Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Indiana Jones Revival Arriving on DVD

The good news is that Harrison Ford is up to the challenge of his physically-demanding role as Indiana Jones after a 19-year hiatus. However, the production is slightly lacking in terms of generating a certain intangible called movie magic. Maybe the problem lies with the fact that the film will automatically be measured against the storied franchise’s earlier installments.
Gone is that palpable sense of urgency which glued you to the edge of your seat, a failing perhaps due to an increased dependency on computer-generated imagery. So, instead of performing stunts, Ford spends his time faking it in front of a blue screen, although still sporting his trademark whip and fedora.
The story unfolds in 1957 in the Nevada desert where we learn that Indy has been kidnapped by Russian spies led by the steely Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett). Tied up in the trunk of a car, he’s driven to a secret U.S. Air Force base rumored to be holding the mummified remains of a Martian. This is of interest to the KGB which wants the alien’s corpse, for legend has it that it might contain the mysterious Crystal Skull, an ancient artifact said to be capable of unlocking limitless powers.
Of course, ingenious Indy escapes from his captors in spectacular fashion and the race is on to find the priceless icon. Along the way, he teams up with Mutt (Shia LaBeouf), a Harley-riding, rebel, and with Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), an old flame he hasn’t seen since he was looking for the Lost Ark.
The ensuing expedition to the jungles of Peru is less edgy and dangerous than comfy and nostalgic. Just thank your lucky stars that Harrison Ford still has the charisma to reinvent one of the most-beloved characters in screen history.

Very Good (3 stars)
Rated PG-13 for violence and frightening images.
Running time: 124 minutes
Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment
2-Disc DVD Extras: A dozen featurettes, plus several galleries.

Kabluey DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: DVD Features Lisa Kudrow in Stop-Loss Comedy

This charming screwball comedy generates plenty of laughter while simultaneously ever so subtly addressing several sobering themes. It’s based on a semi-autobiographical tale by Scott Prendergrast whose own brother was stop-loss into a tour of duty in the Middle East. He co-stars opposite Lisa Kudrow who exhibits her trademark charm, perfect comic timing and an endearing emotional range in a role intermittently calling for a certain gravitas.
The story revolves around emotionally and financially challenged Leslie (Kudrow) who has stoically been trying to hold down the fort since her husband Noah’s (Phil Thoden) National Guard unit shipped out to Iraq. Between working full-time and raising their two boys (Cameron Wofford and Landon Henninger) alone, the frazzled mom barely has any downtime to relax, let alone worry about Noah’s safety.
The sort of help she doesn’t exactly need arrives when her unemployed brother-in-law, Salman (Prendergrast), shows up needing a place to crash, having recently been fired from an entry-level position as a clerk at a copy store. He proves to be so pathetic as a babysitter, that she instead finds him a job at her real estate company as its corporate mascot, Kabluey.
Much of the ensuing slapstick emanates from his interacting with strangers while standing on the street passing out flyers at the height of summer in a heat-seeking baby blue outfit covering him from head to toe. Meanwhile, there is a disarming darkness and depth to Leslie’s character, whose evolution hints at the plausible plight of countless similarly-situated Army wives in real life.
A worthwhile “melan-comedy” (a term coined by Prendergast) which delivers a feminist statement merely by questioning the conventional patriotic wisdom that all wars are fought for God, mom and apple pie.

Excellent (4 stars)
Rated PG-13 for sexuality, a crude reference and brief profanity.
Running time: 86 minutes
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Features: 25 deleted scenes.

To see a trailer of Kabluey, visit: http://youtube.com/watch?v=o24NNR8o9a0

Nights and Weekends

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Earnest Romance Drama Examines Emotional Challenges of Long-Distance Relationship in Flux

Mattie (Greta Gerwig) lives in New York while her boyfriend James (Joe Swanberg) makes his home in Chicago, and the distance between them tends to heighten the intensity of the precious little time they get to spend together, for better or worse. Whether they’re feeling pangs of passion, pettiness, jealousy or doubt, their emotions always seem to remain right on the surface.
Less a fully-fleshed out story, than an impressionistic sketch flick which leaves the rudiments of plot structure to the viewer’s imagination, Nights and Weekends is, nonetheless, an engaging slice-of-life adventure as riveting as a train wreck. This claustrophobic feature zeroes-in microscopically on modern-day battle of the sexes, in a manner most reminiscent to such other low-budget pix as Four Eyed Monsters and Swanberg’s own LOL.
Here, Mr. Swanberg shares writing and directorial credits with his comely co-star, which makes sense since most of the script sounds almost improvised. Fortunately, the talented twosome share a compelling screen chemistry (despite not dating in real life) along with an uncanny knack for convincingly portraying characters wrestling with relationship issues.
The point of departure is the Windy City where we find Mattie just arriving at James’ modest crib. The sex-starved pair lovers are so in heat that they tear each other’s clothes off, with the camera capturing full-frontal nudity, including explicit evidence of arousal, if not penetration. In fact, in the spirit of cinema verite we’re later treated to the sight of Mattie not only relieving herself on the toilet but wiping herself as well.
Eventually, the action fast-forwards a year and we learn that things have deteriorated from a state of pneumatic and romantic bliss to one of deception and distrust. Nights and Weekends turns out to be best during those introspective moments when we catch the protagonists musing aloud.
For example, Mattie worries whether or not they will remain together unless she anchors her man with a baby. Otherwise, she fears she’s fated to be reduced to a distant memory that James will refer to in a simple sound bite. He, on the other hand, exhibits his vulnerability by admitting that he has a mental image of himself as more handsome than the mirror reveals.
A frequent-flyer drama examining 21st Century mating habits.

Very Good (3 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 79 minutes
Studio: IFC Films

To see a trailer for Nights and Weekends, visit: http://www.nightsandweekendsmovie.com/trailer.html

Kam's Kapsules: Weekly Previews That Make Choosing a Film Fun

OPENING THIS WEEK
Kam's Kapsules:
Weekly Previews That Make Choosing a Film Fun
by Kam Williams
For movies opening October 17, 2008


BIG BUDGET FILMS

Max Payne (PG-13 for profanity, sexuality, intense violence and drug use) Mark Wahlberg stars in the title role of this revenge thriller about a DEA agent and an assassin (Mila Kunis) who join forces to find the killers responsible for the murder of his family and her sister. Cast includes Ludacris, Beau Bridges, Nelly Furtado, Chris O’Donnell, Donal Logue and Kate Burton (Richard’s daughter).

The Secret Life of Bees (PG-13 for violence and mature themes) Dakota Fanning stars in this Southern saga, set in the Sixties at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, about a motherless teen who runs away with her surrogate mom (Jennifer Hudson) from her abusive father (Paul Bettany) to a tiny South Carolina town where they are taken in by an eccentric trio of beekeeping sisters (Queen Latifah, Sophie Okonedo and Alicia Keys).

Sex Drive (R for crude humor, sexuality, nudity, and drug and alcohol use, all involving teens) Raunchy road comedy about an 18 year-old virgin (Josh Zuckerman) who steals his big brother’s (James Marsden) classic Pontiac GTO in order to drive with a couple of friends (Amanda Crew and Clark Duke) from Chicago to Knoxville where he expects to rendezvous with a temptress (Katrina Bowden) he met over the internet.

W. (PG-13 for profanity, sexual references, smoking, alcohol abuse and disturbing war images) Josh Brolin plays the President in this bio-pic directed by Oliver Stone recounting the checkered career of George W. Bush. With Elizabeth Banks as his wife, Laura, Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice, Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney and Toby Jones as Karl Rove.


INDEPENDENT & FOREIGN FILMS

Azur & Asmar (Unrated) Animated fairytale about a couple of boys raised like brothers in a castle, one, a motherless, young aristocrat (Cyril Mourali), the other, the son (Karim M’Ruba) of the family nanny (Hiam Abbass), who grow up to find themselves rivals in a race to find a princess (Thissa d’Avila Bensalah) in a magical, faraway fantasyland. (In French and Arabic with subtitles)

The Elephant King (R for drug use, violence, profanity and sexual content) Intervention drama about a young introvert (Tate Ellington), sent by his domineering mother (Ellen Burstyn) to Thailand to bring his decadent brother (Jonno Roberts) back to America, who finds himself falling in love for the first time with a local girl (Florence Faivre) while wondering whether he’s arrived too late to save his self-destructive sibling. (In English and Thai with subtitles)

Filth and Wisdom (Unrated) Madonna makes her directorial debut with this “Three’s Company” sitcom about the misadventures of a cross-dressing Russian immigrant (Eugene Hutz) who shares a London flat with two roommates: a ballerina-turned-stripper (Holly Weston) and a drug store clerk (Vicky McClure) with a bleeding heart. (In English and Russian with subtitles)

Frontrunners (Unrated) Egghead documentary chronicles the campaign for student body president at Stuyvesant High School, the most competitive public high school, academically, in New York City.

Morning Light (PG for mild epithets and crude dialogue) Seafaring documentary about 15 intrepid young men and women who undergo a rigorous training regimen in order to race a 52-foot sloop across the ocean in a 2,300-mile sailing competition against some of the world’s top professional sailors.

Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie (Unrated) Missing Link documentary about the effort of a couple of best friends, Dallas Gilbert and Wayne Burton, to flush the ever-elusive Bigfoot from his hideout in the Appalachian Mountains near their Rust Belt hometown located in rural Ohio.

Tru Loved (Unrated) Homoerotic coming-of-age drama about the difficult adjustment a gay 16 year-old (Najarra Townsend) makes to her new school and surroundings after moving with her lesbian parents from San Francisco to a conservative, Southern California community. With Jasmine Guy, Bruce Vilanch, Nichelle Nichols, Jake Abel, Matthew Thompson and Alexandra Paul.

What Just Happened? (R for profanity, sexuality, violence and drug use) Barry Levinson directs this ensemble comedy about two weeks in the life of an unhappily-married movie producer (Robert De Niro) who’s desperate to get his next picture made. With Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Catherine Keener, Robin Wright Penn and Kristen Stewart, and also Sean Penn and Bruce Willis as themselves.

Who Does She Think She Is? (Unrated) Female empowerment documentary focusing on the lives of five women determined to balance motherhood, career and a host of other concerns on their own terms.

Sam Langford: Boxing’s Greatest Uncrowned Champion

by Clay Moyle
Bennett & Hastings Publishing
Hardcover, $29.95
436 pages, illustrated
ISBN: 978-1-934733-02-8



Book Review by Kam Williams

“In January of 1944, the New York Herald Tribune published ‘The Forgotten Man’… a story about Sam Langford, aka ‘The Boston Tar Baby,’ one of boxing’s greatest fighters… It related how only 18 years after his remarkable career Sam had completely disappeared from mainstream society and ended up blind and penniless.
Over 60 years later, Langford is once again relatively unknown among the general population… Why is that the case? How could a man, who was arguably one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters of all time and feared by men such as Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey, be overlooked?
To answer that question one must consider how difficult it was for a black-skinned man to make his way in American society during the early 20th Century.
n Excerpted from the Introduction (page 3)

Sam Langford (1886-1956) was born in Weymouth Falls, Nova Scotia,
a descendant of escaped slaves who had won their freedom in the 18th Century by taking up arms against their former masters during the American Revolution. One of six children in a family from a humble background, Sam ran away home in 1898, not long after the death of his mother. Eventually, he ended up in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he developed an interest in boxing.
Though only 5’ 7” tall, Langford proved to be an agile, clever and powerful puncher who pulverized his opponents, often taking on foes weighing more than his 170-180 pounds. He turned pro at 16, and soon found himself saddled with an array of colorful nicknames, including ‘The Boston Tar Baby,’ ‘The Boston Bone Crusher,’ “the Weymouth Wizard,’ ‘Old Ho Ho’ and ‘The Boston Terror’.
He went on to win 200 fights, 130 by knockout, over the course of an illustrious, 20 year career marred only by the fact that he was never able to land a title fight. This was due to a combination of racism and the reluctance of champions and top contenders to take him on.
Remember, this was the first quarter of the 20th Century, a time when many states still had laws on the books against staging bouts between blacks and whites. This was because American society had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and notions of white supremacy which would be threatened by the rise of the black athlete.
Consequently, Caucasians colleagues avoided him out of a fear of humiliation, while Jack Johnson did so because he could make more money fighting the latest “Great White Hope.” Sadly, despite being invariably respected by his contemporaries, Sam was denied a shot at a belt, and ultimately ended up blind and broke in Harlem, and a mere footnote in the annals of pugilism.
Now, thanks to Clay Moyle, the entire life of “The Forgotten Man” is entertainingly recounted in Sam Langford: Boxing’s Greatest Uncrowned Champion, a riveting, bittersweet biography which endeavors to afford this forgotten ring great his rightful place in history. A must read for any devoted fight fan.

Ripple Effect DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Forest Whitaker and Virginia Madsen Co-Star in Karma-Driven Drama

Amer Atrash (Philippe Caland) is an ambitious immigrant from Lebanon living in hot pursuit of the American Dream. The fledgling fashion designer has been so focused on finding the seed money to launch a trendy clothing line that he’s ended up neglecting his trophy wife Sherry (Virginia Madsen) and their adorable young daughter.
Then, when a prospective investor (John Billingsley) withdraws his promise of a $12 million line of credit, Amer watches as yet another foolproof plan blows up in his face, a pattern he’s become painfully familiar with. Fed up with being ignored, Sherry asks her husband to move into his office.
Left alone with his thoughts, he finds himself forced to confront a deep, dark secret he’s hidden from everyone, namely, that 15 years ago he hit Philip Blackman (Forest Whitaker) with his car, a pedestrian left paralyzed by the accident. Suddenly, Amer suspects that his inability to get his business off the ground might be the consequence of bad karma caused by his failure to help the unfortunate paraplegic.
So, he sets out to track down Philip to offer him financial support and to beg for forgiveness, and this quest for redemption sits at the center of Ripple Effect, a thought-provoking drama which takes some surprising twists and turns en route to resolution. For it turns out Phil he has no interest in pity, having long-since made peace with his lot in life.
Furthermore, he has a flourishing career as a college professor, as well as the love if not exactly the fidelity of a pretty wife (Minnie Driver) with whom he shares a rather unorthodox relationship. And when Phil won’t accept any money from Amer, this leads to a valuable lesson about what really matters.
Kudos to writer/director/co-star Philippe Caland for crafting such a refreshingly unpredictable cautionary tale filled with complex characters, and for coaxing inspired performances from an A-list cast topped by Forest Whitaker, Virginia Madsen and Minnie Driver.

Very Good (3 stars)
Rated R for profanity.
Running time: 83 minutes
Studio: Monterey Video
DVD Extras: Actor bios, “Thoughts from the Director” and “Behind-the-Scenes” featurettes, and the theatrical trailer.

To see a trailer for Ripple Effect, visit: http://www.montereymedia.com/independent/ripple_effect_trailer.html

Allah Made Me Funny

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Standup Concert Flick Features Muslim Kings of Comedy

You get a good idea just how hard it is being a Muslim in America since 9-11 thanks to Preacher Moss, Azhar “Az” Usman and Mohammed Amer, the trio of young Chicago area comedians featured in this enlightening concert flick. In much the way that The Original Kings of Comedy did for blacks, and The Kims of Comedy did for Asian-Americans, Allah Made Me Funny is a flick designed to make you laugh while looking at the lighter of side of life from the perspective of a specific minority.

Az wonders onstage why so many people think attending a “madrassah” has anything to do with radical Islam, when that’s simply the Arabic word for school. Meanwhile, Mohammed, whose mother was disappointed with her son’s political brand of comedy, says he’s not afraid of offending the government since he’s Palestinian and has no country to be deported to. Preacher blames Muslims for their present unpopular plight, because they don’t try to overhaul their image through advertising and lobbying like other ethnic groups.

Besides taking shots at themselves, these caustic comics joke about an array of subjects ranging from Jesus to Jews to the Bollywood movie formula to feeling left out at Christmas to ridiculous names of rap stars. While not as consistently hilarious as either the Kings or Kims of Comedy, Allah Made Me Funny is generally in good taste and is amusing enough to remain recommended as a worthwhile diversion.

Three Muslim Rodney Dangerfields complaining about not getting any respect on account of their religion.

Very Good (2.5 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 83 minutes
Studio: Truly Indie