Wong Kar Wai's beautiful but demanding 1994 martial arts epic "Ashes of Time" has been impeccably restored, with "Redux" added to its title, and boasts excellent subtitles that help the viewer understand that it is set in the parallel universe of its genre and unfolds in five parts according to Chinese seasons. Visually superb, its score enhanced by added music, "Ashes of Time Redux" is an elegiac, contemplative work with an elliptical narrative that is hard to follow.
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'Ashes of Time' impeccably restored
Posted: October 10th, 2008, 3:00am EDT
Also reviewed: 'Breakfast With Scot'; 'Fraude: Mexico 2006'; 'Talento de Barrio' and more
Wong Kar Wai's beautiful but demanding 1994 martial arts epic "Ashes of Time" has been impeccably restored, with "Redux" added to its title, and boasts excellent subtitles that help the viewer understand that it is set in the parallel universe of its genre and unfolds in five parts according to Chinese seasons. Visually superb, its score enhanced by added music, "Ashes of Time Redux" is an elegiac, contemplative work with an elliptical narrative that is hard to follow. -
'Body of Lies'
Posted: October 10th, 2008, 3:00am EDT
Director Ridley Scott and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe can't make up for a thin story.
"Body of Lies" is a film in disguise. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, except in this case the disguise is better than what it's covering up. -
'Good Dick'
Posted: October 10th, 2008, 3:00am EDT
Touching, human performances by Marianna Palka and Jason Ritter turn an improbable premise into a sweet, grounded love story.
Some people feel most at home burrowing in the depths of other people's pain, and Jason Ritter's unnamed character in Marianna Palka's "Good Dick" is clearly one of those people. -
'Happy-Go-Lucky,' directed by Mike Leigh
Posted: October 10th, 2008, 3:00am EDT
Sally Hawkins stars as a thoroughly sunny, centered person -- hardly the usual Leigh character.
"Happy-Go-Lucky" is something different from virtuoso British writer-director Mike Leigh. For what feels like the first time in his more than 35 years of bringing an exceptional level of insight and intensity to the exploration of human behavior, Leigh has put a thoroughly happy person front and center in one of his films. -
'Ember' is a dark, depressing trip underground
Posted: October 10th, 2008, 3:00am EDT
Gil Kenan's sci-fi feature is set in a subterranean city where inhabitants won't leave.
The exasperated rumble of dying machinery -- to our pampered ears, the sound of civilization ending -- is the aural backdrop of "City of Ember," a grim fantasy about a cloistered subterranean metropolis that wants to be both a kids' adventure and a dystopian finger-wag. That director Gil Kenan's second feature -- following the snappy motion-capture animated film "Monster House" -- never quite succeeds as either is a shame for all the dazzling craftsmanship brought forth from its production team. -
'The Express'
Posted: October 10th, 2008, 3:00am EDT
At times stirring, inspiring and thoughtful, "The Express" tells the life story of football player Ernie Davis, who in 1961 became the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy. Recruited to play at Syracuse University in part to replace legendary running back Jim Brown, Davis would help lead the team through an undefeated season in 1959 and win the national championship. Diagnosed with leukemia just after being selected No. 1 overall in the NFL draft, he would never play a single game of professional football. -
'Lola Montès'
Posted: October 10th, 2008, 3:00am EDT
Max Ophüls' 1955 masterpiece gets a superb restoration.
Max Ophüls' 1955 "Lola Montès" was a box office flop, butchered by its producers, then restored as much as possible by producer Pierre Braunberger in 1968. And, now, 40 years later, his daughter Laurence has overseen a superb state-of-the-art restoration. Ophüls' last film and first in color is the most baroque of his sumptuous period pictures -- and to many critics, his greatest. -
'Burn After Reading'
Posted: October 9th, 2008, 3:00am EDT
Carina Chocano 'Burn After Reading'
Desperate times call for desperate movies and "Burn After Reading," the Coen brothers' bleak farce about the grasping, murderous dumbness of today is bitterly cathartic. When a disc containing what appears to be classified information is found in a D.C. gym, two bone-headed employees (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand) try to blackmail the CIA operative it belongs to. What they don't know is that he (John Malkovich) is a middling bureaucrat who has quit in a huff and now spends his days drinking and writing a revenge memoir. Or that they are all disposable in the eyes of the people putatively in charge of their security. Or that paranoia trumps reason every time. -
'RocknRolla'
Posted: October 8th, 2008, 3:00am EDT
Guy Ritchie's aggressively stylized, testosterone-addled movies careen from one steroidal encounter to the next. But in "RocknRolla," Ritchie dials down the pace, soaking up the atmosphere of sweat and stale beer around a revolving cast of low-level thugs and underworld operators. Ritchie whisks you along on a whirlwind tour, but he's not averse to putting on the brakes long enough to admire some of his favorite attractions. -
'An American Carol'
Posted: October 6th, 2008, 3:00am EDT
The comedy from David Zucker has a silly, slapdash quality that lacks any real satirical bite, but there are some amusing moments.
If "An American Carol" contained any real bite or intelligence, those so inclined could've legitimately griped about its shallow anti-liberalism. But given that this supremely silly satire directed by "The Naked Gun's" David Zucker (from a script he wrote with Myrna Sokoloff and Lewis Friedman) plays more like something slapped together to beat an expiration date, it's hard to get too worked up about it.