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In the Fade (Aus Dem Nichts)

December 27, 2017 ? This is a profoundly sad and tragic tale of murder, injustice, sorrow and revenge set in Germany against a background of violent racism.

The film opens with the main character, Katja Sekerci (played by Diane Kruger of the �National Treasure� movies) marrying Nuri (Numan Acar of �The Great Wall�) in prison. Nuri, a Turkish national, starts up his own business in Hamburg when he gets out of prison, leaving his old life as a drug dealer behind. He and Katja and their young son, Rocco (Rafael Santana) have a good life together. That all comes to a tragic end when Nuri and Rocco are killed by a bomb at Nuri's office.

The police focus on Nuri's criminal past, but Katja thinks it was Nazis who killed Nuri, just because of his racial and ethnic background. As the police make no progress in their investigation, Katja sinks into depression, and feuds with her in-laws and her own family. Her in-laws want Nuri and Rocco buried in Turkey. She refuses.

Katja is suicidal when she finally gets a call that the police have made arrests. It turns out that she was right, it was the Nazis who murdered her husband and son. She attends the trial, which is an emotional ordeal. The defendants are a young couple, Andr� and Edda M�ller (Ulrich Brandhoff and Hanna Hilsdorf) who appear to be guilty of the crime, but they have a very capable defense attorney (played by Johannes Krisch). He manages to poke some holes in the prosecution's case. That, and a phony alibi provided by another Nazi, Nikolaos Makris (Ioannis Economides) is enough to get the defendants acquitted of all charges.

Reviews by David Nusair of the defendant Andr� M�ller, J�rgen M�ller (Ulrich Tukur) testified against his son at the trial, and informed police of the bomb-making materials he found at his son's house. Katja asks him if he would have turned his son in if he knew he had committed the crime. J�rgen M�ller replies, �I knew.�

Failing to get justice from the courts, Katja travels to Greece where she tracks down Nikolaos Makris, and finds Andr� and Edda M�ller nearby, living in a motor home on a secluded beach. Katja's lawyer calls with a proposal to appeal the case. She has to decide what to do. Appeal the case, or seek revenge on her own.

Diane Kruger gives a very convincing performance as the emotionally devastated wife and mother. Her grief is palpable. Johannes Krisch is very effective as the defense attorney, and Denis Moschitto gives a good performance as a lawyer who is Katja's friend. Review: In the Fade speaks the languages of grief and revenge is very determined to seek justice in this case.

This story has something to say about the rise of white supremacy, as well as the frustration felt by families who have not been well served by the criminal justice system. Turkish writer-director Fatih Akin shows here that he has a good feel for these issues. There is a message in this film, but it is not overbearing. This is a thoughtful and subtle approach. This film rates a B.

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Reviews

As we?ve written before, Netflixisn?t exactly known for a robust catalogue of quality anime features to choose from. Since our roundup list last September, the streaming service?s selection has only marginally improved in some respects, rotating out a handful of forgettable titles with a few films that could charitably be called improvements. The most noteworthy of Netflix?s recent acquisitions, however, is Gantz: O, making its first appearance on the streaming service following its English language debut at the Tokyo International Film Festival late last year.

Based off of Hiroya Oku?s cult sci-fi action manga, Gantz: O follows a group of recently deceased people who have been seemingly resurrected by a mysterious black orb that charges them with the task of exterminating a host of shape-shifting aliens marauding across the island of Japan. Adapted from the series? midpoint chapter, the film follows Masaru Katou, a selfless and well-intentioned high schooler who is brought back to life by the eponymous ?Gantz? after being stabbed to death in a freak subway attack. What starts out as an inexplicable tragedy quickly transforms into what in all honesty could be described as a hyper-violent game of BDSM-themed laser tag with super powers, with Masaru soon swiftly recruited by the sphere?s meek roster of human chess pieces before being whisked away to downtown Osaka to murder a horde of Japanese demons.

The plot, and by extension its core cast of characters, is negligible, with Gantz: O?s focus firmly fixated on the dizzying if shallow spectacle of its action sequences (of which there are many) and the scrupulous fidelity of its 3D animation. The english dub is serviceable if often incongruent with the original Japanese voice acting, while the film?s stilted script at times yields a few choice lines of deliciously campy dialogue, such as in the case of the character of Hachiro Oka boasting that he was on his high school?s ping Reviews before proceeding to bludgeon an alien into submission with a pair of oversized rock ?em sock ?em gauntlets, as if the former had any relationship to the latter. Oku?s creature designs thrive through the film?s aesthetic, with grotesque ghouls, goblins and oddities stampeding across the screen before being atomized into a shallow pool of blood and giblets. At one point a gigantic neon-highlighted mecha brandishing a retractable katana duels with a massive minotaur crossed with a tarantula. Gantz: O has all the sophomoric drama and improvisational complexity of a child indiscriminately smashing action figures together while watching Saturday morning cartoons. But damn if it isn?t cool to look at sometimes!

Some critics, chief among them writer Karen Jiang through her incisive review for Variety, have taken aim at Gantz: O for what can be described as the film?s sexually reductionist and socially regressive depiction of its female characters. While fans of the series have for the most part met these criticisms with expressions of disdain, such reactions do little to discredit the validity of Jiang?s arguments. Anime enthusiasts, some though not all, have a tendency to view their favorite franchises through a rose-tinted lens of selective insularity, treating films and series as though they are islands in vast sea of media separate and whole unto themselves. In Japan, manga and anime are unique in that they are categorized primarily by their intended demographic as opposed to their genre. In the case of Gantz that demographic is seinen, which translates to the Japanese equivalent of ?youth.? Unlike anime such as Dragon Ball or One Piece which aimed at young boys (i.e., shonen), seinen is targeted towards adolescents, playing to the all the aesthetic gratifications and priorities implied by that unique period of hormonal chaos. Put simply: blood, breasts, and big ol? Reviews , all of which Gantz: O has in abundance, particularly in the case of a downright freudian monstrosity comprised entirely of naked flesh-fused female bodies with a habit for devouring men whole. Gantz: O knows exactly who its audience is, and as such the film?s broader appeal outside its target demographic lives and dies squarely within the stunted scope of those initial ambitions.

Further note, out of the film?s broad yet anonymous cast of characters, only two are women. That?s not to imply that the quantity of representation equates to the quality in how those are represented, but in the case of Gantz: O the quality of those depictions is particularly damning. The first, Reika Shimohira, is a quiet and demure model who exists perpetually on the peripheral edge of the action shouting screams of sideline encouragement and fear at the male protagonist?s debasement, and Anzu Yamazaki, a young woman who hovers incessantly at Masaru?s side and can be aptly described as equal parts shrill, clingy and remorselessly callous. The two do get to have their own firm yet fleeting moments in the spotlight during the climax of the final battle, but it?s always in support of another character?s fight, namely Masaru?s. Fidelity to source material aside, it would?ve been nice to see these characters fleshed out as something a little more than buxom damsels waiting to be rescued. Or perhaps, that?s in the manga?

All of which is to say that Gantz: O is a problematic movie, though not an entirely unenjoyable one. It?s about as rudimentary and action-driven as its source material, acting as a solid litmus test for whether audiences new to the franchise should branch out to explore the series? other incarnations in search of answers to the many questions they will undoubtedly have by the film?s conclusion. It?s not the best, but respective to the rest of Netflix?s catalogue of offerings, it?s a welcome if tepid step in the right direction.

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Netflixable? Nicolas Cage can do better than ?Looking Glass? these days

When you?re keeping to a movie a month schedule the way Nicolas Cage is, it?s a bit too much to expect every indie outing to be another ?Mom and Dad? (January?s dark delight) or the current buzz of Sundance, ?Mandy.?

Veteran Cage-watchers know that the vast bulk of the Oscar winner?s output these days, outside of killer cameos in major studio releases, is comprised of Netflix or VOD filler.

That?s where ?Looking Glass? fits into the Cage filmography. It?s a run-of-the-mill paranoid thriller set in a remote motel where Cage, as ?Ray,? starts to believe everybody?s out to get him. Because pretty much everybody is.

Nothing supernatural to see here, just a desert southwest chance for Ray and Maggie (Robin Tunney) to ?start over.? They need it, for reasons that become clear as the story unfolds.

Or unravels. Because the moment Maggie chirps, ?This all feels really good to mem Ray. I think we?re going to be real comfortable here,? Ray starts to have his doubts. LOOKING GLASS /p>

The ?regular? customers at the Motor Way Motel give him the willies. The service station across the street is run by the menacing desert cousins of those ?Deliverance? Georgians. The old owner of the motel, who fled the moment Ray?s check cleared, cannot be reached.

And there?s this crawl space behind the rooms. At every stop along its path, a one-way mirror is attached to the room?s wall. The creep inside the crawlway can watch truckers and hookers and the local dominatrix ply her trade. They all have their favorite rooms.

Before you know it, Ray?s the creep in question, peeping in on all kinds of ?Twin Peaks/Blue Velvet? perversions.

When the guest of one of the paying customers turns up dead on the evening news, Ray is alarmed. Because he knows she was there, and the only way he could know that is if he was checking out her naked activities in Room Six.

So telling the busybody cop (veteran character actor Marc Blucas) is out of the question. Howard the sheriff seems awfully sure that Ray is in touch with the former owner, and that he?s been told?something.

Confronting the dominatrix only gets him in trouble, and a warning.

?You know, the more you watch, the less you feel.?

A dead pig in the pool, a cop asking more questions, somebody knows something and Maggie is both in the dark and in danger, thanks to Ray?s predicament.

Tunney is stuck playing a wife rendered unstable by whatever brought them there and Ray?s role in that. And LOOKING GLASS does a tamped-down version of his Everyman-We-Watch-Come-Unglued, as Ray.

Director Tim Hunter (?River?s Edge?) has been around long enough to know something about creating atmosphere and mystery. The formula for pictures like this set us up to root for Ray as he faces a town of ?Straw Dogs,? hostile locals who know his motel?s dirty secrets, who think he knows them and are determined to keep him quiet and compliant.

The wife is she who must be saved/protected/rescued from those locals.

?Looking Glass? drifts from that formula, but finds nothing that compelling to take its place. Cage is never less than interesting to watch, even in the worst movies, and this is far from that. But Ray is amped up, disturbed and yet passive at the same time.

Some scenes pack a punch (literally) and that sense of doom hanging over it all shows up here and there. But ?Looking Glass? fails to be anything more than another make-work project for the cinema?s busiest actor, a man with bills to pay and a conviction that the Devil finds work for idle hands.

It?s just that sometimes, it?s better to leave those hands idle than to take whatever the next offer you can squeeze in might be.

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WHEN THE DAY COMES Offers Timely and Powerful History Lesson

Save the Green Planet director Jang Joon-hwan mobilizes dozens of familiar faces, including The Chaser and The Yellow Sea stars Kim Yun-seok and Ha Jung-woo, for a weighty and powerful dramatization of the birth of Korean democracy. Following a slew of other politically-minded films, the sprawling protest drama 1987: When the Day Comes caps off what has been a tumultuous year for Korea that began with millions on the streets and resulted in the scandalous downfall of a polarizing head of state.

In early 1987, student protester Park Jong-chul died as a result of excessive torture. In the months that followed, several people worked behind the scenes to keep the death under wraps while journalists, students and even rogue district attorneys and prison guards attempted to reveal the truth. His death served as a catalyst for the June Democratic Uprising which quickly changed the political landscape of the country.

Four months ago, A Taxi Driver, a drama about foreign journalist J�rgen Hinzpeter trying to report on the Gwangju Massacre in 1980, became the year's biggest hit. In many ways, 1987 picks up where that left off, as the protests that the murdered student had participated in were a continuation of the resistance against the dictatorial President Chun Doo-hwan that kicked off in Gwangju. A secret university group even shows the footage shot by Hinzpeter to try and convert fellow students to their cause.

Unlike WHEN THE DAY COMES Offers Timely and Powerful History Lesson of Korea's big screen takes on the darkest days of its modern history, this one sidesteps planting any melodramatic foundations as it begins with the young student's still warm body lying on a concrete floor as doctors are brought in through a back entrance to try and resuscitate him. News travels up the chain of command and then across it when the cover-up begins, while a few crumbs get picked up by those just around the edges, which introduces us to a dizzying amount of characters in a short amount of time.

Yet even after WHEN THE DAY COMES Offers Timely and Powerful History Lesson -up through several layers of government, media and society, many of the film's key players have yet to be introduced. As 1987 moves into its midsection, the characters who will impact the film the most dramatically are slyly introduced while some administrative cogs fade into the background. The death of Park Jong-chul is a formative moment of Korean history that every local viewer will be intimately familiar with, so while the opening salvo ably fires up the dormant outrage that lies within the country's citizens, Jang and screenwriter Kim Kyung-chan wisely break away from a foregone conclusion to focus on dramatic elements that are eventually deployed in a cathartic finale.

Jang has a formidable cast at his disposal and remarkably, all of them, even those appearing in just a handful of scenes, are at the top of their game. Kim Yun-seok's interrogation chief sends chills every time he appears while Ha Jung-woo plays a charismatic (when isn't he?) DA in a role that's smaller but also far more effective than his guardian angel in the fantasy epic Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds, also out in late December.

Following A Taxi Driver, Yoo Hae-jin excels as an affable and conflicted prison guard, while The Handmaiden's breakout star Kim Tae-ri shows her mettle and charm once more as a young student caught up in the chaos. Several other standouts include Park Hee-soon (V.I.P.) as the grizzled interrogator responsible for the incident, Lee Hee-joon's (Worst Woman) determined journalist, Seol Kyung-gu's (Public Enemy) resistance figure in hiding and Gang Dong-won (The Priests) as another student protester.

From early on, the camera pours over the cast's eclectic faces from sharp and sometimes hidden vantage points as cinematographer Kim Woo-hyung gives the film an in-the-moment immediacy, while also peppering the film with some more thoroughly staged scenes, such as a thrilling and kaleidoscopically lit church-set cat-and-mouse sequence. It will be a treat to see what Kim brings to his next project, Park Chan-wook's upcoming BBC series The Little Drummer Girl. Meanwhile, sharp editing by Yang Jin-mo deftly weaves through the film's many overlapping narratives and points of view.

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Fantastic Fest Review: BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE Is Exactly What We Wanted It To Be

People are gonna tell you that Drew Goddard's Bad Times at The El Royale is a Tarantino knock-off, and, to a point, I see what they're getting at. It's chatty. It's violent. Stylish. Cleverly written. The soundtrack is great. It's structured in what you may or may not consider a convoluted way, with sequences looping back on themselves so we can see certain events play out from multiple perspectives. On a surface level, sure, these are attributes we generally associate with Tarantino.

The crucial difference is, Bad Times at The El Royale is nowhere nearas nihilistic as the average QT jam. As dark as things get (and, hoo boy, do they get dark) it's an ultimately hopeful film, and it's light years better than any Tarantino knock-off you've ever seen. I fucking lovedit.

This is Goddard's long-awaited follow-up to Cabin In The Woods, and it's a worthy successor. Much like that 2011 film, it takes a moment to wrap your head around the game Goddard is playing, to understand how all the pieces fit together. Getting there is half the fun, though, and when you docome out the other side you'll realize just how many details will read differently on second viewing; if I could've rewatched it immediately upon the credits rolling, I would've been completely on board.

Another commonality: much like Cabin In The Woods, it'd be criminal to discuss Bad Times at The El Royale in detail with anyone who hasn't seen it yet. This makes reviewing the film something of a challenge (the ideal version of this post is one paragraph long, with me begging you to go into it knowing as little as possible), but I'm gonna do my best.

Bad Times at The El Royale mostly takes place in an odd little motel which straddles the border between California and Nevada. A number of guests arrive, each of them harboring a secret. Bad Times at the El Royale Movie Review (2018) , as well, as does the young man working behind the counter. By the end of the film, all will be revealed and only some of these characters will survive.

That's it. That's really all you need to know.

Let's move on, then, and focus on what I can tell you: the cast (which includes Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman and Chris Hemsworth) is excellent, with relative newcomers Erivo and Pullman turning in what would, in a sane and just world, be star-making performances. Bad Times juggles a number of different tones - it's creepy one moment, funny the next, then unexpectedly emotional - and Goddard makes that juggling act look simple. The set design - a thing you might not even consider singling out for praise in 90% of the movies you see! - is Bad Times at the El Royale Movie Review: Motel California , so good that you'll walk out of the theater wishing you could go visit an actual El Royale.

Will Bad Times at The El Royalebe for everyone? Probably not. One suspects that the average moviegoer might lose patience in the film's admittedly drawn-out third act, and that some folks may be underwhelmed by a few of the reveals. Whatever. For people on a certain wavelength (it me), Goddard's filmwill be a breath of fresh air, offering an experience that's not unlike watching someone solve a sinister, sexy riddle in real time. Those people are my people, and I look forward to all the Bad Times at The El Royale Fan Club meetings that await us in the future.

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Reverse Shot

The 15:17 to Paris Dir. Clint Eastwood, U.S., Warner Bros.

Like Sully, Clint Eastwood?s The 15:17 to Parisis about a moment of decisiveness in which an average American man became a hero. And like American Sniper, it is about the making of that hero by the part of America that both Fox News viewers and New York Timeseditors think of when they think of ?the real America.? Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler, who in 2015 charged down a gunman preparing to massacre the passengers of the Eurostar train they were on as the last leg of a backpacking trip, and who play themselves onscreen (quite stiffly), are shown as products of American mythmaking. They soak up their grandfathers? war stories, recruitment ads, and other Clint Eastwood movies: Stone at one point wears a Man with No Name t-shirt, and has a Letters from Iwo Jimaposter in his childhood bedroom alongside one for Full Metal Jacket. Clint has been derided in some quarters for these small vanities, but they?re perfectly apt for a movie in which real life and movie life interact in ways that are frequently awkward, frequently touching, and always singular.

In making a feature film out of an event that unfolded in slightly more time than Sully?s United Flight 1549 was airborne, Eastwood now focuses primarily on the lead-up, rather than the aftermath. Drawing from the trio? Shadows on the Wall , screenwriter Dorothy Blyskal?a production assistant on Sullygetting her feature screenplay credit?places their friendship on a collision course with destiny. At the time, Stone was an active-duty Air Force airman, Skarlatos a National Guardsman who had returned from a deployment in Afghanistan, and Sadler a student at Cal State. The film begins in Sacramento, where Stone and Skarlatos, two academic strugglers raised by single moms, meet Sadler, a mischievous fellow misfit at their Christian academy.

These early scenes are excruciating, marked by placeholder dialogue no children would ever say?expository for young Spencer and Alek and silver-tongued, with lots of conditional clauses, for Anthony. These scenes are enlivened only by stripped-down turns from comic actors doing their shtick without the jokes: Thomas Lennon as a smug, prissy fundamentalist principal, and Toby Hale as a toxically ineffectual gym teacher who is ?in a moodtoday, whoo!? Hale, especially, with the pathos behind his pettiness, would fit right into another recent on-screen Bush-era Sacramento Christian school, Lady Bird?s Immaculate Heart. Here, as in that film (and in America at large), class is somewhat difficult to parse, given that the visible trappings of middle-class life go hand-in-glove with anxiety bordering on the existential. Stone?s mother (Judy Greer) appears to own her detached home, and given the lengths to which the film goes to manufacture ?stakes,? 17 to Paris Movie Review can bet that if she was underwater on her mortgage we?d hear about it. But Greer effectively puts across the precarious mental state of a single mother of a tearaway kid?no one to take over when you?re tired, so you?re always skating along the very edge of rage to keep from shutting down completely.

Such deftness is atypical of a movie that will entertain the kind of viewer who updates the ?Goofs? section of movies? IMDb pages. (Remember the rubber baby in American Sniper?) Greer and Jenna Fischer, as Mama Skarlatos, fare worse once the child actors are replaced by the real Stone and Skarlatos: Eastwood makes no real attempt to correspondingly age their mothers up by ten years, and the actresses appear more tentative when thrust into scenes opposite their suddenly Large Adult Sons. And the dialogue feels at times almost purposefully cringeworthy: when Stone tells Sadler about the college basketball player who ?dunked on this fool? (the characters often watch, and desultorily narrate, televised sports) or when Greer shuts down a teacher trying to force ADD medication down her kid?s throat, saying, ?My God is bigger than your statistics,? it?s like the movie is daring you to feel superior to it.

The filmmaking, as square as the characters, courts its viewers with obvious avowals of shared values. Stone prays, as a child and again at the film?s denouement, ?Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.? The boys pester cool teacher Jaleel White for old WWII battle plans, dress in camo, and play war games?though the arsenal of Airsoft guns the pubescent Stone lays out on his bed may not signal innocent enthusiasm to every viewer. These two strands, the devout and the martial, eventually come together in a purpose-driven life: after Stone, pudgy and aimless, meets a military recruiter, he identifies his higher calling as serving and saving lives in the Air Force?s totally rad Pararescue unit. This American hero?s origin myth is located not within the already rugged American milieu of rodeo, as in American Sniper, but at a Jamba Juice, where Stone?s Hot Topic goth coworker reminds him that the smoothie he comped his recruiter is coming out of his own tip money. It?s as unpromising a location as the Times Square Irish bar, playing the late local news, where Sully has his epiphany. The filmmaking in Eastwood?s latter-day ripped-from-the-headlines stories feels radically unprocessed, the stuff of modern life transcribed simply and faithfully: the Eurozone train travel scenes here, with their wheel bags and fast-fashion slip-on shoes crisscrossing station platforms, recall Sully?s version of flight, always grounded in Hudson News and the heft of carry-on luggage.

It?s frankly astonishing that Eastwood, disciple of ?Don and Sergio,? would film a scene in which a couple of beefy bros in shorts buy and eat gelato at a tourist-trap stand in Venice. Stone and Sadler, spending this leg of their long-planned European trip with a solo-flying American chick they?ve been trying to flirt with, pick out their flavors (hazelnut!), pay the man, and make growly approving nom-nom sounds. But the ice cream ismore exciting for being eaten in Venice; somewhere amidst the dudes? performative gelato ecstasy is a glimmer of awareness that this is a special time in their lives. You may be reminded at this juncture that military service is one of the few engines of upward social mobility left in this country, or of what a privilege it is to be a member of the minority of Americans who hold valid passports, or to have access, as Sadler does, to the kind of credit that could fund a latter-day Grand Tour.

Like anyone else, these Americans abroad relate to the greatness of Rome and the Renaissance through the means with which their life experience has provided them. They are notably more animated at the Coliseum than the Spanish Steps, having seen Gladiator. Their marveling at all the ?old shit? there is in Europe isn?t ignorance, it?s gratitude?an awareness that they should mark the moment by saying something, however much their dutiful sightseeing is compromised by hangovers from last night?s city-center rave excursion with a bunch of Erasmus students. (Though even there, what constitutes ?epic? is a fully clothed Stone getting up on a stripper pole and sliding down it very slowly.)

The rosy view of ugly Americans abroad?the camera?s eye follows the characters? up the legs of Euro hotties in discos and hostels?precedes a rosy view of Americans intervening in an attempted Islamic-fundamentalist terrorist attack. During this time of extraordinary political bad faith, it?s healthy to remember that traits like bravery and self-sufficiency and the desire to be useful are virtues that can be motivated by any number of belief systems. For all the presumption, exclusion and machismo of Stone?s dreams of Eastwoodian cowboy/solider gallantry there is something very moving in his reaction when he?s told that a poor vision test will keep him out of Pararescue. That he won?t get to be one of the gallant elect who makes a difference, and will have to find his life?s meaning all over again.

Essentially, Stone wants to be a character in a Clint Eastwood movie?and for much of The 15:17 to Paris, this unfulfilled ambition animates the film's form as much as it does its content. Stone, Skarlatos, and Sadler's simulation of their own genuine lifelong friendship is notably unconvincing, full of camera-shy gravelly-voiced diffidence and hilariously basic half-speed evocations of everyday interactions. Even the self-aware Sadler, who talks through his selfie-stick framings in faintly visible quotations marks, is so far from being a natural camera presence that the distance between the banality of life and the sublime of cinema seems practically unbridgeable. This sense that transcendence is elusive to us mere mortals is the explicit subject of the film. Stone, looking out over rooftops in Venice, proclaims that he feels as if the world is ?catapulting? him toward some great event, some reckoning?a part in a story that will itself be told and retold. But for nearly its entirety, The 15:17 to Parisinhabits the gap between lived and imagined experience?something more frequently the purview of microindie cinema. I?m thinking of Aaron Katz?s Cold Weather, whose mumblecore characters find themselves caught up in a neo-noir mystery, or Wild Canaries, Lawrence Michael Levine and Sophia Takal?s role-play remake of Manhattan Murder Mystery. In fact, Wild Canaries, with its occasional precise slapstick bits and tart dialogue, is a more polished piece of cinema than the new Eastwood movie?until the very classical action set piece climax, when Clint?s filmmaking chops snap back into place like William Munny?s killer instinct, and Stone finds the culmination and validation of his desire to serve God and country, after the frustrating day-to-day of school and basic training.

After planting glimpses of the train attack between act breaks throughout the film, Eastwood mounts an uninterrupted restaging, beginning with the scuffle outside the bathroom, the single pistol shot, and the assault rifle drawn before Stone?who has been crouched in wait behind his seat, watching in intense close-up, his blank, uncinematic face suddenly evocative in its focus?makes his move. The close-quarters scuffle is largely constrained to the aisle of a single train car, which becomes a channel for the will of the participants. Stone tackled the assailant after his rifle jammed; Eastwood gives us the moment in a clean shot-reverse shot, with Stone charging, seatbacks vaguely visible in widescreen telephoto, and then his target, the full length of the rifle running across the center of the frame, the shot already lined up. Eastwood makes it entirely clear that Stone is running toward the moment of his death, and that in this sacrifice he has, finally and decisively, found his life?s purpose. An instinct born and nurtured in a gun-crazy Christian nation is elevated to a state of grace.

And yet. The triumphant story of The 15:17 to Parisimplicitly thumbs its nose at attitudes like that of the ectomorphic German bike-tour guide who, earlier in the film, snidely tells Stone that the Russians, not the Americans, were closing in on Berlin at the close of WWII: here, Team America really is the world?s police. Blyskal and Eastwood cherry-pick incidents to justify not just the feature length but also Stone?s sense of ?catapulting? toward his moment: Stone unarmed and impotent during a false-alarm lockdown at his military base, and then finally finding the Air Force fulfilling as he develops the jiujitsu skills that will serve him so well on the train. Thus it seems as if the characters of The 15:17 to Parisseek out a grand narrative as much as they rise to it.

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The Eyes of My Mother

thanostv , 2017 -- This movie looks like a foreign film, with a lot of the dialog in Portuguese, but according to the IMDB listing it was made in the good old US of A, complete with bad country music playing on the pickup radio.

This sad, dark horror film, shot in black and white, has some really ugly monsters in it who are human in nature, but under the spell of terribly dark impulses. In the lighter parts of the film, a mother (played by Diana Agostini of �The Godfather Part III�) who was formerly a Portuguese eye doctor, jauntily cuts out an eye from the head of a decapitated cow on the kitchen table and shows the child what is inside.

This may sound a bit crude, but this schooling about eyes comes in handy for the daughter, Francisca (played as an adult by Kika Magalhaes of �Vamp Bikers�) who does crude surgery on various people unlucky enough to cross her path. Francisca is scarred as a child by her father's indifference and her mother's murder by a stranger (played by Will Brill of �Up the River�). The stranger, Charlie, gets his kicks by murdering people.

Francisca's strange father (Paul Nazak) catches Charlie in the act of killing his wife. He locks the stranger in the barn, where Francisca conducts some surgical experiments on him, rendering him sightless and voiceless. Francisca and her father don't bother the police with such trivialities as murder, they unceremoniously bury her mother in the woods. Things get weird after that as Francisca kidnaps and murders people, and perhaps also engages in cannibalism.

Francisca ends up alone, until she manages to capture a child and her mother, her idea of a family. She also goes bar-hopping and picks up a friendly stranger Kimiko (Clara Wong of �Exposed�). The only person in the film who seems to be having a good time is Charlie, the man who kills Francisca's mother, and even he doesn't enjoy his lengthy torture-filled stay on the farm with Francisca.

The colorless, emotionless life of Francisca and her father is reflected in the muted black and white cinematography of the film. The terrible loneliness and emotional pain of Francisca seems muted in this low key film, where even murders don't seem to generate much excitement. This is a very uninspiring movie about people who seem to be going through the motions of life with no real life inside them.

I suppose that fans of horror films might like this, but I sure could not see any point to it. Watch The Eyes of My Mother 2016 was written and directed by first-time director Nicolas Pesce. This film rates a D.

[callrobin3-blog]

Just Getting Started Movie Review (2017)

If AARP ever felt compelled to sue a movie for elder abuse, ?Just Getting Started? would certainly be in the running. All sorts of red flags went up when I realized a comedy starring Tommy Lee Jones and Morgan Freeman?one that is directed and written by Ron Shelton (?Tin Cup,? ?Bull Durham?), no less?was opening cold, with no screenings for critics.

I tried to keep an open mind about this boomer-bait romp about Duke Diver (Freeman), manager of Villa Capri, a luxury Palm Springs resort packed with retirees. He has fashioned himself into a kind of Hugh Hefner of senior living while keeping his past a secret. But alarms went off in my head once Christmas tunes began to ding-dong during the opening the credits. thanostv can?t be a holiday movie, can it? Yes, it can.

The seasonal setting opens the door for such sight gags as carolers decked out in Dickensian garb save for being shod in flip flops and someone observing, ?Some big balls he?s got? while dangling two sizable round tree ornaments. There is also an opportunity for ?flocking? to be used as a euphemism for you-know-what. Shelton seems to think that just the very thought of Christmas spent in the heat of the California desert (actually, Albuquerque, N.M., mostly filling in for tax-break reasons) is a cause for yuletide mirth. While Lipitor is mentioned, the V-word (Viagra) is not. Take that as a blessing since I still haven?t recovered from Robert De Niro?s run-in with the erectile dysfunction drug in ?Little Fockers.?

Freeman?s dedicated alpha male and his band of cronies (among them, Joe Pantoliano and comic George Wallace) rule the roost while Duke chases after hot-to-trot hens of a certain age?namely, Elizabeth Ashley, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Glenne Headly, who died in June at age 62. Sadly, her last film role involves her standing on a ladder and having Freeman lasciviously admire her buxom form?which would be kind of creepy even before the media began keeping a post-Weinstein tally of powerful men recently accused of sexual harassment.

Matters look up briefly once cowboy Leo, in the form of Jones, sashays into town and challenges Duke at his own games?which include golf, chess, ping pong, bench pressing and doing the limbo. But when Rene Russo?s Suzie shows up, Leo?s heart skips a beat and soon enough Duke is vying for her affections as well. Turns out this trio are all hiding something. So is the movie, as it awkwardly evolves from being a horny oldsters on the loose caper to a macho one-upmanship contest and, finally, a crime film about foiling a mob hit beset with dreary car chases, a literal snooze-fest stakeout, a rather tame cobra stuck in a golf bag and perhaps one of the least-exciting bomb explosions ever captured on film.

Johnny Mathis does appear to sing at the Villa Capri?s Christmas Eve party although he mostly lip syncs and looks all of his 82 years. And while no one will ever mistake Freeman and Jones for Martin and Lewis, it is not unpleasant to see these two Oscar winners together on the big screen for the first time. Mostly, ?Just Getting Started? is a rather lazy boondoggle by Shelton, who waited 14 years to direct again and didn?t bother to make it worthwhile. thanostv disheartening are his portrayals of women who are mostly defined by the gaze and affirmation of male companions. The creator of such strong and richly drawn female characters as Susan Sarandon?s baseball muse Annie Savoy for ?Bull Durham? and Rosie Perez?s ?Jeopardy? whiz Gloria Clemente in ?White Men Can?t Jump? should know better.

[callrobin3-blog]

Life and Nothing More Review: A Rich Film About Living in Poverty

Regina (Regina Williams), a black North Florida waitress living somewhere below the poverty line, snaps at her 14-year-old son, Andrew (Andrew Bleechington), after he?s been arrested for at least the second time: ?This is your life you?re fucking up, not mine!? It?s one of the only lies that she tells in Antonio M�ndez Esparza?s ?Life and Nothing More,? an elliptical and documentary-like drama that?s endowed with sober honesty in almost every scene.

For better or worse, Regina?s hardscrabble existence is inextricably intertwined with that of her teenage child, and that of the kid?s incarcerated father, and ? to a certain extent ? even that of a new love interest named Robert (Robert Williams), an unambiguously interested stranger who first hits on Regina while she?s at work. She?s the nucleus of an unstable cell in a hostile body, forced to manage her own problems and find the support she needs while also trying to raise her son in a racist system that turns black men against each other and tears black families apart.

LIFE AND NOTHING MORE ? Trailer ? CFIReleasing from California Film Institute on Vimeo.

It?s a common predicament that Esparza portrays with an intimate touch. His second feature may address institutional crises, but it never reduces these flesh-and-blood characters to mere symbols of the black experience; ?Life and Nothing More? may be shot with the unblinking attention of Frederick Wiseman?s films ? and share their same broad scope of concerns ? but it?s always true to the tenderness of its title. Even the scenes that offer explicit social commentary (i.e. the ones directly involving law enforcement or the justice system) are pitched at a personal level, more focused on these particular characters than on the oppression they represent. Among its other virtues, this raw, poignant, and non-didactic movie is a compelling reminder that you can glean a lot more about power structures by looking at people than you can glean about people by looking at power structures.

?Life and Nothing More? is set in the days leading up to the 2016 election, but no one in this story seems to care. You don?t get the sense that Regina is much of a voter. For one thing, it?s hard to say when she would even be able to cast a ballot (?I don?t have free time? is the closest thing she has to a catchphrase). For another, she isn?t especially compelled to participate in a society that sees women like her as product suppliers for the prison system, and even now ? with two years of the Trump administration in the rear-view ? there?s no judging her for that.

The film?s opening http://bit.ly/2QdshWE lay it all on the line. Regina and Andrew sit next to each other on a public bus, Esparza acclimating us to the first of his long-take tableaux. Everything is in focus, and our eyes are free to wander where they please, looking for all the easy answers they?ll never find. There?s no hand-holding, no close-ups, no absolution. ?Get the fuck away from me,? Regina says to her kid. ?I?m done.? Andrew is occasionally too withdrawn to take hold as a character, but he?s downright silent here.

Esparza then cuts to the court, where the teen is being roasted by his probation officer for skipping his counseling sessions; he won?t speak, so Regina has to apologize for him. Then back to the bus ? from the same angle as before ? only this time mother and son are sitting apart. Neither one of them is at fault for the rift between them, but that doesn?t stop it from growing. By the time someone asks Andrew if he?s ?free, dead, or in jail?,? even the most privileged viewer ? even https://www.thanostv.org/movie/life-and-nothing-more-2017 who thought thought they were buying a ticket to ?Life Itself? ? will appreciate how those conditions aren?t mutually exclusive.

?Life and Nothing More? is light on plot, and most engaging when it eschews incident altogether. Other than Robert meeting Regina and trying to wheedle his way into her life, not much really happens. Esparza, a Spanish-born filmmaker whose only previous feature was 2012?s ?Aqu� y All�,? doesn?t rely on story to drive the narrative. And yet, the film is immediately gripping on a moment-to-moment basis because of Esparza?s ability to mine genuine compassion from patience and perseverance. The longer a scene takes to unfold, the more riveting it becomes.

But persistence is the name of the game, and Esparza?s steadfast cast of first-time actors seems to know it in their bones. There isn?t a false note between them, though Williams? lead performance is especially powerful for how she navigates between rage and responsibility, always returning to the love that binds those two modes together. She?s incredible during the scenes when Robert is first wooing Regina; she needs the support, but she?s skeptical of the intrusion, and Williams finds a rare and all-too-believable urgency in how she puts that all out there, because there?s no use in pretending otherwise.

The film can?t help but flail whenever she?s off-screen. Save for an uncomfortable scene that illustrates the baton handoff from systemic racism to personal racism, the decision to refocus the back half of the story on Andrew tends to distract from the beating heart of this story, even though it builds to an epilogue that will reverberate inside of you for days. Still, ?Life and Nothing More? ? much like life itself ? never stops moving forward, and the lingering power of this plaintive and affecting portrait comes from Regina?s natural ability to find strength in that. How does she keep going? ?One foot at a time, day by day, until the light at the end of the tunnel has no choice but to come your way.?

?Life and Nothing More? is now playing in New York, opens in L.A. and the Bay Area on 10/26, and will expand across the country in the weeks to come. The full schedule can be found here.

[callrobin3-blog]

?Looking Glass? Review ? Variety

Nicolas Cage continues to pad his resume with VOD-centric B-movies of wildly varying quality, demonstrating, if not discerning taste, then a prodigious work ethic that would have served him well as a Warner Bros. contract player during the 1930s and ?40s. ?Looking Glass,? the latest in his seemingly endless parade of low-rent star vehicles, is notable mostly for showcasing a relatively restrained performance by the often manic actor. During almost the entirely of this derivative melodrama, a slow-burn scenario about strange doings at a second-rate desert motel, Cage tamps down his trademark tendency toward ravenous scenery chewing. He remains admirably disciplined even during scenes in which one of his co-stars is prematurely giving the game away by doing everything short of screaming, ?I?m the mad killer! I?m the mad killer!?

Following the accidental death of their young daughter, married couple Ray (Cage) and Maggie (Robin Tunney) seek a new life in a new locale. They move from an unnamed ?big city? and assume ownership of the Motor Way Motel, a humble roadside inn that could benefit from Ray?s applied use of his expertise as a handyman ? which, given the genre, proves to be a predictably bad career move.

Upon their arrival, Ray and Maggie discover Ben (Bill Bolender), the previous owner, was in such a rush to vacate the premises, he left his keys to the place in a mailbox and took off for parts unknown. Of course, it?s possible that the guy wanted to vamoose before the new owners realized their clientele might consist primarily of only two regular guests ? a good-ol?-boy trucker (Ernie Lively) who needs a place for adulterous trysts, and a dominatrix (Jacque Gray) who plies her trade by toying with compliant female clients. Eventually, however, Ray stumbles upon another possible motive for Ben?s hasty departure: Room 10 ? which, not incidentally, is the favored room for both the trucker and the dominatrix ? is tricked out with a two-way mirror that allows anyone hiding in a hidden passageway to view close encounters on the other side of the glass. Maybe Ben got caught peeking?

Ray can?t resist the allure of voyeurism, and he gets a hefty dose of guilty-pleasure cheap thrills while he watches the dominatrix dominate a sexy submissive woman. Unfortunately, that woman is found dead in the nearby desert shortly afterwards. Her demise, coming on the heels of another mysterious death at the motel, attracts the attention of Howard (Marc Blucas), the local sheriff, who?s quite ingratiating when he isn?t unsettling Ray with pointed questions. Like, does Ray have blood on his hands? And, by the way, where the hell is Ben?

Working from a screenplay (credited to Jerry Rapp and Matthew Wilder) that only sporadically is tethered by logic, helmer Tim Hunter (?River?s Edge?) pushes a tad too hard, too obviously, while striving to infuse ?Looking Glass? with a David Lynchian air of portentous creepiness. (It should be noted that Hunter, a prolific TV director, has three episodes of the original ?Twin Peaks? series to his credit.)

As thanostv turns out, the movie offers a great deal more mood than matter. During slow stretches, of which there are many, one cannot help noticing conspicuously quirky details ? the filthy feet of the dominatrix?s clients, the proliferation of owl images and allusions ? that initially appear thanostv , but wind up meaning nothing. Likewise, disruptions are introduced (an act of vandalism here, a dead pig tossed into a swimming pool there) but never satisfyingly explained.

[callrobin3-blog]

Movie Review: Cheating is made for ?The Delinquent Season?

There?s something about fall that suggests secrets, covering up. It?s the conspiratorial season, the perfect time of year for espionage pictures and movies about infidelity.

That?s what ?The Delinquent Season? is, an Irish melodrama about cheating, how it happens and the fallout from it. What makes it different from a thousand other (mostly fall) films in the same vein are the occasional sharply written exchange, the smart, vulnerable characterizations and its Irishness.

Cillian Murphy and Eva Birthistle are Jim and Danielle, married with two tweenagers, comfortable together in that their pillow talk includes ?You put the bins (trash) out??

A dinner with Yvonne and Chris (Catherine Walker and Andrew Scott) shows a very different sort of marriage. She?s sweet and vulnerable, he?s short-tempered and not at all sociable. Tetchy as the meal turns, everybody there and we viewers know that the real row will come after they get home.

We can only hope their two young daughters don?t hear it.

Jim?s a writer who works at home and Yvonne is a housewife. But when events conspire to throw them together by chance, they have to fight off the awkwardness by chatting and chatting.

Yvonne relishes adult, friendly conversation with a man who seems a lot kinder than her husband. And when her marriage turns violent, it?s her best friend Danielle and Danielle?s husband who comfort her. Jim even goes over to have a heart to heart with Chris.

But throwing bored Jim and lonely Yvonne together can only lead to trouble, and as bourgeois as it might be, these middle class marrieds think the maritally unthinkable.

Writer-director Mark O?Rowe scripted ?Boy A? and Colin Farrell?s ?Intermission,? and he writes a lovely, patient and touchy-tentative seduction scene that includes tears, fears and the sudden realization that what each was thinking is on the other?s mind, too.

?If ThanosTV was an Updike novel, we?d be having an affair by now.?

Yvonne and Jim?s second moment of adultery is every bit as fraught as the first. This time they go to a hotel.

?But we?ve already done it.?

?This is the premeditated version, though.?

The camera lingers over Yvonne?s look of alarm and guilt, huddled under the covers in bed waiting for him. It captures Jim?s look of loss, gutted and distracted sitting with his kids watching TV.

O?Rowe plays around with expectations, setting Jim up as emasculated but impulsively prone to defending his manhood. He?s so polite that when a rude waitress doubles down on bad service by cursing in front of Jim?s kids, he confronts her but winds up meekly asking for ?common courtesy? from her. Fistfights aren?t out of the question (He is Irish, after all.). But he?s the sort who loses them.

Yvonne has classic blame-myself abused woman traits, but the film takes pains to create a backstory explaining Chris?s outbursts, and to suggest the violence is a one-time thing.

The sneaking around isn?t given much suspense ? thanostv and texts ? punctuated by touching guilt-ridden conversations with their spouses, who don?t know about them or what?s going on.

Danielle is Mrs. Pragmatist ? a working realtor who practically breaks out her appointment calendar (she doesn?t) when she notes ?The flames of our marriage could do with a bit of fanning lately.?

There?s sex and even riskier behavior, a health crisis and confrontations, a progression from helping each other through a rough patch to this seems real, a tried and true path for a film about autumnal infidelity.

But the performers and performances sell ?The Delinquent Season.? The male leads are mainstays of Anglo-Irish TV and film. But Walker and Birthistle, who have ?Leap Year? and ?Brooklyn? roles in their credits, impress enough to make one hunt down their lower profile credits on video.

[callrobin3-blog]

DVD Talk Review of the DVD Video

Jeff Turner suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a so-called "high functioning" form of autism, characterized by poor social skills, obsessiveness, and peculiar mannerisms. Turner fills his days with conspiracy theories, Christian fellowship, and obsession for Tiffany. Though the subject of a 3-year restraining order issued when Tiffany was 16 and he was 35, these days Turner finds opportunities to share moments with the object of his obsession at fairground performances and autograph conventions. ThanosTV in the pseudoscience of radionics, Turner has paid more than $20,000 of his disability payments for devices purportedly tuned into Tiffany's brainwaves.

Kelly McCormick claims to be a hermaphrodite though in the commentary she admits that she was actually born a male. McCormick claims that she was raised by her father as a boy and by her mother as a girl, but considers herself to a be a lesbian. Thirty-five at the time of filming though claiming to be 31, McCormick is undergoing sexual reassignment. She claims to believe that Tiffany visited her as a vision while she was in a coma, and that they've been psychically linked ever since, but it's never really clear which stories McCormick is teling for effect and which she really believes.

Filmmaker Sean Donnelly earns kudos for abstaining from providing narration, but loses credibility by contriving to bring Turner and McCormick together in Las Vegas at a Tiffany appearance and by fumbling to construct an unearned upbeat ending.

No music rights or interviews with Tiffany were secured for this decidedly low-budget documentary.

Video & Audio: I Think We're Alone Now was recorded on standard digital video. Presented in full frame (1.33:1), I Think We're Alone Now has mostly fair video quality, but the 2.0 audio sounds harsh and suffers one significant dropout. http://bit.ly/2rlI9b4 are offered.

Extras: Extras include 24-minutes of additional material with Kelly McCormick, Jeff Turner and some of Turner's wingnut associates, as well as the trailer. Audio commentaries are also provided from both Turner and McCormick. Both commentaries include gaps which are sometimes filled with the original audio and sometimes left silent. Turner's commentary includes several conspiracy theories and a new revelation about a restraining order taken out by Alyssa Milano against Turner. McCormick's commentary has gaps that go on for minutes at a time. McCormick is far more hostile toward Turner than he had been towards her. Most significantly, McCormick admits to lying about being born a hermaphrodite, and claims to now have a girlfriend and to be over Tiffany.

[callrobin3-blog]

?A Simple Favor?

When you think of the name Paul Feig, ?crime thriller? https://www.thanostv.org/movie/a-simple-favor-2018 isn?t the first genre that leaps to mind. ThanosTV of ?Freaks and Geeks? and director of comedy hits like ?Spy,? ?The Heat? and ?Bridesmaids? has stayed pretty comfortably in his lane over the course of his 20-year career. So it makes you wonder why Lionsgate tapped him to direct ?A Simple Favor,? adapted from Darcy Bell?s novel by ?Nerve? screenwriter Jessica Sharzer. Sure, Feig has flirted with pathos and drama in previous projects, but this movie, which is far more ?Gone Girl? than ?Ghostbusters,? appears to come from way out in left field.

Clearly taking its inspiration from all sorts of twisty-turny suburban thrillers of the past, ?A Simple Favor? stars Anna Kendrick as Stephanie, the most nondescript single mom you could possibly imagine. She runs a mommy vlog and seems to have the perfect relationship with her kid. Sure, she tries too hard, but there?s no possible way that?s compensating for something, right? Her opposite in every conceivable way is Emily (Blake Lively), the PR director for a high-profile fashion designer (Rupert Friend, in an enjoyably sprightly cameo) and wife to a writer/professor (newly-minted superstar Henry Golding of ?Crazy Rich Asians?) who curses and drinks in front of her kid not because she?s a bad mother, but because she doesn?t buy in to the sort of classical parenting techniques you read about in books. The two women strike up a friendship of sorts; Emily is eternally hard to read in her motivations and true emotions, but when she goes missing after asking Stephanie to pick up her kid from school one day, everyone assumes the worst. Stephanie decides to take matters into her own hands, digging deeper into the mysterious woman?s past until she can get to the bottom of where her new best friend disappeared to.

For much of the first act, it?s tough to figure out exactly what Feig is up to with this one. It opens with a jazzy, spy-movie credit sequence for reasons that are not entirely clear. It positions itself very much as an odd couple comedy that?s more than content to poke fun at the sort of movies it seems to be aping ? a sort of ?Saturday Night Live? skewering of the ?The Girl on the Trains? of the world writ large. It?s all a little too heightened; Stephanie is too aggressively wholesome and Emily is too outrageously shocking. The soundtrack, peppered with haughty French music, is too chic to be on the level. But when Emily goes missing and the plot gets serious, it becomes clear that Feig is just as interested in telling a pretty by-the-numbers riff on the pulpy suburban thriller genre. That doesn?t mean there?s nothing up his sleeve, because even as the stakes do rise, there are still plenty of laughs to be found. But those laughs aren?t at the expense of the premise in a way the first act seems to flirt with. After all, this is a heightened movie for heightened drama.

And the cast is definitely in on the act. It?s delicious fun watching Kendrick and Lively play against each other; they are so committed to their stereotypes and so clearly having a ball bringing them to life. Kendrick slides into Feig?s comedic cadence and sensibilities like a glove. She?s an ing�nue who?s more than capable of unleashing some inner fire when cornered but just as hasty with a meek apology when she realizes what she?s done. She?s the exact sort of person to fly a little too under the radar to be comfortable when a murder investigation comes into play. Lively, on the other hand, owns the screen with little effort, strutting around in outfits that are consistently insane (think power suits by way of a fetish magazine) and striking a perfect contrast to Kendrick?s demure sweater-vest ensembles. She?s so uninhibited that she seems legitimately capable of anything. Lionsgate must be thrilled that they get to release a new Henry Golding movie while ?Crazy Rich Asians? continues to tear up the box office, and his preternatural charm plays into it all wonderfully. Of course, this is all very deliberate, and the script plays on every one of those assumptions as the plot twists back and forth upon itself over and over again.

[callrobin3-blog]

'Animal World': Review

A Chinese proverb warns that ?a little gambling is soothing and relaxing; heavy gambling can affect your mental health?. The youthful protagonist of Animal World (Dongwu Shije), though, has little choice in the matter as regrettable circumstances force him to play an almost unbearably pressurised game of chance, causing buried personal demons to rise to the surface. It?s a scenario that is realised in extravagant fashion by writer-director Han Yan, whose heightened sensibility oscillates between dazzling and dizzying, often in the same elaborately designed sequence.

A frenetic marketing campaign promising a Chinese spin on the contemporary action-fantasy fare that is usually the domain of Hollywood imports and the popularity of rising star Li Yifeng should make this manga-derived feature a box office winner locally, possibly kicking off a new franchise. Receiving a day-and-date limited international rollout on June 29, Animal World?s gaudily colorful aesthetic will certainly capture the attention of those who salivate at the prospect of outlandish Asian fare while the presence of Michael Douglas in a significant supporting role may pique further interest once Animal World hits streaming platforms.

Zheng Kaisi (Li) works a dead-end job as a costume character in an arcade, which just about enables him to pay the medical bills for his comatose mother. Although he yearns to marry hospital nurse Liu Quing (an underused Zhou Dongyu), who sometimes helps out by lending him money, Kaisi is worried that his lack of financial stability makes him an inferior suitor. Seeking a quick fix, Kaisi agrees to put the deed to his family home towards overnight moneymaking scheme proposed by childhood friend and property agent Li Jun (Cao Bingkun). Unfortunately, he loses everything.

It transpires that Li Jun is severely in debt to a sinister organisation represented by the smoothly efficient Anderson (Douglas, slyly commanding in a role that he could easily have phoned in). When the debt ? and its exorbitant daily interest rate ? is transferred to Kaisi, the only chance he has to pay it off by is by participating in a high stakes game of ?rock, paper scissors? onboard a cruise ship called ?Destiny?.

While the rules seem straightforward enough when explained by Anderson, staying in the game is complicated by the fact that cheating is not merely overlooked but actively encouraged. Allegiances between players are formed, broken, and formed again, with Kaisi?s fundamentally decent nature leading him to be repeatedly duped before finally snapping and competing on his own terms.

If any of this sounds vaguely familiar to connoisseurs of Asian genre cinema, it?s because Animal World is adapted from Nobuyuki Fukumoto?s manga series Ultimate Survivor Kaiji, which was previously brought to the screen in live action form as Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler (2009), and its 2011 sequel. For the most part, it?s a smooth transfer. thanostv ?s makeover from shiftless loser to dutiful son enables Li to deliver a resolute performance, which will be a relief to those who grew frustrated with the manic exasperation of his Japanese predecessor, Tatsuya Fujiwara. Investing in a sympathetic backstory causes early pacing issues, although Han?s decision to jettison the crueler physical challenges from the manga and focus on a game with a four-hour time limit keeps things tight once the cards are eventually dealt.

Still, Animal World closely adheres to the source material in using the game as a metaphorical sketch of societies where the divide between rich and poor is ever widening. This adaptation emphasises the fiercely competitive nature of an accelerated China where the violation of supposed terms leads to the creation of new terms that are in turn flagrantly disregarded, even at the expense of lifelong friendships. Like the manga and Japanese films, this situation requires the protagonist? http://ow.ly/MBvC101nKXh untested mind to work overtime to consider all possible outcomes and double (or even triple) crosses, with Han visualising this process through flashy graphics, quick edits, and swirling camerawork.

Yet the ambitious Han has brazenly added another layer to the material with a run of hyperkinetic hallucinations that stem from Kaisi?s traumatic childhood. At times of despair, stress, or even boredom, he imagines himself as the sword-wielding clown from an anarchic television series, displaying flashes of Deadpool-like attitude as he slays grotesque monsters on a graffiti-ridden subway.