One of Yasujiro Ozu’s most sublime films, this late Japanese silent (1932) describes the tragicomic disillusionment of two middle-class boys who see their father demean himself by groveling in front of his employer; it starts off as a hilarious comedy and gradually becomes darker. Ozu’s understanding of his characters and their social milieu is so profound and his visual stylewhich was much less austere and more obviously expressive during his silent periodso compelling that the film carries one along more dynamically than many of the director’s sound classics (including his semiremake 27 years later, the more purely comic Ohayo, which has plenty of beauties of its own). Though regarded in Japan mainly as a conservative director, Ozu was a trenchant social critic throughout his career, and the devastating understanding of social context that he shows here is full of radical implications. With Hideo Sugawara, Tatsu Saito, and Chishu Ryu. In Japanese with subtitles. 91 min. (JR) Read more
British documentarist Nick Broomfield (Soldier Girls, Lily Tomlin) was hired to document the preparations for an all-black stage musical, Body and Soul. Between its New York casting and its Munich opening, Broomfield encountered and precipitated a number of disasters and decided to make a stupefying film about themeveryone involved comes off rather badly, Broomfield included. If there’s any entertainment or edification to be gleaned from this masochistic navel gazing, I managed to miss it. (JR) Read more
Insofar as director Tom McLoughlin triesand abjectly failsto do with a nubile angel (Emmanuelle Beart) what Ron Howard did with a nubile mermaid in Splash, a more appropriate title for this dumb, cloddish movie might be Flap. Michael Knight receives a visit from the angel, causing jealous consternation in his girlfriend (Phoebe Cates) and other sundry complications, which are spun out endlessly. Some would-be satire about the efforts of the hero’s buddies and his girlfriend’s father to commercialize the angel is a good example of the pot calling the kettle black. Grossly overplayed and underproduced (the special effects and ethereal lighting aren’t even bargain basement Spielberg), this shaky vehicle doesn’t even begin to fly. (JR) Read more
Lou Diamond Phillips stars in this ineptly told and rather bathetic 1988 tale of a runaway teen who gets a job at a Texas horse ranch, renovates a 1911 Oldsmobile for a cross-country race, and gradually becomes involved in the lives of the family he lives witha crippled boy (Jordan Burton), his older sister (DeeDee Norton), and their father (Eli Cummins). (JR) Read more
Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd go on their third journey through time, this one winding up in the wild west, where Lloyd falls in love with schoolteacher Mary Steenburgen. Once again, Robert Zemeckis directed from a script he did with Bob Gale, and again Lea Thompson and Thomas F. Wilson costar. This is a good deal more likable than part two because the product plugs have been held back, and Zemeckis is clearly having fun alluding to his favorite westerns; there’s also a certain sweetness and charm in the Lloyd-Steenburgen romance, although, like most elements in this trilogy, these qualities tend to be more conceptual and programmed than felt. (JR) Read more
