Shuffle off to Buffalo (9/15/98)
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Knock Off. [Tsui Hark, 1998.]
The remarkably talented Hong Kong auteur Tsui Hark [
A Chinese Ghost Story] directs the remarkably muscular Jean-Claude Van Damme in a beautifully photographed elegantly composed ingeniously choreographed and brilliantly edited piece of shit. It seems impossible that such extravagent visual imagination can ever have been exercised in the realization of such an absurdly incoherent story fleshed out by such wooden actors. One can only presume that this is some kind of elaborate joke on the part of the director at the expense of the parties who assigned him the project with prepackaged script and star; had he in mind some Chinese proverb about a silk purse and a sow’s ear?
54. [Mark Christopher, 1998.]
The Age of Disco revisited yet again. Whit Stillman was better on the same themes, but you may still want to check this out.
Blade. [Stephen Norrington, 1998.]
Wesley Snipes combats a cabal of vampires, assisted by Kris Kristofferson, who seems to have graduated from hero to mentor roles; whiskey will do that for you. There’s an obvious debt to Hong Kong, but I found myself more intrigued by the apparent influence of the early Fritz Lang. — Not great, but not too bad; if you like comic books.
Burn Hollywood Burn. [Alan Smithee, 1998.]
Joe Eszterhaz seeks revenge against the studio system, presumably for such deadly insults as paying him three million dollars a screenplay for bullshit like
Basic Instinct and
Showgirls. — The usual conspiracy of manipulative producers, venal agents, and bimbos for hire thwarts the heroic efforts of a talented but naive director [Eric Idle] to render palatable an abominable action picture starring Stallone, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jackie Chan; driven finally to a breakdown, he burns the negative in protest and is committed to an asylum. Naturally this deranged gesture catapults him to celebrity, forcing the same people who drove him out of his mind to hire him back and give him Final Cut. — When you’ve found the moral in this, pray let me know; I confess myself baffled.
Mister Nice Guy. [Sammo Hung, 1997.]
Jackie Chan as, well, Jackie Chan, chased all over Sydney by a drug baron and his minions before he turns the tables in the final shootout; as if the plot had anything to do with it. Wonderfully entertaining. Directed by Jackie’s fellow master of Hong Kong slapstick, Sammo Hung.
L’Enfer. [Claude Chabrol, 1994]
Labored study of a hotelkeeper consumed by unfounded jealousy over the behavior of his young and beautiful wife: Othello without Iago, as it were. Thus begging unfavorable comparison to the classic teenage gang exploitation drama
The Switchblade Sisters [on laserdisc with commentary by Quentin Tarantino]. — Of course, that didn’t have Emmanuelle Beart. — And neither do I, as I think on it. I knew something was missing here.
____________Why mathematicians can’t get laid (8/23/98)
