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Three ...Extremes, a review by Jon

Three ...Extremes
4 out of 5



This is a clever anthology of Asian horror. It's nicely produced, because each of the three is a separate country as well as director.

Dumplings (dir. Fruit Chan) Hong Kong
An ageing actress wishing to reclaim her youth goes to a woman who makes dumplings that supposedly have regenerative properties; however, they contain a gruesome secret ingredient.

Wow, this is intense stuff! It's rather unassuming, with straight-forward direction and there are no jump moments or gore, but the subject matter will probably stay with you for some time. I say there's no gore, but that depends on your perception; safer to say, don't watch it for gore, because it isn't that sort of film. It's a drama, that follows a middle-aged actress as she visits an enigmatic lady who promises she can restore her youth. This lady seems much younger, but claims to be far older. Her secret is in her special dumplings, which she prepares for her customers at her apartment.

You find out what is in the dumplings fairly early into this 40 minute story, though you see her preparing something even earlier. And it obviously ain't chicken! It's as sick an idea as they come and for the rest of the running time, it fairly wallows in the idea. When the actress finds out, she does a runner, but then comes back and gets stuck in. The camera lingers a lot on her eating and the sound effects really turn the screw.

As with much Asian horror, it has substance beyond it's premise and deals with societies obsession with youth. It's very good and is a short version of a feature length film. I have yet to decide if my stomach can handle another dose!  


Cut (dir. Park Chan Wook) Korea
A successful film director and his wife are kidnapped by an extra, who forces the director to play his sadistic games. If he fails, his wife's fingers will be chopped off one by one every five minutes.

This was a bit disappointing, to say it came from the director of OldBoy. What did I say about about substance above? This is rather empty in comparison, relying on a torture setup. It's still better than most of what the Saw films came up with and it's an ingenious trap and visually powerful. Korean films love to push the boundary of what cameras can do and Park pulls out all the tricks to brilliant effect.

The story is good to, with the director forced to consider something truly awful to free his wife, or at least save her remaining fingers. The kidnapper also forces all sorts of confessions and has an interesting theory about how rich and poor are depicted on TV compared to real life. Ok, I concede it has plenty of thought behind it. It's just the ending that felt a bit sensationalist. Almost as if they'd written themselves into a corner. Anyway, well worth seeing.

Box (dir. Takashi Miike) Japan
A soft spoken young woman has a bizarre recurring nightmare about being buried in a box in the snow. Searching for her long lost sister, she realizes her dreams and reality may possibly be connected.

With perhaps some very deep rooted similarities to the notorious Audition, this is easily the most ambitious of the three, but you wouldn't expect less from Miike who is a true master. He's also clearly mad! Visually the most powerful as he creates wonderful compositions without using any camera tricks (apart from a couple of subtle "twitches" that work very well), just well-dressed sets and contrasting tones. There are scenes in a snowy landscape that are simply gorgeous.

The story is the cleverest and most substantial of the three, again, relying on deep rooted psychosis rather than anything sensationalist. That takes away some immediacy, but I dare say this is the one that will continue to intrigue me. It isn't in anyway obvious and marks Miike out as the most Auteur-ish of the three brilliant men who contributed. I'd try to tell you more of the story, but the overview is good enough. I'm not sure I completely agree with the sentiments of that last sentence, but I can't describe it any better so I'll keep my mouth shut! Suffice to say, the ending leaves you in no doubt of the situation and may fascinate you enough to consider watching it again. Quite brilliant.

Three ...Extremes works very well in it's own right and just about escapes the problem that so many similar releases get trapped by. That feeling of style over substance, undone in the final moments, is common with short horror stories, but here, only Cut suffered and even then, it's still very good.

It works as an excellent primer to Asian cinema as well. They've been the best for horror for some time and the short stories make it easy to stop and come back to it, if you aren't used to their styles or even subtitles.

(From DCO third annual November Alphabet Marathon - discussion/review/banter thread on November 26th, 2009)

Tootsie, a review by Tom

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Title: Tootsie
Links: IMDb | Wikipedia

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Year:	1982 / United States
Director:	Sydney Pollack
Writing:	Don McGuire (Story By), Larry Gelbart (Story By), Larry Gelbart (Screenwriter), Murray Schisgal (Screenwriter)
Rating:	15
Length:	112 Min.
Video:	Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35
Audio:	English: Dolby Digital 5.0, French: Dolby Digital 1, German: Dolby Digital 1, Italian: Dolby Digital 1, Spanish: Dolby Digital 1
Subtitles:	Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish

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Stars:
Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey
Dustin Hoffman as Dorothy Michaels
Jessica Lange as Julie
Teri Garr as Sandy
Dabney Coleman as Ron

Plot:
Desperate, he took a female role and beame a star. If only he could tell the woman he loves.Awards:

Academy Award	1982	Nominated	Best Actor	Dustin Hoffman
Academy Award	1982	Nominated	Best Cinematography	Owen Roizman
Academy Award	1982	Nominated	Best Director	Sydney Pollack
Academy Award	1982	Nominated	Best Film Editing	Fredric Steinkamp, William Steinkamp
Academy Award	1982	Nominated	Best Music, Song	"It Might Be You": Dave Grusin (Music); Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman (Lyrics)
Academy Award	1982	Nominated	Best Picture	Sydney Pollack, Dick Richards (Producers)
Academy Award	1982	Nominated	Best Sound	Arthur Piantadosi, Les Fresholtz, Rick Alexander, Les Lazarowitz
Academy Award	1982	Won	Best Supporting Actress	Jessica Lange
Academy Award	1982	Nominated	Best Supporting Actress	Teri Garr
Academy Award	1982	Nominated	Best Writing, Original Screenplay	Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal (Screenplay); Don McGuire, Larry Gelbart (Story)
AFI	1982	Won	100 Years... 100 Laughs (2000)
AFI	1982	Won	100 Years... 100 Movies (1998)
AFI	1982	Won	100 Years... 100 Movies (2007)
AFI	1982	Nominated	100 Years... 100 Songs (2004)	"Song": It Might Be You
American Cinema Editors Awards	1983	Nominated	Best Edited Feature Film	Fredric Steinkamp, William Steinkamp
BAFTA	1983	Won	Actor	Dustin Hoffman
BAFTA	1983	Nominated	Actress	Jessica Lange
BAFTA	1983	Nominated	Adapted Screenplay	Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal
BAFTA	1983	Nominated	Costume Design	Ruth Morley
BAFTA	1983	Nominated	Direction	Sydney Pollack
BAFTA	1983	Nominated	Film	Sydney Pollack, Dick Richards
BAFTA	1983	Won	Make-Up Artist	Dorothy J. Pearl, George Masters, C. Romania Ford, Allen Weisinger
BAFTA	1983	Nominated	Original Song Written For A Film	"Tootsie": Dave Grusin, Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman
BAFTA	1983	Nominated	Supporting Actress	Teri Garr
	1982	Nominated	Meilleur Film Etranger	Sydney Pollack
Directors Guild of America	1983	Nominated	Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures	Sydney Pollack
Golden Globe	1982	Won	Actor in a Leading Role - Musical or Comedy	Dustin Hoffman
Golden Globe	1982	Won	Actress in a Supporting Role	Jessica Lange
Golden Globe	1982	Nominated	Director	Sydney Pollack
Golden Globe	1982	Won	Picture - Musical or Comedy	Sydney Pollack, Dick Richards
Golden Globe	1982	Nominated	Screenplay	Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal
Grammy Awards	1984	Nominated	Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special	Dave Grusin
Writers Guild of America Awards	1983	Won	Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen	Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal

Extras:
Bonus Trailers
Production Notes
Scene Access
Trailers

This one was recommended to me here (I think by Jon). Of course I knew about this movie, but I never considered watching it because I wasn't really keen on watching Dustin Hoffman in drag. But after the recommendation and reading the synopsis I found that this movie could be interesting to me after all. Dustin Hoffman did a great job as Dorothy. Whenever he was on screen as Dorothy, it was real fun to watch. Also I was surprised to see Bill Murray. I didn't know beforehand that he was in this picture.
I am also glad that Dustin Hoffman convinced the director Sydney Pollack to play the role of the agent. These two were great together.
Teri Garr reminded me a lot of Phoebe from Friends. It's a stroke of genius of the producers of Friends to cast her as Phoebe's mother, I think.

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on August 9th, 2010)

"Due South" marathon, a review by Rick

Juliet is Bleeding
Pretty intense episode mostly centered around Ray. Not must from Fraser in this one, or any of the other regulars really. Nice work from Carrie-Anne Moss.

Rating:

(From "Due South" marathon on August 13th, 2009)