Free event: The French Connection

April looks like a good month for free screenings.  Another good pick this month is being hosted by Chicago's Harold Washington Library Center. The French Connection, starring Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, is part of a program celebrating director William Friedman. The story is a police action/thriller based on a true story.

Related events include a screening of The Exorcist on April 9, and the director himself speaks at the library on April 16. Mark your calendars!

The French Connection.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
6:00 p.m.
Harold Washington Library Center
Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
400 S. State Street

The Moon-Spinners

This is one of Hayley Mills' Disney era pictures she did as a teenager. When I watched this as a kid she was the only actress I knew, despite Joan Greenwood as her aunt, Eli Wallach as the villain, Irene Papas as the inn owner, and Pola Negri as a rich woman that Mills meets late in the picture.

Mills is Nikki, who travels with her aunt (Greenwood) to the Mediterranean island of Crete. They take in the local color while her aunt records folk songs for her anthropological studies. Nikki spies an attractive young man, Mark (Peter McEnery) whom she later discovers has some kind of secret. It involves the menacing/friendly Stratos (Wallach, playing Greek) and stolen jewels. The young couple have to find proof that Stratos is a thief while also evade being kidnapped and shot.

Premium Rush

Just sit back and enjoy the action in this movie. There are many bike stunts and fast riding, but the story is not really that important to the main character, except as a plot device.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a daring New York City bike courier known as Wilee sent to deliver an envelope to Chinatown. What he doesn't know is that a crooked cop and gambling addict (Michael Shannon) needs to pay a Chinatown gambling debt, so is given info that Wilee is delivering a bearer bond kind of ticket that will net the holder of the ticket a wad of cash.

Wilee also has to deal with typical 20-something stuff--a girlfriend and a romantic/professional rival.

Hammett

This is a decent but fictional story about Dashiell Hammett, played here by Frederick Forrest. Directed by Wim Wenders, but was revamped and partly reshot by Francis Ford Coppola (although FFC picked WW to direct this, I think there was eventually some conflict between them).

In San Francisco in the time of his mystery novels, Hammett here is a writer who has just about finished his next book, where he imagines people from his real life as characters. But his manuscript is stolen, so while on the trail of it, he comes across organized crime in San Francisco's Chinatown that is linked to several powerful men in the city.

CIFF 2012: Dragon

As you can tell from the title, this is a Chinese martial arts movie. It also has veins of a police procedural as well as a Western.

It is the late 1910s in a Chinese village.  The action starts when two hoodlums extort money from a merchant. A papermaker, Jinxi (Donnie Yen), at first cowers and hides as the hoodlums attack the defenseless merchant, but when Jinxi can stand it no longer, he reveals himself. Through a lot of apparent good luck, he manages to kill the two thugs.

A young policeman Baiju (Takeshi Kaneshiro) has been sent out to investigate this crime. Jinxi is seen as an accidental hero but due to Baiju's personal knowledge of Chinese Qi knowledge (accupuncture and accupressure and things like that), he is able to view the evidence and surmise that the deaths of the thugs were not strokes of good luck, but due to Jinxi's expert knowledge of where to hit someone to cause them to have anuerisms and the like. This knowledge of course seems too advanced for a humble papermaker, and Baiju, through his investigation, finds out Jinxi is actually the son of a noted mobhead; it seems Jinxi was unable to live the cruel life his father wanted and left to be a simple man.

Since the time he left home, Jinxi had met and married a woman with two children whose husband has abandoned her, and by taking her family name, was able to live under the radar for a while. But due to Baiju's desire to follow the letter of the law, Jinxi's identity has been exposed, bringing the wrath of his father onto his new family.

Lockout

Lockout is an uninspired action movie with a sci-i framing device (that is not very strongly developed).

Guy Pearce stars as the anti-hero, Snow, a sassy spy recently caught for supposedly killing another spy for his secrets. Concurrently, the President's daughter Emilie (Maggie Grace) is working on her pet project--investigating the maltreatment of hardened criminals in the space station maximum security prison, where inmates are kept in suspended animation (although I don't know what kind of punishment that is supposed to be other than separating these criminals from whatever loving families they may have). This stasis is suspected to be damaging to the inmates once they are reanimated; Emilie also suspects the government of using the inmates as guinea pigs for scientific experiments. She travels to this prison but unfortunately due to some dumb things some supposedly smart people do, she and others are kept as hostages once the entire prison's population is reanimated, due to some plotting by one of the criminals.

Desperate, Secret Service agents (Peter Stormare, Lennie James) coerce Snow to be a one man rescue team to retrieve the President's daughter. At first the prisoners do not know who they have captive, but once they do, the stakes go higher. The revolt is led by Alex (Vincent Regan) and his sadistic brother (Joseph Gilgun).

The Losers

This is the type of movie often called a "popcorn" movie--not very deep, lots of action, perhaps cheeky dialogue.  Five special ops-type soldiers--Clay, Roque, Pooch, Jensen and Cougar--are betrayed by an unseen handler Max during a mission, compromising them so they have to go into hiding. They want revenge for this and other reasons, which is the setup for the story.

Now that they're considered dead, they go rogue. They can't return to the U.S. but are convinced by femme fatale Aisha that they can help each other. She too wants revenge on Max for some reason and can bankroll the type of weaponry and material they need. Clay, the colonel of the group, decides yes, and the men, who are loyal to him--and what other choice do they have now they are persona non grata--decide yes too.

Red Hill

Sometimes I like a good action movie that is not too taxing, yet still highbrow enough to satisfy my artistic sensibilities.  This modern Australian western/police suspense story, although it has many old fashioned western movie aesthetics,  has some gripping action and a couple of sympathetic characters who are opposite sides of the same coin. 

Young cop Shane Cooper (Ryan Kwanten) has been voluntarily transferred to a countryside town, with his heavily pregnant wife. The reason at first is not explained why he elected to move to a smaller municipality. On his first day at work, there is an accident at a prison some miles away, and a murderer escapes, Eddie (Tom E. Lewis), an aborigine who was put away by Red Hill's sheriff Bill (Steve Bisley). We see the police department is pretty much an old boys network and Bill makes it clear to Shane that he is not very welcome. Bill's close-minded attitude also means he aims to lock down Red Hill and kill Eddie on sight if he comes, implying he is in the right to use such force because Eddie wants revenge for putting him away. Unfortunately for them, Eddie is a superior native tracker and bests the posse again and again, except for Shane, who for some reason he lets go at a critical moment when he sees they share something in common. During a long day and night as they first hunt Eddie, then become the hunted, Shane discovers some secrets of the town and has to decide who's side he is on.

Snow White and the Huntsman

This version of Snow White follows on the heels of the comedic but slight version starring Julia Roberts earlier this spring. In this version, the storyline follows a little bit more of the original source story and remains a dark fairy tale, but doesn't quite live up to its premise.

Kristen Stewart plays Snow White, whose father remarries when he is enchanted, magically or otherwise, by the beautiful Ravenna (Charlize Theron). Ravenna kills him and takes over the kingdom, and banishes Snow White to a dungeon where she is kept for a decade. Meanwhile, Ravenna continues to kill virgins to suck their souls and eats the hearts of birds, both to keep herself forever youthful. She is abetted by her brother Finn (Sam Spruell) who is more a minion than a beloved sibling. She is also advised by her magical mirror that when Snow White comes of age, she will be more beautiful than Ravenna, which convinces Ravenna that now is the time to take Snow White's heart to keep her eternally young. Thus when Snow White escapes her prison, Ravenna sends the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) after her.

He follows her into what is know as the Dark Forest, but Snow White's goodness protects her from the insiduous magic there.  Later, she and the Huntsman are befriended by some dwarf miners (there are eight of them), and she is able to draw out a magical elk in the fairy's forest, something that has not happened before. It is Snow White's goodness which is strong enough to defeat the queen. Snow White rallies her father's old friend the duke, who is the father of her childhood friend William, to support her cause.

Get the Gringo

This is a new Mel Gibson film, but was released in May through video-on-demand via DirecTV and not traditional theatres (at least for now).

The plot involves an American lifetime criminal played by Gibson, who is unnamed (but known in the credits as The Driver) who with his partner has apparently stolen a huge amount of money right by the Mexican border.  He crashes his getaway car through the fence dividing the U.S. and Mexico. Mexico is well-known for its corrupt police forces, so the Mexican officers see the stacks of money and innocently state they will take this case, now that the robbers are on their soil. They throw the Driver into a prison called El Pueblito (modeled after real prisons in Mexico). El Pueblito, as per its name, is a little town, where you can buy anything, has many services--even illegal ones, and as a character says, “the world’s worst mall” is an apt description of this setting. Prisoners can also pay to have their families live with them, so that the family unit can stay together (yeah, I don’t know who thought this was a good thing nor how it punishes the prisoner). 
Driver bides his time to make an escape, by observing everyone and studying the hierarchy in El Pueblito.  Despite its restrictive setting, there is a lot of money moving around El Pueblito, much of it passing through the hands of a big shot criminal, Javi (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), who gets to come and go as he pleases and takes his cut off every deal that goes on. His lackeys are his brother and cousin.

Another guy, Bill (Dean Norris), some sort of shady government lawyer, tries to get Driver out of prison in trade for a cut of the money that was stolen. But Driver is not interested in working with anyone but himself.

Other key characters are a widow and her son (Dolores Heredia, Kevin Hernandez, known as the kid and the kid’s mother). The kid sees Driver observing everyone, as well as Driver's ingenious robbery of a drug dealer during a fire, and the Driver grudgingly takes the kid under his wing. The kid reveals a hatred of Javi due to Javi having his father killed for a despicable reason, that threatens the kid’s life too, but ironically Javi protects the kid’s life, at least for now. The Driver eventually mentors him as a father figure and helping him defeat Javi. 

True Grit (2010)

This newer version of True Grit is, as its filmmakers the Coen brothers stated, based on the book, but it is still pretty similar to the earlier version starring John Wayne and Kim Darby.

In the old West, a young girl seeks to avenge her father's death after he is killed by a hired hand. Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) tries to hire the former U.S. Marshal "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges). Although Rooster is now a lazy and washed up alcoholic, he once had a stellar reputation that Mattie believes can serve her. It is only the temptation of money that convinces him to join her in her search of her father's killer, Chaney (Josh Brolin).

A Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) is also on the trail as Chaney's also killed a Texas senator. Although LaBoeuf tries to join forces with Rooster, Mattie refuses as she wants Chaney to hang for her father's murder, and not on a technicality for the Texas killing.

Through an adventurous and sometimes humorous roadtrip, the three cross paths in their mutual search. Rooster redeems himself and grudgingly comes to accept Mattie's faith in him. Mattie also proves herself worthy with her unrelentless vengeance and physical daring.

Man on a Ledge

In this suspense film, Sam Worthington plays police officer Nick, currently serving a sentence for stealing a diamond he was hired to protect, for wealthy businessman Englander (Ed Harris). Nick claims he was framed by Englander, who kept the diamond for himself and collected the insurance. Nick breaks out of police custoday and goes out to a ledge on a hotel, asking for a negotiator known for her last botched attempt to bring another cop in from a suicide, Lydia (Elizabeth Banks). Nick claims to be doing this to bring attention to his innocence, and at first the film audience is led to believe this too.

Haywire

Steven Soderbergh directed action film Haywire, which stars a martial artist in the lead role. The story starts in the middle as Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is on the lam and asking her superiors for help. Instead they send a man who tries to kill her. This takes place in a small roadside diner, she escapes, but grabs a teenager (Michael Angarano) in the diner and uses his car to flee and tells him her tale of woe, so part of the rest of the film is a flashback.

We come to see why she is on the run. Mallory works at a black ops company hired by the government to detract a Chinese journalist who had been taken hostage. This is successful, and she is looking forward to some down time as she has had several jobs back to back. But her handler, Kenneth (Ewan Macgregor) asks her to take an easy job, where she has to partner with a British operative (Michael Fassbender) and pretend to be his wife. Not trusting her "husband," she smells something fishy and finds she has been framed for killing someone.

The Grey

I think this film wanted to be two or three things. A survival tale of men battling the Alaskan winter wilderness after their plane crashes, a personal story of the protagonist contemplating his despair after his wife's death, and a monster movie involving vicious wolves. I think it succeeds mostly on the first front.

Liam Neeson is an Irish oil refinery worker, John Ottway, in Alaska. The beginning segment shows snippets of flashbacks of him wishing his wife were with him--they are either broken up or she is dead, the film at this point doesn't tell us which, just that they are apart and he is longing for her. A shift of men at this refinery are due to take some R&R in Anchorage, and board a dedicated plane to take them there. But the plane crashes in the middle of nowhere, and there are just a handful of survivors.

Ottway, who worked as a sniper to kill wolves who were a threat to the refinery, seems to have the most survival experience and tries to gather the survivors to make a trek to someplace nearer civilization. But the men's personalities clash and yet they have to cooperate with each other, especially when their common enemy are the wolves who are threatened by the men's existence and follow and attack them.

Cop Land

I think Sylvester Stallone holds his own against a heavily real cast of New York area actors that populate Cop Land.

He plays Freddy Heflin, a sheriff of a New Jersey town where a bunch of 1970s New York City cops live. In the 70s, NYC was known to be crime-ridden and the cops wanted their families to live in a better place, hence this offshoot in New Jersey.

Although Freddy keeps law and order when he can over the minor crimes that take place in suburbia, the cops that live there are known to be corrupt and racists. This issue comes more to light one night when a young cop, Superboy (Michael Rapaport), commits suicide after killing two black men during a traffic altercation.

L'Ours (The Bear)

It was disheartening to hear a young woman in the audience ask "Do the bears talk?" and then promptly walk out when she was told "no." I'm sure I will NOT be meeting her at a film festival anytime soon.

This is a film told mostly from the aspect of the bears in the film. It takes place in the late 1800s in British Columbia. A bear cub is orphaned when its mother is killed in a landslide. The cub goes along on his way. Meanwhile, hunters are on the trail of bear skins. They already have a few and are on the trail of a large male in the area. The male is spotted and is shot by one of the hunters (Tcheky Karyo, the other hunter is played by Jack Wallace) but the wound doesn't stop the bear. It runs away and tries to find comfort in a mudhole, where the cub sees it and they ally themselves to each other.

The two bears continue travelling together, while the hunters continue on their trail. The film shows the cub dreaming of bearlike things, watching as the male bear has sex, and imitates behaviors like knocking down a tree to find food. The hunters are joined by a third man with a pack of hunting dogs, who do a better job of finding the bear.

The film was kind of cutesy in how it showed the bear behavior, overly anthromorphizing them and I think even the bear cub made sounds that were done by human voices (whimpering, grunting, etc.) That aspect of I didn't really like; it probably would be fine for a junior audience, but I would have preferred more natural "acting" by the bears.

The ending where one of the hunters changes his mind was also a bit unbelieveable for an old audience member like me, although I guess it offers a moral for a young audience. This particular hunter throughout the film did things like tie up the cub and taunt it, notched his bullets so they would cause more severe injury, too eager to shoot soon--so his change of thinking was not supported by his previous behavior. Also at the end, which seems tacked on, is an encounter with a cougar.

Although there is of course violence due to the hunting aspect, this is an okay family film for slightly older children.

The Adventures of Tintin

When I first heard that Tintin was being made and that Jamie Bell was being cast, I thought he might be a little old for the role. After learning it was animated, I felt better. This film is directed by Steven Spielberg. I believe Peter Jackson was the secondary director (as well as a co-producer), working again with actor Andy Serkis who is quickly becoming the go-to actor for animated film characters.

This film is based on the Belgian artist Herge's characters and several of the comic books of Tintin's adventures. Tintin (Bell) is a young investigative journalist who has adventures with his dog Snowy. This story begins on a model ship he buys which has a secret message leading to a treasure.

The Italian Job

Michael Caine must love a good heist. He's certainly done many heist movies, mostly in the 1960s and 70s. He's still doing them, in such films as Flawless and even in a way, Inception.  It is easy to see why The Italian Job was remade. The story is nearly not even about what he is stealing (I think in moviespeak it would be considered a Macguffin), but really about the heist and equally so the subsequent excellent car chase/escape. It even includes a great cliffhanging ending (literally).

Caine plays a con, Charlie, just released from prison. An old associate has just been killed and leaves him the plans for a big score, $4 million in gold in Turin, Italy. Charlie can't resist this heist, but needs help, so he asks for backing from Mr. Bridger (Noel Coward), a mobster who is conducting business as usual from prison.

Killer Elite

I get why Jason Statham is such a popular actor although at many times the films he stars in are not considered very good. He is basically a character actor who has refined his stock character into a B-movie lead career. He's not going to be in a romantic comedy with Katherine Heigl, or a three hanky weepy where he plays the father of an ailing kid, or play a costumed superhero. Any time he stars in a movie you can count on lots of pretty good gun and fight action and some cheeky humor. This time around the movie is based a book which is supposed to be true.

Rough Cut

I'm still waiting for the day when North Korea will tear down their walls and get with the rest of the world. I've been looking around for films from North Korea but have been unable to find any that I can access.  It would be very interesting to see what their feature films are like, or if they are still in the propaganda vein.  In the meantime, we have an increasing roster of films from South Korea.
In Rough Cut, a mid-level gangster unwittingly becomes an actor. He is a fan of a famous action star, and spies him at a club. He sends some minions to get the star’s autograph, but the star is haughty and sends them back. The gangster finally goes himself, and puts the action star in his place.

The action star’s latest film is delayed several times when he gets too caught up in stunts and hits his costars for real, who refuse to continue acting with him. He gets the bright idea to hire the gangster instead, since he is used to fighting for real and won’t complain.