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Wednesday, August 02, 2006
This week's reviews: District B13/Scoop
District B13
Director: Pierre Morel
Possum’s Grade: B
Friends snickered when I told them I was going to see a French action movie. It does seem like an oxymoron. But B13 (or as the French call it, Banlieue 13) is the baddest ghetto in Paris and you would be hard pressed to find anyone willing to surrender without a fight to the death. Set in 2010, B13 has already been disconnected from the rest of the city by concrete wall constructed by the government. Now, overrun with violence and drugs, even the police that tried to keep some semblance of order are pulling out for good.
We first meet Lieto (David Belle), a good-hearted tough guy whose greatest sin was being born in B13. A breathtaking action sequence shows us just how tough he is as he shoots, kicks and hops through dozens of henchmen defying the drug kingpin that he is trying to keep away from his building.
Next we are introduced to Damien (Cyril Raffaelli), an undercover cop who is part Jackie Chan and part Zenidine Zidane with a touch of Joe Friday holding the two together. Scene 2 finds him busting up an illegal gambling racket, fighting off several men while a SWAT team waits outside.
From here on out the plot is typical action/thriller fare. Lieto’s arch-nemesis in B13 comes into possession of a nuclear weapon that is ticking down to detonation in a few hours and it is up to Damien and Lieto to find and defuse it. That said, this movie bounces with the rapid pulse of the techno music score. The fluid movement of the chases from building top to building top and the stylized acrobatics of the fight sequences make District B13 a pleasure to watch. Rarely have we seen thugs with such grace in movement since West Side Story, or at least Kung Fu Hustle.
The movie manages to keep up its frenetic pace for the majority of its 90-minute running time. American action movies this year seem to take themselves far too seriously. X-Men, Superman, and Miami Vice would not allow themselves the fun that they were intended for. District B13 makes no pretenses. It is what it is: a fun action adventure. For a taste, you can watch the trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZRvdE1IlxY&search=district%20b13
Scoop
Director: Woody Allen
Possum’s Grade: B
After staying behind the scenes for the last few years, everyone’s favorite over-anxious writer/director/actor returns to the screen in Scoop, now out in theatres, co-starring with Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman. Allen is Sidney Waterman, a magician better known to audiences as Splendini. As any good (or bad) magician, the highlight of his act involves disappearing a volunteer from the audience. This is how he comes to meet Sondra Pranksy an American journalism student visiting wealthy friends in England.
The story is set into motion by the recently diseased Joe Strombel (Ian McShane). Strombel, as we learn from various tributes at his wake was a highly regarded investigative journalist that would stop at nothing to get his story. We quickly come to understand Joe’s determined methods as we see him try to bribe the Grim Reaper on the boat to the afterlife. After a failed interaction with Death, he begins to chat up a young woman who is also a passenger to eternity who tells him that she believes she was poisoned because she recently learned that the famous politician, Peter Lyman (Jackman), that she worked for was, in fact, the notorious Tarot Killer who had been terrorizing London women with dark, short-cropped hair. Intent on nailing one final scoop, Strombel jumps off the boat. Searching desperately for the vibes of a journalist, he communicates his message to a startled Sondra inside Splendini’s magic box. It is now up to the bumbling team of Sondra and Splendini to rustle up the damning evidence needed so that their accusation does not look foolish.
Allen’s fumbling dialogue and word play still comes off crisp, but anyone who knows me knows that I am a sucker for such banter. Scarlett, however, struggles with this sort of comic role and the bumbling innocence and naiveté of Sondra and doesn’t quite seem comfortable until she is transformed into Jade Spence, the American actress who catches the eye of Lyman and summers with him in his family’s home in the English country.
It is undeniable that this is simply minor-Allen, and critics will no doubt deride it’s simple plot and even simpler conclusion. But I found it charming and quite fascinating if taken with the context of Allen’s two films released in 2005, Match Point and Melinda and Melinda. Melinda and Melinda jumps back and forth between the same story that is being told by one as a comedy and by another as a drama. It is possible to view Match Point and Scoop as being essentially the same story with the former being the dramatic version and the latter being the comedy. Watching the two back-to-back might make for a more interesting and entertaining evening than simply watching Melinda and Melinda on its own.
Possible coming reviews:
In theatres: Talladega Nights, World Trade Center, Little Miss Sunshine, Three Times
DVD: Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, Brick, The Lost City, Inside Man
District B13
Director: Pierre Morel
Possum’s Grade: B
Friends snickered when I told them I was going to see a French action movie. It does seem like an oxymoron. But B13 (or as the French call it, Banlieue 13) is the baddest ghetto in Paris and you would be hard pressed to find anyone willing to surrender without a fight to the death. Set in 2010, B13 has already been disconnected from the rest of the city by concrete wall constructed by the government. Now, overrun with violence and drugs, even the police that tried to keep some semblance of order are pulling out for good.
We first meet Lieto (David Belle), a good-hearted tough guy whose greatest sin was being born in B13. A breathtaking action sequence shows us just how tough he is as he shoots, kicks and hops through dozens of henchmen defying the drug kingpin that he is trying to keep away from his building.
Next we are introduced to Damien (Cyril Raffaelli), an undercover cop who is part Jackie Chan and part Zenidine Zidane with a touch of Joe Friday holding the two together. Scene 2 finds him busting up an illegal gambling racket, fighting off several men while a SWAT team waits outside.
From here on out the plot is typical action/thriller fare. Lieto’s arch-nemesis in B13 comes into possession of a nuclear weapon that is ticking down to detonation in a few hours and it is up to Damien and Lieto to find and defuse it. That said, this movie bounces with the rapid pulse of the techno music score. The fluid movement of the chases from building top to building top and the stylized acrobatics of the fight sequences make District B13 a pleasure to watch. Rarely have we seen thugs with such grace in movement since West Side Story, or at least Kung Fu Hustle.
The movie manages to keep up its frenetic pace for the majority of its 90-minute running time. American action movies this year seem to take themselves far too seriously. X-Men, Superman, and Miami Vice would not allow themselves the fun that they were intended for. District B13 makes no pretenses. It is what it is: a fun action adventure. For a taste, you can watch the trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZRvdE1IlxY&search=district%20b13
Scoop
Director: Woody Allen
Possum’s Grade: B
After staying behind the scenes for the last few years, everyone’s favorite over-anxious writer/director/actor returns to the screen in Scoop, now out in theatres, co-starring with Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman. Allen is Sidney Waterman, a magician better known to audiences as Splendini. As any good (or bad) magician, the highlight of his act involves disappearing a volunteer from the audience. This is how he comes to meet Sondra Pranksy an American journalism student visiting wealthy friends in England.
The story is set into motion by the recently diseased Joe Strombel (Ian McShane). Strombel, as we learn from various tributes at his wake was a highly regarded investigative journalist that would stop at nothing to get his story. We quickly come to understand Joe’s determined methods as we see him try to bribe the Grim Reaper on the boat to the afterlife. After a failed interaction with Death, he begins to chat up a young woman who is also a passenger to eternity who tells him that she believes she was poisoned because she recently learned that the famous politician, Peter Lyman (Jackman), that she worked for was, in fact, the notorious Tarot Killer who had been terrorizing London women with dark, short-cropped hair. Intent on nailing one final scoop, Strombel jumps off the boat. Searching desperately for the vibes of a journalist, he communicates his message to a startled Sondra inside Splendini’s magic box. It is now up to the bumbling team of Sondra and Splendini to rustle up the damning evidence needed so that their accusation does not look foolish.
Allen’s fumbling dialogue and word play still comes off crisp, but anyone who knows me knows that I am a sucker for such banter. Scarlett, however, struggles with this sort of comic role and the bumbling innocence and naiveté of Sondra and doesn’t quite seem comfortable until she is transformed into Jade Spence, the American actress who catches the eye of Lyman and summers with him in his family’s home in the English country.
It is undeniable that this is simply minor-Allen, and critics will no doubt deride it’s simple plot and even simpler conclusion. But I found it charming and quite fascinating if taken with the context of Allen’s two films released in 2005, Match Point and Melinda and Melinda. Melinda and Melinda jumps back and forth between the same story that is being told by one as a comedy and by another as a drama. It is possible to view Match Point and Scoop as being essentially the same story with the former being the dramatic version and the latter being the comedy. Watching the two back-to-back might make for a more interesting and entertaining evening than simply watching Melinda and Melinda on its own.
Possible coming reviews:
In theatres: Talladega Nights, World Trade Center, Little Miss Sunshine, Three Times
DVD: Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, Brick, The Lost City, Inside Man
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