Punch is a risky Canadian drama that explores an emotionally incestuous relationship between a father and daughter. It also introduces us to the world of Topless Female Boxers, but more about that later.
Newcomer Sonya Bennett is the teenaged Ariel, a rebellious young girl being raised by her single parent father (Michael Riley). When he brings home a woman he is dating Ariel feels betrayed and punches the woman in the face, giving her a black eye. Enter the aforementioned Topless Female Boxer (Meredith McGeachie). She is the tough, lesbian sister of the wronged women, and comes to extract an apology from Ariel and her father.
It all sounds very “Jerry Springer,” and to a degree it is – the topless boxing angle is pure titillation – but there is some substance here. Director and screenwriter Guy Bennett introduces many interesting human drama elements to Ariel’s coming-of-age story, but frustratingly fails to fully explore any of them. He hints at things that are daring and unusual, but then backs away from the difficult material. At its core Punch delves into the pain of finding the right emotional distance between yourself and those whom you love, but the message is muddied by too many plot twists. The topless boxing is very, uh… visual and will probably put some bums in the seats but unnecessarily clogs up the story.
Sonya Bennett sizzles as the audacious daughter, while Riley subtly conveys the turmoil the father feels as a respectable man who realizes that his relationship with his daughter is tainted.
This is Guy Bennett’s first film and there are enough indications in this movie of someone who really knows how to direct actors and is willing to take interesting risks as a screenwriter to make lead one to think that while Punch isn’t quite there, it’ll be interesting to see what this guy will do next.
I’m not sure if this movie goes way too far, or not far enough. A dark teenage comedy, Pumpkin tells of the story of the perfection obsessed sorority girl Carolyn McDuffy who falls for Pumpkin, a mentally challenged boy she meets when her sorority house agrees to coach some “special people.” The film forces the viewer to look inward and confront their own prejudices, but it does so in such a strange and weirdly paced way that it is hard to recommend Pumpkin, although I think it is an interesting movie. I wish someone like Lloyd Kaufman would have directed it, someone who would take the gloves off and go for the jugular in every scene and really give this material some bite. A movie like this will only work if the filmmaker goes in completely committed to the idea. As it is Pumpkin seems to teeter on the brink of outrageousness, but pulling back every time to stay on the PC side of the fence. It’s a shame because this could have been a truly wonderful and subversive movie.
I loved Magnolia and Boogie Nights, but unfortunately lightening has not struck a third time for director Paul Thomas Anderson. Punch Drunk Love I think, was an attempt by Anderson to pare down the epic length movies he is known for and make something simpler and more linear. He has accomplished that, cutting the running time down to one and a half hours from his usual three, but in doing that has sacrificed character development. I was hoping this would be Adam Sandler’s entry to adult roles, and while he is almost there, he displays no ability to grow and develop into a believable character. His Barry Egan is a distributor of novelty items (like plungers with dice on them for use in Casinos), with a severe anger management problem. He falls in love with Lena (Emily Watson) while at the same time becoming involved in a phone-sex extortion scam. Not a bad premise, but when the main character is hard to identify with it makes it difficult for the viewer to feel sympathy or any connection to them. Sandler stretches his usual teen-movie shtick a little bit, but not enough to satisfy. I’m not sure whether this is a mediocre Paul Thomas Anderson film, or a really great Adam Sandler movie.
When I first heard about the “ape head” packaging for the new Planet of the Apes box set I couldn’t wait to get my stinkin’ paws on one of those damn dirty apes.
It is the most unusual and disturbing DVD cases ever made. Unusual because it is an almost life size bust modeled after Roddy McDowall’s stylized chimpanzee makeup for the original Planet Of The Apes, complete with lifelike hair. Disturbing because I swear the eyes of the thing follow me around the room.
Hidden under a flap on the back of the ape head is a pouch containing fourteen DVDs, the entire Apes oeuvre on disc. Included are all five original movies (1968-1973), the complete series of the Planet of the Apes (1974) TV Show and the never-before-released Saturday Morning Cartoon TV series: Return to the Planet of the Apes (1975) as well as Tim Burton’s 2001 re-imagining of the Planet of the Apes mythology.
The original movie, starring Charlton Heston, holds up quite well, and features social commentary that still seems as relevant today as when Michael Wilson and Rod Serling wrote it in the late 1960s. The twist ending has been parodied a million times, most famously as a musical number on The Simpsons, but still packs a punch. The four sequels offer up varying levels of quality, and are kind of a lesson in diminishing returns, but are worth a look. The live-action television show and the crudely animated cartoon series are curiosities with nostalgia appeal and perfect for Apes completionists.
The “ape head” collection will set you back about $250, and only 2,000 will be available in Canada.
Proof debuted at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival and at the time I thought it had the potential to go on to become one of the hot movies for grown-ups to come out of the fest. Instead it was ignored on release, but now people have a chance to revisit the movie on DVD and check out the great performances by Gwyneth Paltrow as the daughter of a brilliant but mentally ill mathematician with Anthony Hopkins the father, Jake Gyllenhaal as the love interest and Hope Davis as her overbearing sister.
Based on the Broadway play, Proof –adapted for the screen by Arthur Miller’s daughter Rebecca—is the story of Catherine, the daughter of a brilliant but mentally ill mathematician who fears she may have inherited her father’s insanity. Complicating Catherine’s life are a domineering sister and a young math student who believes that he has found an important new mathematical proof in her father’s old papers. I think people assumed that this was a movie about mathematics—that it would be dry—but it is not. Proof is an absorbing drama about family, genius and self worth.
There was a time when Steve Martin’s idiot character was truly original and funny. Twenty-five years ago when he made films like The Jerk and Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid Martin was the jackass du jour, an actor who could deftly mix slapstick with pathos and transcend the genre. Think The Three Stooges mixed with Moliere.
In the eighties and nineties his films took on a higher, more sophisticated tone. Recently, however, his work has been more commercial, and quite uneven. Cheaper By the Dozen and Bringing Down the House made big cash and re-established him as a box office draw but will do nothing for his comic legacy.
Which brings us to The Pink Panther.
Forty-two years ago Peter Sellers created one of the screen’s most indelible comic characters, the bumbling Inspector Clouseau. Since then there have been several attempts to recreate the Seller’s magic—Alan Arkin and Roberto Benigni have both tried and failed—with the most recent being Steve Martin.
Martin gives it his all but never rises above mimicking Peter Sellers. As Martin—using an accent reminiscent of a French Elmer Fudd—pratfalls his way through this caper film I was constantly reminded of other, better movies. Of course the ghost of Peter Sellers looms large, but also Martin’s earlier work. A scene with Martin and Jean Reno as unlikely bedmates made me long for the similar and funnier scene with John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. A dance interlude reminded me of Martin’s famous dance with Gilda Radner on Saturday Night Live. In short, nothing in this film feels original.
The Pink Panther has a couple of laughs, but I’d recommend sticking to the real deal and checking out the recent Pink Panther DVD box set featuring Peter Sellers.
It’s re-make a rama at the multi-plex this week. Kong is still doing big business and two other retreads are joining it on theatre marquees. The Producers started life as a very funny film by Mel Brooks starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel. Thirty years later a musical version of the story of the worst play ever mounted on the Great White Way helped revitalize the real-life Broadway. Unfortunately I don’t think the film version of The Producers will work the same magic in movie theatres and reverse the slump that theatres chains have been experiencing this year.
Fans of the stage version of The Producers will be pleased to have a faithful adaptation of the musical, starring Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick and several of the original Broadway cast, but stage and film are two different mediums, a fact that seems to be lost on director Susan Stroman. As a choreographer Stroman has a shelf full of Tony awards and has worked at the very highest levels on Broadway. As a film director she is a great choreographer. Her film version of the play feels like she simply pointed a camera at the stage and yelled action. There is little effort made to open the film up and take it outside the proscenium arch. When the movie does stray from the box-like confines of the stage we get our best sequences—a chorus line of elderly women on walkers in Central Park and a lavish production number for Broderick’s “I Want to be a Producer” number.
Lane and Broderick bring considerable charm and energy to their roles, but it feels like they are playing to the back of the house rather than to a camera. Ironically, The Producers, a story so rooted in the tradition of Broadway, would have benefited from a more Hollywood treatment.
This is supposed to be a warm, cuddly Christmas movie but I found the weirdly lifeless animation creepy, akin to A Christmas Carol performed by zombies. Based on a children’s Christmas book by Chris Van Allsburg, this is the story of a doubtful boy who is intimidated into believing in Santa Claus after he takes a terrifying nocturnal locomotive journey to the North Pole. The computer-generated animation renders all the characters with vacant eyes and odd too-smooth movement that didn’t fill me with the Christmas spirit, only dread. I call this the Bi-Polar Express because to me it is two movies—on the surface a shiny Christmas movie, but underneath a quite effective horror movie.
I’m giving the Bi-Polar Express 2 stars because as a horror movie it works quite well.
Prime has a great set-up for farce. A 37 year-old divorcee begins a new romance with a much younger man. The only person she can confide in is her therapist, the woman who is always telling her to move on with her life and try new things. The trouble is the younger man is the therapist’s son. Could be either very funny or quite tragic, but falls somewhere in between.
Uma Thurman brings her usual “umessence” to the role of the divorced woman, but like Meryl Streep she isn’t a naturally gifted comedic actress and several scenes here fall flat as a result. Sandra Bullock was originally cast in Uma’s role and I think it would have been a much different movie with Bullock’s lighter touch in the lead.
