La cité de la peur

Best of du film: La cité de la peur par unreal_T

La cité de la peur could be said being a movie about how to make an uninteresting screenplay interesting by using extraordinary methods. On the other hand if these extraordinary methods - as in this film - are not controlled by the director, the producer, the actors, the film company and these very methods includes murders, it could become frightening or intriguing, n'est-ce pas?!

We meet a publicist - Odile Deray (Chantal Lauby) - who tries to 'sell' the movie 'Red is Dead' to the Cannes film festival jury. Unfortunately for her, the unanimous opinion is that the film 'sucks', if the expression is allowed.
The story in 'Red is Dead' circles around a serial killer who uses a hammer and a sickle to kill his victims and of course this would - in the 'entertainment category' - attract some attention but when the projectionist is killed by someone using the same method, then, the cynic world of cinema awakens.
All of a sudden this film becomes one of the most interesting œuvres during the festival and even more so when all the following projectionists are killed in the same way.
Odile brings the somewhat 'mentally retarded' (I don't like the expression but can't find a better word right now) star Simon Jérémi (Dominique Farrugia) to Cannes and at the same time she hires the bodyguard Serge Karamazov (Alain Chabat) (not one of the brothers I think) to protect both Simon and the projectionists.
Unfortunately he focuses more on Oldile and particularly her body - applying the word 'bodyguard' very physically and sexually - leading to that more projectionists are murdered and making the life of Simon even more perilous.

On the whole this is a combination between different comic genres from the old silent movies ('Sherlock Jr', Buster Keaton perhaps?) to more recent movies in the same genre ('The Naked Gun', Leslie Nielsen perhaps?).
It's filled with some amusing parts and the references to different horror movies are legio of course but also to movies of all kind: 'Terminator', 'Deer Hunter', 'Pretty Woman' and many, many more.
There are many fine French actors participating in this film though: Gérard Damon, Eric Prat, Marc de Jonge and Valérie Lemercier (a favourite French comedienne).

Personally I don't find the jokes to refined and the film isn't a cut above other similar movies, though it has gained 'cult status' among many film lovers. One could argue that my 'non-understanding' or 'not-full-appreciation' of the jokes has to do with the fact that I'm a Swede and that the differences between French and Swedish or Anglo-Saxon humour are to vast. This might be true as Aurore appreciated the film more than I did. On the other hand, I've seen a lot of French comedies and I have lived in France for two years whereby I now should be more familiar with the 'latin' humour, but...?
"Oh attention chérie ca va coupé!"

The Mark of Zorro

The Mark of Zorro is a story known to most of you wherefore I won't spend time telling or retelling it.

When I was a child I think it was the version from 1940 with Tyrone Power in the leading role, I saw at the local cinema in the suburb where I was born (Västertorp).
What I can say is that Douglas Fairbanks - being Zorro in this version from 1920 - is one of Aurore's favourite actors and she growls as much as when she looks at Michael Caine, Bjørn Floberg or Vladimir Putin(!).
Director of this version is Fred Niblo.

Jack

Jack is the screen adaptation of the book with the same name written by Ulf Lundell, writer, musician and poet. The book was written in 1976 and the same year Jan Halldoff made this adaptation for the screen.

Ulf Lundell is a writer very much influenced by the 'Beat Generation' and their icons: William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and others. This book is in a way an attempt to create a Swedish version of 'On the Road' (Kerouac), though I can't say it's as original as the 'original'!
Parenthetically Lundell has also in his music been very influenced by musicians as Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen, sometimes making him somewhat of a epigone in his musical achievements too.

Jack is a young man with a lot of dreams, unrealized when beginning the film and unrealized when finishing it.
He wants to become an author and musician and in order to reach this goal he explores all the different aspects of life he believes being necessary in order to realize his dream(s).
In the beginning of the film he and his friends are all very enthusiastic and the future seems bright in every way, leading them to try alcohol, drugs and other stimuli to 'widen' their outlook on life.
As with most people - not all though - the 'enlarged mind' is drowned in the bottom of the glass, swept away in the smoke from your marijuana cigaretes or stuck to your needle in the arm.
Jack is a 'beatnick', a beaten and rather failed person, a 'looser' is one word for it but contrary to his idols in the real 'Beat Generation' his personal story is less interesting.

As this film is built around a somewhat autobiographical book by Lundell, we have all reason in the world to believe that he has lived some of the experiences Jack is going through but again: It's not enough with a bohemian life, 'grass', alcohol and travelling to make a life story interesting, it demands more than that, e.g. an intellectually intresting, inovating main character and neither Jack nor Ulf is such a person, unfortunately.

In the role as Jack we see Göran Stangertz.

A Touch of Zen

A Touch of Zen is renowned as being a more 'meditative' kung fu-film, if we can call it so.

The story starts with us seeing the artist Ku who lives with his mother in spite of being long since grown up. His mother scornes him for being lazy and not taking initiatives in life, letting every day pass by in the same way as the previous.
Close to their house there is an old fort(ress), since long abandoned - til one day when Ku hears some strange noices and starts to investigate where they come from.
When doing so he meets a young woman - Yang - living there with her mother and as Ku's mother tries to help them, he gets closer to this woman, something his mother doesn't object to as she wants him to get married.
Soon they find out that the family of this young woman has been murdered by the imperial noble who now wants to find her and kill her too. It turns out to be a stranger - having earlier asked Ku for a self-portrait, with the only aim to get closer to Yang - who is in charge of the task to bring her back and eventually kill her. Why?
Because her father once wanted to warn the emperor of the eunuch's corruption at the court.
In his struggle to defend Yang, Ku does not use force, he's not a combatant, as in most other kung fu-films.
After having slept with Yang he seems though lose his innocence and he becomes devoted, not only to Yang, but to her cause and tries to help her in every way. He manufactures a special trap capturing most of Yangs opponents and his newly awakened ingenuity, is of much help to Yang.
When the fight is over Yang disappears and Ku starts searching for her, finding her in a monastery where she has given birth to a child (their child most probably) and where she explains that she has decided to become a nun.
The monastery is runned by Abbot Hui Yuan, a very powerful monk with almost 'supernatural' powers, not least spiritually.
The 'love story' between Ku and Yang is hereby over but not the problems as Ku, with the child, later on is attacked by Hsu Hsien-Chen, a mean and cunning commander of Eunuch Wei's army.
Yang and Hui Yuan come to the rescue of Ku and the commander and his men are killed but on the same time Yang and the abbot is badly injured.
The film ends with us seing Yang trying to reach the abbot when he is meditating on a small mountain, with a halo around his head, bleeding golden blood, indicating that he has become an enlightened person, a buddha.

On the whole this film is in many parts a very beautiful film but to say that it brings a meditative, more spiritualistic aspect to the ordinary Kung fu film, is perhaps to exaggerate.
Of course the plot, as one ingredient, have the monks from the monastery, their spiritual way of living displayed to a certain extent, the non-violence displayed up til the point when your life is threatened etc. but to say that this makes the film more 'spiritual' than ordinary kung fu-films is not totally accurate I think.
One of the interesting things is that the director King Hu blends a non-violence ideology with the recognition of the fact that violence sometime has to be used in order to achieve a less violent result, not achieved by pure non-violence ideology. This lend to the film a sense of credibility and non-fundamentalistic perspective.

Among the actors we find: Chun Shih (Ku Shen Chai), Feng Shu (Yang Hui-ching), Roy Chiao (Hui Yuan) and Ying Bai (General Shih Wen-chiao).

The Expendables

'The Expendables' is a film having gathered the 'veteran' action heroes, with the 'middle aged' action heroes and some young women, combined with a plot that one could believe being taken from the 1970's action movies.

Sylvester Stallone's character - Barney Ross - is a mercenary gathering other mercenaries, roles created by Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Steve Austin.
Their mission is to overthrow a dictator in South America. Have you heard it before?
Well there are a lot of 'bang bang', fighting, shooting, running, 'bang bang' again, fighting again, shooting again etc.
In two small supporting roles we get to meet another two action heroes: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis.
What more can I write???