“Movie review: 'Azumi' - Chicago Tribune” plus 4 more

Movie review: 'Azumi' - Chicago Tribune
My Sister's Keeper (movie) - Orlando Sentinel
Linda Jo Scott: Never judge a movie by its book - Battle Creek Enquirer
Arts, Music, Movie Reviews, Celebrity News & Events from New Orleans - New Orleans Times-Picayune
Constructing a movie - Coeur d'Alene Press

Posted: 09 Aug 2009 02:44 AM PDT

2½ stars (out of four)

"Azumi," a period action epic based on the hit Japanese comic by Yu Koyama about a girl teen warrior, is a movie of such cheerful craziness and nonstop ferocity that you can't take it seriously for a second. The director, Ryuhei Kitamura, made the wild 2001 zombie-vs.-Yakuza comic thriller "Versus," and this movie is even crazier, ending with the 1-against-100 (or 200) battle to top them all.

As we watch, peerless swordgirl Azumi (played by teen Japanese TV star Aya Ueto) and her four fellow sort-of-samurai are schooled in martial arts, weapons and ruthlessness by their master 19th Century sword-daddy and then sent out into the world to deal death and destruction to the brutal warlords and their armies of assassins.

It seems a quixotic endeavor. Five kids against hundreds of bloodthirsty mercenaries? But Azumi stays limber and gorgeous as she kills dozens of killers. Finally at the end, in the movie's grand climax, she takes on 200 opponents in a gory slash-fest that Kitamura sometimes records with his camera mounted on a "Phantom" crane doing 360-degree vertical swivels.

"Azumi" is entertaining, but it tries to be more. Ninja ethics prove flabbergasting here: The Master, after training his charges for 10 years, orders them, as a Darwinian graduation exercise, to battle each other to the death, immediately depleting their ranks by five. He also orders them not to interfere when women and children are slaughtered if the time isn't right.

There's a touch of artistic humanism, though, in a traveling troupe of actors, whose star Yae (Aya Okamoto) charms boy warrior Hyuga (Kenji Kohashi) and becomes Azumi's best gal pal as well. The warlords and their retinue, by contrast, prove as slimy a bunch as you'll find anywhere outside of Kurosawa's bad man's town in "Yojimbo."

The movie's most successful new riff is its star villain: cross-dressing sword virtuoso Bijomaru Mogami (Joe Odagiri). Following the failures of two loathsome heavies, one dressed as a monkey, the warlord sends off his campy secret weapon--Bijomaru, a white-robed, long-haired, epicene dude wearing heavy makeup and twirling a rose as he off-handedly kills dozens. You have to like this guy. He keeps complimenting Azumi and marveling at her skill all through their last duel, even as that Phantom crane swirls around them.

Kitamura is a specialist in over-violent, over-the top genre movies, and that's what this is. Back when "Versus" played Chicago, I compared it briefly to Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" and Peter Jackson's "Dead Alive" and wondered what Kitamura could do "if [he] had a major budget and an equally unrestrained cast." Now we know. It isn't "SpiderMan" or "The Lord of the Rings," but it's a zippy time-passer.

mwilmington@tribune.com

----

'Azumi'

Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura; written by Rikiya Mizushima, Isao Kiriyama, based on the comic "Azumi" by Yu Koyama; photographed by Takumi Furuya; edited by Shuichi Kakesu; production designed by Yoshinobu Nishioka; music produced by Taro Iwashiro; produced by Mataichiro Yamamoto, Toshiaki Nakazawa. An AsiaVision release; opens Friday at Landmark's Century Centre Cinema. Running time: 2:08. No MPAA rating (parents cautioned for extreme, stylized violence).

Azumi - Aya Ueto

Nachi - Shun Oguri

Bijomaru Mogami - Joe Odagiri

Kiyomasa Kata - Naoto Takenaka

Yae - Aya Okamoto

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My Sister's Keeper (movie) - Orlando Sentinel

Posted: 09 Aug 2009 01:25 AM PDT

My Sister's Keeper is a horror movie for parents and a righteous weeper that earns its tears.

Directed with a sure, sensitive hand by Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook), it is an actors' showcase built on a moral dilemma. But at its most basic, it's just a good cry.

The Fitzgeralds are coping, through good humor and positive attitude, with a sick child. But we can't see the cost.

Mom ( Cameron Diaz) is maniacally focused. Dad ( Jason Patric) is a loving breadwinner with a ready smile. But the leukemia that may kill Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) is sucking up all the attention. Brother Jesse (Evan Ellingson) is lost in the vortex of Kate's illness.

Anna, 11 ( Abigail Breslin) has had enough. She's the youngest, the child who was "engineered," she narrates, a kid they had who would provide the fetal cells and bone marrow that might give Kate a chance. She may love her sister, but she's willing to hire a lawyer she's seen on TV ( Alec Baldwin) to sue to stop the procedures that dominate her life.

My Sister's Keeper has many ways it could go wrong at this point. But Cassavetes, working from a Jodi Picoult novel, never makes a bad move. Sympathies shift as we see what every member of this barely functional family had to deal with for over a decade. The story's structure -- many of the characters narrate their points of view -- moves the film along and leaves room for great acting.

Diaz gives one of the best performances of her career as the "villain" of the piece, an uncompromising fighter. Baldwin is on the money, as always, but so is Breslin, who has turned Little Miss Sunshine into a career of character turns that show she can hold her own with the best.

Vassilieva anchors the film with a playful, soulful presence. She makes Kate a real teenager who is keenly aware of what her illness is costing those she loves.

Even the many montages set to mournful pop ballads never cross into maudlin. Cassavetes balances the ethical debate with teenage rites of passage, the grim pallor of death with humor.

Films that present a moral dilemma and make us consider the unthinkable are as rare as bargain popcorn in the summer. Cassavetes manages that feat and turns this weeper into a keeper.

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Linda Jo Scott: Never judge a movie by its book - Battle Creek Enquirer

Posted: 09 Aug 2009 01:47 AM PDT

All of us readers and movie buffs can think of films which were not nearly as memorable as the books they were based upon. Take, for example, Audrey Wells' recent film version of "Under the Tuscan Sun," by Frances Mayes or Billy Bob Thornton's version of "All the Pretty Horses," by Cormac McCarthy.

But there are, on the other hand, some books, such as the sources for "Star Wars" or "Casablanca," or "The Maltese Falcon" which were not as good, not as well known, as the movies based on them.

I would suggest that perhaps the best approach to comparing books and movies is to decline altogether. Books and movies are different genres and should therefore be judged independently.

Take the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird," by Harper Lee and the 1962 Academy Award-winning film version starring Gregory Peck. Both the novel and the movie were superb. In fact, the film version pleased the author so much that Harper Lee and Gregory Peck remained friends long after he played Atticus Finch, a character based on Harper Lee's father. Lee was so happy with Peck's performance that she gave him her late father's pocket watch.

Or take the 1939 novel "Grapes of Wrath" by Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck and the Academy Award-winning 1940 film version directed by John Ford. Steinbeck ends the novel with one of the most touching scenes I can remember in fiction. Rose of Sharon Joad, who has lost her baby, offers her breast milk to a starving man in an old barn where various families in despair have found shelter.

Nunnally Johnson, who wrote the script for the film version, realized that a scene of a beautiful young woman nursing a starving old man would not be acceptable. But he brilliantly went back in the novel to an equally memorable scene where the hero, Rose of Sharon's brother Tom, disappears forever into the night. Tom realizes that because he has a prison record for homicide and has just been part of another murder, he can be nothing but trouble for his already desperate family. As he fades away, he tells his family, "I'll be all aroun' in the dark. . . . Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. . . . An' when our people eat the stuff they raise, an' live in the houses they build, why, I'll be there too."

John Huston's 1987 film version of James Joyce's "The Dead" and David Lean's 1946 film version of Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations" provide other examples of films which come close to equaling their sources in quality.

Then, too, some film versions are so different from their sources that comparison is rather useless. The musical "Fiddler on the Roof," from 1971 and the 1964 Broadway musical it was based on, for example, are only loosely based on Sholem Aleichem's novel, "Tevye the Dairyman."

Even the title for the musical versions comes from a painting by Mark Chagall, not from the source. And then of course, as a major difference, there are all of the haunting and beautiful songs which make "Fiddler" one of the great musicals of all time.

In closing, I would therefore quote J.W. Eagan, who said "Never judge a book by its movie." And add to his quote my own: Never judge a movie by its book.

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Arts, Music, Movie Reviews, Celebrity News & Events from New Orleans - New Orleans Times-Picayune

Posted: 09 Aug 2009 01:40 AM PDT

All other ambitions and expectations aside, Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool are very, very good at being Green Day.

For two and a half non-stop, exhilarating hours -- exactly one hour longer than most major acts can muster -- at the New Orleans Arena on Friday, they referenced Green Day's irreverent punk rock past while fully satisfying the demands of its arena rock present.

Continue reading "Green Day delivered a tour de force at the New Orleans Arena" »

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Constructing a movie - Coeur d'Alene Press

Posted: 08 Aug 2009 09:00 PM PDT

Father, son shoot a documentary in Coeur d'Alene

Jerome Green knows it can be tricky snaring teenagers' attention.

Real tricky.

To the point that sometimes, a guy's got to cheese it up a little.

That's why on a sizzling 100-degree day last week the businessman was suited up in overalls and a train conductor's hat -- vaguely reminiscent of School House Rock characters -- as he pivoted his video camera in front of a freshly scrubbed dump truck.

He directed his crew -- his 16-year-old son Shawn -- to set up construction props on the Coeur d'Alene parking lot, then stepped back to describe how the scene would play out on his instructional video.

"My character's name is Diesel Turner," he explained with a low-throated chuckle. "I arrive at the job site as a new hire, and I think that I'm going to drive the dump truck. Come to find out, I'm going to be given a wheelbarrow."

The point of the parable is simple enough, he added: Everyone works their way up in the construction industry.

"I wanted to explain the value of apprentice work," he said. "We're trying to instill that for a new hire, the student shouldn't be too choosy. Do this with a smile, "This is great! I've got a wheelbarrow, follow me!'"

Do that, he nodded, and there's no limit how high an employee can climb.

"You just have to work your way out," he said.

The potential to sail into success is the salient theme in the video Green has written, produced and directed, "Diesel Power and Earthmoving Machines," a sprawling road map of how young folks can join up and thrive in vocational industries.

He'll wrap up filming this summer after two years of scraping for money and interviews, and plans to have the 90-minute video edited to sell to schools and other entities by December.

"What this video does is gives kids a layout of all the industries," said the Spokane entrepreneur, who runs a dump truck company and a tour bus business that crosses into Coeur d'Alene. "This is for students who just want to obtain a goal in a relatively fast manner. We're focusing on technical vocational training because with those programs, you can learn a skill between two weeks and two years."

The film focuses primarily on the construction and trucking industries, he said.

He's already shot scenes with professionals from more than 30 related companies across North Idaho, Washington and Canada about how to qualify for employment, obtain training and ascend from entry-level to upper tier positions.

"I didn't think it would go to this magnitude," he admitted. "I started knocking on doors, and one knock led to another. We tried not to leave any stone unturned."

Interviews span from management to grunt workers, he added, to show kids they can work up to $50 an hour salaries regardless of background.

"It all depends on who's interested, who's willing to step up to the plate," he said.

Audiences might be surprised by some of the interviews, he added, particularly from when he bounced around truck stops and spoke with drivers about how they transitioned into the business.

All subjects concurred: The industry is recruiting big time, economy be darned.

"We talk with people who came out of universities with bachelors and masters degrees -- CEOs who were downsized and then went on to a new career," he said. "One guy had worked as a hospital administrator and he was downsized -- he said he had never driven anything bigger than a pickup truck, but he wanted to learn something new. His wife was an attorney and she wanted to be with her husband, so she decided to retire and now they're both working together as a husband and wife team."

The notion for the video sparked from his son and his friends, Jerome said. The boys approached him about finding jobs on construction sites like the ones he visited with his dump truck.

"They asked me one day, 'Do you have a job for us? Can we work with you?'" he remembered.

They couldn't join him because of contractual issues, he said, but their queries about where to get job training haunted him.

"I couldn't get that out of my mind because I couldn't quite answer it," he said. "I said, 'I tell you what. Instead of me trying to answer, I'll find out for you.'"

That kicked off an odyssey of tracking down professionals and calling up companies, his background as a private investigator finally coming in handy.

"You just keep going until you get all the answers," he said.

He shot the whole film himself with assistance from his son, he said, spending close to $10,000 out-of-pocket on materials and travel expenses and often halting production to save up a few paychecks.

It was worth it knowing he might spare kids the job jumping he has gone through, he said, meandering from service shops to security to driving a front-end loader.

"I've made it through the years, and I know what it's like to struggle and work," he said.

Vicki Isakson with the Idaho Department of Labor was eager to be included on the video to discuss local recruiting organizations and apprenticeship programs.

"The benefit to them (kids watching the video) is just knowing there's another choice," she said. "It takes away the stigma of what manufacturing and construction jobs are, that there is a career ladder they can work their way up."

Leanna Deaton of Interstate Concrete and Asphalt in Coeur d'Alene hopes some industrious youngsters will float her their resumes after they see her interview on the film.

Her company anticipates plenty of openings over the next five years as baby boomers retire, she explained.

"Truck drivers, equipment operators, we'll have to replace them all," she said. "Our industry offers everything other businesses offer, in terms of benefits and insurance. It is a career, it's not just a temporary, six-month type of thing."

If kids don't want to take advantage, Green said, adults might want to jump on the opportunities themselves.

"I've even said, 'Wow, I might have to look into that myself," he said.

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