Black Dynamite

When The Man murders his brother, pumps heroin into local orphanages, and floods the ghetto with adulterated malt liquor, Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White) is the one hero willing to fight all the way from the blood-soaked city streets to the hallowed halls of the Honky House. Black Dynamite, a spoof of blaxploitation films, unreels as a midnight show at the River Oaks Three tonight and tomorrow (December 4 & 5).

The Yes Men Fix the World

When Union Carbide presided over the Bhopal disaster they had no idea their company would be bought by Dow Chemical down the road. Corporate pranksters The Yes Men used the 20th anniversary of Bhopal to pull a scam that brought Dow's stock price to its knees. Since nobody questions a slick looking white dude in a suit the Yes Men were able to go on BBC news and apologize on behalf of Dow and announce unprecedented reparations to the victims. Perhaps not oddly, Dow never attempted to press charges or sue the Yes Men in a civil slander trial. Likewise they crash an energy convention and announce the creation of a new biofuel made from dead people. Their audience hardly bats an eyelash.
Welcome to the world of the Yes Men. What they do ranks with the stunts pulled on unaware victims by Sasha Baron Cohen as Borat or Bruno. Only their goal goes beyond social satire to a kind of interactive involvement with the very corporate climate they are trying to shake, rattle and roll. In any event they make people laugh with the shock of recognition even as the weight of the world's problems are profiled.
A previous film on the Yes Men was directed by Chris Smith, whereas Fix the World was helmed by the Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno. The candid camera style in which they capture economic greed as practiced by everyday working men and women boggles the imagination. Surely some sense of guilt creeps into the conscious of those they are outing. As audacious as the pair are common sense dictates that they are actually the good guys.

Brotherhood of the wolf

It's easier to believe a human could become feral after an attack by a wolf than that he could be brought back to life by a mad scientist (Frankenstein) or given immortality as a bat (Dracula). Universal owns the rights to three of the classic monsters and Werewolf is one of them. After all, the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were supposedly raised by a lupus and that predates Vlad the Impaler by many centuries.
Werewolves have been non-stop in movies this year if you count New Moon, the Underworld series, and even the trend of auteur American directors getting their wild thing freak on. Wes Anderson has his lead fox salute a lone wolf with a raised paw as a symbol of independence. Early next year Universal will relaunch the werewolf franchise with Wolfman staring Benicio Del Toro and Emily Blunt. Del Toro has the right hirsute stature to howl during a full moon and Blunt currently burns up the screen in every film she's in from Sunshine Cleaning to The Young Victoria.
Universal has set up a website featuring rare clips, images and music from all of their classic monster movies at www.thewolfmanmovie.com/legacy

Peace at Dean's

Eternal Peace, a ten-minute short film locally lensed, will be screened tonight, Nov. 3, 2009, at Dean's Clothing Company and Bar beginning at 8:30. Admission is free and the filmmakers will be in attendance.
Starting every first Thursday of the month Dean's is offereing free screenings of Texas-made short films, with assistance from the Houston Film Commissions Texas Filmmakers Showcase and other film festivals. Dean's Credit Clothing is located at 316 Main Street (between Preston & Congress, next to Notsuoh).

The Maid

The Maid (La Nana) takes place in Chile and is the second movie from Chile to play at the Angelika in as many months (the previous title was Tony Manero). The Maid serves a straight-on character study of a domestic who lives with a wealthy family. Social differences are on view but the story really revolves around the unfulfilled inner life of Rachel (Catalina Saavedra) the titular servant.
Saavedra makes The Maid a field day for mugging. She casts such dour looks throughout you cannot believe anybody has that big of a chip on their shoulder. Sometimes her malevolent stare makes you think the film's about to go psycho. But that doesn't happen, the filmmaker wants us to observe the ups and downs of both Raquel and her extended family.
Rachel offers little humor in her life. She's an Ugly Betty but she mistreats the family's kitten rather than look for the chance of bearing comic relief. Rachel constantly harasses other household employees; it's a wonder the family keeps her on. By the end Saavedra starts to show a welcome arc to her character, perhaps slightly changed by an encounter with another domestic servant who refuses to let Rachel intimidate her.

Everybody's Fine

Everybody's Fine has good intentions but a poor delivery. This is a road movie where the lead character doesn't travel first class and the situations defy logic, or at least the same reality the film establishes. An old man recently widowed gets stood up by his four children over the holidays so despite medical conditions he takes off visit them in their various cities. A remake of an Italian film (Stanno tuti bene directed by Giuseppe Tornatore) Everybody's Fine toplines Robert De Niro with his children played by Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale and Drew Barrymore.
Everybody's Fine wants to be a grand old film with impressive actors and diligent photography. In fact a few montages featuring telephone lines make the film come alive. Look at the impressive composition in a hospital room where all three kids are framed in one wide shot. But the closer you look the more cracks you see. None of the kids look alike much less like Dad. The reasons they avoid telling De Niro about the truth of their lives are ludicrous. Okay, maybe the kids would hide one's arrest in Mexico on drugs but things like getting a divorce or even being a lesbian and raising a baby with their partner are hardly going to give the old man a heart attack. And the film drags under that weight.
At one point in Everybody's Fine De Niro is reflecting on his life while in New York City (looking for Number One son). It dawned on me that the set-up was similar to a movie De Niro did nearly 30 years ago. In Once Upon A Time In America this moment comes when a frisbee sails over an elderly De Niro's head. De Niro had fairly good age make-up for a role that required flashbacks and flash forwards and looks then just like he looks now. Once Upon A Time In America is among De Niro's best roles, whereas Everybody's Fine is more of a blemish on his resume.