"Talk To Her" (2002)

(Originally released as Hable Con Ella)

Starring: Javier Camara, Dario Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Gonzalez, Mariola Fuentes

First, the Lowdown: Two men try to reconcile their love for two women, who are both comatose.

Seeing this movie makes me glad that I live alone with two cats. The curtain rises, showing two dancers in a room full of chairs. They stalk forward, their eyes closed like somnambulists. A man is on the stage with them, knocking the chairs aside to clear a path. In the audience two men, Marco and Begnino, watch the scene. Marco is moved to tears by the performance, much to the distraction of Begnino.

The next day, Marco, a newspaper reporter, watches a television interview with Lydia, a famous FEMALE bullfighter, who abruptly halts the interview because the questions are too personal. Immediately smitten with the headstrong woman, Marco approaches her under the pretense to interview her himself. Lydia is annoyed at his request, but when Marco dispatches a snake from her kitchen, she warms up to him and they begin dating. The relationship seems steady until Lydia is gored by a bull at a headlining match, and winds up comatose from her injuries.

Begnino is an orderly for a coma ward, personally attending to Alicia, a girl in who has been in a vegetative state for four years. Alicia used to train at the dance academy across the street from where Begnino lived, and daily he would watch her practice, nursing a crush that he could not act upon. Until one day, Alicia drops her wallet on the sidewalk, and Begnino sees his opportunity to break the ice. Unfortunately nothing further happened, because Alicia would be struck by a car the next day.

As much as I hate plagiarizing someone else’s work, another review once compared the characters of Begnino and Marco to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza respectively. Begnino proclaims his love to someone who not only could not respond, would probably not recognize him because of how briefly they interacted. A social recluse, Begnino frequently has to be pulled back to reality by the awake and fully conscious Marco.

The performing arts also are used rather metaphorically in this film: dance presentations bookend the film, Marco confesses his lingering attachment for a failed relationship to Lydia during an outdoor concert; Begnino retells a very disturbing (and Freudian) silent film to the unconscious Alicia. Each performance underscores what the two characters feel subconsciously.

Line of the movie: “The female mind is difficult to understand. Even more so in this state.”

Four and a half stars. I need a hug

"The Omega Man" (1971)

Starring: Charlton Heston, Anthony Zerbe, Rosalind Cash, Eric Laneuville, Lincoln Kirkpatrick.

First, the Lowdown: The last man alive has to fight an army of apocalyptic albino fanatics.

I’m gonna sum this movie up quickly for those who’ve never seen it, then spend the rest of this column ranting. Robert Neville is the last man on earth. After a biological weapon unleashed its deadly payload on the human population, Neville is the only one who managed to get inoculated with an experimental vaccine. So he spends his days talking to himself, foraging for supplies, keeping up on his exercise regimen, and “borrowing” cars from dealerships. However, he is not necessarily alone because not everyone who contracted the plague died instantly. A sparse handful instead developed a latent form of Hollywoodized albinism (which bears no resemblance to the actual affliction) and a whopping load of paranoid schizophrenia. These “survivors” are under the leadership of a former newscaster who preaches a form post-apocolyptic Luddism that makes the Heaven’s Gaters look like the Banana Splits. (That’s right, the David Koresh of the empty earth is Tom Brokaw.) They hate Neville (and how could you hate someone as cuddly as Chuck “I’m the NRA” Heston?) because he reminds them of the technological world that was destroyed, and have regular rallies every evening (they’re albino, so that means no sun, right?) burning books and paintings and making feeble attempts to kill him that never work because they refuse to use firearms. While on another “shopping trip”, Neville discovers a woman who also hasn’t contracted the creepy albinism (and acts like Cleopatra Jones). She leads Neville to a hideaway in the country that is home to a med school student and a dozen kids. Apparently children have a resistance to the plague that eventually wears away as they get older. Having a new goal, Neville applies a little whetstone rhinoplasty and seeks out a way to extract the vaccine from his blood.

There are several unifying factors that occur in the Chuck Heston Troika Of Sci-Fi films (yes, I’m lumping both of his Planet of the Apes movies into ONE franchise). First, they never really hold up terribly well to the test of time. Admittedly, when the were made, they were pretty applicable and definitely creepy, but when the opening shot demonstrates the stunning innovation of an 8-track stereo, it’s applicability begins to fade a bunch. Second, they all present a fascinating idea and then eschew it so Heston can chew on scenery (Planet of the Apes doesn’t do this as much, but it is the first of the CHTOSF to be made). Third, they present Heston in a role ill-suited for his acting style. Both Omega Man and Apes have him playing a scientist, but I guess it’s the two-fisted variety you normally find in the old 1930s serials. (Soylent Green manages to sidestep this a bit by having him play a cop.) And finally, they manage to produce antagonists that are more interesting and intelligent than the hero. For a scientist, Neville makes a lot of stoopid decisions. (Example: he avoids the dark because that’s when the creepy albinos roam. So why does he go to an abandoned theater to watch a MOVIE! If Heston is the last hope for mankind, we’re fucked.) Matthias, the leader of the creepy luddites, has all of the good lines. And for someone who’s running a clearance sale in the crazy department, Matthias can debate circles around Neville.

Again, for those who don’t know, Omega Man was based off of the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend and is the second movie to do so. The other, Last Man On Earth stars Vincent Price and I’ve been told it’s quite good. (It’s in my queue so you’ll have to wait.) But brace yourselves, folks, I’ve found out that a THIRD adaptation is in the works. They manage to use the title of the novel this time, but it’s starring Will Smith and directed by the man who made the eye-rollingly mediocre Constantine. (At least it doesn’t have Nicholas “the Dolph Lundgren of the 21st Century” Cage in it.)

Line of the movie: “Definition of a scientist - a man who understands nothing until there was nothing left to understand.”

Three stars. Turn off that light.

"Amores Perros" (2000)

Starring: Emilio Echevarria, Gael Garcia Bernal, Goya Toledo, Alvaro Guerrero, Vanessa Bauche

First, the Lowdown: A car accident unites three bittersweet love stories.

Octavio is in love. Unfortunately the object of his affection, Susana, is already married to Octavio’s abusive older brother Ramiro. This does not dissuade Octavio, however, and he fantasizes about escaping with Susana to a better life. One day his friend informs him that Ramiro’s dog, Cofi, just killed a champion prize fighting mutt. Sensing inspiration, Octavio takes Cofi to a dog fighting promoter to earn extra cash. When a match turns sour, Octavio and his friend flee in a car, only to crash at an intersection.

Daniel is in love. Having left his wife for Valeria, a supermodel, his life is happy at first. Then Valeria gets into a car accident that severely damages her leg. To make matters worse, while playing with her dog Richie, it chases a ball down a hole in the floor of her apartment and gets lost in the sub-flooring. And worse still, her agent tells her that because of her accident, her lucrative contract for a perfume line has been pulled. Meanwhile, Daniel has no idea how to cope with the situation. He loves Valeria, but the combination of depression and physical pain make her lash out.

El Chivo is no longer in love. A former guerrilla for the Zapatista movement, El Chivo now lives his life as a vagrant with a pack of dogs. For money he is a contract killer hired through a policeman. Ever escaping his past, he drifts from day to day until reading about his estranged wife’s funeral in the paper. Memories rushing back to him, El Chivo reconciles with finding a way to contact his long lost daughter, who thought he had died when she was two years old.

The great thing about this movie is while it does borrow heavily from the Quentin Tarantino School of storytelling with its interweaving chapters, it manages to do correctly without looking too imitative. This movie is not for the faint hearted, there is a lot of animal abuse going on during the film, and anyone who’s lost a dear pet (or had them badly injured) will find themselves more than a little moved.

Line of the movie: “I hoped after I saved the world that I would return to you.”

Four and a half stars. Let’s have a war.

"Temptress Moon" (1996)

(Originally released as Feng Yue)

Starring: Leslie Cheung, Gong Li, Kevin Lin, Caifei He, Shih Chang, Liankun Lin, Xiangting Ge

First, the Lowdown: A blackmailing gigolo returns to the stately manor he was once a servant in.

What can I say, I gotta fetish for Chinese period dramas. That being said, Temptress Moon is kind of an odd duck, both for its story and the time period it represents. Zhongliang is the servant to his sister Xiuyi and brother-in-law Zhengda. Zhengda is the reigning heir of the Pang clan. Like his father and younger sister, Zhengda is thoroughly addicted to opium. Tired of being mistreated by his brother-in-law, Zhongliang runs away to Shanghai under the pretense of schooling there.

Fast forward a few years. The eldest Pang has passed away and Zhengda has contracted some mysterious malady that has left him an invalid. With great reluctance, the clan elders pass leadership on to the younger sister, Ruyi. Duanwu, a distaff cousin is assigned to watch over her with the expectation that he’ll be making the decisions more than her. That’s thrown out the window, however, when Duanwu sides with Ruyi’s decision to send the concubines of the elder Pangs out of the estate instead of letting them serenely retire.

Meanwhile, Zhongliang has been seducing women left and right in Shanghai to blackmail them out of money. When his boss finds out about the change of leadership in the wealthy Pang family, he implores Zhongliang to use his familiarity with the clan to exploit the situation. Zhonglian sees the opportunity to avenge himself after being their servant for so long, but finds himself oddly enamored with the awkward Ruyi.

The movie is shot like an episode of Red Shoe Diaries, probably to emphasize the opium haze that most of the characters wander in an out of. The thing that makes Temptress Moon more fascinating than most period pieces is that it illustrates the culture shock between the long-standing Chinese aristocracy and the sudden westernization of the country.

Line of the movie: “In Shanghai men and women are at war.”

Three and a half stars. Don’t walk.

"The Crime of Padre Amaro" (2002)

(Originally released as El Crimen Del Padre Amaro)

Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Ana Claudia Talancon, Sancho Gracia, Angelica Aragon, Luisa Huertas

First, the Lowdown: A newly ordained priest finds himself swayed by corruption and his sex drive.

The Catholic Church seems to be guilt-driven. It’s like they’re trying to corner the market on it. Couple that with their sexual stigmas and edicts against birth control, it’s easy to see why not a day goes by when some priest is caught with his cassock around his ankles. As a religion, Catholicism also seems to bring out the crazy in people. Some of the nutsiest individuals I’ve encountered were raised Roman Orthodox. (Like the woman I worked with who was experimenting with her bisexuality, smoked pot regularly, and had sex daily. But LOVED going to confession.) Any religion that encourages flagellation to repel lust CAN’T be good for you.

Padre Amaro is a strapping young priest freshly ordained and appointed to a position in the remote Mexican community of Los Reyes. He is to assist the local Padre, Benito, with the expectation that he will be working for the diocese. Not long after getting settled, Amaro finds that Benito only personally adheres to the laws of both the church and the land as he sees fit – while hypocritically condemning those who refuse to obey them.

To further complicate things, a local drug lord has been laundering money through donations to the church, which is using them to build a hospital. Furthermore, the local villages have been resisting as well as they can against the drug lords’ increasing grip. Padre Natalia has been helping the villagers as best as he can, only to be accused of harboring guerrillas by the church.

Enter Amelia, a girl whose love for the church has interfered with her relationship with her boyfriend, Ruben, who leaves her to take a journalism position in another town. When Amelia sees the handsome Padre Amaro, her attraction is almost instant and her piety begins to have a carnal tinge to it. Amaro, who has already voiced his problems with his vow of chastity, finds himself becoming more and more attracted to her.

For a movie that is listed as being controversial, it seems pretty pedestrian. The soundtrack seems to underscore the characters’ guilt a little TOO much. And for a movie that posits collusion between the Church and drug smugglers, it keeps fluctuating in its opinion of that union. Finally, multiple valid points are brought up in the movie and only ONE of them is resolved, and that’s done by killing off a leading character.

Line of the movie: “Amid blasphemy, there is forgiveness.”

Three stars. Keep rockin’.

"Farewell My Concubine" (1993)

(Originally released as Ba Wang Bie Ji)

Starring: Leslie Cheung, Fengyi Zhang, Gong Li, Qi Lu, Da Ying, You Ge, Chun Li, Han Lei

First, the Lowdown: Two actors find their lives intertwined both on an off stage.

A little background here: Farewell My Concubine is the name of a famous Chinese tragic opera that’s a combination of Les Miserables and Richard III. Xiang Yu, the ancient Chu overlord, is at war to unify all of China. His enemy, Liu Bang, has him surrounded on all sides. Sensing defeat, Xiang Yu orders his horse and his concubine to leave his side so that they may save themselves. But neither one obeys him and when Xiang Yu’s back is turned, his concubine uses his sword to kill herself.

Winter, the mid-1920s: a Beijing prostitute pleads with the head of an opera troupe to take her son in. Initially refusing because of the child’s extra finger, they accept him in when the woman cuts it off. Frightened and confused, the boy, Douzi, finds himself under the protective arm of one the troupe’s more charismatic members, Shitou. Because the Chinese dramatic arts do not allow women to perform on stage, the effeminate Douzi is taught as a female lead, whereas the athletic Shitou is cast in male roles. As the years progress, the pair impress the director of the prestigious Beijing Opera company with their performance of Farewell My Concubine.

Fifteen years later, Douzi has taken the name Dieyi Cheng and Shitou is now called Xiaolou Duan. Both are extremely popular on stage and well renowned throughout the town for their performance of Farewell My Concubine. However, where Xiaolou enjoys the fame and money of acting, Dieyi finds him identifying with his female roles almost too well. So when Xiaolou woos a prostitute and they wed, Dieyi sees it as a threat to his love of Xiaolou. And as the years would promise, that would be the least of their worries.

Farewell My Concubine has been praised as a politically-charged drama about the history of China in the 20th century. Originally enough, it portrays the fall of the Chinese Imperial rule, the subsequent occupation by the Japanese, the Communist revolution, and ultimately Mao Tse-Tong’s insane “Cultural Revolution” through the eyes of the least political members of society.

Line of the movie: “Has he not truly blurred the line between stage and male and female?”

Four and a half stars. Clap your hands, stomp your feet.

"Y Tu Mama Tambien" (2001)

Starring: Diego Luna, Gael Garcia Bernal, Maribel Verdu, Ana Lopez Mercado, Nathan Grinberg

First, the Lowdown: It’s a Mexican teen sex comedy.

Yes, that’s right: I called the critically acclaimed movie a teen sex comedy. I’ll get into why in just a second. Tenoch and Julio are two Mexican teens who have just finished school. After seeing their girlfriends off on their European trip, the two friends find themselves with nothing to do over the summer except for fooling around, getting high, and general wankery.

At the wedding of a distant relative they encounter Luisa, an attractive woman several years their senior. Being young, brazen, and slightly inebriated, the two flirt with her and tell her of a secluded beach called “Heaven’s Mouth” (a place that only exists in their minds.) The later find out that Luisa is married to Tenoch’s cousin, a college professor and published writer.

The summer continues uneventfully, a party here, a joint there, when Tenoch gets an unexpected phone call from Luisa. It turns out that her husband has confessed to cheating on her and now wants to take the opportunity to see the unspoiled beauty of Heaven’s Mouth. Tenoch and Julio, both ecstatic at the opportunity to seduce Luisa, scurry together to complete their plan. After getting mumbled directions from their stoner friend Saba, borrowing the car from Julio’s sister, shopping for supplies and picking up Luisa, they set out for Heaven’s Mouth. With no idea where they are going.

“Tambien” qualifies as a sex comedy mainly because it is the characters sexuality that drives the plot forward. Luisa’s first attempt at seducing one of the teens starts out awkward (and oddly reminiscent of infamous “Mrs. Robinson” scene from The Graduate) with the boy having no idea what to do when his bluff has been called. When finally born out, the sex act that occurs is more embarrassing than sensual: it ends far too quickly for Luisa (probably because her partner is too used to having brief moments to get it over with before he is discovered), thusly dashing her fantasy of seducing an energetic, young stud.

That being said, the movie is very political without trying to be. Tenoch is the son of the current Secretary of State; Julio’s family is middle class; so neither of them has been confronted with the poverty of their fellow countrymen on a daily basis. (As an aside, it is refreshing to see a movie that takes place in Mexico where the main characters are NOT impoverished.) As their journey takes them further and further away from their home town, they see the reality of what the peasantry in the outlying countryside has to do in order to survive. To further bring this point home, the Narrator comes in and interrupts the ambient noise to give back history of the current scene.

It’s a very telling movie that goes a lot into how Mexican people of all backgrounds live in their country.

Line of the movie: “Life is like the surf, so give yourself away like the sea.”

Four and a half stars. I got my mojo working.

"Opera" (1987)

Starring: Cristina Marsillach, Ian Charleson, Urbano Barberini, Daria Nicolodi, Coralina Cataldi Tassoni

First, the lowdown: It’s Phantom of the Opera; ‘cept differnt.

Dario Argento was a director recommended to me by one of my co-workers who considers himself a horror gourmand. The coworker is a guitarist in a death-metal band, so I figure he knows what he’s talking about. In fact, he’s the one who recommended Cannibal Ferox to me. However, my previous forays into his work left me with a rather weird opinion of the man’s style: all of them were beautifully shot, framed, and edited, but there was a permeating goofiness behind it all that ruined it. Suspiria was boring and had only two disturbing scenes in it (falling waist deep into razor wire and the ol’ hat pins through the eyes gag); Tenebre was suspenseful in pieces, but then JOHN SAXON! would open his mouth and ruin it; and Phenomena had a disturbingly hot preteen Jennifer Connelly falling into a pit of maggots, but it also had someone being knifed to death by a crazed monkey. (I recently found out before I started analyzing movies as a hobby, I had already seen a crappy remake of Phantom Of The Opera that was directed by Argento and features a scene of Julian Sands sticking rats down his pants. Ew.)

That being said, Opera left me pleasantly surprised. Not only was it brilliantly shot and edited, but the plot line and acting in it was so solid and gripping enough that one could overlook the semi-triteness that the dialog would sometimes slip into. The movie opens up with a rehearsal for Verdi’s Macbeth (as directed by Michael Bay, apparently) interrupted by the production’s prissy Prima Donna; she can’t stand the ravens that are being used as live set dressing and storms out to be hit by a car. (A technical aside: what’s beautiful about this opener is that it takes place almost entirely in one take using a very long reverse follow shot.) Our diva is not more than two steps from the theatre when she’s struck by a car and put out of commission.

Our lovely understudy, Betty, has just been given the good news. She, however, is extremely nervous about the whole affair and wants to back out of it at the last minute, but the prodding of her agent and the director bolster her confidence. While she rushes to practice, we notice that there was someone watching through the air vent. Meanwhile, production goes on as planned (except for a faceless psycho killing an usher, resulting in a falling stage light), and at opening night, our understudy finds herself to be the toast of the town.

After the show, Betty hooks up with the stage director and goes home with him there. An attempt at intimacy fails because Betty is still jittery over her performance, so the stage director leaves the room for something to drink. While she waits, however, a masked figure ties her up, gags her, and applies tape mounted sewing needles just under her eyes to prevent her from closing them. Betty is then forced to watch our masked psycho cut the stage director into bloody ribbons. The psycho then cuts Betty free of her bonds and escapes into the night.

Production seems to return to normal however, even after the stage director’s untimely death. Betty, however is getting more and more paranoid as people she finds herself alone with end up getting themselves deadified right in front of her. Meanwhile a police inspector starts interviewing the other cast members for clues to the murders, but Betty hasn’t told anyone that she’s witnessed any of them so they don’t focus on her too much. Finally after she watches her costumer get stabbed and then her corpse abused profusely, Betty breaks down and confides everything to her agent.

It’s a great movie and Argento’s technical expertise shows rather well in it. Many of the killings are fairly bloodless for a giallo flick. (The aforementioned wardrobe mistress is cut open with scissors, with the act being heard more than seen.) The only undermining factor for this movie happens to be more of a personal issue with me than anything else: Our police inspector is played by Urbano Barberini, who played Tarl Cabot in both Gor movies; if the first thing you see someone in is a leather thong, it’s hard to take them seriously again. (I’m looking at you Marc Singer.)

Line of the movie: “I heard all sopranos were horny as hell.” Our wayward stage director comes to terms with his blue-balls.

Five stars. Eat your greens.

"The Motorcycle Diaries" (2004)

(Originally released as Diarios de Motocicleta)

First, the lowdown: A biochemist and medical student travel throughout South America.

Ernesto “Fuser” Guevara (before he was called “Che”) and Alberto Granado are two friends seeking some last-minute adventure before graduating from medical school. A colleague of one of Alberto’s teachers has a lead on a residency position they can fill, at a leper colony in Peru. Rather than taking a plane or some other speedy method of conveyance, the pair instead relies on a rickety 1939 Norton motorcycle to carry them to their destination.

I’m not terribly abreast of the history of “Che” Guevara. Other than the fact he had a hand in the Cuban revolution and that his image is considered an icon for armchair revolutionaries, there’s not much I know or have read about the man. This is probably why I’m coloring my review the way I am. Outside of the whole “he grew up to free Cuba” subtext of the movie, “The Motorcycle Diaries” comes off as a weak attempt to emulate Wim Wender’s road movies, with obligatory scenes where “Fuser” is faced with the oppression of the lower classes to embolden his revolutionary thought.

The movie looks pretty at least, without resorting to anything terribly experimental. Ernesto and Alberto explore the awe-inspiring Macchu Picchu in a scene with very little talking, save for the diary’s narration. The oppressed peasants that “Fuser” encounters are burned into his memory in a sequence of black and white shots. Each country they visit has a distinctive “feel” to it.

But in conclusion, if it weren’t for the fact that “Fuser” would later become “Che”, what you have is a pretty movie where two friends hit the open road for adventure and chase tail, and eventually end up at a leper colony where they inspire the staff and the infirmed. Without the prior knowledge of how important our leads (or at least one of them) were to be, there isn’t enough characterization here to give a damn about them. In fact, the outgoing and frequently bellicose Alberto seems to have more solidity to his character than the soft-spoken and vaporous Ernesto.

Line of the movie: “You gotta fight for every breath and tell death to go to hell.”

Three and a half stars. I want a pony.