Day: January 14, 2011

LFM Mini-Review: The Green Hornet

By Jason Apuzzo. THE PITCH: Seth Rogan drops 400 lbs. and attempts to bring nebbish humor to the role of Britt Reid, wealthy Los Angeles scion to a newspaper dynasty who is also secretly the masked crimefighter-vigilante The Green Hornet.

THE SKINNY: It’s a film that might’ve worked had the spectacularly miscast Rogan not been its star, co-screenwriter and executive producer. Not even a slick, stylish Jay Chou as Kato, a fabulous stunt-car (The Black Beauty) or a perky Cameron Diaz can save this colossal turkey from the boring, bloated pseudo-star/narcissist at its core.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK:

• Seth Rogan, the film’s black hole. His titanic ego – unsupported by any actual talent or personal warmth – sucks all life out of the film, and basically ruins whatever slim chances The Green Hornet had to entertain.

• Christoph Waltz, playing a neurotic Russian gangster. His entire role is like a joke that someone keeps re-telling at a party, even after nobody laughed the first time. I felt sorry for him. With that said, it’s nice to finally see Russians replace Italians as the urban villain-of-choice.

• The film’s erratic stabs at humor, which never really gel. Rogan is simply not funny enough as a writer, and is otherwise way out of his league as an actor carrying a film of this size. His lame efforts, paunch and Borscht Belt schtick remind you of how good the Lethal Weapon films were back in the day when they were clicking.

• The action scenes, which never really take flight – although it was fun seeing The Black Beauty take an elevator ride late in the film. I didn’t know cars could fit in elevators.

WHAT WORKS:

• It seems almost impossible that anyone could step into Bruce Lee’s shoes as Kato, yet Taiwanese singer-actor Jay Chou does a nice job of it – exuding a stoic cool, unexpected humor and great martial arts moves. The fight sequences, shot in ‘Kato Vision’ (a combination of ‘bullet-time’ and exaggerated, forced-perspective 3D) worked nicely enough – although there weren’t nearly enough of them.

• The stylish Black Beauty (an Imperial Crown), a car almost as iconic in its day as the Batmobile, is brought back to life with some nice weaponry and gadgets (‘infra-green’ headlights!).

• Cameron Diaz somehow manages the unthinkable by extracting humor and warmth out of a nothing role as Lenore Case, Britt Reid’s personal assistant. I really hope she got paid a lot for being in this film.

Cameron Diaz as Lenore Case.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Hollywood – Sony in this case – has just ruined a great ‘property’ from its past.

A few months ago I happened to pick up a bootleg copy of the entire, original Green Hornet TV series – starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee – and I’ve been enjoying it ever since. (I’m aware, by the way, that there have been many incarnations of The Green Hornet – including on radio, in film serials and in comic books.) The old show was stylish, cool, and somehow more menacing than most standard comic book-style fare. In fact, The Green Hornet may be the only comic book character I actually like, and I was eager to see him brought to the big screen.

What’s great about the original TV series is that the Britt Reid character has no superpowers whatsoever; he’s just this cool, retro-mod guy, with the ultimate bad-ass kung fu partner (I will not stoop to calling the great Bruce Lee a ‘sidekick’) – who spends most of his time acting like the underworld hoods he’s secretly pursuing. And when he’s off work, he kicks back with a cocktail and plots strategy with his sexy secretary. What’s not to like here?

Van Williams brought a subdued intensity to the role; his overcoat, mask and fedora were really the entire character – there wasn’t much else to speak of. And the music – with the jazz trumpet solo by Al Hirt – gave the show the perfect, swinging vibe for the time.

But I was under no illusions about what this new film was going to be like, once Seth Rogan got involved. A project that should’ve been done straight – and most definitely not like a Woody Allen routine – Rogan has instead turned this new film into a vehicle for stupid humor, gross-out jokes and cheap sentimentality. You might say that Rogan has the reverse Midas touch, in that everything he touches turns to lead rather than gold. Someone like Hugh Jackman, or maybe even Affleck – the newer, wiser Affleck – might’ve been perfect to play Britt Reid … but in any case, Seth Rogan should’ve been kept by armed guard about 2,000 miles away from this film. What  the hell did Sony owe him to give him this?

Anyway, save yourself the trouble of watching this mess – whether in 3D, IMAX or on a cheap bootleg. Rogan will sting you in any format you choose.

Posted on January 14th, 2011 at 10:29pm.

LFM Review: Zhao Liang’s Crime and Punishment

By Joe Bendel. Imagine the Keystone Cops with a severe mean streak. That is pretty much what you get from the Chinese military police stationed in a hardscrabble village on the North Korean border. Watching a full day of these officers on the job is not a pretty picture, but it is often quite absurd. Such is the nature of Chinese criminal justice subversively documented by Zhao Liang in Crime and Punishment (trailer above), which screens at the Anthology Film Archives in conjunction with the long-awaited theatrical release of Zhao’s devastating Petition.

Distributed by dGenerate Films, the specialists in independent Chinese cinema, Punishment watches fly-on-the-wall style as the recruits of the People’s Armed Police (PAP) gruffly patrol the isolated border town in hopes of a more permanent and prestigious assignment at the end of their two year tours. Essentially temps, the young men do not seem to be concerned with forging any rapport with the locals. Beatings are pretty much par for the course, as the soldiers quickly demonstrate during their first case of the day.

A severely hard-of-hearing man is hauled in on suspicion of stealing a cell-phone, with the obvious irony therein completely lost on the PAP. When their interrogation flounders, they first resort to public humiliation, eventually falling back on a good old-fashioned beating. “Turn off the cameras” they instruct Zhao. We will be hearing those words several times more before the film ends.

Although they do not physically assault the subject of their next investigation, their behavior towards a dirt poor farmer collecting scrap metal without a dozen government permits filed in triplicate is arguably crueler. Watching them badger and berate the clueless old man feels like one of the longest, most uncomfortable sequences ever captured on film.

As the day progresses, it looks like the coppers might be doing some legitimate police work when they launch a manhunt for a suspected killer. However, the only prey we see them bag is a desperate farmer poaching firewood to sell for New Year’s gifts for his children. Even the arresting officers have misgivings after seeing the suspect’s truly mean living conditions. Unfortunately, they had already administered the requite beat-down by this point.

Although Zhao basically cuts the camera when he is told, he still leaves no question as to the nature of what happens shortly thereafter. Like most Digital Generation filmmakers, Zhao eschews artificial conventions like voice-over narration and talking head interview segments. Aside from a few Dragnet like title cards explaining what happened to suspects after their questioning/thrashing, Zhao simply captures the scene in his lens, letting each character speak for himself through his behavior.

While Punishment does not have the same emotional heft as Petition, it is still a rather shocking expose of the Chinese criminal justice system. Yet, for all the abuse and intimidation meted out by the PAP, their actual results are less than impressive. After three investigations and much thuggery, they have less than one thousand Yuan in fines to show for their efforts. Daring in its own right, the unvarnished Punishment is definitely worth seeing when it screens at Anthology Film Archives Saturday (1/15) and Sunday (1/16) in conjunction with Zhao’s staggering Petition.

Posted on January 14th, 2011 at 6:48pm.