Director Yin Tang Yuen's Dutch-funded documentary takes a look back at an under-publicized era in Chinese history, the Cultural Revolution. Between 1966 and 1976 most forms of public entertainment were ruthlessly suppressed, including the traditional Peking Opera. In their place, Chairman Mao's third wife Jiang Qing personally supervised a new theatrical form called Yang Ban Xi, a three-hour "revolutionary model opera" whose sole function was to extol the glory of the revolution and instill pride and joy for the glorious Communist future. The docu is structured around interviews with actors, singers and conductors that performed in Yang Ban Xi's eight major productions -- the "8 Model Works."

The central attraction of Yang Ban Xi: The...Read the entire review

Weaving around a number of scathing social and political issues in just under two hours, Hubert Sauper's Darwin's Nightmare (2004) is one of the most visually arresting documentaries you're likely to see. Our story leads us through dilapidated towns and villages in Tanzania; most of the locals wallow in extreme poverty, even though they live practically right next door to an extremely valuable export. The fish species known as the Nile Perch is Tanzania's crude oil, filleted and whisked away to foreign markets via airplane for a hefty sum. Unfortunately, most of the locals aren't in on the action.

While some have benefited from the fish-centric employment (at a low wage, unfortunately), the gradual destruction of the local ecosystem has caused its fair share of damage. Reportedly introduced into Lake...Read the entire review

Though overlong at 135 minutes, Hana & Alice (Hana to Arisu, 2004) is another intriguing effort by its jack-of-all-trades filmmaker, Shunji Iwai, who not only wrote and directed the film, but also produced it and wrote its fine score. (He probably could enjoy a prolific career doing just that.) Near the forefront of a very short list of promising 40-something Japanese directors, Iwai has won a well-deserved following for such films as Love Letter (also known as When I Close My Eyes, 1995), Swallowtail Butterfly (Swallowtail, 1996), and All About Lily Chou-Chou (Riri Shushu no subete, 2001). For those unaccustomed to Iwai's work, Hana & Alice is a lot like Terry Zwigoff/Daniel Clowes Ghost World (2001), minus the suffocating smugness of that film's main characters, and with a decidedly Japanese take on its title protago...Read the entire review

The Film:
I first saw Police Beat at the Sundance Film Festival back in 2005. It was hard for me to find the right words to describe it back then, and having seen it three more times since, it's still hard to find the right words to describe it. Rarely does a film come along that seems so innovative and original that you can't really compare it to anything else. And that's what Police Beat is--a film so uniquely original and stylish that is stands apart from pretty much anything I recall seeing in recent years.

Set in Seattle, Police Beat follows rookie bicycle cop Z (Pape S. Niang), a West African immigrant who has relocated to America, over the course of an emotionally tumultuous week. As Z peddles through the streets of Seattle, investigating one crime after another, he is plagued by the fact that his girlfriend Rachel has left to go on a camping trip. The relations...Read the entire review

The Film:

A young and innocent looking assassin prepares her final hit. When she falls for the wrong guy however her retirement plans take a dive.

The main protagonist in Tilman Zens' Such Mich Nicht a.k.a Don't Look for Me (2004) is a cold and senseless contract killer whose professionalism is never questioned. Anna (Lea Mornar) studies her job, takes the necessary precautions, and executes. When she unexpectedly gets involved with a handsome hotel clerk (Stipe Erceg) however who helps her get back on her feet her cold heart fails her.

Films about scrupulous assassins undergoing character transformation seem to follow a predictable route; from the inevitable love affair to the mandatory professional slip these are stories that combine raw action with melodrama. The better ones also provide an expert-opinion on the techn...Read the entire review

An engaging new docu from the IFC, How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and enjoy it) is a look at the prolific filmmaker, writer and performing artist Melvin Van Peebles. Best known as the director and star of Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song he's been causing a commotion since the late 1950s. Joe Angio's film uses excellent clips and good interviews to chart Van Peebles' career, from studious kid to his present position as an elder statesman of gentle provocation.

How to Eat Your Watermelon shows Melvin Van Peebles to be much more than a stock Angry Black Man. This will be news to those who know Van Peebles only as the ferocious anti-hero Sweet Sweetback, the renegade who gives The Man a taste of his own medicine. Typical for Van Peebles, and what sets him apart from so many other artists of any color, is t...Read the entire review

The Film:
If there was ever a person who was a legend in their own time, it would have to be Melvin Van Peebles. Filmmaker. Author. Composer. Artist. Playwright. Stock trader. Stud. Van Peebles has done so much in his lifetime that at times it is difficult to believe his list of accomplishments-- especially when he talks about them himself. Which is what makes Joe Angio's How to Eat Your Watermelon in Front of White People (and Enjoy It) such a welcome and necessary documentary.

For those that don't know who Melvin Van Peebles is, he is probably best known as the filmmaker responsible for the revolutionary 1971 film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. The making of Sweet Sweetback was chronicled in Baadassss! , the 2003 film directed by son Mario, who starred as father Melvin. And if all the elder Van Peebles had done was Sweet Sweetback, then Baadassss...Read the entire review

A festival movie with only the slimmest chance of appealing to a wide audience, The Goddess of 1967 comes from Australian director Clara Law, a seasoned talent that changed to art-house fare after a firm start in Hong Kong cinema. Her dominant theme as defined by essayist Dian Li is the investigation of confused personal identities. Even her Hong Kong romance stories dealt with characters in conflict with national definitions, as in Wonton Soup where an Australian-Chinese has trouble adapting to Hong Kong life.

The winner of several prestigious awards on the festival circuit, The Goddess of 1967 is a mannered multicultural road movie about modern dehumanization, featuring alienated, eccentric characters engaged in frequently inexplicable behaviors. Its predictable content follows current trends in PC filmmaki...Read the entire review

Ten years ago Dana Ranga's delightful documentary East Side Story told the fascinating, hilarious, and disarming story of Iron Curtain musicals, films that superficially resembled the great Hollywood musicals of the 1940s and '50s, but which instead extolled the virtues of collective farming and Soviet-style communism. Yang Ting Yuen's Yang Ban Xi: The 8 Model Works (Yang Ban Xi, de 8 modelwerken , 2005), a Dutch production in Mandarin, does much the same in its examination of Chinese musicals made during the Cultural Revolution, movies personally supervised by Madame Mao herself.

In the 1960s, Jiang Qing, the wife of Mao Zedong and a former actress and film star in the 1930s, assumed complete control of the arts, banning most forms of creative express...Read the entire review

The Film:

A Japanese man (J.M. Rikiya Kurokawa) obsessed with Jean-Pierre Melville's classic picture Le Samourai travels to Australia where an unknown vendor has offered to sell him the "Déesse" (French for Goddess), the beautiful Citroën DS driven by Alain Delon. Upon arrival however J.M. discovers that the seller has passed away. Fortunately, a blind girl (B.G. Rose Byrne) offers to guide him to the place where the Goddess resides.

Despite of the fact that the Goddess of 1967 (2000), Australian director Clara Law's latest film, manages to integrate a number of interesting themes together – alienation, incest, murder, romance – the sum of its parts is anything but intriguing. Shot as a metaphor to modern life where human beings exist ...Read the entire review

The movie

With the feature film The Lion,the Witch and the Wardrobe having been such a success, it's nowonder there's a renewal of interest in filmed versions of otherbooks in CS Lewis' Narnia series. What's nice about this release onDVD of the BBC production of The Silver Chair is that it'sbeen handled right: released with remastered video and sound, so thatthe 1990 production appears on its best footing.

The Silver Chair is actuallythe fourth volume in the Chronicles of Narnia: following The Lion,the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and TheVoyage of the 'Dawn Treader'. (As a fantasy scholar - I did myPh.D. dissertation on the fantasy novel - let me assure you that thisreally is the correct ordering of the volumes. The peculiarre-ordering of the Chronicles to put The Magic...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Among the many weirdly engaging scenes in Andrew Bujalski's Mutual Appreciation is this: a twentysomething named Sara is at the apartment of a music industry A&R guy when she buries her nose in one of his coffee-table books and takes a good, deep whiff.

Sara hands the book to her host. "You've got to smell this book," she says, almost giddy. "It's so evocative. It reminds me of elementary school."

That inane exchange -- smacking of self-conscious eclecticism and nostalgia for a period of not so very long ago -- encapsulates the mindset of the angsty youths who populate this sly and modestly seductive film. Written and directed by Bujalski, whose 2002 Funny Ha Ha earned critical raves but few viewers, Mutual Appreciation is steadfastly low-budget -- shot in 16mm blac...Read the entire review

The Film:

Clearly influenced by the innocent but edgy aura of the Novelle Vague Benoit Jacquot's (The School of Flesh) latest picture A Tout de Suite a.k.a Right Now (2004) follows the steps of free-spirited Lili (Isild Le Besco), a Parisian art student, who becomes involved with an enigmatic robber (Ouassini Embarek) whose luck is running out. After a deadly heist Baba and his accomplice Alain (Nicolas Duvauchelle) take shelter in Lili's house and consequently leave Paris embarking on a dicey escape through Spain, Morocco, and Greece.

Shot in glorious black and white A Tout de Suite arrives to North American shores rather late. Having gathered plenty of positive reviews during its initial screening at the Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard) in 2004 Benoit Jacquot's film took awhile before it finally attracte...Read the entire review

It's not often that I'm given a chance to see a whistling documentary, but Pucker Up: The Fine Art of Whistling (2005) is as catchy and entertaining as the subject it pays tribute to. Directed by the team of Kate Davis and David Heilbroner (who also helmed a segment of 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America), Pucker Up is a relatively straightforward but charming tale that revolves around the annual International Whistling Competition in Louisburg, NC. Our story introduces us to several colorful competitors from all walks of life, including an investment banker, a turkey hauler and a Dutch social worker. All share a passion for whistling, employing a number of unique styles to share their music with all w...Read the entire review

The French company Lobster Films has been responsible for some excellentDVD releases in the past couple of years and I always look forward to thefilms that they are involved with. They helped with the restorationof Criterion's release of Under the Roofs of Paris, were largelyresponsible for Kino's Slapstick Symposium series, and they werethe force behind the excellent (and overlooked) CharleyBowers collection. Lobster has created yet another nice collectionof silent movies, this time released through Image, with RediscoverJacques Feyder: French Film Master.

I have to admit that I wasn't familiar with Feyder until I saw thiscollection and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the three filmsincluded in this set are all good movies. Each fi...Read the entire review

I recently sent an email to a fellow movie buff pal telling him I was in the process of working my way through a mammoth boxed set of short films by Norman McLaren. He wrote back, "Must confess to ignorance about Norman McLaren. Who he?" This reaction is quite understandable. Though he tirelessly directed movies almost continuously over half a century, winning a Palme d'Or at Cannes and an Academy Award in the process, McLaren isn't exactly a household name, even in Canada, where the Scottish-born humanist animator-artist spent almost his entire career.

But for those who have seen his work, McLaren's name is magic and his films unforgettable: he's like George Pal, Luis Bunuel and Max & Dave Fleischer all rolled into one. His name became synonymous with the National Film ...Read the entire review

Agnieszka Holland's thoughtful and mature look at the moral tangle of WW2 was overlooked in the clutter of more commercial 80s attractions about the plight of the Jews. This story's source is the book Bittere Ernte by Hermann H. Field and Stanislaw Mierzenski, an American architect and a Polish journalist who were imprisoned for nine years by the Russians after the cessation of hostilities. In a part of rural Poland where most of the populace speaks German, a lonely bachelor hides a miserable refugee from the Nazis. Unfortunately, the temptation for him to consider her as his personal property is too strong.

Leon Wolny (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is a 'Germanized' Silesian Pole doing reason...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/24943 Thu, 09 Nov 2006 20:31:28 UTC Rent It

The Film:

Legendary Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland (Europa, Europa) is the director of Bittere Ernte a.k.a Angry Harvest (1985), a film that was nominated by the now defunct West Germany as the country's official Oscar-entry some twenty one years ago.

Set during WW2 the story of Bitter Harvest evolves around the fate of two people – a wealthy German peasant named Leon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and Rosa (Elisabeth Trissenaar), an upper-class Jewish woman, attempting to evade the Nazis. When Leon discovers Rosa nearby his house he gives her shelter, helps her get back on her feet, and ultimately falls in love with her. Unfortunately, Rosa isn't ready to respond to Leon's feelings; the war is raging, the Nazis are exterminating the Jews, and Leon happens to be German. Rosa also hopes that one day she will be able to reunite with...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/24608 Mon, 23 Oct 2006 19:17:39 UTC Rent It

Fantasy, as a genre, has recently gripped mainstream movie audiences with such adaptations as The Lord of the Rings series and the recent Disney telling of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Dragons, knights, elves, epic battles, and awesome swords have all roped in younger viewers as well as hardcore film fanatics. As can be imagined, this recent emergence of great fantasy films into the conventional market has been nothing but a pleasure. Grabbing a taste of these new magnificent films, however, can leave an enthusiast wanting more. It's a little difficult to find quality, well crafted fantasy films and television miniseries from previous decades that will quench that desire. To find a couple of challenging, mildly appealing lemons is common.

This installment of the BBC series The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Daw...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/24065 Wed, 27 Sep 2006 12:48:51 UTC Rent It

The Film:

Nominated for Oscar (Best Foreign Language Film) in 1982 the Swiss production Das Boot ist Voll a.k.a The Boat is Full attempts to reconstruct a tragedy that took place some sixty three years ago. Director Markus Imhoof has taken on the difficult task of explaining the "neutrality" of Switzerland during WW2 and more importantly how ordinary people struggled with the government's official policy.

The core of The Boat is Full follows the story of a group of Jewish refugees who manage to sneak into Switzerland looking to begin a new life. Unfortunately the country is already swamped with "official" refugees and the entry quota set by the Swiss government exceeded-the borders are quickly closed. This creates all sorts of problems as Jewish refugees continue to flee into Switzerland seeking to escape the Nazis.

Built upon an inte...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/23632 Mon, 04 Sep 2006 14:49:43 UTC Recommended

The Film:

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that after Pedro Almodovar Spain's most notable film director is Carlos Saura. A man with a unique vision and impressive sense of composition Carlos Saura and his films never seize to surprise with originality, spirit, and unmatched beauty.

Salome, Carlos Saura's film adaptation of the notorious biblical tale about the young woman who dared request the head of Saint John the Baptist, was completed in 2002 only a year after the Spanish director stunned film audiences with his extravagant Bunuel y la mesa del rey Salomon a.k.a Bunuel and King Solomon's Table.

Heavily saturated with Spanish traditional tunes (flamenco) Salome is a film built upon music, theater, and ballet. Carlos Saura follows the preparation of a stage play about Salome (the femme fatale image is slightly a...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/23494 Tue, 29 Aug 2006 01:05:01 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The new ratings system made its debut in 1968 but the fun really hit the fan in the spring of 1969. In the space of a few months audiences in big cities were sent reeling by quality R and X-rated films that made anything seem possible: If..., Medium Cool, Last Summer, Age of Consent. In the midst of these came an insane B&W comedy that broke all rules of good taste and acceptable subject matter, Robert Downey Sr.'s Putney Swope. Professionally crafted and wholly independent in spirit, Putney Swope shocked critics and delighted counterculture would-be hipsters already tuned to the satiric wavelength of National Lampoon magazine.

Putney Swope doesn't quite keep its comic invention going for all of its 85 minutes, but when it's cooking there's nothing like it. The world of advertising has been an easy target since t...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/21657 Sat, 13 May 2006 05:47:40 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Spanish filmmaking is alive and well, judging by the post- Almodóvar riches of titles like El Crimen Ferpecto (sic), Platillos Voladores and The Stone Raft (La balsa de piedra. All have a fresh outlook on life laced with a sense of the fantastic. The visual design and technical specs in these Spanish films are the equal of work done anywhere. Frankly, some of these Spanish films are more entertaining than new American product.

Julio Medem's Lovers of the Arctic Circle exhibits the kind of creativity that American independent productions seek but rarely achieve. A strange love story told in circular, overlapping narratives, it fol...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/21523 Sat, 06 May 2006 13:14:07 UTC Recommended

THE MOVIE

"Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus" is a fascinating documentary, but not a very fair one, and maybe not even a very nice one. It examines some of the strangest, most unflattering elements of the American Deep South -- and the filmmakers doing the examining are British.

Where do foreigners get off observing American weirdness with one eyebrow raised in disbelief?! WE can make fun of the South, but YOU stay out of it, you snaggle-toothed queen-worshippers!

Pardon my outburst of nationalism. The fact is, as the film points out, "the South" exists not just as a geographical place but as a mentality, a mindset, a way of life. And if the film focuses almost exclusively on the weird, Jeff-Foxworthy-meets-David-Lynch elements of the South ... well, it's not like they're makin' this stuff up.

Director Andrew Douglas got Florida-born musician Jim White to be our on-camera g...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/21343 Tue, 25 Apr 2006 07:25:00 UTC Recommended

Whether you're a college student trying to write a term paper or a self-described amateur filmmaker conceiving a jazz documentary, it's usually a good idea to narrow your subject's focus to something very specific, to zero in on a specific time and place. Jean Bach's Oscar-nominated documentary A Great Day in Harlem (1994) does just that. It's a 60-minute mini-feature about a couple of chaotic hours in front of a New York brownstone near the 125th Street Station in Harlem, where early one summer morning in 1958 many of the greatest jazz musicians of the century showed up. What was modestly envisioned as a neat little photo idea for Esquire quite accidentally resulted in the all-time great collisions of jazz talent, captured in photographs by the magazine's fledging photographer, Art Kane, and amateurs alike, many of them the musicians themselves, who had simply brought along their still a...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/21335 Tue, 25 Apr 2006 00:33:36 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Only a small percentage of Australian films receive American distribution. The ones set in rural areas often run to stylistic extremes, as with Peter Weir's The Cars that Ate Paris or Stephan Elliott's Welcome to Woop Woop. Writer-director Anna Reeves' Oyster Farmer shapes up as a realistic drama about life among freshwater oyster farmers, a rough group of very likeable people. The film has a pleasing, low-tension attitude about life rare for a post-millennium drama. We follow an outlaw outsider as he's slowly accepted by the locals, and responds to the possibility of becoming part of a meaningful community.

Synopsis:

Troub...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/21049 Fri, 07 Apr 2006 22:44:16 UTC Highly Recommended

The Film:
Frustrated with the monotony of their lives in Paris Zano (Romain Duris) and Naima (Lubna Azabal) decide to rediscover their roots embarking on a journey from the French capital all the way to the heart of Algeria. Along the way the two drifters will face the grim reality of a world devastated by poverty, the rich history of a nation now living amidst ruins, and a past they never knew existed.

A magical journey to a land forgotten by God Tony Gatlif's Exiles (2004) is quite possibly the film that should have won the coveted Palm d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival two years ago. Instead the jury only partially recognized this exceptionally well-made film by granting Gatlif the Best Director Award.

Following a tradition he started long ago with his classic Latcho Drom (1993), Gadjo Dilo (1997), and Vengo (2000) Gatlif has fil...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/20910 Fri, 31 Mar 2006 21:15:17 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movies:

Kind of a cross between Ingmar Bergman and Todd Solondz but with more of a horror genre bend, Douglas Buck has been making independent horror movies for a few years now. Before you instantly dismiss that as shot on video garbage, let it stand that not only are the three movies in this set shot on film but they're some of the most mind-bending and intense examples of what a horror movie can be to come down the pipe in a long while. In short, they're the cinematic equivalent to a swift punch to the balls, but in the best possible way. They hurt you, they make you feel something sharp and fast, and they leave you wanting to curl up in the fetal position and cry.

These movies have been staples of underground and horror oriented film festivals for a few years now and were released independently as a two disc set by Buck. Image Entertainment now makes that two disc set much mo...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/20346 Sat, 25 Feb 2006 18:17:52 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

In 1994 some enterprising jazz enthusiasts found the perfect way to make a movie about the previous generation of jazz greats. In 1958, a famous photograph had been taken on the steps of a Harlem brownstone on 124th and Madison Avenue in New York City. Practically every known living jazz great at that time was in New York, and by some miracle they all showed up for the mass portrait. Jean Bach's documentary is about the making of the photograph, but it's also about the memories of the photo shoot's surviving participants - a personalized, overlapping, 40-voice memoir.

Even for people who have never heard of the famous photo the docu is a treat. Confirmed jazz fans will be floored by the all-inclusive roster of stars and even non-jazz aficionados will recognize a couple of dozen top names: Count Basie, Thelonius Monk, Lester Young, Sonny ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/19264 Wed, 14 Dec 2005 02:39:52 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

This odd Japanese film is technically a crime picture but comes off as more of an eccentric, insightful women's film. A dowdy recluse becomes a fugitive from the law, an experience that ironically opens up her life to experiences she'd never have known otherwise. The key to the picture is its leading lady Naomi Fujiyama's entirely self-effacing performance. Known as one of Japan's top stage actors, Fujiyama holds our attention with her clumsy attempts to fit into the world while on the run from a murder charge.

Synopsis:

Sullen and withdrawn 'ugly' elder sister Masako toils endlessly with mending chores in her widowed mother's dry cleaning shop, seething with hatred for her flashy younger sister Yukari, w...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/19148 Wed, 07 Dec 2005 08:41:12 UTC Highly Recommended

Film:

There is something very eerie about Alex van Warmerdam's latest film Grimm (2003). Loosely based on the famous story by Brothers Grimm (remember Hansel and Gretel?) this modern-day fairytale feels like the odd child of the late Luis Bunuel, the inspiring Fernando Arabal, and perhaps an angry yet ready to entertain Alex de la Iglesia. A real mind-bender of a film where logic seems to be an unknown term Grimm defies just about any categorization you might want to come up with. Still…let's give it a try!!

Maria (Halina Reijn) and Jacob (Jacob Derwig) are abandoned by their father, a grumpy old man, in the nearby forest with nothing else but a short note announcing that they have to find their uncle who now lives in Spain. Quickly re...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/19141 Wed, 07 Dec 2005 05:02:33 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie

A German import just now making its way across the Atlantic, the 2001 nailbiter The Tunnel is a riveting, real-life thriller; one of the rare films to name-check the seminal Das Boot and actually live up to the comparison, director Roland Suso Richter's film is compelling and harrowing, reminding me quite a bit of Oliver Hirschbiegel's superb Downfall (and not just because Alexandra Maria Lara stars in both) in the way a painful, divisive event from German history is dissected with clear, unblinking precision. By eschewing commentary for a more documentary-based approach, both films reveal a nation not necessarily at ease with its past, but nevertheless working towards acceptance.

Based upon the real-life story of Hasso Herschel, The Tunnel focuses on champion East German swimmer Harry Melchior (Heino Ferch), who, upon bifurcation of Berlin i...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/19112 Mon, 05 Dec 2005 20:15:30 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Every so often Home Vision Entertainment hits us with a wonderful import that we don't remember being given a U.S. release. The American market increasingly puts all of its energy into promoting about a hundred pictures a year and only the most commercial efforts from overseas have a chance. The delightful Fear and Trembling was a big hit in France but is essentially unknown here, along with its remarkable star, Sylvie Testud.

'Office cubicle' comedies have by now become an established mini-genre. The protagonists are invariably young adults suffering from acute Dilbert syndrome, reacting in bizarre ways to the dehumanizing corporate lifestyle. Fear and Trembling takes on office life from a new perspective. A young European joins a huge Japanese super-company and endures a crazy ordeal of cross-cultural friction. It's both hilar...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/19071 Sat, 03 Dec 2005 18:55:05 UTC Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Home Vision Enertainment has been subsumed into the Image Enertainment DVD company, yet its output just keeps getting better. This excellent escape drama from Germany is only four years old and made little or no theatrical impact in the states. As is expected of HVE discs, the presentation is near-perfect. The package text makes the bold claim that this is the most exciting German movie since Das Boot, a promise that the movie fulfills. The Tunnel is an extremely intelligent thriller that champions the courage and determination of daring young Berliners that risked all to organize mass escapes from East Germany.

Synopsis:

When the Communists close the border in Berlin, swimming champion Ha...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/17982 Sat, 01 Oct 2005 23:28:04 UTC Recommended

The Argentinian import Bottom of the Sea (2003) is a sly little comedy with some thriller elements that perfectly add to a tale of relationship insecurities, jealousy, and stalking, which, oddly enough, leads to maturity.

Ezequiel (Daniel hendler) is a young architecture student, his latest project being the design of an underwater hotel. His mind, however, is preoccupied with his girlfriend Ana (Dolores Fonzi), who has grown suspiciously cold and awkward towards him. In a highly surprising scene, he does find out she has been seeing another man. Rather than confront her outright, he stalks the fellow, Anibal (Gustavo Garzon), an older man with a confidant, though decidedly prickish, demeanor.

Wow, this is a hard one to classify. Essentially it is a comedy, but not a forceful one, and it is stylized with a thriller vein. Imagine Hitchcock directing After Hours, or Hal Ashby directin...Read the entire review

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