Three New Releases

Into the Blue

This pointless little undersea adventure film actually did pretty well financially this year, despite being awkwardly written, poorly executed, repetitive, silly and boring. Remind me again why people wanted to see this lame rip-off of The Deep?



Oh yeah. Jessica Alba in revealing swimwear...Right.

Ms. Alba is one of the bigger prick teases in Hollywood today, and I'm not afraid to say it. She takes sexy roles in sexy films, and then essentially refuses to be very sexy for more than 1 minute or 2 at a time. And if she's afraid she might actually start to look really hot, the whole thing's off! She'll show up in a bikini, and then show you a fleeting shot of her ass, before disappearing from the movie entirely for 20 minutes and then reappearing in, like, a burkha. It's like Angelina Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith...do you ladies think you're getting cast in these movies because of your crackerjack comic timing or something?

Into the Blue is a nothing movie. Nothing. King Bland of Drabsylvania, Paul Walker, stars as a dude with a boat in the Bahamas and a hot girlfriend (but not too hot!) They, along with a goony friend (Scott Caan) and his somewhat hot but not too hot girlfriend (Who Cares), find a sunken plane on the sea floor filled with drugs and money. Then they find a sunken ship called The Zephyr they've been searching for. Also, I think, some buried pirate treasure.

Sebastian the Crab told you about the treasures awaiting you under the sea, but you didn't believe him, did you...Now there's just more for Paul Walker.

After about an hour of dithering around and not showing Jessica Alba's breasts, even from the side, director John Stockwell graciously decides to actually form a plot, something about Josh Brolin and model Tyson Beckford (notice I didn't say "actor Tyson Beckford") wanting the drugs and someone being shot with a harpoon. I stopped paying attention.

Don't even consider wasting your time with this. If you must see a scantily clad Jessica Alba in motion, go get a copy of Maxim and flip through the pages real real fast.

American Pie: Band Camp

Why did I watch this? I didn't really like the original American Pie. Everyone seems to feel it's this landmark gross-out comedy, when really it doesn't go any further than your average 80's teen comedy. Also, I hate its bloodless "don't have sex until you're, like, totally in love" message, a neutered theme for a movie that's essentially about four horny guys trying to get laid. And I totally hated both of the previous sequels. (I swear, I only watched American Wedding because I had to at my old job. And it was pure pain). I rented this one because it stars actual Playmates and was, thus, sure to feature at least some nudity. I had forgotten that the previous entry also starred Playmates, and that all of the American Pie films have featured nudity. And that none of this ever makes them more enjoyable as movies, even as dumb gross-out comedies.
So, I have no idea why I rented this. Nor why I watched it, off and on, for about 45 minutes before turning it off in disgust. Consider it a public service. I have suffered through American Pie: Band Camp, the fourth entry in a flagging franchise, so you don't have to.



American Pie: Band Camp stars a young actor named Tad Hilgenbrink as Matt Stiffler, the younger brother of beloved American Pie poonhound Steve Stiffler (played by Seann William Scott in the other films, who has since moved on to the similarly classless but better-paying Dukes of Hazzard). Matt Stiffler has the distinct honor of being, by far, the most obnoxious character in any film I saw in 2005.

Maybe this whole decade. Maybe ever. Hilgenbrink makes the odd acting decision to say every single line of dialogue in exactly the same way. See, he says something sarcastic, followed up by an off-color insult (involving the words "shit," "dildo," "fart" or "cum" more often than not). He says the entire thing with an oversized, goofy smirk. This guy mugs more than a crackhead with an Uzi.

Today at work, we were discussing Jim Carrey's obnoxious performances in the Ace Ventura movies, and how the entire character was a contradiction in terms. He was a shrill, annoying, delusional idiot who nonetheless was a brilliant detective and a ladies' man. Matt Stiffler, as a character, faces an even deeper and more problematic disconnect - he's this defiantly unfunny, mean-spirited, offensive, sophomoric little runt who's constantly spouting badly-worded sarcasm and lame cliches, and yet there's this entire movie about him and he's the hero.

See, what happens is, Matt gets in trouble at school and, as punishment, must spend a few weeks at Band Camp. Matt doesn't play an instrument, mind you, but, well, I guess the experience will teach him...Something, right? Who cares, right?

At Band Camp, all the counselors are really hot Playmates, which I'm sure is 100% totally realistic. Matt's grand scheme that fuels most of the movie includes secretly videotaping all the hot band camp girls in the buff and then selling the tapes online. Considering this lewd plotline, the movie's surprisingly tame. A few small, sidelong and obscured shots of some of the Playboy girls topless is all there is here.

The jokes are really obvious, as well, and mainly rip off set-ups from the previous films. A scene in which Matt ejaculates into a bottle of suntan lotion and then convinces his nemesis to coat it all over himself recalls the urine-drinking shenanigans of the first movie. And a scene in which Matt experiments by inserting his penis into a musical instrument clearly recalls the pie scene in the first movie as well. Yawn. Okay, I'm done with this piece of shit. On to a good movie.

Cafe Lumiere



Originally planned as one third of an anthology tribute to Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, Taiwanese director Hsiao-Hsien Hou's 2003 Cafe Lumiere nonetheless captures that classic director's refined, minimalist style. Ozu's films are notoriously difficult for Western audiences - they are slowly paced, oddly-distant and vague. They come from a Buddhist tradition and thought system that's very foreign to most American and European audiences, myself included.

And Ozu essentially refuses to move the camera around, or really to inject a sense of movement into his films at all. Stillness is a character in movies like Floating Weeds and Tokyo Story, and Ozu uses it to focus your attention, to create a sense of realism or to explore themes of love, loss and family with more depth and complexity than most "cinematic" sequences would allow. Like cinema's grandfathers, the Lumiere Brothers (for whom Hou's film is named), Ozu was concerned more with recording truthful or beautiful moments in time through film than in compelling audiences with a gripping narrative.

Hou borrows these techniques to tell a story of (mainly) unrequited love. Japanese writer Yoko (Yo Hitoto) takes the train home to inform her father and stepmother (Nenji Kobayashi and Kimiko Yo) that she's pregnant by her non-committal Taiwanese boyfriend. They take the news rather well. When back in the city, she works with a helpful bookstore employee, Hajime, on an article about an overlooked local musician. Hajime, who clearly harbors a secret crush on Yoko, is played by Tadanobu Asano, probably my favorite contemporary Japanese actor. He's best known to American audiences for his work in Ichi the Killer, but he appears in a number of Japanese films and always brings tremendous good humor and grace to his roles.

Cafe Lumiere is no different. It's a good thing that both leads are charming and easy to watch, as Hou's film has little else other than natural performances and exceptional, bright cinematography to maintain the viewer's interest. Much of the film concerns trains (Hajime records train sounds as a hobby, and creates graphics featuring himself enclosed in a womb of trains, even the Lumiere's of the title created a memorable 1895 short about trains), and the film's presentation of the shifting lights and primsatic colors of trains moving through a station is haunting and beautiful.

I don't want to sound haughty, but I suspect most Americans would hate Cafe Lumiere. It's not even that the film has so much depth that it can't be understood. In fact, most of the emotions are very simple - Yoko feels scared and lonely, Hajime feels frustrated but also eager, Yoko's parents feel adrift in the modern world and alienated from their daughter. But the storytelling is ambiguous by nature, and Hou refuses to provide salient details or follow-through on all the concepts he introduces. This is par for the course for Japanese films, but the stillness and quiet, meditative tone of Cafe Lumiere enhances the effect. I found the film to be occasionally beautiful and always interesting, and if you're a big fan of Asian cinema, there's a good chance you would as well.