Brooklyn's Finest

I've never thought of Antoine Fuqua as some kind of great director but Brooklyn's Finest has changed my train of thought. Fuqua has been what you would call a not so subtle director (hello? Training Day much less Tears of the Sun), yet BF redefines the police action genre. Even in his coolest film The Shooter Fuqua didn't show the kind of chops on display here.
A quartet of actors give career defining performances. Ethan Hawke has traveled down the path of urban corruption before (What Doesn't Kill You) as has Wesly Snipes (New Jack City) as has Richard Gere (Internal Affairs) and ditto Don Cheadle (Traffic). Supporting turns by Will Patton and Ellen Barkin and Lili Taylor and Brian F. O'Byrne are well defined and a powerful compliment to the main actors. Basically everyone in the cast is on the take in some manner or other. The script by Michael Martin goes for full on realism while offering plot twists you never see coming. Everyone gets their just desserts, so to speak, and it's not always pretty.
Most noticeably Fuqua cross cuts (once in the second act and at the end during the film's startling conclusion) between Hawks, Gere, and Cheadle as they are going about three different assignments. The tension levels Fuqua achieves will rivet you to your seat.

Red Riding Trilogy

The Red Riding Trilogy comprises three films and while each stands on its own, they all have different directors, and as a combined experience the end result seems epic. The films are playing piecemeal in rotation during an exclusive engagement at the Angelika. The thing is, any one of the films will provide top notch procedural murder mystery thrills, and the combined time taken to breathe in the entire series is around six hours. If you put a priority on excellent cinema the Red Riding Trilogy is a good place to start.
All three films are written by Tony Grisoni adapting four novels from author David Peace. Peace holds acclaim in the UK for his novels that include The Damned United, itself made into a captivating film starring Michael Sheen as an esteemed English soccer. The novels that form the Red Riding Quartet - Nineteen Seventy-Four, Nineteen Seventy-Seven, Nineteen Eighty and Nineteen Eighty-Three - have been compressed into the three films without any real loss of continuity. The gist of the elongated story concerns corruption among Yorkshire police while the entire story's set against events mirroring, although fictionalized, a serial killing spree known as the Yorkshire Ripper murders. Much of the atmosphere of all three films rests on a kind of sullen attitude that defines this area.
Each director works with a different cinematographer and brings the films distinctive looks. Two are lensed in 2:35 and the directors all find imagery that compliments their respective vision of the rather dark tale. Julian Jarrold (1974), James Marsh (1980) and Anaud Tucker (1983) all have fresh spin on the subject. Marsh, helmer of the best documentary of the last decade Man on A Wire, in particular finds shots that show the characters in relation to their environment.

Red Riding 1974 has elements of the police corruption and psycho murders as investigated by neophyte but talented reporter Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield, seen in Boy A and Lions for Lambs). We're introduced to a cornucopia of characters, some of whom pop up in the various films and some who undergo short tragic lives.
Of all three films Red Riding 1980 was the one that cemented by respect of these films. The procedural element takes precedence in RR1980 and propels the story through changes that you never see coming. RR 1983 has the lightest tone and is fronted by previously unseen Mark Addy. Segments that seemed inconsequential in the first installment take on new and horrifying meaning.

A Town Called Panic

A Town Called Panic unwinds like a Gumby and Pokey cartoon set in a bizarro alternative universe and extended to feature length (albeit a merciful 75-plus minutes). This French animated stop motion import (a.k.a. Panique au village) goes for surreal laughs and a crowd inclined to ignore mainstream narrative will fully embrace this wacky concoction.
The plot revolves around plastic toy figures judicially called Cowboy, Indian and Horse. The motion is herky-jerky and the look definitely low-fi. Cowboy and Indian seek to surprise Horse by getting him a birthday present, only they mess up big time and order 5 million bricks. At least half of the film has them trapezing around and over bricks with sound effects approximating their clumsy steps. Later the film moves underwater but since the main characters are plastic it's not a stretch for them to create aquatic havoc as well.
A Town Called Panic has its share of laughs, in particular a femme horse music teacher with a lusty mane who keeps calling Horse to find out why he isn't in class. But frankly, this whole concept would've played better as an extended short. Look at the recent Academy Award animated winning short Logorama, which was also produced in France. A Town Called Panic opens exclusively this weekend at the Angelica.
- Michael Bergeron

Clash of the Titans

The good news is that Clash of the Titans is a perfect film for boys teetering on the edge of puberty. Of course that means that the rest of the world should avoid this PG-13 mishmash of Greek mythology. A remake of the 1981 film by the same name, this new version uses the same basic plot with a few additions, most notably the substitution of CGI effects for the former film's Ray Harryhausen stop motion.
Our hero, Sam Worthington as Perseus (totally wooden after a great perf in Avatar), discovers he's half-God having been sired by Zeus (Liam Neeson) in a flashback. Zeus has issues with his brother Hades (Ralph Fiennes) yet agrees to loose forth terror (and the Kraken) on the mortals of Earth as they've gotten slack in their worship. There's a bit of overlap in plot paths if one has seen last month's Percy Jackson, and rightly so as in both movies the Medusa sequences are the most exciting. Some giant scorpions also threaten Perseus but they keep missing him and his men with their ginormous stingers so often that you think they're blind.
The visuals of the film seem at odds with the 3D version which I caught. Shots that aren't wide angle or extreme close-ups look fuzzy and maybe Clash of the Titans will be a learning curve in studios thinking twice before reconfiguring flat films for 3D. The Olympus scenes are boring with Neeson and Fiennes having most of the dialogue while the other Gods just stand around twiddling their thumbs. There is one bright moment, albeit brief, where the owl Bubo from the previous version makes a cameo.

Hot Tube Time Machine

Spoiler: the squirrel disrupts the space time continuum. Hot Tube Time Machine is the kind of R-rated comedy that makes its mark because of the right actor in the right place at the right time. Plus unlike the R-rated film from last year that grossed half a billion worldwide, The Hangover, HTTM involves time travel and is also frequently funny.
We're not talking classic funny like the Marx Brothers, or Groundhog Day or The Big Lebowski. Yet HTTM has the power of guffaw. Rod Corddry leads the laugh count, John Cusack gets by on his good looks, and Craig Robinson establishes himself as a true talent. Other than the lead actors high jinx, HTTM is the kind of film you would be embarrassed to see sitting alongside your mother. Unlike movies made in the era that HTTM emulatse (specifically 1986), Peggy Sue Got Married and Back To The Future, this is a one shot oddity good for grins but little else.

The Art of the Steal

The Art of the Steal tells a true story that involves the manipulation of a king's ransom in Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings. In the Julian Schnabel film Basquiat the character played by Michael Wincott describes, referring to Van Gogh but also meaning Basquiat, how every society refuses to recognize the genius of the time.
Dr. Albert Barnes was a person who recognized the genius of his day and in 1922 set up a foundation to preserve the art works he had collected. No doubt in this era Barnes got his Van Goghs and Renoirs at eBay prices. The docu The Art of the Steal chronicles the fate of this collection of art worth billions. At one point we're present at an auction where a 19th century painting fetches in the $30-millions. A commentator explains that this artist was collected by Barnes but he would never buy this particular work because it is one of the artist's lesser works.
Barnes died in a car accident in the early '50s and since that time his estate has been handled by executors of his last will and testament and the heads of his foundation. The Art of the Steal unfolds with a sense of mystery as to who will eventually control the rights to view these paintings. Barnes was adamant that the paintings remain in the house he built to, ah, house them. Modern politics sees the matter another way.
I was discussing this film before I saw it with this guy at work and he said, "I lived miles from the Barnes Foundation when I was growing up." He knew before I did how this story pans out. When you see The Art if the Steal the conclusion will strike you as profound as if this was a fictional mystery thriller.