From the Chicago Reader (June 1, 2000). — J.R.
“All” is right; Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and other apocalyptic Japanese SF monsters converge in this 1968 ‘Scope opus from Toho Studios. Inoshiro (aka Ishiro) Honda directed. 88 min. Read more
This likable comedy-drama from mainland China cogently demonstrates that some of the best old-style Hollywood pictures nowadays are apt to come from almost anywhere except Hollywood. This is a nostalgic look at the last days of a traditional bathhouse before it’s leveled for urban renewal, a movie about community that actually calls to mind something like The Last Picture Show. Zhu Xu (who turned up recently in the title role of The King of Masks) is very effective as the old man who runs the bathhouse, and so are the actors playing the mentally challenged son who lives and works with him and an older son who comes to visit. Writers Liu Fen Dou and Cai Xiang Jun and director Zhang Yang move freely and gracefully between fantasy and reality in this sentimental 2000 film, which never becomes as trite or calculated as you might fear, maybe because mentally challenged characters aren’t the same kind of standbys in Chinese cinema as they are on Oscar night. In Mandarin with subtitles. 92 min. (JR) Read more
This feature-length film (2000) of Margaret Cho’s potent one-woman show recalls the early stand-up films of Richard Pryor 20 years ago. There’s the same confessional fervor and pain-ridden comedy deriving from a restaging of traumas having to do with identity crises and substance abuse. As a 31-year-old Korean-American, former alcoholic, star of a discontinued sitcom, and self-described fag hag, Cho has plenty of issues of her own. But there’s a similar kind of hilariously cathartic autocritique as she examines her efforts to lose weight and become less Asian when her sitcom was in jeopardy, and her priceless impersonations of her mother offer a pungent concentrate of her complex responses to racism. It’s hard to think of many more galvanizing definitions of what it means to be an American than Cho’s volcanic self-assessments. 90 min. (JR) Read more