Blood: The Last Vampire

If this film didn't exist someone would have to make it. In the first reel we witness our heroine Saya slay a man on a subway. She's a teen vampire hunter and the secret org she belongs to not only stalks the blood suckers but has a team that disposes of the ensuing mayhem, blood and bodies. Before long Saya, who's a perpetual 16 year old, is given the assignment to track down vampires that are hiding in disguise at an American military base.
Before you can count musical cues that include Edwin Starr's "War" and Deep Purple's "Space Truckin'" Saya has enrolled at the base high school and finds herself immediately drawn into battle. Saya does her ass kicking with a samurai sword and director Chris Nahon (Kiss of the Dragon) unleashes martial arts staging for many of the face offs. In fact one of the battles reminds viewers of the scene in Kiss of the Dragon where Jet Li fights like 100 bad guys at once. Only here Saya slashes wildly and Nahon offers uncertain continuity enhanced with lots of digital blood. Much of the time the blood flows in slow motion and looks like someone ripped open a bag of leaves.
Blood: The Last Vampire is based on a short anime film that itself spawned a short lived magna television series. This live action film is set in Tokyo during the mid-60s. The covert org that Saya belongs to has cleaners that pose as CIA agents and that brings them into conflict with the base general whose daughter's life was saved early on by Saya.
There's also some flashbacks to a feudal era but this diversion stalls the story rather than enhancing. More exciting is Saya's confrontation with the "patriarch of all vampires" and a couple of sequences that involve chases over rooftops as well as a confrontation with the evil patriarch, who transforms into a kind of alien type claymation creature.
Blood: The Last Vampire is designed to please its core horror audience but might also be of interest to newbies who liked Twilight and want something with a little more bite.

Whatever Works

Whatever Works certainly worked for me. The latest Woody Allen film resembles a two-act play grounded in farce. Allen originally wrote the script for Zero Mostel in the 70s (Mostel died in '77, Allen worked with Mostel in The Front, released in 76'). Funny thing about Allen, more than a generation ago a Woodman movie was a guaranteed ticket for a date movie. While movie-goers have certainly changed their perspective over the years Allen keeps churning out movie after movie, some classic but all dealing, dramatically but mostly comically, with the foibles of romance and love.
Whatever Works is vintage Allen. The cast includes a misanthrope, a naive ingenue and her religious zealot parents. Throw in a couple of boho artists and break the fourth wall instantly as Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David) introduces himself and his negative view of humanity directly to the audience. Yellnikoff's monologue resembles a PG-13 version of the hate filled soliloquy that Ed Norton delivered in The 25th Hour.
Yellnikoff (he doesn't yell his continual insults so much as hurl them) finds shivering waif Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood) cowering on the sidewalk near his New York City apartment. Against his better judgement he lets her stay. After a while her mother (Patricia Clarkson) arrives but is she there to rescue her daughter from the heathen clutches of big city morality or to adopt those vices (and virtues) herself?
Much of the movie takes place in Yellnikoff's spartan apartment or seated in bars and coffee shops. The laugh rate while not off the board is pretty consistent. Even though Yellnikoff, he taught string theory at Columbia, lives in a world devoid of faith the merger of coincidence and fate conspire to prove him wrong. Whatever Works shows Allen running full steam. Few of his contemporaries are as prolific and none are funnier.

Management

I really wanted to like Management especially since I was in the mood for a romcom. So the letdown of actually seeing it was even more stupendous. Here is a film that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and when it played recently in New York  my friends were calling saying "What, there is a film here you haven't heard of?" So when I got the chance to see it, in advance of its engagement at the Angelika starting July 17, I thought I was in for a good sit.

Jennifer Aniston can be amazing when she's in a decent film (Marley & Me, The Good Girl) and Steve Zahn has good comic timing. That's the before. Afterwards I felt hoodwinked.

A dorky guy (Zahn) hits on a traveling saleswoman (Aniston) at his parents motel in Gooberville USA. She lets him touch her butt after a few drinks. Later our meek hero moves to her big city and stalks her, but in a friendly way. Natch she's kind of attracted to him in a stray dog kind of manner while her fiancee (a way way over the top Woody Harrelson) doesn't help matters since he's kind of creepy, although conveniently rich.

Fred Ward and Margo Martindale stand by as parental scenery and the whole thing reeks of a contractual theatrical release when it should've been straight to DVD. Didn't care for The Proposal much either but at least that romcom was releasable. Management just escaped.