——Peeping Tom——

(A-)

The acting at times can be a little silly, but otherwise this is an amazingly directed film just as good as Psycho, which came out only months after this. Michael Powell’s style manages to evoke high art and pulp trash at the same time, taking us through the seedy story of a camera man that takes his camera everywhere and films the terror on women’s faces just as he’s about to stab them with the sharpened leg of his camera’s tripod. It’s a movie that’s a complex psychoanalyst of a killer that asks us to ultimately sympathize with him over his victims (a fact that was not lost on the British press, who managed to pan the film for its eroticism and violence and ignore its brilliance). You can love or leave the acting, but you have to love Powell’s camera, which always seems to be in exactly the right spot with exactly the right lighting. It reminded me a lot of the subjective camera work in Rear Window, very well done. Must see.

——Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery——

(A)

This is, and remains, one of my favorite comedies, and I fight to this day to keep its memory unsullied by the shame of poorly thought out sequels. Yes, there was a time when each joke was new and wasn’t repeated over and over using only slightly different words. Yes, there was a time when Mike Myers playing more than one character had a nice novelty to it. And yes, there was a time when an Austin Powers movie had more depth than just the average potty mouth jokes. What I love about this movie is the aspect of a man taken out of his element and asked to adapt to a different time, something that the sequels decided to almost completely ignore, and thus the charm of the movie was lost. And you just can’t come up with better sight gags than the steamroller scene.

If I have one complaint about this movie, it is that after watching the widescreen version of the film for only the second time I have come to realize that the compositions are rather flat and bland, and that Jay Roach almost never uses all of the frame. This fact probably explains why this movie never became popular until after it came out on video.

——The 400 Blows——

(A)

Just a great movie. Funny, insightful, well-shot semi-autobiographical movie, with some of the best and most natural acting ever seen put on film. I’ve got nothing more to add.

——Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King——

(A)

I was just mesmerized by this film, and loved it ten times more than both of the other films combined. Just a flawless film from start to finish with excellent pacing and just jaw dropping sequences of CGI that I believe will not be topped for a very long time. If I have one complaint about the film, it is with the ending and the fact that it is just too slow when you know everyone wants to get up and stretch after sitting nonstop for over three and a half hours. When I heard that there were five endings I just assumed that the hobbits coming back and saving the Shire from corruption would be in there, and although that probably would have added about ten more minutes to the running time it would have at least broken up the ending a little bit and made it more bearable to sit through. I have no real problem with the ending, per se, except for the fact that I really, really wanted to stand up to bring back the circulation to my ass and I just wasn’t patient enough at that point to ignore the pain.

I love how the movie begins. What better way to recap what’s happened in the last two movies without actually recapping anything? I love that the movie starts with Smeagol before he turns into Gollum. Not only does it help show the shift between the helpful Smeagol of Two Towers to the more malicious Gollum of RotK, not only does it show with brutal honesty the horrible power that the One Ring has over people (how creepy is it when he kills his cousin?), but also it takes away one accuse the Academy has been using when it comes to giving Andy Serkis an award. There he is, in non-CGI form! And when watching him act you realize how much the artists and animators just took from his natural facial and body movements when creating Gollum. Then the movie moves to a quick recap scene at Isengard, where we see once more my favorite special effect of the Two Towers, the Ents. Sweet!

Moving on, the battle sequences were just simply amazing. I know the words “took my breath away” are used way too often and have become cliché, but when the Riders of Rohan looked out on the mass of Orcs, Oliphants, dragons and everything else, my breath literally left me. I haven’t had such a basic fear response to a movie since I was like three years old, watching Bambi’s mom get it. It was silly, and yet at the same time I just couldn’t help getting wrapped up in how cool everything I was seeing was. You’d be hard pressed to find a good example of a “that’s so obviously fake” moment, and once again Peter Jackson shows Hollywood (and George Lucas) how CGI is done. Watching the horses ride under and around the Oliphants was just something to behold.

From the brief glimpses you got in the trailer I thought that Shelob might not look all that cool, but I was so wrong. Damned if that wasn’t the creepyest spider I’ve ever seen. And damn, Sam kicks some major ass against that spider. That whole sequence was way cooler than I was ready for. And bravo to Sam and Sean Austin for making such a cheesy line like, “I may not be able to help you carry the Ring, but I can carry you!” actually work. Way to not let the giant battle scenes not steal Frodo and Sam’s thunder as they destroyed the Ring. Was anyone else thinking Wagnerian Opera when Frodo, Sam, and Gollum fought over the Ring in Mount Doom? I know I was.

Oh, and where does one go about getting their own army of the dead? When you absolutely, positively need to kick a little Orc ass, accept no substitutes.

——Return of the Master Killer——

(B+)

Again, the title of a Kung Fu movie is a little misleading. First of all, even though this is the sequel to Shaolin Master Killer and stars Gordon Liu, worldwide known as the master killer, this isn’t actually a sequel but a remake of sorts. And even though the movie is called Master Killer, I don’t think anyone ever actually dies, not even at the hands of the evil Manchus. Although this movie starts off way too slow and the first half of it is mostly skipable unless you like tame kung fu comedy, the second half is must see kung fu cinema.

The plot revolves around a charlatan coming in to pretend to be a Shaolin monk to scare the Manchus into giving back the wages of some dye workers. The ruse works for a little while until the boss actually tests his kung fu and proves that he actually knows none. Shamed in letting down the people he tried to help, Gordon Liu tries to break into a monastery and through perseverance succeeds, even though he doesn’t think he has since the lead monk makes him build scaffolding around the building. What Liu doesn’t realize is that he’s actually learning kung fu by mimicking the monks below him and develops his own “rooftop” kung fu. This is where the movie becomes awesome. Liu goes back to fight the Manchus and pretty much hog-ties them all using his bamboo latching technique. Then he fights the boss and his goons who use stools to fight him (it’s cooler than it sounds) and he defeats them all in increasingly cool fashion. Excellent Liu movie.

——

Note 1: I also saw The Two Towers this week to prepare for RotK, but decided against reviewing it since I already did so a few months ago.

Note 2: Be on the lookout for my 1st Annual Entertainment Awards, 2003! Lists a plenty coming at you in the coming weeks.