Michele Massa's blog

A valid obsolescent dramatization of the destiny of Joint flight 93 from New York bound as a remedy for San Francisco on September 11, 2001. The fourth of the hijacked planes on that tragic day, it was the only people that did not clout its butt: the White House. After the upsetting realization that their plane had been hijacked by terrorists who had already killed a passenger and the pilots, and having leant of the aircrafts smashing into the World Trade Centre, the passengers gather the heroism to explode the terrorists, four young Muslims who are hardly microwavable for their destructive errand. Meanwhile, the air traffic controllers – and equalize the military – are baffled and not with it as they have a stab to grapple with the horribleness of the situation.

Three years ago, young and promising surfer Anne Marie (Kate Bosworth) nearly drowned during a surfing accident. Haunted by the event, Anne instanter takes protection of her rebellious kid sister Penny (Mika Boorem) by cleaning rooms in a Hawaii hotel with her roommates Eden (Michelle Rodriguez) and Lena (Sanoe Lake). But Anne is on the comeback, and with Oahu's Pipe Masters in just one week – and redone get a kick from blossoming with a hunky NFL quarterback (Matthew Davis), she must summon all her courage, overcome her fears, and compete against the world's best. 

Billy Wilder's Single, Two, Three is a fast-paced, high-pitched, magisterial-hitting, lighthearted farce crammed with superficial gags and spiced with satirical overtones. Story is so furiously dexterous-witted that some of its wit gets snarled and smothered in overlap. But unmitigated know packs a noticeable wallop.

James Cagney is the chief exec of Coca-Cola's West Berlin plant whose ambitious promotion plans are jeopardized when he becomes temporary guardian of his stateside superior's wild and vacuous daughter. The girl (Pamela Tiffin) slips across the border, weds violently anti-Yankee Horst Buchholz, and before long there's a bouncing baby Bolshevik on the way. When the home office head man decides to visit his daughter, Cagney masterminds an elaborate masquerade that backfires.

The screenplay, based on a one-act play by Ferenc Molnar, is outstanding. It pulls no punches and lands a few political and ideological haymakers on both sides of the Brandenburg Gate.

Cagney proves himself an expert farceur with a glib, full-throttled characterization. Although some of Buchholz delivery has more bark than bite, he reveals a considerable flair for comedy. Pretty Tiffin scores with a convincing display of mental density.

Another significant factor in the comedy is Andre Previn's score, which incorporates semi-classical and period pop themes (like Saber Dance and 'Yes, We Have No Bananas') to great advantage throughout the film.

1961: Nomination: Best B&W Cinematography

The Movies

Four of the goofiest old-school sci-fi adventures are gathered here in the 4-disc "Weird Worlds Collection," courtesy of Image Entertainment — guys who'll release pretty much anything on DVD. Despite the moniker, these worlds aren't all that "weird" at all. "Silly Sci-Fi Collection" might have been a better heading, but if you're a fan of antiquated sci-fi schlock, odds are you'll find something to enjoy here.

Destination Moon (1950) isn't actually "weird" at all. It's actually a fairly sober and straight-laced adventure in which four All-American Joes build a rocket and blast off to the moon … much to the chagrin of the U.S. government! Based on the novel by Robert Heinlein, Destination Moon earns points for trying to tell a non-fantastic sci-fi story, and there's even some extra credit for getting some of the science right. Yeah, the dialogue is frequently ridiculous and the special effects are as goofy as you'd expect, but taken as sort of a pre-pre-pre-historic Apollo 13, I suspect the die-hard sci-fi fans might enjoy this one.

(A reader wrote in asking that I mention Destination Moon's place as a film that "started the 1950s sci-fi craze," and I apologize for having overlooked that trivial tidbit. Indeed, Destination Moon was one of the very first American "space quest" flicks, and as such it deserves to be mentioned as a semi-milestone of the genre. Whether or not such a designation enables one to enjoy the fairly dry, outmoded, and cornball aspects of Destination Moon is up to the individual, of course, but the reader was right that I should at least mention it: Apparently Destination Moon was 1950's equivalent to Star Wars.)

Project Moonbase (1953) is a spy thriller and a sci-fi adventure all wrapped into one brief-yet-ridiculous mini-movie. Also based on a Heinlein story, Project Moonbase deals with a guy-girl "space force" team who find their moon mission interrupted by the arrival of a very stupid Russian spy. Much of the 63-minute flick consists of silly sets, insipid dialogue, casual sexism, and (especially towards the end) outright lunacy. And those outfits! Whose idea was it to give out Peter Pan hats and short-shorts to Earth's first guy/girl astro-squad? Still: simply and consistently silly, but not all that weird.

The Phantom Planet (1961) is, well — what can one say about a movie that not only languishes, unwanted, in the public domain, but was also savaged with much hilarity by the Mystery Science Theater 3000 gang? I could say it's laughable, embarrassing, woefully inept, and absolutely Ed Woodsian in style and presentation, but why bother? This one's about a daring space hero who crash lands on a zooming planet, only to discover that the citizens look, act, and behave just like human beings … only they're really, really tiny. So they shrink Space Guy down to their size and spend the next hour wandering around caves and talking about space. Oh, and there are these moronic-looking monsters that look like the unholy offspring of Pluto the Dog and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Finally this package offers some true weirdness!

First Spaceship on Venus (1962) is known throughout the planet as Silent Star or Planet of the Dead or Der Schweigende Stern, but it's just another low-budget '60s sci-fi-stinker that, not very long ago, earned a wondrous lampooning at the hands of the MST3K boys. Interesting in that it's a Polish-German co-production, if for no other reason whatsoever, First Spaceship on Venus is a dry and periodically non-sensical dub-fest in which a bunch of dry international dolts head out to Venus — slowly. But, to be fair, in the flick's final 20-some minutes, it definitely does get "weird."

A strongly scripted, well-lensed political thriller, "The Sixth of May" relies too much on a understanding of adjoining politics to have much carry-exceeding potential in international waters. It will-power for all that be remembered as a satisfactory last physiognomy by dialectic Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered on November 2 by a callow Muslim extremist, allegedly because of his 11-minute short film "Submission" made with the Somali-Dutch politican Ayaan Hirsi Ali about Islam's oppression of women. Opening Rotterdam's Dutch Perspective, "The Sixth of May" has chilling overlaps with the filmmaker's own tragic extirpation, giving it a special poignancy and guaranteeing interest against the carnival crowd.

With the van Gogh tragedy still shaking Holland, pic will do its best business locally. Producer Gijs van de Westelaken plans to film English-language remakes of current pic as well as the director's 1996 "Blind Date" and 2003 "Interview" as a tribute. The Rotterdam festival has also inaugurated an annual Theo van Gogh Award for Maverick Film Makers.

Film reps a bold and generally successful attempt to mix historical people and events with audacious fictional speculation, and to erase the boundaries between them à la Oliver Stone's "JFK." This is one reason why viewers without a good working knowledge of Dutch politics will find the story confounding. The other is a complicated plotline that never comes fully untangled.

Key fact to know is that idiosyncratic right-wing politico Pim Fortuyn, repeatedly seen in newsreel footage as a smiling, dapper bald man, was assassinated on May 6, 2002 by an animal rights activist. Around his murder Van Gogh and his coscripter Tomas Ross build a fictionalized plot, hypothesizing a worldwide conspiracy to get rid of Fortuyn masterminded by American economic interests and executed by the Dutch secret services.

Anchoring the story is news photographer Jim de Booy (Thijs Romer), who happens to be snapping pictures of a TV starlet outside the radio station where Fortuyn is shot. He inadvertently captures the killer in the background of his photos, along with a number of conspirators.

Privately investigating the murder, he crosses paths with Ayse (Tara Elders), a double-dealing Turkish girl who is embroiled in the affair. Once the lover of another impassioned animal rights activist, she has been strong-armed into working with some Dutch secret service heavies. Her current b.f. Erdogan (Cahit Olmez) is also a bit shady, but comes in handy when her life is threatened by her ex. Only through Jim's snooping will she learn that Erdogan, too, is playing a double game.

Meanwhile, the intelligence bosses are meeting with Dutch powerbrokers and an unidentified American businessman to manipulate the government into voting for the Joint Strike Fighter, an expensive military plane Fortuyn opposes. By replacing him with a puppet figure, they eventually succeed in swinging the vote in favor of American plans.

Intercut with all these plot threads is documentary footage of Fortuyn getting a pie in the face from a disgruntled citizen and being hotly attacked by left-wing politicians. Van Gogh largely steps back from taking sides, but there are hints he agrees with those who feel Fortuyn, Holland's most vocal opposition leader, was set up as a potential assassination target by his opponents. Compared to the inflammatory "Submission," however, there is nothing to fuel great controversy here.

Spiked with classic action chases by taxi, motorcycle and through a tropical fun fair, film keeps up a riveting pace, aided by Rainer Hensel's catchy, dramatic score. Elders is noteworthy, if ambiguous, as the complicated Ayse, and Olmez brings the same dark side/light side to the role of her Turkish lover.

As the photog, Romer is forced to battle with more romantic complications than James Bond, plus a shrewish ex-wife and overly demonstrative teenage daughter who are meant to round out his character but only muddy it. When he finally joins forces with Elders they make a most attractive couple on the run, though the pairing takes place so late in the film that their romance comes as an unlikely surprise.

Lionised by the likes of Frank Gehry (he of the curvy Bilbao Guggenheim) and IM Pei (famed for the Louvre's glassware pyramids), Louis I Kahn ranks among America’s greatest stylish architects, eventually his refusal to compromise resulted in multifarious unfulfilled projects by the be that as it may of his immediate fatal heart decry in the gents at Penn station, New York in 1974. Not on the other hand did he leave debts of half a million dollars, but his association lay unclaimed in the course of two days because he’d scratched out the contact details on his passport. It was rhyme form act of equivocation in a turbulent personal pep, for unknown to his ‘official’ family he had also fathered illegitimate children by two other women. Among them is Nathaniel Kahn, director/narrator of this unique celluloid elision of therapy and revelry, which sets elsewhere to ask whether his father’s patent cultural stature could excuse or even explain such bad conduct.

Piecing together biographical details and visiting the buildings brings a certain angle, but it’s the bittersweet species testimonies which designate this beyond the shadow of a doubt richer than the usual arts surplus. Interviews with former lovers now in the stillness of old age reveal the permanent feelings this stubborn, charismatic throw clearly aroused, while the climactic footage of Louis’s master-work, the Capital construction in Bangladesh, flag of a nation’s budding democracy, inspires moving filial pride as it reconciles an errant father’s fractured emotional and architectural legacies. The film-making fully is keenly responsive to the spatial impact of Louis’s clean geometric forms, but this is above all a fascinating, touching human story: when was the last time you cried at an architecture documentary?

The pleasures of "Yeelen," the latest blear from the Malian director Souleymane Cissé, spring almost barrel from the magical unfamiliarity of its setting and its people. Its drama is in its landscape, its fib in the faces of its actors.

Cissé is perhaps the best-known figure in African cinema, and there has been a great deal of critical clamor over his latest film. Ever since its initial screening in 1987 at Cannes (where it won the jury prize), reviewers have been climbing over one another to proclaim it a masterpiece, calling it "the most beautiful film ever to have emerged out of Africa," and the like. Certainly "Yeelen" is beautiful; its landscapes and its characters have been magnificently photographed. And certainly Cissé exposes us to a story and a culture that are unlike any that we are likely to see anywhere else.

Still, though it's handsome and intriguing, "Yeelen" is far short of being a masterpiece. Cissé immerses us in the mythology of the Bambara tribesmen of Mali, specifically in the initiation rituals of a young man (Issiaka Kane) caught in a life-and-death struggle with his shaman father (Ismail Sarr). But while the director has a gift for provocative imagery, he has no discernible narrative skills. He's unable to make both the basic Oedipal conflicts and the broader mythological implications intelligible. Nor is he able to situate us comfortably in time and space — we float, not certain where we are or where we're going.

The sensation is not entirely unpleasant. The picture has its own enthralling, leisurely rhythms; there's nothing mechanized about the pace of the storytelling. But there's nothing terribly magnetic either. Cissé presents his story in a manner that is lulling and, ultimately, boring. This can't be attributed wholly to need for gratification instilled in us by television and commercial filmmaking. Plain and simple, there's just not enough going on — or not enough that's accessible to us.

Predictable yet charming, "The Grand Role" is a gather-pleasing graphic comedy about love, fondness, role-playing and Jewish snobbishness that echoes the "well-intentioned ruse" plot elements of such disparate works as Jacques Fansten's "Cross My Pity," Laurent Cantet's "Time Out" and Wolfgang Becker's "Good Bye, Lenin!" Sophomore effort from actor-helmer Steve Suissa ("Taking Wing") emerged deserted-handed from Paris fest competish and kept a low graph in a non-competitive Karlovy Vary section, but want flexibility fountain-head beyond the Jewish fest circumference on the strength of positive word-of-mouth, surfing rapids birth in Gaul to good arthouse biz, tube sales and homevid runs.

So in love with his wife, Perla (Berenice Bejo), that he photographs her when she's not looking just for the heck of it, struggling Parisian actor Maurice Kurtz (Stephane Freiss) earns a meager income dubbing foreign films with pals Simon (Lionel Abelanski), Elie (Laurent Bateau), Edouard (Stephan Guerin-Tillie) and Sami (Olivier Sitruk).

When news hits that A-list superstar American film director Grishenberg (Peter Coyote) is prepping a big-budget Yiddish-lingo movie version of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," the boys gear up for the audition with unrestrained enthusiasm. "Come dressed as a Jew," advises their blustery agent, Benny (Francois Berleand).

To his astonishment, Maurice lands the coveted role of Shylock, only to lose it a few days later when Grishenberg is forced to give it to an American star. In the meantime, Perla has discovered she's dying of cancer. Balance of pic finds Maurice and his chums going to ever greater lengths to make Perla feel better by persuading her that in his new role, her hubby's the toast of the town.

Though telegraphing its every move with unabashed cheerfulness, "Grand Role" benefits from a sprightly pace, sunny thesping (though camaraderie among the chums is occasionally forced) and fine comic timing. Conceit of Grishenberg's determination to shoot in Yiddish echoes a certain recent faith-based B.O smash, while Coyote himself delivers the best line: After being kidnapped in his own limo, Grishenberg refuses to meet Perla and go along with the gag. "I'm an American," he says with brittle dignity. "Americans don't lie."

Appropriately for a film emphasizing words and relationships, the tech package is discreetly capable. Pungent use is made of Charles Aznavour's vigorous "Le temps" over opening and closing credits. Suissa appears in the small role of Perla's sister's husband.

They say in movies, you should on no occasion work with animals or children. Thankfully, "Grotto of the Yellow Dog" doesn´t get that rule. Thus, we are awarded with a heartwarming tale of a chick and her dog. At the same time, the film provides us with an in-depth look at a advance of life that many are not ordinary with.

"Cave of the Yellow Dog" comes to us from Byambasuren Davaa, a filmmaker transplanted from Mongolia to Germany, where she premeditated film and currently works. Davaa gained notice for her first feature-sheet, the documentary "The Narrative of the Weeping Camel" which was influenced by Robert Flaherty´s "Nanook of the North" and followed the lives of people living in the bucolic fields of Mongolia. "Weeping Camel" was nominated for an Oscar, an impressive achievement made more so by the fact that it was done as possess of her graduate thesis. I´ve seen plenty of student films that aren´t even-handed compressed to watchable, suffer to alone, apportion-worthy.

With "Yellow Dog", Davaa returns to the regardless subject matter of "Weeping Camel" by following the everyday lives of a descent living in the countryside of Mongolia besotted away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. The family last in a large tent called a yurt, roughly the equivalent of a mobile home. They tend to their sheep and when it´s time to the gas b hurry on to new grazing get, they pack up their belongings and move on.

Unified day, the eldest daughter Nansal (Nansal Batchuluun) is sent at fault to collect dung. While performing her task, she comes across a mini dog all unassisted entrails a cave. Naturally, Nansal takes the dog home with her and names him Zochor. The mother doesn´t sound to mind, but Nansal´s father is none too glad. Fearing the dog may prepare been raised by wolves and could be menacing, he tells Nansal to get rid of him. In the too much b the best, Zochor proves that he can reflect in the paw prints of Lassie or Benji when he comes to the rescue of the family´s missing son.

The brute storyline is unambiguously a unplentiful thread. The absolute meat of the film comes from the pseudo-documentary feel that allows the audience to declare the lives of this family. These aren´t actors, but material people that were discovered by the overseer. No script, other than a general guideline, was written. These people really live like this and Davaa allows the camera to linger to lay it all. At one point, puerile Nansal is sent off to watch the sheep. It´s quite a site to watch this pocket-sized girl riding across the gigantic plains on a horse that´s ten times bigger than she is. Even the dog isn´t an actor. He isn´t a trained animal, just a stray mutt they create.

Concurrently, "Yellow Dog" deals with the encroaching act upon of brand-new megalopolis lifetime. The city under no circumstances makes an appearance in the shoot, but its influence can be seen in many scenes. The same infant remarks in wonder to her mother just about how people in the conurbation "pee contents." Another scene finds the father returning make clear with gifts as a replacement for the family, such as a open ladle and a battery-operated toy dog. When the ladle melts in the cooking pot, Nansal turns it into a bowl for Zochor. Davaa under no circumstances argues against the urbanization of this nomadic way of vivacity nor does she ever call during it to be preserved. She just presents it for what it is.

"Even if it can't match the
pleasures derived from the original, at least, it doesn't embarrass itself
by going hitless."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

There was no reason to make this film since this is a remake of the
successful 1976 sports comedy classic that starred Walter Matthau in the
role of the drunken slob baseball coach of an inept Little League baseball
team, the role played here by a perfectly cast Billy Bob Thornton. The
same screenwriters from Billy Bob's "Bad Santa," Glenn Ficarra and John
Requa, bring to this pic the same comical foul-mouthed outpourings from
their profane anti-hero while keeping with the Bad News Bears serious message
of helping kids learn to respect each other and themselves. Nothing fresh
is delivered in this genial satire of the 'win only ethic' pervasive in
all aspects of American life as directed by Richard Linklater ("Dazed and
Confused"/"Rock School"), but even if it can't match the pleasures derived
from the original, at least, it doesn't embarrass itself by going hitless.
The only changes to keep up with the modern era are that one team member
is a paraplegic in a wheelchair and the face of the team resembles the
United Nations, as its ethnicity has been diversified

Morris Buttermaker (Billy Bob Thornton), sporting a salt-and-pepper
goatee, is a former Big League pitcher who stayed long enough to have a
cup of coffee. The middle-aged, grizzled, drunken womanizer, heavily tattooed,
divorced pest controller has been hired by a vociferous single mom lawyer
Liz Whitewood (Marcia Gay Harden) to coach her son's team the Bears in
California's Southern Valley Little League. To get the team in the league
she had to win a court injunction, as the League objected to their presence
because they were so inept. She recruited the former Major Leaguer to win
a championship against last years champs the snobbish and taunting Yankees
because they make her son and his friends feel inferior, who are coached
by oily-tongued car salesman, control-freak, power-orientated dad Roy Bullock
(Greg Kinnear).

The film scripts its story according to the already proven formula
that a curmudgeon coach can reach a bunch of athletic losers and under
his odd way of teaching they improve so much during the course of the season
that they gain a moral victory and feel-good about themselves again. Since
the team as set is not good enough to compete, the coach gets two ringers,
his streetwise pitcher estranged daughter Amanda (Sammi Kane Kraft) and
the tough-guy juvenile delinquent slugger Kelly (Jeffrey Davies). They
prove to be enough of an edge so the team can play the Yankees for the
championship. 

Billy Bob's smoothly done laid-back but forceful performance makes
the film entertaining, while the amiable and goofy kids are easy to take.
I can't find a justification for making the film since it only covers the
same ground as the original, but even if it's not fresh meat it still tastes
fine even if it's not a meal we must have.