September 2007
	by Max (with Walt Oleksy)	view previous issues here

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CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER

The tag line for this excellent movie says “Unspeakable secrets are hidden within the forbidden city.” At first, I thought it’s about Washington and the Bush White House, but it’s an historical drama from China. Yimou Zhang, director of “House Of Flying Daggers” and “Hero,” helms what some critics call “a martial arts epic masterpiece whose savage beauty and exquisite elegance has mesmerized and captivated audiences around the world.” It’s a tale of a royal family divided against itself resulting in betrayal, revenge, and bloodshed. All that stuff that makes for strong drama. It stars Chow Yun Fat of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” as an embattled Emperor and the very beautiful and talented Gong Li of “Memoirs Of A Geisha” as his poisoned Empress. Take a break from the endless Iraq war and further political madness in America and enter this movie’s beautiful and romantic world full of ancient Chinese intrigue. From Sony Pictures.

Max’s rating: Two paws up and some Chinese “woo woo’s!”

A FEW DAYS IN SEPTEMBER

Juliette Binoche stars in this tense conspiracy thriller. Shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York City, a CIA agent (Nick Nolte) who is holding top secret information on the immediate future of the world disappears. Binoche plays a French agent who searches for him, with the help of his abandoned son and daughter. Their search takes them to Paris and then Venice in a race against time to find him and learn the secret information. John Turturo plays a darkly humorous killer who loves poetry. The Reporter called the film “pure noir, with rainy streets, blinking neon and dripping blood.” From Koch Lorber.

THE LIVES OF OTHERS

Last year’s Oscar for the best foreign language film went to this Cold War drama that Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly calls "a nail-biter of a thriller!" It’s political intrigue when, before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, East Germany’s population was closely monitored by the State Secret Police, Stasi. Only a few citizens above suspicion, like renowned pro-Socialist playwright Georg Dreyman, were permitted to lead private lives. But when a corrupt government official falls for Georg’s stunning actress-girlfriend, Christa, an ambitious Stasi policeman is ordered to bug the writer’s apartment to gain incriminating evidence against the rival. What the officer discovers dramatically changes their lives and his as well. From Sony Pictures.

YEAR OF THE DOG

It isn’t often that a movie these days or even years has a dog as a main character, especially if the movie isn’t for kids, so my ears stood up and my tail began wagging fast when my master and I saw this new romantic comedy for “grown-ups.” It didn’t get much attention in its theatrical release, but I highly recommend it for a long DVD run. Molly Shannon, formerly of Saturday Night Live, plays a young woman whose relationships with men aren’t doing so well, so she focuses extra love on her beagle, then adopts more pooches from an animal shelter. Both funny and sad, this is one of those “sleepers” that come along once in a while to enchant us. It’s the first directorial effort from screenwriter Mike White who gave us “The Good Girl” and “The School of Rock.” Take a look at this warm film for those of any age, and for dogs, too. From Paramount.

FIREHOUSE DOG

This dog movie (not a “dog of a movie”) got more attention from critics and sold more theater tickers than the previously reviewed film, and it has lots I liked, too. Rex, a pampered pooch who happens to be a movie star, gets lost in an unfamiliar city when an aerial movie stunt goes wrong. He’s adopted by a 12-year-old boy, winningly played by Josh Hutcherson, whose father runs a ragtag crew at a rundown fire station. The boy and his father are not on the best of terms, and Rex, through learning the meaning of loyalty and friendship (two things every other dog is born with) manages to bring the two closer together. The movie has laughs, excitement, and lots of heart. From 20th Century-Fox.

WIND CHILL

Hitch-hiking a ride home for Christmas, a college girl gets the ride of her life from a stranger that may turn out to be the ride of her death. During a sudden snowstorm, the car is forced off a remote country road by a mysterious motorist. What the girl and the stranger don’t know is the road has a sinister secret dating back to the 1950s. It’s a good horror film from executive producers George Clooney and Steven Sonderbergh, starring Emily Blunt of “The Devil Wears Prada.” From Sony Tri-Star.

MACBETH

The Bard of Avon might object, but this new Australian telling of the Shakespeare classic is getting high marks for its efforts to update the story to today’s political intrigue set in contemporary Melbourne. Sam Worthington stars as Macbeth, the loyal henchman to a crime boss played by Gary Sweet, who was a handsome Aussie star in earlier years. In keeping with the bard’s storyline, three twisted teenage witches predict Macbeth is destined to assume great power one day. Driven by their prophecy, Macbeth plots with his wife to kill his boss. As you might expect, fatal troubles lie in that decision. One critic calls it “brash, bold, bawdy, bombastic.“ The DVD is from Union Station Media.

NEVILLE’S ISLAND

Four British executives on a weekend boating holiday meant to give them some exercise turns into a life-threatening adventure when they are marooned on an uninhabited island. Timothy Spall and Martin Cluines star in this “thoughtful, sharply crafted comedy” of wilderness survival from the imagination of Tim Firth, the award-winning screenwriter of “Calendar Girls.” From BFS Entertainment.

ROME: POWER AND GLORY
Ancient Rome is brought to life in this six-hour docudrama that appeared on cable television’s Discovery channels. Filmed in ten countries and narrated by Peter Coyote, the series contains live action dramatic re-enactments, computer-generated reconstructions, and many extra features.
It covers the rise of Rome from a primitive village into a fledgling democracy, then conqueror of the Western world, to the empire’s final fall. It’s everything you ever wanted to know about ancient Rome and also an excellent companion to the new HBO series of that same name. A real treat for history and action fans from Questar Entertainment. You might even notice some parallels to America today that I did regarding the reasons given for the fall of Rome -- greed, the privileged class getting richer at the expense of the middle class and poor, intolerance, laziness, judge and hate your neighbor, and stupid political, economic, and war decisions by its leaders.

HETTY WAINTHROPP INVESTIGATES: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

All 27 episodes of this very popular British television mystery series are now in a very handsome boxed set of 13 DVDs that runs about 24 hours. Patricia Routledge, of “Keeping Up Appearances,” who was voted the all-time favorite British actress in a BBC poll, stars as a 60-something housewife who turns to playing detective. As a no-nonsense sleuthing gadfly, she goes after murderers, missing persons, even the Mafia, assisted by her teenage bike-riding sidekick and her devoted husband. Fans of Angela Lansbury’s Jessica Fletcher television sleuth are sure to like Hetty Wainthropp. From Acorn Media.

FABIO MONTALE

Who, what? That’s the name of a French crime squad detective in crime-ridden Marseilles, played by legendary international star Alain Delon, still as handsome as he ever was in movies such as “Purple Noon.” The French television series is on two DVDs, in French with English subtitles. Three complete mysteries take Montale into investigations of gangs, corrupt policemen, shady politicians, and the Mafia, just like what goes on in most average American cities.
Good detective action from Koch Vision.

ROBIN OF SHERWOOD, SET 2

I’ve always been a sucker for the legends of Robin Hood and King Arthur, whether they really lived or not. This 1980s British television series retells the Robin Hood story with a very satisfying mix of history and mythology with some magic thrown in. Jason Connery, real-life son of Sean Connery, plays a dashing and very capable Robin of Loxley with handsome face and long blond locks, and Nickolas Grace chews up the scenery as the villainous and greedy Sheriff of Nottingham. This 5-disc boxed set of DVDs includes the final 13 episodes of the television series, with more than nine hours of interesting special features. It concludes the DVD edition of the television series that began with SET 1 in which Michael Praed played Robin. It’s great family entertainment from Acorn Media.

THE GRAVY TRAIN

Ian Richardson, best known for playing nasty politicians (“House of Cards,” “To Play the King”) starred in this 1990 British TV comedy miniseries about European politics. Beautiful Francesca Annis co-stars with Christopher Waltz who plays a British government financial executive in Brussels. Richardson plays an opportunist bent on getting rich by exploiting the newly-liberated nations of Eastern Europe after the Soviet Communist era ends. From BFS Entertainment.

MIDSOMER MURDERS

Set 9 of this very popular British television mystery series, a very entertaining update of the classic English village mystery. John Nettles returns as detective Tom Barnaby and is again aided by his brash young assistant played by John Hopkins. The series is created by Caroline Graham whom some critics call “the best detective writer since Agatha Christie.” Four full-length mysteries are included in this latest set involving spiritualists suspected of murder, a body that turns up in the Thames during the annual Midsomer Regatta, someone who would kill to own a rare specimen of orchid, and murder among horse lovers who want to own a champion thoroughbred. Very entertaining mysteries from Acorn Media.

FINNEY

A “British Godfather” television drama in which an English crime family’s violent world begins to unravel when a jazz musician returns home after his father is murdered. David Morrissey plays Stephen Finney, the jazzman caught between trying to escape the family’s bloody history and his brother’s and sister’s demands for revenge in hits on a rival gang. The complete TV series is on 3 DVDs from BFS Entertainment.

TWO’S COMPANY: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

The incomparable Elaine Stritch and British stage icon Donald Sinden star as a perfectly mismatched pair in this hilarious BBC sitcom that delighted televiewers for four years in the 1970s. She plays a fiercely independent American living in a British upper-class house with her very proper butler, played by Sinden. The dialogue is razor-sharp witty between the constantly bickering pair. Very welcome humor from Acorn Media.

JERICHO SERIES TWO

Inspector Jericho of London’s Scotland Yard investigates two new murder mysteries in this second entry in the Brit TV series on DVD from WGBH Boston Video. Robert Lindsay looks for the murderer of an atomic weapons research scientist and a serial killer who targets courting couples.

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS

Jonathan Pryce plays perhaps the greatest fictional detective of all time in a very engrossing original British mystery that was shown on BBC. Kids disappear, policemen are poisoned, and Holmes is placed on house arrest as the chief suspect. Who comes to try to rescue him and find the real perpetrator of the crimes but the Baker Street Irregulars, some street-smart teenagers who were introduced by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet. Fans of the great Holmes are sure to enjoy this new entry in the life of the master detective who gets more than a little help from his young friends. From Acorn Media.

Back in the Saddle Again

Two favorite western characters from television’s saddle bag of the 1950s are now available on DVD. William Boyd starred as “Hoppy” in the first western series on TV, 1952-1954, sparking a kiddy craze that evolved into costumes, lunch boxes, wrist-watches, even a theme park and radio show. HOPALONG CASSIDY: THE COMPLETE TELEVISION COLLECTION is a special 12-DVD set including all 52 TV episodes plus 10 of Hoppy’s movies, all digitally remastered and sound enhanced. Hoppy’s sidekicks include Russell Hayden, Rand Brooks, Gabby Hayes, and Andy Clyde. The same technological updating treatment is given to THE ADVENTURES OF JIM BOWIE: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION. Scott Forbes plays the frontiersman and western adventurer in 1830s New Orleans and backwoods Louisiana Territory in the TV series that ran from 1956 to 1958. All 76 episodes were digitally remastered for the best picture and sound in this 10-DVD set. Guest stars include Michael Landon, Mike Conners, June Carter Cash, Doug McClure, and Rose Marie. Both collections are from Infinity Entertainment Group and Falcon Picture Group.

Are the Freemasons out to take over America and the world? Judge for yourself after watching FREEMASONRY REVEALED, “The Secret History of the Freemasons,” a 3-part Discovery Channel series on two DVDs from Koch Vision. Dramatic re-enactments and comments from scholars trace the origins of the secret society and how it allegedly has influenced American and world history, economics, religion, and politics.

POCAHONTAS REVEALED commemorates the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown with this provocative NOVA documentary. It reports about recent archaeological findings that reveal the Native American side of the story of the Indian chief’s daughter who allegedly saved the neck of Jamestown pioneer John Smith.
Did she or didn’t she, as Smith later claimed she did? I won’t reveal what the documentary reports, but highly recommend you see it. From WGBH Boston Video.

SIX DAYS IN JUNE: The War that Redefined the Middle East, an assessment of the war in 1967 that pitted the U.S., Israelis, and Arabs against the Soviet Union, and
how that contributed to America’s present stance regarding the unresolved crisis in the Middle East. Also from WGBH Boston Video.

Music to our Ears

Three excellent movies about famous classical composers have just been released by Kultur International Films. THE DOUBLE LIFE OF FRANZ SCHUBERT stars Simon Russell Beale in a dramatization of the final years of the romantic composer who died after a long illness from a social disease. Many of his greatest musical works are played in the film. ELGAR’S TENTH MUSE stars James Fox as English composer Sir Edward Elgar in which self-doubts in 1919 kept him from writing more great music until he was inspired anew by a beautiful young lady and her violin virtuosity. VERDI is a new documentary on the life and work of Italian composer Gieuseppe Verdi, with excerpts from Rigoletto, La Traviata, and others of his classic operas. Real gems for lovers of classical music.

JOURNEY INTO BUDDHISM, filmmaker John Bush’s trilogy of cinematic pilgrimages to legendary places in Southeast Asia and Tibet that explore the ideals of wisdom, compassion, and inner peace of peoples in Laos, Thailand, Burma, Bali, Cambodia, Java, and Central Tibet. Also from WGBH Boston Video.

WORLD WAR II: THE EPIC BATTLES, a 3-disc boxed set of DVDs reporting on The Battle of Britain, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge. NAZI SECRETS REVEALED, also a 3-disc boxed set of DVDs, about an historic Norwegian resistance operation, a daring escape by Allied prisoners from a Nazi prison camp, and efforts to decode the “unbreakable” Nazi secret device called Enigma. Both from WGBH Boston Video.

DEGRASSI HIGH, the hit TV series for and about teenagers and their angsts is now on DVD in a complete collection from WGBH Boston Video. All 28 episodes from Seasons One and Two of the series that explores how teens deal with most of life’s most serious problems including love, death, pregnancy, teenage rebellion. Realistic stuff worth watching, not like the neverland candy for the mind and eye that is shown on most TV for teens.

OPEN WIDE: TOOTH SCHOOL INSIDE, the newest edition of Scholastic Video’s DVDs of popular children’s books. In the title story, from the book by author/illustrator Laurie Kellere, tiny teeth teach kids about helping others and also good dental hygiene. They reminded my master of movies he saw in grammar school health class in which molars danced and told how to brush them properly. Four more children’s books come to life on the DVD.

MAGGIE AND THE FEROCIOUS BEAST, two new animated films about red-haired 5-year-old Maggie and her big polka-dotted stuffed animal friend. Based on the children’s books by Michael and Betty Paraskevas, the stories are about friendship and a trick or treat adventure on a spooky night.
Good kid stuff from Nelvana Enterprises and Shout! Factory.

It makes you wonder… teenagers drink alcohol at home parties and then get killed as drivers or passengers in cars, but SUPERBAD, one of the hit movies in theaters right now is about two teenage boys who are, according to the press release, “on a quest for alcohol to impress the foxy host of a party.” Co-author of the screenplay, Seth Rogan, plays “an inept cop who ends up carousing with the teens.” The movie, although about teenagers, also attracted older moviegoers -- 40 percent of them over 30 -- to theaters that took in $312 million in its first week. It’s supposed to be a very funny movie, but one wonders why Sony Pictures would risk fanning the flames of teenage drinking. And critics love it.

I really liked Matt Damon’s first two BOURNE thrillers, but will skip the new one, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, after learning from Roger Ebert’s review that it makes audiences dizzy and sick enough that one woman vomited on a person sitting next to her. It’s filmed largely with hand-held cameras that heighten the action but can make you dizzy, and the average scene is 2 seconds long. I call that much too short, like the quick cuts in rock concert videos. Sure, kids and many twenty- and thirty-somethings like their movies hyper-active like they are, and their attention spans are not much more than 2 seconds long, but I won’t even watch such stuff on DVD much less see it in a theater where the person next to me might upchuck their lunch on me.

On the positive side, thanks Leonardo DiCaprio for being executive producer of and narrating THE 11TH HOUR, a “green” documentary in theaters now in which scientists and environmentalists tell how urgent it is to solve the many ecological problems facing the world. “It’s about creating public awareness about how we are all interconnected on this issue (protecting and preserving the environment),” says the star and board member of both the Natural Resources Defense Council and Global Green USA. “This is a problem that faces all of mankind. It’s all of us in our world working together.” Maybe he ought to ask President Bush to see the movie.