major screen achievement.
The 2001 DVD of the 1941 film is almost 2 hours long and in black and white, with English, French, and Spanish subtitles. It is a bone chilling indictment of Alabaman slave plantation white corruption and greed.
No one should ever say that Lillian Hellman wasn't a controversial and political playwright! The film is not rated probably because anyone could watch it. Though I imagine it would bore little children since the play's basic themes are quite adult. m_d.md.m_d ... -
June 28, 2006
The Others DVD 2001 w/ Kidman
Pros: Kidman delivers another fantastic performance of a neurotic mother in a surprise suspense.
Cons: It didn't make much sense to me why Grace's husband didn't stay given the surprise ending.
Nicole Kidman plays Grace a neurotic mother of two, Anne and Nicholas. They live without their father, who never returned from WWII, in a secluded island mansion where all the curtains must be closed and doors shut (and locked) to protect her children from light. They are supposed to have a deadly allergy of some sort to exposure to light.
Grace has put out an ad for helpers around the house since her former staff abandoned their jobs. So when three strangers, a nanny, a gardener, and a mute servant girl show up at the door, Grace is clueless that they haven't answered her ad. Shortly after their arrival, the nanny admits that they used to live at the mansion before and had just dropped by to see it again.
The problems begin to fester when Anne starts talking to herself and claims there is another boy in the house who only she can hear and see. Then the film becomes a haunted-house suspense with surprise curves that come at me one right after the next. It's appropriately rated PG-13 because this film could scare children into hearing voices and seeing ghosts! m_d.md.m_d ...
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Secret Window DVD 2004 w/ Johnny Depp
Pros: This is an old style suspense that Stephen King has written and a psychological suspense akin to a Hitchock directed show.
Cons: I don't recall a one.
What I could call a psychological suspense akin to old Alfred Hitchcock films, "Secret Window" is based on a Stephen King novella of a different kind.
The story begins with a sloppy avant garde writer Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp), an alcoholic and cigarette addict. Because he feels like his life's out of his own control, when his wife (Maria Bello) leaves him, he quits writing. He acts depresses and as is he feels worthless.
While Mort is super strung out, showing signs of falling apart emotionally, a weird strange man, John Shooter,(John Turturro) shows up at Mort's cabin in rural New York. Shooter is there to claim that Mort has plagiarized one of his stories. Shooter is way beyond the edge of deranged and attempts to drive Mort to the brink of insanity. Mort's wife is equally crazy-making as she presses for their divorce to be finalized.
Johnny Depp descends into insanity with such maneuvers that he takes me along with him into the darkest recesses of his mind. Like a Hitchcock film, King's focus is on the characters themselves instead of his usual special spooky effects. Thus, this is a thriller with a totally surprise ending. A must see. m_d.md.m_d ...