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Uptown Magazine - Winnipeg's Online Source for Arts, Entertainment & News

December 4, 2008


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2008-12-04

Not bad, for mindless testosterone...

Transporter 3 is a meat-and-potatoes action flick adrenaline junkies will eat up

B+

TRANSPORTER 3
Now playing

Fearless action star Jason Statham returns for the third time as the sleek, well-dressed, Audi-driving Frank Martin, completing a loose trilogy about an intrepid driver and his cold-blooded, high-tension attempts at delivering his various cargo unscathed - all the while following his own Rules of the Game.

Faster paced than the previous two entries combined, Transporter 3 ups the adrenaline for its protagonist via a do-or-die scenario while simultaneously enabling him to be a more considerate man-on-the-edge, due to a closeness that develops for the woman required to be in the passenger seat.

This time out, Martin is forced to contend with a no-nonsense, thuggish businessman known only as Johnson (Robert Knepper). Johnson's handcuffed Martin to some technological device that will blow him to smithereens if he strays 75 feet from his automobile at any time. Along for the ride from Marseilles is party girl Valentina (Natalya Rudakova), a freckle- faced Ukrainian beauty who turns out to be the hostage-held daughter of a government official (Living Daylights baddie Jeroen Krabbé). What Johnson and his cronies are holding out for - the MacGuffin, if you will - is a signed document from the official, allowing for some mucking about with environmental concerns that'll help to line their pockets with cash.

Directed by Olivier Megaton, and scripted by the unlikely team of Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen (the mind behind the first three Karate Kids), Transporter 3 moves along at a quick clip. The flick's central action piece is staged midway through as Statham runs, bikes and crashes through windows to stay in range of his stolen automobile and ensure he doesn't - quite literally - explode. Timed to The Stooges' ferocious rocker I Wanna Be Your Dog, it manages to upstage anything in the otherwise decent recent Bond spectacular, Quantum of Solace.

Statham is not unlike this era's Charles Bronson, and distributors Lionsgate/Maple are not unlike the Golan-Globus of the 1980s: funding brainless, heavy-pumping movies with predictable villains and out-there, hare-brained stunts. While the Statham releases aren't quite as sleazy, or filmed as grimily (the international locales take care of that), there's a common theme in both: they may not have the money of their big-budget siblings, but they make up for it in mindless testosterone. And that's not to mention the competent, clearly delineated action direction by Megaton, instead of the piecemeal, cut-heavy style of Marc Forster in the Bond film.

Transporter 3 doesn't announce itself with any particular fanfare, but it gets the job done and scratches the itch for action.
— Aaron Graham

All style, no substance

Indeed, Baz Luhrmann's Australia is a bombastic epic - but amazing visuals are all it has to offer

AUSTRALIA
Now playing

A floridly designed and impeccably mounted production, the latest from Baz Luhrmann (Romeo & Juliet, Moulin Rouge) is a Second World War adventure epic that places a central romance alongside many western and old-style melodrama motifs. Too long by at least 30 minutes, Australia arrives as an impersonal, smoke-and-mirrors affair: all bombast with no heart.

Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) is a prim and proper Englishwoman whose life is thrown into disarray once she discovers her husband's infidelities. She travels to Faraway Downs, her husband's dilapidated cattle farm estate in the Northen Territory of Australia. There, she meets a rugged tough-guy known as The Drover (Hugh Jackman), various farm help and Nullah, a young half-caste (or interracial) Aboriginal boy, played exceedingly well by prepubescent Brandon Walters. (Nullah also serves as the sweeping story's ever-present narrator.)

Sarah falls for The Drover during a cattle drive that sees the pair escort the 1, 500 herd to the military port of Darwin. Surprisingly, Luhrmann thwarts this narrative thread 30 minutes in, as the cattle drive ends and the standard, moustache-tweaking bad guys - King Carney (Bryan Brown) and Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) - are stymied. After a lavish ball is complicated by racist retorts aimed at Nullah, the film's main characters are separated, then brought back together by the Japanese bombing of Darwin on Feb. 19, 1942 (a real-life event).

Luhrmann wears his influences on his sleeve, cribbing elements from many old Hollywood pictures, including the testy relationship between Bogart and Hepburn in The African Queen and the general sense of awe we've seen in Gone with the Wind.

Pity is, he's unable to rival any of those epic-sized works. Biting off more than he can chew, his story goes off the rails. Luhrmann's an amazing visualist, but his narrative sense isn't quite as strong as his sense of multi-hued exhibition.
— Aaron Graham

One night only

Died Young, Stayed Pretty explores the artistry behind gig posters

DIED YOUNG, STAYED PRETTY
Dec. 4, 9 p.m., Cinematheque

"Died young, stayed pretty" is the typical mantra used when a young Hollywood star or popular musician flames out in some extraordinary way, usually leaving behind a body of work that has some lasting resonance with their audience. Think James Dean getting his head lopped off on that lonely highway or Kurt Cobain's brains splashed on the walls of his unkempt home - the kind of activity that leaves a real psychic stain.

For her first full-length documentary, Canadian director Eileen Yaghoobian has created a film that not only drills deep into the creative intellect of gig-poster artists, but explodes any preconceived notions about the motivation behind urban street art. It's a terrific piece of work.

Yaghoobian spent a full four years traveling and interviewing dozens of artists who essentially live on the fringes of the design world. She gets well inside their heads, to the point that when they start espousing their beliefs and emotional connection to their art, it becomes pretty exhilarating to hear.

Most of the designers believe they exist very much outside mainstream rock-poster art and follow a sort of old-school punk aesthetic they see as being almost utterly reactionary. Many of those interviewed seem to have the same refreshing world view. They reject mainstream cultural ideals, prefer to "mess with the squares" and even see the art they create as a kind of cultural detritus. Since these are usually singular-use gig posters, they represent a specifically fixed time and place that is impossible to repeat - in essence, each piece, by necessity, dies young and stays pretty.

Others feel a kind of quasi-mystical religious connection that finds its way onto the silk-screened page in a host of wild colours, found-art collages and a blinding array of emotional messaging. There are so many cool examples shown, it becomes impossible to take your eyes from the screen.

Yaghoobian delivers a treatise on this subculture that is both savvy and fun to watch. There is a sense of hope that rises from hearing these artists speak - they just seem to get it. With no opportunity or will to "buy in," they determinedly remain in the underground scene, creating fantastic art mostly for their peers and any other "social cog-breakers." Aided by a wonderfully spooky soundtrack by indie musician Mark Greenberg (ex-Coctails, currently with Eleventh Dream Day) Died Young, Stayed Pretty may change your notion of street art and what it represents. For research before you see the film, check out gigposters.com.
— Jeff Monk

Twilight doesn't suck!

Film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's gothic teen romance novel proves to have some weight

TWILIGHT
Now playing

Based on Stephenie Meyer's phenomenally popular series of novels (this being the first of four), Twilight engages the active, romantic minds of teenage girls everywhere who hunger for their hearts to palpitate with the overdramatic beats of first love - no matter that the sullen, pale-faced suitor here is an intense, neck-biting vampire thirsty for a few drops of nubile blood. (As you can see, it's not your standard boy-meets-girl story.)

Relocating from Phoenix, Ariz. to the rainy small town of Forks, Wash., Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is your average teenager, partial to making friends and being asked out on dates, but unprepared for the obsessive nature of Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) - a swooning, pining classmate who, literally, picks up on her scent. The two are soon unswervingly in love, much to the chagrin of Bella's divorcee dad (Billy Burke) and Cullen's bloodthirsty siblings and parents (Peter Facinelli and Elizabeth Reaser). Cullen is nonplussed to reveal his vampirism, and even confesses that he's desperately torn between leaving Bella alone and drinking her plasma. This is the central conflict: tension accrues as affection deepens and Cullen's true nature must be kept under wraps. This, for the most part, makes for the main appeal of Meyer's novels - wanting what we cannot have.

Director Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, The Lords of Dogtown) and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg get by on this hardly original Anne Rice-esque premise with utter conviction and a belief that these star-crossed lovers and disdainful parents are beyond derision. Hardwicke is the perfect director for such material, as she's shown unwavering seriousness for her sometimes narrow-minded teenagers in her previous work; here, she displays the same kind of thorough believability in dealing with the supernatural and the teens mixed up with it.

Hardwicke was also crucial in the casting, and her Bella and Edward - as embodied by Stewart (Jodie Foster's little girl in Panic Room) and Pattinson (Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) - make for perfect counterparts; their heated, sex-deprived sparks are palpable. The rest of the cast is comprised of attractive high-schoolers, while the dimly-lit locations (the film was predominantly shot in Oregon) practically make for honourary characters.

As of this writing, the film's over $70 million take-in at the box office has ensured (ever)lasting life for the franchise for now, and the exploits of Bella and Edward will carry on for at least one more film. Hopefully the production team will band together again and not try anything drastically different in its lineup of cast and crew.
— Aaron Graham

The price of freedom

Waitresses Wanted explores the intersection of immigration and exploitation

WAITRESSES WANTED
Dec. 6, Cinematheque

On Dec. 6 at Cinematheque, Quebecois filmmaker Guylaine Dionne will be on hand to present the premiere of her new narrative film, Waitresses Wanted - a compassionate, complex drama about a Brazilian émigré and her sometimes salacious, mostly morose encounters inside the stripping subculture of Montreal.

Priscilla Paredes (Janaina Suaudeau) is a former student on an expired visa who decides to strip in a last-ditch effort to make some fast cash in Canada, as she stridently refuses to return to Brazil. Manuel, a restaurateur and small-time pimp, introduces Priscilla into this multifarious world, allowing for a brief changeover period as she tests the waters of this profitable necessity of a profession. He introduces her to Milagro (Anne Dorval), a veteran at Club Elixr who, ironically, wishes more than anything to reside in exotic Brazil. Priscilla and Milagro speedily become intimate friends, sharing money and a residence, though trust remains a fickle trait to earn with Milagro, who manages to hide more than a few secrets.

Introducing the film with to-the-camera introductions of both the real names and stage names of the many dancers at the club both humanizes and complicates our involvement, as Dionne strives to make some solid observations regarding illegal immigrants who are forced to make a living by removing their clothing. We're left to ponder the experiences these women seem to share, from being ballet dancers in the Ukraine exported here on some lie to being brought over as fashion models or housekeepers. The director refrains from making sweeping, judgmental statements about such a cross-section of people, instead narrowing her focus on Priscilla's predicament.

Interspersed sparsely throughout the film are hazy flashbacks to Priscilla's past. We see her as a small child playing in the sand with her father, while unfocused shots of beatific lands serve to evoke memories. An opening long shot of an airplane high up in the sky takes on further meaning at the film's close, allowing for a freedom metaphor to take on full effect: who has it, who exploits it, who's searching for it, and who ultimately earns it.

Dorval's the more interesting actress in the film simply because she's given more of a multifaceted arc to play around with; she's got a strong sense of self and an immutable wild side. Suaudeau immerses herself well as the newbie struggling to make ends meet, her naivety in the situation becoming clear as Milagro shifts her around as if a pawn.

Priscilla's is a plight of many, and this textbook case doesn't have any moral conclusions at the end, just hard-earned knowledge and a thicker skin.
— Aaron Graham

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